In the last chapter of his book Anti-Dühring, Engels treats of the state, family,education and sex by critiquing the views of the German "socialist" and professor Eugen Dühring's on these subjects. Dühring had created, on paper, a complete system of socialist governing thru means of collectives which, Engels has pointed out in his analysis in earlier parts of this book, is completely unworkable and perpetuates the capitalist relations of production and distribution which socialism is supposed to abolish.
Having set up his system Dühring undertakes to discuss the nature of the "state of the future." His ideas are, Engels maintains, watered down simplifications of notions he has gleaned from Rousseau and Hegel. In his own words, Dühring bases his state on the "sovereignty of the people." He explains what he means in the following passage of essentially meaningless mumbo jumbo: "If one presupposes agreements between each individual and every other individual in all directions, and if the object of these agreements is mutual aid against unjust offenses-- the the power required for the maintenance of right is only strengthened, and right is not deduced from the more superior strength of the many against the individual or of the majority against the minority."
Don't worry if that passage doesn't make any sense, as Dühring adds the following to explicate it. He says, "THE SLIGHTEST ERROR in the conception of the role of the collective will would DESTROY the sovereignty of the individual, and this sovereignty is the only thing conducive to the deduction of real rights." Engels thinks this pretty "thick" even by the standards of Dühring's so called "philosophy of reality."
This is especially so since the "sovereignty of the individual" consists in the fact that he or she is, Dühring says, "SUBJECT TO ABSOLUTE COMPULSION by the state." This is because the state "serves natural justice" and that is the best guarantee of individual sovereignty. There will be a police force for internal security and an army as well-- to enforce the will of the state-- which is the same as that of the community of sovereign individuals and to ensure people don't use their sovereignty in an incorrect and unsovereign manner. And just in case the state makes an error, well, the citizens will still be better off than they would have been if left in the state of nature! Anyway, they will get free lawyers too boot.
Since Dühring says his new state is based on "sober and critical thought", he announces that religion will be banished from the commune."In the free society," he says, "there can be no religious worship; FOR every member of it has got beyond the primitive childish superstition that there are beings, behind nature or above it, who can be influenced by sacrifices or prayers. [A] socialitarian system, rightly conceived, HAS therefore … TO ABOLISH all the paraphernalia of religious magic, and therewith all the essential elements of religious worship."
It is important to note, since in the real history of socialism in the twentieth century some socialist and communist states tried to eliminate religion and religious practices by forceable means, that this idea ["the state HAS to…"] comes from Dühring, an enemy of the Marxist outlook, and not from anything Marx or Engels had to say. Engels explicitly criticizes this view.
This is not to say Marx and Engels were in anyway "soft" on religion ["opium of the masses" and all that] but they respected "individual sovereignty" enough not to dream of using the "state' [which they wanted to abolish in any case] to trample on people's rights of conscience in religious affairs.
At this point Engels adds a succinct account of the Marxist view of the origin, social function, and future of religion. It is more or less as follows. Religion is just a reflection in the brains of people of the forces in the external world that are out of their control which affect their lives and that they imagine as supernatural beings which they need to fear and placate. Originally these were the powers of nature that took on the guise of gods and goddess, but as human society progressed and evolved social forces also came to assume these roles. Over time, in the West at least) the many gods and goddess representing these alien powers were distilled down to one god [monotheism e.g., Jews and Moslems, or three gods posing as one as in the Jewish-pagan synthesis called Christianity- tr] and in this form religion will have a lease on life as long as humans are dominated by natural and social powers they neither understand nor control.
In contemporary capitalist society people are dominated and controlled by an economic system that they have themselves made yet rules over them as if it were an independently existing power beyond their control. The Market-- made by humans, rules humans. This is essentially the same reification as is found in religion and it reinforces religious attitudes and beliefs already historically present in modern society. Engels thinks of this development as the First Act of human development. It is now time for the Second Act.
In the Second Act humans will take control of the means of production and distribution which they have created over the long ages [thereby hangs a tale] and by means of scientific understanding and advance be able to control them rather than being controlled by them. Science will also explain the origins of life, the workings of nature, and the role of humans, leading to advances in medicine, agriculture, education, etc., so that humans will seek to understand the world instead of bowing down before it in stupefaction.
Engels says "only then will the last alien force which is still reflected in religion vanish: and with it will also vanish the religious reflection itself, for the simple reason that then there will be nothing left to reflect." Dühring can't wait and wants to administratively abolish religion before humanity has reached the intellectual and social level where it will of its own accord fade away. This will only inflame resistance, antagonize the masses, and strengthen the hold of superstition over the brains of people by giving it "a prolonged lease of life." I might add, if some of the socialists and communists of the past century, let alone this one, would have taken Engels to heart many mistakes and tragedies could have been avoided.
After Herr Dühring has disposed of religion he tells us that "man, made to rely solely on himself and nature and matured in the knowledge of his collective powers, can intrepidly enter on all the roads which the course of events and his own being open to him." Fine. Let us see how "man" travels down these roads. First he is born. Then he, or she as the case may be, is under the control of his mother the "natural tutor of children" until puberty (about 14 years) when the role of the father kicks in, as long as "real and uncontested paternity" can be demonstrated. If not a guardian is appointed. Ancient Roman law serves Dühring as a model for these ideas.
This shows, Engels says, that Dühring has no sense of history. The family, for him, is immutable, basically the same in Ancient Rome as in modern capitalism with no allowance for the changes in economic conditions and social relations between the ancient world and contemporary world. Engels then quotes the following passage from volume one of Das Kapital to show the superiority of Marx's outlook to Dühring's. Marx wrote that "modern industry, by assigning as it does an important part in the process of production, outside the domestic sphere, to women, to young persons, and to children of both sexes [due to the rise of the working class movement capitalism's urge to exploit children in the productive process has been somewhat curtailed-- tr] creates a new economic foundation for a higher form of the family and the relations between the sexes."
This new form is still in the process of creation, but there is no going back to the Ancient Roman family, nor even, as our Republican politicians are learning to their chagrin, to the patriarchal family of the Christian Middle Ages-- so beloved by the reactionary classes in our country.
Dühring next informs us that "Every dreamer of social reforms naturally has ready a pedagogy corresponding to his new social life." He may think he is putting others down and himself coming up with a truly scientific plan for the educational needs of society, for the "foreseeable future", but he is actually a worse dreamer than those he opposes, according to Engels.
In the schools of Dühring's future cooperative society the children will, Dühring writes, learn "everything which by itself and in principle can have any attraction for man" and so will include "the foundations and main conclusions of all sciences touching on the understanding of the world and of life." Dühring also tells us he sees in outline all the textbooks of the future but he is personally unable to actually see their contents and just what the children will be learning as that "can only really be expected from the free and enhanced forces of the new social order." But they will concentrate on physics, math, astronomy and mechanics while biology, botany, and zoology and such will be "topics for light conversation" [!]. He completely forgets to say anything about chemistry. Engels says his knowledge of the sciences seems to be confined to "Natural History for Children"-- a popular book of the 18th Century by Georg Christian Raff (1748-1788).
When it comes to the humanities, Dühring sounds like a second rate Plato. He wants to ban, for example, the great artistic creations of the past because too many of them have religious themes. As Plato banned Homer for portraying the Gods with human flaws, so Goethe is banned by Dühring for "poetic mysticism" and others for any religious content at all-- since religion is banned completely in the future state.
American monoglot educators will appreciate Herr Dühring's attitude to foreign languages. Latin and Greek will be junked entirely, who needs dead languages. Living foreign languages "will remain of secondary importance" and the students will really concentrate on their own native tongue. Engels thinks this a way to perpetuate the dulling national narrow mindedness of people who are basically ignorant of the world and of the Other. Latin and Greek actually open up people's minds to a broader perspective of the world and history, at least if they have a classical education, and learning foreign modern languages also allows peoples to have greater understanding of others and their cultures. Dühring's views are those of the narrow minded Prussian Philistine and similar to the "English only" bigotry found on the right in this country.
Engels gives Dühring credit for at least being aware of the fact there will be a difference between educational policies under socialism and those currently employed in bourgeois society, but since he keeps capitalist relations of production in place in his future communal society he can't quite figure out what those policies will be. Thus he is reduced to coming up with such ideas as "young and old will work in the serious sense of the word" which, along with other empty phrases, Engels calls "spineless and meaningless ranting."
Engels counterpoises a brief comment on socialist education from volume one of Das Kapital where Marx says that "from the Factory system budded, as Robert Owen has shown in detail, the germ of the education of the future, an education that will, in the case of every child over a given age, combine productive labour with instruction and gymnastics, not only as one of the methods of adding to the efficiency of production, but as the only method of producing fully developed human beings." Our own educational system, which produces drop outs and graduates functional illiterates, is American capitalism's answer to what education will be in the future.
Finally, after we find out how children will be educated in Dühring's future society, we find out how they are to come into the world. Dühring, no doubt inspired by Plato's Republic, tells us that future humans must be "sought in sexual union and selection, and furthermore in the care taken for or against the ensuring of certain results." We are here on the road to Dühringean eugenics. The most important thing to keep in mind about the future births is not the number but "whether nature or human circumspection succeeded or failed in regard to their quality." This leads Dühring to conclude that "It is obviously an advantage to prevent the birth of a human being who would only be a defective creature."
Modern scientific sentiment would not reject this conclusion out of hand, regardless of the feelings of those blinded by religious prejudices or logically challenged. It all depends on the kinds of defects that are presented. Dühring is thinking, however, along lines made popular by Nietzsche, of some sort of super human race compared to the run of the mill humans that unaided Nature tends to produce.
Dühring believes in a human right which may be important, but is not generally appealed to these days, for the purposes of eugenics, i.e., "the right of the unborn world to the best possible composition" [biologically-- tr]. "Conception," he says, "and, if need be, also birth [infanticide- tr] offer the opportunity , or in exceptional cases selective, care in this connection." Dühring is not just talking about medical defects-- but also "aesthetic" defects.
He thinks. in fact, that people should be bred to look like the ancient Greeks! "Grecian art -- the idealization of man in marble [not "European" man but "man"]-- will not be able to retain its historical importance when the less artistic, and therefore from the standpoint of the fate of the millions, far more important task of perfecting the human form in flesh and blood is taken in hand." OK, so we won't all look like Antinous or the Venus de Milo but that goal will be a work in progress for the future Dühringean society.
How does Dühring bring about the this perfection of the human [ancient Greeks-- Dühring had no use for modern Greeks] form? Well, he says force would be harmful but it will come about as a natural result of the mating of beautiful people-- sort of by an "invisible hand" (but in this case a different anatomical feature will be at work). Here is Dühring's quote: [From the] "higher, genuinely human motives of wholesome sexual unions … the humanly ennobled form of sexual excitement , which in its intense manifestations is PASSIONATE LOVE, when reciprocated is the best guarantee of a union which will be acceptable also in its result…. It is only an effect of the second order that from a relation which in itself is harmonious a symphoniously composed product should result."
Engels thinks Dühring's views on sex are "twaddle." This is because force would have to be used to make sure all unions were "wholesome" by Dühring's standards. In the real world it is not just the beautiful people who fall in love and have children (symphoniously composed products) but all kinds of people so "the second order" effects of love making would be the same in the future communal state of Herr Dühring as they are now. [He could however try for a rigged lottery a la Plato's Republic to match up the "best" people and only allow those with baby licenses to reproduce. This would lead to more problems than the Chinese have had with the one child policy-- which was successful in limiting population numbers but a failure from the point of view of creating balanced population growth.]
Engels also critiques Dühring's "noble ideas about the female sex in general"[prostitution is a normal activity due to the constraints of bourgeois marriage]-- but both Dühring's ideas and Engel's response are too shaped by nineteenth century conditions to be applicable to twenty-first century advanced industrial societies so I will pass this topic by and come to the conclusion of Anti-Dühring.
After having gone over all the major views that Dühring had presented in a series of writings over the years, and refuting them by giving a proper Marxist response to his mixed up theoretical constructions, Engels sums up Dühring's oeuvre as being the product of MENTAL INCOMPETENCE DUE TO MEGALOMANIA.
Postscript: Eugen Dühring survived Engel's critique and wrote more books and articles. In the 1880's he began turning out anti-Semitic writings some of which led Theodor Hertzel to conclude that the Jews needed their own state. Frederick Nietzsche's rantings against socialism were the result of his having read Dühring's works not those of Marx and Engels (although I doubt it would have made any difference). Of his many books only one has been translated into English-- his anti-Semitic tract on the Jewish question was published in 1997 as "Eugen Dühring on the Jews" by 1984 Press. Dühring died in 1921 thus being deprived of seeing the fruits of his anti-Semitic labors. These and other interesting facts about Dühring are to be found in the Wikipedia article "Eugen Dühring." These articles on Engels' book Anti-Dühring have been published serially over the past two years in Political Affairs (and some have also appeared in Counter Currents, Dissident Voice, NYC indymedia and other internet venues) and the complete set can be found published together on my blog (Thomas Riggins Blog) as well as at the blog Philosophy and Marxism Today as "Engels' Anti-Dühring: A Twenty-First Century Commentary."
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
The Rising Medical Debt Crisis by Thomas Riggins
This past month has seen nation wide demonstrations and protests about the impossible to pay off trillion dollar student debt that has been foisted upon the youth of this country by banks and lending institutions and other manifestations of the corporate institutions controlled by the 99%. But education is not the only sphere in which monopoly capitalism puts its profits before the welfare of the American people. Another area in which the people are mercilessly plundered for corporate profit is medical care. Recently ScienceDaily published an article discussing the rising medical debt in the state of California, which can be taken as typical for other states as well ("Medical Debt Keeps Rising, New Report Shows" SD Feb. 6, 2012).
The report, from UCLA, reveals that hundreds of thousands of laid off and discharged workers have lost their health insurance as a result of the current depression (AKA "The Great Recession") and as a result the amount of medical debt in California made an alarming jump. The report reveals 18.4% of workers uninsured for a year were in debt, 23.2% uninsured for part of the year were in debt and 9.1% of those who had insurance due to employment were also in debt.
Obviously, even having insurance through your job doesn't mean you will be taken care of. Shana Alex Lavarreda, the lead author of this study, was quoted as saying, "No Californian should have to take on debt to pay medical bills or go without access to health care just because they lost their job. As this recession has so clearly shown us, linking health care to a volatile job market puts us all at risk." Of course it's more than Californians that are at risk-- it's everyone in the US and around the world who should have debt free access to medical care-- one of the major demands of the socialist and worker's movements and of all progressive democratic people.
This brings us to the Affordable Care Act. Dr. Robert K. Ross the president (and CEO) of the California Endowment, one of the foundations funding the study, said, This data clearly indicates the need for successful implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The rate of uninsured Americans increases annually, and the burden that presents to our care system is economically unsustainable. Health care reform will ensure that many millions of Californians [et al-- tr] need not fear a potential health catastrophe just because of an economic downturn."
This is, as we all know, an election year and medical care for the American people and an extension of insurance to millions of the uninsured, should be of prime concern. Yet the Republican Party, in the face of scientific evidence of the necessity of implementing (and indeed enlarging the scope of) the Affordable Care Act, disparagingly attacks it as "Obama Care" (it is definitely an honor to Obama to have his name linked to an attempt to help millions of Americans get medical care) and want to see this act overthrown or repealed. This is an incredible position for the Republican Party to take and can only be explained by its complete subservience to the corporate interests of the 1%. The Republicans should be rebuked decisively at the polls for this sell out of the American people.
The report reveals startling figures to back up this assessment. The number of those without insurance living in families considered poor (having incomes under 100% of the federal poverty level) grew to 33.1% in 2009 (from 29% in 2007) and 44.8% of uninsured children and 49.9 % of uninsured adults reported not seeing a medical person in the past year (for those with insurance the figures were 8.3% and 13.4 % respectively). The means, as SD puts it, "Lack of insurance equals lack of care."
Looking at these figures led Diana M. Bontá, president (and CEO) of The California Wellness Foundation (another funder of the study) to comment that, "This report provides yet more evidence of the need for change of our current system of health care and also of the devastating effect California's budget crisis has had on the programs that support our state's most vulnerable residents." There are many other states besides California facing this crisis. The crisis could be even worse than described here (with figures from 2009) since COBRA has expired (the federal program that helped workers who lost their jobs keep the insurance from their employment).
The report, from UCLA, reveals that hundreds of thousands of laid off and discharged workers have lost their health insurance as a result of the current depression (AKA "The Great Recession") and as a result the amount of medical debt in California made an alarming jump. The report reveals 18.4% of workers uninsured for a year were in debt, 23.2% uninsured for part of the year were in debt and 9.1% of those who had insurance due to employment were also in debt.
Obviously, even having insurance through your job doesn't mean you will be taken care of. Shana Alex Lavarreda, the lead author of this study, was quoted as saying, "No Californian should have to take on debt to pay medical bills or go without access to health care just because they lost their job. As this recession has so clearly shown us, linking health care to a volatile job market puts us all at risk." Of course it's more than Californians that are at risk-- it's everyone in the US and around the world who should have debt free access to medical care-- one of the major demands of the socialist and worker's movements and of all progressive democratic people.
This brings us to the Affordable Care Act. Dr. Robert K. Ross the president (and CEO) of the California Endowment, one of the foundations funding the study, said, This data clearly indicates the need for successful implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The rate of uninsured Americans increases annually, and the burden that presents to our care system is economically unsustainable. Health care reform will ensure that many millions of Californians [et al-- tr] need not fear a potential health catastrophe just because of an economic downturn."
This is, as we all know, an election year and medical care for the American people and an extension of insurance to millions of the uninsured, should be of prime concern. Yet the Republican Party, in the face of scientific evidence of the necessity of implementing (and indeed enlarging the scope of) the Affordable Care Act, disparagingly attacks it as "Obama Care" (it is definitely an honor to Obama to have his name linked to an attempt to help millions of Americans get medical care) and want to see this act overthrown or repealed. This is an incredible position for the Republican Party to take and can only be explained by its complete subservience to the corporate interests of the 1%. The Republicans should be rebuked decisively at the polls for this sell out of the American people.
The report reveals startling figures to back up this assessment. The number of those without insurance living in families considered poor (having incomes under 100% of the federal poverty level) grew to 33.1% in 2009 (from 29% in 2007) and 44.8% of uninsured children and 49.9 % of uninsured adults reported not seeing a medical person in the past year (for those with insurance the figures were 8.3% and 13.4 % respectively). The means, as SD puts it, "Lack of insurance equals lack of care."
Looking at these figures led Diana M. Bontá, president (and CEO) of The California Wellness Foundation (another funder of the study) to comment that, "This report provides yet more evidence of the need for change of our current system of health care and also of the devastating effect California's budget crisis has had on the programs that support our state's most vulnerable residents." There are many other states besides California facing this crisis. The crisis could be even worse than described here (with figures from 2009) since COBRA has expired (the federal program that helped workers who lost their jobs keep the insurance from their employment).
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Fast Food Blues
Thomas Riggins
Not only is fast food bad for your physical health but there is mounting scientific evidence that your mental health also suffers from all those hotdogs, hamburgers and pizza slices-- as well as eating baked goods you buy (doughnuts and croissants, etc.) In fact regular consumers of such fast foods are at 51% higher risk for depression than people who avoid them or only eat them occasionally according to a recent article in ScienceDaily ["Link Between Fast Food and Depression Confirmed"- SD March 30, 2012].
This information comes from the journal of Public Health Nutrition in a study carried out by Spanish scientists from the universities of Granada and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The lead author, Almudena Sánchez-Villegas, said there was a direct relationship between fast food and depression "the more fast food you consume, the greater the risk of depression."
There was a profile revealed regarding the kinds of people who eat a lot of fast food. The fast foodie is mostly a sedentary single person with poor eating habits mostly skipping their veggies and not eating much fish,a lot of nuts, fruit or olive oil. They also tend to smoke and work more than 45 hours a week.
Commercially baked goods are also implicated as the study states that "Even eating small quantities is linked to a significantly higher chance of developing depression."
The study followed 8,684 people for six months (they were not taking anti-depressants and had no diagnosis of depression) but after eating the above described junk food 493 of the people ended up depressed and medicated. This study backs up an earlier one that uncovered 657 newly depressed people out of 12,059 who had been followed for six months (a 42% risk as opposed to the 51% found in the new study.)
Sánchez-Villegas says "although more studies are necessary, the intake of this type of food should be controlled because of its implications on both health (obesity, cardiovascular diseases) and mental well-being."
With 121 million in the world suffering from depression that condition becomes one of the major causes of human disability (and in countries with low and medium incomes it the major cause says SD). The now famous Mediterranean diet as well as taking your B vitamins and getting a lot of omega-3 fatty acids as well as olive oil seems to make it less risky that depression will occur.
What should be done? Definitely, if the above results are sound, at a minimum junk foods should come with warning labels and they should not be served in school lunch programs, programs for seniors, or any government sponsored food programs. Adverts aimed at children should be banned and public awareness programs should be increased including public service announcements in the mass media as is being done with respect to smoking.
There is, however, one qualm I have with this SD report. That is the inclusion of smokers in the profile. Smoking in and of itself is an independent risk factor for developing depression. The case against junk food would be on firmer ground if future studies excluded smokers from the study groups.
Not only is fast food bad for your physical health but there is mounting scientific evidence that your mental health also suffers from all those hotdogs, hamburgers and pizza slices-- as well as eating baked goods you buy (doughnuts and croissants, etc.) In fact regular consumers of such fast foods are at 51% higher risk for depression than people who avoid them or only eat them occasionally according to a recent article in ScienceDaily ["Link Between Fast Food and Depression Confirmed"- SD March 30, 2012].
This information comes from the journal of Public Health Nutrition in a study carried out by Spanish scientists from the universities of Granada and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The lead author, Almudena Sánchez-Villegas, said there was a direct relationship between fast food and depression "the more fast food you consume, the greater the risk of depression."
There was a profile revealed regarding the kinds of people who eat a lot of fast food. The fast foodie is mostly a sedentary single person with poor eating habits mostly skipping their veggies and not eating much fish,a lot of nuts, fruit or olive oil. They also tend to smoke and work more than 45 hours a week.
Commercially baked goods are also implicated as the study states that "Even eating small quantities is linked to a significantly higher chance of developing depression."
The study followed 8,684 people for six months (they were not taking anti-depressants and had no diagnosis of depression) but after eating the above described junk food 493 of the people ended up depressed and medicated. This study backs up an earlier one that uncovered 657 newly depressed people out of 12,059 who had been followed for six months (a 42% risk as opposed to the 51% found in the new study.)
Sánchez-Villegas says "although more studies are necessary, the intake of this type of food should be controlled because of its implications on both health (obesity, cardiovascular diseases) and mental well-being."
With 121 million in the world suffering from depression that condition becomes one of the major causes of human disability (and in countries with low and medium incomes it the major cause says SD). The now famous Mediterranean diet as well as taking your B vitamins and getting a lot of omega-3 fatty acids as well as olive oil seems to make it less risky that depression will occur.
What should be done? Definitely, if the above results are sound, at a minimum junk foods should come with warning labels and they should not be served in school lunch programs, programs for seniors, or any government sponsored food programs. Adverts aimed at children should be banned and public awareness programs should be increased including public service announcements in the mass media as is being done with respect to smoking.
There is, however, one qualm I have with this SD report. That is the inclusion of smokers in the profile. Smoking in and of itself is an independent risk factor for developing depression. The case against junk food would be on firmer ground if future studies excluded smokers from the study groups.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Meat, Money, and Marxism: More Bad News About Red Meat
Thomas Riggins
We have known for some time that having too much red meat in our diets has negative health consequences with respect to cancer and heart conditions. We also know that the meat industry goes out of the way to play down these risks as it is motivated by profits and not public health. As Marxists we also know that the only really effective way to protect the public from the negative consequences of the red meat diet is to demand that the government regulate and educate and that we must work towards expanding democratic control of the economy in order to achieve these ends.
New scientific evidence, recently released by the Harvard School of Public Health,
definitely shows that eating red meat increases mortality from both cancer and cardiovascular problems. The results of the Harvard study have been reported in ScienceDaily for 3-12-2012: "Red Meat Consumption Linked to Increased Risk of Total, Cardiovascular, and Cancer Mortality."
This report also has some good news, which is that we can all lower our risks for these health problems by replacing red meat with nuts, legumes, fish and poultry (and of course a vegetarian diet would dramatically reduce these risks.)
An Pan, the main author of the report, is quoted as saying: "Our study adds more evidence to the health risks of eating high amounts of red meat, which has been associated with type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers in other studies." The study followed thousands of people over two decades correlating their diets with disease incidents. The researchers found that eating processed red meat daily (e.g., two strips of bacon or a hot dog) increased your risk 20% (a daily serving of unprocessed red meat upped you risk 13%.) Cured red meat was thus 7% more deadly than uncured.
The report also found that those who replaced the red meat serving with fish, poultry, nuts, low fat dairy or legumes had a significant reduction in their risks of death. This led Frank Hu, a nutrition specialist and co-author of the report, to say, "This study provides clear evidence that regular consumption of red meat, especially processed meat, contributes substantially to premature death. On the other hand, choosing more healthful sources of protein in place of red meat can confer significant health benefits by reducing chronic disease morbidity and mortality."
So there it is. Limit red meat consumption in the interests of public health, and especially the health of children. Processed red meats as well as red meat in general should be regulated and reduced in school lunch programs (remember the Republicans in Congress want to classify pizza as a vegetable-- which shows the influence of the junk food industry) and in all other government food programs. The government should also undertake the making of public service announcements re healthy eating by the reduction of red meat.
The new USDA "food plate" simply has "protein" as one of its recommendations but no further recommendations such as less beef and more fish or other red meat substitutes. Beef should not be given equal time with chicken! In any event progressive politics goes hand in hand with progressive health advocacy and we can hope people will heed the warnings of science.
We have known for some time that having too much red meat in our diets has negative health consequences with respect to cancer and heart conditions. We also know that the meat industry goes out of the way to play down these risks as it is motivated by profits and not public health. As Marxists we also know that the only really effective way to protect the public from the negative consequences of the red meat diet is to demand that the government regulate and educate and that we must work towards expanding democratic control of the economy in order to achieve these ends.
New scientific evidence, recently released by the Harvard School of Public Health,
definitely shows that eating red meat increases mortality from both cancer and cardiovascular problems. The results of the Harvard study have been reported in ScienceDaily for 3-12-2012: "Red Meat Consumption Linked to Increased Risk of Total, Cardiovascular, and Cancer Mortality."
This report also has some good news, which is that we can all lower our risks for these health problems by replacing red meat with nuts, legumes, fish and poultry (and of course a vegetarian diet would dramatically reduce these risks.)
An Pan, the main author of the report, is quoted as saying: "Our study adds more evidence to the health risks of eating high amounts of red meat, which has been associated with type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers in other studies." The study followed thousands of people over two decades correlating their diets with disease incidents. The researchers found that eating processed red meat daily (e.g., two strips of bacon or a hot dog) increased your risk 20% (a daily serving of unprocessed red meat upped you risk 13%.) Cured red meat was thus 7% more deadly than uncured.
The report also found that those who replaced the red meat serving with fish, poultry, nuts, low fat dairy or legumes had a significant reduction in their risks of death. This led Frank Hu, a nutrition specialist and co-author of the report, to say, "This study provides clear evidence that regular consumption of red meat, especially processed meat, contributes substantially to premature death. On the other hand, choosing more healthful sources of protein in place of red meat can confer significant health benefits by reducing chronic disease morbidity and mortality."
So there it is. Limit red meat consumption in the interests of public health, and especially the health of children. Processed red meats as well as red meat in general should be regulated and reduced in school lunch programs (remember the Republicans in Congress want to classify pizza as a vegetable-- which shows the influence of the junk food industry) and in all other government food programs. The government should also undertake the making of public service announcements re healthy eating by the reduction of red meat.
The new USDA "food plate" simply has "protein" as one of its recommendations but no further recommendations such as less beef and more fish or other red meat substitutes. Beef should not be given equal time with chicken! In any event progressive politics goes hand in hand with progressive health advocacy and we can hope people will heed the warnings of science.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Frederick Engels on Dühringian vs. Marxian Socialism: Distribution
Thomas Riggins
In this penultimate chapter of Anti-Dühring Engels takes on Dühring's notions of how the social product will be distributed under his "socialitarian" system: Anti-Dühring, Part Three, Chapter IV. The first thing to recall from the previous discussion on "production" is that Dühring finds nothing wrong with the mode of production under capitalism and the system of communes under which he organizes society will keep this mode of operation. The real evil to be overcome is in the mode of distribution. Little did Engels foresee that future "socialists" from the Marxist tradition would be playing around with such concepts for years to come (which he called "social alchemizing") under the rubric of "market socialism."
Dühring treats distribution independently of production. Once the social product has been produced, and this is accomplished by the necessary operative laws of capitalist production, the product can be distributed by an act of will so that "universal justice" is done. This can be done because in the commune everyone must labor and consume based on all forms of labor being considered as of equal value. This system will obtain both within the commune and between the communes. Furthermore, exchange value will be linked to the value of the precious metals. This system will be an improvement over the "foggy notions" of thinkers such as Marx.
Let's see just how this "universal justice" actually is brought about. Following Engels, lets take a model commune of 100 workers working an eight hour day and making $100 worth of commodities each or a total of $10,000 worth of goodies. Say they work 250 days a year for a yearly product of $2,500,000. According to Dühring's system "universal justice" requires that each worker get paid the exact value of his labor which would be 250 times $100 or $25,000 a year. The commune pays out the entire value that it creates so, as Engels says, at the end of a year, or a hundred years, "the commune is no richer than at the beginning." There is no accumulation possible in this system. Individuals can accumulate wealth for a worker can always deprive himself and not spend all of his money in a given time period, but society cannot accumulate wealth for any economic expansion or to carry out any kind of social programs.
This is not the only problem with Dühring's commune. The fact that workers are all paid the same means a single worker will actually have more income for savings than a worker with a large family to take care of. Rich and poor will gradually reappear and eventually all the problems of a capitalist society. This tendency cannot be stopped by rules and regulations as Dühring's "universal justice" demands that the workers can dispose of their wages as they wish. And as money is the "social incarnation" of human labor and operates by the laws of capitalist economics in the commune as well as the surrounding world, all of Dühring's regulations to control it "are just as powerless against it as they are against the multiplication table or the chemical composition of water."
Dühring's system breaks down because he, not Marx and other socialists, is under the control of "foggy notions." Dühring just doesn't understand the basic operating conditions of the capitalist system. He wasn't the only one in Engel's day who claimed to be able to explain economics without really understanding what was going on-- the phenomenon is just as rampant today in the 21st century as it was in the 19th. Therefore at this point in his polemic against Dühring, Engels takes a timeout to give his readers a brief summary of Economics 101.
The capitalist economy is based on commodity production and the only value recognized by capitalism is the value of commodities, according to Engels. To say that any given commodity has a value is to say four things about it. 1. That it has a use value-- it serves some socially useful function. 2. That it has been privately produced [this is a simple model of capitalism, not a mixed economy or state capitalism]. 3. It is a product of individual labor but "unconsciously and involuntarily" it also is a social product containing human labor in general which is measured through exchange. 4. The value of the social labor contained in it is measured by some other commodity. Engels gives the example a clock having the same value as a certain quantity of cloth-- say "fifty shillings."
This only means that it took the same amount of socially necessary labor time to make the clock as to make the cloth. Since we don't live in a barter society a special commodity has developed which is used to measure the relative values of all the other commodities to each other-- this is money.
The term "relative" value is important. We cannot determine the "absolute value" of every commodity-- i.e., calculate the exact value of the labor power used to create it. This is because of the complexity of the capitalist system and the variations of the cost of labor and labor time from factory to factory and location to location. All these different factors average out over time and commodities begin to reflect their relative values, the relative rate of socially necessary labor time needed to create them, by having their worth expressed in terms of money. Prices are reflections of relative value not absolute value and can fluctuate wildly around the actual value of commodities-- but over time they come to reflect the actual values that underlie them but in a relative manner.
Engels gives an analogy from the chemistry of his day. He says that the absolute atomic weights of the elements were unknown so scientists used hydrogen as 1 and expressed the relative atomic weights of the other elements as multiples of hydrogen. This is analogous to elevating "gold [or whatever is used as money] to the level of the absolute commodity, the general equivalent of all other commodities" and using it to measure the relative value of human (social) labor contained in them.
The term "social labor" is important to understand. It is not raw individual labor that determines the value of a commodity. It is rather the amount of labor that in a given society is necessary to produce different commodities that gives them their values-- the socially necessary labor time. At least this is "value" as expressed in a capitalist society. In a communist society "value" will not be so expressed. A communist society will have a planned economy and workers will know the value of the labor power they will devote to the production of the products needed by society. "Money" will not be necessary to measure this value. Engels notes that "all that would be left, in a communist society, of the politico-economic concept of value" is the knowledge by the workers/planners "of the useful effects and expenditure of labour on making decisions concerning production."
The notion of "value" is the hallmark of a commodity based economy and, Engels says, it "contains the germ, not only of money, but also of all the more developed forms of the production and exchange of commodities." The fact that this exchange takes place by means of money, and considering the complexity of production (i.e., that in some fields more or less of the socially necessary labor may be involved) "admits of the possibility that the exchange may never take place altogether, or at least may not realize the correct value." This is especially true of the commodity labor-power which, as with all commodities, has its value determined by the socially necessary labor time it takes to produce it and can also be forced into service for longer periods of time than is socially necessary for its reproduction.
Once money has been invented within a primarily commodity producing society we will see its "first and most essential effect" which is the commodification of all aspects of society in which soon all social relations begin to be converted into money relations based on individual private interests. Engels mentions the dissolution of the common tillage system among Indian peasants and the same amongst the Russian peasants and their village communes. Inspired by Marx we might say "Privatize, Privatize, that is the Gospel and the Church!"
Now back to Dühring and his ilk. We cannot meaningfully talk about the "value of labor" and how to see that the worker gets his "full value" as Dühring does in discussing his system of communes. When you measure the value of commodities by the labor they contain you cannot then talk about the value of labor in the same way. Engels says it is the same with weight. We can measure the heaviness of commodities by their weight but we cannot talk about the heaviness of weight. What Dühring and others do is try to measure the "value" of labor by the products it makes (it should actually be measured by time) and then they think the function of socialism is to see to it that "the full proceeds of labour" are given to the workman. But this means the whole value of what the working class creates is returned to the workers in terms of each individual getting back all the value he has created.
This will of course leave nothing for the capitalists. What it overlooks is that "the most progressive function of society" is accumulation. This is why Marxists, by the way, tout the General Consumption Fund (GCF). The individual workers do not get back 100% of the value they have created. The "state" or whatever social arrangement that replaces it, takes a portion of the created value and puts into the GCF which then disperses it to society as a whole (rent and food subsidies, medical care, education, maintenance and replacement of machinery, etc.) The working class does get back the value it creates but collectively as well as individually. The Dühringean system would stagnate and fall apart-- it is economic nonsense.
Finally, Engels points out that the law of value is "the fundamental law" of commodity production and so of capitalism "the highest form" of commodity production. The law of value dictates that commodities created by equal social labor are equal to each other-- i.e., mutually exchangeable. In our day, as in Engels', the only way this law can operate under capitalism is "as a blindly operating law of nature inherent in things and relations and independent of the will or actions of the producers."
It is just this law that Dühring is appealing to when he dreams of creating communes where equal labor is exchanged for equal labor based on his "universal principle of justice." He thinks it possible to keep capitalist economic relations but to abolish the abuses that such relations lead to. In this he completely resembles Proudhon who also wanted to "abolish the real consequences of the law of value by means of fantastic ones."
Engels ends his chapter by comparing Dühring's search for a new society based on his notions of just distributions to Don Quixote's search for Mambrino's helmet which turns up only the old barber's basin.
In this penultimate chapter of Anti-Dühring Engels takes on Dühring's notions of how the social product will be distributed under his "socialitarian" system: Anti-Dühring, Part Three, Chapter IV. The first thing to recall from the previous discussion on "production" is that Dühring finds nothing wrong with the mode of production under capitalism and the system of communes under which he organizes society will keep this mode of operation. The real evil to be overcome is in the mode of distribution. Little did Engels foresee that future "socialists" from the Marxist tradition would be playing around with such concepts for years to come (which he called "social alchemizing") under the rubric of "market socialism."
Dühring treats distribution independently of production. Once the social product has been produced, and this is accomplished by the necessary operative laws of capitalist production, the product can be distributed by an act of will so that "universal justice" is done. This can be done because in the commune everyone must labor and consume based on all forms of labor being considered as of equal value. This system will obtain both within the commune and between the communes. Furthermore, exchange value will be linked to the value of the precious metals. This system will be an improvement over the "foggy notions" of thinkers such as Marx.
Let's see just how this "universal justice" actually is brought about. Following Engels, lets take a model commune of 100 workers working an eight hour day and making $100 worth of commodities each or a total of $10,000 worth of goodies. Say they work 250 days a year for a yearly product of $2,500,000. According to Dühring's system "universal justice" requires that each worker get paid the exact value of his labor which would be 250 times $100 or $25,000 a year. The commune pays out the entire value that it creates so, as Engels says, at the end of a year, or a hundred years, "the commune is no richer than at the beginning." There is no accumulation possible in this system. Individuals can accumulate wealth for a worker can always deprive himself and not spend all of his money in a given time period, but society cannot accumulate wealth for any economic expansion or to carry out any kind of social programs.
This is not the only problem with Dühring's commune. The fact that workers are all paid the same means a single worker will actually have more income for savings than a worker with a large family to take care of. Rich and poor will gradually reappear and eventually all the problems of a capitalist society. This tendency cannot be stopped by rules and regulations as Dühring's "universal justice" demands that the workers can dispose of their wages as they wish. And as money is the "social incarnation" of human labor and operates by the laws of capitalist economics in the commune as well as the surrounding world, all of Dühring's regulations to control it "are just as powerless against it as they are against the multiplication table or the chemical composition of water."
Dühring's system breaks down because he, not Marx and other socialists, is under the control of "foggy notions." Dühring just doesn't understand the basic operating conditions of the capitalist system. He wasn't the only one in Engel's day who claimed to be able to explain economics without really understanding what was going on-- the phenomenon is just as rampant today in the 21st century as it was in the 19th. Therefore at this point in his polemic against Dühring, Engels takes a timeout to give his readers a brief summary of Economics 101.
The capitalist economy is based on commodity production and the only value recognized by capitalism is the value of commodities, according to Engels. To say that any given commodity has a value is to say four things about it. 1. That it has a use value-- it serves some socially useful function. 2. That it has been privately produced [this is a simple model of capitalism, not a mixed economy or state capitalism]. 3. It is a product of individual labor but "unconsciously and involuntarily" it also is a social product containing human labor in general which is measured through exchange. 4. The value of the social labor contained in it is measured by some other commodity. Engels gives the example a clock having the same value as a certain quantity of cloth-- say "fifty shillings."
This only means that it took the same amount of socially necessary labor time to make the clock as to make the cloth. Since we don't live in a barter society a special commodity has developed which is used to measure the relative values of all the other commodities to each other-- this is money.
The term "relative" value is important. We cannot determine the "absolute value" of every commodity-- i.e., calculate the exact value of the labor power used to create it. This is because of the complexity of the capitalist system and the variations of the cost of labor and labor time from factory to factory and location to location. All these different factors average out over time and commodities begin to reflect their relative values, the relative rate of socially necessary labor time needed to create them, by having their worth expressed in terms of money. Prices are reflections of relative value not absolute value and can fluctuate wildly around the actual value of commodities-- but over time they come to reflect the actual values that underlie them but in a relative manner.
Engels gives an analogy from the chemistry of his day. He says that the absolute atomic weights of the elements were unknown so scientists used hydrogen as 1 and expressed the relative atomic weights of the other elements as multiples of hydrogen. This is analogous to elevating "gold [or whatever is used as money] to the level of the absolute commodity, the general equivalent of all other commodities" and using it to measure the relative value of human (social) labor contained in them.
The term "social labor" is important to understand. It is not raw individual labor that determines the value of a commodity. It is rather the amount of labor that in a given society is necessary to produce different commodities that gives them their values-- the socially necessary labor time. At least this is "value" as expressed in a capitalist society. In a communist society "value" will not be so expressed. A communist society will have a planned economy and workers will know the value of the labor power they will devote to the production of the products needed by society. "Money" will not be necessary to measure this value. Engels notes that "all that would be left, in a communist society, of the politico-economic concept of value" is the knowledge by the workers/planners "of the useful effects and expenditure of labour on making decisions concerning production."
The notion of "value" is the hallmark of a commodity based economy and, Engels says, it "contains the germ, not only of money, but also of all the more developed forms of the production and exchange of commodities." The fact that this exchange takes place by means of money, and considering the complexity of production (i.e., that in some fields more or less of the socially necessary labor may be involved) "admits of the possibility that the exchange may never take place altogether, or at least may not realize the correct value." This is especially true of the commodity labor-power which, as with all commodities, has its value determined by the socially necessary labor time it takes to produce it and can also be forced into service for longer periods of time than is socially necessary for its reproduction.
Once money has been invented within a primarily commodity producing society we will see its "first and most essential effect" which is the commodification of all aspects of society in which soon all social relations begin to be converted into money relations based on individual private interests. Engels mentions the dissolution of the common tillage system among Indian peasants and the same amongst the Russian peasants and their village communes. Inspired by Marx we might say "Privatize, Privatize, that is the Gospel and the Church!"
Now back to Dühring and his ilk. We cannot meaningfully talk about the "value of labor" and how to see that the worker gets his "full value" as Dühring does in discussing his system of communes. When you measure the value of commodities by the labor they contain you cannot then talk about the value of labor in the same way. Engels says it is the same with weight. We can measure the heaviness of commodities by their weight but we cannot talk about the heaviness of weight. What Dühring and others do is try to measure the "value" of labor by the products it makes (it should actually be measured by time) and then they think the function of socialism is to see to it that "the full proceeds of labour" are given to the workman. But this means the whole value of what the working class creates is returned to the workers in terms of each individual getting back all the value he has created.
This will of course leave nothing for the capitalists. What it overlooks is that "the most progressive function of society" is accumulation. This is why Marxists, by the way, tout the General Consumption Fund (GCF). The individual workers do not get back 100% of the value they have created. The "state" or whatever social arrangement that replaces it, takes a portion of the created value and puts into the GCF which then disperses it to society as a whole (rent and food subsidies, medical care, education, maintenance and replacement of machinery, etc.) The working class does get back the value it creates but collectively as well as individually. The Dühringean system would stagnate and fall apart-- it is economic nonsense.
Finally, Engels points out that the law of value is "the fundamental law" of commodity production and so of capitalism "the highest form" of commodity production. The law of value dictates that commodities created by equal social labor are equal to each other-- i.e., mutually exchangeable. In our day, as in Engels', the only way this law can operate under capitalism is "as a blindly operating law of nature inherent in things and relations and independent of the will or actions of the producers."
It is just this law that Dühring is appealing to when he dreams of creating communes where equal labor is exchanged for equal labor based on his "universal principle of justice." He thinks it possible to keep capitalist economic relations but to abolish the abuses that such relations lead to. In this he completely resembles Proudhon who also wanted to "abolish the real consequences of the law of value by means of fantastic ones."
Engels ends his chapter by comparing Dühring's search for a new society based on his notions of just distributions to Don Quixote's search for Mambrino's helmet which turns up only the old barber's basin.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Sugar: The Toxic Spoonful
Thomas Riggins
A new scientific study (ScienceDaily 2-1-2012) has concluded that sugar is as much of a threat to human health as tobacco and alcohol. Tony the Tiger may look benign, but he may be a merchant of death. The people who make Sugar Frosted Flakes were on to something when they dropped "Sugar" from the name of their product.
The scientists who conducted the study (at UCSF) are blaming sugar for killing 35 million people a year world wide due to cancer, diabetes and heart disease; in addition to causing "a global obesity pandemic." Of course, it's not sugar per se that is solely responsible. It's the profits before people mentality of the big food and agricultural conglomerates that are pouring sugar down the throats of a trusting public in order to puff up their bottom lines. While they profit, ScienceDaily reports that 75% of health care spending in the U.S. is related to care and cure of people suffering from these sugar related illnesses.
All of these cases cannot be blamed on sugar, but the UCSF scientists think it is "a primary culprit of this worldwide health crisis." Their report points out that too much sugar does more than make you fat-- it brings about metabolic changes that raises blood pressure and causes hormonal changes and liver damage. These are the same kinds of health damages that come about from alcohol (distilled sugar) abuse. They propose that government "regulate" [sort of] the sugar industry. It seems as if the last barrier to the exploitation of the public from private enterprise is the government-- in a real democracy it would be the first.
Robert Lustig, MD, one of the scientists involved in the study said, "As long as the public thinks that sugar is just 'empty calories' we have no chance of solving this"--i.e., the health problems caused by sugar. "There are good calories and bad calories," he continued, "just as there are good fats and bad fats, good amino acids and bad amino acids, good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates. But sugar is toxic beyond its calories."
Claire Brindis, DPH, also involved in the study, said that to limit sugar intake we can't just rely on giving out public information and hope that people will change their behavior. [No faith in "just say NO!"] She thinks the same kind of broadly based public programs that were developed to fight alcohol abuse and tobacco use have to be enlisted.
Another scientist, Laura Schmidt, PhD, stated an obvious, if disheartening, truth, that "There is an enormous gap between what we know from science and what we practice in reality. In order to move the health needle, this issue needs to be recognized as a fundamental concern at the global level."
So, what is to be done? Should the government set limits to the amount of sugar that can be added to food? Should sugary snacks be banned in schools? Capitalists won't like this. And they certainly will howl at some of the suggestions put forth-- such as "levying special sales taxes [NO NEW TAXES], controlling access [Keep the government out of my mouth], tightening licensing requirements on vending machines and snack bars in schools and workplaces [we need less not MORE regulations]."
The conservatives and the right, especially Republicans, won't go for any of these measures. It is just not possible to do any progressive advance, in health of science, as long as these groups command political power in the U.S.; defeating them decisively is the sine qua non for real democratic advance. They won't be mollified by Dr. Schmidt's timid stance: "We're not talking prohibition. We're not advocating a major imposition of the government into people's lives. We're talking about gentle ways to make sugar consumption slightly less convenient, thereby moving people away from the concentrated dose. What we want is to actually increase people's choices by making foods that aren't loaded with sugar comparatively easier and cheaper to get."
A pandemic killing 35,000,000 people a year and the suggestion is "to make sugar consumption slightly less convenient." And why don't we fight malaria by making it slightly less convenient for the mosquitos to suck human blood, maybe they will choose to bite something else.
A new scientific study (ScienceDaily 2-1-2012) has concluded that sugar is as much of a threat to human health as tobacco and alcohol. Tony the Tiger may look benign, but he may be a merchant of death. The people who make Sugar Frosted Flakes were on to something when they dropped "Sugar" from the name of their product.
The scientists who conducted the study (at UCSF) are blaming sugar for killing 35 million people a year world wide due to cancer, diabetes and heart disease; in addition to causing "a global obesity pandemic." Of course, it's not sugar per se that is solely responsible. It's the profits before people mentality of the big food and agricultural conglomerates that are pouring sugar down the throats of a trusting public in order to puff up their bottom lines. While they profit, ScienceDaily reports that 75% of health care spending in the U.S. is related to care and cure of people suffering from these sugar related illnesses.
All of these cases cannot be blamed on sugar, but the UCSF scientists think it is "a primary culprit of this worldwide health crisis." Their report points out that too much sugar does more than make you fat-- it brings about metabolic changes that raises blood pressure and causes hormonal changes and liver damage. These are the same kinds of health damages that come about from alcohol (distilled sugar) abuse. They propose that government "regulate" [sort of] the sugar industry. It seems as if the last barrier to the exploitation of the public from private enterprise is the government-- in a real democracy it would be the first.
Robert Lustig, MD, one of the scientists involved in the study said, "As long as the public thinks that sugar is just 'empty calories' we have no chance of solving this"--i.e., the health problems caused by sugar. "There are good calories and bad calories," he continued, "just as there are good fats and bad fats, good amino acids and bad amino acids, good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates. But sugar is toxic beyond its calories."
Claire Brindis, DPH, also involved in the study, said that to limit sugar intake we can't just rely on giving out public information and hope that people will change their behavior. [No faith in "just say NO!"] She thinks the same kind of broadly based public programs that were developed to fight alcohol abuse and tobacco use have to be enlisted.
Another scientist, Laura Schmidt, PhD, stated an obvious, if disheartening, truth, that "There is an enormous gap between what we know from science and what we practice in reality. In order to move the health needle, this issue needs to be recognized as a fundamental concern at the global level."
So, what is to be done? Should the government set limits to the amount of sugar that can be added to food? Should sugary snacks be banned in schools? Capitalists won't like this. And they certainly will howl at some of the suggestions put forth-- such as "levying special sales taxes [NO NEW TAXES], controlling access [Keep the government out of my mouth], tightening licensing requirements on vending machines and snack bars in schools and workplaces [we need less not MORE regulations]."
The conservatives and the right, especially Republicans, won't go for any of these measures. It is just not possible to do any progressive advance, in health of science, as long as these groups command political power in the U.S.; defeating them decisively is the sine qua non for real democratic advance. They won't be mollified by Dr. Schmidt's timid stance: "We're not talking prohibition. We're not advocating a major imposition of the government into people's lives. We're talking about gentle ways to make sugar consumption slightly less convenient, thereby moving people away from the concentrated dose. What we want is to actually increase people's choices by making foods that aren't loaded with sugar comparatively easier and cheaper to get."
A pandemic killing 35,000,000 people a year and the suggestion is "to make sugar consumption slightly less convenient." And why don't we fight malaria by making it slightly less convenient for the mosquitos to suck human blood, maybe they will choose to bite something else.
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
School Class Size and Student Success
Thomas Riggins
Almost everyone believes that students do better in smaller classes than in large ones. Overcrowded classes can, in fact, be detrimental to students well after they have left school. About the only ones who disagree are budget cutting politicians and their allies who want to increase class size as a way to reduce money on education by over working teachers and under funding school construction.
Here is an example of this mind set from New York City, far from a conservative stronghold. Major Michael Bloomberg was quoted a few years ago (2007) in the New York Times making the following observation:
“If you’re going to spend an extra dollar, personally, I would always rather spend it on the people that deliver the service. It’s the teacher looking a child in the eye, and teachers can look lots of children in the eye. If you have to have smaller class size or better teachers, go with the better teachers every time.” How many children can you look in the eye at once? This is where those eyes in the back of the head come into play no doubt.
The class size issue is better given a scientific consideration than a political one. So, this article is based on the following report ("Smaller School Classes Leads to Better Student Outcomes and Higher Wages" from the March 6, 2012 online edition of ScienceDaily.
The Swedish Institute for Evaluation of Labor Market and Education Policy (IFAU) has reported that society as a whole benefits when students are educated in small classes and that, based on the analysis of elementary students (grades 4,5,and 6) who were followed into adulthood large classes resulted in poorer grades in higher education and lower wages in adulthood while just the opposite characteristics describe the students from smaller classes.
Past studies, mostly in the United States, did not clearly show any long term benefits from small classes but did reveal that, in the short term, students tended to learn more. The Swedish study covered about 31,000 students from 1967,72, 77, and 82. Their grades, self esteem, and educational accomplishments were followed and, from ages 27 to 42, their incomes. It was revealed that students from smaller classes, classes where the number was cut by 5 students, had incomes greater than 3% higher than those from uncut classes. Not only that, but the students from the smaller classes felt better about themselves and were more motivated to go on to higher education.
One of the researchers, Björn Öckert, said: "The effects on earning power are sufficiently large for the surplus to outweigh the direct costs of having smaller classes. This means that society recoups the costs of small classes. School resources play a role not only for student achievement, which previous research has shown, but also for how things turn out later in life." Something for Mayor Bloomberg, and other politicos, to consider as class sizes in New York City and elsewhere move up from 25 to 30.
Almost everyone believes that students do better in smaller classes than in large ones. Overcrowded classes can, in fact, be detrimental to students well after they have left school. About the only ones who disagree are budget cutting politicians and their allies who want to increase class size as a way to reduce money on education by over working teachers and under funding school construction.
Here is an example of this mind set from New York City, far from a conservative stronghold. Major Michael Bloomberg was quoted a few years ago (2007) in the New York Times making the following observation:
“If you’re going to spend an extra dollar, personally, I would always rather spend it on the people that deliver the service. It’s the teacher looking a child in the eye, and teachers can look lots of children in the eye. If you have to have smaller class size or better teachers, go with the better teachers every time.” How many children can you look in the eye at once? This is where those eyes in the back of the head come into play no doubt.
The class size issue is better given a scientific consideration than a political one. So, this article is based on the following report ("Smaller School Classes Leads to Better Student Outcomes and Higher Wages" from the March 6, 2012 online edition of ScienceDaily.
The Swedish Institute for Evaluation of Labor Market and Education Policy (IFAU) has reported that society as a whole benefits when students are educated in small classes and that, based on the analysis of elementary students (grades 4,5,and 6) who were followed into adulthood large classes resulted in poorer grades in higher education and lower wages in adulthood while just the opposite characteristics describe the students from smaller classes.
Past studies, mostly in the United States, did not clearly show any long term benefits from small classes but did reveal that, in the short term, students tended to learn more. The Swedish study covered about 31,000 students from 1967,72, 77, and 82. Their grades, self esteem, and educational accomplishments were followed and, from ages 27 to 42, their incomes. It was revealed that students from smaller classes, classes where the number was cut by 5 students, had incomes greater than 3% higher than those from uncut classes. Not only that, but the students from the smaller classes felt better about themselves and were more motivated to go on to higher education.
One of the researchers, Björn Öckert, said: "The effects on earning power are sufficiently large for the surplus to outweigh the direct costs of having smaller classes. This means that society recoups the costs of small classes. School resources play a role not only for student achievement, which previous research has shown, but also for how things turn out later in life." Something for Mayor Bloomberg, and other politicos, to consider as class sizes in New York City and elsewhere move up from 25 to 30.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Republicans and the Corporate Attack on Science
Thomas Riggins
Last month the AAAS [American Association for the Advancement of Science] the premier science organization in the U.S. and publisher of Science magazine held its annual conference, this year in Vancouver. Over 8000 scientists attended what has become the largest organization of scientists in the world.
This annual meeting, however, was unusual. Robin McKie, science editor of the Observer (part of The Guardian, U.K.) covered the meeting and reported that the out going president of the AAAS, Nina Fedoroff , broke with the usual tradition of shying away from political controversy that is customary for high ranking scientific spokespersons in the scientific world.
Dr. Fedoroff told her colleagues, according to McKie, that she was "scared to death" at the continuing attacks on science throughout the West and in the U.S. Dr. Fedoroff said, "We are sliding back into a dark era and there is little we can do about it. I am profoundly depressed at just how difficult it has become merely to get a realistic conversation started on issues such as climate change or genetically modified organisms."
Fedoroff and other scientists are positively amazed at the hostility towards scientific methods and scientific proposals put forth to solve many of the problems facing the world today. Not only do powerful corporations and the (mostly) Republican politicians they control brush aside scientific evidence regarding climate change, endangered species, health issues, food safety, etc., etc., whenever this evidence conflicts with the profit motive that inspires and motivates them, but they also have begun to personally attack individual scientists and scientific institutions trying to damage their reputations or to have them defunded.
Fedoroff understands that President Obama, at least, is not against science. "The trouble is," she says, "that he still hasn't been able to do anything to help. He is continually blocked by Congress, and that only adds to our worries and sense of desperation. If the current president is for us, but still cannot do anything to help us, then what will happen if a Republican gets into the White House this year?" Actually that would not happen until Jan. 20th of next year-- but the point is well made. Fedoroff has learned a lot, it seems, since she was appointed to high scientific office by George W. Bush and then served as science advisor to Condoleezza Rice in the the State Department.
Even though the overwhelming scientific consensus is that man made atmospheric pollution with greenhouse gases is causing the earth to warm up and this is leading us down the road to a world wide catastrophe, all of the leading Republican contenders, egged on by lobbyists and corporate funding, especially from industries producing, or dependent on, oil, gas, coal and other pollutants, deny the scientific evidence. Rick Santorum goes so far as to call global warming a "hoax".
Naomi Oreskes, a professor at U of C San Diego, who attended the meeting, remarked that, "Those of us who grew up in the sixties, when we put men on the Moon, now have to watch as every Republican candidate for this year's presidential election denies the science behind climate change and evolution. That is a staggering state of affairs and it is very worrying."
Professor Oreskes adds, according to McKie, "Our present crisis over the rise of anti-science has been coming for a long time and we should have seen it coming. It has taken the scientific community a long time to realize what it is up against. In the past, it thought the problem was just a matter of education. All its practioners had to do was make an effort to reach out and talk to teachers, the public and business leaders. Then these people would see the issues and understand the need for action. But now they are beginning to realize what they are really up against: massive organized attempts to undermine scientific data by people for whom the data represents a threat to their status quo. Given the power of these people, scientists will have their work cut out dealing with them."
But what does this say about our educational system in the U.S.? The fact so many people have been through the public school system and are so scientifically illiterate that their ignorance of evolution and the science behind climate change can form the basis for a major political party (and still have plenty of people left over) should tell us that a major reform of the educational system is in order-- not only of the curriculum but of the qualifications of teachers as well. This reform should involve the unions,elected officials, parents, students, and teachers-- it cannot be made from above by the imposition of privatization, ill conceived standardized tests, mass school closings, or firings and lay offs of school workers for lack of finances.
A real educational reform would solve the problem brought up by Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists since an educated population would not be open to the corrupting influences she discusses. She is attacking the Supreme Court decision that opened the flood gates of unlimited corporate contributions to candidates for elected office (the Citizens United vs the Federal Election Commission ruling).
"That has opened the gates for corporations," Grifo said, "often those associated with coal and oil industries, to flood the market with adverts that support right wing politicians and which attack government bodies that impose environmental regulations that these companies don't like. The science that supports these regulations is attacked as well. That has made a terrible difference over the past year and it is now bringing matters to a head. People may believe that political interference in science went extinct when George W.Bush left office, but the reality is that the pressure to politicize science is still with us."
Now that the scales have fallen from the eyes of the scientific community we can only hope that scientists will become more active in the fight to preserve democracy and join with the rest of the progressive community in the struggle to prevent the take over of the U.S. government by the ultra-right and anti-scientific Republicans.
Last month the AAAS [American Association for the Advancement of Science] the premier science organization in the U.S. and publisher of Science magazine held its annual conference, this year in Vancouver. Over 8000 scientists attended what has become the largest organization of scientists in the world.
This annual meeting, however, was unusual. Robin McKie, science editor of the Observer (part of The Guardian, U.K.) covered the meeting and reported that the out going president of the AAAS, Nina Fedoroff , broke with the usual tradition of shying away from political controversy that is customary for high ranking scientific spokespersons in the scientific world.
Dr. Fedoroff told her colleagues, according to McKie, that she was "scared to death" at the continuing attacks on science throughout the West and in the U.S. Dr. Fedoroff said, "We are sliding back into a dark era and there is little we can do about it. I am profoundly depressed at just how difficult it has become merely to get a realistic conversation started on issues such as climate change or genetically modified organisms."
Fedoroff and other scientists are positively amazed at the hostility towards scientific methods and scientific proposals put forth to solve many of the problems facing the world today. Not only do powerful corporations and the (mostly) Republican politicians they control brush aside scientific evidence regarding climate change, endangered species, health issues, food safety, etc., etc., whenever this evidence conflicts with the profit motive that inspires and motivates them, but they also have begun to personally attack individual scientists and scientific institutions trying to damage their reputations or to have them defunded.
Fedoroff understands that President Obama, at least, is not against science. "The trouble is," she says, "that he still hasn't been able to do anything to help. He is continually blocked by Congress, and that only adds to our worries and sense of desperation. If the current president is for us, but still cannot do anything to help us, then what will happen if a Republican gets into the White House this year?" Actually that would not happen until Jan. 20th of next year-- but the point is well made. Fedoroff has learned a lot, it seems, since she was appointed to high scientific office by George W. Bush and then served as science advisor to Condoleezza Rice in the the State Department.
Even though the overwhelming scientific consensus is that man made atmospheric pollution with greenhouse gases is causing the earth to warm up and this is leading us down the road to a world wide catastrophe, all of the leading Republican contenders, egged on by lobbyists and corporate funding, especially from industries producing, or dependent on, oil, gas, coal and other pollutants, deny the scientific evidence. Rick Santorum goes so far as to call global warming a "hoax".
Naomi Oreskes, a professor at U of C San Diego, who attended the meeting, remarked that, "Those of us who grew up in the sixties, when we put men on the Moon, now have to watch as every Republican candidate for this year's presidential election denies the science behind climate change and evolution. That is a staggering state of affairs and it is very worrying."
Professor Oreskes adds, according to McKie, "Our present crisis over the rise of anti-science has been coming for a long time and we should have seen it coming. It has taken the scientific community a long time to realize what it is up against. In the past, it thought the problem was just a matter of education. All its practioners had to do was make an effort to reach out and talk to teachers, the public and business leaders. Then these people would see the issues and understand the need for action. But now they are beginning to realize what they are really up against: massive organized attempts to undermine scientific data by people for whom the data represents a threat to their status quo. Given the power of these people, scientists will have their work cut out dealing with them."
But what does this say about our educational system in the U.S.? The fact so many people have been through the public school system and are so scientifically illiterate that their ignorance of evolution and the science behind climate change can form the basis for a major political party (and still have plenty of people left over) should tell us that a major reform of the educational system is in order-- not only of the curriculum but of the qualifications of teachers as well. This reform should involve the unions,elected officials, parents, students, and teachers-- it cannot be made from above by the imposition of privatization, ill conceived standardized tests, mass school closings, or firings and lay offs of school workers for lack of finances.
A real educational reform would solve the problem brought up by Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists since an educated population would not be open to the corrupting influences she discusses. She is attacking the Supreme Court decision that opened the flood gates of unlimited corporate contributions to candidates for elected office (the Citizens United vs the Federal Election Commission ruling).
"That has opened the gates for corporations," Grifo said, "often those associated with coal and oil industries, to flood the market with adverts that support right wing politicians and which attack government bodies that impose environmental regulations that these companies don't like. The science that supports these regulations is attacked as well. That has made a terrible difference over the past year and it is now bringing matters to a head. People may believe that political interference in science went extinct when George W.Bush left office, but the reality is that the pressure to politicize science is still with us."
Now that the scales have fallen from the eyes of the scientific community we can only hope that scientists will become more active in the fight to preserve democracy and join with the rest of the progressive community in the struggle to prevent the take over of the U.S. government by the ultra-right and anti-scientific Republicans.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Tunisia: Moderate Political Islam Eschews Violence
Thomas Riggins
The world of journalism and that of the broader reading public suffered a major loss
last week with the death of Anthony Shadid in Syria. Shadid one of the most daring, and daringly honest, journalists in the world succumbed to an asthma attack at the age of 43 last Thursday while on assignment for the New York Times. Before he died he sent this story ["Exile Over, Tunisian Sets Task: Building a Democracy"] which appeared in the NYT 2-18-2012 two days after his death. It is important to discuss and evaluate the story as it reveals the complexity of modern political Islam and upends many current false and bigoted notions being spread in the US and Europe.
The story revolves around the return to Tunis of Said Ferjani, a self educated Islamic politician, who lived in the U.K. for 22 years and is a member of the Ennanah Party -- an Islamic political party that won the recent elections in Tunisia after the overthrow of the dictatorial former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.
Ferjani sees the task of his party as building a society both democratic and Islamic. "This is our test," he said. The test, of course, is to see if it is truly possible to create a modern democratic society, even a bourgeois democracy, based on Islamic rather than secular foundations. Shadid pointed out that the Islamists of Ferjani's generation (and the Ennanah Party ) are the spiritual descendants of the movements spawned under the aegis of the Muslim Brotherhood- a society founded in 1928 in Egypt by Hassan al-Banne who was inspired both by European fascist movements and the desire to impose Sharia law.
Many Arab secularists and political liberals doubt that so-called "moderate" political Islam, such as is represented by the Ennanah Party, can, given its roots in fascism and Sharia, actually lead the way to a real representative democracy. We shall see, in the course of this article, if their fears are warranted or not.
"I can tell you one thing," Ferjani is quoted as saying, "we now have a golden opportunity. And in this golden opportunity, I'm not interested in control. I'm interested delivering the best charismatic system, a charismatic democratic system. This is my dream." It is strange for a Sunni to be using the term "charismatic" as this is a term usually associated with the Shia tradition and a "charismatic" and mystical element that can be found in leaders; it is also associated with fascist ideology.
As a young teenager Ferjani came under the influence his school teacher, Rachid al-Ghannouchi, who went on to become a political activist and the founder of the Ennahda Party. The questions that were discussed by Ghannouchi centered around the theme of Muslim backwardness. Ferjani remembers his teacher asking "What makes us backwards? Is it our destiny to be so?"
At this time these questions were being answered by the Muslim Brotherhood founded by Hassan al-Banna whose ideas had spread beyond Egypt to other Arab countries including Tunisia. Banna was a pan-Arabist and anti-imperialist who build the Brotherhood he founded in 1928 from a small group to a large international organization of 500,000 members. He was assassinated in 1949 at the age of 42 because he opposed violence and denounced terrorism as a way for Muslims to fight imperialism and to further democratic rights.
After Banna's death Sayyid Qutb rose to prominence in the leadership of the Brotherhood. Originally a man with secular values that did not conflict with Islam he became a radical jihadist in theory after a sojourn in the US (1948-50 he was turned off by the "immodesty" of the women and he hated jazz) and rejecting the secular government in Egypt that resulted from the overthrow of the monarchy (which he approved) by Nasser, who later executed him as a terrorist-- although he had only advocated it not engaged in it personally.
Qutb's faction of the Brotherhood advocates offensive jihad, violence, and eventual world conquest by militant Islam and the universal imposition of Sharia law. World conquest has never worked out for those who advocate it and Qutb's version of radical Islam, which was very influential in the ideology of bin Ladin and al-Queda, is a minority viewpoint within the Sunni branch of Islam where it originated (although past and current US policy in the Middle East is making it more popular day by day.)
Despite its rejection by the majority of Muslims it is almost the only version of Islam
that the American public is exposed to from the preachings of right wing fundamentalists calling themselves "Christians", the screechings of talking lunkheads on Fox TV, to the frothy mixture of political opportunism and misinformation bandied about by Rick Santorum and other Republican presidential wannabes.
Over in Tunisia, Ghannouchi and his followers did not adopt Qutb's extremism and instead argued for an Islam compatible with pluralism and democratic values (a move away from fascism). This did not stop their falling victims to political oppression and in some cases imprisonment, torture and exile. In the late 1980s Ferjani found himself in jail, tortured, and finally forced to flee into exile in London.
London in the 1990s was a hot bed of Islamic thought. Ghannouchi followed Ferjani and there were Muslim exiles from all the Arab countries and of all stripes and Islamic positions. There was also exposure to Western values and ideas. Here was no Chinese wall between western and eastern ideals. Ferjani told Shadid that while all the different exiles were mixing it up they did not all agree. "We know each other. But knowing is one thing, doing things together in every sense--- as many may think--- is another. In politics, its not that we all agree." The moral here, I think, is that any attempt to paint political Islam with broad strokes as some kind of monolithic movement threatening the West at every turn, is a gross error.
The NYT report makes an important point, often overlooked by other Western media and especially by conservatives in the US-- including the Republican party leaders whose grip on reality is questionable to say the least. The idea of a unified and radically violent political Islam grew out of three sources in the 90s and early 2000s. These were the revolt in Egypt by radical islamists, the civil war in Algeria, and the rise of Bin Laden. And, the Times points out, Bin Laden's distorted "Manichaean" world view was the mirror image of "the most vitriolic statements of the Bush administration."
To place al-Queda and the Bush administration on the same level of ideological putrescence took a lot of courage. This should tell us what is at stake in the 2012 elections. The Republican Party is the standard bearer of Bush's ideological putrescence and lack of understanding of the world as it really is. For this crypto-fascistic party to take control of the US would be a disaster for the American people and the world taking us down the road to more wars and inviting the growth of radical anti-Western sentiments at the expense of more moderate outlooks. It would be especially disastrous to working people here and abroad whose class interests would be sacrificed for the illusory well being of what has come to be called the 1%.
This article also makes the case for a real moderate Islamic political trend such as the one now heading the governing alliance in Tunisia and led by Ghannouchi who favors democracy and maintains that majority rule is not anti-Islamic as the radicals claim. He also wants more participation by women in the political process and in the Parliament-- a very different position from what we see in Saudi Arabia and the Taliban (although the King in S.A. has recently allowed women to participate in municipal elections; but no car driving). "Frankly," Ferjani told the NYT, "the guy who brought democracy into the Islamic movement is Ghannouchi." As for resorting to violence, Ghannouchi has publicly said that "Rulers benefit from violence more than their opponents do."
Ghannouchi, and many others, have evolved away from the rigid stances of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood itself has undergone changes and while many of its positions such as the subordination and separate education of women, since their natures are unlike those of men (this is a little analogous to the Southern Baptist position on women but the Baptists allow for co-education), are unacceptable to progressives, and it now says it is against violence and supports political democracy. However, the Brotherhood is an international multi-tendency organization and still has many militant radical fundamentalists within some of its chapters.
The Brotherhood's old motto, still in use, "hearing and obeying" is increasing being rejected by the new generation of Islamists. "That's over," Tariq Ramadan said (best remembered by Americans as the Islamic scholar barred from visiting the US by the second Bush administration and thus prevented from teaching at that hot bed of radical Islamic thinking Notre Dame University). "The new generation is saying if it's going to be this, then we're leaving. You have a new understanding and a new energy." Ramadan pointed out that this has a lot to do with the contact of the Islamic exiles with Western thought and ideals. The ideology of Islamists is "not just coming from the Middle East anymore. It's coming from North African countries and from the West. These are new visions and there are new ways of understanding. Now they are bringing these thoughts back to the Middle East." Ferjani, for example, who left Tunisia an anti-Leftist, returned from London a believer in the economic theories of Karl Marx and a critic of capitalism; views not usually associated with Islamic politics. "Exile," he remarked, "changed me a lot, profoundly."
Well, we shall see what the results of the Constituent Assembly are with respect to writing a new constitution for Tunisia. The October election won by Ennahna allows this party to have a major influence now in running the country and in composing the constitution. It is actually ruling in a coalition with two other parties, a center left secular party and a "populist" party set up by a wealthy businessman with alleged ties to the ousted president Ben Ali. Of the 217 people elected three are members of the Tunisian Communist Workers Party so Marxism will be represented in a small way at least. If a real democratic constitution is drawn up it should put to rest the anti-Islamic hysteria in Europe and the US. Time will tell.
The world of journalism and that of the broader reading public suffered a major loss
last week with the death of Anthony Shadid in Syria. Shadid one of the most daring, and daringly honest, journalists in the world succumbed to an asthma attack at the age of 43 last Thursday while on assignment for the New York Times. Before he died he sent this story ["Exile Over, Tunisian Sets Task: Building a Democracy"] which appeared in the NYT 2-18-2012 two days after his death. It is important to discuss and evaluate the story as it reveals the complexity of modern political Islam and upends many current false and bigoted notions being spread in the US and Europe.
The story revolves around the return to Tunis of Said Ferjani, a self educated Islamic politician, who lived in the U.K. for 22 years and is a member of the Ennanah Party -- an Islamic political party that won the recent elections in Tunisia after the overthrow of the dictatorial former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.
Ferjani sees the task of his party as building a society both democratic and Islamic. "This is our test," he said. The test, of course, is to see if it is truly possible to create a modern democratic society, even a bourgeois democracy, based on Islamic rather than secular foundations. Shadid pointed out that the Islamists of Ferjani's generation (and the Ennanah Party ) are the spiritual descendants of the movements spawned under the aegis of the Muslim Brotherhood- a society founded in 1928 in Egypt by Hassan al-Banne who was inspired both by European fascist movements and the desire to impose Sharia law.
Many Arab secularists and political liberals doubt that so-called "moderate" political Islam, such as is represented by the Ennanah Party, can, given its roots in fascism and Sharia, actually lead the way to a real representative democracy. We shall see, in the course of this article, if their fears are warranted or not.
"I can tell you one thing," Ferjani is quoted as saying, "we now have a golden opportunity. And in this golden opportunity, I'm not interested in control. I'm interested delivering the best charismatic system, a charismatic democratic system. This is my dream." It is strange for a Sunni to be using the term "charismatic" as this is a term usually associated with the Shia tradition and a "charismatic" and mystical element that can be found in leaders; it is also associated with fascist ideology.
As a young teenager Ferjani came under the influence his school teacher, Rachid al-Ghannouchi, who went on to become a political activist and the founder of the Ennahda Party. The questions that were discussed by Ghannouchi centered around the theme of Muslim backwardness. Ferjani remembers his teacher asking "What makes us backwards? Is it our destiny to be so?"
At this time these questions were being answered by the Muslim Brotherhood founded by Hassan al-Banna whose ideas had spread beyond Egypt to other Arab countries including Tunisia. Banna was a pan-Arabist and anti-imperialist who build the Brotherhood he founded in 1928 from a small group to a large international organization of 500,000 members. He was assassinated in 1949 at the age of 42 because he opposed violence and denounced terrorism as a way for Muslims to fight imperialism and to further democratic rights.
After Banna's death Sayyid Qutb rose to prominence in the leadership of the Brotherhood. Originally a man with secular values that did not conflict with Islam he became a radical jihadist in theory after a sojourn in the US (1948-50 he was turned off by the "immodesty" of the women and he hated jazz) and rejecting the secular government in Egypt that resulted from the overthrow of the monarchy (which he approved) by Nasser, who later executed him as a terrorist-- although he had only advocated it not engaged in it personally.
Qutb's faction of the Brotherhood advocates offensive jihad, violence, and eventual world conquest by militant Islam and the universal imposition of Sharia law. World conquest has never worked out for those who advocate it and Qutb's version of radical Islam, which was very influential in the ideology of bin Ladin and al-Queda, is a minority viewpoint within the Sunni branch of Islam where it originated (although past and current US policy in the Middle East is making it more popular day by day.)
Despite its rejection by the majority of Muslims it is almost the only version of Islam
that the American public is exposed to from the preachings of right wing fundamentalists calling themselves "Christians", the screechings of talking lunkheads on Fox TV, to the frothy mixture of political opportunism and misinformation bandied about by Rick Santorum and other Republican presidential wannabes.
Over in Tunisia, Ghannouchi and his followers did not adopt Qutb's extremism and instead argued for an Islam compatible with pluralism and democratic values (a move away from fascism). This did not stop their falling victims to political oppression and in some cases imprisonment, torture and exile. In the late 1980s Ferjani found himself in jail, tortured, and finally forced to flee into exile in London.
London in the 1990s was a hot bed of Islamic thought. Ghannouchi followed Ferjani and there were Muslim exiles from all the Arab countries and of all stripes and Islamic positions. There was also exposure to Western values and ideas. Here was no Chinese wall between western and eastern ideals. Ferjani told Shadid that while all the different exiles were mixing it up they did not all agree. "We know each other. But knowing is one thing, doing things together in every sense--- as many may think--- is another. In politics, its not that we all agree." The moral here, I think, is that any attempt to paint political Islam with broad strokes as some kind of monolithic movement threatening the West at every turn, is a gross error.
The NYT report makes an important point, often overlooked by other Western media and especially by conservatives in the US-- including the Republican party leaders whose grip on reality is questionable to say the least. The idea of a unified and radically violent political Islam grew out of three sources in the 90s and early 2000s. These were the revolt in Egypt by radical islamists, the civil war in Algeria, and the rise of Bin Laden. And, the Times points out, Bin Laden's distorted "Manichaean" world view was the mirror image of "the most vitriolic statements of the Bush administration."
To place al-Queda and the Bush administration on the same level of ideological putrescence took a lot of courage. This should tell us what is at stake in the 2012 elections. The Republican Party is the standard bearer of Bush's ideological putrescence and lack of understanding of the world as it really is. For this crypto-fascistic party to take control of the US would be a disaster for the American people and the world taking us down the road to more wars and inviting the growth of radical anti-Western sentiments at the expense of more moderate outlooks. It would be especially disastrous to working people here and abroad whose class interests would be sacrificed for the illusory well being of what has come to be called the 1%.
This article also makes the case for a real moderate Islamic political trend such as the one now heading the governing alliance in Tunisia and led by Ghannouchi who favors democracy and maintains that majority rule is not anti-Islamic as the radicals claim. He also wants more participation by women in the political process and in the Parliament-- a very different position from what we see in Saudi Arabia and the Taliban (although the King in S.A. has recently allowed women to participate in municipal elections; but no car driving). "Frankly," Ferjani told the NYT, "the guy who brought democracy into the Islamic movement is Ghannouchi." As for resorting to violence, Ghannouchi has publicly said that "Rulers benefit from violence more than their opponents do."
Ghannouchi, and many others, have evolved away from the rigid stances of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood itself has undergone changes and while many of its positions such as the subordination and separate education of women, since their natures are unlike those of men (this is a little analogous to the Southern Baptist position on women but the Baptists allow for co-education), are unacceptable to progressives, and it now says it is against violence and supports political democracy. However, the Brotherhood is an international multi-tendency organization and still has many militant radical fundamentalists within some of its chapters.
The Brotherhood's old motto, still in use, "hearing and obeying" is increasing being rejected by the new generation of Islamists. "That's over," Tariq Ramadan said (best remembered by Americans as the Islamic scholar barred from visiting the US by the second Bush administration and thus prevented from teaching at that hot bed of radical Islamic thinking Notre Dame University). "The new generation is saying if it's going to be this, then we're leaving. You have a new understanding and a new energy." Ramadan pointed out that this has a lot to do with the contact of the Islamic exiles with Western thought and ideals. The ideology of Islamists is "not just coming from the Middle East anymore. It's coming from North African countries and from the West. These are new visions and there are new ways of understanding. Now they are bringing these thoughts back to the Middle East." Ferjani, for example, who left Tunisia an anti-Leftist, returned from London a believer in the economic theories of Karl Marx and a critic of capitalism; views not usually associated with Islamic politics. "Exile," he remarked, "changed me a lot, profoundly."
Well, we shall see what the results of the Constituent Assembly are with respect to writing a new constitution for Tunisia. The October election won by Ennahna allows this party to have a major influence now in running the country and in composing the constitution. It is actually ruling in a coalition with two other parties, a center left secular party and a "populist" party set up by a wealthy businessman with alleged ties to the ousted president Ben Ali. Of the 217 people elected three are members of the Tunisian Communist Workers Party so Marxism will be represented in a small way at least. If a real democratic constitution is drawn up it should put to rest the anti-Islamic hysteria in Europe and the US. Time will tell.
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Behind the Scenes: The Secret NATO Report on Afghanistan
Thomas Riggins
The secret NATO report, "State of the Taliban 2012," commissioned by the US and NATO was never supposed to see the light of day. Unfortunately for the US war party it was leaked to the press and the New York Times has published many of its observations and conclusions ("Taliban Captives Dispute U.S. View on State of War" 2-2-2012).
The report was based on information taken from 4000 prisoners, Taliban and others, that have fallen into the hands of US forces. To the surprise of the US the prisoners are rather upbeat about the progress of the war and think they are actually winning it. The report says that while the US thinks it is winning and is about to start winding down its own participation the interviews of the captives shows, according to the NYT, "a Taliban insurgency that is far from vanquished or demoralized." The same issue of the Times reported the optimistic statement of Defense Secretary Panetta that the US would set 2013 not 2014 as the date for ending US combat in Afghanistan. This was later corrected by the ground commanders in Afghanistan-- 2014 is the date-- and we may still remain after that date for a long, long time. They wish.
The report says the prisoners state that in those areas where the US forces withdraw and turn over control to the Afghan Army, that army begins to cooperate with the Taliban-- as do the local Afghan government officials. "Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban." The report also says that while the Afghan government says it will carry on the war after the US withdraws "many of its personnel have secretly reached out to insurgents, seeking long-term options in the event of a possible Taliban victory." Well of course, all options should be kept on the table.
The report gives the impression that the war is lost and the government can't deal with this reality. Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings a US-NATO spokesperson had this to say about the information gotten from the prisoners. "This document aggregates the comments of Taliban detainees in a captive environment without considering the validity of or motivation behind their reflections. Any conclusions drawn from this would be questionable at best."
Wait a minute. We captured these people and interrogated them to get information about the enemy. We don't like the information we get so then say due to a "captive environment" the conclusions are "questionable." But all interrogations of prisoners take place in a "captive environment" and are therefore "questionable." So why bother? It appears that if the government likes the information it gets it's credible otherwise it's "questionable." This is completely intellectually dishonest and we should not believe a word we are told by the military unless we have independent third person verification.
What could be more comical than NATO spokespersons attempting to refute their own report once it became public. The State Department has also gotten into the act. The report mentions the fact that the Taliban has strained relations with their "Pakistani patrons." But Pakistan is supposed to be a US "ally." How foolish does the US look when the money it lavishes on the Pakistanis is redirected to the Taliban and used to kill US troops. How can you even dream of winning a war when you are all tied up in these contradictory circumstances? The State Department realizes how bad this looks and also played down the significance of the NATO report, saying it was "in no way designed to impact our on going efforts to be back on track with Pakistan." Were we ever "on track" with Pakistan or just being used by the Pakistanis after they realized we didn't know what we were doing in Afghanistan?
For example, the Pakistani government, according to the report, "is thoroughly aware of Taliban activities and the whereabouts of all senior Taliban personnel." And, "There is a wide spread assumption that Pakistan will never allow the Taliban the chance to become independent of ISI [the CIA/FBI of Pakistan-the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate] control." Yes, lets get back on track-- the US is at "war" with the Taliban, the Taliban is controlled by Pakistan therefore….. draw your own conclusions.
An important conclusion of the report, that NATO and the US really don't want people to know about, is the following: "Taliban commanders, along with rank and file members, increasingly believe that their control of Afghanistan is inevitable. Though the Taliban suffered severely in 2011, its strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remains intact."
Where does the funding come from? It comes from us! Money from the US to Pakistan goes to the Taliban. Trucks and weapons we give to the Afghan Army are sold off at bargain basement rates, or "donated", to the Taliban by corrupt elements in the Karzai government. The Taliban's strength is intact-- we are withdrawing. Their motivation is intact-- we just want to get out as soon as possible (sooner). Their tactical proficiency is intact, we are turning operations over to the Afghan Army many of whose troops would rather shoot us than the Taliban. Is it really too hard to see how all this is going to end? Oh, I forgot to add that besides the ISI, the report says the Afghan intelligence agency also supplies the Taliban with information about where American troops are located so that they can be attacked.
So there you have it. We are spending 2 billion dollars a week to support the war against the Taliban and both our "ally" Pakistan and the Afghan government we set up and are "defending" are on the side of the Taliban. General Petraeus retired just in time. If he runs the CIA as well as he did the war in Afghanistan the decline of US imperialism will be well underway.
The secret NATO report, "State of the Taliban 2012," commissioned by the US and NATO was never supposed to see the light of day. Unfortunately for the US war party it was leaked to the press and the New York Times has published many of its observations and conclusions ("Taliban Captives Dispute U.S. View on State of War" 2-2-2012).
The report was based on information taken from 4000 prisoners, Taliban and others, that have fallen into the hands of US forces. To the surprise of the US the prisoners are rather upbeat about the progress of the war and think they are actually winning it. The report says that while the US thinks it is winning and is about to start winding down its own participation the interviews of the captives shows, according to the NYT, "a Taliban insurgency that is far from vanquished or demoralized." The same issue of the Times reported the optimistic statement of Defense Secretary Panetta that the US would set 2013 not 2014 as the date for ending US combat in Afghanistan. This was later corrected by the ground commanders in Afghanistan-- 2014 is the date-- and we may still remain after that date for a long, long time. They wish.
The report says the prisoners state that in those areas where the US forces withdraw and turn over control to the Afghan Army, that army begins to cooperate with the Taliban-- as do the local Afghan government officials. "Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban." The report also says that while the Afghan government says it will carry on the war after the US withdraws "many of its personnel have secretly reached out to insurgents, seeking long-term options in the event of a possible Taliban victory." Well of course, all options should be kept on the table.
The report gives the impression that the war is lost and the government can't deal with this reality. Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings a US-NATO spokesperson had this to say about the information gotten from the prisoners. "This document aggregates the comments of Taliban detainees in a captive environment without considering the validity of or motivation behind their reflections. Any conclusions drawn from this would be questionable at best."
Wait a minute. We captured these people and interrogated them to get information about the enemy. We don't like the information we get so then say due to a "captive environment" the conclusions are "questionable." But all interrogations of prisoners take place in a "captive environment" and are therefore "questionable." So why bother? It appears that if the government likes the information it gets it's credible otherwise it's "questionable." This is completely intellectually dishonest and we should not believe a word we are told by the military unless we have independent third person verification.
What could be more comical than NATO spokespersons attempting to refute their own report once it became public. The State Department has also gotten into the act. The report mentions the fact that the Taliban has strained relations with their "Pakistani patrons." But Pakistan is supposed to be a US "ally." How foolish does the US look when the money it lavishes on the Pakistanis is redirected to the Taliban and used to kill US troops. How can you even dream of winning a war when you are all tied up in these contradictory circumstances? The State Department realizes how bad this looks and also played down the significance of the NATO report, saying it was "in no way designed to impact our on going efforts to be back on track with Pakistan." Were we ever "on track" with Pakistan or just being used by the Pakistanis after they realized we didn't know what we were doing in Afghanistan?
For example, the Pakistani government, according to the report, "is thoroughly aware of Taliban activities and the whereabouts of all senior Taliban personnel." And, "There is a wide spread assumption that Pakistan will never allow the Taliban the chance to become independent of ISI [the CIA/FBI of Pakistan-the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate] control." Yes, lets get back on track-- the US is at "war" with the Taliban, the Taliban is controlled by Pakistan therefore….. draw your own conclusions.
An important conclusion of the report, that NATO and the US really don't want people to know about, is the following: "Taliban commanders, along with rank and file members, increasingly believe that their control of Afghanistan is inevitable. Though the Taliban suffered severely in 2011, its strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remains intact."
Where does the funding come from? It comes from us! Money from the US to Pakistan goes to the Taliban. Trucks and weapons we give to the Afghan Army are sold off at bargain basement rates, or "donated", to the Taliban by corrupt elements in the Karzai government. The Taliban's strength is intact-- we are withdrawing. Their motivation is intact-- we just want to get out as soon as possible (sooner). Their tactical proficiency is intact, we are turning operations over to the Afghan Army many of whose troops would rather shoot us than the Taliban. Is it really too hard to see how all this is going to end? Oh, I forgot to add that besides the ISI, the report says the Afghan intelligence agency also supplies the Taliban with information about where American troops are located so that they can be attacked.
So there you have it. We are spending 2 billion dollars a week to support the war against the Taliban and both our "ally" Pakistan and the Afghan government we set up and are "defending" are on the side of the Taliban. General Petraeus retired just in time. If he runs the CIA as well as he did the war in Afghanistan the decline of US imperialism will be well underway.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
The First Casuality of War
Thomas Riggins
It was really disheartening watching the Republican presidential wannabes debating in Florida last Monday (1-23-2012). Three of the four blithely told the American people that there was, with respect to the war in Afghanistan, no substitute for victory and they would not pull out until our ally, the Afghan army, was ready to take on the Taliban and protect the country on its own. Their implication was that Obama would pull out early because he is not up to the task of seeing us through to victory.
It has well been said that truth is the first casualty of war. The American people have been consistently misled about the war in Afghanistan-- just as they have been about Iraq (we left behind a "democracy"), Vietnam, and every other war we have waged since the end of World War 2 (not excluding the Cold War).
Let's look at what is going on now in Afghanistan according to recent headlines in the New York Times (1-20-2012). This front page headline should tell us what is really going on vis a vis building up our "ally" the Afghan army: it reads, "Afghan Soldiers Step Up Killings of Allied Forces." In fact so many US/Nato troops are being killed by our Afghan allies that Nato, after declaring this was a small insignificant problem, announced that it would no longer issue the statistics regarding the number of allied troops killed by Afghan soldiers!
Let's take a closer look at this story. The NYT got hold of a classified report by the US side ("the coalition"--i.e., 80,000 US troops and a smattering of others from Nato to create an international flavor) and, in a Wiki Leaks moment, decided to reveal its contents. It says the Afghan forces being trained by the US side are killing more and more of the very coalition troops that are supposed to be training them as our allies. This is a symptom of the "contempt" with which the Americans and Afghans hold each other-- "never mind the Taliban."
The increased violence against the US forces by its own puppet army brings into doubt any future role the US may have in the country and any hopes it may have of leaving behind a puppet army that will look out for its interests and be able to stop the Taliban. What is more, "the failure by coalition commanders to address" the violence and the deteriorating situation can only exasperate the problem. The US does not want this to be a problem so it pretends that it is not. How can this work?
The contempt that American troops have towards the Afghan people was demonstrated by the recent videos of US troops urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban soldiers. While this was condemned by US officials the NYT reports that Facebook and chatrooms maintained by US troops were "full of praise for the desecration". This indicates that whatever the US says officially, the actual environment in which our troops are operating is permeated with racism and even hatred for Afghans-- the racism that permeates American society can't be left behind when we go overseas.
With respect to the increase in the killing of US troops and their allies by members of the Afghan army, the Times reports that US and Nato officials publicly downplay its significance by issuing press statements that the killings are "isolated incidents" or done by "disturbed individuals" or "Taliban infiltrators." Not to worry!
However, the secret report made by and for the coalition forces indicates that what our officials tell the the press, for domestic consumption, is the opposite of the truth. The NYT quotes the report as follows: "Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between 'allies' in modern military history"). And the official statements "seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest."
Did the secret report teach out military spokespeople anything? Well here is what Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings, US spokesperson, had to say for public consumption, "incidents in the recent past where Afghan soldiers have wounded or killed I.S.A.F.[the American led International Security Assistance Force] members are isolated cases and are not occurring on a routine basis. We train and are partnered with Afghan personnel every day and we are not seeing any issues or concerns with our relationships." Then why order a report and then keep it secret? Personally, I don't believe much from the Pentagon anyway; most everything they and Nato say is just lies to befool the American people-- and they are very successful at least with Republican presidential candidates.
What type of "Afghan personnel" do we get to join our puppet army in the first place? This is how an Afghan commander (an Afghan Army Colonel) describes his own troops, according to the NYT, they are "thieves, liars and drug addicts." Not the best raw material to build an army to defend the "democratic gains" of the Afghan people with. These troops also don't like our troops. The colonel added."The sense of hatred is growing rapidly" because the Americans are "rude, arrogant bullies who use foul language."
The sooner we leave Afghanistan the better. How can we possibly think we can create a strong Afghan force when we don't respect them and they don't respect us? It is just another imperialist dream that ignores the world as it really is and operates on the assumption that the world you want to be in is the real world. It would be a great disaster for the American people, the Afghans, and everyone else for that matter for a Republican to take over the presidency this year and try and pursue the war in Afghanistan to "ultimate victory."
It was really disheartening watching the Republican presidential wannabes debating in Florida last Monday (1-23-2012). Three of the four blithely told the American people that there was, with respect to the war in Afghanistan, no substitute for victory and they would not pull out until our ally, the Afghan army, was ready to take on the Taliban and protect the country on its own. Their implication was that Obama would pull out early because he is not up to the task of seeing us through to victory.
It has well been said that truth is the first casualty of war. The American people have been consistently misled about the war in Afghanistan-- just as they have been about Iraq (we left behind a "democracy"), Vietnam, and every other war we have waged since the end of World War 2 (not excluding the Cold War).
Let's look at what is going on now in Afghanistan according to recent headlines in the New York Times (1-20-2012). This front page headline should tell us what is really going on vis a vis building up our "ally" the Afghan army: it reads, "Afghan Soldiers Step Up Killings of Allied Forces." In fact so many US/Nato troops are being killed by our Afghan allies that Nato, after declaring this was a small insignificant problem, announced that it would no longer issue the statistics regarding the number of allied troops killed by Afghan soldiers!
Let's take a closer look at this story. The NYT got hold of a classified report by the US side ("the coalition"--i.e., 80,000 US troops and a smattering of others from Nato to create an international flavor) and, in a Wiki Leaks moment, decided to reveal its contents. It says the Afghan forces being trained by the US side are killing more and more of the very coalition troops that are supposed to be training them as our allies. This is a symptom of the "contempt" with which the Americans and Afghans hold each other-- "never mind the Taliban."
The increased violence against the US forces by its own puppet army brings into doubt any future role the US may have in the country and any hopes it may have of leaving behind a puppet army that will look out for its interests and be able to stop the Taliban. What is more, "the failure by coalition commanders to address" the violence and the deteriorating situation can only exasperate the problem. The US does not want this to be a problem so it pretends that it is not. How can this work?
The contempt that American troops have towards the Afghan people was demonstrated by the recent videos of US troops urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban soldiers. While this was condemned by US officials the NYT reports that Facebook and chatrooms maintained by US troops were "full of praise for the desecration". This indicates that whatever the US says officially, the actual environment in which our troops are operating is permeated with racism and even hatred for Afghans-- the racism that permeates American society can't be left behind when we go overseas.
With respect to the increase in the killing of US troops and their allies by members of the Afghan army, the Times reports that US and Nato officials publicly downplay its significance by issuing press statements that the killings are "isolated incidents" or done by "disturbed individuals" or "Taliban infiltrators." Not to worry!
However, the secret report made by and for the coalition forces indicates that what our officials tell the the press, for domestic consumption, is the opposite of the truth. The NYT quotes the report as follows: "Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between 'allies' in modern military history"). And the official statements "seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest."
Did the secret report teach out military spokespeople anything? Well here is what Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings, US spokesperson, had to say for public consumption, "incidents in the recent past where Afghan soldiers have wounded or killed I.S.A.F.[the American led International Security Assistance Force] members are isolated cases and are not occurring on a routine basis. We train and are partnered with Afghan personnel every day and we are not seeing any issues or concerns with our relationships." Then why order a report and then keep it secret? Personally, I don't believe much from the Pentagon anyway; most everything they and Nato say is just lies to befool the American people-- and they are very successful at least with Republican presidential candidates.
What type of "Afghan personnel" do we get to join our puppet army in the first place? This is how an Afghan commander (an Afghan Army Colonel) describes his own troops, according to the NYT, they are "thieves, liars and drug addicts." Not the best raw material to build an army to defend the "democratic gains" of the Afghan people with. These troops also don't like our troops. The colonel added."The sense of hatred is growing rapidly" because the Americans are "rude, arrogant bullies who use foul language."
The sooner we leave Afghanistan the better. How can we possibly think we can create a strong Afghan force when we don't respect them and they don't respect us? It is just another imperialist dream that ignores the world as it really is and operates on the assumption that the world you want to be in is the real world. It would be a great disaster for the American people, the Afghans, and everyone else for that matter for a Republican to take over the presidency this year and try and pursue the war in Afghanistan to "ultimate victory."
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Frederick Engels on Dühringian vs. Marxian Socialism: Production
Thomas Riggins
In the antepenultimate chapter of his book Anti-Dühring Engels explains the differences between the "socialism" espoused by Professor Eugen Dühring and the socialism of Karl Marx and himself. Dühring thinks the ideas of Marx are "bastards of historical and logical fantasy" and he seeks to replace them with his own views which are, naturally, the true historical and logical ideas which socialists should adopt.[Anti-Dühring Part III Chapter III "Production"]
Engels will compare his and Marx's "bastard" progeny with the "legitimate" progeny of Herr Dühring with respect to economic production in this chapter. Dühring rejects any notion of the capitalist production system which claims that economic crises are due to the very nature of the structure of capitalism itself. That is a Marxian fantasy.
For Dühring, Engels says, "crises are only occasional deviations from 'normalcy' and at most only serve to promote 'the development of a more regulated order.'" The Marxists maintain, au contraire, that crises are caused by over-production and this is a structural fault within the capitalist system itself. But Dühring rejects this and writes that the real reason for crises is, in his words,"the lagging behind of popular consumption … artificially produced under-consumption … with the natural growth of the NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE (!), which ultimately make the gulf between supply and demand so critically wide."
To this Engels replies that the masses have been forced to under-consume throughout history and in every economic system based on class exploitation, therefore under-consumption is not some artificially produced phenomenon but something all class societies share-- i.e., that the exploited class never has the value of its yearly production returned to it at the end of the year. The crises of industrial capitalism, however, only date from the the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
Thus, Engels concludes, it is under capitalism that periodic economic crises come into the world and while under-consumption of the masses is a PREREQUISITE it is not the CAUSE of crises. And knowing this, he says, "tells us just as little why crises exist today as why they did not exist before."
Dühring, in fact, does not think mass markets are all that important anyway. He himself says that capitalist production happens to "depend for its market mainly on THE CIRCLES OF THE POSSESSING CLASSES THEMSELVES." His confusion becomes only more apparent when he follows up on this by claiming that the most important industries (this is the 1870s remember) are cotton and iron production. But, Engels points out, the production of these two is entirely dependent on a mass market and the possessing class make up only an "infinitesimally small degree" of its market.
Engels then points out that capitalism, by it very need to grow and expand, brings about crises. He says, for example, in England there is just one small town (Oldham) that from 1872 to 1875 doubled its production of spun cotton [the number of its spindles went from 2.5 to 5 million] and this is just one of a dozen small towns around Manchester. Oldham, by the way, produced as much spun cotton as ALL of Germany (including Alsace). This was happening in towns all over Great Britain.
It thus shows "deep-rooted effrontery" on the part of Herr Dühring to blame the English masses for under-consumption rather than the capitalists for over-production when it comes to "the present complete stagnation in the yarn and cloth markets." [Engels is referring to an economic crises of the 1870s.]
Engels ends his critique of Herr Dühring's views on crises but gives a few quotes that demonstrate that Dühring has no idea about capitalism as an economic system but sees everything in terms of the behavior of individuals. If over-speculation and the unplanned building of private factories are responsible for crises we must see that as simply "the ordinary interplay of overstrain and relaxation" of the system and look closely at "the rashness of individual entrepreneurs and the lack of private circumspection" as one of the causes.
The only "rashness" here, Engels maintains, is the habit of turning the facts of economics into "moral reprobation." This is a problem of our times as well, not just the time of Engels. How often do we hear talk about our current crisis as a product of "greed" on the part of Wall Street bankers and that they should pay their "fair share" of taxes and such rubbish as if the decay of capitalism is a moral disorder on the part of the ruling class instead of a structural disorder that requires the replacement of the system rather than remedial Sunday school classes for the capitalists.
But all this has been treated of in the previous chapter of Anti-Dühring and Engels wants to move on (Cf. "Frederick Engels on the Theoretical Development of Modern Capitalism" in the November 2011 Political Affairs). Engels will now turn his attention to Dühring's new system of viewing socialism which is called "the natural system of society."
Dühring bases his system of socialism on what he calls the "universal principle of justice" which applies everywhere and is independent of historical and economic facts. This is enough to disqualify it as idealistic nonsense but Engels wants to philosophically pepper spay Dühring for having the gall to attack Marx for being unclear and fuzzy as to what type of socialism he believes in. It appears that the demands made in the name of the workers in the Communist Manifesto are "erroneous half measures" far inferior to Dühring's ideas which represent "a comprehensive schematism of great import in human history."
Marx, according to Dühring, thinks of socialism as "nothing more than the corporative ownership by groups of workers … an ownership that is both individual and social." Engels is upset because this is far from anything Marx has suggested and in truth actually applies to the system that Dühring has concocted.
Dühring advocates a federation of independent economic communes which compete with one another and which have absolute freedom of movement from one commune to another. In this crazy system the wealthy successful communes will out compete the poorly run communes which will become defunct as the people will all end up moving to the well run ones.
Production within the communes stays the same as production in the past--i.e., the communes are still capitalist in nature even though controlled by the workers. So the greatly touted natural system of justice and the new socialism amounts to the fact, Engels says, that "the commune takes the place of the capitalists."
What are Dühring's views on the most basic form of all hitherto existing methods of production-- i.e., the division of labor? With respect to the primary division, that between TOWN and COUNTRY (or industry and agriculture) he has little to say beyond some common place remarks about its "inevitable" nature and the possibility of overcoming it in the future. Thin gruel from Engels' point of view.
When it comes to the modern division of labor in trade and industry Dühring is very vague and only says that we have an "erroneous division of labor" and that all will be remedied in the future "as soon as account is taken of the various natural conditions and personal capabilities [of the workers]." Engels doesn't say so, but Dühring's views here are suspiciously similar to those of Plato in the Republic and very far from the socialist analysis of Marx to which Engels now turns.
Marx tells us that in all societies where production springs up "spontaneously" (including capitalism) we discover the means of production dominate the people not the other way around. The first great division of labour saw the development of towns and cities surrounded by peasant agriculturalists. This division has doomed rural people for thousands of years, Marx says, to "mental torpidity" and enslaved the town dwellers to their own specialized trade. This "stunting" of humanity increases with the increase of the division of labor.
Under capitalism the workers become tied to their machines and to one specific function and one tool. Capitalism, Marx says in Das Kapital "converts the laborer into a crippled monstrosity. by forcing his detail dexterity at the expense of a world of productive capabilities and instincts…. The individual himself is made the automatic motor of a fractional operation." How much this has been alleviated by the modern day union movement varies from country to country and in proportion to the percentage of workers who are unionized. The large number of working people in the US for example, that vote Republican shows that "mental torpidity" is not confined to the rural populations of Texas, Iowa or Alaska (to name a few).
It is not just the workers who suffer under the present day division of labor but also, Engels says, the "empty-minded bourgeois" chasing after profits (Donald Trump comes to mind), the lawyers dominated by "fossilized legal conceptions" and so-called "educated classes" of society plagued by "local narrow-mindedness" and "mental short-sightedness"-- just think of the tribe of Sunday morning news pundits paraded before the public by all the major TV networks, or the platoons of professors giving advice about everything under the sun and hardly agreeing on anything other than that capitalism is still the best of all possible economic formations.
But how are we to overcome this division of labor and the consequent alienation of humanity from its potentials and possibilities? One way only says Engels: "in making itself the master of all the means of production to use them in accordance with a social plan, society puts an end to the former subjection of men to their own means of production." In other words, socialism based on central planning and most importantly-- a feature historically absent in 20th century socialist societies due to their premature appearance in economically backward conditions-- planning democratically controlled and carried out by the working people themselves. The former alienating division of labor will be done away with as "society cannot free itself unless every individual is freed."
Engels says that this is not just a "fantasy" or a "pious wish." He maintains that the state of industrial development in the 1870s is so advanced that society could "reduce the time required for labour to a point which measured by our present conceptions, will be small indeed." This figure needs to be actually quantified-- but the point is all the goodies needed to live and thrive could be created with people just working a few hours a week and with no one being chained to any one boring and unsatisfying job. The growth in productivity since Engels' day must make this even more true today.
Engels quotes Das Kapital: "The employment of machinery does away with the necessity of crystallizing this distribution [of labor-tr] after the manner of Manufacture, by the constant annexation of a particular man to a particular function. Since the motion of the whole system does not proceed from the workman, but from the machinery, a change of persons can take place at any time without an interruption of the work…."
Modern capitalism with its constant crises and dislocations of industrial centers and working people and financial catastrophes makes, Marx says, it necessary that we posit as a "fundamental law of production, variation of work" so that modern workers have to be ready to change jobs and learn new skills or leave the labor market. This disrupts lives and threatens widespread social disorder. Only socialist planning and a system that puts people before profits can prevent society from self destructing under the contradictions generated by the present capitalist world market which, in the name of profits first and people last, fragments both human individuals and their social relations with others which inevitably results from the private appropriation of socially created wealth.
Engels also says that the abolition of capitalism and the development "one single vast plan" which harmoniously "dovetails" industry and the means of production so that the differences between town and country are overcome is a prerequisite to overcoming environmental degradation and "present poisoning the air water and land." To this must be added the current disaster of human induced global warming which simply cannot be dealt with as long as capitalism remains the dominant economic system. This problem was not seen in Engels' day and now, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence of impending doom, the various capitalist powers are unwilling to take the drastic regulatory measures needed to deal with the problem.
Engels maintains that none of these claims he is making is "utopian" but that they are logical conclusions of scientific central planning and the abolition of the difference between town and country. It looks as if the towns, or rather the great cities (such as New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, etc., etc., will have be abolished as well! Engels says that it "is true that in the huge towns civilization has bequeathed us a heritage which it will take much time and trouble to get rid of." But, "the great towns will perish."
No, this is not Pol Pot, it is Frederick Engels and he is saying this because he envisions a complete redistribution of the population under socialism in order to get the "most equal distribution possible of modern industry." So the abolition of the separation of town and country means the abolition of the cities. They must and will be eliminated "however protracted a process it may be." This might just be a little too "utopian" and perhaps with the progress of science and communications since the 1870s, especially the growth of the internet, the contradictions between town and country can be resolved without offing the Big Apple.
In any event, leaving the abolition of cities aside, the point Engels wants to make is that Dühring's view of socialism leaves out of account that building socialism will necessitate "revolutionizing from top to bottom the old method of production and first of all putting an end to the old division of labour." Dühring thinks that the state can just take over production as is and harmonize it to people's "natural appetites and personal capabilities." He also thinks the division between town and country is natural and inevitable and has no plan for putting an end to the alienation and crippling of human capabilities that result from this division.
So much for Engels' critique of Dühringian socialism's handling of production. In the penultimate chapter of Anti-Dühring Engels will discuss the problems of distribution.
In the antepenultimate chapter of his book Anti-Dühring Engels explains the differences between the "socialism" espoused by Professor Eugen Dühring and the socialism of Karl Marx and himself. Dühring thinks the ideas of Marx are "bastards of historical and logical fantasy" and he seeks to replace them with his own views which are, naturally, the true historical and logical ideas which socialists should adopt.[Anti-Dühring Part III Chapter III "Production"]
Engels will compare his and Marx's "bastard" progeny with the "legitimate" progeny of Herr Dühring with respect to economic production in this chapter. Dühring rejects any notion of the capitalist production system which claims that economic crises are due to the very nature of the structure of capitalism itself. That is a Marxian fantasy.
For Dühring, Engels says, "crises are only occasional deviations from 'normalcy' and at most only serve to promote 'the development of a more regulated order.'" The Marxists maintain, au contraire, that crises are caused by over-production and this is a structural fault within the capitalist system itself. But Dühring rejects this and writes that the real reason for crises is, in his words,"the lagging behind of popular consumption … artificially produced under-consumption … with the natural growth of the NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE (!), which ultimately make the gulf between supply and demand so critically wide."
To this Engels replies that the masses have been forced to under-consume throughout history and in every economic system based on class exploitation, therefore under-consumption is not some artificially produced phenomenon but something all class societies share-- i.e., that the exploited class never has the value of its yearly production returned to it at the end of the year. The crises of industrial capitalism, however, only date from the the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
Thus, Engels concludes, it is under capitalism that periodic economic crises come into the world and while under-consumption of the masses is a PREREQUISITE it is not the CAUSE of crises. And knowing this, he says, "tells us just as little why crises exist today as why they did not exist before."
Dühring, in fact, does not think mass markets are all that important anyway. He himself says that capitalist production happens to "depend for its market mainly on THE CIRCLES OF THE POSSESSING CLASSES THEMSELVES." His confusion becomes only more apparent when he follows up on this by claiming that the most important industries (this is the 1870s remember) are cotton and iron production. But, Engels points out, the production of these two is entirely dependent on a mass market and the possessing class make up only an "infinitesimally small degree" of its market.
Engels then points out that capitalism, by it very need to grow and expand, brings about crises. He says, for example, in England there is just one small town (Oldham) that from 1872 to 1875 doubled its production of spun cotton [the number of its spindles went from 2.5 to 5 million] and this is just one of a dozen small towns around Manchester. Oldham, by the way, produced as much spun cotton as ALL of Germany (including Alsace). This was happening in towns all over Great Britain.
It thus shows "deep-rooted effrontery" on the part of Herr Dühring to blame the English masses for under-consumption rather than the capitalists for over-production when it comes to "the present complete stagnation in the yarn and cloth markets." [Engels is referring to an economic crises of the 1870s.]
Engels ends his critique of Herr Dühring's views on crises but gives a few quotes that demonstrate that Dühring has no idea about capitalism as an economic system but sees everything in terms of the behavior of individuals. If over-speculation and the unplanned building of private factories are responsible for crises we must see that as simply "the ordinary interplay of overstrain and relaxation" of the system and look closely at "the rashness of individual entrepreneurs and the lack of private circumspection" as one of the causes.
The only "rashness" here, Engels maintains, is the habit of turning the facts of economics into "moral reprobation." This is a problem of our times as well, not just the time of Engels. How often do we hear talk about our current crisis as a product of "greed" on the part of Wall Street bankers and that they should pay their "fair share" of taxes and such rubbish as if the decay of capitalism is a moral disorder on the part of the ruling class instead of a structural disorder that requires the replacement of the system rather than remedial Sunday school classes for the capitalists.
But all this has been treated of in the previous chapter of Anti-Dühring and Engels wants to move on (Cf. "Frederick Engels on the Theoretical Development of Modern Capitalism" in the November 2011 Political Affairs). Engels will now turn his attention to Dühring's new system of viewing socialism which is called "the natural system of society."
Dühring bases his system of socialism on what he calls the "universal principle of justice" which applies everywhere and is independent of historical and economic facts. This is enough to disqualify it as idealistic nonsense but Engels wants to philosophically pepper spay Dühring for having the gall to attack Marx for being unclear and fuzzy as to what type of socialism he believes in. It appears that the demands made in the name of the workers in the Communist Manifesto are "erroneous half measures" far inferior to Dühring's ideas which represent "a comprehensive schematism of great import in human history."
Marx, according to Dühring, thinks of socialism as "nothing more than the corporative ownership by groups of workers … an ownership that is both individual and social." Engels is upset because this is far from anything Marx has suggested and in truth actually applies to the system that Dühring has concocted.
Dühring advocates a federation of independent economic communes which compete with one another and which have absolute freedom of movement from one commune to another. In this crazy system the wealthy successful communes will out compete the poorly run communes which will become defunct as the people will all end up moving to the well run ones.
Production within the communes stays the same as production in the past--i.e., the communes are still capitalist in nature even though controlled by the workers. So the greatly touted natural system of justice and the new socialism amounts to the fact, Engels says, that "the commune takes the place of the capitalists."
What are Dühring's views on the most basic form of all hitherto existing methods of production-- i.e., the division of labor? With respect to the primary division, that between TOWN and COUNTRY (or industry and agriculture) he has little to say beyond some common place remarks about its "inevitable" nature and the possibility of overcoming it in the future. Thin gruel from Engels' point of view.
When it comes to the modern division of labor in trade and industry Dühring is very vague and only says that we have an "erroneous division of labor" and that all will be remedied in the future "as soon as account is taken of the various natural conditions and personal capabilities [of the workers]." Engels doesn't say so, but Dühring's views here are suspiciously similar to those of Plato in the Republic and very far from the socialist analysis of Marx to which Engels now turns.
Marx tells us that in all societies where production springs up "spontaneously" (including capitalism) we discover the means of production dominate the people not the other way around. The first great division of labour saw the development of towns and cities surrounded by peasant agriculturalists. This division has doomed rural people for thousands of years, Marx says, to "mental torpidity" and enslaved the town dwellers to their own specialized trade. This "stunting" of humanity increases with the increase of the division of labor.
Under capitalism the workers become tied to their machines and to one specific function and one tool. Capitalism, Marx says in Das Kapital "converts the laborer into a crippled monstrosity. by forcing his detail dexterity at the expense of a world of productive capabilities and instincts…. The individual himself is made the automatic motor of a fractional operation." How much this has been alleviated by the modern day union movement varies from country to country and in proportion to the percentage of workers who are unionized. The large number of working people in the US for example, that vote Republican shows that "mental torpidity" is not confined to the rural populations of Texas, Iowa or Alaska (to name a few).
It is not just the workers who suffer under the present day division of labor but also, Engels says, the "empty-minded bourgeois" chasing after profits (Donald Trump comes to mind), the lawyers dominated by "fossilized legal conceptions" and so-called "educated classes" of society plagued by "local narrow-mindedness" and "mental short-sightedness"-- just think of the tribe of Sunday morning news pundits paraded before the public by all the major TV networks, or the platoons of professors giving advice about everything under the sun and hardly agreeing on anything other than that capitalism is still the best of all possible economic formations.
But how are we to overcome this division of labor and the consequent alienation of humanity from its potentials and possibilities? One way only says Engels: "in making itself the master of all the means of production to use them in accordance with a social plan, society puts an end to the former subjection of men to their own means of production." In other words, socialism based on central planning and most importantly-- a feature historically absent in 20th century socialist societies due to their premature appearance in economically backward conditions-- planning democratically controlled and carried out by the working people themselves. The former alienating division of labor will be done away with as "society cannot free itself unless every individual is freed."
Engels says that this is not just a "fantasy" or a "pious wish." He maintains that the state of industrial development in the 1870s is so advanced that society could "reduce the time required for labour to a point which measured by our present conceptions, will be small indeed." This figure needs to be actually quantified-- but the point is all the goodies needed to live and thrive could be created with people just working a few hours a week and with no one being chained to any one boring and unsatisfying job. The growth in productivity since Engels' day must make this even more true today.
Engels quotes Das Kapital: "The employment of machinery does away with the necessity of crystallizing this distribution [of labor-tr] after the manner of Manufacture, by the constant annexation of a particular man to a particular function. Since the motion of the whole system does not proceed from the workman, but from the machinery, a change of persons can take place at any time without an interruption of the work…."
Modern capitalism with its constant crises and dislocations of industrial centers and working people and financial catastrophes makes, Marx says, it necessary that we posit as a "fundamental law of production, variation of work" so that modern workers have to be ready to change jobs and learn new skills or leave the labor market. This disrupts lives and threatens widespread social disorder. Only socialist planning and a system that puts people before profits can prevent society from self destructing under the contradictions generated by the present capitalist world market which, in the name of profits first and people last, fragments both human individuals and their social relations with others which inevitably results from the private appropriation of socially created wealth.
Engels also says that the abolition of capitalism and the development "one single vast plan" which harmoniously "dovetails" industry and the means of production so that the differences between town and country are overcome is a prerequisite to overcoming environmental degradation and "present poisoning the air water and land." To this must be added the current disaster of human induced global warming which simply cannot be dealt with as long as capitalism remains the dominant economic system. This problem was not seen in Engels' day and now, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence of impending doom, the various capitalist powers are unwilling to take the drastic regulatory measures needed to deal with the problem.
Engels maintains that none of these claims he is making is "utopian" but that they are logical conclusions of scientific central planning and the abolition of the difference between town and country. It looks as if the towns, or rather the great cities (such as New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, etc., etc., will have be abolished as well! Engels says that it "is true that in the huge towns civilization has bequeathed us a heritage which it will take much time and trouble to get rid of." But, "the great towns will perish."
No, this is not Pol Pot, it is Frederick Engels and he is saying this because he envisions a complete redistribution of the population under socialism in order to get the "most equal distribution possible of modern industry." So the abolition of the separation of town and country means the abolition of the cities. They must and will be eliminated "however protracted a process it may be." This might just be a little too "utopian" and perhaps with the progress of science and communications since the 1870s, especially the growth of the internet, the contradictions between town and country can be resolved without offing the Big Apple.
In any event, leaving the abolition of cities aside, the point Engels wants to make is that Dühring's view of socialism leaves out of account that building socialism will necessitate "revolutionizing from top to bottom the old method of production and first of all putting an end to the old division of labour." Dühring thinks that the state can just take over production as is and harmonize it to people's "natural appetites and personal capabilities." He also thinks the division between town and country is natural and inevitable and has no plan for putting an end to the alienation and crippling of human capabilities that result from this division.
So much for Engels' critique of Dühringian socialism's handling of production. In the penultimate chapter of Anti-Dühring Engels will discuss the problems of distribution.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Blame The Brain
Thomas Riggins
Why do people commit atrocities? What is responsible for brutality and the cold blooded murder of innocents carried out by Nazis, the Hutu in Rwanda , or the United States against the Vietnamese people and more recently much of the civilian population of Iraq? Some scientists believe they have found the answer.
ScienceDaily reports ("Brain's Failure to Appreciate Others May Permit Human Atrocities," 12-14-2011) that the part of the brain responsible for social interaction with others may malfunction resulting in callousness leading to inhumane actions towards others. Scientists at Duke and Princeton have hypothesized, in a recent study, that this brain area can "disengage" when people encounter others they think are "disgusting" and the resulting violence perpetrated against them is due to thinking these objectified others have no "thoughts and feelings."
The study, according to ScienceDaily, considers this a "shortcoming" which could account for the genocide and torture of other peoples. Examples of this kind of objectification can be seen in the calling of Jews "vermin" by the Nazis, the Tutsi "cockroaches" by the Hutu, and the American habit of calling others "gooks" (as well as other unflattering terms).
Lasana Harris (Duke) says that "When we encounter a person, we usually infer something about their minds [do they have more than one?]. Sometimes, we fail to do this, opening up the possibility that we do not perceive the person as fully human." I wonder about this? What is meant by fully human? Surely the Hutu, for example, who had lived with the Tutsi for centuries did not really fail to infer that they had "minds."
Practicing something called "social neuroscience" which seems to consist of showing different people pictures while they are undergoing an MRI and then drawing conclusions from which areas of the brain do or do not "light up" when asked questions about these pictures, the scientists conducting this study discovered that an area of the brain dealing with "social cognition"-- i.e., feelings, thoughts, empathy, etc., "failed to engage" when pictures of homeless people, drug addicts , and others "low on the social ladder" were shown.
Susan Fiske (Princeton) remarked, "We need to think about other people's experience. It's what makes them fully human to us." ScienceDaily reported that the researchers were struck by the fact "people will easily ascribe social cognition-- a belief in an internal life such as emotions-- to animals and cars, but will avoid making eye contact with the homeless panhandler in the subway."
I don't think many people, at least if they haven't recently watched "Herbie", really think cars have an internal emotional life. The reason people avoid eye contact with the homeless is not, I think, because they don't see them as fully human, but because they do and they know, deep down, that they are in what Sartre called "bad faith" with respect to not helping or being able to help a fellow human being.
What seems to be unaddressed in this study is the "cause" of the objectification of others. Suppose brain area X is responsible for empathy and it does not "light up" in Nazis when they are around Jews. is this the reason that Nazis engage in inhumane acts? Is it a brain malfunction? Or is it perhaps the case that people who have been educated as Nazis, who have been subjected to intense Nazi propaganda and have been led to believe the Nazi world view will then have brains that won't respond to empathy to those considered hostile to Nazism? It is not a brain malfunction but a normal brain response to educational conditioning. This is, by the way, why ruling classes seek to control the content of public and private education and de facto censor views and individuals they view as "subversive."
This is an interesting scientific study, but I do not think the answer to man's inhumanity to man, at least with respect to large political and social movements, is to be explained by college students (the test sample) looking at pictures while undergoing an MRI.
Why do people commit atrocities? What is responsible for brutality and the cold blooded murder of innocents carried out by Nazis, the Hutu in Rwanda , or the United States against the Vietnamese people and more recently much of the civilian population of Iraq? Some scientists believe they have found the answer.
ScienceDaily reports ("Brain's Failure to Appreciate Others May Permit Human Atrocities," 12-14-2011) that the part of the brain responsible for social interaction with others may malfunction resulting in callousness leading to inhumane actions towards others. Scientists at Duke and Princeton have hypothesized, in a recent study, that this brain area can "disengage" when people encounter others they think are "disgusting" and the resulting violence perpetrated against them is due to thinking these objectified others have no "thoughts and feelings."
The study, according to ScienceDaily, considers this a "shortcoming" which could account for the genocide and torture of other peoples. Examples of this kind of objectification can be seen in the calling of Jews "vermin" by the Nazis, the Tutsi "cockroaches" by the Hutu, and the American habit of calling others "gooks" (as well as other unflattering terms).
Lasana Harris (Duke) says that "When we encounter a person, we usually infer something about their minds [do they have more than one?]. Sometimes, we fail to do this, opening up the possibility that we do not perceive the person as fully human." I wonder about this? What is meant by fully human? Surely the Hutu, for example, who had lived with the Tutsi for centuries did not really fail to infer that they had "minds."
Practicing something called "social neuroscience" which seems to consist of showing different people pictures while they are undergoing an MRI and then drawing conclusions from which areas of the brain do or do not "light up" when asked questions about these pictures, the scientists conducting this study discovered that an area of the brain dealing with "social cognition"-- i.e., feelings, thoughts, empathy, etc., "failed to engage" when pictures of homeless people, drug addicts , and others "low on the social ladder" were shown.
Susan Fiske (Princeton) remarked, "We need to think about other people's experience. It's what makes them fully human to us." ScienceDaily reported that the researchers were struck by the fact "people will easily ascribe social cognition-- a belief in an internal life such as emotions-- to animals and cars, but will avoid making eye contact with the homeless panhandler in the subway."
I don't think many people, at least if they haven't recently watched "Herbie", really think cars have an internal emotional life. The reason people avoid eye contact with the homeless is not, I think, because they don't see them as fully human, but because they do and they know, deep down, that they are in what Sartre called "bad faith" with respect to not helping or being able to help a fellow human being.
What seems to be unaddressed in this study is the "cause" of the objectification of others. Suppose brain area X is responsible for empathy and it does not "light up" in Nazis when they are around Jews. is this the reason that Nazis engage in inhumane acts? Is it a brain malfunction? Or is it perhaps the case that people who have been educated as Nazis, who have been subjected to intense Nazi propaganda and have been led to believe the Nazi world view will then have brains that won't respond to empathy to those considered hostile to Nazism? It is not a brain malfunction but a normal brain response to educational conditioning. This is, by the way, why ruling classes seek to control the content of public and private education and de facto censor views and individuals they view as "subversive."
This is an interesting scientific study, but I do not think the answer to man's inhumanity to man, at least with respect to large political and social movements, is to be explained by college students (the test sample) looking at pictures while undergoing an MRI.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Capitalism in a Fish Bowl
Thomas Riggins
Capitalism can sometimes be very confusing to figure out, especially with the complex interrelations of the world economy and the the different banking laws and corporate structures and all the national forms economies take. It would be helpful if we had a very simple way to look at it and figure it out. A simple model of how this system works which we could extrapolate to the whole system to understand it the better. I propose to discuss what is happening to the fish in the seas and to suggest that their fate under capitalism is just a smaller version of the fate that awaits us all if we allow this economic system to continue to dominate our lives and our planet. My information is taken from a ScienceDaily online article from December 5, 2011 entitled "Marine Predators in Trouble."
As we are well aware the world's oceans used to team with sea life and great flotillas of fishing vessels have scoured the seas to catch this life and bring it to market to feed a hungry world [at least a hungry rich northern world] and to make a profit-- especially a profit-- and if a particular species of fish could bring in a good profit it would be fished to extinction to obtain that profit rather than be allowed to recover to be fished again some day in the future. It is not a sustainable food supply that capitalism seeks to create-- but immediate profits on its investments. This is, by the way, why humane farming laws are difficult to enact and almost impossible to enforce.
At any rate, the SD article reports that scientists at the University of British Columbia have published a study that shows since the 1950s large marine predators such as marlins, swordfish, tunas and sharks have declined by 90% and have practically been wiped out in the northern Pacific and Atlantic by commercial fishing. These commercial fish, having been hunted to near extinction in the northern Hemisphere, are no longer sought in great numbers in the north by the fishing fleets. After sweeping them out of the coastal areas of the northern continents and islands, the fleets scoured the the open seas and have now headed to the southern Hemisphere where they intend to continue their unsustainable fishing methods to maintain their profits; pillaging the coasts and the open waters of the Indian and South Pacific and Atlantic oceans as well as the Antarctic Ocean.
One of the researchers mentioned in the SD article and lead author of the study, Laura Tremblay-Boyer, was quoted as saying: "Species such as tuna have been seriously exploited because of high market demand. A constant theme throughout of global marine ecosystems is these top predators are today prey for human beings, assisted by some serious technology. Top marine predators are more intrinsically vulnerable to the effects of fishing due to their life histories. Bluefin tuna, for instance, cannot reproduce until age nine." But the demand for fish from the markets of the north has not ceased. And now, the same shortage are beginning to appear in the southern oceans.
"After running out of predator fish in the north Atlantic and Pacific," co-author of the study Daniel Pauly said, "rather than implementing strict management and enforcement, the fishing industry pointed its bows south. The southern hemisphere predators are now on the same trajectory as the ones in the northern hemisphere. What happens next when we have nowhere left to turn?"
A good question. This is exactly the same behavior we have seen the capitalists engaging in with respect to climate change. Cancun, Copenhagen, and now Durban. No binding agreements-- infact the major world leaders didn't even bother to show up for this conference (Durban)-- and it is breathable air and temperatures compatible with life that is the issue. What does happened next when we have nowhere left to turn?
Capitalism can sometimes be very confusing to figure out, especially with the complex interrelations of the world economy and the the different banking laws and corporate structures and all the national forms economies take. It would be helpful if we had a very simple way to look at it and figure it out. A simple model of how this system works which we could extrapolate to the whole system to understand it the better. I propose to discuss what is happening to the fish in the seas and to suggest that their fate under capitalism is just a smaller version of the fate that awaits us all if we allow this economic system to continue to dominate our lives and our planet. My information is taken from a ScienceDaily online article from December 5, 2011 entitled "Marine Predators in Trouble."
As we are well aware the world's oceans used to team with sea life and great flotillas of fishing vessels have scoured the seas to catch this life and bring it to market to feed a hungry world [at least a hungry rich northern world] and to make a profit-- especially a profit-- and if a particular species of fish could bring in a good profit it would be fished to extinction to obtain that profit rather than be allowed to recover to be fished again some day in the future. It is not a sustainable food supply that capitalism seeks to create-- but immediate profits on its investments. This is, by the way, why humane farming laws are difficult to enact and almost impossible to enforce.
At any rate, the SD article reports that scientists at the University of British Columbia have published a study that shows since the 1950s large marine predators such as marlins, swordfish, tunas and sharks have declined by 90% and have practically been wiped out in the northern Pacific and Atlantic by commercial fishing. These commercial fish, having been hunted to near extinction in the northern Hemisphere, are no longer sought in great numbers in the north by the fishing fleets. After sweeping them out of the coastal areas of the northern continents and islands, the fleets scoured the the open seas and have now headed to the southern Hemisphere where they intend to continue their unsustainable fishing methods to maintain their profits; pillaging the coasts and the open waters of the Indian and South Pacific and Atlantic oceans as well as the Antarctic Ocean.
One of the researchers mentioned in the SD article and lead author of the study, Laura Tremblay-Boyer, was quoted as saying: "Species such as tuna have been seriously exploited because of high market demand. A constant theme throughout of global marine ecosystems is these top predators are today prey for human beings, assisted by some serious technology. Top marine predators are more intrinsically vulnerable to the effects of fishing due to their life histories. Bluefin tuna, for instance, cannot reproduce until age nine." But the demand for fish from the markets of the north has not ceased. And now, the same shortage are beginning to appear in the southern oceans.
"After running out of predator fish in the north Atlantic and Pacific," co-author of the study Daniel Pauly said, "rather than implementing strict management and enforcement, the fishing industry pointed its bows south. The southern hemisphere predators are now on the same trajectory as the ones in the northern hemisphere. What happens next when we have nowhere left to turn?"
A good question. This is exactly the same behavior we have seen the capitalists engaging in with respect to climate change. Cancun, Copenhagen, and now Durban. No binding agreements-- infact the major world leaders didn't even bother to show up for this conference (Durban)-- and it is breathable air and temperatures compatible with life that is the issue. What does happened next when we have nowhere left to turn?
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Farewell to McRib (for now)
Thomas Riggins
The famous McRib pork patty has once again made a brief appearance at a McDonald's near you. For a brief three weeks, October 24 to November 14, the elusive pork patty was available to the masses of gustatorily challenged carnivores who have become addicted to its unique combination of nutritionally disastrous chemical toxins.
From it first appearance, 1981-1985, (occasioned by a dearth of chickens available for nuggetivation) the McRib has been on and off the McDonald's menu several times. It was widely available after being reintroduced in 1989-- until removed again in 2005. Since then it has had a sporadic career in different parts of the McDonald's Empire (except for Germany where it has always been available due to the unquenchable appetite for all things porky). But in the last couple of years the Empire has begun to make it available nationwide but only for a few weeks at a time with long periods between appearances.
What is the nature of this pork patty? It has no ribs in it so its name is somewhat misleading. Like a Hollywood star its real name, McRestructured-Meat-Product, was deemed by its creators too off putting to gain much attraction or many fans. Even McPork-Patty did not seem to have much appeal. But who doesn't like ribs? And who wouldn't fall for a juicy plump (at least in its roll) glob of restructured meat product with fake rib indentations slathered in barbecue sauce and introduced as the McRib sandwich (the name that brought it fame)?
But behind that lovely exterior McRib hides a sordid past. Its popularity masks its history of chemical dependence. It cannot show up to perform it culinary wonders unless it has been provided with seventy different chemicals and compounds by its legions of enablers.
It starts life on the slaughterhouse floor of Smithfield Foods which supplies McDonald with the raw meat that will become McRib. This relationship may soon end as the Humane Society of the United States is even now exposing what it calls cruel and inhumane treatment of the animals Smithfield slaughters and is asking for the intervention of the federal government to halt the company's alleged truly odious practices.
McDonald's takes this meat-- basically pork shoulder mixed with pig tripe (the next door neighbor of chitlins in the pig digestive system), hearts, and scalded pig stomach technically known as "restructured meat (pork) product" but, due to the company's friends in Congress, listed for the public as "pork"-- mashed up into a mush to which about three dozen chemicals and compounds are mixed (including sauce and bun) to make it appear presentable and sells it to the public. Since you can imagine what this slop might taste like in its natural state it needed all sorts of artificial flavors and colors mixed into it, and its sauce and bun, before anyone could be lured into embracing it with the love it so richly does not deserve.
One of its flavors comes from the 980 mg of salt it gets along with 26 grams of fat, including trans fat, and 41% of your daily maximum of cholesterol. McRib is now ready to weigh in at 500 calories, slightly less than the lead star at McDonald's, the Big Mack. And, if you find McRib's bun nice looking, one of the reasons is it is bleached with azodicarbonate a chemical more commonly used in making foamed plastics in shoe soles and gym mats. By the looks of some McRib's fans, azodicarbonate may be the closest they will ever get to a gym.
Why the periodic appearance of McRib? I don't know but it may have something to do with the fact that different states have different times of expiration for their statutes of limitation on personal injury law suits.
In any case, the McRib is once again in semi-retirement. If we are lucky, maybe by next Thanksgiving McDonald's will have McTurkey ready for us.
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