Getting back on the trail of the weekly edits…
20220423.06
Imperialist rent, for Amin, derived from extra surplus value. In other words, more value could be extracted from the workers through production in the periphery – generating an additional rent for the capitalist, when compared with workers in the centre doing similar jobs. Amin argued that, while low-paid workers in the periphery are no less productive than their counterparts in the centre, the value they create is less rewarded – and this is what creates such an (imperialist) rent.
… the nature of capitalism is to exploit value differences… the less developed world is the periphery… capitalists exploit the periphery, pumping the value difference back to the center, leaving little of the value with the periphery…
Amin changed the terms of the debates on unequal exchange. Until his work, the orthodoxy among economists was that workers in the periphery are simply less productive than those in the centre.
… and this seems, once presented, obvious, for, if the workers at the periphery were not as or nearly as productive as those at the core, there would not be the substantial value difference to exploit into profits at the core…
It is important to note that the idea of unequal exchange and of ‘super’-exploitation remains controversial among Marxists. In Das Kapital (1867), Marx himself discusses the futility of comparisons between different degrees of exploitation in different nations, and the significant methodological problems that arise. Many Marxists argue that the neo-Marxists such as Amin focused excessively on market relations at the expense of exploitation of labour.
… and this…
So, he proposed a new model of industrialisation shaped by the renewal of non-capitalist forms of peasant agriculture, which he thought would imply delinking from the imperatives of globalised capitalism.1
… and this…
It is important to note that delinking is often widely misunderstood to mean autarky, or a system of self-sufficiency and limited trade. But this is a misrepresentation. Delinking does not require cutting all ties to the rest of the global economy, but rather the refusal to submit national-development strategies to the imperatives of globalisation. It aims to compel a political economy suited to its needs, rather than simply going along with having to unilaterally adjust to the needs of the global system. To this goal of greater sovereignty, a county would develop its own productive systems and prioritise the needs of the people rather than the demands on international capital.
… it occurs to me that what the current conflict in Ukraine may be accomplishing is a kind of decoupling of western capitalist hegemony… as western nations turn to produce more at home, and be less dependent on regimes that seek to weaken them through destabilization, even while profiting from them… a kind of decoupling will be happening… as we learn to produce and pay more for production at home… we will to some degree decouple… also, China, Russia and other countries will begin to develop economic structures that circumvent the power of the dollar… all of this is leading to a realignment of capitalism’s ability to exploit the value difference between the core and the periphery… the problem with this world order emerging is that it returns states to being in tense competition for control as it abandons the interdependent, if destructive to the planet, world order of new-liberalism… is there some combination of small is beautiful that none the less interconnects with markets around the world?…
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This is what E. F. Schumacher’s concept of local economies is about. See Small is Beautiful. Couple this with where one should find their felicity in the eyes of many significant authors. There starts to emerge a new model that doesn’t abuse the planet so much. ↩︎
20220423.02
Fascinating photograph…
Photography by Tom Eagar, @tomeagar
… i mean, all those people on that enormous outcropping in that vast landscape… it gives me the willies on lots of levels…
… and then there is this view of Mt. Fuji… can’t decide if it’s too obvious or great…
Photography by Yao Yuan, @yyowlsolo
… probably too obvious if i am thinking it at all…
… these two are part of a series of interesting photographs published on Earth Day by AnOther magazine…
Be still my heart! The Flight Attendant is back!
20220421.14
… we are sneaking off to the movies at 3:30 PM… going to see Everything, Everywhere, All at Once… Rotten Tomatoes critic consensus gives it 97 and the audience 92… hoping it lives up to the hype…
20220421.13
… this is one of my favorite quotes of all time… it’s message is so important…
I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country.
Melville, Herman, Moby Dick
20220421.06
https://hyperallergic.com/725593/the-beauty-of-the-ephemeral-world/
Mullican works with a simple but flexible vocabulary of tubular shapes, cloud-hlike stains, ellipses, and irregular shapes, and moves between abstraction and representation. At no point did I feel that her painting became predictable.
20220421.04
Interesting streaming if you can stand watching it with full knowledge of the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine…
Netflix is now streaming two seasons of “Servant of the People,” the 2015-2018 Ukrainian comedy series created and produced by (and starring) Volodmyr Zelensky as Vasily Goloborodko, a high-school history teacher who is catapulted to the presidency of Ukraine after his profane rant against government corruption and incompetence is filmed by one of his students and goes viral on social media. This is the show, as everyone knows by now, that catapulted Zelensky himself to the presidency of Ukraine in real life.
20220421.08
I feel a Jane Campion binge watch coming on…
John Keats on Film: Considering Jane Campion’s Exquisitely Rendered Bright Star
20220421.09
A bunch of interesting movies that can be streamed right now…
Tucker Carlson and the Crisis of Masculinity
… as a man, i balk a little at what this article informs me of, but there are some astonishing statistics backing it up… maybe we have reached the matriarchal age after all… if the men don’t blow the place up because the planet without men in charge isn’t worth living on anyway…
Girls are now outperforming boys at nearly every level of education. They earn 60 percent of bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and comprise 70 percent of high school valedictorians. Women are also dominating many workplaces. Women today hold a majority of the nation’s jobs, including 51.4 percent of managerial and professional jobs—up from 26.1 percent in 1980. They make up 54 percent of all accountants and hold about half of all banking and insurance jobs. As for men, they are dropping out at alarming rates. More prime age males are out of the b force today than during the Great Depression.
20220420.09
Real estate players shower DeSantis with campaign cash as housing prices soar
… having just helped my mother sell her condo in Florida i can attest to the soaring of prices…
20220420.08
… i have returned to Ulysses for all notes made on a daily basis… it is so much easier to make blog ready notes, quote articles, etc… i am always looking for the next great app or process… early adapter… but it leaves scattered records… i need to get over my commitment issues…
20220420.07
Kentuckians Left Without Abortion Access After Lawmakers Override Governor’s Veto
… wondering when women will revolt en-masse and refuse sexual relations altogether… that would correct the situation pretty quickly i suspect… i read somewhere that such denial was what ultimately “tamed” the wild west… i’d be with them…
The law—House Bill 3, passed in March—made abortion illegal after 15 weeks of pregnancy. It also instituted several new restrictions on abortion provision before this cutoff, including a ban on abortion pills being shipped in the mail or otherwise provided outside a physician’s office.
20220420.06
DeSantis Calls for End of Walt Disney World’s Self-Rule
Heaven help us if this man ever becomes POTUS…
Any contention that DeSantis is eliminating some sort of “special treatment” for Disney comes with it the perhaps mistaken assumption that the two counties suddenly in charge of all of this infrastructure will somehow make the park better and not worse. In reality, putting Disney parks at the mercy of two different counties with different laws will be a huge mess for everybody involved, and that’s the point. It’s not about what’s fair or what’s best for the citizens in the area. It’s about punishing political foes and centralizing government power (a very nonconservative approach) to do so.
… but of course, there is no heaven and the universe doesn’t care about what we humans get up to…
20220420.05
Alex Jones’s InfoWars Files for Bankruptcy Amid Sandy Hook Lawsuits
It seems to be a morning for bad actors being on the path to getting what they deserve…
After the 2012 mass shooting claimed the lives of 26 people, including 20 first graders, Jones falsely described the victims and their parents as “crisis actors” participating in a conspiracy to allow the government to seize guns. Due to Jones’ lies, the parents of the victims were inundated with harassment and death threats. According to the New York Times, the family of Sandy Hook victim Noah Pozner currently lives in hiding due to the persistent harassment they’ve experienced since the shooting.
… and…
In September 2021, Jones lost two defamation lawsuits in Texas after a judge ruled that he had engaged in “persistent discovery abuses” by failing to turn over important documents related to the case, noting that “an escalating series of judicial admonishments, monetary penalties, and non-dispositive sanctions have all been ineffective at deterring the abuse.” In November, Jones lost an additional lawsuit in Connecticut for failing to turn over documents.
20220420.04
This is fascinating…
Public Art Decreases Traffic Accidents by 17%, Report Finds
In addition to reporting the actual crash rate for these sites, the study also tracked the behavior of drivers and pedestrians, noting that both groups performed less risky behavior in areas with artworks — such as pedestrians crossing without the “walk” sign and drivers not yielding to pedestrians until the last moment. (Drivers were 27% more likely to yield to pedestrians when there was art on the road.)
20220420.03
This morning’s post by Heather Cox Richardson is encouraging… the noose is tightening around 45 and others…
The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol also has a great deal of information; it has now interviewed more than 800 people. On April 11, Salon columnist Chauncey DeVega published an interview with Hugo Lowell, who has been following the January 6 committee closely for The Guardian. Lowell’s observations support the idea of a conspiracy, although he noted evidence is still coming in. “The evidence so far points to the fact that Donald Trump knew and oversaw what happened on Jan. 6,” Lowell told DeVega. “Trump knew in advance about these different elements that came together to form both the political element of his plan, which was to have Pence throw the election, and the violence that took place on Jan. 6.”
… the J6 committee is openly calling it a coup attempt led by 45…
Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a member of the January 6 committee, suggested Lowell’s observation was correct yesterday when he told reporters: “This was a coup organized by the president against the vice president and against the Congress in order to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” Trump’s role in that coup will be the centerpiece of next month’s public committee hearings.
… Marjorie Taylor Green will have to testify about her involvement in the January 06 coup attempt… in a court of law… under oath…
In Georgia, voters are challenging the inclusion of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on the ballot this fall, arguing that she is an insurrectionist disqualified to hold office under the Fourteenth Amendment. Ratified after the Civil War, that amendment says any official who has taken an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and then engages “in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” cannot hold office. Greene took her oath of office on January 3, 2021, three days before the January 6 insurrection, and insisted the election had been stolen. “This is our 1776 moment,” she told Newsmax on January 5, 2021.
Greene promptly sued to get a judge to block the challenge. Yesterday, federal judge Amy Totenberg decided that the case can go forward. Greene will have to testify on Friday, under oath, before a state administrative law judge in Atlanta. She will be the first member of Congress to testify under oath about the events of January 6. After the judge handed down the decision, Greene complained to Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson that “I have to go to court on Friday and actually be questioned about something I’ve never been charged with and something I was completely against.”
… Friday will be an interesting day
20220420.02
A really interesting article on why it might be that socialism repels the people it most seeks to help… apparently, George Orwell, a socialist, understood something about that…
In the most provocative segment of the entire book, Orwell also cites “the horrible, the early disputing prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw toward them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.” And he notes the prospectus for a summer Socialist school in which attendees are asked if they prefer a vegetarian diet.
“That kind of thing is by itself sufficient to alienate plenty of decent people. And their instinct is perfectly sound, for the food-crank is by definition a person willing to cut himself off from human society in hopes of adding five years onto the life of his carcass; a person out of touch with common humanity.”
… and this…
The questions raised by Orwell go beyond the frustrating failure of Democrats to insulate themselves from charges of being “soft on crime.” They reach down to one of the more striking shifts within the Democratic Party: the loss of effective political figures that speak to working- and middle-class voters.
… and this…
Former Democratic Montana Gov. Steve Bullock has described the image of his party this way: “coastal, overly educated, elitist, judgmental, socialist — a bundle of identity groups and interests lacking any shared principles. The problem isn’t the candidates we nominate. It’s the perception of the party we belong to.”
… and this…
But the danger to the left that Orwell described remains, as Democratic polling warns, “alarmingly potent.” An electorate where many find the party “preachy” and “judgmental” will falter on this side of the Atlantic now, just as it did thousands of miles away and decades ago.
This seems an interesting take on the digital age…
The Digital Age is Destroying Us lithub.com/the-digit…
Handmaid’s Tale anyone…
April 15, 2022 - by Heather Cox Richardson
Encouraged by the Supreme Court’s “originalist” majority, which denies the ability of the federal government to protect civil rights in the states, Florida, Mississippi, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Texas have all overridden the constitutional right to abortion, and Republican lawmakers have indicated they are gunning for birth control and interracial marriage as well.
… Well, my Lightroom catalog struggles are ended. I am not entirely sure how. My best theory is my Bitdefender file protection was the culprit. I turned it off prior to issue resolving but there were other things I did. Will go back and test the BD file protection since that is easy to do… @maique
We have an Austrailian member or two I think. A favorite group is the Waifs. Gillian and Bridal Train are two of my favorite songs… anyone else know them?
Spring is springing!
That moment when you are finished installing the latest operating system update and an update to Lightroom Classic and you go to open up Lightroom Classic and it tells you it cannot access the catalog file because the folder doesn’t give permission to save new files and you need to change the permissions of the folder or open up a new file. You spend several hours researching, changing permissions etc etc etc and still you are not able to access the catalog file that contains edits for over 100K files made over the last 20 years… I am not at full panic yet but soon may be…