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Category: Neoliberalism

  • As Elections Near, Ecuador’s Working Poor And Colonized Under Siege

    As Ecuador heads into a very important run-off election on April 13, the issues of security, state violence and the economy remain at the forefront for many Ecuadorians. Dollarization, submission to U.S. dictates, the proliferation of arms shipments through privately owned ports, and the expansion of international drug cartels to justify military presence have all combined to make the living conditions of the poorest unbearable, especially for African and indigenous communities with a constant war directed at them from the militarized structures of the state, like the case of the Guayaquil Four .

    The post As Elections Near, Ecuador’s Working Poor And Colonized Under Siege appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Ecuador: Luisa González Signs Unity Pact To Counter Neoliberalism

    This Sunday, March 30, as the electoral campaign for Ecuador’s presidential elections on April 13 progresses, Luisa González, candidate of the leftist Citizen Revolution movement, participated in the National Meeting for an Equitable, Plurinational, and Violence-Free Ecuador. There, she signed an agreement with indigenous movements and other social organizations ahead of the runoff.

    Before tens of thousands of people gathered in Tixán, Alausí canton, Chimborazo province, González signed a roadmap to advance toward unity with Guillermo Churuchumbi, national coordinator of the Pachakutik movement.

    The post Ecuador: Luisa González Signs Unity Pact To Counter Neoliberalism appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • What Comes After Globalization?

    Donald Trump is back in power, and, to put it mildly, he’s no fan of globalization. The president has publicly “rejected globalism and embraced patriotism” and said that “it’s left millions and millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache.” To better understand the current era of globalization that he’s trying to bring to an end and its track record, it’s useful to compare it with the globalization that took place between 1870 and the outbreak of World War I.

    Both globalizations represent pivotal periods — watershed years that shaped today’s world. And both saw the largest expansions of global economic output to date.

    The post What Comes After Globalization? appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Trump’s Antisocial State

    The administration is attempting to incapacitate the redistributive and social protective arms of the state, while exploiting its vast bureaucratic powers to silence, threaten, and deport.

    This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.

  • Masterpieces of Contemporary American Cinema: Neoliberalism through the Looking Glass

    As transpired in Weimar Germany, cataclysmic times invariably induce great suffering, yet they can also serve as inspiration for poignant and moving works of art. What follows is a discussion of six works of insightful and intellectually nuanced contemporary American cinema which explore this distressing age in all its viciousness and depravity, while engaging the anguish of the individual struggling to survive amidst a maelstrom of unprecedented corporate pillage and political and socio-economic chaos.

    While I have tried to limit them as much as possible, these reviews may contain spoilers.

    The East, directed by Zal Batmanglij; starring Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgård, and Elliot Page (2013)

    The East tells the gripping story of Jane, a young woman (played by Brit Marling) who is employed at a private intelligence company, and who is awarded the sought-after assignment of infiltrating a radical environmental organization called The East. Like many Americans who have “good jobs,” Jane is zealously devoted to her career and devoid of a moral compass. Her unbridled ambition is on full display when Jane is told by her boyfriend that she’s still a winner to him if she doesn’t get this coveted commission (the details of which are unbeknownst to him), to which she responds, “I’m only a winner if I get it.”

    When Jane infiltrates the group, which she is able to do because of her youth and because of certain strategies she employs to gain the group’s trust, she realizes that she is unable to intellectually counter any of their arguments regarding ecological degradation caused by unfettered corporate power. Indeed, Jane is a conformist, and like many highly credentialed Americans has never learned to think for herself. This raises the possibility of her potentially becoming a double agent.

    The environmentalists are exquisitely cast, and the leaders of the group possess remarkable depth. They are also well educated, having come from privileged families and having attended elite schools. Their dilemma is that they have managed to retain firm moral convictions making them unemployable.

    In a more democratic and civilized society, the leaders of The East would likely hold positions of power and influence. Instead, they live as outcasts. The time Jane spends with the radical collective forces her to reexamine her preconceived understanding of success. Is true success possible without principles and ideals?

    The two worlds Jane navigates, the ruthless corporate world of violence and skulduggery and an America enraged at corporate malfeasance, shake the foundation of her identity and sense of reality. The East’s methods for combatting corporate villainy – actions they call “jams” – are extreme and of dubious legality, further straining the protagonist’s sense of right and wrong. What happens to the rule of law when what is legal and what is moral no longer coincide?

    Having never spent time around articulate people who value honor over money (in stark contrast with her pitiless boss and hard-driving colleagues), the time Jane spends with the collective catapults her into an existential crisis where her value system is upended and she is forced to make extremely difficult and life-altering choices.

    Wendy and Lucy, directed by Kelly Reichardt; starring Michelle Williams (2008)

    No film in the post-New Deal era embodies the tragic destruction of the American working class more than Wendy and Lucy. In this harsh world millions have been left without jobs, health insurance; or in the case of the film’s protagonist, Wendy, even a family member to crash with.

    Caught up in a tempest of economic devastation, Wendy is left with nothing except a few hundred dollars, a jalopy which serves both as makeshift home and means of transportation, and her beloved dog Lucy – her only companion.

    The grave circumstances of her situation are tragic and soulful cinema viewers will all feel a deep sense of compassion for her increasingly dire situation. As she passes through flyover country the lack of communities and economic life almost resemble that of a post-apocalyptic tale. Deindustrialization, the outsourcing and offshoring of countless jobs, and the financialization of the economy have cut millions of Americans adrift, of whom our suffering protagonist is one.

    Wendy and Lucy is the antithesis of mass market Hollywood cinema where everyone seems to magically have friends and money. Wendy’s brother-in-law and an elderly security guard she meets feel pity for her plight, yet they are also “strapped” and are in no meaningful position to assist her.

    How many trillions of dollars have been spent on wars, cannibalistic proxies, and on maintaining hundreds of bases around the world while destitute Americans drown in a sea of oligarchic avarice?

    Having heard that there is work there, Wendy is headed to Alaska. Yet when her car breaks down and events threaten to separate her from Lucy her poverty, loneliness, and despair become almost unbearable. Instead of job opportunities, friends, and family she is enveloped by a shroud of silence.

    Margin Call, directed by JC Chandor; starring Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore and Zachary Quinto (2011)

    Perhaps the best movie ever made about Wall Street, Margin Call tells the story of the financial crash of 2008. The story, which unfolds over a 24-hour period, revolves around a powerful Wall Street investment bank, and one of the key motifs of the film is not only how these demonic corporations treat their fellow Americans, but how they treat their own workers.

    When an entry-level analyst is covertly handed a flash drive by his recently fired boss, he discovers that the firm is in danger of going bankrupt due to having invested too heavily in unstable mortgage-backed securities whose value is rapidly deteriorating.  He alerts his superiors and senior management calls an emergency meeting in the dead of night. The firm’s CEO (brought to life in an unforgettable performance by Jeremy Irons), whose helicopter makes a dramatic landing on the roof of their skyscraper, reminds everyone that his motto is, “Be first, be smarter, or cheat.” Only concerned with self-preservation, he is prepared to do virtually anything to prevent the firm from going under, and this rabid tribalism supersedes loyalty to one’s country and even to the financial services industry itself whose fellow vultures they are preparing to swindle.

    The firm is infested with sociopaths like New York City garbage is crawling with cockroaches. At one point a young analyst is found crying in the bathroom after being notified that he will shortly be let go, and one of the senior managers indifferently takes note of his distress while simultaneously shaving with a cold-blooded hauteur and likely pondering ways to unload “The biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of capitalism” (to quote their CEO). Here, apart from one’s ability to generate significant profits, human life has no value. There are only “winners” and “losers,” and the “winners” are the ones that continue to make the big bucks.

    No less disturbing are instances where employees are not allowed to quit, such as one Kafkaesque situation where the firm sends its people scouring the bars of lower Manhattan to try and find the recently laid off and now distraught head of risk management, who they learn has important insights into how they ended up in this disastrous situation in the first place, yet who was cruelly fired after nineteen years of devoted service with even his phone being shut off. Despite his wife informing the firm that her husband doesn’t want to speak to them, he is eventually located and forced to return to work when threats are made to revoke his severance package.

    There is a scene where one of the senior managers played by Kevin Spacey comes out of his office applauding after a huge number of the firm’s employees were just laid off. Participating in this death cult ritual, his obsequious subordinates mimic his behavior. Speaking of those recently sacked, he says, “They were good at their jobs. You were better.”

    Spacey’s character is later treated in a similar fashion when he returns to his former home to bury his dog (whom he evidently cares for far more than the small business owners undoubtedly run into the ground by his firm), only to be told by his ex-wife that, “You don’t live here anymore,” and that, “The alarm is on so don’t try to break in.” In a mirroring of how he has long treated his employees, his wife has replaced him with another husband.

    Margin Call vividly portrays a diseased America that is at war with the world and at war with itself.

    Martha Marcy May Marlene, directed by Sean Durkin; starring Elizabeth Olsen, Sarah Paulson, and John Hawkes (2011)

    Dying societies invariably become a field of lost souls, and no soul is more lost than the protagonist of Martha Marcy May Marlene, a profound examination into how a disintegrating society can facilitate the rise of cults that prey on, ensnare, and entrap vulnerable human beings. The lead character, Martha, is renamed Marcy May by the cult leader (who is reminiscent of Charles Manson), while Marlene is the name female cult members use when answering the phone and following a script designed to attract new followers.

    In a neoliberal America where people increasingly no longer identify themselves as Americans but by their profession, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, Martha no longer has any idea who she is, thereby offering easy prey to the cult. All the ties that may have once bound her to an American history or a personal history have been severed, making her as impressionable as a small child.

    Part of the cult’s seductive nature is how it makes use of a vaguely anti-capitalist language. However, its raison d’être is ultimately to annihilate all vestiges of privacy and individuality, resulting in a violent and authoritarian existence for the cult’s members who are taught to share their clothes, their beds; and ultimately, their bodies. The protagonist has many names, and yet no name. For her lack of a cultural value system has dissolved her sense of self.

    Initiation into the cult is done by drugging a young woman so that she can be raped by the cult leader, yet the protagonist is told that this is actually a good thing, revealing a Tartarean world where ethics are amorphous and reality is something that can be invented. (To quote Hamlet: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”)

    Martha represents millions of young Americans who grow up without a loving family, a real community, and are denied a proper humanities education. Indeed, she is a shell of a human being, a cultural amnesiac devoid of reason, a sense of the past, and a sense of the sacred.

    The only place Martha can seek refuge is with her sister and brother-in-law, shallow people concerned only with money and accumulating possessions. Their crass consumerism and indifference to serious socio-economic problems is cultlike in and of itself, offering Martha no clear way to escape from this existential crisis she finds herself in.

    The harrowing tale unfolds in a disjointed and fragmented manner, which mirrors the fragmented psyche of the suffering protagonist – and in many ways, of American society itself.

    The Girlfriend Experience, directed by Steven Soderbergh; starring Sasha Grey, Chris Santos, and Philip Eytan (2009) 

    Steven Soderbergh’s thought-provoking film The Girlfriend Experience (not to be confused with the mini-series) takes us on a journey through another dark circle of this second Gilded Age, where sexual relations have been rendered largely transactional and thereby stripped of tenderness and romance.

    Chelsea (Sasha Grey), the film’s protagonist, works as a high-end prostitute for an affluent Manhattan clientele, while her boyfriend is employed as an honest athletic trainer earning a small fraction of what she makes – an all too common paradox, yet one which also serves as a metaphor for how incomes are typically doled out in 21st century America.

    In this nihilistic culture that places profit-making over all other considerations, the protagonist has come to believe that one’s sex partner is no different than one’s tennis partner, and that her life as a prostitute for jet-setters will lead to freedom and liberation.

    Chelsea worships wealth and will do anything to be with those who have it. In a country where the masses are saddled with trillions of dollars of household debt while a small group of plutocrats enjoy unbridled power, there is virtually no moral barrier she won’t violate in order to spend time with the mega rich, even if it means becoming their plaything and forgoing all traces of dignity.

    The film raises disturbing questions about the nature of a hyper-privatized America and its impact on social relations. If a society ceases to hold anything sacred, is it still a real society? Is it possible to retain one’s humanity when one regards people as mere commodities to be used and then discarded? Due to its adoration of materialism and emotionless sexual encounters, is contemporary Western feminism compatible with love?

    Chelsea’s hapless and no less delusional boyfriend initially approves of her degenerate lifestyle, and only insists that she doesn’t go on any trips with her “clients,” which, during one heated quarrel, she condemns as “selfish.” Like his wayward would-be lover, he has been taught by the media and education system that his girlfriend can work as a prostitute and that this somehow won’t inevitably destroy their relationship.

    The Girlfriend Experience depicts a dystopia where people are incessantly using one another for material gain and real communities have been eradicated under a deathly hand of relentless exploitation, job destruction, and hyper-consumerism which for many Americans have swept away all traces of trust and love.

    Michael Clayton, directed by Tony Gilroy; starring Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, and George Clooney (2007)

    There is a riveting scene in Michael Clayton that unfolds in a lower Manhattan neighborhood I know all too well, where Arthur Edens (in a role masterfully executed by Tom Wilkinson), one of his law firm’s lead litigators, is berating Michael Clayton (George Clooney) for continuing to blindly follow their firm’s orders, to which a defensive Clayton says, “I’m not the enemy.” To which Arthur replies, “Then who are you?” Michael Clayton is a story about a society drowning in corporate savagery and two men who are consciously or subconsciously trying to reclaim their humanity.

    Arthur represents U-North, an agricultural corporation that has polluted the environment with a carcinogenic weed killer. The problem – at least for his law firm and the corporation they are defending – is that Arthur knows that he has squandered years of his life defending diabolical corporations and, wracked with guilt, has decided that he is tired of fighting on the side of these dastardly forces. To the amazement of his colleagues, one day he suddenly snaps and goes rogue, turning on U-North, which his law firm has been hired to defend in a multibillion dollar class action lawsuit. While initially exasperated, Michael can’t help but be influenced by his friend’s strange behavior, and his amoral ethos is challenged.

    Of great significance are the unhappy private lives of Michael, Arthur (who lives alone in an enormous dimly lit Soho loft), and the loyal corporate soldier Karen Crowder (performed chillingly by Tilda Swinton), all of whom make significant six figure salaries yet live lonely lives devoid of meaning and a sense of purpose.

    Michael Clayton underscores the catch-22 that many Americans find themselves in, where those who are able to break out of the ignominious cycle of debt slavery and modern serfdom often do so by selling their souls and relinquishing all semblance of morality and freedom of speech, while many of those who have “made it” don’t have time to think about anything other than their extremely demanding jobs which devour every waking moment. Leaving this information bubble by exploring alternative news sources in an attempt to search for answers to these troubling times can lead to thinking, thinking can lead to posting heretical thoughts, which in turn can only lead to being ostracized from elite circles, unemployment, and death – professional, or even literal. And so it pays not to think.

    In one haunting scene Clayton is driving in a rural area in upstate New York when he suddenly exits his car to approach three mysterious and strikingly beautiful horses. Like the inversion of the three witches in Macbeth, the animals seem to be calling on him to abandon a life of ambition and to return to a simpler and more humane existence devoid of materialism, dissembling, and relentless competition. The mysticism and primordial timelessness of this moment mesmerize the mind of a man who has lost his way in a brutal world, and serve as a clarion call to reclaim a life that is more dignified and honorable before it is too late.

    The post Masterpieces of Contemporary American Cinema: Neoliberalism through the Looking Glass first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Fog Of Class War

    A class consciousness among the working masses, one that takes the issue of race seriously, is critical at this moment. Still, the democrats are working to disrupt this effort to organize against the capitalist elite. “War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped […]

    The post The Fog Of Class War appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Neoliberal Micro-Psychology vs Communist Macro-Psychology

    Author Bruce Lerro, Co-Founder and Co-Organizer for Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism

    Summary of Part I

    In Part I of this article I contrasted sixteen ways in which communist macro-psychology differs from liberal micro-psychology as it is practiced in the United States. I described communist psychology in action in the field of eating habits and the impact of advertising on the public’s emotional life. I discussed the reasons why my readers might have a difficult time appreciating what communist psychology has to offer and I used the science fiction book Flatland as an analogy to show that using communist psychological concepts is like living in the third dimension of a two-dimensional world of capitalist micro-psychology.

    In Part II of my article, I will describe how even when communist psychology books are translated from Russian into English, they are unconsciously or consciously distorted or censored by those Ratner calls neoliberal psychologists to fit better with the structure and dynamics of capitalism. As an example of macro-cultural psychology in this article I will also use an example of how capitalism is connected to mental illnesses, specifically in schizophrenia and the pressure to be thin.

    What is Neoliberal Activity Theory?
    As many of you know, neoliberalism in the field of economics and politics hit the United States and England full-force with the election of Reagan and Thatcher. It was characterized by economic policies designed to hollow out of the technological infrastructure, attack unions and the wages of workers. Neoliberalism is also connected to the rise of transnational, financial capitalism. It would appear that these conditions would breed a kind of pessimistic psychology with individuals seen as more or less determined by socio-structural forces. But that did not happen in the field of psychological activity theory in the United States. In fact the opposite happened.

    It was in early 1980s that Vygotsky’s work was brought to the United States thanks to the educational psychologist Michael Cole. But Cole’s presentation of Vygotsky’s work played down the fact that Vygotsky was a communist set on building a Marxist psychology. Instead, Vygotsky’s interest in learning, education and his work on “defectology” (social education of blind and deaf children) was emphasized. The main problem is that neoliberal psychologists want to eclectically use Vygotsky’s work in education while either intentionally or unintentionally leaving out the fact that Vygotsky and his colleagues were trying to build a communist psychology. Ratner writes that this is akin to writing about Darwin and holding conferences about his ideas yet never exploring his concept of evolution. As American psychologist Carl Ratner writes:

    Eighty years later, under much less social pressure, and with many more resources, contemporary activity theorists have generally regressed from the limited concrete emphasis in Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev’s theories. (Page 240)

    In addition, almost as a reaction formation to the hard neoliberal economic times, these psychologists emphasized the active nature of individuals in relation to social structure (with a romantic conception of individuals as free as birds – see image at beginning of article). For example, they selected peer group cooperative learning as opposed to learning through an individual instructor. They emphasized language and conversations in cooperation as opposed to Leontiev’s emphasis on collective tool use. Neoliberal Vygotskians were more interested in the cooperative settings of school and play and less in work settings. Some of them caught the postmodern bug and questioned scientific objectivity as the ultimate aspiration of psychologists.

    The Fear of Macro-Cultural Psychology
    Ratner points out that in world neoliberal psychology the subjects of consumer capitalism, commodification, alienation, exploitation and ideology are never mentioned in their leading journals on culture. For example, he tells us these subjects are not mentioned in the 17-year history of Michael Cole’s journal Mind, Culture and Activity, supposedly sympathetic to Vygotskyan work. Neither did these subjects ever appear in the Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology over a period of forty years. The Handbook of Cross-Cultural Psychology mentions the word capitalism twice in 850 pages. Ratner explains that the most famous social psychology text ever, The Social Animal, never once mentions social class. There is a neglect of macro social factors involved in mental illness – for example the link between psychological depression and capitalist economic instabilities (to be covered shortly). Why is this? Drug companies want patients to use their products and not question the economic system that might be ultimately the reason these patients have these problems. Ratner says that every one of the authors of DSM manual’s  sections on mood disorders and schizophrenia had financial ties to drug companies

    Qualifications About Micro Neoliberal Psychology
    These journals and books fail to discuss in detail exploitation, alienation, commodification, ideology, mystification, hegemony or social class. Social class is rarely mentioned, yet research proves that it affects mortality, diseases, opportunities, privileges, health care, literacy, vocabulary and working memory. Neoliberal psychology admits that the micro-level reflects effects of these macro events, but it does not reveal the power and depth of macro cultural factors in their full complexity which go beyond the level of face-to-face interaction. Neoliberal psychologists sometimes acknowledge the effect of exploitation – poverty, stress, anxiety, prejudice – but they attribute them to factors other than an exploitive political economy. For example, instead of blaming the political economy of capitalism we hear of the “corruption of individuals”, “rotten apples”, “rogue criminals”, “greedy businessmen” or “disturbed individuals”. These are all vices of individuals. Structures get away scot-free. Lastly, it is not enough that cross-cultural psychologists point out that most Americans have more individualistic self-concept and North Koreans have a collectivist orientation. It is necessary to analyze the political character of the individualistic self-concept.

    Macro-Cultural vs Micro-Cultural Activity Theory

    Socio-historical activity theory says it is a collectivist, mediated and object-oriented activity system which is the prime unit of analysis. Secondly, the activity system is always a community, not a dyad or triad. Thirdly, contradiction has a central role as sources of change and development. In other words, conflict in real objective systems is the mother of change. Fourthly, these activity systems get transformed over long periods of historical time – centuries.  Lastly, it is collective-creative activity such as new inventions like the printing press, the telescope and the microscope, qualitative changes that drive psychological changes in the individual. An example is the need for merchants to develop insurance policies for their ships that led  to the emergence of formal operational thinking among 17th century merchants and scientists.

    In the case of neoliberal theorists of Vygotsky it is the local group, not the collective  which is the mediated form of activity. The collective institutional framework in which activity takes place – whether the society is feudal, capitalist or socialist – is ignored. Secondly, the places where Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development takes place are usually among peers. If teachers are involved, they are teaching in a permissive way and less in a way wherein the teacher takes the lead. Thirdly, liberal Vygotskians usually don’t pay much attention to the changing historical contexts in which activity takes place. In the macro activity case, Luria conducted studies shortly after the Russian Revolution about how peasant life psychologically changed as peasants were introduced to the industrialization process. He tracked how peasants’ sense of perception, cognition and personality were transformed. Neoliberal activity theorist rarely delve into the history of activity in their own country. Fourthly, in liberal theory contradictions are not usually understood as opportunities for transformation. They are seen as problems that need to be worked out to re-achieve stability. They might also be dismissed as the products of faulty reasoning. Lastly, activity theory is not often presented as having undergone major changes due to the phases of capitalism, the invention of the telescope, microscope or changes in industry. Rather, activity engagements might be contrasted to before or after the internet, Facebook, texting or Twitter.

    Micro Cultural Activity Theory reduces the activity process to simple, small, personal, casual, apolitical and spontaneous interactions. But as Ratner says, whole societies are not re-formed on the model of someone helping a neighbor turn off the gas. The telecommunications industry does not operate by individuals broadcasting from their home radios. The macro conditions of the Wall Street 2008 crash and what bankers got away with cannot be understood by a cooperative meeting between an individual client and their financial planner.

    Individuals do not spontaneously categorize artifacts with personal meanings. If they did there would be no commonality to individuals’ psychology. Each would imbue artifacts with different idiosyncratic meanings. Terms like “cultural factors” and “cultural context” are lifeless abstractions that exclude the political and economic driving forces that design and maintain these factors in the face of competing intersections for other classes. The term “context” obscures the active way capitalists and their politicians create context and make and structure our behavior in the service of their political interests. Without these macro institutions, Ratner points out that there would be tremendous slippage in micro interactions from the first dyad to the last – as studies of rumor transmission document. Macro-institutions already inform any micro social interactions and hold them together.

    Micro-cultural psychologists treat verbal language and symbolic culture as at least equal to the material culture of work. In macro-cultural psychology work is the center of human activity and symbols and language were first used to assist the work process. Language and symbols do not arise spontaneously. Lastly, micro-cultural psychologists do not pay enough attention to the existence of the core, periphery and semi-periphery nations in the world-capitalist system. Countries in each of their zones had unique political economic institutions that produced a unique psychology. Grouping these societies as individualist or collectivist tells us nothing about their political economy. Collectivist societies can be tribal or agricultural and this kind of collectivism is very different from the collectivism of socialist societies. So too, there were some individualist selves in the commercial civilizations of the Minoans, Phoenicians and Carthaginians. But this proto-individualism is a far cry from the individualism of industrial capitalist societies.

    Examples of Neoliberal Micro Cultural Psychology in the Workplace
    Ratner argues that Barbara Rogoff redefines society in novel, abstract terms such as a list of scattered, abstract “community routines”. There are no exploitation, alienation, market forces, profit motives, commodification, bureaucracy or ideology at all here. Here “culture” is a surface mix of bedtime stories, trips to school, and show-and-tell narratives. Rather than mention social class she called them depoliticized terms like “participation status”. So the only difference between the president from Exxon Mobil and a migrant peasant are positions in a conversation. Life imprisonment, coal mining, working in a slaughterhouse, and the obliteration of one’s country by an invading army is a no more than a “format”.

    Jann Valsiner engaged in a conceptual watering down of social reality by re-naming “cultural factors” to “social suggestions”. So being terminated from your job, having your country invaded, being imprisoned, having your pension cancelled are “social suggestions”. Ratner adds we cannot remake the Federal Reserve Bank by altering a few words. Neither can the institution of slavery be abolished by changing a word such as calling it “racism”. There need to be workers’ self-organization and strikes to have a chance for a deep change. Valsiner and Litvinovich claim that individuals continuously changed culture through the simple act of dialoguing. It takes a lot more than conversations to do that.

    Another problem for these neoliberal micro-psychologists is that subjectivity and psychology are treated as dichotomous to culture rather than dialectically related with macro culture as the leading edge. Culture is treated as a tool that an individual decides how and when to use. The current purposes of the participants always seem to trump established macro cultural structures. Micro-cultural psychologists define social life in whatever area seems to be within our personal control as individuals. Ratner says this is like looking for a lost key under wherever the streetlight is. Micro-cultural psychologists “zoom in” on individuals so much that they lose sight of mega social conditions that inform them.  Consequently, the individual appears to be acting on his or her own because these larger conditions have been cut out of the picture.

    For example, in the case of Abu Ghraib the torturers seem to be acting on their own and the state of military elites are only too happy to blame working class soldiers. However, Ratner tells us, when we zoom out we see that entire chain of command encouraged the guards. Six hundred military and Blackwater personal were on hand to abuse 460 Iraqi detainees. This was a spontaneous eruption by the personal decision of 600 six hundred soldiers. The neoliberal micro-psychologists theory would seem to think so.

    Lastly,  any attempt at objectivity is looked upon skeptically by many micro-cultural psychologists who insist on glorifying their subject’s subjective experience as the subject matter of psychology. Any objective interpretation that superseded theirs and critically evaluates subjective experience as possibly being due to illusions, short-sightedness or narcissism is condemned as elitist and coercive because it does not emanate from the individuals themselves. Ironically, a denial of objectivity traps people more because it tells them that nothing outside of them is really going on.

    See the table at the end of the article below to view the contrasts between macro-cultural activity theory and micro-cultural liberal theory.

    Example of Macro-Cultural Psychology Regarding Mental Illness
    Schizophrenia
    Schizophrenia has been defined as the disorganization of thinking processes, emotional states and the inability to plan and carry out actions. But for macro-cultural psychology this state is not separate from the conditions of modern life. Ratner quotes T.S. Eliot as saying that in modern life there is also a separation between thought, emotion and sensation and a failure to reach what he calls a “unity of sensibility”. The symptoms of schizophrenia – withdrawal, highly idiosyncratic and abstract patterns of thinking and behaving and a preoccupation with hidden meanings – bare an unmistakable congruence with the broad social relations and concepts of capitalism (individualism, privacy and privatized meaning).

    Ratner points out that catatonia was not described until after 1850. Even more telling is the absence of schizophrenia, at least of the chronic, autistic form, either in medical books or general literature prior to the 19th century. Detachment, being naïve, cynicism, subjectivism and other psychological mechanisms of mental illness were not spontaneously constructed by mental patients. Psychological constructs emerge from macro-level forces that are widely known in a population. They were reported on by novelists and in painting styles of the time.

    Ratner says that the experience of the individual feeling worthless is also historically recent. It used to be in the past that under Christianity an individual felt guilty from a sense of sinfulness. But with the relative decline of religion in the 19thcentury, personal inadequacies were less hinged to religion and more simply a personal problem, a self divided against itself.

    But this “divided self” emerged only in the late 19th century in conjunction with the increased number of roles the individual was expected to play. In earlier times individuals might be conflicted between the soul and the body, but the individual was still pulled in only two directions. The 19th century marked a new conception of different selves or personalities within one individual. The extreme case of this is  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), but there were also reports of multiple personalities within a single individual.  Psychological processes generally have followed changes in the history of capitalism. In the activist 1960s the psychic disorders were linked to social factors like poverty and migration. In the lean and mean times of neoliberalism these social factors disappear and the social environment shrinks to the nuclear or extended family, which is blamed for almost everything.

    Tyranny of bodily slenderness
    In the worst case scenario it appears that disorders like anorexia or bulimia are simply sudden eruptions of pathology that don’t have any social rhyme or reason. More socially oriented psychologists might say these disorders have something to do with advertising or movies that want women to be thin. Evolutionary psychologists will point out that a desire to be thin goes against evolutionary psychology principles and tell us that convincing adult women to be thin will sell a lot more products than showing voluptuous women on the cover of magazines. This is because after a couple of children, most woman naturally become voluptuous and there are more limits on the products that advertisers can sell them. Evolutionary psychologists call the intervention of advertising into Darwinian sexual selection “evolutionary mismatches”. All these points have some merit but they still ignore capitalism.

    Here is what Ratner has to say about this:

    Slenderness is represented in sleek thin light consumer products such as cell phones, flat panel televisions and thin, lightweight laptop computers. It is reflected in architecture that emphasizes sleek lines and sharp angles… Slenderness symbolized as agility and the ability to move and change directions quickly, free of encumbrances, independently. These attributes are important to modern capitalist society.

    What kind of capitalism is this? Why, it’s finance capitalism, liquid capital. Ratner continues:

    The investor is nimble in shifting his capital to maximized profit. The employer is nimble in anticipating production demands and increasing or decreasing his or her labor supply to prepare. The manager is nimble in shifting work to low wage areas and shifting suppliers to lower costs.

    Sleekness and slimness represent nimble capital. They represent finance capital on a psychological plane. Anorexia or bulimia is like a crisis in finance capital visited upon psychological disorders. On the other hand, overweight or even voluptuousness is antithetical to these sleek qualities. Ratner says it is slow, ponderous, inertial, regulated and weighted down. Hence it is looked down upon. There certainly are Darwinian reasons for rejecting corpulence, but that is not the end of the story. What does full body or voluptuousness represent in the field of capitalism – industrial capitalism – in which capitalists invest in infrastructure, repair, goods and services? It is heavy capitalism.
    So:

    Sleekness = finance capital

    Voluptuousness or chubbiness = industrial capital

    Since we are living in the heyday of neoliberal finance capital it would make complete sense that being overweight is looked down upon just as investing in industry is something neoliberal capitalists in Yankeedom don’t want to do.

    Ratner concludes:

    Sleekness does not require waiting, preparing, thinking or training. It is always moving to a new location, getting away, diversifying, expanding horizons and novelty… The tyranny of slenderness that defines the female body is an element of the general lightness of being…This is the cultural root of eating disorders.

    On the other hand:

    In collectivist society life is slower, more integrated, more committed more encumbering with considerations for a large community. One sticks around, consults with others, sacrifices for others, accedes to others, supports others over the long hall.

    This is why in collectivist societies there is little in the way of eating disorders except for perhaps within the upper middle classes. On the other hand, a hunter-gatherer may look at an anorexic person in the United States and wonder, “has there been a famine”?

    Historical Underpinnings of Macro-Cultural Psychology

    In reviewing the history of macro-cultural psychology Ratner says the first theorist was Abu Al-Biruni, a Muslim scholar who conducted an extensive ethnology of Indian psychology and mentality in 1017. In the west tenets of macro-cultural psychology originated in the cultural movement in Germany in the 1770s. They considered the texts of Moses, Homer and Plato not to be the wisdom of an individual sage but the expression of a nation’s achievement at a particular stage in its cultural development. They wanted to understand the collective development of the human mind in society, a process these scholars came to describe as culture. Herder and Vico were interested in this.

    The term Völkerpsychologie was coined by Wilhelm Humboldt at the turn of the 19th century. Its use was continued by Wilhelm Wundt in his cross-cultural psychology writing. Another cornerstone was the historical school known as Annales. It arose in France in the 1920s under the leadership of Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch. Febvre was interested in how the impact of the printing press affected sense ratios. Henri Corbin studied the history of smell (The Fowl and the Fragrant), hearing (Village Bells) and the impact of the sea on perception (The Lure of the Sea). Philippe Aries, as many of you know, studied the history of childhood.

    Macro-cultural psychology has a promising history, but it was taken to new heights by communist psychologists in Russia in the 1920s and 1930. Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev left us a rich legacy. It is up to us to keep Vygotskyan psychology communist and not let it become watered down and truncated by neoliberal micro-cultural psychologists, however well-intentioned they may be.

    Macro-Cultural Communist Activity Theory vs Micro-Cultural Neoliberal Activity Theory

    Macro-Cultural Activity Theory Category of Comparison Micro-Cultural Neoliberal Theory
    A collective, macro artifact mediated and object oriented activity is the primary analysis in work. School and play are secondary. Class is emphasized Scale of interaction Limited to local interactionThe macro-framework is ignored

    The activity is limited to school and play

    Work and class relations are ignored
    Authorities, then peers Who drives new learning? Anti-authoritarian emphasis of local interaction of peers

    They understate the hierarchical settings in which people work
    Activity systems take shape and get transformed over lengthy periods of time Temporal duration The variations in activity over the long historical settings are ignored

     
    The central role of contradictions as sources of change and development.
    In medicine the conflict between holistic and western medicine. played out in doctor vs patient fights over medications.    		 What is the place of contradiction? Contradictions are seen as temporary problems to be smoothed over in a quest for equilibrium or understood as logical inconsistencies which are amended by formal logic
    Activity moves through long cycles of qualitativetransformation including the printing press, telescope, microscope, capitalist boom and bust cycles or the rise of industry Historical place of technology They might contrast activity theory before the rise of the internet, Facebook, Instagram or text messaging but not usually before that
    Collective work with tools is the central activity which makes us human. Symbols and language are derivative Relationship between tools and verbal language Symbolic culture and verbal language co-construct cooperative learning

    Importance of conversations
    Is aware of how international  power hierarchy in the world system impact psychology

     

    		 Place in the core, periphery or semi-periphery of the capitalist world system Cross-cultural psychology is somewhat aware of it but not rooted in political economy “Individualism vs collectivism” is about it.
    Agency is a biproduct of macro culture and sets the tone for both freedom and necessity Structure and agency Is afraid of structure

    Treats structure as automatically reifying Glorification of “agency” is independent and resisting structure
    Ratner, Tulvistie Theoreticians Valsiner, Shweder, Rogoff, Gergen, Harré
    Realism
    All psychologies are not equal Some explain more than others    		 Ranking of psychologies Pluralistic Relativism
    Says there are many psychologies but they are not ranked—
    Evolving, relative objectivity Place of objectivity Anti-objectivity
    Subjectivity
    Scientific knowledge is superior to common sense knowledge of other groups Place of science relative to other groups The knowledge of scientists is not superior to the knowledge of other groups (Gergen)
    The post Neoliberal Micro-Psychology vs Communist Macro-Psychology first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Javier Milei Deepens Argentina’s IMF Debt Trap With ‘Emergency’ Loan

    Argentina’s President Javier Milei is a self-declared libertarian and “anarcho-capitalist” who has completely subordinated his country to the United States.

    In a previous article, Geopolitical Economy Report showed how Argentina’s real economy is in severe crisis under Milei. 53% of the population is in poverty, and manufacturing and construction are collapsing amid rapid deindustrialization. However, the stock market has boomed, enriching Milei’s oligarch backers — although even the financial sector took a hit after Milei promoted a crypto scam that caused thousands of his own supporters to lose millions of dollars.

    The post Javier Milei Deepens Argentina’s IMF Debt Trap With ‘Emergency’ Loan appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Eurocentric US ‘Left’ Carries Water For Neoliberal Right, Again

    The supporters of the Ukraine Solidarity Network (USN) inhabit the same contradictory moral and political space as the European leaders who met with Volodymyr Zelensky, their frontman from Ukraine, to reaffirm their collective commitment to the proxy war in Ukraine. The language of self-determination and rights easily flowed from their lips but not one of them had a word to say about the self-determination of Palestinians who are now facing another illegal siege by Israel in occupied Gaza.

    This is the terrain of white privilege that must be confronted. The power to define who is human and who has rights.

    The post Eurocentric US ‘Left’ Carries Water For Neoliberal Right, Again appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The History of Regime Change in Ukraine and the IMF’s Bitter “Economic Medicine”

    [This article titled The History of Regime Change in Ukraine and the IMF’s Bitter “Economic Medicine” by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky was first published by Global Research. You may read it here.]

    Author’s Introduction

    We must understand the history of the U.S.-sponsored February 2014 Coup d’Etat which paved the wave for the adoption of IMF-World Bank shock treatment, namely the imposition of devastating macro-economic reforms coupled with conditionalities. This process –imposed by the Washington Consensus– was applied in developing countries since the 1980s, and in Eastern Europe and in the countries of the Soviet Union starting in the early 1990s.

    Below is an the article describing the IMF reforms which I wrote in early March 2014, in the immediate wake of the Euromaidan Coup d’Etat which was led by the two major Nazi “parties”: Right Sektor and Svoboda, with the financial support of Washington.

    What Is the End Game

    The World Bank and the IMF reforms –while establishing the ground work– are no longer the main actors, representing the country’s creditors.

    The traditional IMF-World Bank reforms are in many regards obsolete.

    The Neoliberal Endgame for Ukraine –resulting from unsurmountable debts– largely attributable to military aid is the outright privatization of an entire country by BlackRock which is a giant portfolio company controlled by powerful financial interests with extensive leverage.

    BlackRock signed an agreement with President Zelensky in November 2022.

    The Privatization of Ukraine was launched in liaison with BlackRock’s consulting company McKinsey, a public relations firm which has largely been responsible for co-opting corrupt politicians and officials worldwide, not to mention scientists and intellectuals on behalf of powerful financial interests.

    The Kyiv government engaged BlackRock’s consulting arm in November to determine how best to attract that kind of capital, and then added JPMorgan in February. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced last month that the country was working with the two financial groups and consultants at McKinsey.

    BlackRock and Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy signed a Memorandum of Understanding in November 2022. In late December 2022, president Zelensky and BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink agreed on an investment strategy.

    https://www.globalresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/blackrock-zelensky.png
    —Michel Chossudovsky, April 27, 2024

    The February 23, 2014 Coup d’Etat

    In the days following the Ukraine coup d’Etat of February 23, 2014 leading to the ousting of a duly elected president, Wall Street and the IMF –in liaison with the US Treasury and the European Commission in Brussels– had already set the stage for the outright takeover of Ukraine’s monetary system.

    The EuroMaidan protests leading up to “regime change” and the formation of an interim government were followed by purges within key ministries and government bodies.

    The Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Ihor Sorkin was fired on February 25th and replaced by a new governor Stepan Kubiv.

    Stepan Kubiv is a member of Parliament of the Rightist Batkivshchyna “Fatherland” faction in the Rada led by the acting Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk (founded by Yulia Tymoshenko in March 1999). He previously headed Kredbank, a Ukrainian financial institution largely owned by EU capital, with some 130 branches throughout Ukraine. (Ukraine Central Bank Promises Liquidity To Local Banks, With One Condition, Zero Hedge, February 27, 2014)

    Kubiv is no ordinary bank executive. He was one of the first field “commandants” of the EuroMaidan riots alongside Andriy Parubiy, co-founder of the Neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine (subsequently renamed Svoboda), and Dmitry Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector Brown Shirts (centre in image below), which now has the status of a political party.

    Kubiv was in the Maidan square addressing protesters on February 18, at the very moment when armed Right Sector thugs under the helm of Dmitry Yarosh (image above, centre) were raiding the parliament building.

    The Establishment of an Interim Government

    A few days later, upon the establishment of the interim government, Stepan Kubiv was put in charge of negotiations with Wall Street and the IMF.

    The new Minister of Finance Aleksandr Shlapak (image below) is a political crony of Viktor Yushchenko –a long-time protegé of the IMF who was spearheaded into the presidency following the 2004 “Colored Revolution”. Shlapak held key positions in the office of the presidency under Yushchenko as well as at the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). In 2010, upon Yushchenko’s defeat, Aleksandr Shlapak joined a shadowy Bermuda based offshore financial outfit IMG International Ltd (IMG), holding the position of Vice President. Based in Hamilton, Bermuda, IMG specialises in “captive insurance management”, reinsurance and “risk transfer.”

    Minister of Finance Aleksandr Shlapak works in close liaison with Pavlo Sheremeto, the newly appointed Minister of Economic Development and Trade, who upon his appointment called for “deregulation, fully fledged and across the board”, requiring –as demanded in previous negotiations by the IMF– the outright elimination of subsidies on fuel, energy and basic food staples.

    Another key appointment is that of Ihor Shvaika (image below), a member of the Neo-Nazi Svoboda Party, to the position of Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food. Headed by an avowed follower of World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, this ministry not only oversees the agricultural sector, it also decides on issues pertaining to subsidies and the prices of basic food staples.

    The new Cabinet has stated that the country is prepared for socially “painful” but necessary reforms. In December 2013, a $ 20 billion deal with the IMF had already been contemplated alongside the controversial EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. Yanukovych decided to turn it down.

    One of the requirements of the IMF was that “household subsidies for gas be reduced once again by 50%.”

    “Other onerous IMF requirements included cuts to pensions, government employment, and the privatization (read: let western corporations purchase) of government assets and property. It is therefore likely that the most recent IMF deal currently in negotiation, will include once again major reductions in gas subsidies, cuts in pensions, immediate government job cuts, as well as other reductions in social spending programs in the Ukraine.” (voice of russia.com, March 21, 2014)

    Economic Surrender: Unconditional Acceptance of IMF Demands by a Puppet Government

    Shortly after his instatement, the interim (puppet) prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk casually dismissed the need to negotiate with the IMF. Prior to the conduct of negotiations pertaining to a draft agreement, Yatsenyuk had already called for an unconditional acceptance of the IMF package: “We have no other choice but to accept the IMF offer”.


    (Image: Neo Nazi Svoboda Party glorify World War II Nazi Collaborator Stepan Bandera)

    Yatsenyuk intimated that Ukraine will “accept whatever offer the IMF and the EU made” (voice of russia.com, March 21, 2014).

    In surrendering to the IMF, Yatsenyuk was fully aware that the proposed reforms would brutally impoverish millions of people, including those who protested in Maidan.

    The actual timeframe for the implementation of the IMF’s “shock therapy” has not yet been firmly established. In all likelihood, the regime will attempt to delay the more ruthless social impacts of the macroeconomic reforms until after the May 25 presidential elections (assuming that these elections will take place).

    The text of the IMF agreement is likely to be detailed and specific, particularly with regard to State assets earmarked for privatization.

    Henry Kissinger and Condoleezza Rice, according to Bloomberg, are among key individuals in the US who are acting (in a non-official capacity) in tandem with the IMF, the Kiev government, in consultation with the White House and the US Congress.

    The IMF Mission to Kiev

    Immediately upon the instatement of the new Finance Minister and NBU governor, a request was submitted to the IMF’s Managing director. An IMF fact-finding mission headed by the Director of the IMF’s European Department Rez Moghadam was rushed to Kiev:

    “I am positively impressed with the authorities’ determination, sense of responsibility and commitment to an agenda of economic reform and transparency. The IMF stands ready to help the people of Ukraine and support the authorities’ economic program.” (Press Release: Statement by IMF European Department Director Reza Moghadam on his Visit to Ukraine)

    A week later, on March 12, 2014, Christine Lagarde met the interim Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk at IMF headquarters in Washington. Lagarde reaffirmed the IMF’s commitment:

    “[to putting Ukraine back] on the path of sound economic governance and sustainable growth, while protecting the vulnerable in society. … We are keen to help Ukraine on its path to economic stability and prosperity.” (Press Release: Statement by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde on Ukraine)

    The above statement is wrought with hypocrisy. In practice, the IMF does not wield “sound economic governance” nor does it protect the vulnerable. It impoverishes entire populations while providing “prosperity” to a small corrupt and subservient political and economic elite.

    IMF “economic medicine” while contributing to the enrichment of a social minority, invariably triggers economic instability and mass poverty, while providing a “social safety net” to the external creditors. To sell its reform package, the IMF relies on media propaganda as well as persistent statements by “economic experts” and financial analysts which provide authority to the IMF’s macroeconomic reforms.

    The unspoken objective behind IMF interventionism is to destabilize sovereign governments and literally break up entire national economies. This is achieved through the manipulation of key macroeconomic policy instruments as well as the outright rigging of financial markets, including the foreign exchange market.

    To reach its unspoken goals, the IMF-World Bank –often in consultation with the US Treasury and the State Department– will exert control over key appointments including the Minister of Finance, the Central Bank governor as well as senior officials in charge of the country’s privatization program. These key appointments will require the (unofficial) approval of the “Washington Consensus” prior to the conduct of negotiations pertaining to a multibillion IMF bailout agreement.

    Beneath the rhetoric, in the real world of money and credit, the IMF has several related operational objectives:

    1) to facilitate the collection of debt servicing obligations, while ensuring that the country remains indebted and under the control of its external creditors.

    2) to exert on behalf of the country’s external creditors full control over the country’s monetary policy, its fiscal and budgetary structures,

    3) to revamp social programs, labor laws, minimum wage legislation, in accordance with the interests of Western capital,

    4) to deregulate foreign trade and investment policies, including financial services and intellectual property rights,

    5) to implement the privatization of key sectors of the economy through the sale of public assets to foreign corporations,

    6) to facilitate the takeover by foreign capital (including mergers and acquisitions) of selected privately owned Ukrainian corporations, and

    7) to ensure the deregulation of the foreign exchange market.

    While the privatization program ensures the transfer of State assets into the hands of foreign investors, the IMF program also includes provisions geared towards the destabilization of the country’s privately-owned business conglomerates. A concurrent “break up” plan entitled “spin-off” as well as a “bankruptcy program” are often implemented with a view to triggering the liquidation, closing down or restructuring of a large number of nationally-owned private and public enterprises.

    The “spin off” procedure –which was imposed on South Korea under the December 1997 IMF bailout agreement– required the break up of several of Korea’s powerful chaebols (business conglomerates) into smaller corporations, many of which were then taken over by US, EU and Japanese capital. Sizeable banking interests as well highly profitable components of Korea’s high tech industrial base were transferred or sold off at rock bottom prices to Western capital. (Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Global Research, Montreal, 2003, Chapter 22).

    These staged bankruptcy programs ultimately seek to destroy national capitalism. In the case of Ukraine, they would selectively target the business interests of the oligarchs, opening the door for the takeover of a sizeable portion of Ukraine’s private sector by EU and US corporations. The conditionalities contained in the IMF agreement would be coordinated with those contained in the controversial EU-Ukraine Association agreement, which the Yanukovych government refused to sign.

    Ukraine’s Spiraling External Debt

    Ukraine’s external debt is of the order of $140 billion.

    In consultations with the US Treasury and the EU, the IMF aid package is to be of the order of $15 billion dollars. Ukraine’s outstanding short-term debt is of the order of $65 billion, more than four times the amount promised by the IMF.

    The Central Bank’s foreign currency reserves have literally dried up. In February, according to the NUB, Ukraine’s foreign currency reserves were of the order of a meagre $13.7 billion, its Special Drawing Rights with the IMF were of the order of $16.1 million, its gold reserves $1.81 billion. There were unconfirmed reports that Ukraine’s gold had been confiscated and airlifted to New York, for “safe-keeping” under the custody of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

    Under the bailout, the IMF –acting on behalf of Ukraine’s US and EU creditors– lends money to Ukraine which is already earmarked for debt repayment. The money is transferred to the creditors. The loan is “fictitious money.” Not one dollar of this money will enter Ukraine.

    The package is not intended to support economic growth. Quite the opposite: Its main purpose is to collect the outstanding short-term debt, while precipitating the destabilization of Ukraine’s economy and financial system.

    The fundamental principle of usury is that the creditor comes to the rescue of the debtor: “I cannot pay my debts, no problem my son, I will lend you the money and with the money I lend you, you will pay me back”.

    The rescue rope thrown to Kiev by the IMF and the European Union is in reality a ball and chain. Ukraine’s external debt, as documented by the World Bank, increased tenfold in ten years and exceeds 135 billion dollars. In interests alone, Ukraine must pay about 4.5 billion dollars a year. The new loans will only serve to increase the external debt thus obliging Kiev to “liberalize” its economy even more, by selling to corporations what remains to be privatized. (Ukraine, IMF “Shock Treatment” and Economic Warfare by Manlio Dinucci, Global Research, March 21, 2014)

    Under the IMF loan agreement, the money will not enter the country, it will be used to trigger the repayment of outstanding debt servicing obligations to EU and US creditors. In this regard, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) “European banks have more than $23 billion in outstanding loans in Ukraine.” (Ukraine Facing Financial Instability But IMF May Help Soon – Spiegel Online, February 28, 2014)

    What Are the “Benefits” of an IMF Package to Ukraine?

    According to IMF’s managing director Christine Lagarde, the bailout is intended to address the issue of poverty and social inequality. In actuality what it does is to increase the levels of indebtedness while essentially handing over the reins of macro-economic reform and monetary policy to the Bretton Woods Institutions, acting on behalf of Wall Street.

    The bailout agreement will include the imposition of drastic austerity measures which in all likelihood will trigger further social chaos and economic dislocation. It’s called “policy based lending”, namely the granting of money earmarked to reimburse the creditors, in exchange for the IMF’s “bitter economic medicine” in the form of a menu of neoliberal policy reforms. “Short-term pain for long-term gain” is the motto of the Washington-based Bretton Woods institutions.

    Loan “conditionalities” will be imposed –including drastic austerity measures– which will serve to impoverish the Ukrainian population beyond bounds in a country which has been under IMF ministrations for more than 20 years. While the Maidan movement was manipulated, tens of thousands of people protested they wanted a new life because their standard of living had collapsed as a result of the neoliberal policies applied by successive governments, including that of president Yanukovych. Little did they realize that the protest movement supported by Wall Street, the US State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was meant to usher in a new phase of economic and social destruction.

    History of IMF Ministrations in Ukraine

    In 1994 under the presidency of Leonid Kuchma, an IMF package was imposed on Ukraine. Viktor Yushchenko –who later became president following the 2004 Colored Revolution– had been appointed head of the newly-formed National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). Yushchenko was praised by the Western financial media as a “daring reformer”; he was among the main architects of the IMF’s 1994 reforms which served to destabilize Ukraine’s national economy. When he ran in the 2004 elections against Yanukovych, he was supported by various foundations including the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). He was Wall Street’s preferred candidate.

    Ukraine’s 1994 IMF package was finalized behind closed doors at the Madrid 50 years anniversary Summit of the Bretton Woods institutions. It required the Ukrainian government to abandon State controls over the exchange rate leading to a massive collapse of the currency. Yushchenko played a key role in negotiating and implementing the 1994 agreement as well as creating a new Ukrainian national currency, which resulted in a dramatic plunge in real wages:

    Yushchenko as Head of the Central Bank was responsible for deregulating the national currency under the October 1994 “shock treatment”:

    • The price of bread increased overnight by 300 percent,
    • electricity prices by 600 percent,
    • public transportation by 900 percent.
    • the standard of living tumbled

    According to the Ukrainian State Statistics Committee, quoted by the IMF, real wages in 1998 had fallen by more than 75 percent in relation to their 1991 level. (http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft /scr/2003/cr03174.pdf )

    Ironically, the IMF sponsored program was intended to alleviate inflationary pressures: it consisted in imposing “dollarised” prices on an impoverished population with earnings below ten dollars a month.

    Combined with the abrupt hikes in fuel and energy prices, the lifting of subsidies and the freeze on credit contributed to destroying industry (both public and private) and undermining Ukraine’s breadbasket economy.

    In November 1994, World Bank negotiators were sent in to examine the overhaul of Ukraine’s agriculture. With trade liberalization (which was part of the economic package), US grain surpluses and “food aid” were dumped on the domestic market, contributing to destabilizing one of the World’s largest and most productive wheat economies, (e.g. comparable to that of the American Mid West). (Michel Chossudovsky IMF Sponsored “Democracy” in The Ukraine, Global Research, November 28, 2004, emphasis added)

    The IMF-World Bank had destroyed Ukraine’s “bread basket.”

    By 1998, the deregulation of the grain market, the hikes in the price of fuel and the liberalisation of trade resulted in a decline in the production of grain by 45 percent in relation to its 1986-90 level. The collapse in livestock production, poultry and dairy products was even more dramatic (see this). The cumulative decline in GDP resulting from the IMF-sponsored reforms was in excess of 60 percent from 1992 to 1995.

    The World Bank: Fake Poverty Alleviation

    The World Bank has recently acknowledged that Ukraine is a poor country. (World Bank, Ukraine Overview, Washington DC, updated February 17, 2014):

    “Evidence shows Ukraine is facing a health crisis, and the country needs to make urgent and extensive measures to its health system to reverse the progressive deterioration of citizens’ health. Crude adult death rates in Ukraine are higher than its immediate neighbors, Moldova and Belarus, and among the highest not only in Europe, but also in the world.”

    What the report fails to mention is that the Bretton Woods institutions –through a process of economic engineering– played a central role in precipitating the post-Soviet collapse of the Ukrainian economy. The dramatic breakdown of Ukraine’s social programs bears the fingerprints of the IMF-World Bank austerity measures which included the deliberate underfunding and dismantling of the Soviet era health care system.

    With regard to agriculture, the World Bank points to Ukraine’s “tremendous agricultural potential” while failing to acknowledge that the Ukraine bread-basket was destroyed as part of a US-IMF-World Bank package. According to the World Bank:

    “This potential has not been fully exploited due to depressed farm incomes and a lack of modernization within the sector.”

    “Depressed farm incomes” are not “the cause,” they are the “consequence” of the IMF-World Bank Structural Adjustment Program. In 1994, farm incomes had declined by the order of 80% in relation to 1991, following the October 1994 IMF program engineered by then NUB governor Viktor Yushchenko. Immediately following the 1994 IMF reform package, the World Bank implemented (in 1995) a private sector “seed project” based on “the liberalization of seed pricing, marketing, and trade.” The prices of farm inputs increased dramatically leading to a string of agricultural bankruptcies. (Projects: Agricultural Seed Development Project | The World Bank, Washington DC, 1995)

    The IMF’s 2014 “Shock and Awe” Economic Bailout

    While the conditions prevailing in Ukraine today are markedly different to those applied in the 1990s, it should be understood that the imposition of a new wave of macro-economic reforms (under strict IMF policy conditionalities) will serve to impoverish a population which has already been impoverished.

    In other words, the IMF’s 2014 “Shock and Awe” constitutes the “final blow” in a sequence of IMF interventions spreading over a period of more than 20 years, which have contributed to destabilizing the national economy and impoverishing Ukraine’s population. We are not dealing with a Greece Model Austerity Package as some analysts have suggested. The reforms slated for Ukraine will be far more devastating.

    Preliminary information suggests that IMF bailout will provide an advance of $2 billion in the form of a grant to be followed by a subsequent loan of $11 billion. The European Investment Bank (EIB) will provide another $2 billion, for a total package of around $15 billion. (See Voice of Russia, March 21, 2014)

    Drastic Austerity Measures

    The Kiev government has announced that the IMF requires a 20% cut in Ukraine’s national budget, implying drastic cuts in social programs, coupled with reductions in the wages of public employees, privatisation and the sale of state assets. The IMF has also called for a “phase out” of energy subsidies, and the deregulation of the foreign exchange markets. With unmanageable debts, the IMF will also impose the sell off and privatisation of major public assets as well as the takeover of the national banking sector.

    The new government pressured by the IMF and World Bank have already announced that old-aged pensions are to be curtailed by 50%. In a timely February 21 release, the World Bank had set the guidelines for old-age pension reform in the countries of “Emerging Europe and Central Asia” including Ukraine. In an utterly twisted logic, “Protecting the elderly” is carried out by slashing their pension benefits, according to the World Bank. (World Bank, Significant Pension Reforms Urged in Emerging Europe and Central Asia, Washington Dc, February 21, 2014)

    Given the absence of a real government in Kiev, Ukraine’s political handlers in the Ministry of Finance and the NUB will obey the diktats of Wall Street: The IMF structural adjustment loan agreement for Ukraine will be devastating in its social and economic impacts.

    Elimination of Subsidies

    Pointing to “market-distorted energy subsidies”, price deregulation has been a longstanding demand from both IMF-World Bank. The price of energy had been kept relatively low during the Yanukovych government largely as a result of the bilateral agreement with Russia, which provided Ukraine with low-cost gas in exchange for Naval base lease in Sebastopol. That agreement is now null and void. It is also worth noting that the government of Crimea has announced that it would take over ownership of all Ukrainian state companies in Crimea, including the Black Sea natural gas fields.

    The Kiev interim government has intimated that Ukraine’s retail gas prices would have to rise by 40% “as part of economic reforms needed to unlock loans from the International Monetary Fund.” This announcement fails to address the mechanics of full-fledged deregulation which under present circumstances could lead to increases in energy prices in excess of 100 percent.

    It is worth recalling, in this regard, that Peru in August 1991 had set the stage for “shock treatment” increases in energy prices when gasoline prices in Lima shot up overnight by 2978% (a 30-fold increase). In 1994 as part of the agreement between the IMF and Leonid Kuchma, the price of electricity flew up over night by 900 percent.

    “Enhanced Exchange Rate Flexibility”

    One of the central components of IMF intervention is the deregulation of the foreign exchange market. In addition to massive expenditure cuts, the IMF program requires “enhanced exchange rate flexibility” namely the removal of all foreign exchange controls. (Ukraine: Staff Report for the 2012 Article IV Consultation, See also http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2012/cr12315.pdf)

    Since the outset of the Maidan protest movement in December 2013, foreign exchange controls were instated with a view to supporting the hryvnia and stemming the massive outflow of capital.

    The IMF-sponsored bailout will literally ransack the foreign currency reserves held by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). Enhanced exchange rate flexibility under IMF guidance has been endorsed by the new NBU governor Stepan Kubiv. Without virtually no forex reserves, exchange rate flexibility is financial suicide: it opens the door to speculative short-selling transactions (modelled on the 1997 Asian crisis) directed against the Ukraine’s currency, the hryvnia.

    Institutional speculators, which include major Wall Street and European Banks as well as hedge funds, have already positioned themselves. Manipulation in the forex markets is undertaken through derivative trade. Major financial institutions will have detailed inside information with regard to Central Bank policies which will enable them to rig the forex market.

    Under a flexible exchange rate system, the Central Bank does not impose restrictions on forex transactions. The Central Bank can however decide –under advice from the IMF– to counter the speculative onslaught in the forex market, with a view to maintaining the parity of the Ukrainian hryvnia. Without the use of exchange controls, this line of action requires Ukraine’s central bank (in the absence of forex reserves) to prop up an ailing currency with borrowed money, thereby contributing to exacerbating the debt crisis.

    The graph below indicates a decline of the hryvnia against the US $ of more than 20% over a six-month period.


    (Source: themoneyconverter.com)

    It is worth recalling in this regard that Brazil in November 1998 had received a precautionary bailout loan from the IMF of the order of $40 billion. One of the conditions of the loan agreement, however, was the complete deregulation of the forex market. This loan was intended to assist the Central Banking in maintaining the parity of the Brazilian real. In practice it spearheaded Brazil into a financial crash in February 1999.

    The Brazilian government had accepted the conditionalities. Marred by capital flight of the order of $400 million a day, the money granted under the IMF loan –which was intended to prop up Brazil’s central banks reserves– was plundered in a matter of months. The IMF loan agreement to Brasilia enabled the institutional speculators to buy time. Most of the money under the IMF loan was appropriated in the form of speculative gains accruing to major financial institutions.

    With regard to Ukraine, enhanced exchange flexibility spells disaster. Contrary to Brazil, the Central Bank has no forex reserves which would enable it to defend its currency. Where would the NBU get the borrowed forex reserves? Most of the funds under the proposed IMF-EU rescue package are already earmarked and could be used to effectively defend the hryvnia against “short-selling” speculative attacks in the currency markets. The most likely scenario is that the hryvnia will experience a major decline leading to significant hikes in the prices of essential commodities, including food, fuel and transportation.

    Were the Central Bank able to use borrowed reserves to prop up the hryvnia, this borrowed money would be swiftly reappropriated, handed over to currency speculators on a silver platter. This scenario of propping up the national currency using borrowed forex reserves (i.e. Brazil in 1998-99) would, however, contribute in the short-term to staving off an immediate collapse of the standard.

    This procedure provides “extra time” to the speculators, who are busy plundering the Central Bank’s (borrowed) currency reserves. It also enables the interim government to postpone the worst impacts of the IMF’s “enhanced exchange rate flexibility” to a later date.

    When the borrowed hard currency reserves of the Central Bank run out –i.e. in the immediate aftermath of the May 25 presidential elections– the value of hryvnia will plunge on the forex market, which in turn will trigger a dramatic collapse in the standard of living. Coupled with the demise of bilateral economic relations with Russia pertaining to the supply of natural gas to Ukraine, energy prices are also slated to increase dramatically.

    Neoliberalism and Neo-Nazi Ideology Join Hands: Repressing the Protest Movement Against the IMF

    With Svoboda and Right Sector political appointees in charge of national security and the armed forces, a real grassroots protest movement directed against the IMF’s deadly macroeconomic reforms will, in all likelihood, be brutally repressed by the Right Sector’s “brown shirts” and the National Guard paramilitary led by Dmitry Yarosh on behalf of Wall Street and the Washington consensus.

    In recent developments, Right Sector Dmitry Yarosh has declared his candidacy in the upcoming presidential elections. (Popular support for the Yarosh is less than 2%)

    “Russia put Yarosh on an international wanted list and charged him with inciting terrorism after he urged Chechen terrorist leader Doku Umarov to launch attacks on Russia over the Ukrainian conflict. The ultra-nationalist leader has also threatened to destroy Russian pipelines on Ukrainian territory.” (RT, March 22, 2014)

    Meanwhile, Ukraine’s State prosecutor, who also belongs to the Neo-Nazi faction, has implemented procedures which prevent the holding of public rallies and protests directed against the interim government.

    The post The History of Regime Change in Ukraine and the IMF’s Bitter “Economic Medicine” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Javier Milei Is Destroying Argentina’s Economy

    Argentina is governed by a right-wing libertarian named Javier Milei. He proudly identifies as an “anarcho-capitalist”.

    His career has been cultivated by powerful billionaire oligarchs, such as Eduardo Eurnekián, who employed Milei and several of his cabinet members.

    Milei has also enjoyed the support of US billionaires like Elon Musk and Silicon Valley oligarch Peter Thiel. US President Donald Trump considers Milei to be an obedient ally.

    When he campaigned for president in 2023, Milei embraced the nickname “el loco” (the madman). He brought a chainsaw to rallies, pledging to cut government down to the bone.

    The post Javier Milei Is Destroying Argentina’s Economy appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • German Election Solidifies Europe’s Sharp Rightward Turn as Far Right Surges

    The results of Germany’s February 23 election have cemented a chilling trend that has increasingly characterized European politics in the 21st century: the collapse of social democracy and the subsequent resurgence of far right parties and movements, with some of their followers openly glorifying fascism. The snap national election left no room for doubt about Germany’s sharp rightward shift.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • A Return to Basics: Rasmus, the “Neoliberal” Turn, and Exploitation

    Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work!’ they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: ‘Abolition of the wage system!’ Karl Marx, Value, Price, and Profit

    Today, the point that Marx made in his 1865 address to the First International Working Men’s Association is largely lost on the trade unions and even with many self-styled Marxists. The distinction between the goal of “a fair day’s wage” and the goal of eliminating exploitation– the wage system embedded in capitalism– is lost before a common, but unfocused revulsion to the exploding growth of inequality. It is one thing to deplore the growth of inequality, it is quite another to establish what would replace the logic of unfettered accumulation.

    Marx offered no guidelines for a “fair wage”. Indeed, his analysis of capitalism made no significant use of the concept of fairness. Instead, he made the concept of exploitation central to his political economy. He used the concept in two ways: First, he employed “exploitation” in the popular sense of “taking advantage of” — the sense that the capitalist takes advantage of the worker. “Exploitation of man by man” was a nascent concept, arriving in discourse with the expansion of mass industrial employment and borrowed from an earlier, morally-neutral usage regarding the exploitation of non-humans. Its etymology, in that sense, arises in the late eighteenth century.

    Marx also uses the word in a more rigorous sense: as a description of the interaction of the worker and the capitalist in the process of commodity production. Even more rigorously, it appears in political economic tracts like Capital as a ratio between the axiomatic concepts of surplus value and variable capital.

    As a worker-friendly concept, exploitation is most readily grasped by workers in the basic industries, especially in extractive and raw-material industries. Historically, an early twentieth century coal miner– bringing the tools of extraction with him, responsible for his own safety while risking a more likely death than a war-time soldier, and accepting the “privilege” of going into a cold, damp hole to dig coal for someone else’s profit– intuitively understood exploitation. A reflective miner would recoil from the fact that ownership of a property could somehow– apart from any other consideration– confer to someone the right to profit from a commodity that someone else had faced mortal danger to extract from the earth. What is a “fair day’s wage” in such a circumstance?

    Organically, from its intuitive understanding by workers, and theoretically, from class-partisan intellectuals like Marx and Engels, as well as their rivals like Bakunin, exploitation became the central idea behind anti-capitalism and socialism.

    Today, most workers’ connection to the exploitation relation appears far removed from the direct relation of a coal miner to the coal face and to the owner of the coal mine. The immediacy of labor and labor’s product in extraction is often of many removes in service-sector or white-collar jobs. Moreover, the division of labor blurs the contribution of the individual’s efforts to the final product.

    Well into the twentieth century, “labor exploitation” fell out of the lexicon of the left, especially in the more advanced capitalist countries, where Marx thought that it would be of most use. Left thinkers, as well as Marxists, rightly attended to the colonial question, focusing on the struggle for independence and sovereignty; they were discouraged by the tendency for class-collaboration in many leading working-class organizations; Communist Parties correctly felt a primary duty to defend the gains of the socialist and socialist-oriented countries; and the fight for peace was always a paramount concern.

    Exploitation was attacked from the academy. The Humanist “Marxist” school trivialized the exploitation nexus to a species of the broad, amorphous concept of alienation. The Analytical “Marxist” school congratulated itself by proving that given an inequality of assets, a community of exchange-oriented actors would produce and reproduce inequality of assets, a proof altogether irrelevant to the concept of exploitation, which the school promised to clarify. Both schools influenced a retreat from Marxism in the university, followed by a stampede after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    Liberal and social-democratic theory revisits the “fair day’s wage” with the explosion of income inequality and wealth inequality of the last decades of the twentieth century that was too impossible to ignore. But what is a “fair wage”? What level of income or wealth distribution is just, fair, socially responsible, or socially beneficial? The questions are largely unanswerable, if not incoherent.

    Thanks to the empirical, long-term study of inequality shared in Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century, we learn that capitalism’s historical tendency has been to always produce and reproduce income and wealth inequality, a conclusion sobering to those who hope to refashion capitalism into an egalitarian system and making a “fair wage” even more elusive. Piketty’s work offers no clue to what could constitute a “fair wage.”

    Others point to the productivity-pay gap that emerged in the 1970s, where wage growth and productivity took entirely different courses at the expense of wage gains. Researchers who perceptively point to this gap as contributing to the growth of inequality often harken back to the immediate postwar era, when productivity growth and wage growth were somewhat in step, when the gains of productivity were “shared” between capital and labor. But what is magical about sharing? Why shouldn’t labor get 75% or 85% of the gain? Or all of the gain? Is maintaining existing inequalities the optimal social goal for the working class?

    Where the concept of a “fair wage” offers more questions than answers, Marx’s concept of exploitation suggests a uniquely coherent and direct answer to the persistent and intensifying growth of income and wealth: eliminate labor exploitation! Abolish the wage system!

    Thus, the return to the discussion of exploitation is urgent. And that is why a serious and clarifying account of exploitation today is so welcome.

    *****

    Jack Rasmus takes a step toward that end in a carefully argued, important paper, “Labor Exploitation in the Era of the Neoliberal Policy Regime.” I have followed Rasmus’s work for many years, especially admiring his respect for the tool of historical inquiry and his scrupulous research, interpretation, and careful use of “official” data. On the other hand, I thought that his work failed to fully consider the Marxist tradition, unduly drawn to engaging with the pettifoggery of academic “Marxists.”

    However, his new work proves that assessment to be mistaken. Indeed, his latest work reflects an admirable reading of Marx’s political economy and offers an important tool in the struggle to end the wage system.

    Rasmus understands that we are in a distinct era of capitalism, forced by the failure of the prior “policy regime” and typified by several features: intensified global penetration of capital and trade expansion (“globalization”), a massively growing role for financial innovation and notional profits (“financialization”), and most significantly, the restoration and expansion of the rate of profit (“the intensification of labor exploitation in both Absolute and Relative value terms that has occurred from the 1980s to the present”).

    It should be noted that Rasmus does not discuss why a new “policy regime” became necessary in the 1970s. Both the stagflation that proved intractable to the reigning Keynesian paradigm and the attack on the US profit rate by foreign competition (see Robert Brenner, The Economics of Global Turbulence, NLR, 229) necessitated a sea change in the direction of capitalism.

    I might add that while so-called globalization was an important feature of “the neoliberal policy regime,” the 2007-2009 economic crisis has diminished the growth of global trade. Indeed, its decline has fostered the rise of economic nationalism, the latest wrinkle on the “neoliberal policy regime.”

    Rasmus carefully and methodically documents and explicates the intensification of labor exploitation in commodity production (what he calls “primary exploitation”) over the last fifty years. He recognizes the important and growing role of the state in enabling this intensification. This is, of course, the process that Lenin foresaw with the fusing of the state and monopoly capitalism– a process associated in Marxist-Leninist theory with the rise of state-monopoly capitalism. Today’s advanced capitalist states fully embrace the goal of defending and advancing the profitability (‘health’) of monopoly corporations (‘a rising tide lifts all boats’), including intensifying labor exploitation.

    Just how that intensification is accomplished is the subject of Rasmus’s paper.

    *****

    Rasmus is aware that Marx expressed the exploitation nexus in terms of labor value. He avoids the scholasticism that side-tracks academically trained economists who obsess over the price/value relationship — the so-called transformation problem. Value– specifically a labor theory of value —  is central to Marx because it explains how commodities can command different, non-arbitrary exchange values and how the different proportionalities between the exchange values of commodities are determined. That is the problem Marx sets forth in the first pages of Capital, and value — as embodied labor — is the answer that he gives.

    Using labor value as his theoretical primitive enables Rasmus to discuss exploitation in Marx’s framework of absolute and relative surplus value– exploitation by extending the working day or intensifying the production process. While Rasmus offers a persuasive argument that his use of “official” data couched in prices can legitimately be translated into values, it is unnecessary for his thesis. The relations are preserved because the proportionalities are, in general, preserved. It is a reasonable and adequate assumption that prices and values run in parallel, though a weaker claim than that prices can be derived from values.

    Methodological considerations aside, Rasmus sets out to show — and succeeds in showing — that exploitation has accelerated in the “neoliberal” era in terms of both relative and absolute surplus value:

    Capitalism’s Neoliberal era has witnessed a significant intensification and expansion of total exploitation compared to the pre-Neoliberal era. Under Neoliberal Capitalism both the workday (Absolute Surplus Value extraction) has been extended while, at the same time, the productivity of labor has greatly increased (Relative Surplus Value extraction) in terms of both the intensity and the mass of relative surplus value extracted.

    Regarding Absolute Surplus Value, he demonstrates:

    [I]t is true the work day was reduced during the first two thirds of the 20th century—by strong unions, union contract terms, and to some extent from government disincentives to extend the work day as a result of the passage of wages and hours legislation. But that trend and scenario toward a shorter work day was halted and rolled back starting in the late 1970s and the neoliberal era. The length of the Work Day has risen—not continued to decline—for full time workers under the Neoliberal Economic Regime.

    Through a careful combing and analysis of government data, as well as original arguments, Rasmus shows how capital has succeeded in extending the workday. His discussion of changes in mandatory overtime, in temporary employment, in involuntary part-time employment, in paid leave, in changing work culture, in job classifications, in work from home, internships, and other practices form a persuasive argument for the existence of a trend of the lengthening of the average workday.

    Similarly, Relative Labor Exploitation has accelerated in the “Neoliberal” era, according to Rasmus:

    Rising productivity is a key marker for growing exploitation of Labor. If real wages have not risen since the late 1970s but productivity has—and has risen at an even faster rate in recent decades—then the value reflected in business revenues and profits of the increased output from that productivity has accrued almost totally to Capital.

    In this regard, the numbers are widely recognized and non-controversial. Labor productivity has grown significantly, while wages have essentially stagnated. Rasmus tells us that it is even worse than it looks:

    So, wages have risen only about one-sixth of the productivity increase.  But perhaps only half of that total 13% real hourly wage increase went to the top 5% of the production & nonsupervisory worker group, according to EPI 10 (Economic Policy Institute, February 2020). That means for the median wage production worker, the share of productivity gain was likely 10% or less. The median wage and below production worker consequently received a very small share in wages from productivity over the forty years since 1979. It virtually all accrued to Capital…

    According to the US Labor Department, there were 106 million production & nonsupervisory workers at year end 2019—out of the approximately 150 million total nonfarm labor force at that time. Had they entered the labor force around 1982-84, they would have experienced no real wage increase over the four decades.

    Rasmus notes that the US maintained the same share of global manufacturing production through the first two decades of the twenty-first century, but doing it with six million fewer workers. This, of course, meant a rising rate of exploitation and a greater share of surplus value for the capitalists. Though the job losses struck especially hard at an important section of the manufacturing working class relegated to unemployment, the remaining workers lost further from concessionary bargaining promoted by a business-union leadership. Thus, they were unable to secure any of the gains accrued by rising productivity. They experienced a higher rate of exploitation.

    *****

    Demonstrating that labor exploitation has increased in the last 45-50 years in terms of absolute and relative surplus value does not, according to Rasmus, close the book on labor exploitation. Drawing on a suggestive quote in Volume III of Capital, he develops an original theory of “secondary exploitation.” Marx writes:

    That the working-class is also swindled in this form [usury, commerce], and to an enormous extent, is self-evident… This is secondary exploitation, which runs parallel to the primary exploitation taking place in the production process itself. Capital, Volume III, p. 609

    Rasmus explains secondary exploitation this way: “Secondary Exploitation (SE) is not a question of value being created in exchange relations. It’s about capitalists reclaiming part of what they paid initially in wages. It’s about how capitalists maximize Total Exploitation by manipulating exchange relations as well as production relations.”

    To be clear, Marx is not using the technical sense of “exploitation” here, but the popular sense. However, the fact that the worker has “earned” a measure of value and that capitalists can wrest some of it away in various ways is exploitation and important and worthy of study.

    Here, however, Rasmus digresses, reverting back to the price form in his explanation of secondary exploitation. He seems to assume, without elaboration, that systemic “taking advantage of workers” outside of the production process must be explained in terms of prices and not values. He also seems to believe that all means of secondary exploitation must be within the exchange nexus. And he seems to believe that all secondary exploitation must be systemic. It is not clear why these assumptions should be made.

    These methodological questions, however, bear little relevance to his fresh and original insights on secondary exploitation. Rasmus presents five mechanisms for capital to “claw back” from the working people the variable capital captured by the class in the value-producing process: credit, monopolistic price gouging, wage theft, deferred or social wages, and taxes. Importantly, Rasmus connects much of this exploitation to the active intervention of the state on behalf of capital.

    Credit: Allowing workers to acquire commodities through deferred payment is not a sympathetic act by the capitalist, but a method of furthering accumulation in an environment where demand is restricted by the inequalities of income and wealth. The capitalist extracts additional value from the worker through interest charges. Additional value is “swindled” from the worker through the credit mechanism. Rasmus points out that interest-bearing loans to working people have expanded from $10 trillion-plus in 2013 to $17 trillion-plus in 2024, with dramatically higher interest rates in the last few years.

    Monopolistic price gouging: Rasmus is fully aware that when prices go up, they are the result of decisions by capitalists to secure more revenue– that action is not to benefit society, not to help the workers, but to secure more for investors. Insofar as they succeed, their gains are at the expense of workers– a form of secondary exploitation.

    Our current run of inflation is the result of a cycle of price increases to capture more of the consumers’ (in the end, the workers’) value and to catch up with competitors. But the impression must not be left unchallenged that this price gouging is painlessly left to the capitalist at his or her whim or that it is without risk. The impression must not be left, as it was in the 1960s with Sweezy/Baran, Gillman, and others, that monopoly concentration meant a sharp decline in the power of competition to retard and even thwart monopoly power to do as it liked. That lesson was sharply brought home in the 1970s with humbling of the US big three automakers and the US electronics industry. Monopoly and competition play a dialectical role in disciplining price behavior around labor values.

    Wage theft: While theft is not exploitation, when it is common, frequent, and rarely sanctioned, it resembles exploitation more than theft! Rasmus provides an impressible list of common ruses:

    The methods [of wage theft] have included capitalists not paying the required minimum wage; not paying overtime wage rates as provided in Federal and state laws; not paying workers for the actual hours they work; paying them by the day or job instead of by the hour; forcing workers to pay their managers for a job; supervisors stealing workers’ cash tips; making illegal deductions from workers’ paychecks; deducting their pay for breaks they didn’t take or for damages to company goods; supervisors arranging pay ‘kickbacks’ for themselves from workers’ pay; firing workers and not paying them for their last day worked; failing to give proper 60-day notice of a plant closing and then not paying workers as required by law; denying workers access to guaranteed benefits like workers’ compensation when injured; refusing to make contributions to pension and health plans on behalf of workers and then pocketing the savings; and, not least, general payroll fraud.

    Deferred or Social wages: Rasmus shows how the government mechanisms that are meant to socially meet needs are skewed to draw more from workers proportionally while benefiting them less proportionally. He has in mind retirement, health care, and welfare programs that politicians persistently demand more sacrifices from working people to fund, while restricting their ability to draw the benefits through various tests of eligibility.

    Taxes: Rasmus reminds us that the dominant political forces espousing the “Neoliberal policy regime” have dramatically increased the tax burden on workers:

    Since the advent of Neoliberalism, the total tax burden has shifted from capitalists, their corporations, businesses, and investors to working class families.

    In the post-World War II era the payroll tax has more than doubled as a share of total federal tax revenues, to around 45% by 2020. During the same period, the share of taxes paid by corporations has fallen from more than 20% to less than 10%. The federal individual income tax as a percent of total federal government revenues has remained around 40-45%. However, within that 40-45%, another shift in the burden has been occurring—from capital incomes to earned wage incomes…

    Not just Trump, but every president since 2001 the US capitalist State has been engaged in a massive tax cutting program mostly benefiting capital incomes. The total tax cuts have amounted to at least $17 trillion since 2001: Starting with George W. Bush’s 2001-03 tax cuts which cut taxes $3.8 trillion (80% of which accrued to Capital incomes), through Obama’s 2009 tax cuts and his extension of Bush’s cuts in 2008 for another two years and again for another 10 years in 2013 (all of which cost another $6 trillion), through Trump’s massive 2017 tax cuts that cost $4.5 trillion, and Biden’s 2021-22 tax legislation that added another $2 trillion at minimum—the US Capitalist state has reduced taxes by at least $17 trillion!

    Reducing capital’s taxes, as a proportion of tax revenue, increases future national obligations– national debt– that will ultimately be paid by working-class taxes. Or, if that proves unfeasible, it will be met by a reduction of social spending, which reduces social benefits for workers. Either way, the working class faces secondary exploitation through ruling-class tax policy.

    Interestingly, Rasmus acknowledges that the state plays a big role in what he deems “secondary exploitation.” Yet, he also suggests that the proper province of secondary exploitation is in the bounds of exchange relations. This seeming anomaly can be avoided if we understand the increasing role of the state in engaging, broadly speaking, in the arena of exchange, as well as regulation. It is precisely this profound and broad engagement that many twentieth-century Marxists explained as state-monopoly capitalism.

    *****

    Jack Rasmus’s contribution is most welcome because it argues that returning to the fundamentals– the concept of exploitation– can be a fruitful way of looking at contemporary capitalism. It establishes a firm material base for an anti-capitalist politics that addresses the interests of working people as a class, the broadest of classes.

    Further, the theory of exploitation unites people as workers, but allows for the various ways and degrees of their exploitation. And it links the material interests of the protagonists in the class struggle to the many forms of social oppression and their contradictory interests in promoting or ending those oppressions: the capitalist sows oppressive divisions to gain exploitative advantage; the worker disavows oppressive divisions to achieve the unity necessary to defeat exploitation. That is, exploitation motivates the capitalist to divide people around nationality, race, sex, culture, social practices, and language. Ending exploitation motivates the worker to refuse these divisions.

    In an age where capitalism owns a decided, powerful advantage because of the splintering of the left into numerous causes and where capitalism elevates individual identity to a place superseding class, the common goal of eliminating exploitation is a powerful unifying force.

    Today’s left has too often interpreted anti-imperialism as simply the struggle for national sovereignty, rather than through the lens of exploitation. Consequently, the dynamics of class struggle within national borders is often missed.

    Of course, for Lenin and his followers, an advanced stage of capitalism — monopoly capitalism — was the life form of imperialism. And its beating heart was exploitation.

    The vital tool that Marx, Engels, and Lenin brought to the struggle for workers’ emancipation was the theory of exploitation.

    The post A Return to Basics: Rasmus, the “Neoliberal” Turn, and Exploitation first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Farmers Launch An Indefinite Strike In India’s Karnataka State

    Thousands of farmers and agricultural workers began an indefinite protest sit-in on Monday, February 10, at Freedom Park in Bangalore, in India’s southern state of Karnataka, to oppose the ongoing corporate looting of their resources and demand economic protections.

    The farmers and agricultural workers gathered in the capital from different parts of the state under the leadership of Karnataka Prantha Raitha Sangha affiliated with the left wing All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and other groups affiliated to All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU).

    The post Farmers Launch An Indefinite Strike In India’s Karnataka State appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Farmers Launch An Indefinite Strike In India’s Karnataka State

    Thousands of farmers and agricultural workers began an indefinite protest sit-in on Monday, February 10, at Freedom Park in Bangalore, in India’s southern state of Karnataka, to oppose the ongoing corporate looting of their resources and demand economic protections.

    The farmers and agricultural workers gathered in the capital from different parts of the state under the leadership of Karnataka Prantha Raitha Sangha affiliated with the left wing All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and other groups affiliated to All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU).

    The post Farmers Launch An Indefinite Strike In India’s Karnataka State appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Syria’s De Facto Authorities Execute ‘Sweeping’ Neoliberal Reforms

    The self-appointed transitional government in Syria is undertaking sweeping internal reforms, including privatizing state-run enterprises and laying off a third of the public sector, as authorities say they are shifting to “a competitive free-market economy.”

    In an interview with Reuters, ex-officials of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) who are serving as cabinet ministers for transitional President Ahmad al-Sharaa – former ISIS and Al-Qaeda commander Abu Mohammad al-Julani – say they have a “wide scope” of plans to shrink the state, including removing thousands of “ghost employees.”

    The post Syria’s De Facto Authorities Execute ‘Sweeping’ Neoliberal Reforms appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Farmers Organize Tractor Rallies Across India

    Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) and other farmers’ groups carried out tractor parades in areas across India on the country’s Republic Day on Sunday, January 26. Their national mobilization was in an effort to continue putting pressure on the central government to respond to their demands.

    The demands of farmers include a legally guaranteed minimum support price (MSP) for all farm produce, the withdrawal of the draft National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing (NPFAM), the withdrawal of all pending cases against farmer leaders, and loan waivers for farmers and farm workers, among others.

    The post Farmers Organize Tractor Rallies Across India appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Joe Biden’s Terrible Legacy

    On January 20, 2025, Joseph R. Biden will no longer be president of the United States. Unlike other one term presidents he was not defeated in a re-election effort. He was undone by the same wealthy donors who rigged the process to make him the Democratic Party’s nominee in 2020. Biden was already not up to the task of running in 2020 but his obvious state of debility had noticeably worsened by 2024. He could no longer rely on claims that he only had a stutter when there were so many strange outbursts, verbal miscues, handshakes with invisible people, and wandering off as a toddler would do.

    The post Joe Biden’s Terrible Legacy appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • They All Are Lord of the Flies Children at Heart

    forty hard years of lobotomizing, dumbdowning, infantilizing, and deploying this multilayered PSYOPS of direct and covert operations have been brought to us, partially, by the Edward Bernays of the World … now we are here: Fear and Loathing in Our Delusional and Self-Incriminating Selves! (Haeder, May 28, 2023)

    Trillions for Ukraine. Christ, this is 2019, from The Nation, not exactly a radical rag : Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine/ Five years after the Maidan uprising, anti-Semitism and fascist-inflected ultranationalism are rampant. By Lev Golinkin

    ukraine-far-right-rtr-img

    Versus:

    Before the Russian invasion, CIA reports linked him to an oligarch so dirty and so mired in “significant corruption” that the State Department banned him from entering the U.S.

    But now CIA propaganda portrays Zelensky as nobler than Winston Churchill and saintlier than Mother Theresa.

    Will the Real Volodymyr Zelensky Please Stand Up (source)

    Now now, I know we can’t in PC/PAEC (Politically Approved by Elites Correct) society point out a spade from a diamond. Ahh, even after Nakba 75? Who stopped it, a celebration-remembrance-sadness of that genocide?

    Sorry, but it does matter who controls the levers of power, the narrative, the engines of Press-Propaganda-Entertainment. As well as, politics, marketing, education? Nakba is a lie. You don’t see a pattern here?

    In a statement Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said, “We will fight the ‘Nakba’ lie with full strength and we won’t allow the Palestinians to continue to spread lies and distort history.”

    Ahh, this commemoration, by the UN, of all organizations, is despicable, according to another Jew, and that is a-okay language, no?

    In a recorded statement, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, said that the organization’s decision was “shameful” and would harm any efforts to find a peaceful solution to the generations-old conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people.

    Asking other U.N. representatives to boycott the commemoration, he said, “[A]ttending this despicable event means destroying any chance of peace by adopting the Palestinian narrative calling the establishment of the state of Israel a disaster while ignoring Palestinian hate, incitement, terror and refusal to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state.”

    Palestinians react during a rally as they mark the 75th anniversary of Nakba in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank May 15,2023.

    “UN Recognition of Palestinian Displacement Angers Israel” — One headline, and just replace, “…angers Israel” with, “…. angers Christians, Zionists, Israel-Firsters, Members of Congress, Members of the MSM, politicians, AIPAC, etc., et. …”

    Shit, recognition of that Liberty, that United States SHIP, and more poison arrows launched by the Isra-Hellions:

    Shit, that crime memorial is coming up, June 8 = The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats, on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War.

    Ahh, can we protest that other anniversary? By virtue of General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted to membership in the United Nations on 11 May 1949.  In the three years following the 1948 Palestine war , about 700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel, residing mainly along the borders and in former Arab lands.

    Can we remember June 8 without being smeared?

    For more information on Israel’s crimes, and the USS Liberty, go here: IAK.

    Now transitioning to more racism and bigotry and Big Brother-ism by Jewish leaders, ZioCryptos, and the like, let’s scour the WWW for those attacks on Pink Floyd’s front man: Jews will attack Roger Waters, of Pink Floyd, and they will get countless thousands of lies published in countless broken media outfits immediately. Just Google-Gulag search: “Roger Waters and Berlin Fascism.” Hate, pure lies, and the hasbara and powerful Jewish hatred of thinking Rogers is an antisemite!

    Again, a concert, and Israel speaks up.

    Israel’s foreign ministry later criticized Waters on social media, tweeting on May 24: “Good morning to everyone but Roger Waters who spent the evening in Berlin (Yes Berlin) desecrating the memory of Anne Frank and the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.”

     

    Roger Waters performs at Berlin concert in a Nazi-style uniform.

    I am sorry to say that the Jewish folk I have been reading about, listening to, and researching throughout my decades, even from day one of college onward, many (not all)  are indeed a clear and present danger to straight-up research and critical thinking. Then, just move over to the fact in my humble opinion, many powerful Jews hate Russia, Russians, and anyone who might dare question the UkroNazi Proxy War with Russia, started, oh, hell, way before 2014.

    Self-proclaimed Jewish criminal, Kolomoyskyi is the dirty banker and the dirty funder of Zelensky:

     

    A picture containing text, person, posing, crowd Description automatically generated

    [Photo: On the left, Zelensky in circle behind Kholomoisky. On the right, Zelensky on the campaign trail is followed by one of Kholomoisky’s bodyguards.]

    But, read this Jewish rag in Isra-Hell, Haaretz | World News/

    “Ukraine Enlists Jewish Leaders to Lobby Israel for Arms”

    Ukraine recently requested air defense systems and training from Israel, saying that Iran would use the deployment of its weapons systems in Europe to refine their capabilities. Still, Israel maintains that it would not send military assistance to Ukraine

    A senior Ukrainian official close to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on world Jewry to push Jerusalem to arm his country with defensive weapons on Wednesday, only two days after Moscow warned Israel that supplying military equipment to Ukraine would “destroy the political relations between the two countries.”

    Of course, I am disgusted by any racist group calling on “all Jews worldwide to continue the murder of Russians and Ukrainians in Donbass, and now, throughout Ukraine and into Russia.

    This is merchant of death war mongering, and it has to stop, stop first by beginning to call a Jewish Fascist a Jewish Fascist when you come in contact with him or her or them: Here, more lies, blatant valorizing of a corrupt and criminal man, Zelensky!

    1. The most important Jewish leader in the world (source)

    The past week has turned us all into experts on Ukraine, now at the center of every conversation. Did you know how big it is? (When you lay it over the U.S. map, it stretches from New York to Chicago.) Who knew that we were actually using the Russian city names and not the Ukrainian ones (it’s Kyiv, not Kiev; Lviv, not Lvov; and Kharkiv, not Kharkov). And their president—did you know that he is Jewish?

    Volodymyr Zelensky is probably the most admired Jewish leader the world has to offer right now. Before entering politics in 2018, Zelensky was a popular comedian (and you can’t get any more Jewish than that); he does not often speak about his Jewish identity, but he has never tried to hide it. In a country like Ukraine, which is still struggling with a painful legacy of antisemitism, Zelensky’s Jewishness has always been present.

    For Jews across the world, Zelensky is now a source of pride: a young, inexperienced leader who is putting his life at risk for his people by leading a nation of 40 million people in opposing a ruthless Russian aggressor.

    In his inauguration speech, Zelensky famously told lawmakers not to hang his portrait on their walls. “I do not want my picture in your offices: The president is not an icon, an idol or a portrait. Hang your kids’ photos instead, and look at them each time you are making a decision.”

    True to form, Zelensky maintained his unassuming, direct style when crisis hit. His video messages, posted several times a day, have been helping reassure the Ukrainian people. He spoke from his office and from the streets of Kyiv, even as Russian troops closed in on the capital, and when the fighting intensified, Zelensky candidly shared with all Ukrainians the fact that he has been marked by the Russians as “target number one” and that his family is “target number two.” But when the U.S. offered to evacuate him from Kyiv to somewhere safer, he responded: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”

    I’m writing this column on Sunday, as Russian forces, bogged down and weakened by courageous Ukrainians armed with AK-47s, Molotov cocktails, or sometimes just a large pole they picked up on the side of the street, still threaten the capital. Zelensky is leading the effort to save his nation, though most foreign intelligence services still think he’s fighting a losing battle.

    So, this POS war crimes leader, Zelensky, *elensky because the letter “Z” has been outlawed, and Ukraine and Zelensky with the one-two-three punch of US and UK, with their Kill List, you have to imagine that in the USA and Canada and UK and EU and Europe, all brains have been thrown out the window, or the voice of reason has gone where?

    Read Caitlin: “Most Propaganda Looks Nothing Like This”

    Propaganda is administered in western nations, by western nations, across the political spectrum — and the really blatant and well-known examples of its existence make up only a small sliver of the propaganda that our civilization is continuously marinating in.

    The most common articles of propaganda — and by far the most consequential — are not the glaring, memorable instances that live in infamy among the critically minded. They’re the mundane messages, distortions and lies-by-omission that people are fed day in and day out to normalize the status quo and lay the foundation for more propaganda to be administered in the future.

    […]

    One of the forms this takes is the way the western political/media class manipulates the Overton window of acceptable political opinion.

    It’s propaganda in multiple ways: it excludes voices that are critical of the established status quo from being heard and influencing people, it amplifies voices (many of whom have packing foam for brains) which support the status quo, and, most importantly, it creates the illusion that the range of political opinions presented are the only reasonable political opinions to have.

    Then there’s the ideological herding funnel we discussed recently, which herds the population into two mainstream factions of equal size which both prevent all meaningful change and serve the interests of the powerful.

    Maybe the most consequential of all the mundane, routine ways we’re propagandized is the way the mass media manufacture the illusion of normality in a dystopia so disturbing that we would all scream our lungs out if we could see it with fresh eyes.

    Another of the mundane, almost-invisible ways the public is propagandized from day to day is described in a recent video by Second Thought titled “You’re Not Immune To Propaganda“. We’re continually fed messages by the capitalist machine that we must work hard for employers and accept whatever standards and compensation they see fit to offer, and if we have difficulty thriving in this unjust system the fault lies with us and not with the system. Poor? That’s your fault. Miserable? Your fault. Unemployed? Your fault. Overworked? Your fault.

    Another related method of manipulation is agenda-setting — the way the press shapes public thinking by emphasising some subjects and not others. In placing importance on some matters over others simply by giving disproportionate coverage to them, the mass media (who are propagandists first and news reporters second) give the false impression that those topics are more important and the de-emphasised subjects are less so.

    But then, this is another form — of propaganda . . . denial, and denigration and plain ignoring alternative views, even those that are consistent and repeated:

    Grayzone journalists added to Ukraine 'kill list' - YouTube

    Ukraine puts NBC reporter on kill list - YouTube

    But it’s the 74th Anniversary of an illegitimate state, apartheid and ethnic cleansing one albet>  This is how ZioAzovLensky rolls, and even the corrupt CIA-controlled Wikipedia has some facts here on the murderous Jews, Zelenksy’s mother ship, historical grounding, who called themselves Zionists, but I know very few Jews who are not ZIONISTS, overtly or covertly:

    A successful paramilitary campaign was carried out by Zionist underground groups against British rule in Mandatory Palestine from 1944 to 1948. The tensions between the Zionist underground and the British mandatory authorities rose from 1938 and intensified with the publication of the White Paper of 1939. The Paper outlined new government policies to place further restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchases, and declared the intention of giving independence to Palestine, with an Arab majority, within ten years. Though World War II brought relative calm, tensions again escalated into an armed struggle towards the end of the war, when it became clear that the Axis powers were close to defeat.

    The Haganah, the largest of the Jewish underground militias, which was under the control of the officially recognised Jewish leadership of Palestine, remained cooperative with the British. But in 1944 the Irgun, an offshoot of the Haganah, launched a rebellion against British rule, thus joining Lehi, which had been active against the authorities throughout the war. Both were small, dissident militias of the right-wing Revisionist movement. They attacked police and government targets in response to British immigration restrictions. They intentionally avoided military targets, to ensure that they would not hamper the British war effort against their common enemy, Nazi Germany.

    The armed conflict escalated during the final phase of World War II, when the Irgun declared a revolt in February 1944, ending the hiatus in operations it had begun in 1940. Starting from the assassination of Baron Moyne by Lehi in 1944, the Haganah actively opposed the Irgun and Lehi, in a period of inter-Jewish fighting known as the Hunting Season, effectively halting the insurrection. However, in autumn 1945, following the end of World War II in both Europe (April–May 1945) and Asia (September, 1945), when it became clear that the British would not permit significant Jewish immigration and had no intention of immediately establishing a Jewish state, the Haganah began a period of co-operation with the other two underground organisations. They jointly formed the Jewish Resistance Movement.

    The Haganah refrained from direct confrontation with British forces, and concentrated its efforts on attacking British immigration control, while Irgun and Lehi attacked military and police targets.[6] The Resistance Movement dissolved amidst recriminations in July 1946, following the King David Hotel bombing. The Irgun and Lehi started acting independently, while the main underground militia, Haganah, continued acting mainly in supporting Jewish immigration. The Haganah again briefly worked to suppress Irgun and Lehi operations, due to the presence of a United Nations investigative committee in Palestine. After the UN Partition Plan resolution was passed on 29 November 1947, the civil war between Palestinian Jews and Arabs eclipsed the previous tensions of both with the British. However, British and Zionist forces continued to clash throughout the period of the civil war up to the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948.

    Within the United Kingdom there were deep divisions over Palestine policy. Dozens of British soldiers, Jewish militants, and civilians died during the campaigns of insurgency. The conflict led to heightened antisemitism in the United Kingdom. In August 1947, after the hanging of two abducted British sergeants, there was widespread anti-Jewish rioting across the United Kingdom. The conflict caused tensions in the United Kingdom–United States relations.

    Putin and Russians and those of us who actually want Russia to have a safe border, peace, and zero NATO interference, see Zelensky and his Jewish Lords — Kagan Familias, Nuland, Blinken, Yellen, Sherman, Garland, and hundreds of others in the Biden White House and thousands of others in the Military Industrial Expanded (finance, computing, surveillence) Complex and millions more in the world of turning a dollar on death — as the ENEMY. Murderous, conniving, hateful, slick enemies numero uno, those espousing war with China and war with Russia.

    I know Dissident Voice is reluctant to publish voices that might lean toward a Pepe Escobar critique of the Israel Hell unleashed on the world. I get it. But, the fact is violence and terror, those are right up Zelensky’s alley, and this war that UK and USA and Five Eyes and EU have unleashed will not end soon, because Ukraine in the minds of many is Israel 2.0. An added “benefit” for these monsters: Expect those weapons that USA taxpayer footed the bill for to bring down some commercial airlines in a neighborhood near-by soon.

     

    We are a soiled Western Culture, and we have seeded the rest of the world with our feces — high tech, low tech, money, land theft, pollution, exploitation, consumerism, throw-away mentality, sanctions, blood lust, coups, supporting despots, money laundering and gold theft and assets removal. Loans from Hell, and alas, here we are, in a putrid world, a day before the big Monday Holiday, Memorial Day, and we are straddled by syphilitic monsters running the world and our own populous generally marked for death, marked as marks, these, the billionaires, the fleecers and many left and right, Jewish or not, they are Zionists and Israel-Firsters who have sold us down the Ukrainian toilet.

    Israeli newspapers point out the victories?

     

     

    These are THEIR graphics, and by me point these out, I am deplatformed, stopped from teaching, pushed to the excrement posts of publishing my books anywhere

    But leave it to the Paranoid Former Nazis and the disgusting ADL and AIPAC and Mossad loving Israelis to attack us all attacking them:

    Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters says Berlin gig controversy a ‘smear’

    “The depiction of an unhinged fascist demagogue has been a feature of my shows since Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ in 1980,” Roger Waters said.

    “I have spent my entire life speaking out against authoritarianism and oppression where I set it… My parents fought the Nazis in World War II, with my father paying the ultimate price,” he said.

    “Regardless of the consequences of the attacks against me, I will continue to condemn injustice and all those who perpetrate it.”

    Waters is a well-known pro-Palestinian activist who has been accused of holding anti-Jewish views. He has floated an inflatable pig emblazoned with the Star of David at his concerts. The singer denies the anti-Semitism accusations, saying he was protesting against Israeli policies, not Jewish people.

    Ah, those old days, which now would be both considered hate speech and also ground down by the ugly media and the uglier mainstream fools in college, in towns, every where.

    Yep, it is a piece of shit piece of cloth for many, representing so so much death, murder, hate, and racism. Cloth, man, and alas, a symbol, for those who cry crocodile tears when they hear the National Anthem, and then for others, it is the greed and murder and Empire of Chaos-Lies-Terror in every red and white strip, every star and bar:

     

    Demonstrators burn flag in downtown Los Angeles to protest death of George Floyd | The Hill

    This stuff is not allowed on campuses, and not just Guantanamo Desantis’s Florida.

     

    Rizzo Ford | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs | Tumgik

    This is not anti-DIsney, but it is the Dsneyification of the world, and this is the outcome: bones, immolation, worldwide.
    Corporations Kill - Mickey Mouse – Post Modern Vandal
    Old school, but you can’t get college students to analyze this without being charged with a Virginia Tech Situation — call SWAT.

    Corporate Murder | thissideofthetruth

    I doubt you can loosely call for the execution of Corporations, CEOs, what have you. Again, Virginia Tech Situation — call SWAT on Haeder.
    Top Stories - If Supreme Court Says Corporations have same Rights as Humans, Can they be Charged with Murder? - AllGov - News
    Ahh, if we are the biggest war profiteers, then we’ll be letting China take first place. Yep, that’s the modern college student’s response.
    The biggest war profiteer—US. Graphic: Deng Zijun/GT
    Ahh, I have been warned that telling my students that I was rapped on the head by cops, in Portland, El Paso, Seattle, and elsewhere, and that protest is dangerous but necessary, and that I would dare use the ACAB as an opening to discuss that Defund the Police Movement — who, what, where, when and WHY — as well as my own work as a police reporter and what I think of cops/pigs, all verbotten! Call SWAT on Haeder.
    ACAB" Poster for Sale by dgorbov | Redbubble
    Hell, you can look this one up in Wikipedia. And babies? 
    Read the transcript: with the reason the poster was made, the soldier who was in the massacre!
    Q. And babies?" "A. And babies." | sodapop
    Oh, no, trigger warnings, vicarious PTSD, verboten.

    Partial transcriptof the Mike Wallace interview with Paul Meadlo in which Meadlo describes his participation in the My Lai massacre:

    Q. So you fired something like sixty-seven shots?
    A. Right.
    Q. And you killed how many? At that time?
    A. Well, I fired them automatic, so you can’t – You just spray the area on them and so you can’t know how many you killed ‘cause they were going fast. So I might have killed ten or fifteen of them.
    Q. Men, women, and children?
    A. Men, women, and children.
    Q. And babies?
    A. And babies.
    Apartheid state': Israel's fears over image in US are coming to pass | Israel | The Guardian
    Ahh, loyalty oaths in how many state legislatures on never saying a bad word about Israel, and no push for boycotting Israeli goods, that’s the power of Jewish Extremism in the USA: But not enough, not enough BDS around the world.  17 BDS resolutions considered and 11 passed at US colleges last year, per ADL report
    Anti Vietnam War Posters - Fine Art America
    It is a well-oiled, well-placed, complex, 3-D kind of chess machine, and it is pure killer, pure killer, and most campuses utilized Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, DoD, BOrder Patrol, CIA, FBI, ATF, MONEY. Some of the nation’s most elite universities are deep into defense lobbying, often hiring Washington-based firms to press Congress and the Pentagon to fund their science projects.

    Asked whether students or professors ever have ethical objections to working on projects funded by the Defense Department, Zuber said that “no professor has to take money from DoD.”

    “We’re a bottom-up organization,” she said. “Professors make those choices.”

    She also said that “if there are students who have a feeling that they don’t want to work on defense-related issues, they certainly don’t have to.” But, she added, “a whole lot seem to want to.”

    Like MIT, the Association of American Universities, an alliance of 62 of the leading research institutions in the United States and Canada, advocates defense research funding.

     

    130130_harvard_university_ap_328.jpg

    [Photo: Universities chase defense dollars]

     

    The end result is that BABIES, kids, NEWBORNES, women, SENIOR citizens, disabled, PATIENTS in hospitals, youth on PLAYGROUNDS, are mudered, and killed, and imploded, so, then, BABY Killers is just a limited sigh — wedding parties, goat herders, and entire families at gravesites, murdered by universities, colleges, think tanks, corporations, marketing firms, law firms, retail services in the EMPLOY of the USA.
    When Vietnam Veterans Were Called Baby Killers And Spit On Upon Returning Home Why Didn't They Hit The People Doing It? Quora | annadesignstuff.com
    This sign? These youth? Their message? Their no war and stop the escalation and disarmament now, ahh, then, of couse, it’s triple bad, since they are free thinkers and align with New York Young Communist League.
    NYStaxtherich.jpg
    The Communist Party's position on Russia's war in Ukraine – People's World

    Hood Communist?

     

     

    So many more organizations working on it, working on it — no more NATO, no more Arms.

    Back to the Jewish thing in Ukraine: And, well, and, who writes the narrative of Ukraine, of Zelensky, of the Jewish Apartheid State supporting the Nazis under Zelensky?

    There is no way in hell you will read this story, objectively, anywhere:

    The Jews are the ones behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and their goal is to create a new Jewish state to replace the failing Zionist project of Israel, Palestinian Islamic scholar Mraweh Nassar has claimed, as reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

    Nassar, whom MEMRI identified as the secretary-general of the Jerusalem Committee of the International Union of Muslims Scholars, made his claims on March 22 while speaking with Channel 9, an Arabic-language TV station in Turkey that the media watchdog says is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

     

    Now now, Dan Shapiro (New Atlanticist, err, Atlantic Council) wrote this one, and again, it’s the NARRATIVE and the MEDIUM is the MESSAGE driver, and then who gets to tell the stories and how the algorithms benefit the propagandists, shit dog, need we look further?.

    Speaking to reporters this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the future he sees for his country in unusual terms: as “a big Israel.”

    Gone, he said, are hopes for “an absolutely liberal” state—replaced by the likely reality of armed defense forces patrolling movie theaters and supermarkets. “I’m confident that our security will be the number-one issue over the next ten years,” Zelenskyy added.

    With Russian forces having withdrawn from around Kyiv, suggesting that Ukraine successfully repulsed the first phase of the Kremlin’s invasion, the time is right for Zelenskyy to contemplate how to prepare for the next—and potentially much longer—phase of this conflict.

    But what does he mean by “a big Israel”? With a population more than four times smaller, and vastly less territory, the Jewish state might not seem like the most fitting comparison. Yet consider the regional security threats it faces, as well as its highly mobilized population: The two embattled countries share more than you might think.

    So if Zelenskyy really does have Israel in mind as a model for Ukraine, here are some of the key features he might consider for adoption (some of which are already applicable today):

    • Security first: Every Israeli government promises, first and foremost, that it will deliver security—and knows it will be judged on this pledge. Ordinary citizens, not just politicians, pay close attention to security threats—both from across borders and from internal sources— and much of the public chooses who to elect by that metric alone.

    • The whole population plays a role: The Israeli model goes further than Zelenskyy’s vision of security services deployed to civilian spaces: Most young Israeli adults serve in the military, and many are employed in security-related professions following their service. A common purpose unites the citizenry, making them ready to endure shared sacrific

    I ask, “Will one vapid bought-and-brainwashed media person get on with some rejiggering their knowledge:

    Here, over at Dissident Voice: “Journey to St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Crimea” by Dan Kovalik and Rick Sterling / May 25th, 2023

    The post They All Are Lord of the Flies Children at Heart first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Trudeau Coasted on Progressive Vibes, But Served the Interests of Corporations

    Legislative action has ground to a halt in the Canadian Parliament, which has suspended its work until March. The legislative stop is now the Liberal Party’s de facto deadline for selecting a leader to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who announced on Monday that he will resign as soon as his replacement has been chosen. But despite the political turmoil, Canada’s wealthy are still…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Kenya’s High Court Delivers Blow To Neoliberal University Funding Model

    The Kenya High Court delivered a landmark ruling on December 20, 2024, that declared the new funding model for higher education unconstitutional. The case, brought before the court by the Kenya Human Rights Commission and other organizations including the National Student Caucus, challenged the legality and fairness of the new model launched last year.

    In his ruling, Justice Mwita declared the new university funding model unconstitutional for several reasons. The high court noted that it violates Section 53 of the Universities Act by introducing policies that conflict with the law.

    The post Kenya’s High Court Delivers Blow To Neoliberal University Funding Model appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Higher Education Must Champion Democracy, Not Surrender To Fascism

    For decades, neoliberalism has systematically attacked the welfare state, undermined public institutions and weakened the foundations of collective well-being. Shrouded in the alluring language of liberty, it transforms market principles into a dominant creed, insisting that every facet of life conform to the imperatives of profit and economic efficiency.

    But in reality, neoliberalism consolidates wealth in the hands of a financial elite, celebrates ruthless individualism, promotes staggering levels of inequality, perpetuates systemic injustices like racism and militarism, and commodifies everything, leaving nothing sacred or untouchable.

    The post Higher Education Must Champion Democracy, Not Surrender To Fascism appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Higher Education Must Champion Democracy, Not Surrender to Fascism

    For decades, neoliberalism has systematically attacked the welfare state, undermined public institutions and weakened the foundations of collective well-being. Shrouded in the alluring language of liberty, it transforms market principles into a dominant creed, insisting that every facet of life conform to the imperatives of profit and economic efficiency. But in reality…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • What’s Left In Latin American And The Caribbean: Year 2024 In Review

    The progressive regional current, the “Pink Tide,” could be better called “troubled waters” in 2024. The tide had already slackened by 2023 compared to its rise in 2022, when it was buoyed by big wins in Colombia and Brazil. Then, progressive alternatives had sailed into power replacing failed neoliberal policies. Since, they have had to govern under circumstances that they inherited but were not their own making.

    Brazil’s “suicidal veto” in August, which excluded Venezuela and Nicaragua from the BRICS trade alliance, was indicative of triangulating between the US and regional allegiances.

    The post What’s Left In Latin American And The Caribbean: Year 2024 In Review appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The Global South Is On The Brink Of A Disastrous Debt Crisis

    Countries across the Global South are experiencing climate, poverty and development crises — all made worse by the unbearable costs of debt servicing. Indeed, according to Development Finance International, “Citizens of the Global South now face the worst debt crisis since global records began.” Low-income countries, which have seen the amount paid on foreign debt payment increase by 150 percent since 2011, are being hit especially hard.

    In the exclusive interview for Truthout that follows, Ilene Grabel, a leading economist in global finance and global financial governance, sheds light on the roots of the Global South debt crisis and offers specific strategies for easing the debt burden of developing countries.

    The post The Global South Is On The Brink Of A Disastrous Debt Crisis appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The Eighth Continent Is The Continent Of Sleaze

    The eighth continent is the Continent of Sleaze. You and I have never been there, only heard rumours about it. On that continent, there are rivers of money in which corporate executives bathe and from which they extract whatever they want in order to increase their power, privilege, and property. The corporate executives venture out to lay their hands on the wealth of the world and carry it back to their Continent of Sleaze. What remains is dust and shadows, barely enough for people to survive so that they can continue to labour and produce more social wealth for the Continent of Sleaze.

    The post The Eighth Continent Is The Continent Of Sleaze appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • French PM’s Ouster Shows Deep Cracks in Legitimacy of Europe’s Neoliberal Order

    France’s National Assembly approved a no-confidence vote in Prime Minister Michel Barnier on Wednesday — just three months after he was appointed by the highly unpopular President Emmanuel Macron. The rapid collapse of Barnier’s government reinforces the long-held view among political experts that a parliamentary multiparty system has more checks and balances and responds more readily to the…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Leadership disinformation and an environmental fail

    This episode of the New Politics podcast explores the intricate dynamics within Australian politics, looking at the media’s focus on a supposed rift between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek. The speculation arises after Albanese’s controversial decision to withdraw the Nature Positive legislation, a move perceived as prioritising mining interests over environmental progress.

    While media narratives suggest leadership tensions, the reality may be far simpler: political strategy amidst a challenging pre-election landscape. We look at the broader implications of this decision, including its impact on environmental reforms like the Environmental Protection Agency, and how the Greens are positioning themselves in response.

    The discussion expands to the possibility of a minority government and the Australian Greens’ push for a power-sharing arrangement with Labor. Despite the Labor Party’s dismissive stance, we examine historical precedents, such as the ACT Labor–Greens coalition, and question whether this progressive collaboration could offer stability in a hung parliament. Meanwhile, the Liberal Party’s efforts to reclaim seats from community independents highlight a deep disconnect with shifting voter expectations, exemplified by Paul Fletcher’s angry criticism of the teal movement. We consider how these dynamics signal broader dissatisfaction with traditional political strategies.

    Economic concerns are front and centre for the electorate, with new Australian National University research indicating declining confidence in the Albanese government, echoing voter frustrations with stagnant economic conditions. We explore how global calls to abandon neoliberal policies, spearheaded by economists like Joseph Stiglitz, resonate with Australia’s need for economic reform and equity. Yet, with entrenched private interests and weak political champions for change, meaningful progress seems elusive.

    Finally, we discuss Australia’s vote at the United Nations supporting an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. It’s about time. This marked shift from decades of bipartisan alignment with Israel may reflect changing domestic pressures and evolving geopolitical realities.

    #auspol

    Support New Politics:

    @ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/newpolitics

    @ Substack: https://newpolitics.substack.com

    Song listing:

    1. ‘Good Stuff’, The B-52s.
    2. ‘Confessions Of A Window Cleaner’, Ed Kuepper.
    3. ‘Dope Lemon’, Stonecutters.
    4. ‘Wild’, Spoon.
    5. ‘Dayvan Cowboy’, The Boards Of Canada.
    6. ‘Humiliation’, The National.

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  • Cringeworthy Words in the Battle of Ideas

    If you believe, as I do, that the war of ideas is a critical front in political struggle, then clarity and logic become a necessity in that war. Indeed, the war of ideas can often become a war of words or phrases. When we allow or accept phrases like “the axis of evil” or words like “deplorables” to uncritically enter popular discourse, we have lost a skirmish in the ideological struggle.

    This project is not the same as the language-policing so popular with liberals. It is not an excuse for shaming, embarrassing, or demeaning people because they are ignorant or dismissive of liberal etiquette.

    Instead, it’s a search for focus and rigor, an attempt to sharpen our tools in the war of ideas. Therefore, it’s time to call out words or expressions that mislead, distort, or poison our discourse. Below, I nominate several candidates for retirement, restraint, or caution.

    ●Terrorism: Those holding power have persistently labeled their weaker opponents who rise up as “terrorists.” Virtually every anti-colonial movement in the post-war period has been called “terrorist,” regardless of the tactics employed in their struggle or whether those tactics were defensive or offensive. From the Indian National Congress to the Mau Mau movement, to the Palestine Liberation Organization, to the Vietnamese National Liberation Front, to the African National Congress, oppressors have denounced the oppressed as terrorists. The term lost any even minimal credence with the US government’s blatant and blatantly inconsistent use as a slander against socialist Cuba. Retirement of the term is obligatory.

    ●Middle Class: There is no middle class except in the clouded minds of those who dispute that the US and other advanced capitalist societies are class societies. Of course, there is a statistical middle when incomes and wealth are divided into three, five, seven, or more parts. But those divisions are arbitrary and virtually meaningless. We can speak loosely of a middle stratum, provided we understand that there is no significant social boundary with the strata on either side. “Middle” itself identifies no useful socio-economic category.

    Of course, there are classes and significant strata identifiable by socio-economic criteria. One such criterion that has stood the test of time is the Marxist class distinction between those who own and control the wealth-producing assets and those who must secure employment from them. This remains a clear and rigorous divide with vast social, political, and economic consequences.

    When politicians and labor leaders refer to the “middle class,” we can be sure that they have no intention of challenging real, existing class society and its inevitable inequality, oppression, and destruction.

    ●Authoritarianism: When the Soviet Union fell, capitalist ruling classes reserved the shop-worn Cold War term “totalitarianism” for People’s China and the remaining countries ruled by Communist Parties. Yet there were many countries that structurally embraced the institutions of bourgeois democracy — regular elections, representative bodies, legal institutions, and constitutions — though earning the ire of the Euromerican ruling classes and their media and academic lapdogs. A new term was appropriated to condemn the dissenters for allegedly abusing, corrupting, or influencing those institutions: authoritarianism.

    Countries like Russia, Venezuela, or Iran — while sharing look-alike institutions with the “liberal” democracies — are condemned as authoritarian, even though their institutions function similarly, or sometimes better than their accusing critics. US critics depicting other countries as authoritarian are particularly hypocritical, coming from a country where political outcomes are determined by money or power to a greater extent than any other place on the planet. International polling (here and here) consistently shows that the people in supposedly authoritarian-ruled countries have greater trust in their governments than their Euromerican counterparts, a finding that surely sends the word “authoritarianism” to the historical dustbin.

    ●Fascism: The word “fascism” has a legitimate use to refer to a specific historical period, its essential features, and the common conditions that generate its arrival. Its twentieth-century rise in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution, from the volatility in the wake of a global war, and coincident with severe economic instability, is no mere accident, but is vital to our understanding. Just as the conditions of its development were unprecedented, fascism was unprecedented, generated by a profound challenge to the capitalist order. Fascism was a desperate reaction to a powerful, emergent revolutionary working-class movement, growing political illegitimacy, and economic collapse. The word’s rigorous use requires that these conditions be met.

    Instead, the word has come to be used by unprincipled political operatives in the way that the charge of Communism has been used so often by unscrupulous red-baiters, trading on emotions. Bereft of a telling argument for a policy or strategy, philistines fall back on fascist-baiting, to paint their opponents with an association with Blackshirts, Stormtroopers, and the Gestapo. Weaponizing “fascism” distracts from revealing the actual obstacles to change and devising real answers to those obstacles.

    ●Neoliberalism: The era — beginning in the 1970s — identified with policies first associated with Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US– has often been called “neoliberalism.” There is some logic to labeling the period accordingly, drawing attention to its similarity to an earlier period of laissez faire capitalism before the Keynesian revolution and before intensified government oversight of the capitalist economy. Academic writers David Harvey and Gary Gerstle have understood the term in a more precise way: as an effort to “restore and consolidate class power,” in Harvey’s words.

    But “neoliberalism” has come to connote a rightwing-imposed deviation from the benign, social democratic, social safety-net regime of the heralded thirty glorious post-war years. With this interpretation, capitalism with a humane, happy face was interrupted by a far-right counter-revolution, leading to massive deregulation, privatization, commodification, market fetishism, and rabid individualism.

    Omitted from this tale is the harsh and telling fact that the post-war social democratic consensus was rapidly collapsing before intensified global competition, pressure on profits, inflation mutating into stagflation, and unemployment. That deviation from classical economic liberalism left its own scars on working people. The crisis of the New Deal model– widely followed internationally — opened the door to options, quickly filled by the far-right zealots of market fundamentalism.

    Neoliberalism, understood as the disease and not a symptom, deflects attention from diagnosing the real disease: capitalism.

    ●Deep State: The idea that there is a highly visible, superficial state that is widely believed to be the governing body, but merely a facade for a far deeper, secret apparatus, is an attractive alternative to the official, widely circulated myths of popular sovereignty. From various perspectives, that apparatus is the CIA, Freemasons, followers of Lyndon Larouche, George Soros, or zombies.

    And therein lies the problem: the deep state is whatever the latest schemer, plotter, or crackpot says it is. The vague idea of a wizard (of Oz?) pulling strings behind the scenes is the genesis of conspiracy theories, and should be seen as such.

    There is a far more robust, time-tested, and scientific concept to describe the bogus high-school-civics-class picture of transparent, democratic, and representative governance uniquely practiced by the advanced capitalist countries. That well-founded concept is the notion of a ruling class, developed by — but not exclusive to — Marxists. A ruling class has both shallow and deep features — overt and covert aspects — that work together to maintain class rule. While elements of the ruling class may differ on how best to guarantee the interests of the elites — typically the employer class — they all agree that they will promote and protect those interests.

    Where the so-called “deep state” conjures a picture of puppeteers hidden in the shadows manipulating and distorting a benign government structure, the ruling class concept offers a robust and rational picture of the existing asymmetry of power and wealth generating a governing body that operates to preserve and protect that asymmetry. Absent a countervailing force organized to wrest the power away, one would expect no less from a social order constructed on inequality of wealth and income.

    It is not plotting or conspiracies or intrigues that shape how we are ruled, but the social composition of our states. “Deep State” leads us away from that understanding.

    ●Microaggressions and Safe Spaces: The “social justice” industry — academics, NGOs, non-profits, and consultants– creates its own language of social advancement. Certainly, many engaged in the industry are well meaning, but they are also transactional. They believe that their services are best commodified and paid for with promotions, donations, grants, and direct compensation. Accordingly, they have an interest in creating new justice-rendering commodities, new social-justice services. Microaggressions and Safe Spaces are the basis for such new commodities.

    In a just society, all spaces should be safe. Short of a commitment to making all public spaces safe, designating certain spaces as safe is necessarily supporting privilege for those with access to such spaces, whether determined by lot, by merit, or by special characteristics. Safety, like health, is not something merited by a specific time, place, or group. Safe Spaces invokes the logic of a gated community.

    Microaggressions become relevant in a world without war, poverty, genocide, and exploitation. Until those gross aggressions are gone, microaggressions — the bruising of individual sentiments — remain matters of etiquette. Hurt feelings, slights, and discomforting words or body language belong in the realm of interpersonal misfortunes and not in the realm of social injustice.

    The “social justice” industry fails us because it is caught between sponsors, donors, and administrators heavily invested in the existing order and the radical needs of the victims of that order. Too often they offer the victims empty or useless words as salve for deep wounds.

    Again, the point sought here is not to shame, accuse, or denigrate, but to sharpen language to better advance the struggle for social justice, to win the battle of ideas. Those who oppose social change benefit when words are chosen for their emotive power, when they subtly reflect class bias, or when they distort a real insight.

    Words have power. We should use them carefully.

    The post Cringeworthy Words in the Battle of Ideas first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Omnivorous James C. Scott

    Like so many romantics, Scott mixed radical and conservative themes. No wonder he found appreciative readers across the political spectrum.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.