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 Goodbye For Now

The Red Frog, Cultural Marxist, Cranky Yankee, Kultur Kommissar and whomever else will be taking a long break from the May Day Books Blog. Or perhaps a final break. This is in order to help C.G. Gibbs concentrate on finishing a speculative fiction book, his third, about a coming revolution in the U.S., presently titled 'The Book of Revolution.' It is also to help in finally publishing a second book about white and blue collar class struggle that has been done for a long while, called 'Selling Away.'  A first book called 'Factory Days' has already been published.

 

They have been remiss on both, with the Blog Borg sucking up time and energy.  Not to mention the fact that fewer and fewer interesting left-ward books are being published. They all seem to repeat what is pretty well known. The present and evolving Trump police state gives a writer more materiel to make a credible, factual fictional finish to a book on a U.S. revolution, which is half done at the moment. 

The Blog has been going for 19 years.  Others publish things on the Blog occasionally, but no one is lined up yet to do it as a focus. We have made frequent requests to various people to put their thoughts about a book, political event, film, play, art installation, streaming series, magazine article, news story, announcement or plain commentary into coherent words.  Only a few have taken us up on it. If you would like to write something from the left, contact us. 

However, the archive of 100s of reviews will stay open for perusing.  Just use the search box, upper left.

The Red Frog, Cultural Marxist, Cranky Yankee, Kultur Kommissar and others.  September 2, 2025

Communes, Co-ops and Collective Farms

 “Communes in Socialist Construction”– Monthly Review Double Issue, July-August 2025 (Part 2)

“Charting a Communal-Ecological Path,” Brian Napoletano – This is a partial polemic with Marxist Kohei Saito over the term ‘degrowth.’ ‘Degrowth’ is not a grounded political term, and can mean any number of things. “Don’t grow what?” you might ask. “Grow nothing?” you might also ask. As a rhetorical arrow aimed at the capitalist concept of constant GDP ‘growth,’ no matter what kind, it makes a person think.  But then come the questions.  Some useless production will have to be stopped, while lacks will have to be filled - all based on human needs, not commercialized ‘wants.’

Napoletano contrasts ‘ecomodernism,’ degrowth and ecosocialism, considering the first two to be antagonistic or ambiguous regarding socialism.   He calls ecomodernism (which I suspect is capitalist ‘green’ tech attempts) a marketing ploy - “neoclassical economics in a green wrapping.”  He also indicts “the ossification and closed systemization of the dialectics of nature in Soviet Marxism under Joseph Stalin” for ignoring Marx’s ecological insights. 

Capital is neither ‘exclusively destructive’ or ‘purely progressive’ to nature or the working class according to Napoletano.  But when ‘growth’ becomes an ideology, as it has, the destruction of nature, animals, waste, obsolescence, militarism, stupid work and the production of useless, unnecessary or dangerous junk runs out of control.  As he puts it: “…an increasing volume of waste is needed to mitigate problems of overaccumulation and prevent the potential abundance made possible by the unprecedented development of the productive forces … from undermining the scarcity rationale.”  Capital grows but not use values corresponding to human needs.

Napoletano says ecosocialist degrowth should be called deaccumulation, a tricky academic substitution.  Following Lefebvre, he does not believe there is a dilemma between local, national and international economic planning.  Yet this remained a stubborn problem in actually existing socialized economies. He mentions Yugoslavia’s ‘self-management’ as a valuable example for Venezuela.  Self-management as practiced in Yugoslavia also helped that country ‘fly apart.’  Evidence from the USSR and Poland indicate a pro-capitalist trajectory in isolated production.  He supports a global, uninterrupted revolution to implement ‘autogestion’ (workers’ control of an enterprise) in the face of these problems.

“Land, Cooperation and Socialism,” interview with Joao Pedro Stedile – Stedile is a leader of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST). Stedile discusses agro-industrial cooperatives formed when rural landless take over unused or underutilized land and run it cooperatively.  The MST does not limit land takeovers to just giving out individual plots.  Families do farm them but cannot sell them, as the state formally owns the property.  An ‘assentamento’ (settlement) like this is recognized by the state.  It also involves collective / communal decision-making, collective production facilities for products, a fight against inequality, agroecology and education. The MST found cooperative ag. work does not always function, as different campesinos have various ways and times of doing things.  But the cooperative buys farm machinery and commercializes ag. goods, i.e. processing milk and building cold storage. Like cooperatives in many capitalist countries, they produce for the market. 

The MST oppose monocultures, GMO seeds, intensive mechanization and use of chemical / gas-based fertilizers and pesticides. Stedile says “…above all, the aim is healthy food for the entire population.” They use reforestation, safeguard biodiversity and protect the water around them.  Stedile makes the point that “a paradigm centered on campesino forces is not enough.” The MST understands that the majority of the working-class in Brazil and other countries are now in and around cities.  The MST is aware that Lula’s Workers’ Party governs in league with a section of the Brazilian bourgeoisie to block the far-right.  They work with urban forces and also have an international focus, having ‘brigades’ in other countries and have worked with Latin American groups to defeat the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

“Popular Power in Brazil,” Roberta Traspadini – This article is representative of how academic collections stray from the topic.  This is about how black, or in the Brazilian term the Quilombolo, people ‘struggle for ‘self-determination’ and land.  In Brazil today dark-skinned residents are still 70% of the prison population. There is nothing concrete about communes, cooperatives, collective farms or anything of the sort in this contribution. 

MST farm invasion - Pitchforks!

“Socioecological Contraditions in the Development of Socialist Collective Farming: Drawing from the USSR and Hungarian Histories,” Savatore Engel-DiMauro – Engel-DiMauro is a traditional CP academic interested in the intersection of collective farming and various kinds of soil and soil health.  While admitting a lack of data, he suggests that soil health in the USSR and Hungary was better than capitalist countries until the use of chemical fertilizers and mechanization in the 1960s became widespread, which degraded the soil.  His focus skips over communes and cooperatives to state farms / kolkhoz run by plan and worked by agricultural proletarians.  He brings an environmental slant to productionist logic, which preserves production in the long run.

His detailed look at soil types in the USSR and the Hungarian Plain, the effect of wind and water erosion, along with soil compaction, the use of fallowing, cover crops, limited tillage, reforestation, shelter belts, agroforestry, the weight of equipment and the use of chemicals is probably unique on the left. He references biomes, soil groups and sub-groups, chernozems and anthromes in his discussion.  For instance by the 1980s 29% of Hungarian land was degraded due to farming techniques, though not all of this was collective farmland.  EU loans to Hungary were paid off through importing agro-chemicals.  And there was the rub.

While scientific experts helped the collective farms in both countries, he makes the factless statement that “The ecological implications of building socialism have never been lost on Communist Party leaders.”  After you get done laughing, many examples could be cited, from the air pollution in ‘steel’ cities, the water decimation of the Aral Sea, the pollution of the Danube to the oil damage in Baku or the Urals to contradict this misplaced enthusiasm about ‘leaders.’

Engel-DiMauro cites Walter Rodney’s warning not to confuse pre-colonial communalism with socialism.  As a traditional CPer, he thinks some of the old collective efforts cited by Marx, Foster and others still contained inequalities and contradictions.  The Russian ‘mir’ was patriarchal and enabled better tax collection for the Czar.  The Haudenosaunee Confederation featured a gendered division of labor and brutal hostility to other tribes.  Liberian communal farming also is sex and age centered.  The East African ujamma system under the Nyerere government refused to share anything outside their locale, resisting redistribution of a surplus to the wider society. Cooperatives can exist within capitalist society for years, such as in the U.S., but gradually erode due to political power, profit, class and negative environmental effects.

“Making Every Yard a Farm and Every Garage a Factory; The Theory and Practice of Cooperation Jackson (CJ),” Kali Akuno – This seems to be a neo-Maoist take, mentioning ‘peasants’ in Mississippi and an ostensible ‘black belt’ in the South. There is even a touch of the ‘Great Leap Forward” in the title. This version of CJ wants ‘people’s assemblies,’ an independent electoral vehicle and ‘socializing the means of production’ towards ecosocialism as part of … ‘revolutionary nationalism?’ Right now CJ is a network of worker-owned cooperatives in and around Jackson, Mississippi in housing, work, recycling, catering, farming and production.  A ‘free market’ for mutual exchange also exists, though it presently works more like a charity. Trucking, grocery and coffee-house / library co-ops are planned.  One community assembly was organized, but was held during CoVid and became a super-spreader event.

Choke Lumumba, their possible political figurehead as mayor, lost the Democratic Party Primary in April 2025 after 8 years, 3-1.  Instead of an independent political vehicle, the majority of Cooperation Jackson, which seems to be a coalition, chose to embed in the Dems, not run as independents.  Lumumba did not endorse all of the aspects of CJ and the municipality did not provide direct aid or incorporate the solidarity aims of CJ.

The rest of the article is how Akuno’s group reacts to these setbacks, principally by organizing “The People’s Network for Land and Liberation” which seeks to “build ecosocialism from below in real time.”  Cooperatives have been organized by necessity before by ‘associated producers’ and workers world-wide, but have never resulted in socialism. There is no mention of the horrendous water situation in Jackson, when the municipal water system failed repeatedly. The state starved the city of funds to fix it and this probably led to Lumumba’s defeat.  

People's Commune in China

“Communal Governance and Production in Rural China Today,” S. Tsui & L.K. Chi – No issue of MR would be possible without a nod to China, as MR is a large tent of soft Maoists, Stalinoids and neo-Stalinists, Xiists, Khrushchevites, Bukharinites, independent Marxists and even an occasional Trotskyist, though they won’t admit it. This contribution highlights the large rural People’s Communes that existed for about 20 years in China, starting around 1958. This also coincided with the ‘Great Leap Forward’ and the Cultural Revolution.  The Dengists ended them in favor of an agrarian ‘Home Responsibility System’ (HRS) in 1978, and legally liquidated them in 1983.  Three small still-existing commune and cooperatives are investigated in this article, one containing 12,000 people, one 4,500, one 3,500.  One calls itself the only commune left.   

The first People’s Communes where huge, covered almost all rural land in China and were involved in small production too.  They were collectively owned and worked, with members paid by time credits.  Later small private plots for subsistence were allowed. Initially they were organized from the top-down by the CCP.  This created obvious productivity problems, though productivity did rise. Problems like extreme surplus extraction, lying about results, hunger and disasters were apparent.  The subsequent HRS involves family-worked plots for home use and the market.  Now more than a third of Chinese rural property, 38%, has been ‘land contracted’ out to others for a fee, a process legalized in 1988.  The land is still technically owned by the state, similar to Mexico, but in the U.S. we call it land leasing.  They also report that land was ‘sold’ by one commune to a near-by municipality for a real estate venture, so this indicates a further level of privatization.

The three communes and cooperative are Zhoujiazhuang, Yakou and Zhanqui.  They either voted to follow the old system by refusing to divide up the land, or, after seeing the pollution and profiteering of the ‘new days,’ went back to more collective, environmental and agro-ecologic methods. They all profitably lease much land to private or public enterprises and run many production and educational facilities along with growing crops.  Some are also involved in logistics, storage, ecommerce, handicrafts and ecotourism.  In one commune housing has been erected where commune members live for free.  It also provides health facilities, schools and pension supplements for the elderly.  In 1978 the state withdrew support from health or education in rural areas after the HRS was set up, so communities had to rely on themselves.

The authors make a point of explaining that the agricultural sector was used by the CCP to extract ‘primitive accumulation’ in order to build industrialism, similar to what happened in the USSR. This was done through unequal exchange, ag. prices versus finished goods prices, free peasant work on infrastructure projects and low wages.  Over 60 years, one economist estimated that peasants provided RMB 13.7 trillion ‘surplus value’ to the state and society. In U.S. dollars that is around $1.92T.  While Xi’s CCP has recently made noises about ‘rural collectivity’ it has not gone back to any widespread communal approach.

End of Part 2

Prior blogspot reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms:  “Monthly Review,” “Saito,” “commune,” “Brazil,” “CCP,” “Brazil,” “China.”

And I bought it at May Day’s periodicals section! 

This will be the last review for the foreseeable future.  Red Frog / August 29, 2025

The Communes are Coming - 1

“Communes in Socialist Construction”– Monthly Review Double Issue, July-August 2025 (Part 1)

This is a mostly excellent discussion of the role of communes in the transition to socialism, barring Bukharinite slips and off-the-topic contributions.  The ‘commune’ – to me sometimes taking the form of a Soviet, council, cooperative, collective or assembly – is the most democratic and proletarian political and economic form.  They can lead to a classless society if actually pursued.  It is the replacement for the travesty of bourgeois ‘democracy’ in all its twisted forms and private ownership of the means of production. The bourgeoisie waved ‘parliaments’ in the face of the royalists; the commune-ists wave the ‘commune’ in their face as a higher form of democracy.

This is a collection of essays on the issue, which are relevant when people ask ‘what’s really next?’  It is no pipe dream, as early communes existed throughout the world, along with their persistence into Marx’s time.  The Paris Commune, Soviets in the USSR and central Europe, revolutionary councils in Germany, Hungary, Austria and Italy, communes during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, workers’ councils in the 1960s in Europe and the present widespread communes in Venezuela tell us they are not revolutionary mirages but have been born before and still exist today.

This thick issue of MR consists of 8 pieces and two interviews.  I’ll focus on issues of theoretical or factual interest.  The present communes in Venezuela seem to be the modern inspiration.

Interview with Venezuela’s Minister of Communes, Angel Prado:  A factual look at the status of communes in Venezuela. They are not in the Constitution yet, and have no regular financial dispensation from the government unlike local governments.  However $10K was recently awarded by the government to each commune with a project.  The communes “legislate, administer resources and manage their own means of production” according to Prado. There are communal councils at the base of the commune, with a communal bank, parliament and various committees on different issues like sports or the economy.  Property in the commune varies from communal, public, family and private. The investment or reinvestment of the surplus is a key issue. They are also armed.

Prado compares Chavismo to Peronism in its ‘diversity.’  The Communard Union which he heads brings together 80 communes and is in ‘every barrio’ in the country. The immediate goal is to bring communes up to equal status with other branches of the government, in financial and political power.  They are trying to reform the Venezuelan Constitution this year to give communes that power. Prado points out that other ‘anti-imperialist’ and nationalist movements, absent communes, ended up “…becoming another reformist state, with a so-called progressive government that fails to transform existing state structures.”  Any look at Latin or Central American history will confirm this observation.  To my mind, all this reflects Venezuela as a ‘transitional’ state, still dominated by capital, but with organized structures of proletarian and peasant power existing.

“Socialist Communes and Anti-Imperialism,” Chris Gilbert – This article concentrates on the communes in Venezuela and secondarily, Bolivia.  It notes that anti-imperialism is not separate from anti-capitalism.  This should be news to the legions of anti-socialist geo-political analysts found on progressive websites.  The Venezuelan and Bolivian communes both came into being in the context of anti-imperialist struggle. In Bolivia the MAS, (which just lost an election after 20 years) was relying on indigenous cooperative ‘allyus’ to use as a base for socialism. In Brazil the peasant-based MST pushes for ‘peoples agrarian reform’ when it occupies under-utilized or unused land. Gilbert makes no claim as to the construction of communes in Brazil, only of collective management of land after occupations.

Russian peasant Mir commune

Gilbert, like many others in this magazine, brings up Marx’s research into the communal peasant Russian mir, Arab and Berber communal property relations, Peruvian allyus, Indian peasant communities, Mexican collective settlements, the Iroquois Confederation and more.  Marx’s letter to Vera Zasulich and his Ethnographic Notebooks bear out the contention that these older forms could be used to advance modern socialism.  Marx made this explicit regarding a Russian revolution. He made it clear that the collective obchshina still had to use modern technology and be linked together.  Marx was not calling for pure ‘self-management,’ isolated agrarian outposts or some anarcho-romantic throwback not linked to a national and even international plan. Chavez also called for the unity of communes in some sort of ‘communal state.’   

Gilbert clearly counters people like degrowth’s Kohei Saito who contends Marx only came to this understanding of early communal forms much later.  Gilbert links Marx’s later insights to earlier works like the Grundrisse and Capital. Oddly, Gilbert gives credit for this communal understanding to 1980s-‘90s Bolivian Marxist Alyaro Linera and not to Jose Carlos Mariatequi.  Peruvian Marxist Mariategui discussed the value of the allyu back in the 1920s. 

“The Worker-Peasant Alliance in the Transition to Socialism Today,” P Patnaik & U Patnaik – This article focuses on India, which still has a large peasant population, unlike the U.S., Europe and other countries.  They cite Engels and Lenin in an ‘uninterrupted revolution’ – not a stagist one – going from a democratic revolution led by proletarian elements involving the peasantry and petit-bourgeoisie to a socialist one.  The Patnaiks argue that, unlike Stalin’s practice in the USSR, upper-bracket rich peasants (kulaks) must not be purged.  Nor should cooperatives or collective farms be forced on farmers.  They contend that the key re ‘kulaks’ is that they ‘will not bring back capital in the countryside’ because mere partial involvement in the market is not commodity production, nor is trading labor or goods with others, nor is ‘personal’ trading or sales.  When there is a conflict between different peasant strata, they theorize that the revolutionary state should intervene on behalf of poorer peasants in ‘mediations.’  I imagine a rich farmer might go beyond these parameters after awhile. 

They recognize that the national bourgeoisie in India is integrated with capitalists in other nations, including the top imperialists.  They contend that all ‘third world’ nations have a peasantry which is ‘the most sizeable force’ against neo-liberal capital or dictatorship.  They have no statistics on this assertion.  The caste system in India creates divisions among farmers.  The farmers still led a year-long struggle against 3 farm laws that would remove support pricing, along with opposing international firms getting involved in contract farming with Indian farmers. 

Cooperative farm in India

The authors stand up for individual rights, as without them, ‘outcasts’ cannot actually join a collective.  So a real community requires individual rights too.  They have an excellent section on the 6 benefits of cooperative farming as opposed to individual farming:  1, no boundary waste; 2, pooled resources; 3, better land use due to more land being available; 4, crops needing minimal cultivation allow work on other plots; 5, machinery collectively owned; 6, de-centralized decision-making. 

On that last one, #6, the authors again come up to the conundrum in a number of these articles that de-link agrarian work from the rest of a socialized economy, hinting at an isolated village commune instead. This problem also revolves around the phrase ‘self-management’ used by others. 

“Marx and Communal Society,” J.B. Foster – Foster goes deeply into Marx’s research into early communal forms, and his embrace of the Paris Commune as an example of a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ when the majority of plebeians and workers held power, not the rich, the nobles or the capitalists. These included common tillage in India; the Mark system of common tenure and collective production in Germany; the clan communes in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador called allyus; Greek communal property alongside private property, and the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee) use of long-houses holding multiple families.  Marx studied Morgan, Phear, Maine and Lubbock to understand these early communistic traditions.  Engels collected his insights and used them in writing “Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State.” Rosa Luxemburg later followed this same line of investigation in her studies of colonialism's impact on collectivity in occupied countries.

Marx himself started his journalistic career defending peasants’ right to collect dead wood from private forests.  Of most interest is Foster’s points that Marx didn’t use the term ‘primitive’ communism, or theorize Greece and Rome as a ‘slave societies,’ or use ‘Asiatic’ mode of production other than to mean village communities in India and Java.  This contradicts what was theorized or generalized by later Marxists.  Italian urban communes were run by guilds of merchants, forming the seed of the bourgeoisie, but they had to overcome their original collective nature. To this day the formal name of most Italian towns is ‘Communa di…’

The 1789 French Revolution was known as the “Paris Commune” too.  According to Foster the second 1871 Paris Commune “abolished the death penalty, child labor, and conscription while eliminating debts.  The workers were organized into cooperative societies to run the factories, with plans to organize the cooperatives into one big union.  A women’s union was created, as well as a system of universal secular education.” Instant recall, universal male suffrage and wages for officials at a workers’ wage were also instituted.  All of this was groundbreaking.

End of Part 1

Prior blogspot reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms:  "Monthly Review,"“Paris Commune,” “allyu,” “Mariategui,” "Meszaros," “workers’ councils,” “Saito,” “commune,” ‘council,’ ‘obchshina,’ ‘mir,’ “Foster.”

And I bought it at May Day’s periodicals section!

Red Frog / August 26, 2025

From 'Ripen' to Rotten

 The “American Communist Party” (ACP) 

If you are familiar with ‘leftists’ that sometimes sound like right-wingers, this outfit is the epitome of that, i.e. Trumpist ‘Marxist-Leninists.”  You know, that guy who thinks abortion is racist.  Like the Brownshirts in Germany or the Lyndon Larouche sect’s ‘Workers’ Party,’ the ACP parades as leftist in some of its pronouncements and program, while leaning to the right.  This is meant to confuse and disorganize an actual left. 

Behind some of the standard rhetoric, they are also anti-feminist, anti-gay, anti-environmental, pro 'general' tax cuts and pro-MAGA. They promote ‘social patriotism.’ You will notice the hammer and sickle superimposed over the stripes of the U.S. flag in their logo.  They are Russophiles, no matter the class character of that country right now, as Russia is supposedly the leading 'anti-imperialist.'  They are heavily pro-Stalin and close to the CP of the Russian Federation (KPRF).  They support the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the hilt.  They are also Sinophiles, backing China and ‘Xi-Jinping Thought.’ They claim they came out of the U.S. Communist Party (CP) in 2024 but two of the founders, Hinkle and Al-Din, were never in the CP, according to the CP.

They have praised the reactionary theocrat Khomeini as a great anti-imperialist, and formed a block with the Patriotic Party in Turkey, which is pro-Erdogan, a capitalist Turkish ultra-nationalist. Alexander Dugin, a far-right Russian nationalist, praised them for being allies of Tucker Carlson and Trump by opposing U.S. liberalism.  Of course there are other ways to oppose liberalism from the actual left. The CP, Alexander Ross, Yanis Varoufakis and others correctly identify the ACP as influenced by Russian National-Bolshevism, seeking ‘red-brown ‘unity.'  So they are a current, almost darkly comic version of anti-communist Strasserism.  It is a conservative and nationalistic ‘socialism,' i.e. national socialism.  And we know how that goes...

Their leadership is vitriolic, their rhetoric vile and their stance thuggish.  They blame George Soros, as Victor Orban the right-wing leader of Hungary does, for being behind bad, ‘woke’ communism.  That is a funny one. They wanted pardons for the Jan. 6 rioters, yearn to institute ‘patriotic’ education, call gays pedophiles and want to ban ANTIFA demonstrations. There is more but why go on?

The ACP is the logical end-rot at the heart of Stalinoid conservatism and authoritarian thinking, an affliction affecting some so-called U.S. leftists.  They could also be a police or paid front. They should be walled off from the Left. 

A crib mostly from Wikipedia.  I have no reason to doubt it in this case.

P.S. - In a book on FBI infiltration of the left, Aaron Leonard and Connor Gallagher note that the FBI set up a fake Marxist Leninist organization in Chicago in the late 1960s / early 1970s - claiming to be a faction of the CP.  

Prior blogspot reviews on this subject, us blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms:  “Trumpen Left,’ “National Bolshevism,” “Strasser,” “brownshirt,” “Rohm,” “3^rd Position.”

Red Frog / August 23, 2025      

Chomping Chomsky

 “Who Rules the World” by Noam Chomsky, 2016

This title might have you reflect on prior books that analyze the transnational capitalist class, the holdings of various private equity and banking firms, their world-spanning political and economic organizations, their military arms, even their hold on culture.  Books in that line have been written about the U.S. too.  But Chomsky doesn’t go there.  Here he engages in his consistent method of looking at history, current political events, journalistic malpractice and linguistic tricks to illustrate the U.S.’s long record of hypocrisy and military intervention.  While alluding to shadowy groups of wealthy people and bankrolling corporations, he keeps it almost purely on the political plane. 

This is a problem exhibited by certain anarchists and left-liberals who downgrade and ignore capitalist economics in their ‘hot takes.’  As if a military and journalistic establishment doesn’t have an economic base.  He does have a chapter on the sorry state of the domestic union movement, but this will remind you that everything in this book has been written about by dozens of others before and after 2016.  He has a chapter on the mis-directions of the top ruling-class paper, the New York Times, an investigation which has been done to death too. If this is all new to you, be my guest and buy the book.  For the rest of us?  

While the problem here might be the 'age' of the book, yes, it's view is basically inaccurate.  Chomsky implies that the U.S. ‘rules the world’ as a nation-state, even though he says that rule peaked after WWII, 71 years earlier, now 80 years ago. He doesn’t think the collapse of the USSR, the U.S.’s main class opponent, made any difference.  This might be because he identifies every state as ‘state-capitalist,’ including the USSR and China.  By identifying a ‘nation’ as the ruler, he hides the capitalist class ruling that nation. This is a common activist framing, but for a professor, it’s a bit short in the pants. Class is not his thing.

At the very end of the book Chomsky admits in a brief aside that while it is ‘conventional’ to view world politics through a national lens, the real ‘masters of mankind’ are the merchants and industrialists that control states. Yet his book remains exclusively focused on the conventional.   

What is horrifying about this collection of essays – which is the style Chomsky writes in now – is that every problem discussed in the book has only gotten worse since 2016.  Israel and Palestine, Gaza, Iran, nuclear confrontation, refugees, the Republican Party, evangelical Christianity, the weak Democrats, climate change and the military conflict with Russia were all here 9 years ago.  It ends with an afterward about the Trump election in 2016, framing it as the triumph of a Republican Party that is now a ‘radical insurgency’ not a regular party, and which threatens the future of mankind due to its position on global warming.  As if capitalist oil, plastics, retail, military, meat and now computer tech companies have nothing to do with their politics.   

The book catalogs – like many others do – the prior coups, assassinations, cover-ups and wars carried out by the U.S. for overt claims of ‘humanism,’ fighting terrorism or communism, for ‘freedom’ or just plain because the U.S. is the chosen nation, bringing the light of its archaic democracy to the world.  None of this nonsense is unfamiliar to leftist readers. It’s like a very large and verbose collection of predictable Facebook posts. What is Chomsky’s solution to his dire warnings? He mentions ‘opportunities for change,’ as “popular mobilization and activism, properly organized and conducted, can make a large difference.”  Chomsky has no program except the vaguest and most well-worn leftish cliché.

This book was on the NYT best-seller list when it appeared.  Capitalism is barely mentioned.  Economics is nearly always hidden.  It acts as if pointing out history and hypocrisy in an intellectual way will somehow sway society.  It’s like he’s a lawyer. His bit on the two groups of intellectuals – those who orient to social issues and those who serve in technical capacities – reveals that even the former, as he styles himself, have severe limitations.  As one of the most prominent ‘public’ intellectuals in the U.S. it is quite a disappointment.  He’s no J.P. Sartre or any number of ‘intellectual’ Marxists. Chomsky is a doorway to a more profound analysis, and just that.   

Prior blogspot reviews on this topic, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms:  “Chomsky,” “Trump,” “NATO,” “nuclear,” “environment,” "Who Rules the World?"   

And I bought it at May Day Books, which carries other books by Chomsky.

Red Frog / August 19, 2025  

"...something is happening here..."

 “United States: Lessons From the DSA Convention”by Paul Le Blanc, 8/16/25

Paul Le Blanc attended the recent Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) convention in Chicago, August 8-10 and wrote a report on it.  I’ve attended some joint meetings involving DSA as one component, been in their environmental caucus for awhile and attended a DSA study group, but their orientation towards the Democrats has always put me off.  That is a class compromise I cannot make.  On the other hand the whole Republican Party and the leaders of the Democratic Party (DP) consider it ‘Communist’ or ultra-left, and seek to blunt, diminish or stop it.  Trump has even threatened to invade NYC if Mamdani is elected.

DSA Convention in Chicago in August 2025

As Le Blanc points out, DSA is growing again, it has a democratic internal life involving a number of caucuses and it is moving to the left.  At one point they had 100K members during the Sanders’ years, then shrunk to 50K, now are back up to 80K given the Trump police state and the Mamdani win in the Democrat primary in NYC.  They see 100K in the near future.  As Le Blanc points out, this is dues-paying members, and not all those are paid up.  1,229 of the conference attendees were delegates at the Convention, with the rest of the 1,500 attendees observers of some kind.  Nationally, actual active members of DSA are a smaller minority. He estimates that around 8-10K are active members, which still makes DSA the largest group on the Left by far.   

Le Blanc considered the overly-procedural convention to still be democratic.  He divides the groupings into 3 main caucuses, with overlap and political fluidity quite obvious, while some groups are outside the 3.  In the process he names the caucuses.  As he notes in his own Pittsburgh branch, most people are not in a caucus.  The general groupings are: 1) a ‘moderate’ wing, taking after Michael Harrington’s legacy, very inclined to ‘progressives’ and liberals in the DP.  2) A ‘far-left’ wing made up of Palestinian activists and ‘campists’ who cheer for anyone opposed to the U.S.  3) A Marxist center-left wing oriented to the eventual establishment of an independent socialist party, while being presently oriented towards labor movements.  

Le Blanc names the various explicit caucuses, so if you want a roadmap, read his article in the link down below.  All 3 groupings have one-third of the national committee, and he contends they do not want a split.

Le Blanc lists the main resolutions passed, including one for an ‘anti-Zionist DSA’ and for BDS, along with various pro-labor plans.  The form of ‘anti-fascism’ that passed is limited to actively opposing ICE and Trump.  Tenant organizing was also a key resolution.  He notes that convention discussions focused heavily on class views, not identity politics, so a general ‘Marxist’ tone was kept.  A key resolution was that DSA electoral endorsements had to be on the basis of open ‘democratic-socialism,’ not just some mealy-mouthed progressive claim.

However the class view stopped at the borders of the U.S., with a resolution opposing ‘campism’ being voted down by 43% to 56%. This reformist perspective basically obliterates internationalist working-class organizing, reflected a nationalist blindness. It represents a kind of classless ‘anti-imperialism.’  It jibes with reformist groupings outside DSA like various Maoid / Stalinist / ‘third world’ tacks.  There were some international speakers, but as you can see two of these parties are running capitalist states.  Speeches by the Brazilian PT (running Brazil) and PSOL, Belgium’s Workers Party, La France Insoumise, the Mexican Morena (running Mexico), Puerto Rico’s Socialista and Japan’s Socialists were given, along with some unions, rank-and-file orgs in unions, the Sunrise Movement, BDS, the Palestinian Youth Movement and Democrat office-holder Rashida Tailib.

DSA is heavily oriented towards 2028 according to Le Blanc, which coincides with the next national electoral cycle.  They have also advocated a large buildup to the 2026 May Day demonstrations.

Le Blanc ends by saying he is convinced that now is the time for more orthodox Marxists like himself to be involved in DSA, given its left-ward trajectory, democratic functioning and sizeable impact. I’ve been a supporter of a united front of the Left for a long time, and certainly within DSA there is a ‘united front’ of various tendencies, proving it can be done.  But given that front extends to bourgeois elements that have not broken with capital, it is really a popular front.  Certainly DSA’s efforts dwarf those of the pro-China, Trotskyist, neo-Marcyite or Mao / Stalin groups outside DSA, which is inevitable in the U.S. as young generations partly break from bourgeois thinking in various areas once again.

Le Blanc had expected the moderate wing of DSA to lord it over the Convention, but that was not the case.  He was encouraged by the youth, the diverse proletarian jobs and ethnic backgrounds, the left-ward trajectory, the size of the organization and perhaps, its ‘prospects.’  I see DSA as playing a role in the socialist movement similar to the 1960s SDS.  The best outcome out of DSA is the birth of a new, mass socialist front or party based on the trade unions, taking the best of working-class Democrats and working-class Republicans with it.  Whether that will happen also depends on the activity of left forces outside DSA, internal union activity and the historical ‘conjuncture’ – which is sharpening everywhere in the world.  The endgame of capital seems to be playing out once again, and this is reflected by the growth of DSA. 

To all those 'educated' DP liberals still chattering about how some mainstream Democrat will save them and oblivious to DSA, I have this lyric from "Ballad of a Thin Man:"  

"Because something is happening here,  But you don't know what it is, Do you, Mister Jones?"

Le Blanc’s essay is on the International Journal of Socialist Renewal LINKS:  Le Blanc on DSA Convention.  

P.S. - The state "Democratic Farmer-Labor" party just rescinded the mayoral endorsement of Omar Fateh in Minneapolis, who was endorsed at the convention.  Fateh claims to be a democratic socialist.   This is how the Dems really roll.  Shades of good 'ol Hubert and his purge of the Farmer-Labor left in 1936.  

Prior blogspot reviews on this topic, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms: “DSA,” “Le Blanc,” ‘social-democracy.’

Red Frog / August 16, 2025

The Law Will Not Save You

 “Rogue Lawyer” by John Grisham, 2016

We can’t always read stuffy books filled with footnotes and long indexes.  Like many of Grisham’s fiction books, this one will tell you more about law enforcement and the court system than some tomes. You see it’s not all made-up.  A law school should have a Grisham seminar for reality training.  This book actually has a ‘questions for discussion’ section at the end that centers on legal issues.  The story is similar to the Lincoln Lawyer, Goliath and Better Call Saul streaming series, this about a rowdy, smart, street-wise, criminal defense attorney who takes down the big guys – mostly. 

Written in 2016 it features a ‘rogue’ who offices out of a well-appointed van, has a thuggish bodyguard and paralegal, mostly defends ne'er-do-wells and nearly always wins, unlike the real world.  The 2005 book “Lincoln Lawyer’ was first about this kind of attorney, but they all inherit the noir genre of detective fiction.  It’s a class change from gumshoes to attorneys.  The gentrification of noir? 

If you spent too much time in the legal community like I did, this is catnip. Grisham engages in the ‘noir’ political crisis’s of the day – sex-trafficking, bloody and erroneous SWAT raids, lazy and corrupt police, ‘tough on crime’ jackass politicians, false accusations of murder, stupid prejudices, the drug war, vulnerable children, and so on.  

The usual lawyerly contradictions abound.  Winning is the only thing.  Some clients are idiots or plain dangerous.  Forum and judge shopping and possible bribes are standard. Skirting or being held in contempt is a constant risk. Witness and juror tampering is possible. Extensive voir dire and jury selection is a necessity. Attorney-client privilege makes you do things you don’t want to do. Courtroom skills are essential.  Prison visits are creepy.  Pro bono is on the table.  The press can be an ally.  Sometimes you have to cut corners and do the shady deal.  And so on.      

The lawyer Sebastian Rudd has an eye for sexy ladies.  He’s invested in cage fighting.  He likes his single-batch bourbon.  He’s divorced, of course, with a small child.  He calls himself a ‘pathetic’ father and he is.  He tries to teach his boy to defend himself from bullies, and is ragged by his ex-wife for it, a ‘politically-correct’ lesbian attorney.  He even plays rounds of idiotic golf.  He’s actually too busy to be a father, as the boy was ‘an accident.’ The book paints the picture of the macho dad who carries a handgun for protection, and wants to be ‘in his son’s life’ when he’s not. 

The Law

In the current political situation, the ‘thing’ the Democrats are counting on to rein in a stronger Trumpist police state and dictatorship is ‘the law.’  “Blue” state attorney generals are conversing and coordinating over how many lawsuits to file, of what kind, and so on.  Texas Democrats have returned, putting their faith in a lawsuit.  After all, lawyers run the Democratic Party in the nuts and bolts sense. The country is awash in lawsuits because that is how you solve problems.  Yet the Trumpists have no real interest in 'the law,' as do most authoritarian Bonapartists, but will take it when they can, as U.S. laws and their application are extremely retrograde anyway.  The two sides are actually playing on different fields.

So the fictional obsession with legal dramas, even cop and detective shows, circles around the legal system endlessly. Its ins, its outs, its weaknesses, its strengths, its deals, blah, blah, blah. No doubt all of this is important in any battle, to have lawyers on your side.  But it diverts from the political necessity that social change for the ‘better’ for the working class is rooted in class struggle – mobilizations, strikes, independent political action, united fronts, sit-downs, occupations; work, community and military committees; confrontations, self-defense and ultimately a revolutionary strategy.  A protest march is only the beginning, but not the end.  The law is a handmaiden, though no union lawyer will tell you that.  Nor will the Democrats because they are most interested in upholding the present capitalist system, which an aggrieved and mobilized working-class threatens. 

This is all familiar stuff, so I won’t go on longer.  What Grisham doesn’t cover in this book – though he has in others – is that money and time work against working-class plaintiffs or defendants.  The system is set up to give some people a poorly-paid public defender, or to plead out, while corporations and individuals with money can string out lawsuits for years and years, or get them done immediately.  Not to mention the laws themselves, which are stacked by reactionary legislatures, along with their firm commitment to private property. Or the stacking of the courts with ultra-conservative ‘originalist’ clones, all the way to the top. The law is politics by other means.  So let's face it and ascend to real politics.

As we read or watch legal dramas, there is always this subtext.  This, like the Coliseum for gladiators, is the arena we should fight in, and it alone.  Don’t buy it.

Prior Grisham novels and non-fiction reviewed on the blog:  “The Confession,” “A Time to Kill,” “Gray Mountain,” “Sycamore Row,” “The Appeal,” “Camino Ghosts.”

Prior blogspot reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms: “lawyer,” “Grisham,” “detective,’ “trial.”

The Cultural Marxist / August 12, 2025

You're All a Bunch of Animals! (II)

 “Little Red Barns - Hiding the Truth, From Farm to Fable” by Will Potter, 2025 (Part 2)

Potter in his quest to ‘witness’ decides to follow the money.  Between 1998 and 2019 U.S. agribusiness spent $2.5B on political lobbying, more than the oil industry, mostly on climate change issues related to diet.  Tyson Foods alone spent $3.2M from 2000 to 2020, in a percentage of their profits far higher than Exxon.  National meat and cattlemen’s groups led the way to stop climate change regulations, spending $200M.  At COP28 in Dubai, big meat and dairy companies sent 120 delegates, 3 times more than in the past, as part of a U.S. ‘government’ delegation no less. They were able to blunt efforts to rein in factory animal farming there. U.N. reports advocating less meat, or a plant-based diet were stopped or changed.  Other climate and animal regulations in the Euro Zone have been weakened by the efforts of these Big Ag firms.  Their efforts add up to denial of the science, much like tobacco firms did and oil firms still do. 

Massaging science is the name of this game by creating doubt or manipulating methods and facts, both familiar tactics. The ag industry, like the pharmaceutical industry with animal hormones and anti-biotics, shovels money to university researchers. They have created two pro-meat institutes at universities in California and Colorado, churning out deceptions.  They have even massaged ‘regenerative’ agriculture as a green-washing tool, as has RFK Jr.  They established the Livestock Global Alliance to defend CAFO practices, including countries like Argentina and Brazil.  Its purpose is to procure ‘industry-friendly research.’ 

Given ag-gag laws are so blatantly anti-democratic and anti-journalism, some were repealed or rejected in the legislative phase.  Potter reminds the reader that Upton Sinclair, his hero, spent 7 weeks working undercover in slaughterhouses on Chicago’s South Side prior to writing “The Jungle.’  Undercover journalism and even amateur journalism has a long history, and has won many awards.  So blatant censorship is not always a winning hand, as it brought together a coalition from the AFL-CIO to the Newspaper Guild to the Sierra Club to oppose it. Of course, ‘public sentiment’ is irrelevant in many states.  Government reports have been hidden if they cover factory farm pollution or treatment of animals and workers.  The USDA’s reports on this were deleted on-line by the first Trump administration. Some of the CAFO proponents now call for more ‘sunshine’ – just like police departments grudgingly installed body-cams.  Yet the cameras have changed little.

The Guv’mint on the Side of Big Ag

Controlling the government is the name of the next game, i.e. regulatory capture.  Potter here concentrates on environmental effects.  While the National Academy of Sciences says air pollution from factory farms kills 17,000 people a year, there is no bar to size or construction.  83% of agricultural land use is for animals and feed, but again, the Ag Department or EPA has nothing to say about this.  Beef’s carbon footprint is 20 times greater than cereals and root vegetables. Efficiency?  Regulation?  70% of all birds are now domestic fowl for slaughter, reminding us of the devastation to wild bird habitats.  Potter has many more stats.  And yet for all this land, energy and green-house gas, only 37% of protein is derived.  This kind of massive animal agriculture is basically inefficient but the government and society are captured by Big Meat’s profit motive.

No other agency is captured so thoroughly as the FBI, which targeted environmental and animal rights ‘terrorists’ in their stated defense of ‘the economy.’  When January 6, 2021 happened, everyone but the FBI knew violence was afoot.  Their kid gloves approach to fascist and right-wing violence Potter compares to their long-term and hard-core surveillance, arrests and intimidation of non-violent animal and environmental protesters. (He covered this in a previous book ‘Green is the New Red,” reviewed below). 

Old McDonald's hog waste lagoon in NC

Potter goes into some soul-searching about how ‘light’ on a subject sometimes doesn’t change a thing.  The genocide in Gaza is one example.  He contends that the real power is one of ‘stories’ – and the U.S. story about red barns and ‘the cow goes mooo…’ from our youth still control the narrative of what is going on in rural areas.  As he puts it “Old McDonald had a poop lagoon…” does not quite carry the same cachet.  He shows how the government has promoted land-grant colleges and 4-H, forming tech partnerships with big farmers that has created land consolidation.  Even State Fairs participate in this agrarian myth-making, as we see perfectly groomed farm animals competing in contests.  Potter claims that 85% of animal welfare claims by vendors are bogus, and this includes organic claims, 'free range,' ‘humane’ butchery and the like. 

The material need to eat is not considered by Potter, nor long decades of eating animal products in various forms by nearly everyone on the planet.  Habit, custom and the dead hand of the past are common.  Nor the financial investment of a large part of the capitalist system.  Blaming it on a ‘story’ is a form of leftie idealism, though still relevant as far as it goes.

Potter notes that the national ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center both consider animal rights and environmental activists as similar to right-wingers, with the latter calling them ‘eco-terrorists.’  Some ‘leftists’ distain them too, even to this day.  Their ideological point is that these movements are not about ‘humans,’ hence a distraction.  Yet CAFO agriculture impacts workers and human health, while also impacting the human environment. It should also be noted that humans are ‘animals’ of a sort, a point ignored because ‘it’s so obvious’ as one leftie told me.  Potter makes a plea for ‘intersectionality’ regarding these struggles, much as Marx understood political economy ‘holistically.’   It is not about empathy for ‘others,’ though it is that for some who don’t understand how animal ag impacts them too. 

Philosophy

Potter, by this circuitous route, ends up discussing the present link between the Right, fascism, rural politics and animal agriculture.  The latter is a profitable extractive industry based on killing. Most of its immediate proponents are wealthy corporations and petit-bourgeois farmers, ranchers and businessmen.  This occupation eventually needs a ‘philosophy.’  So the Right or fascists call anyone they don’t like ‘animals.’  This is a long-standing and standard rhetorical device.  Potter cites the use of forms of the ‘animal’ slur by the Klan, Nazis, Trumpists, Proud Boys, racists and Israeli government Zionists, and the history of colonialist ‘human’ zoos in Europe and the U.S.  

This is why ‘soy boy’ is a macho insult and why the cultural Right promotes raw milk and butter and the pathetic and toxic carnivore or paleo diets.  Standard bearers like RFK Jr., Trump Jr. and Kristi Noem take pride in oddly killing animals. A dog, goat, whale, bear and a rare African rhino!  Animal abuse is the first step for many murderers, people like Jeffrey Dahmer.  So think about the ‘animal’ insult.  Their intent in industrially killing animals – and this extends to big game hunting for the ‘sportsmen’ of the lot – is now trained on some humans.  Marx once said that you can judge a society by how it treats women.  You can also judge a society on how it treats animals and nature. 

Of note, Potter does not discuss health issues about the food produced by CAFO’s, which are filled with hormones, antibiotics, PFAS, feed herbicides and chemicals.  Nor of the level of fecal matter in products, like chicken for instance, nor industrial fishing or certain mass aqua-cultures.  He does not investigate the economics of Big Ag either, the gigantic pet industry in the U.S. or zoo-aquarium logic.  He concentrates on abuse and the environment, and the politics of it all.  His solution is an ‘Anti-Story’ that narrates a different view towards nature, animals and our inter-connections with both.  He’s not a socialist, so he does not make a plea for some kind of eco-socialism. But certainly, at this point in history, any workers’ government interested in the environment, human health, hunger and efficiency would limit or end industrial animal agriculture. 

Prior blogspot reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms:  ‘CAFO,’ ‘agriculture,’ ‘vegetarianism’ ‘veganism,’ ‘industrial agriculture,’ ‘Upton Sinclair,’ ‘Will Potter,’ ‘Green is the New Red.’’

And I found it at May Day Books, which has many left books on agriculture and the environment.    

Red Frog / August 7, 2025