Poetry, movie critiques, book reviews, critiques of political-economy, conceptual formulations for socialism/communism, short stories, speculations about a possible classless society and critiques of class society in general are what form the content of "Wobbly Times".
Haw! You've got to hand it to Freddy...." and almost each particular section of the possessing class has its representatives in each of the two parties to a very large degree". What a guy! And today, we on the left with our Zeitgeists and populist rants about the Fed, supporting all kinds of nationalisms and very little, if any, class analysis, hear a voice from the past making a class analysis which brings clarity to the mess we're in: the rule of Capital. The bourgeois democratic electoral system is, of course, rigged to produce a consistent result: the continued rule of Capital. Reforms are modifications of this rule, to be sure; but they don't change the basic social relation based on the continued political servility of the working class i.e. wage labour. And as long as people like Engels can be put in the 'out of date' box, we'll have, "contempt for all theory....and be... " punished for this by a superstitious belief in every philosophical and economic absurdity, by religious sectarianism, and by idiotic economic experiments, out of which, however, certain bourgeois cliques profit." IOW, anything but the abolition of the wage system.
There is no place yet in America for a third party, I believe. The divergence of interests even in the same class group is so great in that tremendous area that wholly different groups and interests are represented in each of the two big parties, depending on the locality, and almost each particular section of the possessing class has its representatives in each of the two parties to a very large degree, though today big industry forms the core of the Republicans on the whole, just as the big landowners of the South form that of the Democrats. The apparent haphazardness of this jumbling together is what provides the splendid soil for the corruption and the plundering of the government that flourish there so beautifully. Only when the land — the public lands — is completely in the hands of the speculators, and settlement on the land thus becomes more and more difficult or falls prey to gouging — only then, I think, will the time come, with peaceful development, for a third party. Land is the basis of speculation, and the American speculative mania and speculative opportunity are the chief levers that hold the native-born worker in bondage to the bourgeoisie. Only when there is a generation of native- born workers that cannot expect anything from speculation any more will we have a solid foothold in America. But, of course, who can count on peaceful development in America! There are economic jumps over there, like the political ones in France — to be sure, they produce the same momentary retrogressions.
The small farmer and the petty bourgeois will hardly ever succeed in forming a strong party; they consist of elements that change too rapidly — the farmer is often a migratory farmer, farming two, three, and four farms in succession in different states and territories, immigration and bankruptcy promote the change in personnel, and economic dependence upon the creditor also hampers independence — but to make up for it they are a splendid element for politicians, who speculate on their discontent in order to sell them out to one of the big parties afterward.
The tenacity of the Yankees, who are even rehashing the Greenback humbug, is a result of their theoretical backwardness and their Anglo- Saxon contempt for all theory. They are punished for this by a superstitious belief in every philosophical and economic absurdity, by religious sectarianism, and by idiotic economic experiments, out of which, however, certain bourgeois cliques profit. Friedrich Engels, 1892
Commodification is the process whereby our lives become synonymous with the production of cheapness dedicated to achieving market share.
Zappa's vision didn't go beyond the rule of Capital. He was definitely opposed to what he saw as a leitmotif of modernity, 'cheapnis'. His was a kind of sardonic cry for quality in the age of mechanical reproduction.Unfortunately, Frank couldn't see that commodification and capitalism were joined at the hip.
We start with the commodity, this specific social form of the product, as the foundation and prerequisite of capitalist production. We take individual products and analyse those distinctions of form which they have as commodities, which stamp them as commodities. In earlier modes of production—preceding the capitalist mode of production—a large part of the output never enters into circulation, is never placed on the market, is not produced as commodities, and does not become commodities. On the other hand, at that time a large part of the products which enter into production are not commodities and do not enter into the process as commodities. The transformation of products into commodities only occurs in individual cases, is limited only to the surplus of products, etc., or only to individual spheres of production (manufactured products), etc. A whole range of products neither enter into the process as articles to be sold, nor arise from it as such. Nevertheless, the prerequisite, the starting-point, of the formation of capital and of capitalist production is the development of the product into a commodity, commodity circulation and consequently money circulation within certain limits, and consequently trade developed to a certain degree. It is as such a prerequisite that we treat the commodity, since we proceed from it as the simplest element in capitalist production. On the other hand, the product, the result of capitalist production, is the commodity. What appears as its element is later revealed to be its own product. Only on the basis of capitalist production does the commodity become the general form of the product and the more this production develops, the more do the products in the form of commodities enter into the process as ingredients. The commodity, as it emerges in capitalist production, is different from the commodity taken as the element, the starting-point of capitalist production. We are no longer faced with the individual commodity, the individual product. The individual commodity, the individual product, manifests itself not only as a real product but also as a commodity, as a part both really and conceptually of production as a whole. Each individual commodity represents a definite portion of capital and of the surplus-value created by it.
"At the origin of industrial society, based on the primacy and autonomy of commodities, of things, we find a contrary impulse to place what is essential - what causes one to tremble with fear and delight- outside the world of activity, the world of things. But however this is shown it does not controvert the fact that in general a capitalist society reduces what is human to the conditions of a thing (of a commodity)."
Georges Bataille, ACCURSED SHARE vol.I page 129
The reign of commodities is allowed because the subject becomes mystified as to the origin of the object : Wage-labour is not aware that it creates Capital. Quite the contrary: it is generally believed that Capital creates wealth and provides jobs to wage-labour. This is what Marx was writing about in the section in CAPITAL volume I on 'the fetishism of commodities' , the sort of 'camera obscura' world view taken as the norm under the rule of Capital and whatGeorg Lukacs was referring to when he used the term 'reification' and identified it as the mind trick whereby the subject>object relation was reversed.
"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." Henry David Thoreau
WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN?
or
How I see what causes so many neuroses in class society.
Remember the capitalist dictum: 'Find a need and fill it'.
What humans need is more fucking with birth control pills and condoms i.e. we don't need an expansion of the population. Lack of fucking causes so many neuroses. It also creates needs which are filled in with the commodification of human relations i.e. pornography, generalised advertising and prostitution to name but a few.
Humans are more like promiscuous apes, chimps and bonobos than monogamous apes like gibbons or alpha male, once a year fucking gorillas. Gibbons split off on the ape line 22 million years ago and also have sex about once a year. Gorillas and orangatuans split a few million years later. The last of the apes to split off and the ones closest to humans genetically are the chimps and bonobos. Chimps and bonobos are naturally promiscuous. I contend that humans are as naturally promiscuous as our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. As the old saying goes, "Variety is the spice of life". Our evolutionary history gives lie to the notion that humans are by nature, monogamous or alpha-male polygamous. Within the official ideological cauldron of patriarchal forms of marriage lies a roiling mass of social and psychological distress e.g. infidelity, divorce, one parent families and the blues in general.
"The pathology known as "hysteria" was named over two thousand years ago as a condition that affected women and had something to do with the willful difficulties of the uterus. Already in the times of Galen, a doctor who lived around the time of Jesus, medical experts recommended a "massage" of the genital area of women suffering from this malady, which relieved the symptoms and restored the women to health. It was commonly known from that time forward that hysteria was related to female sexual satisfaction although different societies responded to this problem in quite varying ways.
"The 19th century saw a great rise in the disease to the point of it being a near epidemic, at least among middle- and upper-class women. This was undoubtedly related to the heavily repressed sexuality of the era as well as to what Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English describe as the masculinization of industrial society (For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts' Advice to Women. Anchor Books, 1978). In a world in which a reasonably wealthy woman's role is purely sexual and where sexuality is solely the realm of men, the greatest taboo was the idea that traditional coitus might not in and of itself satisfy the demands of women's sexual needs. Although many doctors of the time observed that over half of their female patients were not satisfied by their marital duties, they also were able, with a straight face, to declare this majority "abnormal" and in need of medical treatment.
"As in ancient times, treatment for hysteria consisted generally of manual manipulation of the womb area to provoke a "hysterical crisis" in which the woman convulsed and moaned and was relieved of her tension to the point of even being somnolent. In this way, women's sexual needs were deemed to be an illness and without ever using the word "orgasm" doctors of the time made a fine living with women patients who returned frequently for treatments.
"These treatments were so common and were consuming so much of the time of doctors that this actually led to the invention and perfection of the vibrator. The first vibrators were huge, expensive machines sold only to doctor's offices (and came with names like "The Chattanooga"). With this modern technology the time to treat a hysterical patient dropped from one hour to ten minutes, allowing the doctor to see many more patients in the same time. Needless to say, the medical establishment was quite enthusiastic.
"As the end of the century neared and more and more homes were connected to electricity, the technology of orgasm came into the home in the form of small, inexpensive vibrators. For the first time this technology was in the hands of the women themselves, but all mention of these machines carefully avoided mention of sex or orgasm. Instead advertisements gave glowing reports of rosy cheeks and youthful energy.
"Something, however, happened between the beginning of the 20th century and the 1920's, because suddenly the vibrator disappears as a product; the ads are gone from women's magazines and the manufacture of the products themselves seems to drop off. One possible reason, reports Maines, is that some early pornographic films from the 1920's show the vibrator as a sexual tool. This connection of the vibrator with sexuality made it impossible for women of the time to continue the charade that they were "just relieving tension," and the vibrator disappeared from the home.
The vibrator as sexual technology returned in the 1970's during the era of sexual liberation. In 1976, sexual therapist Joanie Blank opened the first store dedicated to vending vibrators in a women-centered, sex-positive environment, and which she called "Good Vibrations.""
As for men, Wikipedia says, "As a general rule, an animal's penis is proportional to its body size, but this varies greatly between species – even between closely related species. For example, an adult gorilla's erect penis is about 4 cm (1.5 in) in length; an adult chimpanzee, significantly smaller (in body size) than a gorilla, has a penis size about double that of the gorilla. In comparison, the human penis is larger than that of any other primate, both in proportion to body size and in absolute terms." I argue that these anatomical, evolutionary, adaptive characteristics are the material reasons why monogamy, polygamy, private propety and the political State are obsolete, indeed they are all contributors to multiple neuroses and much unhappiness amongst humans.
Women and men are anatomically evolved to fuck a lot. Just like bonobos and chimps, we don't have sex just to reproduce. Reproductive competition, when it comes, comes between the various males' sperm in the wombs of women who have chosen many partners. The female womb itself is naturally attuned to selecting which sperm get through and are most likely to impregnate an egg. Women, female chimps and bonobos (unlike say, the monogamous gibbons or harem-like gorilla females) don't 'advertise their fertility; they have what is known as hidden estrus, making them ALWAYS ready to engage in sexual intercourse and indeed for tens of thousands of years before the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry, there was no human monogamy nor is there monogamy among chimps and bonobos. Children were considered to be part of one big family in hunter/gatherer groups. There was simply no need to know exactly who the father was.
I don't advocate mindless promiscuity. I advocate conscious knowledge of how we humans are anatomically constructed; how we've adapted over tens of thousands of years so that we can survive. What I'm saying is that the cultural constructs which flow out of the agricultural revolution beginning around 8,000 BCE are having negative effects on social relations between human beings, in particular between men and women. The need to be able to identify the male's offspring in order to reliably pass on the wealth the males have accumulated in patriarchal societies has bent human social psychology and made so many of us neurotic, unhappy, violent, bored and feeling unfulfilled. Monogamy and polygamy may have proven necessary social structures of civilisation when civilisation was necessarily based on the maintenance of class rule, private property and the political State; but is now proving an irrational, unnatural imposition on humanity.
Since the dawn of patriarchy (some say around 10,000 years ago), we've been acculturated (mostlly through priestly admonitions from the legitimsed authorities of class society) into accepting monogamy as being natural and anything else as being 'sinful', wrong, low, primitive, barbaric etc. However, as I've indicated, men and women in pre-class, pre-monagamous society couldn't tell whom a child was fathered by and paleo anthropolical studies demonstrate that most pre-agricultural societies were based on egalitarian power relations, within matriarchally oriented tribes. Why matriarchy? Because only the mother could always be known; paternity was ambiguous at best. Polyandry was more the norm than the exception.
Thus, monogamy/polygamy comes about as the patriarchal solution for being able tell which kids should get the male's property/wealth...most of these inheritors being males anyway and most of the property belonging to father males in the first place. Historically, males owned most of the wealth in class societies' version of civilisation. In prehistoric society, what there was of wealth, was held in common in politically egalitarian, extended collective familial arrangements. The need for the political State to legitimate and enforce class society's social relations of power and the unequal division of wealth by threat of violence is/was largely driven by the very unnatural, patriarchally driven forms of marrage: monogamy and polygamy. Polyandry died out with the advent of class divided civilisation i.e. after the invention of agriculture and animal husbandry. After the creation of systems of surplus wealth creation, exploitive modes of production were set up by ruling classes which had the purpose of taking wealth and by extension, political power from the producers of wealth: the slaves, the peasants and the workers.
Marriage is a cultural tradition which flows into the legal structures of class ruled societies. Publicly recognised, lawful relationships between men and women have been like that since patriarchy was found to be a necessary link in controlling property and inheritance of same after agriculture and animal husbandry were developed circa 8,000 BCE. The mode of producing a surplus of wealth above and beyond personal need of the few is a foundation stone of class dominated civilsation and when conditions have been developed where it becomes possible for society as a whole to enjoy wealth beyond need, the material foundation stone of classless civilisation has been laid. It is when Capital as a social relation becomes recognised for what it is, a fetter on the freedom of the overwhelsming majority of individuals, that the rational bases of class society's foundations begin erode.
It's perfectly possible (not easy though) to change cultural traditions i.e. recognising gay marriage by educating, agitating and organising within the culture; however, the class who rules will not change over implementing these measures. In the modern era, that's the capitalists and their buddies in the landlord class. Cultural change is what is happening now. Supporting cultural traditions is what social conservatives tend to do i.e. there is, as yet, no conscience vote to be allowed on this issue of gay marriage in the Liberal Party or Nationals or some other, even more conservative political party. Of course, the Greens, being to the left of Labor, have a more socially liberal position and I expect those to the left of the Greens have an even more socially liberal position. For instance, I support marriage between as many people who want to be married to each other (gay or straight). I even support monogamy as choice. Why not? Legalise polyandry now! That would be my personal slogan. However, I realise that this is a cultural change most people would not support at this point in history. La luta continua. I do think that the whole cultural rumbling and grumbling about gay marriage contributes to the general historical transition social relations are undergoing nowadays, the transition from the monogamous (and polygamous) family, private property and the class dominated political State towards a free association of human beings who hold the social product of their labour in common and administer their collective wealth in grassroots, democratic ways, leaving their personal lives as a matter for individuals to design for themselves.
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." G.B Shaw
Objective Spirit on record.
Marilyn Monroe's last photographer shot this film. This event and film were the precursor to "Monterey Pop" and "Woodstock".
After the abolition of the horrid wage system by the workers themselves, the transition from the lower to higher stage of a co:operative commonwealth takes place using socially necessary time (SNLT) as a measuring device. After all, we're just out of a capitalist society and many people may still be hung up with notions of narrowly selfish individualism. To prevent the fear of free-loading and the actual act, SNLT will show that we're all doing our part. A modern communist society is large. We simply don't and can't know everybody on the modern commons as we might have in our small 150 or less peasant communities in the past, before the commons was destroyed--pre-18th century in the Anglo Saxon culture. At the current level of technology, SNLT could be recorded electronically. A good or service would be enjoyed by swiping a card taking however many minutes it took to produce the good or service off an electronically stored balance. Working in the production of goods and services would enable the producer to add socially necessary labour hours to the card as he or she put them in. Those who felt a greater need for goods and services or even for work itself (face it...many people enjoy what they do for a living now, why would this not be the case in a classless society?)...these people could put more time into the social store of goods and services. Those who did the least popular jobs could be compensated with say, double-SNLT being put on their cards e.g. one hour of underground mining equals two hours of working in a library. But of course, these matters would all be decided at the time by freely associated producers. I am merely speculating and proposing from my own era.
This arrangement of using SNLT would make the whole production process transparent; it would leave the mystifications of mass commodity production behind, along with the wage-system which breeds it. An individual producer could see that s/he was putting in so much time and just like everybody else, could draw that time back out of the common store as needed. Still, this transitional arrangement would lead to inequalities in access to goods and services; but not to classes as nobody would be able to pay others a living sum of SNLT to get control over the collective product of their labour. Capital is essentially a social relation. Capital becomes political as soon as one person controls/owns the labour/product of the other, in other words, instantly for as that happens, the one person is able to tell the other person what to do. Having power over other people is the essence of political power and the foundation stone of the political State. Socialist praxis is based on equal political power amongst all women and men living in a classless society. There is simply no room for Capital in a transition to a higher level of a communist society.
The highest stage of socialist society that I can imagine is one where there is no longer a concern about whether someone is or is not doing a fair share of the work necessary to keep the community together and measuring SNLT or using it to obtain goods and services from the collective product of labour becomes superfluous.
1:00pm, October 15th Location:
Forrest Place Murray Street Perth, Western Australia
"The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as 'an immense accumulation of commodities'." Karl Marx CAPITAL volume I, page one.
We demonstrate our anger amidst the wealth we create.
We are the 99%. We produce the wealth of nations. The 1% own what we produce and by virtue of the wealth they own, they run the political show. The 1% select the polytricksters the 99% are asked to vote for. This social relation of wealth and political power is based wage labour. The 99% are obliged to sell their skills and time in order to make a living. The 1% own the product of labour. The product of our labour is called capital. Its owners are the capitalists. The 1% are powerful because they own what the 99% produce.
Buy my novel and help to fund One Big Union of the working class.
I'll send you a copy of WAGE-SLAVE'S ESCAPE for $20 plus shipping.
Contact me via e-mail: mbbtraven5@gmail.com so that we can make payment and shipping arrangements for WAGE-SLAVE'S ESCAPE in Australia. In the USA, I recommend purchase by clicking here to purchase a copy from the IWW Store.
I was born in Binghamton, New York in 1945. I was raised in eight of the United States of America and two foreign countries: Panama and Japan. I served honourably in the United States Marine Corps from 1963-1967 and then took part in anti-war activities in Haight-Ashbury and Michigan State University.
After graduating from MSU, I worked at the University Library and joined the Socialist Labor Party of America, running for Congress on the SLP ticket in 1974. Subsequently, I moved to Palo Alto, California to work on the SLP’s newspaper, “The People”.
In the late 1970s, I was employed as a wage-labourer at Stanford University Libraries, where I was involved in union organizing activities. On May 5, 1990, I joined the Industrial Workers of the World.
On December 7th, 2000, I took early retirement from Stanford and flew to Perth, Australia to write my novel WAGE-SLAVE’S ESCAPE and other short literary excursions. I now live permanently in Australia with my wife, Jennifer. We study free-style martial arts together. Both of us are engaged in the creation of literature.
