“Socialist Revolution,” magazine
of the International Marxist Tendency, 10/2018 Issue
May Day Books is the only place in the Twin Cities
that carries a large selection of left-wing periodicals, magazines, journals
and newspapers. This is part of why our
‘niche’ bookstore can claim uniqueness, unlike the cookie-cutter liberal
bookstores that dot the Twin-Cities which sell almost the same stock as each
other.
One of the publications May Day sells is “Socialist Revolution” – an
agitational / propagandist periodical that ends nearly every article with, you
guessed it, ‘fight for the world-wide socialist revolution.’ In case you missed the point.
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| A Sample of the Stock |
WORKING FAMILIES PARTY
The lead story in the October SR issue is an excellent deconstruction of the Working Families Party
(WFP), which is mostly centered in New
York. The WFP
is a third-party that basically launders votes for Democrats. In this election the WFP was thrown into
confusion because instead of endorsing the rightist Democrat Andrew Cuomo as
they usually do, activists forced the WFP to endorse TV star and ostensible Sanderite
Democrat Cynthia Nixon. Cuomo then demanded that
the unions that back the WFP remove their endorsement of Nixon, and some
did.
New York has what
is called ‘fusion balloting.’ Any party
that gets 50,000 votes can retain a ballot-line, even if they are running the
SAME candidate as another party – in this case nearly always a Democrat. Given Nixon lost in the primary, the WFP is evidently stuck with her
name on the ballot line and now has a dilemma of trying to dump her (she has basically endorsed
Cuomo) by using
arcane methods and add Cuomo, or keeping her on the ballot line and losing the 50K vote threshold.
This is what happens to a party that has never run an
independent labor candidate in 20 years, while pretending to represent the
working class. The WFP is a political
placebo, a sugar pill so far in its history. It started as essentially a weapon against Mazzocchi's Labor Party in the 1990s, which could have charted a more independent path for labor.
KAVANAUGH
SR has an article on the elections and
Kavanaugh, pointing out that nationalist authoritarians like Trump and drunken frat boys
like Kavanaugh are what is produced by a system in decay. Unlike the slavish love of the U.S. Supreme Court
by liberals and conservatives alike, the Court is actually a political body
that has, time and time again, shown its reactionary stripes dressed up in
‘legal’ decisions. Kavanaugh will not
change that, though he may make it worse.
AGRICULTURE
SR also looks at Trump’s trade war and
how it affects agriculture – normally not a subject socialists take time
with. But food is foundational to human life and society,
as we know. The U.S. capitalist state
provides many welfare programs for the increasingly large corporate farms – 58%
of subsidies between 1995 and 2005 went to just 10% of farmers. SR
stands up for the ‘legal’ and undocumented farm-workers and small farmers
crushed by low wages and poor working conditions, or debt and slave contracts
to big agribusinesses like Cargill, ADM or Monsanto.
The majority of exploited farm workers are probably
undocumented according to sources, which is one reason why U.S. food is so
‘cheap.’ These workers were still
toiling in the fields in California while breathing the toxic smoke that rolled over
the countryside in the Central Valley and LA these last two weeks. All
the while 1/3rd of California
firefighters are prisoners risking their lives for $1 a day fighting these same fires. Wage slavery anyone?
AMAZON
Keeping current, SR
has an article on Amazon that indirectly points out that the answer to Amazon
is not an anti-trust breakup, but nationalizing Amazon. Oligopoly and monopoly, to those not blind, are
the end-points of capital, as ‘competition’ dies at the hand of normal market
consolidation. Instead of breaking up
firms that will only reform later, the expropriation and nationalization of Amazon under
workers control lays a basis for a socialized economy now. This is part of a transitional program, as is socialized medicine, a real 'Medicare for All.'
DEBT, DOLLAR, TRADE WAR
SR, like many bourgeois economists,
is aware that massive debt levels and the increasing value of the U.S. dollar
are creating a situation that will result in another economic crash. Countries like Turkey,
Argentina, India, Brazil
and South Africa
are all experiencing currency issues.
Unmentioned is China,
whose economy is probably contracting at this point due to the trade war, thus
putting a squeeze on their hidden debt sector too.
Iran and Turkey are also targets of the trade war, not to mention Europe. These all can trigger a debt crisis in each country. The author, Hamid Alizadeh says:
“Total world debt today stands at an astronomical $217 trillion – 327%
of world GDP – the highest in history.
But very little of this money has been invested in actual
production. In fact, investment rates
are lower than the 1960s.”
What is significant here is that financial capital
has slowed investing in the actual ‘productive economy’ and instead ‘invests’
in stock markets, real estate and bling. The
author makes the valuable point that 10% of all companies are ‘zombies’ – their
interest on their debt is higher than their profits. So when push comes to shove…
OTHER ARTICLES
Other stories are about an evangelical joining the
IMT after seeing poverty in Nicaragua; the reality of class-based ‘assortative
mating’ where lawyers marry lawyers, doctors marry doctors, movie stars marry
movies stars and rich people marry other rich people; the climate crisis; and
an article on Lenin’s “What is To Be Done”
that implies that party-building in Russia and in the present U.S. or Britain
will follow almost exactly the same path.
In the U.S.
the last major event – the 2008 crash and Great Recession that followed – led
to the rise of Bernie Sanders and a current of ‘democratic’ socialists that has
found organizational expression in Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). And through that, an invigoration of the
Democratic Party, with DSA’ers like Ocasio-Cortez even getting elected. It did
not flow to the small Marxist organizations, although it helped with some.
Another crash will no doubt ALSO not flow substantially to the small Marxist
organizations, of which there are at least 10 in the U.S. Without a present party-building strategy that is measurably
successful and avoids a small group mentality, any rupture in capital can be ‘repaired’
in some way or another. This includes by barbarism or fascism or increasing authoritarianism. It will not automatically lead to support for the most left organizations unless those organizations have some weight in the previous period.
Other reviews of periodicals below: 'Monthly Review,' 'Jacobin,' 'Lapham's Quarterly' 'Labor Notes' and 'Granta.' Also a report at May Day Books on 'Pakistan' by the SR's editor, John Peterson. Use blog search box, upper left.
And I bought it at May Day’s excellent periodicals
section!
Red Frog
November 25, 2018
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