Disqus - Latest Comments for jcase

Re: Political Affairs Magazine - Engels on the "Negation of the Negation"

jcase — Mon, 17 May 2010 05:27:46 -0000

Yes, Thomas -- that is what I meant, though I am more familiar with logics through computer science than philosophy. While one cannot compose a sensible p AND ~p statement in propositional logic, it is doable, in a sense, using to two (or more) partially opposed "chromosomal" strings, or strands in genetic logic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wik....

There is an interesting aside on this parallel in Richard Dawkins great book -- the Ancestor's Tale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wik..., although he is using to criticize dialectics' lack of formalism. Nonetheless, genetic algorithms capture some of the elegance and intuitive sense of dialectics.

thanks for reply!

john

Re: Political Affairs Magazine - Engels on the "Negation of the Negation"

jcase — Thu, 13 May 2010 14:36:43 -0000

The argument for dialectics in general, and the negation of the negation in particular, would be stronger if anyone could formalize it. It is not enough that it makes intuitive sense once one accepts Hegel and Marx's criticism of metaphysics.

The closest science has come -- as far as I know, and please correct me if I am wrong -- to formalizing a dialectical process is in evolutionary theory where genetic computation can model differentiation (contradiction) and adaptation (synthesis), and altruism. The result is an a new and quite useful application of algorithms that reflect and model natural change, and the many-sided character of real processes -- an essential task that dialectics seeks to resolve that metaphysics fails to satisfy.

I think we need to update our thinking about dialectics to reflect the real ways in which scientific progress and methodologies can capture the "matter in motion" essence that motivated Marx's appreciation of Hegel

Re: Dani Rodrik: Greek Lessons for the World Economy

jcase — Thu, 13 May 2010 12:09:09 -0000

Perhaps Greek workers understand the Greek CPs position as rational -- but to me it sounds like a deranged rant. Maybe just an American failing. Back to an unapologetic, explicit Stalinist model of command economy is the Greek CPs economic program!! I do not believe for a minute that the Greek people will go there. And certainly not the American people.

I do not think the governments of Vietnam, China, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Botswanna, South Africa or Venezuela think of Rodrik's advice is "academic crap" -- since they all have employed him repeatedly for that advice. In addition, nation states ARE, and must CONTINUE to decline if the EU is to survive, AND remain democratic, and European wide governance must ADVANCE. Globalization is NOT going away -- and the struggle for democracy is NOT going away. So, and I think Rodrik's formulation is very helpful and explanatory here -- nation states must become weaker, and international
governance institutions stronger. Thats the right, and also more socialist, more internationalist, direction.

Re: Political Affairs Magazine - To Socialism! How?

jcase — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:08:57 -0000

As always, Danny Rubin provides a nicely compartmentalized picture of current CP policy as a continuum of revelations about strategy and tactics over the history of the communist and socialist movements, all of which are firmly linked to the genius of Vladimir Lenin. I remember when I first read Danny's pamphlets and listened to his introductions to Marxism --- the elegance of passing from stage to stage was very attractive. But time has not been a friend to the above analysis. It glosses over much error and confusion, and declines to subject itself to any test of accuracy or falsification. None of the strategic or tactical positions from 1952 and later, including the Gus Hall years, brought any renewed mass base to the CP following its summary expulsion from the labor movement after Taft-Hartley, although I can only speak personally from 1968 and forward. Even the sixties upheaval, although it injected a dose of new life from the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, and enabled the CP to reproduce itself, could not overcome the stigma of Stalin's dictatorship, and a slowness to commit to a fully American incarnation of socialist and communist ideals. The slogans of "defeat the ultra-right", even the "anti-monopoly strategy" are characteristically defensive in posture, reflecting as much the desire for cover to avoid persecution as a serious pro-democracy program. Who could run a serious electoral campaign on either? I never met anyone who could spell out what either meant in economic or political detail. (No doubt my critics will claim that was merely my own defects -- but not only mine!). They did not result in a rebirth of a strong base in labor, despite efforts to leverage the Party's fierce and widely respected legacy of trade union organizers and fighters. We paid too little attention to what was really happening in the working class, objectively. The impact of technology kept catching us by surprise, as if any diversion into a service occupations or automation of the mass production modes of the 20's and 30's were a plot squelch an otherwise unstoppable explosion of proletarianization. I recall more than one left-wing motivated union organizer depressed that the workers in union leadership most wanted their kids to become scientists, teachers, doctors and lawyers instead of factory workers! How could they be fooled by such "petty-bourgeois" aspirations!? Did they not know about the "stages"?

This could turn into a book of anecdotes, but I will pause here, except to suggest that we should stop being in the stage business. The struggle to expand workers democratic rights and standard of living --- WE SHOULD NEVER FORGET THAT THE MOST RELIABLE TEST OF PROGRESS IS: ARE WORKERS' INCOMES RISING OR FALLING??? -- is a socialist and communist end IN ITSELF. Each step along the way, we champion and celebrate the socialist ideal -- from each according to his ability---to each according to his work: a principle that has always had wider support among all workers, and their allies, than any of the stage slogans. Lets save the 'next stage' debate until one emerges. We are a a new stage right now. Health care has passed, albeit in not a pretty form. We have the NOvember elections before us. The possibility of turning the corner on financial reform (rolling back the power of finance capital), environmental policy,
workers bargaining rights, public works -- of numerous and critical incremental steps toward more socialism -- is here now. There are MAJORITIES to mobilize -- and a much needed consolidation of progressive forces. NOW.

jcase

Re: ENGELS ON DIALECTICS: QUANTITY & QUALITY

jcase — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:20:31 -0000

"...no one else but Herr Duhring is confused and befogged by it..."

Well, that's not exactly true, is it? Further, correct me please if I am in error -- but I do not think dialectics has ever been successfully expressed in a formal logic, or mathematical rigor. Odd, in a way, since it makes a lot of intuitive sense; whereas Darwin's evolutionary model was quite counter-intuitive, yet has found abundant quantifiable expressions, including the genetic logic of mutation, reproduction, selection, etc.

The appeal of dialectics is its negation of the static and known weaknesses of metaphysics, its attempt to directly model change itself in thought. It poses always the potential of the ideal to become real when applied to social development, and that is indeed a profound quality.

Nonetheless, we still await the dialectical machine! I suspect the math of genetics comes closest to capturing the quantity to quality transformation. Richard Dawkins 'The Ancestor's Tale' is a good account that may give some studious dialecticians the inspiration to make a breakthrough!

Re: Holiday Thought

jcase — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:11:37 -0000

What is the holiday part?

Re: The Berlin Wall: What was lost!

jcase — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:39:11 -0000

They may regret the cradle to grave bennies, but no poll gives more than 10% who want to go back.

Its as if this article wants the wall back up. Comrades -- we must rescue the socialist ideal from the basket case of the Stalin era and its legacy, and reground it in todays reality and aspirations of our people. That does include a great expansion of socializaton (if we are successful in the reform agenda), and many more ways to popularize and win support for the process. That does not include fantasies about virtues of a police state, socialist restaurants and shoeshine stands, and an iron wall between socialism and capitalism.

jcase

Re: Political Affairs Magazine - Ponzi Capitalism and the Deepening Moral Crisis

jcase — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:00:58 -0000

Jarvis is one of the best agitators against capitalism I have ever heard. Capitalism's raw tendencies toward extreme inequality compares more to a gladiator morality than the fake Christian piety of it most mendacious cheerleaders. And he always captures this tension. Yet, while the system seems to be endlessly countervailing between boom and crisis, and can hardly be said to be "under control", the struggle for social democratic reforms by working people and all democratic forces have had a deep impact on the either gradual, or revolutionary, steps in socialization of forces where markets fail to deliver their promise of an efficient allocation of resources. The evolution of public education, public infrastructure and utilities, the huge quasi public/ public sectors of communications infrastructure ofhealth and security, environmental regulation, and now the too-big-to-fail banks promise a wave of reform surpassing that which followed the Great Depression. Reform has made incomes rise, established social security, established national health service in many capitalist countries, promoted civil rights legislation and numerous other redistributions of income targeted at the negative inequality effects of capitalism.

However, the reforms and the movements that spawned it were more a product of the ongoing and emergent relations of production, always under pressure of change from technological innovation, than a moral struggle. The latter is not independent variable in the big equation. The "high-tech" revolution that began around 1970 is steadily superseding the auto/oil paradigm that has dominated since the River Rouge plan punched out it first model T. It is permeating and revolutionizing every industry, at a very fast rate compared with past eras.

The market failures of our era must be socialized to a greater extent than before. This is an objective necessity -- there actually is no alternative except a steady decline toward and ungovernable, crisis ridden, economically declining society. But that does not mean that capitalism, and markets, will not continue to flourish in in most areas of the economy in the future. Nor does it mean that those relations are inherently evil. It does mean that where commodity production prevails (and it will do so as long as, and wherever, there is a division of labor and less than abundant resources), managed capitalist relations will indeed produce a more efficient outcome, more overall growth than either a monopolized enterprise, whether private or state-owned.

Advancing material foundations of production make more and more products of labor very poor commodities -- software, much intellectual property, etc are examples. They too are becoming market failures as producers of commodities and are increasingly forced to have service based business models which themselves scale poorly as corporations. A more evolutionary approach will better serve us to understand how capitalism evolves on many levels toward relations which do not have the same capital/labor-power relation inherent in the River Rouge production process.

John Case

Re: November 7 ?

jcase — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:14:53 -0000

Please do not keep us in suspense.....

Re: A Quick response to the elections and the media message about them

jcase — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:40:22 -0000

What mattered most in deciding how you voted for governor?
Pct. of voters
Corzine
Christie
Daggett
17%
Health care
78%
19%
3%
26%
Property taxes
25%
67%
8%
32%
Economy and jobs
58%
36%
5%
20%
Corruption in government
25%
68%
6%

and
Income
Pct. of voters
Corzine
Christie
Daggett
23%
Less than $50,000
55%
40%
5%
38%
$50,000 to $100,000
47%
46%
6%
39%
$100,000 or more
40%
55%
5%

Now, I know that NJ is a high income state, but it is not the case that 39% of NJ adult residents make $100,000 or more, so that tells you something about who is voting.

Re: According to Obama Global Capitalism Is an 'Abstraction,' Not Worth Protesting

jcase — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 05:33:43 -0000

This article convinces me that Obama was right

Re: People's Weekly World - The federal deficit: The bar tab will have to be paid

jcase — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:53:37 -0000

Alternate, shorter disclaimer proposal language: " Posting Guidelies: User posts and comments that include profanity, personal attacks or other innappropriate content, or run-on repetitive content, may be removed from the site and users who violate posting standards may also be barred for repeated offenses or spam (comments with links to unrelated sites)"

I am averse to politically correct "lists of isms"

John

Re: People's Weekly World - LONESOME HOBO ECONOMICS Should the bankers be hanged?

jcase — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:18:59 -0000

Scott's input is to the point, and appropriately Dylanesque. The following line stinks to heaven like ripe bait, but I'm going to bite!

"... Also doesn't capitalism and financialization retard innovation through corruption, waste, irrational competition, secrecy and fraud, rather than promoting it."

No. Technological revolution and financial innovation are intimately related. And each revolution has devised regulatory reforms designed to restrain corruption, waste, excessive risk taking, secrecy and fraud. I call these reforms creeping socializations, or steps toward a more socialist society. They recognize the limits of planning some important economic processes that inherently resist planning -- innovation being a key example. For the forseeable future, innovations cannot be successful unless they improve economic efficiency--meet a demand in a manner that grows real overall wealth. Once out of the lab, inventions must take a market road test.

In the case of intellectual or intangible innovations, they too have a market. However they are poor commodities in the sense that they can be easily copied, and are non-rival. So their competition will be reflected in their adoption as tools by mainly service oriented business models.

Among socialist systems, only those that have deployed pretty raw versions of contained capitalism have sustained growth rates, and innovation. Command-style systems failed precisely at innovation: World class science and education, but could not convince a plant manager to adopt labor saving (you can't lay anyone off, and you don't have control over pricing) technology.

The reform principles I proposed (adapted from Robert Reich's excellent list of principles) are ones that the public can understand and that are in fact the critical ones addressed by Obama's reform proposal, now headed for turbulent waters in Congress and the Banking lobbyists.

John

Re: Jon Voight feels under attack...by little ol' me

jcase — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:14:01 -0000

You got under his skin, Terrie. He engages in inflamatory speech, but whines when burnt!

John

Re: MISUNDERSTANDING MARX

jcase — Fri, 01 May 2009 10:28:17 -0000

I think Thomas Riggins article is interesting, but errors on 2 counts:

1. On the chief democratic-socialist tasks confronting working people for the next 5 years, DeLong is an ally, not an enemy. EFCA, Health care, Stimulus, Green econ investment, stronger bank regulation (including stronger Government power to nationalize banking), alternative energy, expanding public employment and economic intervention, democratic reforms of international economic institutions. Thus the harsh tone "we know what side he is on" is overdone, IMHO.

2. Thomas' apology for Marx's errors -- and I think they are errors, not just the misunderstandings of Brad DeLong -- asserting that absolute impoverishment was the strongest income tendency in capitalism, and for his skepticism regarding reform, is weak. Marx's economics has been very widely used -- including by Marx himself -- to explain revolutionary vs reform approaches to social change. I think it is true that both Marx, and not a few "Marxists", understate the wide and profound impact of incremental socialization of various aspects of social and economic life.

jcase

Re: http://paeditorsblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/finally-lenin-was-right-scientists-say.html

jcase — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:54:46 -0000

the lenin context?