----------
> From: Bill Bartlett <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CHOMSKY] Capitalism in the Electronic Age
> Date: Monday, June 16, 1997 2:16 AM
>
> DDeBar wrote:
>
> >Exactly. You must consider that, in the absence of an objective
> >understanding of one's place at the moment in the larger scheme of
things,
> >workers, like everyone else, will opt for the short term economic
advantage
> >every time. It appears, from the subjective vantage point, to be the
sane
> >thing to do. Unfortunately, since the average worker does not have a
team
> >of economists, accountants, historians and Craig Supercomputers to do
> >her/his forecasting, the worker is at a disadvantage.
>
> I'm not sure about that. A team of economists sounds like a DISADVANTAGE
to me.

Ha, ha. Seriously, if you are engaging in economic warfare, they are a
major asset, no?

> >These aids to the
> >capitalist, along with the superior education, teams of lawyers, prepaid
> >political, police and military assistance as well as the power of the
media
> >are the contemporary manifestation (and the sum of 100 more years) of
> >alienated labor confronting the worker which Marx described in Capital.
>
> Education can be a disadvantage too. I consider myself fortunate to have
> got off with the minimum sentence (about ten years of education) but I
see
> people around me who were indoctrinated for much longer and who are
almost
> incapable of thinking at all.

 Well, I understand what you are saying here; it can even be amplified by
reference to the mega-propaganda machine that people here in the US spend
30 + hours a week staring at (TV). However, what do we do to substitute for
education? This is a very critical issue. And, when the dissolution of
capitalism occurs because too many of it's subjects are suffering beyond
the stress point, it is the level of education of one kind or another that
will largely determine what will succeed it.

> >Can you enlighten us more about this Hanson? Is she the Australian
> >Gingrich, or Clinton, or something else?
>
> Pauline Hanson owns a fish & chip shop in Ipswich, a satellite city of
> Brisbane in Queensland . She was the endorsed Liberal* candidate for the
> VERY safe Labor electorate until, in the middle of the last federal
> election campaign, she contravened unwritten Liberal election strategay
and
> SAID SOMETHING (something stupid). Since she didn't have any chance of
> winning anyway, and as a warning to other liberals tempted to SAY
> SOMETHING, she was sacked as a Liberal candidate by the top brass of the
> party. As a result of the martyr factor, and hatred of the (then) ruling
> Labor party by the predominately working class voters of the electorate,
> she was promptly elected to the seat which the Labor party had held since
> Adam was a boy.
>
> (*Note: over here the Liberals are the CONSERVATIVE party.
>
> Like I said - Ms Hanson is the Australian version of Chance the gardener
-
> you remember - Jerzy Kosinski's book "Being There", Peter Sellers starred
> as Chance in the film version.
>
> In this story a naive gardener, Chance, cloistered behind a garden wall
for
> years, is exposed to the real world on his master's death and, by virtue
of
> his naivete and happenstance, is taken on as an advisor to the US
> President. His political patrons interpret his naive description of the
> world, as a garden to be maintained, as profundities to be pondered upon
> and used as electioneering tools for forwarding their own selfish
> ambitions.

"I LIKE TO WATCH" - Chance Gardner

> Anyhow that's how I see her, others to take her EXTREMELY seriously
(which
> is the point of my analogy). Everytime she has a public meeting around
> Australia there are hundreds, sometimes thousands protesting outside the
> venue. She gets more police protection than the Prime Minister and more
> publicity. This despite the fact that the media seem to universally
despise
> her, in fact I note she seems to have NIL support amongst the elites
> (greatly adding to her popularity with folk who have nothing in common
> except they despise the elites). I think I'll vote for her myself if she
> lasts that long - as a sabotage tactic.

Hitler was initially depised by the German elites, although his, and
Goebbels', p.r. genius, kept him in the public eye. As the German political
system convulsed, his utility to the economic elite became apparent (to
them), and they threw their support behind him. Hitler provided several
essential services to the capitalists, viz, he misdirected the attention of
the workers and the middle class onto Jews, communists, and "others" in
general, claiming that they, and not capitalism, were the cause of the
economic problems facing Germany at the time, which  "blood and soil"
nationalist ideology dovetailed nicely with the need of the capitalists to
gain the public support necessary for the conquest of new markets and
sources of raw materials, and relief from the WW I reparations. He united
the workers and middle class under the banner of capitalism ("National
Socialism" merely reorganized the chaotic German economy in cartels and
afforded much of the same regulation that was used elsewhere to mitigate
some of the more so-called "irrational" aspects of late capitalism.) More
on this later...

> Her views - she thinks aboriginals get 'special' treatment. (Compared to
> native fauna maybe? They aren't allowed to hunt them in Queensland
> anymore.) Migrants are 'taking our jobs' (that's what we liked about
> migrants - they took the shitty jobs), and of course she complains the
> Japanese are 'buying up' Australia (a new landlord, what's the big
deal?).

> >As you look for this lesson, I recommend (re-?)examining 1.) the
phenomena
> >that Lenin described in "Imperialism - the Highest Stage of Capitalism"
and
> >2.) the history of the German experience with Fascism.
>
> What lesson am I looking for in examining the german Fascist experience
again?

 More on this later...
>
> >I think you need to (again, re-?)read Lenin about this "inevitability"
> >thing. A thorough reading of Lenin's extensive writings nowhere give
rise
> >to the suspicion that he harbored any magical thinking whatsoever. As
far
> >as the "overproduction thing" goes, Marx, Engels and others have pointed
> >out that it is an internal contradiction of Capitalism.
>
> I'm not sure I see overproduction (or crisis of profitability as someone
> else put it) as a contradiction exactly. Its just, as I've said here
> before, that it seems to mean that the huge productive capacity created
by
> capitalist rule can NEVER realise its potential to free mankind from
> poverty, because under capitalism production is only carried out for
profit
> rather than to satisfy human needs.
>
> To me that seems to indicate that if we want to satisfy human needs we
> don't have any other option than to end capitalism. Nobody on this list
has
> quarrelled with this analysis, although I suspect there is likely to be
> some controversy over just what we mean by socialism. Frankly I'm not
very
> attracted to a 'socialism' where we just change the elite. My support of
> socialism is dependant on it being something which fullfills its promise
to
> abolish class based society.
>
> I also agree fully with those who ridicule the proposition that the
working
> class can be emancipated by an elite or 'vanguard'., As De Leon put it in
> that article I posted recently:
>
>        "the belief that [the masses] can be emancipated from wage slavery
>         without their knowledge",
>
> seems so absurd to me that I really can't accept someone like Lenin, who
> tried to do just that, as a teacher. However it seems to me that it is
> equally foolish to throw out all of this 'objectivist' thinking. It is an
> overreaction to discard it completely because (and I'm not too sure who
is
> doing that because I need to read up on that a lot more) it does contain
> some important truth, that is that the objective CONDITIONS created by
> capitalism will create, in turn, the material conditions for the working
> class to gain, as you put it, an "objective understanding of one's place
at
> the moment in the larger scheme of things".
>
> My view is that it does not take a team of economists or other experts to
> gain such an understanding, in fact that is inimical to an understanding.
> What is needed is the material conditions in terms of available
technology
> and information, which is improving for people like me I can tell you
> (Chomsky's books aren't even AVAILABLE at my state libraray, and I can't
> afford to buy books, but I have still read some of his work and even had
> the chance to discuss it in forums like this).
>
> What is ALSO needed is the material INTEREST to understand what is going
on
> and being done to you. As Chomsky has indicated, it doesn't matter what
the
> objective evidence is - we tend to believe what it is in our interests to
> believe, DESPITE the objective evidence if necessary. This harks back to
> the earlier discussion on "self-deception" in the Chomsky list, the point
> being that the elite 'experts' can't help the socialist endeavor simply
> because the interests of the elite are those of their masters and it is
> only the occassional exceptional person (and the young of course) who
have
> the ability to comprehend (let alone acknowledge) an analysis that
directly
> threatens their own self interest.
>
> I don't know enough about the "objectivists" and their detractors to know
> whether the difference between material 'determinism' and material
> 'conception' is acknowledged and by who. But I already know where I stand
> on this.
>
> Time to think is also essential. The capitalist class is giving plenty of
> us plenty of spare time these days too.
>
> Bill Bartlett
> Bracknell Tasmania

Sorry I quit before I got to the main point...it's 7:30 am here, & I must
go to the office. I'll reply in depth tonight (NY time).