Link to an article by Lars T. Lih:
Tag: History
Michael J. Coren & Clive Thompson – Luddites Have Been Getting a Bad Rap for 200 Years
Link to an interview of Clive Thompson conducted by Michael J. Coren:
“Luddites Have Been Getting a Bad rap for 200 Years. But, Turns Out, They Were Right”
Bonus link: “When Robots Take All of Our Jobs, Remember the Luddites”
Anatoly Shtyrbul – The Autonomous Industrial Colony “Kuzbass”
Link to an article by Anatoly Shtyrbul:
“The Autonomous Industrial Colony ‘Kuzbass'”
Bonus links: Project Kuzbas: American Workers in Siberia, “Descendants of Dutch Colonists Visit OAO Koks,” “From Stalingrad to Kuzbas: Sketches of the Socialist Construction in the USSR,” “The American Industrial Colony in Kuzbass in the Years of 1922–1927,” “Capitalist Restoration in Russia: A Balance Sheet (Part 1)”
Mike McCarthy & Micah Uetricht – Worked to Death
Link to an interview of Mike McCarthy, author of Dismantling Solidarity: Capitalist Politics and American Pensions Since the New Deal (2017), conducted by Micah Uetricht:
Bonus link: Making Money
100th Anniversary of February Revolution
Links to articles about the February 1917 Revolution in Russia:
“A Guide to the February Revolution”
“The Story of the February Revolution”
Bonus links: Revolution at the Gates and The February Revolution: Petrograd, 1917 and “The Russian Revolution Reconsidered”
Ahmed Shawki – The Legacy of Malcolm X
Link to an article by Ahmed Shawki:
Bonus link: “To the Memory of Malcolm X: Fifty Years After His Assassination”
Margaret Garb – How Today’s White Middle Class Was Made Possible By Welfare
Link to an article and book review by Margaret Garb:
“How Today’s White Middle Class Was Made Possible By Welfare”
Robespierre – Draft Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
Link to machine translation of Robespierre‘s speech of April 24, 1793:
“Draft Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”
Superior in every way to the final version.
Michael Hudson – The Land Belongs to God
Link to an interview with Michael Hudson (and others):
This interview summarizes some of Hudson’s most important work. And yet, it also highlights a blind spot in it: his claim that others’ interpretations of ancient history are colored by ideology, as if his is not also. Instead, philosophy teaches, “In an event, things not only change, what changes is the very parameter by which we measure the facts of change, i.e., a turning point changes the entire field within which facts appear.” Hudson is fighting an ideological war — for the good side, mind you — but tries to portray himself as one of the select few pursuing “objective” scientific economic/historical research rather than another partisan. Robespierre would have categorized that as treasonous. Hudson should be more of a Leninist and just accept that he pursues power.
Bonus link: “He Died For Our Debt, Not Our Sins”
Sam Mitrani & Chad Pearson – A Short History of Liberal Myths and Anti-Labor Politics
Link to an article by Sam Mitrani & Chad Pearson:
“A Short History of Liberal Myths and Anti-Labor Politics”
This article does an excellent job summarizing why Upton Sinclair called Republicans and Democrats “two wings of the same bird of prey” and why Malcolm X said, “The difference between the Republican and the Democrats is that the Republicans stick the knife in your back six inches, and the Democrats pull it out one.” However, there are a few points to quibble about. For instance, there is evidence to suggest Mayor Harrison in Chicago supported the Haymarket Martyrs — though this is tangential if not irrelevant to the overall article. More importantly, there is room to criticize some economic assumptions underlying the article. Take the claim “2. Let the banks collapse, which would have led to an even worse economic crisis than the one we experienced,” which seems dubious. Lehman Bros. collapsed. The government could have wound down the other big banks too — with the “even worse economic crisis” confined largely to the financial parasites and leaving ordinary commercial banks and credit unions intact, an overall positive result. That claim is followed-up by the (false) implication that there is a fixed money supply: “less and less money went into public services, schools, infrastructure, etc. because it had all been given to the already obscenely wealthy.” Modern Monetary Theory demonstrates how fiat money can be created by the government if there is a will to do so — the issue is lack of political will, not, as implied, a lack of actual dollars. After all, the TARP bailout money was created out of thin air! This economic history actually indicates that the government could also create money for socially beneficial programs, but chooses not to. These economic correctives actually reinforce the authors’ points, just in a slightly different way.
Bonus link: “We Need an Alternative to Trump’s Nationalism. It Isn’t the Status Quo”