China and the US: Rational Planning and “Lumpen” Capitalism

Click here to access article by James Petras from Dissident Voice. 

Mired down in gossip, idle speculation and petty denigration of its leaders, the Western press has once again failed to take account of the world-historical changes which are currently taking place in China and throughout the world.

World historical changes, as articulated by Chinese President Xi Jinping, are present in the vision, strategy and program of the Congress. These are based on a rigorous survey of China’s past, present and future accomplishments.

The serious purpose, projections and the presence of China’s President stand in stark contrast to the chaos, rabble-rousing demagogy and slanders characterizing the multi-billion dollar US Presidential campaign and its shameful aftermath.

The retired sociology professor contrasts China's activities with US's activities along a number of indices such as economic planning, economic development, dealing with corruption, military, innovation, imperialism and subversion, etc., and measures the results in terms of economic growth. We are a distant number two along any and all of these indices from a positive perspective. 

I think that this is because the Chinese Communist Party which is in control of strategic planning and the overall government remains largely uncorrupted by the growing wealth and number of capitalists in China's economy. I have long feared that the latter would thoroughly corrupt the Communist Party and wrest control of China away from them, but there are few indications that is happening. From all appearances the Chinese Communist Party have under Deng's influence (starting in the late 1970s) demonstrated a strikingly different philosophical orientation from that of Western Capitalism. I am referring to his "win-win" policy, which is continuing under President Xi Jinping, that seeks harmony in relations with others by ensuring that most parties to any economic activity win, that is, achieve mainly what they want.

Thus the Chinese offered their cheap labor as an incentive to capitalists around the world to attain the high profits they desired while the Chinese benefited from the technology that these corporations brought to China. They have learned well and are now leading the way in many technological advancements.

Guiding these actions is the Chinese Communist Party which plans, measures outcomes, and implements corrective actions to ensure that they reach planning goals that offers benefits to China--as a nation, not as a Chinese ruling class--as well as foreign capitalists. Western capitalism has been guided by a zero-sum model in which participants are pitted against each other for a major share of the economic and political pie. 

This winner-loser orientation preceded capitalism and has plagued societies since the beginning of civilization roughly 10,000 years ago. However capitalism fitted well with this conflict model by producing winners and losers guided by the chaotic "invisible hand" of the market. Western capitalism has viewed the concentration of wealth for ruling classes as the ultimate weapon which they saw as useful in conflicts with workers, other capitalists, and other nations. Hence, the history of capitalism has been largely a history of class conflict, wars, and imperialism.

America, the Pathological-Lying, Pyromaniac, Faux-Firefighter

Click here to access article by Edward Rhymes from Rhymes Media Group.

I want to introduce to you another online alternative website where you can find real news, information, and analysis that you will not find on corporate media outlets. If you are getting fed up with all the disinformation from the latter that is only designed to fool you and distract you, then you must find other sources of information that attempt to provide you with the real stories behind the issues. I recommend, as I did, to cut the cord to corporate media by cancelling your cable subscription and keeping internet service--preferably high speed. This will not only save you money, but it will help restore your sanity. 

However you must go a step further to find alternative, genuine sources of news, information, and analysis. I have not found them all and new ones are appearing everyday on the internet. Unfortunately most of the sources are operating on a shoe-string budget and begging for money from their followers, and I fervently hope that they will start co-operating and merging to create a more solid financial base so that they can hire excellent journalists and media technicians. 

What struck me this evening as I was surfing the many links related to Rhymes Media Group is their widespread connections to other media outlets such as TeleSur, PressTV, Blog Talk Radio, and others. They are demonstrating that they know how to cooperate and collaborate--a lost skill in the USA, a skill that I observed in my youth when visiting my uncle's farm in North Dakota. 

The farmers in the area especially at harvest time would bring their harvesting equipment together, mostly tractors, combines, and trucks, in order to harvest all their crops before bad weather set in. The summers in this area were short and the harvest period was short, and they needed to harvest when weather permitted. They solved this dilemma by combining resources. Dr. Edward Rhymes, a retired sociology professor, is doing precisely that using several forms of alternative media.

This piece is mostly a rant, but who doesn't need to rant and rave occasionally in the face of such insane actions that our ruling class directorate are imposing on the rest of world while lying to us about what they are doing. So, when he says "America" is doing this or that, which are likely war crimes, you must realize that he is referring to the directorate of the ruling capitalist class, also known as the "Deep State". They are the real government, and are located in "think tanks" such as the Council on Foreign Relations and their action-executors in the many secret (secret to us) agencies like the CIA, NSA, and 15 other such agencies; top Pentagon officials; and where they all meet, the National Security Council. The democratic facades in the forms of Congress, the judicial system, and even the presidency are mere puppets of this Deep State. Corporate-owned media likewise. 

In the last election the Deep State's choice for president, Hillary Clinton, was not elected; and they are furious with the maverick Donald Trump who is by nature a boss--not anyone's puppet. Hence the ongoing fictitious attacks on Trump. There is much to be critical of Trump, but the Deep State through their media corporations are trying to get rid of him on more substantial grounds by concocting fake stories that he is serving Putin and Russia.

North Dakota Law Enforcement Official: “I’ll ultimately be paid by the oil people…”

Click here to access article by the media collective known as Unicorn Riot. 

(Note: Unlike corporate media which support the profit and power opportunities of corporations, this media collective supports the interests of the people. We simply must support them and their work. Wouldn't it be wonderful if they could unite with other such independent journalist organizations, in a revolutionary bottom-up authority structure, to share resources and skills to become even more effective? This can only happen if we support the efforts of independent journalists and organizations like this to bring us accurate news, information, and views that serves the people's interests instead of the corporations.)

This media collective through their investigative journalism has uncovered evidence that the oil pipeline company may pay North Dakota government agencies for their police work in protecting the company's strongly contested oil pipeline operations through the state. Here is one piece of evidence. Read the article for others.

The “oil company” Falk refers to would appear to be Energy Transfer Partners (ETP)  or its subsidiary, Dakota Access, LLC.  While no direct evidence of ETP or DAPL financing police has yet emerged, this email sent by Falk shows that some North Dakota law enforcement personnel think of themselves as working on the pipeline company’s behalf.

These protests by several hundred Native-American tribes, who are fighting to protect their land and water on the Standing Rock reservation, is being suppressed by law enforcement personnel from public agencies whose ostensible purpose is to serve the public's interest, not those of corporations. But under capitalism, despite all the ruling class pretenses, the reverse is true.

For the latest coverage of this ongoing defense of Native-American land and water, you might be interested in this piece entitled "400 DAPL [Dakota Access Pipeline] protesters ‘trapped on bridge’ as police fire tear gas, water cannon (VIDEO)". 

10 Things We Should Be Doing Instead of Obsessing Over the 2016 Election

Click here to access article from LocalOrg. 

Here is a list of 10 things Americans should have been doing to strengthen their communities and empower themselves sociopolitically, economically, and technologically over the past 2 years instead of having obsessed over the ultimately irrelevant process known as Election 2016.

It is ultimately irrelevant because regardless of who wins, just like in 2008 when Barack Obama took office, all of the abuses and wars raging now will continue, and all the wars meant to begin under the previous president will be justified and executed under whoever the new president happens to be.

The Future of New Media

I am posting two talks given by members a new British media cooperative known as the Real Media. They are on a promotional tour throughout Britain trying to drum up support for a new crowd-funded media network. So far they have a YouTube channel on which they post video reports on various subjects. I don't know much about this group--no more than what I've posted here--but it looks like a promising idea similar to one I have long advocated (see my commentary here).

Thomas Barlow, co-founder and senior editor at Real Media, speaks at the Bristol leg of the Real Media tour.

The theme of the evening is 'The Future of Real Media', and he is joined by Kerry-Anne Mendoza of The Canary, and Craig McVegas from Novara Media, as well as Dean Ayotte from The Bristol Cable, and Elizabeth Mizon of The Media Fund.

Thomas talks about Chomsky's Five Filters - the distorting filters that lie between the truth and the news we read. He suggests that new media has an opportunity to bypass these filters if we cooperate and work together to build networks rather than compete with each other.

Writer and film-maker Elizabeth Mizon speaks about the launch of The Media Fund at the Bristol leg of the Real Media tour.

Working collectively beats working for a boss

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder.

Cooperative enterprises are more stable than conventional capitalist enterprises, are more productive and create jobs that are more sustainable. And although the temptation to see coops as a magical solution to the ills of capitalism should be resisted, that they are better for workers than top-down enterprises shouldn’t be any surprise.

What might a cooperative economy look like?

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder.

This article is an excerpt from Dolack's very recently published book entitled It's Not Over. Dolack has not only been extremely helpful in our understanding of the social ravages caused by capitalism, but he has been busy looking at alternative ways of organizing an economy and society. This book offers some of his ideas derived from a variety of sources about what a new system might look like. 

Living co-operatively: everyday dissent

Click here to access article by Amy Corcoran from Red Pepper (Britain).

We cannot override the current system overnight; revolution relies on popular will. How can we hope for this to happen without demonstrating that there is an alternative (particularly when we have been indoctrinated to consider neoliberal capitalism the only viable modus operandi)?

To do so, we must be that alternative. In how we treat one another, in how we treat the environment, in how we live and think. This may feel like a daunting, unachievable task, but we can all make changes – and by sharing the responsibility we lighten the load, and can secure achievements far greater than the sum of our parts. 

Savings Pools: Opting Out of the Banskters’ Money System

Click here to access article by Stuart Jeanne Bramhall from her blog The Most Revolutionary Act.

Bramhall is a political refugee who fled from Seattle to New Zealand after extensive FBI harassment. Her "crimes" stemmed from her support of local African-American projects and, probably most decisively, intimate relations with African-Americans. This was red-meat to the racist FBI especially back in the 1980s.

It's nice to offer some constructive ideas to wean ourselves off services provided by ruling class institutions. She provides a brief description of a banking and lending arrangement that exists in New Zealand, her new home.

One way I’m opting out out of the debt-based Wall Street banking system, is by joining a local interest-free savings pool. A group of neighbors is investing their savings in a savings pool – rather than a bank – and to use the savings pool to loan money to one another. We’re using a model designed by the (New Zealand-based) Living Economies Trust.

Opportunity in collapse: the horizon of the post-apocalyptic

Click here to access article by Joseph Todd from Reflections on a Revolution.

Cultural products of capitalist society relating to a collapse of government authority often portray themes of social disintegration, chaos, people running amok and abusing each other for their personal advantage. But is this valid? Or is this another propaganda prop to deter people from rebelling against the capitalist social order because this order is protecting us from something much worse? Could this be a projection of the personalities of sociopathic capitalist elites onto ordinary people? He examines a wide variety of evidence from situations where state authority has broken down or was completely missing to find the answers.

It thus turns out that our view of the apocalyptic is necessarily bound up with our pessimistic view of human nature and the world around us. Ever since Hobbes, civilization and the state have been our savior from a brutish, natural realm; a place we go for adventure, one of risk and daring that only those more unfortunate than us inhabit.

Yet this notion of a violent, competitive, dog-eat-dog natural world with which capitalism and the state justify themselves is in part a fallacy. In fact, nature teems with co-operation — both between animals, between species and within the ecosystem as a whole.

Excellent Profile of Enric Duran and Catalan Integral Cooperative

Click here to access article by David Bollier from his blog. 

This article functions as an introduction to a much longer article about the development of a cooperative venture in the Catalan region of Spain.  The venture seeks to build a network of cooperatives and one which has its own currency.

The Catalan Integral Cooperative (CIC, pronounced “seek”) is surely one of the more audacious commons-based innovations to have emerged in the past five years.  It is notable for providing a legal and financial superstructure that is helping to support a wide variety of smaller self-organized commons.

An Essay on Collectivist Economics

Click here to access article by Bruno Lima Rocha from Conjuncture.

About the author: 

Bruno Lima Rocha has a PhD and MSc in political science, is a professor and researcher in geopolitics-strategic studies and international political economy. Bruno teaches at 2 universities located in the Brazilian southern state.

The essay suffers a little from an awkward translation, but I don't think you will have much difficulty in understanding it. I think it represents an excellent preliminary work as a part of a vital project that needs to be expanded if we humans are to overcome the ravages of capitalism and create a world that is sustainable, socially just, and peaceful.

This essay is the beginning of an attempt to develop a left libertarian approach toward an economic model, specifically to a model which is compatible with the political formations of Democratic Confederalism, also referred to as Libertarian Municipalism. At this stage the goal is the development of a working set of tools of analysis, and foster learning among the Libertarian Left. To this end I submit this relatively simple text to provide accessible notions for those struggling to build a society based on Democratic Confederalism.

.... We start with the analysis of some [eight] premises that may provide direction and parameters to the discussion.

Economics of the Anthropocene

Click here if you wish to access this 20:49m video presentation by Joshua Farley from the original posting on the Post Carbon Institute's website which provides more details about the talk.

The title of this posting did little to evoke much interest in me; but as I started listening to Dr. Farley, I realized that it was very important. The vague title reminded me once again of  a phenomenon that has entered my consciousness more frequently in recent months: the use of high level abstractions to hide uncomfortable ideas. After listening to this presentation, I'll bet that you can come up with a headline that is much more descriptive of what he has talked about. This is my choice: "The inefficiency of the capitalist system to meet people's needs, and what an efficient system would look like" I am not criticizing him for this. It's the only way one can survive in an institution controlled by a capitalist ruling class.



After listening to his talk, if you are interested in reading a more detailed exposition of his ideas, I recommend this article (scroll down to it) entitled "Ecological Economics" at the same website. Notice in the talk and in the article how this academic carefully chooses his words so as not to offend his capitalist oriented masters in academia. For example he writes:

We must push for the reform of our political and economic institutions so that they once again act for the public good. From local government policies to international agreements, the structures that define how our world works are ultimately products of political consent, and thus can be changed with sufficient political will.

Instead of writing:

We must find a way to end the existence of capitalism so that we can create an economy that serves public needs rather than the wealth and power accumulation of capitalists.

Go West, Young Han

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times Online.

While the US Empire is sowing chaos in the Middle East and eastern Europe, China appears to be rapidly creating a 21st century version of the ancient Silk Road. They are not only establishing commercial ties with Europe, but commercial and military ties with Russia. The directors of the Empire are very worried: their "pivot to Asia"--that's Newspeak for a China containment policy--may be too late, and their declared economic war on Russia may backfire.

Now, mix the Silk Road strategy with heightened cooperation among the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), with accelerated cooperation among the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), with a more influential Chinese role over the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) - no wonder there's the perception across the Global South that, while the US remains embroiled in its endless wars, the world is defecting to the East.

How Far the Cult of the Individual?

Click here to access article by Phil Dahl-Bredine from Americas Program.

Many people in the US and Canada have much to learn from our indigenous neighbors to the south.

The communal democracies of these indigenous communities may be the only thing that could save Oaxaca’s lands from this new and vigorous onslaught of the cult of the individual and corporate gain.

...the occidental world has lost its ability to understand community and “communality”. The cult of the individual, the hero, the rich man, and private, personal ownership has permeated our consciousness without our understanding its ultimate consequences.

Read the article to find out how they live solidarity and community.

The commons as an approach to governance, sustainable resource management and social wellbeing

Click here to access a summary article and 49:15m podcast interview with David Bollier from the Norwegian website Levevei. (I accessed this from P2P Foundation where Bollier has written articles.)

David Bollier is widely recognized as a leading advocate of the exciting paradigm of “the commons”, and he has recently written a book on the subject entitled Think Like a Commoner. The article provides an excellent summary of sections of this interview which can guide you to sections of interest if you do not have time to listen to the whole interview. Important topics that Bollier addresses is the concept of the commons, human nature, examples of existing commons, its contrast with existing capitalist organization of society, etc. 

My only comment on Bollier's views is that he at one point exhibits a political naïveté when he talks about communities negotiating with the state to establish a legal framework for a commons-type arrangement. Such an attitude fails to understand that the state is really a construction by the capitalist class to mediate competing capitalist interests. Thus, one must not see the state as separate from this class. Likewise, it follows that the capitalist state will never voluntarily permit the growth of this type of societal organization.

Rebuilding the commons through economic democracy

Click here to access article by Gary Engler from the New Commune-ist Manifesto (Canada). 

When commons were common, through tens of thousands of years, people mostly developed technology and systems of usage that respected the land, ocean, river, forest, grassland and creatures that lived there. They did this because it was in their collective self-interest to do so. This was reflected in their religions and how their societies were organized, including the ways people thought of themselves.

Mutual respect, independence, collective responsibility, reciprocity, community and what we would now call a sense of ecology were encouraged because all served a society that held its resources in common. 

Bankruptcy of Mondragon company demonstrates limits of cooperation under capitalism

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from his blog Systemic Disorder.

The announcement that one of Mondragon’s companies is filing for bankruptcy isn’t a commentary on cooperatives, but it is a reminder that even the world’s largest cooperative enterprise is not immune to capitalist competition.

I occasionally meet people who almost fanatically think and argue that cooperatives are the answer to capitalism's global economic instability which has disastrous consequences for working people. Dolack explains that while cooperatives offer a better alternative to working in strictly profit-making enterprises, they can never enjoy complete security competing within a capitalist system against such enterprises.

The art of building a new world: Freedom according to the Zapatistas

Click here to access article by Raúl Zibechi from Americas Program. 

It takes seven hours to traverse the 100 kilometers that separate San Cristóbal and the Morelia caracol. The caravan (containing thirty cars and trucks) left late and advanced at a tortoise pace. Around 2:00 am, we arrived at the caracol, and a maze of buildings that house the institutions of the autonomous region, made up of three municipalities, twelve regions, and dozens of communities governed by the Good Government Board. 

In August the author attended "La Escuelita", or Little School, arranged for people in other lands to come to Chiapas and learn about the new society that the Zapatistas are creating. This is a report on his visit and his observations about the new society.

The Promise of an Unhurried Society

Click here to access article by Mat Little from New Compass (Norway).

I have a problem with an argument presented in this piece. The author seems to be indulging in idle fantasies. No, I don't disagree with the possibility that work-free time could be put to very constructive uses. It's just that he totally ignores that our home is on fire (both literally and figuratively), and indulging in such fantasies while our home is burning down is approaching insanity. We should and must be gathering all our energies and imagination to figure out how we are going to fight this rampaging fire of capitalism and preserve our home. Once we put the fire out, then we can realize the true potential of human imagination and activity. Time is running out.