Michael Lebowitz: Primitive accumulation versus contested reproduction (video)
[For more articles by or about Michael Lebowitz, click HERE.]
By Michael A. Lebowitz, Ljubljana
May 4, 2013 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- If we don't understand a system as it is fully developed [its "being"] and thus its critical characteristics, we cannot investigate the "becoming" of those characteristics.
This is why Marx discussed primitive (or original) accumulation of capital only at the end of volume 1 of Capital. Exclusive focus upon the emergence of the new elements, however, is not real history. "Becoming" is two sided: it is both a coming into being and a passing away. The concept of primitive accumulation explores only the former; it considers the new being born but not the old struggling to remain alive. It is, in short, one-sided. Not only does it fail to explore on its own the struggle of the old for its reproduction but it also does not consider the interaction, the morbid symptoms and dysfunction when two sets of productive relations are engaged in contested reproduction with respect to their control of the elements of production.
Election broadsheet of the Socialist Alliance, Australia
May 1, 2013 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Bring the mining industry, the big banks and the energy companies under public/community ownership and control, so that they can be run in a way that respects Aboriginal rights, the environment and social justice. The urgent need to address climate change alone demands that these industries be immediately taken out of the hands of the billionaires and their global corporations and operated as not-for-profit public services under the democratic control of the majority.
From Greece to Australia, the whole world has witnessed the moral bankruptcy of capitalism as it has destroyed the lives of billions of people through the wholesale privatisation of our collective wealth and socialisation of their losses.
We cannot afford to leave our future to the likes of Australian mining billionaires Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer, and the faceless bankers. If we do so, we won’t have a future worth leaving to future generations.
Venezuela: Reaffirmation, warning and encouragement for the revolution
On April 3, Nicolas Maduro visited Merida state.
Long live May Day! Workers of the world unite!
May Day message from the Socialist Alliance, Australia
May 1, 2013 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- As workers around the world take to the streets to celebrate May Day, we are sharply aware that the capitalist system has reached a point of development where it threatens the habitability of the planet on which we all live.
Last month, for the first time in 3 million years, the carbon concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere reached 399.7 parts per million (ppm) at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. In several other parts of the world that day, the reading exceeded 400 ppm.
When CO2 concentrations were last above 400 ppm it was the Pliocene era, when temperatures were 3-4 degrees Celsius and sea levels were 5-40 metres higher than they are today. Capitalism is throwing our planet into dangerous climate change.
Sadly this is no surprise. Capitalism has already devastated the lives of billions of people through exploitation, war and poverty.
Ireland: What’s left after the ULA?
Happier days before the Socialist Party and Socialist Workers Party abandoned the ULA.
Malaysia: 'Ini kalilah' -- Socialists seek opposition cooperation to defeat Barisan Nasional regime
Socialist Party of Malaysia's secretary-general S. Arutchelvan (“Arul”, third from left) is running for the Selangor state assembly seat.
By Peter Boyle
April 29, 2013 -- Green Left Weekly -- The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) is contesting four seats in the May 5 general elections, one federal parliamentary seat and three state assembly seats.
The PSM won two of these seats in the 2008 election: Jeyakumar Devaraj, or “Kumar” as he is better known, won the federal parliamentary seat of Sungai Siput from a high-profile former minister. PSM chairperson Nasir Hashim won the Selangor state assembly seat of Kota Damansara.
Also, the PSM is standing its secretary-general S. Arutchelvan (“Arul”) for the Selangor state assembly seat of Semenyih and its deputy chairperson M. Sarasvathy (“Saras”) for the Perak state assembly seat of Jelapang.
In the lead-up to the election, the PSM painstakingly sought to negotiate with other opposition parties to avoid a three-corner contest with the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) in these seats.
South Africa: Centenary of the 1913 Land Act
By Colin Bundy
Britain: The 1970s and the movement for workers’ control
[Click for more discussion of workers' control, cooperatives and "green jobs".]
By Andrew Coates
Trade unions have historically bargained for better terms for the sale of labour power; they have not been able to challenge the existence of the labour market itself. Today, however, the relation between "political" and "economic" struggle have changed.” -- Perry Anderson. "The Limits and Possibilities", in The Incompatibles: Trade Union Militancy and the Consensus,1967.
Behind the crisis: US tightens chokehold on North Korea
US and South Korean soldiers take part in joint military exercises in Pohang, South Korea.
By David Whitehouse
April 22, 2013 -- Socialist Worker (USA) -- In the 60 years since the end of the Korean War, US policy toward North Korea has fluctuated between the options of "containment" and "rollback".
Sometimes, the policy has shifted in the course of one presidency. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both started out as advocates of rollback -- regime change, either by military force or by provoking an internal collapse -- but ended as caretakers of containment.
Barack Obama -- who campaigned for the White House in 2008 on a promise to conduct direct talks with North Korea, in contrast to the belligerent rhetoric of the Bush years -- seems to have followed an opposite trajectory since his first months in office. Though you wouldn't know it to judge from the US media, this aggressive posture in Washington is a driving factor in the escalating tensions that have landed the Korean conflict on the front pages in recent weeks.
Venezuela: Imperialism prepares fascist movement to defeat revolution
A PSUV office in Anzoategui torched on March 15, part of a coordinated campaign of violence, murder and arson.
Hugo Chávez: Tribune of world’s dispossessed/Tribuna de los desposeídos del mundo
April 15, 2013 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/America XXI -- Hugo Chávez was not only a great Bolivarian patriot; he was a tribune of the world’s dispossessed.
At an anti-imperialist conference in Cairo in 2007, I heard Chávez hailed for his solidarity with Palestinians as “a better Arab than the Arabs”; “closer to us than the Arabs that impose injustice”.
Chávez, the first Latin American president to declare himself of African descent, proclaimed in 2005, “Every day we are much more aware of the roots we have in Africa.”
Britain's days of hope -- Ken Loach's 'The Spirit of ’45' reviewed
Ken Loach discusses The Spirit of '45.