Even as the ISI breaks up a number of Taliban cells, officials in Islamabad, Washington and Kabul hint that the ISI’s goal seems to be to weaken the Taliban just enough to bring them to the negotiating table, but leaving them strong enough to represent Pakistani interests in a future Afghan government.

hal draper, trade unions and class

(83): critical--Marx's unique contribution (with Engels) was to develop a socialist theory centered on the proletariat. this was evidenced in the fact that he and Engels, uniquely, recognized the critical importance of trade unions (all others at this time (Proudhon, in particular) believed that it would be sects, or the middle-classes, or the highly educated, who would usher in socialism)

(89): French Revolution and anti trade union laws.

(92-99): the mature position on trade unions has five aspects:

1. elementary resistance--because it was a struggle for humanness, they are integral to the struggle for the social revolution.
   
2. defense of immediate economic interests--capital seeks to push the value of labor-power to its minimum limit; it is the actions of trade unions that enforce the 'law of wages'
3. development of class consciousness--it is through trade unions that the working-class learns class solidarity
4. the training school--trained in the management of affairs, skills which it will need after the revolution
5. existence of the movement has a meaning in relation to the state (particularly in authoritarian regimes)
   

(103): of course, they recognized the dangers of business unionism.

(105, 107, 109): Engels spoke often of the 'labor aristocracy' -- in the 1870s, in particular, where unions organized the 1/1oth of the working class that was most respectable and most well-paid. but this had everthing to do with the advance in industrial development, which had made many of these reforms possible.

(110-112): nonetheless, the answer was not to abandon the trade unions. it was the "New Unionism", which appeared in the late 1880's, led by Eleanor Marx (analogy drawn to the CIO in the US). this showed that there were irrepressible class forces at work.

(113): question of the East End workers and the 'lumpenproletariat' [look into this more]

two logics of collective action, offie and wiezenthal

(171): against liberal vision, we assert that the 'freedoms' of the bourgeois world actually produce and reproduce "factual inequality on the largest scale." [this mode of proceeding is unclear, to me--why not simply term the liberal commitment incomplete, since it was never meant to apply across the board? or as negative vs. positive commitment?]

(172): sociological critique shows that inequality prevails even where we have political and economic equality [but equality in what sense, here? no guilds, full commodification?]. and surely you can have a philosophical critique of bourgeois society? all this is a bit odd.

(173): key--four properties of labor-power:

1. cannot be physically separated from its owner
2. does not exist because of the expectation of its saleability
3. it is of no use-value to its owner (outside of exchange)
4. the owner is compelled, therefore, to enter into a wage-contract

(174): political science and the 'interest group'

(176-194): distinguishing labor and capital on three counts:

1. input factors (176-184)--insuperable individuality of labour (178); atomized form of living labour vs. integrated form of 'dead' labor (178); multitude of needs, for labour, vs. just one for capital (179); capital can introduce technical change and lessen its dependence on labor, while labor has no such option (180)--the costs of being unemployed, for labor, are much higher than the costs of not employing labor, for capital; thus:L= three possibilities of resistance (182-183)--(1) individual (lose); (2) collective (lose, because individual interests remain unchanged); (3) collective, interest-changing (now you're talking--have to convince 'relatively powerless' workers that the costs of organization, are low--"redefinition of collective interests").
   
2. internal processes (184-191)--unions need "conscious and coordinated active paritipation of their members" (not individuals, not bureaucracy) (185); danger of size or organization decreasing potential power (due to bureaucratization) (186); bureaucracy/democracy balance (187); unions are forced to represent a 'totality of interests', whereas business associations deal with limited and specific goals (190).
   
3. outputs (191-194)--the State is much kinder to capital, than labor, because it depends on the former (191); the State is dependent on capitalists to a degree that capitalists are not dependent on the State (192) [questionable?].
   

(193): summary dichotomies (not that helpful, but can consult)

(194-195): liberal vision rests on 'practical positivism'--an individual's interests are exactly what they say they are (this gives you Carl Schmitt--dictatorships can only have democratic means)

(196-197): claim, here, is that likelihood of interest misrecognition is not evenly distributed amongst the classes.

(198-199): five reasons that it is easy for capitalism to recognize its interests:

1. in capitalist society, pursuit of capitalist interests is considered just/normal; this is not the case for workers
   
2. supported by the state apparatus, which depends on capitalists
3. has a 'monological' interest, insofar as individual capitalists can pursue their 'true' interests without consulting others (whereas workers require a 'dialogical' process)
   
4. a false notion, for capitalists, will be immediately corrected by the market
5. because of bourgeois hegemony, it is more difficult for the workers to shape their interests autonomous from capitalist influence; for the capitalists, of course, bourgeois hegemony is hardly a problem [question is, of course, whether this is what we're trying to explain]

(199): in sum--"in order to achieve an equal amount of accuracy in awareness of the respective interests, vastly different efforts are required on both sides of the major dividing line of social class."

(200): important-- the inherent ambiguity of interest explicit in the workers' position (they are objects and partners in the labor contract, object and subject of exchange)--all ambiguities follow from this basic one:

• between individualistic and collective improvement
• between political and economic interest
• between identity as consumer and identity as producer
• between higher wages and better working conditions/secure employment
• between individual competitiveness and class solidarity

(202): liberal political forms rely on interests that are already enlightened; they don't provide the means for individuals to discover their 'enlightened' interests (because of the encouragement of individualistic choice and of representation, they're arguing)

(204): liberal political theory cannot accept the second level of collective action (the 'dialogical'); the 'monological' is encouraged.

(206-207): three theoretical alternatives for unions, then:

1. an expansion of the 'dialogical' logic--this requires nothing less than a model of socialist transformation.
   
2. expansion of the 'monological' logic--this is a 'corporatist' formula, presuming imposition from the outside
   
3. the uneasy and temporary coexistence of 'dialogical' and 'monological' logics--this is a result of some internal dynamic, within the working-class organization, and will result--eventually--in decline (though, they will say, this is temporarily rational, nonetheless). it is this they endeavor to make sense of.
   

(209-213): three institutional ways in which all this has unfolded, within liberal political forms

1. limitations of demands made by unions
2. institutionalization of alternative interest representation (works councils, etc)--this dissocioates representation from struggle, they argue.
3. statuatory increases of diversity and conflict within unions--in other words, the strategic attempt to bring forward elements that have been coopted

(214-215): Rosa Luxemburg on "opportunism"; the notion is summarized, here, by three elements

1. inversion of means-end, elevation of institutionalized means
   
2. priority given to short-term accomplishments
3. emphasis upon quantitative criteria (recruitment) rather than qualitative (formation and expression of collective identities

(215): opportunism appears, in sum, as a "rational and unstable" solution to the dilemma of working-class organizations. it unfolds in five stages.

1. small-scale and militant conflict
2. here, the dilemma between dialogical and monological forms emerges--it has to recruit and activate members; but it also has to hold these members in check. it will, from here, go to Stage 3 absent mass class struggle outside of itself.
   
3. opportunist resolution--maximizing independence of functionaries, from its base (again, this is rational--it needs to secure success and escape threats to its survival [in what sense is this the case, though?])
   
4. it now loses all capacity to act, due to the separation from its base
5. the option of going back to stage I (reversal of institutionalization), or more-or-less decomposing (I think)

(219-220): in sum, opportunist strategies are ultimately 'self-defeating' and thus are limited in their rationality. they're ultimately degenerative (which means that leftists shouldn't worry as much as they do; and that liberals are flat out stupid--both of these people fear that 'opportunism' is self-regenerating). 'transitory rationality' of opportunism. [we ought to think more about the contingency, here--what variables explain or don't explain mass class struggle?]

At the national level, the FMLN controls the presidency and little else. The right wing still holds sway in still the legislature at the hands of ARENA in coalition with smaller right-wing parties. The vast majority of Supreme Court judges are all ARENA appointees, while key governmental institutions, such as the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and the Attorney General's office, are still beholden to the right. It's thus likely that progressive policies will be systematically obstructed at every turn.

elisabeth jean wood, forging democracy from below (2000)

(xiii): "enduring insurgency" as principal reason for the political pacts that led to democracy

(xiv): in el salvador--

1. FMLN was constituted as an insurgent counter-elite by the sustained support of insurgent peasants
2. ongoing urest and reforms reshaped lite interests; meant that elite willing to take a change on electoral competition and its vagaries [precisely because there aren't vagaries, though, is what she shows makes them willing to gamble]

(xiv): in south africa--

1. mobilization brought into existence an insurgent counter-elite
2. a defection from the ruling alliance undermined continued support for apartheid; some elites were moved to press for fundamental political reform.
   

(5): important--the specific argument, then, centers on the fact that elites depended for their economic privileges on state-enforced procedures that were unlikely to be sustainable under democratic rule [but isn't it also the case that it's precisely when they discover that they can sustain their economic privileges despite political reform that they accede? i suppose one can make a point about changing economic interests in el salvador; but to accept the notion that only the 'dull compulsion' of the market is needed is problematic, i think. isn't there always a link to the State? are we talking about a real, qualitiative shift (which is implied throughout), or merely change in degrees of repression?]

(5-6): she sees two puzzles:

1. why did elites give up, after decades of opposition? [her answer is that democracy was "forged from below" by insurgent mobilization. but--key--this is not always what is doing work in her argument. a weaker version is that the transition to democracy would not have taken place without sustained popular mobilization (this, i mean, is not quite saying that it was "forged from below")]
2. why were these so amenable to negotiation? [these two processes (below) forged the structural and political (and economic?) bases of compromise. moreover, these civil wars were different precisely because the contending forces were economically interdependent--ok, but surely this is not limited to south africa and el salvador.]
   

(5-6): two features of this path

1. constitution of an insurgent counter-elite that was elite in the sense that it was a necessary party to reforms (but in SA, elite in the other sense too, no)
2. accumulating costs of the insurgency transformed the core interests of economic elites

(6-7, 8-9): definition of oligarchic societies--societies in which economic elites rely on extra-economic coercion of labor by the state for the realization of incomes superior to those possible under more liberal, market-based arrangements... directly-(1) coercive labor relations such as slavery, (2) coercive restrictions on mobility, (3) coercive practices in the workplace (but this is quite problematic; need to interrogate the three conditions, i'm not sure they make much sense. abandoning RSS' innovation of 'labor-intensity' (see FN, pg. 8), so now it's confused a la Moore. the vocabulary doesn't distinguish a qualitiative shift (a la feudalism/capitalism), but quantitative--does this mean, though, that the US was oligarchic when capitalists call in police to smash strikes?). this is meant to be the foundation of a pact between 'regime elites' and 'economic elites.'

(10): four forms of transition

1. democracy by occupation
2. moderate elements within authoritarianism
3. political mobilization by a cross-class alliance (philippines, nicaragua, czechoslovakia, african countries?)
4. sustained political mobilization from below by working-class actors (wait--does the distinction between 3 and 4 really stand? this would require you to stretch your claims about the ANC and the movement, certainly. but see below, pg. 11 and pg. 12)
   

(11): a danger in overstating contrasts? her argument is that the distinction between 3 and 4 is the coherence of the State apparatus--in 3, elements in the state and the upper stratum can be pulled away. in 4, regime elites are in a tight nexus with economic elites.

(12): argument that ANC/FMLN don't count as cross-class. ok, we need to think about this--especially in light of her later claims about their moderation. [how can we make systematic sense of their "selling out"?]

(14): key distinction, which she doesn't discuss properly: in El Salvador, the insurgency reshaped the 'political economy' of the situation, which in turn shaped elite interests (and this first link is not even that clear--it's migrant remittances in her reconstruction. but consult the later parts--part of this is that the insurgency prevented a counter-coup after 1979); in South Africa, sustained mobilization creates a climate of general uncertainty.

(15): she's clear in saying that only when the "terms of transition" suit elites do they continue. this contains the seeds of rage. where is her rage?

(15): also, geopolitics--rise of neoliberalism meaning that 'postconflict states' less threatening to elites.

(15-16): distinction between other transitions and this one which is driven from below--but this is emphatically not the case in her reconstruction of el salvador (their influence is indirect, at best!)

(19): key--not the "slow penetration" of commercial agriculture (RSS), but sustained insurgency (again, el salvador is not the latter the way she reconstructs it; looks more like the former)

PART ONE

chapter two, conservative modernization to civil war

(26): conservative modernization in El Salvador failed, from 1950s to 1970s (elites did not shift from labor-repressive export agriculture to manufacture--which is less dependent on the coercive apparatus of the State)

(28): land and labor was secured for coffee production by direct coercion, redefinition of property rights

(31): rebellion of Farabundo Marti in 1932--17,000 people slaughtered in retaliation. four legacies:

1. eradication of indigenous culture
2. forestalling of reformist initatives
3. consolidated labor-repressive, coercive economic system
   
4. fifty-year political arrangement that saw the military in direct control of the political system (even though there were municipal and legislative election in the 1960s, and there were presidentail elections--"the Army invariably ruled at the national level", through client parties)

(37): lack of an internal market; logic of export agriculture was obvious.

(43): discussion of reformist coups in '44, '60, '72, '79--until the last one, though, all these efforts came to nought.

(44): in the 1970s, you had stirrings of protest, partly through the Catholic church

(45-46): October 1979 coup; reforms in the early 1980s, including the expropriation of hundreds of elite properties in March 1980.

(51): key argument here is that the insurgency prevented a counter-coup, after the 1979 coup, which made possible the reforms that would otherwise have been annulled. this is the beginnings of something more sophisticated than i was caricaturing earlier, but still indirect.

chapter 3, the structural foundation of a pact

(52-53): two reasons for transition

1. elites no longer depended on repression, because now they relied on market forces--reshaping of their interests (partly fall of export-oriented agriculture; also, though discipline by urban unemployment, she's mentioning...)
   
2. war-induced transformation shifted influence toward fractions of elite that favored compromise.
   

(52-53): transformed in three ways:

1. elites were threatened by Army, CD, and US alliance of reformists
   
2. repression didn't seem to be working, and thus their economic basis was eroding.
   
3. remittances presented new opportunities for gains not tied to coffee
   

(55): dramatic decline of export agriculture, for four reasons (the reason this is not economic determinism, though, is because the insurgency is in the background, throughout--it is not just explained, for example, by the decline in coffee prices)

1. elite uncertainty
2. expropriation in 1980
3. nationalization of finance and export
4. resources transferred elsewhere
   

(62): question--we have to decide if focusing on the unintended effects of insurgency (elites were doing well, elsewhere) is the same as 'forging democracy from below'.

(67): critical--also, the evolution of ARENA; the fact that elites had reliable political representation allowed them to tolerate political reform. it is precisely, in other words, because they weren't afraid of politics. (71--in 1985, a shift away from D'Aubisson)

(73): also, and this is very important in South Africa, as well--neoliberalism means that the postconflict government will be hamstrung, anyway.

(75): ARENA builds a broad political base?

(76): key--"with the eclipse of labor-repressive agriculture as the core interest of economic elites, neither the political nor the economic compromises in the peace agreement... would pose a significant threat..." [so is it indirect? or direct, because the shift is explained by the insurgency? see 77, below]

(77): here, she foregrounds remittances. i think she doesn't quite commit. so confused!

chapter 4, negotiating a democratic transition

(79, 85, 88): in brief--for ARENA, political compromise; for FMLN, almost entire economic compromise, short of redistribution of land; political victory (though in hindsight, wow...). result: ARENA and the elites win! not win-win, hardly compromise.

(105): ARENA builds a strong party ("individual conservatism of campesinos"!). WTF.

PART TWO

chapter five, apartheid, conservative modernization...

(111): same story--conservative modernization could not answer the aspirations of non-whites without compromising the labor-repressive controls on which the elite relied. this paved the way for the emergence of a counter-elite

(113): a "liberal revolution"--political reform, economic status quo [= total sell-out?]

(114): labor-repressive institutions as a response to the problem of labor-supply

(115): "Workers of the World Unite and Fight for a White South Africa", 1921/22!!!

(116): key example--Natives Land Act of 1913, transformation of peasants to farm laborers--clear example of role of extra-economic coercion (different narrative from Masondo's presentation)

(117): context of Apartheid, though, was "rapid urbanization"

(120): in sum, labor-repressive institutions were attempting to "balance" the competing demands for disciplined, urban and rural labor forces.

(122): Apartheid, though, could not wean the economy from its dependence on African labor [this is at the heart of the troubles--and, she will suggest, at the heart of the compromise]

(125-126): ANC's beginnings as a democratic party (founded in 1912). Radicalized in 1948, with Apartheid's implications for the African middle-class. SACP founded in 1921; works with the ANC starting in 1928.

(126): Mandela on the SACP

(127): the Freedom Charter, 1955

(126-127): account of the struggle in the 1940s and 1950s

(129): Sharpevillie 1960

(130): ANC exhausts non-violent civil disobedience in the anti-pass campaign around Sharpeville, founds Umkonto we Sizwe

(132): key--labor militance constitutes ANC as a counter-elite (graph on pg. 133--extraordinary peaking in the 1980s).

(135): Soweto 1976 (State responds with repression and reform)

(137): COSATU formed in 1985

(138): Union mobilization peaks in 1987 with 11% on strike (in UK in 1926, 14-15% were on strike; 10% participated in largest general strike after WWII in the US)

(139): COSATU moves toward ANC; adopts Freedom Charter in July 1987.

(140): in conclusion, two effects of sustained mobilization

1. ANC constituted as counter-elite (he writes about the lack of a black moderate leadership--though can't we think of 1990-1994 period, like this?)
2. business organizations were worried enough--they depended on labor--to push for reform.

(141-142): three reasons why the ANC emerges

1. Mandela
2. PAC was in shambles; ANC had resources
3. the appeal of a non-racial platform; universalism was a more powerful weapon than African nationalism

Chapter 6, Economic Elite Interests

(144): unlike El Salvador, where there was sectoral change during civil war--here elites were concerned about the effects on the investment climate.

(149): increasing capital intensity as a response to labor mobilization--this, she's arguing, has the effect of disincentivizing Apartheid. makes sense.

(153, 155): worry about capital outflows, disinvestment, starting in the early-mid 1970s

(159-161): dismissing the liberal argument, which has three requirements that she thinks don't hold. [she's not saying that some of this doesn't happen--the stuff about the profit rate and shortages of skilled labor--but her argument is that it happens too early to explain the time of transition]

1. shortage of skilled labor should have arisen earlier
2. shortage should have a negative impact on the profit rate
3. repairing this ought to have required democracy
   

chapter 7, from recalcitrance to compromise

(170): Business supports National Party in 1983 Referendum

(172): win-win!, from perspective of business. if business thinks its win-win, shouldn't you submit this to serious scrutiny!?

(179): splits within the National Party, into Conservative Party (particularly white labor?)

(182-183): three issues were on the table

1. political policy
2. economic policy
3. truth and reconciliation (and punishment!)

(185): extraordinary figures--between 1984 and 1989 5,500 died; between 1990 and 1993, 13,500 died. ("the tap" and mass action, during negotiations)

(186): Joe Slovo and the 'sunset clause'

(189190): critical--the ANC and economic concessions. sad, sad. (there doesn't seem to be space to see the 'politics-as-usual' in all of this)

(193): like in El Salvador--political victory, economic defeat means that the elites go home happy.

CONCLUSION

Chapter 8, The Insurgent Path

(198): the particular importance of economic interdependence in explaining all of this, as compared to other civil conflicts.

(199-201): important-- differences between El Salvador and South Africa

1. FMLN highly effective military capacity, leadership; ANC was militarily ineffective, and had less direct control of the social movement
2. in El Salvador, sectoral transformation of elite interests, owing to remittances; in South Africa, insurgency transformed elite economic interests not because of this, but because it undermined commitment to labor-repressive institutions (economic instability/political instability argument)

(200): spread of neoliberal ideology comforted elites.

(201): elites compromised only when they knew that they would do better, or at least no worse, in peacetime. scandalous!

(201): again, the trade-offs. politics for economics. boo.

(202): Poland--not the same 'threat' to the elites, she's arguing. they were looking forward to the transition. i think this is all dubious, but need a better sense of the history.

(203): Guatemala--three important differences:

1. weaker insurgency
2. civil war did not transform elite interests
3. fragile transition, because of lack of a hegemonic right-wing political party

(204): again, structural importance of economic interedpendence (israel is obvious thought, here)

(205): there is, though, the spectre of economic interdpendence becoming a normative claim. what happened to 'nothing to lose but chains'? the ANC didn't really need the white elite. they were forced to compromise, with them (working-class has everyday dependence; not politically, at moments of possible revolution). it's the other way (from perspective of capitalists) that dependence is obvious.

(206): again--"market institutions restrict post-conflict uncertainty"

Epilogue

(210-211): four (negative) legacies of this path

1. unequal distribution of wealth
2. social mobilization it requires
3. raised expectations of mobilized groups
4. a state that reflects past commitments

(211-212): the answer, though, as 'vibrant political competition'!?!? please! a pathological narrowing of the limits of the possible.

Rasheed, articulate and determined, also raised fundamental issues with regard to the ongoing military operations in FATA and the rest of the NWFP. He claimed that more than 90 per cent of the 7,000 people killed in the military action in the region since 2004 were civilians. In his native Bajaur, he contended that 99 per cent of the 3,000 tribespeople who lost their lives in the military operation were women and children and, therefore, innocent. Rasheed is ready to face punishment if his family is found involved in anti-state activities but he also wants those making accusations against him and his relations to be made accountable if they are proved wrong. Moreover, he wants a judicial probe into the civilian deaths in the military action and the US drone strikes in the Frontier. He is seeking an independent probe by judges, political leaders, the media and human rights activists into the so-called "collateral damage" resulting from the military operations and is willing to defend his viewpoint on all forums. On his part, he believes his hujra was demolished and his mother and niece were killed to punish him for consistently opposing since 2004 the military action in the NWFP and FATA. He considers it as an act of revenge, a claim that the security forces and the government would never accept.

ching kwan lee, 'chambishi rising'

chinese as 'new imperialists' -- only rhetorical impotance, analytically thin

'chambishi is of strategic importance for the Chinese

---

the reason colonialism is not the most productive way to look at China-Africa, she's arguing, has to do with where it focuses our attention (trade statistics, investment, etc.)

these statistics are true--they are true, but they don't suggest a real question

capital is not investment/trade numbers. it is a 'social relation', a process (not 'figures'). so to understand this we need to ask what kind of capitalism are the chinese implementing (both at home and abroad). it is the peculiarity of chinese capitalism that is interesting.

---

we want to think in terms of mechanisms and limits of domination. (the question is not 'capitalism'/socialism; but how we embed the market in social relations-hmph).

we need to understand what the limits are to the kind of capitalism the chinese are pursuing.

---

if you want to make profit, then, the first question is how you control/manage labor? but the chinese encounter distinct additional questions, in this attempt--they cannot simply repeat what the brits were doing, we live in a postcolonial age. but we also live in a post-fordist era, meaning they can't 'buy off' their working class [but what are the parameters of this position?]. they can also not lay claim to hegemony on the basis of universal values, due to the insistence on chinese uniqueness.

the question, in sum, is what is distinctly chinese about this investment?

---

in fieldwork: the number one problem for chinese investors self-reported as labor.

---

why zambia? not because it represents africa; but because, for two reasons, it's a critical case: (1) one of china's closest allies in the continent (independence in '63; '68 -'72, china built railroad that helped it escape white dependence for export of copper). if china has problems here, then, they'll have more problems everywhere else. (2) chambishi is supposed to be the heart of a cross-africa railroad; and, more generally, very central strategically (first of five chinese-owned special economic zone, on a 99-year lease with the promise to bring manufacture--including the value-added part of the copper process)

---

burawoy--writing about the problem of 'zambianization', which was the question of replacing white managers with zambians (british multinationals).

(1) today, however, the problem is not the question of who owns the mine (as perceived by whom? by miners)--zambians have gone through failed nationalization, without improvement of life. followed by IMF-led privatization.

today you have 7 major companies -- the nationality of capital doesn't really matter. what we want is decent pay and decent welfare. they are very aware of class question; national question is no longer the issue. [how strong is the old claim, though?]

less, here, a race to the bottom. competition amongst the seven firms have forced the chinese to lift up the wage levels and welfare benefits. internationalization has produced its own effect.

---

(2) another thing that separates this from Burawoy's work from 40 yrs ago is 'casualization' --liberalization of labor law, no mandate on welfare provision. this has a very profound influence on labor politics; you have to go outside the domain of production to understand labor politics (chinese are not afraid of labor unions; but, rather, wildcat strikes and protests by those who are unemployed/casualized/informal). de-institutionalization of labor politics.

---

against current media presentation, chinese interest in Africa has a lot to do with what is going on inside China. first, the danger of enormous reserves and overcapacity; hyperinflation is looming, real estate prices have gone through the roof. an intense need to find new outlets for chinese capital. Africa allows a release of surplus; 'export of capital'. secondly, of course, there is a real need to guarantee the source of raw materials, particularly in a place where the West has not been as dominant. (and let's not forget, Chinese presence in Africa is not new; an anticolonial bond; China and the Bandung Conference. China is looked at as an alternative; this is particularly how china pitches itself, as a 'model'. this is part, she's arguing, of the hegemonic influence on workers, as well).

---

chinese regime of production

1. creating a chinese-owned economic space: aiming at 60 firms; 6,000 zambian workers, 1,000 chinese. chinese have a 25-year tax holiday, from when they first declare profit. the zambian government is concentrating on this as a source of employment for their voters. they care more about votes, than taxation. also, residential segregation--the 'china houses' are highly regimented/regulated; they have very long work schedules, are controlled as if they were workers. the local Zambian bourgeoisie also like having chinese there--attendant benefits. (crux of her argument is that this is not just a 'space of domination'.

2. zambian time, chinese time: q. of working hard like the chinese.

3. race and 'multi-national capital': after the failure of 'zambianization', race understood differently.

4. collective bargaining and wildcat strikes: 'casualization' is on the table--over the past ten years, the chinese have tremendously improved the conditions of service (in the beginning, they had the largest number of casualized workers; now they have been compelled to change this. conceded on company medical insurance, too). the union's strategy is to encourage wildcat strikes, which are joined by the wives of miners. a very important strategy.

5. managers of state capitalism: most resistant to fieldwork; who are they? many of these have gone through the reform period at home; having rejected state-owned enterprise of the maoist sort, they are totally committed to the mission of capitalism. these managers are effective conduits of chinese capitalism. one vulnerability, though, is that they are responsible for the image of the Chinese gov't. not just tasked with making profit. there is a logic, perhaps, beyond profit-making.

---

chambishi story, in sum

(1) diachronic--chinese concession and expansion
(2) synchronic--elements of a chinese regime fo production
(3) inadequacy of Marxian theory of production (?) -- polanyi's counter-movement; perhaps Bourdieu and notion of 'symbolic capital', perhaps post-colonial notion of difference?

...It is important to understand the complexity of the insurgency. About three quarters, probably more fight within a few miles of where they were born and where their families live. And so for them, many have drifted into the insurgency for a variety of reasons: local tribal grievances, friction, disaffection etc. We believe that they can be brought back into the political and economic mainstream reasonably straightforwardly. It is not that they are opportunistic but they have drifted into it for a lot of local reasons. In a sense they are fighting with the Taleban but not for them. That has happened a lot in Afghanistan in many of the civil conflicts that have gone on in the past...

harry braverman, labor and monopoly capital

Introduction

(10): intermediate classes discussed in the Second International--but abortive

(11): labor movement's critique of capitalism as a mode of production became a critique of capitalism as a mode of distribution

(16): insistence that machine/technology is embedded in social relations

(19): the growth of the forces of production within a mode of production (i.e., the growth of potential forces of production--for the next mode of production, within antiquated forms--industrial capitalism "gives us" electric power, internal combustion engine, atomic power)

(20): technology does not produce social relations, but is produced by social relations represented by capitalism.

(23): Khruschev ridiculing Chinese industrialization as 'eating soup with an awl'

(26): new/old working class confusion -- everything, in some sense, is 'new' as an occupation, in other words, because the labor process has--always--been in flux

(27): this book is about the working class as a class in itself, not a class for itself

(29-30): three expressions of class consciousness

1. absolute expression -- pervasive durable attitude
2. long-term relative expression -- slowly changing traditions, organization
3. short-term relative expression -- dynamic complex of moods and sentiments

PART ONE

Chapter 2

(51): labor-power critically important--won't necessarily look like this to the master of laborers. but for the individuals who allocate their own labor, this is of critical importance (and this is where, he's suggesting, the labor theory of value begins)

(52): emphatically not Smithian--three conditions of capitalist production

1. workers separated from the means of production, can only gain access to them by selling labor-power
2. workers freed of legal constraints that prevent them from disposing of their labor power
3. purpose of employment is the expansion of capital

(54): what the capitalist buys is the right to dispose of the worker for an agreed period of time. this is not the purchase of labor (which is an inalienable human function), but of labor-power.

(55-56): the essential distinction between human and animal labor is the infinite malleability of the former; example of the ox (who lacks the many-sided potentiality of the human)

(57): labor process has become the responsibility of the capitalist

(58): capitalist, thus, strives to take control--this presents itself, to us, as the problem of management.

(60-63): from "timid" to "avid" capitalists--they avoid taking control, at first. but eventually, the potential benefits are simply too great (controlling/moulding the labor process--this is, also, a precondition for rapid technological change)

(66): absolute surplus value, and habituation (association of early industry with prisons, workhouses, and orphanages)

Chapter 3

(72): distinction between the social division of labor and the division of labor in detail

(74): the stupidity of Durkheim (thank you!)

(80): Babbage's innovation--dividing the craft cheapens the laborers you are hiring; decreases the value of labor-power

(82): the capitalist mode of production systematically destroys skills where they exist--bringing into existence skills that correspond to its needs. the end of the generalized distribution of knowledge about the production process.

Chapter 4

(90): Taylor is not someone who was seeking the best way to do work in general, but the best way to manage alienated labor (labor power that is bought and sold).

(98): natural soldiering (laziness) and systematic soldiering. Taylor saw himself as up against the latter.

(100): the conclusion Taylor drew was simple--so long as workers control the labor proceess, capital cannot realize the full potential inherent in their labor power.

(107): and this is the pivot on which management turns--the control over the decisions that are made in the course of work no longer belong to the worker.

(113, 119): three principles of scientific management:

1. dissociation of the labor process from the skills of workers--it should be planned not according to craft or other principles
   
2. separation of conception from execution
3. use of the monopoly over knowledge of the labor process to control each step

(118): Taylor understood the Babbage principle

Chapter 5

(126): separation of hand and brain is the most decisive step, again (socially, of course, their unity still exists; but not individually, in the labor process as experienced by the worker)

(129-130): the influx of laborers from ruined agriculture, the advent of new industries which require some skill training -- all this can obscure a long-term, secular trend toward the incessant lowering of working-class skills.

(132): craftsman traditional repository of technical knowledge of the production process

Chapter 6

(146-149): the way in which the worker is habituated to the capitalist mode of production is not through manipulation or cajolery, but through socioeconomic forces--the capitalist mode of production destroys all other forms of organization of labor, and thus eliminates all alternatives for the working population.

PART TWO

Chapter 7

(156): science, like labor, has been turned into capitalist property [question, here, of the role of the State?]

(166): the distinctiveness of the scientific-technical revolution, the systematic application of science to the labor process (which really takes off in the last quarter of the nineteenth century)

(169): initially, it is the organization of labor that changes. next, it is the instruments of labor that are revolutionized. to the question of how this happens, though, there is no unitary answer (it is open to history, we might say)

(171): and this, then, coincides with a systematic attack on the unity of thought and action in the labor process. this signals its total destruction, in a sense. [there is an important point about technology being both an effect and a cause of the separation of planning and execution, here]

(172): he is arguing, though, that this is an ideal that is only realized within definite limits [the question is what are these limits, and how can they be established]

(179-180): worker is seen as a machine from the perspective of capital, which is the animating principle of this method of labor organization (of this mode of production)

(182): moving, in a sense, towards abstract labor stripped of all its concreteness

(184): two approaches--the engineering approach, which abstracts from social relations, and the social approach, which views technology as situated in social relations.

(185): we must look at technology as it affects the labor process.

(188): the key element in the development of machinery is not size, speed, etc., but the manner in which its operations are controlled (and thus, of course, what this spells for workers and the labor process)

(190-191): trends in machine development -- from universal to specific to universal functions again?

(193): excellently put--machinery presents us with the possibility of human control over the labor process. but this is nothing but an abstraction, as humans is not explicated in the concrete social setting in which we find ourselves. what it really means is that the mass of humanity is subjected to the labor process, rather than it being set to serve the interests of humanity in general [well expressed, here]

(195): machinery offers management a mechanical means of doing what it might be unable to do through organization or discipline -- take effective control of the labor process.

(199): revolutionary effects of 'numerical control'

(203): price ratio is 12 (old) to 1 (new)

(206): the pursuit of the increased productivity of labor, under capitalism, becomes "generalized social insanity"

(208): in this relentless pursuit of productivity without reference to human need, we have the reductio ad absurdum of capitalist inneficiency.

(212): the crux, again -- machinery enabling control of the labor process, from outside.

(216, 218-219): very interesting tables about levels of control (17!)

(227): dead labor and living labor

(229): it has become fashionable to attribute powers to machine, where we ought to be speaking of social relations

(230): in reality, machines also present us the possibility of eliminating drudgery for all (and a commensurate sharing of the remaining boring tasks) -- this is a classic presentation of forces/social relations contradicton

(237): value of labor power/machine implementation discussion --some interrogation needed, here, of his earlier argument and the preconditions for it.

alex callinicos, "plumbing the depths: marxism and the holocaust"

(386): Mandel explains the holocaust as outgrowth of colonialism and imperialist capitalism, comparable to those barbarisms. the racism, interacting with the context of total war. partial, and not specified, says Callinicos.

(391): similarly, explanatory appeals to human nature simply can't grasp the fact that this was limited in space and time.

(392-393): two competing theories, about relationship between Nazism and elites

1. Arno Mayer, who sees fascism as the ancien regime's last stand (ancien regime in power until 1914, in effect)
   
2. those who focus on conflicts between Nazis and the elite

(393-394): resolution, Callinicos is arguing, comes in Trotsky's analysis of fascism as "counter-revolution in the guise of revolution."

1. counter-revolutionary in the sense that its purpose is to smash the organized working class; points of convergence between the Nazis and industrialists
2. yet, revolutionary guise insofar as it was a mass movement which (a) could do this far more effectively than conventional forces of the state, which were in disarray (traumatized by world war, revolution, depression, infaltion) and (b) antagonizes, to an extent, the bourgeoisie; it was not their party

(394): a mass movement of those caught between big capital and organized labor (supported by research done by Gluckstein; not cited at all, by Mann)

(395): interesting question about Trotsky's expectation with respect to the Fascists --

robert brenner, "from theory to history..." [critique of mann]

(189): ok, important but not really powerful--mann's account of the rise of europe is internally contradictory, because it violates his theoretical commitments [since it requires him to presuppose the socio-geographical unity of Europe, even as he's argued for anti-holism in his four forms of 'social power' model'--see 190, 200-201, 205]

(193): why do people sit at the bottom of these hierarchies, for Mann? because they are out-organized. this will come again, and is quite critical to understanding the faults in what he's peddling.

(194): summarizing Mann's argument, which appears here as hogwash, confused/overdetermined/disorganized (formally complex--actually meaningless)

(203): key--there's no account of the economic reproduction of the agents that operate the organizations he's outlining (which, means, then, that there is no account of how they're able to hold sway)

(205): here this point emerges, again, in Mann's treatment of diffused power vs. authoritative power (but this is confused, obviously) -- he retreats to simple 'out-organization'

(207): key--why do those at the top carry any bite--why are those at the top able to carry out their will, at all? [and Brenner has more than hinted at the resolution--these instruments of domination will have to be intimately related to the economic distribution of resources, which these four networks cannot explain, but must presuppose]

(210): "capitalist is a captain of industry because he is a capitalist, not vice versa..."

(211): Brenner's account of why the economic and the political were merged, in feudalism--which has to do with the predominance of 'political accumulation', of course. it could also be come at, from the opposite direction--any class with the means of domination, in hand, would obviosuly use that authority to pursue the conditions for materially reproducing itself.

(217): rules of reproduction--no incentive to innovate, due to immense costs of specialization (safety first)

(220-222): key point--unlike Mann's account and others', Brenner is asserting that the centralized state, in feudalism, does not emerge because of capitalist dynamics. it is emphatically feudal--it emerges due to the material requirements of lords, pursuing its construction. they were obliged to rely on extensive growth, which pit them against rival lords.

(222): neither was this led by a monarch, who proceeded without a political community. he needed lordly followers, since he depended on them for "counsel, administration, finance and military backing. "

(222): thus, feudalism exhibits both a Malthusian dynamic--and a unilineal dynamic to ever larger, more centralized states.

(226): again, it cannot be the simple pursuit of a social need that determines whether you will be successful in establishing a social network with you at its head--this is voluntarist hogwash, and confronts countless counterfactuals which it cannot explain away. you need some account of why certain people triumph over others.

(226-227): similarly, political power is not set up to fulfill political functions, "per se for themselves." one rather can only conceive of states being set up to fulfill the political needs of some already-existing group. [Mann himself recognizes this!

(227): the separation of the economic and the political, under capitalism, becomes possible when economic surplus extraction no longer depends on extra-economic coercion, but on the dull compulsion of the economic structure.

(228-229): key, why does the State not move against the capitalists?

1. historically, it only emerged with the rise of the capitalist class--they pursued a state which could defend their property rights without plundering them (winning of Parliament in 1688-1689)
2. logically, the state--to pursue its own goals--needs dynamic economic growth, which means it needs vigorous capitalist accumulation. "only apparently autonomous, the state is dependent upon capital."
   

Evidence now available from various sources, including recently declassified United States State Department documents, shows that the Taliban regime led by Mullah Mohammad Omar imposed strict isolation on Osama bin Laden after 1998 to prevent him from carrying out any plots against the United States.

persistent inequalities, howard botwinick (1993)

chapter one

(7-8): positioning himself against neoclassicals, but also against radicals who see differential wages as produced by 'monopoly' or 'dual markets' [because, as he says, they accept the traditional theory of 'competitive wage determination'--"that wage differentials persist only when competition is restricted"]

(9): concerned with three dynamics that explain wage differentials [:

1. capitalist competition and technical change;
   
2. regeneration of a reserve army
3. uneven efforts of organized workers to raise their wage rates within lmits

(10): a theory of discrimination (race, gender) would need to begin with what is outlined here, and explain discriminatory assignment to low-wage jobs (the latter is what is explained here, in other words)

(11): wage differentials perfectly consistent with capitalist competition

(13): and certainly, wage differentials are not the result of individual differences in skill/quality (he is not saying this is unimportant--but these are decisively secondary, and do not explain what we are interested in)

(15): importance of 'class struggle'--both negative and positive, of course, depending on how it's waged

(16): arguing that class struggle, though, cannot lead to capitalist crisis (there are in-built mechanisms that 'check' this)

(17-18): two anomalies that radicals have been unable to solve, that we will now

1. successful unionization and wage increases in the 'periphery'
2. absence of segmentation in Europe

chapter three--wage level

(63): neoclassical assumptions, nature of their static abstraction

1. give endowment of capital and labor
2. technology exogenously determined
3. supply and demand of labor are autonomous and stationary entities
4. perfect competition
5. profit-maximizing behavior based on dininishing returns

(66): summary of the neoclassical picture

(69-70): 'historical' and 'moral' element to wages in Marx's theory; not an 'iron law of wages'

(73): excellent explosion of neoclassical position on labor supply -- because of uniqueness of labor power as a commodity, even when wages drop, laborers cannot exit the market.

(74): three dynamics go into law of accumulation:

1. changes in rate of accumulation--this is the critical, 'independent' variable, setting the limits
   
2. changes in organic composition
   
3. changes in labor force participation

(79): key passage--two contradictory effects: increased rate of accumulation enhanced demand for labor; increased organic comp, contracts it. the latter effect, though, limits the former in three ways:

1. accumulation accelerates increased organic comp
2. original capital also changes when additional capital changes, meaning extra workers are thrown out
3. lowering rate of profit, dampening accumulation

(80): all this means that seriously high demand for those in the reserve army will be attenuated by these dynamics. in other words, it is more or less impossible.

(84): critique of Keynesian position on chronic unemployment [a functionalist retort?]

1. reserve army provides capital with a critical mechanism
2. provides capital with necessary flexibility

(88): importatn, depressing effects of the reserve army

(89): again, iron law of wages in Marx? No, says Botwinick.

(92): post-crisis, an anticapitalist consciousness?

(93): Shaikh on crisis and rising organic composition of capital, post-WWII

chapter four--wage differentials

(94): again, wrt to wage differentials, we're looking to explain "systematic variation within limits."

(96-97): four basic forms of the reserve army

1. floating--attached to centers of modern industry
2. latent--on the verge of becoming proletariat
3. stagnant--decaying branches of industry, etc.
4. pauperism

(97): critical, of course, that these positions are not temporary

(100-101): important--a discussion of de-skilling does not obviate the continuous redifferentiation of workers, even if between increasingly narrow limits.

(102): craft unions, and industrial unions

(106-107): important discussion, citing Moody and Davis, of labor's co-option in the late 40s, early 50s (prohibition of solidarity strikes, etc., with taft-hartley)

(110): summary of observations on the 'wage level' -- that it cannot outstrip productivity growth, because of the effect that has on the rate of profit.

(111): labor mobility is not any longer an assumption, of course, because we have a reserve army. so there is no automatic 'upward pressure' on wage rates at the low end. there is, of course, downward pressure--the way in which this is effected will depend on three things:

1. level of militancy
2. differential costs of training a new work force
3. differential technical conditions of production

(114): the important regulating principle, stated in the abstract: "overall range of wge differentiation" will depend on a particular firm/industry's access to labor reserves [which can depend on many different factors and dynamically vary, of course]

(116): in sum--he is stating his argument, briefly and without complications:

1. between industry wage differentials--stagnant industries will be flooded with those that are adopting more capital-intensive techniques; in low-wage sectors, you see a race ot the bottom; the uneven development of technical change is exacerbated even further, because low-wage sectors have little incentive to pursue technical improvements
2. within industry wage differentials--workers in more backward firms will find that they are being super-exploited to compete with more advanced firms. this is not just a featyure of the transition to handicraft/manufacture-industry.
   

michael mann, fascists (2004)

Chapters 1 and 2

(1): study of rise of fascist movement, and not the regimes in power [obviously a place to push back, with paxton point about stages of development]

(1-4): seven reasons to take it seriously

1. a major political doctrine of 20th century
2. embraced nation-state
3. ideology must be taken seriously
4. 'core fascist constituencies' is a live problem
5. take seriously the movements behind them
6. seek to understand the evil in which they culminated
7. take seriously the chance that they might return--"some of the substance lives on"

(4): here Mann caricatures, as is his wont, the materialism-idealism "traditional polemic".

(5): four forms of social power [push back majorly, here]

1. ideological
   
2. economic
3. military
4. political

(13-17): a definition--"fascism is the pursuit of a transcendent and cleansing nation-statism through paramilitarism", five key terms.

1. nationalism
2. statism--goal and organizational form
3. transcendence of class conflict (here he pushes back against Paxton)
4. cleansing
5. paramilitarism--key value and key organizational form

(18): key--here, again, Mann caricatures 'class'-based theories of fascism (which he thinks are limited to middle-class interest, and capitalist interest). he cannot acknolwedge that, in fact, these are much more complicated--and that, importantly, they don't rise and fall with the question of movement 'composition'. they are also, at the very least, meant to say something about the ideology/motivation that impelled these movements. [his argument, here, speaks also to his gross misunderstanding of the role of 'class' as structuring social life]

(21-22): classically bad!!!--because fascists weren't materialists, you can't use materialism to explain them (this is his argument at the bottom of this page, more or less--"fascists focused elsewhere")

(22): again, an impoverished understanding of materialism ('material interests') [plus, here, there's also the problem of foresight--people can pursue their material interests without the pursuit being in their long-term interest]

(25): the overreaction of the old regime [does this have to do with his understating the threat?]

(26-27): three core constituencies

1. favoring paramilitarism
2. favoring transcendence
3. favoring nation-statism

(32): state size 'explosion' in the 1700s

(34): organic vs. liberal conceptions of the nation-state (indivisible people, etc)

(36): complete excision of colonialism from his narrative of State expansion! (didn't Arendt say that Europe built fasicsm in the colonies before it built it at home?)

(38): 1920-1945 retreat of liberal democracy on the continent

(44): distinction between modern authoritarianism and those past--the former had to deal with the "organized political pressure from masses"

(45-47): four ascending degrees of authoritarianism

1. semi-authoritarian--"dual" state, but in mildest form
   
2. semi-reactionary authoritarian
3. corporatist regimes--integrated, hierarhchical
   
4. fascist regimes--corporatism plus paramilitarism

(48): here he starts his discussion of the four forms of power/crisis

(48-64): economic power, economic crisis

(49): first candidate--late-development theory (he will say this explains authoritarianism, partly)

(51): rise of authoritarianism mainly happened in the less developed countries (see his table on page 50)

(52): his critique of the Rueschemeyer et al. -- but why is it banal to state that the majority has an inherent interest in extending the franchise? it's critical.

(56-57): second candidate--the slump (but what about NW europe, he's saying?)

(58): third candidate--class conflict (see below)

(59): strength of left does not map onto the strength of reaction, either--their was an overreaction, from the right (he's stressing the weakness of the left, after 1920)

(62): important--claim that he will repeat, later, about capitalist interest in property vs. capitalist interest in profit. we ought to push back here, because he's neglecting their interdependence under capitalism. moreover, his counterfactual (that something less would have been in capitalists' long-term interests) is simply ahistorical, and not how 'capitalist interests' are typically calculated. though perhaps his formulation does let us say something interesting about 'old regime' interests.

(64): here is a key place where ideology takes on a life of its own, in his argument (the right in one-half of europe was more attracted to certain values). push back time.

(64): in sum, economic explanation is only partial.

(64-70): military power, military crisis

(67): importance of war dislocation--acquiring new territories, debts, etc., which was unique to the South, East, Center of Europe

(68): key--WWI made possible civic paramilitarism. this will be one of his key pegs.

(70-78): political power, political crisis

(71): important, as a place he's pushing back against RSS--participation vs. contestation (the NW didn't have the former, he agrees, but it did have the latter). it's unclear, though, that this is incompatible with what they were arguing.

(72): and, of course, his deployment of this fact is question-begging, completely, insofar as he's not discussing their causes.

(80): fascism as 'reactionary modernism'

(91): overdetermined outcomes--and total spectre, in this conclusion, of a descriptive analysis

---

Chapter 3, Italy

(94): three preconditions, for union between nationalists and Left

1. distinction between nation and state, in Italy
2. Italian labor movement
3. nationalism had leftist elements.
   

(95): this was the "leftist nationalist interventionism" that turned into fascism (from 20,000 in late 1920 to 320,00 in Nov 1921)

(96-97): the class-based interpretation of Italian fascism -- as a 'petty-bourgeois' nationalism, that promised the world but that would likely have to sell out to the capitalists [Salvatorelli]. Mann's rejoinder is classically weak, even barbaric (consists, again, of asserting that materialism cannot take 'ideology' seriously)

(97-100): and Mussolini's own account of what explains fascism (!) -- some kind of transcendent, imperial, nationalist project, valuing action over ideology.

(102-103): extraordinary statistics about military veterans in the fascist movement, attracted by 'paramilitarism'

(105): three bursts of violence (quite tame while in power, until Ethiopia)

(106): this is an important point, that needs to be responded to carefully --in Italy, fascism spread in those places where "civil society" was most dense (both in rural areas with varied relations of production, and in urban areas)

(107-109): beginning to discuss the class composition of Italian fascism--in short, more middle-class than the figures reveal, especially in the cities, but not so much in the rural areas

(110): key point--"fascism could not penetrate the organized working class", but had an easier time (see also 116)

(112): this is his central critique of the 'middle-class' theories, i think -- those that were attracted to fascism, within the middle-class, can't be distinguished on the basis of their social position, but rather perhaps simply on their attachment to 'nation-statist values' and 'paramilitary means' [but then, doesn't this become, simply, a non-explanation?]

(113-115): PNF popularity in rural areas -- split the socialists by offering an attractive program

(116-117): BUT, again--where the working classes were dense and organized in rural areas, they were rarely fascist. he's making quite an important point, here, about "organization" [the 'organized working class' is not the same as the 'working class']

(117): a key point, that's obscured in his presetntation--"rural fascism became increasingly conservative," an alliance between landlords and the middling to lower-middling peasants.

(119): his take-home point, if we're being charitable, is to focus our attention on the important question of 'violence' as means of organization (and, thus, question of why the fascists could become so popular) (see also 122)

(120): key--here, quite clearly, the distinction between 'fascism-as-movement' and 'fascism-as-power'; Mussolini is coming around to appease big capital.

(121): fascism didn't attack the state; attacked those who said they were attacking the state (i.e. Leftists)

(123): 'propertied classes' in Italy were afraid because of biennio rosso (1919-1920)(self-styled soviets, general strike in April in Turin, 500,000 workers occupying their factories at its height, etc.)--but, Mann, is arguing, their fears weren't commensurate to the facts. "fascism as preventative counterrevolution."

(125): and this, really, is the clincher--HE QUOTES MUSSOLINI TO PROVE THAT THE COMMUNISTS WERE DONE FOR.

(119-126): in sum, he has given us three economic reasons for elite support of fascism, all of which he finds useful, but incomplete. we can push back, here.

1. propertied classes' fear of pervasive and growing violence
2. fear of political revolution
3. repression of labor in order to protect profits (what was wrong with gilotti, he is saying?)
   

(127): defection of the state apparatus to the fascists (hollow monopoly of armed force)

(128): speaking of a 'class crisis' intertwined with a 'political crisis' -- but maybe this calls for some theorizing? he seems distinctly uninterested in the possibility.

(131): high recruitment in the Northern border regions.

(132): useful summary of his claims, thus far

(134): fascism in power as a "loose corporatism" -- conceding power to elites, etc. all this seems critical, but it is distinctly underemphasized (3 pages!) ('fascism as a movement' represented a very small fraction of the time we ought to be concerned with, surely)

(135): wow--only nine political executions, from 1927 to 1940. low level of repression, more generally.

(136-137): summary of his claims, re: Italian fascism. he calls his explanation "multifaceted", but it seems to me, rather, overdetermined and disorganized.

---

Chapter 4, Nazis

(129): a 'slower' rise to power

(141): Jews made up 0.76% of the German population (only 2 percent of Germany's bankers/stockbrokers)

(142): early Nazis' socialism, and then the retreat from it in the late 1920s -- primacy of worker over exploiter, livelihood/welfard for citizens, take action against big finance, and radical land reform program (abandoned in 1928) [again, this is something that needs to be foregrounded]

(143): goal, again, was transcendence, and an 'organic community of the people'

(144): 63% of entry essays saw Marxists/socialits as principal enemies.

(146): fascism as regime, fascism as movement--alluding to the sidelining of the SA as the regime calcified, but is not making this systematic, at all. (see also 167)

(151): Nazis and military veterans (84% had served in the war, somewhat overrepresented; but later cohorts would be needed to replenish the movement--see 361)--and the importance of the military as a right/left faultline (German left had been antimilitarist). Two main explanations for why this is: (1) economic, demobilized soldiers, etc.; (2) translation of military into paramilitary values

(157): key--many Nazis were workers; alternatively, workers were slightly underrepresented in the Nazis (this disappears if we include the paramilitaries). but I don't think this is an empirical challenge to the Marxist thesis, at all. (see 160, also--where he says that the Nazis were 'multiclass'. the descriptor 'petty-bourgeois' is an adjective that is meant to describe the leading element, the ideological orientation. it has some claim on membership, certainly, and should be roughly correct--but not at all hard-and-fast.)

(159): the SPD and the KPD really were proletarian parties, he's acknowledging.

(163): key membership from the civil service and professionals, and white-collar workers (civil servants were most overrepresented occupational group--four times as likely)

(165): an 'antimaterialist' explanation of the way in which they were attracted to the Nazis ('blood and soil' nationalism) that is crying out for--in fact--a materialist explanation to save it from its being question-begging.

(167): SA was proletarian

(170): again, here what's critical, again, is a dense "civil society" -- the Nazis were at the heart of it. very important.

(171-172): critical, six points about class and the Nazis (again, this is where we stress that 'petty-bourgeoisie' is not a claim about composition, but about character; nor does this obviate materialism, at all)

1. all classes well represented
2. rural classes moved from under- to over-representation
3. nation-statist, educated bourgeoisie was overrepresented; business bourgeoisie underrepresented
4. difficult penetrating organized working-class communities
5. not marginals and economic losers that joined the fascists (heart of civil society)
6. distant from the main arenas of modern class conflict. indirect observers of the most pronounced class struggle.
   

(175): the nation congeals in violence--they managed to convince elite s that violence was needed to solve the country's anarchy.

Chapter 5, German Sympathizers

(177): three reasons that the Nazis could seize power

1. activism of militants
2. votes of the electorate
3. ambivalence about Weimar/assistance of the elites

(178): "strong nationalism" characterized Nazi propaganda.

(179): claim, here, he's making about how the Nazi program of transcendence mirrored the 'classless' composition of their movement.

(182): EXTRAORDINARY--the Nazis didn't believe in the "laws of the capitalist economy," hence they didn't apply to them!!!

(182): socialists believed the class/nation were opposed; Nazis saw that, for most Germans, they were not [interesting, though not unproblematic (effect or cause?)--does open to the question of revolutionary internationalism]

(183): important--discussion of Strasser, Hitler and the Left--but there's not enough chronology, here. this, if anything, cannot be treated as static across time.

(185): the election figures (from 3% in 1928 to 33 percent in November 1932).

(189): core voting areas were primarily Protestant and secondarily rural.

(190); artisans as workers, not petty-bourgeois?

(190-191): many fascist workers voted for it, but they weren't at the heart of the class struggle (again, though, there's a real problem about taking a snapshot at their high-point in 1932 and then running with it to disprove theories about the movement and the regime)

(191): Nazis took votes from the bourgeois parties--they radicalized the conservatives, in essence.

(194): elites began to gravitate towards authoritarianism after the gov't started to creak, following the Great Depression. first they had turned to the semi-authoritarians; then they turned to the fascists.

(197): relationship between business and the Nazis (Mann's very confused paragraph, here)--but business had no choice, in a sense.

(199): the complicity of the army and state apparatus in the rise to power, quite critical.

(200): key--Nazi accession to power--no coup, and uneven elite support. but complicity of state apparatus. and Schmitt, in the background (the fear of 'mass politics' diluting integrity of elite debate).

(201): his four objections to empirical theories

1. economic crisis is important, but only partial
2. Nazi constituencies were least affected by economic crisis
3. capitalists did not actively support Nazis (though they didn't support the Weimar republic, either)
4. crisis period was too short to explain a break with democracy

(202): Eley's important re-working of the class thesis, where it is protracted class fonrontation which produces the political stalemate that allows the Nazis in. this seems critical, insofar as the appeal of 'transcendence' needs to be explained. (see also 205 -- what was the Nazis' appeal, why did they emerge in the way they did at the time they did; all this needs to be explained, not wished away)

(203): here, the second of the two claims that seem worth pursuing/tackling

1. paramilitarism
2. the fact that the core support was 'away from the front lines'

---

Chapter 10, Conclusion

(353): important--his is a two-part explanation--first, explaining the rise of authoritarianism (353-358); second, the turn to fascist in some of the countries that went authoritarian (358-363)

(353-354): economic crisis--very underdeveloped claims, here

(354): his presentation of the political crisis, that produced authoritarianism and then fascism--the phenomenon of 'dual states', attempting to undercut democracy, find alternative ways of mobilizing masses. [this is compelling, but we need to, in general, account for the 'bedrock' -- what does the explaining, here? i.e., a Barrington Moore or RSS account, which would engage material explanations quite obviously--see also 365]

(355): ideological crisis--"civilization needed rescuing"

(356): five reasons for the elite overreaction

1. revolution seemed a real possiblity, after 1917
2. agrarian landlords were particularly vulnerable, because radical land reform was on cards
3. military officer corps were perturbed
4. churches, too
5. geopolitical disorder, which made some territorial issues particularly prominent
   

(357): key passage, to unpack--claims about instrumental and value-rationality, which seem muddled. better solutions available to elites, etc.

(359-360): another key point--he is arguing that fascists were outside of the class struggle because they sought to transcend it. this is nonsensical, even conceptually. and empirically, as his stuff on the next page, shows, it was too--this posturing served the interests of the status quo.

(363): Franco as authoritarian rightist

(364): only weakened old regimes let in fascism

(365): merger of Enlightenment and Romanticism

(368): the new right mobilizes a different kind of racism

(369): a lot of the supoprt is 'protest voting'

(370): stability of institutionalized liberal democracy

what is fascism?, jim wolfreys

KEY: "To identify fascist ideology as a projection onto another plane of fears and anxieties deriving from social turmoil is not to dismiss its role, but to begin to explain why so many took it so seriously. Studies within the Marxist tradition which have situated ideological, programmatic and organisational features of fascist parties in the context of their relationship to broader social, political and economic questions have been able to provide rich and detailed analyses of the phenomenon, and to distinguish it from other forms of reaction in a way that makes it possible to identify contemporary variants of fascism."

(...) [KEY, this is precisely what Mann fails to do -- temporal aspect to analysis] According to Paxton it is not the themes taken up by fascism that define the phenomenon, but their function. Since fascism is based on a rejection of universal values, it is more disparate than other political movements, and must be understood not ‘as the expression of the same fixed essence’, but within specific historical contexts. He rejects the way some historians have offered separate definitions of fascism and Nazism, arguing that this leads to the study of fascism in isolation from other factors. Analyses which reduce fascism to a tool of a particular interest group, meanwhile, ignore the fact that the movement won independent popular backing. Instead Paxton proposes to examine the development of fascism through five stages: the creation of a movement; its rooting in the political system; the seizure of power; the exercise of power; its fate in the long term (radicalisation or entropy).

(...) Fascism emerged as a response to the development of mass democracy, seeking out, ‘in each national culture those themes that are best capable of mobilising a mass movement of regeneration, unification and purity’, and directing it against liberal individualism, constitutionalism and the left.16 Here the distinction between function and themes becomes clearer. Action, not doctrine or philosophy, is what drove the major fascist movements of the inter-war period. In a new era of mass politics, ‘emotions…carefully stage-managed ceremonies, and intensely charged rhetoric’ counted for more than ‘the truth of any of the propositions advanced in its name’. In place of rational debate, fascism substituted the immediacy of sensual experience, turning politics into aesthetics.

(...) [yup] ...strong subtext to this book, which clearly exercises Mann at least as much as its actual subject, is what he refers to as ‘class theory’, by which he means explanations of fascism which focus either on its relationship to capitalist elites or on its middle class base. Mann claims that Marxists simply reduce ideas ‘to their supposed socio-economic base’.20 His argument is that most ‘class theorists’ do not take enough account of fascists’ own beliefs, which reject both class theories and materialism of any kind. Leaving aside the question as to whether fascists must believe they are pursuing class interests for that to be the case, ‘class theory’ appears, in Mann’s hands, as something of a straw man. This is unfortunate because his determination to portray class as just one sociological descriptor among many diminishes his own attempt to provide an adequate explanation of what makes fascism tick.

(...) As a consequence—and this is also true of Paxton’s book—there is no satisfactory explanatory framework for the conflict between radicals and opportunists at the heart of fascist movements and regimes. Mann refuses to accept that fascism represented one side of the class struggle, ‘or indeed any single class at all’.23 As others have pointed out this does rather beg the question as to what the paramilitaries were engaged in, if not a ruthless class struggle against the organisations of the labour movement.24 Despite acknowledging that once they neared power fascist movements ‘became biased on questions of class struggle’ and ‘tilted toward the capitalist class’, he offers little explanation as to why this should be the case and overall his analysis lacks sufficient feel for the texture of the motivations exercising fascist activists.

What’s wrong with this scheme? Several things. First, many small banks have more money than they can profitably invest locally. As Barbara Garson shows in her wonderful book, Money Makes the World Go Around, the portion of her book advance she deposited in tiny upstate New York bank was probably lent via the fed funds market to Chase, where it entered the global circuit of capital. This is not at all uncommon. Money is fungible, protean, and highly mobile even when it looks locally rooted. That very mutability is part of what makes money so valuable: it’s the ideal form of general wealth that can instantly be turned into caviar, lodging, Swedish massage, or shares of Google.

“The [UN] Security Council Resolutions on Iraq passed during the 1990s did not constitute a mandate for the US-British military intervention in 2003,” the report concludes. “Despite the existence of certain ambiguities, the wording of Resolution 1441 cannot reasonably be interpreted (as the government did) as authorizing individual Member States to use military force to compel Iraq to comply with the Security Council’s resolutions, without authorization from the Security Council.”

Khatoon is among the 8.52 million home-based, or informal, workers in Pakistan, representing 70 percent of the women workforce in the country, based on the 2009 Pakistan Economic Survey. HomeNet Pakistan, a network of organisations working directly with home-based workers (HBWs), says the figure could be as high as 80 percent.

claudio katz, from feudalism to capitalism

(85-86): distinction between early and late Marx on questions of merchants and transition to capitalism.

(88): here begins his reconstruction of the classic account. worthwhile.

(90-91, and 103): question--"artillery, ocean navigation and printing" were all innovations of the late medieval epoch. how do you fit this sort of dynamism into Brenner's "rules of reproduction"? presumably you can have technological innovation that doesn't imply a move toward capitalism--but the question is still what, exactly, is the incentive structure driving this. the crux of the Brennerian response, I think, would consist in arguing that there's no competition; but what if the feudal lords are unhappy with the goods being produced? if they're ineffective?

(96): in sum

(97-98): merchant incentive structure, laws of motion that impel them

(100 and 104): question, related to putting-out system--didn't this represent an advance, in terms of a classical definition of capitalism, over previous methods of production? or is this not germane?

(100): key point--merchant 'capitalism' flourishes outside prevailing mode of production--doesn't have any relationship to the method of production, only worries about circulation. capitalism must unite production and circulation. therefore it flourishes in precapitalism.

(101): question, how do you make sense of the acknowledged development of productive forces to which merchants contributed?

(102): feudal lords pitted against merchants as an intraclass rivalry over the surplus claimed from basic producers? but isn't there something else going on here? the question of the political revolution, for example?

(103, and 114, and 116): a parallel between merchants and capitalists, and lords and serfs--well, clear question is how we relate this class struggle to the rural class struggle. because, as explicated by Katz, the urban one seems more or less autonomous (until he concludes the opposite, without evidence, in the conclusion)

(104): merchants not interested in productive investments

(107): there is a question, here, regarding crises in general--in feudalism represent a 'contraction', rather than a breakthrough of the productive forces

(107): status of absolutism -- how do we think of this, if not like Anderson did? what is the place of the absolutist state in the larger narrative? if not as a transitional form, then what? another precapitalist form?

(108): distinction between 1300s and 1600s

(110): merchants make a feudal response to the crisis of the 1600s