…..and he thinks he’s the law.
This one broke on the weekend but it really should have some legs today. The key phrase? “North Shore accountant”.
Coppers putting the boot into a bunch of protesting Nimbin ferals and Resistance members is one thing, but heavy handed and overzealous policing applied to a gentle middle class aspirational burgher of the North Shore just crossing the street with his kids is another thing again, this strikes right at the heat of what Australia is in danger of turning into under the guise of the war on terror and national security.
If the NSW police and the APEC powers that be has a dose of smarts, something I seriously doubt, they’d drop all charges and apologise to Greg McLeay because this kind of thing is just not on - for Nimbin ferals and North Shore accounts alike.
Most blokes (but very, very few women - how odd…)don’t even need the badge & gun, just somebody to tell them that they have authority to do this, that & tuther and they’ll go for it eagerly.
It will sound overblown but what we saw on the w/e is the result of the last decade of fearmongering - for base political reasons - of the government.
This isn’t partisan - all goverments would do it if they could but the last few years the populace seemed, if not cowed, certainly unconcerned as ther good times (apparently) rolled.
Comparisons with the rise of nazis (an abrreviation of national SOCIALIST!!) or other fascist will be ignored because they usally arise from straitened circumstances but let’s see what happens if the US sub-prime fiasco starts to pop the rivetts of their economy. Why shold we care? If amerika stops buying chinese exports, china stops buying our resources, our boom collapses and the McMansion mortgagees will look for someone to blame.
It should be the government but it’ll quickly point out some vulnerable (or even non-existent) group - remember ‘terrrists might be amongst the asylum seekers on leaky boats throwing their kids overboard..”
Bad mistake though to rough up a good mate of Miranda Devine. The NSW cops will never hear the last of it.
amphibious is right. ‘Gentle North Shore Accountants’ who are mates with Miranda Devine will be baying with the best of them if the super accounts start tumbling as a result of global financial free fall. The reality of the last twenty years has been retrenchment of rights, wages and working conditions for the working and middle classes, accompanied by liberal dollops of cheap finance to grease the wheels of asset booms. The latter have helped mask the general deterioration in the real circumstances of people who depend of wages and salaries for a living, as general ‘risk’ has been donwloaded onto households and individuals. As for the so called ‘Howard Battlers’-independent contractors, blue collar working stiffs and the like, the idea that a permanent regime could be built on the back of a fraction that is so ‘dependent’ in reality, is just another example of the general cluelessness of people who are paid a lot of money to spin narratives about the present.
The real worry will be the extent to which a Rudd lead ALP federal government will reflexively entrench the current dispensation in the event of a a general deterioration in global macroeconomic conditions.
I am pessimistic about this, because I think the punters are getting nervous about the future, and are placing their bets on the show being managed by the ALP if and when things go ‘belly up’. They will be severely disappointed, and the North Shore accountants and the rest of the middle class who are deeply in debt, but somewhat hopeful about their future based on assets, will turn very nasty indeed when their hopes appear dashed, and their status starts to turn towards that of the ‘losers’ the very people they have been encouraged to despise/pity, for the last 15 years. Scary times.
Well, all the video shows is a a discussion/argument and arrest - and even then the audio’s non-existent at the start. What he’d done to get the attention of the police occured before the video, and there’s a cut before the scuffle so who knows what happened there?
I can’t tell from this if he’s an hapless victim of police heavy handedness, or a smug knob who wilfully defied police direction in a sensitive area and got what he was looking for.
It is quite ironic that most left wing sites are up in arms against the largely working class Sydney police force, and cheering the exclusively white, middle class protesters.
How times change.
Craig Mc - if you click on the link in the original post, it goes to the story in the SMH which explains what occurred a bit more clearly than just the footage by itself.
I was in Hyde Park on the day as part of the LDP pro-free trade rally (see http://ldpblog.wordpress.com ) and I had to deal with police several times on the day. Firstly to hand over the poles from our banner, then to be moved out of the path of the oncoming marchers (then they put us back because they couldn’t figure out where else to put us). I must say that on all these occasions the police were polite and easy to deal with.
However when it came time to leave it was another matter. Everybody in Hyde Park was effectively imprisoned and I had mild arguments with police on three boundary points to the park by which time it became clear we were being held against our will. It was a very antagonistic move and whilst I felt sorry for the individual police officers who were “just following orders” I also felt angry at being deprived of liberty and intimidated by heavily armed individuals. Not a good look. At last an exit point was opened before the crowds got really cranky.
Well, it explains his side of the story at least. It wouldn’t surprise me if he got contradictory orders from different police, but I’d like to hear their side of it.
It’s interesting that he has an outstanding assault charge. Maybe he’s not the placid accountant he’s being made out to be.
And unlawful.
Who gave the order to block all the exits?
Perhaps this will get the middle class white suburban males of Australia thinking about how these draconian laws do have an impact on them and not just rowdy hippies.
For fools who link National Socialism (Nazis) with Socialism, a bit of a history lesson.
The National Socialist (Nazi) party was founded shortly after WW1. It was not initially the Fascist party it was soon to turn into at Hitlers’ instigation shortly after Hitler joined. Its leading Socialist member was, I think a chap called Gregor Strasser. As soon as Hitler got control of the party he EXPELLED Strasser and his very small Socialist clique.
German Socialists were among the most vocal opponents of the Nazis during the Weimar Republic. Once Hitler had seized control of the German State the Socialists were among the first to go into the concentration camps, along with unionists, communists, homosexuals etc.,
Now, more pertienent to this thread : Since our Police have supposed to have been reformed etc., and are now free of corruption, verballing etc., I was amazed to see officers being allowed to remove their identifying badges before punching into the demonstrators. Shades of Askin and the Vietnam protests!
The correct response to such an illegal act is to tell the offending officer to clear a path, and if he does not comply then to remove him with force.
I seem to have lost a post. Just a short note on history Amphib. Hitler cleared the few Socialists in the Nazi Party out as soon as he took over. Socialists, along with unionists, communists, and homosexuals were among the first to go into the Nazi concentration camps, before the disabled, the Jews and the gypsies. In the Weimar years they were among Hitler’s most vociferous oppenents and they paid for it in spades when he came to power.
Now to the thread. Coppers removing identity badges before they bash people. Shades of Askin and the Vietnam demos. I thought corruption, verbaling etc had been eradicated from the NSW Police Force.
My comment might have been or will be duplicated. Apologies.
For fools like Paul Burns who don’t regard fascists and communists as morally equivalent, a bit of a history lesson.
Both involved small, highly-motivated cliques taking over power in weak states. Both systematically tortured, imprisoned and killed members of society they identified as outgroups - whether they were members of the in-group who’d fallen foul of factional manoeverings, outspoken commentators and organisers, or Jews. Both set forward a rosy perfect image of hard-working, docile humanity against which deviance was judged and punished: neither variation was known for its humane treatment of the disabled or gays. They are morally equivalent and equally bankrupt. Neither has greater claim than the other to notions that they meant well, or that their hearts were in their right place.
Hitler = Stalin, and the reverse is also true: that is all ye know, and all ye need to know about national and other varieties of socialism.
I suspect my previous post may have fallen victim to Godwin’s Law. I can’t believe Paul Burns actually repeated his previous post.
For fools like Paul Burns who don’t regard fascists and communists as morally equivalent, a bit of a history lesson.
Both involved small, highly-motivated cliques taking over power in weak states. Both systematically tortured, imprisoned and killed members of society they identified as outgroups - whether they were members of the in-group who’d fallen foul of factional manoeverings, outspoken commentators and organisers, or Jews. Both set forward a rosy perfect image of hard-working, docile humanity against which deviance was judged and punished: neither variation was known for its humane treatment of the disabled or gays. They are morally equivalent and equally bankrupt. Neither has greater claim than the other to notions that they meant well, or that their hearts were in their right place.
‘itler = Stalin, and the reverse is also true. That is all ye know, and all ye need to know about national and other varieties of socialism.
Paul Burns’ “history lessons” remind me of John Greenfields’ “you would do well to …”
Did anyone see the truly farcical justification the police commissioner gave for the badge-removing? “Oh the hippie scum might have used it as a weapon” (these are cloth badges held on with Velcro, BTW).
And he followed it up with a downright sinister comment “this is the way we do business in NSW now”. If I was Iemma I’d sack the authoritarian fool for that comment alone. It’s patently clear that under his regime it’s only a matter of time before there’s a major corruption, brutality or incompetence scandal (corruption, brutality and incompetence are generally found together in a badly run police force - they all stem from a lack of accountability).
Perhaps Derrida, perhaps.
However NSW has suffered from pansy policing for quite a while.
Some butch policing won’t go astray. It is high time the NSW police controlled the streets, not assorted bunches of thugs.
Iemma IS after all, thinking of being re-elected.
Andrew E,
The subtlties of your post escaped me, but whether its complimentary or derigatory, I’m sure I deserved it.
To the subject of the thread.
Has anyone thought that if this is the way the police are behaving when we can see them, what’s happening to people, innocent or guilty, caught up in the sweep of the anti-terror laws, behind closed cell-doors etc., where we’re not allowed to know what’s going on?
Reading Larvatus sometimes you’d think all working class people are “stiffs” who are bad and reactionary and all vote for Howard. This is simply not true. (The truth is that there has been *some* swing towards Howard among the wealthier ‘aspirationals’.) The condescension and classism is quite amazing for a left wing site. Remember that a lot of the protesters were blue collar workers with their union.
Central station a few nights ago I heard a very stereotypically blue collar worker saying that he was going to the protests. He condemned the “war machines” and said you “can’t live your life in fear and panic”.
That;’s because my post disappeared altogether Paul - it went something like this:
Devine had it in for the police commissioner even before his officers roughed up her daugher’s godfather becuase he -gasp!- crossed a road. She is going to go feral now. Should be fascinating to watch.
As will be the new police regime. As SATP says, it’s time to reclaim the streets from the thugs. But since the Lebanese gangs etc are a little too tough for our heroes in blue (who are so self effacing they don’t want to be identified, bless them) then they can start with middle aged accountants.
When did the cops become so gutless?
I’ve fished all the multiple posts out of the spaminator, but I’d ask people not to call each other “fools” or they may stay in there next time.
Andrew E,
There is a huge difference between Socialism and Communism as practised under the Soviets. Your initial remark was about National Socialism, ie Nazis.
I definitely recognise the moral equivalence between Hitler and Stalin. But that has nothing to do with Socialism, and if life in Russia under Stalin was any indication, very little to do with pure Marxism. Stalin’s regime was a direct successor of authoritorian Tsarist Russia, with the Orthodox Church left out. Marx would have been turning in his grave if he’d seen what Stalin made of his philosophy.
There are many actions by various churches that go against the teachings of Jesus Christ, but the churches cannot deny responsibility for them. To say that Stalin (or Brezhnev, or Mao, or Pol Pot) had nothing to do with socialism is
foolishridiculous.Damn the spaminator!
No there isn’t Paul. Socialism is as socialism does.
No Paul, there isn’t. You can’t excuse Pol Pot or Mao or Honecker like that. Socialism is as socialism does.
Socialism is as socialism does, Paul.
PommyG:
Hmmm…I guess if you stick to the static, stereotyped sociological analysis of class as based on wage, suburb and accent you might be able to reach that conclusion (after subtracting from the rally the MUA, FBEU, CFMEU and other blue-collar union members)…
Andrew E:
Ah yes, the evil the Bolsheviks who were able to brainwash and subdue a population that just risen up and overthrown centuries of Tsarist absolutism.
And actually the Bolsheviks legalised homosexuality after the revolution.
These facile attempts to equate the Nazi’s with the pre-Stalinist Bolshevik party really don’t stand up to scrutiny…I mean, surely Hitler should have formed common-cause with the German Communist and Social Democratic parties rather than wiping them out..?
Andrew, if you get stuck in the spaminator, you’re far better off emailing us rather than posting the same comment repeatedly. The algorithm looks for repetitive posting of a similar or identical comment as that’s typical of spammers, so you’re only reinforcing it’s belief that you’re spam.
I’m sorry that it does return false positives, but if we didn’t have it installed, you’d be reading very little else other than spam on comments threads at LP such is the traffic we get.
Well, they certainly give it a red hot go…I’d be surprised if Herr Ratzinger would take responsibility for Ian Paisley’s rantings…or David Koresh’s final stand…
The Eastern bloc countries not only called themselves ’socialist’, they also called themselves ‘democratic republics’. Is their record a black mark against ‘democracy’ and ‘republicanism’ as it is against ’socialism’?
It was a socialist trade union (Poland’s Solidarity) that did more to bring down the Eastern bloc than anything else.
Steve you little thug, one of your “pansy police” from the flower-power time before apec assaulted an ex-girlfriend of mine in the cells. What was she doing? Visiting. That’s right, visiting. He and his mate picked her up, threw her to the floor, gave her a good kicking and charged her with assault.
I’d love to see your version of “manly” policing.
Changed 1 word in the intro, 2 in the conclusion. Maybe your brush is a bit broad, Paul?
That is to say, maybe your brush is a bit broad, Andrew?
I think the police force would be far less likely to engage in thuggery if it became a proper profession, with a requirement for tertiary training. A minimum recruitment of 25 might also be a good idea.
You mean university education?
Yeah whatever. They can’t supply enough police to satisfy public demand as it is, without drastically reducing the supply.
So you mean the bottom of the barrel is currently being scraped. Yeah, great.
Melaleuca, I seem to remember former commish Peter Ryan trying that kind of institutional change but he was brought down by some powerful forces. It appears that smart coppers isn’t a big priority, they might get ideas.
Well, yes. But the fact is we need police. Not necessarily as many as we have, but the public is demanding them. Indeed there were strong rumours that half of last year’s cohort of NSW police erm, didn’t actually pass, but political pressure near the election saw them all accepted. You make a uni degree a requirement and you will see no new police! How many uni graduates want to become a cop?
Pommygranate typed
“It is quite ironic that most left wing sites are up in arms against the largely working class Sydney police force, and cheering the exclusively white, middle class protesters.
How times change.”
The NSW police are derivatives of the Rum Corp really, more a history of alcohol soaked thugs and jailors than protectors of the community.
As we can see, how much has changed in 219 years?
Working class? or historically seen as traitors to the working class of England as agents of their transportation to the other side of the world for petty crimes like stealing bread to try and survive.
If anyone who isn’t just an ignorant sycophant counts in your mind as ‘left wing’ you seem to have a pretty narrow perspective.
I gather there were significant protests amongst Chinese, Vietnamese and other groups as well…
Still, all these complicated realities do get in the way of our stereotypes and fantasies sometimes, eh.
In relation to what Mark and Melaleuca have said here http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/09/07/how-much-inequality-is-acceptable/#comment-401656
The USA encourages/demands far more tertiary study than does Australia. It started doing this in the 1970s, resulting in an explosion of soft research money tied to law and order objectives and the proliferation of lightweight criminal justice programs. That’s partly why American criminology/criminal justice is so large - and so notoriously weak. It also fostered a cynicism to academia among the police. Has it improved the various US police systems?
And Melaleuca, even if paying part of HECS mitigated the effect slightly, it will still reduce the supply of police. At the moment they can’t get enough for the existing training, let alone if they had to spend 3-4 years of higher education to do it.
How does a degree help with rolling in the street with an angry man?
You’re falling in to a common myth if you think that is the norm for police work. Remember the vast majority of it is actually behind the desk stuff. And this is only increasingly. Complex systems of research and analysis are now being thought of as the basis of modern policing (eg. in the ‘New York miracle’). A lot is also ‘community service’ stuff (finding somewhere to put the mentally ill person). The stuff that makes the TV, and the stuff that holds the most meaning for the police themselves, is in fact a tiny minority of their job.
And knowing that cops spend all their time behind a desk on paperwork makes the public safer how?
Rolling around the street with an angry man is a part of the job.
I wasn’t thinking of TV, but what I see. Cops have to face up to some pretty nasty characters, none of whom have embraced the concept of “I have broken the law, If I struggle or become violent it will only make things worse for me, so I should surrender meedly right now”
“meekly”. Preview is my friend.
Yeah, but you asked how it could help. It won’t help with that part of the job, but it could help with other important parts.
Is it not possible to have a tiered police force? Say, only senior or appropriately qualified police could carry guns or be allowed to make arrests? Some kind of division of labour so that less experienced or less qualified cops are not put in a position of great power?
I understand that London coppers do not carry pistols as a matter of course. Contrast to Victoria, where there was recently a call to give guns to ticket inspectors!
I dont think the north shore accountant came across as angy, or in any way out of control - key quote after being told repeatedly and in increasingly shrill tones by an obviously agitated Policeman to “Release his arm”- a calmly and clearly delivered: “I’m trying to protect my glasses” as the police ground his head into the concrete.
I think some of the commentary lacks the grace and courage required of analysing a small event,whose participators do not as yet seem to be pushing,at all, the ramifications that they seem to see.The accountant may have learnt that indeed,he is still resilient under pressure he wouldnt normally be under. A definite sign of good health rarely testable. The Police,may of once again,realised how stupid there jobs are,as most working class people feel that from time to time.It is likely they will all get over it,and, Police as working class individuals do not like being used whilst fully knowing their job sometimes is…bloody stupid.It is likely the temper of Police will have its focus,as working class people for another day,where if they are seen as stupid yesterday they may encourage all of us to notice some other more powerful forms of stupidity.Indeed the coppers in this video..may be no less friendly than any others..want a Police Force?Then have the courage of recognising the job requires its human component to do some stupid things…To be working class only needs a very simple analysis of self ,job and circumstances..lay off them..they maybe as hurt about this as anyone else.
Mark (the other Mark),
Your suggestion for a tiered police force is interesting. I would think we could get similar benefits from a tiered system of deputising the public for basic acts of self defense and deterence. For instance JPs could be required to undertake firearm training and to carry a gun. Doctors over 40 could be armed. Teachers also. In fact perhaps we should open up civil defence as an option to everybody over 40 with a clean criminal record, a degree and a firearm lisence. Of course we could exclude some types of people such economists and journalists.
Regards,
Terje.
Jo Blo
I gather there were significant protests amongst Chinese, Vietnamese and other groups as well…
Err, not really. All is saw was a sea of middle class whiteys. I’m sorry to break the news to you but the anti-G8/G-10/globalisation/green/BushMcHitler/BigOil/McDonalds/bla bla movement is almost exclusively a white middle class thing.
I don’t think Terje was taking the micky. He really does believe we have too few guns in society, bless him. Questions such as “defence from what?” and “deterrence of whom from what?” are more important than this perverse yearning for More Guns Now.
Give a man a gun and a badge, and ten men will want them …
There is nothing “taking the mickey” about wanting more guns in society. It would be one of the best things which could happen.
No Steve, the one truly good policy of the Howard government was the restriction of guns in Australia. We now have a situation where anyone who is not a uniformed officer with attendant responsibilities, a farmer or a sporting shooter has no business with a firearm, and this is as it should be. It is we who are freer than people in the US, not the other way around - especially as they ignore the crucial first clause of their oft-misquoted Second Amendment.
But you knew that was a wind-up …
No Andrew. Before the gun controls armed holdups on pubs were somewhat of a rarity.
Now it is a weekly event, a gun being held to a pub staff or a public, and that is just in Sydney.
Only the supremely ignorant believe in gun control.
It was one of the stupidest things done by a government in this country. Also one of the most shameful.
They are compulsory in Sweden and it seems to have worked out okay.
It was interesting that John Howard applied to the NSW government for an exemption to gun laws in NSW so that George Bush and his team could carry firearms for “self defense”. I do kind of think that “self defense” should be valid grounds for a gun license, however I’d like to see it applied consistently. If the rest of us have to remain defenseless in this regard and allow the police to look after us then why not George Bush? Doesn’t he trust the NSW police?
Andrew E,
I was partially taking the mickey. I actually think we should trust journalists and economists to carry firearms as well. So long as they have no criminal record and have demonstrated the relevant compentencies with regards to safe handling then I would trust them just as much as I trust police officers with guns. The uniform does not enhance the safety factor or the trust worthiness in any meaningful way. If you can train a police officer to handle a gun then you can train pretty much anybody to handle a gun. If you need background checks before becoming a police officer then we can apply the same background checks to anybody else that wants a gun. Wearing blue clothes and getting a government salary is not a very relevant indicator of anything in particular. There are as many bad apples in relative terms in the police force as in the broader community.
And the recent ban on handguns in the UK seems to have been followed by a 40% increase in handgun related crime so it seems quite unclear to me that such prohibition achieves anything positive.
Regards,
Terje.
p.s. Aussies don’t shoot eachother dead as often as we used to in the 1980s. However we also don’t knife eachother dead (most common form of homicide) or beat eachother dead (second most common form) as much as we used to back then. Homicide in Australia is today low just as it was in the 1940s when boy scouts carried guns on Sydneys red rattler trains on their way to camping weekends.
You must have had your ‘comfort-zone’ filters on Pommy, I definitely remember both an Aboriginal and Kurdish contingent. Not to mention the MUA and FBEU members…
But really, I guess if neo-liberalism has brought us all prosperity and “We’re all middle class now”, then who else is going to be at the protest?
Is “neo-liberalism” the same as “classical liberalism”? I must admit to being confused by the former as it is a term I’ve only recently become aware of. It does seem to be used with negative overtones. We certainly don’t have classical liberalism today. The public sector is huge compared to where it was just 40 years ago and that is irrespective of whether you measure it via relative government expenditure, real per capita expenditure or number of laws and regulations.
Good Point Terje.
If “self-defence” is not a valid reason to possess a firearm, why do the protection teams “carry” when protecting politicians? (the same politicians who declare self-defence to not be a good enough reason)
Pre-emptive self-defense.
Chav
Thank goodness for free trade otherwise we’d all be working class again, eh?
Rafe Champion at Catallaxy has just posted a good and timely reminder of the horrors of protectionist legislation. Please let’s never go back there again.
Amen to that! I must admit, I still cannot work out what folks on LP are trying to say when they start banging on about “neoliberalism.”
Ah, but ‘…some are more middle-class than others…’.
Luckily, being a Marxist I am able to recognise that class is a relationship to the means of production, which makes most Australians, white or blue collar, working class.
As for the benefits of neo-liberalism, I wonder then why many in South America have voted resoundingly against it..?
John, Terje
I think it’s a pejorative term for classical liberalism.
Another new one on me is ‘economic rationalism’. Lots of people were shouting this to us on Saturday. I don’t think they were libertarians.
Luckily, being a Marxist I am able to recognise that class is a relationship to the means of production
Ah, but through your Super Fund, you have achieved Marx’s ultimate aim of the ‘workers owning the means of production’. Marx would have been very proud of his Super account.
As for the benefits of neo-liberalism, I wonder then why many in South America have voted resoundingly against it..?
‘Voted’? I didn’t think the ‘voters’ of the Socialist Republic of Venezuela were permitted to vote any longer?
And more than ever they also own the means of production via superannuation funds, personal investment and direct ownership.
Chav, given that you are a Marxist I’ll share my favourite Karl Marx quote with you. Leaving aside some of his more provocative terminology I think it is insightful and it sums up the reason that I think hastening capital creation is a good thing.
In short Aussie workers get paid so much better than Chinese workers because the capital to labour ration is higher in Australia.
p.s. And of course workers owning the means of production is something quite different from governments owning the means of production. Although nobody seems to have told Vladimir Lenin.
Terje! Congratulations! You’re the first ever to discover that Marx was actually for, rather than against capitalism! Why,..how could so many have been so wrong for so long!?
(sigh)
Marx was wrong on lots of things. Which is perhaps understandable because certain knowledge was not yet available in his time (like the mathematics of probability and risk). However I see no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Chav, if you had ever read the Communist Manifesto you’d be aware that Marx had a very high regard for Capitalism. The opening sentences are a hymn of praise to it in terms of what it had achieved in comparison to what came before it. His problem was that he was a moral philosopher rather than an economist and therefore misused economic theory, especially the dud surplus value of labour theory that he had picked from Adam Smith to construct his Great Moral Unifying Theory of Everything and since his first premise was wrong so was everything that proceeded from it.
But you should already know this. Don’t Marxists read Marx anymore?
Welcome to the real world, guys.
The APEC hue and cry was a setup by Howard and co that came undone and now the chickens are coming home to roost. APEC was a miserable failure for John Winston Howard and has proved to be the final straw in the trajectory that is already unfolded in the electorate and seems to be increasing apace.
So bye bye Johnny. You’re history.
It took guts to go up against the NSW cops with a promise of thuggery like that which was meted out to this unfortunate bystander — but thats’ what thousands did for the sake of the politics at stake.
As the song goes: Get up! Stand up! Stand up for your right!
A great win for the far left was had at APEC — so it warrants noting that fact even though many don’t like swallowing that bitter pill.
How so?
You just said his first premise was that capitalism had achieved more than any previous social system…
No chav, his observation was that capitalism was a dynamic and successful system. The first premise of his theory as to why this was so was the surplus value of labour premise.
Could someone run the “great win” for the far left at APEC past me again, I seem to have missed it the first time around!
Chav
As a self-proclaimed Marxist, you should read some Marx. Despite getting a bad rap as a result of the homicidal maniacs who later claimed allegiance to his teachings such as Lenin, Stalin and Mao, he actually wrote some insightful stuff.
Though i agree with Greg that he was way off the mark with his surplus value of labour concept.
I hate to be a pedant, pommygranate (really), but if you’re telling others to read Marx, it’s the labour theory of value. The creation of surplus value is a moment in the circuit of accumulation, and is an effect of the labour process and its social relations, not what constitutes value as such. Use value can also be (and always is except for fictitious commodities) a result of labour.
Wot Mark said, innit!?
As for not having read Marx, sometimes you read so much you forget, something I could never accuse Howard, Bush and their supporters of in relation to the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the American Constitution and other bedrock documents of bourgeois democracy…
Mark, I have to put my hand up for referring to the surplus value theory, and don’t worry about being a pedant. How many times have I indulged in pedantry on this site? Too many to remember and you have been very indulgent of my pedantry, though less so, and rightly, of my stroppiness.
However I think that the Great Man might dispute your contention about it being the labour theory of value and not the theory of surplus value. Here he is in Das Kapital explaining the role of surplus value in capitalist exploitation of the workers. I think that the one theory sits on top of the other. http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA11.html
Take note Chav. This may be be the first and only time you’ll ever read anything that Marx wrote.
GregM
Any chance you can explain his idea in simple English? the link may as well be written in German for us non-economists.
I always thought it had something to do with the worker working too many hours. ie only the first part of his day went to pay his wages, the remainder (or surplus) went to the owner of the capital.
Here’s the Wiki version, pommyg. Your summary is on the right track. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value
He wrote spiffier and more readable stuff, GregM!
I think that the “labour theory of value” is somewhat distinct analytically from the creation of “surplus value” - the first asserts that value itself is created through labour and it involves Marx in taking a particular stand on price theory (which is a touch Ricardian) that almost everyone including most Marxist economists have repudiated subsequently. When it comes to anything but the simplest transactions and commodities, Marx himself has trouble making it make sense.
Surplus value is indeed what’s extracted from labour and transmuted into profit as part of the circuit of capital.
Pommy is right on that. It also relates to the distinction between production for use and production of commodities.
Two notes:
(1) I last worked through Marx’ Capital and Grundrisse in 1998. I have the heavily underlined and annotated copies to prove it!
(2) It’s notorious that there are many different Marxes within “Marx” - the volume and longevity of his oeuvre and the fact that much of what we have is either working notes, or half completed and redacted by others, or written for occasional or polemical purposes, and the fact that his theoretical and philosophical presuppositions shifted considerably over his lifetime - all that makes it hard to say “this is what Marx thinks” in many situations. For that reason as well, if you haven’t looked at the primary sources for a long time, it’s not difficult to remember the interpretation that’s the received one as having come from Marx himself.
There’s also the difficulty of separating Marx from Engels!