Workers must unite to overthrow the rule of the capitalists.

[leftofthedial]

Right here, in 21st Century America.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. As I have said before, *ahem*

Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

[saigon68]

49. Fight the Rich--- Not Their Wars

[scarletwoman]

75. "No war but the Class War!" (nt)

[stray cat]

2. The car company capitalists and workers are on the same side at present

so I'm not sure who the capitalists are that need overthrown - certainly some members of the GOP.

[Radical Activist]

188. No. The car company CEO's and UAW leadership are on the same side right now..

But they aren't on the side of the auto workers.

[Gundam Macross]

3. I agree, but non-violently.

[patrice]

7. Solidarity, Gundam Macross! There is NO "victory" in Violence.

If we become the Oppressors we LOSE, no matter what else we "gain".

[sarcasmo]

309. Tell that to the rock throwers in Greece.

[patrice]

4. Everyone must stop kidding themselves about what Capitalism, especially

"Free Market" Capitalism, actually is. Fundamentally, it is

DOG EAT DOG until ONLY the MEANEST DOG is left.

[cali]

5. ack. can you actually say something in your own words

or just parrot stock rhetoric?

[leftofthedial]

8. you're either with us

or against us.

Are you feeling lucky punk?


(The perceptive reader would have noted that using classic socialist language was the fucking point, cali.)

[cali]

10. the point was to parrot classic socialist jargon? Why?

pathetic, point, dear.

[Runcible Spoon]

12. sure beats parroting right wing talking points.

Your specialty.

[TankLV]

14. Notice that too, huh?

It's cali - we should know from experience what shit to expect from them by now...

same shit, different day...

[cali]

15. Yeah, my specialty is rw talking points. What a stupid lie.

I'm so right wing that I work for progressive party candidates. I'm so right wing I support Bernie Sanders. And face it, being in line with Bernie is hardly being right wing.

[Two Americas]

25. misleading argument

When you are challenged for making conservative arguments - nothing wrong with that, by the way, as you are free to hold and express any opinion you like - you deny that by claiming that you "are" a Democrat or a progressive or whatever, so therefore you are not arguing conservative points of view.

No one is arguing with you about what you label yourself as - no one cares or even need know. It is your arguments people are talking about. Your arguments are not somehow different because of how you label yourself or wish to be seen.

This is a childish line of reasoning in any case. If someone who called themselves a Republican made the exact same arguments you make, we would argue against them. Why should we not argue against those ideas merely because you want to call yourself a Democrat?

This is the mechanism by which right wing ideas are inserted into the discussion among Democrats, and given credibility and consideration they would otherwise not get.

[Ken Burch]

319. Why are so many of your posts here, then, filled with left-bashing?

If your "in line with Bernie", what's your problem with us?

[leftofthedial]

13. you sound like Newt Gingrich.

"pathetic" this and "absurd" that and not a single comment on the subject.

[Two Americas]

16. here is some more

This is a riot. If we put things into our own words, we hear "yeah but who are you? Why should we pay any attention to you? You are nobody" followed by personal attacks. If we quite someone else, we are "parroting." If we support organized labor we are "parroting classic socialist jargon."

I will now "parrot" some more "classic socialist jargon."

From Lincoln:

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

From FDR:

The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business. They granted that the government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

The brave and clear platform adopted by this convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.

But the resolute enemy within our gates is ever ready to beat down our words unless in greater courage we will fight for them.

[leftofthedial]

19. ...

:thumbsup:

[Two Americas]

27. squawk squawk

I an going to start parroting some of that stock rhetoric from Lincoln.

[leftstreet]

21. OMG Lincoln was a SOCIALIST!!!111

:scared:

That's one of my fav Lincoln guotes

[AZ Criminal JD]

81. Do you give the full quote?

Or just the part you like? The rest of the quote: "Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; it is a positive good in the world. . . . Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own will be safe when built."

[Hannah Bell]

108. That's not the "full" quote. The quote you commented on is from a speech read to Congress 1861.

It did NOT include your quote.

Your quote is from a letter written in 1864, which included part of the text of the 1861 speech. In it Lincoln accepts an honorary membership with the workingman's committee. He says the confederate rebellion is an attack on the rights of all workers.

Then he quotes his 1861 speech, in which he warns against the despotic attempt to place the rights of capital equal with, or even above, the rights of labor. Labor, he says, is prior to & independent of capital. He says it's an error to assume, as some do, that labor must either be hired or owned (enslaved) by capital; MOST people, he says, are neither slaves, hirelings, masters, or bosses. They work for themselves, on their own farms, in their own shops, & take the total product of their labor for themselves. Those (few) that begin penniless, he says, can work for someone else enough to accumulate the basis for their own independence, & shouldn't surrender their political power to forces which would wish to subjugate them.

That was the whole of the 1861 speech.

Then, in the body of the letter, he continues, saying, workers should not allow themselves to be divided against each other, nor to go to war against property, but build their own houses.


The context of both quotes is the assumption that the best condition is independence, & that MOST workers already have this independence, & those that don't can achieve it.


But that isn't the case today. MOST people work for someone else, & will do so all their lives. The number of self-employed has declined continuously since the beginning of the 20th century.


http://books.google.com/books?id=8JhYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA501&lpg=PA503&ots=t84PoNTBvG&dq=Let+not+him+who+is+houseless+pull+down+the+house+of+another,

[Hannah Bell]

132. ps: the 1864 letter to the workman's committee begins at the bottom of the linked page

& continues on the next page, where you'll find the excerpt from the 1861 speech, & then the concluding remarks of the letter.

So you can check for yourself.

[Two Americas]

111. false and misleading

I posted plenty of context and would be happy to post more, and to have am in depth discussion as to what Lincoln was saying.

You are citing the one passage, ancillary and supportive and not key to Lincoln's thinking, that the right wingers always pull out of context in an attempt to give people the impression that Lincoln intended to say the opposite of what he actually was saying.

Please see the passage about his idea of the "true system" for clarification on this and do not try to mislead people.

In Lincoln's view, Labor deserves the higher consideration than capital. He not only used that theme many times, explained what he meant in great detail, but he also linked it to the battle for freedom and the battle against slavery and the eternal battle against tyranny of all kinds.

He also went on to say, on a few occasions, that this did not mean that capital did not have a role to play, nor that we should tear down the property of others. Those passages do not negate or water down or contradict his main theme, as you imply.

[AZ Criminal JD]

245. "not key to Lincoln's thinking"

So a quote that you assert says Lincoln was a socialist is what "Lincoln was thinking" because you want it to be so. But other quotes you dismiss because you don't like them. OK go with that

[Two Americas]

276. hold on

This hit and run sniping is not going to achieve anything. As I said, I am more than willing to dig in on this subject in as much depth as you like.

If you have an argument, make it. If you need some clarification, ask for it. But merely hopping from post to post and writing a snide sentence or two and making the same false and unsupported charges against me will not fly. Or, as Lincoln would say "that plow won't scour."

[Two Americas]

277. full texts

I will post the full texts from Lincoln's speeches and debates, and the readers here can judge for themselves.

[Two Americas]

278. Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society

Here is the complete excerpt relevant to the subject of labor and capital from Lincoln's Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, September 30, 1859

Here is the link to the entire speech, for those suspicious that I am "cherry picking."

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/fair.htm

The world is agreed that labor is the source from which human wants are mainly supplied. There is no dispute upon this point. From this point, however, men immediately diverge. Much disputation is maintained as to the best way of applying and controlling the labor element. By some it is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital -- that nobody labors, unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow, by the use of that capital, induces him to do it. Having assumed this, they proceed to consider whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent; or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far they naturally conclude that all laborers are necessarily either hired laborers, or slaves. They further assume that whoever is once a hired laborer, is fatally fixed in that condition for life; and thence again that his condition is as bad as, or worse than that of a slave. This is the "mud-sill" theory.

But another class of reasoners hold the opinion that there is no such relation between capital and labor, as assumed; and that there is no such thing as a freeman being fatally fixed for life, in the condition of a hired laborer, that both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them groundless. They hold that labor is prior to, and independent of, capital; that, in fact, capital is the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed -- that labor can exist without capital, but that capital could never have existed without labor. Hence they hold that labor is the superior -- greatly the superior -- of capital.

They do not deny that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital. The error, as they hold, is in assuming that the whole labor of the world exists within that relation. A few men own capital; and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital, hire, or buy, another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class -- neither work for others, nor have others working for them. Even in all our slave States, except South Carolina, a majority of the whole people of all colors, are neither slaves nor masters. In these Free States, a large majority are neither hirers or hired. Men, with their families -- wives, sons and daughters -- work for themselves, on their farms, in their houses and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand, nor of hirelings or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, labor with their own hands, and also buy slaves or hire freemen to labor for them; but this is only a mixed, and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class. Again, as has already been said, the opponents of the "mud-sill" theory insist that there is not, of necessity, any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. There is demonstration for saying this. Many independent men, in this assembly, doubtless a few years ago were hired laborers. And their case is almost if not quite the general rule.

The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This, say its advocates, is free labor -- the just and generous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for all -- gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all. If any continue through life in the condition of the hired laborer, it is not the fault of the system, but because of either a dependent nature which prefers it, or improvidence, folly, or singular misfortune. I have said this much about the elements of labor generally, as introductory to the consideration of a new phase which that element is in process of assuming. The old general rule was that educated people did not perform manual labor. They managed to eat their bread, leaving the toil of producing it to the uneducated. This was not an insupportable evil to the working bees, so long as the class of drones remained very small. But now, especially in these free States, nearly all are educated -- quite too nearly all, to leave the labor of the uneducated, in any wise adequate to the support of the whole. It follows from this that henceforth educated people must labor. Otherwise, education itself would become a positive and intolerable evil. No country can sustain, in idleness, more than a small per centage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something productive. From these premises the problem springs, "How can labor and education be the most satisfactory combined?"

By the "mud-sill" theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible; and any practical combination of them impossible. According to that theory, a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be -- all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly. According to that theory, the education of laborers, is not only useless, but pernicious, and dangerous. In fact, it is, in some sort, deemed a misfortune that laborers should have heads at all. Those same heads are regarded as explosive materials, only to be safely kept in damp places, as far as possible from that peculiar sort of fire which ignites them. A Yankee who could invent strong handed man without a head would receive the everlasting gratitude of the "mud-sill" advocates.

But Free Labor says "no!" Free Labor argues that, as the Author of man makes every individual with one head and one pair of hands, it was probably intended that heads and hands should cooperate as friends; and that that particular head, should direct and control that particular pair of hands. As each man has one mouth to be fed, and one pair of hands to furnish food, it was probably intended that that particular pair of hands should feed that particular mouth -- that each head is the natural guardian, director, and protector of the hands and mouth inseparably connected with it; and that being so, every head should be cultivated, and improved, by whatever will add to its capacity for performing its charge. In one word Free Labor insists on universal education.

I have so far stated the opposite theories of "Mud-Sill" and "Free Labor" without declaring any preference of my own between them. On an occasion like this I ought not to declare any. I suppose, however, I shall not be mistaken, in assuming as a fact, that the people of Wisconsin prefer free labor, with its natural companion, education.

[Two Americas]

279. First Annual Message

Here is the complete context, from Lincoln's First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861, and a link to the entire speech.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29502

It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class--neither work for others nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families--wives, sons, and daughters--work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.

Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.

[Two Americas]

280. the eternal struggle

Here is the context for the "eternal struggle" idea expressed in one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

http://www.pinzler.com/ushistory/lindougsupp.html

The Democratic policy in regard to that institution will not tolerate... the slightest hint, the least degree of wrong about it.... says he "don't care whether it is voted up or voted down in the Territories.... Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong in slavery; but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it, because no man can logically say he does not care whether a wrong is voted up or down.... carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in ....

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles ­ right and wrong ­ throughout the world. These are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I eat it." No matter what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle....

[Two Americas]

282. The Alton Debate

Here again is the "eternal struggle" idea from the Alton debate - in context - and a link to the full transcript.

http://www.bartleby.com/251/72.html

On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment which treats it as not being wrong. That is the Democratic sentiment of this day. I do not mean to say that every man who stands within that range positively asserts that it is right. That class will include all who positively assert that it is right, and all who, like Judge Douglas, treat it as indifferent and do not say it is either right or wrong. These two classes of men fall within the general class of those who do not look upon it as a wrong. And if there be among you anybody who supposes that he, as a Democrat, can consider himself “as much opposed to slavery as anybody,” I would like to reason with him. You never treat it as a wrong. What other thing that you consider as a wrong do you deal with as you deal with that? Perhaps you say it is wrong, but your leader never does, and you quarrel with anybody who says it is wrong. Although you pretend to say to yourself, you can find no fit place to deal with it as a wrong. You must not say anything about it in the Free States, because it is not here. You must not say anything about it in the Slave States, because it is there. You must not say anything about it in the pulpit, because that is religion, and has nothing to do with it. You must not say anything about it in politics, because that will disturb the security of “my place.” There is no place to talk about it as being a wrong, although you say yourself it is a wrong. But, finally, you will screw yourself up to the belief that if the people of the Slave States should adopt a system of gradual emancipation on the slavery question, you would be in favor of it. You would be in favor of it. You say that is getting it in the right place, and you would be glad to see it succeed. But you are deceiving yourself. You all know that Frank Blair and Gratz Brown, down there in St. Louis, undertook to introduce that system in Missouri. They fought as valiantly as they could for the system of gradual emancipation which you pretend you would be glad to see succeed. Now, I will bring you to the test. After a hard fight they were beaten, and when the news came over here, you threw up your hats and hurrahed for Democracy. More than that, take all the argument made in favor of the system you have proposed, and it carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in the institution of slavery. The arguments to sustain that policy carefully excluded it. Even here to-day you heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me because I uttered a wish that it might sometime come to an end. Although Henry Clay could say he wished every slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors, I am denounced by those pretending to respect Henry Clay for uttering a wish that it might sometime, in some peaceful way, come to an end. The Democratic policy in regard to that institution will not tolerate the merest breath, the slightest hint, of the least degree of wrong about it. Try it by some of Judge Douglas’s arguments. He says he “don’t care whether it is voted up or voted down” in the Territories. I do not care myself, in dealing with that expression, whether it is intended to be expressive of his individual sentiments on the subject, or only of the national policy he desires to have established. It is alike valuable for my purpose. Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong in slavery; but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it, because no man can logically say he don’t care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. He may say he don’t care whether an indifferent thing is voted up or down, but he must logically have a choice between a right thing and a wrong thing. He contends that whatever community wants slaves has a right to have them. So they have, if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong. He says that upon the score of equality, slaves should be allowed to go in a new Territory, like other property. This is strictly logical if there is no difference between it and other property. If it and other property are equal, his argument is entirely logical. But if you insist that one is wrong and the other right, there is no use to institute a comparison between right and wrong. You may turn over everything in the Democratic policy from beginning to end, whether in the shape it takes on the statute book, in the shape it takes in the Dred Scott decision, in the shape it takes in conversation, or the shape it takes in short maxim-like arguments,—it everywhere carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in it.

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles—right and wrong—throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, “You work and toil and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle. I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and I re-express it here, to Judge Douglas,—that he looks to no end of the institution of slavery. That will help the people to see where the struggle really is. It will hereafter place with us all men who really do wish the wrong may have an end. And whenever we can get rid of the fog which obscures the real question, when we can get Judge Douglas and his friends to avow a policy looking to its perpetuation,—we can get from among that class of men and bring them to the side of those who treat it as a wrong. Then there will soon be an end of it, and that end will be its “ultimate extinction.” Whenever the issue can be distinctly made, and all extraneous matter thrown out so that men can fairly see the real difference between the parties, this controversy will soon be settled, and it will be done peaceably too. There will be no war, no violence. It will be placed again where the wisest and best men of the world placed it. Brooks of South Carolina once declared that when this Constitution was framed, its framers did not look to the institution existing until this day. When he said this, I think he stated a fact that is fully borne out by the history of the times. But he also said they were better and wiser men than the men of these days; yet the men of these days had experience which they had not, and by the invention of the cotton-gin it became a necessity in this country that slavery should be perpetual. I now say that, willingly or unwillingly, purposely or without purpose, Judge Douglas has been the most prominent instrument in changing the position of the institution of slavery which the fathers of the Government expected to come to an end ere this,—and putting it upon Brooks’s cotton-gin basis; placing it where he openly confesses he has no desire there shall ever be an end of it.

[Two Americas]

284. Speech at New Haven

The full relevant context for the quotes from the Speech at New Haven, March 6, 1860.

http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/haven.htm

Another specimen of this bushwhacking, that "shoe strike." Now be it understood that I do not pretend to know all about the matter. I am merely going to speculate a little about some of its phases. And at the outset, I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails in New England under which laborers can strike when they want to where they are not obliged to work under all circumstances, and are not tied down and obliged to labor whether you pay them or not. I like the system which lets a man quit when he wants to, and wish it might prevail everywhere. One of the reasons why I am opposed to Slavery is just here. What is the true condition of the laborer? I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else. When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is such that he knows he can better his condition; he knows that there is no fixed condition of labor, for his whole life. I am not ashamed to confess that twenty five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flat-boat -- just what might happen to any poor man's son. I want every man to have the chance -- and I believe a black man is entitled to it -- in which he can better his condition -- when he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him! That is the true system. Up here in New England, you have a soil that scarcely sprouts black-eyed beans, and yet where will you find wealthy men so wealthy, and poverty so rarely in extremity? There is not another such place on earth. I desire that if you get too thick here, and find it hard to better your condition on this soil, you may have a chance to strike and go somewhere else, where you may not be degraded, nor have your family corrupted by forced rivalry with Negro slaves. I want you to have a clean bed, and no snakes in it. Then you can better your condition, and so it may go on and on in one ceaseless round so long as man exists on the face of the earth.

Now, to come back to this shoe strike, -- if, as the Senator from Illinois asserts, this is caused by withdrawal of Southern votes, consider briefly how you will meet the difficulty. You have done nothing, and have protested that you have done nothing, to injure the South. And yet, to get back the shoe trade, you must leave off doing something that you are now doing. What is it? You must stop thinking slavery wrong! Let your institutions be wholly changed; let your State Constitutions be subverted, glorify slavery, and so you will get back the shoe trade -- for what? You have brought owned labor with it to compete with your own labor, to overwork you, and to degrade you. Are you ready to get back the trade on those terms?

But the statement is not correct. You have not lost that trade; orders were never better than now! Senator Mason, a Democrat, comes into the Senate in homespun, a proof that the dissolution of the Union has actually begun, but orders are the same. Your factories have not struck work, neither those where they make anything for coats, nor for pants, nor for shirts, nor for ladies' dresses. Mr. Mason has not reached the manufacturers who ought to have made him a coat and pants. To make his proof good for anything he should have come into the Senate barefoot.

[Two Americas]

285. on "free labor" 1854

This is a scrap of paper that survived with some notes on free labor, from 1854.

Equality in society alike beats inequality, whether the latter be of the British aristocratic sort or of the domestic slavery sort.

We know Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers amongst us. How little they know whereof they speak! There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us. Twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yesterday labors on his own account to-day, and will hire others to labor for him to-morrow.

Advancement — improvement in condition — is the order of things in a society of equals. As labor is the common burden of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burden on to the shoulders of others is the great durable curse of the race. Originally a curse for transgression upon the whole race, when, as by slavery, it is concentrated on a part only, it becomes the double-refined curse of God upon his creatures.

Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope. The power of hope upon human exertion and happiness is wonderful. The slave-master himself has a conception of it, and hence the system of tasks among slaves. The slave whom you cannot drive with the lash to break seventy-five pounds of hemp in a day, if you will task him to break a hundred, and promise him pay for all he does over, he will break you and hundred and fifty. You have substituted hope for the rod.

And yet perhaps it does not occur to you that, to the extent of your gain in the case, you have given up on the slave system and adopted the free system of labor.

http://www.historytools.org/sources/lincoln-equality.pdf

[Two Americas]

288. The Indianapolis Speech

This is from the notes taken by a reporter for the Indianapolis Journal, published September 20th, 1859, of Lincoln's Speech at Indianapolis, Indiana, September 19th 1859.

He said it was agreed, on every hand, that labor was the great source from whence all our comforts and necessaries were derived. There is a difference of opinion among political economists, about the elements of labor in society. Some men say that there is a necessary connection between labor and capital, and this connection draws within it the whole of the labor of the community. They assume that nobody works unless capital excites them to work. They say there are but two ways: the one is to hire men, and to allow them to labor by their own consent; the other is to buy the men and drive them to it, and that is slavery. Assuming that, they proceed to discuss the question of whether the laborers themselves are better off in the condition of slaves or of hired laborers. They generally decide that they are better off as slaves. They have no responsibility on them then, and when they get old, they are taken care of. In the State of Indiana, of all that is produced, seven-eighths of it is produced by the hands of men who work upon their own ground; and no more than one-eighth is produced by hired men. The condition of the hired man was not worse than that of the slave.

The speaker himself had been a hired man twenty-eight years ago. He didn't think he was worse off than a slave. He might not be doing as much good as he could, but he was now working for himself. He thought the whole thing was a mistake. There was a certain relation between capital and labor, and it was proper that it existed. Men who were industrious and sober, and honest in the pursuit of their own interests, should after a while accumulate capital, and after that should be allowed to enjoy it in peace, and if they chose, when they had accumulated capital, to use it to save themselves from actual labor and hire other people to labor for them, it was right. They did not wrong the man they employed, for they found men who have not their own land to work upon or shops to work in, and who were benefited by working for them as hired laborers, receiving their capital for it.

Page 469If a hired laborer worked as a true man, he saved means to buy land of his own, a shop of his own, and to increase his property. For a new beginner, this was the true, genuine principle of free labor. A few men that own capital, hire others, and thus establish the relation of capital and labor rightfully. The hired laborer, with his ability to become an employer, must have every precedence over him who labors under the inducement of force.

http://www.thelincolnlog.org/view/1859/9

[Political Heretic]

292. You pretty much just got worked over by facts above, pal.

[leftstreet]

128. Looks like a couple of people gave you your answer. Next?

:o

[AZ Criminal JD]

246. No they didn't

They demonstrated they are not honest and pick and choose their quotations Next?

[Political Heretic]

260. Hmm... no. As an outside obsever, I'd say Hannah more than answered your charge.

[Political Heretic]

261. (board hiccup)

Edit.

[Two Americas]

264. I will get the entire context if that will help

Lincoln is saying that placing Labor on a higher footing, giving it higher consideration than Capital does not mean tearing down anyone. In three of four different places, in a context of support for Labor, he has a sentence or two that says that Capital has a place, and that we should not attack the successful. Pulling those few sentences out of context, and then trying to fool people into thinking that was hos main theme or contradicts pro-Labor arguments is what the right wingers do, and what you are trying to do as well.

I think you must know that this is the case, otherwise you would post a little more than a sentence or two with no supporting argument and no documentation.

I think it is abhorrent trying to fool people this way.

[Political Heretic]

259. Umm.. I'm fine with the whole quote?

Not sure Two Americas is advocating for no property as much as he is advocating for the primacy of labor in any political/economic system...

So what's the problem?

[Two Americas]

265. I am fine with the whole quote

I am fine with the whole speech. I am fine with the dozen or so speeches, and the letters, and the debate transcripts, in their entirety, where Lincoln expresses his support for Labor, and connects the struggle of Labor against Capital with the fight to overthrow the slave power and with the eternal struggle of the common people against tyranny in all of its guises.

There is nothing ambiguous or confusing about where Lincoln stood on this issue. I suspect that there is a hope on the part of our revisionists here that most people will not read the full context, or else are susceptible to the right wing thinking that there are "two sides" to everything, that are just a matter of personal opinion, and to be seen as equally valid no matter what the "two sides" are.

[Odin2005]

35. I drag out that Lincoln quote every time the pukes call them selves the...

..."Party of Lincoln." If Lincoln were alive today he would be called an "evil socialist" by today's GOP.

[BelgianMadCow]

51. those quotes are very, very powerful

thanks!

:hi:

[SOS]

184. Here's another from Lincoln that is appropriate for our times:

"It has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits.
This is wrong, and should not continue.
To secure to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government."

[Greyhound]

224. "A most worthy object of any good government."

When was the last time you heard this sentiment uttered?
Oh and I was wondering, how do you trod in a state of irie?:rofl:

[Political Heretic]

258. Holy cow that Lincoln quote is killer. I am putting tha in sig lines.

[Two Americas]

275. Lincoln's major contribution

Many leftists criticize me for citing Lincoln. He has been lionized, I do not believe inappropriately, but rather for the wrong things, and it is popular now for both the neo-confederates and right wingers as well as the left to tear him down.

I think his greatest contribution was to so brilliantly link the struggle against slavery to the struggles to overthrow the rule of capital, and to the eternal struggles of the common people against all other forms of tyranny. For some odd reason, that message was heard by people all over the world in the most remote places, yet is still not understood here. In addition, Lincoln also was able to put that eternal struggle against tyranny into an American context, incorporating the ambitions and aspirations of the small farmer and merchant into his vision of a "true system" of "free labor" - a vision that included support for organized labor, then in its infancy and not popular.

"The greatness of Napoleon, Caesar or Washington is only moonlight by the sun of Lincoln. His example is universal and will last thousands of years. He is bigger than his country - bigger than all the Presidents together, and as a great character he will live as long as the world lasts."

- Leo Tolstoy

In 1908, in a wild and remote area of the North Caucasus, Leo Tolstoy, the greatest writer of the age, was the guest of a tribal chief "living far away from civilized life in the mountains." Gathering his family and friends, the chief asked Tolstoy to tell stories about the famous men of history. Tolstoy told how he entertained the eager crowd for hours with tales of Alexander, Caesar, Frederick the Great, Napoleon. When he was winding to a close, the chief stood and said, "But you have not told us a syllable about the greatest general and greatest ruler of the world. We want to know something about him. He was a hero. He spoke with the voice of thunder; he laughed like the sunrise and his deeds were strong as the rock .... His name was Lincoln and the country in which he lived is called America, which is so far away that if a youth should journey to reach it he would be an old man when he arrived. Tell us of that man."

"I looked at them," Tolstoy recalled, "and saw their faces all aglow, while their eyes were burning. I saw that those rude barbarians were really interested in a man whose name and deeds had already become a legend." He told them everything he knew about Lincoln's "home life and youth ... his habits, his influence upon the people and his physical strength." When he finished, they were so grateful for the story that they presented him with "a wonderful Arabian horse." The next morning, as Tolstoy prepared to leave, they asked if he could possibly acquire for them a picture of Lincoln. Thinking that he might find one at a friend's house in the neighboring town, Tolstoy asked one of the riders to accompany him. "I was successful in getting a large photograph from my friend," recalled Tolstoy. As he handed it to the rider, he noted the man's hands trembled as he took it. "He gazed for several minutes silently, like one in reverent prayer, his eyes filled with tears."

Tolstoy went on to observe, "This little incident proves how largely the name of Lincoln is worshipped throughout the world and how legendary his personality has become. Now, why was Lincoln so great that he overshadows all other national heroes? He really was not a great general like Napoleon or Washington; he was not a skilful statesman like Gladstone or Frederick the Great; but his supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character.

"Washington was a typical American. Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country -- bigger than all the Presidents together.

"We are still too near to his greatness," Tolstoy concluded, "but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us."

[maryf]

298. Please get yourself a journal here...

It would become a source for many, I think and I'd hate to see all this work get lost to the archives!:hi:

[Richardo]

178. Because all the other socialist workers' paradises have worked out so well.

I'm against facile sloganeering.

[Hannah Bell]

215. facile talking points are ok, though...

[Two Americas]

295. then don't do it

Red baiting and McCarthyism with phrases like "the other socialist workers' paradises have worked out so well" is about as facile as the sloganeering comes.

[killbotfactory]

6. But if we get rid of the capitalist rule, who will lead us out of the darkness they created?

Who else is going to take all the wealth the workers create and squander it on luxuries while people go hungry and die from lack of medical care and bills go up and wages decrease?

[leftofthedial]

9. Timothy Geithner, for one.

[leftstreet]

18. Look for him to give us all shiny new bootstraps n/t

[Unvanguard]

168. Yeah, I know. All these socialists with their pie-in-the-sky solutions.

It's like they think we don't need any masters....

[Unvanguard]

169. Duplicate. n/t

[Cleita]

11. We need a general strike, three days or even a week when no one goes to work, whether

they are union or not. There would be targeted areas of course, like transportation, communication and certain retail stores, like the big box ones. Hospitals and other such industries would be exempt. Large cities would be more likely to get press attention although smaller communities might want to march down main street in solidarity. People would have to take to the streets picketing every and all Republican elected officials, government buildings and Fox News studios and offices.

Who is the person who will organize this nationwide? Who is our Che Guevara or our Cesar Chavez?

[leftofthedial]

17. who has the power?

[Cleita]

22. A better question is who has the charisma?

Neither Che nor Cesar started out with power. What they did was inspire people to follow them.

[Two Americas]

31. not needed

Charisma? That is an effect of political organizing, not a cause. We need courage and clarity, not charisma. Charismatic leaders always emerge, but they can represent a mixed blessing.

I think we should reject thinking in terms of cults of personality and celebrity. Looking for one strong leader, yearning for that, and seeing that as a prerequisite for political organizing and action can be paralyzing, and also can leads to tyranny.

We are millions. We are potentially all leaders.

[Political Heretic]

192. Not even remotely true.

Charisma is always needed in organizing. However, charisma doesn't have to be shallow. But you can't alienated and isolate the people you seek to lead and then wonder why no one follows.

[Two Americas]

242. sure

What is not needed is to wait for, seek, or depend upon one charismatic leader. That is what I was talking about, not saying that everyone should be boring.

[Two Americas]

28. we have power

Look at how that one strike by that one small group of workers has completely shifted the discussion and changed people's thinking. That has started a tidal wave that cannot be turned back now.

[leftofthedial]

38. :-)

:thumbsup: again.

[Two Americas]

40. have you noticed?

That strike has had a big effect. It has radicalized people and has made the battle lines much more clear.

[leftofthedial]

45. I've been talking about the class war since day one here.

but we have a large population of happy capitalists.

[Two Americas]

48. so have I

But there is a shift going on. The effectiveness of the arguments of the conservatives among us relied upon people being confused and distracted. Recent events are bringing the issues into clarity for people.

[Cleita]

53. You can't get rid of capitalism or commerce. It's not

a cancer as someone else stated but part of our genetic makeup. Anthropologists have been digging up evidence of trade among Stone Age cultures who traded obsidian to make stone tools from. The obsidian trade is easily traced from the sources to hundreds and even thousands of miles away. It suggests prehistoric tribes were trading objects and food with each other since the beginning of becoming fully human. We need commerce to survive as a species. What you have to get rid of is laissez faire economies, which lead to a small rich ruling class and a large population of poor.

[leftofthedial]

57. capitalism is not synonymous with "commerce."

the fruits of labor have value. Labor, like mining or finding obsidian and turning it into points has value. Symbolic pieces of paper do not have value. Capitalism is a kind of parasitical infestation on the true creation of value by workers.

[Cleita]

58. You better start defining your terms better then, if

you want anyone to pay attention. Historically, capitalism can survive in any variety of systems of government. However, no government system can survive without capitalism. Look to the fall of Soviet Russia for an example. Communist China has survived because it became capitalistic. I feel you are talking about laissez faire capitalism or an unregulated free for all, which is what is happening in our country. Unfortunately, the unfettered capitalists don't want to live by their own rules or the survival of the fittest and are now asking the taxpayer to bail them out. So you need to define just how much commerce is acceptable to you. It does fall under the label of capitalism unless you want to distinguish what you actually mean.

[Two Americas]

63. I don't care about the word myself

Does anybody?

The debates about the definitions of words is just a distraction. Replace the word "capitalism" in my posts with any word you like and my arguments stand without it. I explained what I mean by the word, which comes from the ideas of Lincoln on the relationship between Capital and Labor. Those ideas do not preclude commerce or trade, nor eliminate any role for capital. If you would rather I don't use the word, or that I don't use it that way, no problem. The word is not the idea, it represents the idea.

An unlimited amount of commerce is "acceptable" to me. How about you?

Decades of right wing propaganda have caused us to obsess over labels at the expense of critical thinking and logical arguments. "You ARE a liberal, so of course you would say that," for example.

[eridani]

82. Capitalism isn't about trade; it's about who owns the means of production n/t

[Cleita]

83. See! A narrower definition, yet. Not what I was taught.

All the means of production, trade commerce, banking, exchanging money and goods is capitalism as defined back when the commies were the anti-thesis of that. I never thought of capitalism as a political system but apparently some people think so. It's a means of commerce. Nothing else. It's up to society to govern it like everything else. Without capitalism, we can't have socialism. We need the money to make socialism work as the functioning social democracies of the world have shown us.

[eridani]

97. Broad and squishy definitions aren't useful either

If you buy an espresso machine and sell lattes, you are not a capitalist because you own your own means of production. If you hired someone else to run it and paid them less than what it cost you to make the lattes, you then become a capitalist. Capitalism = getting money simply from owning the means of production.

[Cleita]

103. So according you anyone who owns a business should solely work

at it themselves because to hire someone to help out and expand the business is evil?

[Two Americas]

116. no one is saying that

Nor is hiring someone necessarily capitalism. But as I said, it is nonsense to argue about definitions. We can call the making of money off of money, the manipulation of the wealth created by Labor, and the ordering of society and government to favor capital over labor "licorice sticks" as far as I am concerned, so long as we all agree on that. Discuss the ideas. Trying to trap people in this argument about definitions is a distraction.

The divide is between those who see capital as the source of wealth and those who see labor as the source of wealth; those who see labor as a product of and therefore properly subservient to capital, and those who see capital as the product of and therefore properly subservient to labor.

[eridani]

133. I'd like it if all the helpers could be co-owners

Unfortunately, too many people in our society would not want that much ownership of their work. Too bad. Why can't people get the full value of their labor instead of just part of it?

[Hannah Bell]

159. OK, here's what I'm understanding from you. You define "socialism"

as the Swedish model, i.e. consumer capitalism with some state-run worker benefits, i.e. "free" health care, the dole/unemployment/welfare/retirement protection, "free" education.

You define "laissez-faire capitalism" as the apparent direction of the US: consumer capitalism with less generous state-run worker benefits.

You define "communism" as the soviet model: state-run industry with less consumer choice & full worker benefits (free education, health, & guaranteed job or support), just less "modern" ones than in Sweden (e.g. school buildings more decrepit, flats with a bathroom in the hall, less choice of foodstuffs, etc.)


Each of these systems has/had money, internal & external trade, private property, commerce.

I don't understand what you're getting at when you say "we need money to make socialism work."

[muriel_volestrangler]

160. No, that's a pretty good definition

Earliest use of 'capital' in this sense is is a French-English dictionary from 1611:

"Capital, wealth, worth; a stocke, a man's principall, or chiefe, substance." Cotgrave, Randle
A dictionarie of the French and English tongues 1611
—(with) a most copious dictionarie, of the English set before the French, by R(obert) S(herwood) 1632

That's in the Oxford English Dictionary definition:
Capital
Commerce. The stock of a company, corporation, or individual with which they enter into business and on which profits or dividends are calculated; in a joint-stock company, it consists of the total sum of the contributions of the shareholders.

And then from that:
Capitalist
One who has accumulated capital; one who has capital available for employment in financial or industrial enterprises.
1792 A. YOUNG Trav. France 529 A gross evil of these direct imposts is, that of moneyed men, or capitalists, escaping all taxation.

Capitalism isn't just commerce; it's the use of capital to establish businesses, and to then take profits from them. Personally I'm quite happy with it as an economic system, though I can see the point in the OP that the rule of capitalists is a bad thing.

[Odin2005]

196. What you were taught was wrong.

Capitalism ONLY refers to who owns the means of production. the conflation of Capitalism with markets and free enterprise is right-wing Neo-Liberal spin. An economy based on co-ops would be a free enterprise market economy, but it would not be capitalist becayse the workers own the means of production.

[MisterP]

99. uh, how'd a lack (or undergrounding, which is almost the opposite of a lack) of "capitalism"

bring down the USSR? It mostly faced crises from Afghanistan, Chernobyl, and somewhat hamhanded reform attempts by Gorbachev: what really brought it down was a '91 coup attempt and the schism of 15 (constitutionally prefabricated and permitted) nationality-republics. Had the 80s been different, we might still have the "Evil Empire" somehow puttering along "with" and/or "without" "capitalism"
if you're going to posit "capitalism" as an integral, essential sine qua non of all culture and society for 200,000 years, I'm afraid you're going to be the one doing some definition
Marx said it was the mode of production wherein the inevitable surplus product of any laborer or group thereof is absorbed by being forced or induced to buy commodities. It's shored up by proletarianization, where the workers are deprived of their own means of sustaining themselves (though of course within a mediating society, like the archetypal peasant freeholder or artisan of the feudal mode). With no outside means of sustaining themselves, they have the "freedom" to become a wage slave or die, or sometimes become a shopowner (which was the 18th-century ideal you see in Heinlein's non-pioneer-family tales). When left alone, the capitalist mode "automatically" tends towards polarization and oligarchy, because there is nothing in trade or capitalism that demands that there must be redistribution of wealth downwards.
the Vienna School and other Western Marxists have elaborated on these themes to great result--like the realization that 18th-century Western European peasants were generally far more disadvantaged than, say, 13th- or 14th-century ones
this is all on top of questions of how un-capitalist the Soviet Union was anyhoo (Trotskyists)

[Cleita]

105. Having lived through that era, the height of the cold war,

there were stories that couldn't be ignored and almost became jokes about communism because of the lack of availability of consumer goods in the Soviet Union even though there were factories cranking our goods that the Soviets didn't want. They wanted black market American made Levis. Collective farms were producing food but it wasn't getting transported because of a system of deteriorating rails, roads and machinery so the crops rotted. People were living in apartments with several other families sharing kitchens and bathrooms. The fact is the five year, ten year and twenty year plans weren't working out. The peasants got restless again and buh bye Soviet Union. The sad thing is that they adopted unregulated capitalism instead of doing it right so who knows what they will go back to.

[MisterP]

109. but how exactly did lack of capitalism cause all those problems:

it was corruption among officials--not the power of those officials to interfere with the free market or to regulate the infrastructure that made it crumble
and how would infrastructure deterioration be tied to a lack of "capitalism," however defined?
and how does rather-successful Cuba fit into all this? it stopped being really capitalist after 1996, and isn't really being undermined by its black markets
btw, did you live in the Soviet Union?

[Cleita]

118. No, I didn't live in the Soviet Union, but I met people who escaped from

there when I lived in South America. We used to get movies there made in the USSR incidentally, something that was really forbidden in the USA. Also, when I lived in the USA and had to go to school here, I went to school with the kids of a lot of Eastern European refugee immigrants from WWII, whose parents could tell you a lot about the NAZIs, the Soviets and the USA first hand. Regardless of the broken English, I remember many of the recollections of how they survived. I also remember when the Soviets launched the Sputnik that was the first manmade object in space. The Americans barely mentioned in the news but on my way to SA, they were serving a new drink known as the Sputnik on the airplane. Every where in SA there was celebration over the fact that the USA wasn't first this time. This is how unpopular we were. As far as the lack of capitalism in the Soviet Union, I feel that as it was a rigid totalitarian state, it refused to recognize the existence of a black market capitalistic economy which led to its demise.

Cuba seems to be successful relatively speaking from a combination of Castro capitalism (he has no problem with tourism) and a little bit of ethnic cleansing. We really don't know the truth about what really happened once Castro took over so it's not a fair comparison. I really do hope our country lifts the emargoes to Cuba.

[MisterP]

131. that still doesn't answer what "capitalism" is to you and why it's so gol-darned

essential to life itself
as to "Communism," it means way more than the USSR, or even the sum total of every "red" movement or union and every "socialist state"--and WAY more than Stalinism, which ended with Khrushchev around '54 (and of course it has nothing to do with the hysterical U.S. caricatures of Stalinism--that it aims for world conquest, that it's on our doorsteps, that it absolutely controls every "socialist" or socialist state, etc., etc.)
and what Cuban "ethnic cleansing"? do you mean the first flight of the gusanos? and there's that word "capitalism" again, without any definition: investment? a private sector?

[Hannah Bell]

140. The Americans "barely mentioned" Sputnik? Ha-ha-ha! I was born in the 50s,

& grew up in that era.

Sputnik was trumpeted from the rooftops. Same scare tactics as today, "the rooskies are ahead of us in the space race! We need to spend more money, educate more kids!"

Sputnik was in MAD magazine, for chrissake, & even little kids knew of it.

The "nik" in "beatnik" (coined 1958) came from sputnik (sputnik 1 1957).

TIME, 10/57

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,862748,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,862778,00.html

More TIME articles on Sputnik from the 50s'. I don't think your memory is very good.

http://www.time.com/time/searchresults?D=sputnik&sid=11E3424F4BE2&Ntt=sputnik&Nr=OR%28p_record_type%3aOther%2cp_record_type%3ablog%2cp_record_type%3aArticle%29&Ntk=WithBodyDate&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&y=16&Ns=p_date_sort%7c0&N=0&Nty=1&x=13&srchCat=Full+Archive

[Two Americas]

144. your arguments

You are using all of the stock arguments of the privileged aristocratic class from Central and South America. That simplified world view - capitalism good, socialism bad - is so pervasive and compelling there that it is very difficult not to absorb it and internalize it when spending time with the educated and successful aristocracy. The obvious motivation is to alleviate guilt, protect positions of privilege, and to distract people from the horrendous inequalities and exploitation at home by pointing the finger elsewhere - and "communism" makes for a convenient scape goat. They desperately need to keep the lid on things there, in the same way that the slave power in this country in the 1850's desperately tried to keep a lid on the Abolition movement. By being "liberal" they try to have their cake and eat it too - be opposed to poverty, but at the same time fight like tigers to keep the class system in place, and then to deny that it is the class system that is causing poverty and concoct complex arguments to "explain" the contradictions inherent in their position.

It is interesting that the wider the gap between the haves and the have-nots - as in Latin America and on the West Coast here - the more likely people are to deny the existence of the gap and the its implications.

The tyranny in the Warsaw Pact countries does not discredit socialism, it discredits tyranny. Why does not the tyranny in capitalist countries discredit capitalism? "Castro" is used to discredit socialism, but Pinochet and Samoza and Stroessner and Banzer and Branco and Martinez and Cordova do not discredit capitalism somehow.

[Cleita]

145. I wasn't exactly that privileged since my privilege came from my

Gringo father but say what you will. I like socialism like it's done in Sweden and Denmark, as they do it with capitalism. It really doesn't work otherwise and you can't deny that unless you deny history. I love Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, and if you haven't noticed that from some of my posts here then you don't know much about me. Also Chavez and Morales are trying to combine both philosophies into their governments. They don't care for the feudal aristocracy, nor do I, but those of us who have had to live with these systems do know the realities. But you take your Marxist ideaology wherever it takes you and you will find that no one will listen to you.

[Two Americas]

150. don't mean to insult you

Didn't mean to speculate on your background either. Sorry.

I am very familiar with your posts, admire them, and usually agree with you.

Of course there will inevitably be a "mix" as you say. We get to that mix only if some are advocating the left wing positions.

I am not espousing a "Marxist ideaology" and speak in front of hundreds of groups and find that people very much listen to me. I think it is unfair to say that. You are trying to tell others "he is spouting Marxist ideology, therefore dismiss what he is saying." You are trying to get others to not listen to me by saying that because I am talking Marxist ideology that no one would listen. That is suppressive and dishonest.

[CANDO]

210. It seems to me you are describing a lack of political leadership

within their system rather than the system itself being the problem. We don't seem to be doing so well with our winner-take-all capitalist system as of late. Indeed we may be facing the complete meltdown of our nation as a consequence of un-regulated capitalism. Will future generations say it was our economic system, or just how we ran that system, as what brought us down?

[Two Americas]

61. trade and commerce

Trade and commerce are not the same as capitalism.

I am using the work "capitalism" to mean the consideration of Capital over Labor in all things - which we have here now to an extreme degree - or, in your words, "laissez faire economies, which lead to a small rich ruling class and a large population of poor."

Capital has a role. Capitalism means a belief system, the idea that everything should be dictated by the role of Capital, that Capital comes first at all times, that profits come above people, that wealth should rule rather then the people.

It is the belief that all things flow from capital, and that by catering to those with capital the rest of us will somehow benefit.

The word "capitalism" here in this country and in our lifetimes means "laissez faire economies, which lead to a small rich ruling class and a large population of poor." Talking about some theoretical definition of it, about what it should be in some idealized world, is just a way that we are induced to defend and promote the ideas that create "laissez faire economies, which lead to a small rich ruling class and a large population of poor" - in practical real world effect - while convincing ourselves and others that we are promoting something more noble. It is also "cover" for intellectuals - it protects us from being persecuted as "radical" and the like. It is our accommodation and compromise with the ruling class, in exchange for which we are tolerated.

[Cleita]

77. I'm not trying to confuse anything but clarify what we are talking about

Those words seem to mean different things to other people than they mean to me.

[scarletwoman]

85. Try this:

Farmer Brown grows melons on the land that has been in her family for generations (not to ignore the fact that this land was acquired through the violent dispossession of the indigenous people -- but that's a whole other issue). She takes these melons to the Farmer's Market and sells them -- that's "commerce". She earns enough cash from selling her melons to be able to buy a supply of coffee, which she cannot grow herself -- that's "trade".

Capitalism doesn't enter into it.

Capitalism would enter into it if someone else besides Farmer Brown owned the land. Farmer Brown would then have to pay rent to the owner of the land in order to have a place on which to grow her melons. When she sold her melons, she would have to make sure she sets aside enough of the proceeds to pay her landlord.

Whereas in the first scenario, Farmer Brown owns the means of production AND performs the labor; in the second scenario Farmer Brown does NOT own the means of production (the land), and the Owner gets a cut of the fruits of her labor. That's capitalism.

sw

[Cleita]

Ignore - dupe.

[scarletwoman]

88. Insurance is not "commerce and trade". Taxes are not "commerce and trade".

And Farmer Brown may be perfectly capable of doing her own maintenance and repairs.

My post was meant to illustrate that "commerce and trade" are not synonymous with "capitalism". They are quite distinct. Commerce and trade can take place quite well without capitalism.

sw

[Cleita]

89. Hemingway got it right.

"No man is an island". Maybe Timothy McVeigh was, but most of us aren't and we have to trade, swap and barter to make a living and to maintain our life styles. As a sophisticated, industrial society, we have to have banking and all the evils that can come with it to survive as nations. I personally regard insurance companies with the same admiration I hold for black widow spiders but they too are necessary. What we need is to allow them to operate within our government, and not become our government, which is what has happened today. Back in the days of the cold war, capitalism was given the erroneous honor of being a political system. It's not. it seems to operate quite well within a variety of political systems. We have to rule it not let it rule us but stifling capitalism leads to backwards societies and feudal systems. You don't want that do you?

[maryf]

94. Hemingway parrotted John Donne

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

[scarletwoman]

95. Sorry, but as far as I'm concerned capitalism IS feudalism.

Capitalism is all about our collective labor, and the wealth produced by that labor, being funneled up to enrich the few. Capitalism is about taking private ownership of the commons. Capitalism is about putting profits ahead of the common good.

Melamine in baby formula? That's capitalism at work. The owner of marketing firm that buys up the milk from hundreds of dairy farmers and then sells the formula realized he could make a bigger profit if he spiked it with a cheap chemical. The dairy farmer who milked the cows in the first place didn't decide this. If he were simply trading his milk to his neighbors in exchange for other goods, he wouldn't dare sell tainted milk. His neighbors wouldn't tolerate it. But he would still be engaged in commerce and trade.

sw

[Cleita]

101. Okay now were talking.

Capitalism should not be about private ownership of the commons and we the people need to claim what is ours in that respect. I'm all for nationalizing natural resources for protecting them and extracting them only in a environmentally and safe way. I'm talking about oil, lumber, the mining of metal and mineral ores and now the ocean resources we have. These belong to the people and should be used only in the most scientific and gentle way for our use and if there is extra to be sold to pay for social programs for the people.

However, when it comes to manufacturing, you need the private company that does it, under regulation, so that there is that free market they are so fond of. If you don't allow it, then an unregulated black market arises, which is worse. There was a time that the FDA did their job and you didn't have tainted food, milk and all the things we are seeing happening today. My mother was from South America and she always told me that it was so nice to shop in the USA because you didn't have to worry about the quality of your food because they had such a good inspection system (government by the way). This was back during the Truman and then Eisenhower years, yet it seems we don't have that anymore.

I have to say that I have fallen back on my mother's ways doing what she did when we lived in foreign countries of being really selective about whom we bought things from and boiling everything else, yes even here in the USA. I haven't gone to the extent of having a farm animal presented to me for an inspection of how healthy it was before I bought it and then watching it killed before my eyes or taking it home and killing it ourselves to make sure the source of meat was safe, but maybe we should start thinking that way. Oh and mama never bought milk from even the most well regarded dairy farmer to drink raw. It was taken home and boiled even after her inspection of the animals it came from and how it was milked.

[scarletwoman]

106. Well, sure. Boiling milk is pasteurization, not capitalism.

There's absolutely no reason that workers can't run a manufacturing business, it's done in many places. I don't have the link at hand, but just recently someone posted a mainstream news story about how workers in Peru (I think) have re-opened dead factories and made a living for themselves.

The act of producing stuff and selling the stuff you produce is not capitalism in itself. It all depends on who *owns* the means of production -- the producers themselves, or someone who seeks to profit from the labor of the producers, without being one of them.

sw

[Cleita]

107. We are both on the same page here.

I want to see more businesses become cooperatives or employee owned. I truly believe it's the wave of the future, and it is capitalism because you will be competing with the other cooperative. What you are against is corporatism and it is feudalism without the warriors. This is what we need to fight against and really define and make those definitions stick regardless of the language everyone tries to confuse it with.

[Hannah Bell]

112. If they're employee owned or cooperative, they're not "capitalist".

They're not hiring other people's labor; they're using their own labor & sharing out the income.

[Cleita]

119. Yes, until they have to do otherwise.

When they need insurance, an accountant to do their taxes, a UPS to do a delivery, they have become that.

[Hannah Bell]

123. Easy enough for an accountant to join a cooperative. Easy enough to pay

for a ups delivery or buy a group policy out of their shared surplus earnings if the cooperative exists within a larger capitalist milieu. If they exist within a cooperative milieu, they'd simply be trading services with the delivery people or the insurer - except the insurer would become redundant, I believe - the services could just be directly exchanged.

I'm not getting your point, i'm afraid.

[Cleita]

126. That's because you don't separate capitalism from corporatism.

Capitalism is what even the most communally run business does when they sell something so that they can go buy something or even save the money. Corporatism which is really feudalism is what you are against.

[Hannah Bell]

136. No, that's because you don't understand the distinction between capitalism & other economic systems.

You seem to think all selling or trading = "capitalism". It doesn't.

"Capitalism is what even the most communally run business does when they sell something"

not necessarily true.


Corporatism isn't feudalism, except rhetorically. It has some similarities, but it isn't the same thing, by a long shot. For starters, serfs were attached to their lord's land (always had a home), had the traditional right to use the land to produce for their own needs (always had food, so long as the crops didn't fail), & "owned" their own tools (means of production).



You jumble every economic system together, & say capitalism is this, no, that, no, the other thing. So since you don't understand the distinctions between the terms you're using, your writing is also a jumbled confusion.

[Cleita]

146. I haven't jumbled anything, but you guys have really parsed

economics into something I don't understand. No wonder this country is fucked. No one understands anyone anymore and the vultures have been there to gain from the confusion. I'm too old. You guys figure it out, but you can't replace one ideology with another one. You get more of the same bad. You have to look at reality, history and what works for the common good and what doesn't. I'm done.

[Hannah Bell]

158. I think I'm as old as you. The vultures promote the confusion; the vultures teach

that capitalism = all buying, selling, & trading except for state-run economics on the soviet model.

I'm sorry you're ticked off. I agree you have to look at history & your own experience & to ty to see what works best for all. I believe we probably share similar ideas about what might work best for all.

But if you start out with the idea that all buying, selling, trading = capitalism, except for the the soviet model, then your choices are pre-determined:

1) soviet-style state dictatorship,
2) hermitism, or
3)tweaking the present model.

Most don't like the idea of 1) or 2), so it seems 3) is the only possible form of economic organization - just with some better regulations - or better leaders - or better people.

But it's not.

[Two Americas]

124. this is not true

Amish farms are not insurable, by law, because they are not "improved" by virtue of not having electricity. There was a banker on NPR this week who manages hundreds of accounts for Amish farmers. They are immune from the panics and scares and credit crunches and financial meltdowns. They are having their best year ever, precisely because they are for the most part outside of the capitalist system. If you are going to call what they do "capitalism" then we would have to call everything anyone ever does, anything productive, anything to provide for themselves and others "capitalism" and the word no longer has any meaning.

The right wingers have wanted us to see "capitalism" as the same as "life" or "human nature," and therefore as inevitable and unavoidable. That only works if you first define anything and everything anyone ever does that is productive as "capitalism." That is what you are trying to do here.

Hiring an accountant is capitalism? Getting a delivery? Having insurance? This is making no sense now. If everything is capitalism, then nothing is.

You are claiming that we either have capitalism - the complete domination of the producers and workers by the money changers and investor class - or else we lose everything. This is simply not true, as even a cursory knowledge of history shows. Life - people producing and providing for themselves and each other - goes on without capitalism. capitalism cannot go on without workers, and the history has been that the workers are first driven by force into desperation before capitalism can work or get started at all.

[Cleita]

129. I thought capital meant money.

You and I are talking about two different meanings of a word. Amish are very capitalistic. They won't give you something. They will sell it to you. You are a talking about corporate control of everything like AT & T. If you want a telephone you have to accept their terms or go to hell. There is no capitalism with AT & T because they have put every other company out of business by buying them out and you are stuck with them. This is very feudalistic of them.

[Two Americas]

134. money

Money is a token, a means of exchange. It is not some magical force, a god, a law of nature, although many modern people treat it as though it were.

Capitalism is a system whereby labor is subservient to those controlling the means of exchange - producers subservient to investors. The more workable model, and the more common one throughout history, and the one that has produced all of the social progress and prosperity, has been to make the means of exchange subservient to the producers. Other ways to say that: labor over capital; people over profits; the common good over personal greed; the working class - the many who have worked much and amassed little - over the ruling class - the wealthy and powerful few who have worked little and amassed much.

Barter and trade and means of exchange and productivity are not capitalism, or else everything humans ever do is capitalism. If you wish to define capitalism as "everything people ever do" than I am not opposed to your "capitalism."

[Cleita]

149. Like I said you know everything. Go fix it.

I'm done. Evidently years of experience and studying and living through good and bad times means nothing. Just remember we tried and we had to fight many obstacles and we didn't get over a lot of them and even lost a lot of ground. But, it's your world now and you know everything. Good luck. However, maybe when you get off your high horse you might want to come back and ask us about what WE think we did wrong, if we are still alive.

[Two Americas]

151. I pissed you off

I regret that.

Cleita, I am probably older than you are.

[Cleita]

87. Capitalism enters into it when she has to buy insurance for the farm

and any employees as well as pay taxes. Also, she will have to pay property taxes and maintenance, meaning she occasionally has to hire companies for repairs and upgrading, more capitalism. She'll probably have to get a bank loan for those improvements. Oops the bank uses the property for collateral.

[Two Americas]

114. rubbish

Not how it works in farming. Credit is stable, farmers are safe, as is our food supply, while the rest of the economy goes to Hell. That is because since the New Deal, farming is protected from money manipulation. Otherwise we may well have been facing widespread famine by now. Capital and finance are kept on a short leash in agriculture by "socialist" government programs.

In agriculture, capital is subservient to production and keeping the farmers on the land. That is no accident. Almost everywhere else, the opposite is true.

If you want to call anything and everything involving money or work or improvements to property "capitalism" and base a generalized defense of all capitalism on that and use it for an attack on any and all contrary views, that is fine. Settle on your definitions, and then argue your point of view rather than sniping at others from every direction.

[Cleita]

121. Garbage.

Agriculture has been taken over by mega corporations. Soon they will not care if our supply of food is safe or adequat. There is no free market and competition in this new corporate world, but it has nothing to do with capitalism and a lot to do with feudalism.

[Two Americas]

125. they are attempting to do that, yes

Yes, corporate capitalism is moving in on farming and trying to crush it, here and around the world. There is an all out global war against cooperative agricultural communities. The people are driven off of the land - so that the capitalists can exploit it - and into slums - so the capitalists can exploit them.

[Cleita]

127. It's already a done deal.

Laws put in place during the depression and even before to protect the farmer, and secure our food supply have been coopted by the large farming corporations and used for their benefit. They are now our main suppliers and have taken over most of the prime agricultural places in our country. I live close to one of them, the California central valley, known as the San Joaquin Valley.

[Two Americas]

137. I work in farming

California and the PNW, represent an exception, and where we are all headed if we do not fight back. But the battle is not yet lost.

The right wingers, on behalf of their corporate clients, are waging an all out war on family farming. I wish liberals would not pile on and contribute to that. Farmers are under assault from the right, because they are still independent and socialized and cooperative. They are under assault from liberals because they are supposedly corporate and exploitative.

The West Coast features the worst of agricultural practices, and the most disconnected and ignorant, gentrified and suburbanized activist community. This makes for extreme polarization, and I think that goes hand in hand with extreme gaps between the haves and the have-nots and very little middle ground - which I find to be the case in CA and the PNW. It is not representative of the rest of the country, and the models used on the West Coast - the good ones and the bad ones - will not work for the rest of the world.

[Cleita]

148. Okay. You know everything. Go fix it. n/t

[olegramps]

162. The major shift in the economy of Western Nations was the Industrial Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution made possible the emergence of Capitalists. The capitalists used their wealth and influence to protect their position and enslave labor in poverty. Strict laissez faire principles did not lead to open markets but to monopolies and in fact crushed competition.

The sacred concept of supply and demand only operates in a strictly open market. Capitalists can manipulate the supply to artificially boost demand and the price of their goods. It was during the Industrial Revolution that the concepts of Mercantilism was replaced with the business philosophy of laissez faire that resulted in the massive abuse of the laboring class that were shamelessly exploited.

What is transpiring today is little different than what took place during the Industrial Revolution in which there was no protection for the worker. GThe abuse of labor is called out sourcing today.

[Two Americas]

267. the cart and the horse

What made the industrial revolution possible, in England, from where it spread, was the creation of a destitute and desperate labor force by the Enclosure Acts, which drove people from their cooperative communal villages and into slums. The technology already existed. What was needed was a slave, or near slave labor force.

when you look at the Enclosure Acts, it is clear that before we can have a "free market" their must be an elimination of competition, in the form of self-sustaining communities and self-reliant people, and a skewed system that gives a few control over the resources and that drives the masses to desperation and dependency. Once the game has been rigged, through force and with great human suffering, then those who benefited from that want to talk about a "free market."

That pattern is repeated over and over again and is still happening - drive people out of their villages and off of their farms and into slums, then start putting up factories.

[Two Americas]

113. whatvever

Arrive at an understanding with people as to what they mean with the words they are using, if that is truly the source of your confusion, and then proceed to discussing the ideas that are being offered. We cannot talk about ideas without using words. Drawing people into debates about what the words "really" mean is at best a distraction. You are trying to discredit people's ideas by challenging word definitions, or compare one person's to another's. You are also trying to trap people into things they did not say, such as anyone who hires someone is "evil."

[Hannah Bell]

110. Trade isn't capitalism. Societies have always produced & traded, but they haven't

always been capitalist.

The main distinguishing features of capitalism =

1. Production for profit & reinvestment (to make more profit) v. production for use
2. Labor as a commodity

[HEyHEY]

154. exactly, it's a balance

People don't freakin' get that. You can't have too much of either.

[Two Americas]

198. what "is a balance?"

You claim that something "is a balance." What "is a balance?" The best course? That which we should be supporting and promoting and advocating for?

"OK, Joe, you favor killing Pete. Pete, you favor Joe not killing you. I favor a balance, because both positions are too extreme. we would not want too much of either, because that would not be balance. How about you just cut off Pete's legs, Joe? Would that be enough to make you happy? Pete, I understand that you are not completely happy with this, but do not be a purist. If we don't appease Joe, he may kill your kids, too. We need to compromise, seek the middle, and have balance. Losing your legs is a lot better than getting killed, and we will have our precious balance and will not be going too far in either direction."

Of course, Pete is now weaker and Joe is stronger. So the next time Joe decides to kill Pete, we seek "balance" again and Pete loses his arms. Once Pete is killed, Joe WILL go after the kids, and the neighbors. Why would he not?

This is exactly what the Democratic party has been doing, and this is exactly the position that the working people are in, and it is the approach you are advocating.

Why would we advocate for "a balance?" This is the "logic" that stops us from strongly advocating for the people, that compromises and weakens the Democratic party, and that gives the right wingers an enormous advantage before the battle even begins.

You are saying that we should advocate for a balance. That means not fighting for our position, but taking a position of compromise from the beginning. You may eventually have to compromise, of course.

You look backwards, and see that the compromises between the haves and have-nots, between the workers and the wealthy and powerful few from the past are pretty good. In the 30's, the conservatives wanted no government help for the people. The Left wanted all of the people taken care of, all of the people to have dignity and self determination and security. The New Deal was a compromise that we had to settle for. The only people who argued for "balance" and "compromise" then were those who were fighting a rear guard action, those who knew that openly and honestly arguing the conservative view was not going to fly, would be rejected by people. So they concocted these "moderation" and "balance" arguments, as though they were just neutral observers who were not on either side in the great battle.

The "balance" and "middle" arguments never arise until there is a threat to entrenched power and wealth, until there is a danger to the ruling class that the people, the workers and producers, are catching on to the scam and are fed up and desperate and ready to fight back.

I think it is a very good sign that we are hearing the "balance" arguments now. It is a symptom, and indicator, that we are on the right track and that progress is being made and an encouragement to all of us to press forward, to advocate more strongly, to speak out more forcefully now than ever, not to seek some "middle" or "balance" - which mean compromise, passivity, surrender, complacency.

I think we are seeing a desperate rear guard effort now from the conservatives among us. The arguments are getting more illogical and absurd, as they get more frantic and angry and malicious and simple-minded. They are off-balance, they are in retreat.

[Odin2005]

194. You are confusing Capitalism with a Market Economy and Free Enterprise.

This is a common tactic by apologists of Capitalism but it's not true. Capitalism requires the latter two things, but markets and free enterprise do not require capitalism.

[BelgianMadCow]

52. You're spot on in your posts

and I'll help you hope

[madrchsod]

20. what economic system will replace capitalism ?

[Cleita]

23. Capitalism doesn't need to be replaced. It can't be replaced.

Even in communist Russia, there was always a black market. What we need is for it to be regulated so that it works for the people, not the other way around.

[madrchsod]

29. during the great reign of ronny my wife and i had our own business

the market was our deciding regulation. we did`t have the big tax breaks and other benefits but we did ok. what the biggest problem was the health care costs were to much to continue full time. if we had universal health care i`d be back in business tomorrow. we still have the tools of trade and suppliers but at my age and health we could never be insured. instead of her putting in 60 hours a week at a crappy job we could be putting those hours into our business.

[Cleita]

36. I don't think you could do it today. During St. Ronnie's reign the

deregulation was only starting. Today it's in full bloom and even if there was universal health care, you probably couldn't undersell your nearest competitors unless you tried a niche market. Niche markets only do well in good economic times when people have extra money to spend. I'm watching mom and pops go out of business all the time to be replaced by a large chain outfit or even not being replaced at all.

[olegramps]

164. Dick Fuld is no different than Madoff

Both of these crooks ran a Ponzi scheme and ripped off investors. The Fuld, that arrogant bastard, walked away will over 300 million. How in the hell can Madoff come up with 10 million for his bail unless he is able to keep the money that he has stolen from greedy investors.

[Two Americas]

120. trade

Trade is not capitalism. If you want to define capitalism that way, we can all agree to that and move forward with the discussion of ideas. Then you will find that we are not arguing against trade, and you are making a straw man argument when you continue to claim that we are.

Goods can be traded on the black market by barter without any money at all. In a black market situation, the money itself becomes a commodity that is traded. It could go on fine without money, banks, investors or any other feature of capitalism.

For centuries in the English villages, until the draconian Enclosure Acts "stole the common from the goose," farming was cooperative and communal. Trade and business and production went on without any capitalism being involved. It was when the few enclosed farm lands and created monopoly conditions that capitalism arrived in the villages, and that destroyed rural village life and drove people into the slums, which was the prerequisite to the industrial revolution - not technology, and not capital, but the dislocation of the people from their traditional self-sustaining cooperative agricultural communities.

[conspirator]

222. I also agree with the abolition of money. We should trade goods and services for other goods

and services. And families should grow or fish their own food.
The problem is: how are you going to distribute or redistribute the land for cooperative farming? Who will decide which community gets which land?

[Two Americas]

243. we don't have that problem

We have a shortage of farmers.

Also, what is wrong with notes? That makes bartering goods and services more flexible and easier.

[Political Heretic]

193. Exactly.

And we'll probably have to drag the revolution ideologues kicking and screaming into a world that works better due to reform not dismantling.

[The Inquisitive]

24. How about Cory Doctorow's Wuffi based system

where all that really matters is how cool you are.

[killbotfactory]

30. Anarcho-syndicalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism

[BelgianMadCow]

55. Best name for sure. And sounds pretty good

to me. I'm rather fringe though ;-)

[Two Americas]

32. no one "system"

It is not an either/or. You can't select political "systems" off the shelf as tough they were consumer item.

The idea that capitalism is "a system" is false. It is a trick for discrediting and dismissing anything, any thinking or action, that is contradictory to the rule of the few.

The current exploitative and destructive conditions do not rest on any "system." What "system" is involved when thieves ransack your home? Why would you need and alternative "system" in order to stop that?

Demanding an alternative "system" is a way to distract people from the ongoing robbery, and to defend the ongoing robbery, because no matter what "system" people came up with we will then be talking about the supposed merits and drawbacks of that "system" rather than fighting against the ongoing robbery.

[Lyric]

26. As Percy Bysshe Shelley once wrote:

"Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few."



If they could do it--so can we.

[exman]

33. please stop confusing capitalism with corporatism

:mad:

[leftofthedial]

37. corporatism is the inevitable result of capitalism

capitalism is the ocean; the corporation is the shark

[burythehatchet]

62. I don't agree with that. Capitalism constrained through vigilant regulation and oversight

and a level playing field with labor, can survive.

[leftofthedial]

65. Capitalism constrained through vigilant regulation and oversight

is socialism

[burythehatchet]

67. We don't have an argument. I argue for the Social Democracy model.

[Two Americas]

130. we don't need "a model"

Arguing comparative ideologies and models is an academic exercise, entertaining in undergraduate class maybe, but completely divorced from the real world.

What we need to do is take a side in the ongoing battle, not amuse ourselves by comparing theoretical utopias and arguing which one is "better." That is ruling class thinking - "if I were prince of the realm" - and sadly, most in the activist community unconsciously identify with the ruling class - the wealthy and powerful few. This causes a hidden bias, not only in our views, but in our stand.

Real people are in real pain. Otherwise, who cares about politics?

I argue for the relief of the people and an end to tyranny. We can chat about the "model" that results from the struggle in hindsight at our leisure.

We are not lacking ideas. We lack courage and clarity. As the enemy overruns us, we debate theories with each other and never make it to the battle lines or even recognize that there is a battle happening.

Discussions of theories about battlefield tactics and strategy are of absolutely no value when they replace recognizing that the battle has started, preclude showing up on the battle lines, and act as an excuse for deciding which army you are loyal to and will fight with. This is a chronic problem among liberals, progressives and Democrats. Republicans and right wingers have no such problem and can focus all of their time and energy on smashing us, and that is exactly what they do. They know there is a battle, they know what the stakes are, they know which side they are on, and they know where the battle lines are.

[burythehatchet]

135. you taking a break from your

guerrilla warfare? A cup of joe, post on DU, reload the AK and back at it? I got your back.

[pork medley]

152. and they call communists utopian!

[Unvanguard]

167. ...

"Since 1936 I have fought for wage increases.
My father before me fought for wage increases.
Now I have a TV, a fridge, a Volkswagen.
Yet my whole life has been a drag.
Don’t negotiate with the bosses. Abolish them."

[Odin2005]

197. Coproratism is the inevitable result of Capitalism in an industrialized society.

Before the Industrial Revolution there were very few mega-businesses, and the few mega-businesses that did exist were either government-sponsored entities like the East India Company or were banking establishments owned by great (often Italian) banking families, other then that businesses were local operations with only a few employees. The Industrial Revolution made possible businesses of such a large scale that they could manipulate markets and governments, resulting in the birth of Corporatism.

[stillcool]

34. What will make the 'capitalists' come back?

seems like they're taking their capital and moving it to other countries. Except the defense industry. I hear they're still hiring in the U.S.A.

[el_bryanto]

39. That doesn't seem likely

But stranger things have happened I suppose. Do you advocate peaceful revolution or forceful revolution?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Two Americas]

41. inevitable

The idea that capitalism is the natural order of things is contradicted by the massive and continual effort that is required to enforce it upon people, and also by the irrepressible urge on the part of the people to form cooperative organizations that value from it not toward it. A recent Pew survey found that only 12% of the public sees the attainment of wealth as an important goal, and agrees that those with wealth should be the ones with all power. The few are imposing their will by force on the many. While it is common for the bullying and greedy few to dominate everything, the story of the human race is the ongoing struggle to resist that.

By "capitalism" I mean seeing Capital as the source of wealth rather than Labor, and organizing society and government for the benefit of those with capital - a small percentage of the people - at the expense of the working people.

Why would anyone advocate "forceful revolution?" That implies that the working people, acting in self-defense, are the ones who have the power to determine what it is going take. Confusing the method with the goal, and then dismissing the goal by attacking the method is often a way to oppose the goal without being accountable for doing so.

[el_bryanto]

43. well yeah but there have been violent revolutions in the past

So it's not as crazy a question as you propose. What would people have to give up along with capitalism and would they be willing to give those things up?

Bryant

[Two Americas]

44. you make two points

First, you say that because the struggle of the people for freedom and self-determination has led in the past to violent conflict, that therefore it is appropriate to challenge people who are advocating for freedom and self-determination whether or not they advocate violence. I reject that argument, and my previous comments stand.

Secondly, you are asking us to believe that we would have to give something up or would lose something if we won freedom and self-determination and overthrew the rule by the wealthy and powerful few. There is no evidence that supports that assertion. It rests on the premise that Capital is the source of wealth, rather than Labor. That is patently and obviously untrue. In the absence of Capital, people would - and always have throughout history - worked together to build prosperity and provide for themselves. In the absence of Labor, the capitalists and the financiers and the speculators and traders and "free" marketeers would be out of business.

I reject your argument that fighting for the working class means austerity or deprivation for the people. The opposite is true.

[el_bryanto]

46. OK

I was thinking more of the Russian and Chinese Revolutions - I'm not sure those fit under the rubric of struggles for freedom and self-determination - the first parts probably but the evolution not as much. And while it's possible that they seem like the same thing to you - advocating an end to capitalism isn't quite the same thing in my mind as advocating freedom and self-determination.

I think to say that labor is the soul ingredient in creating wealth is inaccurate; it takes both capital and labor for all but small scale communal self sufficient living.

Take the building of laptops - while labor certainly plays a role in the creation of a laptop, you also need factories and technology outlays, the creation of which requires capital - where is said capital to come from? Or, to be more precise, who decides to allocate capital towards the creation of lap top computers (or any other moderate complex product)?

Bryant

[Two Americas]

59. Russia is Russia

China is China.

We are in America, and using China and Russia as examples of anything is to make dubious comparisons on simplistic and unexamined premises.


You say that "advocating an end to capitalism isn't quite the same thing in my mind as advocating freedom and self-determination." I will explain. Capitalism means giving all power to those with wealth rather than to those producing wealth. While the struggle against that does not necessarily create freedom and self-determination, the fight for freedom and self-determination is always in opposition to entrenched wealth and power.

You ask where the capital comes from that is needed to build factories. You tell me. The money trees in the backyards of the investors? That capital comes from profits and speculation, which could not have ever existed had not Labor first existed.

You might find Lincoln's idea about "true system" helpful in this regard -

I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails in New England under which laborers can strike when they want to, where they are not obliged to work under all circumstances, and are not tied down and obliged to labor whether you pay them or not. I like the system which lets a man quit when he wants to, and wish it might prevail everywhere. One of the reasons why I am opposed to Slavery is just here. What is the true condition of the laborer? I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else. When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is such that he knows he can better his condition; he knows that there is no fixed condition of labor, for his whole life. I am not ashamed to confess that twenty five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flat-boat -- just what might happen to any poor man's son! I want every man to have the chance -- and I believe a black man is entitled to it -- in which he can better his condition -- when he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him! That is the true system.

And then again here on the proper relationship between Capital and Labor -

The world is agreed that labor is the source from which human wants are mainly supplied. There is no dispute upon this point. From this point, however, men immediately diverge. Much disputation is maintained as to the best way of applying and controlling the labor element. By some it is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital -- that nobody labors, unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow, by the use of that capital, induces him to do it. Having assumed this, they proceed to consider whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent; or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far they naturally conclude that all laborers are necessarily either hired laborers, or slaves. They further assume that whoever is once a hired laborer, is fatally fixed in that condition for life; and thence again that his condition is as bad as, or worse than that of a slave. This is the "mud-sill" theory.

But another class of reasoners hold the opinion that there is no such relation between capital and labor, as assumed; and that there is no such thing as a freeman being fatally fixed for life, in the condition of a hired laborer, that both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them groundless. They hold that labor is prior to, and independent of, capital; that, in fact, capital is the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed -- that labor can exist without capital, but that capital could never have existed without labor. Hence they hold that labor is the superior -- greatly the superior -- of capital.

They do not deny that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital. The error, as they hold, is in assuming that the whole labor of the world exists within that relation. A few men own capital; and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital, hire, or buy, another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class -- neither work for others, nor have others working for them. Even in all our slave States, except South Carolina, a majority of the whole people of all colors, are neither slaves nor masters. In these Free States, a large majority are neither hirers or hired. Men, with their families -- wives, sons and daughters -- work for themselves, on their farms, in their houses and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand, nor of hirelings or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, labor with their own hands, and also buy slaves or hire freemen to labor for them; but this is only a mixed, and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class. Again, as has already been said, the opponents of the "mud-sill" theory insist that there is not, of necessity, any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. There is demonstration for saying this. Many independent men, in this assembly, doubtless a few years ago were hired laborers. And their case is almost if not quite the general rule.

The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This, say its advocates, is free labor -- the just and generous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for all -- gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all. If any continue through life in the condition of the hired laborer, it is not the fault of the system, but because of either a dependent nature which prefers it, or improvidence, folly, or singular misfortune. I have said this much about the elements of labor generally, as introductory to the consideration of a new phase which that element is in process of assuming. The old general rule was that educated people did not perform manual labor. They managed to eat their bread, leaving the toil of producing it to the uneducated. This was not an insupportable evil to the working bees, so long as the class of drones remained very small. But now, especially in these free States, nearly all are educated -- quite too nearly all, to leave the labor of the uneducated, in any wise adequate to the support of the whole. It follows from this that henceforth educated people must labor. Otherwise, education itself would become a positive and intolerable evil. No country can sustain, in idleness, more than a small per centage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something productive. From these premises the problem springs, "How can labor and education be the most satisfactory combined?"

By the "mud-sill" theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible; and any practical combination of them impossible. According to that theory, a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be -- all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly. According to that theory, the education of laborers, is not only useless, but pernicious, and dangerous. In fact, it is, in some sort, deemed a misfortune that laborers should have heads at all. Those same heads are regarded as explosive materials, only to be safely kept in damp places, as far as possible from that peculiar sort of fire which ignites them. A Yankee who could invent strong handed man without a head would receive the everlasting gratitude of the "mud-sill" advocates.

But Free Labor says "no!" Free Labor argues that, as the Author of man makes every individual with one head and one pair of hands, it was probably intended that heads and hands should cooperate as friends; and that that particular head, should direct and control that particular pair of hands. As each man has one mouth to be fed, and one pair of hands to furnish food, it was probably intended that that particular pair of hands should feed that particular mouth -- that each head is the natural guardian, director, and protector of the hands and mouth inseparably connected with it; and that being so, every head should be cultivated, and improved, by whatever will add to its capacity for performing its charge. In one word Free Labor insists on universal education.

I have so far stated the opposite theories of "Mud-Sill" and "Free Labor" without declaring any preference of my own between them. On an occasion like this I ought not to declare any. I suppose, however, I shall not be mistaken, in assuming as a fact, that the people of Wisconsin prefer free labor, with its natural companion, education.

And here -

It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class--neither work for others nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families--wives, sons, and daughters--work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.

Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.

Here Lincoln connects all of these themes together -

Judge Douglas carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in slavery. That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles ­ right and wrong ­ throughout the world. These are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I eat it." No matter what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.

Notice how Lincoln connects organized Labor with freedom and the struggle against tyranny in all forms, including the abolition of slavery, and he connects giving Labor the higher consideration rather than Capital with that same struggle for freedom and self-determination.

[el_bryanto]

60. Well in fairness LIncoln was writing at the beginning of the capitalist age

Had his comments been followed, we might well be in a different position than we are now. But the challenge now, for you, is to explain how we move from a phase in which we have capitalism into a phase in which we have something else.

Had the labor of the workers been channeled and controlled by workers co-ops in the beginning who knows what sort of economic system we would have now; could possibly be quite better than what we have. But short of developing a time machine we have to work with what we have right now; a capitalist system that for it's flaws is still better than most other systems that have been tried. Now American Capitalism, as currently practiced, isn't my ideal (workers have too few rights, there isn't enough regulation, there is too much concentration of wealth, and so on and so forth. Oh and no national health care.

But i think the answer isn't to chuck capitalism, but to move more towards what western Europe has.

Bryant

[Two Americas]

66. that is what happened

You say "had labor of the workers been channeled and controlled by workers co-ops in the beginning" we might be better off. The degree to which we are better off is the degree to which that has in fact happened.

By calling the America system "capitalism" and then crediting all good things to capitalism, we ignore all of the workers cooperatives, the Grange system and farmer coops, the struggles of organized Labor, the progressive movement, the Abolition movement, the Civil Right movement, the American Revolution and on and on. The are the things that created the prosperity we enjoy, not capitalism. When Capital is ascendant, we get the opposite results - poverty, panics, collapses, depressions, unemployment, tyranny, and even famine.

Are you saying that Lincoln's statements about a universal struggle between Capital and Labor, between slaves and slave owners, between organized labor and management, between tyranny and freedom, were true through all of time, but are suddenly inoperative now for some strange reason?

"A capitalist system that for it's flaws is still better than most other systems that have been tried" is just a platitude that means nothing. We haven't been "trying systems" and our prosperity and wealth and freedom are all the direct result of the struggle against the ascendancy of Capital.

[el_bryanto]

68. Perhaps we are using Capitalism in different ways

What do you mean by Capitalism?

Edited to add - i'm about to leave so may not get back to this till tomorrow but i am curious.

Bryant

[scarletwoman]

72. Two Americas has given his definition of Capitalism in several of his posts on this thread, see his

post #61 for an example.

[Two Americas]

76. yes

My argument does not depend upon how we define a word, let alone its use as a brand name. I am talking about an idea. The idea, in Lincoln's words, is "the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor." That has always been the battle. Modern re-definitions and popular misconceptions that vary from that understanding are all the product of an ongoing massive propaganda campaign, and we would be foolish to ignore that fact and to embrace all of the unexamined premises and assumptions that the marketing campaign was intentionally designed to implant into our brains.

We live in an era when Capital has been placed on not merely an equal footing with Labor in the structure of government, but to the almost complete exclusion of any consideration for Labor. The Democrats are all "free market" advocates now, for the most part.

Putting "ism" after a word turns it into a belief or a principle. So capital-ism means the belief that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor; that capital should get the higher consideration and be above labor in the structure of government.

[Hannah Bell]

142. The beginnings of the capitalist age = somewhere between 1400s &

1600s.

Capitalism was well established as a world system by 1860.

[Hannah Bell]

115. What do you mean by "capital" when you say creating factories requires capital?

You mean a bunch of money?

Or a bunch of land, cement, wood & other resources/materials?

Or a bunch of brainpower?

Or a bunch of construction workers?

[el_bryanto]

172. Well Money represents capital to a certain extent

You acquire land, cement, wood and other resources with capital.

A bunch of construction workers are still going to need an architect, i would imagine.

Bryant

[Hannah Bell]

174. so you must mean that money is capital, since you acquire the other things with it,

so you seem to believe that if all money disappeared, it would be impossible to build bridges in its absence.

[el_bryanto]

175. Well if Money did not Exist I suppose I think we'd have to invent it

How would you acquire steel in an economy in which money no longer existed?

Bryant

[Two Americas]

191. this is great

It has been 40 years since I have seen these discussions. It is a very good thing that people are actually thinking about these things, and it is easy to see how confused people are.

These ideas that any advocacy of the political Left means eliminating money or merchants or trade are part of an old red-baiting trick, to get people to fear and reject certain political ideas.

Are those dollar bills in your wallet invested with some magical power? Do they run your life? Is money a symbol of value, used for the purposes of exchange, or do you see money as actually being the value? You are saying that it is the money itself that is valuable. That is an irrational belief, not reality.

During the Depression, the Great Depression, not the one we are entering now at breakneck speed, a group of local farmers here issued their own scrip and it was used for all exchanges locally for years - to pay employees, pay for supplies, etc. They did that because the dollar bill, manipulated by bankers and investors, was no longer reliable. This "money," and the dollar bills in your wallet, are just scraps of paper. We agree that they represent a certain value, for the sake of convenience. This idea that money has some magic power rests on a very weak and ignorant understanding about how things work.

All of these "free market" and "capitalism" and "money" arguments are childish beliefs in magic. There is nothing magical or mysterious about "money."

At the bank, money is just entries on a sheet of paper - promises to exchange fair value. Every night banks look to see which bank owes which bank what, after millions of transactions. The point of that is to prevent people from being ripped off, not to facilitate people being ripped off. When people work - that is what produces value, that is the source of all wealth - and do not receive fair value in return, they are being ripped off. Here is a simple example - when the farmer cannot buy a hoe AND the eater a mile up the road who makes the hoe cannot buy food, it is safe to assume that someone in between is stealing. Manipulation of money is the common way that people use in order to steal. This is not some magical "free market" at work, this is theft. The fact that this theft has come to be admired and socially acceptable, through the "free market" and "capitalism" and "money" arguments does not change the fact that it is theft.

The theft is so bad right now, so widespread and brazen, that the banks do not trust each other. However, in the world of farm credit, there is no crunch. The contrast is stunning. Why is that? Because in the world of farm credit, thanks to government intervention decades ago - socialism in other words, the means of production in farming belong to the people, not the bank, so that the people can be fed - the opportunities for theft have been eliminated. The farm credit system is designed to prevent the "free market" from "operating" and exerting its supposed magical powers - to prevent those who under the banner of "free markets" would steal from the farmer by manipulating credit and finance, to prevent "money" from being seen as the value, rather than the crops being seen as the value.

It is the dishonest and deceptive manipulation of money that is the problem, not money itself. It is the use of the magical "free market" beliefs to open up opportunities for people to skim and steal that is the problem, not trade or exchange or a market. A farmer's market is a real market - the producers and consumers meeting face to face. The manipulators, investors, policy writers, futures speculators, financial instrument hustlers, profiteers and money changers are not a "market" - they are parasites feeding off of real markets, and bleeding them dry to the point that we are all at great risk.

[el_bryanto]

209. Ok

"These ideas that any advocacy of the political Left means eliminating money or merchants or trade are part of an old red-baiting trick, to get people to fear and reject certain political ideas."

I certainly agree with this. However advocating an end to capitalism or the capitalist class usually does imply an end the current economic system. When you start out saying "Let's end capitalism" you can't really get upset when people say "Hey it sounds like you want to end capitalism."

I never implied that money had any magical powers; it is a means of exchange that simplifies interaction. Going back to a barter system and/or eliminating corporations means either moving past capitalism to something better or moving back to, essentially, a pre-industrial society. I haven't seen much evidence that what you are suggesting is better than what we already have (let alone what I actually favor a well regulated capitalism, with national health care and strong workers protection).

But perhaps I have missed something; in your society how would automobiles be produced; the manufacture of an automobile takes quite a bit of labor, but also a lot of specialized material and labor, large and expensive machines, refined materials like steel, glass, rubber, and so on. I'm not a mechanic, but I don't see how a "farmers market" style society successfully builds cars.

Bryant

[Two Americas]

211. the OP

"Workers must unite to overthrow the rule of the capitalists."

The rule of the capitalists...

"The workers" - that be us.

"Unite" - that means organize.

We are a long, long way from "going too far."

Yet we have dozens of posts with people fear-mongering and red-baiting and trying to portray any and all people even remotely left wing as blood thirsty and dangerous fanatics.

In the 30's people said - and this was the conservative point of view, and if that offends someone that can't be helped - "in your society how would food be produced?? The production of food takes quite a bit of labor, but also a lot of specialized material and labor, large and expensive machines, refined materials and other inputs. I'm not a farmer, but I don't see how a 'farmers market' style society successfully grows food."

Yet, in agriculture the "rule of the capitalists" was successfully overthrown, and the result was more stable farms, more food production, better food, lower prices and less hunger. The right wingers have been chipping away at our New Deal farm programs ever since, and corporations have been trying to get their foot in the door and control farming and farm land.

Today, while credit markets are frozen, and the economy is collapsing, there is no crisis in farm credit, because the rule - control and domination - of capitalists - those controlling wealth and doling to out to producers of wealth - has been overthrown.

Were that not the case, we would be seeing widespread famine here today.

No industry was so dependent upon capital and capital investment, no industry was so reliant on enormous inputs, no industry was so subject to boom and bust cycles as farming was.

We should see farming in much worse shape than the auto companies right now, were farming as vulnerable to the "free market" and unfettered capitalism as the auto manufacturers are.

If socialized agriculture works - strict regulation of finance and credit, and public control over and management of the means of production - and it most certainly does, then it most certainly will work in other industries that are nowhere near as vulnerable and volatile as farming is.

I was talking with farm credit folks last week at a big ag show, and asked them about the financial crisis. "What financial crisis?" they said. What, no credit crunch? Nope. No panic? Nope. No wave of defaults and foreclosures? Nope. No difficulties in writing loans? Nope. Nobody losing their farm? Nope.

There is a shortage of applicants. There are not enough farmers. There is a labor shortage.

Last week there was a guy on NPR who sets up loans for Amish farmers. They have no insurance, no credit line, no investments, no "financial instruments," have not modernized, have not become "more efficient," have not joined the "global economy."

They have done everything wrong, according to the apologists for the "free market" and "capitalism" around here. They are literally still manufacturing buggy whips lol.

So they must really be in trouble now, right? They must really be a bad risk. They must really be losers. Who would loan to them?

Yet the guy said that he is having his best year ever. He writes and administers farm loans to hundreds of farmers, on a handshake over the kitchen table, under the federal program, and among all of those farmers he had one farmer who was 2 days late on one payment for one month. That's it.

[el_bryanto]

213. Well what the amish can accomplish is certainly impressive

But I'm not interested in joining that particular society; I'm an urban creature myself.

I certainly have heard some conflicting reports about corporate farms grabbing up all the land and squeezing out the small farmers, but I have to admit I don't know enough about farming to have an informed opinion on the subject - do you have a link to more information on the success of the American Farmer and how it relates to the Federal Farm Loan Program?

Bryant

[Two Americas]

216. good points

No need to "join that particular society" and you can be an urban creature but you are still an eater and benefit from government farm programs.

There definitely is a battle going on and "corporate farms are grabbing up all the land and squeezing out the small farmers" one way or another. It is actually corporate energy companies trying to get control over farm land, as well as developers, not "corporate farms." Also, corporations and wealthy people who are not involved in farming at all scam the system and get most of the farm subsidies. That is the same corruption that has permeated the entire federal system under the Republicans.

I will dig up some resources on farm programs for you. I will just post a bunch of stuff, and you can skim or focus on what interests you most about it.

[Two Americas]

217. farm credit system

Origin of the Farm Credit System

The seeds of the Farm Credit System were planted by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908, when he appointed a Country Life Commission to address the various problems facing a predominantly rural population.

At the time, agricultural real estate loans from commercial banks, if they were available at all, had prohibitively high rates and short terms. Until 1913, for instance, federal law prohibited national banks from making loans with maturities beyond five years.

The commission's report documented a lack of any adequate agricultural credit, whereby a farmer may readily secure loans on fair terms.

The report led to various presidential and congressional studies over the next several years, which included extensive analysis of other nations' rural credit systems.

The credit delivery method established by the 1916 Federal Farm Loan Act was based largely on Germany's Landschafts, which had operated since 1769 and appeared to be the most successful of the various European cooperative ag-credit systems.

During the pivotal congressional debate over an American agricultural credit system, nearly 100 different bills were introduced, which ultimately focused on three major approaches:

Small, independent land banks, with federal charters but private capital. Proponents of this concept favored the non-government funding, but critics feared its built-in motive for high profits would not assure low rates to farmers.

Twelve federal land banks owned by their farmer-borrowers, partly capitalized by the government and financed through the private purchase of tax-exempt bonds.

Advocates maintained this cooperative structure would guarantee low rates, but critics disliked the government sponsorship and expense involved.

Direct government loans to farmers, favored by the nation's farm organizations but opposed by most politicians.

Congressional proponents of these three approaches battled to a stalemate in 1914, which led to the creation in 1915 of a Joint Committee on Rural Credits, which in turn drafted the final compromise that was adopted in 1916.

Lawmakers chose a cooperative credit structure based on 12 Federal Land Banks (FLBs), using $125 million in government seed money but financed by private capital from investors.

One sidelight of the Farm Credit legislation is that it helped lawmakers prepare themselves for more sweeping financial legislation. The chairman of the Joint Committee on Rural Credits was Rep. Carter Glass of Virginia, who teamed up a few years later with a colleague on the House Banking Committee, Rep. H.B. Steagall of Alabama, to write the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 the basic legal structure for most of the nation's commercial banks.

http://www.fccouncil.com/default.aspx?pageid=14

[Two Americas]

239. Farm Credit Administration

Welcome to FCA. We are the independent Federal agency responsible for examining and regulating the Farm Credit System (FCS).

The FCS is a nationwide network of borrower-owned lending institutions and specialized service organizations that provide credit and related services to farmers, ranchers, agricultural cooperatives, and other eligible borrowers.

FCA’s mission is to ensure a safe, sound, and dependable source of credit and related services for agriculture and rural America. Our agency was created by a 1933 Executive order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Today the Agency derives its authority from the Farm Credit Act of 1971, as amended.

Who We Are

The Farm Credit Administration (FCA) is an independent Federal agency that regulates and examines the banks, associations, and related entities of the Farm Credit System (FCS), including the Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation (Farmer Mac).

The FCS is the largest agricultural lender in the United States. It is a nationwide network of lending institutions that are owned by their borrowers. It serves all 50 States and Puerto Rico.

The FCS provides credit and other services to agricultural producers and farmer-owned cooperatives. It also makes loans for the following:

* Agricultural processing and marketing activities
* Rural housing
* Certain farm-related businesses
* Agricultural and aquatic cooperatives
* Rural utilities
* Foreign and domestic companies involved in international agricultural trade

Although FCA is a Federal agency, we are not supported by Federal money; instead, we are funded by assessments paid by FCS institutions.

What We Do

FCA’s mission is to ensure a dependable source of credit for agriculture and rural America. We do this in two ways:

1. By creating regulations for FCS institutions to follow

2. By examining FCS institutions to ensure their compliance with the Farm Credit Act of 1971 (as amended), FCA regulations, and safe and sound banking practices

If an FCS institution violates a law or regulation, or if its operations are unsafe or unsound, we can enforce corrective action. FCA also protects the rights of borrowers, reports to Congress on the financial condition and performance of the FCS, and approves the issuance of FCS debt obligations.

How We Are Governed

FCA policy and regulatory agendas are established by a full-time, three-person Board whose members are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The FCA Board approves the policies, regulations, charters, and enforcement activities that ensure a strong FCS.

The President designates the Chairman of the Board, who also serves as the Chief Executive Officer of FCA. The three FCA Board members also serve as the board of directors of the Farm Credit System Insurance Corporation (FCSIC) although the FCA Chairman does not serve as the chairman of FCSIC.

http://www.fca.gov/about/fca_in_brief.html

[Two Americas]

240. New Deal programs

New Deal Farm Programs Change American Agriculture

This is a good website for information about the New Deal agricultural programs, with many resources and first hand accounts. It is focused on York county Nebraska, but applies to the rest of the country.

http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_10.html

AAA - Agricultural Adjustment Act

Within days of his inauguration in 1933, President Roosevelt called Congress into special session and introduced a record 15 major pieces of legislation. One of the first to be introduced and enacted was the AAA, the Agricultural Adjustment Act.

For the first time, Congress declared that is was "the policy of Congress" to balance supply and demand for farm commodities so that prices would support a decent purchasing power for farmers. This concept, outlined in the AAA, was known as "parity."

AAA controlled the supply of seven "basic crops" – corn, wheat, cotton, rice, peanuts, tobacco and milk – by offering payments to farmers in return for taking some of their land out of farming, not planting a crop.

LeRoy Hankel says there only a few farmers who refused to take the government payments. "There's a few that said, 'The government isn't going to tell me what to do.' There was a few of them. Now, I don't think there was too many." Most farmers couldn't afford not to take the government payments.

In 1937, the Supreme Court ruled that the AAA was unconstitutional, but the basic program was rewritten and again passed into law. Even critics admitted that the AAA and related laws helped revive hope in farm communities. Farmers were put on local committees and spoke their minds. Government checks began to flow. The AAA did not end the Depression and drought, but the legislation remained the basis for all farm programs in the following 70 years of the 20th Century.

FSA - Farm Security Administration

The FSA loaned money to tenant farmers (renters) at low interest rates. The FSA also built model cooperative farmsteads for farmers who had been forced to receive relief (now known as "welfare"). The agency built camps in California for Okies and other migrant workers.

The loan program was the main effort of the agency and thousands of tenant farmers were able to stay on the land because of them. Many were able to earn enough ahead to actually buy their farms outright. Elroy did not. He remained a renter all his life, but he was able to make a living.

Conservation - the Soil Conservation Service of 1935

During World War I about one million acres of grassland in western Nebraska, better suited to grazing than to crops, was plowed under and planted. In the 1920s farmers were so desperate to increase income that they over plowed, over planted, and over grazed the land on the Great Plains.

Then in the 1930s, drought, heat, wind and low agriculture prices combined to cause disaster. The federal government responded with a variety of programs that encouraged Great Plains farmers to use soil conservation methods that would help conserve soil fertility and stop erosion. People who rented the acreage they farmed didn't want to invest in land that wasn't theirs. And times were so bad during the Great Depression that some landowners couldn't afford to use soil conservation methods that might not pay for several years.

Federal agricultural programs launched during the 1930s changed how and what Nebraska farmers planted by paying them to plant certain crops or paying them not to produce a crop at all – letting the land lie idle (fallow). LeRoy Hankel says Roosevelt's farm programs "helped us get back on our feet... When I came to York, this one time they was giving us about $50 or $60 on 80 acres" to leave a little ground idle. "I stood in line for an hour or two to get $50-some dollars payment. And that's the way it started."

Other government programs encouraged farmers to rotate crops and renew soil nutrients, to follow the contour of the land when plowing, to terrace sloping land to prevent erosion, and to plant rows of trees in "shelter belts" to slow wind erosion. By the late 1930s, the conservation began paying off. Rainfall started to return to normal. Farmers started planting hybrid seeds, and crop yields began to rise.

REA - Rural Electrification Agency

If you lived in town in the 1930s, your house had probably electricity. In town, families started using electric stoves, coffee makers, waffle irons, hot plates, electric roasters, and Waring Blenders during the 1930s. But if you lived in a farmhouse in the country, you did not have electricity.

Before the government hooked up farmhouses to electricity, farm life was very different and much more work. There were no electric lights, radios, air conditioners, washers and dryers, electric irons. Of course, there were no computers, televisions, microwave ovens, or video games. In farmhouses and barns, light came from kerosene lamps that were so dim "you almost had to use a flashlight to see if they were on," says Stan Jensen.

[el_bryanto]

256. I enjoyed this one quite a bit; I am a student of the 1930s

Although not as much on the Farm side of things I suppose. My mother was of farm stock, but i grew up in Orange County California (the most republican place on earth), and while I loved my mother, we had a pretty continuous disagreement over the value of rural life. She wished she could have raised me and my siblings on a farm i think and i was pretty damned happy not to have anything to do with farming. I guess that kind of carried over with me as i grew up.

Rural electification was enormously important; and the next and most obvious step is rural internetification.

Bryant

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268. why farming is important

Farming - rural cooperative and self-sustaining agricultural communities - first must be destroyed so that the exploiters have access to resources, and also have a labor force made up of dependent and desperate people who are easily taken advantage of.

There has never seen a population quite like ours - most people are 3-5 generations removed from the farm and entirely divorced from and ignorant about the source of their food. We are extraordinarily vulnerable as a result.

Modern capitalism and tyranny require the elimination of farming communities (and in some places hunter-gatherer tribes). Otherwise people don't need and will resist the exploiters. The "need" for modern capitalism must be artificially created by placing people in distress and dependency. Given that your land is stolen, your community and culture destroyed, then, yes, you need to get out there and "compete" on the "free market" or starve.

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247. Farm Service Agency

The Farm Service Agency traces its beginnings to 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression. A wave of discontent caused by mounting unemployment and farm failures had helped elect President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who promised Americans a "New Deal".

One result was the establishment in 1935 of a Department of Agriculture agency with familiar initials: FSA, which stood for Farm Security Administration. Originally called the Resettlement Administration, and renamed in 1937, its original mission was to relocate entire farm communities to areas in which it was hoped farming could be carried out more profitably. But resettlement was controversial and expensive, and its results ambiguous. Other roles soon became more important, including the Standard Rural Rehabilitation Loan Program, which provided credit, farm and home management planning, and technical supervision, and which was the forerunner of the farm loan programs of the Farmers Home Administration.

Another related program was Debt Adjustment and Tenure Improvement. FSA County supervisors, sometimes with the help of volunteer committees of local farmers, would work with farmers and their debtors to try to arbitrate agreements and head off foreclosure. The idea was to reach a deal by which the bank could recover as much or more than it would through foreclosure by allowing the farmer to remain in business.

FSA also promoted co-ops and even provided medical care to poor rural families. Although the scope of its programs was limited, poor farm families who took part benefited greatly. One study estimates that families who participated in FSA programs saw their incomes rise by 69 percent between 1937 and 1941! Annual per capita meat consumption increased from 85 pounds to 447 pounds in the same period.. Milk consumption increased by more than half.

In 1946 the Farmers Home Administration Act consolidated the Farm Security Administration with the Emergency Crop and Feed Loan Division of the Farm Credit Administration - a quasi-governmental agency that still exists today. This Act added authorities to the new Farmers Home Administration that included insuring loans made by other lenders. Later legislation established lending for rural housing, rural business enterprises, and rural water and waste disposal agencies.

...

Stabilizing farm income, helping farmers conserve land and water resources, providing credit to new or disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, and helping farm operations recover from the effects of disaster are the missions of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency (FSA).

FSA was set up when the Department was reorganized in 1994, incorporating programs from several agencies, including the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (now a separate Risk Management Agency), and the Farmers Home Administration. Though its name has changed over the years, the Agency's relationship with farmers goes back to the 1930s.

At that time, Congress set up a unique system under which Federal farm programs are administered locally. Farmers who are eligible to participate in these programs elect a three- to five-person county committee, which reviews county office operations and makes decisions on how to apply the programs. This grassroots approach gives farmers a much-needed say in how Federal actions affect their communities and their individual operations. After more than 60 years, it remains a cornerstone of FSA's efforts to preserve and promote American agriculture.

http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/webapp?area=home&subject=landing&topic=landing

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248. Farm Loan Programs

FSA makes direct and guaranteed farm ownership (FO) and operating loans (OL) to family-size farmers and ranchers who cannot obtain commercial credit from a bank, Farm Credit System institution, or other lender. FSA loans can be used to purchase land, livestock, equipment, feed, seed, and supplies. Our loans can also be used to construct buildings or make farm improvements.

FSA loans are often provided to beginning farmers who cannot qualify for conventional loans because they have insufficient financial resources. FSA also helps established farmers who have suffered financial setbacks from natural disasters, or whose resources are too limited to maintain profitable farming operations.

Guaranteed Farm Loans

FSA guaranteed loans provide lenders (e.g., banks, Farm Credit System institutions, credit unions) with a guarantee of up to 95 percent of the loss of principal and interest on a loan. Farmers and ranchers apply to an agricultural lender, which then arranges for the guarantee. The FSA guarantee permits lenders to make agricultural credit available to farmers who do not meet the lender's normal underwriting criteria.

FSA guaranteed loans are for both Farm Ownership and Operating purposes. Like the Direct Loan Program, a percentage of Guaranteed Loan funds are targeted to beginning farmers and ranchers and minority applicants.

Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Loans

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) provides direct and guaranteed loans to beginning farmers and ranchers who are unable to obtain financing from commercial credit sources. Each fiscal year, the Agency targets a portion of its direct and guaranteed farm ownership (FO) and operating loan (OL) funds to beginning farmers and ranchers.

A beginning farmer or rancher is an individual or entity who (1) has not operated a farm or ranch for more than 10 years; (2) meets the loan eligibility requirements of the program to which he/she is applying; (3) substantially participates in the operation; and, (4) for FO loan purposes, does not own a farm greater than 30 percent of the median size farm in the county. (Note: all applicants for direct FO loans must have participated in business operation of a farm for at least 3 years.) If the applicant is an entity, all members must be related by blood or marriage, and all stockholders in a corporation must be eligible beginning farmers.

Direct Farm Loans

"Direct" farm loans are made by FSA with Government funds. We also service these loans and provide our Direct loan customers with supervision and credit counseling so they have a better chance for success. Farm Ownership, Operating, Emergency and Youth loans are the main types of loans available under the Direct program. Direct loan funds are also set aside each year for loans to minority applicants and beginning farmers. To apply for a Direct loan, contact your local FSA office. For Direct loan interest rates, click here.

Operating Loans may be used to purchase items such as livestock, farm equipment, feed, seed, fuel, farm chemicals, insurance, and other operating expenses. Operating Loans can also be used to pay for minor improvements to buildings, costs associated with land and water development, family subsistence, and to refinance debts under certain conditions.

With a Direct Farm Ownership Loan, you can purchase farmland, construct or repair buildings and other fixtures, and promote soil and water conservation.

Emergency Farm Loans

USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA) provides emergency low interest loans to help producers recover from production and physical losses due to drought, flooding, other natural disasters, or quarantine.

Youth Loans

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency (FSA) makes operating loans of up to $5,000 to eligible individual rural youths age 10 through 20 to finance income-producing, agriculture-related projects. The project must be of modest size, educational, and initiated, developed and carried out by rural youths participating in 4-H clubs, FFA or a similar organization.

Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers Loans

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) makes and guarantees loans to approved socially disadvantaged applicants to buy and operate family-size farms and ranches.

A socially disadvantaged (SDA) farmer, rancher, or agricultural producer is one of a group whose members have been subjected to racial, ethnic, or gender prejudice because of his or her identity as a member of the group without regard to his or her individual qualities. SDA groups are women, African Americans, American Indians, Alaskan Natives, Hispanics, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

[Two Americas]

249. The Land-Grant System

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the general and scientific press were making widespread demands for more agricultural and technical education. Agricultural societies in many states also were insisting that colleges be available where students could study agriculture.

One of the most notable campaigns was led by Jonathan Baldwin Turner. A Yale graduate who had been a farmer, newspaper editor, and professor at Illinois College, Turner championed the cause of the laboring class.

Vermont Representative Justin Smith Morrill introduced his first land-grant bill in Congress in 1857. After a year of legislative maneuvering, Congress passed the Morrill Act of 1859. President Buchanan vetoed it, essentially on the grounds that it violated the traditional policy of the federal government, which until then had left control of education to the states.

In 1861 Morrill again introduced the land-grant bill with, among other changes, the provision that the proposed institutions teach military tactics. Given the need for military officers that had been created by the Civil War, along with the absence of Southern legislators who previously had opposed the bill, the land grant act faced a friendlier climate the second time through Congress. The Morrill Act was passed again and signed by President Lincoln on July 2, 1862.

Passage of the First Morrill Act (1862) reflected a growing demand for agricultural and technical education in the United States. While a number of institutions had begun to expand upon the traditional classical curriculum, higher education was still widely unavailable to many agricultural and industrial workers. The Morrill Act was intended to provide a broad segment of the population with a practical education that had direct relevance to their daily lives.

A key component of the land-grant system is the agricultural experiment station program created by the Hatch Act of 1887. The Hatch Act authorized direct payment of federal grant funds to each state to establish an agricultural experiment station in connection with the land-grant institution there. The amount of this appropriation varies from year to year and is determined for each state through a formula based on the number of small farmers there. A major portion of the federal funds must be matched by the state.

To disseminate information gleaned from the experiment stations' research, the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 created a Cooperative Extension Service associated with each U.S. land-grant institution. This act authorized ongoing federal support for extension services, using a formula similar to the Hatch Act's to determine the amount of the appropriation. This act also requires that the states provide matching funds in order to receive the federal monies.

The United States Department of Agriculture plays a large role in the administration of federal land-grant funds and the coordination of agricultural land-grant activities at the national level. The USDA's Cooperative State Research Service (CSRS), for example, administers both Hatch Act and Morril1-Nelson funds. A portion of the Hatch Act funding supports regional research, enabling scientists to collaborate and coordinate activities and thus avoid duplication of research efforts. The Extension Service of the USDA administers Smith-Lever funding, cooperating with state governments (which also provide funding for extension programs) to set priorities and facilitate the sharing of information within the entire Cooperative Extension System.

Because the 1890 land-grants do not receive Hatch Act or Smith-Lever funds, special programs have been created to help finance agricultural research and extension at these institutions. The Evans-Allen program supports agricultural research with funds equal to at least 15% of Hatch Act appropriations. Another program funds extension activities at the 1890 land-grants with an emphasis on reaching socially and economically disadvantaged people.

Today, America's land-grant universities continue to fulfill their democratic mandate for openness, accessibility, and service to people, and many of these institutions have joined the ranks of the nation's most distinguished public research universities. Through the land-grant university heritage, millions of students are able to study every academic discipline and explore fields of inquiry far beyond the scope envisioned in the original land-grant mission.

http://www.wvu.edu/~exten/about/land.htm#begin

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250. Cooperative Extension Services

Three acts signed by President Lincoln in 1862 shaped the U.S. Agricultural history: the act authorizing a U.S. Department of Agriculture; the Homestead Act, encouraging settlement of public domain lands; and the Morrill Act establishing land grant colleges in every state and placing instruction in agriculture and home economics in higher education. The Homestead Act caused a stampede for land (which was practically for free) and new problems arose. How could all these new landowners learn about farming and how could it be possible to educate the poor people working on farms now?

The history and formation of the cooperative extension dates back to The Hatch Act of 1887 which established a cooperative bond between USDA and the nation's land grant colleges allocating annual federal funding for research. This was one of the ways to improve the productivity of the farms and by doing this, build up the economy and also help the communities. It was the driving force for the land-grant colleges to meet the agriculture's needs. The Smith-Lever Act in 1914 provided funds for cooperative administration of agricultural extension education by USDA and the state land grant colleges.

http://are.berkeley.edu/~norwong/bkground.html

All universities engage in research and teaching, but the nation's more than 100 land-grant colleges and universities, have a third critical mission—extension. "Extension" means "reaching out," and—along with teaching and research—land-grant institutions "extend" their resources, solving public needs with college or university resources through non-formal, non-credit programs.

These programs are largely administered through thousands of county and regional extension offices, which bring land-grant expertise to the most local of levels. And both the universities and their local offices are supported by CSREES, the federal partner in the Cooperative Extension System (CES). CSREES plays a key role in the land-grant extension mission by distributing annual Congressionally appropriated formula grants to supplement state and county funds. CSREES affects how these formula grants are used through national program leadership to help identify timely national priorities and ways to address them.

Congress created the extension system nearly a century ago to address exclusively rural, agricultural issues. At that time, more than 50 percent of the U.S. population lived in rural areas, and 30 percent of the workforce was engaged in farming. Extension's engagement with rural America helped make possible the American agricultural revolution, which dramatically increased farm productivity.

...

The roots of U.S. agricultural extension go back to the early years of our country. There were agricultural societies and clubs after the American Revolution, and in 1810 came the first Farm Journal. It survived for only 2 years, but in 1819 John Stuart Skinner of Baltimore began publishing the American Farmer. Farmers were encouraged to report on their achievements and their methods of solving problems. Some worthwhile ideas, along with some utterly useless ones, appeared on the pages of the publication.

The Morrill Act of 1862 established land-grant universities to educate citizens in agriculture, home economics, mechanical arts, and other practical professions. Extension was formalized in 1914, with the Smith-Lever Act (link to that topic in About Us). It established the partnership between the agricultural colleges and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide for cooperative agricultural extension work.

...

During the Great Depression, state colleges and the USDA emphasized farm management for individual farmers. Extension agents taught farmers about marketing and helped farm groups organize both buying and selling cooperatives. At the same time, extension home economists taught farm women—who traditionally maintained the household—good nutrition, canning surplus foods, house gardening, home poultry production, home nursing, furniture refinishing, and sewing—skills that helped many farm families survive the years of economic depression and drought.

The Victory Garden Program was one of the most popular programs in the war period, and extension agents developed programs to provide seed, fertilizer, and simple gardening tools for victory gardeners. An estimated 15 million families planted victory gardens in 1942, and in 1943 some 20 million victory gardens produced more than 40 percent of the vegetables grown for that year's fresh consumption.

Today, extension works in six major areas:

* 4-H Youth Development —cultivates important life skills in youth that build character and assist them in making appropriate life and career choices. At-risk youth participate in school retention and enrichment programs. Youth learn science, math, social skills, and much more, through hands-on projects and activities.

* Agriculture —research and educational programs help individuals learn new ways to produce income through alternative enterprises, improved marketing strategies, and management skills and help farmers and ranchers improve productivity through resource management, controlling crop pests, soil testing, livestock production practices, and marketing.

* Leadership Development —trains extension professionals and volunteers to deliver programs in gardening, health and safety, family and consumer issues, and 4-H youth development and serve in leadership roles in the community.

* Natural Resources —teaches landowners and homeowners how to use natural resources wisely and protect the environment with educational programs in water quality, timber management, composting, lawn waste management, and recycling.

* Family and Consumer Sciences —helps families become resilient and healthy by teaching nutrition, food preparation skills, positive child care, family communication, financial management, and health care strategies.

* Community and Economic Development —helps local governments investigate and create viable options for economic and community development, such as improved job creation and retention, small and medium-sized business development, effective and coordinated emergency response, solid waste disposal, tourism development, workforce education, and land use planning.

http://www.csrees.usda.gov/qlinks/extension.html

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251. Agricultural Research Service

The United States government began supporting agricultural research in 1839, when the Agricultural Division of the Patent Office in the Department of State was formed. The Agricultural Division turned into a Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 1962, and that same year it issued its first Research Bulletin on the sugar content of varieties of grapes and their suitability for wine.

In 1868, USDA first began research on animal diseases, and for the next 10 years a main focus of research was on hog cholera, which caused devastating losses to farmers. This type of research continued throughout the 20th Century. The USDA also began to analyze the chemical composition of foods at the turn of the century, when the first studies into food’s nutrition content and the effect of cooking and processing began. Soil conservation was another focus of USDA research at that time and soil mapping used to predict and control erosion began in 1899. In the early 1900s, research began on breeding plants for disease resistance and studies of cattle diseases and dairy improvement. The field of genetics in animal breeding was founded in 1921.

The Agriculture Research Service was established on November 2, 1953, as the USDA’s primary scientific research agency. Establishing the ARS led to the merging of smaller bureaus into one larger division to oversee all the research programs. These smaller bureaus included agricultural and industrial chemistry, animal industry, dairy industry, human nutrition and home economics, and many others.

In 1958 the National Seed Storage Laboratory was established for the long-term storage of plant germplasm collected from all over the world and used in research to improve crops in the United States. It is now called the National Germplasm Resources Laboratory. Research increased and new laboratories were built all over the country during the next 20 years, partly the result of the boom in research into alternatives to chemical insecticides.

http://www.allgov.com/Agency/Agricultural_Research_Service

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254. Food and Nutrition Service

The Food Distribution Division of the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) provides nutritious commodities to 9 outlets through the Food Distribution Programs.

FNS works closely with two other USDA agencies to obtain the commodities for these outlets. The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) purchases perishable products such as meat, poultry, fish, fruits, and vegetables (Group A-type commodity foods). The Farm Service Agency (FSA) Commodity Operations Office purchases basic nonperishable commodities such as dairy products, cereals, grains, peanut products, and vegetable oils (Group B-type commodity foods).

The commodity program began in the early 1930’s as an outgrowth of federal agriculture policies designed to shore up farm prices and help American farmers suffering from the economic upheaval of the Great Depression. Many individual farmers lost their farms, while the total amount of farmland increased. Farmers planted more acreage to try and make up for poor prices – thus further depressing prices by increasing surpluses in a time of falling demand. At the same time, millions of people in the cities lost their jobs and were without means of support for themselves and their families. The danger of malnutrition among children became a national concern.

1. The Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act of 1933. The paradox of food being plowed under and livestock being destroyed while people went hungry caused the Federal government to act. The Commodity Credit Corporation was established in 1933, primarily to get loans to farmers and help them store non-perishable commodities until prices rose. Farmers were eventually allowed to forfeit their crops to the federal government to repay loans, which in turn forced the government to hold commodities and sell or distribute them to domestic and international food programs and to promote export markets in order to prevent waste and spoilage.

2. Section 32 of the Agriculture Act of 1935. To bring stability into the marketplace, Congress passed P.L. 74-320 on August 24, 1935. Section 32 of this act made available to the Secretary of Agriculture an amount of money equal to 30 percent of the import duties collected from customs receipts. The sums were to be maintained in a separate fund to be used by the Secretary to encourage the domestic consumption of certain agricultural commodities (usually those in surplus supply) by diverting them from the normal channels of trade and commerce. The object of this legislation was to remove price-depressing surplus foods from the market through government purchase and dispose of them through exports and domestic donations to consumers in such a way as not to interfere with normal sales. To utilize the foods purchased with Section 32 funds, eligible categories of recipients were established. This law provided the basis for donating surplus commodities (and later funding) for federal domestic food programs. USDA originally defined eligible outlets for these commodities, which included schools (for lunch programs), nonprofit summer camps for children, charitable institutions, and needy families. Essentially, it was the donations of these surplus foods that initiated the school lunch and other child feeding programs. During the Depression, commodity donations were the primary source of support for school lunch programs. During World War II, food shortages and transport problems limited commodity shipments to schools and Congress authorized the use of Section 32 funds to provide financial assistance to schools and child care centers to provide food for lunch programs. In 1943, State agencies took over full administrative and financial responsibilities of the donated food program at the State level (became “distributing agencies”).

3. National School Lunch Act of 1946. There was a growing support for a lunch program after World War II. This led to the enactment of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act in 1946, as amended, which provides for both commodity and cash support. Section 6 of this Act provided funds for the purchase of food to be distributed among the schools participating in the lunch program. It had as its stated purpose not only to provide a market for agricultural production, but also to improve the health and well being of the nation’s youth. This was the beginning of a change in concept of the Food Distribution Program’s major purpose.

4. The Agricultural Act of 1949. Additional authority for commodity donations was made available to the Department with enactment of the Agricultural Act of 1949, and subsequent amendments. Section 416 of the Act made certain commodities acquired through price-support operations by the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) available for distribution to needy people. CCC commodities were made available to: (1) school lunch programs; (2) the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Federal, State, and local public welfare organizations for the assistance of needy Indians and other needy persons; (3) private welfare organizations for the assistance of needy persons within the United States; and needy persons outside the United States. These donations were in addition to those made available through the provisions of Section 32 of the Agricultural Act of 1935. The Act also authorized the CCC to pay for added processing, packaging and handling costs for foods acquired under price support so that recipient outlets could more fully use them. This allowed for purchasing flour milled from support priced wheat, cornmeal from corn, oils from oil seeds, etc. The theory was that every pound of food purchased in its processed state reduced the amount that would go into CCC stocks. Again, the objective was to increase consumption of these foods that were being acquired by the CCC under price support. During the period from 1935 to 1970, over half of the foods that USDA distributed domestically went to needy families. However, as the Food Stamp Program expanded, school and child feeding programs used an ever-increasing share of the total food distributed.

5. Executive Order Mandating an Increase in Donated Foods to Needy Households. In January 1961, the first executive order issued by President Kennedy mandated that the Department increase the quantity and variety of foods donated for needy households. This executive order represented a shift in the Commodity Distribution Programs’ primary purpose – from surplus disposal to that of providing nutritious foods to needy households. Also in 1961, USDA set the goal of providing (within the constraints of the current marketing conditions) a minimum level of commodity assistance to schools.

6. New Programs Created in the 1960’s and 1970’s with a Commodity Component. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the Nixon Administration proposed phasing out commodity donation programs as part of a broader farm policy effort to end price support programs that required government acquisitions of commodities. This effort was unsuccessful, and in fact may have helped institutionalize commodity donations to domestic food programs. The Congress voted to continue farm price supports that generated government stocks, and mandated commodity assistance for school lunch programs.

Also during the 1960’s and 1970’s, several laws were enacted to create programs with a commodity component, which were designed to meet the food needs of specific segments of the population. These included the School Breakfast Program (SBP), the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), the Child andChild and Adult Care Food Program Adult Care Food Program (formerly the Child Care Food Program), and the Nutrition Services Incentive Program (formerly the Nutrition Program for the Elderly). In the SFSP, commodities are available to sites that serve needy children during summer vacation from school. Under the CACFP (which has now been expanded to include certain adults), commodities are available to approved day care centers that serve meals and snacks to children and adults, and family and group day care homes for children. The NSIP provides nutritious meals for older adults, either in congregate meal settings or through home delivery. Another program that was created is the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP). This program provides food to supplement the diets of low income pregnant and breastfeeding women, other new mothers up to one year postpartum, infants, children up to age six, and the elderly. The CSFP was the predecessor to the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program, and remains the preferred method for food assistance for these groups in some parts of the U.S. Also created in these years was the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR). This program provides commodity foods to low-income Native Americans and serves as an alternative to the Food Stamp Program in areas of the country where they do not have easy access to grocery stores. Subsequent legislation has been directed at making operational improvements to these programs.

7. The Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973. The Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973, P.L. 93-86, as amended, provided authority in section 4(a) of the Act for USDA to make open-market purchases of foods similar to those acquired under sections 32 and 416 when foods are not available under those authorities. This authority responded to a temporary decline of surpluses in the early 1970’s.

8. Commodity Initiatives in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Legislation enacted in the 1980’s addressed unemployment and homelessness. In the 1980’s when the weak farm economy brought huge government-held stocks of commodities, pressure to increase donations to all outlets increased. For the first time, emergency feeding organizations were guaranteed some form of commodity assistance. Prior to that, the USDA preferred to use more established and larger outlets (such as schools) for donations because they had formalized systems for handling commodities, and also because the law mandated commodities for them. The smaller charitable agencies relied on the Secretary’s discretion to receive donated commodities, and also had less capacity than school systems to use large quantities of commodities. When schools could not utilize all of the excess commodities that were available, the government began increasing its donations to soup kitchens and food banks. In order to regularize these donations and help emergency feeding organizations utilize the commodities, the congress approved a temporary food assistance act that provided grants to states to help them with the costs of transporting, storing, and distributing commodities to the emergency feeding organizations.

9. The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). In 1981, TEFAP was first authorized to distribute surplus commodities under the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program in order to help supplement the diets of low-income Americans, including elderly people.

1) In 1983, the Emergency Food Assistance Act was passed;

2) In 1988, the Soup Kitchen/Food Banks Program (SK/FB) was created to provide commodities to the homeless population. Also, the Hunger Prevention Act was passed which required USDA to purchase additional commodities for low-income households and local emergency feeding organizations;

3) In 1989, annual appropriations were first authorized for TEFAP purchases, by which time the supply of surplus commodities had been significantly reduced.

4) In 1996, the SK/FB program was merged into TEFAP in accordance with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, better know as "Welfare Reform."

5) Under the 1990 Farm Bill, the program was renamed The Emergency Food Assistance Program.

[Two Americas]

255. Overview of New Deal Farm Programs

Although the stock market crash of October 1929 represents, for many, the onset of the Great Depression, the decade of the 1920s was one of depression for much of agricultural America. Production had flourished under the high prices generated by World War I. Wartime demand ended suddenly with the Armistice in 1918. The 1920s saw overproduction and declining prices. When the Great Depression struck an already depressed rural America, the effect was devastating.

From 1910 to 1930, the number of farms in the U.S. steadily declined from 6.4 million to 6.3 million, and to 6.1 million by 1940. Clearly the trend was one of farmers moving out of agriculture. However, with the Great Depression gripping cities as well as rural areas, there were few alternatives. Farm mortgage debt rose from $3.2 billion in 1910 to $9.6 billion by 1930, and down to $6.5 billion by 1940. Farmers who had joined in the optimism of the 1910s and 1920s, were exercising great caution in borrowing in the 1930s, even when they could get the credit.

At the outset of the 2nd Session of the 71st Congress on December 2, 1929, the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry was chaired by Senator Charles McNary a Republican from Oregon in his third term as Chairman. The Committee members were 10 Republicans and eight Democrats. The Committee was located in room 328 of the new (Russell) office building. It was also at this time that the first women elected to the Senate was assigned to the Agriculture Committee. Hattie Caraway of Arkansas was elected January 2, 1932, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her husband, Senator Thaddeaus H. Caraway. Mrs. Caraway asked for the Committee assignment because she wanted to carry on the programs her husband had initiated. (Hope Chamberlin, A Minority of Members: Women in the U.S. Congress, Praeger, New York, 1974, pp. 92-95.)

In response to the depression gripping rural America, the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929, which created the Federal Farm Board from the Federal Farm Loan Board, with a stabilization fund of $500 million, was the subject of a Senate Committee hearing January 31, 1930. (71st Cong., 2nd Session, Hearing, "To Abolish the Federal Farm Loan Board and Transfer Functions to the Federal Farm Board" January 31, 1930, unprinted). The Act was a direct outgrowth of the unsuccessful attempts to get the McNary-Haugen proposals enacted into law. The Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 was endorsed by President Hoover as a substitute for the proposal to increase the domestic price level for the major export crops relative to the world level. The Federal Farm Board had two major fields of activity: strengthening farmer cooperatives and engaging in direct price stabilization operations with the $500 million revolving fund made available to it.

Creating policies that benefit U.S. farmers in the world marketplace has been debated by Congress throughout American history. Depending on the domestic and international atmosphere, Congress has enacted legislation adjusting trade policies to reflect the political and economic realities of the time. Congress has debated and assessed domestic and international policy relationships, striving for agricultural, as well as general, trade policies that would benefit U.S. producers, consumers, and the Nation as a whole. Trade policies have ranged from protectionism during the 1930s, reflected in the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 (championed by Senator Reed Smoot a Republican of Utah and Congressman Willis C. Hawley a Republican of Oregon), to the gradual elimination of most tariff and nontariff barriers after World War II.

In addition, Congress established the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) in response to the economic impact of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Both the Farm Credit System (FCS) and FmHA have played major roles in supplementing agricultural credit provided by private lenders such as commercial banks and life insurance companies by providing credit to enable producers to purchase farmland as well as to finance annual production expenses. The two lenders play different roles. The Farm Credit System provides credit to creditworthy borrowers. Farmers Home Administration makes financial assistance available primarily to family farmers unable to secure credit from private lenders.

By March, 1933, the beginning of the 73rd Congress, the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry chairman was now Senator Ellison D. Smith, a Democrat of South Carolina, who, from his work as an organizer for cotton interests, was to gain the nickname "Cotton Ed." Senator Smith chaired a committee of 11 Democrats and eight Republicans, an exact reversal from 1929. The Committee at this time was dominated by Senators representing Western states. The West had 11 members, the Central states four, the South three, and the East one.

In 1933, President Roosevelt and Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace faced an unprecedented crisis in American agriculture. There had been sporadic outbreaks of violence on American farms and on January 25, 1933, the President of the American Farm Bureau Federation, traditionally the most conservative of the farm organizations, warned that "unless something is done for the American farmer we will have revolution in the countryside within less than 12 months." (Agricultural Adjustment Relief Plan: Hearings on H.R. 13991 before the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 72nd Cong., 2nd Session p. 15, 1933)

Secretary Wallace responded to the mounting pressure by urging President Roosevelt to ask Congress to address farm problems at the special session which had been called for March 9, 1933, to act on the banking emergency. The President agreed and asked Wallace to call a farm leaders' conference to reach a consensus on legislation. (H. Wallace, New Frontiers, 1934, pp. 162-64). The fifty leaders proposed to the President that legislation conferring broad emergency powers on the executive branch be recommended to Congress. (American Farm Bureau Federation, Official News Letter, March 21, 1933) Secretary Wallace gave responsibility for drafting the legislation to Mordecai Ezekiel, a senior Agriculture Department economist, and Frederic P. Lee, a Washington lawyer employed by the American Farm Bureau Federation. (T.Saloutos, The American Farmer and the New Deal, 1982, pp. 44-46)

Roosevelt sent the draft to Congress on March 16, stating "I tell you frankly that it is a new and untrod path, but...an unprecedented condition calls for the trial of a new means to rescue agriculture."(77th Cong., Congressional Record 1933, p. 529.) Congress made a number of changes in the proposed legislation partly because Marvin Jones of Texas, Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, insisted on emphasizing the voluntary and self-determining concepts of the legislation. (I. May Jr., Marvin Jones, The Public Life of an Agrarian Advocate, 1980, pp. 101-104)

Congress passed the far reaching legislation, and it was signed on May 12, 1933, as the Agricultural Adjustment Act. This Act authorized production adjustment programs that were a direct outgrowth of the experience of the Federal Farm Board. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 also authorized the use of marketing agreements and licenses, which had been used already by producers to promote orderly marketing of perishable fruits and vegetables. Under authority of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, large quantities of surplus food were distributed to needy households and to school lunch programs.

To meet the critical situation facing U.S. producers during the Great Depression, Congress enacted several new programs, domestic and international, designed to provide income support and supply stabilization for the farm sector. To encourage trade and alleviate the unfavorable effects of trade on domestic policy, Congress passed two significant pieces of legislation affecting agricultural trade. Section 22, the first nontariff legislation for the general regulation of agricultural imports, was added to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 by amendment on August 24, 1935. It was revised several times, but its purpose was to ensure that imports not interfere with Department of Agriculture domestic farm programs. It authorized the President to impose import fees or quotas, if deemed necessary.

The use of nonrecourse government loans (which could be repaid by delivery of the product) to support the price of storable crops such as cotton, corn, and wheat began in a modest way in the first year's activities of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. To assure farmers of immediate market prices in line with expected longer run price levels, the Secretary of Agriculture, in the fall of 1933, made available nonrecourse loans on cotton and corn at levels in excess of current market prices.

In 1936 the Supreme Court of the United States declared major portions of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 unconstitutional as an encroachment upon the reserved rights of the states. (United States vs Butler, 297 U.S. Code 1, 68, 1936) Congress instead tried to solve the problem of price instability by providing incentives for farmers to reduce production and conserve land resources. The first general authority to conserve soil resources dates back to the early 1930s when dust from wind erosion in the Great Plains darkened the skies across America all the way to our eastern shores. Congress and the Administration moved quickly and replaced the 1933 Act with the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936. The Act established land and water conservation as a national policy and created the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) to develop and implement a long range conservation program.

The Farm Credit Act of 1933 established the third component of the system--local production credit associations to make short- and intermediate-term production loans to farmers. Congress created these associations to channel funds directly to producers from each intermediate credit bank because private lenders were unable to meet the credit needs of farmers coping with the Great Depression. Responding to the financing difficulties which farmer cooperatives had faced in the 1920s, the 1933 Act also provided for 12 district banks for cooperatives and a Central Bank to make loans to farmers' marketing, purchasing, and business service cooperatives. The Farm Credit Administration (FCA), which supervises the Farm Credit System, was established as an independent agency in 1933 by an Executive Order. Under a reorganization plan, the FCA was transferred to the Department of Agriculture in 1939. The Farm Credit Act of 1953 reconstituted the FCA under the direction, supervision, and control of the Federal Farm Credit Board and established it as an independent Federal agency. When Congress established each component of the FCS, the Federal Government provided capital to establish a financial base to carry out each bank's operations. The 1953 Act, however, declared the policy of Congress to favor increased borrower participation in the control and ultimate ownership of the Farm Credit System and the eventual retirement of all Federal Government funds. By 1969, all government funding had been retired.

Throughout the 1930s, commodity programs unsuccessfully attempted to annually adjust supplies of the major crops in line with available market outlets at satisfactory prices. Marketing agreements and orders, which promoted more organized marketing and gave producers increased bargaining power, also were utilized by the producers of milk for fluid use in a number of city "milk sheds". Since the United States imported much of its sugar, special legislation was passed in 1934 that allocated the domestic market between local producers, Cuban and other offshore producers, and provided for supplementary payments to domestic producers from a special tax on all sugar.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 ultimately became the legislative cornerstone for commodity price support programs for nearly thirty years. It authorized mandatory supply controls through acreage allotments and marketing quotas. In an amended form, this Act served as the foundation for commodity program policy until implementation of the FAIR Act in 1996.

Under the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936, Congress first authorized the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) to provide cost-sharing for soil and water conservation through the Agricultural Conservation Program (ACP). Under this program, the Federal Government shared costs with farmers and ranchers to assist them in carrying out soil-building and soil and water-conserving practices. ASCS, like the SCS, eventually had employees in virtually every rural county to deliver cost-sharing assistance to individual producers. Each county also had advisory boards, like the soil conservation districts, to help determine which practices should receive priority funding. Congress amended the goals and authorities of this program in title X of the Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973, and made less significant adjustments to the program through other enactments during the past decade.

During the Depression, Congress not only passed legislation assisting farmers, it also provided for food assistance to help meet the nutritional needs of poor people. Food assistance programs also were aimed at diminishing the excess supply of farm products. The high unemployment levels of the Depression created the paradox of hunger side-by-side with the low prices and mounting surpluses of farm products. Under authority of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, large quantities of surplus food were distributed to needy households and to school lunch programs. By 1939 the federal government was distributing foods to 12.7 million unemployed and poor persons suffering under the weight of the Great Depression. The early federal commodity donations also helped to spur expansion of locally-operated school lunch programs, as schools became the first regular institutional recipients of "Section 32" foods. An experimental food stamp program, initiated in 1939, was suspended in 1943.

Section 32 of P.L. 320, the Act of August 24, 1935, provided authority for subsidy payments to be made to assist exports of specified U.S. surplus commodities such as wheat and cotton. Section 32 authorizes three programs: (1) to encourage the exportation of agricultural commodities and products thereof; (2) to encourage domestic consumption of commodities or products by diverting them from the normal channels of trade and commerce, or by increasing their use among persons in low income groups; and reestablish farmers, purchasing power by making payments in connection with the normal production of any commodity for domestic consumption. During the late 1930s, more than 60 different types of section 32 acquired commodities were being distributed. Meanwhile, separate programs were underway aimed at improving the nutritional status of needy families in general. These programs would not be targeted to special groups like children but rather be made available mainly on the basis of low income.

The Depression era spawned a number of credit and grant programs designed to meet the basic needs of rural people and their communities. The impact of the Depression had revealed in stark terms the disparity in standards of living between city dwellers and rural residents. Congress responded to this problem, initially by providing funding for electrical service to rural areas and providing resources to make water available where droughts and water shortages had adversely effected rural residents. Congress created the Rural Electrification Administration and the Farmers Home Administration in part to provide these basic services.

The second major source of Government-sponsored agricultural credit, the Farmers Home Administration, had its beginnings in the Resettlement Administration, a rural rehabilitation agency established by Executive Order in 1935. This agency was created to advance short-term loans to low-income tenant farmers who did not qualify for credit from other lenders.

The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was also established by Executive Order by President Roosevelt in 1935 as part of the New Deal emergency relief program. At that time, only 12 percent of all farms in the United States had electric service. The Rural Electrification Act of 1936 established REA as a lending agency with the statutory authority to make loans to improve electric service in rural areas. Loans could be made to construct and operate generating plants and transmission lines, and to develop distribution lines to bring power to rural residents without central station service. Until 1944, REA made loans primarily to rural electric service cooperatives and public power districts at interest rates that fluctuated with the Government's cost of borrowing money. The Department of Agriculture Organic Act of 1944 liberalized the terms of REA loans by establishing a fixed interest rate at the approximate cost of borrowing money, and extended the loan repayment period.

The establishment and expansion of the Farmer's Home Administration's role to assist rural development activities had its genesis in Congressional passage of the Water Facilities Act of 1937. This law authorized the Resettlement Administration to make loans for individual and association farm water systems in seventeen western States. In 1954, Congress expanded this water supply program to apply nationwide, permitting non-farm customers in rural towns to tie into farm area water systems.

In July 1937, Congress passed the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act to expand the Resettlement Administration's farm lending programs. This Act authorized the Resettlement Administration, shortly thereafter renamed the Farm Security Administration, to implement a new program that made available supervised farm ownership loans with 40-year terms to farmers who lacked other credit sources to purchase their own land and to improve their farms and homes. This program was successful in strengthening many family farmers who helped meet the awesome food-producing challenges during World War II.

In some ways, the Bankhead-Jones Act was an extension of the earlier Purnell Act of 1925 which had expanded the scope of agricultural research to include investigation of the social and economic problems associated with agriculture. The Purnell Act also expanded Federal funding to further the development of the agricultural extension system.

During the 1930s, the general philosophy of farm policy was that of assisting producers to adjust their production and marketing to improve and stabilize farm income and prices in a period of continued unemployment. The overall objective was the attainment of prices by farmers equal to a certain percentage of "parity" in purchasing power with nonfarm groups-i.e., a purchasing power equivalent to that enjoyed by farm producers in the period 1910-14.

[BelgianMadCow]

56. false dichotomy

:thumbsup:

[leftofthedial]

47. I advocate real change

by whatever means are necessary to make it happen. Peaceful I hope.

[Unvanguard]

170. True, it isn't very likely.

But one way to ensure that it will certainly never happen is to refuse to consider the possibility.

[struggle4progress]

42. As a first step, I'd settle for some broad-based popular movements that

actually tracked important legislation and regulatory efforts at the state and federal level. And a big increase in citizen attention to local government. And more public attention to what the state and federal courts do in specific cases. And an effective student movement for labor solidarity. And a nationwide network of community activists that tracked corporate influence in their own towns and states

A lot of us couldn't organize a frickin kaffee klatsch, let alone a town-wide demonstration. Without experienced and disciplined popular front organizations, we'll never have so much as a one day general strike

[Hannah Bell]

219. ditto on that.

[BelgianMadCow]

50. If not now, when? The biggest heist in history, in broad daylight.

class war

ngu
bmc

[Greyhound]

54. I'm afraid that the parasites will make a non-violent resistance possible.

Violence is their stock and trade, and when pushed will resort to it immediately.

These are not nice people nor are they afraid of sending others to die for them.

[Initech]

64. We're in dire need of a worker's revolution in this country.

The fat cats are getting fatter and we're getting fucked in the ass. That aint right.

[salguine]

69. I keep saying, we need to bring this back:

[L0oniX]

80. Indeed ...Marie Antoinette style.

[ljm2002]

70. Great thread, enjoyed reading the discussion...

...well, except for that bit early on which almost hijacked it. Glad it got back on track to become a substantive discussion.

There does seem to be a lot of hand-wringing about things like, "But this sort of change implies violent revolution", and "But what could you possibly replace Capitalism with?", and "But we couldn't have laptops without Capitalism", and... you get the picture.

My purpose in posting this is not to denigrate anyone's opinion. I know that these concerns are real. However, at this point in time, I think that what we need to be most wary of is failure of imagination. See, we humans have this uncanny knack of being able to think things into existence. It isn't that simple, of course -- effort is required after the thing is conceptualized! However, it is still a facility that is unique to humans as far as we know, and it is high time we began to make use of it for our social systems, both in this country and worldwide.

No I'm not talking about PNAC type plans for world domination. :-) And I do realize that organizing will be required, something I know nothing about. But it seems to me -- as quoted in the Shelly poem upthread -- that we, the "little people" of the world, *do* have power, if only we will take it into our hands. And with the Internet we have a very powerful tool to use.

My thought is that what we really need to do is to find that commonality of interest that can spark a revolution in thought, such that people really begin to realize the power they have in unity of purpose, where people really do see their common interest in minimum standards of wages, health care, environmental protections, etc. If somehow that can be harnessed into actions en masse, not violence but general-strike type things, or boycotts as appropriate, then we could see real change.

Oh well, just daydreaming on a Saturday afternoon...

[leftstreet]

73. "what we need to be most wary of is failure of imagination"

Spot on!

I also like to see these kinds of threads here.
Very interesting.

:thumbsup:

[KG]

71. works for me!

:thumbsup:

[anonymous171]

74. Socialism is cool. Communism is pure shit.

[gravity]

78. Nope, I prefer capitalism

Instead of having a radical revolution that will lead to an oppressive government, we can just return to common sense regulations that benefit the workers instead of the super wealthy.

[scarletwoman]

79. Love this thread! It seems to me that capitalism is little more than feudalism tricked out

in industrial age, and now post-industrial age clothing.

The few Owners, deciding the fates of the Many.

sw

[Cleita]

91. That's what happens when you stifle capitalism.

Everything goes to the Lord, so no one gives a damn and they only produce what the Lord wants.

[scarletwoman]

102. "...they only produce what the Lord wants." And when their capitalist Lords decide that workers

in India can produce that by which the Lords profit more handsomely than U.S. workers, the Lords do not hesitate to throw U.S. workers under the bus.

THAT'S capitalism.

The feudal Lord would turn the uncooperative off the land -- capitalism forecloses on their homes. Not much difference that I can see.

sw

[Two Americas]

138. trade

You are calling trade "capitalism." Trade predates and can exist outside of capitalism.

[Sex Pistol]

84. Okay...who da next boss...?

And please explain how a worker cannot be a capitalist without being a SLAVE?

[NoPasaran]

86. Now that THAT"S settled, what's the strategy?

Wobbly-style One Big Union with a general strike?

Leninist vanguard party?

???

[scarletwoman]

90. Actually, it's not "settled" at all. A few people are waking up, but most remain in denial.

Just look at some of the responses on this thread.

The "strategy" is to wake as many people up as possible to understand who the real enemy is, and to stop meekly accepting the fiction that there is no alternative.

[Cleita]

92. So what's your strategy?

I'm getting confused. Here I thought we could get back to the days in the fifties when we actually had a productive and capitalistic society, with rules, and you say it's feudalism. What do you think would work? Soviet Russia has already proved that communism doesn't work. Sweden and Denmark have proved that social democracies with a capitalistic economy do work. So what's your solution?

[maryf]

93. Hear hear scarletwoman, 3 quotes to use in your strategy...

from informationclearinghouse.info today too apt not to "parrot":

"The country is headed toward a single and splendid government of an aristocracy founded on banking institutions and monied corporations, and if this tendency continues it will be the end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling and riding over the plundered plowman and the beggar... Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

=
In a country well governed poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed wealth is something to be ashamed of. : Confucius

=
Democracy when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers: Aristotle

[MazeRat7]

96. Not going to happen. The "empire" will burn and collapse before it changes. Sorry. n/t

[lovuian]

98. every empire corrupts and dies

A new age comes these are changing times

[Writer]

100. And what should they replace it with? n/t

[scarletwoman]

104. Worker ownership of the means of production, preservation of the commons, and

true representative democracy that looks out for the rights of the many instead the rights of the plutocrats.

sw

[Two Americas]

141. yes

As was true in the rural farming villages in England for centuries. The upper class imposed the Enclosure Acts. That crushed village life and farming, and the villages emptied out as desperate people headed for the coast and wound up in slums, where they could be easily exploited. This gave the few control over farm land, and with millions of desperate people to exploit, the industrial revolution. None of that was "progress," it was not a result of technology, did not improve people's lives, and was not a natural or inevitable occurrence.

This battle is going on today around the world, as people are driven off of the land and herded into slums, while the traditional cooperative and sustainable communities that had supported human existence since the beginning of time are smashed and wiped out. This is all being intentionally done, and benefits the few at the expense of the many.

[happychatter]

117. you crack me up

I'm an old hoodlum... not now, but, well... you know

if you want to hurt a poor man, you target his livelihood, his tools, his truck, his job

if you want to hurt a rich man, you target his family... because his livelihood is usually too well protected... and requires bigger bombs (metaphorical bombs)


who said "ahem?"

Anyhow... what IF, the rich man doesn't even care about his own family?

What if there is an army of sociopaths in between you and your target?

I have a friend that's fond of saying "These people eat their own, Happy. They will kill their own children."

What then?

Then you target his body. Frankly... you kick his ass.

If you think organized labor is going to join ranks, think again. We only care about workers in our own little industry. The days of the railroads... or the truckdrivers... joining ranks with unions in other industries is O-V-E-R.

They just don't care... and you can bet.... they don't give a flying FUCK, about Mexico, or Columbia, or Malaysia, or Taiwan.

There needs to be a new dynamic. I saw in an interview a few months ago with a cat on democracynow, that said he had an idea. I think it was only an idea, and he was about as crisp as John Kerry after a joint.

Bring a lunch if you're going to divine what the hell THAT means.

If you figure it out, call me. I have a truck and a baseball bat.

[Hannah Bell]

143. Your assumption seems to be that people's thoughts & emotions are fixed in concrete.

People "care" in some circumstances, not in others. They appear to care, but maybe they secretly don't. They appear not to care, but maybe they secretly do.

Circumstances change, thoughts & emotions change, actions change.

& permutations thereof.

[happychatter]

155. you got MY vote

just goin' with what I'm knowin'

Aerospace Machinists at Boeing... a prime example

Railroads vs Teamsters up here in the Northwest... same thing

turf wars

we have no solidarity

living wages and worker dignity, reasonable benefits... hope for our kids

these should be GLOBAL goals and although they should be... and that may change (I'm with you... not putting you down)...

they ain't

[anaxarchos]

122. One step at a time...

Everyone must have the right to food, shelter, employment, health care, security in old age and when disabled. Those must be fundamental "rights", equal to those in the Bill of Rights (FDR proposed that - See Economic Bill of Rights)

Nationalization of the Banks (already paid for and they are too powerful for any country to control).

Nationalization of the Energy and Automobile Industries (there is no future if they are left to themselves).

Nationalization of all outsourced or emigrant manufacturing enterpises (stay or leave - can't have both. No foreign manufacturing "protected" by the U.S. military and supported by paid-off U.S. politicians).

Nationalization of Defense Industries (Democracy is perpetually unstable and Empire is inevitable as long as they remain private).

Confiscation of the property of all convicted corporate swindlers, speculators, and crooks (forget "fines"; let real "regulation" swing the pendulum back towards people).

Forget all arguments about the "inefficiency" of government and the rest. If the government of Capital can't do this, then new forms are required. Forget about turning a "profit" at every enterprise. Consciously accept "losses" when it is in the public good.

That's not a bad start...

[leftstreet]

139. FDR's Second Bill of Rights

Thanks for bringing this up. No one ever talks about it.

The Second Bill of Rights was a proposal made by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944 to suggest that the nation had come to recognize, and should now implement, a second bill of rights. Roosevelt did not argue for any change to the United States Constitution; he argued that the second bill of rights was to be implemented politically, not by federal judges. Roosevelt's stated justification was that the "political rights" granted by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness." Roosevelt's remedy was to create an "economic bill of rights" which would guarantee:

A job with a living wage
Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
Homeownership
Medical care
Education
Recreation
Roosevelt stated that having these rights would guarantee American security, and that America's place in the world depended upon how far these and similar rights had been carried into practice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights

[anaxarchos]

153. Eleanor Roosevelt lobbied actively for it...

...after Franklin's death and it was incorporated whole into the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which was eventually signed by 142 countries (but not the United States). The European Social Charter of 1961, one of the founding documents of the EU, was based on the same documents. In truth, the idea of "Economic Rights" goes hand in hand with the idea of "Political Rights" and shares the same history. The French Constitution of 1789, which is the origin of "The Rights of Man", was superseded in 1793 by a new Constitution which specifically spelled out "Economic Rights". The idea of economic "prosperity" being only derivative from purely political rights is a fiction of a century later - retrospective propaganda by the "victors".

Here are FDR's original words from his State of the Union Speech of 1944:

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual
freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.
Necessitous men are not free men. People who are hungry and out of a
job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-
evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights
under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be
established for all – regardless of station, race, or creed. Among
these are:

Opportunity
• The right to a useful and remunerative job…
• The right to a good education.
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies…

Security
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment.
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.
• The right of every family to a decent home.
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

[SlowDownFast]

179. Enlightening.

Thanks for that info.

:hi:

[Odin2005]

199. Priviate armies is what lead to the death of the Roman Republic.

That's why the M-I Complex and mercenaries like Blackwater scare the shit out of me.

[StreetKnowledge]

147. We've already lost.

They will take their money and run if you try, and they have already sold us to the Chinese. It's that simple.

Barack Obama can't change that without destroy what we have left. It battle for the remnants now, and our best bet is to stand up and share those remnants, not fight for them. If we fight for them, we'll destroy more of it and ourselves in the process.

[HEyHEY]

156. And who exactly are "the capitalists" how will we know?

Is a man who squeeks by selling jewelery a capitalist?

It's a balance. There's no "all capitalism" or "all communism" answer.

[Two Americas]

157. balance

What exactly is "a balance?" We advocate for one thing, others advocate for another. Of course whatever we wind up with will no doubt be a compromise of some sort. Someone has to be advocating for labor is we are going to wind up in the glorious "middle" people think os so wonderful. You can't start with advocating compromise.

When people say "there's no all capitalism or all communism answer" it is always leveled at the political Left, and always results in "all capitalism."

We are awash in extremist free market Reganomic arguments, pounded into people's heads 24 hours a day. But let someone speak for the Left, and suddenly we are worried about "all this or all that" or "a man who squeaks by selling jewelery."

Nothing anyone says here threatens your "man who squeaks by selling jewelery." The threat to your man, and the extremism, and the demand for "all capitalism" and the authoritarianism is all coming from the other side.

[HEyHEY]

181. A capitalist is a capitalist..... just because they make a certain amount doesn't change that

Say what you mean, which is proper regulation of a capitalist market. This "Destroy capitalism" bunk makes you sound like a bunch of nut jobs, hence easy to dismiss by people who might have otherwise listened to you.

[Two Americas]

182. oh, people are listening

Your argument is dishonest.

You claim to be saying that people will not listen to the Left because of what people are saying. But what you are actually saying is that people should not listen to the Left.

You are calling people you disagree with "nut jobs" in the hope that this will cause other readers to dismiss them. People can decide for themselves whether or not so see others as nut jobs and whether or not to dismiss what others are saying. Your post is a sneaky way to encourage people to do that.

Clever, but malicious and dishonest.

An honest post would read like this -

"I think that these people are nut jobs and I am dismissing what they are saying based on that." That is what you are actually saying.

[HEyHEY]

186. No, what's dishonest is twisting my words and telling me "What I'm saying"

Because it doesn't agree with you. So, do you always accuse people who disagree with you as lying and being part of some kind of conspiracy?

[Two Americas]

203. really?

Are you now claiming that you are not saying that people should not listen to "you guys" because they are "nut jobs?" What DID you hope to achieve by that argument if it was not to make the ideas of the people you disagree with seem unworthy of consideration?

I went to middle school. When someone says "ewwww! That kid is soooo unpopular" it is not a description of reality, it is a call for others to ostracize and ignore the targeted person, which of course will make that person unpopular. It is a call for ostracizing a person disguised as a description of the reality that they have been ostracized (and therefore presumably deserve to be ostracized.)

"Ewwww! That kid is soooo unpopular" is not much different from "you guys are nut jobs and no one will listen to you." Obviously, the hope is that others will see "you guys" as "nut jobs" and not listen to them.

I am not "accusing people who disagree with me as lying and being part of some kind of conspiracy." I am pointing out a specific example of a misleading and dishonest line of argument, and saying that it is a common argument from those defending Reaganomics, taking anti-Labor positions, and attacking the political Left.

[HEyHEY]

206. Considering I said it makes it easier for people to dismiss you....

And you're saying I said "People should dismiss you" yeah... I am saying that you're lying and twisting my words. But, I'm not arguing about this with you. I know your kind, distract from the actual argument and get bogged down in stupid argument that YOU start by lying about what someone said.

[olegramps]

165. No, he is a merchant.

The individual merchant is the target of the capitalists. They use their influence and power to dominate the market. Left unregulated the end result is a virtual monopoly. This is the end game of unrestricted capitalism. It is laissez faire at its extreme. This is the by product of the Industrial Revolution that resulted in the exploitation of workers. The only force that can cope with the industrialists is organized labor. The only force that can deal with capitalists is a government that is dedicated to the protection of the worker. The dominance of government by the Republicans has allowed the capitalists free reign to exploit the markets to feed their insatiable greed. Who knows if they have left any thing to salvage. When you don't produce anything of value to sell then you are bankrupt. About the only thing that we can produce of any value is war material. Too bad that we allowed those in power to drown out the warnings of Eisenhower.

[scarletwoman]

177. Excellent post!

:thumbsup:

[HEyHEY]

180. A merchant is a capitalist.

Capitalism means free market. Being a merchant you depend on such a market. It's so funny to see all of you guys contradict each other. There's posts up thread from someone trying to re-define what capitalism means as well. Why don't you guys just say what you mean, "We need tighter regulation in a capitalist market."

[Two Americas]

183. "free market"

Merchants do not depend on any mythical "free market." Markets are but one small part of a society. Society should not be seen as one small part of some magical "free market" that should rule our lives and that we should all worship.

The "you guys" whom you are attacking - those who have seen through this "free market" mythology, who know that it is a lie, a stalking horse for greed and anti-social thinking that can only benefit the few - now numbers in the millions and is growing every day.

Once people see through a lie, it is really difficult to revive it. Falling back on arguing about the definitions of words is a pretty weak defense of the concepts of Reaganomics.

Defend the concepts of Reaganomics, if you can, and never mind arguing about definitions of words. Merely saying that there "is" this imaginary "free market" is not an argument. Saying that we "have" a "capitalist market" is not argument either.

[HEyHEY]

189. Buddy, unlike you, I live in a socialist country

There are OTHER countries in this world and what happens in the USA doesn't determine the be all end all of society. I've seen how socialism and capitalism can work together. Which is perhaps why I don't agree with this ludicrious crap about "fighting capitalists" and which is why I don't have to try to re-define words in a dishonest way to try to fool people into agreeing with me.

[Odin2005]

202. There are no socialist countries, you are talking about what is called State Capitalism.

State Capitalism is a regulated capitalist economy with a welfare state.

[HEyHEY]

207. No, you're talking about state capitalism, I'm talking about socialism

[Hannah Bell]

220. canada = "socialist country"? sheesh.

[HEyHEY]

225. You obviously don't know what socialism is.

[Hannah Bell]

226. educate me, then.

[HEyHEY]

230. For instance, here in BC

We have public car insurance, hydro, healthcare and a natural gas company. Whereby in someplace like the USA, none of that would ever fly. People seem to thing socialism means communism, that's not the case. While Canada isn't as socialist as some nations, it is on an overall scale, a socialist country.

[Hannah Bell]

316. So you define socialism as some state ownership/provision of e.g. utilities & social services.

I don't.

Far from it "not flying," in the US we also have various state-run hydro, healthcare, & utilities.

[Odin2005]

200. That is a misconception actively spread by the Neo-Liberal apologists of Capitalism.

Markets existed before capitalism was born in the late middle ages and markets will outlast capitalism. Capitalism is not about how goods and services are distributed, it's about who controls the means of production.

[HEyHEY]

208. No capitalism existed before it was recognized

There are some capitalists who are more succesful than others, but the base of it is that someone can exchange a good or service for private gain.No amount of personal opinion will change that.

[Two Americas]

212. what do you do?

I am curious, HEyHEY.

Are you a free-lancer or independent contractor? A business owner? Or do you work for someone else? Are you a worker or in management? Do you belong to a union?

Nothing wrong with "exchanging a good or service for private gain" and I don't think anyone here is claiming that. If you are going to call that "capitalism" then everything is capitalism.

[HEyHEY]

218. I'm a journalist

I belong to a union and I also freelance. See, I think this entire thing began with a narrow post from the OP. It's obvious there's a lot of disagreement about WHAT people consider capitalism. I consider it to be the ability for someone to sell a good or trade. A system I think works, however, that said, you can't just let it run rampant. You need regulation so as to prevent monopolies, worker exploitation and such things.
But when I see blanket statements like "We must fight capitalists" I get my back up.

[leftstreet]

221. Like porn, people seem to know capitalism when they see it

The only reason there's so much disagreement on this thread about "defining" capitalism is that some people use that tactic in order to derail discussion about the sentiment thrown out by the OP.

[HEyHEY]

223. You may notice....

That anyone who takes this as a black and white is roadblocked and shouted at too. If I take that OP at face value, I'd say the poster is a moron. I'm trying not to do that.

[leftstreet]

227. Capitalists must unite to overthrow the rule of the Workers

We could try that as an OP and see what happens

:D

I get your point, I do. I was just talking about what I see happening whenever people start talking about Labor vs Capital. The conversation instantly gets co-opted by people intent on defining systems.

And eventually us dumb rubes wander off to watch videos of shoes flying at Bush.

Mission accomplished.

[HEyHEY]

228. haha, yeah, dead on, I'd say

[leftofthedial]

283. who you calling a poster,

I mean a moron?

Whatever.

You're not even Amurkan. ;-)

(And your definition of "capitalism" is ridiculous.)

[Two Americas]

302. well, yeah

But then there is the great beer, and hockey! ...can't forget hockey.

Now here is an interesting thing - I searched for the lyrics to "O Canada," the Canadian national anthem, and a Canadian government page was the first result, and when I clicked on that I got a 404 - "File Not Found." ROFL!

Erreur HTTP 404 - Non trouvé
Nous regrettons cet inconvénient...

Le serveur Internet ne parvient pas à trouver la page que vous avez demandée. Cette page a peut-être été déplacée ou supprimée. Veuillez mettre à jour vos signets ou liens en conséquence.

http://www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/ceem-cced/sc-cs/anthem_e.cfm

O Canada!
Your anthem can't be found!
I think you need a webmaster around.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
In the Google search results!
We would love to help, O Canada,
We'd run a server for thee.
We'd keep your site, where people can see!
O Canada, we'd run a server for thee.
O Canada, we'd run a server for thee.

[Two Americas]

236. there should be no confusion

You can define the word capitalism anyway you like. My arguments don't change.

You are defending a word. You are debating the definitions of words, and not the ideas.

In any case, the OP did not say "destroy capitalism," though most of the people here arguing against the OP are talking as though they had. The OP said overthrow the rule of capitalism. That is clear.

Here are some variants. Pick one you are comfortable with.

"End the dominance of Labor by Capital."

"Give workers equality with and the same rights as investors."

"Put people over profits."

"Make government responsive to the people, not to the few with the most money."

"Care for the have-nots, not the haves."

"Level the playing field."

"Give all an equal chance."

"End favoritism to the wealthy and powerful few."

"End the war on the working people."

[HEyHEY]

241. However.....

"You are debating the definitions of words, and not the ideas."

- Until we can agree on what the idea behind that word is, the arguments about said word are futile. If someone says, as you wrote, "Make government responsive to the people, not to the few with the most money" - That's something I can get behind.

It's clear. But something as simple as "overthrowing the capitalists" is too broad. I need to know what they mean by "capitalists" before I decide if I want to overthrow them.

[Two Americas]

244. so let's reach an agreement then

Also, please stop misquoting the OP.

The OP does not say "overthrow the capitalists" it says "overthrow the rule of the capitalists."

Here is who I am talking about when I talk about "the capitalists" whose almost absolute rule over us should be overthrown:

The capitalist class is people who are dependent upon ownership of the means of production — the capital of the world. The means of production includes factories, land and real estate other than one’s home, transportation systems (railways, trucking lines, commercial aircraft). Capitalist’s need not work. Their dividends, etcetera, provide sufficient income. The Capitalist class includes:

* Dependent children of a capitalist.
* Dependent spouse of a capitalist.

Class is not determined by one’s income. Some capitalists may have lower incomes than some workers. The key is that they need not work for a living. They own enough capital (such as stocks or bonds, or direct ownership of a business) to be able to live comfortably on the income generated by that capital.

Class is determined by one’s relation to the means of production. Those who own the factories, the banks, airlines, railroads, trucking companies, shipping lines, etcetera, are capitalists — members of the capitalist class.

Members of the capitalist class may work. However, it is an option for them, which is quite a different situation than is faced by the working class.

[HEyHEY]

252. Well, overthrowing them is the same as overthrowing their rule...

Anyway as for the rest, if that's what you mean when you say capitalist, then I would say I'm with you.

[Two Americas]

253. very good

Thanks for the great discussion. I appreciate it very much.

[Hannah Bell]

318. You're misinformed. Capitalism is not simply exchange for private benefit.

As another poster said, defined like that, "capitalism" = "everything". Which means there is no "capitalism," it's synonymous with "economy".

By this definition, a potlatch exchange, a feudal serf giving labor to his lord, a soviet citizen buying something at GUM, two farmers helping to raise each other's barns - are all "capitalism".

BUT THEY'RE NOT.

Capitalism is a distinct form of political economy. Its distinguishing features, minimally:

1. Labor as a commodity bought by "capitalists".
2. Investment of capital to create more capital for more investment - not for use value, & not for personal accumulation of goods.

[earth mom]

161. K & R!

:thumbsup:

[bread_and_roses]

163. I begin to think there is a sea change, here on DU and elsewhere...

...when I first came here, about five years ago, a post like this would have been laughed off the board, not discussed like this. There would have been 100 apologists for capitalism for every one questioner, at least.

It gives me a faint glimmer of hope - very faint, but still, hope. Even of hope for Obama - (for, not of - Obama, like other "leaders" will only do what we make him do, and I say that as an early and strong supporter).

To those here still defending the system, insisting that it needs but a few tweaks, I suggest two courses - one, read more history, and two, examine the degree to which your own life and livlihood depend upon the exploitation of the labor of others. Not the use of - the exploitation of.

[Unvanguard]

166. I'll go with that.

:)

[TBF]

171. K&R.

[Greyhound]

173. I think we need another thread to define terms and continue the conversation. n/t

[leftstreet]

187. I'd like to see a DU poll concerning FDR's 2nd Bill of Rights

Attitudes are changing, as evidenced by this thread.

The poster upthread who said this OP would have been laughed off DU a few years ago is absolutely right.

(I'd start a new thread but my OPs always dieeeee....)

:o

[Greyhound]

204. Yes, in fact we have a thread or two on that, and just as they said,

it was only popular with the few of us that have seen this coming for years. All the usual suspects came out howling, insulting, and crying about what a conservative country we are, etc. etc.

From the Second Bill of Rights

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

:kick:

[lovuian]

176. The millions of unemployed will be marching on Washington

soon

It will happen

[arthritisR_US]

185. Canada too!! n/t

[HEyHEY]

190. All we need to do is get rid of politicians like Gordon Campbell

[Political Heretic]

195. I'm for workers uniting. The second part is irrelevant.

Workers united and decide what is in their best interests moving forward. Maybe that's a "revolution." Maybe that's sensible market regulation and rules to the game that recognize the reality that labor creates all wealth.

You can have a market economy that recognizes that labor is the driving engine, you know? That's actually the goal I think we should really be striving for.

[Two Americas]

205. agreed

"You can have a market economy that recognizes that labor is the driving engine."

Goes without saying, doesn't it? Trade, exchange, merchants, small farmers will no doubt always be with us. I cannot imagine a popular movement for eliminating those ever arising in the US, can you? So it is an imaginary fear, and I cannot understand why this imaginary fear is always raised in response to any and all pro-Labor or left wing ideas.

Overthrowing the rule of free market capitalism - really the rule by the wealthy and powerful few for their benefit - does not mean eliminating money, eliminating trade, eliminating merchants or any of the rest of the red herrings people are throwing out there.

We advocate for Labor - the working people. Others advocate for capital - the wealthy and powerful few. We are living in an extreme example of capital being given almost all consideration and power. It is strange that in that environment people would be cautioning others about not advocating too strongly for Labor, and fear mongering about the dangers of doing that, and promoting some wishy washy ideas about "the middle" and "balance" and such.

The right wing has been doing everything in their power to destroy Labor - to destroy the people. They are not shy and retiring and compromising and advocating any "middle" or "moderation." That is why they are clobbering us.

Nothing being with saying "overthrow capitalism" and I am saying that. Of course, it means overthrow the absolute rule of capitalism, the dominance of it over every aspect of our lives.

Worrying about people going "too far" when we have not been going any where at all, and immediately throwing wet blankets on everyone who tries to encourage us to get moving and fight back, is to coddle and aid and abet the right wingers and to confuse and paralyze people.

[Political Heretic]

231. Right, I'm starting to get where your coming from more and finding that I mostly agree.

[Greyhound]

233. From upthread; "To secure to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible

is a most worthy object of any good government." -
:kick:

[IMPERIUM V]

201. Question: if ~80% of the American workforce is employed in unproductive labor (i.e., service sector)

how, exactly, are they exploited? how are they not receiving the full value of their labor?

[anaxarchos]

214. Well, to be "exact"...

...the service sector has nothing to do with "unproductive labor". A commodity does not have to be tangible in order to have value, nor to produce a profit, nor to produce "exploitation" (produce a "surplus" which is appropriated by the "owner"). There is no difference between a cook in fast-food chain and a lathe operator in a wood shop. Service sector employees are as exploited as any other labor (often more so).

There is a category called "unproductive labor", but it refers to labor which does not produce commodities, tangible or not. It can still be a shitty job but it is a "cost" (most often a cost of circulation) rather than a source of profit.

There is a good deal of confusion that is possible here and it gets worse as one gets into "the professions" in which commodities are produced just as with our cook or lathe operator, the "means of production" and the profits both belong to the capitalist, but compensation is very high (doctors, for example) due to a multitude of factors.

To avoid confusion, go to the basics: What is produced? Is it bought and sold? Who lives by ownership of what is produced and that which produces it, and who lives by selling their labor alone.

[IMPERIUM V]

229. So why do Americans on average have to spend a much smaller portion of their income on,

say, a carton of eggs at $1.25 — assuming they're earning a daily wage of $52.40 — than somebody in India who makes Rs. 50-100 a day, where a carton of eggs costs Rs. 30? (This hardly seems fair... if you'll remember, chickens are native to India ;-)) Are Americans *just* more productive because of better technology, even though the US economy is directed toward distribution OVER production of goods?

Or perhaps I am approaching this too simplistically?

[Two Americas]

232. food is socialized to a large degree

Food is the exception, because of the programs going back to the New Deal and TR's reforms.

We subsidize eaters. That is why food is as cheap as it is here, relatively speaking.

Food prices here are an argument against "free market" capitalism.

[IMPERIUM V]

235. I'm not arguing for ANY kind of capitalism! I say, to hell with capitalism!

But there must be a reasonable explanation why First World nations can subsidize agriculture while Third World nations cannot, at least not without hampering "growth." That's what I want to know.

[Two Americas]

237. imperialism and colonialism

Cooperative and sustainable rural agricultural communities were once the rule everywhere. Those were in the way of the colonial and imperial powers, and so have been under assault.

[Political Heretic]

257. I'm not for romanticizing "rural agricultural" if it means demonizing innovation and technology

I'm not assuming that its you're intent that this be either/or. But for me, I have techno-joy, not techno-fear. I'm not looking to roll the clock back and have is all wearing animal skins and laying out strips of meat on abandoned highways, to bastardize a quote.

I don't want to return to a "simpler" life - which I tend to think is usually a highly romanticized alternative version of history anyway. Instead, I want our continued technological development, scientific advancement and achievement to be tempered with a socio-political climate that maximizes equality of participation and values labor as the sacred underpinning of a well functioning economy. Are we on the same page - more or less?

I know that I don't have a problem with exchanging labor for wages, however I believe that we can and should push for a structure that ensures fair compensation (in many ways beyond just wages such as protections, general welfare provisions such as health care, sick leave, vacation, etc.) and which "cherishes" the laborer as the backbone and most significant piece of a well-functioning economic system.

You could think of me, I suppose, as the Anti-Rand. My version of Atlas Shrugged would have the workers suddenly disappearing, leaving the "captains of industry" to panic without the means to produce anything. I really can't say that I'm looking to eliminate a wage, business, profit, competitive enterprise, free market system because I think that, when the rules are correctly made and correctly enforced, it is still the best vehicle of innovation, discovery and progress.

I just think that workers are the most sacred part of that whole, rather than thinking the "captains of industry" are the most sacred and the workers are a disposable commodity.

How close am I to your own thinking?

[Two Americas]

269. we agree

I mention farming for two reasons. First, over the last 200 years the destruction of agricultural communities has been the first step in the exploitation and domination of colonies and peoples around the world, and the effort at separating people from their traditional communities and herding them into slums goes on today. That eliminates resistance to the exploitation of resources, and creates a vulnerable, desperate and dependent work force. The industrial revolution was sparked on England by the Enclosure Acts, which drove the people out of their rural villages and off their communal cooperative farms and into the slums.

Secondly, the model of government intervention to protect farmers, which I documented above, is a model that can be applied to protection of all workers and to transforming other industries so that they support the workers and serve the public needs.

[Political Heretic]

274. Intresting. I think I misseed that gov. intervention model, so I'll go find it.

[anaxarchos]

238. 'Cause it's a fookin' racket, that's why.

The IMF and the World Bank take a dim view of subsidized agriculture in those areas of the world were pre-capitalist agriculture hasn't been completely destroyed and where the small landholders still remain. Gotta create the conditions for "Capital infusion" in agriculture so that Tyson can erect chicken factories in the Punjab. We call that "growth".

Don't be "hampering" it.

[anaxarchos]

234. Seems like a "wash"...

Rs.30 is perhaps $.65, no? A 2x difference in price can easily be made up by what constitutes an "egg" in the U.S. and India (size, weight, regulatories, etc.). The prices seem surprisingly similar and underscore the fact that the prices of "things" and the price of labor are entirely independent of each other. There is a historical and a social element to the price of labor in each country although it is certainly true that the minimal cost of "subsistence" sets an absolute floor on the latter.

I think what you after with your comment on "productivity" is a little bit different from the above. "Productivity" is a function of the organization and the intensity of labor but, above all, it is a function of the application of Capital (Capital intensity). Consider the two sides of this, historically. In the early days of British Colonialism, cheap British textiles all but destroyed Indian "homespun" despite the dismal standard of living of Indian spinners and the relatively high wages of Manchester textile workers (though they were still dismal). Today, there are more than one Indian textile manufacturers who use relatively lower wages to turn those very same tables. The difference is that the capital intensity of Indian manufacture is nearly on par with that of the U.K. We are describing, loosely, what people call "globalization" and which, in large part, is the substitution of the export of Capital in place of the export of cheap manufactured goods. Of course, new and equally dismal "side-effects" accompany the change.

I think it is complicated but not so much that it can't be unraveled with a little effort. The problem for us is that the science of this has been debased by crazy-ass right-wing "Libertarian" economics which reduced a dismal science to a distant one. It is as if we can't search for 5000 year-old human fossils without simultaneously looking for 5000 year old dinosaurs, since we "know" that they were both around at the same time.

[jmg257]

262. and then what? What do we do once they are gone? nt

[scarletwoman]

263. You are misunderstanding the argument. This is about giving labor primacy over capital.

Notice the OP says "overthrow the RULE of the capitalists" -- meaning, the interests of the capitalists must stop overriding the interests of the workers.

What we have now is a system where the rights and interests of the actual producers of wealth, the workers, have been under attack for decades. It's class war, and the other side has been winning for far too long.

sw

[Two Americas]

270. they won't be "gone"

The wealthy and powerful few will not be harmed - no one is advocating any such thing.

It is the rule by the few that the OP says needs to be overthrown.

A better question, since the assault on people that is actually happening, unlike the phony fear of one that might happen that is used against any and all arguments for justice and fairness, is the all out war on the working people, would be this:

What happens when the working people are gone? The what? what do we do then?

We, the working people, are the ones at risk and under assault.

[slackmaster]

266. I think the South will rise again before that happens

:nuke:

[Two Americas]

271. it is already happening

I think it is too late to stop now.

[slackmaster]

272. Naw, they're too lazy to go through with it

As soon as there is a NASCAR race on TV they'll get distracted.

[Two Americas]

273. blaming the people

Blaming the common people, calling them stupid and lazy, is inconsistent with every traditional principle and ideal of the Democratic party, the political left and the labor movement.

As the election approached, in the packing houses, at the farm coops, on the loading dock, and in the fields, what I heard again and again and again was "we need another New Deal." Meanwhile, the "smart" people, the successful people were babbling mindlessly about "hope" and "change."

I was listening the Peter Werbe in Detroit last night, and one after another UAW workers were calling in and they were all rock solid in their political analysis and class awareness. They put the gentrified, arrogant, self-absorbed and politically compromised activists to shame.

The people are not lazy. They lack leadership, and that is because the intellectuals on the left - the thinkers, speakers, researchers and writers - see themselves as a cut above, as better than the people, and have rejected the idea that "to whom much is given much is expected." Lazy, self-centered, cowardly, compromised and aristocratic, the liberal intellectuals and activists are missing in action, and this is the main cause of the political shift to the right in the country and the source of immense suffering.

[ShortnFiery]

281. "... aristocratic, the liberal intellectuals ..."

The Senate, in particular, is littered with "snobby and spineless democrats" with a few very notable exceptions.

No, Princess Caroline Kennedy is not the answer but PEOPLE who have risen from "the middle class" who KNOW what it's like to struggle in order to have to make ends meet.

We need more REAL PEOPLE instead of "club members" in OUR SENATE.

[1]

287. wait. we love caroline kennedy, right?

she's a kennedy.

she is not real?

[slackmaster]

291. I thought you were referring to the South in reply #271

Sorry about the confusion.

I think nothing is going to come of the rumblings to which you refer.

[scarletwoman]

294. Beautiful post.The tendency of so many self-described liberals to hold the working class in contempt

is one of the core reasons that we've gone so long without a viable left in this country.

I cannot thank you enough for the high quality of the analysis and perception that you bring to the discussion here.

sw

[Abq_Sarah]

286. Hey, bring it on!

I'd love for my "workers" to unite and overthrow me. I haven't had a vacation in 3 years and I work a minimum 80 hours per week. I'd love to trade places with them!

[ShortnFiery]

289. Yeah, 80 hours?

Methinks that may be a bit of a stretch, but who knows for sure. ;)

BTW welcome to DU, I think. :evilgrin:

[Abq_Sarah]

290. 80 hours minimum

That's what happens when you're a small business owner with a young business that operates 24 hours a day. In order to attract the type of people I need to work for me, I have to pay them more than my competitors and offer better benefits. That leaves me to pick up a lot of the slack. My business is debt free and we don't use credit so when things get tight, I'm the one who bites the bullet and does without. There are thousands of small business owners out there just like me. We may be capitalists but we're not pigs. ;)

[scarletwoman]

293. The "rule of the capitalists" referred to in the OP is about YOUR enemies, too.

For example, if it weren't for the "Rule of the Capitalists", we'd long ago have had universal health care -- which would definitely benefit small business owners like you.

The small business owner is just as much under threat by the current economic and political order as the workers are. The "Rule of the Capitalists" has lead to bigger and bigger monopolies, and the stifling and outright killing off of small enterprises and competition.

We are on the same side.

sw

(edited to add the word "political" to the first sentence of my second paragraph)

[AntiFascist]

296. The merger of Big Business and the State must be overthrown...

otherwise we'll have Fascism. Capitalists should only be able to rule their respective companies, and even then under properly enforced regulation. This should be common sense, but leaders of both parties have been blinded by their greed.

[Zomby Woof]

297. More quotes from Marx

I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend on reading it.

I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.

[scarletwoman]

299. *kick* Because I'm sick of reading useless stuff & this thread rocks. (nt)

[Zomby Woof]

300. Your computer is a product of capitalism

No doubt its multiple components made by several large corporations, and purchased at a privately run store, or mega-chain box outfit.

Who do you think owns the means of transmitting your internet connection? Whether phone lines, cable, or satellite, it likely has some major corporate dollars behind it.

C'mon! Don't be weak - throw out your computer! Take it to The Man! Revolution!




Ideological purity is easy when you don't have to think.

[Two Americas]

304. no it isn't

Almost all of the technology upon which the Internet is based was developed under public government programs, and advanced and regulated with the open source model in public and non-profit environments.

You are projecting. You are yourself expressing some simple minded ideological purity - the usual "free market" irrational belief system, and the taunting, fear-mongering, and red-baiting of the extreme right. The others here are expressing a broad and diverse range of opinions and insights, are talking about real world applications and historical precedents, and are not expressing any "ideological purity."

[Zomby Woof]

306. LOL

The internet wouldn't have moved from the Pentagon to the masses without the profit motive. All the high-minded "public good" rhetorical romanticized claptrap aside, most people these days access the internet through private means. The origins aren't as important as the outcome.

I never said that the "free market" (which doesn't really exist) is the best, or most desirable outcome. Or that it favors my politcal bent. But I am not some stupid hypocrite bleating stale faux-Marxist dogma either. Maybe it's too much radon leaking into the basements of the hacky-sack subset on DU -I don' know, lol.

You are a laugh riot, though. :rofl: "red-baiting" and "fear-mongering"? Too much, lol. Too much. Maybe lower your dosages a bit, huh? ;-)

[Two Americas]

307. "outcomes"

Yes, privatization has led to "outcomes" where private firms profit from public resources and research. Your notion that things don't exist or could not exist - "the internet wouldn't have moved from the Pentagon to the masses without the profit motive" - is contradicted by so many real world examples. Education got to the masses without profit motive, to name but one example.

Most people have access to water and power now "through private means." Would you then claim that this is the only way people could get, or have gotten access to power and water? At one time, utilities were publicly owned or very strictly regulated. The public had better access then, not worse.

At one time people only had access to education "through private means." Is that then an argument against public education? There were many making the argument that education should remain private back in the early 1800s. Lincoln and Seward and other Republicans envisioned a system of universal public education. They prevailed.

The public highway system did not depend upon "private means" or profit motive. Again, the conservatives argued that roads should be private, and the same politicians who brought us public education fought for investment in public transportation infrastructure, and prevailed.

The Bush administration has been privatizing military operations. If that were to continue, might that lead you one day to claim that we owe our national security to "private means" and the "profit motive?" Why not?

[Two Americas]

317. the point

As you can see from the excerpts below from documents prepared by the National Academy of Sciences, public research and funding was essential to the development of computers and the Internet, and without that we would not have our computers and the Internet.

The role of private industry has largely been one of merchandising. While that is the way that the public has gained access to computers, it is certainly not the only way to imagine that happening, let alone the best way, and in fact there is a case to be made that proprietary and monopolistic practices by the commercial firms have retarded not only development but also public access.

While no one would deny the role of the merchants, it is a relatively minor one. By seeing it as the only component, or most important component in getting computer technology to the public, you inadvertently support the view that you are arguing against by disproportionately crediting the commercial merchandising aspect of the industry. That is part of the "rule by capitalists" that the OP is suggesting needs to be abolished - the idea that it is is salesperson, the merchandiser, who deserves higher consideration and all benefits. You in fact attempted to give that segment all credit, and thereby use the work of the non-profit sector to justify continued unfair advantages and higher consideration being given to the commercial merchandising component then to the creative, developmental and public components.

When you order a book from Amazon, whom do you credit for the quality of the writing? The author? Or the seller? Or the delivery truck driver? certainly the salesman and the delivery truck driver play a role in getting the author's work to you, but would you have us believe that we would not have literature were it not for the salesperson and the delivery truck driver?

What is the book? Merely merchandise? Merely a physical object? It is obvious that the merchandising aspect is secondary, as is the delivery method. We don't defend Amazon by saying "without them we wouldn't have books!" nor would we say "don't we have great literature? All credit goes to Amazon!"

[Two Americas]

308. NASA spin-offs

Computer Technology - NASA Spinoffs

GROUND PROCESSING SCHEDULING SYSTEM - Computer-based scheduling system that uses artificial intelligence to manage thousands of overlapping activities involved in launch preparations of NASA's Space Shuttles. The NASA technology was licensed to a new company which developed commercial applications that provide real-time planning and optimization of manufacturing operations, integrated supply chains, and customer orders.uu

SEMICONDUCTOR CUBING - NASA initiative led to the Memory Short Stack, a three-dimensional semiconductor package in which dozens of integrated circuits are stacked one atop another to form a cube, offering faster computer processing speeds, higher levels of integration, lower power requirements than conventional chip sets, and dramatic reduction in the size and weight of memory-intensive systems, such as medical imaging devices.

STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS - This NASA program, originally created for spacecraft design, has been employed in a broad array of non-aerospace applications, such as the automobile industry, manufacture of machine tools, and hardware designs.

WINDOWS VISUAL NEWS READER (Win Vn) - Software program developed to support payload technical documentation at Kennedy Space Center, allowing the exchange of technical information among a large group of users. WinVn is an enabling technology product that provides countless people with Internet access otherwise beyond their grasp, and it was optimized for organizations that have direct Internet access.

AIR QUALITY MONITOR - Utilizing a NASA-developed, advanced analytical technique software package, an air quality monitor system was created, capable of separating the various gases in bulk smokestack exhaust streams and determining the amount of individual gases present within the stream for compliance with smokestack emission standards.

VIRTUAL REALITY - NASA-developed research allows a user, with assistance from advanced technology devices, to figuratively project oneself into a computer-generated environment, matching the user's head motion, and, when coupled with a stereo viewing device and appropriate software, creates a telepresence experience.

Other spinoffs in this area include: Advanced keyboards, Customer Service Software, Database Management System, Laser Surveying, Aircraft controls, Lightweight Compact Disc, Expert System Software, Microcomputers, and Design Graphics.

http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html

[Two Americas]

310. Funding a Revolution: Government Support for Computing Research

Development of the Internet and the World Wide Web

The recent growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web makes it appear that the world is witnessing the arrival of a completely new technology. In fact, the Web—now considered to be a major driver of the way society accesses and views information—is the result of numerous projects in computer networking, mostly funded by the federal government, carried out over the last 40 years. The projects produced communications protocols that define the format of network messages, prototype networks, and application programs such as browsers. This research capitalized on the ubiquity of the nation's telephone network, which provided the underlying physical infrastructure upon which the Internet was built.

This chapter traces the development of the Internet, one aspect of the broader field of data networking. The chapter is not intended to be comprehensive; rather, it focuses on the federal role in both funding research and supporting the deployment of networking infrastructure. This history is divided into four distinct periods. Before 1970, individual researchers developed the underlying technologies, including queuing theory, packet switching, and routing. During the 1970s, experimental networks, notably the ARPANET, were constructed. These networks were primarily research tools, not service providers. Most were federally funded, because, with a few exceptions, industry had not yet realized the potential of the technology. During the 1980s, networks were widely deployed, initially to support scientific research. As their potential to improve personal communications and collaboration became apparent, additional academic disciplines and industry began to use the technology. In this era, the National Science Foundation (NSF) was the major supporter of networking, primarily through the NSFNET, which evolved into the Internet. Most recently, in the early 1990s, the invention of the Web made it much easier for users to publish and access information, thereby setting off the rapid growth of the Internet. The final section of the chapter summarizes the lessons to be learned from history.

By focusing on the Internet, this chapter does not address the full scope of computer networking activities that were under way between 1960 and 1995. It specifically ignores other networking activities of a more proprietary nature. In the mid-1980s, for example, hundreds of thousands of workers at IBM were using electronic networks (such as the VNET) for worldwide e-mail and file transfers; banks were performing electronic funds transfer; Compuserve had a worldwide network; Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) had value-added networking services; and a VNET-based academic network known as BITNET had been established. These were proprietary systems that, for the most part, owed little to academic research, and indeed were to a large extent invisible to the academic computer networking community. By the late 1980s, IBM's proprietary SNA data networking business unit already had several billions of dollars of annual revenue for networking hardware, software, and services. The success of such networks in many ways limited the interest of companies like IBM and Compuserve in the Internet. The success of the Internet can therefore, in many ways, be seen as the success of an open system and open architecture in the face of proprietary competition.

Much more here -

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=6323

[Two Americas]

311. Theoretical Research

Theoretical Research: Intangible Cornerstone of Computer Science

The theory and vocabulary of computing did not appear ready-made. Some important concepts, such as operating systems and compilers, had to be invented de novo. Others, such as recursion and invariance, can be traced to earlier work in mathematics. They became part of the evolving computer science lexicon as they helped to stimulate or clarify the design and conceptualization of computing artifacts. Many of these theoretical concepts from different sources have now become so embedded in computing and communications that they pervade the thinking of all computer scientists. Most of these notions, only vaguely perceived in the computing community of 1960, have since become ingrained in the practice of computing professionals and even made their way into high-school curricula.

...

The NSF ended up funding the bulk of theoretical work in the field (by 1980 it had supported nearly 400 projects in computational theory), much of it with great success. Although funding for theoretical computer science has declined as a percentage of the NSF budget for computing research (it constituted 7 percent of the budget in 1996, down from 20 percent in 1973), it has grown slightly in real dollars.1 Mission-oriented agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, tend not to fund theoretical work directly because of their emphasis on advancing computing technology, but some advances in theory were made as part of their larger research agendas.

...

The development of formal language theory was spurred by the construction of compilers and invention of programming languages. Compilers came to the world's attention through the Fortran project (Backus, 1979), but they could not become a discipline until the programming language Algol 60 was written. In the defining report, the syntax of Algol 60 was described in a novel formalism that became known as Backus-Naur form. The crisp, mechanical appearance of the formalism inspired Edward Irons, a graduate student at Yale University, to try to build compilers directly from the formalism. Thereafter, compiler automation became commonplace, as noted above. A task that once required a large team could now be assigned as homework. Not only did parsers become easy to make; they also became more reliable. Doing the bulk of the construction automatically reduced the chance of bugs in the final product, which might be anything from a compiler for Fortran to an interpreter for Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6323&page=184

[Two Americas]

313. Providing the Technology Base for Growing Industries

Providing the Technology Base for Growing Industries

Federal research funding has helped build the technology base on which the computing industry has grown. A number of important computer-related products trace their technological roots to federally sponsored research programs. Early mainframe computers were given a significant boost from federally funded computing systems of the 1950s, such as the U.S. Air Force's Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) project. Although a command-and-control system designed to warn of attacks by Soviet bombers, SAGE pioneered developments in real-time digital computing and core memory (among other advances) that rapidly spread throughout the fledgling computer industry. Time-shared minicomputers, which dominated the market in the 1970s and early 1980s, exploited time-sharing research conducted in the 1960s under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA's)1 Project MAC and earlier work sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) on the Compatible Time-Sharing System at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (see Chapter 4). The Internet, which came of age in the early 1990s, was derived from DARPA's ARPANET program of the early 1970s, which created a packet-switching system to link research centers across the country, as well as from subsequent programs managed by NSF to expand and improve its NSFNET (see Chapter 7). Federal funding for relational databases helped move that technology out of corporate laboratories to become the basis of a multibillion-dollar U.S. database industry. The graphical user interface, which became commonplace on personal computers in the 1990s, incorporates research conducted at SRI International under a DARPA contract some 30 years earlier (Chapter 4).

The economic impact of federally funded research in computing is evident in the many companies that have successfully commercialized technologies developed under federal contracts. Examples include Sun Microsystems, Inc., Silicon Graphics, Inc., Informix Corporation, Digital Equipment Corporation, and Netscape Communications Corporation. Established companies, such as International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (AT&T), also commercialized technologies developed with federal sponsorship, such as core memories and time-sharing operating systems.

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6323&page=138

[Two Americas]

314. Human Resources

Creating Human Resources

In addition to supporting the creation of new technology, federal funding for research has also helped create the human resources that have driven the computer revolution. Many industry researchers and research managers claim that the most valuable result of university research programs is educated students—by and large, an outcome enabled by federal support of university research. Federal support for university research in computer science grew from $65 million to $350 million between 1976 and 1995, while federal support for university research in electrical engineering grew from $74 million to $177 million (in constant 1995 dollars).5 Much of this funding was used to support graduate students. Especially at the nation's top research universities, the studies of a large percentage of graduate students have been supported by federal research contracts. Graduates of these programs, and faculty researchers who received federal funding, have gone on to form a number of companies, including Sun Microsystems, Inc. (which grew out of research conducted by Forest Baskett and Andy Bechtolsheim with sponsorship from DARPA) and Digital Equipment Corporation (founded by Ken Olsen, who participated in the SAGE project). Graduates also staff academic faculties that continue to conduct research and educate future generations of researchers.

Furthermore, the availability of federal research funding has enabled the growth and expansion of computer science and computer engineering departments at U.S. universities, which increased in number from 6 in 1965 to 56 in 1975 and to 148 in 1995 (Andrews, 1997, p. 5). The number of graduate students in computer science also grew dramatically, expanding more than 40-fold from 257 in 1966 to 11,500 in 1995, with the number of Ph.D. degrees awarded in computer science increasing from 19 in 1966 to over 900 in 1995 (NSF, 1997b, Table 46). Even with this growth in Ph.D. production, demand for computing researchers still outstrips the supply in both industry and academia (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1997).

Beyond supporting student education and training, federal funding has also been important in creating networks of researchers in particular fields—developing communities of researchers who could share ideas and build on each other's strengths. Despite its defense orientation, DARPA historically encouraged open dissemination of the results of sponsored research, as did other federal agencies. In addition, DARPA and other federal agencies funded large projects with multiple participants from different organizations. These projects helped create entire communities of researchers who continued to refine, adopt, and diffuse new technology throughout the broader computing research community. Development of the Internet demonstrates the benefits of this approach: by funding groups of researchers in an open environment, DARPA created an entire community of users who had a common understanding of the technology, adopted a common set of standards, and encouraged their use broadly. Early users of the ARPANET created a critical mass of people who helped to disseminate the technology, giving the Internet Protocol an important early lead over competing approaches to packet switching.

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6323&page=141

[citizen snips]

301. and replace it with what?

[Two Americas]

303. democracy; self rule

Obviously.

The alternative to rule by the capitalists - which means rule by, for, and of the wealthy and powerful few - would be self government - rule by, for, and of the people.

Self-government means "details to be worked out by the people in an ongoing participatory process." It can not be steered, predicted, controlled or dictated.

When people demand an "alternative" or "a plan" they could only be thinking in terms of alternative tyrannies - since only a tyrannical system could be known and defined ahead of time in detail - and inadvertently admitting that they do in fact agree with us and see the current regime as tyrannical and unjust.

What you are saying is "I am pretty comfortable with submitting to the current masters, and the thought of self-rule is too complicated and frightening, and cannot imagine anything other than rule from the top down, so unless you can convince me that you are proposing a better dictatorship, one that would cost me nothing and make my life better, I am going to oppose you."

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!"

Sam Adams
Speech, State House of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia
Aug 1st, 1776

[PerfectSage]

322. Thanks 2 Americas

Thought you might like to read this: World System as a dissipative structure.

Capitalism discussed from a Complexity theory and a eastern mystical perspective. Good Read.



http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:QRIhUo7a_Z4J:www.mnstate.edu/gunarat/wsa%26dstJIC.pdf+chaotic+systems+dissipative+structures&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5

[ljm2002]

305. Glad to see this thread is still alive -- take a look at this:

"With Strikes, China's New Middle Class Vents Anger

CHONGQING, China -- When 9,000 of Shin Guoqing's fellow taxi drivers went on strike early last month, he felt he had to join them.

Soaring inflation had undermined what his $300-a-month income could buy for his family, and Shin said he was frustrated that the government had done nothing to help. "After running around the whole day, you have only a few renminbi for it," he said, referring to China's currency. "You don't feel good about your life."

For two days, the drivers held this Sichuan province metropolis of 31 million people under siege, blocking roads and smashing cars. The Communist Party quickly stopped the violence by promising to address the drivers' demands for easier access to fuel and better working conditions.

<...>

China's government has long feared the rise of labor movements, banning unauthorized unions and arresting those who speak out for workers' rights. The strikes, driven in part by China's economic downturn, have caught officials off guard."

More at link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/16/AR2008121602851.html?hpid=artslot

Now that's what I'm talkin' about! As the great Chinese workforce gets riled up, start to unite with them for higher standards of living for the actual people who produce the actual products that this "globalized" society runs on...

Workers of the world unite, indeed. Time to internationalize the unions -- raise standards all around.

[scarletwoman]

315. Great post! I'm glad to see this thread still alive, too. Thank you for your excellent contribution!

"As the great Chinese workforce gets riled up, start to unite with them for higher standards of living for the actual people who produce the actual products that this "globalized" society runs on..."

Hell yes! We must stand together!

sw

[anonymous171]

312. Problem: Due to RW propaganda, working class folks associate socialism with godlessness

[Hannah Bell]

320. But when they see it in action - for example, in the recent Republic Doors occupation -

they tend to say, "Hell, yes!"

Republic: 40% owned by JP Morgan, financed by BoA, both of whom got public bailouts, both of whom were colluding with the nominal owners to move the plant to a right-to-work locale without paying the old workers what they contracted for.

No one I talked to about the occupation that didn't admire & support the workers.

[anonymous171]

321. Yep. A lot of Americans are already socialists and don't even know it.

[Two Americas]

324. such a great example

Just a handle of people, one small action, but it has transformed the discussion of Labor issues all over the country and set an example that will be repeated over and over again now. Very powerful. A turning point.

That one action was more powerful than dozens and dozens of liberal actions combined. There is an important lesson there.

[Gold Metal Flake]

323. Kicking this wonderful thread.

Workers must also remember that the Corporate Media is our greatest enemy. The current corporate media structure must be destroyed.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

325. I tend to agree.

:dem: