My point is that, much as in Turkey, the Iranian Left lost when it should have won. I'm trying to suggest that its secularism was a major reason for its defeat.
I assume to kill all the Communists, no?
critique of loon theories around banking/money creation/the federal reserve
- Thread starter SpineyNorman
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My point is that, much as in Turkey, the Iranian Left lost when it should have won. I'm trying to suggest that its secularism was a major reason for its defeat.
I assume to kill all the Communists, no?
the Jazzz of political economy
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
??????????
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
Ah yes the "patronizing, secularist attitude towards religion" another phildwyer fabrication alongside mullahs are not part of the bourgeoisie.
The demands were always for real separation of church and state (which has never been won, and has been constantly bulldozed by a laicist state-controlled religious regime), for the right of minority Allawites to establish their own centres free on an equal basis with Sunni state religious (still, sadly not won), for the defence of women against dowry and bride price (a battle that's still not been won).
It's a myth - interestingly used by Islamists who are also very keen on conspiracism about banking and instead promoting faizsiz kazanc - non-interest rewards - ie Islamic finance.
"The Right was able to crush the Left by force" because of a military coup. The 1980s and beyond era is a fabrication as well the majority of released left-wing prisoners did not accept any kind of neo-classical economic model. If anything it was still as broadly Marxist-Leninist as before. When Gorbachev visited Ankara in the middle of 1995, there was a massive barricade-heavy protest against him for having inserted market forces into the Soviet Union (revisionism). On economic aspects, the manifestos and programmes throughout the 1990s were, broadly, a standard stagist state socialism - national control and ownership of all sectors of the economy based via non-compensation of former owners.
The demands were always for real separation of church and state (which has never been won, and has been constantly bulldozed by a laicist state-controlled religious regime), for the right of minority Allawites to establish their own centres free on an equal basis with Sunni state religious (still, sadly not won), for the defence of women against dowry and bride price (a battle that's still not been won).
It's a myth - interestingly used by Islamists who are also very keen on conspiracism about banking and instead promoting faizsiz kazanc - non-interest rewards - ie Islamic finance.
"The Right was able to crush the Left by force" because of a military coup. The 1980s and beyond era is a fabrication as well the majority of released left-wing prisoners did not accept any kind of neo-classical economic model. If anything it was still as broadly Marxist-Leninist as before. When Gorbachev visited Ankara in the middle of 1995, there was a massive barricade-heavy protest against him for having inserted market forces into the Soviet Union (revisionism). On economic aspects, the manifestos and programmes throughout the 1990s were, broadly, a standard stagist state socialism - national control and ownership of all sectors of the economy based via non-compensation of former owners.
They government did not expropriate the bourgeoisie, that's how.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
phildwyer always states that secularism is/was the problem in the Iranian and Turkish (and wider middle East and/or Eastern left), but never explains just what degree of religious chauvinism would have been the correct amount to propel the Turkish and Iranian left to (an apparently otherwise assured) victory (presumably to form another PDRY).
Nope fraid not. The point I was making is much more simple, ie, that the operations of the financial sector of capitalism is normally "functional" for the system as a whole, even though screwing superprofits for sure, for the essential capitalist role of organising and facilitating the circulation of capital, credit, investment, etc, etc. However there appears to have been a qualitative change in the role of the financial sector over the last 30 years or so, as it has in particular bought control of the political process in many key states, and consequently brought about a radically unregulated playing field for itself. It now appears to be functioning as a completely out of control, increasingly parasitic, and systemically destructive, rogue component of the capitalist "sectoral mix". It has now because of its disproportionate size and power a disfunctional role analagous to a cancerous tumour. A rather empirical observation - unlinked to some overarching theory. Good try though.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
I don't know how that makes any difference? There is still a class of people being exploited for wage labour and a class of people who are making profits out of that labour?
You make it sound like it's my fault.
Look, being a middle-class Westerner, I automatically hate the Islamists, and they automatically hate me back. It's not even an issue--and that fact itself tells you how determined by class attitudes to religion are in such places.
But the current governments of Iran and Turkey are democratically elected, and genuinely enjoy widespread popular support--particularly among the natural constituencies of the Left.
Why do you think that is exactly?
An urban civil war really, a very nasty and dirty one too. But the point is, once again, that the Right could only do that because the Left had abdicated much of its popular support due to its secularism.
I didn't say they did. I said that accepting that model was a precondition of them returning to mainstream politics.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Well why did you describe the current set-up as "contemporary advanced monopoly capitalism"? Do you agree with your own description or not? Above you talk about the role of the financial sector and so on, which is fine, but you don't connect it with any analysis of or even basic description of monoploy - in any sector at all. Why use the term at all if you're not going to?
Anything would have been better than the contemptuous, pre-Dawkinsite scorn that was heaped on religion by the 70s Left, throughout the world in fact.
Completely needlessly alienated billions of people.
Even Ataturk went too far... banning the fez ffs...
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
It's because they are religious. This means that even when they have massive portfolios in firms - they aren't capitalists, they retain a bond with the people who are also religious, hence the bourgeoisie are the people who don't like (women being forced) to wear veils. Deeply Orientalist, close to racist, stuff at heart. Don't you go dare accusing non-racists of any aspect of racism in what they think, that's damaging and hurts genuine anti-racists like Cynthia McKinney etc.
And like such a tumor, it will eventually transform the nature of its host.
As I mentioned before, "deregulation" is code for "letting the banks do whatever the fuck they want."
Now we're finding out what they want.
Don't flatter yourself, it doesn't hurt, it's just demonstrably false.
The American religious Right plays the same game as the mullahs, if that helps.
That is to say, they exploit a literalistic form of religion as a means to political power.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
but when the big bourgeois in israel and new york do the same shit it's proof of how iniquitous the jews and the jewish faith are in general rather than the ruling elites the world over exploiting workers and cynically using religion for its purposes, whether that religion is judaism, islam or christianity.
not saying phil's doing that (pretty sure he doesn't believe any of the stuff he's saying tbh) but it's often what's argued by the people who take this line.
You asked how it could be that a bourgeoisie opposed to the government exists in Iran. The answer is because the government refrains from confiscating the bourgeoisie's wealth, despite being opposed by it--opposed by fair means and foul, and rather more of the latter. Same as in Venezuela, basically.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
So the government aren't part of the bourgeoisie then? There are no government members who also serve on boards of directors (on state-controlled or private firms), have multiple investments, stocks and shares, etc? There are no mullahs who have business interests at home or abroad? There are no mullahs who own multiple properties etc and don't need to work?
I am sorry but I find that very hard to believe. If the likes of Ahmedinejad etc aren't part of the bourgeoisie despite being in control of a capitalist state then what are they?
Fully prepared to believe that part of the bourgeoisie oppose the government, as part of the bourgeoisie oppose the cameron gov't over here, but do you really think they'd be protesting in the streets about it? and be the only ones doing so?
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
The lies and exaggeration just know no end. We're now at 'contemptuous, pre-Dawkinsite scorn' - this was a crime of the left throughout the 1970s throughout the world. In fact the 1970s see a rise of trends like Euro-Communism that promise in some parts to retain religious social services and education, all the way to state support and sustenance of the Catholic church and Buddhist orders in unified Vietnam. It sees cooperation between Tudeh and the Islamists after 1975 all the to the middle of 1979 in Iran. The Burmese Communists start further pressing religious claims against the military alongside the national rebel movements. It sees the return of Cuban-Vatican relations etc etc. I'm sure there are plenty other arguments.
The main reason the governments in Turkey (but also places like Brazil) have been able to stay in power - is as a side-effect of the shift in international capitalism allowing certain industrial centres to become closer to the multinational core. Irrelevant to OP about banking and usury, but there we are. I am not an expert on the current situation of Iranian economy or public opinion - notoriously skewed depending on the source, but the popularity of the Iranian system is on a steady trend downwards even as the religious conservatism is being pushed.
The main reason the governments in Turkey (but also places like Brazil) have been able to stay in power - is as a side-effect of the shift in international capitalism allowing certain industrial centres to become closer to the multinational core. Irrelevant to OP about banking and usury, but there we are. I am not an expert on the current situation of Iranian economy or public opinion - notoriously skewed depending on the source, but the popularity of the Iranian system is on a steady trend downwards even as the religious conservatism is being pushed.
SpineyNorman
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Dwyer: taffboy for pseuds.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
Actually the financial system has appeared dysfunctional in terms of the wider capitalist economy but in many ways it's been the only thing keeping it afloat. The 'fraud' etc, along with corporate tax breaks etc has been the only thing keeping profits above the level at which the economy collapses. Your lack of a link to an over-arching theory is what makes it impossible for you to see this.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
Hurts doesn't mean feelings - damages the anti-racism or whatever they're doing.
"you vile Nazi" "Nazi scum"... those are some feelings - who said them?
"What stinks is your attempt, and those of your ilk, to link anti-semitism to anti-capitalism" (phildwyer against people with a grip on the fact that there are parts to a capital class (land-based, financial - the banks!, industrial) Hmmm....
What's demonstrably false? (Your go). That the mullahocracy are not part of an owning class?
That's the claim by separating out: "The bourgeoisie who took to the streets against the mullahs in Iran?"
"you vile Nazi" "Nazi scum"... those are some feelings - who said them?
"What stinks is your attempt, and those of your ilk, to link anti-semitism to anti-capitalism" (phildwyer against people with a grip on the fact that there are parts to a capital class (land-based, financial - the banks!, industrial) Hmmm....
What's demonstrably false? (Your go). That the mullahocracy are not part of an owning class?
That's the claim by separating out: "The bourgeoisie who took to the streets against the mullahs in Iran?"
More to the point: why did I say them?
I didn't start that one, I was started on.
ETA: Oh I see what you mean. Fair enough, touche etc.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
phildwyer
Usury (before banks existed so was usually small scale, semi-legal activity) was tolerated by feudal monarchs because they also had need of their services from time to time and by restricting the access of Jews to other professions and placing restrictions on where they could work they forced them into being peddlers or usurers. However it's not like these ruling elites never borrowed money from Christian moneylenders or indeed from each other. While jews acquired a reputation for being moneylenders because of the restrictions on the other work they were allowed to do they were hardly the only ones doing it. Its not true to say it was never tolerated, it was.
If usury had only been tolerated in the last couple of centuries and previously had been despised by everyone why was it allowed to continue? Surely something like jesus's overturning the moneylenders tables (for example) was also a protest at the acceptability of it, even in holy places?
There was also much worse shit than usury going on as well.
Well, how would you describe what's happened to the Western financial "sector," as we used laughingly to call it, over the last 30 years?
Has it not taken over the "economy," and indeed society as a whole, and re-configured them to suit its own interests? Is this not an epochal shift, a qualitative change in the nature of capitalism?
I said "generally tolerated," that is, tolerated in general. Usury never has been until the last two centuries, certainly not since ancient times.
As a matter of fact, usury hasn't been completely tolerated until the last 10 years or so, when most legal restrictions on interest rates have finally been abandoned, at least in the USA.
Of course it was, that's what I'm saying. And of course it was often banned, and never generally tolerated, until recently. It was allowed to continue sporadically, often underground. That's what I'm saying too.
Actually, many people in many periods have disagreed with you there. Usury has regularly been described as the very worst thing in the world--worse than murder, death, hell, the devil etc.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
(((( people who use every aspect of international Jewry finance conspiracism for pointless ends, but change the Jewish financiers to all financiers usurers, to deepen the pool of conspiracist ideas - the pool from which 'anti-International Jewry' ideas mutate and grow ))))
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
We're to understand that what's driving the worldwide economy is this moral degeneration that is emerging at around 200 years (guess what the same time as the rise of organised secularism), which means that usury just becomes more tolerated from this point onwards whereas it was apparently not tolerated before. Who tolerated it least? the feudal and religious systems. Money is our main enemy!
TruXta
tired
Don't you get it, he doesn't mean literally, he means..... symbolically. Witches. Usury. Witches. Satan. GOD
See? Simple.
SpineyNorman
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No.
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