May 2011
1 post
“The class character of an ideological discourse is revealed in what we could...”
– Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism - Fascism - Populism, NLB, 1977, pp. 160-2
March 2011
2 posts
“The critique of Stalinism was by no means new, and The Gulag Archipelago...”
– On the passage from revolution to ‘humanitarian intervention’. The Liberal Defence of Murder, Verso, 2008, pp. 166-72
“It is true that, in some crisis situations, the means for an internal solution...”
– The Liberal Defence of Murder, Verso, 2008, p. 221
January 2011
1 post
“Never mind, Renee,” replied the marquise, with a look of tenderness that...”
– Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo, chapter six.
December 2010
2 posts
WatchPress TV reports the presence of potential agents provocateurs at the Day X protest on 9th December 2010.
November 2010
3 posts
Note on a wedding →
I dream of a time when the feudal rhapsody of sovereigns, their kin (cf ‘bloodline’), and their property deals (cf ‘wedding’), will cease to be daily feature of British public life. I yearn for the day when servile, sentimental crawling to their majesties will be interred in a funereal parade of union jack draped boxes. But to hanker for a wholly rationalised...
rejectamentalist manifesto: Many many... →
tentacular:
‘[P]ressmen … have ere now lent their prestige and influence to the attempt to arouse public interest in the sickening details of this Feast of Flunkeyism … this ghastly farce now being played out before our eyes. … [We take] this opportunity of hurling at the heads of all the…
Historical Materialism on the 'Big Society' -... →
organswithoutbodies:
Another great piece by Richard Seymour.
(Whythankyou.)
October 2010
4 posts
The Tories are class fighters, not just... →
“It has become a cliché to say that the Tories’ spending cuts are “ideological” . Such is the burden of Labour’s evolving critique. Cuts, they say, are unfortunately necessary to assure Britain’s fiscal stability, but the Tories go much further than this. They intend to create a smaller state, for ideological reasons. This has a superficial plausibility....
“Duncan felt a bit uncomfortable for another couple of minutes. He thought about...”
– Irvine Welsh, Glue, 2001
rejectamentalist manifesto: Letter to a... →
tentacular:
So it’s war. We knew it would be.
Obviously, you don’t ask the Tories how they can do this. They, streetfighters of long-standing, the current vogue for simpering head-boy bonhomie notwithstanding, are clear about their aims, interests and concomitant attacks.
Nor is this message…
David Cameron: care bear, or lame duck? →
David Cameron approaches conference season apparently well placed to brag about his accomplishments. He has brought the party into power after three election defeats, with poll ratings averaging around 40% – a level of support not seen since Black Wednesday. And big business, having dallied with New Labour for more than a decade, is backing the old firm again…
September 2010
1 post
Racism and the global crisis
talk by Richard...
August 2010
11 posts
“In the spoke too soon category: “Does anyone imagine that Democracy, which...”
– Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“On class structure and income inequality: “These growing inequalities are...”
– Harriet Bradley et al, Myths at Work, Polity, 2000, pp. 138-9
The class basis of the Conservative Party →
In the marxist lexicon, the Tories are a ‘bourgeois party’. That is, they are a party that exists to represent the ruling class in political struggle, but they survive electorally through an unstable coalition between the core ruling class support, the professional middle class, the petit-bourgeoisie and a segment of workers. As Goran Therborn points out, Marx did not anticipate...
“If enough firms go bust, the crisis itself can work to completely counteract the...”
– Chris Harman Zombie Capitalism (via theguywhoinventedfire)
Myths of Toryism and class →
Following on from a them in The Meaning of David Cameron on the myth of conservatism as a pragmatic, traditionalist ideology (also see this and this): “[T]he Conservative Party has held a steady commitment to the principle of ‘inequality’. Often this does not appear like an ideological commitment at all since there has been a varying degree of inequality present in British society – in...
Myths of class →
How do we come to our understandings of class? As bell hooks has argued, most of the pedagogy on such subjects is taking place at the level of culture, in the news, the films, the soaps, etc. For example, you learn from soaps like Eastenders that whatever class once meant, it is not an important structuring principle of people’s lives. This is simply because the characters get by...
Capitalism's ground zero →
Here, traditional American nativism, imperial ideology, and pro-Israel doctrine are fusing into a vicious racist brew that, incubated by the ‘war on terror’, is now being used to buttress the prospects of the most reactionary class warriors for the rich, as a new recession looms. For this racist hysteria about the 1 or 2% of Americans who are Muslim is, while it has a lot to do with...
New Labour mythologies: origins of the 'new... →
The myth of popular capitalism was allowed to take hold largely because the Labour Party itself abandoned the politics of redistribution and public ownership, and embraced Thatcherism. Public attitudes on class, inequality and welfare didn’t fundamentally change in response to 18 years of Tory rule - in fact, the evidence is that they moved to the left somewhat. However, the Labour...
Chattel story →
Toy Story 3 is a story of how freedom is achieved through commodification, and how “the consent of the governed” roughly equals the willing embrace of bondage. You only have to bear in mind that the main characters are themselves commodities. It’s a jocular, mocking, morality story about toys, their particular role in pedagogy and socialisation, the pseudo-history and...
The Axeman's Jazz: on the Tory cuts and how to... →
Opening shot in a week-long debate hosted by the New Left Project on the cuts and how to fight them:
This article takes the view that there is no urgent need to pay off Britain’s debts, and that the cuts agenda of the Conservative-Liberal coalition must be interpreted as being driven by the interests of the constituencies (large manufacture, service industries and high finance) that lie...
The crisis of the American working class →
The main problem for the American working class is not a lack of class consciousness. It is the weight of the accumulated outcomes of successive class struggles over several generations. At each phase, workplace organisation has been smashed, left-wing political movements broken up and the remnants coopted. Chris Hedges argues that America needs a few good communists, and he’s...
July 2010
23 posts
9 tags
The right to work (less) →
Working for Ford, fighting for equality →
A milestone in labour struggles and women’s liberation, a 1968 strike by machinists at Ford Dagenham, is to be turned into a film. The strike fed into the National Joint Action Campaign for Women’s Equal Rights, and resulted in a series of similar struggles across British industry, driving up womens’ representation in trade unions. It also forced the Labour government to launch...
'Populism' and the mob →
Interesting to see that Will Hutton regards the BBC as a paternalist safeguard against ‘mob rule’, or rather against “populist government by the mob”. He really takes seriously the idea that advertising-driven broadcasters merely give people what they want, and that to do so is dangerous. To give people what they ask for is to invite a debasement of public life, a ...
Imperial feminism - example →
“I’ve always liked to think that feminism is the West’s secret weapon against Islamism…”.
““Since AT&T ran its first campaign aimed at massaging public...”
– Robert Goldman et al, ‘Landscapes of Global Capital’, 1998-2003
Racist patriarchy in Israel →
The conviction of an Arab man for ‘rape’ shows the Israeli criminal justice system swinging four-square behind racist patriarchy.
Of baboons and racists →
The LRB publishes a racist outburst by R W Johnson, then buries it and refuses to publicly acknowledge its mistake…
Bromides of the "Big Society" →
The further meanings of David Cameron.
“Via Pierre Rimbert in Le Monde Diplomatique (English Edition, sorry,...”
– Via The Global Sociology Blog (via joannecostello) (via socialisimo)
“On meritocracy: “To imply that those currently at the top - the Warren...”
– Richard Seymour, The Meaning of David Cameron, Zero Books, 2010
“On the further meanings of David Cameron: “The 20th Century saw a growing...”
– The imperialism of market ‘reason’, Lenin’s Tomb, 16 July 2010
Belfast burning →
Allow me to be your native informer, as I explain the three Bs to you: bog-trotting bastards in balaclavas.
Tories' attack on NHS is an attack on democracy →
In the name of ‘progress’, ‘democracy’ and the ‘Big Society’, the Tories are enacting a savage attack on democracy.
"Ethnics" →
The Express: pushing at the frontiers of acceptable racism since 1900.
Propaganda and probability →
Propaganda says that cuts will help the recovery; the IMF, ONS, ratings agencies, consumers and accountancy firms say otherwise.
Obama's Pakistan frontiers →
The changing face of racism in Britain today →
Transcript of my Marxism 2010 talk on the subject of racism in Britain, and the change from biology and skin colour to creed and culture.
“The modern nation-state, in whatever guise, is a dangerous and unmanageable...”
– Alasdair MacIntyre (via bhaskism)
Women and labour →
The feminization of the proletariat, and the labourisation of women…
Anglian soldiers, go to hell... →
… or Wotton Bassett, whichever is worse.
On Fanaticism →
Review of a wonderful recent book on the subject of ‘fanaticism’ by Alberto Toscano.
Interviewed on The Meaning of David Cameron,...
June 2010
33 posts
“Gramsci on economic crises and resistance: “A crisis cannot give the...”
– Antonio Gramsci, ‘The Modern Prince’ and ‘State and Civil Society’ in Geoffrey Howell-Smith & Quintin Hoare, eds., Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Lawrence & Wishart, 1971, pp. 168 & 235
Capitalism, recession and resistance →
The epochal scale of the economic crisis, the inability of ruling classes to solve the problem, and their determination to shift the costs to the working class, needs to be registered if a proportionate response is to be mustered…