Worn Out

 “Worn – A People’s History of Clothing” by Sofi Thanhauser, 2022

This is an environmental, labor and historical materialist analysis of the development of the clothing industry.  It is based on 5 main segments – Linen, Cotton, Silk, Synthetics and Wool.  Given clothing is a human essential, this book provides a great background to understand what has happened to clothing in the colonialist and capitalist age, and why it should not go on. 

I’m only going to look at the chapters on cotton and synthetics. 

COTTON

The story of cotton is somewhat familiar.  It was the foundation of the ‘industrial revolution’ in England, spurred by slave-grown cotton from the U.S. and later, the peasant-grown cotton of lower caste India.  The English actually destroyed the Indian artisanal handicraft clothing industry during the U.S. Civil War after slave-cotton was no longer available in bulk.  So the British East India Company forced rural peasants to grow cotton for export instead of food for themselves.  E.P. Thompson noted that the textile factory system, first started in 1771, destroyed the textile artisans in England earlier.  All in the interests of a full blast commodity economy.

Thanhauser weaves a story of the vast cotton ranches in the Texas panhandle near Lubbock, desperate modern Indian farmers committing suicide in small villages in Tamil Nadu and the cotton lands and industry of forced Uyghur workers in Xinjiang, which has become China’s cotton hub.

TEXAS

Cotton uses 20,000 liters of water to make a single pair of jeans.  Worldwide it uses 24% of insecticide and 20% of nitrogen fertilizer, while decimating the land as a monocrop. The U.S. is the #1 exporter of cotton in the world. Modern cotton growing uses bio-engineered pesticide-laden seeds.  The Texas and Kansas wheat and cotton ranches suck huge amounts of water out of the Ogallala aquifer, which in Kansas is down 60%. Liquid nitrogen doses the drip tubes. Cotton is sprayed with toxic paraquat to make it mature faster and sprayed with Bayer / Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicide to kill bugs.  Latino field workers get cancer, while the EPA gives Monsanto© a pass.  The life expectancy of Latino farmworkers is 49.  The U.S. subsidized cotton growers with $1.1B in 2017.

Buddy Holly’s club, the Cotton Club in Lubbock, is closed.  It figures. Lubbock itself is a ghost town according to Thanhauser.

TAMIL NADU

The colonial English push for cotton in India led to deforestation, the enclosure of common lands and private ownership over cooperative farming. India also became a cloth importer when it had been a cloth producer!  A famine in the 1870s partly due to export production led to 19 million Indians dying – never mentioned in the context of capitalism of course.  Present cotton farmers are forced to buy patented Bt cotton seeds, fertilizers, fungicides and pesticides. 90% of India’s cotton acreage is now controlled by Monsanto© seeds.  In 2004, 600 farmers in Andhra Pradesh committed suicide due to corporate-induced poverty, some, ironically, by drinking the chemical defoliant paraquat.

Low-paid, non-union women now work in the Indian knitwear & textile industries, supplying Walmart, Target, Sears and H&M.  Toxic dyes are dumped in rivers – red, yellow, blue and black, for crops, humans and animals to pick up.  Cotton exports like this export water too – just like export flower farming in Columbia does when you buy that cheap bunch in a grocery chain store.

XINJIANG 

China has turned Xinjiang into a ‘special economic zone,’ especially to produce cotton clothing in large factories and farms.  Cotton farming has desertified southern Xinjiang, drying up its rivers.  This is similar to what happened to the Aral Sea in the USSR / now Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan, which disappeared after intensive water-hungry cotton farming was initiated. 20% of world cotton came from Xinjiang in 2019.   According to reports, much of this labor is forced or required, though the factories and farms are called ‘vocational training centers.’

Some U.S. companies using cotton and clothing from this area are Badger, Adidas, H&M and The Gap.  In 1992 under Clinton, executives for The Limited, Kmart, The Gap & Spiegel testified to keep cheap Chinese cotton flowing – and it was done.  Given all this, do you think bought-and-paid-for textile departments in southern U.S. universities are studying hemp textiles, which, unlike cotton, use far less water, fertilizer, machines and herbicides?  No they are not… 

SYNTHETICS

RAYON

The first ‘synthetic’ clothing was made from rayon – essentially wood pulp and chemicals – but it got worse from there. Oil became the base of new fabrics – along with bright aniline dyes that stained rivers red, yellow and orange.  Rayon could be mixed with natural fibers like cotton to make blends.  As a ‘new’ industry, its workers were non-union, paid less and worked longer hours, nearly all in the U.S. South.  Cellulose also can make cellophane and acetate, but they all use carbon disulfide, a neuro-toxin.  Rayon workers, who were mostly women and girls, fainted, got Parkinson’s, nerve damage, personality changes, hallucinations and loss of libido.  They noted an increase in 'mental illness' around rayon mills.

Due to later studies, OSHA reduced the carbon disulfide standard to 20 ppm, a compromise but still too high, and still the standard in the U.S.  Officially in the EU and China it is 2 ppm, but in the global south it is still 20 ppm.   

The largest textile strike occurred in Gastonia, North Carolina, which was met by National Guardsmen, company thugs and right-wing militias, who eventually killed one of the leaders of the strike, Ella Mae Wiggins.  No memorial remains in Gastonia at the mill that was the center of the strike. Another 1934 strike in Greenville, South Carolina and the little town of Honea Path led to the murder of 7 strikers and wounding of dozens by the mill owner, who ordered his goons to use a machine gun.  The owner was also the town mayor and judge, typical in small towns.  No one talks about this strike either, nor was anyone prosecuted.  Union organizers in the South were then and still are treated like ‘carpetbaggers.’ Thanhauser details the proletarian feminism of other textile strikers and seems to be somewhat of a Leftist, though she does not openly condemn capitalism or embrace eco-Socialism.     

NYLON

Nylon was developed by DuPont and was made entirely with petroleum products.  It was soon followed by acrylic, polyester, spandex, Dacron, Orlon and fluorocarbon, along with hundreds of sub-varieties.  Bright aniline dyes were also developed out of coal tars, which involve chromium, lead, cadmium, sulfur, mercury, arsenic and formaldehyde, among other chemicals.  And then there is the recent development of omnipresent oil-based micro-fibers…  As is clear, any reduction in oil usage would require our petro-fabric clothing and carbon-based dyeing industries to be de-carbonized too. This will mean a huge change just in our dress. 

Nigerian Export Processing Zones

EPZs

Thanhauser describes how the U.S. domestic clothing and textile industries were consciously destroyed in order to ‘fight communism’ by sending these jobs to countries under threat like Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia.  It was basically on orders from the State Department, but the manufacturers soon went along when it allowed them to leave unions behind and find cheaper labor.  This was the political origin of ‘off-shoring’ and tax-free, duty-free raw materials and cheap labor ‘export processing zones’ which supply the U.S. with fast fashion and clothing.  Brands like H&M, Macy’s, JCPenny, Kmart, Sears, The Limited, The Gap, Victoria’s Secret, Esprit, Adidas, Carhartt, Under Armour, PINK, Nike and L.L.Bean all use these EPZs.  In fact, probably every brand you can name does.

These EPZs were then promoted by the U.S. government in central America and the Caribbean (like Jamaica) during the 1980s - also it seems in the ‘fight against communism.’  Honduras, along with El Salvador and Guatemala, became a huge export hub and Thanhauser considers Honduras a case study.  Starvation wages, forced overtime, physical violence, mass firings, anti-unionism, child labor, death threats occur around these EPZs.  These might remind us of the old U.S. south, but now it’s the global south.  The wretched celebrity Kathie Lee Gifford even got caught using these EPZs, which are like secretive armed camps, guarded with razor wire.  As might be expected, corporate good conduct plans have changed little.   Choloma, Honduras is an EPZ example Thanhauser looks at, a gated enclave that functions as an extractive geography.     

Honduras had a coup in 2009 supported by Obama and Clinton, as the new liberal government threatened the local textile oligarchs.  The coup government presided over drug dealing, rapes, assassinations, murders and kidnappings, while gutting the welfare state. No wonder so many Hondurans tried to emigrate to the U.S.  Blowback! You want to stop desperate immigration?  Stop supporting climate change, capitalist extraction and vicious governments – but that is not the U.S. plan.  After the Dhaka Ran fire disaster in 2013 in Bangladesh where 117 died, 17 large U.S. firms still refused to sign an Accord on Fire and Building Safety.  Yet the U.S. government does not see their role as anything but enabling these criminal firms, usually with corporate trade agreements.

Hanhauser ends this chapter by talking about fast fashion outfits like Zara, Forever 21 and H&M, who stock new fashions in stores twice a week. An industry of young internet ‘influencers’ has grown up displaying these ‘hauls’ on You Tube, Tik Tok and Instagram, pushing this disposable junk as part of the slickest sales effort in history.    

The book is a lively, somewhat familiar tour of the world’s garment industry, its environmental, health, labor and financial effects.  It would be a great introduction for some, as it covers most of the bases. 

Prior reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive, using these terms:  “Stitched Up – the Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion,” “Shopping World,” “Inconspicuous Consumption – the Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have,” “NAFTA 2,” “USMCA Fraud,” “The Marijuana Manifesto,” “The People’s Green New Deal,” “The Avalanche of Plastic.”

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

March 12, 2022  

Original Short Fiction

 Makin’ Mailing Machines

     The single room assembly shop in Chicago was like a horseshoe and also like a working-class United Nations.  Work benches rimmed the central area on three sides, full of mailing machines in various stages of completion. On the last side of the room were tall rows of parts in a maze of shelving – numbered, sorted by type, in cardboard slide-out trays, easily available.  The best assemblers knew where each part was located without thinking and also which ones were bad, based on whatever portion of the machine they were working on. 

Candlers, travel and drive belts, cutting blades, polished stainless steel metal surfaces, a big black tub as the base, legs, nuts, bolts, ring snaps, cotter-pins, air compressors, control buttons, washers, wiring, small axles, copper grommets, a scale, bins, lubricants, peddle controls and a drive motor. Its purpose was to open letters at high speed.  It did that well, for its time.  Firms could use it especially for billing envelopes … back in the day.

It was the 1980s, bad times for any worker.  Several severe recessions, union busting, low wages, a vicious, anti-labor federal government, Reagan times.  This was not a union shop so there was no defense, but workers made do.  Yes they did.  Some would smoke behind the shop in their cars along the alley.  Others drank.  One hit the weed. Some would spend too long in the single bathroom stacked with porn mags.  Once a truck lost a partial shipment of expensive welding torches from its tailgate in the alley, and everyone got to take one home. And then there were the radios – almost one for each. 

A grinning old man that looked like a mustached French voyageur announced that ‘we don’t get paid much, but we have fun.’  His wizened older buddy, who listened to the base-ball games and talk radio as much as possible, nodded with a smile.  Their younger companion, a baby-faced man with 6 children who never had any money, didn’t seem to be having fun.  He ate his lunches out of a small brown paper bag and never ate breakfast - all part of his saving strategy.  Each had a sub-assembly to concern them.

Next to them, around the corner, was Ky Moon Chung, the Korean.  Quiet, grinning, formerly a store owner in Seoul, he’d made his way to the U.S. with his wife, the nurse.  Living together in an overly-expensive house in the ‘burbs was part of their struggle for ‘the American dream.’  She worked all the time, overtime, anytime, rarely being home.  Ky contributed his regular, small paycheck, while playing the august role of quality control in the shop.  All to pay-off their patriotic and enormous mortgage debt.  He also listened to his radio, mostly bad pop music or Korean language tapes about something.  Probably about success...

Next to him were the Patels, two Indians from Gujarat.  They didn’t listen to music or the radio, but huddled together talking.  They were quiet with the rest of the workers and related to the manager Bupee Patel.  Bupee came out of the front office occasionally to roust the crew with loud talk and his love of blonde American girls. They worked slowly but surely, not used to mechanical and electrical assembly.  But they were kind and considerate, somewhat happy and because they probably wanted to be shopkeepers, out of place and they knew it.  It was the ‘80s after all, and Devon Avenue was becoming like a street in Mumbai, lined with Indian shops.

Next was the VJ, a Jamaican.  The hard-thinking brains of this outfit.  Reggae on the music box. Having long, philosophic conversations with his co-workers was his specialty.  He’d mull over things for hours. Big, happy, thoughtful, that was VJ.  He worked like he was curing cancer.  Jamaican street food was on Howard Street, Kingston patios mafia ran weed in town, while VJ just grooved and thought and smiled at the idiocy of it all. 

Next was Charles, the NPR guy.  Thin, long-haired, a radical, he listened to rock on his “rock doctor’ boom box when he wasn’t taking in the news.  He worked the fastest of anyone and got a bonus for it when the place closed down after new owners bought it.  But that is another story.  Most in the shop worked slowly so that they wouldn’t ruffle their own feathers, but he liked to get the job done, get it out of the way, get it over with.  The rumor was Charles got the job because he brought his 3 year old daughter to the interview, and the woman HR person fell for it.  Of course it didn’t hurt that he had years of assembly experience.

Around the next corner by the back door was the Southern hillbilly, Randy. Although ‘hillbilly’ is an insult, it’s not meant that way here. Spent his dime on drink, country music and good times.  He had the most broken-down but largest car.  Skinny, always moving, a scraggly red beard and reddish curly hair, he’d left home for a good job up in the North.  There were plenty of Southerners in town like him…in Uptown especially, where the smarter ones once united with the Black Panther Party – back in the day.

Then there was the dark-skinned brother, George. George was the last hired. Big, he didn’t know how he’d got here, what he was doing, how to build anything and did it anyway.  R&B and early Rap was on his radio, in his tape player and on his mind as he sang along.

Lastly were Pedro and Tony, two grinning Chicanos in the 3rd corner, who called everyone else ‘cabron.’ ‘puta,’ ‘jefe,' 'pendejo' or lastly ‘mierda’ when they were really pissed – which they never were.  Their radios rocked nortenos, tejano, banda or Mexican pop.  They talked among themselves a lot, but got the job done anyway.  The steady hum of Spanish from their corner was like water running.

This little United Nations never fought, never got angry, never struggled – unlike the real one.  They were all equal in this shop, no overlords, as in the real one.  They got along, they enjoyed their poorly-paid jobs, they made it to work on time, they grooved.  Especially one day. 

That was the day that “Rockit” by Herbie Hancock started coming on the air on local Chicago stations.  Now if you’ve ever heard ‘Rockit,’ it’s a techno-hard beat, electronic instrumental monster.  Hancock was a jazz pianist who decided to do a fusion with rock. It came out in 1983 and blasted out of MTV and later at the Grammys.  It had DJ scratches, synthesizers, vocal samples, electronic drums, African drumming, Santeria bam. Not your usual fare, especially for such a diverse bunch of ‘losers’ in a dingy, forgotten shop in Chicago.  Yet…

Most had heard the song before.  The next time it came on, Charles the NPR boy told everyone – “Quick, Rockit is on WXRT.”  Every radio in the shop turned to WXRT, aborting the previous stations.  Every radio blasted out the mix.  All playing the same song, in the big, concrete room, which functioned like an echo chamber and woofer in one.  Eight radios, a surround-sound, blue-collar concert hall.  Randy the hillbilly rocked out, as did George.  The Voyageur did a wiggle.   The Chicanos whooped. The NPR boy bopped the beat on his work bench.  VJ smiled like a house on fire. The rest nodded their heads in time to the beats.  Even the Patels tapped their feet. After all, it wasn’t quite Bollywood but it worked, even for them.  

After the song ended, everyone slowly turned their radios back to whatever station they had been on.  The quiet click of tools and hum of human movement took the place of the raucous symphony, while the radios softly bandied out their tones.  It was a good day at the factory.  Music, the versatile universal.  Class, the controversial universal.

May Day has collections of short fiction stories.  Come in and buy one!

Prior blog reviews related to this, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive, using these terms:  "Night Shift," "Repairable Men," "People's Future of the United States," "Class Lives," "Indian Country Noir," "Los Angeles Stories," "Tales of Two Cities," "Girls at War and Other Stories," "Kolyma Tales," "Factory Days" (Gibbs).   

Contribution by C.G. Gibbs

A Hidden History of Humanity

 “The Dawn of Everything – A New History of Humanity,” by David Graeber and David Wengrow, 2021

This is a book of anthropology, taking aim at the sidelining of many early examples of egalitarianism, ‘freedom’ and indigenous life by most conventional anthropologists, including people like Jared Diamond.  The book is based on new discoveries as well as the clarification of older sources that were misinterpreted or ignored.  Graeber is a deceased but well-known anarchist, and his argument is along these lines, trying to find examples of indigenous and ancient democracies, egalitarianism, freedom and logic in the ruins of villages, cities and documents.  This is a more sophisticated and left-wing view of the past than most academics project, showing variations, anomalies and quite clear exceptions to rigid and simple classifications of periods of history.

Graeber/Wengrow have succeeded in crafting a genial narrative of educated speculation, impish questions and actual facts spanning the Indus Valley, the west coast of North America, the forests of the Great Lakes, the Puebla & Mexic Valleys of Mexico, the highlands of Turkey, the Yellow River in China, farming areas in central Europe, the Ukrainian plain, the lower Mississippi Valley, the Amazonian region, the Peruvian Andes, Yucatan’s swamps, Basque villages, southern Sudan along the Nile, ancient Egypt, Minoan Crete and the legendary ‘Fertile Crescent’ in the Middle East.  They cover various hunter-gatherer societies, styles of early farming, some of the oldest types of cities and the rudimentary evidence of states and non-states. 

They criticize mainstream anthropology for putting modern (and oppressive) templates on past human settlements, not seeing them in their variety and real significance, presenting them as either “Hobbesian” or ‘noble savages’ in the Rousseau tradition, or just backdated examples of modern society, cities or states.  They also oppose the influence of technological determinism – ‘guns, germs and steel’ – on views of the past.

The authors emphasize the role of politics in the choices of social organization, not just the influence of modes of subsistence. Humans make their own societies ultimately – it is not some automatic product according to them. They cover the reality that many indigenous groups were more free, equal and democratic than their colonial discoverers.  It includes the role of various forms of (small) private property, some leading to bits of hierarchy and some not, in indigenous clan life. Or how academics have ignored democratic forms and content in a good number of tribal societies and cities.  They contravene simple images of primitive communism and egalitarian tribes, ‘complexity’s’ role in the growth of cities or the dour impact of agriculture. They point out that women were sidelined at the beginnings of inequality and stratification in societies, as kings mimicked the ‘head of household.’ They claim there is no origin to the state … which seems more of a playful joke on the authors’ part, as the state clearly exists.  Immaculate conception is not really a thing.

Graeber spends no time on the influence of modes of production or subsistence, while also sidelining labor and poverty - seemingly seeing these as part of the woodwork. This would comport with the anarchist idea that ‘hierarchy,’ bureaucracy and warfare are the things to be concerned with.  They make fun of many terms in anthropology, and come up with a few on their own.   

10 years of research, in 526 pages, led to discoveries or confirmation of less common anthropological, archeological and ultimately political views, which they have organized under the somewhat overblown title The Dawn of Everything – A New History of Humanity.  It is an easy, conversational and enjoyable read, a broad introduction to anthropology and should be required reading for everyone involved in the field, along with Engels’ The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man.

·    *  They highlight ‘the indigenous critique’ of colonial society by an orator and thinker called Kandiaronk of the Huron / Wendet tribe, which was relayed to Europe by the French Jesuits.  Kandiaronk pointed out the cruel treatment of French citizens, the dominating role of money, land ownership and property and the idiocy of ranks and kings among the Europeans.  This critique in favor of ‘liberty’ and mutual aid was also made by the Iroquois / Haudenosaunee.

·       *They only once mention the 'leveling' influences from Europe itself – Greek and Roman philosophy, Spartacus and slave rebellions, peasant rebellions, even medieval folk culture - which also influenced Enlightenment thinking as to equality, freedom and real democracy.

·       *One of the authors overarching concepts is that ‘freedom’ consists of 1, the freedom to leave or travel; 2, the freedom to ignore instructions and 3, the freedom to ‘create another way of life.’  You might see how this definition of ‘freedom’ could be misused, as it ignores material freedom, like the freedom to eat.

·        *Another tack is their opposition to the idea that complexity, a city or irrigation systems require a hierarchy.  They show examples of how early farmers or city dwellers collectively decided things without a ruler or a bureaucracy.  This opposes the conventional idea that any organization over 150 people requires a boss.

·        *They identify 3 aspects of what they consider to be the state – violence, control of information (bureaucracy) and charisma, i.e. a revered, all-powerful leader.  They track how various societies put 1, 2 or all 3 of these together, and sometimes none.  As you can see, the state's 'control of the surplus' is missing.

·        *One of their key ideas is schismogenesis – that side-by-side societies style themselves in a different manner from their neighbors, so that very different social patterns could exist nearby.  This could be a somewhat negative habit, as it might reject perfectly good ideas or methods by neighbors … and also the reverse, rejecting a bad example.  Their examples come from bands and cities in Mexico, eastern and coastal North America and the Middle East.  For instance, along the U.S. west coast, slave holding and non-slave holding bands existed side by side.

·        *They highlight the concept of ‘play’ in these societies – not just in the conventional sense of games, festivals, gambling and the like, but in the sense of ‘play farming,’ ‘play warfare,’ ‘play kings’ and ‘play obedience.’  This is to illustrate how people did not all of a sudden become full farmers, or warriors, or actual kings or subjects.  It took many millennia sometimes. 

·        *Seasonality is a big issue in hunter/gatherer/ ‘play’ farming societies.  They recorded how the seasons could change a whole society for a few months, only to go back to its normal state when the meetings, celebrations or religious events were over and people got away from kings, priests, overseers or judges.  These societies sometimes created massive public works in these periods, such as Stonehenge and Cahokia near Natchez.

·        *While some think early humans stayed put, there is much evidence of travel and trade over very long distances, by foot, boat and horse.

·        *They highlight the concept of control by a ruler and ‘care’ within a home.  A patriarchy will impose a ruler in the home too, resulting in the oppression of women, children and domestic slaves.  This is illustrated in Roman law, which was adopted by Britain and later, the U.S. 

·        *They focus on the matriarchy of Minoan Crete, a water-born trading nation, where a women’s council made decisions.  This was similar in other societies, where women had their own groups, though not ruler-ship.  They detail how women invented weaving and many agricultural skills, while sometimes being a hindrance to warfare.

·        *Slavery from war captives was common in some indigenous clans.  For instance the Huron would adopt, use or torture captive men to death – but had no discipline when it came to their own village folks or children.

·        *They cite a good number of examples of cities on the Euphrates, in Peru, in Mexico, that were organized on a somewhat democratic line.  In the Mexico Valley, after a revolution against human sacrifice and monument building, the Teotihuacan society built almost exactly equal-sized housing.

·        *The authors link the beginnings of property with that of religion, sacredness and worship.

·       * Agriculture does not automatically lead to slavery or a tribute society.

·        *They point out that ‘equality before the law’ only relates to a sovereign, not to actual lived equality.

·       * ‘Civilization’ is many times the name given to very organized and impressive barbarism.

·        *The Aztec, Inca, Shang, Sumerian and Egyptian ‘empires’ are many times the only models.  But even in Egypt the workers building the pyramids got bread and beer during festivals, because the lords had to show some consideration.

The Republic of Tlaxcala joins with Cortes against the Aztecs

Their main point is that progressive and communistic societies in early history are ignored.  The many exceptions are irrelevant to academe, while monuments, bloody emperors or kings, gods, expensive trinkets, ornate funerals, warfare, palaces, temples and pyramids are focused on, ignoring the millennia where ‘ordinary’ human life went on, without much war, hierarchy or dictatorship. 

The authors think that the anthropology view of ‘evolutionism’ (that is what they call it!...) makes the present armed, bureaucratic and exploitative class societies inevitable. They fail to answer the key question - how did we get to the present, or ‘stuck’ as they say? 

The authors defend meta-narratives against post-modernism, oppose the fascistic notion of ‘circular time,’ yet reject Marxist approaches to property and modes of production, and indeed, some key material issues like surplus or its absence.  The authors have no truck with concepts like ‘quantity into quality’ and never mention class struggle.  They think the idea of the ‘origin of inequality’ is also bogus. They do understand the role of internal contradictions, which they observe created revolutions against cruel, unequal or corrupt rule even within several ancient social structures.  They also frequently note dialectic argument, which they highlight among early ‘republican’ councils across the world.

Yet the authors have nothing to substitute as a meta-narrative, saying the truth “will remain a matter of speculation.”  This is actually a very long treatise of interesting and progressive facts, correctives and theories that don’t quite add up to explaining the present, or, as they put it “how we got stuck.”

P.S. - Guardian reports on ancient and 'equal' Zapotec city of Monte Alban in Oaxaca, Mexico.  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/16/monte-alban-mexico-zapotec-community-oaxaca

Prior reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive, using these terms:  “The Utopia of Rules – On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy” “Bullshit Jobs – A Theory,”& “Debt – the First 500 Years” (all 3 by Graeber); “Collapse – How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” & “Guns, Germs and Steel – the Fates of Human Societies” (both by Diamond); “People’s History of Science,”  “Liquidated – An Ethnography of Wall Street,” “Time and Time Again”(Rifkin); “Patriarchy of the Wage” (Federici); “The Age of the Vikings.”

And I bought it at May Day Books, which carries many of Graeber’s works.

Red Frog

March 1, 2021

What is the state of your union?

The Situation Changes Day by Day

 Thoughts on Ukraine: (as if we don't have enough...)

The Minsk II agreement in 2015 between Ukraine, Russia and E.U. has been ignored by the U.S. and Ukrainian government and hard-right.  Sec. Blinken was upset that Russia had broken it - after the U.S. had already done so. It would have created a ‘neutral’ Ukraine, free to trade with both blocs, giving limited autonomy to the Donbas, without Ukraine being in NATO.  An example of Finlandization, which has worked in the capitalist context.  However the U.S. has no interest in negotiating an end to this war.  They prefer it to go on as long as possible.

The U.S. refused to deal with several of these points, including NATO membership.  NATO and the U.S. swore that NATO would not move ‘an inch’ east in 1990, in conversations with Gorbachev … but it has, step by step.  This obviously concerned Russia, which previously hoped for better relationships with Europe and the U.S. 

The Donetsk and Lugansk ‘republics’ are to be absorbed into Russia.  Were these republics reflective of “the self determination of nations?”  It is doubtful whether they could function on their own as economic units – a key part of being a nation.  Though now economies are so intertwined across borders that this definition is becoming moot, as are some so-called ‘nations.’  Certainly parts seceded in practice in 2014, which included a vote by part of the population.  Part of the reason was the poor economic conditions in Ukraine and the better ones in Russia. However, nearly half of the Donbas remained in Ukrainian hands.

The secessionist Donetsk and Luhansk areas were subjected to anti-Russian activities by anti-Russian, anti-Semitic and fascist units after the Maidan coup, which prompted the secession effort. 15,000 have died since then in this civil war.  Well known neo-Nazi Azov units were included across the Ukrainian Army as part of this low-level civil war, something Western journalists have played dumb about.  Anti-Semites, neo-fascists and Russian white nationalists operate inside the Republics as well, even though some are draped in the hammer and sickle.  The Wagner Group, Rusich and the Russian Imperialist Movement (RIM) are a few.  

This invasion might remind some of the Sudetenland, and even present ‘democratic’ authoritarians who claim territories in other countries because of linguistic and ethnic populations who they claim are oppressed. For instance, Orban’s Hungary promotes a ‘Greater Hungary’ in Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania, Slovenia, etc.  Yet Hungarians in these countries are not oppressed minorities.  Of note, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Poland, Roman Giertych, has claimed that Russia, Hungary and Poland signed a secret agreement to divide up Ukraine prior to the invasion.  That is now moot.

This ethno-nationalist attitude was also the logic of the wars which destroyed Yugoslavia, initiated by Germany and NATO.  This suicidal method results in endless right-wing revanchism in country after country, yet in a world of inter-penetrated peoples. We see another example of it in Ethiopia.  For the proletarian struggle to really become a focal point in these areas, peace and independence are needed, as is an end to national and ethnic oppression.  But they cannot exist in the context of inter-capitalist rivalry.

The invasion by Russia is motivated by great Russian chauvinism, but also as a defense strategy to create a buffer with NATO.  Putin sending troops and tanks into Donetsk and Lugansk, and now Ukraine itself, puts the Nordstream I & II gas pipelines to Europe at severe risk – or ends them.  Shutting down these gas pipelines is the real immediate goal of the U.S.  Strangling the Russian economy – making it ‘scream,’ is the intermediate goal.  Taking it over is the ultimate goal - regime change. The issue of gas is a key material fact that shows this is an inter-capitalist struggle.  The struggle over oil backgrounds both the Russians and the U.S. in this fight too.  The logic of eastern European gas supplying western Europe seems to make sense, over U.S. gas supplying Europe.  At least if you actually planned an economy…

Cutting Russia out of access to the banking system's SWIFT technology will be a heavy blow to Russian capitalism, as is freezing the assets of the Russian Central Bank.  This has driven the ruble to new lows. Putin will lose here, though he may think China and India are his backdoors to economic survival.  It's not just the Ukrainian working class who are and will suffer. European workers who rely on less expensive gas will lose.  Thousands of refugees will impact central Europe.  The Russian working class will be impoverished.  A gas price rise affects everyone in the world.  In response, de-dollarization by Russia, China and others is going to haunt the U.S. dollar seignorage privilege.  But according to analyses, it will not replace the dollar, as the real flight is to many smaller currencies.

The 2014 “Maidan Revolution” was a coup backed by the U.S. and NATO. This aggressive action set up the present situation.  Unfortunately the Ukraine is squeezed between two capitalist powers, when what it really needs is independence from both.  That will never happen in the present capitalist world, which is dominated by imperialism from the West and neo-colonial attitudes in the Kremlin.

The civilian populations of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics were in transit, as they were in danger of warfare and invasion from the west by neo-fascist Ukrainian units.  Peace is their goal.  Now it is the turn of the many more Ukrainians. The Russian working class will pay for this war too, with more draftees, higher prices, worthless money and more repression.  There have been widespread anti-war demonstrations, but they have not reached into the unions and workplaces.  Some members of the 2nd strongest party in Russia, the Russian Communist Party, spoke against the invasion. Putin is undermining himself and could ultimately be removed by a wing of billionaires and generals, or a revolt by soldiers in the Russian or Belarus army. 

The ultimate responsibility for this situation rests with the U.S., not Putin. The U.S. has successfully goaded Putin into a fateful, adventurist move, a plan that was born in the 2014 coup. Putin represents a cornered capitalist country, which is attempting to exercise some power in its border areas against what it views as overwhelming and hostile military forces. Détente has been thrown to the winds by the U.S., which is normal operating procedure.  This has also vastly increased the danger of a wider war, even nuclear.  With this invasion, Russia has made a geo-political mistake that will undermine its state.  Putin may think he can use this blitzkrieg and occupation to bargain away NATO, but this will spur NATO on in other countries. Now formerly neutral Finland is thinking of discussing NATO, though their President shot that one down.  Will installing a pro-Russian government in Kiev solve the situation?  Is that even possible?  Zelensky did make a recent speech as the Russians surrounded Kiev that mentioned ‘neutrality,’ so there is a glimmer of settlement.  This also occurred during the peace negotiations.  Ukraine has to break with NATO and pursue 'neutrality' to solve this question on a capitalist basis.

The Russian bloc with China will be decisive, though Russia is the junior partner this time. China is calling for reasonable negotiations, not fake ones.  It is staying somewhat neutral, though pointing to Russia’s security concerns. China's state banks have restricted financing for Russian commodities, so they protecting themselves.  China did abstain in the U.N., which the U.S. media considered a victory for the Ukraine.  But economic relations continue and will probably increase as China buys Russian assets.

Putin’s move into Kiev and Odessa is being partly justified by ethno-nationalist historical claims based on the ‘Rus’ settling there hundreds of years ago.  That is reactionary and revanchist logic.  After all, the Rus were originally from Daneland and Norway, who also settled in trading centers like Novgorod in northwestern Russia.  On the political level, a military action like this may satisfy Stalinists, Russophiles, neo-Slavists, Great Russian chauvinists and uber-nationalist Russians, but no one else.  Unless we include the 'red'-Brown' contingent of fake anti-imperialists.

Putin slandered Lenin and the ‘right of self-determination’ in his speech announcing the recognition of Luhansk and Donetsk.  This is significant.  In Lenin’s last struggle, he blocked with Trotsky, against, among other things, Stalin’s Great Russian chauvinism in dealing with Georgia and Ukraine as independent Soviet Republics.  Putin always leaned to Great Russian and Pan-Slavic thinking, as he was trained in it by the Soviet KGB.  Now as the leader of a capitalist Russia it has become useful once again as a way to ‘bind’ the Russian people to the powerful billionaires who back the state.   This time it will not work so well. 

The U.S. / U.K. media does not present a balanced picture because they are mouth-pieces for the U.S. government and the war industries.  Many slogans that ‘anti-war’ elements use also seem to be limited and reformist, certainly not proletarian, socialist or internationalist.  Two positions - "The Friend of My Friend Is My Enemy" and "Turn the Guns Around" are both flawed.  Nor is 'self-determination' in a world of imperialism a possible reality, even in this case.  As socialists, we have to keep in mind internationalism, class analysis, revolutionary defeatism and actual abilities. 

Here are some suggestions:

Oppose NATO membership for Ukraine! 

No U.S. military aid or advisors to Ukraine!

No Sanctions Against the People of Russia!

Self-determination for Ukraine!

Disarm fascist military units!

Encourage fraternization between Russian and Ukrainian troops and civilians!

Both governments are weak.  A United Struggle against both governments!

Oppose the capitalist war-makers on both sides!

Red Frog

Feb 26, 2022 (updated)

Periodical Series: Ruin or Revolution?

 “Against Doomsday Scenarios – What is to Be Done Now?” Interview with John Bellamy Foster.  Monthly Review, Vol. 73, Dec. 2021

J.B. Foster is the multi-talented author of at least 3 books on Marxism and ecology – Marx and the Earth – an Anti-Critique, The Ecological Revolution and The Robbery of Nature – Capitalism and the Ecological Rift.  They are all reviewed in the blog below.  In this article he is interviewed about the tack to take today in regards to the increasing damage wrought by climate change and global warming.  He understands that the fight must start under capitalism, immediately.  

Unfortunately, Foster starts off with 5 scenarios for climate change, 3 of which are ‘apocalyptic,’ rendering human life on the planet dubious.  The other 2 – holding the line at 1.5 or 2.0 Centigrade - can only be achieved through global ecological or eco-socialist revolutions…  Even with that conditions would be dire and adaptation needed.  In a way, he's not really dealing with the headline he chose...

Foster critiques Michael Mann, a climate scientist who understands climate change, but nevertheless defends Joe Biden and capitalism against mild Social-Democratic critics like Naomi Klein and Bernie Sanders - opposing the Green New Deal from the right for instance. Mann opposes anyone who says the social system needs to be changed or scrapped as a ‘doomsayer’ and a ‘defeatist.’  Foster quotes Marx about how scientists (like Mann) are out of their league when dealing with social problems.

As to questions:

1.    Foster favors the Anthropocene as the name of the present geologic period, which started in the late 1940s, not the ‘Capitalocene‘ as suggested by some. Climate change will continue even after a social revolution against capital.  He does suggest the first age of the Anthropocene should be called ‘the Capitalinian.’  

2.   Foster agrees with ‘degrowth’ as a qualitative strategy changing the relations of production, but not as a ‘quantitative’ strategy of less production and less consumerism, seeing that as impossible in this economy.  Some advocates of ‘degrowth’ who see it as a way to fight climate change believe it can happen within capitalism.  He prefers the term ‘eco-socialism’ but understands that the term ‘degrowth’ take semi-direct aim at capital accumulation, which is the real target.

3.   Foster doesn’t see a phrase like ‘the rights of nature’ as making much sense. 

4.   Foster understands that property destruction, sabotage and illegal acts will be used in the climate fight.  It is unavoidable, as is turmoil one way or the other. He does not address the issue of violence against perpetrators, nor the upheaval required for an eco-socialist revolution.  

5.    Foster’s solution to the situation is not very specific as to demands.  He is aware that the coming ‘leaked’ Part III Report from the IPCC will call for significant changes in the world economy.  It calls for low energy strategies, changes to soil and forestry use and opposes geo-engineering, nuclear power and bogus ‘carbon capture’ schemes as unworkable. Part III will advocate climate strikes, a just transition, environmental justice, a prohibition on coal plants and pipelines, fossil fuels to stay in the ground and an expansion of public transport.

In Foster’s arguments, he cites Cuba as being the most ecologic society in the world at present – after it was cut off from Russian oil. He stands for the rights of animals, not as exploitable machines, but as friends. He also points out that climate change is only one of a number of biological crises – ocean acidification, species die-offs, soil depletion, chemical and air pollution, environmental racism, etc.  Lastly, he thinks eco-socialism can set up the whole world at the living level of present day Italy.  With that, I would disagree.  I think the target is closer to the start of the Anthropocene and the ‘great acceleration’ in the late 1940s in the U.S. – before the car and commodity culture took off.  For one thing, Italy, in spite of its excellent train system, has the 13th most cars per capita in the world. 

Lastly Foster quotes Marx about Ireland, speaking of how the English ruined Irish soil – seeing the situation then as a choice between ‘ruin and revolution.’  He seeks to ‘accelerate history’ with an ‘environmental proletariat’ for an eco-socialist revolution.  I’m not sure what an ‘environmental proletariat is, but perhaps he means a proletariat that is imbued with an environmental understanding. For him, the next age in the Anthropocene could then be called ‘the Communian.’

Monthly Review and many other left magazines, journals and newspapers are available at May Day.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box at upper left, with these terms, to investigate our 15 year archive:  “The Ministry for the Future,” “Marx and the Earth – an Anti-Critique,” “The Ecological Revolution,” & “The Robbery of Nature – Capitalism and the Ecological Rift” (last 3 by Foster); “The Sixth Extinction,” “The Burning Case for a Green New Deal” & “This Changes Everything” (both by Klein); “A Redder Shade of Green,” "Anthropocene or Capitalocene" or references to ‘eco-socialism’ or "Monthly Review."

And I got it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

2/22/22 at 2:22 EST