ENGELS ON CAPITAL AND SURPLUS VALUE

Thomas Riggins

In chapters seven and eight of part two of Anti-Dühring ("Capital and Surplus Value"), Engels continues his role as Marx's bulldog. Again, Herr Dühring has gone too far in his criticisms of Marx and must be put in his place by sounder judgment and sharper intellect. Dühring has claimed Marx says that "capital is born of money" and the birth pangs took place at the "opening of the sixteenth century." Dühring calls Marx's ideas a mixture of history and logic which have become "bastards of historical and logical fantasy."

This upsets Engels to no end who himself responds that Dühring has "a crude and inept manner of expressing himself." Marx's real statement on this subject is found in Das Kapital vol. 1, part 2, chapter 4 "The General Formula For Capital" where he writes: "As a matter of history, capital, as opposed to landed property invariably takes the form at first of money; it appears as moneyed wealth, as the capital of the merchant and of the usurer. But we have no need to refer to the origin of capital in order to discover that the first form of the appearance of capital is money. We can see it daily under our very eyes. All new capital to commence with, comes on the stage, that is, on the market, whether as commodities, labour, or money, even in our days, in the shape of money that by a definite process has to be transformed into capital."

But how does this transformation take place. Capital is used to invest to make more money and more capital. So how do I turn money into capital? Engels says when I take my own commodities to market I sell them to get money to buy things I need to live on. This is simple exchange. The capitalist goes to market to buy things he does not to live on; he buys them in order to sell them for what he paid plus a profit – and increment in money. "Marx calls this increment SURPLUS VALUE."

But where does it come from? Capitalism results in an increase in the values in circulation so it can't come from cheating (that would effect the distribution not the amount of values) nor from buying under or selling above the values of the commodities because the sum of values still remains the same. Yet capitalists do accumulate riches by selling dearer than they have bought."This problem," Engels says,"must be solved, and it must be solved in a PURELY ECONOMIC way, excluding all cheating and the intervention of any force – the problem being: how is it possible constantly to sell dearer than one has bought, even on the hypothesis that equal values are always exchanged for equal values?"

The most important contribution of Marx to economic thought was the solution to this problem; Engels calls it "epoch-making." Here is the solution as presented by Engels. The increment doesn't take place in the money itself, nor in the price of the commodity sold (at this stage we are dealing with the exchange of equivalents: price = value, later we see how they can differ). But something does change in the bought commodity – not its exchange VALUE but its USE-VALUE. The increment takes place during the commodity's consumption; and not just any commodity, but a very specific one.

Here is what Marx says about this from Das Kapital vol. 1, chapter VI "The Buying and Selling of Labour Power": "In order to be able to extract value from the consumption of a commodity, our friend, Moneybags, must be so lucky as to find, within the sphere of circulation, in the market, a commodity, whose use-value, whose actual consumption, therefore, is itself an embodiment of labour, and, consequently, a creation of value. The possessor of money does find on the market such a special commodity in capacity for labour or labour-power."

But how is the value of labour-power determined? Again Marx: "The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article. So far as it has value, it represents no more than a definite quantity of the average labour of society incorporated in it. Labour-power exists only as a capacity, or power of the living individual. Its production consequently pre-supposes his existence. Given the individual, the production of labour-power consists in his reproduction of himself or his maintenance. For his maintenance he requires a given quantity of the means of subsistence. Therefore the labour-time requisite for the production of labour-power reduces itself to that necessary for the production of those means of subsistence; in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer."

This also includes the cost of raising a family of little baby laborers to take his place in the next generation. Suppose a worker could produce in six hours the value of goodies he needs to live on and Moneybags gives the worker the full value of his labor power. The goodies cost $60 and that is what the capitalist gives the worker, paying him $10 an hour. The worker has also made $60 worth of goodies for the capitalist. An even exchange – no increment for the capitalist.

What to do? The capitalist will hire the worker for $5 an hour for 12 hours. This is what free labor and the labor market are all about. After 12 hours the worker gets his agreed upon wage, buys his $60 of goodies and goes home. The capitalist however has been left with $60 from the first 6 hours AND $60 from the last six hours of the worker's toil. He sells the first $60 worth of goodies and gets his money back – and sells the surplus $60 of goodies and makes a profit; a profit he did not work for but that he expropriates from the surplus value created by the worker. And this, Engels says, is how the "trick has been performed. Surplus-value has been produced; money has been converted into capital." Marx has thus demonstrated how surplus-plus value is created and has revealed "the core around which the whole existing social order has crystallized."

Now, under capitalism there is a "prerequisite" without which the capitalist can not get his hands on surplus-value and that is he must go to market and hire a FREE LABOURER. That is, a worker who can sell his labour power as a commodity and it is the only commodity he can sell. This is the condition working people have found themselves in since the end of the fifteenth century and the disintegration of the feudal order. Marx says "It is clearly the result of a past historical development." Marx and Engels appeared after this transitional period had been underway for about 400 years and we are two centuries further on than they. The present great world wide capitalist depression may or maynot be the "final conflict" which will mark the disintegration of capitalism and the arrival of the socialist order but as Marxists we must always be open to that possibility and continue to hold down the fort.

What is the upshot of all of Dühring's criticism of Marx and his proposed explanation of how capitalism works? Well, we need not go over all of Dühring's arguments and bombast against Marx. Suffice it to say that Engels concludes that Dühring actually steals his ideas from Marx, puts them forth in his own words and style and attacks Marx to cover up his theft; as Engels puts it Dühring "commits a clumsy plagiarism of Marx."

Just what, then, is the difference in Dühring's conception of capital and Marx's? For Marx every class-dominated mode of production sweats surplus labour out of the productive class – be they slaves, serfs, or modern workers (wage slaves). But it is only when, under a regime based on commodity production for a market, when the means of production employ surplus labour in the form of surplus value, that we have capitalism. This is a specific historical stage in the evolution of production. Dühring says any system that uses "surplus labour in any form" produces capital. He thus blurs the distinctions between different modes of production and makes capital an eternal law of nature with regard to economic activity.

What is more, for Dühring surplus value becomes simply the earnings of capital and is equivalent to profit. Whereas Marx makes it very clear in volume one of Das Kapital that surplus value should NOT be confused with profit. Dühring appears to only credit the capitalist in his role as a manufacturer as generating profit (surplus value.) Since Dühring claims to be explaining what Marx believes, Engels points out that Dühring should have paid more attention to what Marx ACTUALLY wrote. The profit made by the MERCHANT, Marx clearly says, is also a part of surplus value and the merchant can make a profit only because the industrial or manufacturing capitalist sells his product to him BELOW its full value "and thus relinquishes to him a part of the booty."

There are other subforms of surplus value besides manufacture's and merchant's profit, e.g., interest and ground-rent. But the explanations of these subdivisions will have to await volumes two and three of capital: only the outlines are being laid down in volume one. The complete explanation awaits "a scientific analysis of competition" and we can't make that analysis until the real inner nature, the essence, of capital is revealed in volume one. Engels gives as an analogy the understanding we have of the seeming motions of the planets which is based on knowledge of their real motions "which are not directly perceptible to the senses." [Empiricists take note!] Nevertheless, Marx gives us enough information in volume one to at least grasp in broad outline the subforms of surplus value to be dealt with in the later volumes.

It is because he doesn't know how competition works and also doesn't understand what Marx has said about it in volume one of Das Kapital, that Herr Dühring can't figure out how capitalists get back all that they have put out plus the surplus product at prices way above "the natural outlays of production." Where does this profit come from? He can't answer this question so he flees from the field of economics to that of politics and claims that the capitalist imposes a surcharge on his products by means of force. But Engels says FORCE can seize wealth but cannot produce it. Not only that, but Dühring leaves unexplained the ORIGIN of force itself. Dühringian economics gets us nowhere.

But all is not lost for Herr Dühring. His research finally leads him to some correct answers, although his distinctive way of expressing himself is not as clear as we might wish. Engels provides two quotes from Dühring that are on the right track. "IN EVERY CASE THE NET PROCEEDS OBTAINED BY THE UTILIZATION OF LABOUR-POWER CONSTITUTE THE INCOME OF THE MASTER...." And: "The characteristic feature of earnings of capital is that they are AN APPROPRIATION OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE PROCEEDS OF LABOUR-POWER."

What, Engels asks, is the INCOME OF THE MASTER but the surplus product the worker makes after the deduction for wages? What is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE PROCEEDS OF LABOUR-POWER but that part which comes after the worker has created the value of his own maintenance – i.e., surplus value? So where did Herr Dühring finally get a clue to the correct explanation of the relation between capital and surplus value? He got it, Engels says by "in his own style, DIRECTLY COPYING from CAPITAL"[i.e., volume one of Das Kapital]. So much for Herr Dühring's alternative theory of economics.

Case: Thoughts on left criticism of Obama

Thoughts  on Left criticism of Obama:

The Left press and blogosphere is rife with analyses on the mistakes of the Obama administration that allegedly 'caused' the Republican resurgence in the mid-term elections.  Chiefly Obama's stimulus effort is scored as half-hearted, less than half the amount needed using the most precise Keynesian calculations. And from the perspective of Hyman Minsky's Post-Keynesian followers, the absence of a strong employer of last resort strategy gravely threatens a country's ability to recover stability or sustainable growth from the chaos of a 'government-constrained great depression' (the more accurate term for this crisis than 'the great recession'). 

On the social safety net front, increasing the economic rights of the American people, Obama's (and Pelosi's and Harry Reid's, Chris Dodd's and Barney Frank's)  accomplished reforms in health care and finance are seen as compromised by excessive concessions to corporate interests. It has shocked some to discover, or re-discover, some of the basics of class politics in this era of giant transnational corporations. To  left and even most liberal thinking forces, the ideological arguments for universal health care and for more constrained and sustainable financial markets disciplined to more useful investment strategies seem unassailable, stronger than ever from an historical perspective. The uneven but nonetheless unmistakable worldwide advance of objective socialization processes in the global economy and national economies are strongly reflected in the ever increasing degree and sophistication of regulation in markets, and in the advancing sector of public and quasi public goods, including infrastructure, in advanced economies. More and more these processes have the tinge of inevitability, though we should have learned to be careful of such appearances. They are grounded in both technological and interconnected social evolution, especially the division and re-division of labor. Given the vast transformations in the class and occupational diversification since the 18th century dawn of capitalism, it's likely a longstanding idealist tendency on the left that seeks to reduce them by referring to capitalism as single system throughout, even though certain features certainly persist.  

The socialization tendency, for example, regardless how inevitable it may be, paradoxically makes corporations and the rich ever more dependent upon the public sector for essential services and infrastructure, and thus in proportion, ever more -- not less --  fierce in their efforts to manipulate and dominate public institutions   This is obviously an inherently corrupting process however and thus compels --- again, and not for the first time -- a no less fierce defense of democracy and democratic institutions. The expansion of democratic rights -- i.e. entitlements -- inherently challenges unjustified wealth inequality.  Yet some on the left draw a different conclusion, namely, that democratic struggle in all  state and public  institutions is a dead end, and the president's departure from the ideal an illustration of this, rather than simply a testimony to its difficulties, and importance.

In foreign policy, Obama's efforts to "draw down" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been excoriated as false and dishonest and, indeed, simply a continuation of 20th Century imperial policies.

In most cases  critics decline to place the president's 'defects' in context of what is politically possible given the balance of forces in and between Congress, state legislatures and governors, the Supreme Court, and not least --  the armed forces and their institutions and vast economic clientele. "Out Now!", "Jobs Now", "nationalize the banks" are slogans that epitomize these tendencies. They prefer instead to measure his performance ideological standards. Even the most trenchant and credible critics of the president's 'compromises' -- such as Paul Krugman -- frequently preface their objections with "....it's unknown if a better bill was politically feasible, but.....". The "but" usually includes the argument that its better to hold a more pure, but failed, position, than legislate a piece of sausage which most folks would prefer not to inspect too closely.

The problem with the hatred or disgust of sausage making is that all legislation, in fact all governing, is really like sausage making. The problem with primarily ideological objections to the president is that they are too often distractions from the harder mobilizing and organizing activity that's at the heart of the challenges to move the democratic restructuring agenda forward, and send its enemies to the dustbin of history. To expect any elected president to fall on his or her sword is, well, foolish.

More sober analysis, it seems to this writer, points out that the weaknesses in the stimulus response, the reforms, and the setbacks in the mid-term elections are, more than ever, calls to arms at the grass roots. Overcoming the corrupting forces of monopoly corporations and their owners on the political process needs exponentially more horsepower from the bottom up. The failure and nullification of existing democratic institutions, the spread of ungovernability, are the greatest threat posed by both the current assaults from the Right, the arrogance of the military, and especially the failure of existing institutions to effectively counter the economic crisis. It's an opportunity for the Left, broadly speaking, that has not presented itself since at least the Sixties, and perhaps even the Great Depression. But seizing the opportunity means a strategic re-focus on breaking out of its electoral and governing isolation, breaking out of the political sidelines.

Local power is the chief link the chain of tactics I think we need to grasp, to borrow Lenin's famous metaphor. It's not the only link, but the one most accessible to us given the organizational chaos on the Left. And the essence of the challenge in local electoral battles is how to galvanize, neighborhood by neighborhood, workplace by workplace, majority coalitions of workers, nationally and racially oppressed, women, youth, seniors, small business, democratically minded intellectuals and liberal corporate interests that expand the mandate of local government to take aggressive action on the immediate needs of the people, AND become much more foundations on which to force state-wide and, in turn, national institutions to turn back demagogic and corrupted attacks and address the key problems.

In some ways I am convinced that the organizational chaos is largely a product of our relative electoral isolation -- and thus isolation from the real vicissitudes of exercising working people's great power.

jcase

--
John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV

China’s Consumerism and the Implications for Market Socialism » pa

China’s Consumerism and the Implications for Market Socialism » pa

David Leonhardt’s reporting on his trip to China and his numerous insightful interviews give important insights into development questions of great interest to progressives and socialists everywhere. While its not as long as a book – though I expect Leonhardt will turn it into one – I felt compelled to re-organize the material from the parts that reflect upon some important theoretical and practical questions of market socialism and Marxism. Consider this a review of his "new book," which opens:

When the Wuqi International Hotel was completed this spring, it immediately dominated the modest skyline of Wuqi, a small city in north central China. The hotel is part of an effort by local officials to reshape a city far from the fast-growing export oriented towns and cities on the coast.

But changes here are the kinds that a new breed of Reformers including many industrial workers, service providers and small business/enterprise producers have been recommending for China as a whole. In Leonhardt’s report, the government of Wuqi offers more generous health insurance to its citizens than many places. Its schools are free all the way through high school, rather than through only ninth grade, as is usual in China. Over the last decade, the city has embarked on ambitious tree-planting programs that have brought green to the yellow-brown hills of the Loess Plateau, where Wuqi is located, and where the famed Long March ended in those hills in 1935.

Read more: China’s Consumerism and the Implications for Market Socialism » pa

Marxists and Marmots

Thomas Riggins

How often do we hear that socialism sounds like a good idea but it doesn't work in practice because of human nature. This is an old refrain. People are by nature selfish and so competition is the natural outcome with the most talented and aggressive people reaching the top and the mediocre masses down on the bottom. But suppose it is really the opposite. Suppose those who engage in friendly cooperation really are closer to what nature intends. In a cooperative society maybe even the victims of aggressive actions still have a better chance to thrive than they would in a completely competitive environment. Maybe the Ayn Rand world is not the world for us and socialism is more natural after all.

A recent article in Science Daily (12-8-2010) may provide a clue to the answer to these speculations ("Social Relationships in Animals Have a Genetic Basis, New Research Reveals"). Scientists at UCLA have been studying marmots living in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Marmots are rodents who are a genus (Marmota) of the squirrel family (Sciuridae). Some marmots have a propensity, so we are told, to chuck wood and are known as woodchucks. Others can predict the weather (groundhogs) according to some.

The marmots I am linking to possible socialist ideas are the yellow-bellied marmots (M. flaviventris) studied by the scientists. The name refers to fur and not to their lack of valor.
The scientists found "that having many friendly interactions gave marmots fitness benefits--these marmots reproduced more," said Amanda Lea, one of the researchers and lead author of the paper. "Over a lifetime [about 15 yrs], a marmot that is very social will have more offspring than a less social one." Hmmmm. I wonder how much this applies to humans. This is one way of putting the "social" into socialism.

But the scientists also found out that some marmots are the victims of aggression from their fellow marmots. Those who do not respond in kind, that is those inclined to turn the other cheek pouch, also have a better survival rate. So it seems that "a marmot that is getting picked on frequently" also will have more offspring. It is the family unit as such that is really important. Tolerating aggression as well as strengthening friendly cooperation keeps marmot society functioning. "Those relationships are important for social stability and reproductive success. I believe these ideas are generalizable well beyond marmots," said the study's co-author Daniel T. Blumstein.

What is important is that these behaviors have a genetic basis and are passed on through the generations. If such behavior is common to mammals as such then humans also have these inborn tendencies for cooperation and tolerance. These genetic traits are, I think, much more in accord with the ideals of socialism than the ruthless free market world of Ayn Rand and other capitalist apologists.

Arizona's Two Death Penalties

Thomas Riggins

First, I am not picking on Arizona, just using it as one example; it is standing in for any state that uses similar methods to try and balance its budget. Arizona currently has 126 felons on its death row awaiting execution. The national average cost for each prisoner from sentencing to execution is $2 million-- about 10 times the cost for life imprisonment.

But the 126 people on death row are not the only people the state of Arizona has sentenced to death. Arizona has cut its medicaid budget due to the on going collapse of the world capitalist system. To reduce its budget deficit low income people in Arizona will no longer receive organ transplants that had been paid for by the state.

The New York Times (12-3-10) refers to this as "Death by budget cut." The deaths of poor people due to the cut in medicaid is every bit as premeditated as those of prisoners given lethal injections by the state. The NYT reports that Francisco Felix, 32, will not get the liver transplant that would have saved his life. He is in the process of dying. The cost of the transplant was $200,000. It was his turn on the list but he was refused after the state ended this part of medicaid for the poor. If the governor commuted just one of the 126 people condemned to death he could have sentenced Francisco Felix to Life with his family and had $1,600,000 left over to save 9 more people as well; that what's left after the cost of transplant plus the $200,000 that the prisoner's life sentence will cost the state.

There are many other cases like that of Francisco Felix. These new rules took effect in October and no one has died yet. But the poor sick and needy are sitting on their own death row just as real as the 126 people legally under the sentence of death. They two have been legally given a death sentence. Sentenced to death not for murder but for being poor. A capital offense in Arizona.

If Arizona really wanted to save money the state would commute all 126 death sentences to life imprisonment. With the savings they could help save the lives of all their sick and poor citizens and residents who are in need of life saving medical procedures such as organ transplants. It is the only thing a civilized state can do.

Obama on the Fence?

Thomas Riggins

Matt Bai has an article in the Wednesday New York Times "Debt-Busting Issue May Force Obama Off Fence." Bai says that Obama's fiscal commission has given him the choice of ruling for the next two years either from the center left [allied with "traditional liberals" who want the rich to pay their fair share of the taxes and cuts in the military budget] or from the center right [both Democratic and Republican centrists who want to reform "entitlement" programs and taxes].

Bai indicates he has to choose between a "liberal renaissance" or continue his attempts to work with the Republicans in a "postpartisan" alliance. The choice he makes will shape the political landscape for years to come-- for better or worse.

Although many think that Obama is the opium of the Left we can still work with him for progressive causes on whichever side of the fence he falls. Who would have wanted a McCain-Palin administration-- we wouldn't even have a fence, just a ditch.

Bai doesn't know which side Obama will choose. His recent two year pay freeze for federal workers (who did not cause the economic collapse) while bankers and CEOs (who did) are raking the money in is not a good sign of things to come.

Bai gives us some hints which side Obama will choose. I will give three major ones he points out. 1. Obama's books and writings indicate he is a "whatever works" pragmatist with no particular ideological commitment-- a political chameleon perhaps. 2. Bai reports that in private Obama has sometimes called himself "essentially a Blue Dog Democrat." He didn't mention this during the primaries! 3. Although he voted against confirming John Roberts as Chief Justice he "castigated" Democratic activists who criticized those Democratic senators who did saying they threatened "thoughtfulness and openness to new ideas." Well, the "thoughtfulness and new ideas" of John Roberts are not leading us down the road to a more democratic country.

In any event Bai says Obama is "loath to publicly disown his base on any specific issue." I'm not sure I like the adverbial phrase. The proof will be in the pudding. Obama must decide, according to Bai, either for the left or the right once the Bowles-Simpson committee gives him its report. Social Security is the acid test. Bai says that if he accepts the commission's recommendations on Social Security the outrage from his base will be so great he could face a primary challenge in 2012.

The Republicans would love that: something like a Feingold-Obama fight (suggested in The Nation by Cockburn) to cover themselves while they self destruct over a Palin-Romney brouhaha. Obama has come to the Rubicon-- how will the die be cast?

RED PLENTY- Book Review

[This looks like an interesting book-- can anyone point out the economic flaws in the story?--tr]
RED PLENTY by Francis Spufford (2010) reviewed by Phil Ebersole [Phil Ebersole's Blog]
This quirky, fascinating book is a docu-drama about the efforts of idealistic reformers in the Soviet Union in the 1960s to overcome the inherent flaws of central planning and make the promises of Communism come true. I can remember than era, and can see why it would not have seemed impossible. The Soviet Union launched the Sputnik in 1957, its economy was reported to be growing faster than ours, and many Americans had much the same feeling as they had toward Japan in the 1980s or China and India today.

This story is told as a series of vignettes about characters both historical and fictional involved in the workings or the attempted reform of the Soviet economy, told in a style that is sardonic, poignant and highly readable. The second chapter is told from the viewpoint of an exuberant Nikita Khrushchev, visiting the United States in 1959 and challenging the capitalist world to peaceful economic competition. The last chapter returns to Khrushchev in forced retirement in 1968, sitting in his garden and brooding on what went wrong. Spufford conveys a sense of Soviet life during that period that is so convincing I would have thought he experienced it; in fact, he is a Briton who doesn't speak Russian.

Along the way he does an excellent job of explaining Soviet and Western economics in both theory and practice. The flaw of Soviet economics is that no system of central planning has been found that can substitute for supply and demand as a means of coordinating an economy. In a market economy, the price of a product reflects everything that is known about its value and scarcity, without the need for omniscient masterminds at the top.
The book's hero, to the extent that there is one, is Leonid Vitalevich Kantorovich, the only Soviet winner of the Nobel Memorial Price for Economics. Kantorovich hoped that sufficiently sophisticated mathematics and computer processing would allow the Soviet planners to optimize their system, and accomplish what a market system would do without creating a wealthy capitalist class. His theories inspired Khrushchev to create the city of Academgorodok, where the best minds of the Soviet Union were allowed to work in relative freedom to create a better future. Some of the scenes are set in Academgorodok; others depict the nitty-gritty of making the Soviet system work in practice.

Kantorovich's reforms were introduced in a partial and self-defeating way. In one chapter, the managers of a textile mill realize that with, with their obsolete machinery, they won't achieve their production quota, and their careers will thereby be ruined. Risking being shot as saboteurs, they fake an accident that destroys their machine, expecting they will get a newer, more advanced model as a replacement that will enable them to meet their target. Instead, they get a copy of the old obsolete machine. The new machine is both better and cheaper to make, but the machine tool manufacturers keep on with the old machines. Under the new plan, the manufacturer is expected to make a profit, and the profit is higher on the old machines. Why? The price was based on the machine's weight.

Spufford's account makes the resistance and sabotage of the reforms seem inevitable. Managers were asked to give up control to an impersonal system, but they still had responsibility for results. The temptation to do what W. Edwards Deming called "tinkering" was irresistible. In fact, the whole story reminds me, in many ways, of American industry's partial adoption and then abandonment of Deming's total quality management system.

Spufford identifies the moment when capitalist defeated Communism. It was when Soviet economic planners decided to forego development of a new generation of computers, and instead reverse-engineer the IBM 360. (The Soviet military had their own advanced computers, but these were never shared with the civilian economy.) By so doing, the economic planners in effect admitted that the Soviet Union would always be a second-rate industrial power and the dream of a socialist paradise was an illusion.

The Soviet Union later made an economic comeback not as an industrial power, but as an oil and gas exporter. Some of the discoveries in western Siberia were guided by Academgorodok geologists. The reforms later attempted by Mikhail Gorbachev were not a revival of Kantorovich's ideas. Kantorvich sought to optimize the Soviet economy while leaving the structure of Soviet power intact; Gorbachev sought to democratize Soviet government while leaving central economic planning intact.

The book's end notes explain what in the book is fiction, what is the result of research and the sources for the research. It is almost as interesting as the main body of the book. There is no U.S. edition of Red Plenty; I ordered my copy from a distributor of British books.

Health Care Heresies

Thomas Riggins

Now that the Republicans and their neofascist fellow travelers have taken control of the House they have set them themselves the goal of repealing the recent health care reform the Democrats enacted. Flawed as that reform is it at least will enable 35 or so million people to get some sort of health insurance in the coming years. There are around 50 million without insurance at present. Hopefully these extra 15 million will also be covered.

The Republican reactionaries keep harping that we have the "best" health care in the world (we actually rate 37th among developed countries). Here are a couple of examples. The US has "the best medical care system in the world"-- Bob McDonnell, Republican Gov. of Virginia. We have the greatest medical care "the world has ever known"-- Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby. So while reactionaries and rightist may consider denying this to be heretical, the following information from Science Daily may call their flights of fancy into question.

On November 29th Science Daily reported the results of an 11 nation study conducted by the Commonwealth Fund: "US Adults Most likely to Forgo Care Due to Cost, Have Trouble Paying Medical Bills, Survey Finds." Of the 11 advanced industrial countries studied the US came in dead last with Americans having the highest numbler having to give up seeking health care due to cost, they also had the most trouble paying their medical bills [some 60 per cent of personal bankruptcies in the US are caused by medical bills another study showed].

Americans, even with insurance, have higher bills, more disputes with insurers, and more often have insurers refuse to cover procedures they thought were covered. This is, of course, because of the for profit nature of health insurance. This is an industry that should be run out of business by a single payer government run system such as Medicare for all. Here are some facts the study found. 1. 33% of Us adults went without necessary care, couldn't see a doctor, or couldn't afford to get medicine; in the U.K. and the Netherlands it's 5 to 6%. 2. 20% of Americans had problems paying for their care while in France it was 9%, Netherlands 4%, Germany 3% and U.K. 2%. 3. 35% of Americans paid $1000 or more out of pocket for medical care last year-- significantly more "than all of the other countries." It goes without saying that the these figures are correlated along class and income perameters.

The politicians who most oppose health reform for the poor have, of course, fully covered health care at taxpayer expense which, if made available to regular citizens they denounce as socialism. The lead author of the study, Cathy Schoen, wrote, "In fact, the U.S. is the only country in the study where having health insurance doesn't guarantee you access to health care or financial protection when you're sick."

The study also found out that the people on Medicare have less problems with the US medical system than adults under the age of 65. One can hardly imagine, given these grim realities, how Republicans and other reactionaries are able to carry off election victories of the magnitude they did in the 2010 midterms. The vast majority of the American people will continue to suffer not only with respect to medical coverage, but economically, socially, and in education. Yet they have the power of the vote and of wielding it to improve their lives and those of their children. They only need access to the facts, not readily provided by the establishment media. Lets work for and hope that the Left will do a better job of getting the truth out to the American people.

A Very Bad Wizard

This is reposted from Phil Ebersole's Blog.
Phil is a progressive and a member of the Greater Rochester Bertrand Russell Society.
You should google his blog; he has many insightful articles. I thought I would share this one
because it reminds us that President Obama can't make the changes we want unless we fight with him to get them-- tr

A very bad wizard
by philebersole
In L. Frank Baum’s story, the Wizard of Oz promises Dorothy and her friends, the scarecrow, the tin woodman and the cowardly lion that if they succeed in their quest, he will grant the scarecrow’s wish for a brain, the tin woodman’s wish for a heart, the cowardly lion’s wish for a lion’s courage and Dorothy’s wish for a way back to Kansas.


When they succeed, however, the Wizard is unable to grant their wishes. Instead he gives them other things he says are just as good. The scarecrow gets a college diploma, the tin woodman a flowery valentine card and the cowardly lion a military medal. Only Dorothy can’t be helped because the way back to Kansas is something real.

President Obama promised his followers that, if they succeeded in putting him in office, he would make an all-out effort to achieve certain goals – a public option for health care as an alternative to private health insurance, a “cramdown” allowing federal bankruptcy judges to reset mortgages, the preservation of Social Security. But when they achieved their quest, they were given other things that President Obama says are just as good – the Affordable Care Act, the Home Affordable Modification Program, the Deficit Reduction Commission.

In the story, the scarecrow manifested brains, the tin woodman heart and the lion courage in their actions, not as a gift from a wizard. And Dorothy was able to browbeat the wizard into taking her along in his balloon ride back to our world.

The lesson is that we the people should not depend on the gift of a charismatic political figure. If we want a full employment economy, if we want to curb the power of Wall Street over the government, if we want affordable health insurance, if we want to stop the erosion of labor rights and the social safety net, we need to create a political force that has to be reckoned with no matter who is in office, as the abolitionists, the suffragettes, the labor movement and the civil rights movement did in earlier eras.

Because President Obama may well be a very good man, but he certainly is a very bad Wizard.

Senate Rules Block Progress

Senate Rules Block Progress

The U.S. Senate should revise its rules on filibusters and consent for judicial nominations in order to stop a recently growing trend of gridlock and indecisions, argues a new report from the Council on Foreign Relations.

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