Stop and Frisk: What Mayor Bloomberg Really Thinks About Minority Youth

Thomas Riggins

New York City Mayor Bloomberg, speaking before last Sunday's gay rights parade, tried to defend his position supporting the NYPD's massive stop and frisk program directed against minority (mostly Black and Hispanic) youth. His remarks were so out of line that the New York Times wrote an editorial (7-2-13) criticizing his "loopy logic" and U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries (Dem. N.Y.) was moved to say his comments "were sad, disrespectful, hurtful, and quite unfortunate."

The mayor dismissed the concerns of the minority community that they were being disproportionately stopped by the police and were, in fact, being harassed by the department. The fact that only 9% of the stops in 2012 involved whites was not seen by the mayor as in any way evidence that the minority rate was overly disproportionate. In fact he thought too many white people were being stopped and they were the ones who should be complaining about disproportionate treatment. His reason was that only 7% of the 2012 murder rate was due to white people (this was the only crime statistic he gave).

It may come as a surprise to many New Yorkers that the problem with the NYPD is that it is harassing white people not minorities, but that is Bloomberg's position. He is reported as maintaining (Wall Street Journal, 7-1-13) that "The numbers are the numbers, and the numbers clearly show that the stops are generally proportionate with suspects' descriptions and for years now critics have been trying to argue that minorities are stopped disproportionately." The numbers show not enough minority youth are being stopped and too many white folks are. "The numbers don't lie," the mayor said. 

Well, if that is the problem in New York-- harassment of white youth by the police, I don't understand what the mayor has against a federally appointed monitor to make sure the NYPD is not violating people's constitutional rights. The federal monitor would at least clear the mayor and his police commissioner Ray Kelly of discriminating against minority youth and thus undermine the charges of racism in high places.

But the mayor also thinks a disproportionate amount of crime is due to minority youth so if they were disproportionately stopped they would really be proportionally stopped because they would be being stopped proportionally to the percentage of crimes they were responsible for and not in proportion to their population with respect to the disproportionately stopped white people. I hope this is clear. It means whatever the mayor does will turn out to be ok, except for being unfair to white folk.

Here is the mayor's view on minority youth. He said the politicians running for mayor would rather try and get votes  "than help us get out of this terrible situation where a disproportionate percentage of the crime is committed by a group of young kids that just don't have any future."

And why don't minority youth have any future? Is it because of the mismanaged educational system where the mayor would rather fight with the teachers than work with them to improve educational opportunities? Is it the lack of adequate after school programs and summer jobs, and employment training opportunities? Is due to slum housing and rent gouging of the poor? Could the NYPD and the mayor by targeting millions of minority youth as potential criminals because they "have no future" except crime be sending that very message to them-- no future for you!

I think it pretty clear that the mayor and his police commissioner have written off the majority of Black and Hispanic youth and are subjecting them to an unjustified program of stop and frisk harassment. The city council has just passed a bill creating an independent inspector general to check on abuse of power by the police. The mayor says he will veto it. The mayor should ask himself-- if the NYPD isn't doing anything wrong, what's the worry? 

Who Turned the Lights Off? Jonathan Israel's Take on Pagden's "The Enlightenment"

Thomas Riggins

The world today is in the grips of the irrational and anarchic system of global capitalism dominated by the United States and characterized by international economic and political disorders, wars, poverty and environmental destruction.

In order to arrive at solutions to the problems facing humanity we will have to devise methods to overcome the capitalist system of irrationality and replace it by a rational international order based on the principles of democratic control rooted in a rational approach to solving the problems of war, economic inequality and environmental degradation by means of reason (logic and science).

It is important that those concerned with trying to bring about a transition from the unworkable present to a better future, which is not dominated by predatory capitalist super powers and their hanger ons, have a clear understanding of the most important historical movement before Marxism that attempted to bring about a better world and the lessons it has for us today.

This movement is known to history as the Enlightenment  which dates, more or less, from the middle of the 17th Century (one could almost say from the writings of Spinoza and his heirs) until the mid-19th century when nationalism and class warfare turned the ruling elites against the Enlightenment's values of  social justice, equality, and human rights and turned off the lights, or tied to, which had illuminated and revealed the problems facing humanity and their solutions. Lights that were reignited by the world socialist movement initiated by the works of Marx and Engels.

Today these values are again on the agenda, at least as far as lip service is concerned. This article will review the analysis of Anthony Pagden's new book, "The Enlightenment And why it still matters," by Jonathan Israel published in the TLS of June 21, 2013 ("How the light came in"). 

Israel has some initial good things to say about this book but then he mounts some very strong objections to its view of the Enlightenment-- so strong that I don't think this book would be a good introduction to the importance of this historical period.

Israel begins by telling us the Enlightenment is much more significant in the creation of "modernity" than the Renaissance or the Reformation (as important as these other movements were).  Pagden's book is, he says,  "one of the better surveys of the Enlightenment." From what follows the others must really be bad! Israel gives the following negative evaluations.

First, he finds the book's views on the beginnings of the Enlightenment and its "overall interpretation" to be "unsatisfactory." Who would begin to study a 436 page history book based on this evaluation? What is the reason for this negative view? The book is too anglo-centric with respect to the origins of the early Enlightenment (late 17th to mid 18th centuries.) The stress is on Hobbes, Locke, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson "and other British and Irish thinkers." In reality these figures were of minor importance compared to the Continental writers such as Leibniz, Wolff, Bayle, Thomasius and Spinoza and were rarely cited by them.

In fact, the really important early writings were in French (or Latin) but from a Dutch "milieu." It was Holland, not England that in 1700 or so "counted internationally as the world's foremost model of a tolerant, prosperous republican ethnic  and religious melting pot." Locke, for all his British acclaim, "was of practically no significance" to such major radical Enlightenment figures as Pierre Bayle  and Denis Diderot. In fact, as Israel points out elsewhere, the most important thinker for the entire Enlightenment period, was Spinoza. One might also conclude that in the whole era between Descartes and Marx the two most outstanding philosophical giants were Spinoza and Hegel.

Israel considers it a "serious omission" that Pagden practically ignores the major role of the Dutch Republic in favor of Britain as the inspiration to Enlightenment thinkers favoring political reform and a republican form of government. The first big struggle for democracy in the modern world was not the American Revolution of 1776-83 (it was "not fully democratic") but the Patriottenbeweging (Patriot movement) of 1780-87 in Holland which was referred to at least as often by the Enlighteners leading the French Revolution as were the English revolutions of the previous century.

The book's greatest flaw is the failure to identify properly those Enlightenment figures responsible for the creation of "democratic modernity" which Pagden thinks was a principal achievement of the Enlightenment. Instead it concentrates on the traditional standbys of Anglo-American scholarship-- Locke, Montesquieu, Hume, Voltaire and Adam Smith-- all of whom were "moderates" [Hume was an outright racist]  "who made no particular contributions to furthering racial and gender equality, anti-colonialism, full freedom of thought and religion, press freedom, universal secular education or general emancipation."  They were the least revolutionary with respect to changing the status quo in a radical manner and so have become the most well known and taught in anglophone countries.

Besides a greatest flaw (Israel says "principal weakness") there is a "key vulnerability" as well. This reveals itself in the last chapter on the role of the Enlightenment in the French Revolution. Pagden sees only two major phases in the Revolution: the first Enlightenment phase that reined in the monarchy in June 1789 and under the rule of the National Assembly created the constitution of 1791 and the second the Terror under Robespierre which, as Israel agrees, "denied the Enlightenment's core values" [a libel I think against Robespierre and the Jacobins.] 

There were, however, not two-- but three revolutions according to Israel-- there was a middle period between 1791 (the date of the "monarchist constitution" put forth by moderates led by the marquis de Lafayette and other liberal monarchists, and the Terror. Pagden ignores this "tragic middle phase" led by the kind of radical philosophes favored by Israel and better known as the Girondins as opposed to Robespierre's Jacobins.

Israel says the Girondins were radical democrats who wanted universal male suffrage, were opposed to slavery, and favored the rights of women, as well as universal toleration and an unrestricted free press. Israel also says Robespierre was completely opposed to these radical democrats  and that after the Jacobins seized power in 1793 they instituted the Terror and went "all out to suppress the Enlightenment in government, social theory and education…." 

This may be a bit unfair to Robespierre and the Jacobins who thought the Revolution itself was on the verge being overthrown by reactionary counter-revolutionary forces and that Girondin polices were not forceful enough to prevent this. The Jacobins seized power not because they rejected Enlightenment ideas but because they thought a temporary people's democratic dictatorship was required to save the Revolution and that the Girondins, by opposing them, had placed themselves on the side of counter-revolution whatever their subjective attitudes toward the Revolution might  have been.

The Girondins did not trust the revolutionary masses and were against direct democracy and in favor of indirect representative democracy whereby the people's elected representatives (educated and cultured folks such as the Girondins) would represent the real interests of the people who were too ignorant and uneducated to properly represent themselves. The Jacobins came to power by means of a direct democratic appeal to the revolutionary masses to save the Revolution and whatever the ultimate evaluation of the Terror may turn out to be, many, if not most, historians credit the Jacobins and Robespierre with reversing the counter-revolution and preventing the collapse of the Republic.

Under the Jacobins Feudalism was abolished in France and a new democratic constitution was enacted in 1793. This Jacobin constitution was ratified by a vote which was undertaken with universal male suffrage and it was based on the 1789 "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" and it supported popular sovereignty and instituted rights for the French people such as the right of association, the right to work, to public welfare, to public education, the right to rebel against any government violation of the people's rights. The Jacobins  also abolished slavery throughout the territories governed by France. 

This constitution shows that the values of the Enlightenment were not foreign to Robespierre and the Jacobins. However, despite coming up with this great progressive constitution supported by the revolutionary masses, the Jacobins also decided to postpone implementing it until the counter- revolutionary threat was over and the Terror was no longer necessary. The Jacobins were overthrown in 1794 by a milder counter-revolution than the one they had saved the country from so their constitution was never really implemented and was replaced by a less revolutionary one in 1795 which was nevertheless influenced by it.

Israel only half agrees with Pagden's assertion that the Enlightenment was a reform movement not a revolutionary one that, in his words, it 'had , in fact, always been identified with reform rather than revolution." Pagden misses the point that there were really TWO Enlightenments-- a moderate conservative and/or reformist one [e.g., Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Burke, Ferguson, Gibbon-- just to mention anglophones], and a radical one [Bentham, John Jebb, Price, Thomas Paine, Priestley, Mary Wollenstonecraft, Helen Maria Williams, Godwin, Barlow, Jefferson, Elihu Palmer]. This same split could also be found on the Continent where such "super" radicals as Diderot, d'Holbach, Helvétius, Lessing for example, faced off against moderates such as Voltaire, Leibniz, Wolff, and later Kant and their followers. The counter Enlightenment attacked both these Enlightenments sometimes confusing them as just one movement-- which many counter Enlightenment intellectuals continue to do in our own day.

The "fundamental idea" of the radical Enlightenment was, according to Israel, "that the true human moral order is based not on divine revelation or intervention but exclusively on social utility, especially equality and secularism." Moderate figures fudge these distinctions and reactionary counter Enlightenment thinkers (if thinkers they be) deny them completely.

The great rift created by the radical Enlightenment between those who appeal basically to reason (logic and science) to solve our problems and those who want to "balance" reason "with religion, existing institutions, the prevailing social order and tradition" still exists today  and is at the heart of the political and social struggles that will shape the 21st century. 

European Social Contract Betrayed

Thomas Riggins This article is based in part on information contained in David C. Unger's "Europe's Social Contract Lying in Pieces," from the Sunday online New York Times (6-9-2013). The austerity regimes being imposed on the European working class and some elements of the petty bourgeoisie by the agents of international finance capital  (the IMF and the  central banks of several large European countries, especially Germany) have resulted in millions of working people rejecting the traditional mainstream capitalist parties and voting for parties labeled by the bourgeois media as "fringe." Some of these "fringe" parties are so large that they have determined the outcome of national elections (the Five Star Movement in Italy for example) and pose a serious threat to "business as usual" in the social democratic movement. It should be noted that after World War II and the collapse of German and Italian fascism, there was panic in the West European and American bourgeoisie that Communist Parties would be swept into power either by uprisings or elections. To fight this threat  concessions were made to the working people in the form of social welfare programs based on socialist principles but trimmed down so as not to threaten the power and control of the regime of international finance capital led by the United States. The United States basically financed the reconstruction of Western Europe and European capitalism and both the traditional conservative and right wing elements as well as the social democratic and center left elements teamed up to back social programs designed to lessen the appeal of the demands of the Communist and Workers movements. Unger in his article laments that this "social contract" has been abandoned by the European center left parties and as a result "democracy's best advertisement to the Communist East" had been "undermined … in pursuit of a perverse economic dogma." The point of course is that all the social gains granted by the capitalists to the West European working people were begrudgingly conceded out of fear of the appeal of the Soviet Union and the world communist movement. With the undermining and collapse of the Soviet Union and East European socialism, finance capital no longer sees the need to coddle the working class and has reverted true to form to impose a regime of extreme economic exploitation in order to maximize its profits. Austerity is simply the redirection of social wealth from programs, such as health care, housing, unemployment, pensions, etc.,) into the coffers of the bourgeoisie where it rightfully belongs under the capitalist system ("a perverse economic dogma" which I take, unlike Unger, to be capitalism itself.) What have the social democrats done-- especially the Democrats in Italy the Socialist Party in France, the Spanish socialists, Pasok (the Greek socialist party) and others? They have abandoned the very people they are supposed to represent --the working people -- and have backed and voted for policies that will bring about "many more years of cuts in social spending" and they are "increasingly out of touch with the desperate situation of young people." This is why millions of voters have deserted these parties for so-called "fringe" groups. What are the consequences of this social democratic betrayal? This is how Unger describes the scene in Mediterranean Europe: "You see shuttered groceries and clothing shops, abandoned restaurants, idled factories and half-built housing developments overgrown with weeds. Newspapers carry heartbreaking stories of families evicted from modest apartments, people losing their jobs and then their health benefits, young and not-so-young women turning to prostitution to make ends meet, even suicides by self-immolation." This is the modern day equivalent of the heartless inhumane capitalism described by Marx in Das Kapital. Unger points out that the economic power of Germany is so great it probably could have dictated the present regime of austerity without the cooperation and even against the hostility of social democracy. Today's Germany has attained what it failed to achieve in two world wars, economic (and hence political) dominance of Europe. The tragedy of social democracy is that it collaborated in the destruction of its own electorate instead of fighting, even if a losing battle, to protect it. That betrayal did not go unnoticed. As the European workers begin to fight back, as the communist and workers parties begin to gain in strength other social forces are also rapidly growing. Forces from the Dark Side are also beginning to proliferate such as the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn in Greece ("Greece for the Greeks"), the United Kingdom Independence Party (right-wing Eurosceptic libertarians), the National Front (a "whites only" party in the UK). The Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) and the UK Conservative Party should also take notice as they too are losing members to the "fringe." Unger says Germany too should not be too confident. Its present economic dominance may evaporate if the rest of Europe dissolves into political and social chaos due to the on going capitalist crisis. An ultra-right movement in Germany may become ascendant. We wouldn't want that to happen again.

Marx Reloaded, A Film by Jason Barker: Review and Commentary

Thomas Riggins Jason Barker's film, Marx Reloaded, was released in 2011. It is 52 minutes long and is now available for viewing on the internet. It was interesting to watch but it did not have a lot to do with Marx except superficially. If Marx was reloaded it was with blanks. The film presents a series of talking heads many of whom have no grasp of what Marx and Marxism are all about and who engage in flights of "postmodern'' speculation as to the meaning of Marxism today. There are a few exceptions that I will note. There are also a few non-Marxist supporters of capitalism who don't see any future for Marx. There are no representatives from contemporary labor movements or political parties which are part of the ongoing Marxist tradition. The question addressed is if Marx's critique of capitalism is valid for our time. If the critique is valid then what comes next? Is Communism going to make a return? Is it coming back to replace the capitalist system? The film opens with an animation of Marx meeting Trotsky and Trotsky undertaking to enlighten Marx as to the significance of Marxism today. Trotsky will attempt to guide Marx to an understanding of how ideology works in society. Quite the tail wagging the dog. The film then begins by asking how economists today explain the greatest capitalist crisis since the great depression of the 1930s. The answers we get are not very telling. Now the talking heads take over. First up is the late former chief economist of the Deutsche Bank, Norbert Walter (1944-1912) who says that we [bankers] made mistakes. E.g., in the USA people could get mortgages at 110% of the value of their houses. The banks made money cheaply available, people borrowed too much and they couldn't pay back what they owed. Later in the film he tells us that Marx's ideas about getting rid of capitalism by abolishing a society based on commodity production for profit would create a world that people would not want to live in as that would lead to the abolishment of "the universal medium of money" which "turns everything around us into commodities" and "money is an essential medium for civilization, for peaceful coexistence and the organization of complex societies." This begs the question as communism is a complex society based on production for human needs not commodities for profit. Mr. Walter must have forgotten about the two world wars that almost destroyed European civilization in the last century when he opined that "peaceful coexistence" is one of the benefits of a money economy. Next up is Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute, and author of "Taming The Trade Unions", who tells us the crisis was caused by inflation due to governments printing too much money. That is all we hear from him. On a more general level of the problems of capitalism and the meaning of Marx's writing the film interviews several people identified as philosophers, political philosophers, theorists, critics, etc. Some are well known to the academic community although their grasp of Marxism may be questionable. We now hear from Antonio Negri, co-author of "Empire", an expert on Spinoza, and a founder of Italian Autonomism, and "Worker's Power" (Potere Operaio) an ultra-left formation in Italy with a secret armed wing. Negri tells us that the capitalists [neo-liberals] cannot pay the workers the price of their labor [which doesn't even make sense in Marxist terms-- a wage is the price paid for labor-- he should at least be talking about the value of their labor-power not the price] and that they remain in power and are able to wage wars around the world only as long as the working class remains quiescent  due to high wages. But as we see the capitalists can't do that so Marx is still relevant. This line of thought is taken up by the film which now asks does Marx's theory of exploitation hold today or is the way capitalists make their profits changing? The answers are sought from more talking heads without any clear explanation having been given as to what Marx's theory of exploitation is. What is clear is that with a few exceptions, which I will note, none of the answers given in this part of film are dealing with Marx's theory. The philosopher Slavoj Zizek is now up to bat (what film on "Marxism" would be complete without this latter day Eugen Dühring). He is described as the "leader" of a new movement to revive Marxist and Communist thinking. He revives Marx by proclaiming that the classical notion of exploitation [left unexplained] no longer works due to the knowledge explosion-- he does not tell us why this is so. However, it has something to do with computers because we need them to communicate with each other and so we have pay "rent" to Bill gates because he owns part of our mental substance. I am tempted to think that in professor Zizek's case Mr. Gates  is a slumlord. Finally we are told that we need a redefinition of the "proletariat" because the "proletariat" is larger than the working class. Zizek also notes that the unemployed today demonstrate because they want jobs-- "please exploit us in the normal way" they are saying to the capitalists. I think he strikes out as the "leader" of a new "Marxist" movement. He will appear again later. Antonio Negri now reappears. Capitalism, he says, has evolved in ways Marx could not have predicted. Exploitation is not only of factory workers but of workers throughout society. You can't start a revolution with the factory workers-- you need them but also all the other workers too [I think Marx could have predicted this, in fact he already knew it.] You need the other workers, Negri says, because they are the "most" exploited. What can that mean? The examples he gives is of research and cinema workers and the like because they produce more value. None of this makes sense because the Marxist concept of "value," "surplus value," "labor power" and "exploitation" are never brought up in the film. If they were none of the things these talking heads and intellectual will o the wisps are saying would make sense anyway only the viewers would at least understand why. Herfried Munkler now makes his appearance. Dr. Munkler, co-editor of the Complete Works of Marx and Engels and a professor at Humbolt University, in contrast to those who have appeared before, actually knows a thing or two about Marxism although in its Social Democratic deformation. His concern is not limited to discussing the plight of working people in the West but focuses on the exploitation of working people in the so-called Third World where working conditions are subhuman and wages are ridiculously low in comparison to the advanced capitalist countries. Here it is obvious that Marxist ideas are relevant and that capitalism is being abusive. Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri's collaborator on the book "Empire" (not worth the read) now appears to bring us back from the Third World to the the First to tell us the economy is now centered on "immaterial" and "immeasurable" products-- that is, on "ideas" not on "objects" like old fashioned commodities such as cars, refrigerators, toasters-- the products of industrial manufacturing. Economics is about relationships and intangible assets [not, coal, oil or natural gas]. He is listed as a literary critic and political philosopher, at least he talks about political philosophy like a literary critic. Now is the time for Jacques Ranciere, the co-author with Louis Althusser of "Reading Capital" (although his part was left out of the English version). He is noted for an educational theory which says a person can be a teacher without knowing anything about the subject he is going to teach; a view welcomed by not a few teachers. Ranciere makes three appearances in the film and manages to say nothing of importance in any of them.  Here he tells us many societies have had exploitation without "explosions" so we can't draw from exploitation the logic of an end to exploitation. Economic exploitation is not the dominant factor in all social struggle. Ranciere seems oblivious to the Marxist view that, as Engels says, in the last analysis all major social struggles in class based societies have economic exploitation at their root. Each society and its economic formation needs to be individually studied. There have certainly been "explosions" over exploitation in all societies that have distinct social classes despite Ranciere's contrary assertions. The film now takes up a new subject. We are told that to understand capitalism we must delve into the the "mystic realm" of the COMMODITY.  It is certainly true that without an understanding of the origin and role of commodities we will not understand our economic system which is based on the production and exchange of commodities. Marx devotes the first chapter of "Das Kapital" to the commodity. It is a difficult chapter but once grasped the rest of the volumes of Das Kapital will be easily understood. The film however does not deal with Marx's scientific analysis of commodities but skips to the last section of the chapter which is entitled "The Fetishism of Commodities." Without an understanding of the preceding sections it is easy to misunderstand this last section and, true to form, both the film's narrator and all of the talking heads in this part of the film completely miss the point and fail to grasp Marx's ideas concerning commodity fetishism. To make a long story short, Marx's point is that the laws of the capitalist system are not  products of  nature as, say, are the laws of gravity or of aerodynamics but they are the result of human activity. Commodities and their relations are created by human beings and human beings can abolish them. Yet, because we are ignorant of the laws of economics we think of commodities as natural, as things which , although created by us, assume an existence independent of us and go to a market whose laws we are subject to and must conform to. This is similar to the creation of religions or "primitive" belief systems where a person creates a fetish and then bows down to it and thinks it has power over him and he must subject himself to its demands and will. The capitalist market appears as the natural form of economic exchange and there is no alternative to it.  It is not true that there is no alternative and humans can abolish capitalism and rid themselves of subjection to the laws of commodity production and create an economic world which serves human needs and one where human needs do not take second place to the need to exchange commodities at a profit. None of this is addressed in this part of the film. Instead we get baloney. This is because the talking heads are in the grips of the very fetishism Marx warns us about. Norman Bolz (media theorist): "The theory of commodity fetishism is Marx's most important discovery." It isn't. Marx's most important discovery is the distinction between the value of labor and that of labor-power which is the basis of the labor theory of value and of his analysis of capitalism. It is, however, one of the most important consequences of that discovery. Bolz continues by saying Marx's theory reveals a secret as to why capitalism today "functions so well" [!!!]. The secret is "that goods in the capitalist market place satisfy more than simple needs  they also convey a spiritual surplus value and this value is the real reason for the purchase." This is complete and utter nonsense. Peter Sloterdijk (philosopher [but not a very good one]) is not so definite. He says the theory is probably "the important part of Marxist doctrine." This is because "Marx is among those who discovered the fact that things live."  He goes on to say, Walter Benjamin "discovered the structural similarity between human commodities [?] and commodities as objects." He thus "universalized the category of prostitution." While there may be a relationship between fetishism and prostitution on some level, I don't think this is what Marx was getting at. "Prositution is always present when a beautiful thing feigns life and tries to seduce passersby with an offer."  I think professor Sloterdijk should reread Marx's chapter on commodities. Finally, here is Famonn Butler"s (policy analyst) take: he says it's human psychology to want things-- the economy is neutral-- it just produces what people want.  Well then, that's it. Capitalism just produces what people want. Then why are there so many adverts all over the place? Do we need to be constantly reminded about what we want? The film now turns to Marxism and Ecology-- only by now Marxism has been unloaded rather than  reloaded. Zizek is now taking about  "Communism" in the sense what we have in "common"-- the Earth as our "common substance" and we have to manage it together. He makes no proposal about how to do that. Michael Hart is also back talking about the "common" in "Communism" and how different that is from both the "Communism" found in the Soviet Union (derived from Marx incidentally) and also the "Communism"  of American Anti-Communism [evidently he doesn't approve of either kind of "Communism"]. Herfried Munkler points out that Marx "applies exploitation not only to human labor but to the limited resources of nature. He says that if the exploitation of nature continues nature will be destroyed." Munkler thinks that we can reduce the exploitation of nature under capitalism and have common ownership of the Earth without  a Marxist society. But this is just social democratic optimism as befits anyone affiliated with the SPD in Germany. He gives no program. But at least he brings up an all important issue; the destruction of the environment under capitalism today. John Gray weighs in with the observation that international capitalism develops in ways impossible to predict and impossible to control (revealing that he is completely under the sway of the fetishism of commodities). He says the "New Leninists" [we have not met any "Leninists" in this film-- nor will we] and "Greens" are correct about the fact that "human action" has destabilized the environment but they are "deluded" in thinking human action can restabilize it. It doesn't occur to him that it is not humans qua humans that are destructive but only humans under the sway of particular sorts of economic and social relations. Even if humans could get together as a global collective, which he says will never happen, they could not restabilize the environment. Doom and gloom is all we can expect. The film now asks if the current economic crisis was caused by an under regulated banking system. Is the only solution now and in the future to have state regulated economic systems? The film suggests we look back into history for solutions. I should note here that people who look  to the past for solutions to present day problems are usually seen to be reactionaries. Be that as it may, we return to Norbert Bolz who likes the fact that in the 19th century banks issued their own scripts which functioned as money. You could take it to another bank and redeem it in coin of the realm-- if the other bank trusted it! This system would make all the banks very aware of the true value of the scripts and bad banks would be exposed. He thinks this is a really good idea and I suppose there were no banking crises in the 19th century, except there were. John Gray rightly thinks this idea is nuts because state monopoly capital [not his term] has become so evolved and complicated since the 19th century and this has happened as a result of the close interconnection between capitalism and state power-- there is no going back. But is there going forward? Why is it that the state rushes in to save capitalism all the time? Is it possible, the film now asks, that these crises, like the one we are in right now, which broke out in 2007, are not side effects of capitalism but essential to its very existence? Herfried Munkler tells us that Marx thought that crises would lead to the downfall of capitalism but since his day capitalism has gone through many crises and has "rejuvenated itself." He mentions Joseph Schumpeter's theory of crises as periods of "creative destruction." "Capitalism," Munkler concludes, "doesn't age. Instead crisis is its Fountain of Youth."  This from the co-editor of the Collected Works is rather strange. Marx thought the internal contradictions would eventually bring about capitalism's collapse (or the mutual destruction of the contending classes within the system) but there was no time table and he argued that capitalism had at its disposal many tools to stave off immediate collapse but it would eventually prove dysfunctional as had the economic forms (slavery, feudalism,) that preceded it. Schumpeters "creative destruction" (destruction of the lives of workers and the majority of the population and creative of wealth for the so-called 1%-- the capitalists) is no refutation of Marx's theories. The "theorist" Alberto Toscano, one of the very few interviewed who seems to have his head in the right place, points out that capitalism, whatever its ultimate fate, is responsible for creating a gigantic surplus population that it does not know what to do with. He mentions the book "The Planet of Slums" by Mike Davis and talks about  the "surplus humanity" that capitalism has on its hands because its technological advances have made the number of workers it needs redundant. This is the "reserve army of labor" that Marx wrote about-- but now it is no longer a "reserve" it is just a surplus of human beings that are socially unneeded piling up in the slums of the world with nowhere to go. The "creative destruction" they may eventually bring about capitalism may have a hard time dealing with. Only the Chinese, with a non-capitalist economic system, seem to have been able to cope with the massive poverty in the rural areas  of their country (and of course Cuba and Vietnam and a few others with non-capitalist economies, and now Venezuela, are beginning to follow suit). Finally, the film asks what sense is there in believing another world, other than capitalism, is possible. TINA-- There is No Alternative was Ms. Thatcher's motto-- was she correct? Can a Communist alternative emerge after the experiences of the past century?   Antonio Negri says there is only capitalism so we must fight the bosses as the bosses fight us. This seems to be an eternal struggle-- there is only the movement Bernstein thought and so it seems  does Negri-- at least in this film-- it is difficult to get just what he means so I may be incorrect here. He tells us what we all know-- Russia didn't have "Communism" it had "socialism." What is socialism? It is a way to manage capitalism, just like liberalism is. How would Communism come about? It "comes into being through a relation between transformations of reality and the will or decision to do it or to build it." After this bit of balderdash  he leaves us with the admonition to junk the old Communist Manifesto  and to write a new one-- he is not , however, the man to do it. Nina Power, feminist philosopher, has more regard for the Communist Manifesto, and says it has continuing power to influence people. She is surely correct. Zizek writes off the 20th century "communist" states, Social Democracy, the idea of local councils, collectives, Soviets (which first popped up in the 1905 Russian Revolution) and their latter day reincarnations. What's left? He tells us he likes the idea that "A communist society is one in which each person could dwell in his own stupidity." Zizek is already doing that so he should be happy. He says he got that idea from reading Frederick Jameson. He thinks it would be great if Communism turned out to be like a Bruegel painting. Whenever I hear Zizek expostulating it brings to mind what Karl Marx said about Jeremy Bentham i.e., "in no time and in no country has the most homespun common-place ever strutted about in so self-satisfied a way." At least Bentham did not resort to pseudo-Hegelian verbiage. Micha Brumlik (professor of education at the Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main) maintains that after the 20th century we have the right to know what Communism is going to be like-- it has to be democratic to be supported. There will be a big fight over that, I fear, as different concepts of "democracy" will be put forth. But he is right to demand a politically active civil society not divorced from a democratic political system. He thinks that Hardt and Negri's  unclear views on the "the multitude" will never get that concept up and running or have any practical outcome. Jacques Ranciere leaves us with the view that while Marx wanted a "classless society" what we really need is what he calls an "emancipatory society." This is one "in which each has an equal share." This has a vague utopian sound to it-- a throwback to pre-Marxist French socialist thinking. Marxist logic, he tells us, is to prepare for the future, but he believes "instead that the idea of emancipation is really tied to a sort of appearance in the here and now of those we call the 'have-nots' and of those who make their presence felt through their capacity to think, to intervene politically  and to prove themselves capable of organizing economic production." Ayn Rand would like this-- the have-nots and their masters-- only for Ranciere they would be good masters. This is a latter day reincarnation of Plato's Republic. Ranciere goes on to criticize Negri. "Negri thinks capitalism produces communism [in the film Negri appears to think capitalism is here for the long run and must always be struggled against-- or if communism comes about it will be through the triumph of the will-- few of the people in this film are logically coherent]. In reality, capitalism only produces its own form of communism. But this is not the communism of everyone's capacity. There are those who say 'Look at what capitalism does. The idea of communism can't be so bad.' But I don't think those people are involved in constructing the idea of real equality today." What is this rambling discourse suppose to mean? The last pronouncement I will consider comes from Peter Sloterdijk, who tells us that "People must join together to forge alliances against the lethal. They must provide mutual security and offer each other communities of solidarity on a planetary scale [sounds like an advert for NATO]. Because for the first time collective self destruction is possible. [Is he referring to the bomb? climate change?] Before we say 'communism' we must understand the principle of 'immunism' [a new -ism to worry about] or the principle of our mutual insurance which is the most profound motive of solidarity." This is the sum and substance of the movie. Some of these thinkers are better than they have appeared in this movie-- but not by much. I don't think this film has reloaded Marx-- quite the contrary. I think it completely fails to present what Marxism is all about and its past accomplishments and future possibilities. No film can hope to present Marxism to the public without at the same time dealing with the real life problems of the union and working class movements and issues in the Third World. As I pointed out at the beginning of this review this film completely ignores working class leaders and the leaders of political movements inspired by Marxism and confines itself to interviewing intellectual talking heads who, quite frankly, often don't know what they are talking about. You can find this movie on You Tube complete with subtitles. It is 52 minutes long, and once you have watched it I think you will agree with my assessment.

Russian Homeland Threatened by Feminism

Thomas Riggins Vladimir Putin's government's crack down on Pussy Riot may have helped save the Russian Federation from the peril of creeping feminism. One of his government's closest allies, Patriarch Kirill who leads the Russian Orthodox Church, has just announced, according to Reuters, that feminism is a very dangerous ideology and could even lead to the destruction of the Russian Homeland. This makes it more dangerous than Communism which never threatened the existence of the homeland. It puts feminism right up there with Nazism which did threaten the existence of the homeland.  President Putin has said the Church is a protector of Russian national values, something he would never say about Pussy Riot. After having had over seventy years of a socialist government 75% of the people still identify with the Russian Orthodox Church (say it ain't so Joe!). I don't want to contradict the Patriarch, who like the Pope, Pat Robertson, Billy Graham and some others may share a party line with Jesus, just report his wisdom to the laity. That wisdom consists of knowing what the true role of men and women is in the world and in society. After all, the organization represented by the Patriarch has been around for a couple of thousand years and has had plenty of time to figure this out, even if it had not been handed down from on high. The role of women is, as many men have always suspected the 3Ks, Kinder, Küche, Kirche (sorry for the German that's Children, Kitchen, Church). Last Tuesday ( 4-10-13) the Patriarch stated: “I find very dangerous this phenomenon, which is called feminism, because feminist organizations proclaim a pseudo-freedom of women that should in the first place be manifested outside marriage and outside the family.”  Well, progressives should be against pseudo-freedom and it seems the Church thinks women can only find real freedom inside marriage [ presumably a gay marriage would not count ] and inside the family. This leaves Christian feminists, gay or otherwise, in an embarrassing position. But where do men find freedom? The Patriarch said, " “Man turns his sight outward, he should work, make money. While a woman is always focused inwards towards her children, her home. " So it seems stay at home dads have pseudo-freedom while those lucky guys out in the factories and assembly lines, or anywhere they can make money, are enjoying freedom (even if they have to compete with pseudo-free women demanding equal opportunities). It would also seem the more money the more freedom-- and this may actually be so in a capitalist economic system. Putin and Kirill may be on to something. They don't want communism [crypto-feminism, or is it vice-versa?] back in the homeland subjecting women to the pseudo-freedom of  jobs and daycare and trying to enslave men into doing housework (I'm not sure that was very successful anyway). It is fairly obvious that feminist groups and organizations (and bands like Pussy Riot) are a grave danger not only to themselves but to the true function of womanhood in service to the KKK of freedom. The Patriarch warns "If this exceptionally important role of a woman is destroyed, everything will be destroyed as a consequence — family and, if you wish, the homeland.” Мой папа! Well. we can't have that. But I doubt that the KKK is really in the best interests of women or even if the Patriarch is on the right party line. His calls may be coming from that other place. Maybe  Pussy Riot really should be performing in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior-- it has divine acoustics.

The Economy: Happy Days Are Here Again! For Whom?

Thomas Riggins

Last week the stock market made a great leap forward. "Dow Leaps to Record" the Wall Street Journal blazons on its front page (3/6/13). The news weekly The Week quotes Bernard Condon of the AP: "The stock market is back." ["Markets: Dow soars to a record high" 3/15/13] Investors and other social parasites living off of unearned capital gains are celebrating getting back the $11 trillion dollars eaten up by the Great Recession. The Week says this is seen "as another sign of recovery." The Wall Street Journal hails it as "a key milestone in the long slog to recovery from the financial crisis."

This remarkable "economic comeback" is even happening under the Obama administration-- which the Wall Street Journal and other right-wing prognosticators and prevaricators of presidential malfeasance have been telling us is running the economy into the ground and scaring investors away from the markets because of its anti-business "socialist" proclivities. Paul Krugman in The New York Times (3/8/13) quotes the op-ed of one these negative Nellies, Michael Boskin who advised presidents Bush 1 & 2 on economics: "Obama's radicalism is killing the DOW." Whose policies were it now that brought the stock market and the economy crashing down? I think they were those of the presidents being advised by Michael Boskin.

Now to be a wet blanket. The resurrection and coming again of the DOW is only one expression of the economy. The fat cat expression. What about people at the other end of the economic blight-- how are they faring. While the bankers and speculators who caused the Great Recession are partying on Wall Street the nation's homeless are increasing in numbers.  After reading the front page of the same issue of the Wall Street Journal celebrating "recovery" we find a quite different story on page 6: "New York City Leads Jump in Homeless."

New York City prides itself with being the leading city in the U.S. and under Mayor Bloomberg it has become first in the nation in homeless families. The city also set a new record for its homeless shelters-- 50,000 souls a night in January of this year. Revealing, the WSJ says "an unsettling national trend: a rising number of families without permanent housing." Higher stock prices and bigger bonuses for bankers do not a recovery make.

According to the Coalition for the Homeless (using numbers from January provided by New York City) 1% of all children in the city are in shelters (over 21,000) which is up 22% over last year (corresponding increases for Boston and Washington D.C. were 7.8% and 18% respectively). Mary Brosnahan, of the Coalition, said: "New York is facing a homeless crisis worse than anytime since the Great Depression." Some recovery!

Resources to help keep families in their homes have been cut by the Obama administration, advocates for the homeless say, in order to concentrate on the "more visible" problems-- i.e., getting those unsightly homeless from sleeping on the streets and in public areas where they can be, God forbid, seen.  So the money goes for shelters after the fact, not to keep people housed before the fact. But this did not start with Obama-- it goes back to the Bush years as homeless families have increased 73% since 2002 in New York City alone. The city reflects national trends. It has, for example, gotten back, in gross numbers, all the jobs lost since the Great Recession" began, according to the WSJ --but not really, as the the jobs are lower paying than those lost--- you don't come out even getting an once of silver for an once of gold just because you still have an once of something. When asked to comment the Department of Housing and Urban Development did not respond.

For the crisis in New York City the Bloomberg administration said it was the fault of, that abstract beast, "the economy."  Seth Diamond, NYC's commissioner of the Department of Homeless Services (a whole department for this!) was quoted in the WSJ as saying, "The economy is very different in the past years, and that is a substantial change. We understand we have an obligation to continue to work with people and provide shelter for those who need it, and the economy is nowhere near where it was."

Was it the fault of "the economy" that the State of New York ended aid to help people who got out of shelters to keep their new housing-- thus forcing them back out on the street? Ending that program resulted in a 35% increase in families in New York City shelters alone.

Was it the fault of "the economy" that in 2005 Mayor Bloomberg (forgetting his "obligation" to help people) ended a program from the 1990s that had been created to set aside some federal housing units and vouchers managed by the city for homeless people so they could get out of the shelters and live normal lives? We can't accept that being homeless is the "new normal."'

No, it's not the fault of "the economy" it is the fault of politicians that prioritize aiding the rich and well off at the expense of everyone else; of politicians who would rather see children thrown out on the streets than raise, even minutely, the taxes on the bloated incomes of the rich squeezed out of the labor of working people as well as grants and subsidies they get from the Congress corrupted by lobbyists and corporate contributions.

The "Great Recession" is not over and never will be no matter how high the stock market goes as long as homelessness, unemployment, low wages, and the persecution of unions and their members continues. The American people voted for a progressive government and they must now unite to see that the forces of reaction which refuse to recognize the choice of the people are driven from the centers of power and an end put to their obstructionism and attempts to undermine popular democracy. Only then will "Happy Days Be Here Again" or at least the possibility for them.

Federal IDs for All Workers: A Trial Balloon?

Thomas Riggins

According to an article in last Thursday's Wall Street Journal (2-21-13) the Senate is considering a bipartisan plan to require all working people in the United States, citizen as well as non-citizen workers, to carry a biometric ID card with their finger prints or other markers in order for them to "prove" they have a right to work in this country.

This plan has come about as a result of bipartisan negotiations on an immigration bill. It was originally proposed for non-citizens but the senators involved, including Democrats as well as Republicans, decided the entire working class should be biometrically IDed. Some civil libertarians suspect the real function of the card is to create a national identity card that could be used to track and locate people wherever they happen to be-- at work, at home, in hospitals or airports, on the road, etc (the card could have a chip for this purpose-- Big Brother indeed!).

There are eight Senators on the committee working on a draft for an immigration bill and five of them favor the new ID including John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Charles Schumer. But they are not insisting on the ID at this point, merely tossing around the idea. The Wall Street Journal report is clearly a trial balloon to see what the reaction will be to this universal (for working class people) ID card.

The purpose of the new ID is to let bosses know what the legal status of a worker is and also to discourage illegal immigration since immigrants without the card won't get jobs (or so the plan is). The new system will replace the current E-Verify which lets the boss match a worker with a list of social security numbers; but this is a flawed system because of stolen, forged, and borrowed social security cards, according to the WSJ.

While ostensibly there are other ways to have immigrants IDed which the senators are looking at, Senator Graham (R., S.C.) thinks that only a biometric ID card (for all workers) will work. He is quoted as saying "This is the public's way of contributing to solving the problem" of people being in the US illegally. In other words, the contribution of the US working class is to allow itself to be potentially tracked by the government 24/7 so that the bosses will know who is and who is not "legal." The "public" would be wise to vote Sen. Graham out of office.

Senator Jeff Flake  (R., Ariz), Sen. McCain's comrade in reaction, also on the committee, is also favorable (but says he is still open) to a biometric ID: "You have to give employers the tools" they need to check out potential workers, he maintains. Would the Senate also consider an ID for employers so that workers could check them out as well with respect, for example, to their attitudes towards  the legal rights of unions, decent wages, workers rights, sick leave, and racist attitudes (if any), as well as women's rights, and views on voter suppression. Workers are more in need of tools to check out bosses than bosses are to check out workers.

In 2010 Senators McCain and "Chuck" Schumer (D., N.Y.) devised a plan for a biometric ID card for immigrants (it would have had their fingerprints or a scan of the veins on the top of a hand) but today Schumer, along with Sen. Dick Durban (D., Ill.)-- who also backed biometric cards previously-- says the new bill they are working on may not include such a card.

President Obama does not back a universal biometric ID card but is in favor of getting biometric information from undocumented people who are in the US as a precondition for getting "legal status." As far as a universal card is concerned he advocates a "fraud-resistant, tamper-resistant Social Security card."

The remaining three senators on the committee are Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), Michael Bennet (D., Colo.) [both "no comment"] and Robert Melendez (D., N.J.) who wants "antifraud measures" (the Senator is having his own "fraud" problems right now, perhaps the Senate needs some measure of anti-fraud protection that voters can have access to?)

At any rate, this trial balloon has lifted off into the atmosphere and the weather reports are beginning to come in.  C. Calabrese of the ACLU says, the ID "becomes in essence a permission slip to do all of the ordinary things that are your rights as an American." Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute [originally the Charles Koch Foundation co-founded in 1974 by one of the Koch brothers] says "It's not only a gross violation of individual privacy, it's an enormously high-cost policy that will have an incredibly low to negligible benefit." Would it not be so bad if it were cheap and effective? Personally I don't trust the Cato people to care all that much about the violations of worker's privacy.

There are also other opinions coming in for and against the biometric card-- it is pretty much a mixed bag, but it seems there is opposition and support from both the liberal and conservative camps. While it really is a big civil liberties issue and the adoption of the biometric ID for all workers smacks of Big Brother perhaps, in our current deficit crazed political landscape, the economic cost will prohibit its adoption as a study out of the University of California (Berkeley) says it will cost over 22 billion dollars to put it in place and over 2 billion annually to run it. Progressives will have a major fight on their hands if that doesn't stop it.

Lessons and Conclusions from Lenin's "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder

Thomas Riggins

In the last chapter, the tenth, of his 1920 book "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder" Lenin looks back over the previous nine chapters and then draws several conclusions about the then current state of the world struggle for socialism and also predicts some future developments. Let us see how accurate he was from our point of view some 93 years later.

He begins by looking at the Russian Revolution of 1905 and remarking that two lessons can be drawn from it. First that the industrial working class (the proletariat) has far more power and influence in society  than its actual numbers would suggest. It does not have to be a majority of the population in order to lead the population in a revolutionary direction. By waging economic and political strikes it can start an armed uprising aimed at the ruling class. Granted that 1905 was premature, but the tactics developed then paid off in 1917. Second, the creation of Soviets in 1905 was the beginning of a new way to organize the masses and to lead a mass struggle against capitalism.

 I think we can give Lenin high marks here. Even though only at the beginning of a new revolutionary upsurge, due to the on going crisis of world capitalism, we can already see the working class more and more organizing both economically and politically to lead the struggle against the rule of the banks and financial and industrial oligarchs.  "Soviets" is a Russian word, so whether you want to use it  or the term "worker's councils" or "the occupy movement" organizations similar to these will have to be eventually set up as the bourgeois governments lose control of the economy and working people have to take it over and direct it towards serving the needs of the people.

Having said that, we must admit that Lenin's optimism about the near future in his own day was completely wrong. He thought it was clear that bourgeois parliamentary types of government were clearly on the decline and would be replaced throughout the world by Soviet type governments. That trend, after the rise of fascism, World War II, and the Cold War, is no longer discernible in the early 21st century.

Lenin was convinced that "communism"-- i.e., revolutionary Marxism was on the ascent  in the working class movement against its two  main enemies "Menshevism" (by which he meant nationalism and opportunism under whatever forms in different countries) on the one hand, and ultra-leftism ("Left-Wing" communism) on the other.

After a hectic century of struggle we currently have five "communist" countries in which both those currents have been nominally overcome (at least as openly argued for positions). In the rest of the developed world Menshevism is alive and well as a popular option in the working  class movement and "revolutionary" Marxism, where it exists at all, is a very small fraction of the working class (although in some countries it is growing and radicalizing thousands of workers in response to the calls for "austerity" in response to the general crisis of capitalism). "Ultra-leftism" has been reduced to small cult-like extremist groups on the fringes of the anti-capitalist struggle with little or no influence within the working class.

The Second International (which Lenin thought "virtually dead") is alive and kicking while the Third International, which Lenin held was winning the dual between the Internationals "on a world-wide scale"- is, as they say, "history." Lenin was blinded by the stunning successes of the Bolshevik revolution and its positive reception by the international working class. The founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, just two years after his book on left-wing communism came out would seem to have justified all this optimism.

What else did Lenin think was on the agenda for the near future, or at least the not very distant future? Well, he thought the international working class was ripe to be led towards the construction of "a world Soviet republic." This is a pipe dream today vis a vis the near future. However, the preconditions for such a republic remain exactly as Lenin stated them.

There are, he said, two FUNDAMENTAL principles of communism that parties have to work towards-- one is Soviet power (i.e., working people actually meeting in councils and taking political and economic power as a result; the other is "the dictatorship of the proletariat"-- an infelicitous  expression these days-- but this only means that the working people once in power will not allow the bourgeoisie to engage in active opposition to the worker's new government.

Lenin thought the establishment of these two fundamental principles on a world wide basis was the historic task of the working class  in his day. As it turned out it was all the working class could do to keep itself from being crushed by fascism and economic depression and it failed to live up to the expectations Lenin mistakenly, as it tuned out, had had for it.

He thought the "chief thing" necessary for the struggle he saw coming had already been achieved by the time he wrote LWC. The chief thing was that internationally the vanguard of the working class had been won over to the need for proletarian dictatorship and the establishment of the Soviet system and was "against bourgeois democracy." Let us grant that Lenin was correct about this (although I have my doubts). Even so this "vanguard" was not able to pull off the NEXT step in the struggle--i.e., "the search after forms of the TRANSITION or the APPROACH to the proletarian revolution." It was unable to convince the majority of the working masses to follow its lead and remained a militant contingent of the working masses but not THE vanguard (except in a theoretical sense).

Lenin was well aware of the necessity of winning over the majority as he said, "Victory cannot be won with a vanguard alone." And the broad masses of the people cannot be won over by agitation and  propaganda "alone." No, "the fundamental law of all great revolutions" is that "the masses must have their own political experience."

Well, in the U.S. and Europe they have had plenty of time to gather this experience and unless they are suffering from some type of attention deficit disorder (ADD) we can only hypothesize some failure on the part of the socialist leadership (opportunism, nationalism) OR, dispute the horrendous world upheavals that have rent the world in the last ninety years, the three crucial constellations of social forces have not come together which portend the outbreak of a world wide revolutionary movement  such as Lenin expected in his time.

ADD is not to be taken seriously (only about 2.5% of the world's population, plus or minus a few percentage points, appear to suffer from ADD according to many experts) so what are the three social conditions that have to be in action? Lenin says that millions and tens of millions of people must be on the move and ready for progressive revolutionary leadership to change the system.

 If this is the case then revolutionary Marxists must find (1) ALL the hostile bourgeois class forces usually united against the workers are embroiled in internecine struggles among themselves and have so weakened themselves they can no longer effectively oppose the workers ; (2) the petty bourgeois democrats (Mensheviks of whatever stripe) and their parties have so discredited themselves politically that the workers no longer have faith in them and will not vote for them; (3) the working people are becoming more and more determined, as the struggle continues, to support revolutionary forces dedicated to over throwing the bourgeoisie and creating  a workers government.

All three conditions must hold and if they do "revolution is indeed ripe", and if the Marxists have correctly understood that these conditions are in fact present and they act on them at the RIGHT MOMENT, then "victory is assured." This is a tall order indeed! I can see why "victories" are few and far between, especially considering the fact that Marxist leaders in many countries they already "controlled" were blind to the fact that they were the ones their "own" workers had lost faith in. Well, as Lenin pointed out earlier, it is not a crime to err, but it is not to learn from the error and correct it. The five "Leninist" states still standing have their work cut out for them.

Here is another important conclusion that Lenin draws looking back over the history of the socialist movement and adapting it to the struggle he sees coming. That is, that since the really class conscious vanguard can be numbered in the thousands, while a revolutionary upsurge is to be measured by the activity of millions who are not at a high level of class consciousness but reacting to oppressive conditions in an almost instinctive manner, the vanguard must be able to master all forms of revolutionary struggle-- both legal and illegal-- and be ready to correctly act under rapidly changing conditions.

It is relatively easy to act in a revolutionary manner once the pot of discontent has boiled over, Lenin points out; the really difficult time for the class conscious Marxist is to know how to behave in times that are not revolutionary, are indeed relatively calm and peaceful and revolution looks to be a far off possibility, or no possibility at all,  and the bourgeoisie is seemingly benign or even when it is behaving in a reactionary manner does not seem about to lose control of the state.

In these situations when conditions for "direct, open really mass and really revolutionary struggle DO NOT YET EXIST" it is the task of the revolutionary Marxist not to lose sight of the revolutionary ends even when the masses of working people "are incapable of immediately appreciating the need for revolutionary methods of action."  Lenin says in these conditions the main task for socialists in both America and Western Europe [nowadays we might as well include the whole capitalist world] is to find a way to lead the oppressed classes "to the real, decisive and revolutionary struggle." I think if Lenin were around today he would see this as the real task  of 21st Century socialism. The problem is, to figure out how to do this without falling into the traps of opportunism (Menshevism) on the one hand, and/or being too focused on national peculiarities and interests at the cost of not maintaining an international outlook on the other.

Lenin understood this problem and stipulated that Marxists must actively engage with the political struggles in their own countries but in a NEW way completely different from the usual way of working in the union movement and in political movements influenced by the traditional (and opportunist) left. They must propagate Marxist theory to the masses with leaflets and meetings and work not only with the advanced industrial workers but also get involved with "the unorganized and downtrodden poor" and their election work should NOT be aimed at winning elections per se ("to 'get seats' in parliament") but to educate and inform the masses about what Marxism is all about, they should "try to get people to think, and draw the masses into the struggle, to take the bourgeoisie at its word and utilize the machinery it has set up, the elections it has appointed, and the appeals it has made to the people."

 This may have to be done within the rules of the bourgeoisie but the Marxists will always keep to their own slogans and advocate Marxist solutions and not water down their positions to curry favor with the opportunists and their followers. Lenin says this is a very hard job to do, "and extremely difficult in America" but nevertheless "it can and must be done." Well, this is the message of the 1920s to us and to the 2020s: is it still appropriate or is it out of date and ready for the ash heap?

One must note, in considering this question, that the tactics put forth by Lenin were based on the historical conditions that he found himself in and his interpretation of what they portended. Here is the context as he understood it.  The masses were on the rise everywhere as a result of colossal destruction inflicted upon the people by the savage world wide war waged by imperialism from 1914 to 1918 "for the sole purpose of deciding whether the British or the German robbers should plunder the largest number of countries." Social "sparks" were flying every where and revolutions could flare up at any moment and the Marxists had to be ready and able to take advantage of them.

The Russian Revolution had shook the world and the bourgeoisie was "terrified of Bolshevism" and over reacting to the perceived threat to such an extent they were actually helping Bolshevism grow in popularity with the working class. Lenin refers to the Palmer raids when the American bourgeoisie had "completely lost its head" and arrested thousands and thousands of people suspected of being Bolsheviks. This could only help the cause he thought because it helped to get "the masses interested in the essence and significance of Bolshevism."

But this revolutionary fervor was tamped down, a great economic depression gripped the world leading to another explosion of a world wide imperialist war (1939-1945) , followed by revolutionary upheavals which were countered by a resurgent imperialism led by the U.S. in the form of the "Cold War." McCarthyism was a revival of the Palmer "red scare" and definitely showed how the bourgeoisie could "lose its head"-- but (pace Lenin) did not "help the cause" by moving the working class to become more interested in Marxism. Finally the "Cold War" eventuated in the demise of the Soviet Union and east European socialism. So, looking at the world of today, we have to decide if the tactics Lenin put forth in the 1920s are still the best guide to action in the struggle to overthrow capitalism. Are there any after shocks from the Russian Revolution still to come?  What tactics could be better?

Lenin himself was not unmindful of the fact that the capitalist countries would gang up on Russia and do all in their power to crush "Bolshevism"; he just did not think it was possible for them to do it. He tells us that the bourgeoisie thinks of practically only one thing when it hears the word "Bolshevism": "insurrection, violence, and terror; it therefore  strives to prepare itself for resistance and opposition primarily in this field." This sounds familiar.

 He even thinks they may succeed for a time in putting down the Marxist "contagion" (their favorite word) by violence and the killing of "hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands" of revolutionary Marxists (as they have already done in India, Hungary and Germany-- [and were about to do in China])-- but these are only the actions "of all historically doomed classes." Lenin is a little too cavalier here, I fear, and certainly underestimated the future death toll inflicted on the worker's movement by the capitalists-- especially their Nazi incarnation which cost about 25 million Soviet lives alone.

At any rate Lenin thinks they will fail to eliminate revolutionary Marxism because the "contagion" is too wide spread and has infected every aspect of the capitalist organism-- its social, political, economic, educational, and moral institutions-- Marxist ideas are every where and the corruption and exploitation of capitalism can no longer be hidden from the masses who must, eventually, overthrow it. "Life," he says, " will assert itself." Today, when the bourgeoisie is busily destroying the planet itself and threatening the existence of billions of people these views of Lenin remind us how far we still have to go to rid the earth of the exploiters and to educate masses of people in the fight against "the frenzied ravings of the bourgeoisie."

In his day Lenin thought that only ONE THING was preventing the victory of the socialist movement from rapidly coming about-- is it the same thing that is holding it back in our time as well?-- "namely, the universal and through awareness" on the part of all revolutionary Marxists dedicated to the achievement of socialism "in all countries of the necessity to display the utmost FLEXIBILITY in their tactics." This is something that from Lenin's day to the present most Marxists have failed to learn how to put into practice.

Finally, Lenin explains why the leading Marxists of the pre-World War I Second International (Kautsky, Otto Bauer, and Plekhanov to name just a few of the better known) fell into opportunism and took the capitalist road ( if I may use that expression). It was their lack of flexibility and inability to properly understand dialectics. "The principal reason for their bankruptcy was that they were hypnotized by a definite form of growth of the working-class movement and socialism, forgot all about the one-sidedness of that form, were afraid to see the break-up which objective conditions made inevitable and continued to repeat simple and, at first glance, incontestable axioms that had been learned by rote…."

In other words, they did not appreciate the revolutionary environment created by the war and its aftermath and attempted to impose bourgeois political legitimacy and parliamentary democracy on the socialist movement which they had learned in the post 1848 struggle of the working class to organize itself and develop its consciousness. By failing to ally with the new revolutionary consciousness (such as manifested by the Soviets and revolutionary worker's councils) they ended up on the side of the bourgeoisie and against the workers. At least this seems to me to be his position.

Considering the situation to be as he described it, Lenin held that the two trends within the socialist movement, he called them Right doctrinairism (opportunism) and Left doctrinairism (ultra-leftism), had to be opposed but that the Right was far more dangerous than the Left (which was new and experience would soon correct).  Today the ultra-left is confined to fringe groups or to groups that thrive in countries with an under developed working class due to backward economic conditions, while almost all of the major political parties following the dispensation of the Second International are completely controlled by opportunist non revolutionary cadre that are running dogs (another useful expression from another context) of the dominate forces of finance and industrial capital.

 Those remaining socialist parties and groups which consider themselves "Leninist" in orientation will find Lenin's book on "Left-Wing" Communism still a meaningful tool to use in the struggles of the 21st century as will others who are struggling with the problems of organizing the working people to take political and economic action to liberate themselves and humanity at large from the scourge of capitalism.

Despite the NRA and the Ultra-Right Most Americans Favor Gun Controls

Thomas Riggins

According to a recent report in Science Daily (1-28-2013) the majority of the American people support more gun controls to reduce and prevent the epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. Despite the hysteria over the "violations" of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution generated by the NRA and the lunatic right-wing extremists in the Republican congressional delegations  and their misinformed constituents (as well as others)  that new gun controls laws would result in, a recent scientifically conducted poll by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has determined that the majority of the American people reject these right-wing arguments and want more laws to ensure gun safety.

Here is a breakdown in percentages of the survey's findings:
1. Universal background checks (no loopholes)-- 89%.
2. Ban on military style assault weapons-- 69%.
3. Ban on high capacity ammunition clips-- 68%.
4. Ban on gun ownership for individuals considered "high risk"-- 83%.
5. Ban on those who violate restraining orders for domestic violence-- 81%

While percentages were not given, the article also reports that more regulation of gun dealers was supported as well as various restrictions dealing with those having a mental illness. The survey was conducted with both gun owners and non-gun owners and found little difference between them in their responses so that it represents a true cross section of the American public on this issue.

Colleen Barry, PhD, one of the authors of the study said,"This research indicates high support among Americans, including gun owners in many cases, for a wide range of policies aimed at reducing gun violence. These data indicate broad consensus among the American public in support of a comprehensive approach to reducing the staggering toll of gun violence in the United States."

The researchers also conducted a separate survey, at the same time they did the gun control survey, to determine the public's attitudes towards mental illness. This is a complex subject requiring a dialectical analysis of the potential contradiction between the goal of preventing gun violence and that of preventing stigmatization of persons with mental illness.

This second survey revealed the following:
1. In favor or more screening and treatment of mental illness to prevent gun violence-- 61%.
2. Agreed that there is a big problem of discrimination against the mentally ill--58%.

About 50% of those interviewed thought the mentally ill more dangerous than other people and about 66% did not want to live near anyone with a "serious" mental illness. This led Dr. Barry to conclude, "In the light of our findings about Americans' attitudes toward persons with mental illness, it is worth thinking carefully about how to implement effective gun-violence prevention measures without exacerbating stigma or discouraging people from seeking treatment." Actually, it is more complicated than not just exacerbating stigma; we must find a way to diminish stigma and even eliminate it in the long run without watering down gun control measures in the process.

This means Congress must engage in a serious non-partisan legislative project to begin reversing and eventually eliminating the dangerous culture of gun-violence that has been created by the gun manufacturing lobby, the NRA and the corrupt politicians that are dependent on them and do their bidding in Congress.

This survey has shown what the majority of the American people want and those in Congress and elected positions of power who work against the goals described above are only interested in their own narrow interests and the interests of a few big corporations and not those of the American people and their children.

Right now the number of people murdered in the U.S. (31,000 a year according to Science Daily) is 20 times greater than the average in other developed capitalist nations that consider themselves "advanced."  It is not the American people who are ultimately responsible for this violent gun-culture imposed upon them by reactionary corporate forces and their political stooges. Now is the time to bring about meaningful change and mobilize progressives to support those fighting for change.

Lenin on "Left-Wing" Communism in Great Britain

Thomas Riggins

There was no Communist Party in Great Britain when Lenin wrote "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder [LWC]  (the Communist Party of Great Britain was founded a few months later at the end of July 1920). Nevertheless, Lenin devoted chapter nine of the aforementioned book to discussing the problems of ultra-leftism in Britain. It is not my intention to rehash all the political fights of 1920 surrounding the formation of the CPGB discussed in  LWC, instead I will highlight those insights from Lenin that pertain to general principles of Marxism and that are arguably relevant to the struggle for socialism in the early 21st century.

Lenin begins this chapter with a discussion of an article written by Willie Gallacher (1881-1963) published in the  "The Workers' Dreadnought" (a publication of one of the groups which were in the process of founding the CPGB) which was full enthusiasm for communism, the Russian Revolution, and the future of the working class in Britain. It also rejected cooperation with the Labour Party and working in the Parliament and the author did not want to cooperate with those who did.

Lenin praised Gallacher's article [he later refers to it as "a letter to the editor"] for expressing the mood, or the temper, of the masses and explained it was just these type of young workers, represented by the author, who would be the future of socialism and who should be supported in all their efforts to build a revolutionary socialist party in Britain. Nevertheless, he does not want them to commit the same errors that the early Bolsheviks made, and that the German party made with respect to ultra-leftism.

The future CPGB would be a formation composed of the coming together of at least four different socialist groups. To build a mass party it would be necessary to work with many other groups of workers at differing levels of class consciousness. Lenin stress that the CPGB, as should be the case with all Marxist parties, has to base its activities on SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES: and science, Lenin says, requires two things.

 First, a knowledge of what is happening in other countries, capitalist countries, and an analysis of the similarities and differences with your own country and how revolutionaries in those countries have coped with their own conditions. Second, a knowledge of your own country and ALL the groups, classes, parties, etc., and their positions and relationships. The policy adopted, in order to have the greatest number of supporters and best chance of wining, "should not be determined only by the desires and views, by the degree of class-consciousness and the militancy of one group or party alone."

The focus of all this fuss about cooperating and compromising with the bourgeoisie was the Labour Party. The leaders of the Labour Party were considered by the radical workers as sell outs and "social patriots" who would govern in the interests of the capitalists not the workers whom they ostensibly represented and led. Lenin agrees with this and then states "it does not at all follow that to support them means treachery to the revolution; what does follow is that, in the interests of the revolution, working-class revolutionaries should give these gentleman a certain amount of parliamentary support." But why does this follow? Why give any support to false leaders who pose as progressives and really do the dirty work of the enemy? What can Lenin be thinking of?

We must consider what was going on in Britain in the 1920s. The Labour Party was growing and the two main governing parties (the Liberals and the Conservatives) were beginning to panic. The Leader of the Liberals, Lloyd George, proposed a coalition with the Conservatives to stop the Labour Party. [Imagine a time in the US when the Republicans and Democrats unite to stop the Green Party!].

Meanwhile many Liberals are jumping ship and going over to the Labour Party. Lenin says that what is happening is that the liberal bourgeoisie is abandoning the traditional two party system by which the liberal and conservative capitalists alternate in ruling the government and exploiting the workers; a system "which has been hallowed by centuries of experience and has been extremely advantageous to the exploiters…."

The British leaders of the revolutionary workers, the very leaders of the future CPGB saw what was going on and even admitted the majority of workers were supporting the Labour Party saying, as did Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) one of the founders of the CPGB, that "the majority of the British working class has not yet emerged" from the way of thinking represented by the Labour Party.

Even knowing this she said: "The Communist Party must not compromise…. The Communist Party must keep its doctrine pure, and its independence of reformism inviolate: its mission is to lead the way, without stopping or turning, by the direct road to the communist revolution." Shades of Blanqui!

Lenin is a firm believer that the working class learns by doing. If the workers believe in such a party or such and such an idea, which is wrong and will not emancipate them, they must go through the experience of living and working with these false ideas until they learn from experience that they must abandon these wrong approaches.

Meanwhile the revolutionary Marxists will have been working along with the workers and supporting their efforts but also explaining why their views will not succeed and why Marxism provides a better alternative. This is the only way to win over the working people to the revolutionary Marxist point of view. This is why we must work in the reactionary institutions of the bourgeoisie.

 "To act otherwise would mean hampering the cause of the revolution, since revolution is impossible without a change in the views of the majority of the working class, a change brought about by the political experience of the masses, never by propaganda alone."

We come now to Lenin's famous formulation of The Fundamental Law of Revolution. Lenin says this law applies to all revolutions which means many of the revolts, insurrections, and coups that historians like to call "revolutions" are not revolutions at all. The Law states: "for a revolution to take place it is not enough for exploited and oppressed masses to realize the impossibility of living in the old way, and demand changes; for a revolution it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. It is only when the "LOWER CLASSES" DO NOT WANT to live in the old way and the "upper classes" CANNOT CARRY ON IN THE OLD WAY that the revolution can triumph."

Two obvious conclusions Lenin draws, with respect to an anti-capitalist revolution, are, first,  the majority of the working class (or at a minimum the majority of the politically active class conscious workers [this is "iffy" a majority of these may still be too small]) must fully understand the need for a revolution and be willing to take up arms if necessary to carry it out; second, the government of the ruling class must be undergoing a crisis which brings the masses of people, even those "hitherto apathetic," into a movement that so weakens it (the government) that the revolutionary elements can "rapidly overthrow it".  The revolution will not be a tea party.

Lenin thought the two conditions mentioned above were fast developing in Great Britain, but they did not in fact come about. Nevertheless, Lenin's advice in general as to how the Marxists in Great Britain should behave still makes sense even in our own day, and it is not restricted to any particular country. Briefly he says that unless we want to risk being seen as "mere wind bags"  and  a party that represents only a group and not the masses of the revolutionary working class ["revolutionary" is the key word to understand in this context] we must get the MASSES to follow our party.

To do this we must help the working class achieve the maximum of class consciousness and this means working in the political world in which we and they find ourselves and helping them to understand, by their own experiences, that no solutions of bourgeois politics can solve their problems and the only way forward for their class is by supporting a revolutionary Marxist party.

How would this practically be done? Extrapolating from the conditions of Lenin's day to the present time, and using the experience of the 2012 US elections, I suggest the following edited comment from Lenin: We would take part in the election campaign, we would hand out leaflets in favor of Marxism and explaining what's wrong with capitalism, and where we are not running our own candidates we would urge support for the candidate most favorable to the workers and who had the most support from the union movement and we would urge the defeat of all reactionary, ultra-right and anti-labor, anti-progressive candidates.

Lenin's actual advice to the British Marxists was: "We would take part in the election campaign, distribute leaflets agitating for communism, and in ALL constituencies where we have no candidates, we would urge the electors TO VOTE FOR THE LABOUR CANDIDATE AND AGAINST THE BOURGEOIS CANDIDATE." Others may have a better revision of this quote than what I have proposed above, but I have tried to factor in specifically US conditions (both major parties are bourgeois, the ultra-right poses a clear and present danger, the labor movement is under attack, among others).

As Lenin maintained that each country had an unique historical configuration of its own regarding the class struggle and the relations between the classes and parties making it up, it was therefore the task of Marxists to learn "to apply the general and basic principles" of Marxism to their own situation in order to "study, discover, and predict" the proper course of action. It is with this conclusion that he ends this chapter of LWC.

New York City Stop and Frisk Police Harassment Found Unconstitutional

Thomas Riggins

A federal judge has found the NYPD policy of "stop and frisk"-- whereby the police can stop anyone they please and frisk them for weapons whenever they like-- at least in the Bronx-- unconstitutional, according to a recent New York Times article. The decision was limited to the Bronx because the case under consideration (Ligon v. the City of New York) concerned police behavior with respect to the Trespass Affidavit Program which only involved privately owned building in the Bronx. This decision will inevitably impact the "stop and frisk" policy in other parts of the city as it reveals the racist attitudes and disrespect of the law itself as well as the constitutional rights of the American people, that underlie its  implementation.

The Trespass Affidavit Program (TAP) involves thousands of privately owned buildings whose owners and managers have signed affidavits permitting the police to patrol their buildings and expel trespassers. It is part of the "war on drugs" as it was designed to be used in high crime areas and in buildings where drug dealing and related crimes are alleged. The police think they can stop and frisk whomever they please and then arrest them if they find drugs or weapons.

The way mayor Bloomberg and his police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, apply this program is to just stop and frisk anyone inside or outside a TAP building especially, as the judge found, a non white person.

Manhattan Federal District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin found that the Bloomberg/Kelly application of "stop and frisk" was a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution which outlaws unreasonable search and seizure. The Judge found that the police policy of stopping anyone they felt like (without applying the standard of "reasonable suspicion")  had "crossed the line between constitutional and unconstitutional police encounters."

Note that "reasonable suspicion" means the police officer must believe that criminal activity is at hand before he can stop and question a person and he can only frisk the individual stopped if he believes he or she is armed and about to inflict physical injury on the police officer. But the police have been stopping and frisking people who are outside of the buildings on the sidewalk just waiting for a friend or family member to come down, or people who are just in the neighborhood. The police seem obviously to be violating the "reasonable belief" requirement.

It is not the police officers per se who are at fault. The N.Y.P.D. may have been training its officers to violate the requirement. The judge said that the evidence before her "strengthens the conclusion that the N.Y.P.D.'s inaccurate training has taught officers the following lesson: Stop and question first, develop reasonable suspicion later." The judge has ordered the police to stop doing trespass stops outside of the TAP buildings without really having a "reasonable belief" that a crime is at hand-- whims, caprices, feelings, and hunches are not good enough. The police also cannot just stop a person because he or she has gone into or come out of a building.

The judge noted that the training video used to teach police officers what is a legal stop is not accurate . The training video says an order of "Stop, Police!" is not clear enough. The video says a legal stop requires physical action by the officer, pulling out of his/her  gun, or physically blocking the person. Judge Scheindlin said "This misstates the law." So it seems that it is only by misstating the law to the officers being trained that the Bloomberg-Kelly harassment policy can be enforced.

The judge also said after the police unlawfully stop a person outside of the building and demand what he or she is doing there they become hostile when the person tries to explain "especially if the person is a young black man, he is frisked, which often involves an invasive search of his pockets; in some cases the officers then detain the person in a police van."

Commissioner Kelly did not like the judge's ruling and said the decision "unnecessarily interferes with the department's [unconstitutional and racist] efforts to use all of the crime-fighting tools [including illegal ones] to keep [TAP] buildings safe and secure [especially from young Black men]."

An ACLU lawyer involved in the case said, "If New York City [he means Bloomberg and Kelly] has any sense, it will use this ruling as an opportunity to start a wholesale reform of stop and frisk."  Judging from Kelly's response, it doesn't seem that "New York City" has come to its senses.