waziristan: the faqir of ipi and the indian army, alan warren

(xxxii): "Pathans, living as agriculturists on the Indus plains, were relieved to escape despotic Sikh rule, and the introduction of British government in the late 1840s was relatively smooth..." Not until 1870s that the government takes much interest in internal affairs; the British at this stage are content to continue the Mughal and Sikh "practice of grudgingly respecting the autonomy of the hill tribes..." Soon, though, the Great Game, for which the Hindu Kush were critical.

(xxiii): 2nd Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1881) precedes the formal annexation of the frontier territories in 1893 (for 'strategic reasons', thus content with a 'superficial' presence/loyalty)--"the government wished to control only a handful of vital passes"

(xxiv): this is the context that gave rise to the "political agent", who would maintain contact with the tribes--"the political agents paid the tribes regular allowances in return for their recognition of the principle that they lived under imperial government." of course, this was not always smooth--often required use of the State's 'stick'

(xxiv-xxv): 1850s-1900, "bulk of campaigns took place in northern and central sections" ; during last decades of british india, locus of fighting shifted southward, towards Kurram and Waziristan (and even Balochistan)

(xxv): Gov of India's 'long struggle' to pacify Waziristan was the climactic episode in the history of these tribal wars. one major revolt after WWI was followed by a period of calm, which was in turn followed by the famous revolt of 1936, led by the Faqir of Ipi (raised a force of "thousands")

(xxv): "If casualties are compared to the size of the indigenous population, the attempt to pacify Waziristan was one of the bitterest large-scale struggles of its kind."

(xxvi): what's more, the Great Game was over in 1907 and the British were in decline, anyway. nonetheless, "the British Indian government set out to crush resistance in Waziristan as if they were going to be running the Frontier for many years to come."

(xxvii): the author is here grouping this counter-insurgency campaign in Waziristan with the famous campaigns in Iraq (1920-1921), Ireland (1916-1922), Palestine, etc.

----

(1): despite the fact that the 19th century was, for the most part, characterized by a 'closed door' policy on the Frontier, "the Indian army were no strangers to Waziristan... no less than six expeditions were sent into the Wazir hills between the 1840s and 1880s."

(2): the British were re-committing to the possibility of confrontation with Russia in the late 1880s, as a conservative gov't came to power--for that, control of key positions in NWFP was key (they had already made their advances in Baluchistan--Quetta was soon to become one of the largest military cantonments in all of India)

(4): the Durand Line was born in this context, as Amir Abdur Rahman in Afghanistan was made insecure by British advances into tribal territory (this is, again, 1893)--as a reward, they raised the Amir's subsidy from annual 80,000 to 120,000 pounds.

(7-9): British make their first post-Durand incursion in 1894; though limited in its objectives, the invading force is met with resistance, but wins out (winning lenient terms of peace for the state). nonetheless, gov't refuses to occupy waziristan in campaign's aftermath, despite the wishes of one Richard Bruce, who wanted a cantonment built there. they are still, invited by some Toch valley Wazirs to build some military posts. "In 1895-1896 the North and South Waziristan political agencies were established."

(13-14): writing about Waziristan--into the 20th century, mainly a village-based subsistence economy (biggest village was about 400 households large), with the added depredation of being constantly at war (as a result, resources constantly diverted into armaments).

(16): KEY: "In the richer areas north of Peshawar, and in the trans-Indus border districts, the rough equivalent of feudal barons or khans existed (even small states in very favorable situations) but the tribal economy in Waziristan lacked the resources to develop a centralized political structure... If Waziristan lacked strong tribal chieftans it could boast a great number of petty chieftans.. The political life... revolved around the institution of the jirga... [where] any jirga member could speak his mind, but the maliks were likely to dominate proceedings... Significantly, the mullahs were not permitted a place in the jirga..."

(17): pukhtunwali--revenge (badal), asylum (nanwatee), and hospitality (malmastia) [needs theoretical an historical treatment, OF COURSE]

(17): women as objects--"women had no inheritance rights"

(19): "...in Pathan districts of the Indus valley under direct British rule, and subject to arms regulation and the Indian penal code, the observed murder rate was the better part of a hundred times that prevailing in the UK."

(21-22): unlike Baluchistan, early attempts at indirect rule in Waziristan were not very successful. the key difference was the lack of identifiable leaders with whom the State could enter in compact (it tried to fashion these by distributing allowances)--"Over time, the granting of monetary benefits to maliks would formalize and ossify the maliks into a government funded elite."

(23-24): Waziristan was not subject to land tax, nor to a penal code--rather, the Frontier Crimes Regulation (1872) was applied, like in Baluchistan and other border areas.

(27): in general, the political agent "tried to remain aloof from inter-tribal disputes. Tribes in conflict with each oteh was preferable to their uniting against the government..."

(27-28): the period of gradual extension of British administration over the Frontier came to an abrupt halt in 1897, when there began a general, though uncoordinated revolt in many different areas (began in N. Waziristan, in Tochi, though S. Waziristan would lay dormant throughout); this is when Winston Churchill fought in Malakand and Mohmand, restoring 'peace' to the hills north of Peshawar. The Army settled the areas by April 1898.

(29): KEY: in steps Curzon, who forms NWFP (taking it out of the Punjab gov't's hands). "The NWFP was conceived as a security arrangement. IT was a bureaucratic initiative, and did not arise out of a local demand for a Pathan province."

(30-31): rapid development of British military technology (Lee-Enfield introduced in 1908), which--it is thought--will help leave the tribes behind. but Kohat was already a major center of arms production, and replica rifles were doing the trick--they were able to inflict signficant damage on troops.

(32): it was 1900-1902 campaign against Mahsuds that prompted Curzon's remark about military steamroller. this was followed by an attempt to co-opt them into the British structure (along with Afridis, they were most favored tribe). but not always successful (in 1904, Political Agent murdered by a Mahsud sepoy)

(33): in 1907/1908, accusations/facts circling that Afghanistan was funding Mullah Powindah's attempts on the lives of political agents (ha!)

(34): Powindah's death paved way for his son, Fazal Din, who was to become famous. Organized assasination of Political Agent in 1914, but no action taken against tribe (seen as crime of the individual assistant)

(35): again, British confronted general rebellion in 1915-1917 (including a warring party from Afghanistan, which took issue with Britain's being at war with the Ottoman Empire), in much of the area. the Mahsuds, under loose leadership of Fazal Din, in particular, continue to be the most troublesome.

------

(44): in 1919, as Third Anglo-Afghan war begins (and ends), continuous trouble in Waziristan sees the agency moved to direct administration by military command in Delhi. Wazirs had a total fighting force of about 23,000, all told.

(51): final tally of 1919-1920 campaigns were heavy: "both the suddenness with which British authority had been expelled, and the human costs of the 1919-1920 campaign of reconquest, constituted powerful arguments for putting the administration of Waziristan on a new footing."

(52): KEY: here discussion in post-campaign environment of whether to puruse the military pacification to its fullest conclusion (but risk falling into greater deficits), or withdraw (but be seen as weak, and risk the possibilty of greater expenditure in the future). sounds familiar? it was decided, in a sense, to escalate--to build roads, and whatnot

(55): scouts being stationed in Waziristans were, in the main, Pathans from other tribes

(58): nonetheless--"fighting in Waziristan quietened down as 1923 wore on... A little prematurely Waziristan was declared a 'peace district' from 1 April 1924, and the Chief Commissioner resumed politcial control on 25 July. Gang warfare continued for the rest of the year, and early in 1925 an intensive aerial campaign was successfully waged against the last remaining pocket of tribal resistance." (!)

(59): Sir Denys Bray, India's Foreign Secretary (1923): "Come what may, civilization must be made to penetrate these inaccessible mountains, or we must admit that there is no solution to the Waziristan problem... I may be thought a visionary to talk of the civilization of the Mahsud. But you must take long views on the Frontier."

(60): "...the opening of the first Mahsud school by Malik Mir Badshah Khan, a former regular soldier, in 1922, caused a mullah-led riot."

(60): gov't not sure whether to educate tribesmen, as there wasn't much room to absorb them--"unemployed tribesmen with academic qualifications were 'bound to be a source of potential trouble.'

(61): regardless, never enough revenue to invest properly in non-tax paying areas, extenisvely (not that they invested anywhere else, extensively)

(63-64): in the late 1920s, NWFP joined the nationalist movement--a Congress flag seen in Waziristan! (though the revolt that racked the areas in 1930 was put down, quickly, allegedly thanks to the "forward policy in Waziristan")

(64): KEY, air power: "The RAF was quick to claim a share of the credit for the restoration of order in 1930. Several tribal sections had submitted in the face of air action alone. According to one senior RAF commander, 'without air power I believe that there would have been a general blaze up all along the Frontier.'"

(64): important analytic point: "With the benefit of hindisght, it is clear that the origins of the 1930 risings lay in the settled districts, where economic changes had altered the status quo. These changes were not mirrored in the tribal agencies, where only a handful of Red Shirt agents were detected."

(68-69): 1929 incursions from Waziristan into Afghanistan to support Nadir Shah; 1933 incursions of Wazir militia to do opposite, but this threatened interests of British, who threatened to bomb wazir militia unless they stopped fighting in Khost.

(68): KEY: "Despite persistent minor troubles, life in Waziristan between 1925 and 1935 was usually settled. As the government's medical, teaching, and political presence was so slender, the personnel in the military cantonments and scouts' posts were central to the imperial experience in Waziristan."

(70): "The 1945 Government of India Act, and plans for a new federal India, did not impact upon the NWFP tribal agencies, whereas in the settled areas..." [a very discontinuous experience, in other words--no "common sense of the national" through struggle, the q. of however illusory that might have been in other cases notwithstanding]

(72): SETTING SCENE FOR 1936 INSURGENCY: "Despite the growing arms trade, by 1935...the tribal lashkars had been dispersed and a long-running insurgency had been crushed. A large garrison had been installed in a brand new cantonment in the heart of tribal territory... The Wazirs and Mahsuds had been extensively involved in the new regimne... But had there been in any substantial change...?"

(81-82): the Islam Bibi case as the match that lit the fire (but there are questions to be asked here; which we cannot ask, I suppose...)

(82-83): tradition of muslim holy men resisting foreign occupation, especially the British (Mullah Powindah, Fazal Din, in particular)--in this tradition enters Faqir of Ipi.

(84-85): Faqir of Ipi born in 1901, settles in Tochi valley in mid-1920s. acquires reputation for demanding minimal donations from his followers. an important member of the N. Waziristan Lashkar that went to Khost to fight in 1933.

the urban experience, david harvey (1985)

introduction

(1-2): a more orthodox understanding of the object to be studied? the urban as city?

(3): the importance of a structuring "meta-theory," the Marxist variety of which Harvey turns to in the early 1970s

(3): against positivism, "science can never be neutral... New understandings of the world cannot come from passive contemplation, Marx argues, but arise through active struggle..." this, he adds, is the "dialectical quality" of the Marxist approach: "We think before we act but learn to think through doing."

(4): here delineating his own understanding of the contribution he made in

Limits to Capital, the "empty boxes" of Marxist theory--this helped him shift, he says, from a study of history to a study of historical geography (and of the "urban process as an active part of the historical geography of class struggle and capital accumulation")

(5): social theory has focused on time and history, but not space and spatial relations (this is anthony giddens' critique)

(5): space enters Marxism, it seems, through the underdeveloped theory of "uneven geographic development"--but this is only a stop-gap solution, of course. the work remains to be done.

(6): it's not clear to me that the "space" is as foundational a structuring concept as "time," but nonetheless (i mean, it's either trivially true, or impossible to understand, for me)--i suppose we can follow harvey as he attempts to "upgrade" historical materialism into "historical-geographical" materialism.

(6): definition of the urban: "The urban is, however, one of several spatial scales at which the production of spatial configurations, social organization and political consciousness might be examined--regions, nation-states, and power blocs being others... I do not intend that [the urban] should be considered a theoretically specific object of analysis separate from the historical geography of capitalism as a whole."

(7): what's more, "the urban" must be studied always as a "process," and never as a "reified" thing.

(7): bourdieu's critique of the pure empiricists, who disavow theory--in taking a step back, you constitute a "representation" of practical activity. and this representation makes impossible pure empiricism (the facts and data you present are always framed by a certain theoretical understanding).

(8): KEY: Harvey's representation of the "Marxist approach" (pp 8-11). he makes an important distinction between "concrete representations" (money, work, etc.), and "abstract and non-observable concepts" (surplus value, value, etc.), which are more controversial but conceivably still essential to making sense of the world in which we live. "The proof of this conceptual apparatus lies in the using..."

(12): "I focus in particular on the circulation of capital (and value) through the production and use of built environments... I think it is useful to look upon the geographical landscape of capitalism as the expression of flows of capital."

(13): positivism vs. Marxism: "The imposition of postivist standards of proof upon Marxian theory means accepting positivsm not Marxism as a working base. From the Marxian standpoint, proof is constituted in part out of the confidence that arises from the mode of concept formation and in part through explanatory power. The latter implies the capacity to interpret historical geography in coherent and compelling ways..."

(16): the evolution of more 'flexible' modes of accumulation after the slumps of the 70s cast doubt on the conceptual framework that had tried to come to terms with the post-war long boom (i.e., of "monopoly capitalism" leading to stagnation leading to socialism)

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the urbanization of capital

(16): the "eternal skepticism" of Marxism, even as science

(16): question being asked--"how does capital become urbanized?"

(18): first, commodity exchange--Harvey wants to ask what are the spatial and temporal limits placed on these transactions; in other words, there is a separation of the purchases involved in M-C/C'-M' in space and time--but "how much separation?" "The spatial and temporal horizons of exchange are evidently socially determined."

(19): KEY: "But the general point remains: when looked at from the standpoint of exchange, the circulation of capital is a geographical movement in time. I shall later seek to show that the geographical structures of commodity markets are more than mere reflections of capital circulation and function as real determinants of capitalism's dynamic." [question of labor power as a special comomdity--the limits are more real/"human"]

(20): KEY INTERVENTION, "spatial competition": "The general Marxist approach is to see the evolution of those sociotechnical conditions of production as an outcome of intercapitalist competition and class struggle supplemented by spillover needs... But here I shall have to introduce a fundamental modification of the general Marxian account. I insist that intercapitalist competition and class struggle spark spatial competition..." [so does this mean, then, that cross-class alliances can (and do) form, across space? and if they can, does this represent a de-centering of the category of class? or are they, 'space' and 'class', not to be understood in opposition?]

(20): a tension in the geography of capitalism--geographical concentration (has the advantage of minimizing spatial separation) vs. geographical dispersion (which allows firms to take advantage of particular geographical features)

(21): Harvey hints at the importance, also, of a "spatial" analysis of consumption in understanding the urban form (Marxism has focused on the centrality of production). this obviously recalls Castells.

(22): "Money represents the greatest concentration of social power int he midst of the greatest possible dispersal" -- this can help, it is implied here, understanding the importance and role of financial markets, which concentrate in cities.

(22-23): "Capital accumulation and the production of urbaniztion go hand in hand... Buidling a capacity for increased efficiency of coordination in space and time is one of the hallmarks of capitalist urbanization."

(23): study of "capital surpluses" (i.e., profits) and "relative labor surplus" provide a "powerful link to the history of capitalist urbanization", Harvey's arguing, aside from telling us a lot about capitalist crisis.

(24): urbanization preceded the "standard form of circulation of capital through production"--"A built environment potentially supportive of capitalist production, consumption, and exchange had to be created before capitalism won direct control over immediate production and consumption." [note here the ease with which Harvey is dealing with the 'urban,' accepting its convenitional definition. in a sense, of course, his entire argument is an attempt to clarify the process it denotes--but the traditional definition lurks therein, still...]

(25): distinction between condition in seventeenth-century England and contemporary Third World assessed on the basis of the massive relative labor surpluses in the latter--this informs/structures "Third World urbanization"

(25): possibility of a divergence between the particular and general class interest (no doubt, the State must step in here, to prevent individual capitalists from ruining themselves)

(27): some reflections on the depleted asset base in the Third World, vis-a-vis developing England and France--but this is not very systematic..

(27): helpful clarification: "The breakthrough into a predominantly capitalist mode of production and circulation was not, therefore, a purely urban or a purely rural event. But without the urban accumulation of surpluses of both capital and labor power, one of the crucial necessary conditions for the rise of capitalism would not have been fulfilled."

(27): and it is thus,roughly, this period of breakthrough when we see the logic of accumulation come to 'determine' urbanization, in a new way--this, in turn, leads to the sharpening of the purely internal contradictions of capitalism, and crisis (he dates the first of these to 1848). capitalism then seeks a 'spatial' fix.

(28-): rise of the "industrial city"

(29): to the earlier point about urban-based class alliances, Harvey writes: "The capacity of any urban-based class alliance to wield monopoly control, either internally or on the world stage, diminished." [in other words, the phenomenon of urban-based class alliances, or spatial competition of that sort, is contingent--and pre-industrial (no, Harvey notes Joseph Chamberlain in Birmingham in the 1860s)? as the industrial city became part of an increasingly more generalized capitalist system, it's power, qua city, decreased. this doesn't mean the end of competition between cities, again--it simply means that those cities are not in control of that competition]

(31): the bourgeoisie has to respond to class struggle--"above all, the ruling-class alliance had to find ways to invent a new tradition of community [though he goes on to suggest that this formation of community identity was also organic] that could counter or absorb the antagonisms of class. [and here, collective consumption:] This it did in part by accepting responsibility for various facets of social reproduction of the working class (health, education, welfare, and even housing provision)..."

(32): Harvey notes the appearence of politics at the urban scale, but also the new barriers this activism was up against (specifically, "two reserve powers," the "discipline of competition," and of 'abstract labor' on the world market)

(32): ruling-class control over space becomes a critical means of repressing working-class mobilization (as in Paris in 1848 and 1871)

(33): important--the "industrial city" as "an unstable configuration," rather than static object.

(34): the "spatial fix", again

(34): WWII as a "neat but hideously violent resolution to capitalism's internal contradictions."

(34): the beginnings, in the post-war era, of "demand-side" urbanization. questions to ask, though: certainly it's not sufficient to see this as entirely motivated by the logic of the system, in the sense presented here--it took demands and agitation and the threat of something more (though, of course, it's important not to overstate this point, at the same time)

(34-35): monopoly era frees companies to focus on the labor market? what does this mean, exactly? he's referring to the birth of the mass market (via Gramsci and Fordism)

(36): the increasing importance of credit in the economy is reflected, Harvey's arguing, in cities, as the process of urbanization becomes linked to the available supply of capital in an economy

(37): though speaking about demand-side "urbanization," one notes that he hasn't told us anything at all about the city, yet.

(37): this periodization is important--Fordism began the switch to demand-side urbanization, but it was state intervention in the form of Keynesianism that consolidated it.

(38): theorizing the growth of infrastructures as a deployment of "overaccumulated Capital and labor-power," which introduced the illusory prospect of continued growth

(38): it is important to note the centrality of "debt-creation" to this process (the US, Harvey is saying, was confronted with a mountain of private and public debt as early as 1970), given the prevalent impression that its explosion is unique to the current historical epoch, in the US (1973 collapse of real estate markets, and 1974-1975 fiscal crisis in NY, all signaled a sea-change)

(38-39): we see the 'suburban solution' to the underconsumption problem (cf. D. Walker) ("Though suburbanization had a long history, it marked post-war mobilization to an extraordinary degree")

(39): in advanced capitalist countries, the 'urban-rural' distinction is obliterated in its traditional appearance. but, Harvey's noting, it re-appears as a "consumption" option.

(40): "The Keynesian city put much greater emphasis upon the spatial division of consumption relative to the spatial division of labor."

(40): the inner-city as the other side of the suburban, demand-side coin

(41): KEY: in summary, three problems with the "demand-side" urbanization--(1) "increased indebtedness"; (2) the spatial fix was challenged by movements seeking to preserve community; (3) focus was now on circulation of revenues (of consumption), rather than on production, which is the system's lifeblood (in the worst cases, this led to "job loss", "capital flight", and "disinvestment) [we see here, as elsewhere, grounds for supporting the argument that castells' analytic of "collective consumption" is valid as a historically specific argument, i.e. pegged to 'monopoly capitalism/keynesianism]

(43): even with limited knowledge, I don't find this a very coherent enumeration of the social movements produced by the Keynesian city--specifically, that they were motivated by this "consumption" question. and when he argues that they were motivated by a desire to "control social space"--that is fine, but it doesn't seem obvious to me why that desire is at all historically specific. here again i would like some more history and help from harvey.

(44): and so, of course, the post-kenyesian (or neo-liberal) city is born--the operative problem being: "How could urban regions blessed largely with a demand-side heritage adapt to a supply-side world? Four different possibilities... seemed possible... "

(45): I. Competition within the Spatial Division of Labor--two primary tools, of course, the pursuit of relative and absolute surplus-value. in the former, the city has very little autonomy, except by making general interventions in the labor-market and/or infrastructure. in the former, cities can of course help (free trade zones, and the like).

(47): II. Competition within the Spatial Division of Consumption--this is a battle for "cultural hegemony," for the revenues circulating in the system. it encompasses things like Disney World and Tourism, but is not limited to them, of course (think DHA City, maybe)

(48): III. Competition for Command Functions--competition for key control functions in government and finance, which requires heavy investment in "public infrastructures" that link the city to the world market (moreover, this is a sector characterized by monopoly power "that is hard to break")

(48): throughout this essay, there lies latent the question of how systematically we're speaking of the city, as agent--is it via the orthodox concept of social class (i.e., a particular bourgeoisie commands the city?) or is it through this new, contingent concept of class-based alliances? clearly, a la Brenner, there is lots of room to be thinking about the State, here (can formulate this better in RP) (see also 58)

(50): IV. Competition for Redistribution--i.e., for handouts (typically in the form of infrastructure) from the State. [is this a way in to the question of social class?] example, also, of the cities built around the "defense industry" (and we might add prisons) in the US.

(52): "The rich now grow richer and the poor grow poorer... because it is the natural outcome of the coercive laws of competition."

(53): endorsing the "cogency" of Lefebvre's call to prioritize the "urban," but in a very specific way: on the one hand the urban as the site of deployment for economic surpluses has always existed--but this is of course very different under capitalism.

(54): memorable, but meaningful?--"Capitalism has to urbanize in order to reproduce itself. But the urbanization of capital creates contradictions... Capitalist urbanization has its own distinctive logic and its own distinctive forms of contradiction."

(54): this is actually deeply confusing, and needs to be re-examined: on the one hand, he is disputing the notion of unitary identity (that people are not just their class, but also consumers, community residents, etc., etc.), which is fair enough. but he is extending this to critique the very processes he has just been outlining, to say not just that they are "not necessarily true," but even that they are about as accurate as the notion that "consciousness=class." those are not very high standards, mr. harvey...

(55): "our historical geography is always ours to make."

(56): insightful--the spectre of geo-political troubles for the US, as it becomes increasingly a site of "appropriation" rather than "production" (a mercantilist center)

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the urban process under capitalism: a framework for analysis

(58): acknowledging, again, the specificity of the 'urban' under capitalism--and within this, "I hang my interpretation of the urban process on the twin themes of (1) accumulation and (2) class struggle.

(60): contradiction one: while each capitalist lives in a world of 'unlimited' freedom and individuality, he is subject--always--to the coercive law of competition (this, then, is the problem of the general class interest: "individual capitalists..acting in his own immediate self-interest, can produce an aggregative result that is wholly antagonistic to the collective class interest."

(61): contradiction two: the classic one, between capitalists and proletariat

(62): in his "ridiculously short" summary of the argument of Capital, Harvey draws attention to Marx's assumption of a 'single time period' of production.

(62-63): the Harvey theory of crisis--overaccumulation manifests itself in (1) overproduciton; (2) falling rates of profit (prices, not values); (3) Surplus Capital; (4) Surplus labor (or rising rate of exploitation) [the question of whether this is a theory of crisis, or a 'description' can be left to more storied scholars--see also pp 70-71, where he discusses three "scales" of crisis (partial, switching, global)]

(64): fixed capital--(1) used as "aids to the production process"; (2) used over a "relatively long time period"; moreover we have fixed capital confined to the production process, and fixed capital "that functions as a physical framework" (or, "the built environment for production")

(64): similarly, we can talk of a "built environment for consumption"

(64-65): secondary circuit of capital--flows of capital into these "fixed asset and consumption fund formation" (naturally, it provides a temporary relief to capital confronted with overaccumulation in the primary circuit of capital, though there are barriers--individual and natural)

(65): capitalism, left to itself, will have trouble ensuring a "balanced flow of capital" between the primary and secondary circuits (another place where the State is important--though we can perhaps talk about if this is simply equivalent to the neoliberal State involved in creating a "good business climate")

(65-66): tertiary circuit of capital: investments in science and technology, and in the labor force (both progressive and disciplinary), which--again--individual capitalists will very rarely make on their own.

(68): distinction between "productivity" of capital, and its "profitability"--Harvey prefers the former, because it can deal with three problems that confront Marx's concept (1. equal rate of profit in diff. sectors / 2. normal pricing of commodities, which does not hold for the 2nd and 3rd circuits / 3. can we really treat total profit as total surplus value, when we look at capitalists as a class?)

(68): perhaps less abstrusely, Harvey is concerned to talk about all investments that "directly or indirectly [expand] the basis for the production of surplus value." this is the definition of productive investment.

(72): status of the "rural" in Harvey's analysis--"there are serious grounds for challenging the adequacy of the urban-rurlal dichotomy even when expressed as a dialectical unity, as a primary form of contradiction within the capitalist mode of production..." [we can flag this for later, but his argument that it can be analysed in terms of other contradictions/concepts is tolerable, but then valid for other things we concentrate on, too? although, having said this, right away he makes a qualification that aligns with my perspective, so...]

(73-74): elaborating further on the concept of the built environment (useful for reference)--it is a "gross simplification... [it] is long lived, difficult to alter, spatially immobile, and often absorbent of large, lumpy investments."

(76-77): 'devaluation' is critical to re-starting capital accumulation

(77): evidence for 'long waves' in investment in the built environment (and, moreover, switching across Atlantic economy between Britain and the US)

(80): two aspects of the theory of crisis are flagged as crucial--"overaccumulation" and "devaluation"

(80): historicizing overaccumulation wrt to the built environment, arguing that we see investment of surplus in the built environment prior to capitalism (i.e., England in the 1700s), but we cannot call that overaccumulation. Harvey, then, is targeting something else--this relationship exists only in the modern mode of production (by 1840s in Britain, at least).

(81): 1848 as "the first really solid and all-pervasive crisis in the capitalist world."

(81): and devaluation--if it is to work, it must leave behind a "use-value" that can then be used to re-start accumulation (WWII, then, doesn't count as devaluation?)

(82-83): problem of devaluation of fixed capital--new technologies make old ones (which were anticipated to be long-lasting) much less valuable. this was Marx's insight--Harvey wants to apply it to the study of the "built-environment": "Capital represents itself in the form of a physical landscape created in its own image, created as use values to enhance the progressive accumulation of capital. The geographical landscape that results is the crowning glory of past capitalist development. But at the same time it expresses the power of dead labor over living labor, and as such it imprisons and inhabits the accumulation process within a set of specific physical constraints."

(84): turning to class struggle, he focuses first on the "industrial reserve army," which is a window into a systematic understanding of the causes and effects of labor migration, obviously.

(85): notion of displaced class struggle, though this doesn't seem particularly useful or novel as a concept (simply denotes class struggle in other spheres of society--i.e., those that aren't directly economic)

(86): the importance of both "suburbanization" and the "ownership society" as attempts to resolve different contradictions in capitalism (the former, overaccumulation and class struggle (problems arising with the spatial concentration and centrality of workers)--the latter, class struggle (but also, by extension, soon overaccumulation as well--i.e., mortgages, etc.))

------

the place of urban politics in the geography of uneven capitalist development

(125): the stakes are clear--castells has identified a duality in the marxist framework--the two logics that are said to govern urbanization (capital accumulation and class struggle) seem, to him, incompatible. this, then, is harvey's task in this essay: to prove that they can be dialectially reconciled (with all the failings of a formal model, of course)

(125): much will no doubt hinge on this notion of the "relative autonomy" of social movements.

(126): "autonomous urban politics" seems to arise, Harvey is saying, in that space vacated by the temporary and fleeting "class alliances" that arise in various historical moments.

(127): also, he is arguing, because of the importance of "consumption" in discussions of the urban form, social movements are always around [but this does raise the question of within-system and anti-systemic social movements? in fact, what is a social movement anyway?]

(127): "urban politics"--meant "in the broad sense of political processs at work within a fluidly defined but nevertheless explicit space" [specific enough? certainly this now encompasses both establishment and resistance. not a case of an empty concept, in some sense?]

(127-128): the urban is being re-defined for our purposes--here denotes a "geographically-contiguous labor market"

(128): Harvey notes three unique features, re: labor power--(1) its production is beyond the control of the capitalist; (2) the calculation of its exchange value is embedded in morality and history; (3) it is difficult to specify, for the capitalist, the precise use-value it represents (i.e., how much profit it will give him)

(130): problem of "structured rigidity" in labor market--i.e., things are never as flexible as the capitalist might like (though, if you expand the "time-horizon" of your analysis, you do start to see the flexibility, as well)

(131): marx's "general law of capitalist accumulation" (i.e., idea of reserve army) proves useful, harvey's arguing, as a "first approximation"--but this requires further elaboration.

(131): a critical contradiction-->capital is pulled at in opposite directions wrt to labor markets--on the one hand it likes agglomeration, for various reasons, but also obviously occasionally wants to cut loose to areas where wage rates are lower.

(132): a contradiction immanent in migration, too: individual workers flock to areas with large labor markets, but this obviously has negative effects from the perspective of their collective, class interest (it typically undermines the power of labor in the market to which they flock)

(134): labor, like soil! must be taken care of...

(134): a need to situate "class struggle" in the dynamics that affect labor market insofar as they are geographically-specific. (here, the role of the nation-state is relevant--a tendency, perhaps, for international disparities to overshadow regional ones). BUT, still: "I want to make the argument for the urban labor market as a fundamental unit of analysis..." (the others being international, national, regional, and urban--scales of labor markets...)

(136): travails of the search for "excess profits"--"two streams" (1) competitive path, where new technologies and locations prevail; (2) monopoly path, where exclusive control over technology or location is what matters (this drive is "more important than is generally realized.")

(137): importance of length of turnover time to this process--the longer it takes, the more the technological and locational inertia (this is important, clearly--and it empowers labor, as it makes the fixed capital in these businesses more and more vulnerable)

(139): this can all be understood in terms of this contradiction: "Capitalist behavior is thus ambiguous in relation to spatially defined urban labor markets. On the one hand, the thrust to gain monopoly privileges that put them above their competition... can lead firms to be both covetous and solicitous of tapping into and preserving the special privileges of exclusive access... On the other hand, competition (either spatial or technological) can push them to ride roughshod from one type of labor market... to another... The capitalist landscape of production therefore lurches between the stabilizing stagnation of monopoly controls and the disruptive dynamism of competitive growth."

(139-140): definition of "structured coherence" -- means something like the calcification and stabilization of a particular spatial-social arrangement, within capitalism (harvey here mentions a tendency towards it, though this is less clear to me from what he has argued thus far)

(140): "From a purely technical standpoint this positions labor as an appendage of the circulation of capital within the urban region" -- he's speaking about the calcification of certain production and consumption norms, but the conclusion seems more drastic (the worker is caught in a 'company store' moment. clearly it means more than the fact that we are always living within capitalism--but surely it is, then, more specific than it is being made out to be?)

(142): the interesting question of "local effective demand" ("I use the example to illustrate the idea that high wage costs do not always undermine competitiveness but can sometimes improve it, depending on the sector.")

(143): "But I speak only of the tendency toward structured coherence because it exists in the midst of a maelstrom of forces that tend to undermine and disrupt it."

(144): important--two types of response to the threat of devaluation/overaccumulation being noted here (though this is probably not exhaustive of what we've discussed thus far): (1) monopolization, space and technology--of course this threatens stagnation; (2) temporal and spatial displacement

(145): summary of his own arg. wrt to infrastructures: (1) they demonstrate idea of "structured coherence", insofar as they fix a certain "technological mix"; (2) they represent a potential source of excess profit, insofar as they guarantee unique access; (3) usually involve debt-financing, and State--which has the benefit of ensuring that they are more 'rational' than most; (4) vulnerable to devaluation, because they represent technological and spatial confinement; (5) precisely for this reason, those who have built them have a vested interest in making sure they're put to use.

(147): THE URBAN, in light of all this: "An examination of physical and social infrastructures will help to broaden the conception of what an urban region is all about. It is more than a set of overlapping and interpenetrating commodity and labor markets; more than a set of intersecting labor processes and productive forces; more, even than a simple structured coherence of production and consumption. It is also a living community endowed with certain physical and social assets, themselves the product of a long process of historical development and class struggle."

(148): somewhat cryptic and unwarranted insertion of "human agency" into his argument.

(148): important--in the argument, Harvey wants us to understand "structured coherence" as the 'material' analogue (or 'base') of "class-based alliances" (about which, now, he will ask three questions: who, how, and why unstable?)

(149): a nice example of a (very fleeting) class-based alliance on a base of structured coherence--homeowners and financial institutions in the "ownership" society.

(150): this is CRITICAL to understanding this article, as rejoinder: "Such activities [i.e., 'false' class-alliances], I want to stress, are not aberrations of class struggle but are a necessary and particular manifestation of the way class relations and accumulation unfold in space." (see also pg. 155)

(152): he pinpoints "the art of politics" -- but can't we integrate this better into a more orthodox discussion of 'hegemony'? or is this better understood as an alternative way of getting at the same phenomenon?

(153): uff, Harvey--is this not a classically empty statement? "It is, we conclude, the interpenetration of class, group, and individual relations within and between the state and civil society which provides the matrix of possibilities for building a ruling coalition."

(156): "There are aspects of urban life and culture which seem to remain outside the immediate grasp of the contradictory logic of accumulation [but] there is nothing of significance that lies outside its context... The task of the urban theorist, therefore, is to show where the integrations lie and how the inner relations work." (a formal or historical task? a formal-historical task, of course)

(156): urban politics, here, seems to enter to set the stage for capital accumulation--it coordinates, in a sense, what the individual capitalist cannot (though there is, certainly, always room for more anti-systemic inclinations)

(157): re-applying Jacobs on technology

(159): an additional layer onto the urban--the urban as "geopolitical identity within capitalism"

(160): interesting, though very underdeveloped observation that through the 1800s, there was a trend towards enhancing the political authority of local regions (i.e., cities). Harvey argues that the very success of labor and the working-class scuppered this movement, as the new formation represented too much of a threat to the status quo (hence, dispersal and deliberate fragmentation...)

(162-163): noting himself that the "urban" is merely one of the multiple scales at which the dynamics of capitalism can be apprehended. this is, nonetheless, a very "real context." ("The processes appear as abstract forces, to be sure, but they are not the kind of forces that we can ever afford to abstract from.")

(164): "By that path we might hope to liberate ourselves from the chains of a spaceless Marxist orthodoxy as well as from the futility of bourgeois retreat into partial representations and naive empiricism."

the grundrisse (introduction) (1857-1858), karl marx (in Tucker)

(222): exactly the critique to be made of Rousseau et. al. -- the historical contingency of the individual they enshrine. moreover it extends to political economy: "Smith and Ricardo still stand with both feet on the shoulders of the eighteenth-century prophets, in whose imaginations this eighteenth-century individual--the product on one side of the dissolution of the feudal forms of society, on the other side of the new forces of production developed since the sixteenth century--appears as an ideal, whose existence they project into the past."

(223): not only is "civil society" illusory and contingent, but it is also particular as a 'private arena'. remember, this is the society that has extended the division of labor further than ever before.

(225): KEY, and the rub of the matter: "The aim is, rather, to present production... as distinct from distribution etc., as encased in eternal natural laws independent of history, at which opportunity bourgeois relations are then quietly smuggled in as the inviolable natural laws on which society in the abstract is founded. This is the more or less conscious purpose of the whole proceeding."

(226): 1. the bourgeois ideologues are forgetting that, even though property (as appropriation of nature or labour) exists everywhere, private property in its present form is historically specific; 2. the law and police are not timeless, but pegged to a particular historical era--they embody the right of the strongest, only "in another form."

the german ideology, part I (1845-1846), karl marx (in Tucker)

(147): an industrial analogy--fitting

(149): KEY PASSAGE: the young hegelians, Marx is arguing, content themselves with a battle waged on the terrain of ideas. implicit in this argument, of course, is Marx's materialism--"this demand to change consciousness amounts [only] to a demand to interpret reality in another way... The Young Hegelians, in spite of their allegedly 'world-shattering' statements, are the staunchest conservatives... They forget, however, that to these phrases they are opposing other phrases, and that they are in no way combating the real existing world when they are merely combating the phrases of this world."

(150): first appearence of "mode of production"--"The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production."

(151-154): tracing their understanding of the evolution of human history (very rough and unapologetically stagist)

(154): KEY: "Empirical observation must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and without any mystification and speculation, the connection of the social and political structure with production. The social structure and the State are continually evolving out of the life process of definite individuals, but of individuals, not as they may appear in their own or other people's imagination, but as they really are; i.e., as they operate, produce materially, and hence as they work under definite material limits, presuppositions and conditions independent of their will."

(154): "In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceived, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process, we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable, and bound to material premises."

(155): "Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life."

(155): philosophy, they're stressing, must always situate itself in "real history." this is critical.

(156-157): an underelaborated mention of "four moments," probably not worth systematizing: the production of material life itslef, the production of new needs, the birth of the family, and the production of an indepdenent "history" (?)

(157): it is important to note this assertion that any given mode of production always involves a certain amount of co-operation (in other words, the production of life is always a "social" act)

(158): "Consciousness is, therefore, from the very beginning a social product."

(159): here they introduce the division of material and mental labour, which inaugurates the 'real' division of labour, it is implied here. this gives rise, they are arguing, to the men whose business it is to help consciousness "flatter itself." (with the footnote, this represents a rudimentary formulation of the role of the ideologists in any given era)

(159): cataloging "three moments": the forces of production, the state of society (rel. of production?), and consciousness

(160): the division of labour implies, here, private property and the consequent conflict of interests (this is quite markedly in contrast to Durkheim and Smith's claims and it is here, he introduces, the famous outline of what communist society will enable, in contrast.

(160-161): birth of the State, which appeals to an "illusory communal life" (hegemony?)--struggles at the site of the State, then, are "the illusory forms in which the real struggles of the different classes are fought out among one another."

(161): HEGEMONY--"every class which is struggling for mastery...must first conquer for itself political power in order to represent its interest as the general interest."

(161): moreover, there is some hint here of the thesis of the "relative autonomy of the State" -- that the State will act in the 'illusory' general interest, which perhaps implies that it can take a broader perspective than the immediate interests of the ruling class (though this is slightly distorting what is being argued here)

(161): for emancipation, two "practical premises" are necessary: (1) the maturation of these contradictions--the great mass must be 'propertyless'; (2) the development of the productive forces--otherwise "want" will merely be made general. there's a hint, here, also that the agitation can only be 'world-historical,' but this pales in comparison with post-Marx reflections on the subject, so we leave it (it is sufficient to state that Marxism is clearly a universal project)

(164): ABSOLUTELY KEY: "It has not, like the idealistic view of history, in every period to look for a category, but remains constantly on the real ground of history; it does not explain practice from the idea but explains the formation of ideas from material practice; and accordingly it comes to the conclusion that all forms and products of consciousness cannot be dissolved by mental criticism, by resolution into 'self-consciousness' or transformation into 'apparitions,'... but only by the practical overthrow of the actual social relations which give rise to this idealistic humbug; that not criticism but revolution is the driving force of history, also of religion, of philosophy and all other types of theory."

(164-165): the central dialectic, here: "a sum of productive forcs..., which, on the one hand, is indeed modified by the new generation, but also on the other prescribes for it its conditions of life and gives it a definite development, a special character. It shows that circumstances make men as much as men make circumstances."

(165): and yes, committed here to the "formation of a revolutionary mass"--but there is a question, here, about the place of theory in this struggle. until this mass is formed, they are arguing, "it is absolutely immaterial whether the idea of this revolution has been expressed a hundred times already, as the history of communism proves."

(165): memebers of any given epoch share in the ideology of that epoch (the second of the features of ideology pinpointed by Castells (via Althusser))

(166): oh no you didn't! they make Hegelian philosophy contingent.

(166-167): as we see in Theses on Feuerbach, they are reacting also to the elitism of the theoretical enterprise (and particularly against Saint Bruno)

(167-168): this critique extends to Feuerbach, who is content to show, theoretically, fact of man's sovereignty, but has not moved to a commitment to "overthrow the existing state of things... Feuerbach... is going as far as a theorist possibly can without ceasing to be a theorist and a philosopher."

(169): a re-assertion of these initial premises--"The 'liberation' of man is not advanced a single step by [theoretical interventions]... Nor will we explain to them that it is only possible to achieve real liberation in the real world and by employing real means, that slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine... 'Liberation' is a historical and not a mental act."

(169-171): Feuerbach as a-historical (example of the cherry tree, or earlier, the fish in now-polluted freshwater), and an idealist in the last instance (i.e., the path to liberation is through theory, for him).

(173-174): HEGEMONY, the famous formulation--"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas..." And we are "generally-speaking" subject to them. Much hinges on the exposition of this qualifier...

(174): a (strategic) division of 'manual' and mental labour, within the ruling class--we see some assume the position of its "active ideologists" (and we know enough of those), and others its "active members"

(174): HEGEMONY, once more: "Each new class... has to give its ideas the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones."

(175): a simpler formulation of the critique of Hegel (and the whole idealist tradition)

(177-178): actually fairly important pages, insofar as they present the reasons for the non-revolutionary character (in the full, final sense) of pre-proletarian classes in town and country (though we can also extrapolate, negatively, from what Marx and Engels believe to be the proletariat's potential)--but, basically, they're more diffuse and, partly as a result, more interested in their own work and own lives.

(181): the phenomenon of vagabondage (Henry VIII of England hanged 72,000!)--in general though, this whole account of the transition (pg 176-186) is of course far inferior to the account Marx gives in Vol. 1

(183): Ha-Joon Chang, enter stage right

(185-186): the formation of the world proletariat: "a class... which in all nations has the same interest and with which nationality is already dead; a class which is really rid of all the old world and at the same time stands pitted against it."

(187): what we have here is a theory of the State that is more than the caricatured "executive committee of the bourgeoisie" (mechanisms are delineated--"taxation", the "national debt", "commercial credit", the "stock exchange"), but less than the model that gives the State apparatus "relative autonomy" (even though it does have to endeavor to represent the 'average' interest)

(189-190): big industry produces the contradiction between "the instrument of production" and "private property"

(190-191): the "productive forces appear as a world for themselves"

(191): an interesting aside--those "who have been robbed thus of all life-content... have been put into a position to enter into relation with one another as individuals" (on the one hand, this is the orthodox narrative of w-class' formation as subject--but it also can be interpreted to imply, a la Fanon, that the oppressed find their humanity not just in victory, but also in struggle).

(191-192): why the proletariat's expropriation will be unlike any other in history--"in all expropriations up to now, a mass of individuals remained subservient to a single instrument of production; in the appropriation by the proletarians, a mass of instruments of production must be made subject to each individual, and property to all. Modern universal intercourse can be controlled by individuals, therefore, only when controlled by all." With this upheaval, "labour" will become "self-activity" (an end to 'estrangement').

(192): history, then, is not "Man", as abstract subject, estranging himself

(193): ridding itself of "the muck of ages"

(194): dialectics--"one-sidedness" of a particular ideology/era becomes apparent only "when the contradiction enters on the scene and thus exists for the later individuals..."

(196): "Thus all collisions in history have their origin, according to our view, in the contradiction between the productive forces and the forms of intercourse."

(197): communism denotes the first time that--really rather than supposedly--the community will be identical with the state.

(198): again, the uniqueness of the working-class consists in their non-separation as individuals, their combination through the division of labour

(199-200): curious passage on the division between "the personal and the class individual," need to re-read--but basically they are grounding their assertion of the proletariat's uniqueness... "The proletarians, if they are to assert themselves as individual, will have to abolish the very condition of their existence hitherto... namely, labour. Thus they find themselves directly opposed to the form in which, hitherto, the individuals, of which society consists, have given themselves collective expression, that is, the State. In order, therefore, to assert themselves as individuals, they must overthrow the State."

economic and philosophical manuscripts (1844), karl marx [in Tucker]

(67): drawing a sharp distinction between the utopian critic, and the positive science of crticisim (this is two years before the poverty of philosophy)

(68): "settling of accounts with Hegelian dialectic" (final manuscript)

(70): even here, an ambitious, though critical teleology -- "the whole of society must fall apart into the two classes--the property-owners and the propertyless workers." cue arrighi/brenner here.

(70): the contingency of those laws that political economy takes as universal (and here, the formal properties of any ruling ideology--rendering universal the interests of a particular group)

(71): the 'arc' of history is here already present--in this the manuscripts are a critical place in which the "later marx" is united with the "earlier marx."

(71): "Labour produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity"--the reproduction of labor-power, in other words, encompasses all the processes by which the laborer is compelled to remain a worker.

(72): "The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labour becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him... it means that the life which he has conferred on the object confronts him as something hostile and alien."

(72-73): re-read, but: it reads like a "fall from grace." yet, read the proper way, it is more a commentary on the barbarism of the immediate process--that bourgeois society is producing civilization on a foundation of barbarism (see next paragraph).

(73): "it produces palaces--but for the worker, hovels. it produces beauty--but for the worker, deformity."

(74): "production itself must be active alienation..."

(74): "the worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself.. his labour is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labour." this is one of the critical interventions, of course--pinpointing how labour is free, in the double-sense.

(75): a greener marx? here species-being is being defined in terms of man's relationship to inorganic nature ("he must remain in continuous intercourse...")this third form of alienation, in some sense, stands for the contradiction with nature--man has alienated/privatized that which exists in common for the human species. of course there is the more orthodox interpretation, which is not incompatible at all--man has made "productive life a means"--"life itself appears only as a means to life."

(77): and the fourth form--"an immediate consequence of the fact that man is estranged from the product of his labour, from his life-activity, from his species being is the estrangement of man from man."

(78): man's self-estrangement appears to him as servitude to another. it denies his sovereignty over himself and his work--it mystifies the work that he, himself, does in the world. through self-estrangement, indeed, we can arrive at the fact of classes: "every self-estrangement of man from himself and from nature appears in the relation in which he places himself and nature to men other than and differentiated from himself."

(79): private property appears initially as a cause of alienated labour, but marx insists that it be understood as its consequence. this is not very important as either a logical or historical argument, really, but more as a normative claim--it is alienated labour that produces and reproduces the capitalist mode of production. he is recovering the (potential) sovereignty of labour in a process (or system) that destroys him.

(80): the analytic of alienation, as we see here, is a thoroughgoing rebuke to all reformist assessments of capitalism: "a forcing up of wages... would therefore be nothing but better payment for the slave..."

(80): here he differentiates himself from Proudhoun, who makes society into an "abstract capitalist," when--on the basis of his misunderstanding of the capitalist mode of production--he demands that everyone be paid an equal wage.

(80): the "universal class": "the emancipation of the workers contains universal human emancipation"

(81): the modernity of contemporary poverty--"propertylessness" is not ancient, or tribal, but produced today. it must be understood as identical to the antithesis of labour and capital.

(82): "Finally, communism is the positive expression of annulled private property--at first as universal private property." already thinking about the transitional phase...

(82-84): here he is discussing those kinds of communism which do not problematize the rule of private property in toto (Proudhon, Fourier, Saint-Simon)--where "the community [is] the universal capitalist." [and, not insignificantly, the envisioned condition of women is symptomatic of the madness of this first model]. but the third model, on pg 84, which positively transcends private property: "communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution."

(85): a few comments on the place of athiesm in the process--interesting, precisely because he centers focus on the "real" battle to be waged ("action" will be necessary, he reminds us), which involves the real abolition of private property in the world. [see also 92-93]

(85-86): man as a social creature (but need to determine more precisely how to assess what is timeless and what is man-in-communism). but perhaps more importantly, we can see from these passages the contingency of man on his community and the society that surrounds him (as on page 85, "just as society itself produces man as man, so is society produced by him.")

(86): against the bourgeois subject: "what is to be avoided above all is the re-establishing of 'society' as an abstraction vis-a-vis the individual"

(86): this is so directly hegelian: "man... is the subjective existence of thought and experienced society present for itself"

(87): man has made even his natural functions, his senses, into objective phenomenon (i.e., objects)--there arises the peculiar sensation of "having" (he here refers us to hess), possessing. "the transcendence of private property is therefore the complete emancipation of all human sense and attributes."

(88): the path to apprehending everything in a human (as opposed to objective way)--to liberating society from instrumental rationality--runs through the campaign to socialize object: it "is possible only when the object becomes for him a social object, he himself for himself a social being..."

(89): thesis on feuerbach, said differently: "It will be seen how the resolution of the the resolution of the theoretical antithesis is only possible in a practical way, by virtue of the practical energy of men. Their resolution is therefore by no means merely a problem of knowledge, but a real problem of life, which philosophy could not solve precisely because it conceived this problem as merely a theoretical one."

(90): industry and estrangement

(92): refuting the Creation narrative through an assertion of the founding thesis of "socialist man": "the entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the begetting of man through human labour..."

(93): in capitalist society, "man becomes every poorer as man; his need for money becomes ever greater if he wants to overpower hostile being... his neediness grows as the power of money increases. The need for money is therefore the true need produced by the modern economic system..."

(94): more reflections on the advance of history, and progress: "this estrangement manifests itself in that it produces refinement of needs and of their means on the one hand, and a bestial barbarization, a complete, unrefined, abstract, simplicity of need, on the other; or rather in that it merely resurrects itself in its opposite. even the need for fresh air cease for the worker. Man returns to living in a cave..."

(95-96): "Political economy, this science of wealth, is therefore simultaneously the science of denial, of want, of thrift, of saving--and it actually reaches the point where it spares man the need of either fresh air or physical exercise. The science of marvellous industry is simultaneously the science of asceticism... Self-denial, the denial of all life and of all human needs, is its cardinal doctrine... The less you are, the more you have... all the things which you cannot do, your money can do. It can eat and drink, go to thd dance hall and the theatre..."" (brilliant!)

(96): "The worker may only have enough for him to want to live, and may only want to live in order to have enough."

(97): his own emphatic defense of the interdisciplinary approach--political economy refuses to be a moral science, even as it (or perhaps precisely because it) facilitates and enshrines the most mad and unethical forms of behavior: "Recardo is allowing political economy to speak its own language, and if it does not speak ethically, this is not Ricardo's fault." It is worth remembering this passage when we come to the argument that Marx wanted communism to be justified scientifically (and that is extended into the claim that his defense was a-moral)

(99): "In order to abolish the idea of private property, the idea of communism is completely sufficient. It takes actual communist action to abolish actual private property."

(100): attentiveness to "dwelling," to "home"--"But the cellar-dwelling of the poor man is a hostile dwelling, 'an alien, restraining power which only gives itself up to him in so far as he gives up to it his blood and sweat'--a dwelling which he cannot look upon as his own home where he might at last exclaim, 'Here I am at home,' but where he instead finds himself in someone else's house, in the house of a stranger who daily lies in wait for him and throws him out if he does not pay his rent."

(102-103): the famous passages on money--"Money is the supreme good, therefore its possessor is good."

(104): "Money is the alienated ability of mankind. That which I am unable to do as a man, and of which therefore all my individual essential powers are incapable, I am able to do by means of money."

(104): this is obviously critically important--the market recognizes only effective demand.

(107): a searching critique of the idealism of the old philosophy, even after it turned (unsuccessfully, to attempt critique)

(108): Feuerbach founded his philosophy on the second stage of the Hegelian dialectic ("actual, sensuous, real, finite, particular"), which--understood on its head--represented the annulment of all religion and philosophy. but it is for this reason that Marx here is wary of the negation of the negation--that threatens relapse into idealism: "The position or self-affirmation and self-confirmation contained in the negation of the negation is taken to be a position which is not yet sure of itself, which is therefore burdened with its opposite..."

(109-110): "Hegel's Encycopedia... is in its entirety nothing but the display, the self-objectification of the philosophic mind, and the philosophic mind is nothing but the estranged mind of the world thinking within its self-estrangement..."

(110): [A KEY PASSAGE:] "The whole history of the alienation-process and the whole process of the retraction of the alienation is therefor nothing but the history of the production of abstract thought--of logical, speculative thought. The estrangement, which therefore forms the real interest of this alienation and of the transcendence of this alienation, is the opposition of in itself and for itself, of consciousness and self-consciousness, of object and subject--that is to say, it is the opposition, within thought itself, between abstract thinking and sensuous reality or real sensuousness."

(111): the focus on estrangment links the two systems of thought, obviously: "The Phenomenology is, therefore, an occult critique--still to itself obscure and mystifying criticsm; but inasmuch as it keeps steadily in view man's estrangement..."

(112): Hegel's virtue, in part, was to call attention to history as process and estrangement (the dialectic, in this sense)

(114-115): important pages that build to Marx's attempt to build a different sort of materialism: "Here we see how consistent naturalism or humanism distinguishes itself both from idealism and materialism, constituting at the same time the unifying truth of both. We see also how only naturalism is capable of comprehending the act of world history."

(119): Hegel sees the negation of the negation as a confirmation of the true essence--however, Marx is arguing that this it, in fact, is "the confirmation of the pseudo-essence" This seems to be the second arm of his three-pronged critique (in addition to Hegel mistaking the thinking world for the real world, i.e.)[but we need to read Hegel before we can make sense of these pages]

(119): "Thirdly... the subject emerges as a result. This result--the subject knowing itself as absolute self-consciousness--is therefore God--absolute Spirit--the self-knowing and self-manifesting Idea. Real man and real nature become mere predicates..."

(122): Marx endeavoring to restore "positivity" and real activity to the "negation of the negation"

(125): abstract thought remains the "essence" of Hegel's system, and the subject of the act of annulment (or, of the negation of the negation)

The Ministry of Water and Power on Saturday forwarded a summary to the prime minister for a six per cent increase in the electricity tariff to be implemented from Oct 1. The second and third phases of power tariff hike will be implemented in January and April.

But of course the drawdown isn’t actually happening. President Obama inherited a war with roughly 135,000 troops in Iraq, and today there are 131,000 and thousands of contractors.

and

Gen. McChrystal is now ‘privately’ requesting another 40,000 troops for the eight year old war, which would bring the overall US presence there to well over 100,000 troops, and nearly triple the number in the nation with President Obama was elected last November.

Abbas said that during the eight year operation against extremism 1900 Pakistani army troops have been martyred, 5000 injured, 4000 miscreants killed and 3000 have been arrested. 'During during Malakand operation 340 Pakistani army troops including officers have been martyred, 1800 miscreants were killed and 2000 were arrested,' he said.

At least 41 bodies, mostly of Taliban militants, have been found in Pakistan's Swat valley over the past 24 hours, officials said Tuesday, describing them as revenge killings by residents. The corpses, six of them beheaded, were dumped on the roadside, riverside and fields in different areas.

A well-to-do landlord, Sher Shah Khan, who had criticized what he termed the army’s early reluctance to confront the militants, said he was not worried about the reports. “If the security services kill in the same manner as the Taliban killed, people have no problem.”

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas denied the military had any links with the Abdullah militia and another pro-government group led by Turkistan Bhitani in the nearby town of Tank. Abbas referred questions to the civil administration in the area, whose officials did not make themselves available for telephone interviews. Still, Abbas acknowledged the fighters were useful in the battle against the Pakistani Taliban, which has carried out scores of attacks across the country over the last 2 1/2 years that have triggered international fears over the safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. "If you have to fight the big devil, you welcome anyone in that fight," Abbas said.

locke, "the second treatise"

chp 1

...I think it may not be amiss, to set down what I take to be political power; that the power of a MAGISTRATE over a subject may be distinguished from that of a FATHER over his children, a MASTER over his servant, a HUSBAND over his wife, and a LORD over his slave... POLITICAL POWER, then, I take to be a RIGHT of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the common-wealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good. [a key amendment, on the surface, to hobbesian absolutism, in the sense that space is already opened up for revolt--and there different positions on 17th century tumult in england would testify to this]

chp 2

A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty. [same species...AND RANK]

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another's pleasure: and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for our's. [reason as a natural law, in contrast to the hobbesian 'passions']

The legislative authority, by which they are in force over the subjects of that commonwealth, hath no power over him. Those who have the supreme power of making laws in England, France or Holland, are to an Indian, but like the rest of the world, men without authority: and therefore, if by the law of nature every man hath not a power to punish offences against it, as he soberly judges the case to require, I see not how the magistrates of any community can punish an alien of another country; since, in reference to him, they can have no more power than what every man naturally may have over another. [this is an admirably strong condition for establishing 'consent'--and, if we can lay claim to a subversive locke, can be extended to the disenfranchised populations of 17th century england, no? in other words, we can introduce class cleavages where locke means to speak only of a cosmopolitan gentry]

...but I shall desire those who make this objection, to remember, that absolute monarchs are but men; and if government is to be the remedy of those evils, which necessarily follow from men's being judges in their own cases, and the state of nature is therefore not to be endured, I desire to know what kind of government that is, and how much better it is than the state of nature, where one man, commanding a multitude, has the liberty to be judge in his own case, and may do to all his subjects whatever he pleases, without the least liberty to any one to question or controul those who execute his pleasure and in whatsoever he doth, whether led by reason, mistake or passion, must be submitted to. Much better it is in the state of nature, wherein men are not bound to submit to the unjust will of another. And if he that judges, judges amiss in his own, or any other case, he is answerable for it to the rest of mankind. [in other words, if the state of nature is objected to because men are fallible, remember that the absolute monarch is, too, merely mortal. this, obviously, lays the foundation for not just liberalism or constitutional monarchy, but even more radical forms of democracy.]

It is often asked as a mighty objection, where are, or ever were there any men in such a state of nature? To which it may suffice as an answer at present, that since all princes and rulers of independent governments all through the world, are in a state of nature, it is plain the world never was, nor ever will be, without numbers of men in that state. I have named all governors of independent communities, whether they are, or are not, in league with others: for it is not every compact that puts an end to the state of nature between men, but only this one of agreeing together mutually to enter into one community, and make one body politic; other promises, and compacts, men may make one with another, and yet still be in the state of nature. The promises and bargains for truck, &c. between the two men in the desert island, mentioned by Garcilasso de la Vega, in his history of Peru; or between a Swiss and an Indian, in the woods of America, are binding to them, though they are perfectly in a state of nature, in reference to one another: for truth and keeping of faith belongs to men, as men, and not as members of society. [nature, then, clearly is being defined 'negatively,' insofar as it means not-government. this does not subtract from the a-historicity of his assertion, but only re-emphasizes it, of course.]

...till by their own consents they make themselves members of some politic society [again, important, more exacting condition]

chp 5

...But this being supposed, it seems to some a very great difficulty, how any one should ever come to have a property in any thing: I will not content myself to answer, that if it be difficult to make out property, upon a supposition that God gave the world to Adam, and his posterity in common, it is impossible that any man, but one universal monarch, should have any property upon a supposition, that God gave the world to Adam, and his heirs in succession, exclusive of all the rest of his posterity. But I shall endeavour to shew, how men might come to have a property in several parts of that which God gave to mankind in common, and that without any express compact of all the commoners. [interesting--humankind receives in common, locke insists, as a retort to the absolutists. yet, still, on this foundation he hopes to justify private property]

...Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others. [this is important, as it is the liberal 'in' to the doctrine of exploitation, in a sense--and, of course, as g.a. cohen noted, also the seeds of nozick's argument against gov't]

...We see in commons, which remain so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which begins the property; without which the common is of no use. And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the commoners. Thus the grass my horse has bit; the turfs my servant has cut; and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in common with others, become my property, without the assignation or consent of any body. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them. [this, of course, is naught more than the absolute blindness of classical political economy to the monstrously violent processes transpiring around them.]

...Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough, and as good left; and more than the yet unprovided could use. So that, in effect, there was never the less left for others because of his enclosure for himself: for he that leaves as much as another can make use of, does as good as take nothing at all. No body could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst: and the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is perfectly the same. [in other words, Locke's sanguine tone is premised on his confidence that there is no scarcity in land]

...He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational, (and labour was to be his title to it;) not to the fancy or covetousness of the quarrelsome and contentious. He that had as good left for his improvement, as was already taken up, needed not complain, ought not to meddle with what was already improved by another's labour: if he did, it is plain he desired the benefit of another's pains, which he had no right to, and not the ground which God had given him in common with others to labour on, and whereof there was as good left, as that already possessed, and more than he knew what to do with, or his industry could reach to. [of course, it is not those who are industrious and rational that are deemed worth of land, but those who seize posession of the land that are deemed industrious and rational]

...But be this as it will, which I lay no stress on; this I dare boldly affirm, that the same rule of propriety, (viz.) that every man should have as much as he could make use of, would hold still in the world, without straitening any body; since there is land enough in the world to suffice double the inhabitants, had not the invention of money, and the tacit agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced (by consent) larger possessions, and a right to them; which, how it has done, I shall by and by shew more at large. [so, is Locke then suggesting that this is his ethical principle, but because humankind has 'consented' to money and usury we are stuck with systemic inequalities?]

...the intrinsic value of things, which depends only on their usefulness to the life of man [ah, of course--"value" = "use-value"]

Thus, at the beginning, Cain might take as much ground as he could till, and make it his own land, and yet leave enough to Abel's sheep to feed on; a few acres would serve for both their possessions. But as families increased, and industry inlarged their stocks, their possessions inlarged with the need of them; but yet it was commonly without any fixed property in the ground they made use of, till they incorporated, settled themselves together, and built cities; and then, by consent, they came in time, to set out the bounds of their distinct territories, and agree on limits between them and their neighbours; and by laws within themselves, settled the properties of those of the same society: for we see, that in that part of the world which was first inhabited, and therefore like to be best peopled, even as low down as Abraham's time, they wandered with their flocks, and their herds, which was their substance, freely up and down; and this Abraham did, in a country where he was a stranger. Whence it is plain, that at least a great part of the land lay in common; that the inhabitants valued it not, nor claimed property in any more than they made use of. But when there was not room enough in the same place, for their herds to feed together, they by consent, as Abraham and Lot did, Gen. xiii. 5. separated and inlarged their pasture, where it best liked them. [the theory of social change is absent (this is a description, idealized), but an understanding of social cohesion is certainly here: namely, the notion that cohesion rests on consent of [all] the governed. again, we can turn this around to use against Locke, if we summon a more developed understanding of how history actually developed]

... for it is labour indeed that puts the difference of value on every thing; [hmm, must read a bit about locke on value, for here he seems to accede to an underdeveloped labor theory of value. of course they were all confused, so maybe that's all there is to it]

And indeed it was a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than he could make use of. If he gave away a part to any body else, so that it perished not uselesly in his possession, these he also made use of. And if he also bartered away plums, that would have rotted in a week, for nuts that would last good for his eating a whole year, he did no injury; he wasted not the common stock; destroyed no part of the portion of goods that belonged to others, so long as nothing perished uselesly in his hands. Again, if he would give his nuts for a piece of metal, pleased with its colour; or exchange his sheep for shells, or wool for a sparkling pebble or a diamond, and keep those by him all his life he invaded not the right of others, he might heap up as much of these durable things as he pleased; the exceeding of the bounds of his just property not lying in the largeness of his possession, but the perishing of any thing uselesly in it. Sec. 47. And thus came in the use of money, some lasting thing that men might keep without spoiling, and that by mutual consent men would take in exchange for the truly useful, but perishable supports of life. [this, really, resembles Marx's observations about M-C-M vs. C-M-C -- he who holds value in money holds the universal equivalent, which, aside from not being perishable is obviously always universally desirable]

...Where there is not some thing, both lasting and scarce, and so valuable to be hoarded up, there men will not be apt to enlarge their possessions of land, were it never so rich, never so free for them to take: for I ask, what would a man value ten thousand, or an hundred thousand acres of excellent land, ready cultivated, and well stocked too with cattle, in the middle of the inland parts of America, where he had no hopes of commerce with other parts of the world, to draw money to him by the sale of the product? It would not be worth the enclosing, and we should see him give up again to the wild common of nature, whatever was more than would supply the conveniencies of life to be had there for him and his family. [there is, here, an implicitly interesting observation being made about spatial circuits of capital, and how non-marketized sectors of the economy get absorbed and appropriated]

...But since gold and silver, being little useful to the life of man in proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, has its value only from the consent of men, whereof labour yet makes, in great part, the measure, it is plain, that men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth, they having, by a tacit and voluntary consent, found out, a way how a man may fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of, by receiving in exchange for the overplus gold and silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one; these metals not spoiling or decaying in the hands of the possessor. This partage of things in an inequality of private possessions, men have made practicable out of the bounds of society, and without compact, only by putting a value on gold and silver, and tacitly agreeing in the use of money: for in governments, the laws regulate the right of property, and the possession of land is determined by positive constitutions. [isn't it fair to say that we see him insisting on the "consent" of the governed, which is an admirable principle i suppose, in situations where it was so obviously absent?]

chp 8

The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number of men have so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest. [what a thoroughly impoverished understanding of state formation, goodness]

...Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature unite into a community, must be understood to give up all the power, necessary to the ends for which they unite into society, to the majority of the community, unless they expresly agreed in any number greater than the majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one political society, which is all the compact that is, or needs be, between the individuals, that enter into, or make up a commonwealth. And thus that, which begins and actually constitutes any political society, is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that only, which did, or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world. [ha, sounds like the Party!]

...the beginning of Rome and Venice were by the uniting together of several men free and independent one of another, amongst whom there was no natural superiority or subjection. [oh goodness, and you can read this supposed unanimity through the history of that imperial slave-society?]

...And if the want of such instances be an argument to prove that government were not, nor could not be so begun, I suppose the contenders for paternal empire were better let it alone, than urge it against natural liberty: for if they can give so many instances, out of history, of governments begun upon paternal right, I think (though at best an argument from what has been, to what should of right be, has no great force) one might, without any great danger, yield them the cause. But if I might advise them in the case, they would do well not to search too much into the original of governments, as they have begun de facto, lest they should find, at the foundation of most of them, something very little favourable to the design they promote, and such a power as they contend for. Sec. 104. But to conclude, reason being plain on our side, that men are naturally free, and the examples of history shewing, that the governments of the world, that were begun in peace, had their beginning laid on that foundation, and were made by the consent of the people; there can be little room for doubt, either where the right is, or what has been the opinion, or practice of mankind, about the first erecting of governments. [dialogs like this remind you that we must read this man in his time, where the appeal to a state of nature is a rejoinder to those who read a state of subjection into the past--in fairness, though, the latter are closer to the truth, in a way, though of course they wield history valorized upside-down]

...yet it is plain that the reason, that continued the form of government in a single person, was not any regard, or respect to paternal authority; since all petty monarchies, that is, almost all monarchies, near their original, have been commonly, at least upon occasion, elective. [really? is he thinking of athens?]

...First then, in the beginning of things, the father's government of the childhood of those sprung from him, having accustomed them to the rule of one man, and taught them that where it was exercised with care and skill, with affection and love to those under it, it was sufficient to procure and preserve to men all the political happiness they sought for in society. It was no wonder that they should pitch upon, and naturally run into that form of government, which from their infancy they had been all accustomed to; and which, by experience, they had found both easy and safe. [i suppose there is a sense in which his confidence in the fact of historic consent is touching, especially insofar as it lays the grounds for a justification of rebellion today (once we alert him to what's actually going on)]

...For there are no examples so frequent in history, both sacred and profane, as those of men withdrawing themselves, and their obedience, from the jurisdiction they were born under, and the family or community they were bred up in, and setting up new governments in other places; from whence sprang all that number of petty commonwealths in the beginning of ages, and which always multiplied, as long as there was room enough, till the stronger, or more fortunate, swallowed the weaker; and those great ones again breaking to pieces, dissolved into lesser dominions. [good god, this is a very insufficient response to the objection--for surely you need to not only show that successful secession is possible, but that it is possible for everyone that would like to]

It is plain then, by the practice of governments themselves, as well as by the law of right reason, that a child is born a subject of no country or government. He is under his father's tuition and authority, till he comes to age of discretion; and then he is a freeman, at liberty what government he will put himself under, what body politic he will unite himself to: for if an Englishman's son, born in France, be at liberty, and may do so, it is evident there is no tie upon him by his father's being a subject of this kingdom; nor is he bound up by any compact of his ancestors. [this is indisuptably radical, and is so (a) at-odds with the sanguine tone he is adopting, wrt to history; and (b) him following "consent" to its logical conclusion.]

...There is a common distinction of an express and a tacit consent, which will concern our present case. No body doubts but an express consent, of any man entering into any society, makes him a perfect member of that society, a subject of that government. The difficulty is, what ought to be looked upon as a tacit consent, and how far it binds, i.e. how far any one shall be looked on to have consented, and thereby submitted to any government, where he has made no expressions of it at all. And to this I say, that every man, that hath any possessions, or enjoyment, of any part of the dominions of any government, doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government, during such enjoyment, as any one under it; whether this his possession be of land, to him and his heirs for ever, or a lodging only for a week; or whether it be barely travelling freely on the highway; and in effect, it reaches as far as the very being of any one within the territories of that government. [express and tacit consent--hmm...]

...Nothing can make any man so, but his actually entering into it by positive engagement, and express promise and compact. This is that, which I think, concerning the beginning of political societies, and that consent which makes any one a member of any common-wealth. [the effects of this condition of "positive engagement" on the question of the right to rebellion are unclear]

chp 9

...The first is to do whatsoever he thinks fit for the preservation of himself, and others within the permission of the law of nature: by which law, common to them all, he and all the rest of mankind are one community, make up one society, distinct from all other creatures. And were it not for the corruption and vitiousness of degenerate men, there would be no need of any other; no necessity that men should separate from this great and natural community, and by positive agreements combine into smaller and divided associations. [shucks, if it weren't for the scoundrels--in other words, the failure of the state of nature is less dramatic and far-reaching than the hobbesian version, precisely because locke believes reason and common humanity to prevail in this state]

chp 10

THE majority having, as has been shewed, upon men's first uniting into society, the whole power of the community naturally in them, may employ all that power in making laws for the community from time to time, and executing those laws by officers of their own appointing; and then the form of the government is a perfect democracy: or else may put the power of making laws into the hands of a few select men, and their heirs or successors; and then it is an oligarchy: or else into the hands of one man, and then it is a monarchy: if to him and his heirs, it is an hereditary monarchy: if to him only for life, but upon his death the power only of nominating a successor to return to them; an elective monarchy. And so accordingly of these the community may make compounded and mixed forms of government, as they think good. And if the legislative power be at first given by the majority to one or more persons only for their lives, or any limited time, and then the supreme power to revert to them again; when it is so reverted, the community may dispose of it again anew into what hands they please, and so constitute a new form of government: for the form of government depending upon the placing the supreme power, which is the legislative, it being impossible to conceive that an inferior power should prescribe to a superior, or any but the supreme make laws, according as the power of making laws is placed, such is the form of the common-wealth. [this is interesting, because Locke seems to treat the question of what form of government is best as somewhat subservient to the foundational question of "consent"--the commonwealth is, in a background way, always supreme (this is a democratic principle, can i just say?)]

chp 11

This legislative is not only the supreme power of the common-wealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it; nor can any edict of any body else, in what form soever conceived, or by what power soever backed, have the force and obligation of a law, which has not its sanction from that legislative which the public has chosen and appointed: for without this the law could not have that, which is absolutely necessary to its being a law,* the consent of the society, over whom no body can have a power to make laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received from them; and therefore all the obedience, which by the most solemn ties any one can be obliged to pay... [consent, once more]

...Their power, in the utmost bounds of it, is limited to the public good of the society. It is a power, that hath no other end but preservation, and therefore can never* have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the subjects. [how do you justify this hypocrisy, master locke?]

chp 11

...This is not much to be feared in governments where the legislative consists, wholly or in part, in assemblies which are variable, whose members, upon the dissolution of the assembly, are subjects under the common laws of their country, equally with the rest. But in governments, where the legislative is in one lasting assembly always in being, or in one man, as in absolute monarchies, there is danger still, that they will think themselves to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community; and so will be apt to increase their own riches and power, by taking what they think fit from the people: for a man's property is not at all secure, tho' there be good and equitable laws to set the bounds of it between him and his fellow subjects, if he who commands those subjects have power to take from any private man, what part he pleases of his property, and use and dispose of it as he thinks good. [again, in principle this is a democratic principle--liberalism makes space for it, i suppose, though it must repeatedly be stressed that liberals have made (and continue to make) some of the best anti-democrats]

And to let us see, that even absolute power, where it is necessary, is not arbitrary by being absolute, but is still limited by that reason, and confined to those ends, which required it in some cases to be absolute, we need look no farther than the common practice of martial discipline: for the preservation of the army, and in it of the whole common-wealth, requires an absolute obedience to the command of every superior officer, and it is justly death to disobey or dispute the most dangerous or unreasonable of them; but yet we see, that neither the serjeant, that could command a soldier to march up to the mouth of a cannon, or stand in a breach, where he is almost sure to perish, can command that soldier to give him one penny of his money; nor the general, that can condemn him to death for deserting his post, or for not obeying the most desperate orders, can yet, with all his absolute power of life and death, dispose of one farthing of that soldier's estate, or seize one jot of his goods; whom yet he can command any thing, and hang for the least disobedience; because such a blind obedience is necessary to that end, for which the commander has his power, viz. the preservation of the rest; but the disposing of his goods has nothing to do with it. [reason as a limit on absolutism, effecitveness of this notwithstanding]

...First, They are to govern by promulgated established laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the favourite at court, and the country man at plough. [first mention of the poor man! at least he knows they exist]

... Secondly, These laws also ought to be designed for no other end ultimately, but the good of the people. [again, this instrumentality of laws is important, as a dissenter always has recourse to it]