Cheapskate Consumers in China

The Mall of America, suburban Minneapolis, sells a lot of stuff from China (source)

Roy Landersen, writing for The Militant (published by the Socialist Workers Party--SWP), contributes an article entitled China’s capitalist rulers’ deepening crises visit disaster on working people. Even though he gets China mostly right, he still misunderstands some basic economics. His lede paragraph is here (emphasis mine).

For decades China’s rulers have relied on expanding capitalist methods to grow their economy, and repression to keep working people in check. But their course today is producing falling exports, rising local government debt and a property market meltdown, exemplified by the collapse of Evergrande, once the world’s most profitable property developer.

What he describes here isn't really capitalism, but rather fascism. While under socialism all economic activity is run directly by the state, in fascism, it is run only indirectly by the state. The government allows private enterprise, but forcibly subordinates it to the political needs of the state. Mr. Landersen denotes this by the euphemism "capitalist methods," which is distinct from capitalism because economic profitability is not the primary concern. Instead enterprises must serve the state first and foremost.

Another name for this might be mercantilism. Either way, it is unfair to blame China's problems on capitalism. Instead, it's the fascist-like CCP that poisons the mix.

The last clause of the quoted paragraph is wrong. It seems that Evergrande was never profitable--the company has been accused of systematically inflating revenue. Apparently they've been running a big Ponzi scheme--with CCP connivance, of course. There were never any profits--only fraud.

In a transparent effort to blame mythical, foreign imperialists, Mr. Landersen writes,

A Hong Kong court ruled Jan. 29 that Evergrande, with its gigantic $300 billion debt, be liquidated, setting up a tug-of-war over its assets between Beijing and imperialist lenders who are owed billions. Bosses at the company stopped paying creditors two years ago.

Google AI (now called Gemini) reports that 

While Evergrande's total debt was massive at $340 billion, its reliance on foreign loans was relatively small. Here's a breakdown:

• Total debt: $340 billion
• Foreign debt: $25.4 billion
• Percentage of foreign debt: ~7.5%

The so-called "imperialist" lenders are only out $25 billion, which is small change. I don't know what an "imperialist" lender is--foreign lender is a better description. I'll suggest almost all of them are from Hong Kong. Is Hong Kong "imperialist"? The epithet is completely meaningless.

Mr. Landersen recites a litany of problems Chinese "workers" face, which I'll summarize in bullet points.

• Evergrande "took billions in down payments for houses that were never built, and its collapse left countless numbers of construction workers with unpaid wages." As said, it was all a big Ponzi scheme.
• "In industry, bosses’ profits fell 2.3% last year, after a 4% fall the year before." So it's not just workers who suffered.
• "High unemployment among Chinese university graduates — one in five without a job..."
• "Despite government inducements to have children, including tax breaks, cheap housing and cash payments, the birth rate fell in 2023 for the seventh straight year." China looks to be in an irrecoverable demographic downward spiral. There's probably no way of undoing that now.
• "Foreign capitalists are shifting manufacturing from China to countries like Vietnam where bosses pay workers less."
• "Chinese President Xi Jingping’s signature project, the Belt and Road Initiative, is losing steam. ... [G]overnments that have borrowed from Beijing are defaulting on loans."
• "For years, Beijing has detained millions of Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority, in 'reeducation camps' across Xinjiang province."
• "Demonstrations by workers have grown recently in China’s export-oriented manufacturing industries where demand has fallen. More than 1,700 strikes took place last year, double the number in 2022. They are protesting unpaid wages and benefits, as well as mass layoffs or forced relocations."

Mr. Landersen tells the truth--every statement in these bullet points is true. Intentionally or otherwise, he puts paid to the notion that China is some rising power about to displace the United States. There is no way that is gonna happen. Quite the contrary, China will increasingly have difficulty importing enough food and fuel to meet its needs.

It is, in the end, all a question of supply and demand. 

Marxists only talk about the supply--e.g., the governments in Cuba (sugar), North Korea (food) and the former Soviet Union (steel) all bragged about their levels of production. After all, in their view, the key to economic progress is to increase production because that's the only thing that adds value to an economy.

But it's not true. The real measure of economic progress is the rate of consumption, typically measured as sales volume. Because if consumers can't afford or find use for your product, its manufacture is a waste of resources. It's increased consumption that actually raises a country's standard of living.

This is why the plight of workers--how they're oppressed, deprived, etc.--is mostly irrelevant (as long as they're free and paid market rate wages). The real test of well-being is what those workers--acting as consumers--can buy. In Cuba they can't buy tiddlywinks. In China--even after all the progress of recent decades--most consumers are too poor to buy very much.

Americans, by contrast, are excellent consumers! Indeed, we're the best consumers on the planet. Almost every country on earth tries hard to sell into the American market--because that's where the consumers are. American consumers are the people who have made the world's economy go round.

In particular, modern China has never been able to consume its own production. It has always had to find consumers abroad--mostly by exporting to America.

Unfortunately, America is now tapped out. We're too far in debt to keep accepting new exports from other countries. Our ability to consume everything the world produces is no longer feasible. Other countries are going to have to develop their own consumer markets.

China has not done that. Not even close. A housing Ponzi scheme destroys consumption. A lack of babies results in a lack of consumers--the best consumers are families with children. Not having a good old-age pension system, or something like Medicare for old people, forces people to save more than they likely need for old age. And reduces consumption. China's "iron rice bowl" has rusted out.

So I think China is screwed. Mr. Landersen wants to blame capitalism, but he really should blame the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP, like most Marxists, has always emphasized production over consumption--and now they're in a pickle of their own making.

Mr. Landersen will, of course, champion the Cuban consumer, who earns something like $50/month. How much can you consume on that income? It's pathetic, and that's why Cuba is so poor.

Further Reading:

• Workers' Voice Doesn't Understand Deficits or Taxes
• Brian Williams, Inflation and China
• The Eurodollar

Immigration: The Militant & Left Voice

Source: Amazon.com

Two articles from the Trotskyist press guide our discussion of immigration.

1. An article in The Militant (published by the Socialist Workers Party--SWP) entitled As immigration spikes, workers look to unify the working class. The author is the competent Alyson Kennedy.
2. News, as reported in Left Voice, about the "far-right" Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The post, by Inés In interviewing Inés Heider, is Protests in Germany: “The Whole Regime Is Shifting to the Right”

Back in 2020 Ms. Kennedy ran for president on a campaign program demanding

AMNESTY FOR ALL UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS in the US, a life-and-death question for the unions to unite workers and cut across divisions the bosses use to drive down wages. For access to driver’s licenses for all.

Fast-forward to today, and the last two paragraphs of her current article are these: 

Under capitalism workers compete for jobs. Opening the borders would vastly intensify that competition, fueling unemployment and spreading misery among working people, immigrant and native-born alike.

Instead, the call for amnesty for all workers living in the U.S., regardless where they come from, coupled with support for revolutionary battles abroad, is the road forward for the working class.

The first paragraph suggests some skepticism about open borders and unrestricted immigration. The second reiterates the traditional Trotskyist position from 2020--along with a Kamala-Harris-like effort to solve the "root causes" of our immigration problem. These seem to be in conflict with each other: total amnesty does not look like a way to control immigration.

What gives?

The Militant, which masthead proclaims it "A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE," has long recognized that the bulk of the working class supports Trump for president. This sharply distinguishes them from the other Trotskyist grouplets on my beat, who have reduced their cause to petty bourgeois, progressive Left orthodoxy. Accordingly, The Militant has rethought their positions on any number of topics, notably Israel, abortion, and the defense of Trumpian civil liberties.

Now it seems that they're moderating their position on immigration. Ms. Kennedy's article argues by anecdote, collected while campaigning door to door in the Fort Worth area. For example:

“It’s bad what is going on,” Juanita Castillo, a retired factory worker, told this Militant  worker-correspondent when I knocked on her door and said I was the SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas and wanted her opinion. “Immigrants who are coming now don’t care about the law. Before when immigrants were coming they were scared they were going to be deported or put in jail, now they are not,” Castillo said. 

Or again,

“I work with immigrants from Cuba and El Salvador. In Minnesota I worked with workers from Romania and Bosnia at a bakery,” [union steward Jerome] Crawford said. “They came from war-torn countries for a better life. You have the president telling them they are welcome and the governor rebutting this. It is a union issue because you can’t join unions if you don’t have citizenship.”

Compared to her campaign platform four years ago, her current article is a more sober analysis of some of the trade-offs of immigration. Gone is the certitude that it is always beneficial. She admits that new immigrants compete with domestic workers for jobs, thus depressing wages. More, high levels of immigration make things harder for unions. Her quote from Mr. Crawford ("...war-torn countries...") suggests that she's aware of problems of acculturation and assimilation.

Trump is very popular among the working class (which is why The Militant pursues that audience), and his hard stance on immigration is an important cause. So it makes sense that the Party is rethinking their policy.

Though she still demands total amnesty, but I don't see how unconditional amnesty can lead to any coherent immigration policy. It begs the question: is the SWP still Trotskyist? Or are they just kowtowing to their Trumpian audience? 

Left Voice, meanwhile, has participated in mass protests in Germany against a policy supported by at least some members of the AfD. It's described by Ms. Heider.

The scale of the mobilization reflected the shock provoked by the revelation on January 10 by the investigative media Correctiv of a plan initiated by the AfD and neo-Nazi activists, as well as members of the conservative CDU, to mass expel several million people from the country on the basis of their origin, as well as those who come to refugees’ aid, notably in the Mediterranean.

A clearer description can be found in a publication of an EU Agency here:

According to the “re-migration” plan, migrants will be forcefully deported to their countries of origin via mass deportation and will target citizens holding German passports who, Martin Sellner, a member of the Identitarian Movement, claims, “form aggressive, rapidly growing parallel societies”. 

I share Ms. In's and Ms. Heider's disgust at the idea of deporting citizens--either in Germany or in the US. Deporting citizens who have lived in Germany for many decades and fill important roles such as nurses and engineers, is neither moral nor good for the economy. The very idea is crazy-talk, and I'm reassured that Germans are nearly unanimously rejecting it.

Similarly, the demands to expel the 15-20 million illegals now living in the US are utterly unrealistic and very expensive. It would be the largest forced migration ever in history. Trump's promise that he could do it "humanely" is ridiculous.

On the other hand, Left Voice has long supported open borders, including the abolition of the US customs agency, ICE. Unlike The Militant, they make no mention of any downsides, ignoring the competition for jobs, the threat to the unions, and problems of assimilation.

Indeed, Left Voice's position can only be held by a bunch of college professors, whose connections to the real world are sufficiently tenuous that they can't even imagine how it could fail. If deporting millions of immigrants (either in the US or Germany) is both immoral and impractical, then the only alternative is to restrict the flow of incoming illegals.

In other words, Build The Wall! The US has to have control over its southern border.

Both articles (along with the mainstream media) miss another aspect of immigration: consumption. Immigrants not only take jobs, but they also buy things and are consumers. As consumers, they create jobs. The short-term problem arises when they first arrive: they're either not allowed to work, or they're so far in the financial hole that they can't consume as much as they earn. That's why the perception (not entirely inaccurate) is that they "steal jobs." In the long run, they don't. They just grow the economy.

The biggest consumers in any society are families with children. That obvious insight leads to this hierarchy of which immigrants to admit, listed from most desirable to least desirable:

1. A pregnant woman with husband in tow--the child will grow up in the US, will speak fluent English, and the husband will earn a living for his family. Hopefully they'll have more children.
2. A woman with one or more children, again with husband in tow--still good, but the children will be less likely to assimilate depending on how old they are upon arrival. The husband remains a financial necessity.
3. A husband and wife--here's hoping they have children.
4. A single woman--likely children in her future. Hope she finds a husband.
5. A single mother--at least there are kids, but her financial prospects are not good and she's likely to end up on welfare.
6. Unattached males--these are the guys who are gonna paint swastikas on synagogues, or join street gangs, or generally make a nuisance of themselves. They should not be admitted unless they have marketable skills in short supply.

Further Reading:

• Tucker Carlson & Martha's Vineyard
• The Lumpens Hate Eric Adams
• Has the SWP Moved Right? Or the Republicans Left?

Malik Miah Defends Harvard

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudine_Gay

Malik Miah--a longtime and honorable socialist, formerly a comrade of mine in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), and now a leader in the Solidarity movement--astonishingly rises to the defense of elite education in an article entitled Targeting Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Higher Education. The piece is a rousing defense of former Harvard president Claudine Gay, and by extension all who supported her: students, faculty and the Harvard Corporation Board.

Harvard (along with a couple dozen other institutions) are tasked with educating elite students. For example, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg both attended Harvard, admitted on the basis of their near perfect SAT scores. Educating elite students is, of course, precisely the opposite of championing equity. Equity and Harvard are like oil and water--and that is what makes Mr. Miah's defense of Harvard so mysterious.

It is a conceit among my Trotskyist friends--perhaps not often openly stated--that anybody could excel at Harvard if only they were given a chance. William F. Buckley famously said “I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.” My former comrades--I think including Malik Miah--will likely agree with that, and insist that there is no intelligence or aptitude difference between Harvard faculty and students, and a random collection of people chosen from the phone book. Further, the latter are more likely to represent the working class.

Of course it's not true, and if Harvard genuinely thought it was, then they would have to go out of business. Nevertheless, in deference to the American public's egalitarian impulse, they pretend it's true, and so they go to great lengths to admit a few lower class students and to hire a Black woman as president.

It's all a virtue-signaling scam. I wish Harvard would stick to educating the elite as measured, eg, by test scores.

Apparently Mr. Miah buys the charade. He truly believes that Claudine Gay represents progress in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in some meaningful way. And this despite Ms. Gay being woefully unqualified to be a college president at all, especially at Harvard. Let me count the ways.

The main job of a college president--especially at a private school--is to raise money. This can be done by soliciting donations, recruiting tuition-paying students, scamming the federal Student Loan program, recruiting students from petrostates who pay full, unsubsidized rates, etc. A president who can't meet fundraising expectations will not be long employed. Ms. Gay has 1) deeply alienated a large group of donors, who have vowed to never give Harvard another penny as long as she's in office, and 2) presided over a 17% drop in applications for early admission.

Any president of any skin color would be gone if they'd failed so miserably. (At my former campus, when the admissions' office failed to recruit enough students for the Fall semester, the president was unceremoniously fired.)

Then she got caught plagiarizing. Personally, I don't think this is such a big deal, and if one fires all college faculty who ever plagiarized anything, you probably wouldn't have many faculty left. Beyond which, with so much written on the web, it's hard to distinguish between purposeful plagiarism and coincidence.

But Harvard, in particular, makes a big, huge deal about plagiarism, and having its president caught in the act is embarrassing. Though I think this is more an excuse to fire her than an actual cause.

Finally, Ms. Gay is not much of a scholar. She has published only 11 papers and not a single book. No white male would get a job at Harvard even as janitor with such a weak publication record. She is not qualified to serve on the Harvard faculty.

Mr. Miah will claim this is just a plot against Black women, or an exercise in "white supremacy." Of course he's wrong. There are plenty of Black college presidents, and many of them successful on the measures I've just outlined. Let me mention Shirley Ann Jackson, first African-American woman to earn a doctorate from MIT, who served as president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from 1999 to 2022. "Jackson has helped raise over $1 billion in donations for philanthropic causes." Ms. Jackson was frequently criticized, mostly for being the highest paid college president in the country. But nobody ever accused her of being a diversity hire.

Beyond issues posed by President Gay, there are some issues in higher education generally. In Mr. Miah's telling, these are all the result of perfidious attacks by a certain Christopher Rufo. He writes (quoting Mr. Rufo),

The far right is open about its objectives. Christopher F. Rufo, the leader of the racist mob that chased after Gay, said:

“We launched the Claudine Gay plagiarism story from the Right,” he stated on X — formerly Twitter — on Dec. 19. “The next step is to smuggle it into the media apparatus of the Left, legitimizing the narrative to center-left actors who have the power to topple her. Then squeeze.”

This is a replication of his earlier campaigns to turn “critical race theory” (CRT) and “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs (DEI) into dog whistles for the reactionary Republican voting bloc.

Mr. Miah is generous with the insults. In particular, I wonder why everybody who disagrees with him is automatically a "racist?" Surely there are other, more important, issues facing higher ed than "racism," eg, money and mission. I don't know what a "dog whistle" is. Whatever it is, Mr. Miah's ears are much more finely attuned than mine--or any dog's.

Then it's not just Harvard that has a problem with “diversity, equity and inclusion.” The purpose of higher ed is to give its students a leg up on life--to make them better qualified for employment and to earn them more money and a higher status. Thus higher ed is all about maximizing inequity, that is separating their graduates from the hoi polloi. This seems built into the very nature of the enterprise, and not because of anything Mr. Rufo does.

Higher ed is as much or more about status transfer as wealth transfer. Wealth is easy--everybody can get rich at the same time. If Mr. Miah learns how to build a better mousetrap, then not only will he make more money, but I, a consumer, will benefit from having better mousetraps.

Status, on the other hand, is a zero-sum game. My status can't go up without Mr. Miah's status going down, and vice versa. It's ultimately a pecking order. When universities try to transfer status from one group to another, they're definitely gonna get pushback from those whose status is going down. For whatever reason--Mr. Miah probably knows why better than I do--higher ed today is all-in on raising the status of Black and gay people, and then to a much lesser extent, women. People who are not included (blue-collar folks, Asians, Jews) needless to say feel dissed. It's finally reached a boiling point; Blacks and gays have way higher status in higher ed than any other group.

This isn't the fault of Christopher Rufo.

So I don't know why Mr. Miah champions higher ed. It is probably the most reactionary institution in America today. Diversity, equity and inclusion are precisely not on higher education's agenda--and they never can be. 

Further Reading:

• Left Voice and the Intifada
• The Professors' Congress: The International Situation
• "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"

The UAW Strike

United Auto Workers Local 551 members rally at Chicago union hall Oct. 7. Watched by millions, UAW strikers fought to win back concessions given to Big Three bosses in 2007.
(Figure & Caption Source; MILITANT/SALM KOLIS)

James Dennis Hoff, CUNY English professor and prominent contributor to Left Voice, writes an extended think piece entitled The UAW Won Big: What Does It Mean for the U.S. Labor Movement?. (It's dated Nov. 12th, before the proposed contract was ratified.) He nicely summarizes the outcome (links in original).

Though UAW members are still debating and voting on the tentative agreements, and though they did not win everything they aimed to (in fact, as the recent no vote at the Flint Michigan plant shows, they probably could have won more if the rank and file had been in the lead), this is nonetheless a victory for the auto workers. The gains in these proposed contracts are substantial, and represent a significant restoration of the concessions on wages and benefits made to the Big Three over the last 15 years. Not only did the union manage to secure wage increases of 25 percent across the life of the contract, with 11 percent in the first year and a $5,000 signing bonus; they also took significant steps toward the elimination of wage tiers at all three automakers and managed to win back cost of living adjustments that will protect those wages against inflation going forward.

Professor Hoff is correct--the outcome is a victory for the union. The 25% pay raise is over the 4½ year life of the contract. Adding in the cost-of-living adjustments, this is probably close to the 40% that the union was originally asking for. In addition, "...the union was able to use the strike to force all three auto companies to make big investments in new manufacturing and to secure pathways toward unionizing electric vehicle (EV) and battery plants that will help protect jobs and wages as the industry transitions to EV production."

So what could go wrong? First, the contract assumes continuing inflation, absent which the companies will not be able to raise prices sufficiently to pay the new labor costs. But that doesn't seem to be panning out. While services (eg, airline fares, restaurant meals) costs are continuing to climb, goods costs are now shrinking, specifically "... appliances, furniture, used cars and other goods" are getting cheaper. Walmart reports deflation on many items in its stores:

Deflation in some items is creating a new dynamic for Walmart, [CEO Doug] McMillon said. In general merchandise, the category that includes electronics, toys and other nonfood items, prices have dropped by about 5% compared with a year ago, he said.

What happens if new car prices start going down? Are the workers gonna take a pay cut, ie, the opposite of COLA? Of course not--it will all come out of the margin. The companies will be forced to cut costs, lay off employees, and at least temporarily close factories.

Second, there is the problem of electric vehicles (EVs). While the sales of EVs are still increasing, the rate of increase is far below what was anticipated. Accordingly, "General Motors will be slowing its electric car (EV) production in North America due to lower-than-forecast demand, pushing its manufacturing targets well into 2025. The decision saves the company $1.5 billion next year..." 

I think the problem with EVs is that they simply don't work. The technology is not ready for prime time. And as Trump has pointed out, most EV production will take place in China. The big cost for EVs is not in the assembly, but rather in mining the myriad raw materials (lithium, copper, nickel, rare-earth metals, etc.) China has a huge head start on that and can do that much cheaper than we can. The promises made to the union about future EV production will not happen.

The reason for the union's victory was not primarily because of militancy, but more because of an endemic labor shortage, especially for the skilled trades. Professor Hoff doesn't realize that--he somehow thinks the unionists will get paid above the market rate. I doubt that's true, and if that is true then union members will gradually be laid off and assembly plants will move to non-union states or to Mexico.

Professor Hoff has, for a Marxist, a very strange suggestion for the union. The union would be much better served if they (emphasis mine)

...insist that strikes like these be led from below by strike committees in each workplace, where decisions about where and when and how to strike are openly debated and discussed and that the negotiations be public and open to all members throughout the bargaining process.

Leaders, in his view, should do no more than organize meetings and make sure everything is transparent and open. Negotiating in good faith (which means keeping some things confidential) should not be allowed. In a word, the union should be governed by the mob--not by any elected, competent and accountable leadership.

Anarchists champion from below organizations, and they're spectacularly unsuccessful. Leninists reject that approach, advocating instead guidance from a vanguard Party with the expertise and experience necessary to lead the working class to victory. Professor Hoff weirdly sides with the anarchists here, rejecting his self-proclaimed Leninism.

The Militant posts a recent article (by Terry Evans) entitled UAW members debate, vote up contract, more fights to come. The piece makes many of the same points as Professor Hoff, albeit with a different emphasis. Mr. Evans' summary post-mortem includes this,

The fight was watched closely by millions of workers who also face falling real wages and worsening conditions from past concessions to the bosses and today’s deepening capitalist crisis.

There is no question workers won some important gains. And most came away feeling the union was stronger, better prepared to fight.

The Militant's main quibble with the outcome of the strike concerned pensions (an issue mentioned only in passing by Professor Hoff). After noting that workers hired before 2007 will still receive defined benefit pensions (albeit with only a 9.8% raise in monthly benefits), others face a supposedly bleaker future.

The situation facing workers who got jobs after 2007 is far worse. “We don’t have pensions or health care when we retire,” Randolph said. These workers get an inferior 401(k) plan, as do all new hires. “Pensions and post-retirement health care were a huge topic,” newly elected President Katie Deatherage of Local 2250 at GM’s plant in Wentzville, Missouri, told the press. She said 70% to 75% of workers there were hired after 2007. Workers voted the contract down.

It's not at all certain that the 401(k) plan is inferior--it depends on how carefully and successfully it is invested. The problem with defined benefit packages is they have an unfortunate tendency to go bankrupt--that's because both union officials and company execs are happy to promise hopelessly unrealistic benefits, knowing that the bills won't come due for decades, long after they've left office. The 401(k) may seem chintzy by comparison, but they are far less risky, and workers are much less likely to lose everything.

One last point: all my Trotskyist friends are mad at the billionaires and millionaires, with Professor Hoff commenting favorably on UAW chief Shawn Fain's sentiment:

Through a regular and concerted denouncement of the super rich, including the CEOs and executives of the Big Three, Fain and the UAW were able to call attention to the ways in which the assaults on the living standards and well being of auto workers were part of a larger assault on working people everywhere ...

Of course it's all wrong--the so-called billionaires take nothing away from either Mr. Fain or Professor Hoff. Without billionaires there would be no millionaires, and without millionaires there wouldn't be anybody who could afford a $60,000 F-150 pickup truck. Without billionaires the UAW would be out of business altogether.

My Trotskyist friends don't even like Mary Barra, CEO of GM. According to this site she earned $34.1 million in 2022. That sounds like a lot of money! OK--it is a lot of money! But divvy it up among GM's 167,000 employees it comes to $201 per employee. So that's a nice Christmas bonus, but frankly, in the grand scheme of things, it's small change.

The UAW strike was successful mainly because of the on-going labor shortage, especially of skilled workers. It's possible the union has priced themselves too high (if inflation doesn't materialize), in which case UAW membership will shrink below it's already record low enrollment.

Further Reading:

• The Professors' Congress: The International Situation
• Unions and Work From Home
• Professor Wants to Shut Down CUNY

Left Voice and the Intifada

(Source)

Left Voice author Nathaniel Flakin tells us that intifada is a soft and cuddly teddy-bear term. He writes, in an article entitled No, Intifada Does Not Mean Genocide Against Jews, 

The term “Intifada” has nothing to do with killing Jews. Rather, it is an Arabic word meaning roughly “shaking off.” The term was used for the first Palestinian uprising that began on December 9, 1987. This first Intifada was defined by mass resistance: demonstrations, strikes, and organizing across the occupied territories. This struggle forced Israel to make some concessions — at least on paper — that led to the Oslo Peace Accords.

Of course it has nothing to do with genocide, except for a few examples such as

This eventually led to a second Intifada, which began on September 28, 2000 after yet another provocation by a far-right Israeli government. This uprising again consisted of mass protests — but this second intifada is when Palestinian groups began the tactic of suicide bombings on a wide scale. 

Then, of course, there is the absurd non sequitur,

“Intifada” has been used for different popular uprisings across the Arab world. The people of Western Sahara, fighting against occupation by the U.S-backed monarchy in Morocco, also refer to their struggle as an “Intifada.” Socialists have always supported the Sahrawis against imperialism and Moroccan colonialism. Would Stefanik claim this is also a call for genocide against Jews?

He never gets around to mentioning the events of October 7th, when 1200 Jews were murdered and over 200 kidnapped as hostages. All, presumably, in the name of intifada.

The problem with Mr. Flakin's transparent evasions is that he doesn't get to define the word intifada. Today the word is defined for us by Hamas. And they are quite explicit--in both word and deed--that intifada does mean killing Jews. All of them. From the river to the sea. The term has nothing to do with some past, irrelevant conflict in Morocco, nor with an ancient dictionary definition of the word before Hamas got hold of it.

Anyone who champions intifada today advocates the mass murder of Jews. Why? Because that's what Hamas says the word means, and they get to define it. Not Mr. Flakin.

Mr. Flakin tries to let himself off the hook by claiming Hamas doesn't understand its own language.

In a similar way, the slogan “from the river to the sea” means that all people living in historical Palestine — Jews, Palestinians, and others — must enjoy equal democratic rights. It is not a call to end Jewish life on the territory. Rather, it is a call to end Apartheid.

When Hamas uses the phrase "from the river to the sea," they're not talking about "equal democratic rights." They want a Judenrein" Palestine--cleansed of Jews, who ideally will all be killed, or at very least driven into exile. This is as clear as daylight--that Mr. Flakin tries to twist their language into teddy bears and sunshine is despicably dishonest on his part.

Note Mr. Flakin's gratuitous use of the word "apartheid." This is just a swear word--there is no serious reason why Israel is like South Africa of the 1970s. A more apt analogy is Rwanda in the 1990s.

Rwanda (along with Burundi, and neighboring parts of Congo and Uganda) is inhabited by two ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi. The former are a Bantu people, agriculturalists, who have lived in Central Africa for millennia. The latter are of Hamitic ancestry (often considered racially distinct) who migrated to Rwanda beginning in the 14th Century. The Tutsis are pastoralists--famous for Ankole cattle. Like most pastoral people, the Tutsi are known for their military prowess, and despite being a minority soon came to dominate political life in Rwanda.

The Hutu--especially Hutu militants--regarded the Tutsi as "colonizers," which is the language that Mr. Flakin uses to describe Israeli Jews. And of course we know what happened to said "colonizers"--there was an attempt at a final solution, resulting in the deaths of up to 800,000 people.

The Hutu militants were eventually defeated and fled to neighboring Congo. There lived a Tutsi tribe known as the Banyamulenge--who had long been denied citizenship because of their immigration status, having arrived in the Congo only in the 17th Century. The Banyamulenge--afraid of being slaughtered--formed the corps of an army led by Laurent Kabila that eventually overthrew the Mobutu regime in 1997. That same conflict--a war of all against all, or kill our neighbors before they kill us, resulted in the Second Congolese war that did kill a lot of people--more than five million. (An excellent book about the Congo wars is here.)

This is the promise that Hamas holds for the Palestinians. And people who support Hamas are aptly dubbed génocidaires, named after the Hutu mobs responsible for the genocide.

Mr. Flakin, all of his comrades in Left Voice, and most of the progressive wing of the Democrat Party are génocidaires. The cowardly and clueless college presidents are at very least apologists for génocidaires, if not génocidaires themselves.

Of course génocidaires accuse Israel of committing genocide--what else would you expect them to say? There is an asymmetry between Hamas and Israel. Hamas explicitly in word and deed aspires to commit genocide, but they don't yet have the means to carry out the act. Israel is now fighting what it sees as an existential war for survival, to prevent Hamas from ever acquiring such means.

On the other hand, Israel has the means available to wipe out the entire population of Gaza. They have nuclear weapons for heavens' sake--they could kill all 2.3 million Palestinians in about 10 minutes. Or almost as bad, they could drive the entire population across the border into Egypt in about half a day--wouldn't take long. Yet here we are--two months into the war--and Israel has only killed 18,000 Palestinians, many of them not civilians but Hamas soldiers. That's less than 1% of the Palestinian population!

It's obvious that, despite having the means, Israel does not aspire to kill Palestinian civilians. Indeed, it is to their obvious political advantage to minimize civilian deaths as much as possible. Israel is not committing genocide. Civilian deaths in Gaza are war casualties. That's still bad, but it's not genocide.

The génocidaires think they are fighting for the Palestinian people. I don't get it. I don't understand how murdering ten million Jews is going to improve the lives of Palestinians. 

The Militant reports that an Israeli, Ariana Pinsker-Lehrer, studying at Columbia University, spoke to a Palestinian Rights rally at that school.

Pinsker-Lehrer has been active inside Israel in support of Palestinian rights. “I want Israel to be a better country,” she noted, but “you guys think that you have some right to decide whether Israel has a right to exist or not.”

“There are 14 million people ‘between the river and the sea,’” she said, referring to the Jews, Muslims, Christians and others who live in Israel and the Palestinian territories, “and none of them are going anywhere. We need to find a solution that involves all of them and that is not what you are doing.”

She is not a génocidaire. Neither am I, but she has way more courage than I do.

Further Reading:

• Addendum: Trotskyist Antisemitism
• Nazis
• Elise Stefanik

The SWIP Flips to SWOP

Totally relevant picture about abortion (Source)

Insert any vowel into the acronym SWP (Socialist Workers Party, which publishes The Militant) and you end up with nonsense.

Random vowel insertion is the effect of this article, by Jacquie Henderson, entitled Ohio abortion referendum was blow to women, working class. I understand that the Party doesn't consider itself Trotskyist anymore (though they still frequently quote Trotsky), but this leaves that heritage so far in the dust that it's a real head-scratcher.

The lede paragraph:

After a national campaign organized by the Democratic Party, drawing in tens of millions of dollars, an amendment to enshrine the right to abortion in Ohio’s state constitution passed Nov. 7. The campaign had nothing to do with the fight for women’s rights — including the decriminalization of abortion — nor defending working-class interests.

Some background is important. The Party supported the Dobbs decision--in which the Supreme Court overturned abortion rights as a Constitutional issue, and instead referred the question back to the states and the people. This has been a political godsend for the Democrats, who have campaigned heavily on the so-called MAGA effort to ban abortion. The Dobbs decision led to no such outcome, and in fact abortion rights will soon be enshrined in law in all 50 states--it's that popular.

I can sort of see the Trotskyist logic in supporting Dobbs. They have long supported democratic rights, and therefore the Constitutional and civil rights of citizens. Abortion isn't even mentioned in the Constitution, and therefore neither the Court nor the Congress have any authority to legislate on the subject at all. Decisions about abortion should be left to the states and the people.

The Party, in their recent Political Report, which I reviewed here, in language I described as "mealy-mouthed," argued that abortion should be "decriminalized (whatever that means). "Mealy-mouthed" turns out to be an understatement. The offending paragraph in the Political Report quoted in my review is

...our communist program has nothing in common with bourgeois and middle-class forces--whether feminists, or campaigners for population control--who in fact advocate abortion as a means of contraception. We reject the pseudoscientific views of those who deny that the issue of human life, a profound moral question for all working people, is always involved in abortion decisions and procedures.

I don't think I understood what that paragraph meant. It's clarified in Ms. Henderson's article here:

The yes campaign was openly tied to getting President Joseph Biden reelected in 2024. After the vote, Biden declared, “Ohioans and voters across the country rejected attempts by MAGA Republican elected officials to impose extreme abortion bans.” He added, “The only reason abortion is banned in America is because of Donald Trump!”

In other words, the Party's position has nothing to do with abortion at all. They are simply against anything the Democrats are for--full stop. If the Dems were against abortion, they'd be for it. The problem with the Ohio referendum was not that it expanded abortion rights, but rather that it was supported by a bunch of evil, petty bourgeois Democrats--in an effort to get Biden reelected.

I agree with their assessment of the Democrat party. But setting oneself up as the "anti-Democrat" party seems to me just as illogical as Jeff "Vanguard Man" Mackler setting himself up as the anti-Trump party. It let's your opponent--be it Trump or Democrats--determine your entire political program.

I think the Party should have ignored the Ohio referendum altogether. The effect is ultimately inconsequential. As I recall, the Republicans had settled on a 15 week deadline for abortion. The referendum went for 22 weeks. According to the CDC, 93.5% of all abortions were performed by or before the 13th week. Fewer than 1% of abortions were performed at or after 21 weeks. I don't have numbers for 15 weeks, but it's likely over 95% of abortions occur before that deadline, and those that happen afterwards are almost certainly for compelling medical reasons, and not for the trivial excuses used earlier in the pregnancy. Abortion for compelling medical reasons will be allowed in any case.

The Party argues that enshrining the law as a state constitutional amendment will make it harder to overturn later, making it more difficult for "workers" to change their minds. This was the argument of the Pro-Life community. Though the Party takes this to unreasonable extremes. From Ms. Henderson's article:

The answer to inflation and growing pressures on families is not more abortions, as many Democrats argue. This is a woman’s medical decision. Workers should reject the push to use abortion as a means of contraception. At issue with abortion is a potential human being. Abortion should be a fallback, something that is needed when all else fails.

“This year workers have learned more about how to fight for better conditions, from striking autoworkers, casino workers, bakery and other unionists,” Hawkins said.

The SWP points to the powerful example set by the leadership of Cuba’s socialist revolution.

Fidel Castro led working people to conquer power. Millions of women participated in the defense and advance of the revolution, breaking down barriers to full involvement in economic, social and political life. The revolutionary government organized child care, school and workplace lunch and after-school programs to help overcome the inequality women face. Along the way they decriminalized abortion.

In other words, because Americans are supposedly getting poorer (worse housing, worse food, worse medical care) we don't need more abortion--but instead we need to imitate Cuba. Cuba--where housing, food, and health care a vastly more available than in the USA. Really?

The SWOP is a FLOP. 

Allow me a personal reminiscence here.

When I was 18 years old I returned to my hometown after living 18 months in Germany. A girl I knew from high school before I left invited me over to her house for milk and cookies--and the complete recording of Jesus Christ Superstar on the stereo set. She had her whole life planned out--and wanted me to be a part of it. She wanted to get married and have five children. And Jesus Christ Superstar was by far the best piece of music ever written. I didn't mention that I was a sworn atheist, and that my stay in Germany (frequent trips to the old East Berlin notwithstanding) had turned me into a committed Communist. Besides, I was way too shy to make the requisite phone call necessary to cash in on her offer, so nothing ever came of it.

In recent years I've come to reconsider that road not taken. I certainly wouldn't have joined the Socialist Workers Party. I probably would never have attended college. There is no way I'd have spent a year with my family living in Uganda. I wouldn't have married my current wife--who gave me two children and now two grandchildren--who is from the Philippines. I have a whole country-in-law, which has added a richness to my life that I think I would miss.

But just suppose--if I'd had five children beginning at age 20. It would have been a hardscrabble, difficult life--supporting five children without a college degree. No fun at all. But by now I'd possibly have a dozen grandchildren. Not just two. And lots of kids would take care of me in my old age--not just my daughter. Of course this assumes the marriage endured for what now would be 52 years.

There's nothing wrong with that life. But it would have taken courage and commitment that I didn't have at age 18. After all, I couldn't even make the phone call.

The SWP is at least pro-natalist. Which, considering that the average, elderly Trotskyist has zero grandchildren, is amazing. Most people with no grandchildren are envious of folks like me--and it's that envy that drives the whole feminist/LGBTQIA+ movement. But the SWP has somehow risen above that--and for that they deserve praise and admiration.

Further Reading:

• Chicago: Ilona Gersh Runs For Mayor
• The American Right and Trans Rights
• The Philippines

 

 

Addendum: Trotskyist Antisemitism

Left Voice's new allies (source)

Reader John B. commented on my last post (Trotskyist Antisemitism) suggesting that I include this quote from the Left Voice's Declaration. The full quote from John is here:

"...However, the course of action pursued by the Hamas militias, which attacked military posts and civilians alike, has been easily instrumentalized by Netanyahu and the imperialist states to try to legitimize their declaration of war. It has allowed the Israeli government to rally the opposition and critical sectors behind support for a military offensive against the Gaza Strip. We reject the attacks on the civilian population. We do not share the methods of Hamas, which impede the necessary unity in struggle between the Palestinian population, Arabs who live in Israel, and sectors of the Jewish working class who break with Zionism and its criminal policies; this unity must be built around the denunciation of the state of Israel and its systematic apartheid in Palestine. We do not share Hamas’s program and strategy, which proclaims its objective to be the installation of an Islamic fundamentalist state throughout the territory of the state of Israel. If the “two-state” policy promoted by the PNA through the Oslo Accords proved to be a resounding failure, Hamas’s proposal also does not represent a progressive alternative..."

He is certainly correct that I should have included--or at least cited--this paragraph in my previous post. Thus I add this addendum.

John offers his opinion here:

If I had written that article, I would have put that paragraph toward the top of it, but it clearly indicates that the Left Voice comrades don't "support" Hamas. Politically, that is.

I disagree with John's conclusion. Left Voice has enthusiastically marched under Hamas' banners, including:

• From the river to the sea--Palestine must be free.
• End the occupation.
• Resistance is justified.

These are thinly disguised commands to kill all the Jews. Palestine is the word they use for a Judenrein ("cleansed of Jews") Holy Land, where Jews have lived for 3000 years. The occupation refers to any Jew living in so-called Palestine, who "occupy" the land by walking on it with their filthy feet. Resistance is justified because the Jews are so awful that anything you can do to get rid of them is a heroic act to be championed.

Left Voice signs off on the Hamas program in every important particular. They are straight-out anti-Semites. But as a fig leaf to protect themselves they include the paragraph John quoted.

It's a very small fig leaf. First, they oppose the civilian deaths only for tactical reasons. Left Voice has no complaint about killing Jews on general principle. They just think that this particular incidence of mass murder was "easily instrumentalized by Netanyahu." Only when Hamas has the capability of murdering 100,000 Jews or perhaps a million Jews--then might be the best tactical time to get on with it.

Then they claim to oppose the "Islamic State." This is reserved for an as yet hypothetical time in the future when all the Jews have been wiped out and Hamas has to figure out what happens after that. That's the only time Left Voice will dare to disagree with them on any principle. Until then the number of Jews to be killed is a purely tactical concern.

I have a professor friend--a former colleague before I retired--who is a religious Muslim but not Palestinian. He is clearly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, and argues that dropping 1000 pound bombs on Gaza is killing innocent children along with Hamas generals. He has a point. His advice is that Israel should stop dropping 1000 pound bombs.

But he is not antisemitic. He rejects the slogans that Hamas promulgates. He condemns the barbaric attack on Jewish civilians. He just thinks the best way forward is a ceasefire. I disagree with him because I don't think it will work--I think Hamas will just stage a new attack to kill more Jews and the only viable strategy moving forward is to eliminate Hamas. But on this reasonable people can disagree--and my colleague is both a reasonable and an honorable man.

He's not antisemitic and I'm not anti-Palestinian. I think Palestinians should have at least a middle class lifestyle and their full civil rights, either within Israel or in a separate Palestinian state. I strongly disagree with that (small) segment of Israeli opinion that supports the expulsion of Palestinians from the Holy Land. From the river to the sea, there are approximately 10 million Jews and 6 million Palestinians--and there is no good reason why either one of them has to leave or be murdered.

Oh--I guess there is at least one reason: Hamas, along with their antisemitic allies in the US, including Left Voice.

Even absent any humanitarian motives, it is obviously in Israel's best political interest to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties as much as possible. This is why Hamas, their US allies, and the UN are all busily trying to inflate the number of Palestinian dead--literally by using their own civilians as human shields, and figuratively by just lying about the death toll. Of course the Hamas brass hides under the biggest hospital in Gaza City--where else would they hang out?

If Israel didn't care about civilian casualties, then why did they send in ground troops? Surely, a few dozen 2000 lb bunker buster bombs over al-Shifa hospital could take out all the tunnels, brass, militia, and tens of thousands Palestinians to boot. No Israeli soldier would have to die.

Here's the truth (h/t Arnold Kling): The only reason Israel is sending in ground troops is to protect Palestinian civilians. A 2000 lb bomb can't distinguish between a child and a terrorist--but a soldier can, at least some of the time. Since dropping bunker busters on a hospital is unconscionable, Israel is putting its own soldiers at risk so it can take out Hamas while injuring as few civilians as possible. Or, put another way, Israel won't be dropping any bombs on top of their own soldiers. The more Israelis there are on the ground, the fewer civilians will be killed.

There is no other reason for those soldiers to be there.

John also dings me for this:

Given the main focus of this blog, I'm surprised you didn't mention the SWP's full-throated endorsement of Zionism and the Israel slaughter in Gaza. Indeed, The Militant's coverage of this most recent crisis is indistinguishable from the Murdoch media or the press releases of the Israeli Defense Force.

He is correct--the Socialist Workers Party is the only Trotskyist grouplet on my beat that rejects antisemitism. I'm happy to point that out--as I did in the Further Reading segment following the previous post. That link is The SWP Defends Civilization. Which is nothing less than the truth.

Further Reading:

• The Professor's Congress: The International Situation
• The Lumpens Hate Eric Adams
• Socialist Action's Political Report