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721 [lbo-talk] A fairy tale of Mumbai -- rank: 1000

The newspapers here in the UK are basking in the patriotic glow of the success of the film Slumdog Millionaire at the Oscars, which, considering how much the film owes to India, seems weirdly parasitical. It was very good.

Document Size:	4712
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Feb 24 08:39:27 PST 2009

722 [lbo-talk] Fitch and Brenner -- rank: 1000

Patrick Bond writes "rising organic composition of capital" But for the last fifteen to twenty years, capitalist investment in labour has been high, and fixed capital investment, low; which suggests that the 'organic composition of capital' (Marx's term) has not been rising.

Document Size:	4700
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Feb 23 14:24:48 PST 2009

723 [lbo-talk] Great Conservative Films -- rank: 1000

putting a word in for Elstree. I would nominate for the great conservative films awards: 1. The man in the white suit 2. I'm alright Jack 3. The third Man 4. Passport to Pimlico 5. The Angry Silence 6. Hell Drivers (1957) 7. The Entertainer 8. The High Bright Sun (1964) There is a film of the life of Ayn Rand with Helen Mirren,which, though low budget, is not bad Among US conservative films, I would put in a word for Tucker, which is rather good.

Document Size:	5032
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Feb 13 14:48:50 PST 2009

724 [lbo-talk] RCP watch! -- rank: 1000

Doug: "But the RCP has something of an afterlife through Spiked! and The Institute of Ideas, no? Aren't most of the personnel alumni of the RCP? And there still seems to be something of a party line. " Most of the people working on Spiked are too young to have been in the RCP, and they all talk to me as if I was Methusalah. Most of the arguments put up there are ones that I would not have recognised when I was selling The Next Step or Living Marxism. I guess there is still a tendency t ...

Document Size:	6098
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Feb 9 09:18:25 PST 2009

725 [lbo-talk] RCP watch! -- rank: 1000

Dennis wrote: > Is this RCP affiliated with Bob Avakian's cult? Doug (and others replied): No, this is the British outfit, now defunct. What can I say? I was in the British RCP, which was Trotskyist in origin, rather than Maoist. We tried our best, but it was not good enough. Of course there are always temptations to sustain the organisation beyond its justification (making a revolution), but looking at the alternative of slogging it out, I think liquidationism was the right course. Right or ...

Document Size:	5487
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Feb 9 08:50:46 PST 2009

726 [lbo-talk] RCP watch! -- rank: 1000

Doug wrote: "Some people have a lot of time on their hands, apparently. But there's a new blog devoted to following James Heartfield's old comrades in The RCP (which became Living Marxism, which became Spiked and The Institute of Ideas). " Who's behind RCP Watch? Strangely, these voyeurs choose to disguise their own identities. But if past performance is anything to go by the likely suspects are Andy Rowell (who tried to persuade us that eating GM food would disrupt our DNA) Strathclyd ...

Document Size:	5210
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Feb 9 05:35:40 PST 2009

727 [lbo-talk] Giuliani: I hope Obama has read Amity Shlaes -- rank: 1000

Doug writes: Re: the bizarre claim that "models" are alien to Marx(ism), take a look at table 2.1 of Grossman's "breakdown" chapter: <http://www.marxists.org/archive/grossman/1929/breakdown/ch02.htm>. It is one thing to argue with the claim that models are alien to Marxism, but to say that it is bizarre, is, well, bizarre. It is not bizarre; it is an argument that you don't accept. Grossman's extension of Bauer's 'reproduction scheme' caused a lot of misunderstanding of ...

Document Size:	7845
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Feb 5 16:24:43 PST 2009

728 [lbo-talk] Review of Nick Cohen -- rank: 1000

My review of Nick Cohen's 'What's Left? How the left lost its Way' is published in Critique: Journal of Socialist Thought "Though he has got up many noses, there is a lot in Nick Cohen's book What's Left? that I agree with. Cohen names the biggest change in modern times-the collapse of the left as a social force-which is at the root of most other reactionary symptoms he lists. He faces up to the exhaustion of the left's political programme and popular decline without flinching (p. 94). He g ...

Document Size:	5858
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Feb 5 14:24:38 PST 2009

729 [lbo-talk] S&S call for papers -- rank: 1000

"And in most Marxist thinking, finance is derivative, secondary, epiphenomenal. E.g., Shaikh, who explains stock market movements by the alleged rate of profit on new investment, a quantity no one can really observe, and no portfolio manager ever thinks about? But it has to be this way, since the financial sector can never originate, only reflect. " Well, yes, but.. It is not that the financial sector does not have its own rhythm, determinants and events. I think marx says somewhere t ...

Document Size:	6020
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Feb 1 16:26:37 PST 2009

730 [lbo-talk] Fwd: S&S Call for Papers -- rank: 1000

"What I see is enormous pressure on corps from shareholders to shovel big loads of cash into their pockets rather than invest it in the business. That's a battle within the capitalist class that doesn't fit into any standard Marxist models, which for the most part (with one exception being a book called Wall Street by some guy from New York) don't take that division into account." And that was exactly what recommended the book to me. Still, without making any unnecessary obeisance to ...

Document Size:	5783
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Feb 1 13:11:31 PST 2009

731 [lbo-talk] Fwd: S&S Call for Papers -- rank: 1000

"Silence from Marx." Ha ha ha Of course SA (SA?) is right to say that there might be more to the current problems than were anticipated in Marx's analyses of those of the 1850s and 1860s. And no doubt there are a lot of would-be Marxists who deal with his word as holy writ. But what makes Marx different is not any one or other concept, but his method, which is unique, and wholly misunderstood by most economists and not a few Marxists. Its basic elements are that social forms (the 'econ ...

Document Size:	5711
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Feb 1 06:59:58 PST 2009

732 [lbo-talk] Afghan Stories -- rank: 1000

'Yeah, reading stuff might complicate easy opinionating!' says Doug Emerson said that he would not read a book before reviewing it, in case it prejudiced him.

Document Size:	4648
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Dec 22 01:02:46 PST 2009

733 [lbo-talk] Cockburn on AGW? -- rank: 1000

Dwayne writes > seems obvious to me that this is what his contrariness is really > responding to (because, what sane person could be against carbon > output reduction on principle?). and Doug adds 'Don't forget that he's also trying to tweak Nation liberals with this line.' Or maybe, he just means what he says.

Document Size:	4878
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Dec 21 14:19:19 PST 2009

734 [lbo-talk] the anatomy of man is the key to the anatomy of the ape -- rank: 1000

Chris writes "I am really sick unto death of this quote (or rather the implied "the anatomy of the man is a clue to that of the ape but not vice versa"), because it is clear bullshit. " Which it might well be if that was the quote. Marx says : 'The anatomy of man is a key to the anatomy of the ape.' The addition 'but not vice versa' would indeed be a bridge too far. What Marx means is that it is easier to uncover the course of development from the starting point of the higher ...

Document Size:	5967
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Dec 20 04:47:38 PST 2009

735 [lbo-talk] Concerning your submission to *Science and Society* -- rank: 1000

Just to say that I posted my comments from Science and Society to the LBO list by mistake, not as a protest against the review process, which I accept in an attitude of stoical respect. (My sincere apologies, professor Laibman) James Heartfield

Document Size:	5019
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Dec 19 08:56:27 PST 2009