the libertarian communist no. 25 winter 2014

8/13/2019 The Libertarian Communist No. 25 Winter 2014

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The Libertarian

Communist----------------------------------------------------------

A Discussion Bulletin:

In Opposition to the Rule of Capital in all its forms andfor Anti State, Non Market Communism

Issue 25: Winter 2014

1.50

Worker Co-operatives:

Workers protesting at the crisis hit Mondragon, Fagor Co-operative

An alternative to the capital system or destined to fail?


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2 The Libertarian Communist Issue 25 Winter 2014

ThepurposeofTheLibertarianCommunististopromotediscussionamongsttheAntiState,NonMarketsectorirrespectiveofwhetherindividualsorgroupsconsiderthemselvesasAnarchist,CommunistorSocialistasallsuchtitlesareinneedoffurtherqualification.Ifyouhavedisagreementswithanarticleinthisoranyotherissue,wishtooffercommentorwanttocontributesomethingelsetothediscussionthenpleasegetintouch.Ifanyarticlefocusesonaparticulargroupthenthatgrouphas,asamatterofcourse,therighttoreply.Sopleasegetintouchwithyourarticle,lettersandcomments.Youcandothisbycontacting [email protected],Flat1,99PrincessRoad,Branksome,Poole,Dorset,England,BH121BQ==================================================================================ContentsPage:3Moishe Potstones Anti Semitism and National Socialism The mystical kernel within the rational shell frSusann Witt-Stahl:byStephen Philip Clayton. ThisarticleisinresponsetothereviewofthePotstonespamphletwhichwecarriedinissue24.StephensarticletakesthepamphletandPotstonesworkingeneralto tasksuggestingthattheanalysisonofferisflawedasitrejectstheroleofclassstruggleinthemovementforsocialismandthatthepamphletexcusescapitalismfortheriseofNazism.Page:6Mining: the human and ecological cost. Thisarticlewhichmostlyconcentratesoncoalmining;isdividedintothreeparts: Part 1.The human cost of coal mining in the U.SbyJoe Hopkins; dealswiththecontinueduseofcoalinsupplyingenergy,thedebateaboutcoalreservesintheU.Sandthehumancostinminingandtransportingcoal.Part 2 The human cost of mining around the world byRay Carr; focusesonthefactthatwhilsttheremayhavebeareductioninthenumberoffatalitiesduetominingaccidentsaroundtheworldsincetheearlypartofthe20thcentury,thenumberofdeathsinthatindustryremainshigh,especiallyincertainpartsoftheworld.Furthermore,itsuggeststhattheconflictbetweeneconomicandhumancostwillpre-dominateaslongasthecapitalsystemremains.Part 3 Coal and global heating byRay Carr examinesthecapitalistsystemseeminglyinescapablerelianceoncoalforsupplyingmuchoftodaysenergydespitetheprovenlinkbetweencoalandglobalheating.Page:11Workers co-operatives: an alternative to the capitalist system or destined to fail? A discussion: VariousThisentailsadiscussionontheusesandlimitationsofco-operativesandconsistsoffourarticles.Article 1: Workers protest closure of Spanish co-operative Fagor byAlejandro Lopez andCarlos Hernandez. ThiswaspostedontheWiC foruminNovemberlast;itexaminesthesetbackfortheMondragonco-operativemovementsandviewsthisasevidencethatsuchinitiativeswithincapitalismaredoomed.ItcitessomeofMarxswritingsonco-operativestobackuptheirargument.Article 2: Co-operatives: All in this together? ThisarticlefirstappearedinThe Economist andwaspostedonthelibcom.org website byJosephKayinOctober2009.AlinktoitwaspostedinthediscussionontheWiC forum. Itlooksatgeneralproblemsfacedbyco-operativesundercapitalism.Muchoftheargumenthereisthatthesuccessofaco-operativeisviewedineconomicterms,suchassurvivalandprotectingemploymentandthatitislikelythatsuchsuccessmeanscurtailingtraditionalco-operativeprinciples.Article 3: Water on Stone byLyla Byrne. Lylasarticleis,inmanyways,criticalofthepositiontakeninthefirstarticleinthisdiscussion.ItcriticisessomeofMarxspronouncementsnotonlyonco-operativesbutalsoonrelatedtopics.Lylaviewsco-operativesasaexperimentincommonownershipandarguesthatsuchpracticeisavitalelementinanymovementforsocialism.TheFourth and final article inthisdiscussionis;Co-operatives:positives and negatives byRicardo Monde. Theargumenthereisthatnotallworkerco-operativesarethesameandthatsuccesscannotjustbejudgedoneconomicsurvivalwithincapitalism.Itquestionstowhatextentco-

operativesarecommonownershipinpracticebutarguesthatthereisaperhaps,morepositiveroleforthemwhenamoreeffectivesocialistmovementexists.Page:21:Page:The Commonist Movement byJim Davies. Presentsthebasicideasofthatmovement.Page:22:Forthcoming from Chronos PublicationsPage:22:The World is not a commodity:fromtheKrisis WebsitePage:23:Capitalism and Love: quotefromAlain BadiouPage:24:Anti State, Non Market Group Directory


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Anti-Semitism and National Socialismby Moishe Postone - The mysticalkernel within the rational shell frSusann Witt-Stahl

by Stephen Philip Clayton

Issue 24 of The Libertarian Communistcontained a review of the 1986 pamphlet

Anti-Semitism and National SocialismbyMoishe Postone. The review concluded withthe statement; If you have not already readthis pamphlet we recommend that you obtaina copy, even if you do not entirely agree withall Postone has to say it will make you think.That cannot possibly be a bad thing. Thatsas may be but this pamphlet and Postone's

further work in reinterpreting Marx's critiqueof political economy is a load of intellectualMarxological waffle (Aufheben) and leads toa complete rejection of the significance ofclass struggle for socialism. (Chris Arthur).Postone's theory also excuses capitalism forNazism so needs to be examined andrejected.

Postone's 1986 work is an edited version ofhisAnti-Semitism and National Socialism:Notes on the German Reaction to 'Holocaust'

from 1979 which was prompted by thescreening of the mini-series Holocaust onWest German television on 22 January 1979.In brief, Postone's argument is something likethe following; modern anti-Semitism is atrend of vulgar anti-capitalism that seeks thepersonification of the elements of capitalismin the Jew, Nazism as a vulgar form of anti-capitalism, the theory of commodity fetishismextended to epistemology, the Jew as theembodiment of abstract value, Auschwitz as afactory to exterminate value because value is

abstract and Nazi anti-capitalism sought theimmediate negation of the abstract andvalorized the concrete over the abstract.

In the opening chapters of Capital Volume 1,Marx abstracts from the use-value of theproduced commodity for methodologicalreasons in order to analyse value. HoweverPostone draws the conclusion that value itselfis 'abstract'. Marx's methodology is describedby Marx in the General Introduction to theGrundrisse and the Postface to the Second

German Edition of Capital. David McLellansummarises as follows; Marx breaks it downinto its constituent elements and arrives atever more simple and abstract concepts, each

of which, however, only has full meaning by

reference to all the others. Only after this

analysis can the process of conceptualsynthesis begin, a process in which the wholeis built up again, starting from the mostabstract and simple concepts in this case,

value, labour, and so on. Thus the scientificresearcher into economics starts with thechaotic apprehension of bourgeois society,analyses it conceptually by empirical studyinto its most abstract constituent elements,and then proceeds to synthesise theseelements through a dialectical exposition to

yield a total conceptual comprehension of theobject under study.

Postone elaborated on his theory of abstractvalue in his reinterpretation of Marx's Capital

in Time, Labor, and Social Domination. Heattacks the abstract but misunderstands theantinomy of capital and this leads to thevalorisation of the concrete parts of capitallike industry. Postone sees a contradictionbetween any account of abstract labor asphysiological exertion and the historicalspecificity of Marx's value theory. WhatPostone does in abstracting is that thecommodity can be seen as merely theproduct of human labor, different concreteaspects of labour are reduced to humanlabour in the abstract.

Marx identified that a commodity's use-valuehas exchange value when it consists ofabstract human labour (socially necessarylabour time or crystallised social labour)developing from David Ricardo's Principles ofPolitical Economy and Taxation: exchangevalue depends on the total quantity of labournecessary to manufacture them, and bringthem to market. Labour comes to have adual character, and must be considered asboth concrete and abstract, since its abstractaspect comes to play a distinct social role.Human labour is a producer of use values, itis a mere congelation of homogeneoushuman labour,concrete labour is a specialsort of productive activity whilst abstractlabour is woven into concrete labour. Marxwrote On the one hand, all labour is anexpenditure of human labour-power, in the

physiological sense, and it is in this quality ofbeing equal, or abstract, human labour that itforms the value of commodities. On the other

hand, all labour is an expenditure of human

labour-power in a particular form and with adefinite aim, and it is in this quality of beingconcrete useful labour that it produces use-

values (Capital). In the general introductionto the Grundrisse, Marx clearly states the


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method of rising from the abstract to the

concrete is only the way in which thoughtappropriates the concreteand inAContribution to the Critique of PoliticalEconomy, Marx describes abstraction from

the concrete character of labor as anabstraction which is made every day in thesocial process of production.

Postone's misunderstandings mean he seescapital as a closed totalising identity, hisfetishisation of capital is the alpha andomega of history and consciousness, andconflates consciousness as identical withcapital(Aufheben). Postone highlights theabstract over the concrete, everythingbecomes what they are in the abstract form,class struggle is merely an ancillary element

to capital, there is no foundation for theemergence of proletarian classconsciousness, basically he has abstractedclass struggle away. Chris Arthur saw thatPostone cant see how the working class isalways in and against capital but thatPostone argues that capital cannot beexplained fully as a class relation whose innerdevelopment is predicated on class strugglealone, capital cannot be explained fully interms of class struggle alone to a complete

rejection of the significance of class struggle

for socialism. Essentially for Postone,classes and waged labour are relegated toabstract sociological concepts and capital isidentified as abstract domination. Postone'stheory discourages the working class toidentify as a classand rejects the concept ofthe working class as the revolutionary subjectin history.

InAnti-Semitism and National Socialism,Postone rejects a functionalist explanation ofthe Holocaust and anti-Semitism as a form ofprejudice, xenophobia, and racism. He sees

the need for qualitative specificity of theHolocaust rather than generalisedexplanations. But his theory of exterminatingvalue is a misreading of Marx's Capital, andessentially a mystical metaphor for theHolocaust, and Nazism as an anti-capitalistphenomenon is wrong headed and excusescapitalism for Nazism and the Holocaust.

In an essay calledAuschwitz, or the GreatAlibi attributed to Amadeo Bordiga there is amaterialist interpretation of Nazism, Anti-Semitism, the Second World War and the

Holocaust.Bordiga writes capitalism itself the cause ofthe crises and cataclysms that periodically

ravage the world, poverty, oppression, war

and destruction, far from being anomalies

due to deliberate and maleficent wills are partof the 'normal' functioning of capitalism.Destruction is the principal goal of war. Theimperialist rivalries that are the immediate

cause of wars are themselves nothing but theconsequence of ever increasing over-production. Capitalist production is in factforced to grow because of the fall in the profitlevel, and crises are born of the need toceaselessly expand production along with theimpossibility of selling goods. War is the

capitalist solution to the crisis. The massivedestruction of installations, of the means of

production.

Postone argues for a historical qualitativespecificity of the Holocaust which contrasts

with Bordiga who writes the extermination ofthe Jews occurred not at a random moment,

but in the middle of a crisis and an imperialistwar. It is thus from within this giganticenterprise of destruction.This can be seen inthe midst of the First World War with theOttoman Empire's genocide of 1.5 millionArmenian people but also the 'Central AsianHolocaust of the Turkic Peoples' whenbetween 25 June 1916 and October 1917,some 1.5 million Turkic people were killed bythe Tsarist Russian regime. Postone would not

agree with any qualitative comparisons of theJewish Holocaust with any other acts ofgenocide in history.

What are the origins of anti-Semitism?Bordiga identifies its origins in feudalismwhen commerce using money, was foreignto the fundamental schema of feudal societyand was rejected onto people outside of thatsociety, generally Jews. But commerce andusury were the primary forms of capital. Evenonce productive capitalism and large-scaleindustry began their growth petite bourgeois'popular' tradition often continued to identifythe Jew with Capital.Theodore Adorno andMax Horkheimer in The Dialectic ofEnlightenmentadd The Jews were not thesole owners of the circulation sector. Unliketheir Aryan colleagues, they were still largely

denied access to the origins of surplus value.It was a long time before, with difficulty,theywere allowed to own the means of

production.

Bordiga sees anti-Semitism indigenous toCentral Europe, a horrible mix of feudal andPetit bourgeois anti-Semitism while Engelswrote that anti-Semitism is nothing but areaction of feudal social strata doomed to


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disappear, against modern society, which is

essentially composed of capitalists and wageearners. It thus only serves reactionaryobjectives under a false veil of socialism.The petite bourgeoisie are described by Marx

and Engels in the Manifesto of the CommunistPartyin the following terms; The lowerstrata of the middle class, the small trades

people, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmengenerally, the handicraftsmen and peasants,all these sink gradually into the proletariat,

partly because their diminutive capital does

not suffice for the scale on which ModernIndustry is carried on, and is swamped in thecompetition with the large capitalists, partly

because their specialised skill is renderedworthless by new methods of production. Thelower middle class, the small manufacturer,the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, allthese fight against the bourgeoisie, to savefrom extinction their existence as fractions ofthe middle class. They are therefore notrevolutionary, but conservative. Nay more,

they are reactionary, for they try to roll backthe wheel of history.

Adorno and Horkheimer identified that theJews were always a thorn in the side of thecraftsmen and peasants who were declassedby capitalismand Bordiga sees that the

Jews find themselves essentially in the middleand petite bourgeoisie. He concludes thepetite bourgeoisie invented anti-Semitism.

Postone describes Proudhon as one of theforefathers of modern anti-Semitism. GeorgeWoodcock calls Proudhon 'The Man ofParadox' and Proudhon himself believed hiscontradictions were signs of vitality but hisideas are all tangled up, utopian, impractical,unoriginal, anti-socialist, petty bourgeois,capitalist and he was also a notorious anti-semite and misogynist. Proudhon opposed

common ownership and writes of self-governing producers with 'private ownership'in association with other self governingproducers, and exchanging the products oftheir labour in a free market of equals.Proudhon saw his ideal in small scaleproperty ownership of self-employedpeasants and artisans. He believed a People'sMutual Credit Bank would foster exchange ofproducts amongst workers based on 'labourcheques'. Marx saw that Proudhon had a"misunderstanding of the basic elements of

bourgeois political economy: namely of therelation between commodities and money"and Proudhon's book The Philosophy ofPovertywas described by Marx as "feebleHegelianism" full of "mystical causes" and

"his history proceeds in the misty realm of

imagination, and is above space and time. Inshort it is not history but trite Hegeliantrash."A Proudhon diary entry of 1847 saysJews. Write an article against this race that

poisons everything by sticking its nose intoeverything without ever mixing with anyother people. Demand its expulsion fromFrance with the exception of those individualsmarried to French women. Abolishsynagogues and not admit them to anyemployment. Finally, pursue the abolition of

this religion. It is not without cause that theChristians called them deicide. The Jew is theenemy of humankind. They must be sent

back to Asia or be exterminated. By steel orby fire or by expulsion the Jew mustdisappear. H.Heine, A.Weil, and others aresimply secret spies. Rothschild, Cremieux,Marx, Fould, evil, choleric, envious, bittermen who hate us.

Bordiga describes the petite bourgeoisie andthe Jewish Holocaust in the following terms;the petite bourgeois is a class condemned.Racism is not an aberration of the spirit: it isand will be the petite bourgeois reaction tothe pressures of big capital. Harassed bycapital, the Germany petite bourgeoisie thusthrew the Jews to the wolves in order tolighten its sled and save itself. We can saythat for its part big capital was happy with

the gift: it could liquidate a portion of thepetite bourgeoisies with the agreement of thepetite bourgeoisie. Even better, it was thepetite bourgeoisie itself that saw to this

liquidation. In normal times, and when it is amatter of a small number, capitalism canallow those it ejects from the productive

process to die on their own. But it wasimpossible for it to do this in the middle ofthe war and for millions of men. Such

disorder would have paralysed everything.Capitalism had to organize their death, itmassacred them while extracting themaximum surplus value possible.

Marx and Engels are prescient when theywrite of petite bourgeois German philistinismas the robe of speculative cobwebs,embroidered with flowers of rhetoric, steepedin the dew of sickly sentiment(Manifesto ofthe Communist Party) which reads like adescription of Hitler and Nazism. The original

1920 programme of the Nazi Party includedbreaking the shackles of interest, seeingfinancial capitalism or Jewish Finance at theroot of societal problems not capitalism itself,and there was a hostility to large scale


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capitalism in favour of petite bourgeois smallbusiness.

Adorno and Horkheimer write that Bourgeoisanti-Semitism has a specific economic

reason: the concealment of domination inproduction, the productive work of the

capitalist is an ideology cloaking the realnature of the labor contract and the graspingcharacter of the economic system, Jews arethe scapegoats, the economic injusticeof thewhole class is attributed to them.

Anti-Semitism is a false consciousnessengendered by capitalism. Marx wrote themystification which dialectic suffers in Hegelshands, by no means prevents him from being

the first to present its general form ofworking in a comprehensive and consciousmanner. With him it is standing on its head.It must be turned right side up again, if youwould discover the rational kernel within themystical shell (Postface to the SecondGerman Edition of Capital)

Postone inAnti-Semitism and NationalSocialism and Time, Labor and Domination

seeks to invert Marx in order to re-mystifycapital all over again. (Aufheben). He is pro-

capital, anti-working class, excuses capitalismfor Hitler, Nazism and the Holocaust. Postoneis attempting to roll back the wheel ofhistory.

Sources:

David Adam, Postone's Resolution ofMarx's Imaginary Contradiction: On therevision of the concept of abstract labor,Marxist-Humanist Initiative, 18 September2011

Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer, The

Dialectic of Enlightenment, 1947

AufhebenNo. 15, Review: Moishe Postone's Time,labour and social domination - capital beyond class

struggle? October 2006

Chris Arthur Moishe Postone, Time, Labour andSocial Domination in Capital and Classno.54,Autumn 1994

Amadeo Bordiga,Auschwitz, or the Great Alibi inProgramme Communiste, no.11, 1960

Karl Marx, Capital Volume 1, Grundrisse, Manifestoof the Communist Party, A Contribution to theCritique of Political Economy

David McLellan, Marx, 1975

Moishe PostoneAnti -Semitism and National

Socialism: Notes on the German Reaction toHolocaust, 1979

Moishe PostoneAnti-Semitism and NationalSocialism(2000 Chronos Publications) wasfirstpublished in Germans and Jews since theHolocaust: The Changing Situation in WestGermanyedited by Anson Rabinbach andJackZipes, 1986

Moishe PostoneTime, Labor and SocialDomination: a Reinterpretation of MarxsCritical Theory, 1993

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Selected Writings, 1960

Susann Witt-Stahll, 'Anti-Germans': Excusingcapitalism of role in rise of Hitler in the WeeklyWorker, 6 December

Mining: the human and Ecologicalcost

Part 1:The Human Cost of Coal Mining in

the U.S: Joe Hopkins

In 2005, Coal use generated 7,344 TWh(1Terawatt-hour= 1 trillion watt-hours, ameasure of power) of electricity, which wasthen 40% of all electricity worldwide. By2030, electricity demand worldwide isprojected to double with the quantity ofelectricity generated from coal growing 3.1%per annum to 15,796 TWh.------------------------------------------------In 2005 coal-derived electricity wasresponsible for 7.856 Gt (1 Gigaton = 1billion metric tons: 1 metric tun = 2,204

pounds) of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions,which was 72% of the CO2 emissions frompower generation. By 2030, worldwide CO2emissions are projected to grow 1.8% peryear to 41.905 Gt, with emissions from thecoal powered electricity sector projected to

grow 2.3% per year to 13.844Gt.---------------------------------------------------

In 2005, non-power generation uses of coal,including industry (e.g., steel, glass)transport, residential services, andagriculture, were responsible for another

3.124Gt of CO2, bringing coals total burdenof CO2 emissions to 41% of worldwide CO2emissions.---------------------------------------------------

Due to the limited space in this journal thepresent article will address the use of fossilfuels for generating electric power as thissector is predominant in its economic,


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environmental, and social effects over anyother single sector.

Coal Reserves that arent really CoalReserves

The U.S Energy Information Administration(EIA) often says that the U.S has 200 yearsof coal; this is based on 268 billion tons ofestimated recoverable reserves (ERR). TheEIA itself reports that the ERR cannottechnically be called reservesbecause theyhavent been analysed for profitability ofextraction.(1) The geologic, economic, legaland transportation constraints could limitfuture coal mine expansion. With the powerthe Big Coal Lobbyhas over WashingtonD.C., the legal constraints are not reallyconstraints. This would mean that 200years of coal arent really 200 years ofcoal ifthe profitability cant be foundbecause of the material constraints imposedby geologic and transportation problems. Thismay in fact reduce the ERR to 20-30 years.(2)This would provide Big Coal a planninghorizon of two to three decades for movingbeyond coal as if the earths climate couldaccommodate Business as Usualfor thatlong without passing the tipping point beyondwhich there is little or no possibility to

stabilize, let alone reverse, the global heatingthat has already begun.

Since 1900ce over 100,000 U.S coal minershave been killed while working. Majoraccidents still occur; in January 2006 17miners were killed in Appalachian coal mines12 at the Sago mine in West Virginia. OnApril 5th2010, 29 miners (including GaryQuarles) were killed in an undergroundexplosion in Massey Energys Upper BigBranch mine in West Virginia.(3)Since

1900ce, coal workers Pneumoconiosis (BlackLung) has killed over 200,000 coal miners inthe United States.(4) These deaths whenpreceded by deadly short-term illness arereflected in wages and workerscompensation benefits; these expenses areexternal to the coal industry. If a minercontracts a non-fatal or slow killer disease,long-term support often ends up coming fromthe state and/or Federal funds; these fundscome from working class wages in the form oftaxes which reduce the hourly wages of the

primary producer and are external to the coalindustry. Because these support expenses areborne by the 99% the working class thecoal companys profits go untouched and arenot put toward mitigating the damage caused

by the coal industrys unhealthy andhazardous working conditions. This is noabstract complaint. In the early 1990s over10,000 former U.S miners died from coalworkers Pneumoconiosis and the prevalence

has more than doubled since 1995.(5) Thisdoubling correlates almost perfectly (factoring in time lag) with an increase of600 working hours per year, per worker, inthe coal mining industry.

During the mining process methane isreleased; methane is a heat-trapping gas 25

times more potent than CO2 and is explosive(the officially designated cause of theexplosion at Masseys Upper Big Branchmine) and poisonous to breath inconcentration. According to the EIA

71,100,000 tons CO2e of methane from coalwere emitted in 2007 but only 92.7% of thatcoal went toward generating electricity; when

methane decays it yields CO2 a weaker butproven heat trapping gas. Not counting theillnesses and deaths of mine workers thesocial cost of the methane release aloneadded eleven cents to the cost per kilowatthour of electricity in the U.S; $2.2 billion intotal costs to society.

Transporting Coal

There are direct hazards from transportingcoal. People in mining towns report intensedust levels that in many cases coat the wallsand furniture in homes as well as the skin ofthe people living there. The dust raised bythe road transport of coal, truck after truckafter truck, burdens the respiratory andcardiovascular systems of those exposed withthe likelihood of chronic disease. 70% of allrail traffic is devoted to coal transport; withthe dire need of low pollution mass

transportation all over the country thisimposes a lost opportunity cost. Coal, evenin the passive state of being given a ride, hashidden costs and consequences to humansociety. A total of 246 people were killed inrail accidents during coal transportation in2007. Only five of these were railroadworkers; the other 241 of these weremembers of the public! Of course thecorporate titans, the masters (and owners) ofthe universe, have a formula in the value ofstatistical life (VSL) to estimate the total

costs of fatal accidents in coaltransportation.The VSL revealed, thedeaths to the public add an additional cost of

$1.8billion, or nine cents per kilowatt hourofelectricity. The coststhe master class pays


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for killing your sister, mom, wife, dad,brother are passed on to you, the survivor,through an increase of price; its never goingto come out of accumulated capital profits.

Nothing more than a prcis can be offeredhere on the separate but related aspects ofhydrocarbon based fuels main categories ofsolid coal, liquid oil (and it derivatives),natural gas, gaseous methane. However thefindings of Michael Hendryx, PHD (6) andMelissa Ahern (7) in their research article,Mortality in AppalachianCoal MiningRegions: The Value of Statistical Life Lost:concluded that research priorities to reduceAppalachian health disparities should focus onreducing disparities in the coal fields. Thehuman cost of the Appalachian coalmining economy outweighs its economicbenefits.

How is it that King Coal can continue tooperate with the economic picture so out ofkilter?

Subsides

In Kentucky alone coal brings in an estimated528 millions of dollars in state revenue. Therub is that King coal as an industry cost the

state 643 millions of dollars in expenditures;i.e. it costs the state of Kentucky 115 millionsof dollars a year (8) to keep King Coal inbusiness and in the throne. Its imperative tonote that under the regime of capitalistdemocracy the government gets the financialsupport of the people, by the people, for thecorporations. The $115 million is only the netcost of coal mining and use to the people ofKentucky. That figure does not include theincreased health care costs paid by thosesickened by coal pollution; lost productivity

(= lost wages of those who are already underpaid); water treatment for siltation and waterinfrastructure; potential limitations onchildrens cognitive and biologicaldevelopment due to poor air quality andheavy metal exposure; the economic hit tothe real estate market when people sell theirhomes, and social expenditures through stateprogrammes paid for by all the people inKentucky.

The Energy Information Agency estimates

that the U.S Federal Government provides$3.17 billion in subsides for electricity andmining operations; for 2007 this amounted to16 cents per kWh. (9) The Environmental LawInstitute put its estimate of federal subsides

at $5.37 billion for 2007 which amounted to27 cents per kWh. (10)

The Question

How do we stop the poor (us) from gettingpoorer while the rich (them) keep gettingricher through our work? Isnt it time for thevast majority of the earths population(estimated at 99%) to wrest control of ourown lives and the planet where we live fromthe hands of our capitalist exploiters. Theyrule only through our in action andacquiescence.

We Need Answers

One idea is to form a political party ofworkers made up of us to represent us tilleveryone has joined and become us. Thereare many other ideas out there. Youve gotone too or you probably wouldnt be readingthese words. What are your ideas? Tell us sowe can reason together what is necessary fora practical social revolution.

Menacious Mouse: Tell the Mouse [email protected]

Part 2:The Human cost of mining aroundthe world: Ray Carr

Developing the picture to mining in generalon a world-wide perspective it is the case thatthe number of deaths due to accidents inmines has been reduced considerably sincethe early 20thcentury but there has been anumber of tragic instances in recent yearsand whilst accurate figures are hard to comeby it has been suggested that 12,000 peopleper year die in mining accidents. According

to the International Labour Organisation(ILO) whilst mining only accounts for 1% ofthe global workforce it totals 8% of all fatal

accidents. (11) According to Alan Baxter ofthe Institute of Materials, Minerals andMining, the fatalities in mining world-wide aredropping with the exception of Russia andChina. China has the worlds largest miningindustry and produces up to three billiontonnes of coal every year which is 40% ofglobal output but is responsible for 80% ofmining deaths world-wide each year. The

reason why Russia and China account for themajority of fatal accidents in mining is,according to, Alan Baxter, due to money: hesuggests:
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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They are maximising revenue, and the mentalityis that life is cheaper than it is here and no-one isgoing to kick up a fuss if they lose a few lives.(12)

It may be the case that Russia and China lag

behind in terms of reducing the number offatal accidents in mining; they are wherecountries like Britain and America were in the19thand early 20thcenturies. The truth of thematter is that all, or at least most of these

accidents world-wide can be put down tomoney. Health and safety costs money, andeats into profit which is the major reason forproduction within the capital system. JoeDrexler of the International Federation ofMiners Unions (ICEM) argues that much ofthe problem is a lack of unions in many

places as these gives employees real powerrather than just an illusion of power. (13)Drexler has a point as organised workers canput economic pressure on employers to forcethem into improving health and safety.Drexler also points to weak labour laws andenforcement in many countries, this is alsorelated to the level of worker organisationand how much pressure they can put ongovernments as well as employers. In Chile,Drexler, points out, they have 900 mines butonly 18 safety inspectors to oversee the

conditions in those mines and in that country34 people, on average, have died each yearin mining accidents since 200. Anotherpoint made by Drexler is that the high priceof commodities has had an extra impact as ithas led employers to put pressure on for anincrease in production. (14)

Part 3: Coal and Global Heating: Ray Carr

Writing in 2010 Chris Williams noted that ourplanet is slowly being poisoned by theeconomic system that dominates it.Transforming energy sources was the mostfundamental change we needed to make andsuch a change was urgent. According to mostscientists CO2 needs to be reduced by 80-90per cent globally by 2050 to avoid irreversibleclimate change. (15) More recent studies haveconfirmed this analysis. (16) Williams wenton to argue:

The fact that the entire economy runs onessentially three substances Oil Coal andNatural Gas and these are the three most

responsible for global warming presents capitalismwith a essentially insurmountable problem. (17)

Whilst all fossil fuels emit carbon dioxidewhen burnt, not all are equally polluting, as

Natural Gas has a lower carbon content itemits less co2 per unit of energy generatedwhilst Coal emits the most. Since coal is sucha major contributor to global heating youwould think that a logical step would be to

drastically cut down on its use or abandon italtogether. However the capital system isfundamentally about the expansion of value itcannot take steps that would inhibit thatprocess especially given the fact that theworld is divided up into competing economicunits, states and power blocks, in effect it isalmost like it is beyond human control or atleast majority human control. So instead ofsolving the problem by turning to moreecological ways of providing energy andcutting down on the amount it uses it seeksto use half baked measures that continue touse the sources responsible for the problem,attempting only to minimise their effect in theshorter term. Such measures are really failingto get to grips with the problem and storingup even greater problems for the future.

In line with the above is the idea of coalliquefaction and gasification, something by allaccounts favoured by the currentadministration in the U.S. This is presentedand promoted as clean coal technology. Intheory this means using coal but leaving

behind the extra greenhouse gasses. This isachieved by carbon sequestration Whilstrecognising the problems mentioned earlierwith regard to how many years of coalreserves there are in the U.S, it is recognisedthat they are more plentiful than oil ornatural gas. As mentioned already coal is ahigher pollutant than either of the other twoenergy sources favoured by the system so

the plan is to bury the co2 emitted by coalpower plants in underground reservoirs belowthe plant pump it into deserted coal mines,

depleted oil and gas reservoirs and the like.By all accounts there have been some smallexperiments with this sort of technology inNorway and some other countries. (18)

If such a strategy seems feasible, there are anumber of problems. Firstly according to astudy carried out by The MassachusettsInstitute of Technology (MIT) The Future ofCoal the first commercial plant needed toput the plan into operation would not beready till at least 2030. Rather late according

to all the recent warnings regarding the timescale available to deal with the problem. Thenthere is the point about where all the co2would be stored should this be adopted on aglobal basis. The method of sequestration


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puts off change to a point in the future andthere is also the potential for horrificincidents such as happened with Lake Nyoswhere in 1986 this lake in Nigeria became sothickly saturated at depth with colourless,

odourless co2 that when the pressurised gaseventually escaped it asphyxiated over 1,700people while they were asleep and killed offall animal life within a 15 mile radius. (19)

Another problem is that the very process ofcoal liquefaction requires that more ratherthan less coal would be used as a largeamount of each ton of coal burned would beneeded to aid the process of coal liquefaction,co2 extraction and burial. (20)

We are being fed with the lie that something

is being done to tackle global heating when inreality what is being pursued is a strategythat ensures the continuation of the systembased on the expansion of value and thisspells catastrophe. In the current climate aproblem is that along with the U.S, China,India and Australia also have large coaldeposits and this entails a large and powerfulcoal lobby. This factor is hardly good news inreducing the reliance on coal given thepriorities of the capital system, which do notgo hand in hand with the needs of the planet.

The following quote confirms this point ofview. Amy Jaffe an energy expert at JamesA Baker Institute for Public Policy at RiceUniversity stated:

weare going dirtier If you needto come up witha fuel source other than drilling for oil under theground in the Middle East, what is the mostobvious thing with todays economy, todaysinfrastructure and todays technology? Oil shale,liquefied coal and tar sands. Its all dirty but itsfast. (21)

From the above it is clear that if catastropheis to be avoided a majority of the human raceworld wide has to organise itself to get rid ofthe capital system which is not only outdatedbut threatens the very existence of humanity.

References

1) Energy Information Administration. 2008.Annual Coal Report.http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/acr_sum.html

2) Glustrom, L, 2009, Coal: Cheap andAbundantOr Is It?http://www.cleanenergyaction.org/sites/default/files/coal_supply_constraints_cea_021209.pdf

3) See: Libertarian Communist Bulletin#21;Gary Quarles: Man of Sorrow, p.3; TheInsanity of Coal Mining, p.4; Also these twotitles at:wspus.org

4) Goodell, J. 2006. Big Coal: The Dirty SecretBehind Americas Energy Future. HoughtonMifflin. NY.

5) National Institute for Occupational Safetyand Health. 2008. Whats New in theCWH5P. Niosh Coal Workers HealthSurveillance Program.http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/ords/pdfs/cwhsp-news-fall2008.pdf

6) Department of Community Medicine,Institute for Health Policy Research, W. Va.University, Morgantown, W. Va

7) Dept. of Pharmacotherapy, WashingtonState University, Spokane, Wa.

8) Konte, M.F and J Bailey. 2009. The impactof Coal on the State Budget.http://www.maced.org/coal

9) U.S Energy Information Administration.www.eia.doe.gov

10)Environmental Law Institute. 2009.Estimating U.S Government subsides toenergy sources: 2002-2008, 1-37.Washington, DC. http://eli.org/program-areas/innovation-goverance-energy.cpm

11)BBC News October 201012)Ibid13)Ibid14)Ibid15)Chris Williams: p.73, Ecology and

Socialism, Haymarket Books, 2010

16)See Stefans The Future of climate talks inSocialist Standard ; November 2013, p.8

17)Chris Williams op.cit18)Ibid; pp.87-819)Ibid; p.8820)Ibid; p.8921)Quoted in Ibid;p.89
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/acr_sum.htmlhttp://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/acr_sum.htmlhttp://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/acr_sum.htmlhttp://www.cleanenergyaction.org/sites/default/files/coal_supply_constraints_cea_021209.pdfhttp://www.cleanenergyaction.org/sites/default/files/coal_supply_constraints_cea_021209.pdfhttp://www.cleanenergyaction.org/sites/default/files/coal_supply_constraints_cea_021209.pdfhttp://www.cleanenergyaction.org/sites/default/files/coal_supply_constraints_cea_021209.pdfhttp://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/ords/pdfs/cwhsp-news-fall2008.pdfhttp://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/ords/pdfs/cwhsp-news-fall2008.pdfhttp://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/ords/pdfs/cwhsp-news-fall2008.pdfhttp://www.maced.org/coalhttp://www.maced.org/coalhttp://www.eia.doe.gov/http://www.eia.doe.gov/http://www.eia.doe.gov/http://www.maced.org/coalhttp://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/ords/pdfs/cwhsp-news-fall2008.pdfhttp://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/ords/pdfs/cwhsp-news-fall2008.pdfhttp://www.cleanenergyaction.org/sites/default/files/coal_supply_constraints_cea_021209.pdfhttp://www.cleanenergyaction.org/sites/default/files/coal_supply_constraints_cea_021209.pdfhttp://www.cleanenergyaction.org/sites/default/files/coal_supply_constraints_cea_021209.pdfhttp://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/acr_sum.htmlhttp://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/acr_sum.html


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Worker Co-operatives: an alternativeto the capital system or destined to

fail?

The following discussion on the usefulness

and limitations of co-operatives as aforerunner of a society based on commonownership and production directly foruse/need comprises of four articles. As this isnot intended to be the final word on thesubject feel free to respond to the pointsraised here for future issues.

Article 1

Workers protest closure of Spanishcooperative Fagor, Alejandro Lpez

and Carlos Hernndez. http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/ 2013/11/26/ span-n26. html

This was posted on the World in Commonforum towards the end on last November.

Last week, 1,300 workers and their familiesmarched from the factory of Spanishelectrical appliances manufacturer FagorElectro domsticos in Basauri in the Basqueregion of Spain to the town centre, protestingagainst its closure. At Edesa the workers

have occupied the factory. Fagor producesbrands including Brandt and De Dietrich. Ithas filed for bankruptcy, threatening the jobsof 5,600 workers. The end of Fagor, asubsidiary of the Mondragn corporation,regarded as the jewel in the cooperativemovement crown, shows that suchorganisations are not an alternative tocapitalism, as their promoters proclaim.Fagors CEO Sergio Trevio warns that its fall

will have an uncontrollable domino effect onthe rest of the group with major social

implications. Mondragn is the worldslargest federation of worker cooperatives,composed of 289 companies, 110cooperatives and 147 subsidiaries. Based inthe Basque Country, it is the leadingbusiness group in the region--contributing 7percentof the GDP--has the seventh-highestturnover of Spanish companies and employs60,000 workers in Spain, 35,000 in theBasque region itself. With the development ofglobalisation it has established itself overseasand compromised many of its cooperativeprinciples.

Fagor, Mondragns flagship enterprise,employs 5,642 workers in 13 manufacturingplants in five countries (France, Poland,

Morocco, Italy and China), but only 2,000 ofits members belong to the cooperative. Thecompany was hard hit in recent years by theeruption of the global economic crisis in2008, with revenues falling by 600 million

(US$810 million), or 37 percent, in the lastfive years. This decline was a combination ofa sharp drop in demand for domesticappliances due to the impoverishment ofworkers and the appearance of new low-costcompetitors based on cheap labour in China,Turkey and South Korea. The company wasunable to get the full 170 million it requiredto stave off bankruptcy from otherMondragn cooperatives or the corporationsown banking arm, Caja Laboral. Approachesto US hedge funds and private equitycompanies appear to have fallen through, asdid appeals to the Spanish government andthe Basque regional government. As a result,Mondragns general council decidedunanimously that Fagor had to be shut down,adding that even if more support wereforthcoming it would not guarantee thecompanys future viability and that it did notrepresent the needs of the market. Solidarityhas reached its limit, the corporationacknowledged.

Fagors demise is proof of the warning made

nearly 150 years ago by Karl Marx. In his1864 Inaugural Address to the Working MensInternational Association, Marx insisted,

The experience of the period from 1848 to 1864has proved beyond doubt that, however excellentin principle and however useful in practice,cooperative labour, if kept within the narrow circleof the casual efforts of private workmen, will neverbe able to arrest the growth in geometricalprogression of monopoly, to free the masses, noreven to perceptibly lighten the burden of theirmiseries To save the industrious masses,

cooperative labour ought to be developed tonational dimensions, and, consequently, to befostered by national means To conquer politicalpower has, therefore, become the great duty ofthe working classes.

[Subsequently, Marx came to see the state as beingan organic part of capitalism, and concluded it wasfolly to aspire to take over it, as he pointed out inThe Civil War in France, re the 1871 ParisCommune. WSWS leaves this out]

Fagor was created precisely to prevent the

conquest of political power by the workingclass. It was founded in 1956 during theFranco dictatorship by a young Catholicpriest, Jos Mara Arizmendiarrieta, adelegate of the fascist Falange Youth Front.


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He was acutely aware of the socialpolarisation in Spain and saw in thecooperative movement an opportunity to putinto practice the principles of Francoscorporate state and deflect revolutionary

sentiment in the working class.Arizmendiarrieta declared, We live within acommunity and a nation of men and not ofproletarians and that Building thecooperative does not go against capitalism,but when the capitalist system is not useful,the cooperative must overcome and for thispurpose must assimilate its methods anddynamism......

The collapse of Fagor has also exposed thepseudo-lefts rejection of Marxs warnings.Carl Davidson, a member of the Committeesof Correspondence for Democracy andSocialism, a group which split from theCommunist Party USA more than 20 yearsago, is a typical example. Following a visit in2010 he enthused in his Mondragn Diaries,in an entry entitled Why Humanity ComesFirst at Work: Learning About Bridges to 21stCentury Socialism, how All the employeesin the Basque areas are worker-owners;those elsewhere are in varying stages ofbecoming so......... Even then he was forcedto admit, Before the crisis hit two years ago,

15 percent of Fagors workers weretemporary trial period new hires, meaningthey couldnt become worker-owners for sixmonths to a year. All these were laid off dueto the fall in demand, but all the regularworker-owners remained on the job or wereshifted to other related coops. Mondragnpresident Txema Gisasola had the measure ofDavidson and the pseudo-left when he stated,

We receive visitors from many companies andmany countries, and some come here with a

magical idea of what Mondragn is. This is notmagic. We are in this market, competing in thecapitalist world, and the only difference is how wedo things and why we do things. We have to becompetitive, we have to be efficient, we have tohave quality in our products and give satisfactionto our clients, and we have to be profitable. In

that sense we are no different from anyone else.

"The future's here, we are it, we're on our own"

- Bob Weir and John Barlow,1982

"The storyteller makes no choice, soon you

will not hear his voice, his job is to shed light,

not to master." - Jerry Garcia and Robert

Hunter, 1977

Article 2

This following article originally appeared inThe Economistand was posted on thelibcom.org websiteby Joseph Kayin

October 2009

Co-operatives: all in this together?

These are difficult times for the Fagorappliance factory in Mondragn, in northernSpain. Sales have seized up, as at manyother white-goods companies. Workers hadfour weeks pay docked at Christmas. Somehave been laid off. Now salaries are about tobe cut by 8%. Time for Spains mighty unions

to call a strike? Not at Fagorfor here thedecisions are taken by the workersthemselves.

Fagor is a workers co-operative, one ofdozens that dot the valleys of Spains hillynorthern Basque country. Most belong to theworlds biggest group of co-operatives, theMondragn Corporation. It is Spains seventh-largest industrial group, with interestsranging from supermarkets and finance towhite goods and car parts. It accounts for 4%

of GDP in the Basque country, a region of 2mpeople. All this has made Mondragn a modelfor co-operatives from California toQueensland. How will co-ops, with their idealsof equity and democracy, cope in therecession?

Workers co-ops are often seen as hotbeds ofradical, anti-capitalist thought. Images ofhippies, earnest vegetarians or executives inblue overalls could not, however, be furtherfrom reality. We are private companies thatwork in the same market as everybody else,says Mikel Zabala, Mondragns human-resources chief. We are exposed to the sameconditions as our competitors.

Problems may be shared with competitors,but solutions are not. A workers co-op has itshands tied. It cannot make membersredundant or, in Mondragns case, sellcompanies or divisions. Losses in one unit arecovered by the others. It can be painful attimes, when you are earning, to give to the

rest, Mr Zabala admits. Lossmaking co-ops

can be closed, but members must be re-employed within a 50km (30-mile) radius.That may sound like a nightmare formanagers battling recession. But co-ops alsohave their advantages. Lay-offs, short hours


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and wage cuts can be achieved withoutstrikes, and agreements are reached fasterthan in companies that must negotiate withunions and government bodies under Spanishlabour law.

The 13,000 members of Eroski, another co-operative in the Mondragn group andSpains second-largest retailer, have not justfrozen their salaries this year. They have alsogiven up their annual dividend on theirindividual stakes in the company. A constantflow of information to worker-owners, says MrZabala, makes them ready to take painfuldecisions.

It sounds conflict-free, but that is misleading.One of Mondragns many paradoxes is thatworker-owners are also the bosses of otherworkers. People have been hired in far-flungplaces, from America to China, as the grouphas expanded. It now has more subsidiarycompanies than co-operatives. Mondragnhas two employees for every co-op member.The result is a two-tier system. And whenrecession bites, non-member employeessuffer most. They are already losing jobs astemporary contracts are not renewed. Likecapitalist bosses, the Mondragn co-operativists must, indeed, occasionally handle

strikes and trade-union trouble.Some worry that Mondragn-style successkills the idealism on which most co-ops arebased. Those within the Mondragn group areaware of the danger. Eroski wants to offer co-op membership to its 38,500 salariedemployees.

The most successful co-ops, however, arethose least shackled by ideology. Mondragnused to cap managers pay at three timesthat of the lowest-paid co-operativist, for

example. But it realised it was losing its bestmanagers, and that some non-membermanagers were earning more than membermanagers. The cap was raised to eight times.But this is still 30% below market rates, andsome managers are still tempted away.Frankly, it would be a bad sign if nobodywas,says Adrin Celaya, Mondragnsgeneral secretary.

Lately Mondragn has had trouble keepingsuccessful co-operatives locked in. Irizar, a

maker of luxury coaches, split off last year,reportedly because it no longer wanted tosupport loss making co-ops elsewhere in thegroup.

Henry Hansmann, a professor at Yale LawSchool, says co-ops often fall apart whenworker-owners become too diverse. He pointsto United Airlinesnot a co-operative, butonce mainly owned by workers from

competing trade unionsas an example ofhow clashing interests can kill workerownership. By bringing in tens of thousandsof new members at Eroski, many far from theBasque country, Mondragn risks falling intothat trap. The groups bosses believe,however, that the way forward is to promotethe idea that co-operativism bringsadvantages. The global downturn maystrengthen the group internally. Asunemployment sweeps the globe, after all,there is no greater social glue than the fightto keep jobs.

Article 3:

Water on Stone by Lyla Byrne

This is in response to article 1 of this

discussion.

Well, there's a lot going on in there. Mainly a

lot of pseudo-scientific proclamation,including from Marx. I don't think that 'theexperience of the period from 1848 to 1864' -16 years - proves 'beyond a doubt' what Marxsays it does. (See article 1)The cooperativemovement would have fared better at anytime within the present system if it had moresupport, which is unlikely to be generated bythe denial of it bringing any benefit what-so-ever. Plus it has survived, and in many wayskept the concept of common ownership anddemocracy alive, becauseit has brought

benefits to workers. So in certain respects thequote is very misleading; and this isextended due to its broad sweep across thecapitalist era. It does not allow for thecomplexities of the issue then, such asvariations in local circumstances around theworld; or for the complexities of changingconditions over time. There are now verysignificantly different conditions indeed to themid-eighteen hundreds, includingecologically, the potential uses of technology,and the range of psychological conditions.A proof, by definition, takes us beyond doubtalready. The tautological emphasis in thequote, is perhaps used to force home asstatements of fact, what are actually justopinions. Similarly, the rest of the article is


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not balanced by a look at the many minorityowned and controlled businesses that havealso gone/are going bust in the recession; northe many cooperatives that are surviving andindeed helping to protect communities and

the ecology despite the recession. Nor does itacknowledge the present trend forcooperatives/collectives to be set up; andwith increasing consciousness of the absolutenecessity, if we want any sort of healthyfuture, of moving to serve an ecologically andsocially judged common good*.

It is of course possible to make predictionsthat turn out to be accurate, but predictionsmay also be inaccurate to some extent. Wemay have some evidence, but this can bevery misleading in itselfif some otherevidence is left out, and it is taken to implytoo much. - So we can learn from history, butwe have to be scientific about it; taking carenot to be overly assuming, or to just cherrypick what suits our predilections. Although aquote may clinch a well supported argument,quotes in particular are often used to justgive an appearance of this - as a slight ofhand to cover the absence of sufficientevidence or the logical use of it. Quotes canalso misdirect by being taken out of context,and there may be questions over

interpretation. Or someone may lie aboutwhat has been said, or unintentionally get itpartially or completely wrong - as in thecomment about Marx that follows thequote**.

Moses Marx

In the course of his study of capitalism, Marxmade some accurate observations andpredictions which remain prescient today***.However, although extolling the virtue of the

scientific method at times, he also had rathera penchant for laying down the law whilst the

jury was still out. Unfortunately, this kind ofthing has been taken up by some Marxistgroups and set in stones of dogma. This isnot all Marxs fault of course. We all haveresponsibility to proceed rationally; toperform the checks; to give due considerationto the wider situation as well as payingsufficient attention to the details of a matterin hand.

Marx expressed somewhat different opinionselsewhere****; and indeed his materialistconception of history theory seems toindicate the complete opposite. The message

in The German Ideology [from 1846, but notpublished until the 1920s] I think, butcertainly in A Contribution to the Critique ofPolitical Economy [1859], is that onlyrevolutionary changes in the material

conditions or material productive forces orthe economic foundation [by which heseems to mean, briefly, arrangementsfor/methods of production of goods], cancreate revolutionary consciousness. Notably,such consciousness is necessary forconsciously voting for such revolutionarychanges in production.........so presumablythis would be votingfor them to continue and

perhaps extend.

From the preface of A Contribution...:

It is not the consciousness of men that determinestheir existence, but their social existence thatdetermines their consciousness. At a certain stageof development, the material productive forces ofsociety come into conflict with the existingrelations of production or this merely expressesthe same thing in legal terms with the propertyrelations within the framework of which they haveoperated hitherto. From forms of development ofthe productive forces these relations turn into theirfetters. Then begins an era of social revolution.The changes in the economic foundation leadsooner or later to the transformation of the whole

immense superstructure. [By superstructurehe means political, legal and some othercultural forms.]

Perhaps Marx thought that the materialconditions of the time were sufficient tocreate mass revolutionary consciousness, andhis statement of 1864 may be due at least inpart to disappointment and frustration that afull scale social revolution had not yet takenoff. Of course, if such consciousness occurs,all the stages of capitalism so far will have

been part of the process, but capitalism maycome to be seen as delivering more problemsto overcome (includingconditioning/programming to have a tinymind), than opportunities for mind expansion.

We all have to be wary ofoversimplification/over generalisation. Inorder to achieve a purpose, it is true thatthere is occasionally an imperative to changewhole courses of action. However, on otheroccasions, it is imperative for a purpose that

we do not give up a whole course of action,but learn how to act differently in someparticulars, so as to accomplish the wholeaction, and perhaps a wider purpose,successfully. Notably, taking one course of


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action does not preclude taking other coursesof action also; and they may be essential toeach others progress.

It may be (and I believe is) the case that it

would have been far better to endorsecooperatives and other commonownership/democracy based intentionalcommunities. More of us might then havebeen working more effectively together toextend common ownership and democracy,and it might have taken off as a massmovement before now.

Concerning Marxs materialism, we generallyneed a more holistic approach. Changingmodes of production are influential in

psychological changes; but their influence inecological changes has to be equallyemphasised. Plus ecological and psychologicalfactors are also influential inchanging modesof production. It is an ongoing interactiveprocess. Thus, revolutionary consciousnessoccurs when there is a sufficiently propitiouscombination of factors - ecological, economicand psychological; and whilst it exists it isinfluential as part of this whole. Notably, pre-capitalist evolutionary andsocial/cultural/linguistic factors continue to beinfluential in the whole - some being veryconducive to healthy revolutionary change,and others not. Using our abilities asconscious beings we have and doovercome/sufficiently manage harmfulinfluences of various types, and potentiallythis can be applied in a mass movement forsocial change.

Capitalism does not work for wellbeing

Im not sure what the writer of the articlewants. The person seems to have a pop at asmany people as possible who are raisingconsciousness about social and ecologicalproblems being due to capitalism, and whoare consciously involved in developingalternative systems for living. Also,concerning the reference to coops being co-opted by capitalist forces, it is necessary tonote that capitalism has co-opted manythings to support itself over the years, andsometimes just locally as conditions allow.However, this does not necessarily mean thatthe thing is completely taken over. There

may still be subversive elements. These, andfreer projects in other localities can still beapplied to overturning capitalism. Plus, wherea thing has been co-opted, it can be

consciously reclaimed in the future, perhapswith improvements for a revolutionarypurpose.

Within the capitalist system multiple and

mounting problems have continued and/ordeveloped. Modern advances in technologicalability are sometimes credited to capitalism,however it is predictable that technologywould advance, and at an increasing rateanyway. This is because we are naturallycurious and inventive, and as technologyadvances, more becomes possible. What hasactually happened is that the orientation forfinancial profit has held back healthyadvancement; and there is now a desperateclinging to inefficient, polluting and horrificmethods and arrangements because they arestill serving the accumulation of capital. Thisis of course integral to the maintenance oflarge amounts of financial possession(control) by a small number of individuals who have to be able to pay their accountants,lawyers, jailors, politicians, news editors andarmies etc. - Those who generally have notbeen producing anything really useful, butonly supporting and/or enforcing the systemof minority rule.

Capitalism facilitates domination by minorities

by making bribery seem necessary andrespectable, including payment for violentoppression and for keeping up a deceptivefacade.The concentration of wealth/powerinto fewer hands was one of Marxs correctpredictions about the evolution of capitalism;and present methods and arrangements havelargely taken the form that they have in theservice of this process, rather than thewellbeing of humanity. The environmentalproblems being caused are now so severethat the whole future of life on the planet is

threatened. In such a situation it is worthtrying something else, even if we are not surethat it will work.

The indications are however, that commonownership and democracy is the only systemthat can work, because it facilitates thedevelopment of the human potentials that weneed for a system to work;as inproducingenjoyable, sustainable life. It facilitates thestudy of reality and the development ingeneral of skills, arrangements and methods

that directly serve wellbeing. But how do weget somewhere democratically that it seemsthe over whelming majority would only wantif we were already there? Especially since weare now faced with an accumulation of social


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and ecological alienation, it seems to me thatsufficient support for such a beneficial systemwill not arise without experiences thatdevelop more awareness and appreciation ofthose benefits.

The great duty

One of the odd things about the Marx quote isthe use of the word casual; this hardlyseems to refer very well to officialcooperatives. If using casual in the some ofthe modern senses - informal, chance,irregular, relaxed, even then, it is clear thathelping each other in such ways often does atleast lighten the burden of our miseries, andcan enable us to take further, more informedand self determined action.

Whether motives are more selfish or moreholistic, extension of common ownership anddemocracy to national - and internationaldimensions, is wanted because we want thewellbeing of communities/the worldcommunity that it enables.This is recognisedas necessarily involving the wellbeing ofindividuals. But such a social system does not

just materialise out of nothing, and createthis wellbeing from scratch. If it gets chosenit will be because it enables the continuation

and development of the wellbeing (includingthe healthy values) that people have; andthis is rather thanallowing the capitalistsystem to continue to destroy and preventthe development of wellbeing.

So it seems to me that if we want thiswellbeing, it is not enough to just campaignfor a different system. We have to do all wecan to produce it now, in and by the way thatwe live. We have to be sufficiently swiftlywithdrawing our energy from harmful

practices, and putting our energy intoprotecting and replenishing our communitiesand our ecology. Similarly, I have had certaindoubts about Mondragon, because I thinkthat such cooperatives need to moreconsciously and adventurously orientate tothis agenda.

For a healthy future, we need to take part insustainably providing for ourselves within andbetween communities. This means applyingourselves our knowledge, skills and

technology etc. directly to serve our needs,for a change. I mean this in the largestsense, of day to day needs, but also, forexample, planting trees for providing ahealthy future. Obviously the big problem

with capitalism is that it often makes this kindof thing difficult or impossible. However,there is a great deal that a great many of uscan quite easily do with the resources that wehave now, and a great deal more that we can

do with a dose of determination. Aswe do it,more becomes easy and more becomespossible, and so it grows.

If we want wellbeing, why wait to startcreating it until some possibly never-to-arrivemoment of universal franchise and universalsocialist consciousness?Voting in worldsocialism presently sounds to most peoplelike too much of a fantasy for them to getinvolved in supporting it. But perhaps,workers will increasingly get involved insupporting common ownership anddemocracy by living in that way; because itworks for them; because it is a more reliableway of supplying their needs - and the moreso as more workers join; and because theywant to get on right now with setting upsustainable systems for their children and fora future for humanity, before it is too late.We do not only inform others by the writtenor spoken word, but by other actions and bythe way that we live as a whole. Providingeducational material, political campaigningand setting up cooperative type

arrangements dedicated to supplying ourneeds, are all forms of revolutionaryorganisation. They can all becomplimentary,and as such it is more than likely that theyare all necessary for a successfulrevolutionary process.Arrangements ofcommon ownership and democracy spreadthat idea just by existing; but they can alsobe supportive centres for learning andpolitical activism. Also, a world system ofcommon ownership and democracy requires asufficiently healthy world if it is to exist. The

community/ecology agenda is what makesthat possible.

Circles may be small, but not narrow.

The article says: 'The end of Fagor, asubsidiary of the Mondragn corporation,regarded as the jewel in the cooperativemovement crown, shows that suchorganisations are not an alternative tocapitalism, as their promoters proclaim.'- This is pseudo science, or rather non-

science. The main problem for cooperatives incapitalism is of course that they have tofunction in capitalism. However excellent inprinciple and however useful in practice,thisis not appreciated by capitalist forces; and if


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they fail, in the main, it is because ofcapitalism, and not because they cannot bean alternative. Failure due to capitalism of anorganisation that serves the community, is afurther demonstration should we need it

of the failure of capitalism to enable us toefficiently provide for ourselves. All thatcapitalist forces are capable of doing afterdestroying something healthy, is turningaround to those whose lives have beendevastated, and calling them scroungers ortreating them like criminals. What exactly, iscriminal here?

Cooperatives have always provided workers,including those looking on, with someexperience of common ownership anddemocracy. This can help us to move beyondbeing controlled psychologically to supportcapitalism.Some say that when there arefailures that this puts people off; however wecan equally well say that experiencing howcapitalism causes these failures can putpeople off that. In fact it may be that themore cooperative projects that there are, themore obvious it will become that we need toget rid of capitalism.

Transforming the present society is aginormous task. Obviously there will be

mistakes and setbacks. I don't even regardthis Mondragon incident as a setback, but asan opportunity for workers to organise towork and live with moreeconomic equalityand quality of life. The thing to do is not togive up on cooperatives and indeedcooperative living in general, but for workersto self organise to take it on - to take itfurther. Increasing the direct self providing ofneeds reduces the requirement to compete inthe market (with all the problems thatentails). It is likely to be a necessary first

step towards money becoming obsolete.

It may be that for many projects, smallerscale is more functional; particularly formaintaining coherence by serving our humanneeds for healthy social and ecologicalrelationships. But small circles can multiply,and interact. Coops and other communitiespracticing common ownership and democracycan increasingly develop connectionsspecifically for sustainable mutual supply ofall necessary goods and services. Potentially

this can continue until there is nothing leftthat is not within the circles. This is actuallyhow a world community of mutuallysupportive communities has to come intobeing. If at some point before the process is

complete, there is a formal voting in ofcommon ownership and democracy as aworld system, such organisations will providea most welcome and probably necessaryexample, and steadying continuity in times of

great change.

One of the main uses of predictions, ofcourse, if they are accurate enough, isforetelling unfortunate consequences; forthen we may be able to take action to avertthem. As the failings and brutality ofcapitalism become ever more evident,particularly in societies where this haspreviously been obscured, it is likely thatpeople will increasingly take heed of warningsabout the social and environmental crisis thatit is producing. There is of course already anincreasing movement for humane andsustainable ways of living. Plus technology issupplying increasing opportunities fororganising and providing goods and servicesfor ourselves, along with general mutualsupport. After a certain point things couldchange very fast.

A sufficiently well informed commitment tothe common good is at once the death knellof capitalism and the greeting chime of a newera. Ifcapitalism starts to be orientated for

the real common good, and if this trend iswidely supported enough to continue to grow,capitalism is over, basically; because that isbasically not capitalism. Hopefully the growthwill swiftly gather such momentum - as manygood abilities that have long been denied,suppressed and undeveloped burst out thatresistance will obviously be futile.

Capitalism has never provided for everyonesneeds, far from it. The rapidly increasingtendencies now around the world are: Cutting

of pay/paid jobs, cutting of services andcutting of democratic and human rights. Atthe same time damage to the ecologycontinues to accumulate, wars continue, theprison complex is expanding, the number andsize of detention centres for migrants andcamps for the disposed and starving isincreasing. We have to ask: Where is thisgoing?

I would say that we need to get on withcooperative, direct self providing whilst we

still have a chance.


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Notes

* Climate Summit Trap: Capitalism's March

toward Global Collapse

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/wa

rsaw-climate-conference-shows-capitalism-root-of-climate-failure-a-

937453.html#ref=nl-international

**1)It strikes me as self evident that Marxregarded the state as an organic part of

capitalism - that you can't have capitalismwithout a state.

WSWS isa Trotskyist outfit and therefore

presumably sympathetic to a Leninist slant onthe state. The notion that Marx concluded in"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte"that it was folly to aspire to take over thestate is nonsense and is based on Lenin'sdistortion of what Marx was saying. Marxwas talking about the need to break up - orsmash - Napoleon's bureaucratic statemachine AFTER the workers had won powerwhereas Lenin made it appear that the state

should be smashed beforehand rather thantaken over. I dont believe that at any pointdid Marx ever say the state should not be

captured or taken over.

There is a useful article from the SPGBarchives on the subject herehttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1970/lenin-v-marx-stateCheers, Robin

2) What Marx said in The Civil War inFrance, was that the working class cannotsimply take over the state and use it in itsexisting form for socialist purposes. From

Stephan***The economic crisis in fact and fiction.Interview with Paul Mattickhttp://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/06/express

/the-economic-crisis-in-fact-and-fictionpaul-mattick-with-john-clegg-and-aaron-benanav

****http://www.cuizy.cn/Recommended/coo

ps/MarxItalyCooperative.pdf

Fourth and final article in the discussion

Co-operatives: the positives and

negatives. By Ricardo Monde

The objective here is to briefly examinepoints that have been left out of thediscussion and make some general points.Hopefully people can pick up on some ofthese points for further discussion in futureissues.

Form and Substance

It could be argued that one of theshortcomings when discussing co-operativesand their role within and in opposition to thecapital system is that the term co-operative isused as if all co-operatives have the samebasis and this is something that this articledisputes. What has to be considered is theirsubstance, i.e. how they came about andwhy. Co-operatives come about underdifferent circumstances and their purposesand structures are affected by thosecircumstances. For example one which comesabout as a result of the owner of a businesshanding it over to the workforce will have adifferent perspective to one which is set up

by a group of workers themselves. Even inthe latter case there will be a differencebetween a co-operative set up to preserve

jobs to one which is established becausethose involved are seeking a change in theirworking environment. This latter example isperhaps a minority case and is more likely toremain small, operate in a less competitiveenvironment and have a much higher regardfor its democratic structure and in many waysis what we should be thinking of when we usethe term co-operative in a socialist sense. So

a genuine type of co-operative is one that isset up for the right reasons by those who aregoing to be its owner members and thereneeds to be an awareness of the fact thatthey are operating in a hostile environment.In this regard for form and substance theMondragon co-operatives were never evenattempting to set up a socialist experiment.As the first article informs us the Fagor co-operative was set up by a Catholic priestwhose aim was to attempt to diminish oreven end any conflict between labour and

capital. Those on the left who held theMondragon so-called experiment as socialismin action (see article 1)did so because theyhad as little understanding of socialism asthey did of capitalism.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/warsaw-climate-conference-shows-capitalism-root-of-climate-failure-a-937453.html#ref=nl-internationalhttp://www.spiegel.de/international/world/warsaw-climate-conference-shows-capitalism-root-of-climate-failure-a-937453.html#ref=nl-internationalhttp://www.spiegel.de/international/world/warsaw-climate-conference-shows-capitalism-root-of-climate-failure-a-937453.html#ref=nl-internationalhttp://www.spiegel.de/international/world/warsaw-climate-conference-shows-capitalism-root-of-climate-failure-a-937453.html#ref=nl-internationalhttp://www.spiegel.de/international/world/warsaw-climate-conference-shows-capitalism-root-of-climate-failure-a-937453.html#ref=nl-internationalhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1970/lenin-v-marx-statehttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1970/lenin-v-marx-statehttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1970/lenin-v-marx-statehttp://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/06/express/the-economic-crisis-in-fact-and-fictionpaul-mattick-with-john-clegg-and-aaron-benanavhttp://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/06/express/the-economic-crisis-in-fact-and-fictionpaul-mattick-with-john-clegg-and-aaron-benanavhttp://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/06/express/the-economic-crisis-in-fact-and-fictionpaul-mattick-with-john-clegg-and-aaron-benanavhttp://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/06/express/the-economic-crisis-in-fact-and-fictionpaul-mattick-with-john-clegg-and-aaron-benanavhttp://www.cuizy.cn/Recommended/coops/MarxItalyCooperative.pdfhttp://www.cuizy.cn/Recommended/coops/MarxItalyCooperative.pdfhttp://www.cuizy.cn/Recommended/coops/MarxItalyCooperative.pdfhttp://www.cuizy.cn/Recommended/coops/MarxItalyCooperative.pdfhttp://www.cuizy.cn/Recommended/coops/MarxItalyCooperative.pdfhttp://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/06/express/the-economic-crisis-in-fact-and-fictionpaul-mattick-with-john-clegg-and-aaron-benanavhttp://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/06/express/the-economic-crisis-in-fact-and-fictionpaul-mattick-with-john-clegg-and-aaron-benanavhttp://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/06/express/the-economic-crisis-in-fact-and-fictionpaul-mattick-with-john-clegg-and-aaron-benanavhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1970/lenin-v-marx-statehttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1970/lenin-v-marx-statehttp://www.spiegel.de/international/world/warsaw-climate-conference-shows-capitalism-root-of-climate-failure-a-937453.html#ref=nl-internationalhttp://www.spiegel.de/international/world/warsaw-climate-conference-shows-capitalism-root-of-climate-failure-a-937453.html#ref=nl-internationalhttp://www.spiegel.de/international/world/warsaw-climate-conference-shows-capitalism-root-of-climate-failure-a-937453.html#ref=nl-internationalhttp://www.spiegel.de/international/world/warsaw-climate-conference-shows-capitalism-root-of-climate-failure-a-937453.html#ref=nl-international


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What is a successful co-operative?

In light of the above we need to re-evaluatehow we judge the success of a co-operativein terms of any contribution they can make in

moving beyond the capital system. In mostanalysis of co-operatives their success isbased on their ability to survive and maybego beyond that, in the hostile environmentthey operate in. Viewed on that basis theMondragon based group, despite its presentproblems, can be said to have beensuccessful. The first article in this discussioninformed us about this success;

Mondragon is the worlds largest federation ofworker co-operatives, comprised of 289companies, 110 co-operatives and 147

subsidiaries. Based in the Basque country, it is theleading business group in the region contributing 7per cent of the GDP, has the highest turnover ofSpanish companies and employs 60,000 workersin Spain, 35,000 in the Basque region itself. Withthe development of globalisation it has establisheditself overseas .

In addition to the above The Economist articletells us that it is Spains seventh largestindustrial group with interests ranging fromsupermarkets and finance to white goods andcar parts and it is described as a model for

co-operatives from California to Queensland.But if we are viewing co-operatives in asocialist type of perspective success cannotbe judged in this way. After outlining thesuccess of the Mondragon group of co-operatives as in the above quote the firstarticle went on to outline that this so-calledsuccess has led to it compromising it co-operative principles. We would add thatmaybe those principles were lacking in thefirst place. The Economist article then informsus where such compromise leads by telling us

that Mondragon has more subsidiarycompanies than co-operatives and has twoemployees for every co-op member. There isthen the problem that worker owners becomethe bosses of other workers. The same articlethen sums up, what we regard as a false viewof success based on their economicsustainability when it states:

The most successful co-ops, however, are thoseleast shackled by ideology

Put simply that means economic successdepends on ridding yourself of democraticdecision making structures and becomingmore or less a normal business. TheMondragon model is not a good example of

co-operatives in terms of a socialistperspective. Success should be based on ifand how a different working environment canbe introduced and maintained, to what extentthose working in the enterprise have a

control over its internal workings and itsoutside dealings including the markets itoperates in. In these and other practices ithas to be totally different to how a normalbusiness operates. This may mean it has tooperate on a small scale and in a lesscompetitive market environment and it maymean that in these terms one that failseconomically has been more successful thanthose that survive long term.

Co-operatives and Capitalism

From the above discussion it is clear that ifco-operatives are to be seen as anymeaningful alternative to the capital systemthey have to exhibit radically differentorganisation and outlook to traditionalcapitalist enterprises. They are bound tostruggle in this regard but not because Marxsaid so, (as we have seen he did seem tooffer favourable and unfavourable commentsabout them, probably depending on theaspect he was dealing with), but becausethey are operating in an economic climate

that gives them two choices; eithercompromise their principles for more likelyeconomic success or seek to offer analternative approach in the realisation thatthey will remain as small enterprises whovery often are confined to a minority market.Whilst from a socialist perspective the so-called Mondragon experiment is a badexample of co-operatives it is a good exampleof what happens if they seek to developbeyond a certain point. It is true enough thatthe problems at Fagor is not evidence in itself

that co-operatives must always fail, theproblem there was that this type of co-operative movement was never intended topresent an alternative to capitalism. Thatmuch is clear from some of the analysis inthe first article in this discussion but it wouldto unwise to widen this to all co-operativesbecause of the very nature of the Mondragon

experiment itself. As was indicated at theoutset of this particular article so muchdepends on how individual co-ops are set upand what is also important from a socialist

perspective is the level of understanding ofcapitalism and socialism when they are set upso they are aware of the pitfalls. This alludesto something we will move on to in the nextsection the vast difference between setting


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up such alternatives whilst a majority ofpeople are stuck within a capitalist maze, towhat might happen when there is at least alarge minority of people who are seeking areal and viable alternative.

Co-operatives, common ownership andsocialism.

The positives about co-operatives is that theycan offer in the here and now an examplethat people are capable of organisingthemselves in a democratic fashion in anindustrial context and it is true that howeverlimited we need such practice to take placewithin the capital system whatever theirshort-comings. Another positive aspect aboutthem is the role they could play in thesituation where there is a large minority butnot a majority movement for socialism. Theidea that where such a situation exists peopleare just going to sit around and wait for theday when they can vote delegates into powerto convert the means of production fromminority to common ownership is soridiculous it is hardly worth discussing. Insuch a situation people will be doing as muchas possible to change their lives and convinceothers to do the same and in thatenvironment setting up such things as co-

operatives will be a radically differentconcept.

In the situation touched upon in which asocialist consciousness has intervened,experiments with co-operatives and the likemay well involve experiments with commonownership albeit in a small and localisedfashion, it would be limited as it would still beoperating in a perhaps less harsh but stillharsh environment but time alone can onlyanswer that problem. However as we are not

in that situation at present it is perhapsunwise to consider co-operatives asexperiments in common ownership.Individual worker co-operatives are owned bythose who work in them not by their localcommunities or by society as a whole so atpresent rather than being a form of commonownership they are more in tune with privateownership. Despite what has been said hereit is unwise to look upon co-operatives intheir present form as a pathway to socialismbecause of the fact that they belong to their

worker owners. There is of course a vision ofsocialism as a society where all enterprisesbelong to their workers and they consumethe benefits of the surplus value that theycreate (apart from the portion that is

reinvested to create further value), this istermed as Market Socialism or perhapsWorkers capitalism or capitalism withoutcapitalists but it has nothing to do with whatwe would term as socialism which is a society

of common ownership where all the resourcesand means for producing useful articles areowned by all or belong to no particularsection of society. That is something we haveto be careful about when discussing thistopic.

On a final point one other aspect we have tobe aware of when discussing co-operatives orpeople self management or so on is that itconce

the libertarian communist no. 25 winter 2014

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