@ where Marx went wrong ?

By Iqbal Latif

Marx was the best thinker but he thought that the world will not move forward and has frozen that will continue with extreme suppression of labour. Marx & Engels in the Communist Manifesto in 1848 said ‘the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working Men of All Countries, Unite! ‘

Marx could not believe that workers in a century plus will become partners in firms like MSFT INTEL Google and FB and 🍎!

Marx could not imagine mental cerebral capacity of man will create a trillions of $ worth universally 24/7 connected economy that will be managed not by 18 hours a work day dungeons labour force but intelligent servers.

Marx never thought that Apple and like of those will make huge extraordinary complexes to get the best out of workers not wretched conditions.

Marx thought that entrepreneur will extract the last drop out of the workers body. He could not imagine a capitalist state agreeing on 36 hours work week!

Marx had no idea of an economy based on service! ‘Employees Holidays’ are a huge industry, that he never thought or could imagine. An employee or a worker today enjoys the same holidays as his boss in a fair capitalist society.

Marx never thought that accumulated wealth by largest billionaires will be transferred freely without a war to the next generation of mankind not to their children. Gates Buffet Zuckerberg phenomenon. This was not envisaged in his Das Kalital!

There was no concept in Das Kapital of a capitalist state taking care of the basic education health and shelter of every child from cradle to the grave!

Marx thought that the grain of ‘Historical Exploitation of man’ is genetically homed in and if will continue. That actually did not happen, the world thinking changed 180 degree.

The only place where such exploitation continues are the Marxist countries like North Korea and Cuba! Freedom of action is curtailed. Deng freed the Chinese nation from exploitation of the state in the name of Great Leap Forward.

I think forget about complicated jargon what destroyed Marxism was benevolence of the state ‘ the kind of state education system, the NHS and the housing policies of capitalist states plus a punitive taxation structure where multiplication of unbridled wealth is checked and not allowed to be transferred without hefty cuts.

It was Deng who destroyed Marxism more than anyone else next was Yeltsin!! These issues highlighted above cannot be answered by Das Kapital – it is like the Genesis that went time barred with emergence of Hubble and LHC Couldron. There was no room left for 6/6000 days creation by a super creator.

Courtesy: Above article adopted from Social media.
Via – Facebook

The Marxist Nightmare Of The 1 Percent

By JOE WEISENTHAL

“… between technology, globalization, trade, the winner-take-all superstar effect, inequality is rising. This is not just a ‘moral’ issue but also an issue of too little consumption too little savings that is bad for global growth. So it becomes vicious cycle. It’s a bit like the old Marxist idea that if profits grow too much compared to wages, there’s not going to be enough consumption, and capitalism is going to self destruct. So I think that insight of Karl Marx is as useful today as it was 100 years ago.”

If profits grow too much compared to wages, there’s not going to be enough consumption, and capitalism is going to self destruct.

That quote is from Nouriel Roubini, and it perfectly summarizes what a lot of the world’s elites were thinking about at the World Economic Forum.

Roubini’s words echoed the warning from MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson, who told us:

…there are a lot of forces affecting inequality. There’s globalization, there are institutional changes, cultural changes, but I think most economists would agree that the biggest chunk of it is due to technology. And that’s because of what economists call skill-biased technical change — favoring skilled workers versus less-skilled workers.

Also we talk in the book about capital-biased technical change — you bring capital over labor like when you replace humans with robots. And the third category that maybe is the most important one, we call it superstar-biased technical change, maybe we should come up with a better name. But it’s the fact that technologies can leverage and amplify the special talents, skill, or luck of the 1% or maybe even the 100th of 1% and replicate them across millions or billions of people. In those kinds of markets, you tend to have winner-take-all outcomes and a few people reap enormous benefits and all of us as consumers reap benefits as well, but there’s a lot less need for people of just average or above-average skills.

Brynjolffson came to The World Economic Forum in Davos to warn policymakers that without changes, technology would exacerbate inequality, rather than benefit society as a whole.

The folks at the World Economic Forum in Davos are almost all doing extremely well. They’re the world’s 1% (actually probably more like the world’s 0.001%), and it’s well known that the recovery has been good to them. But there was also a sense — that Roubini gets at in his comment — that the good times won’t last if things keep becoming more unequal.

Figuring out a way to promote mass welfare and to ensure that more people have jobs and strong incomes becomes crucial to preserving what the elites have. Better to have some sort of rebalancing than a dramatic capitalist-destroying rebalancing.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/rich-tech-fears-2014-1#ixzz3KDVYHufQ

American Marxism as a guide to action:

Marxist political advice and its discontents

By Omar Ali

Professor Vijay Prashad  is the George and Martha Kellner professor of history at Trinity college. He is also a prominent left wing activist. The two roles have different requirements. Here he tries to bridge the gap. 

Someone had commented on 3quarksdaily.com that this is “Another bucketload of gormless Marxist verbiage around a central anti-semitic core: forget the mountains of corpses and the decades of torture and oppression – Assad’s main crime is defined as “neoliberalism … and a practice of accommodation with both the US and Israel.”

That triggered the following comment (i have edited the original slightly for clarity)  from me: The real problem with neomarxist verbiage is not double standards or selective outrage, its the unbridgeable gap between being a professor and being an actor on the ground in a civil war in a faraway country.
Vijay Prashad as a professor in a first world University may eventually contribute to changing the way X or Y issue is framed in the mind of the elite, and that in turn will eventually have some impact somewhere in actual daily politics and political struggles but those are big “eventually-s”. Some professors are OK with that and focus on doing their research and writing their books and teaching their students in the hope that their analysis will eventually “trickle down”. But that (for obvious reasons) is not very satisfying for most of us. Hence the need to suggest practical courses of action in today’s clash, to pick sides, to “organize a relief column”. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your estimate of said professor’s wisdom and insight) this aspect of a professor’s work has near-zero real world relevance.
I don’t know how to fix this problem, but it does seem to be a real problem. Most right wingers are almost by definition closer to the ruling elites so maybe they dont feel the pain as much, but left wing professors are in a painful bind here..to have no opinion on proximate politics and wars seems silly, but to have an opinion that arises logically from their theoretical framework is frequently sillier, and any honest and good man may end up in Professor Prashad’s position. Its a real dilemma.

In an attempt to pre-empt misunderstandings, let me add:

1. My question is not about the details of his analysis.

2. Its about this scenario. Lets say Vijay is Vladimir Lenin. Well, in that case he is not only a theoretician (though he would like to believe that his superior understanding of theory informs his practice), he is an organizer, a rebel, a leader, a politician with day to day decision to make. Very fine nuances and very involved calculations will come into play. Many of those calculations will be very cynical. All of them will be locally bound by existing circumstances. Theory will have to give way again and again. But Vijay (probably not even in his own mind, but I don’t know him personally, so I cannot say for sure) is not Lenin. He is a professor. He does research, he writes books. He has theories. And he is part of a broader left wing academic current that has its own internal dynamics very far from the ground in Syria. I am saying I don’t expect him to say things that are too useful as guides to action.
3. What do you think?

Courtesy: Brown Pundits

Occupy Sydney protesters arrested

By AMY CORDEROY

POLICE conducting a raid on a building occupied by protesters shone lights into the cameras of members of the media, preventing some filming of the operation.

Five people were arrested for barricading themselves inside a building and unfurling an Occupy Sydney protest banner, a NSW police spokesman said last night.

He said about 40 other protesters were outside the building at the time.

A number of television cameramen, photographers, and protesters documenting the event had the police lights directed at them. …

Read more » The Canberra Times

Noam Chomsky Speaks to Occupy

– Noam Chomsky Speaks to Occupy: If We Want a Chance at a Decent Future, the Movement Here and Around the World Must Grow

By Noam Chomsky

In a speech to Occupy Boston, the linguist and icon hailed the “unprecedented” first weeks of OWS. He cautioned protesters to build and educate first, strike later.

November 1, 2011, It’s a little hard to give a Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture at an Occupy meeting. There are mixed feelings that go along with it. First of all, regret that Howard is not here to take part and invigorate it in his particular way, something that would have been the dream of his life, and secondly, excitement that the dream is actually being fulfilled. It’s a dream for which he laid a lot of the groundwork. It would have been the fulfillment of a dream for him to be here with you.

The Occupy movement really is an exciting development. In fact, it’s spectacular. It’s unprecedented; there’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations that are being established at these remarkable events can be sustained through a long, hard period ahead — because victories don’t come quickly– this could turn out to be a very significant moment in American history. ….

Read more » AlterNet

Why the U.S. is Not Regulating Wall Street

The “Other Reason” Why the U.S. is Not Regulating Wall Street

Financial Giants Overshadow Governments

by Washington’s Blog

Sure, American politicians have been bought and paid for by the Wall Street giants. See this, this and this.

And everyone knows that the White House and Congress – while talking about cracking down on Wall Street with strict regulation – have actually watered down some of the most important protections that were in place. ….

Read more » Global Research

Graphic eyewitness photo essay: Police attack Occupy Oakland

Read more » Links International

Desis stay away from Occupy Wall Street

by Dr. Qaisar Abbas

Excerpt;

While the American silent majority has spoken lodging its protest throughout America, the so-called model minority of Desis seems to be in a state of perpetual silence. The affluent are part of a capitalist system which they cannot afford to oppose anyway. On the other hand, the disadvantaged communities of the diaspora are so isolated from the American society; they do not feel to be part of a grassroots movement …

…. The grassroots agitation against the exploitative capitalist system is challenging the powerful businessmen, financial institutions and politicians in the United States. The recent issue of the progressive journal “The Nation” reports the deplorable economic conditions in the United States in these figures:

• Twenty five million Americans are unemployed who are desperately looking for jobs
• While corporate CEOs are paid handsomely, wages of 70% Americans without college education are declining
• One in 6 American lives below the poverty line
• One in four homes, considered to be the largest asset for most Americans, is at the verge of foreclosure and eviction by banks for nonpayment of mortgage loans
• Fifty million people are unable to afford health insurance as healthcare costs are soaring
• The economy works well for the rich 1% who control 40% of the wealth
• Multinationals have conveniently transferred domestic jobs in other countries to reduce production costs
• The rising cost of education is becoming unbearable for youth and they are burdened with a record high education loans ….

Read more » ViewPoint

‘Occupy Islamabad’ rally tomorrow

– Amir Wasim

ISLAMABAD: Inspired by worldwide protest demonstrations against capitalism, a group of political workers and representatives of trade and student unions has announced that they will launch an ‘occupy Islamabad movement’ and hold a rally on Wednesday.

Coordinator of the recently-formed Anti-Capitalist Committee and secretary general of the Labour Party Pakistan Nisar Shah told Dawn on Monday that the march would start from Aabpara Chowk and culminate at the World Bank building, situated near the Constitution Avenue.

He said activists of Labour Party Pakistan, Workers Party Pakistan, Awami Party Pakistan and Socialist Movement Pakistan, representatives of the Pakistan Postal Union, PTCL Union, National Trade Union Federation, National Students Federation, Progressive Youth Organisation and a large number of civil society members, intellectuals and citizens would participate in the march in line with the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ campaign in the US and other such protests going on in more than 900 cities around the world. ….

Read more » DAWN.COM

Remowned Marxist journalist Hameed Akhtar passed away in Lahore

LAHORE: Renowned journalist and writer Hameed Akhtar passed away in Lahore on Monday at the age of 87. He was also known as a Hafiz -e- Quran Communist. …

More details » The Express Tribune » YouTube

Russia Weighs What to Do With Lenin’s Body

By C. J. CHIVERS

MOSCOW, Oct. 4 – For eight decades he has been lying in state on public display, a cadaver in a succession of dark suits, encased in a glass box beside a walkway in the basement of his granite mausoleum. Many who revere him say he is at peace, the leader in repose beneath the lights. Others think he just looks macabre.

Time has been unkind to Lenin, whose remains here in Red Square are said to sprout occasional fungi, and whose ideology and party long ago fell to ruins. Now the inevitable question has returned. Should his body be moved?

Revisiting a proposal that thwarted Boris N. Yeltsin, who faced down tanks but in his time as president could not persuade Russians to remove the Soviet Union’s founder from his place of honor, a senior aide to President Vladimir V. Putin raised the matter last week, saying it was time to bury the man. …

Read more : The New York Times

A turning point

WASHINGTON DIARY: A turning point
by Dr Manzur Ejaz, USA
February 3rd, 2009
The writer can be reached at manzurejaz@yahoo.com
Courtesy and Thanks: Wichaar.com
This is a very dangerous situation that may change the course of history. Poorer countries will be affected more than anyone is anticipating: there may be new bloody revolutions in many parts of the world

As the possibility of worldwide depression threatens to become reality, leftists are hoping that the capitalist system is coming to its logical end. Participants in recent demonstrations in France and elsewhere have been expressing such hopes. They feel that now the socialist dream has become more realisable than ever before.