Rethinking the French Revolution, George Comninel

(xi-xii): in sum--three guiding principles of Comninel's position on French Rev

1. (a) in contrast with Britain, capitalist class relations did not yet exist in France in town or countryside; (b) the bourgeoisie was not a class opposed to the aristocracy but rather shared with it the essential social relations of property ownership (in land) and state office; (c) consequently, the two were 'partners in exploitation'
2. this partnership was an unequal one -- it was over the 'political' control of the state and spoils of office (army, administration) that a conflict arose that led to the revolution
3. major result of the Revolution was to unify the nation and centralize the state; but it did not transform France into a capitalist country.

(2): Cobban opened the revisionist historiography, refusing to see the French rev as a 'social revolution' (not an objection to analyzing it in terms of social/economic interests)

(6): Lefebvre, on the other hand, saw it as a 'necessary bourgeois social revolution'

(9): an uneasy alliance between Marxists and liberals

(16): three central points of the Marxist perspective

1. the bourgeoisie had been agent of growth in commerce and industry
2. the aristocratic and absolutist structure had been a feudal hindrance to this growth
3. and that the bourgeoisie had led the Revolution in order to overthrow this system, clearing the ground for capitalism

(19): Cobban's three counter-points

1. bourgeois revolutionaries were 'not capitalists'
2. shared in full range of landed income--including portion derived from fedual dues
3. Revolution did not give rise to capitalist production but preserved the essential social characteristics of the Ancien Regime

(20): we have, thus, a 'single elite'

(20-25): int. section on 'conservative liberalism' of the revisionist challenge (for revisionists, what the revolution was about is not the interesting question; they, rather, saw it as their task to prove what it was not about)

(30): by 1850, Marx and Engels had come to the conclusion that the bourgeoisie would not lead a bourgeois revolution, simply because an aristocratic regime held power

(33): Marxism retreated into theoretical 're-mixing' of the history, rather than confronting this wealth of historical evidence head-on (which demonstrated that there was no 'social frontier' separating the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, etc.)

(50): even Hill, writing about the English Civil War, conceded that the gentry played a large role. for him, the bourgeois revolution is not one which is led by the bourgeoisie (paradoxically, this one was led by the nobility), but one which creates the conditions for capitalism. Brenner takes this further, obviously, noting instead that you get radical and conservative positions within the ruling class leading to Civil War.

(56): Marx's debt to bourgeois materialism ('I did not discover the existence of classes.' [Guizot, Mignet, etc.]) [Comninel's main argument here, of course, is that Marx is giving credit where credit is not due--the 'critique of political economy' actually is a critique of the liberal categories Marx adopted in his early work]

(61): a fundamentally Smithian account of history: 'middle-class industry' as the prgoressive force of civilization, hampered by tradition, etc. Modern, bourgeois progress.

(65): the 'stages' theory is also a legacy of liberal materialism

(68): for liberal materialism, it was the 'mechanistic force of population growth which provided the essential impetus of social development' [you have density-->division of labor, in essence--Durkheim]

(74): key--the 'bourgeois revolution' that Marx imported into his account of history was borrowed from this type of an understanding of the mechanics of history (a liberal class, straining to break free)

(78): against orthodox Marxism -- in which the bourgeois revolution has pride of place (Hobsbawm being its exemplar)

(82): against Structuralist Marxism -- a scientific theory that will be filtered through Marxist categories (but, in essence, Comninel is arguing, these categories that Structuralist Marxism took for granted are flawed). moreover, it is descriptive--can't answer dynamic questions about the MoP, social structure

(106): the question is not whether you had a clash of ideologies in the Rev (you did--'constitutional liberalism' vs 'aristocratic constitutionalism'); the question is whether this reflected a fundamental social clash.

(111-112): 'classlessness' as a common ideology, for all participants in the French Rev (even if in different ways, all clung to some understanding of the 'nation')

(112-113): imp--it proved impossible to defende the Revolution while also attempting to containe the threat of popular sovereignty (explaining its move left) [remember--the argument is not that the 'masses' represented clashing social interest to the bourgeoisie/aristocracy, which is relevant] [one question, here, might be why such a trenchant conflict was fought over political spoils? his point will be the intra-ruling class struggles can be quite profound. do we accept it?]

(117): classes, in liberal history, were not defined in terms of fundamental relations of exploitation--but defined ideologically (active/passive, etc.)

(125): insisting that we remember that HM developed through the critique of capitalism--the critique of political economy

(138): imp--already by 1847, Marx coneived property relatoins as historically specific expressions of the antagonistic relations of production fundamental to each particular epoch.

(139): HM's critique of liberal ideology was to reveal its class content, and the specificity of its concepts

(141-143, 147-148, 150): key-- GI carries liberal ideology within it--division of labor as a motive force, along with increase of production (technical aspects of division of labor predominate, a la Smith; focus is on the social division of labor). two aspects: (1) conflation of liberal conception of class with Marx's own; (2) subordination of history of class society to technical development of division of labor

(151): how can you make sense of the bourgeois revolution, though, without taking into account the fundamental exploitative relationship of the epoch (namely, bourgeoisie/aristocracy with the peasantry)?

(152): Sweezy-Dobb debate--capitalism as developing external to feudalism, versus as an 'internal dynamic' in class history (here Comninel mentions there is a great deal to be said for an intervening period between feudalism and capitalism)

(156-158): critical--distinction between social division of labor, and technical division of labor, in capitalism (excellent line from Poverty of Philosophy)

georges lefebvre, the coming of the french revolution

(vii-ix): translator defense of revolution's necessity

(xiv-xv): imp--different interests of the classes arrayed in the revolution [though here a recognition that there are facts "awkward to a purely materialist theory of class conflict," there's no attempt to rethink the basic categories of 'bourgeoisie' in the way that Comninel demands]

(xvi): the bourgeoisie had to offer something to everbyody--so they seized on the philosophy of natural rights (the philosophy of the 18th century)

(1-2): key--a new class growing within the aritsocratic order -- it was a revolution to restore the harmony between fact and law [as Marx argued--it is in this sense that Lefebvre's is the classic account]

(3): people were not the original force, but events moved steadily in the direction of the popular revolution

(7): clergy owned a tenth of the land

(8): but wasn't much of a class--"the aristocracy meant the nobility"

(9-10): nobility owned about half of the land, from which they collected dues [here he's acknowledging, again, the fact that the bourgeoisie could also own land and collect dues]

(12): nobility of the sword (wedded most to tradition) vs. nobility of the robe (of recent bourgeois extraction, wealthy because offices had high mkt value)

(16): imp--18th century was not just the time of the bourgeois revolution, but it was also the "last offensive of the aristocracy"

(20): Montesqieu's "Spirit of Laws" as the handbook of the aristocracy--arguing for 'bodies' in opposition to the monarchy; a 'liberty' of the aristocracy

(22): debt servicing in 1788 amounted to 50% of government expenditures (couldn't repudiate it because of the Parliaments and the Paris bourgeoisie--who would have forsaken further assistance)

(23): key--"under the Old Regime, the richer a man was, the less he paid. Technically the crisis was easy to meet: all that was necessary was to make everybody pay."

(25): "the character of the King and Queen must be included." [!?]

(27): aristocracy wanted to use the deficit to assert themselves, viz-a-viz the King

(29-30): battle on--around 1787-1788, between the King and the Aristocracy

(33): calling for the Estates-General, but in a way that favors the aristocracy ("a common front against royal power")

(34-37): key--at this stage, the aristocracy was imagining a France without the power of the absolutist monarchy. their model would have been England post-1688 [this is the c-factual Lefebvre raises--"had the aristocracy had their way"]; they had no intention of surrendering their privileges.

(41): key--[in direct contrast to Comninel's conception of them as exploiters,] Lefebvre suggesting that it was only because the bourgeoisie was intermixed with the rest of the population that they could assume leadership of the revolution.

(42-44): levels of the bourgeois class: (1) finance (pg. 42 -- tax farmers, rentiers); (2) merchants (pg. 43--industry, which was subordinate, is grouped here); (3) liberal professions; (4) skilled workers/crafstmen/sans-culottes, who were hostile to capitalism

(46): in short--extreme diversity of positions reflected in the diversity of life; most bourgeoisie were not very well off, and were intimately connected to common people [well, then, in what sense a coherent class, at all? upper bourgeois simply seems to mean non-nobles living off taxes/rent, and lower bourgeois simply seems to mean not proletarian--but what connects the two?]

(47): its imprudence in attacking the aristocracy was driven by a desire to eliminate legal, hereditary privilege

(48-50): int--doing them an injustice by suggesting they were motivated by their own interests alone. have to account for their 'historic mission', their idealism. [hmm]

(52): pivot point--in September 1788, the Parliament of Paris (aristocracy) rules that the Estates-General should be convened as in 1614--the bourgeoisie rebels, and redirects its ire on the aristocracy.

(53-54): the Committee of Thirty

(55): moderation of the 'patriot party', which had no objections to the idea of 'three orders' -- just wanted the 'doubling of the Third' (same number of reps as the nobility)

(58): December 12, 1788 -- a manifesto of the aristocracy, worried about the suppression of feudal rights, etc. [again--useful to think how we might re-interpret this, in light of the Comninel]

(61): November 1788-February 1789 -- the bourgeoisie was becoming 'more radical', in face of intransigence the 'doubling'. moving to question of voting by order or by head, and possibly even getting rid of the privileged orders

(65): Lawyers dominated the election process for the 3rd Estate

(68): representatives of the Third Estate identified the cause of their class with the cause of their nation.

(69-70): Sieyes was both the godfather and a gravedigger (before a pamphleteer and leading light; after the Fall of the Bastille, the popular revolution terrified him)

(72-75): imp--clear that all three orders were unanimously against absolute royal power--however, there were widely different positions on the question of privileges and civic equality, of course [a potential counterfactual, here -- suggesting that an official plan of reforms, akin to the Charter of 1814, could have saved the monarchy. 'but the court remained inert.]

(82-83): May 4, 1789 the Estates-General convenes; June 17, Third Estate takes the name of 'National Assembly'. King/Necker find themselves on the back foot.

(84-85): On June 20 they take the Tennis Court Oath (some reservations)

(87-89): imp--a of June 23rd shows the King willing to become a Constitutional Monarch, which itself shows that everything has moved forward. Decree is moot, because as July approaches the National Constituent Assembly is declared.

(92):imp--things are finely poised, the Assembly expects force to be used to expel them. BUT the force of the people intervened, and the Old Regime "went down beyond recall"

(97): imp--the Army was staffed by people who were suffering on account of high prices, mingling with townspeople, etc. [speaks to some truths about revolutions, I should think]

(98-99): the strength of insurrectionary movements lay with the 'lesser bourgeoisie' (handicraft workers, shopkeepers)

(99): very interesting--it was precisely because of the lack of coherence/organization of the working-class, Lefebvre is suggesting, that the bourgeosie was willing to move so far with the revolution. otherwise you might have had an 1848, is the implication. [this speaks to larger concerns about the 'bourgeois revolution' -- clearly there is some sense in which Comninel's invitation to think through the structure of exploitation has purchase, implicitly, in Lefebvre's account]

(102-105): economic distress (high price of bread, etc.) as an immediate cause of the insurrection

(108): almost one-half of the population (10 million out of 23 million), it's estimated, were in need of relief

(109): the economic crisis was read as an 'aristocratic conspiracy' by the Third Estate, however incorrectly

(114): attack on the Bastille was initially demand for 'arms'

(116): the 'tricolor' was a synthesis (red and blue for Paris, white for the King)

(118): int--a kind of bourgeois 'dual power'; the co-existence of the formal assembly (the common council) with district assemblies (direct democracy)

(120-122): the 'Terror', here, is made sense of through the fears of the 'aristocratic conspiracy'

(125): July 1789, a differential deepening of the Revolution--in some places the local revolution was complete; in some places democratic development was less pronounced; and yet in others the power of the Old Regime remained intact

(126): "France surged spontaneously in a federation of local units."

(127): National Guard was half-hearted in repressing disorder (the National Assembly tried to get people to pay old taxes, etc.-- but it "preached in the desert")

(133): key--Peasantry didn't enter the scene before July 14, despite being 3/4 of the population. Nonetheless, without their adherence the Revolution could hardly have succeeded. They suddenly revolted, and their uprising is one of the most distinctive features.

(132): France vs. England--unlike England, many French peasants were landowners, yet to be reduced to the ranks of the landless en masse (even though there were propertyless peasants, in quite sizeable numbers [confusing]).

(134): the Old Regime was afflicted by a serious 'agrarian crisis', owing to backwardness of cultivation (need for more land, which wasn't available).

(135): property rights remained unquestioned--principle was penalizing enemies of 'the country', not those w/ property [hmm]

(136): key--the peasantry was critical of the bourgeoisie (here he means 'commercial wealth'), but was most aroused to a state of fury by the privileges of the aristocracy [this, obviously, directly refutes Comninel's contention that the two were twin exploiters--unless we are going to make a 'misperception' qulification, which seems fruitless]

(140): key--the 18th century had seen increasing burden on the peasantry, as well as the steady encroachment on the common rights of the peasantry

(142): bourgeois discomfort over peasant agitation over manorial rights (since that was a form of property)

(143): imp--the convocation of th E-G had an enormous impact on the peasantry--one cannot exaggerate the echoes, argues Lefebvre ('the King meant to give them satisfaction')

(144): the idea of an 'aristocratic conspiracy' against a 'good King' [construction of a usable history/present]

(146): the economic crisis had revolutionary consequences, in two ways

1. enflamed the peasants, turning them against the tithe owners and lords
   
2. it generalized a sense of insecurity which was blamed on the aristocracy

(148): the bourgeoisie wasn't spared [hints at the notion of twin exploitation, but not developed]

(157): the aristocrats had hoped to postpone the Declaration--the equality of rights threatened their privileges

(159): events were confirming the principles--"the people were not waiting upon deliberations of the Assembly to realize their desires"

(161): key--strongest hint that bourgeoisie and nobility had common interests [this is the closest we get to a recognition of Comninel's argument that the 'bourgeoisie's' source of wealth was in manors/fiefs, etc.]

(168): imp--only the National Assembly was able to achieve the national unity for the monarchy had long pined.

During last year, power sector losses were estimated at Rs250 billion. However, the government has been increasing the prices but failed to reduce losses which have surged to 30 per cent, almost equivalent to the cost it would recover through increasing prices. Over the past two years the tariffs have been increased by 70 per cent.

About one-fifth of the amount was evaded by 38 individuals hailing from Karachi, who managed to avoid payments worth Rs17.7 billion – a figure higher than the country’s education budget for this year. The discrepancies were pointed out during the audit of the accounts of 2008-09.

Dalton Conley, Honky

(8): discovering race [discuss? does this hit home? this is part of a larger discussion, which we wil have next week]

(15): allusion to social policy neglect [important, situate private troubles in context of social-structural issues]

(26-27): good example of what to do for papers [situate individuals in larger trends]

(30-31): again, good example of how to do personal descriptions in terms of social concepts

(48-49): race/ethnicity [a bit tricky, but worth tackling]

(51): they/we [arbitrariness of social policy--hits home?]

(54): thus far, a q. begging account of poverty in the projects [he alludes to lack of jobs, etc., at the end of the book--pg. 202. discuss]

(73): status hierarchies [it exists, what would our social theorists say about this, though?]

(87): social policy, re: sanitation department

(112): industrial --> post-industrial economy. ['sociological imagination' enter here]

(135): his father's attitude towards work, thanks to his class position [discuss. what are the implications of this for social reproduction, conceptions of social structure?]

(181): the fire, and 'middle-class' privilege [most powerful of the whole book -- allowed to talk it through with authority]

(188): "maintenance men" [can get at the concept of the occupational structure, through this -- used in tandem with traffic metaphor]

(202): still 'no jobs' [key]

(203): nice traffic metaphor [for getting at social structure]

(206): "literary truths, not scientific"

class struggle in the first french republic, daniel guerin

(1): not just a bourgeois revolution, but contained within it the modern form of the class struggle

(1): first modern revolution to have involved the broad mass of people

(2): key-- this doesn't mean that the bourgeoisie didn't play a leading role--but it did mean that they were unable to put an end to absolutism without the help of the bras nus. 14 July 1789, 5 October 1789, 4 August 1789, 10 August 1792 all examples of critical importance of the mass movement.

(2): one finds the bourgeoisie equivocating (timorous b/c they knew that each step forward was a blow to the sanctity of private property --pg. 3), and each time it is the bras nus that pushes the bourgeois revolution forward

(3): bourgeoisie was only "very partially" an oppressed class -- they did share in the profits, also, with nobility and church

(4): split between bourgeoisie and bras nus was most pronounced in the cities

(4): thus French Revolution is example of Trotsky's law of combined development, too

(7): the bras nus' attitude to the war was entirely dictated by their class interests--didn't support it as a war of expansion, had to defend it when revolution was in danger

(10): Robespierre and Danton re: Brtain

(11): after Thermidor, you got rid of the revolutionary militia and inducgted a new generation of professional officers (the wars, of course, would rage till 1815)

(12): Edmund Burke, whipped up war feeling in Britain

(22): key--modern bourgeoisie had to argue that power resided with the people, but it simultaneously could not allow them to recognize it (this is where the institution of the Parliament is historically important--progressive, but also reactionary).

(25): Robespierre's Constitution of 1793 was the most democratic, but it didn't escape the logic of the revolutionary bourgeoisie--indeed, it demonstrated it at its "absolute limit" (he remained hostile to direct democracy)

(26): Malouet's warning, to the effect that the bourgeoisie could not contain the principle it was unleashing on the world

(28): the Paris Commune, in the French Revolution

(29-32): dual power, as it existed at different times throughout the revolution (Aug 1792, March 1793, Nov-Dec 1793, Feb-March 1794)

(34): from December 1793, the bourgeoisie strengthened the central power, in order to smash all chances of a federation ('revolutionary federalism', Guerin's arguing, will inspire Prodhoun, Bakunin, Marx, etc.)

(35): argument that the population was 'not ready' to build a different, democratic society

(36): Guerin arguing that a distinction should be made between the uncontrolled 'barbaric' terror and the 'terror' demanded by the popular vanguard that would be used specifically against saboteurs.

(37): again, claim about objective conditions.

(37-39, 43): important, religion--an integral part of the assault on the church. the bourgeoisie was torn, since it appreciated the role it played in maintaining social order, while also resenting the neo-feudal world it enshrined. Guerin also making the argument that the poor had little truck for the materialists/deists, and saw their popular morality through god ("they set to work to separate God from the priests)

(40): Rousseau and 'heavenly joy'

(43): extraordinary quotes from Napoleon on religion--''no society without inequality of wealth, and inequality of wealth can't exist without religion."

(45): the book is really about 1793-1795, which is where the modern class struggle makes its appearance -- when the bourgeoisie and bras nus come into conflict

(46): reviewing the nature of the initial war, which he's suggesting we understand as not much more than the latest bout in a longstanding rivalry between France and England (not a clash of ideologies--p. 53, but a clash of rivals)

(50): War was seen by the bourgeoisie in France as a solution to the economic crisis

(55): War was funded through inflation, and thus by the poor

(56): argument--1792 and especially 1793 saw the first signs of the antagonism between bras nus and bourgeoisie, as a result of the way that the War was waged.

(57): in this, at first, the Girondists and Montagnards found common ground

(62): members of the bras nus have trouble framing the demands (Tiger) -- but they have educated spokespeople in the enrages (Jacques Roux, Theophile Leclerc, Jean Varlet, and Gracchus Babeuf)

(64): "Three hours spent at a bakery door would do more to make a legislator than four years in the Convention" -- Leclerc

(64): enrages attacked the bourgeoisie directly

(65): but there were limits to their opposition--couldn't put forth a consistent programme

(66-68): in sum--they were "mirrors" (spokespeople of an ideal), rather than leaders of a revolutionary movement.

(72): critical--things reached a point where, in March-June 1793, for things to go forward it was going to be necessary for Robespierre to break with the Girondists. the revolution could not go forward without relieving public poverty--and the Girondists were unwilling to do this, because of their own hidebound interests.

(74-75): key--Girondists and Montagnards as different "class fractions". the former suffering under the impact of revolutoinary crisis, the other one profiting--therefore the first is unwilling to grant concessions, but the second is.

(79): sum--an important section of the bourgeoisie betrayed the bourgeois revolution by putting their own interests first.

(81, 87): Robespierre's tact was required to perform this surgery

(91): enrages were also pushed back

- - - -

[1] abiding question of bras nus viz-a-viz orthodox proletariat. what can be gained from this line of inquiry? re: 1848, too?

edmund wilson, to the finland station

(6): for Michelet, Vico as the originator of "historical principle" -- pattern in dev. of societies

(7): in Vico, the "organic character" of human society, the principle of "humanity creating itself"

(9): Vico had no conception of progress--a serieis of repetitive cycles. But Michelet, of course, had the Revolution.

(10): 1830 was a setback for Michelet, as the liberal bourgeoisie sold out to the Orleanists

(12) : Michelet presents his history in relation to a social and economic context

(13): approach was entirely 'rational' -- that is, anti-clerical and democratic

(19): important--Michelet alive to the "internal antithesis" of the revolution, between class solidarity and patriotic duty

(20): the principal actor, for Michelet, as the people

(28): construction of a 'usable history'

(30): important--of course, utopian to the point of being petty-bourgeois: in response to the vivid antagonisms of class society, Michelet's is that "we must have love."

(31): man seen as an 'accessory' to his position

(33): 1870-1871, France has ten million industrial workers and twenty-six million peasants

(34): Michelet's special version of nationalism in which the nation is identified with the Fr. revolutionary tradition

(37): key--with Renan, 'revolution' was coming to connote working-class interference from below in bourgeois society. this is the beginning of the decline, in that sense.

(41): Fr. bourgeois intellectual in 1870 belonged to a victorious class and a defeated nation

(45): Renan focuses on ideas -- human history is background

(58): Taine is taking us toward naturalism, away from revolutionary enthusiasm

(54-55): again--because of the socialist specter, anxieties about his understanding of the Fr. Rev.

(62): Anatole Fr. represents the revolutionary tradition in full disintegration

(64): Michelet gets a sense of solidarity from the Rev; for Frnace, abysses of doubt and despair loom large

(72-73): Babeuf had rallied around the radical elements of the Rev, after Thermidor. founded The Society of Equals.

(75): int--the people had had enough of the Jacobins--the poor were no longer ready to fight (a realism and sobriety suggestive of later phases of socialism) .

(75): Babeuf's defense as a summing-up of the unrealized ideas of the Enlightenment

(77): Rousseau--'men so odious has to dare to have more than enough while other men are dying of hunger'

(80): important--Babeuf as Fr. Revolution's last hurrah. the utopian socialists of the next century belong to a very different world.

(80): Saint Simon -- 'monseiur le comte! Remember you have great things to do!'

(82): key--Saint-Simon as offering a critique of the liberal Enlightenment, which had bestowed complete freedom on the individual, not understanding that it apprehended him only in the abstract (i.e., outside of the laws of society, of social development)

(83): Saint-Simon's vision was to have three classes (governing was to be done by those who could work for the State without pay)

(84): four great division of the world--rest would be protectorates

(84): whole message, in short, is "his peculiar version of the principle of noblesse oblige"

(90): key--both Fourier and Owen based themselves on a doctrine of Rousseau's that was in the air of the time--the idea that mankind is naturally good, and only institutions have perverted it.

(92): Owen as Henry Ford

(95): Owen, 1817 -- discovering the 'class interests' of the elite

(97): Owen had very little sympathy with the Chartists and the Corn Law agitation

(99): Enfantin becomes Christ!

(101): key -- none of these idealists understood the real mechanisms of social change, nor could they forsee the development/dynamics of the system they hated. This is what socialism meant, when it began to be current in France and England circa 1835.

(103): Comte as disciple of Saint-Simon

(120): int--the 'self-determination' of Kant as the intellectual reflection of the Fr. Rev on the German bourgeoisie -- the 'will' in Kant as a purely ideological determination and moral postulate, no influence on actual society

(121): key, Hegel -- there was a revolutionary principle in Hegel, who had himself been swept up by the Fr. Revolution until he became a Prussian professor. Young Hegelians saw no reason that these processes should be suddenly arrested?

(124): Marx pens wood-gathering essay, at 24 -- already demonstrating a concern for material context, Wilson suggests

(126-127): the critique of Feuerbach, who produces a substitute religion (love) and thinks in terms of an abstract humanity. Marx's task is to dispense of religion altogether, and place man in society. problems which had given rise to religion could only be solved by concrete man in society.

(137): the whole tradition Wilson is discussing, he wants to say, is reacitng to a kind of 'anti-social egoism'

(141): from Hegel they have taken a principle of historical change, but discarded the role of Heroes (even though, even for Hegel, these Heroes are only the expression of larger historical forces)

(143): from Saint-Simon they understand modern politics as science of regulated production; from Fourier the arraignment of the bourgeois as betraying the Englightenment; from Owen the realization that the factory system must be the root of the social revolution.

(144): through Dezamy and List they get a sense of the class struggle--the former had critized Cabet for believing that the bourgeoisie would come to the aid of Labor

(145): already by 1843 (Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Law) Marx has postulated the proletariat as playing the new Hegelian role in effecting the emancipation of Germany

(148): Engels' reflections on being a bourgeois and communist at the same time ('if only one doesn't write!') -- spot on!

(154): Proudhon's warning to Marx, as he writes about desire to establish a new system--potential "leaders of a new intolerance"

(154): this is what led Marx to attack Proudhon's book with ferocity--sees "Property is theft" as presupposing real rights in property (Abstract Man, who had concealed the petty bourgeois; Proudhon declared strikes as crimes against the necessities of the established order)

(155): key--1845 as the first discussion with Marx of the theory of historical materialism, the preliminary emergence of a complete and coherent theory

(158): against moralism

(163): hilarious and telling interaction between Heine (intellectual) and Weitling (communist tailor), illustrating the difficulty of getting German intellectuals to make links to the working-class

(164): Proudhon and Weitling were thinkers from the lower classes, unlike Marx and Engels

(166-167): the actual fight, Marx vs. Weitling, at League of the Just -- scientific doctrine vs. utopian socialism, which resulted in the first Marxist party purge

(169): Gottschalk's scathing attack on the doctrinaire character of Marx and Engels -- "The distress of the workers, the hunger of the poor, have only a scientific... interest for them. Why should we, men of the proletariat, spill our blood for this?"

(170): Marx on trial, foreman thanks him for an extremely informative speech!

(172): the Marxist conception of peasant conservatism -- father has won property from the nobility, and can't stomach the thought of another revolution against property (because he is unable to understand as yet that the new bankers are dispossessing him, in their own way) [but what is the claim, here? a capacity (to change society) argument? ok, but requires further thought. a propensity (to band together) argument? demands severe qualification]

(174): Engels runs into his dad while he's trying to arm workers!

(176): Jenny doing recitations for Marx's lectures

(179): good point that materialism does not mean something extremely simple: that men always act from motives of economic interest [we do have to unpack how to reconcile historical materialism from both directions -- ec. interest angle, and man-in-society angle]

(188): on Luther--"He emancipated the body from chains, because he laid chains upon the heart."

(192): Dialectic as a religious myth

(194-195): [these are odd pages -- why read inevitability as anything more than polemic?]

(196): imp, pointing out the philosophical trap of materialism -- trying to give historical materialism intellectual foundation independent of the earthly conditions that have stimulated certain men to build it.

(198-199): 18th Brumaire -- seeing through the 'shadow-play' of politics to the real conflicts at the heart of social life

(201): key--the firest of '48 had ebbed, by 1850 a new period of prosperity had commenced. [there is a link, here, to the fundamental question of whether crises generate revolution, and what exactly the details of this relationship are]

(202): Marx/Engels vs. Wilich, in the Communist League -- question of the place of 'will' in political strategy. Marx transfers the headquarters to Cologne, to win the battle

(202-203): in 1855, Marx proclaims the beginning of the English Revolution, at a protest over Sunday ban on liquor

(209): fox-hunting as 'the real school for cavalry'!

(212): question of whether learning was simply functional for them -- Wilson believes no (he says it was for Lenin; M+E were men of the Enlightenment)

(214): communist vision had renaissance man at its heart

(216-217): death of Marx's children

(224):1850s were terrible, for Marx. exile at its lowest point

(225-226): internationalism vs. nationalism -- backing the 'advanced' over the 'non-advanced'. M+E support for the unification of Germ; an egregious 1851 letter from Engels, re: Poland

(236): German 'liberal reform' had very quickly gone backwards after '48, with universal suffrage very soon becoming graded suffrage according to income

(237): Lasalle had started to talk in Marxist terms, trying to make it practical (Wilson accuses M+E of being excessive and fastidious, here)

(243): Lasalle on the State -- saw it not so much as the instrument of a dominating class, but also as a 'moral whole', a sum of education/power/freedom that was unattainable for a simple combination of individuals. this, Wilson suggests, is behind is relationship with Bismarck in the early 1860s (till 1864, when Bismarck no longer needs Lasalle)

(251): Engels happy at industrial crisis

(256): imp, First International is founded in 1864 -- the workers' movement had been reviving, after the reaction of a decade (the 1850s)

(259): Marx gives his first address, which was a tricky balancing act between English trade unionists, Proudhonists, etc., etc.

(260): offers an immiseration type thesis, even in the 1860s

(260): by the end of the 1860s, has 800,000 members

(261): 1869 congress is 'captured' by Bakunin

(263): imp, Bakunin as a revolutionist of the will/act, upheaval as a historical necessity that didn't need strategy/plan [almost of the Holloway type]

(265): Bakunin in prison for eight years after '48

(267-268): Bakunin had wisened to the flaws of the patriotic insurrections (namely, their failure to tackle the social question)

(269): Marx vs. Bakunin on the 'right of inheritance' , in 1869(Marx opposed to making it an issue, in effect, because it was derivative). Bakunin's motion carries, Marx didn't attend

(271): Nechaev and Bakunin wrote together about the revolutionary--only one idea, the revolution, must be ready to dismiss all other sentiments, etc.

(272): imp, the vision of the vanguard is stripped of all social/political content, until it becomes divorced from the proletariat/people -- the former's job is only to destroy.

(275): Bakunin had been speaking of anarchism, sine 1866

(276): Bakunin expelled, 1872

(276): Paris Commune, though, had had the effect of encouraging their program

(277): imp, the 'readiness' argument -- Bakunin vs. Marx on the need to wait for social conditions to ripen

(277): now headquarters are transferred to NY

(278): Bakunin's telling impatience on his death bed-- disappointed that the masses did not want to become impassioned for their own emancipation

(279): key--Commune as a pivotal event, the "first great justification" of Marx's theory.

(281): more people killed/imprisoned/exiled in one week, in Terror of 1871, than in three years of the revolutionary Terror of Robespierre

(281-282): Commune as vindication of Blanqui and Bakunin?

(282): Engels, in 1891, calls the Commune example of 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat'

(283): why!?--[again, Wilson mistakes mysticism for politics]

(287): bad account of DK -- saying it derives from laws of human selfishness, which is emphatically NOT the case.

(291): Fabians had a different theory of value, dependent on demand

(294): claim of political bias in LTV

(298): on Marxism and Human Nature -- mischaracterizing the argument, though

(299, 300): bad--intentionally making the account, re: morality, mystical

(308): on crisis and factory shut-down -- "capital... drags with it into its grave the corpses of its slaves..."

(315): a thoroughly elitist, silly objection: the proletariat are not well-educated, how can we expect them to take over? [this comes up again]

(316): what!?--US as a genuine social democracy!?

(319): Marx was incapable of imagining democracy, certainly democratization to the extent that it's proceeded, today [this is a fair point]

(320): in 1872, Marx mentioned that it may be possible to make a revolution by peaceful means in dem. countries

(324): 1870 war, Lasalleans voted for war credits, Liebknecht and Bebel refrained

(326): socialism --> communism claim made in the Gotha program, 1874

(331): 1889, founding of the Second Internatoinl

(338): Eleanor commits suicide, as do Paul and Laura Lafargue

(343): it's once Alexander II comes to power (revolt of peasantry, agitation of nobility) that Marx and Engels begin to consider possibility of revolution in Russia

(344): the 1881 letter to Zazulich comes only after several drafts

(344): DK was published in 1868 in Russia, to Marx's surprise

(352): Lenin's father dies in 1886, after the period of reaction has settled in (following Alexander II's assassination in 1881)

(353-355): Alexander murdered, heart-breaking story re: Lenin's mother (finds out about it in the newspaper) and liberal friends' betrayals

(357): imp, Russian liberalism, in short, ran into the shoals of the 1880s. Subversive possibilities of peasantry, to which People's Will had been atttached, had gone down with the rise in the price of grain.

(358): Alexander had read Marx, but had thought it would be impossible to agitate amongst the w-class until the Tsarist regime had been done away with. But Lenin was coming of age at a time when the industrial dev. of Russia was beginning, at pace.

(363): Marxism in Russia being spurred along by the success of the SPD in Germany

(367): [Wilson invokes German blood to describe Lenin!]

(373): inkstands of milk and bread, in prison

(376): 1897-1900 was Lenin's Siberian exile

(379): Lenin on Beethoven -- 'I know nothing that is greater than the Apassionata; I'd like to listen to it every day... But I can't listen to music too often. It...makes you want to say stupid nice things and stroke the heads of people who could create such beauty while living in this vile hell. And now you mustn't stroke anyone's head--you might get your hand bitten off. You have to to hit them on the head, without any mercy, although our ideal is not to use force against anyone. Hm, hm, our duty is infernally hard."

(380): imp -- truth as something practical, testable; our knowledge of the world is relative, but always approaching an absolute through our work in the world

(381): Lenin not a theorist, according to Wilson. at the very least, theory subordinated to practical activity

(382): 1895, Lafargue was saying no one understood Marx in W. Europe; Bernstein proves this in 1898, by formulating 'revolution-through-evolution'

(386): Lenin became dictator not b/c of personality (no ambition, etc.) but because of 'social physics' [this term remains black-boxed in Wilson, though]

(390): importance of understanding WITBD as written in the context of a dictatorship, where democracy in party was completely impossible

(403): Trotsky also compelled to move towards Marxism, away from populism, by the force of events -- workers' agitation in 1896 and industrial development in the Ukraine

(406): Trotsky in Siberian exile from Jan 1898 to Aug 1902

(409): why Lenin and Krupskaya decided to have no children -- family could only have hampered them in their line of duty

(412): Trotsky as Engels/Lasalle, Marx as Lenin

(413-414): 1905, Trotsky as revolution's most important public figure

(419): imp--reasons for its failure, in 1905, was the Tsar's ability to control the fighting forces, b/c of predominance of a loyal peasantry in the army/navy

(420): Engels, in 1847 Principles of Communism, had already noted the impossibility of building socialism in one country

(422): Trotsky as an individual that was made by the context around him -- men of first rank who flourish inside a school

(426): isolation as Trotsky's fate, except for short-lived moments of exceptional prominence

(429): History as teleological for Trotsky [but come on, again misunderstanding polemics]

(430-431): imp discussion--Martov's prescient opposition to Bolshevik takeover [conditions are not ripe yet, etc.? but then what do you do--let the bourgeoisie run the country to the dogs?]

(432): Trotsky on morality--a thoroughgoing instrumentalism [which seems basically correct]

(438): nationalist complement to Bernstein's revisionism

(438): remember that Engels had been pro-war, in case of attack by Russia (though he had thought that the revolution would come before the war)

(439): fate of Lenin's brother and family had left Lenin with a lifelong bitterness for the cowardice of liberals

(440): hating on Plekhanov and Kautsky, after they've turned

(442): Lenin on executions (who's asking? those who sent 16 million to their graves?)

(445): Feb 1912, Lena goldfields, marks the uptick in struggle that will lead, eventually, to 1917

(447): official Bolshevik-Menshevik split isn't until 1912, remember

(458): Pravda before April, in Stalin and Kamenev's hands, had been vacillating and conciliatory re: Prov. Government

(490): Wilson's elitism, again -- proletariat can't govern like the bourgeoisie can, b/c of comparative lack of education

The government budgetary borrowings from the central bank – reported to have shot up to just below Rs170 billion at the start of this month – to finance its budget are a major contributor to the surge in inflationary pressures in the economy because these contribute to growth of reserve money, which rose by 4.25 per cent year-on-year until September 3 from three per cent a year earlier.

Banks provide farm loans to about 1.4 million growers or one fifth of an estimated seven million potential borrowers. “Most of small and medium-sized growers have no access to agricultural loans and they borrow from informal sources,” said the head of an agricultural credit of a large local bank. Farmers estimate cumulative annual demand for crop and agricultural development loans at Rs2000 billion whereas banks’ lending remains below Rs300 billion. “Filling in this gap is a long-term policy issue... The federal government has set a target of 25 million tonnes wheat production this year and officials say that plans for free distribution of wheat and gram seeds are on the cards.

Cotton crop takes at lest 60 days to mature after the application of fertiliser. That means the crop would mature in the second week of November – the most propitious time for wheat sowing. Its picking would take another 10 to 15 days, and then soil preparation for wheat another week or so. The sowing might thus be delayed till mid- and even late-December, which, by no means, is desirable: after November 20, each day costs the farmer about 10 kilograms in yield. The factors forcing Punjab to save cotton as much as it can are truly compelling. The loss of every million bales deprives the rural economy of around Rs32 billion, increasing poverty correspondingly. It forces the textile industry to import the same quantity at the cost of very precious foreign exchange. Since 60 per cent of exports depend on cotton, it is wise to save it to the last boll. But, the provincial government also needs to ensure that food safety is not compromised next year. The huge carry-over stocks (about six million tons at present) do provide it huge space for manoeuvering. But it maintained the stocks at a massive cost – around Rs2.5 billion in per month interest payments to banks on a loan of over Rs200 billion. The ambitious package would cost the provincial government around Rs10 billion – an amount that it neither has nor can generate from its own sources.The province was able to grow around 18 million tons of wheat only when the Punjab government launched one billion rupees wheat maximisation programme, and literally focused all its financial, human and infrastructural resources on it. For the last two years, it has not only abolished the plan, but also was “relatively ignoring” the crop because of huge stocks that it could not clear from the 2007-08 yield. It reduced production last year by at least two million tons.

Most of the inundated farmlands are much below the level of Indus bank and the floodwater is facing difficulty in receding into the river. It will take months for the agriculture lands to become ready for cultivation. According to reports, on an average 4-5 feet water is still standing in the farmlands, spread over a large area. No effort is being made by the irrigation department for draining out the floodwater from farm fields. Lack of machinery, manpower, and finances have been underlined as major causes for it. Agriculture lands in Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Kashmore, Larkana, Shahdadkot, Thatta and parts of Dadu districts have been hit by the deluge. I don’t see any chance of the Rabi crops being planted this year, at least in these districts,” Secretary Agriculture Sindh Agha Jan Akhtar said.

The KP uses about 1.9 million acres for wheat cultivation. The provincial seeds industry provides 10 per cent of the total wheat seeds requirement of 80,000 metric tons to farmers.
This year the demand for wheat seed has increased. In the past, 70 per cent of the KP farmers used their own stock while the rest bought seeds. Now as floods have destroyed wheat stocks in Charasadda, Nowshera and the DIK and Lakki Marwat, the government will have to provide seeds to more farmers.

The yards had handled 86 ships with 778,598 light tonnage displacement (LDT) during the 2008-09 fiscal and the number rose to 107 ships having 852,022 LDT during 2009-10, giving something to cheer for the ship-breakers who had been under severe strain in preceding years.

Last year, wheat was cultivated on 2.7 million acres because of an attractive support price of Rs950 per 40kg. Growers in Jacobabad, Kashmore, Qambar-Shahdadkot, Larkana districts, who used to produce gram, got interested in growing wheat. Even katcha area has been producing wheat, sugarcane, cotton and paddy. Sindh Chamber of Agriculture president Dr Nadeem Qamar is hopeful about wheat cultivation on the left bank, provided irrigation department officials work effectively to provide water on time. He, however, sees no chances of Rabi crop on Indus right bank area. “The area is completely devastated by floods. I see no future for Rabi crop for our right bank counterparts,” he said.

The International Labour Organisation estimates that 5.3 million jobs may have been lost or affected by devastations caused by the floods. It emphasises that labour-intensive job creation programmes are urgently needed to lift millions of people out of poverty. The ILO has also offered to assist families and communities in rehabilitation and rebuilding.

The FBR’s high-ups want complete monopoly over tax collection—sharing it with provinces will deprive them of unlimited powers and speed money. They insist on uniform reformed GST implementation with one collecting authority at federal level “to avoid complications”. They want it not for avoiding any complications but for self-aggrandisement.

The impact of the downturn, however, has not been even. While Lahore and Karachi have seen vacancy rates hover between 40 and 50 per cent during the year 2010, Islamabad has seen vacancies reach only 10 per cent, largely due to a higher incidence of recession-proof government clients. Property values have fallen across Islamabad and Karachi but not Lahore. Most observers, including those at BMI have been unable to explain the phenomenon.

The government’s domestic net financing needs will increase after the floods and about Rs2 trillion ($23.28 billion) in treasury bills will need to be rolled over this fiscal year, the IMF said, while private demand will soften and undermine the already weak recovery in private sector growth. “The SBP (State Bank of Pakistan) is facing a difficult balancing act,” the IMF said.

Fauji Cement’s profit plummeted 75 per cent to Rs250 million for fiscal year 2010 compared with last year’s Rs1 billion. “The company’s fall in net profit was mainly due to a three per cent decline in cement dispatches and 26 per cent lower selling prices year-on-year,” said senior research analyst Sana Abdullah at IGI Securities.The complete sector has felt the heat as giants Lucky Cement and DG Khan Cement reported a fall in profits by 31 and 55 per cent, respectively, during the same period.

The country has been supported by the overseas Pakistanis who sent record amount of $8.9 billion last year and remitted record amount during July-August of the current year. The country received $933 million in August and $1.724 billion during July-August which was 13 per cent higher than last year.

When asked why was the government not asking international lending institutions to write off their loans, Ms Khar claimed it was not an easy decision because of its long-term repercussions. She said the move would make the country a pariah state.

National Assembly was informed Thursday that PSDP may be cut by 30% to 50% in view of recent floods to divert resources for rehabilitation and reconstruction of affected areas.

A few years ago a man committed suicide in Karachi after being hounded by a recovery team for defaulting on a Rs250,000 loan. The ensuing outrage caused the SBP to caution banks from employing hostile tactics when recovering loans. It is a sad reflection on society when defaulters of small loans are hunted down, while the multi-million rupee loans of the well-connected are written off.

Consumers have yet to see any respite in prices of essential items after Eid as rates of some items, especially vegetables have climbed to an all time high. The government, which is now more engaged in post-flood situation, besides striving hard to save the current setup, has not taken any serious measures to contain food inflation. For instance, the wholesale rate of sugar, after reaching the peak of Rs78 per kg ahead of Eid, has now come down to Rs76.50 per kg...

A report in this newspaper yesterday suggests the defence budget has been quietly hiked by an astonishing 25 per cent, from the budgeted figure of Rs442bn to over Rs550bn. As usual, neither the government nor the military has seen fit to divulge any details, making it difficult to comment on the need for such an extraordinary increase. A few comparisons may put the figure of Rs110bn in the proper perspective. Rs110bn is close to half the amount public-sector enterprises rack up in losses each year — a key area of reform and restructuring that the international financial institutions have been emphasising. Rs110bn exceeds the entire gains that the reformed General Sales Tax is expected to make. The sum is also roughly equal to the amount which would be raised by the controversial ‘flood tax’ that has been mooted. One single head of expenditure, then, is already set to absorb all the revenue gains that are expected to be made this year — even before those gains are realised. Surely, the public is owed an explanation.

The share of tax revenues distributed to provinces rose significantly in 2010-11 under NFC and since spending responsibilities have not yet been transferred, the federal budget expected provinces to save most of the additional funds and run surpluses this fiscal year.
Nevertheless, subsidy needs for the electricity sector are to be determined and will likely to exceed the Rs30 billion or 0.2 per cent of GDP, provided in the budget. The report also showed concern that new ‘circular debt’ in the energy sector continues to accumulate. . Initial estimates from the State Bank put loan losses related to floods at about Rs54 billion, of which Rs34 billion are loans to agriculture.Although significant, this is unlikely to materially affect the banking system as total private sector loans amount to close Rs3 trillion.

Services sector posted a deficit of $567 million in July-August of current fiscal year as compared to $481 million in corresponding period of last fiscal year, depicting an increase of 17.87 percent or $86 million. Export of Services trade mounted by 5 percent or $27 million to $589 million in first two months of current fiscal year relative to $562 million in same period of last fiscal year. Similarly, imports under services sector registered an increase of 11 percent due to high payments on account of transportation, travel services, insurance, technical fee, royalties and government sector. Services sector imports stood at $1.156 billion in July-August of fiscal year 2010-11 as compared to $1.043 billion in corresponding period of fiscal year 2009-10, depicting an increase of $113 million.

The foreign investors have repatriated over 100 million dollars abroad on account of profit and dividend, despite slackness in the Pakistan's economy and global economic recession. However, repatriated amount during the first two months of the current fiscal year is some 3.4 percent lower than the repatriation in the same period of the last fiscal year 2010.The central bank on Friday revealed that country has attracted 171.4 million dollars foreign direct investment (FDI) in July-August of current fiscal year related to 344.5 million dollars in the same period of fiscal year 2010. Foreign investors have repatriated 85.7 million dollars on account of return on FDI in the first two months of the current fiscal year over the 90.8 million dollars in the same period of the last fiscal year, depicting a decline of 14 percent. While, during the period return on foreign private investment has posted an increase of 12 percent or 1.6 million dollars to 15.2 million dollars from 13.2 million dollars. Only 8 sectors out of some 36 sectors, showed increase in the repatriation of profit, while remaining all sectors depicting downward trend. Beverages, Textile, Fertiliser and personal services are leading sector, where from not a penny has sent abroad by the foreign investors. The major repatriation has registered from the power sector, where from foreign investors has repatriated 47 million dollars in July-August of fiscal year 2010-2011 over the repatriation of 34 million dollars in corresponding period of the last fiscal year, depicting an increase of 38 percent. It may be mentioned here that the government of Pakistan has allowed a 100 percent repatriation of profit to the foreign investors. Therefore, foreign investors are fully enjoying the government's policy by transferring their profit back since 2004.

Mohsin said the country could take a full advantage of the present energy limitations in Bangladesh and serious wage hike in China, as few international buyers have started turning faces to Pakistan, now. "Pakistan should reap the full benefit of this situation and increase exports to improve trade deficit," he urged the government. With a firm belief, he said advantage of VAT imposition was almost negligible as compared to huge export loss. He urged the government to revisit its decision on VAT imposition to save the export industry from a possible collapse.

Despite a short fall of about 1.5 million tons in rice production due to devastating floods, Pakistan will be able to export rice worth $2 billion during FY 2010-2011. Former Chairman Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (Reap) and a prominent rice exporter, Azhar Akhtar, told Business Recorder on Saturday that Pakistan has about 0.8 million tons of milled rice worth $800 millions as a carryover of the previous crop. He said the demand of Pakistan's superior quality basmati rice is picking up in the international market at a rate of $1050 to $1100 per ton. Akhtar said though the unprecedented floods have damaged rice over 7,08,000 hectares area out of the total of 2.64 million hectors, especially in Sindh, yet Pakistan is likely to produce about 5 millions tons of basmati and other rice varieties this season against the target of 6 million tons of rice. The country consumes about 2.2 million tons annually and exports the surplus quantity of rice.

The Inter-national Monetary Fund (IMF) has observed that the government of Pakistan is spending $2 billion a year on subsidising power, and urged it to reform the power sector so that support is directed at the poor and the needy, and not in an untargeted fashion.

The 10 percent income tax surcharge is estimated to generate additional revenue of around Rs 55 billion. According to sources, it is expected that the government may issue ordinance for imposition of 1.5 percent flood disaster duty on non-essential imports. The duty is estimated to generate additional revenue of Rs 11 billion for the flood affected population of the country.