Human power is its own end"—Karl Marx MBER/DECEMBER 2005 WORKSHOPTALKS Mass opposition grows Targeting Blacks as as Iraq occupation festers any quarter. Even the heavy lift­ domestic terrorists ing performed by the Kurdish nationalist leaders in shaping by Georgiana Williams and endorsing the document We have to talk about police abuse in Los Angeles. failed to generate a large turnout Devon Brown was a 13-year-old African American who of voters in the Kurdish region. took a joy ride in a car. The police were chasing him. NEW CONSTITUTION They riddled his body with bullets. Since then, they put 80 bullets in the car of a young man in Compton, but At the close of the period of none of them hit him. Another brother in Compton had fvote counting the official a police chase, and they beat him like they did Rodney 5 announcement was that the con- King—and that brother is in jail. None of these police [I'stitution passed. There had been has been taken off the police force. ]g great anxiety among the parties J making up Iraq's government There are about 300 women in LA whose sons have a that the constitution might be been killed by drive-by shootings. They have organized | rejected in three of Iraq's and meet every Tuesday. It's a good group, they're 5 provinces and thus not meet the doing a lot of good work against police abuse. But the '"g legal criteria for success. reason I didn't join is because the Nation of Islam is a big part of this group, and I don't trust them. I went Even though turnout was high over there two or three times to see what's going on, J? among Sunni Iraqis who had but I'm not going back. Mass protest in Buenos Aires in November against Bosh's visit to Argentina. boycotted the Jan. 30 elections I want to speak out about the domestic terrorist law and in large measure opposed they have in L.A. They refer to all our Black brothers by Kevin Michaels the constitution, it was defeated only in Anbar and as gangbangers. They have a new law now. If your son Salahaddin provinces, strongholds of the fierce Sunni While the narrow approval of the draft Iraqi consti­ insurgency. The voters there cast their ballots in is considered in the gang, and he's arrested, they're tution in the Oct. 15 referendum may have been a vic­ going to charge him with domestic terrorism. They protest at the federalist content of the constitution and tory for the Bush administration, the U.S. continues to not its conservative Islamic character. The Sunnis.are treat the domestic terrorists the way they treat all the walk a knife's edge in Iraq. On one side is the prospect brothers that they picked up after September 11 and opposed to the very idea of Shi'a and Kurdish promi­ of the explosion of a fully fledged sectarian civil war nence in post-Saddam Iraq. have down in Cuba in a camp. They plan to put all with severe regional implications. On the other side is these people in a camp and they're never going to be the drastic erosion of domestic political support for the Now the race is on among the Iraqi political parties released. administration's undertaking in Iraq from both the to cement alliances for elections for the national We all have to get involved with this domestic ter­ American people and from powerful figures within the assembly to take place in December. Widespread dis­ rorism issue, because what they do in LA, it looks like Republican Party itself. The two realities threaten to satisfaction with the current government led by everybody else, follows. We cannot let them put our undermine the ability of Bush and Cheney to freely Ibrahim al-Jafari of the Shi'a fundamentalist Dawa young brothers in camps just because they call them carry out their, agenda. party has fractured the deals made at the time of the January elections. gangbangers. The passing of the 2,000 mark in the number of U.S. Continued on page 3 military fatalities in Iraq, with 15,000 wounded, cou­ The influential Shi'a religious leader Ayatollah al- pled with the long-awaited federal indictment of an Sistani is withholding any endorsement this time influential Bush administration official in the Valerie around and the Shi'a religious parties, which have Plame leak case, has prompted many Americans to fought among themselves but failed to deliver any ben­ thoroughly question the reasons for and the conduct of efits for those who voted for them, are hastening to BLACK/RED the invasion and occupation of Iraq. retain their prominence in the next government. The Kurdish forces plan to run on their own this time. While the long-term outcome of the Bush adminis­ tration's difficulties remains to be seen, the war in Iraq Two controversial secular figures—Iyad Alawi and is certain to grind on, prolonging its cruel and devas­ Ahmed Chalabi—are seeking to once again refashion Legacy of Rosa Parks tating impact on the Iraqi people. themselves to win the support of those who don't wish to vote for any of the religious parties. Alawi—a former by John Alan The constitutional referendum vote had little simi­ larity with the dramatic Jan. 30 election for the nation­ Ba'ath Party official turned democrat—has fashioned There is a need to rescue Rosa Parks from the polit­ al assembly. The turnout was much lower this time and an assemblage of secular figures, including the Iraqi ical attempt of President Bush and other leaders to there was little enthusiasm for the event shown from separate her greatness from the dialectics of the ongo­ Continued on page 10 ing struggles of African Americans for freedom in this nation. Rosa Parks died as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic Montgomery, Alabama Bus A parent brings the Iraq war home Boycott against segregation in public transportation, which was sparked by her act of defiance of refusing to ESCONDID0, CAL—Proyecto Guerrero Azteca por la grew up. He told them he would join the police depart­ give up her seat on a bus to a white man. Such is the Paz (Guerrero Azteca Peace Project) works to raise con­ ment in Tijuana. The recruiter told him that was dan­ power of what Rosa Parks represented that Bush sent sciousness in the youth that the best option to combat gerous and it would be better to go to high school in the an army officer to bring her body from Detroit to the terrorism or injustice is not the army but to continue in U.S. and join the military, and he would receive the best Rotunda in the National Capitol. school. When you tell students not to go into the army training in the world and combat narco-trafficking. He This is also the 50th anniversary of News & Letters. to get money for college, they say, "Okay, give me some­ began calling Jesus every week, sending him souvenirs The Montgomery Bus Boycott is so fundamental to the thing." Our website lists 100 organizations that give and presents. Whenever we went to Chula Vista, the beginnings of News and Letters Committees that it scholarships regardless of immigration status, and we recruiter was there. has been named from the start in our "Who We Are and are creating $500 scholarships for students who decide We lived in Mexico, but Jesus pushed me to let him What We Stand For" statement, alongside the Detroit not to join (http://www.guerreroazteca.org/). go to high school in San Diego so he could join the mil­ wildcat strikes against automation, as signaling a new Along with various groups in San Diego, we visit itary. In 1997 our family moved to San Diego. The movement from practice that is itself a form of theory schools and give the students a flyer with information recruiter promised that after one year of service Jesus (see page 12). about their rights to opt out of having their personal could automatically go to the D.A. as a federal agent. In February 1956, we ran a front-page story "Mont­ information sent to the military and about the mili­ I never supported violence or the military. I lived in gomery Negroes Show the Way," before news of the tary's ASVAB vocational test being given in schools. Mexico City in 1968 and 1971, when the government event was widely known. The original editor of News & We speak out against the war and the occupation of and military killed students there. But the reason Letters, Charles Denby, was a Black worker born in Iraq. At the same time we participate in aid to the Jesus joined the Marines was, in my opinion, humani­ Alabama who throughout his life kept a close relation­ immigrant community against La Migra and the Min- tarian. He called himself Guerrero Azteca, which ship with the movement in his home state. utemen. The African-American community, like the means Aztec warrior, because he believed in fighting I met Rosa Parks at one of our early meetings in immigrant community, are being sidelined from educa­ army against army, not army against civilian popula­ Detroit where Denby worked with her along with other tion, njedical and other services. It's the other war tion. Our group's name is Guerrero Azteca Peace Pro­ they're in, besides the war in Iraq. ject after him, and because to achieve peace, one has to African Americans from Alabama. The very first chap­ The percentage of African Americans is very high in fight, with different weapons: words, truth, heart, love. ter of Part Two of Denby's remarkable life story, Indig­ the Army and Marines, and very low in the Air Force. More women are involved in the military, more Lati- nant Heart: A Black Worker's Journal, is titled "Visit- They a^e enrolled in the areas with the greatest danger nas and young girls of color, for the same reason as Continued on page 8 and lowest pay. The rich make the wars, and the chil­ boys: the system has closed opportunities for a good dren of: the working class fight and die in them. education. Recruiters say, "Don't worry. Women don't go ON THE INSIDE Wheh my son Jesus, who was killed in Iraq, was 11 to war. Your job is in the hospital, or the office." More or 12, we lived in Tijuana. I worked with the communi­ than 25 women have died in Iraq and 95% of women in GM, Delphi - deep concessions ...... p. 3 ty in poor areas, and sometimes Jesus came with me. In the military have been sexually harassed at least once. 'WRITINGS OF RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA' • one hotise we found a baby having convulsions. It died I consider this the historical moment in the U.S. to Law of value in capitalist society. p. 4 from eajting cocaine because the father was trafficking achieve a radical change. Since the Vietnam war, voic­ drugs. Jesus wanted to join the police, attack the narco- ESSAY • Legacy of 1905 Revolution ... p. 5 es have never spoken out against the government as traffickers, and keep children from abusing drugs. strongly as today. The Iraq war, the bad economy and EDITORIAL • Rosa Parks and us p. 8 When he was 13, military recruiters at the mall in poverty in the U.S., are creating the conditions for peo­ Chula Vista asked Jesus what he wanted to do when he ONLINE: wyivw.newsandletters.org ple's action, and we will act to make a change. — Fernando Suarez del Sola Page 2 NEWS & LETTERS NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2005 Women as subjectivity: revolutionary force and reason by Terry Moon did this great thing by saying Absolute isn't absolute in life and in cognition, 'Subjectivity'—live men and women—tried shaping history via a totally new rela­ On the 20th anniversary of the publication of Raya the ordinary sense of the word—it's the unity of theo­ Dunayevskaya's Women's Liberation and the Dialec­ ry and practice; Absolute isn't absolute in the bour­ tionship of practice to theory" (p. 6). tics of Revolution: Reaching for the Future (WLDR), we geois sense of the word—it's the question of the unity Let's look at how Dunayevskaya met the challenge want to look at this 35-year collection of essays of the material and the given by sociologists and through the lens of what Dunayevskaya, the founder of ideal. But who ever said feminists who wanted her Marxist-Humanism, called her original contribution to Absolute was a new begin­ to speak on "The Grun- Marxism: "Absolute Idea as New Beginning." We do ning? None but us. And if Women's Liberation and the drisse [Marx's draft of this as a revolutionary exploration of how her re-cre­ we don't understand that Capital] and Women's ation of the dialectic, concentrating on women's strug­ original contribution—that Liberation." She said that gle for freedom, shows a path out of today's stifling ret­ we have to begin with the Dialectics of Revolution: while "the Grundrisse rogression. totality—then we won't had nothing to do with know what a new beginning the 'Woman Dunayevskaya gave no brief definition of Absolute is." * Reaching for the Future Idea as New Beginning, writing: "It isn't only that we Question'....the method­ ology is there" (p. 183). EXPRESSING TOTALITY She delved into Marx's Women's How can WLDR express Liberation concretization of Hegel's totality when confined to OBdthe by Raya Dunayevskaya statement that if he could Mukhtar Mai speaks the subject of Women's Lib­ Dialectics qf Special 20th anniversary put his philosophy in one HEW YORK—Mukhtar Mai, Pakistani national symbol eration? It isn't a question sentence it would be that and international symbol of women fighting rape and of covering all forces of rev­ price $10 (regularly $13) the truth is not just' sub­ violence, spoke here in November. In 2002, this quiet, olution throughout history. includes postage. stance but Subject (p. impoverished, religious woman who lives in a rural vil­ Rather, as Dunayevskaya 184). Marx concretized lage, suffered a gang rape, ordered by the local tribal put it: "[E]very one of the Subject as the proletariat. council to punish her family for a false charge against historic periods recorded [in Later, when looking at her brother. Instead of killing herself or moving away, WLDR] discloses the exis­ revolutionary China in she began a battle for justice, fighting the local tribal tence of both a new revolu­ To order, see page 7. the 1850s, she said, "we system, the "feudal" landowners, the police and the tionary force and a new con­ see Subject as [the] Ori­ judicial systems, to get the rapists and the council sciousness—Reason itself— prosecuted. ent." Then she turns to no matter how different the "look at Subject in the She succeeded, but her case against the rapists is on situation or the eountry in nrr history of women's libera­ appeal. Now she is battling the military government— which the events unravel, tion" (p. 185). Thus she President Masharraf at first refused to let her travel and no matter how hidden from history, past or in-the- grounds an expanded notion of Subject directly in abroad denouncing her as an opportunist. making, it has remained" (p. 3). Hegelian-Marxian philosophy and makes it explicit for Mukhtar told the audience at Cooper Union, many of We see this re-created, from the rise of today's our age. them South Asians: "The Women's Liberation Movement; going back to the support you've given me wives of striking miners in 1949-50, to women's part in SUBJECTIVITY OF REVOLUTION has helped me fight revolts worldwide such as Iran 1979 and Poland's Sol­ Women as Subject is explored in terms of the indis- against oppression of the idarity movement. In each case Dunayevskaya made pensibility of the Black dimension. She showed that poor and women. Violence explicit the revolutionary force and reason residing in Black women as speakers and generals inspired white is committed by the big women's struggles for full humanness and freedom. abolitionists and women's suffragists: "It was because landlords, who have all Unseparated from that is how Marxist-Humanism met of this Subject, this Black dimension, that the philo­ 1 he power and money. To those movements, contributed to their development sophic concept in the fight against slavery wasn't just change such conditions, all and was developed by them. In WLDR we see created that you would get rid of slavery, but that you would I have is your support. I the new relationship between theory and practice that have entirely new human relations. The whole concept want to end oppression she insisted was indispensable for revolution: "It was of absolute movement of becoming [Marx's expression through education. I want as if Hegel's Absolute Method as simultaneously sub­ from the Grundrisse] was there" (p. 185). For our day lo provide protection for jective-objective mediation had taken on flesh. Both in women. I have people- continued on page 8 power with me. Truth will bring victory." In the last Mukhtar Mai three years, no woman has What is the relationship between women's been raped and the tribal council has not met. With compensation money, Mukhtar opened the first elementary schools in her village, Meerwala, one for liberation and social revolution? girls and one for boys. They teach the children that by Anne Jaclard work for wages, such as peasants, are also domi­ women and poor people have rights. She hopes to open Today, most women around the world are as poor nated by the value-oriented world system. a crisis center 'and a hospital as her area has no med­ Some ancient relations of oppression serve capital­ ical facility for women. Her first concern is for victims and oppressed as at the start of the Women's Libera­ tion Movement nearly 40 years ago, in spite of the ism well, so those relations, including sexism, have of the earthquake, and she urged us and the U.S. gov­ been transformed and incorporated into modern life. ernment to provide more relief. movement circling the globe. In this reactionary peri­ od, women want to know whether it will ever be possi­ For example, sexism and racism help capitalism to pit The main sponsor of the forum, Asian-American workers against each other—"divide and conquer." Network Against Abuse of Human Rights ble to construct a society in which women are free; oth­ erwise, there is no reason to continue struggling for it. If we do away with value production, socially neces­ (www.4anaa.org), is working to change Pakistani law, sary labor time will end, and we can change the nature eliminate tribal councils and other parallel court sys­ That is why feminists urgently need to theorize how a non-capitalist, non-sexist alternative to this society of work to an entirely new, human basis. This will lay tems, end "feudalism," enforce women's rights, and the material basis for women, men and children to support Mukhtar's projects. Its president, Amna But- could function, and how it might become reality. To that end, some of us have begun to reinvestigate work out new human relations and to construct an tar, likened Mukhtar to Rosa Parks: "neither woman entirely new kind of society. knew that by making a choice, she would change her- the relationship between women's liberation and the story and become an icon for the world." concept of social revolution. We begin by looking at the SOCIAL RELATIONS —Anne Jaclard relationship of women to capitalism through the eyes of Marx's greatest work, Capital. Thus, capitalist production is not mere background for the profound misery of most of the human race. It Capital reveals the true relations disguised by is not only the process of production and reproduction the capitalist mode of production, and the real of things, but the process of production and reproduc­ possibility of creating its absolute opposite, tion of that misery, and the process of production and WOMENWOhmi based on the contradictions within current real­ reproduction of social relations. Marx discusses this in ity—workers' revolts and capitalism's inherent by Mary Jo Grey many writings, including Capital and The Germanlde- instability. So too do we want to show the possi­ ology. While yet another of President Bush's right-wing bility of women's liberation that continues on to full individual and societal freedom, in contrast "Be [her] payment high or low, the worker's lot must nominees for the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, will grow worse," writes Marx in Capital,Vo\. I. He is refer­ not begin his confirmation hearings until after the first to past revolutions which ultimately left most women in drudgery. ring not only to wage workers, but to the whole family. of the year, the pattern of his 15-year history of judicial The passage that reaches this conclusion talks about opinions and rulings is clear. Along with having strong Capitalism is not just one aspect of our world. It is a an alienated work process, beginning with the alien­ anti-choice views, Alito pushed the federal appeals system that fills and shapes every nook and cranny, ation of mental from manual labor and extending into court in Philadelphia in the worst kind of anti-human driving to mold even personal aspects of life into its all aspects of work—and tainting all human relations direction. He often sided with companies over employ­ service. Very briefly: Capitalists do not care what use outside of work as well. values they produce, but only the rate of profit they ees in discrimination cases, and supported rulings So it is wrong to posit an opposition between which threaten the enforcement of environmental make. The system's aim is self-expanding value; value expands by pumping labor out of workers. Capitalist women's issues and workers' issues. Counterpos- laws. Ralph Neas, president of People for the American ing the "mode of production" to "women's oppres­ Way, warned that "He is a walking constitutional production tends to increase the relative magnitude of means of production in relation to workers through the sion,"! as if they exist within separate realms, amendment who would undo precedents that protect compounds many so-called Marxists' and femi­ fundamental rights and liberties that Americans think means of technological change, leading to the continu­ ous lowering of "socially necessary labor time," the nists'failure to understand the totalizing effects are theirs forever." Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is of capital. Conditions on the shop floor and in the not waiting to look at laws affecting abortion rights. On industry-wide average amount of time needed to pro­ duce a commodity. homelflow out of the mode of production and it cannot Nov. 30, they will begin hearing arguments on a law­ be otherwise. Unfortunately we are saddled with a vul­ suit brought by Planned Parenthood attempting to pro­ VALUE DOMINATES ALL WORKERS gar materialist legacy and an anti-Marxist feminist hibit enforcement of a New Hampshire law restricting legacy, both of which perpetuate just such a false oppo­ young women's access to abortion by requiring As the exclusive determinant of a commodity's sition: parental notification. Is this the beginning of the end? value, socially necessary labor time is the very essence of the capitalist mode of production. Because any The fact that capitalism is the system within which expenditure of labor that exceeds socially necessary sexisjja is perpetuated today does not mean that there The Haiti Support Group is calling for action to pro­ labor time counts for nothing, capitalists are compelled is a purely economic solution to sexism, any more than tect girls and women from an increased number of to minimize production costs. In this way, socially sexistti and economics are separable now. In subse­ rapes by armed men, mainly in poor neighborhoods of necessary labor time controls production rela­ quent essays, we will explore why changing the mode Port-au-Prince, but also in other parts of the country. tions, workplace conditions, women's labor, and of production is necessary, but not sufficient, to estab­ Haiti has the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS outside all the other faces of work in this society, which lish socialism and women's liberation. A women's liber­ of sub-Saharan Africa. The London-based organization alienates us from our own mental and physical ation; movement is essential before, during and after expressed concern that armed groups are using sexual capacities. Today, a huge amount of value is pro­ revolution. Further examination of Marx and Duna­ violence to punish communities and individuals who duced by women in sweatshops around the yevskaya's philosophy will lay the ground for develop­ do not support their political ends. world. The lives and labor of women who do not ing tjiiese concepts. NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2005 NEWS & LETTERS Page 3 Workers pick up tab for GM and Delphi bailouts DETROIT-In a rare mid-contract negotiating deal, prisingly, are now demanding the same concessions that guarantees pay and benefits for laid off workers, a United Auto Workers (UAW) union leaders agreed to from the UAW that GM has won. The auto companies reduction in health care and pension benefits, and the health care concessions amounting to billions of dollars don't want to break the union. They know without the right to close, sell or consolidate the majority of Del­ of worker benefits to GM. Hardest hit are retirees, who union the companies would be facing the rebellious phi's UAW-organized factories over the next three will pay monthly premiums, annual deductibles and fury of rank-and-file workers. years. increased prescription costs. Workers will have future The hard fact is that no concessions can save GM— To twist the knife more effectively, Delphi wage and cost-of-living increases diverted into a fund nor any other company. The crisis in production con­ announced that it wanted to increase the sever- to pay health care costs. . ance packages for 21 top executives as GM now has about 500,000 retirees, their an incentive to keep these executives spouses and dependents, and 106,000 work­ who have done a "heck of a job" (as ers. In 1965, when it had 409,000 workers, George Bush would say) in managing 58,000 received retirement • benefits. The Delphi. company is planning to both close more Delphi Corporation is an automobile plants and lay off 25,000 more workers in parts manufacturer that was formed from the next year. GM components in 1999 as a "spin off." GM Since profits can only come from the agreed to continue to buy parts from Delphi unpaid labor of workers, this huge for at least five years and to underwrite slash in the workforce results in an some of Delphi's pension and benefit costs. uncontrollable decline in the rate of Delphi has acknowledged irregular account­ profit, despite the fact that worker pro­ ing practices dating back to its origin that ductivity has increased at least 100% in have overstated its income. In at least one the last decade through automation instance, Delphi treated a $20 million loan and speedup. There is no doubt that from another GM spinoff, EDS, as income. these worsening conditions on the pro­ Delphi has 33,000 unionized workers in duction line have taken their toll on the U.S. and 185,000 workers worldwide. the health of the workers, which also The great majority of its plants are already increases health care costs to the com­ outside the U. S. Delphi claims that unless it pany. slashes wages and benefits drastically, it Retirees now pay nothing in monthly cannot compete with auto parts manufac­ costs, deductibles, co-insurance or emer­ tured in Mexico, South America and Asia. gency room services. The proposed changes Bankruptcy of corporations is noth­ will have them pay a $10 monthly fee, $150 ing new. Railroads in the 19th century deductible, $100 co-insurance, all roughly commonly went through bankruptcy doubled for family coverage, and $50 for and reorganization many times over. emergency room service and increases on some pre­ tinues, and despite great increases in worker produc­ What is new, however, is using bankruptcy to put scriptions. tivity through automation and other technological the power of the state behind wage slashing. Workers will have the same increases in prescription changes, the problems keep escalating. The class strug­ The airline and steel industries have already had costs as retirees, but will not have any of the other gle is increasing and growing more fierce. similar experiences with bankruptcy. The current CEO charges. However, they will have future wage increas­ —Andy Phillips of Delphi, Eobert S. Miller, took another auto supplier, es of 83 cents per hour deferred in September of 2006, Federal Mogul Corporation, into bankruptcy. While as well as cost-of-living increases of 17 cents per hour bankruptcy does not prohibit the UAW from calling a over three quarters of next year, plus an additional FUHT, MICH.—The Delphi Corporation filed a large strike, the union has to in essence bargain with a COLA deferral of two cents per hour near the end number of Chapter 11 petitions for its U.S. operations bankruptcy judge who has the federal government of next year. in the United States Bankruptcy Court in New York backing him up. These concessions still have to be ratified by a vote, City shortly before the effective of a tougher bankrupt­ Globalization is not the cause of the declining rate of but since the heaviest blow will fall on the retirees who cy law on Oct. 17. The non-US. operations of Delphi are profit of corporations such as Delphi, it is the response can't vote, it is expected that they will go into effect. not affected, but it allows them to continue to operate to the declining rate of profit. There is no reason to The last time that mid-contract concessions were while arranging to make payments to creditors. think that $10 per hour is the last word in wage slash­ negotiated was in the 1980s, when then UAW President The bankruptcy judge will have the power to void ing. Auto workers have historically responded vigor­ Douglas Fraser negotiated away benefits that Chrysler collective bargaining agreements. Delphi wants to ously to much less drastic anti-worker actions than workers had fought for decades to win—all in the name slash hourly rates from approximately $27 per hour to Delphi has just thrown at them, and they undoubtedly of saving Chrysler from bankruptcy. Chrysler workers approximately $10-12 per hour, eliminate a jobs bank will do so now. still haven't recovered all they lost, and never will. —DanB. Today, it is UAW President Ron Gettlefinger who is giving away the workers' benefits that workers they have fought for so long, and who is no more than a lackey for the auto corporations. The UAW bureaucracy long ago adopted the corpora­ meet to end abuses Northwest mechanics tions' motto that "We're all in the same boat," and NEW YORK—On Oct. 8, 12 women testified at a has worked cooperatively with them. "Domestic Workers Human Rights Tribunal" to horror refuse to cave in When the auto corporations were making billions of stories of abuse. The women, mostly immigrants, were forced to enter domestic work to feed their families. All MEMPHIS, TENN.—You don't see as many on the North­ dollars in profits, the UAW did not make any mid-con­ west Airlines mechanics picket line because strikers tract demands on them. Ford and Chrysler, not sur- were paid very little and less than they had been promised. All were overworked—not only 18-hour days are getting other jobs. We've been out over two months but some perpetually on call. All lacked any benefits, (see Sept.-Oct. N&L). We didn't have a choice to strike. and many were physically or mentally mistreated. Every time we'd meet the company's demand, they A woman from the Philippines described an employ­ asked for more. If we'd have kept going, we'd be paying WORKSHOP'fitilS er who would not allow her to use the family's plates them to work. Continued from page 1 and utensils and made her scrub the floor on her hands Most mechanics that are now walking the and knees. An Indian woman was brought to the U.S. picket line don't want to go back anyway. I doubt I call them dysfunctional sisters and brothers. The by a "boss." The employer paid the boss $1,200 a I'd go back. The day we walked out, I felt a big reason I call them dysfunctional is because they don't month, the boss sent her parents $200 a month, and pressure lifted off me. You'd walk in there and have jobs. There's nothing in L.A. for young people. she received nothing. After the employer hit her, neigh­ you'd just feel it in the air. But you come out here They want young people to work for $5.35 an hour. You bors helped her go to the police. and walk with guys you've known for years and cannot pay rent if you work for $5.35 an hour. A Zambian woman who worked from 6:00 am to mid­ friends, and you get away from that mess. Did these kids bring the drugs into LA? They need night, seven days a week, was paid $250 a month, slept One person from maintenance control quit because to start in Washington and get rid of the people who on the living room floor, and was not allowed to talk to he didn't want to be around when something happens, are bringing in the drugs, because I don't know any anyone. "Animals are treated better," she said. "We like when a plane goes in the ground. I think it's only African American with a cargo plane or a cargo ship to cannot let our children and grandchildren experience a matter of time. bring the drugs into South Central. this. We must get the dignity, respect and justice we The other day the scab mechanics had a write-up Some of the brothers found out they can make deserve." that was a no-go item. The mechanic wanted to change money on drugs, and they're making money. And The "tribunal" decided that the state should the write-up to an info-only, but the captain wouldn't they're now deciding this is wrong. But if they stop pass a "Domestic Workers Bill of Rights," extend­ do it. That's what we're dealing with. I tell everybody bringing the drugs in, the brothers won't be able to sell ing greater labor law coverage to domestic work­ not to fly Northwest. them and the users won't be able to take them. ers. Other professionals talked about the need They're supposed to cut quite a few jobs from flight They have another law that says if your son is for the federal government and the UN to attendants and pilots, but the IAM (International picked up and you're on welfare, they're going to address the issue. Association of Machinists) is burying its head in the charge you a large amount of money. It's just awful. I The problem with relying upon changes in law is sand. They represent the ticket counter people and bag went back to the old neighborhood because they called that there needs to be the will and money to enforce it. handlers* they're going to be gone—the station here in my sons gangbangers. I'm no longer over there. There is little government enforcement of existing Memphis is supposed to become all part-time. What happened in New Orleans is someting I could labor laws and no reason to believe capitalism will per­ The IAM thinks they're going to get an 18% cut. It's understand from LA, I have family in Mississippi and mit effective reforms. This problem was not addressed. going to be a lot more than that. If everybody had gone I have family in New Orleans. I received calls after One of the "judges" at the "tribunal" was Ida La together, we'd have all been back to work. That's why Hurricane Katrina and heard about what was going on Blanc from the Union of Domestic Workers of Trinidad we got out of the IAM, because they have no leader­ in New Orleans before they put it on the air. It was and Tobago. "We are making trouble and we are mak­ ship. The old IAM was a good union. It's nothing now. nothing but racism. ing history," she proclaimed. Ten years ago when we took a pay cut we had I received a call from a man who's been coming to Her union has gotten more rights on paper to buy NWA stock; I believe it was at $39 or so a New Orleans since in the 1960s. He said, "Where did than the proposed "bill of rights" for New York share. For 10 years, they promised us we'd get it all the white people go? How did all the white people would provide. "What we really want is recogni­ back at what we paid for it. Three days before we get out? Nothing left but the Black people?" tion of domestics as workers," she said. "Our were supposed to get it back they found some I received a call from a family that made it out of demands are due to us as women." Her proposal loophole in the state of Delaware that says they New Orleans to Texas. They didn't want to stay in the that women all over the world stop working— don't have to give it back to us. All they do is lie Superdome because all you smelled was death. They "that will stop society"—was met with cheers. to us. Most people are tired of it. I'm sure with had dead people in there, people dying, she said. No The good news at the event was that many domestic the Bush administration we're going to lose any place to lay down, so somebody told them to go to Gar­ workers are organizing into self-help groups, coopera­ pensions, too. land, Texas. And they went to Garland. They said they tives and unions, and the movement is international. This isn't just about unions, either. It's about every were told to go to the Red Cross, and the Red Cross told Their spirit was manifested by the 200 or so women in blue-collar job in the country, whether you're union or them to go back to the Astrodome in Houston. So they attendance, who ended the event by chanting "Free, not. The government's going after them. It's the world told me to make sure nobody gives any money to the free, domestic workers/ End, end, slavery." economy that they want. Red Cross because it is not going to help you. —Participant —Striking mechanic Page 4 NEWS & LETTERS NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2005 FROM THE WRITINGS OF RiifflllllWlfSIlfl The law of value in capitalist society ues. The law of value remains dominant. diseases of the old society" (p. 138). For both these for­ Marx treated market phenomena only as manifesta­ mulas the Soviet economists substitute the principle of EDITOR'S NOTE tions of the production relationship between capitalist "distribution according to labor." and worker. The organic composition of individual cap­ Professor Rogin apparently accepts the identity of A crucial issue in radical theory remains how to ital, as well as market competition, affects the division the "natural measure of labor," time, with the new for­ eliminate capitalist value production. The following of profit among capitalists, but not the surplus value mula, which is explicitly based on the instrumentality article, written in ] 945. represented an historic inter­ itself. Surplus value is a given magnitude arising only of money, the price expression of value. Time and value, vention into that debate. In 1943 an article in the from the process of production. Marx insisted that the however, are not equivalents. To. Marx value is not a Russian journal Under the Banner of Marxism struggle among capitalists to effect what he called quantitative relationship but a qualitative relation-" declared thai the law of value—which Marx had "capitalist communism" was of no concern to the work­ ship, that is, a class relationship. He asserted that the alway said defines capitalism—operates under er. He analyzed these market phenomena only in order analysis of the contradiction between use-value and "socialism."" Dunayevskaya translated the essay and to prove the oppressively dominant position of value in the labor of the worker, considered as a com­ published a critique of it in the American Economic "self-expanding value,"(7) or the primacy of the pro­ modity, is his original contribution to political economy, Review (AER) of September 1944, entitled "A New duction relationship. Lange is much too preoccupied and the pivot around which political economy Revision of Marxian Economics." It's was reprinted with the formation of price. Marx did not write 4,000 revolves.(8) According to Marx, it is the use-value of in the April 2004 N&L. Her critique drew responses odd pages—the Theo­ the specific commodi­ from the radical economists Paul Baran (AER, ries of Surplus Value ty, labor power, that December 1944) and Oscar Lange and Leo Rogin Marx intended as part creates surplus (AER, March 1945). Her rejoinder, published in the of Vol. Ill of Capital— value. This is what September 1945 issue of the AER, is reprinted here as. an essay in price the Soviet econo­ for the first time. All page numbers are to the origi­ analysis. Capital is an mists have restored nal articles in the AER. The footnotes are abbreviat­ analysis of the capi­ for Russia. This is ed. The original can be found in The Raya Dunayev­ talist process of pro­ not a "distributive" skaya Collection, 213-217. duction, the capital­ principle, nor is dis­ ist process of circula­ tribution the specific tion and capitalist concern of the Soviet rofessors Oscar Lange and Leo Rogin and Mr. Paul production "taken as a A. Baran have challenged my contention that the economists. They whole." It is an analy­ know that where Precent Soviet article from Under the Banner of sis of no other sys­ labor has created no Marxism marks a radical departure from orthodox tem. Marxism. Although these economists apparently agree new value, not even a that the article is not a revision, but a reaffirmation, of Lange, on the one "socialist society" can Marxism, they, nevertheless, reach different, even hand, assumes that appropriate and dis­ directly contradictory, conclusions on the principal the USSR is a social­ tribute. point of theory in the Soviet statement, namely, that ist, that is, The new Soviet the law of value operates under "socialism." non-exploitative formula for distribu­ Lange affirms positively that Marx "held the view order, and, on the tion is in reality a that the theory of value applies to a socialist economy" other hand, that the euphemism for the (p. 128). Baran states categorically that the law of dominant economic realities of produc­ value is a "principle ruling the working of a capitalis­ law of capitalism operates there. By abstracting the tion. Class relations(9) in Russia compel them to make tic society" and that the only consequence of trying to exploitative content of the Marxian theory of value, "surplus labor" the main aim of production. The Soviet apply that notion to socialism "is to deprive the 'law of Professor Lange has indeed deprived that theory "of all economists are only stating in theoretical language value' of all its meaning and significance" (p. 869). meaning and significance." that economic reality which was given mathematical Rogin avoids any discussion of the concept of value. Rogin's central thesis is equally incorrect, although exactitude by Academician and Chairman of the State The confusion among these learned minds suggests the his error is more difficult to isolate because he com­ Planning Commission, N. Voznessensky, in his speech necessity of a restatement of the law of value in its pletely ignores the concept of value and considers only to the 18th Ail-Union Conference of the Russian Com­ Marxian sense. the distributive principle under socialism. Because I munist Party just before- the outbreak of the Lange arrives at the conclusion that the law of value called attention to the traditional Marxist principle, Russo-German war. "The plan for 1941," he said blunt­ operates in a socialist society through an erroneous "From each according to his ability, to each according to ly, "provides for a 12% increase in productivity of labor construction of two quotations from Capital. In the his need," Rogin intimates (p. 138) that I have fallen and a 6.5% increase in average wage per worker."(10) first, from p. 90 of Vol. I, where Marx is describing "a into the error of "vulgar socialism," which, as Marx has By assuming the existence of "socialism" in the USSR, community of free individuals," he carefully refrains stated, considers "distribution as independent of pro­ and accepting at the same time the principle of "distri­ from any use of the word "value." The quintessential duction, thereby representing socialism as turning bution according to labor," Rogin is, in reality, accepting point of that whole section on "The Fetishism of Com­ principally on distribution." However, my only purpose the applicability of the law of value under "socialism." modities" is to prove that "to stamp an object of utility in referring to the slogan was to show the contradiction Here likewise Baran makes his error. He avers that as a value is just as much a social product as lan­ between the Soviet doctrine that socialism has been the Soviet economists' acceptance of the law of value guage" ;(1) it is the language of "bourgeois economy." "irrevocably established" in the USSR, and the repudi­ under "socialism" is merely the result of a "terminolog­ Hence, when Marx "by way of a change" speaks of a ation of that slogan for that country. ical muddle surrounding the notion of 'law'" (p. 861). The Russians, however, are not muddleheads. They society other than capitalist, he uses, not the word Worse than that, the Soviet economists reject anoth­ "value" but the expression "labor time." have deliberately accepted the validity of the law of er Marxist formula—the payment of labor according to value for the Soviet Union because in the economic cat- In the second quotation, from p. 992 of Vol. Ill, Marx the "natural measure of labor": time—which was pos­ uses the phrase "determination of value" (Wertbestim- tulated for a society "as it emerges from capitalist mung) in the general or descriptive sense meaning society," that is, one still tainted "with the hereditary continued on page 11 evaluation and not in the categoric sense of a theory or a law of value. Marx had nothing but contempt for those who, like A. Wagner, tried to lift the theory, of value out of its capitalistic context and transform it A new look at the Russian revision of into a "universal theory of value." As I showed in my commentary (p. 561), he casti­ gates "the presupposition that the theory of value, Marx's concept of 'directly social labor' developed for the explanation of bourgeois society, has validity for the 'socialist state of Marx.'" He reiterated by Andrew Kliman nomic Council. Leo Rogin was a UC Berkeley profes­ time and again that "in the analysis of value I had in Why return to a more-than-60-year-old debate over sor, a teacher of and a major influence upon J. K. Gal- view bourgeois relations and not an application of this whether the USSR was subject to the Marxian "law of braith. theory of value to a 'socialist state.'"(2) In Anti-Dilhring value" and what that meant? Does the issue even But again, why return to this debate now? Is it just Engels stated that in a socialist society: "People will be matter now, given that the USSR and its satellites a matter of reliving the past? able to manage everything very simply without the have been defunct for more than a decade? It is true that "What is the class character of Stal­ intervention of the famous value.'"(3) In its time, this was a very important debate. In inist Russia?" is no longer a burning question. But underlying this question are other questions—"What In contrast to Marx and Engels, Lange not only 1943, a leading Russian theoretical journal published an article, ostensibly about the "Teaching of Econom­ is capitalism?," "What is socialism?"—that have asserts that the law of value applies to a socialist soci­ become even more relevant, in the light of the emer­ ety but further stretches the meaning of "law of ics in the Soviet Union." The next year, Raya Duna­ yevskaya translated it, got it published in the Ameri­ gence of new movements against global capital, and value"(4) by saying that in its "pure form" (p. 129). the renewed discussion of potential alternatives to Marx considered it applicable "only under conditions of can Economic Review (AER), and commented upon it there. For her, the article's key claim was that the law capitalism. It is important not to let "Another World is 'simple commodity production.'" In reality, Marx criti­ Possible" remain a mere slogan. "Another world" cized Adam Smith for just that assertion. Smith, he of value holds under socialism. All parties acknowl­ edged that this claim revised prior Russian doctrine; needs to be theorized concretely in order to become a explains fell into that error because he had "abstracted real possibility rather than an abstract one. [the law of value] from capitalistic production and pre­ Dunayevskaya argued that it also departed from the cisely because of this it appears as if it were invalid. "(5) views of Marx and Engels. The Russians were revising In light of this project, certain aspects of the AER Starting with the labor theory of value of their doctrine, she argued, in order to make it fit Russ­ debate have assumed renewed importance. One such Smith-Ricardo, he showed that the unequal exchange ian reality—a reality in which the law of value did aspect is the meaning of Marx's concept of "directly between the capitalist and the worker was not a "devi­ indeed hold, a reality which was therefore (according social labor" (ably discussed by Seth Weiss in the July- ation" from the law, but its very basis. He transformed to the concepts of Marx and Engels) not socialist but Augwst N&L) and its relation to money, abstract labor, the classical labor theory of value into the theory of capitalist. value, and commodity production. surplus value. Value, he wrote, was a social relation of Her comment impelled responses from leading pro- Tbe Russian article acknowledged that two of the production "specifically capitalistic."(6) Marx's theory Stalinist intellectuals—Paul Baran, Oskar Lange, and three contradictions of commodity-producing society of value is his theory of surplus value. Leo Rogin. These responses, and her rejoinder, also that Marx identified continue to exist in "socialism." appeared in the AER. Baran, a Stanford professor, was Products still have a dual character of use-values and Lange confuses the law of value with the formation values. Accordingly, labor is both concrete and of price through a misinterpretation of the Marxian Paul Sweezy's sidekick at the Monthly Review. In his response to Dunayevskaya, Baran treated Sweezy's abstract—use-value-producing labor and value-creat­ thesis that the lower the stage of production the more ing labor. do prices reflect values; the higher the stage of produc­ then-recent book, The Theory of Capitalist Develop­ tion the more do they deviate from value. He considers ment, as the authoritative word on Marx, citing it But what follows immediately from this second con­ that if value and prices do not correspond, the law of three separate times in nine pages. Lange, a Universi­ tradiction, in Marx's presentation (in chapter 1 of Cap­ value does not function in its "pure form" (p. 129). ty of Chicago professor, was already famous for sup­ ital, Vol. I)—a contradiction between private and Marx, on the other hand, maintained that the devia­ posedly having proved, in a debate with Friedrich social labor—no longer exists in socialism, according tion of price from value is not an aberration of the law Hayek, that a "socialist" (that is, centrally planned) to the Russian article. "[T]his dual character of labor of value but only of its manifestation; no matter how economy could operate "efficiently." After the war, he [concrete labor and abstract labor] is no longer linked individual prices deviate from value, the sum of all served as Polish ambassador to the U.S., Polish dele­ with the contradiction between private and social prices, according to Marx, is equal to the sum of all val­ gate to the UN, and chairman of the Polish State Eco­ continued on page 11 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2005 NEWS & LETTERS Page 5 ESSAY Russia's 1905 revolution has enduring legacy by Kevin Michaels Japan. In no mood to open up discussion on Russia's Rosa Luxemburg, a leader of the Polish and German he Russia of 100 years ago was a society difficult to social question, the Tsar's officers ordered troops to fire Marxists, drew on the experience of the strike waves of imagine today. It was an empire stretching from into the crowd and killed as many as a thousand. 1905 to hurl the challenge westward at the reformism Poland in the west to Manchuria in the east and Word of the massacre spread quickly and the people of the German Social Democratic Party. In her pam­ T of St. Petersburg revolted. After a long period of dor­ phlet, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the comprised of many oppressed nations in between. The empire was ruled by an absolute monarch, Tsar mancy following the crushing of the Paris Commune in Trade Unions, she sought to criticize the entrenched Nicholas II, who was not only a political leader, but as 1871, revolution had returned to Europe. electoralism of the German party with the revolution­ head of the Orthodox church, a religious one as well. 1905 unfolded as a succession of revolts and reac­ ary potential of the general strike that had proven so His rule was based on a small class of aristocratic tions. Strikes, the creation of councils of workers' rep­ powerful in Warsaw, St. Petersburg and along the landowners and the military officers drawn from that resentatives, a mutiny among the sailors of the Black Russian railways in 1905. class. Sea naval fleet that was immortalized by the director It is with Trotsky's name, however, that 1905 is most Nicholas was strongly devoted to the three tradi­ Sergei Eisenstein in his film "Battleship Potemkin," closely associated. He served as the president of the St. tional principles of Tsardom: autocratic rule, Orthodox and uprisings on the part of all the oppressed nations Petersburg soviet and helped to lead the October gen­ Christianity and a belief in the superiority of the eral strike. As a result of his activity, Trotsky Slavic people. Although some of his predecessors was convicted by the Tsar's courts and sen­ had made efforts to reform the institutions of tenced to exile in Siberia. Together with a now- Russian society—the most thoroughgoing one obscure fellow Russian revolutionary named being Alexander IPs liberation of the empire's Parvus, Trotsky called his summation of 1905 serfs from feudal bondage in 1861—Nicholas was the theory of permanent revolution, meaning a conservative and a true believer in'the sancti­ that the bourgeois democratic tasks of the revo­ ty of his office, an institution that had not fun­ lution could be carried out only by the prole­ damentally changed since the time of Ivan the tariat. The revolution would end in success only Terrible, Russia's first ruler to assume the title if it was permanent, that is, if it did not stop at Tsar. democratic goals but continued into a fully- fledged socialist revolution led by the urban Although Russia in 1905 was predominantly workers. an agrarian society with a rural population, cap­ italism had begun a relentless penetration into Trotsky's original and daring thesis was the economy. Investors drawn by the prospects of rejected by almost the entirety of the Marxist extremely low wages had built large factories in movement of the time. While it did not play a St. Petersburg, at the time Russia's imperial cap­ great role in his thinking again until his battles ital, and a class of exploited workers drawn into with Stalin over the direction of the develop­ the city from the countryside was steadily grow­ ment of Russian society in the 1920s, the theo­ ing. ry of Permanent Revolution elaborated in 1905 earned him a place among the universally rec­ These workers were looked to by the Russian ognized leaders of Russian Marxism. Marxists as the strongest social force in the bat­ 'easants at work in the countryside of old Russia tle against the Tsar and his oppressive rule. The None of the three revolutionaries, however, Marxists had emerged as the most vital tendency of of the Tsarist empire were among the year's events. despite their praise of the actions of the masses and Russia's large and thriving revolutionary movement as One of the forms reaction took was a large number of their closeness to the events of the year, made a theo­ populism declined from its traditional position as the murderous pogroms against the Jews of the Russian retical category out of the phenomenon of the St. country's predominant radical trend. The populists—or Empire. The massacres were stirred up by police Petersburg soviet. This new form of organized working Narodniki—were focused on the huge peasant class as agents and carried out by organized anti-semitic mobs class activity, which was to play such a central role Russia's revolutionary force and employed terrorist called the Black Hundreds. A particularly large pogrom when it reappeared just over a decade later, was tactics in their struggle. They even managed to assas­ took place in Odessa in October. strangely peripheral to the conclusions drawn by the sinate the reforming Tsar Alexander II in 1881, an act The revolution spread to the countryside as well, three. which provoked a massive police effort of repression. where the peasants—the majority of Russia's popula­ Historians may say that the 1905 Revolution was a Marx himself contributed to the debates within the tion—lived and toiled in abysmally poor conditions. failure, but the events of that year have a greatness nineteenth century revolutionary movement over the The American socialist William English Walling, who that even the passage of 100 years cannot diminish. revolutionary potential of the peasant class. In the last traveled to Russia with his partner Anna Strunsky in Though the 1917 revolution was an event on a higher decade of his life, Marx developed a profound interest late 1905 to chronicle the revolution, described what historic scale, an air of tragedy hangs over it because of in Russia. He studied the language and read deeply on took place all across rural Russia in his book Russia's the eventual degeneration of the advances won that economic and social questions concerning the vast Message: year. In contrast, 1905 has a sense of openness and pos­ country, taking a particular interest in the works of the sibility, a sense that a new beginning had been under­ revolutionary populist theorist Nikolai Chernyshevsky. Suddenly the latent class-hatred between the taken after centuries of oppression and reaction. Marx had long recognized the danger represented by village and landlord broke out into a gigantic class Lenin captured this aspect in a lecture on the events the absolutist Tsarist government to the possibility of war. The countryside from Poland to the Urals and of 1905 he delivered in Switzerland in 1914, in which revolution in western Europe when the Russian army from the Black Sea to the Baltic was lighted up he said, "dormant Russia was transformed into a Rus­ was used to put down the democratic revolution in within a few weeks by the fires of thousand of sia of a revolutionary proletariat and a revolutionary Hungary in 1849 and had championed Polish freedom country mansions—in all some fifty million dol­ people." Russia was truly transformed that year and in the name of the International Working Men's Asso­ lars of property was destroyed. Everywhere the the struggles its people threw themselves into opened ciation. movement was similar, since it was everywhere up a century of worldwide revolutionary change. 1 invited by a common situation and founded on the In the course of his studies, Marx became increas­ same peasant nature. ingly convinced in the potential for a social revolution occurring in Russia itself. In correspondence with the Nicholas and his ministers, in addition to reacting exiled Russian revolutionary populist Vera Zasulitch with force in typical absolutist fashion, also realized and in one of his last published writings, the preface to that the severity of the threat confronting them gave Learn more about the 1882 edition of the Communist Manifesto, he dis­ them no choice but to yield some reforms. When the cussed just such a possibility. One hundred years ago announcement of the creation of a strictly consultative 1905 in Rosa Lux­ this year, the revolution in Russia Marx anticipated representative body was rejected by the workers and became a reality. peasants, Nicholas was forced to relent. The Tsar's emburg, A DRAMATIC YEAR OPENS most liberal minister, Count Witte, convinced him of the necessity of letting elections for a representative In January of 1905, a priest of the Orthodox church body take place and in October, Nicholas released a Women's named Father Gapon led a march of hungry and dis­ statement granting basic, albeit strictly limited, liberal satisfied peasants to the gates of Tsar Nicholas IPs rights. Liberation, Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. They intended to pre­ The revolutionary year 1905 drew to a close with two sent the Tsar with a petition of grievances from the events of enormous importance. In October, the St. masses of the Russian people,-who were suffering from Petersburg soviet of workers deputies carried out a and Marx's the oppression of the landlords in the countryside and massive general strike and in December, the Moscow the capitalists in the newly-built factories in the cities. soviet organized an armed uprising. The workers of the Philosophy The Tsar and his government were at the time on the city built barricades and held off the Tsar's Cossack verge of a serious defeat in the eastern reaches of the troops for days before being ruthlessly put down. of Revolution Empire at the hands of the rising military power of Although political and social unrest continued well into 1907 and inspired a kindred revolution in Persia, by Raya Dunayevskaya the Russian revolution had extinguished itself. The Marxist-Human­ IMPACT ON THEORETICIANS Includes: Much of the greatness of the events of the revolution • "Two Turning Points in Luxem­ ist Theory of 1905 stems from their utter spontaneity. No one had anticipated the events, neither the agents of the Tsar's burg's Life: Before and Alter secret police nor the leaders of Russia's large and the 1905 Revolution" of State-Capitalism vibrant revolutionary movement. The meaning of those events, and their implications for the prospects of a • 'Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Original documents from the 1940s through the 1980s successful revolution in Russia, were to occupy the Revolution" on Marx's value theory, the relation of Marx's Capital work of three of the greatest Marxists of the Russian empire for years to come: Lenin, Luxemburg and Trot­ Foreword by poet Adriennc Rich and Hegel's Logic, and the theory of Stalinist Russia and sky. China as state-capitalist societies. Lenin, from exile in Switzerland, hailed the revolu­ "The dialectic of revolution Includes Dunayevskaya's essay tion and strove to clarify its immediate political impli­ cations for Russian Marxists. In his article "The Two came alive before Luxemburg's from the 1944 issue of The Tactics of Social Democracy," he argued that it placed American Economic Review, the slogan of "the democratic dictatorship of the peas­ very eyes in the 1905 [Russian] "A new Revision of Marxian Eco­ antry and the proletariat" as the program for revolu­ revolution" tion. He-castigated the Mensheviks, with whom he had WvM nomics" broken only three years before, for their insistence that only a bourgeois revolution was possible and that 168 pages - $8 Marxists had to limit all of their actions to support for $12.95 To order, seepage 7. Russia's liberals in carrying out a strictly limited agen­ da of political change. To order, see page 7. Page 6 NEWS & LETTERS NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2005 FRANCE: PART OF GLOBAL REVOLT OF THE DISPOSSESSED? The way the uprising in the Parisian time absorbing—hip-hop. They know a banlieues spontaneously spread to lot more about the culture of African dozens of cities throughout France and Americans than their own French rulers then to Belgium and Germany suggests know about them. that this is part of a continent-wide' ris­ ing of youth against the empty promises STOPPING BUSH'S CRIMES the invitation to join us. of economic development and integra­ George W. Bush has demonstrated hie High School Student tion. A match has been lit that may not disdain towards the well being of the New York easily go out. The recent revolt by immigrant African youth was sparked by—surprise, American people and humanity at large Student surprise—police brutality. Connecting over and over—not only by sending thour Chicago the dots from Los Angeles to Benton sands of young Americans to die in his THE TERMINATOR'S DEFEAT * * * Harbor, Michigan to Paris isn't hard if jihad against Iraq, but in his noiji- you're paying any attention. When youth response to the latest string of natural It was no accident that nurses and One thing that frustrates me in trying teachers took the lead in deflating Arnold to understand what is going on in France start connecting our revolts and under­ disasters. I think three things should be stand that a philosophy of liberation can done. First he should be impeached. Sec­ Schwarzenegger's larger than life public is that no one tells us what the youth persona as well as his agenda put forth in involved in the riots are saying. Everyone guide anger in the streets into a full- ond the UN should charge him for the fledged liberation struggle, then we'll be war crimes he has committed. Third, he four defeated propositions he put on the seems to have an analysis of what is hap­ Nov. 8 ballot here. If the victory over the pening but no one seems to ask the youth a real threat. Call it a "riot" and margin­ should be punished for his terrible alize it at your own risk. crimes against humanity. As Americans Tenninator gave new life to the labor why they are doing these things. movement, as many pundits are now say­ Feminist we all have a responsibility to see that Brown Douglass our country is run to meet the needs of ing; it arose out of an ongoing struggle in the American people. We need to take the workplace in a profession dominated our country back before it's too late. by women. As a recent The Right is say­ New subscriber Labor activist immigrant to the ing the French are California U.S. who once lived getting what they *** in France, I can deserve for not sup­ assure you that porting Bush. The At our regular Wednesday morning The defeat of Arnold Schwarzenegger- what many youth real story, of course, street peace demonstration here, an might be a "Pyrrhic victory." Some $200 are feeling in Paris, is that French soci­ African-American woman who was dri^ million was spent in this useless battle Lyons and else­ ety and French- ving a MATA bus opened her window.tq introduced by the corporate powers which where is not so different from what style capitalism is thoroughly racist, just correct one of the signs we were holding Arnold represents. As one teacher said, African Americans here say about police as it is in the U.S. Now that their that said "Bush lied, 1,000 died!" She "Imagine all the things that could have abuse and insensitive government abstract egalitarianism has been totally yelled, "It's 2,000 now." Her outrage was been done with all that money for the bureaucrats. This is about racism, not exposed, they are making noises about echoed in the honking horns and other classrooms" while the unions had to fight religion. giving ghetto youth more opportunities. positive reactions we got from those dri­ a rearguard battle and Arnold blew hot air about "improving education" by Pakistani immigrant It reminds me of stories from Detroit ving by. I couldn't help but think about after 1967 when employers set up offices the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis wlio attacking the teaching profession. It's Illinois almost like Conan the Giant threatening * * * in the ghetto, veiy briefly, welcoming the died and continue to do so—about 1,0©0 so-called "hardcore" unemployed into a month in Baghdad alone—because to strangle the goose if she doesn't lay Lutte Ouvriere, one of the main leftist jobs. The real question for today is Bush lied. enough golden eggs. (Trotskyist) parties in France that often whether the minority youth of France Feminist Peace Activist Healthcare worker gets over 5% of the vote in national elec­ become the spark to re-ignite a new anti- Memphis California tions, has pretty much written off the capitalist movement in Europe. *** revolt in France as the work of a disorga­ Black senior citizen In the wake of Katrina, two Black nized mob. They wrote in their newspa­ California per on Nov. 1: "Clearly, the principal vic­ activists have launched a new, online PUTTING THE PIECES tims of this violence are the inhabitants organization, ColorofChange.org, to give TOGETHER? of these suburbs...when the youth take a stronger voice to Black concerns in U;S. politics. In its first month, the site Three cities inscribe the moment in the on firemen as representatives of authori­ Fall of 2005: Baghdad, New Orleans, and ty, it doesn't show a very high level of HURRICANES AND CAPITAL attracted 10,000 members. One of the founders is James Rucker, a veteran Toledo. As we put the complex, multiform political consciousness." Where is the Hurricanes are influenced by human pieces together to try to project a vision of "political consciousness" of these "left­ action. Most global scientists agree that leader of online activism. The other is the future alternative to the commodity ists"? Can't they realize that there is pur­ our dependence on petrochemicals Van Jones, executive director of the Ella form of life, Baghdad is finally of a piece pose and reason when young people take caused global climate change, which has Baker Center for Human Rights. They with Pretoria, Lagos, Caracas, Buenos to the streets against unemployment, warmed the oceans. The attack on nature say their early success is a sign that Kat­ Aires, Port Au Prince, Karachi and Hanoi. police abuse, and poverty? Perhaps such is more evident in the creation of levees rina was a "wake-up call" for many "mid­ New Orleans is finally of a piece with the attitudes explain why the French Left to keep the mighty Mississippi at bay dle-class Black folks like ourselves (who) suburbs of Paris. Toledo is finally of a seems as distant from the uprising as the and in the huge canal system designed to got a clear dose of reality. While many of piece with Brixton. Everybody who shops political leaders in Paris or Brussels. allow for the easy pumping and trans­ us are doing well, millions of our folks at Walmart is connected with a slave Anarchist port of oil and gas through the bayous to have been left behind. When we saw fhe labor camp in China. The American the Mississippi. The construction of TV screens, the emotions were almost exchange of wage-labor with capital is canals and draining of much of the bay­ universal." They say the poor Black folks stretched to the breaking point. A waste­ ous has eliminated a major source of they left behind were no longer invisible ful military-industrial-complex siphons • What worries me is that this divide absorption which, like a sponge, soaked after Katrina hit. They are asking for all off the wealth of society, capital leads in between recent immigrants from North up the natural fluctuation of the river people to become the color of change. the race to the bottom, and whole divi- - Africa and the Middle East and the and water from storms like Katrina. The sions of the industrial-reserve army are native residents of France will provide a oil and gas industry pushed the Corp of Bay Area in the lockdown of a vicious prison-indus­ new recruiting ground for the Islamic Engineers to do much of this interference trial complex in a country with the high­ fundamentalists. with the ecology of the Gulf Coast. In est rates of incarceration in the world. Concerned New Orleans, the high land was inhabit­ I am a 17 year old activist, so the New York ed by the rich and the low land (which moment I heard about a march planned Bush is just a symptom, serving the * * * flooded the worst) was where the poor for Dec. 1 to rally in New York City's imperatives of the law of value. People lived. It only reinforces our vision of cap­ Union Square and then to march to Wall can be guided by the theory that emerges The revolt in over 100 suburbs in ital as rapacious at every turn. There is Street, I knew I had to get involved. I'm from their own experience, as they reach France is an uprising of a generation of hardly a place we can look that does not organizing for a strike at my high school for an idea imminent in the philosophy of disaffected youth who face a 40% unem­ reveal its vile teeth marks. and I'm inviting everybody that I can to freedom: their own self-transcendence ployment rate, racism, and police abuse. join the event. I want to get the into the universal possibilities of the Over half of those arrested are between Allan L recruiters out of our schools and our human subjects of history. 12 and 18 years old. Most of those Memphis troops out of Iraq. Please help me spread Tom More involved in the "riots" are not of recent Spokane North African or Middle Eastern origin. They are second or even third generation descendants of immigrants. Most were VOICES OF REASON FROM WITHIN THE PRISON WALLS born and raised in a country that has completely marginalized them. There is The atrocious lack of support and relief I would like to thank you for finding a I believe that America was built on a no evidence of participation by Islamic for the victims of Katrina is unimagin­ donor to let me read N&L. I really love it. lot of scheming and trickery of Cau­ fundamentalists in the street actions and able. Five years ago I lived in Lafayette, The articles about Bush and his big! lies casians. But your paper has such good the slogans of political Islam has not Louisiana, and the separation of classes are great, because it is the truth. history that I am being brought more been heard in them. This is a revolt from is so profound that one must actually into the true knowledge of history. The within European civilization, not from endure the inhumanity associated with it Ralford, Florida most important parts oiN&L for me are outside of it. The youth want to obtain in order to have any rational idea as to its *** "Black-Red View" and "Workshop Talks." the fruits of a civilization that has long scope. The press has raised the race issue, been denied to them—much as African but they are off the markrThe fundamen­ Thanks for remaining on the frontlines Sanderson, Florida in the battles against oppression and Americans in Watts 1965, Los Angeles tal problem relates to the unfair distribu­ *** 1992, and Cincinnati 2000 revolted tion of wealth, and the apparent priority tyranny. Over the last 10 years I have not against social conditions in the U.S. to of property over people. found a publication that continually Thank you for the privilege of reading wages war against the atrocities which your paper. As one who is held captive in obtain the freedom, democracy and eco­ In the months and years to follow, we nomic development so long denied to too often escape the notice of the main­ one of California's toughest concentra­ shall witness further posturing and vari­ stream news publications. This is the tion camps, it does more than suit the them. With these "riots" we are facing a ous mainstream political parties will globalization of the marginalized in reac­ 10th year of my unjust incarceration. purpose to have a positive outlet. Most point the finger at each other. In the end, N&L has helped me over the years to put people believe the "hype" too often. Your tion to the marginalization produced by nothing will change and those who could globalization. my own struggles in proper perspective paper sets the record straight. I'm a firm afford the necessary insurance will be in light of the larger menace the state of believer when it comes to education on Peter Hudis paid off, while those that were barely Texas and the U.S. government has insti­ all levels. Crime, whether it is petty or Chicago making a living and had no actual prop­ tuted by the establishment of the multi- serious, comes from lack of education * * * erty, will still have nothing. Apparently if billion dollar prison-industrial-complex. 98% of the time. you don't have a Platinum VISA Card, Thank you for keeping hope alive! If you want to understand the angry you don't count as a human being. Prisoner young North Africans who are causing all Black Cheyenne Crescent City, California Prisoner Texas this upheaval in France, just listen to the Vacavilte, California music most of them spend much of their NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2005 NEWS & LETTERS Page 7

It's not that I think any of us would be surprised by what Michael Brush wrote. MARXISM, HUMANISM It's just that seeing a major columnist putting it down in black and white for the AND THE LEFT public-at-large is both heartening and I have had the opportunity to read disheartening at the same time, especial­ several issues of N&L. I can't tell you ly in light of the way the pensions of so how wonderful it I found the essay "A proletarian cri­ nature. What is called for is a revolution many ordinary workers have just been ,.;•" is to see a period- tique of Starbucks" in the last issue of that will place the worker and the earth thrown into the waste bin after years and j&&* ical with the zest N&L interesting, important, and rela­ in their rightful plaee, creating a social years of hard labor. /g and intelligence tive to N&L's recent classes on Marx's system that sustains, enhances and Observer /Jb • that your publica- Critique of the Gotha Program. It's an empowers all organisms to live. Creating Illinois "~ tion possesses, analysis of what capitalism is. T.C. a system that is not only aware of and with a clear Autumn's statement "All retail laborers humanity and nature but that is mandate to are a cost as they do not produce value" designed to embrace and celebrate their dialectically com­ seems correct. It means to me that existence. Viva la revolution. WHY THE ID? bine Humanism although they produce "profits" for the New Marxist-Humanist In your article "Iraq's reactionary draft and Marxism in a companies, they do not produce "surplus Memphis constitution" (Our Life and Times, Sep­ world where all value." It means that surplus value and tember-October N&L), you give credit to too often the profits are two different things. Howev­ Marxists shun I was wondering why Bush was Doug Ireland for being a notable excep­ er, I disagree that the Starbucks workers tion to the way the voices of Iraqi the Humanists and the Humanists fear "produce nothing." The Starbucks work­ undertaking such a vigorous attack on a the Marxists. Please add my name to disease peril like bird flu that hasn't women's groups have had their voices er does more than exchange commodi­ ignored by much of the leftist and pro­ your subscription list. ties for money. Just as a cook produces a actually yet emerged. His outrageous ignoring of a real crisis like what we saw gressive media, writing that "A notable New Reader meal, the Starbucks worker produces a exception is the writings of gay journalist Calgary, Canada drinkable cup of coffee. A cook can make in New Orleans made me question what asking Congress for $7.1 billion to pre­ Doug Ireland's articles for ZNet." Why do *** a meal and produce value under capital­ you identify him as "gay"? He has the cre­ ism, or he can cook a meal for friends pare for the possibility of a flu pandemic Marx, even while describing how cap­ was really all about. Then I saw that the dentials, his orientation is not (should and not produce value. not be) of concern to anyone. italism undermines itself, also points to report on it in the Chicago Tribune of the possibility of the positive creation Longtime supporter Nov. 2 said: "The plan which Bush out­ that can happen with workers creating California lined would take years to implement and something new. What's cool about News *** may be of most immediate benefit to and Letters Committees is that it is What does it mean to have a-revolu­ drug companies that make flu vaccine." always looking for that. That's not It was just a matter-of-fact report, but it tion? Does it mean with guns or is it ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS always evident in Left thought. Always about new human relations? Capitalism sure answered my question. looking for the force of revolution that is It is estimated that the dangers of interjects itself between people. "Free Ready for the revolution in the present is what I liked about the environmental hazards are 30 times trade" means freedom for things vs. peo­ Chicago article on TennCare and the Lead on more dangerous than that of terrorism. ple who are left in captivity. When the *** New Orleans in the September-October We have had a year of disasters—Thai­ World Bank talks about an anti-poverty issue. They were about who are the i As I was going over the news on land, Indonesia, U.S. and more recently program it means building a dam and Pakistan. In the UK hundreds of thou­ actors working for that new day now. evicting masses of people who then have msn.com, I came upon an article about sands of families have been affected by Eco-Marxist no way to make a living. They create a sneaky companies and their pension flooding. It is easier for the state to Tennessee huge surplus population who were poor plans I'd like to share. The article is silence or ignore its critics than to intro­ but then are made absolutely destitute. about the way most companies hide duce new policies. I have been waiting for If new machinery coming into a factory huge pensions for their CEOs. It was the Green Party or ecological groups to freed people to do creative things it revealed by the new boss at the Securi­ VACATION POSTCARD ties and Exchange Commission, Christo­ make some progress in the area, but the would be great but it is just used to dom­ We are visiting the Isle of Man and pher Cox. He's concerned about what the right to roam, recycling household waste inate the workers. When TV first came just beginning to find out something. truth of the "stealth" pensions might and protecting the fox seem to be the out, teachers saw it as a wonderful edu­ a.bout its history and politics. It's an mean for investors, but I thought it was most that can be achieved. They seem to cational tool, but it wasn't developed for interesting example of how a very small important for all of us to know. He takes have come to a dead end. education but for commercials. country can be self-governing and have Pfizer as his example, where their .CEO Unless the vested interests are chal­ Jan a distinct national identity. This claims Henry McKinnell earned more than $38 lenged, unless the corruption and malad­ California to be the first place in the world where million between 2002 and 20t)4 in salary, ministrations are exposed, the trajectory *** women got the vote on equal terms with bonus, stock grants, options and other of natural disaster coupled with incompe­ men—in 1880. The Manx language is incentive payments. That's a lot, but tence will continue. Who is willing to Marx helped us to focus on the root clearly enjoying a revival, although it what blows my mind is that his pension challenge it? causes of the crisis we face: the under­ nearly died out in the 20th century. plan adds to that nothing less than "an mining and destruction of the original Pat Duffy Vacationing readers $83 million dollop of retirement pay." sources of all wealth, the worker and Birmingham, England Britain SELECTED PUBLICATIONS FROM lil

• BOOKS PAMPHF FTS ^ News and Letters Committees Constitution • 37¢ postage By RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA • 40th anniversary edition of American Civilization on • Marxist-Humanist Literature Catalog for 2000-01 • The Power of Negativity: Selected Writings Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard, and A full list of publications (includes many not listed here) on the Dialectic in Hegel and Marx • Dialectics of Black Freedom Struggles: Race, Philoso- available from News and Letters Committees 60c postage by Raya Dunayevskaya $24.95 phy & the Needed American Revolution Each $8, Special: Both for $15, including postage. ARCHIVES • Marxism and Freedom, from 1776 until Today • Marxist-Humanist Writings on The Middle East Selected Guides to Collection and Supplement to the Raya ' 2000 edition. Foreword by Joel Kovel $24.95 a writings by Raya Dunayevskaya 1961-1982 and News & Let- Dunayevskaya Collection: Marxist-Humanism: A Half • Philosophy and Revolution: from Hegel to Sartre and ters 1988-2002 $5 Century of Its World Development from Marx to Mao • Bosnia-Herzegovina: Achilles Heel of Western 'Civiliza- Full description of 15,000-page microfilm collection ....$4.50 30th Anniversary issue, 2003 $24.95 p a The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection—Marxist-Human- • Rosa Luxemburg, Women's Liberation, and Marx's •Kosova: Writings from News & Letters, 1998-1999 ism: A Half Century of Its World Development Philosophy of Revolution 1991 edition. New author's intro­ • ...$3.50 A 15,000-page microfilm collection on 8 reels available from duction. Foreword by Adrienne Rich $12.95 • Explorations in Dialectical and Critical Theory Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202 .....$165 • Women's Liberation and the Dialectics of Revolution: From Hegel to Derrida and from Marx to Meszaros $5 Reaching for the Future (1996 edition) $13 • Marx's Concept of Intrinsic Value : NEWSPAPER • The Marxist-Humanist Theory of State-Capitalism: by Andrew Kliman .$2 • News & Letters subscription Selected Writings by Raya Dunayevskaya $8.50 • Marx's Capital and Today's Global Crisis Umque combination of worker and intellecmal published .-,-,' ,.„ ,,, , rr *« 6 umes a year. (Request miorrnanon about gut subscriptions.).... • The Philosophic Moment of Marxist-Humanism: Two Includes critiques of Ernest Mandel and Tony Cliff $2

~~~ By KEVIN ANDERSON • Working Women for Freedom _. - - •-'.,. 3 City__ State Zip Q Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism: A Critical Study by Angela Terrano, Marie Dignan, and Mary Holmes $2 First full-length treatment of Lenin's studies of Hegel ....$15.95 • Dos ensayos por Raya Dunayevskaya $2 Email Address • • ' •_ __ 11-12/05 PageS NEWS & LETTERS NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2005 EDITORIAL Celebrating the life of Rosa Parks The death of Rosa Parks on Oct. 31 immediately created that year so that the voices of revolt from promises to accelerate as the auto and parts suppliers pulled the story of the momentous Montgomery Bus below could be heard unseparated from the articula­ cut their heavily Black work force to the bone, (see sto­ Boycott she had set in motion 50 years ago off the tion of a philosophy of revolution for our age. (See John ries, page. 3). At the same time, the past 20 years have dusty shelves of history and put it on the front pages of Alan's "Black/Red View," page 1.) seen the incredible buildup of the prison industrial newspapers. So great was the outpouring of recogni­ Yet it is the very greatness of the movement Rosa complex in which no less than two million men-and tion for the historic importance of her act of defiance, Parks set in motion that demands a look at where we women are held in jails and prisons, turning them into when she refused to give up her seat to a white man, are, 50 years later. None of those, preachers and politi­ what many see as warehouses for our unemployed went to jail for it, and triggered the Civil Rights Move­ cians alike, who gave her such justifiable youth, heavily Black and brown. ment that changed the face of America, that it forced praise at her funeral in Detroit, failed to There is no ques­ Congress to approve nothing less than a resolution note how far we still must go to end tion that we have a allowing her remains to lie in honor in the Capitol racism and achieve true freedom. What is very long way to go Rotunda, the first woman ever to be so honored. needed for that, however, is to recognize to win a new human the persistence of racism for what it is—a society and end the THOUSANDS POUR INTO FUNERAL social manifestation of capitalism. racism that is so The real measure of the recognition of Rosa Parks' Nothing more exposed how deep and deeply imbedded in importance, however, was not this formal honor, so permanent is the racism deeply embedded American capital­ much as the seven hour funeral filled With songs and in American capitalism than the way Hur­ ism. What becomes important is to see passionate eulogies in Detroit, where thousands ricane Katrina tore the veil off of the racial and class divides that forever con­ that this does not poured into the Greater Grace Temple for the service, mean that the many having spent the cold night on the sidewalks out­ tinue to put American "civilization" on trial. It showed us the breadth and depth courage and reason side hoping to ensure they could get in. That President of the African-Amer­ Bush failed to so much as send a representative was of the social crises ready to erupt in all the many other "New Orleans" across the ican freedom fight­ duly noted as a sign of his complete disregard for how land. ers who refused to deep is the respect of the American people for Rosa accept segregation Parks and what she represented. STATE OF BLACK AMERICA 50 and opened a new The importance Of the Montgomery Bus Boycott that YEARS LATER stage in the struggle remained in the consciousness of Americans across the for freedom 50 years whole land 50 years later, was caught and recorded as • The brutal beating of a 64-year-old man by police in New Orleans little more ago has meant noth­ it erupted by News & Letters, which had been founded ing. that same year. Raya Dunayevskaya, the founder of than a month later, in the aftermath of Marxist-Humanism, put it on the same level as the Katrina, could have happened anywhere. What it does Hungarian Revolution against Communism that All that its being caught on videotape mean is that the erupted less than a year later. What both events man­ meant was a flashback to Rodney King's struggles that are ifested was the simultaneity of the spontaneity of beating as the police pleaded "not guilty" sure to continue can­ action and the organization of thought that marked and asked for "understanding" of the "try­ not be separated each of them. She saw this as signaling a movement ing times." from a philosophy of from practice that was itself a form of theory. N&L was • The uprising that erupted in Toledo, liberation. Without Ohio, about the same time in mid-October, Rosa Parks at the 30th anniversary commem- that we are left with broke out in anger at police who had come oration of the 1963 March on Washington. one more "unfin­ to protect a neo-Nazi group that planned a ished revolution" march in a neighborhood whose residents were deadset such as has characterized the U.S. from its birth. against allowing it. It immediately evoked memories of What is demanded to uproot the permanence of the BLAbK/KcU a rebellion that broke out in Benton Harbor, Michigan racism we continue to suffer is nothing less than the against police abuse two years ago—and Cincinnati concept of "absolute negativity" that Marx called "revo­ Continued from page 1 two years before that—and Los Angeles a decade lution in permanence." before that. All of them were signs of the anger that ing Montgomery" and contains a unique account of exists in African-American communities across the events in Montgomery from his discussions with Rosa U.S., ready to explode at any time. There can be few Women as subjectivity Parks and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Americans looking at the pictures of burning cars in Continued from page 2 MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT Paris who do not recognize in them the same kind of angry youth ready to lash out at the police brutality, she makes explicit what was new in the Women's Lib­ What comes across in Denby's account is that the discrimination, unemployment and poverty they suffer eration Movement: women from the Left refusing to greatness of those two participants was their ability to daily right here. wait until after the revolution, who "want new rela­ relate to the unfolding drive for freedom among the • The percentage of Black unemployment has con­ tions right here, right now, right in my organization" Black masses reaching for self-determination. Denby sistently been double that of white workers for (p. 186-87). describes how Reverend King and Rosa Parks both decades. A new report has now indicated even more Finally, Dunayevskaya takes issue with the struc­ were surprised by the initiative of the masses at each shocking figures concerning the steep decline in Black stage. The daily paper, the Montgomery Advertiser, turalist philosopher Louis Althusser, whose "read[ing] union membership over the past five years. While 'into' Afarx" opens the door to thinking that labor isn't made a racist editorial comment along with reprinting white union membership is down 5.4 %, the number of a leaflet which students put out calling for a one-day pivotalj whereas Dunayevskaya showed what is in African Americans in unions, which crucially means Marx aind that it is crucial to "see that women must boycott to protest the arrest of Rosa Parks. It was better-paying jobs, has fallen by 14.4%—and the trend meant to expose the alarming activity of the students, have the philosophy of liberation in general, in partic­ but when word got out that way, 80% of the people ular, in essence, and in mind. It is critical not ever to joined the" boycott. Most established Black and labor separate theory from practice or philosophy from revo­ leaders at first opposed it, but it continued to grow. lution, because unless you have that unity you will just end up once more feeling good because you have told off This signaled the beginning of the whole Civil the men, but not having established anything new for Rights revolution and the many-faceted revolts of the woman as Reason" (p. 187). 1960s. Many have tried to confine the meaning of the There is no easy definition of Absolute Idea as New Civil Right Movement to politics or getting a few high Beginning, which is why WLDR is indispensable read­ placed African Americans in government and industry. ing. As! Dunayevskaya re-creates the dialectic by inves­ That's where today's iconography wants to freeze the tigating women's struggle for freedom worldwide, she legacy of Rosa Parks. Some of those who found a place describes the events unseparated from what is actual­ in U.S. capitalism are complicit in helping Bush in that ly emerging from the struggle and from a philosophy of effort. total freedom that is a summation of the revolutionary RACISM STILL PERVASIVE thought that came before. In doing so, she gives a direc­ tion to today's movement and shows how women's lib­ In spite of the African-American spokesmen who eration can be a path to the Universal of freedom when were brought into capitalism as a way to blunt the it refuses to separate itself from Marx's revolution in movement, racism continues to pervade U.S. capital­ philosophy. ism. See, for example, the way the poor and African Americans in New Orleans were abandoned in the * April 18, 1976, Presentation to the East Coast NEB, "Our wake of Katrina to fend for themselves. Original Contribution to the Dialectics of the Absolute Idea Raya Dunayevskaya, in her first major theoretical The living history of the as New Beginning..." (Reprinted in November 1993 News & work, Marxism, and Freedom (1958), brought out the Letters) reason of the boycott as its unfolding 13-month-long spontaneous mass self-organization. She wrote: "The spontaneity of the walkout and the organization of their forces to keep up the boycott...is truly historic Civil nights Movement... Become a and contains our future." She said the greatest thing *iW regular about the boycott was "its own working existence" (p. Indignant Heart: IWil,l!ft!Hiaitl Mass apposition grows 281), using the same phrase that Marx used to argnttg nets as as Iraq occupation festers reader of describe the Paris Commune. A Black Worker's Journal News& NEED FOR PHILOSOPHY by Charles Denby As we said in the Preface to The Dialectics of Black $14.95 Letters as Freedom Struggles: Race, Philosophy and the Needed American Revolution: "Needed more than ever is what we start Raya Dunayevskaya, the founder of Marxist-Human­ Dialectics of Black Freedom our second ism in the U.S., called in The Power of Negativity, giv­ Struggles: Race, Philosophy and ing 'a philosophic structure to concrete events.' The 50 years... challenge is to understand ongoing history not merely the Needed American Revolution as a sequence of events, nor even to uncover the root by John Alan cause of ever-resurgent racism and classism, but to Still just $5 grasp the self-movement of the freedom idea within $8 for one year the revolts in civil society. That is the only way to dis­ cern the elements of the new society which are present (6 Issues)... in today's spontaneous revolts. Without a philosophic Special offer includes postage (regularly $6)... structure the revolts invariably get pulled back into See literature ad, page 7. See page 7. the framework of bourgeois politics." (p. 2) NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2005 NEWS & LETTERS Page 9 CENTRAL AMERICAN JOURNAL in Ecuador Hurricanes, neoliberalism, resistance A major problem that we have in Ecuador is the politicized judicial system. The current chapter of our SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA—A month traveling and speak­ "depistolization" of the country. No chance so long as eternal political crisis was sparked last December ing in several Central American countries— the deep inequality and immiseration continue. when now-deposed President Lucio Gutierrez sacked Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica— One shock for me in Nicaragua is to see how little of the entire Supreme Court and appointed replacements brings one face to face with some of the stark realities the Sandinista revolution, with years in power, is in to do his bidding. as well as some of the hopes and aspirations of people evidence. The Sandinistas are in the legislature. But it The crisis in Ecuador is once again starting to in a part of the Third World: the unnatural conse­ means so little now. The vision of a new society is com­ come to a head. "Que se vayan todos!" (Out with quences of natu­ pletely absent— them all!) was the cry of the popular movement ral disasters, the only political deals that ousted Gutierrez last April. "All" refers to the unmitigated and trying tb vice president who replaced Gutierrez, the poverty and obtain power is in entire Congress and the entire judicial system. inequality of capi­ evidence. It is clear to the rulers of the country that something talism's neoliber- Meanwhile, illit­ has to be done to avoid a genuine revolution. So they al face (including eracy is back up are busy arguing about how to rearrange the furniture the arms one and neoliberalism on the Titanic. The president and Congress cannot finds almost runs amuck. I am agree on whether there should be a popular referen­ everywhere to not sure what the dum or a constitutional assembly or a constituent keep order) and U.S. has to fear assembly. Whatever they come up with in the end, you at the same time from a possible can be sure that it won't allow for fundamental change. an interest in Sandinista elec­ Any kind of "popular" assembly will likely be stacked ideas and activi­ toral victory in,the with political party hacks; and just in case somehow ties of liberation, next election. the voice of the people accidentally sneaks through, its especially among In El Salvador powers will be limited to making cosmetic changes. the youth. one feels great sad­ Sinking the free trade talks, defying the IMF, and The rains and ness at the almost breaking the military treaty with the U.S., which flooding from the decades of war allows a U.S. air base in the Ecuadorian port at Manta, series of tropical waged by death are highly popular demands that are definitely off the storms and hurri­ squads and the table, as far as the government is concerned. canes that have right-wing mili­ I guess it is too much to expect the president crossed the tary, which ended and the Congress to write their own epitaphs. Caribbean and hit Central America this fall have less than a decade and a half ago. I went to a part of Over the past 10 years Ecuador has been playing meant the death of thousands and homelessness for San Salvador city where chiseled upon the walls of one the game of musical presidents (three coup d'e- tens of thousands in the region. part of the city are thousands and thousands of names tats, eight different presidents), and absolutely In Guatemala an entire village was covered in a sea of the civilian deaths and disappeared from the late nothing has changed. The leaders of all the pop­ of mud, burying close to 1,000 people. Hundreds lost 1970s to the early 1990s, divided year by year—some ular grassroots movements are once again call­ their lives in El Salvador and in Nicaragua when rains 40,000 names, though perhaps as many as 80,000 may ing for mass demonstrations. A new uprising is and flooding destroyed neighborhoods and villages. But have been killed in a country of only five million. almost inevitable. The question is whether it will as with the devastation from Hurricane Mitch in Hon­ It was an honor for me to return to two universities once again be betrayed by the cunning of the mil­ duras in 1998, the socioeconomic components con­ in San Salvador to give presentations on ongoing liber­ itary (backed by the political and economic tributed significantly to the tragedy. ation movements in Latin America in relation to eman­ elites, who in turn are backed by the U.S. gov­ The export-oriented agricultural model has helped cipatory philosophic thought. I found rich discussion ernment) or the lack of revolutionary vision on lead to massive deforestation, soil erosion and pesticide among students who came to participate. This was true the part of the leadership. contamination—resulting in a denuded land far more not only here, but also in public talks and individual —Supporter in Ecuador venerable to massive storms. In recent decades the conversations I had in Guatemala, El Salvador, rural population, forced from these export-oriented Nicaragua and Costa Rica on today's liberation move­ agricultural lands, ended up in mass migrations to the ments and ideas in relation to the Hegelian dialectic, cities or to more marginal lands in order to grow sub­ the ideas of Marx, and of Marxist-Humanism. Join us in concretizing the sistence crops in the countryside. I found a strong resistance to Bush's policies global­ In the cities, squatter settlements form on hillsides, ly, including his economic imperialism within Central or in flood plains because that is where a little land is America, a willingness to look as contradictions within available—further stripping vegetation. Those who try the freedom movements of their own countries, and -a etfers to do subsistence farming on more marginal areas end deep interest in finding pathways forward, including up further degrading the land. "Development" projects, an openness to a dialogue on Marxist-Humanism. Committees often done without environmental controls near cities, —Eugene Gogol further degrade and contaminate the land. The natural power of hurricanes pummel regions Get with significant prior environment damage. The unnat­ ural tragedies we have seen in Guatemala, El Salvador 'Murders Most Foul' Post-Plenum Discussion Bulletin No. 1 and Nicaragua this year are the consequence. Includes To be in the capital cities like Guatemala City, San Murders Most Foul: Poems Against War by a Salvador and Managua is to witness the vulgar, harsh World Trade Center Survivor, by Sam Friedman, • "Marxist-Humanist Perspectives Thesis for 2005- consequences of neo-liberalism in everyday life. $7.00. Order from News & Letters (add $1 postage). 2006: Developing a Philosophically Grounded Alter­ One goes into a grocery store in Guatemala City to native to Capitalism" see food prices often higher than in the U.S. And this in Sam Friedman's booklet of poetry, Murders Most a city where salaries for workers, among those that can Foul, was written for the Central Jersey Coalition find a job, are far less than $10 a day. Against Endless War for use in the anti-war move­ • 11 reports and subreports from the 2005 Plenum Whoever shops in these markets or eats in the fast- ment. Sam is a September 11 survivor and a long­ of News and Letters Committees food outlets in San Salvador and Managua are certain­ time socialist activist whose movement work ly not the overwhelming majority of the people who, embraces struggles from civil rights to the multi- • Discussions on what Marx's Marxism means for radical. when they can shop at all, do so in poorly stocked tiny today, the relation of women's liberation and social food stores—perhaps buying a few potatoes, or a little His passion for "unsettling" people is reflected in rice, and, if they are able that day, a small piece of poetry that becomes meaningful in the space revolution, ongoing youth struggles, chicken. Life is hand to mouth, each day is a challenge. between it and the world. It takes a brave plunge to and alternatives to capitalism The "informal economy" abounds. You take a bus out­ weave emotions, ideas, and insights—anger, side Managua, and before it leaves half a dozen or more anguish, hope—into a poetic creation for change $4 (includes postage) vendors of cookies, small cakes, sodas, water, pour and transformation (one of Sam's important To order, use literature form on page 7. through the bus trying to sell their goods. What can themes). they earn in a day—two or three dollars? I am told the His poems probe the present: life in the rural areas is even more difficult. 1. A TITLE OF PUBLICATION: NEWS & LETTERS 2. PUBLICATION NO. 3854-20 3. DATE OF FILING: Oct. 31,2005. 4. ISSUE FREQUENCY: Month­ There are people who can afford to go to the glitzy How many hours ly except bi-monthly January-February, August-September. 5. NO. OF ISSUES PUBLISHED ANNUALLY: 10. 6. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $5.00 7. shopping centers that one finds dotted throughout lo Leach this parents' child LOCATION OF KNOWN OFFICE OF PUBLICATION: 36 S. Wabash, Rm Managua, but it is an upper-middle class and small rul­ to crawl an inch too far 1440, Chicago, IL 60603.8. LOCATION OF THE HEADQUARTERS OR GEN­ ERAL BUSINESS OFFICES OF THE PUBLISHERS: 36 S. Wabash, Rm 1440, ing class. In El Salvador it is an even smaller and more and meet a cluster bomb's curse? Chicago, IL 60603 9. NAMES AND COMPLETE ADDRESSES OF PUBLISH­ ER: Olga Domanski and Peter Wermuth (Co-National Organizers), 36 S. tight group, who control by raw power. Wabash, Rm 1440, Chicago, IL 60603. MANAGING EDITOR: Jim Mills, 36 S. Ask not those upstream Wabash, Rm 1440, Chicago, IL 60603.10. OWNER: News & Letters, an Illinois In the block where I lived, shotgun carrying guards Not-For-Profit Corporation, 36 S. Wabash, Rm 1440, Chicago, IL 60603 11. roam 24-hours a day. Armed guards are everywhere in about KNOWN BONDHOLDERS, MORTGAGEES AND OTHER SECURITY HOLDERS OWNING OR HOLDING ONE PERCENT OF MORE OF TOTAL San Salvador, Guatemala City and Managua. Armed torture, AMOUNT OF BONDS, MORTGAGES OR OTHER SECURITIES: None 12. guards seem to be the one means of employment—in about EXTENT AND NATURE OF CIRCULATION: Actual No. stores, in neighborhoods, in the streets. The one pro­ prisons, Average No. Copies of Copies Single Issue but forgive them not ubU d gressive daily paper in San Salvador calls for the Each issue £ *! for they choose not. to r» • „, Nearest to know. During FilingDate Preceding 12 Preceding 12 Mo. Mo. A. TOTAL NO. COPIES PRINTED: 5000 5000 And his poems see beyond the present: B. PAID CIRCULATION IM EWS&LETTE RS 1. Paid/Requested Outside-County VOL.50/NO.6 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005 Subscriptions 2197 2189 when once we can see 2. Paid In-County Subscriptions 49 47 News & Letters (ISSN 0028-8969) is published bi-monthly. Subscriptions 3. Sales through dealers, carriers, are for $5 a year (bulk order or 5 or more, 250 each) from News & Let­ to rip out this system street vendors, counter sales 2165 2205 ters, 36 S. Wabash, Room 1440, Chicago, IL 60603. Telephone (312) anxl set ourselves free. 4. Other classes mailed through USPS 278 253 236-0799. Fax (312) 236-0725. Periodical postage paid at Chicago, Illi­ C. TOTAL PAID CIRCULATION: 4689 4694 D. FREE DISTRIBUTION by mail, carrier nois. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to News & Letters, 36 S. or other means samples, complimentary Wabash, Room 1440, Chicago, IL 60603. Articles may be reprinted ver­ We share deeply with Sam this vision in his poem and other free copies 9 0 "Privilege," and that in "If Humanity Wins." which E. FREE DISTRIBUTION outside the mail batim if credited to "News & Letters." (Carriers or other Means) . 2 6 Raya Dunayevskaya goes on to imagine us, F. TOTAL FREE DISTRIBUTION 11 6 Chairwoman, National Editorial Board (1955-1987) G. TOTAL DISTRIBUTION 4700 4700 H. COPIES NOT DISTRIBUTED: 300 300 Charles Denby us we build our embrae.e.able I. TOTAL 5000 5000 Editor (1955-1983) new global city J. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation 100% " 100% Olga Domanski, Peter Wermuth, Co-National Organizers, News and 16. This Statement of Ownership will be printed in the Nov. 2005 issue of this from the petals and /votings of dreams. publication. 17.1 certify that the information furnished on this form is true and Letters Committees. Jim Mills, Managing Editor. Felix Martin, Labor complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading infor­ Editor (1983-1999). «g™^ mation on this form or who omits material or information requested on the —Sheila Garden form may be subject to criminal sanctions (including fines and imprisonment) News & Letters is printed in a union shop. ^wP' 759-C and/or civil sanctions. Olga Domanski, Business Manager. Oct. 31, 2005. Page 10 NEWS & LETTERS NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2005 Mass opposition grows to Iraq occupation Continued from page 1 was not limited to implementation in Abu Ghraib ern Europe still underway, the so-called realist trend of prison, nor did it end with the convictions of the few conservative policy thinking prevailed. Communist Party, to recapture the office he held with enlisted soldiers who were charged with carrying it out Although George W. Bush's father characterized the the full confidence of the U.S. until he was resounding­ there, era as the "New World Order," the memory of the bipo­ ly turned out in the January elections. lar world was still too fresh in the minds of those in Chalabi—a favorite of the ideological U.S. Defense DOMESTIC OPPOSITION power to attempt to fashion a radically new global Department policy makers who helped build the case Increasing numbers of Americans are expressing political arrangement. for the war until the wholesale discrediting of the infor­ deep dissatisfaction with the Iraq war and the obstina­ Although the Shi'a and Kurds of Iraq rose up in mation he provided became a liability—is also market­ cy of the Bush administration in prosecuting it. Large arms against Saddam's police state, the U.S. permitted ing himself as a secular democrat. numbers of people not usually inclined to attend the Iraqi government, still reeling from the decisive THE SO-CALLED INSURGENCY demonstrations defeat by the are being U.S.-led coali­ Unlike the January elections, Sunni political and moved to par­ tion, to put down religious parties now plan to campaign for seats in the ticipate in the massive assembly. The U.S. desperately hopes that this develop­ events like the rebellion with its ment indicates that the elements of Iraqi society that spontaneous helicopter gun- have up until now lent support to the violent campaign vigils held ships. The against US troops, Iraqi security forces and ordinary across the oppressive social Shi'a civilians are turning to political channels to country on Oct. and political express their opposition. 26 to mark the order of the Mid­ This hope seems to be misplaced however. The sheer 2,000th U.S. dle East was to scale of the mayhem carried out by the insurgency has military fatali­ be kept firmly in grossly exacerbated the sectarian tensions that under­ ty in Iraq. High place. lay the long rule of Saddam's Ba'ath Party. The death school and col­ During the toll of civilians from the car bombings and assassina­ lege students Clinton years, tions perpetrated by the insurgents continues to accu­ are also build­ the position of mulate to the extent that the rift between the formerly ing a vibrant the U.S. as the powerful Sunni Iraqis and the now-dominant Shi'a anti-military sole superpower majority may not be reconcilable in the realm of par­ recruiting began to solidify. liamentary politics. A personal appearance by Iraqi movement. As barriers to president Jalal Talabani to former members of Iraq's Recent free trade and army—demobilized in the early days of the occupa­ approval polls = r-rr >. • . • TT~r~. tion—to join the new security forces went nowhere. p New York City-Veterans Day parade. ^f1 ^ show that Feminist group Code Pink protests at The number of deaths of civilian and members of the diminished, the U.S. stood starkly as the world's most security forces, which the U.S. military had long approval rat­ ings of the president are crashing. attractive place to invest. The huge trade deficit of the claimed to not be counting, was recently estimated to U.S. was and continues to be sustained by this massive stand at 25,902 since January 2004 in a table included The indictment and subsequent resignation of I. Lewis Libby, a powerful adviser to Vice-President Dick importation of capital. During this period however, in a military report to Congress. Many commentators Cheney, in the Valerie Plame leak case has prompted diplomatic rhetoric of human rights and humanitarian say that the figure given in the report is far too low. many to once again examine the whole rationale intervention coexisted with tolerance of ethnic cleans­ The insurgents seek to make Iraq ungovernable and behind the war. The leak revealed the identity of a CIA ing and genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda. to murder or force into emigration any independent fig­ agent married to diplomat Joseph Wilson, a critic of the A decade later, with U.S. military and economic capa­ ure inclined to resist their efforts. Their targets include administration's claims about Iraq's arms programs. bility far ahead of any rivals, the time was ripe for an journalists, political activists, and proponents of Her identity was leaked to several journalists in an attempt to resolutely establish American global domi­ women's rights. Their strategy is to clear the field for a attempt to discredit him. The convoluted details of the nance. struggle between the Ba'athist-Sunni fundamentalist case, though, are less important than at least one con­ Although George W. Bush campaigned in 2000 as an alliance and the religious Shi'a forces that will per­ clusion one can draw from it, namely that the argu­ opponent of what he called "nation building," the Sep­ suade the U.S. military to leave the country. ments for invading Saddam's Iraq were so thin that tember 11 attacks gave him, and the interventionist Further complicating the picture are the charges by powerful and strategically placed figures in the admin­ conservatives gathered around him, an opening. The many in the Sunni community that members of the istration like Libby and Karl Rove were willing to rhetoric of democracy and humanitarianism was now Shi'a fundamentalist parties are using their positions break the law to silence anyone with the least potential wedded to strong military action, with the former tak­ in the security services to carry out retaliatory assassi­ to derail the endeavor. ing dramatic precedence over the latter in practice. The nations. An argument popular among critics of the Iraq war invasion of Iraq was seen as opportunity to demon­ The fighting between the U.S. and the insurgents suggests that the entire affair was the result of a vir­ strate the permanence of the new arrangement. Great continues to wreak a huge toll as well. Intense combat tual coup d'etat achieved by interventionist conserva­ Britain, although it has one foot in the European has been underway almost nonstop for months in the tive thinkers sympathetic to the regional aims of Union, was ready to sign on to this new effort. Euphrates river towns between the Syrian border and Israel's Likud party. But this theory downplays the fact Now the U.S. is confronted with a substantial and Baghdad, most recently in the town of Husayba. that the Clinton administration committed the U.S. to open-ended military commitment in Iraq. At the same The U.S. operations are intended to cut off the route the goal of regime change in Iraq with the Iraq Libera­ time, it must attend to its responsibilities elsewhere on of travel and supply for foreign insurgents crossing tion Act of 1998, a bill long pre-dating the September the globe as the sole superpower, principally in Korea, from Syria into Iraq. There are reports that aerial 11 attacks that contained much of the democratic the site of the last marker of the Cold War, in other bombardment by the U.S. in this offensive has resulted rhetoric put to use in building support for overthrowing words,: a country divided between. The cost of the war in numerous civilian casualties. Furthermore the Saddam. is causing concern among fiscal conservatives in the intrusive house-to-house searches carried out by U.S. Now that the villains of this interpretation of the Republican Party. The military is struggling to retain troops continue to breed indignation even among those war—Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Douglas troops and to meet its goals for recruiting new ones. not inclined to support the insurgents. Feith—have fallen from grace or moved on to bigger The army has resorted to dropping its standards on Dramatic testimony gathered by Human Rights and better things, it may be easier to see that the real aptitude tests to maintain its ranks. Watch from soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division motivation behind the war was the change in the glob­ . The cost of the U.S. drive for world domination— has made it clear that those rounded up in these al political situation since the Gulf War of 1991. At that measured in dollars and human lives—is proving to be sweeps routinely face brutal treatment that amounts time, with the enormous changes in Russia and East­ a difficult one for George W. Bush to bear. to torture. It is clear that Bush administration's deci­ sion to embrace torture as an interrogation technique New workers struggles in Iran pose vital How to contact NEWS & LETTERS COMMITTEES questions for freedom movements

36 South Wabash, Rm. 1440 P.O. Box 3384, Flint, Ml 48502 In Iran workers strikes are occurring under the nose Iran, like many other underdeveloped countries, is Chicago, IL 60603 of one of the most brutal regimes in the world. They are suffering from capital restructuring and privatization. Phone 312 236 0799 P.O. Box 250657 organizing against unpaid wages, unhealthy working The corrupt government, with help of the IMP and the Fax 312 236 0725 Columbia University Station conditions, and cuts in social benefits. In some cities of World Bank, has created much misery for working peo­ MEETINGS New York, NY 10025 Kurdistan workers have opposed the regime's army ple. Over the past five years 3,000 small or mid-size Call for Information 212 663 3631 and the national guards. workshops have closed. Although the government pro­ MEETINGS There has been a growth in the number of indepen­ mote* Capital investment, most private companies are P.O. Box 27205 Sundays, 7:00 p.m. dent labor unions which function in an environment as closing because they are unable to compete on the Detroit Ml 48227 39 West 14th St., Room 205 dangerous as that facing workers in Columbia, Burma, world market. The drive for greater privatization (70% MEETINGS (Identity House, Manhattan) China, or Zimbabwe. The struggle of the Tehran Tran­ of industrial workplaces are run by the government) Sundays sit Bus Drivers Association is especially important. has brought only unemployment to the workers. 2 p.m. This is happening while the main source of Iran's P.O. Box 3345 Several months ago, Tehran's bus drivers demanded Write for information Oakland, CA 94609 a wage increase and social benefits. In response, they income remains oil. Most of the oil income is wasted or 510 658 1448 were attacked by a government sponsored group, the used by officials of the regime and its dependent allies [email protected] "worker's house," which had the support of the police. for private use or to spread Islamic fundamentalism MEETINGS MEETINGS The union leaders were arrested and were not only abroad. Corruption and the lack of security for Sundays Contact for information sent to jail but also lost their jobs. After this incident investors has led to growing unemployment and mis­ 6:00 p.m. the bus drivers increased their activities. On Oct. 16, ery for poor people while also making a section of the Echo Park United they demanded the release of the drivers and the pros­ bourgeoisie unhappy. In response, some of the bour­ Methodist Church 1910 Madison Ave, PMB 59 ecution of those who attacked them. geoisie have joined the opposition while arguing for 1226 N. Alvarado Memphis, TN 38104 more privatization of capital. There are also calls for a (North of Sunset, side door) Government officials refused to accept these [email protected] demands. So on Oct. 25 the workers decided to contin­ secular republic among part of the opposition. ue their struggle by not charging passengers any fees This shows how important it is for workers to have INTERNET for riding the buses. This had a major political impact. an independent movement and a vision of their future Bman The drivers forced the government to accept their advancement. An independent workers union is just www.newsandletters.org union and listen to their demands. Most of the arrest­ the first step. Workers in Iran know that they are not [email protected] ed drivers were released and are back at work. During going to overcome the bourgeoisie if they keep the [email protected] (Oakland) just the last three months over 2,000 workers' strikes, same system. As the strikes by the bus drivers show, INTERNATIONAL MARXIST-HUMANISTS demonstrations, and picket lines have occurred in Iran. the workers need to not only oppose the Islamic regime !• London Corresponding Committee About 80% are over unpaid or delayed wages. Most pri­ but also must organize themselves with new vision BCM Box 3514, London, England WC1N 3XX vate companies are unable to generate any income and that directs the opposition beyond capitalism. http://www.thehobgoblin.co.uk, [email protected] workers are the ones made to suffer. —AHReza NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2005 NEWS & LETTERS Page 11 On the revision of Marx's concept of 'directly social labor'

Continued from page 4 other commodity-producing societies. "In the planned the hour (or day) of another. As a result of this, the socialist economy of the USSR, commodities...have measure of labor and measure of consumption in a labor which is characteristic of commodity production prices which are money expressions of their socialist society can be calculated only on the basis of on the basis of private property. The labor of individual value" (emphasis added). Dunayevskaya drew atten­ workers engaged in socialist enterprises has a direct the law of value." Hence, the reason why the law of social character. Every useful expenditure of labor is tion to this statement both in her original comment value operates in "socialism*" is that an hour of directly rather than indirectly part of the social and in her rejoinder. She wrote in her comment: "The work of one worker is not equal to an hour of labor..." (emphases added). document states that...'distribution according to labor' another. is to be effected through the instrumentality of money. Immediately following is a statement about directly This uncoupling of "indirectly social labor" and com­ This money is not script notes or some bookkeeping and indirectly social labor under "socialism": "The cal­ modity production flatly contradicts the position of term but money as the price expression of value. Marx, who wrote in Capital that Robert Owen's "labor- culation and comparison of various kinds of labor are money" "presupposes directly socialized labour, a According to the authors,'... the measure of labor and not realized directly, by means of the 'natural measure form of production diametrically opposed to the measure of consumption in a socialist society can be of labor'—labor time—but indirectly, by means of production of commodities" (Penguin/Vintage edi­ calculated only on the basis of the law of value.'" accounting and comparison of the products of tion, pp. 188-89, note 1, emphases added). Thus, as Dunayevskaya correctly suggests, a key pil­ labor....The products of socialist labor have value. lar of the article's contention that the law of value From this follows the utilization of such instruments What's at issue here is not "orthodoxy," but the exists in socialism was the fact that money as the as trade, money, etc." meaning of theoretical categories. In Marx's theory, expression of value existed in Russian "socialism." In other words, because one worker's labor-hour is there is a necessary, internal relationship between commodity production, the duality of concrete and The article reached this conclusion through a critique not equal to another's, an hour of labor does not count abstract labor, and the split between private and social of the notion that labor under socialism could be mea­ directly as an hour of social labor. The amount of labor. So when the Russian article declares that these sured, not by money that expresses value, but direct­ social labor a worker performs instead depends upon categories have become uncoupled, it is redefining ly, "in hours or days, in what Marx calls the natural the quantity and value of the products of her "social­ them, altering their meanings. What the article means measure of labor*—that is, the time of labor, labor hour, ist labor." Value, expressed in money, is the intermedi­ by directly and indirectly social labor is not what Marx labor day, etc.... [T]he difficulty is that the labor of the ary that turns an hour of actual labor into some meant. citizens of a socialist society is not qualitatively uni­ amount of social labor. This statement is an implicit form.... a distinction between physical and intellectual acknowledgement that labor in the USSR was not What did Marx mean when he said that directly work still exists....there exist differences between directly social in Marx's sense of the term "directly socialized labor is "diametrically opposed to the pro­ duction of commodities"? And how did the Russian arti­ skilled and unskilled work....One sort of occupation is social labor." cle revise that concept? The reason why it held that better equipped technically than another..." Thus the article contends, on the one hand, that "Every useful expenditure of labor is directly rather Thus, the article concludes, "All this signifies that labor is directly social in "socialism," but that, on the than indirectly part of the social labor" in the USSR the hour (or day) of work of one worker is not equal to other hand, the more output a worker produces, and was that it had "abolished that characteristic of com­ the more valuable her product, the greater is the modity production by which...labor...finds no social amount of social labor she performs during an hour of recognition because the commodity it produced Remembering victims actual labor. All useful labor is supposedly directly remains unsold....In socialist society, all labor that is social. But how much directly social labor it is useful to society is rewarded by society." depends upon the mediation of value and money. As Orwell might have put it, all labor is directly social, but In other words, the article contends that the sale of of Bush's Iraq war the commodity is what turns private labor into social some labor is more directly social labor than others. labor in a commodity-producing society based on pri­ To try to distinguish their society as a "socialist" one, vate property. Thus labor is only indirectly social; an the Stalinists were trying to make the direct sociality act of private labor counts as social labor—"finds social of labor a purely qualitative issue and to divorce it recognition"—only when, and if, the commodity it pro­ from the quantitative issue. If the Plan recognized all duced can be sold. In Russia, however, a worker's labor labor as social, then supposedly all labor was directly counted as social labor whether or not the commodity social, even though an average worker's labor might could be sold. Labor was therefore directly social. count only as one half or one tenth as much labor as an However, this is not what Marx meant by the dis­ intellectual's. The fact that money and value mediated tinction between indirectly and directly social labor. As the quantitative relationship somehow did not stop far as' I am aware, no writing of his identifies the sale labor from being directly, or immediately, social. of the commodity as the intermediary that turns pri­ Thus we see the danger in emphasizing qualitative vate labor into social labor in a commodity-producing issues at the expense of quantitative ones. Some people society. In his theory, the intermediary is money: suppose that qualitative matters are profound, while "Labour on the basis of exchange values presuppos­ quantitative matters are beneath them. But without es, precisely, that neither the labour of the individual careful attention to the quantitative issues, it would be nor his product are directly general; that the product very hard, if not impossible, to answer the Stalinist attains this form only by passing through an Objective MEMPHIS—At a vigil sponsored by the Mid-South contention that labor was directly social in the USSR. mediation, by means of a form of money distinct from Peace and Justice Center, 100 gathered at the corner of We could say that laborers weren't freely associated, itself (Grundrisse, Penguin/Vintage ed., p. 172). "[If] Poplar and Highland on Oct. 26 to mourn the carnage but it is hard to see how we could deny that their labor the labour-time contained in commodities [were] caused by Bush's illegal and immoral war on Iraq. We was directly associated. immediately social labour-time...it would indeed be joined cities around the world to grieve and protest the impossible for a specific commodity, such as gold or sil­ 2,000th U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. ver, to confront other commodities as the incarnation of The human cost of this war extends beyond the $217 Stop military recruiting i universal labour and exchange-value would not be billion spent to occupy Iraq. Over 2,000 U.S. soldiers turned into price; but neither would use-value be will never come home to their families, over 15,000 turned into exchange-value and the product into a com­ more will return maimed and disabled, while tens of modity" (Contribution to the Critique of Political Econ­ thousands more will suffer the long-term psychological omy, Progress Publishers, pp. 84-85). repercussions of killing the innocent. These figures Thus, in Marx's theory, an act of private labor pale in comparison to the 100,000 Iraqis who have lost becomes social labor in a commodity-producing society their lives in a war the majority of the world opposed. because its product, the commodity, is equal to a cer­ Meanwhile, those in need in our own country contin­ tain amount of money. Yet the existence of money is not ue to fight in a war of their own. Every day thousands the cause, but the reflection, of the indirectly social go hungry, hundreds die, and countless more suffer character of labor. One commodity, money, is directly because Bush's government would rather fight wars social ("universal") only because others are not; accord­ than provide living wages and universal healthcare. ingly, the labor that produces the money commodity is Starting at our weekly morning vigil, we began read­ ' directly social only because other kinds of labor are ing the names of the 2,000 who have died in this war. not. These dualities in turn reflect the split within the This solemn witness continued throughout the day. By commodity between use-value and value—all com­ the time our evening candlelight vigil started, we had modities appear to be mere use-values, except money, 1,000 names left. As we tolled the bell that evening we which appears to be value—and thus the split between were reminded that each ring represented not just one concrete, useful labor and abstract, value-producing U.S. death, but also 100 Iraqis. That is something that A session of "Military Families Speak Out" held at labor. we must never forget. Their families grieve as ours do, a conference against military recruiting held at the pain is the same, but the responsibility is ours. Now the Russian article acknowledged that money the University of California, Berkeley. in the USSR played the same intermediate role as in —Jacob Flowers The law of value in capitalist society

Continued from page 4 historical and statistical data. It is a question of sever­ 8. Capital, Vol. I, p. 48. egories used by Marx in Capital they have found the ing the indissoluble connection between the dialectical 9. Baran questions (pp. 869-70) my "gratuitous" assertion that class­ theoretical reflection of economic reality. Since, howev­ method of Marx and his political economy. It follows es exist in Russia since the material he has read points in the "opposite er, Marx's entire analysis of the law of value is based inexorably from the break with the Marxian concept of direction." He therefore assumes that I base my conclusion on the wide upon its specifically capitalistic content, the Soviet the law of value. Soviet economic theory finally reflects differentials in income. Income differentials in the USSR are not subli­ economists were constrained either to revise the con­ economic reality. Does Baran propose instead that the mated from all exploitative vices", they too are only a manifestation of cept that the Soviet Union is a "socialist society," or to reality and the theory reflect his presupposition that the actual production relations. If Baran cannot accept the evidence of revise the concept that the law of value is dominant Russia is a "socialist society"? the existence of class differentiations from English works, such as The only in a capitalist society. It is not surprising that they Real Soviet Russia, by J. Dallin (New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1944), chose to revise Marx instead of the Soviet Constitution. Author's Notes the chapter on plant managers by Dr. Schwarz in Management in Russ­ The Soviet economists have solved their dilemma. It ian Industry and Agriculture by Bienstock, Schwarz and Yugov (New is up to Baran to solve his dilemma of assuming, on the 1. p, 85. All references to Capital are to the Kerr edition. York, Oxford Univ. Press, 1944), and Workers, before and after Lenin by one hand, that Russia is a "socialist society" and, on the 2. Arkhiv Marksa-Engelsa (Moskva, 1930), T. V., c. 386. Manya Gordon (New York, Dutton, 1941), let him consult the original other hand, asserting that the law of value is dominant 3. Herr Eugen Duhring's Revolution in Science (New York, Interna­ documents on the 1939 population census and the analysis of the occu­ only in a capitalist society. tional Publishers), p. 346. pational classifications, especially of the "classless" group known as the He has deepened his contradictory position by 4. Lange's promiscuous use of quotation marks for value and law of "intelligentsia" by V. Molotoff, the results of the Five Year Plans and the approving the proposal that in the future teachings of value, where no such expression is used by Marx, seriously distorts analysis by J. Stalin, as well as the minutes of the congresses and con­ political economy the structure of Capital be not fol­ Marx's meaning (cf. p. 129). ferences of the Russian Communist Party. All of these offer a fertile lowed in order that factual information be introduced 5. Teorii Pribavochnoi Stoimosti (Moskva, 1932), T. Ill, ch. 3, c. 55 field for reflection. to "form the backbone of the course" (p. 863). It is not (Theories of Surplus Value). 10. N. Voznessensky, The Growing Prosperity of the Soviet Union merely a question of supplying factual information— 6. Arkhiv Marksa-Engelsa (Moskva, 1933) T. II (VII), c. 7. (New York, International Publishers, 1941), p. 40. Volume I, the most abstract volume of Capital, is full of 7. Capital, Vol. II, p. 120. Page 12 NEWS & LETTERS NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2005 OUR LIFE# Pakistan earthquake's contradictions by Kevin A. Barry pied by India. Pakistan-backed militants, many of itary have not been able to administer and coordinate them fundamentalists, have fought a long civil war the aid in an honest or effective manner. Various Islam­ So far, the October earthquake in Pakistan has against the Indian occupation. The Indian military ic fundamentalist groups are carrying out small-scale killed more than 70,0Q0 people, with the toll mounting maintains a huge force in Kashmir, and India too pos­ aid projects, but also threatening to attack Westerners daily. It has displaced an additional three million peo­ sesses nuclear weapons. The nuclear-armed U.S. is providing aid. The Indian government's token offer of ple, many abandoned in remote mountain villages cut deeply involved in the region as well, with aircraft car­ aid was turned down for nationalistic reasons by Pak­ off from the outside. Others are awaiting shelter in riers off Pakistan, and ground troops in Afghanistan, istan's military, while negotiations to open the border rudimentary and inadequately provisioned camps that whose border with Pakistan is only a few hundred between the Indian.and Pakistan sides of Kashmir have been set up by the government and international miles to the west of the quake's epicenter. Al Qaeda have proceeded at a snail's pace. Some traditionalist agencies. There are not nearly enough heavy tents in and the Taliban maintain bases along the same border, men are refusing to evacuate their families, for fear the entire world to shelter this mass of people, even if where they are engaged in a low-level guerrilla war they would be unable to keep their wives and daugh­ the various armies of the world were to donate theirs, against the U.S.-backed Afghan regime. ters in seclusion in a refugee camp. something they would of course never do. All of these powers, great and small, have called for Class,: imperialist, military, gender and other contra­ The quake occurred in one of the most militarized aid to the earthquake victims, and claim that they are dictions of our capitalist order have made it a certain­ parts of the world. The Pakistan government, a mili­ trying to help. But none have called a ceasefire, or less­ ty that thousands more will die this winter, in what tary regime backed by the U.S., has nuclear weapons ened their military operations. Many other countries began as a natural disaster, but is now a human-made and jet fighters. Yet nearly 50% of the country's popu­ have pledged large sums, or sent aid and rescue teams. one. In the past, such situations have destabilized gov­ lation remains illiterate, something that affects women Severe obstacles will prevent this aid from getting ernments and even social orders. disproportionately. Poverty is endemic, with per capita through in time. Much of the promised international annual income a meager $600 per year. Thus, many of aid has not arrived. Even though it has a large heli­ the quake victims were living at the edge of disaster, copter force in Afghanistan, the U.S. has sent only a even before the quake struck. token number of helicopters, which are vitally neces­ Anti-Bush protests - Its epicenter was in Kashmir, a predominantly Mus­ sary for reaching isolated mountain villages. The cor­ lim area, the eastern (and larger) part of which is occu­ rupt and authoritarian Pakistan government and mil- in Argentina

Protests against Bush's appearance at the fourth Parisian revolt spreads through West Europe Summit of the Americas in Argentina Nov. 4-5 were i:, held in at least 200 cities in that country. Brazil, As we went to press, the anti-police, anti-govern­ "- -* ~"A iijf. ment rebellion in France had gone on for more than Venezuela, and Uruguay also had anti-Bush events. two weeks, beginning in late October. It broke out in The largest marches were held in Mar Del Plata, south Clichy-sous-bois, a small and impoverished enclave of Buenos Aires, site of both the summit and a counter- populated mainly by North African immigrants and summit (the third of its kind) that was held in the days their descendants. The spark was the deaths of two leading up to the arrival of Bush and the other 33 youths, one of them only 15 and the other 17, who were heads of state (Castro was not irtvited). electrocuted when they entered a power sub-station. Bush, who has succeeded in becoming the most They were apparently fleeing police. hated U.S. president in history in Latin America, was By the second week, the unrest had not only sent away with his tail between his legs, and Mexico's engulfed the Paris suburbs, but also reached into Paris Vicente Fox lost much political capital fighting for and numerous cities across France. It then spread into Bush's agenda, which was to use the summit as a way several cities in Belguim and Germany. Over 7,000 to re-launch the stalled negotiations over the Free automobiles were set afire—long a popular tactic of Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA, or ALCA in Span­ alienated youth. Police also came under attack, as did ish). Since the theme of the summit had nothing to do firefighters. with FTAA, and since the host of the summit, Argenti­ French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy fanned the na, is the country that has sufferred a horrific melt­ flames with his provocative comments about the need down of its economy since 2001 as a direct result of to clean up "scum," which was widely interpreted as U.S-inspired trade liberalization, Bush's arrogance in the racist demonization of an entire community. But it insisting on discussing FTAA only served to fuel the flames of the protests. played well with the French Right, as he maneuvered to run for president in the next elections. The Bush-Fox plan (with Panama's help) was to The anger of North African youth has been simmer­ have all of the summit participants commit themselves ing for decades. In most of their communities, unem­ to serious FTAA talks in early 2006. Hugo Chavez of ployment stands at 30%, three times the national aver­ Venezuela came with the intent to somehow definitive­ age. These communities now constitute over 10% of the ly bury FTAA forever, and both Kirchner of Argentina population, locked into patterns of job and housing dis­ Hundreds took part in a silent march through a sub­ and Lula of Brazil, along with Uruguay and Paraguay, crimination. They also face rampant police brutality, urb of Paris in memory of the two teenagers whose hoped to prevent any mention of it in the summit's and harassment. "We just want to be recognized as deaths as police chased them sparked a national final statement. None of the parties seemed to get all they wanted, though the fact that Bush did not succeed human beings," one young woman told the BBC. revolt. The French political establishment, including the in getting a clear commitment to FTAA led Chavez to big leftist parties and trade unions, has very little con­ proclaim that the weekend will mark a historical new tact with these communities. Nor does the student beginning in South America because five countries (the elections Mercosur countries plus Venezuela) refused to bow movement. The grievances of these ghetto communities down to him. were not really represented during the Oct. 4 strike In November, demonstrators took to the streets to against government economic policies, which involved protest fraudulent elections last May, which returned While Bush quietly went to Lula's ranch to have bar­ nearly a million people, except at the very general level to power the Staliiioid government of Meles.Zenawi. As becue after his failure, Fox went on a tirade against of attacking the high rate of unemployment. it had last spring, the Zenawi regime responded with Kirchner, claiming that it was his fault as host of the The government has fought back by resorting to a gunfire against peaceful protesters. The latest demon­ summit that led to the lack of consensus on the FTAA, highly controversial emergency decree, first passed strations began as taxi drivers sounded their horns in rather than the endless deepening poverty in the into law in 1955 during France's colonial war against response to a call by the largest opposition group, the region. He also suggested that the 29 countries should the Algerian independence movement, that permits the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD). proceed to FTAA talks without the five dissenters, imposition of local curfews. The government did not As we went to press, 46 people had been killed by the despite the fact that those five comprise about half the impose such a measure even at the height of the mas­ regime, already more than last spring. As heavily economic output of Latin America. The issue is to be sive student and worker mnrest in May 1968; Such armed police and soldiers patrolled the capital, Addis discussed again in December at WTO talks, so there's measures will do little or nothing to address the real Ababa, demonstrations broke out in other cities. The still a chance that FTAA will be resucitated in 2006. source of this mass upsurge against discrimination. CUD also called for a general strike. —Mitch Weerth

NEWS AND LETTERS COMMITTEES Who We Are And What We Stand For News and Letters Committees is an National Editorial Board and National. what is, but to reveal and further Presentation on the Dialectics of Orga­ organization of Marxist-Humanists Chairwoman of the Committees from develop the revolutionary Humanist nization and Philosophy in The Philo­ that since its birth has stood for the its founding to 1987. Charles Denby future inherent in the present. 1 The sophic Moment of Marxist-Human­ abolition of capitalism, both in its pri­ (1907-83), a Black production worker, new visions of the future which ism (1989), and donated new supple­ vate property form as in the U.S., and author of Indignant Heart: A Black Dunayevskaya left us in her work [from mentary volumes to The Raya its state property form, as it has his­ Worker's Journal, became editor of the 1940s to the 1980s are rooted in her Dunayevskaya Collection. News and torically appeared in state-capitalist the paper from 1955 to 1983. discovery of Marx's Marxism in its orig­ Letters Committees aims at developing regimes calling themselves Communist Dunayevskaya's works, Marxism and inal form as a new Humanism and in and concretizing this body of ideas for as in Russia and China. We stand for Freedom, from 1776 until Today her re-creation of that philosophy for our time. the development of new human rela­ (1958), Philosophy and Revolution: our age as Marxist-Humanism. This is In opposing this capitalistic, racist, tions, what Marx first called a new From Hegel to Sartre and from recorded in the documents on microfilm sexist, heterosexist, class-ridden soci­ Humanism. Marx to Mao (1973), and Rosa Lux­ and open to all under the title' The ety, we have organized ourselves into a News & Letters was founded in emburg, Women's Liberation, and Raya Dunayevskaya Collection— committee form of organization rather 1955, the year of the Detroit wildcat Marx's Philosophy of Revolution Marxist-Humanism: A Half-Century than any elitist party "to lead." We par­ strikes against Automation and the (1982) spell out the philosophic ground of Its World Development. ticipate in all class and freedom strug­ Montgomery Bus Boycott against seg­ of Marx's Humanism internationally, as Dunayevskaya's philosophic compre­ gles, nationally and internationally. As regation—activities which signaled a American Civilization on Trial con­ hension of her creation and develop­ our Constitution states: "It is our new movement from practice that was cretizes it on the American scene and ment of Marxist-Humanism, especially aim... to promote the firmest unity itself a form of theory. News & Let­ shows the two-way road between the as expressed in her 1980s writings, among workers, Blacks and other ters was created so that the voices of U.S. and Africa. presents the vantage point for rencreat- minorities, women, youth and those revolt from below could be heard This body of ideas challenges all ing her ideas anew. Seeking to grasp intellectuals who have broken with the unseparated from the articulation of a those desiring freedom to transcend the that vantage point for ourselves and ruling bureaucracy of both capital and philosophy of liberation. limitations of post-Marx Marxism, make it available to all who struggle labor." We do not separate mass activi­ Raya Dunayevskaya (1910-1987), beginning with Engels. In light of the for freedom, we have published ties from the activity of thinking. Send founder of the body of ideas of Marxist- crises of our nuclearly armed world, it Dunayevskaya's original 1953 philo­ for a copy of the Constitution of News Humanism, became Chairwoman of the becomes imperative not only to reject sophic breakthrough and her final 1987 and Letters Committees.