Commie Curmudgeon

Well, I spent a lot of time during the past 24 hours writing lengthy essays in comments boxes. One place where this happened was in the comments to my last post, Emma Goldman on Patriotism, where two people, David Duff and Piers, got me into a whole involved discussion about patriotism versus socialism (more or less). David Duff, especially, got me into babbling a lot of things. Although Duff does like to criticize lefties (especially if they're Trotskyist, which, fortunately, I am not - no matter how much I happen to agree with certain Trotskyists' critique of capitalism and no matter how much I like the commentaries on current events on the World Socialist Web Site), his comments actually gave me some positive incentive. Now I had just enough motive to go off into some major discussion, explaining my views about the need for socialism, at length (including, tangentially, my increasing interest in the idea that capitalism is in decline as a productive system, etc.). Additionally, Piers contributed some nice short, readable comments, concurring with much of what I said and summing up some basic socialist principles very nicely. So, overall, there's just as much to read in this comments section as in many posts that I've written - and, I might add, plenty of room for more contributions if others would like to participate.

It's one thing to write lengthy comments on your own blog, another to do so on someone else's. Sometimes I feel very welcome to do so (as in Words Matter, where Jim always seems to be up for a substantial and intelligent discussion), which is good, because I hate to feel that I'm just writing too much.

I'm not sure how much asfo_del cares for my lengthy posts of disagreement in response to her post at Living on Less entitled Whose Family Values, although I imagine I'll find out in one way or another soon enough. (For those who don't know or remember, this is a blog that I used to share with asfo_del. I did choose to go off and start my own, somewhat different blog, but sometimes, when I'm really getting into the comments, it's easy to forget that I don't live here anymore.)

Some days when I get into the mood to have political debates with people, especially if they're written debates, I simply find it very difficult to stop. I do love writing and I love debate, and blogging seems to provide the best opportunity to do both.

It's true that that there is a limitless supply of listserves out there, but I've learned to keep my participation in these forums to a minimum, because they often involve too many angry and overly talkative people, and the debates can become like some all-consuming, ultimately damaging drug.

But I think many people (myself included) tend to indulge in debate a little less excessively, or recklessly, when typing comments in a blog than when participating in an open e-mail forum. And, while I welcome all the recent comments and debate on my blog and hope that this happens much more often, I also don’t wish to see any post generate an endless listserve-type argument. But probably, the first person to keep an eye on if I want to prevent that sort of thing from happening would have to be myself.

Well, yesterday was Emma Goldman's birthday, and next Monday is July 4. So, I thought I'd post an excerpt from Emma Goldman's essay, Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty:

What, then, is patriotism? "Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels," said Dr. Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman.

Gustave Hervé, another great anti-patriot, justly calls patriotism a superstition--one far more injurious, brutal, and inhumane than religion. The superstition of religion originated in man's inability to explain natural phenomena. That is, when primitive man heard thunder or saw the lightning, he could not account for either, and therefore concluded that back of them must be a force greater than himself. Similarly he saw a supernatural force in the rain, and in the various other changes in nature. Patriotism, on the other hand, is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.

Indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.

Six years ago, it took Negativland and Chumbawamba to turn the Teletubbies into anarchists. (Before that, I understood that the Teletubbies supported gay liberation, but I never considered them to be agitators for total social liberation.) But thanks to a post from my former blogging partner, asfo_del, I now know that we don’t even need a Negativland filter to see socialism in a Spongebob episode. (And here I always thought that Spongebob also merely supported gay rights; I never knew that it taught socialism!)

Asfo_del refers us to an amazing episode, originally broadast on my 40th birthday (well over three years ago, unfortunately), in which one of Spongebob’s coworkers, Squidward, reveals himself to be a revolutionary labor organizer. I don’t know how she found the strange site containing this episode’s dialogue, but the words are there for all to see. (And asfo_del even quotes the amazing speech that begins, "The gentle laborer shall no longer suffer from the noxious greed of Mr. Krabs! We will dismantle oppression board by board! We’ll saw the foundation of big business in half!...")

Judging from what I’ve been reading lately, it seems as though the much celebrated “housing boom” is an insidious and treacherous trap that’s going to cause a lot of harm to a lot of people. Already, many people are being forced into foreclosures, and many more simply cannot afford to live anywhere as multiple-dwelling speculators are driving all the prices up. Meanwhile, there are numerous legal loan sharks out there preying on people, especially less affluent people, by peddling seemingly easy loans, with temporarily low rates, that are going to turn into endless debt traps, especially if there is an unexpected rise in general interest rates. Many people are falling into these traps particularly unnecessarily because they think they can afford property when they really can’t. But many others, including some friends of mine, resorted to “refinancing” and other strange tricks for property that they already own in order to generate cash through credit after some of their old sources of income disappeared. (In that way, it is much like the old credit card swindle, which caught me in a big trap as I ran up my credit card to unmanageable levels, not because I gluttonously indulged in big-ticket purchases, but because I lost my last long-term, full-time job a few years ago and needed a way to get instant money for food, root canals and rent.) And with the new bankruptcy laws soon to take effect, our federal government is going to make sure that working and struggling people never find a way out of those traps.

These are the things that I understand about the housing boom or bubble, though since I, myself, never was under the illusion that I could afford to buy property, I never really trained myself to grasp all the intricacies of how these things work. (I think I can much more easily grasp complex formulas of Marxian value theory than completely understand how people go about taking out loans upon loans for housing purchases.) But there are some very good articles floating around on the Net that do help me to comprehend how dangerous and stupid the present bubble really is...

Lila Rajiva wrote an interesting essay over at Dissident Voice. Here she discusses the housing boom as it’s being played out in a (supposedly) revived Baltimore as Playing Monopoly In Charm City. I think the following paragraphs offer one of the best summaries that I’ve seen on the subject so far:

It's predatory banking and it's no different from what sleazy credit card companies do when they mass-mail plastic purchasing to penniless immigrants, students in debt, grandmas on fixed incomes, the struggling poor, and those on the verge of bankruptcy. They want you to go under. And when you do, they want to be there to collect.

Loan sharking of the worst kind. But at least you could easily pick out the old-time loan sharks. They were the polyester-suited, gold-chained hustlers on the corner, charging you 20 percent as they forked over a billfold with their greasy pinkie-ringed paws. But today's loan shark is camouflaged as your neighborhood banker in wire-rimmed glasses and button-down shirt, ready at your elbow with a no-money down, 100% financed, adjustable rate mortgage under 4%. There's even negative amortization. That's right. They're willing to pay you to borrow money. Your monthly payment is kept artificially low because not only are you not paying the principal you borrowed, you're not even fully paying the interest. So the amount you're borrowing actually keeps rising. And the more interest rates rise, the bigger that amount becomes until at some point the bank decides to pull the cozy rug from under your feet and your monthly payment skyrockets to cover both P and I. That's when all those $30,000 wage-earners brandishing $300,000 plus homes bite the dust. All over the country, it's already beginning. Foreclosures are up dramatically this year. In Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, officials talk about a Depression era level. If it hasn't brought prices down any, it's only because these days the banks are holding back and selling through the realtors not just to recoup costs, but at profit-making prices. It's only because at swanky auction houses like Alex Cooper in Baltimore, properties that go to auction are frantically bid up by greedy speculators and their shills who want to keep the game going.

But somebody knows what everybody pretends they don't - that someday this is all coming down. Otherwise, why have so many realtors sold their homes and begun to rent? Why have the bankruptcy laws been tightened up effective from October this year just as interest rates start the slow but inexorable climb that will make defaults cascade into an avalanche?

There is another very good article out on the World Socialist Web Site, Home Foreclosures Surge, by Naomi Sheehan Groce. This article wastes no time getting right to the dark side of this housing boom, especially all those foreclosures:

A little-reported aspect of the housing boom in the US is the corresponding surge in home foreclosures. Amidst a sharp rise in median housing prices, more and more Americans are finding themselves unable to meet monthly payments and are being forced into foreclosure….

Foreclosure is the circumstance a homeowner falls into after missing mortgage principal or interest payments, losing the title to the home. The holder of the mortgage, most commonly a bank or other financial lending corporation, then seizes and sells the property to satisfy the claims of the mortgage.

According to Brad Geisen, president and CEO of the online real estate listing service Foreclosure.com, “New foreclosure inventory rose in 47 states in March. This signifies a national trend...foreclosure inventory will likely continue to rise across the country.”

Then Groce goes on to llustrate exactly how this boom in foreclosures is connected to other serious inadequacies in our economic system, such as the lack of affordable healthcare:

The Post interviewed a Philadelphia resident who had been diagnosed with cancer and lacked health insurance. She fell behind on her house payments and had to foreclose. Another woman with a similar story approached her lender, who had already sold her debt to another credit agency. She attempted to file for bankruptcy but was denied, and currently contends with double payments because of late penalties. Most low-income homeowners across the country face comparable threats, lacking adequate health insurance. By one estimate, medical expenses are the primary cause of financial distress for 40 percent of those struggling to hold on to their homes.

An illness or injury which leads to hospitalization and unemployment also easily leads to lapses in bill payments. A study of 1,771 bankrupt Americans conducted by Harvard University and released in February found that half were driven to bankruptcy court by medical bills and illness. Most of those, three-fourths, had health insurance, but could not afford high co-payments or had their employment terminated due to health problems.

The housing sector is at present a principal prop of the US economy. Since 1999, the average price of existing homes has risen 48 percent. The 2005 median home price has soared to $206,000, 15.5 percent over the same period in 2004—the largest yearly increase since 1980. The Department of Housing and Urban Development listed 26 areas in the US where home prices have inflated by more than 20 percent, with half of those areas actually experiencing a doubling in market price. Meanwhile, employment and real wages have declined, creating a precarious situation for many American homeowners dependent on credit.

Groce’s article is particularly good because of the way it ties everything together, including, of course, a few comments at the end about the new bankruptcy laws. As she astutely describes it, “The government’s response…has been to take preventive steps on behalf of credit agencies against individual debtors.”

In other words, the government need not worry about the hardship of thousands upon thousands of debtors who will be caught in this painful trap. As long as the creditors will be protected in some way, the debtors may be damned, but the system will keep on going to the benefit of the greater holders of wealth. Or that’s what they seem to be banking on, anyway.

I was delighted tonight, when I visited the Web site of the International Communist Current, to find that so many new articles were posted on June 7. More and more, I’m finding that the ICC comes out with just the right words to say about…capitalism, war, and unions (all of which they oppose, by the way). And, of course, as I’ve said before, I’m very interested in the theory of decadent capitalism, the idea that capitalism has gone beyond the “certain point” elaborated on by Marx in Grundrisse, Chapter 15, where “the development of the powers of production becomes a barrier for capital; hence the capital relation a barrier for the development of the productive powers of labour.” And that (to quote a little more from this text):

When it has reached this point, capital, i.e. wage labour, enters into the same relation towards the development of social wealth and of the forces of production as the guild system, serfdom, slavery, and is necessarily stripped off as a fetter. The last form of servitude assumed by human activity, that of wage labour on one side, capital on the other, is thereby cast off like a skin, and this casting-off itself is the result of the mode of production corresponding to capital; the material and mental conditions of the negation of wage labour and of capital, themselves already the negation of earlier forms of unfree social production, are themselves results of its production process. The growing incompatibility between the productive development of society and its hitherto existing relations of production expresses itself in bitter contradictions, crises, spasms.... The violent destruction of capital not by relations external to it, but rather as a condition of its self- preservation, is the most striking form in which advice is given it to be gone and to give room to a higher state of social production.

...And that, if this advice is not heeded, then, as Rosa Luxemburg advised, and the ICC repeatedly reminds us, capitalism will continue to decay into a state of barbarism. But as I always say, I’ll get a bit more into that another time…

During just the past couple of years, there have been a few other groups, people and publications I've encountered - Internationalist Perspective, Loren Goldner's work, etc. - which I think people would agree exhibit many of the same left communist influences (despite splits and differences). And sometimes I've been exposed to some of this material for odd reasons having nothing to do with theoretical politics, and my exposure to so much of this stuff seems like and odd coincidence. But, on the other hand, I suppose the time was right for me to "discover" more solid left communism, for many reasons having to do with my own trajectory of theoretical interests and political experience (some of which I'm sure I've already elaborated on extensively).

But if I have one particular disagreement with the ICC (actually, I'm sure I could come up with a few, but let's just pick out one), it’s that I might still advocate a more eclectic approach to revolution. I would not be so dismissive of some of the autonomous spaces built by anarchists and, well, autonomists, and would not be so certain as the ICC seems to be about the nature of the working class, how the working class might be defined or self-identify. (Once again, autonomous Marxism does a more thorough job of exploring this area, with all its interesting writings on the “social factory” - though I feel, especially recently, that some autonomous Marxism gives an interpretation of “class composition” or class struggle that is too loose or expansive and simply not revolutionary.)

But I am finding myself visiting the ICC's Web site more than any other political group’s Web site that I know of. And I think that part of the reason this is happening, aside from my aforementioned political inclinations of late, is the fact that the ICC also engages in good, clear, forceful writing - which, of course, is not such a common trait in radical texts these days...

During my adulthood, which has gone on for about 25 years so far (if you use age 18 as the cutoff/start), I have seen a few phases and fads of political activism, but I think the one phase of activism that far surpassed any other in this period was the “anti-globalization” movement. This movement, as many of us knew it and loved it, enjoyed its peak in the U.S. and other nations of the “global north” between the summer or fall of 1999 (whether you want to count this peak as starting from the global Reclaim the Streets-connected protests of June 18 or from the explosion in Seattle on November 30) until the fall of 2001 (whether it was destroyed by 9-11, or whether, as I tend to believe, it was ready to implode at that time anyway). One reason that this was such a great moment for activists, as many people acknowledge, was that there was such a sudden surge in collective creativity in terms of developing “militant nonviolent” tactics and direct action strategies, changing the whole nature of protest as we knew it, a definite departure from the dreary marches that we’d seen for so many years. Another reason was the obvious (if still relatively small and possibly overrated) resurgence of revolutionary movements such as anarchism. But the most wide-reaching reason why this phase of political activism seemed like a quantum leap compared to activism that had preceded it for so many years, was that huge masses of people were audibly, visibly, and sometimes militantly acting upon a knowledge of the global nature of capitalism and corporations. For a brief time, many activists were moving away from the conventional “traditional” focus on political leaders and their nation-states.

Yet, this last advancement, like the advancement in tactics and even the (smaller) resurgence in expressed desire for revolution, seemed to recede, especially in the U.S., as soon as 9-11 happened and the U.S. government and the loyal corporate media advanced an agenda of jingoism, empire-building and war. And it’s not just the right and “center” that changed the focus of attention (or at least the attention that was publicized), but also the “left,” including the activists. Suddenly, the vast majority of the “left” as we knew it was focusing once again on the evils being committed by“America” (as many were too lazy to make the distinction that they were really talking about the American government or American ruling class), the “American empire” (same diff) or (after the election year low point) just Bush and the Republicans. Few, it seems, have been paying sufficient attention to the great lessons about corporate globalization that had been taught and learned during a three-year period at the turn of the present century. Thus, the left’s “anti-war” movement not only resulted in the comeback of very boring marches; it also resulted in at least a temporary regression of political awareness motivating the most visible actions. (Although, one might point out that the most visible actions contained a much greater number of people than the “anti-globalization” protests, so quantity might also have affected quality in a negative way. But I think the problem has been more extensive than that.)

Even when it comes to more strictly economic issues such as trade, I’m not hearing as much about global interactions involving corporations, and I’m hearing more about which countries “America” is seeking to trade with or economically dominate, which countries (such as China) are posing a problem, and which countries are supposedly stealing our jobs. Even on the left, from what I can tell, many people are losing sight of the global nature of so many corporations and of capitalism itself. (Although maybe they have not forgotten so much in Europe, where they are defeating "their own NAFTA" right now.) So, it’s good once in a while to find a document or book on corporate globalization that hasn’t lost sight of these important facts.

One such book – and thus a good one to close this post with – is Low Pay, High Profile: The Global Push for Fair Labor, by
Andrew Ross. There is nothing particularly revolutionary and nothing theoretically new about this book; however, as I’m reading this (I am halfway through it) I am appreciating how well Ross is able to illuminate us, through vivid and practical descriptions, about the processes through which goods (especially clothes) are manufactured in the “global factory.” And, I’m definitely looking forward to the later chapters, when he focuses his attention on “the flight of the silicon wafers” and “the mental labor problem.”

But one of the earlier chapters, actually written about the trade situation in China, shows that Ross agrees completely with the idea that some important lessons were learned in the “anti-globalization” movement (or “alternative globalization” movement, as he calls it). Here, Ross writes:

…But to continue to envisage trade as a global map of intergovernmental flows is anachronistic to a fault. Not when corporations, which threw away their passports many years ago, already make up half of the world’s 100 largest economies. Not when major contracting agents effectively control regional trade by supplying the transnationals, or by setting up their own firms to compete with the big brands. Not when key sectors of global production are located in export processing zones that are effectively quarantined off from the countries that host them, largely immune to the implementation of national labor environmental laws. Not when government officials are subject to the caprices of corporate managers who relocate at the first whiff of increases in taxes, duties, minimum-wage levels, or environmental regulations....

One of the sharpest lessons of the alternative-globalization movement has been to focus on corporate behavior, rather than to label nation-states as either good or bad. In many ways, this was the great leap forward that occurred in Seattle, when progress on the new round of WTO agreements stalled, and when the movement earned its raucous pedigree....

...Which is sort of what I've been saying, for a while.
_____________________

P.S. Ross goes on a paragraph later to talk about the A16 protests in Washington, DC, in 2000 (in which I was also a proud participant, running with the anarchists). Ross focuses on the AFL-CIO establishment’s bad decision to veer away from the anti-corporate nature of these protests against the IMF and World Bank by staging a preliminary protest (on April 12) against China, to prevent it from getting “permanent normal trading relations” or PNTR status. As Ross says, “Choosing China as a target, instead of aiming at corporate control of the WTO agenda, was wrongheaded.”

This section would please one of the major A16 organizers, Chuck O, who just ranted in his blog about the reasons that he hates the AFL-CIO, including the “shitty things they did to the anti-globalization movement.” I guess the incident that Ross describes would be part of that.

P.P.S. ...Which is not all to say the "movement" and its groups didn't have their flaws...but I go into those plenty of other times.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of articles discussing the problem of Christian fundamentalism and what we might do about this increasing threat. The wisest opinions, in my opinion, are those that advocate attacking this belief system directly. The other day, Shawn Ewald recommended a pretty good article by Mark Taibbi in the New York Press making this very point. Taibbi points out (rather amusingly) that:

In general, there is almost no public figure, anywhere, who has ever suggested publicly that fundamentalist Christianity, as a thing-in-itself, should be opposed. The strongest suggestion most critics will make is to say that it should be contained, and indeed that seems to be the best-case strategy of progressives: that the God-fearing set can be boxed in, kept from being a nuisance and from meddling in areas where they don't belong, just long enough for them to eventually die out of natural causes.

This is a mistake, and it is the same mistake people have made for centuries: underestimating the American zeal for superstition, for boobism, for living the intellectual lives of farm animals. A large statistical majority of Americans would rather live their whole lives in perpetual fear of the devil than listen to ten minutes of common sense.

The only quibble I have with this article is that the problem is not confined to Christian fundamentalism, nor is it confined to the U.S. As we know, religious fundamentalism has been on the rise in many places, and it is both the cause and result of increasing barbarism and general social decline. In fact, I think we could say the same thing about a whole lot of religious and superstitious beliefs, whether or not they have been given the label of “fundamentalism.” I think this description from the International Communist Current sums the problem up fairly well:

In the world’s mightiest country, "born-again" Christianity has a real influence not only over large sectors of the population but even in the highest echelons of the Bush administration. In the Middle East, Asia and Africa, fundamentalist Islam poses as the only answer to the misery of the oppressed. In Israel, messianic religious parties have a major say in national politics. In Europe and America, the neo-pagan fantasies of the New Age have grown in strength. Many of these ideologies hold that we are living in the Last Days; and, in a sense, they are right. Their own renaissance is an expression of the profound irrationality and hopelessness of a decomposing social order.

It should be noted, though, that when the ICC talks about a “decomposing order,” they are referring to a specific theory of capitalist decomposition, related to the idea that capitalism has been decaying, which comes out of some Marxist ideas that are especially emphasized by left communists. (And it is a very interesting concept that I hope to go into in more detail, once I can get together a thorough and articulate enough post.) Nonetheless, we certainly don't need to delve into this theory right now to understand how the ICC, and others, might see the onslaught of superstition and fundamentalism as “an expression of the profound irrationality and hopelessness....”

In the face of all this, it seems to me that the best thing to do - completely contrary to the “wisdom” of cowardly politicians and the like - would be to positively (re)assert the disbelief in God.

As the people in the ICC and other communist groups know, Karl Marx had some very good criticisms about religion, and I’ve quoted them before. But I've also quoted another guy from Marx's time, whose words might come in particuarly handy right now. His name in Michael Bakunin (who, incidentally, had a birthday last Monday), and I found an excellent statement of his at a very interesting site that I’ve been listing called The Autodidact Project. Bakunin's article is called God or Labor (excerpted below), and I hope that other people find it as inspiring as I do, especially for the present time...

You taunt us with disbelieving in God, We charge you with believing in him. We do not condemn you for this. We do not even indict you. We pity you. For the time of illusions is past. We cannot be deceived any longer.

Whom do we find under God's banner! Emperors, kings, the official and the officious world; our lords and our nobles; all the privileged persons of Europe whose names are recorded in the Almana de Gotha; the guinea, pigs of the industrial, commercial and banking world; the patented professors of our universities; the civil service servants; the low and high police officers; the gendarmes; the gaolers; the headsmen or hangmen, not forgetting the priests, who are now the black police enslaving our souls to the State; the glorious generals, defenders of the public order; and lastly, the writers of the reptile Press.

This is God's army!

Whom do we find in the camp opposite? The army of revolt; the audacious deniers of God and repudiators of all divine and authoritarian principles! Those who are therefore, the believers in humanity, the asserters of human liberty.

You reproach us with being Atheists. We do not complain of this. We have no apology to offer. We admit we are. With what pride is allowed to frail individuals - who, like passing waves, rise only to disappear again in the universal ocean of the collective life - we pride ourselves on being Atheists. Atheism is Truth - or, rather the basis of all Truths.

We do not stoop to consider practical consequences. We want Truth above everything. Truth for all!

We believe in spite of all the apparent contradictions in spite of the wavering political wisdom of the Parliamentarians and of the skepticism of the times - that truth only can make for the practical happiness of the people. This is our first article of faith. It appears as if you were not satisfied in recording our Atheism. You jump to the conclusion that we can have neither love nor respect for mankind, inferring that all those great ideas or emotions which, in all ages, have let heart a throbbing are dead letters to us. Trailing at hazard our miserable existence's - crawling, rather then walking, as you wish to imagine us - you assume that we cannot know of other feelings than the satisfaction of our coarse and sensual desires.

Do you want to know to what an extent we love the beautiful things that you revere? Know then that we love them so much that we are both angry and tired at seeing them hanging, out of reach, from your idealistic sky. We feel sorrow to see them stolen from our mother earth, transmuted into symbols without life, or into distant promises never to be realized. No longer are we satisfied with the fiction of things. We want them in their full reality....
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P.S. If you read more of the original aticle, you will find out more about the "Labor" side.