May 2012
Profit: good – too much profit: bad
Capitalism can (not) be criticized like this
Theses on the character masks of capital, the social classes, and what follows for anti-capitalist politics
All the attempts by governments to cope with the current crisis are carried out on the backs of the wage earners – that's why, ever since its beginning, the crisis is accompanied by slogans like “we won't pay for your crisis!” In view of this consciousness, virulent in times of crisis and at first only vaguely formulated, that people's existence is threatened in capitalism, and in view of the constantly repeated efforts to collectively do something against it, some questions are raised: Does the concept of class still make sense? What do the current protests have to do with class consciousness? Is capitalism a system of anonymous domination taking place “behind the backs” of those in it? Or is it a system of exploitation which necessarily has two antagonistic classes as its precondition – and in that respect is the domination of the powerful actors in it? And what does this mean for the criticism of capitalism?
April 2012
Custodians of capital
In Italy and Greece, “technocratic” governments enforce the impoverishment of the people in the service of balanced budgets
“What do you actually do?!”
Once and for all: “What is to be done?!” is a stupid question!
Why and how the United States wants to get Iran to give up its nuclear program
Hint: its not because peace-loving America repudiates weapons of mass destruction
The Reconquest of the Pacific
A project of the USA for the economic use and military containment of its new rival, China
The soldier
Soldiers need a picture of the enemy to hate, but have to keep their hatred under control
We return to bourgeois science because we won't put up with the dogma that correct thinking is dispensable and that the whole world should be seen in the rosy light of norms, values, and incontestable (because good) constraints:
Motivation Psychology
The quest for laws which determine the human will
Is the will free or determined?
A continually burning question for psychologists, educators and philosophers – but wrong nonetheless
New from GegenStandpunkt:
The Tea Party
A second American revolution to restore the health of the “Land of the Free”
March 2012
Are Marxist critics of morality not themselves the biggest moralists?
In answer to a reader's question:
Asking who has the motive, reason and right to denounce exploitation only denies its reality!
The woes of the radical union activist:
Why do the workers again and again accept the “sellouts” of their unions and watch their condition keep getting worse?
Does this lie in the contradictory nature of their interest or in its (bad) representation?
What is solidarity?
Is it moral or rational?
February 2012
Towards the correct understanding of democracy
Ideology and reality
“Black blocks” are back, so we offer this 80s classic of communist agitation:
What do the Autonomen want?
The worldview of the Autonomen is quite simple. It is only them and the “pigs” with their “system.”
January 2012
Bullying
Is it true that “bullying has no place in this country” (Obama)?
On the abuse and use of institutionalized authority in education
From the Catholic Church to Penn State and elsewhere
Criticism of the children's rights movement
Children need nothing less than rights?
December 2011
Politicians and the media manufacture consent for the state's crisis policies ...
How the people are to think about the crisis
that they are paying for
“There is no alternative!”
“The crisis has many culprits: financial capitalist gamblers, irresponsible state budget managers
and – ultimately – all of us with our too high expectations!”
November 2011
The euro crisis and its rescuers:
“We do it for us”
Occupiers shout: “We are the 99%!”
Then what good is democracy?
In outrage at the suffering of the overwhelming majority and the government’s preferential treatment of a small elite of banks and corporations, protesters shout: “We are the 99%!” – meaning that the vast majority has no say, while a tiny minority sets the direction of the nation. That is certainly true, but what do the occupiers conclude from this? That it can’t possibly be true! They have published a thick catalog of grievances, and the official protest website chronicles hundreds of individual stories of misery and desperation. They assume all this results from a violation of “our system,” in which the task of government is to ensure the well-being of the people. But doesn’t the poverty of the masses indicate that the occupiers’ assumptions might be misguided, that the task of power in a democracy is something else entirely? Doesn’t the very fact that in order to get their voices heard the protesters have to camp out in the streets, and only as long as the authorities permit, suggest “this is what democracy looks like”?
Evidently, life in capitalism gives people a lot of reasons to protest. But the protesters are scandalized and can’t believe that restoring the economy means impoverishing the people, so they blame the greed of the 1%, best symbolized by Wall Street. According to the occupiers, the sins of the “corporate forces of the world” go far beyond accepting bailout money: “they” foreclose on homes, ruin the environment, knowingly pollute the food supply, undermine collective bargaining rights, relocate jobs overseas, cut wages, etc., etc. But what are we supposed to conclude from all these bad experiences? The occupiers answer: “profit over people.” Do they mean that the well-being of the vast majority is simply incompatible with the current economic system, in which the purpose is to turn money into more money? Or do they mean that the special interest of a tiny minority is screwing up an otherwise indivisible national community? The protestors, obviously, think the latter: The greed of a rich and powerful criminal minority has ruined their American dream in which the rich and powerful might be rich and powerful, but ultimately the people rule.
That is one reason why, for all the mainstream suspicion about a new generation of “hippies” and other undesirables, this profession of faith in the American dream has earned the protests a remarkable amount of sympathy. Although politicians certainly are not pleased to see masses out on the streets, this is just the kind of unshakeable faith in “the system” they rely on when they preach the “systemic relevance” of the banks and the “unfortunate necessity” of sacrifices from the rest of the citizenry. Of course, it is a cruel joke when the government portrays the rescue of the banks as a mere necessity that ultimately benefits the very people who need to put up with a healthy dose of austerity. But the thing is, this joke has more than a grain of truth. The government is not rescuing the banks and imposing austerity on the people because politicians want to do their cronies a favor. It is because profit is far more than the special interest of the rich and powerful. It is nothing less than the wealth of capitalist nations. That is the wealth people work for when they march into factories and offices every morning. That is how “our system” and “our economy” works: no jobs, no livelihood, no future, unless businesses can turn their money into more money. In “our system,” profit-making might ruin the people, but people cannot live unless capitalists make a profit.
So it is true that when politicians restore the financial power of the banks while slashing the budget to preserve the financial power of the government, they are not serving the interests of “the 99%.” What is not true, however, is that this is somehow a contradiction to democracy. After all, each individual, rich or poor, has an equal right to elect and empower politicians, who do everything they can to promote the harmful kind of wealth upon which “our system” is founded. That is what democracy looks like.