Human See Human Do
Thomas Riggins
Where does human prejudice come from? What causes one group of humans to dislike and look down on another? Is this phenomenon inherent in the human species, or is it the result of cultural conditioning? What do scientists (or maybe "scientists") have to say about this?
Well, some scientists think they have the answer, as reported in ScienceDaily online on March 18, 2011 in an article entitled "Human Prejudice Has Ancient Evolutionary Roots."
As an introduction SD tells us that monkeys show prejudice "like humans" and that they are also "flexible" when letting others join their group. Now that monkeys can be territorial and hostile to outsiders is not disputable but that this is "like humans" is disputable. Now if the expression means outwardly and superficially similar-- as in "humans make love just like monkeys" that is one thing, but without knowing the inner cognitive state of monkey lovers it seems negatively anthropomorphic to say their love making is the "same" as humans. In the same way it is probably not correct to draw equivalencies between monkey and human "prejudice."
OK, what do the scientists actually have to say about this? SD reports that researches at Yale, headed by Laurie Santos, a psychologist, by conducting "ingenious experiments" have shown that monkeys treat outsiders "with the same suspicion and dislike" as humans do. This leads to the suggestion the "roots" of human prejudice and inter group conflict go deep into our evolutionary past.
"Pretty much every conflict in human history," Dr Santos said, "has involved people making distinctions on the basis of who is a member of their own race, religion, social class, and so on. The question we are interested in is: Where do these types of group distinctions come from?" Well, one answer may be that they come from the fact that there are really different religions and social classes. We should also note that some of the greatest conflicts in history were between members of the same "race" (a really outmoded term for a scientist to be using) conflicts between various European nations for example; the same religion (conflicts between various Christian nations, also within Islam) and the same social class as in the feudal conflicts between various kings and nobilities with each other. There are even many examples of people with the same "race", religion and social class fighting with each other. So insiders are just as likely to suffer "prejudice" as outsiders as far as humans are concerned.
Dr. Santos agrees that human culture is a factor, but she also thinks 25 million years of evolutionary development is also a factor. She came to this conclusions by studying the rhesus macaques [Macaca mulatta] living on Monkey Island (Cayo Santiago) off the coast of Puerto Rico. These are the descendents Old World monkeys who were transplanted to Monkey Island from India in 1938. They have the island to themselves and they serve as a research station for scientists. The website states, "Because of almost 70 years of research at this field site, subjects are well habituated to human experimenters." They also get free monkey chow provided by the scientists. Presumely the monkeys act the same way as their ancestors in the forests of India who were not habituated to humans and getting free monkey chow.
Santos' group gave various psychological tests to the monkeys and determined that, by looking at pictures of other monkeys, both in group and out group, monkeys looked longer at the pictures of out group monkeys and this suggested that they "spontaneously" detected strangers. This is because there is a "well known tendency" for animals to look longer at "novel or frightening things than at familiar or friendly things." Well, humans do that too I would think, so maybe the scientists are on firm ground in this respect.
Neha Mahajan, a team member, stated: "What made this result even more remarkable [why is a "well known tendency" remarkable?] is that monkeys in this population move around from group to group, so some of them who were 'outgroup' were previously 'in-group.' And yet, the result holds just as strongly for monkeys who have transferred groups only weeks earlier, suggesting that these monkeys are sensitive to who is currently to be thought of as an insider or an outsider. In other words, although monkeys divide the world into 'us' versus 'them,' they do so in a way that is flexible and is updated in real time." What is "flexible" about reacting just as strongly about former in, and now out, group monkeys as about monkeys that have always been out group. It seems to me this a "rigid" response: You are all the same, outies!
Using a test they devised based on the IAT (Implicit Association Test) which claims to test humans for "implicit biases" against others, the research group concluded, according to SD, that, "Like humans, monkeys tend to spontaneously view ingroup members positively and outgroup members negatively."
As a result of the Monkey Implicit Association Test they devised, the researchers think "the roots" of human prejudice may be 25 million years in the making since that is how long it has been since we shared a common ancestor with the rhesus monkeys.
Mahzarin Banaji, another group member, says, "Social psychologists introduced the world to the idea that the immediate situation is hugely powerful in determining behavior, even intergroup feelings. Evolutionary theorists have made us aware of our ancestral past. In this work, we weave the two together to show the importance of both these influences at work."
Santos herself concludes that "The bad news is that the tendency to dislike outgroup members appears to be evolutionarily quite old, and therefore may be less simple to eliminate than we'd like to think. [This reinforces those who think prejudice, racism, etc., are "natural" rather than learned behaviors]. The good news, though, is that even monkeys seem to be flexible [we saw above there is no basis for this statement] about who counts as a group member. If we humans can find ways to harness this evolved flexibility, it might allow us to become an even more tolerant species [assuming we are a "tolerant" species in the first place]." Anyway, being tolerant means respecting people in other groups not just accepting them into your own--"How white of you" does not indicate tolerance.
It should be noted that if the monkeys can simply change groups when they feel like it, and be accepted, there is no "prejudice" at all going on. Before I give up the view that human prejudice is 99% cultural I want to have both a "prejudice gene" and an example of monkeys gassing each other. A friendly welcoming manner is just as likely as prejudice toward the "other"-- cf. how the Caribs welcomed Columbus, granted this was their mistake, and Squanto helped out the Pilgrims. Native Americans had to learn to dislike Europeans.
As for the Implicit Association Test, its critics charge that it lacks empirical evidence of its efficacy and that its reliability measure is low-- i.e., when the same subjects are retested they give different responses. The IAT is not therefore a really strong scientific tool to use for the claims made on the basis of its results. What is true of the IAT would follow for the Monkey IAT as well.
A final quote from a Science News article: William von Hippel a psychologist at the University of New South Wales has said, "Rarely has a methodological tool garnered such strong adherents and detractors. The IAT should be vigorously researched and debated, but we still do not really understand what it reveals.
The opinions, views, thoughts, and ramblings of editors of PoliticalAffairs.net – and other stuff worth reading or viewing.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Hero Workers
Gary Tedman
Worker, firefighter Toyohiko Tomioka and his men, heroes.
The French press have noted the lack of images and coverage of these men in the press, the 'Fukushima 50' and later workers at the stricken nuclear plant.
Worker, firefighter Toyohiko Tomioka and his men, heroes.
The French press have noted the lack of images and coverage of these men in the press, the 'Fukushima 50' and later workers at the stricken nuclear plant.
Radiation Confusions from Scientists and Press
Gary Tedman
1 Sv (Sievert) is 1000 mSv (millisieverts) or 1,000,000 μSv (microsieverts).
These are the scientific measurement units for radiation. Note that a microsievert is a smaller unit than a millisievert, perhaps counter intuitively, in a scale of thousands. I have recently made this mistake (math is not my strong point and I am no nuclear expert, I must say, but this investigation might still help here, given the experts recalcitrant attitude, please check these figures).
A radiation dose of 6000 millisieverts (mSv) is usually considered lethal pretty soon, and 9000 to be immediately lethal (human individual bodies react slightly differently).
The standard unit used is millisievert, or mSv, since it relates fairy well to the range in which it affects humans. I will try to stick to this unit here.
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica:-
"The average total dose received from all three [natural] sources by a person residing at sea level is approximately 0.91 mSv per year (Table 6); however, a dose twice this size [which makes 1.82 mSv per year] may be received by a person residing at a higher elevation such as Denver, Colo., where cosmic rays are more intense (Table 3), or by a person residing in a geographic region where the radium content of the soil is relatively high (Table 4). In the latter type of region, the radioactive gas radon, which is formed in the decay of radium, may enter a dwelling through its floor or basement walls and accumulate in the indoor air unless the dwelling is well ventilated periodically; occupants of such a dwelling may therefore receive a dose as high as 100 mSv per year in their lungs from inhalation of the entrapped radon and its disintegration products "
Today, as I write this at 18 March, NHK World TV reports (Japan) claim that at a reactor at Fukushima 1 plant the hourly rate is 20 mSv, and at the gate it is 3 mSv (we are left to assume per hour, given this is standard), while 30 km away it is reportedly 0.15 mSv (we assume per hour).
While a single chest scan may be up to about 18 mSv for the short duration, the reported 0.15 mSv at 30 km in Fukushima prefecture is somewhat less than that. But it is, at a cumulative rate (0.15 x 24 x 365 =) 1314 mSv per year, which is not good. The yearly 1.82 mSv possibly received in a fairly high natural radiation dwelling in Denver Colorado (as according to Britannica) is in fact a lot less. Also even the higher 100 mSv per year in a stuffy dwelling with radon gas coming out the floor is less. But it is still not highly dangerous, if the figures are correct.
I have been wondering therefore why are people being made to stay indoors between 20-30km if this is within this relatively low range? Will this radiation quickly fade away or not? Why are other nations recommending evacuating to a much greater distance from the plant? Questions and questions, and for me they are not urgent (perhaps), but I can imagine for anyone nearby they are crucial and they want, more than anything, clarity.
If this reading was instead actually 150 mSv at 30 km (not 0.15 mSv), then it would be perhaps more understandable but highly dangerous, because in only 48 hours it cumulatively becomes 7200 mSv and that is lethal. 6000 mSv, remember, is lethal.
Or, if it actually meant 1.5 microseiverts per hour as on the later graphic from the New York Times that I refer to below, it is quite low but not normal. 0.10 microseiverts would I think be a standard hourly rate (micro not milli remember).
Consider this: an earlier report on NHK last week quoted 400 'something', possibly 400 mSv (which was what I and others understood it to mean) read at the gates of the Fukushima 1 plant. But I was not absolutely sure if this meant mSv or microseiverts. Some press reported this as millisievert and were duly shocked. If millisieverts it would indeed be very worrying. But today a similar reading was reportedly only 20 mSv (definitely stated as millisievert) at a reactor and 3 mSv at the gates of the plant, which is quite a difference and a lot less alarming. With the figure of about 0.15 mSv at 30 km, this then tallies and makes some sense, because the figures are reducing steadily at a greater distance. But could the readings have been reduced so dramatically over the intervening time from 400 mSv (if correct) to 3 mSv? We will assume this must in fact be the apparent reduction from 4 mSv to 3 mSv at the gates and the 400 in fact meant microsieverts not millisieverts.
I hope the latter is so, for it would be some good news for the Japanese people given the figure is reducing. But it looks as though the calamity has worsened rather than improved, so it does run counter intuitive. Also, we can understand being advised to stay indoors except for necessary trips at this distance in this case.
But the figure still seems a bit low to cause such serious concern, while the 400 mSv might make more sense given the attitudes being demonstrated by most of the commentators and the foreign experts. But it seems too alarmingly high and makes the other readings also seem highly suspicious and inaccurate. Is this just evidence of media sensationalism?
If occupants of a stuffy dwelling up a hill in Denver Colorado can receive 100 mSv a year naturally as Britannica says, certainly (to repeat, 0.15 mSv x 24 hours x 365 days =) 1314 mSv per year at 30 km from Fukushima 1 would not be too much to be concerned about if it were to reduce anyway in the year, as it has already been reported to have done a little at the gates of the plant.
However:
19 March 2011: -
To quote the BBC live blog at 0933: "Outside the exclusion zone around Fukushima nuclear plant, radiation levels are absolutely miniscule and nothing to worry about, points out the BBC's Tim Willcox in Tokyo. That's interesting, he says, given how many foreign nationals have left Tokyo and other parts of the country."
from http: news="" world-middle-east-12307698="" www.bbc.co.uk=""
By 19 March 2011, BBC reports say readings of 0.05 microseiverts in Tokyo, which if per hour (the reporter does not give this crucial information), is extremely low but a very tiny bit higher than normal (apparently this is about 0.03 microseiverts according to a blogger! - I can get next to no trustable information from official sources). In fact it seems so low as to be a bit unlikely, since a sum of 0.10 microseiverts would be standard safe reading per hour at sea level. A figure of 0.10 microseiverts per hour (or 0.91 mSv per year - Britannica) is considered about normal.
The NY Times reports with a graphic expressed in microseiverts per hour. It implies it comes from the Japanese government and the data appears to be for Thursday 17 March 2011 (two days ago). It says on Friday levels of 150 microseiverts per hour were reported 19 miles (about 35 km) northwest of the plant, down slightly from 170 per hour on Thursday.
150 microseiverts (0.15 mSv) per hour is quite worrying given it is significantly higher than a standard rate. In the graphic one area reports 18.3 microseiverts per hour (0.018 mSv) not far from Fukushima city at about 55 km from the plant, but only 2.1 microseiverts in the stay-indoors zone only 30 km from the plant. This could be the wind factor given that along that line are some other higher readings. The graphic gives an example: 23 microseiverts per hour cumulating for a year gives 200,000 microseiverts. By my calculation that is 200.0 mSv per year. This is not very high but would be of concern if it remained at that level because it is associated with slightly higher cancer risks, it is about twice the naturally produced higher level in our fictional 'Denver' hovel.
However the same graphic says the maximum level so far recorded at the gates of the Fukushima 1 plant was 647 microseiverts per hour (the graph was published today 19 March, and it looks as though the English text is written over the top of a Japanese (?) graphic by the NYT, but it may be reporting the figures for Thursday 16 and Friday 17 March), or 0.64 mSv per hour, but this last figure contradicts the 3 mSv (3000 microseiverts) per hour reported at the gates of the plant from the verbal TV report yesterday 18 March, unless this is now an out of date maximum and this new maximum has risen quite significantly, which would make intuitive sense given we see the greater destruction but contradicts claims about falls in readings.
From all this I suggest the government seems to be giving out some correct and some incorrect data, and in ways that are confusing, and these figures are reported in confusing ways after that. Radiation levels have generally increased, but the Tokyo figures are suspiciously too low.
See NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/03/19/world/19radiation_g.html?ref=asia
My figures are, apart from newspapers websites, from sites such as the IAEA (which in fact is useless since it has little hard data) and the BBC, but are mostly drawn from Japanese NHK TV presented by a commentator as well as presented through an interpreter of Japanese to English, so there may be mistakes, but these reports are repeated in video so can be written down, also they are direct translations of the figures that Mr. Edano of the Japanese government reports from TEPCO (the managers of the plants), and some are also written on the boards that the presenters use in the diagram of the exclusion zones of the radiation figures for Japan.
One thing I must conclude: the constant unnecessary changing from micro to millisieverts, coupled with the figures of the authorities fluctuating (apart from when they do), as well as not stating the time periods that apply for dosage and exposure, cumulative or not, leads to great confusion, which the Japanese people, suffering in this truly awful situation could really do without. The government has an undeniably difficult task and is trying very hard, but remember what this industry has promised the world in safety and accountabiity terms.
I must also say the measurement of radiation seems also to be deliberately shrouded in techno babble at the outset, and has changed so many times that it is already hard to understand. This adds to the sense that the Nuclear industry has a lot to hide even before such a calamity as this possible meltdown of no less than six reactors existed.
In this context Professor David Spiegelhalter, of the Public Understanding of Risk, Cambridge University, says:
"Radiation does, however, feel acceptable when used in benign circumstances such as medical imaging. You can pay £100 ($160) and get a whole-body CT scan as part of a medical check-up, but it can deliver you a dose equivalent to being 1.5 miles from the centre of the Hiroshima explosion."
from http: news="" world-asia-pacific-12785274="" www.bbc.co.uk=""
Which is decidedly disingenuous (if not actually ridiculous) considering it once more blithely leaves out the factor of the length of time of the exposure and any actual dosage figures, and if you do that you can almost claim anything. And, you see, he is a scientist!
But to be fair he also notes:
"The electricity company appears to be as secretive as its reputation suggested and although the Japanese media are mostly giving the government an easy ride, individuals able to follow western sources are faced with a barrage of conflicting opinions."
from BBC: - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12785274
With the gaps in communication between the big corporations, the Japanese government, and the media being exposed, as it seems to be here, as well as being compromised already by the vested interests involved, confusion and then anger results.
I cannot find an expert who will lay out the bare facts and figures in a convincing and straightforward manner. This alone tells us something.
1 Sv (Sievert) is 1000 mSv (millisieverts) or 1,000,000 μSv (microsieverts).
These are the scientific measurement units for radiation. Note that a microsievert is a smaller unit than a millisievert, perhaps counter intuitively, in a scale of thousands. I have recently made this mistake (math is not my strong point and I am no nuclear expert, I must say, but this investigation might still help here, given the experts recalcitrant attitude, please check these figures).
A radiation dose of 6000 millisieverts (mSv) is usually considered lethal pretty soon, and 9000 to be immediately lethal (human individual bodies react slightly differently).
The standard unit used is millisievert, or mSv, since it relates fairy well to the range in which it affects humans. I will try to stick to this unit here.
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica:-
"The average total dose received from all three [natural] sources by a person residing at sea level is approximately 0.91 mSv per year (Table 6); however, a dose twice this size [which makes 1.82 mSv per year] may be received by a person residing at a higher elevation such as Denver, Colo., where cosmic rays are more intense (Table 3), or by a person residing in a geographic region where the radium content of the soil is relatively high (Table 4). In the latter type of region, the radioactive gas radon, which is formed in the decay of radium, may enter a dwelling through its floor or basement walls and accumulate in the indoor air unless the dwelling is well ventilated periodically; occupants of such a dwelling may therefore receive a dose as high as 100 mSv per year in their lungs from inhalation of the entrapped radon and its disintegration products "
Today, as I write this at 18 March, NHK World TV reports (Japan) claim that at a reactor at Fukushima 1 plant the hourly rate is 20 mSv, and at the gate it is 3 mSv (we are left to assume per hour, given this is standard), while 30 km away it is reportedly 0.15 mSv (we assume per hour).
While a single chest scan may be up to about 18 mSv for the short duration, the reported 0.15 mSv at 30 km in Fukushima prefecture is somewhat less than that. But it is, at a cumulative rate (0.15 x 24 x 365 =) 1314 mSv per year, which is not good. The yearly 1.82 mSv possibly received in a fairly high natural radiation dwelling in Denver Colorado (as according to Britannica) is in fact a lot less. Also even the higher 100 mSv per year in a stuffy dwelling with radon gas coming out the floor is less. But it is still not highly dangerous, if the figures are correct.
I have been wondering therefore why are people being made to stay indoors between 20-30km if this is within this relatively low range? Will this radiation quickly fade away or not? Why are other nations recommending evacuating to a much greater distance from the plant? Questions and questions, and for me they are not urgent (perhaps), but I can imagine for anyone nearby they are crucial and they want, more than anything, clarity.
If this reading was instead actually 150 mSv at 30 km (not 0.15 mSv), then it would be perhaps more understandable but highly dangerous, because in only 48 hours it cumulatively becomes 7200 mSv and that is lethal. 6000 mSv, remember, is lethal.
Or, if it actually meant 1.5 microseiverts per hour as on the later graphic from the New York Times that I refer to below, it is quite low but not normal. 0.10 microseiverts would I think be a standard hourly rate (micro not milli remember).
Consider this: an earlier report on NHK last week quoted 400 'something', possibly 400 mSv (which was what I and others understood it to mean) read at the gates of the Fukushima 1 plant. But I was not absolutely sure if this meant mSv or microseiverts. Some press reported this as millisievert and were duly shocked. If millisieverts it would indeed be very worrying. But today a similar reading was reportedly only 20 mSv (definitely stated as millisievert) at a reactor and 3 mSv at the gates of the plant, which is quite a difference and a lot less alarming. With the figure of about 0.15 mSv at 30 km, this then tallies and makes some sense, because the figures are reducing steadily at a greater distance. But could the readings have been reduced so dramatically over the intervening time from 400 mSv (if correct) to 3 mSv? We will assume this must in fact be the apparent reduction from 4 mSv to 3 mSv at the gates and the 400 in fact meant microsieverts not millisieverts.
I hope the latter is so, for it would be some good news for the Japanese people given the figure is reducing. But it looks as though the calamity has worsened rather than improved, so it does run counter intuitive. Also, we can understand being advised to stay indoors except for necessary trips at this distance in this case.
But the figure still seems a bit low to cause such serious concern, while the 400 mSv might make more sense given the attitudes being demonstrated by most of the commentators and the foreign experts. But it seems too alarmingly high and makes the other readings also seem highly suspicious and inaccurate. Is this just evidence of media sensationalism?
If occupants of a stuffy dwelling up a hill in Denver Colorado can receive 100 mSv a year naturally as Britannica says, certainly (to repeat, 0.15 mSv x 24 hours x 365 days =) 1314 mSv per year at 30 km from Fukushima 1 would not be too much to be concerned about if it were to reduce anyway in the year, as it has already been reported to have done a little at the gates of the plant.
However:
19 March 2011: -
To quote the BBC live blog at 0933: "Outside the exclusion zone around Fukushima nuclear plant, radiation levels are absolutely miniscule and nothing to worry about, points out the BBC's Tim Willcox in Tokyo. That's interesting, he says, given how many foreign nationals have left Tokyo and other parts of the country."
from http: news="" world-middle-east-12307698="" www.bbc.co.uk=""
By 19 March 2011, BBC reports say readings of 0.05 microseiverts in Tokyo, which if per hour (the reporter does not give this crucial information), is extremely low but a very tiny bit higher than normal (apparently this is about 0.03 microseiverts according to a blogger! - I can get next to no trustable information from official sources). In fact it seems so low as to be a bit unlikely, since a sum of 0.10 microseiverts would be standard safe reading per hour at sea level. A figure of 0.10 microseiverts per hour (or 0.91 mSv per year - Britannica) is considered about normal.
The NY Times reports with a graphic expressed in microseiverts per hour. It implies it comes from the Japanese government and the data appears to be for Thursday 17 March 2011 (two days ago). It says on Friday levels of 150 microseiverts per hour were reported 19 miles (about 35 km) northwest of the plant, down slightly from 170 per hour on Thursday.
150 microseiverts (0.15 mSv) per hour is quite worrying given it is significantly higher than a standard rate. In the graphic one area reports 18.3 microseiverts per hour (0.018 mSv) not far from Fukushima city at about 55 km from the plant, but only 2.1 microseiverts in the stay-indoors zone only 30 km from the plant. This could be the wind factor given that along that line are some other higher readings. The graphic gives an example: 23 microseiverts per hour cumulating for a year gives 200,000 microseiverts. By my calculation that is 200.0 mSv per year. This is not very high but would be of concern if it remained at that level because it is associated with slightly higher cancer risks, it is about twice the naturally produced higher level in our fictional 'Denver' hovel.
However the same graphic says the maximum level so far recorded at the gates of the Fukushima 1 plant was 647 microseiverts per hour (the graph was published today 19 March, and it looks as though the English text is written over the top of a Japanese (?) graphic by the NYT, but it may be reporting the figures for Thursday 16 and Friday 17 March), or 0.64 mSv per hour, but this last figure contradicts the 3 mSv (3000 microseiverts) per hour reported at the gates of the plant from the verbal TV report yesterday 18 March, unless this is now an out of date maximum and this new maximum has risen quite significantly, which would make intuitive sense given we see the greater destruction but contradicts claims about falls in readings.
From all this I suggest the government seems to be giving out some correct and some incorrect data, and in ways that are confusing, and these figures are reported in confusing ways after that. Radiation levels have generally increased, but the Tokyo figures are suspiciously too low.
See NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/03/19/world/19radiation_g.html?ref=asia
My figures are, apart from newspapers websites, from sites such as the IAEA (which in fact is useless since it has little hard data) and the BBC, but are mostly drawn from Japanese NHK TV presented by a commentator as well as presented through an interpreter of Japanese to English, so there may be mistakes, but these reports are repeated in video so can be written down, also they are direct translations of the figures that Mr. Edano of the Japanese government reports from TEPCO (the managers of the plants), and some are also written on the boards that the presenters use in the diagram of the exclusion zones of the radiation figures for Japan.
One thing I must conclude: the constant unnecessary changing from micro to millisieverts, coupled with the figures of the authorities fluctuating (apart from when they do), as well as not stating the time periods that apply for dosage and exposure, cumulative or not, leads to great confusion, which the Japanese people, suffering in this truly awful situation could really do without. The government has an undeniably difficult task and is trying very hard, but remember what this industry has promised the world in safety and accountabiity terms.
I must also say the measurement of radiation seems also to be deliberately shrouded in techno babble at the outset, and has changed so many times that it is already hard to understand. This adds to the sense that the Nuclear industry has a lot to hide even before such a calamity as this possible meltdown of no less than six reactors existed.
In this context Professor David Spiegelhalter, of the Public Understanding of Risk, Cambridge University, says:
"Radiation does, however, feel acceptable when used in benign circumstances such as medical imaging. You can pay £100 ($160) and get a whole-body CT scan as part of a medical check-up, but it can deliver you a dose equivalent to being 1.5 miles from the centre of the Hiroshima explosion."
from http: news="" world-asia-pacific-12785274="" www.bbc.co.uk=""
Which is decidedly disingenuous (if not actually ridiculous) considering it once more blithely leaves out the factor of the length of time of the exposure and any actual dosage figures, and if you do that you can almost claim anything. And, you see, he is a scientist!
But to be fair he also notes:
"The electricity company appears to be as secretive as its reputation suggested and although the Japanese media are mostly giving the government an easy ride, individuals able to follow western sources are faced with a barrage of conflicting opinions."
from BBC: - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12785274
With the gaps in communication between the big corporations, the Japanese government, and the media being exposed, as it seems to be here, as well as being compromised already by the vested interests involved, confusion and then anger results.
I cannot find an expert who will lay out the bare facts and figures in a convincing and straightforward manner. This alone tells us something.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Frederick Engels and Eugen Dühring on the Natural Laws of Economics and Ground Rent
Thomas Riggins
Engels deals with Dühring's views on ground rent and the natural laws of economics in chapter nine of part two ("Political Economy") of his famous book "Anti-Dühring." Dühring claims that his theories on capitalism and socialism are the scientifically correct ones, not the overrated views of Herr Karl Marx, and that the worker's movement should follow his ideas not those of Marx and Engels. Engels proposes to look at Dühring's views on the "natural laws" of economics and of ground rent to see if there is anything to them.
The FIRST NATURAL LAW of economics, somehow overlooked by Adam Smith and others, has been discovered by Herr Dühring and is thusly quoted by Engels: "The productivity of the economic instruments, natural resources and human energy is increased by INVENTIONS and DISCOVERIES." This is pretty vapid, according to Engels, as are the following four other "laws" discovered by Herr Dühring. Law Two: (the division of labour) "The cleaving of trades and the dissection of activities raises the productivity of labour." Law Three: "DISTANCE AND TRANSPORT are the chief causes which hinder or facilitate the co-operation of the productive forces." Law Four: "The industrial state has an incomparably greater population capacity than the agricultural state." And finally, Law Five: "In economics nothing takes place without a material interest."
Engels says that Dühring's method in explicating economics is the same as in his discussions of philosophy: poorly expressed commonplaces and banal formulations of so-called natural laws. Dühring gives no proofs, just dogmatic assertions about the nature of wages, the earnings of capital and the nature of ground rent. In previous articles we have discussed Dühring's views on capital, wages, and surplus value, so now let us turn our attention to the meaning of "ground rent."
In his own words, Dühring says ground-rent is "that income which the proprietor AS SUCH draws from the land." But this is a legal right of the proprietor, it doesn't tell us what the economic basis of ground-rent is, so Dühring must dig a little deeper. Engels says he then compares a farm lease to "the loan of capital to an entrepreneur" but come across a "hitch" in so doing. The "hitch" is that we are not dealing with natural laws but historically developed laws. Ground-rent, Engels points out "is a part of political economy which is specifically English."
This is because England developed an economic system in which "rent had in fact been separated from profit and interest." Unlike Germany (Dühring's model) England developed large scale agricultural industries and the farmer (unlike the German peasant) hires workers to work his lands "on the lines of full-fledged capitalist entrepreneurs."
In England we have the three main bourgeois classes and their incomes: landlords getting ground-rent, capitalists getting profits, and workers getting wages. In England it is quite clear, though Dühring doesn't see it, that the farmer's income is "profit on capital." This has been known at least since the time of Adam Smith.
Smith (The Wealth of Nations) tells us labour revenue is called WAGES, that from stocks, etc., PROFIT, and from the land RENT. This is very clear when each type goes to different individuals, the worker, the capitalist, the landlord. However when the same individual gets two or more of these types of income "they are sometimes confounded with one another."
This is exactly what Herr Dühring is guilty of, according to Engels. Dühring sees that the capitalist farmer exploits rural labour and this exploitation puts revenue in his pocket, thus it becomes unavailable to the landlord as rent. So, the capitalist farmer is living on "rent" (not the exploitation of surplus labour) which has been taken from that which would have been available to the landlord.
In this amazing notion, that the landlord pays "rent" to his tenant farmer, we can see just how confused Dühring really is. Dühring thinks that ground-rent is "the whole surplus product obtained in farming by the exploitation of rural labour." Everyone else who has seriously studied this subject divides the surplus product from agriculture into ground-rent AND profit on capital.
But Dühring thinks there is NO real difference between the earnings of capital and ground rent; the one is revenue from industry and/or commerce the other from agriculture. This is the result of his view that all surplus wealth is the result of the subjugation and domination of man by man. The agricultural surplus is rent and the industrial surplus is profit on capital.
Dühring's views pit him against the views of "all classical political economy" which divides agricultural surplus into both the profit of the farmer AND ground rent.
Engels has accomplished what intended in this chapter of Anti-Dühring--i.e., that Dühring doesn't understand what ground rent is. Engels has not, however, explained just what it is himself.
It is not my purpose here to give an exposition on ground rent and the distinctions between rent, profits of production and interest, all of which are derived from the surplus value created by labour power. For this I refer you to volume three of Das Kapital.
I will note, however, that the notion of ground rent is a controversial subject as can be seen from a recent article by Benjamin Kunkel in THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS of Feb. 3, 2011. In "How Much is too Much" Kunkel reviews two recent books by David Harvey, THE ENIGMA OF CAPITAL: AND THE CRISES OF CAPITALISM and A COMPANION TO MARX'S 'CAPITAL'.
Kunkel points out that many Marxists are embarrassed by the concept of ground rent because it SEEMS difficult to reconcile the labour theory of value with the concept of rent since unimproved land doesn't incorporate human labour power.
David Harvey suggests that ground rent is "fictitious capital" ["virtual" capital?] and writes that it is based on a "claim on future profits from the use of land or, more directly, a claim on future labour."
These discussions, however, take us beyond the parameters of Engels' critique of Eugen Dühring and his misconceptions regarding ground rent.
Engels deals with Dühring's views on ground rent and the natural laws of economics in chapter nine of part two ("Political Economy") of his famous book "Anti-Dühring." Dühring claims that his theories on capitalism and socialism are the scientifically correct ones, not the overrated views of Herr Karl Marx, and that the worker's movement should follow his ideas not those of Marx and Engels. Engels proposes to look at Dühring's views on the "natural laws" of economics and of ground rent to see if there is anything to them.
The FIRST NATURAL LAW of economics, somehow overlooked by Adam Smith and others, has been discovered by Herr Dühring and is thusly quoted by Engels: "The productivity of the economic instruments, natural resources and human energy is increased by INVENTIONS and DISCOVERIES." This is pretty vapid, according to Engels, as are the following four other "laws" discovered by Herr Dühring. Law Two: (the division of labour) "The cleaving of trades and the dissection of activities raises the productivity of labour." Law Three: "DISTANCE AND TRANSPORT are the chief causes which hinder or facilitate the co-operation of the productive forces." Law Four: "The industrial state has an incomparably greater population capacity than the agricultural state." And finally, Law Five: "In economics nothing takes place without a material interest."
Engels says that Dühring's method in explicating economics is the same as in his discussions of philosophy: poorly expressed commonplaces and banal formulations of so-called natural laws. Dühring gives no proofs, just dogmatic assertions about the nature of wages, the earnings of capital and the nature of ground rent. In previous articles we have discussed Dühring's views on capital, wages, and surplus value, so now let us turn our attention to the meaning of "ground rent."
In his own words, Dühring says ground-rent is "that income which the proprietor AS SUCH draws from the land." But this is a legal right of the proprietor, it doesn't tell us what the economic basis of ground-rent is, so Dühring must dig a little deeper. Engels says he then compares a farm lease to "the loan of capital to an entrepreneur" but come across a "hitch" in so doing. The "hitch" is that we are not dealing with natural laws but historically developed laws. Ground-rent, Engels points out "is a part of political economy which is specifically English."
This is because England developed an economic system in which "rent had in fact been separated from profit and interest." Unlike Germany (Dühring's model) England developed large scale agricultural industries and the farmer (unlike the German peasant) hires workers to work his lands "on the lines of full-fledged capitalist entrepreneurs."
In England we have the three main bourgeois classes and their incomes: landlords getting ground-rent, capitalists getting profits, and workers getting wages. In England it is quite clear, though Dühring doesn't see it, that the farmer's income is "profit on capital." This has been known at least since the time of Adam Smith.
Smith (The Wealth of Nations) tells us labour revenue is called WAGES, that from stocks, etc., PROFIT, and from the land RENT. This is very clear when each type goes to different individuals, the worker, the capitalist, the landlord. However when the same individual gets two or more of these types of income "they are sometimes confounded with one another."
This is exactly what Herr Dühring is guilty of, according to Engels. Dühring sees that the capitalist farmer exploits rural labour and this exploitation puts revenue in his pocket, thus it becomes unavailable to the landlord as rent. So, the capitalist farmer is living on "rent" (not the exploitation of surplus labour) which has been taken from that which would have been available to the landlord.
In this amazing notion, that the landlord pays "rent" to his tenant farmer, we can see just how confused Dühring really is. Dühring thinks that ground-rent is "the whole surplus product obtained in farming by the exploitation of rural labour." Everyone else who has seriously studied this subject divides the surplus product from agriculture into ground-rent AND profit on capital.
But Dühring thinks there is NO real difference between the earnings of capital and ground rent; the one is revenue from industry and/or commerce the other from agriculture. This is the result of his view that all surplus wealth is the result of the subjugation and domination of man by man. The agricultural surplus is rent and the industrial surplus is profit on capital.
Dühring's views pit him against the views of "all classical political economy" which divides agricultural surplus into both the profit of the farmer AND ground rent.
Engels has accomplished what intended in this chapter of Anti-Dühring--i.e., that Dühring doesn't understand what ground rent is. Engels has not, however, explained just what it is himself.
It is not my purpose here to give an exposition on ground rent and the distinctions between rent, profits of production and interest, all of which are derived from the surplus value created by labour power. For this I refer you to volume three of Das Kapital.
I will note, however, that the notion of ground rent is a controversial subject as can be seen from a recent article by Benjamin Kunkel in THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS of Feb. 3, 2011. In "How Much is too Much" Kunkel reviews two recent books by David Harvey, THE ENIGMA OF CAPITAL: AND THE CRISES OF CAPITALISM and A COMPANION TO MARX'S 'CAPITAL'.
Kunkel points out that many Marxists are embarrassed by the concept of ground rent because it SEEMS difficult to reconcile the labour theory of value with the concept of rent since unimproved land doesn't incorporate human labour power.
David Harvey suggests that ground rent is "fictitious capital" ["virtual" capital?] and writes that it is based on a "claim on future profits from the use of land or, more directly, a claim on future labour."
These discussions, however, take us beyond the parameters of Engels' critique of Eugen Dühring and his misconceptions regarding ground rent.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
What Hath God Wrought
FYI__ Here is a mini bookreview from the blog of Phil Ebersole, a fellow progressive and member of the Bertrand Russell Society--tr
WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by David Walker Howe (2007)
This Pulitzer Prize-winning book is a masterly synthesis of political, economic, military, social and cultural history, throwing new light on many aspects of the so-called Jacksonian era of American history. Howe dedicated his book to John Quincy Adams, and asserts that Adams, not Jackson, represented what was best and most important in this era.
I once thought, along with Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in The Age of Jackson and innumerable Democratic speakers at Jefferson-Jackson Day picnics, of Andrew Jackson as a champion of working people, or at least of white working men, and of the Democratic Party of today as a continuation of the Democratic Party of that era.
I modified that view over the years without entirely giving it up, but Howe's book shows me how completely wrong it was, and also what a mistake it is to project the political divisions of the present onto the past. The basic principle of Jackson's Democratic Party was white supremacy. White men, regardless of social status or economic class, were regarded as equally superior to blacks, Indians and Mexicans.
Jackson's deeds as a slave owner and Indian fighter were as historically significant as his campaign against the Bank of the United States. The Cherokee, Creek and other Indian tribes once held legal title to most of the land area of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi and large sections of other states. General Jackson's defeat of the Cherokee and Creek and President Jackson's support of Indian Removal opened up the Deep South to cotton cultivation, giving slavery a new lease on life. Cotton quickly became the leading U.S. export crop, and the availability of cheap high-quality cotton provided the basis of the British and New England textile industries, the leading manufacturing industries of their day, so this was an important historical event.
Jackson's vision of the United States was like Thomas Jefferson's - a nation of independent white farmers and craftsmen, independent of governmental authority or exploitation by government-chartered banks and corporations. His opponents, the middle-class Whigs, believed in progress through improvements in technology, infrastructure (canals and railroads), public education and humanitarian reform. Most Whigs were not abolitionists, but most abolitionists were either non-political or Whigs.
Evangelical Protestantism in this era was a strong force for progress, according to Howe. Protestantism, progressivism and patriotism were not at odds; neither were self-improvement and social reform. Most evangelical Protestants, in Howe's telling, regarded them as part of the same thing. They thought the Second Coming of Christ was coming soon, and they thought they could hasten it by becoming better people and making the world a better place. This is very different from the defensive evangelical Protestants of our own day.
Most of the great Unitarians and Transcendentalists also were Whigs. Most Catholic immigrants, believing in a different theology and in conflict with native-born Protestant workers and business owners, were Democrats.
The title of the book consists of the first words transmitted by Samuel F.B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph. One theme of the book is the importance of communications and transportation technology in making the United States a cultural and economic unity, and in making it possible for the United States to extend its territory to the Pacific.
U.S. military victories over Mexico and the Indians during this era were a product of military professionalism and superior firepower, not the self-reliant uneducated Kentucky and Tennessee riflemen. Victory in the Mexican War, according to Howe, was not a foregone conclusion. Without superior U.S. firepower, or with a less brilliant commander than the underappreciated Gen. Winfield Scott, Mexico could easily have become an unwinnable quagmire war.
When I first studied American history in high school and college, I unconsciously thought of it as a history of white men, with black people, American Indians and white women as spectators and victims but not actors. Howe's work shows the inadequacy of this perspective. He begins with the Battle of New Orleans, in which black troops were an important part of both U.S. and British forces; he ends with the Seneca Falls women's rights convention, with Frederick Douglass lending his support
WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by David Walker Howe (2007)
This Pulitzer Prize-winning book is a masterly synthesis of political, economic, military, social and cultural history, throwing new light on many aspects of the so-called Jacksonian era of American history. Howe dedicated his book to John Quincy Adams, and asserts that Adams, not Jackson, represented what was best and most important in this era.
I once thought, along with Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in The Age of Jackson and innumerable Democratic speakers at Jefferson-Jackson Day picnics, of Andrew Jackson as a champion of working people, or at least of white working men, and of the Democratic Party of today as a continuation of the Democratic Party of that era.
I modified that view over the years without entirely giving it up, but Howe's book shows me how completely wrong it was, and also what a mistake it is to project the political divisions of the present onto the past. The basic principle of Jackson's Democratic Party was white supremacy. White men, regardless of social status or economic class, were regarded as equally superior to blacks, Indians and Mexicans.
Jackson's deeds as a slave owner and Indian fighter were as historically significant as his campaign against the Bank of the United States. The Cherokee, Creek and other Indian tribes once held legal title to most of the land area of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi and large sections of other states. General Jackson's defeat of the Cherokee and Creek and President Jackson's support of Indian Removal opened up the Deep South to cotton cultivation, giving slavery a new lease on life. Cotton quickly became the leading U.S. export crop, and the availability of cheap high-quality cotton provided the basis of the British and New England textile industries, the leading manufacturing industries of their day, so this was an important historical event.
Jackson's vision of the United States was like Thomas Jefferson's - a nation of independent white farmers and craftsmen, independent of governmental authority or exploitation by government-chartered banks and corporations. His opponents, the middle-class Whigs, believed in progress through improvements in technology, infrastructure (canals and railroads), public education and humanitarian reform. Most Whigs were not abolitionists, but most abolitionists were either non-political or Whigs.
Evangelical Protestantism in this era was a strong force for progress, according to Howe. Protestantism, progressivism and patriotism were not at odds; neither were self-improvement and social reform. Most evangelical Protestants, in Howe's telling, regarded them as part of the same thing. They thought the Second Coming of Christ was coming soon, and they thought they could hasten it by becoming better people and making the world a better place. This is very different from the defensive evangelical Protestants of our own day.
Most of the great Unitarians and Transcendentalists also were Whigs. Most Catholic immigrants, believing in a different theology and in conflict with native-born Protestant workers and business owners, were Democrats.
The title of the book consists of the first words transmitted by Samuel F.B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph. One theme of the book is the importance of communications and transportation technology in making the United States a cultural and economic unity, and in making it possible for the United States to extend its territory to the Pacific.
U.S. military victories over Mexico and the Indians during this era were a product of military professionalism and superior firepower, not the self-reliant uneducated Kentucky and Tennessee riflemen. Victory in the Mexican War, according to Howe, was not a foregone conclusion. Without superior U.S. firepower, or with a less brilliant commander than the underappreciated Gen. Winfield Scott, Mexico could easily have become an unwinnable quagmire war.
When I first studied American history in high school and college, I unconsciously thought of it as a history of white men, with black people, American Indians and white women as spectators and victims but not actors. Howe's work shows the inadequacy of this perspective. He begins with the Battle of New Orleans, in which black troops were an important part of both U.S. and British forces; he ends with the Seneca Falls women's rights convention, with Frederick Douglass lending his support
Friday, January 7, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, January 3, 2011
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
Friday, December 10, 2010
China’s Consumerism and the Implications for Market Socialism » pa
China’s Consumerism and the Implications for Market Socialism » pa
Read more: 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:
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.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.
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.
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.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)