If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. The

Friday, September 25, 2020

The Butcher Washes His Hands Before Weighing the Meat - Fascism ~~ Berolt Brecht

 https://www.kmjn.org/snippets/brecht35_fascism.html

Fascism is a historic phase of capitalism; in this sense it is something new and at the same time old. In Fascist countries capitalism continues to exist, but only in the form of Fascism; and Fascism can be combated as capitalism alone, as the nakedest, most shameless, most oppressive, and most treacherous form of capitalism.

But how can anyone tell the truth about Fascism, unless he is willing to speak out against capitalism, which brings it forth? What will be the practical results of such truth?

Those who are against Fascism without being against capitalism, who lament over the barbarism that comes out of barbarism, are like people who wish to eat their veal without slaughtering the calf. They are willing to eat the calf, but they dislike the sight of blood. They are easily satisfied if the butcher washes his hands before weighing the meat. They are not against the property relations which engender barbarism; they are only against barbarism itself. They raise their voices against barbarism, and they do so in countries where precisely the same property relations prevail, but where the butchers wash their hands before weighing the meat.

Socialism - What Will it Look Like? ~~ Paul D'Amato

 https://socialistworker.org/2004-1/495/495_09_Socialism.php

Socialism: What will it look like?

By Paul D'Amato | April 16, 2004 | Page 9

"WE KNOW what you're against. What are you for/" is a question that we socialists get a lot. Socialism was well summed up by Eugene Debs: "The collective ownership and control of industry and its democratic management in the interests of all the people! That is the demand.

"The elimination of rent, interest and profit and the production of wealth to satisfy the wants of all the people! That is the demand. The end of...class rule, of master and slave, of ignorance and vice, of poverty and shame, of cruelty and crime...That is the demand."

Thursday, September 24, 2020

This Land Is Not Your Land - The Ethnic Cleansing of Native Americans ~~ by David Treuer

https://ibw21.org/editors-choice/this-land-is-not-your-land/

~~~ Posted for Collectivist ~~~

In his first annual message to the U.S. Congress, in 1829, U.S. President Andrew Jackson—a slave-owning real estate speculator already famous for burning down Creek settlements and hounding the survivors of the Creek War of 1813–14—called for the “voluntary” migration of Native Americans to lands west of the Mississippi River. Six months later, in the spring of 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act into law. This measure gave the president the authority to negotiate with Native American tribes for their fertile lands. The statute set off waves of litigation, mineral prospecting, and land speculation—not to mention waves of violence committed by nonnative settlers against Native Americans.

Top Trump Official Asks Feds to Charge Protesters with Sedition

https://blackagendareport.com/top-trump-official-asks-feds-charge-protesters-sedition

~~~ This article was contributed by Collectivist ~~~


Top Trump Official Asks Feds to Charge Protesters with Sedition 

The rarely used statute could put protesters accused of using violence in prison for up to 20 years.

“The charge does not require evidence of any purported plot against the state.”

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

How The Working People Can Be Saved From The Oppression Of The Landowners And Capitalists For Ever ~~ V. Lenin

 

How The Working People Can Be Saved From The Oppression Of The Landowners And Capitalists For Ever

                           https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/mar/x09.htm


The enemies of the working people, the landowners and capitalists say that the workers and peasants cannot live without them. "If it were not for us," they say, "there would be nobody to maintain order, to give out work, and to compel people to work. If it were not for us everything would collapse, and the state would fall to pieces. We have been driven away, but chaos will bring us back again." But this sort of talk by the landowners and capitalists will not confuse, intimidate, or deceive the workers and peasants. An army needs the strictest discipline; nevertheless the class-conscious workers succeeded in uniting the peasants, succeeded in taking the old tsarist officers into their service, succeeded in building a victorious army.

The Problem Isn't That People Are Greedy—It's That They're Capitalist ~~ Hadas Thier



https://inthesetimes.com/article/capitalism-marx-engels-economic-theory-greed-grow-or-die-accumulation

Capitalism’s ethos of “grow or die” comes at our expense.

HADAS THIER SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

The fol­low­ing is an excerpt from A People’s Guide to Cap­i­tal­ism: An Intro­duc­tion to Marx­ist Eco­nom­ics (Hay­mar­ket Books, August 2020).

Com­pe­ti­tion is the beat­ing heart of cap­i­tal­ism. Mar­ket com­pe­ti­tion acts as a dis­ci­pling force, which com­pels cap­i­tal­ists to con­stant­ly accu­mu­late”: to trans­form prof­its into fur­ther investments.

It isn’t the case that each cap­i­tal­ist wants to make a greater prof­it than his neigh­bor so that he’ll feel him­self a big­ger man (though it’s true that most cap­i­tal­ists are men). Nor is the dri­ve for prof­it dri­ven by his insa­tiable thirst for more lux­u­ries. Rather, he des­per­ate­ly needs to accu­mu­late more cap­i­tal in order to get hold of the lat­est, most effi­cient, labor­sav­ing automa­tion. The big­ger the prof­it of an indi­vid­ual cap­i­tal­ist, the more quick­ly he’ll be able to invest in these tech­nolo­gies, ahead of his com­peti­tors. In the words of Dell Com­put­ers founder and CEO, Michael Dell, cor­po­ra­tions must grow or die.”

Monday, September 21, 2020

The Working Class Is the Vast Majority of Society

Posted by Collectivist

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/09/working-class-peoples-guide-capitalism-marxist-economics

Excerpt from A People’s Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics (Haymarket Books, August 2020).

Written by Hadis Thier

Class isn’t just about how much money you make, and it’s certainly not about cultural traits or your level of education. Marxists argue that anyone who must sell their ability to work for a wage and can’t produce their life necessities for themselves is part of the working class.

The working class — black, white, native-born, and immigrant — across a diverse set of experiences and facing myriad oppressions, collectively make up a class of people who are exploited to create profits for the few. Understanding how class works and on what basis class positions are determined help to reveal the structures of power and exploitation in our society.

A very basic definition of classes as they exist under capitalism begins with this premise: workers have to sell our ability to work, and capitalists buy and command our labor power. You can’t understand either the worker’s or the boss’s class position without understanding that the whole of the system is one in which labor is set to work, in order to produce a profit for someone else.

Class, in other words, is a relationship of exploitation.

Sunday, September 20, 2020

Why Do Americans Give Away So Much Control to Corporations? ~~ By Ralph Nader

 

Why Do Americans Give Away So Much Control to Corporations?

The corporate "Borg" is sucking the ready availability of the good life, decent, secure livelihoods assured by our collective self-reliance, and the freedom to shape our future out of our political economy.

by

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/09/19/why-do-americans-give-away-so-much-control-corporations