​On February 18, 2010, Anadarko Moçambique—a subsidiary of Anadarko Petroleum (bought by Occidental Petroleum in 2019)—discovered a massive natural gas field in the Rovuma Basin off the coast of northern Mozambique. Over the next few years, some of the world’s largest energy corporations flocked to the Cabo Delgado province, where the basin is located. These included corporations like France’s TotalEnergies SE (which bought Anadarko’s project), the United States’ ExxonMobil, and Italy’s ENI, which collaborated with the China National Petroleum Corporation for “oil and gas exploration and production.”

These massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects by these corporations hold a potential value of $120 billion—according to Standard Bank Mozambique—with TotalEnergies SE and ExxonMobil in control of the most lucrative concessions. This valuation came at the same time when Mozambique held a rank of 145 out of 155 countries in the Gender-related Development Index, according to the Human Development Report 2009, and ranked 172 out of 182 countries, according to the Human Development Index. The immense find of the natural gas field and these LNG projects were poised to benefit an impoverished Mozambique economically and socially.

In 2014, Mozambican Finance Minister Manuel Chang said that the revenue earned from this massive natural gas find would allow Mozambique’s government to “invest in energy, tourism and infrastructure. The Nacala, Beira and Maputo corridors, which will foster stronger regional communication links, are being developed to provide unique opportunities. Agriculture is at the base of our development, and fisheries is also very important, as we have a 2,700-kilometer-long coastline.”

Chang said that he was aware of the dangers posed by a massive revenue influx resulting from the discovery such as this (a problem called the Dutch disease). “[W]e are going to use the income from mineral resources to diversify and reduce inequality,” he said. “We are investing heavily in education and health, because we understand that without a skilled and healthy population, there can be no growth.”

On the face of it, Mozambique seemed fated for a bright future. The natural gas find would help generate money for its government, whose officials seemed smart enough to avoid the pitfalls of the resource curse. But everything went wrong soon afterward. Two tragedies befell Mozambique. An insurgency swept through northern Mozambique, the very region of the natural gas bonanza, and a corruption scandal paralyzed the government, with Chang being arrested in South Africa in 2018.

​In 2017, armed militants took charge of large sections of Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province. They operated under the banner of al-Shabaab (the youth). These young men, who formed part of al-Shabaab, hailed from Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Niassa; each of these provinces saw poverty rates rise in the aftermath of the natural gas find (the poverty rate doubled in Niassa between 2008 and 2014). Meanwhile, the state has operated against the poor population from these provinces with extreme force: for example, in 2014 Mozambique’s Rapid Intervention Unit (Força de Intervenção Rápida) used violence against desperate people trying to make a living in the ruby fields of Cabo Delgado’s second-largest city, Montepuez.

Bonomade Machude Omar, who is the leader of al-Shabaab, was born in Palma, raised in the government and Islamic schools of Mocímboa da Praia, and trained in Mozambique’s military forces before he gathered several youths to support him against the extreme poverty being witnessed in Mozambique’s northern provinces. Omar first led this insurgency against poverty in the natural gas-rich provinces of Mozambique under the flag of al-Shabaab and then later—opportunistically—under the flag of the Islamic State.

For that reason, the U.S. State Department has designated him as a terrorist, and the militaries of Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community, which includes troops from Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Angola and Tanzania, are now operating alongside the army of Mozambique in Cabo Delgado. They are doing the dirty work for ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies SE.

​Meanwhile, a trial has begun in a courtroom in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, where 19 men have been “accused of blackmail, forgery, embezzlement and money laundering.” They have been charged with a $2 billion “hidden debt” corruption scandal. In 2013-14, these men formed three companies to take advantage of the natural gas discovery. ProIndicus was set up in January 2013 to provide security to the multinational energy firms; Ematum, formed in August 2013, was set up under the pretext of being a tuna fishing company, which would carry out fishing off the northern coastline; MAM, set up in May 2014, was to provide shipyard services for the multinational energy firms. Each of these companies was co-owned by the Mozambique intelligence service known as Serviço de Informações e Segurança do Estado (SISE). None of these existed beyond the paperwork; the chief executive officer of all three firms was António Carlos do Rosário, a senior SISE official.

Most of the available evidence for the case comes from indictments in the U.S. District Court in New York since New York banks offered their services for the bribes that anchored the deals. The three paper companies—controlled by senior officials of Mozambique’s government—took $2 billion worth of loans from Credit Suisse and VTB Capital (called Investment Bank 1 and 2 in the indictments). The loans, 13 percent of Mozambique’s GDP, were zipped around by consultancies (Palomar) and holding companies (Privinvest) and involved people from a wide range of nationalities (Mozambique, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Bulgaria) who were implicated in the “hidden debt” scandal.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) suspended loans to Mozambique in April 2016, just after news broke of the hidden debt scandal. Mozambique’s economy contracted as international donors joined the IMF to cut off infusions of capital, leading to the metical, Mozambique’s currency, tanking by a third of its value. In 2019, Mozambique struggled to renegotiate its debt, fighting to prevent the seizure of future revenues from the gas fields by the wealthy bondholders.

There are no armies rushing to deal with this scandal as Manuel Chang sits in South Africa fighting extradition to the United States, as António Carlos do Rosário, Gregorio Leao, and Cipriano Sisinio Mutota—all former SISE officials—sit in a courtroom in Maputo. With them in the dock is Ndambi Guebuza, the son of the former Mozambican President Armando Guebuza. It is unlikely that they will implicate the system.

For instance, former president Armando Guebuza is not facing any charges, and neither is his defense minister nor the current president, Filipe Nyusi. Nor is one of France’s richest men, Iskandar Safa, who is suing Mozambique for his money after his associate—Jean Boustani—was acquitted by a U.S. court over jurisdiction qualms. And nor are the banks, Credit Suisse or VTB Capital, being prosecuted in court.

One tragedy—an insurgency against poverty that has opportunistically taken on the mantle of the Islamic State—faces the full wrath of African armies. Meanwhile, another tragedy—the criminal theft of billions of dollars from a poor country—is being settled in courtrooms and backrooms. Omar is the villain of the day, while Chang, Carlos do Rosário and their associates will face harassment and short jail terms.

The real crooks, meanwhile, will take their seats at Dubai’s Cavalli Club and enjoy their $700 Wagyu grade 9+ steaks, smiling and plotting their next deals.

​Now that the Soviet Union has passed into history many people have written books and articles trying to explain what happened. Perhaps some books written before the event are more enlightening than many written after it.

One such book, I would like to suggest, is Herbert Marcuse’s Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis. This book was originally published in 1958 and was roundly condemned both by pro-Soviet progressives and by the cold warriors of anticommunism.

Marcuse thought he must have gotten to the heart of things when both sides interpreted him as supporting the other. The truth, however, is that Marcuse was trying to be "objective"-- within the limits imposed by the political conditions of the 1950s.

This little review will only discuss Marcuse’s 1961 preface to the Viking paperback edition. Its point is to suggest that we can learn a great deal from a critical engagement with Marcuse, especially with respect to understanding the future prospects of a revitalization of the international working class movement. This is a hopeful article in the "it is always darkest before the dawn" tradition.

Marcuse wrote about the historical tendencies in the Soviet Union of Khrushchev. Now, over sixty years later, we are in a position to evaluate his understanding of these tendencies.

One of the first things he discusses is the dispute over "peaceful coexistence" between the Soviets and the Chinese. Both sides accepted the need for peaceful coexistence but their reasons were very different-- in fact they were dialectically opposite so we might have expected that they would get together (a synthesis). We know this didn’t happen. The Soviets, in fact, were simply negated.

The dispute centered on the nature of imperialism-- and if you get this wrong you lose.

The Soviets maintained that Lenin’s thesis on the inevitability of war was no longer valid in the post World War II era. Both sides agreed that the "essence" of imperialism had not changed. The Chinese also conceded that it was possible to avert war.

So what was the problem? The Soviets maintained that the growing strength of the world socialist movement had weakened the imperialists and they were now not likely to want to engage in warlike activity. They needed peace to consolidate their weakened position and could be best contained in a non-confrontational matter through diplomacy and compromise-- meanwhile the ever growing power of the socialist world, in conjunction with the national liberation struggle in the third world, would make the imperialists behave themselves. The Chinese wanted a more militant struggle. This was an argument over tactics. The Chinese agreed that the balance of forces were now (the 1950s) tipping against the imperialists, but they thought this would make them even more, not less, likely to engage in warlike activity-- out of desperation.

The Vietnam War seems to show that the Chinese were correct. And even though that war ended in a great victory for third world peoples and a major imperialist defeat, the world balance of forces did not end up tipping against the imperialists. It now looks like they are still trying to be in control but their inability to defeat the Taliban and the resurgence of China as world power, as well as Russia’s upsetting their applecart in Syria, does not bode well for them.

Also, what was the war in Iraq if not a desperate and foolish bid to try and dominate the middle east and its oil reserves by force? The imperialists are squabbling among themselves and ever more areas of the world are beginning to stand up to them-- the DPRK, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos and China are not under their control, and countries such as Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay and South Africa are moving out of their orbit (we might also add Iran). There are also anti-imperialist movements in Nepal, Columbia and Bolivia as well as other Central and South American countries which challenge the notion of imperialism’s unchecked dominance. So, while the Chinese no longer practice the militant foreign policy advocated in the 50s, they are still pursuing anti-imperialist policies with respect to US imperialism.

Now Marcuse makes a very interesting point. He says a society should try "to satisfy the vital material and intellectual needs of all its members with a minimum of imposed labor," and this "requires planning and control of the economy with a view to this end; it also requires re-education with a view to exchangeability of functions and a transvaluation of values, subverting a repressive work morality."

The real world is very far from this state of affairs, it is full of privation, misery and exploitation as well as alienation. Marcuse says realists might dismiss the above as utopian and unrealistic blathering. He uses the word "eschatological" to describe his depiction of a society based on material freedom. The interesting point is that contemporary western societies based on capitalism do not even aim at creating such a society. It is also the case that the Soviet Union did not itself reflect such a society on the ground, as it were.

Nevertheless, according to Marcuse, the Soviet Union is a qualitatively (I should say "was") different type of industrial society than capitalism because its eschatological vision was precisely to create the above described society of material freedom. It held out this goal as an attainable reality only hindered by the historical conditions of backwardness and capitalist encirclement.

In 1958, Marcuse saw the possibility that the Soviet Union might be able to further develop its technological base so that "it may militate against the further use of technology for perpetuating individually unnecessary labor" this could lead "to the elimination of scarcity and toil."

Although Marcuse realized that he would be charged with utopian fantasies, he also maintained that compared to the status quo (unacceptable human exploitation and alienation), the eschatological vision provided by the Soviet Union held out to humanity, and kept alive the notion that another world was possible.

Even though the Soviet Union was destroyed by counterrevolutionary forces engendered by both its internal contradictions and its situation in a hostile capitalist encirclement, the vision of a just and humane society remains. It is up to us to keep it alive for the future.

Herbert Marcuse, Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis, New York, Vintage Books, 1961

​The Battle of Blair Mountain, in Logan County, West Virginia, was the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War. For five days in late August and early September, 1921, 15,000 miners confronted an army of police and strikebreakers backed by coal operators during a struggle by the miners for the right to collectively bargain, and to end horrendous working conditions and poverty in the southwestern West Virginia coalfields. One million rounds were fired and the U.S. Army, under presidential order, intervened.

Management and their shameful scab friends prevailed in the short run, but the United Mine Workers returned in the 1930s and overcame all obstacles to unionization. A monument to the battle was established on Blair Mountain – a record of and tribute to the most militant labor struggle in American history, one in which thousands of miners faced down death, imprisonment, terror, evictions from company housing and firings to defend the dignity of miners, their families and communities. The battle was memorialized in the movie Matewan, directed by John Sayles. Blair Mountain was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, but coal operators pressed to have it removed in 2010. Why? Because they want to blow it up in a mountaintop removal orgy that will blot out the history, capture a few seams of coal and poison downstream waters, leaving a mountain-sized garbage dump in their wake.

Despite being an icon of labor rights, a chunk of Blair Mountain was purchased by coal operator Massey Energy. They plan to destroy it – and the legacy for which it stands. Massey Energy is already tarnished by the unsafe conditions that led to the 2010 explosion in its Upper Big Branch mine that killed 29 miners. Don Blankenship, the loudmouthed former Massey chairman, was forced to resign after saying an unacceptable number of very stupid things about the environment, climate change, and mine safety, and by attempting to buy West Virginia Supreme Court judges. Massey had to be sold to Alpha Group, a holding company sponsored in part by George Soros, to get out from under the sting of Blankenship’s blunders.

Environmental activists and celebrities from around the nation have descended on Blair Mountain as a symbol of the social and environmental costs of mountaintop removal mining. When you get to the point where wiping out – and poisoning – a complete mountain is the “only profitable” means of extracting a modest seam of coal, they said, it’s time to rethink coal mining.

During the week ending June 10, over 500 community leaders, union members, celebrities and conservationists honored the Blair Mountain battle, called for an end to surface mining and demanded safe, sustainable jobs in Appalachia in an event dubbed “Appalachia Rising: The March on Blair Mountain.” Marchers followed the same route as the coal miners who marched to Blair Mountain in 1921. Robert F Kennedy Jr. was the featured political speaker. Entertainers Ashley Judd, Emmylou Harris and others participated and contributed as well.

Numerous union members joined the weeklong march. However, the United Mineworkers of America union withdrew its early endorsement of the march because, while it opposes Blair Mountain mountaintop removal for obvious historical reasons, it does not oppose such mining in general. It is a brutal and polluting technology, but one on the remaining mining jobs in modern Appalachia are increasingly dependent. It is almost impossible for an industrial union in the U.S. labor relations environment to oppose the industrial policies of the industry in which its members work. The company owns the jobs; the unions negotiate only over some of the effects of management rights.

Environmental activists on the march were disappointed the union “kept its distance.” On the other hand, the activists have given little importance to the most profound question for coal communities: “What do we do when the coal is gone?” Where are the scholarships, retraining, health care and safety nets for them? These are heartfelt questions that cause the blood to rise among miners, but, as former Senator Robert Byrd, a man who fought long and hard to improve those protections for miners, prophesized in 2009, “The major threats to the coal industry are not regulations on mountaintop mining or other environmental laws. Rather they come from rigid mindsets, depleting coal reserves and the declining demand for coal as more power plants shift to biomass and other resources as a way to reduce emissions. West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or they can choose to resist and be overrun by it.”

​Workers are organizing to fight for their health and wellbeing amid deteriorating environmental conditions caused by climate change. The United Nations issued a “code red for humanity” warning earlier this month with over 3,000 pages of scientific documentation saying that the climate crisis has reached a point where we can expect extreme weather including heat waves, flooding and droughts to happen with more frequency and intensity. The working class and poor are facing the brunt of this. 

On August 20, Burger King workers organizing with Fight for 15 in San Jose, California walked out to protest the extreme temperatures inside the restaurant. Rosa Vargas, who helped organize the walk out, says the restaurant’s air conditioning and ventilation is so poor that it is frequently hotter inside the restaurant than outside. At the protest, Vargas spoke about these severe conditions causing her to feel “dizzy and like I am going to faint.” Vargas went on to speak about the serious and dangerous impacts of the temperatures, saying, “I get a headache that feels like my head is being pinched and stuck with needles, and my heart beats rapidly. When it gets hot, I eat ice to prevent myself from vomiting.” 

Not only does Burger King management refuse to provide adequate air-conditioning during heatwaves, but they also refuse to provide legally required breaks. “No one gets a second rest break. It has always been like that at this Burger King,” Vargas said. 

Rosa Vargas and her coworkers at Burger King are not the only workers organizing for their health as the climate catastrophe worsens. Nathalie Hrizi, a public school educator in San Francisco, is fighting to protect both her coworkers and students. She says their health is being threatened by toxic air and COVID-19. “Wind patterns will bring a large amount of smoke into our air and it becomes dangerous, particularly for children in sensitive groups,” Hirzi said. She went on to explain, “The district management has relied on open windows as the primary source of ventilation to mitigate the pandemic but now that it is fire season, their recommendation is to close the windows. So we’re essentially being asked to choose between our children being exposed to dangerous levels of smoke in the air or being exposed to higher levels of COVID.” 

On August 20, Hrizi’s union the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) launched a campaign to demand quality air purifiers, quality masks, and universal weekly COVID testing. “What we’re fighting for is a reform and a mitigation of a very severe crisis that is caused by the way the capitalist system is organized and that the primary motivation for those who are in power is profit,” Hrizi says.

​Unsurprisingly, these wildfires are also causing a major crisis for firefighters. Many are fed up with being asked to fight dangerous super fires in exchange for low pay and substandard healthcare, and many have left the profession because of it. In response to this labor shortage, the Biden administration announced this month that all federal firefighters will be paid at least $15 an hour. Previously, some were being paid as little as $13 an hour.

Outrageously, the government is using prison labor to deal with the firefighter shortage. Programs where prisoners work as firefighters for a few dollars a day exist in nearly every western U.S. state. States have become increasingly dependent on virtually free prisoner labor — essentially a form of slavery. In California, prisoners make up one-third of the state’s entire wildfire fighting personnel. 

​Farm workers, three out of four of whom are first generation immigrants and many of whom are undocumented, are also facing worsening exploitation because of climate change. Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers (UFW) spoke in July about this exploitation: “Farmworkers are imperiled by a perfect storm of deadly plagues: Extreme summer temperatures fueled by climate change… field workers disproportionately afflicted by the coronavirus… and too many live in daily dread of deportation, afraid to complain about abuse and mistreatment due to their immigration status.”  Because these immigrant workers often lack citizenship and legal protections, employers can and do frequently get away with violating labor laws. 

This dynamic has led to deplorable conditions for farmworkers. According to the CDC, farm workers are 20 times more likely to die from heat related illness than other workers. The outlook for the future is even worse. A 2020 study by the University of Washington says that for farmworkers “the average number of days spent working in unsafe conditions will double by mid-century, and, without mitigation, triple by the end of it. Increases in rest time and the availability of climate-controlled recovery areas can eliminate this risk but could affect farm productivity, farm worker earnings, and/or labor costs much more than alternative measures. Safeguarding the health and well-being of U.S. crop workers will therefore require systemic change beyond the worker and workplace level.” 

Lowering productivity and increasing the cost of labor goes against the most basic tendencies of capitalism. Meeting this challenge will require building a powerful working class movement demanding better conditions and ultimately the demise of a system that puts profit over people’s lives.

Larger-scale and more frequent wildfires, flooding, heat waves and natural disasters caused by climate change are putting the health and safety of the poor and working class in danger. As already inhumane working conditions become exacerbated by the climate crisis, the labor movement is faced with a major battle. However, as this crisis grows so will the movement to address it. From the Burger King workers in San Jose walking out to the teachers demanding quality air purifiers and masks in San Francisco, these detrimental conditions worsened by climate change will not stop workers from organizing for the respect and safety they deserve!

​PITTSBURGH (PAI)—Rolling through the country from Northwestern Indiana to Tidewater Virginia and Wilmington, N.C., the Steelworkers’ “We Supply America” bus tour brought home the need to revitalize U.S. infrastructure—including its supply chain of materials like steel and cement—using U.S. union labor.

The objective: To get workers and their allies, plus community residents to call, e-mail, or otherwise urge their lawmakers, of both parties, to remember that and vote for the $978 billion 5-year infrastructure bill now pending on Capitol Hill.

“This is not a sure thing,” Steelworkers Vice President Fred Redmond warned at one stop. “We need you to press your legislators to move this bill. This is not a Rep or Dem issue, this is an American issue. We have an opportunity to make this happen, all we have to do is roll up our sleeves & get to work!”

Joined by USW local leaders, union President Tom Conway, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh—a member of Laborers Local 223—and several U.S. House members, the bus riders and their allies hammered home the message the nation’s crumbling roads, creaky bridges, elderly subways, aging airports, and century-plus railroads and tunnels need to be rebuilt now. The “hard” infrastructure bill also would wire the nation for broadband and make it affordable.

And that union workers will do so, both providing the materials and the labor.

“Our infrastructure has been neglected for too long. We need major national investment to rebuild the infrastructure here in northwest Indiana and across the country. And we need to call on our elected leaders in Congress to make that happen,” Steelworkers Local 6787 President Pete Trinidad said at the bus’s first stop, near the steel plants of Chesterton, Ind.

“I just joined the @steelworkers on the first stop of their We Supply America bus tour,” Walsh tweeted. “Through @POTUS’s once-in-a-generation infrastructure bill, we will invest in American manufacturing and build 21st-century infrastructure through good-paying union jobs.”

“We have an opportunity in this country to buy American and build American right now. We want to win the future for the U.S.,” added Walsh, who then took a side trip to a brand-new union-built high school—with union-provided materials—and met Teachers leaders there.

But it’s not just the “hard” infrastructure bill that’s pending in Congress and it’s not just that legislation USW pushed.

Biden and the House Democratic leaders, along with organized labor, are also pushing a $3.5 trillion bill that includes expanding child care, raising the pay of those workers, making paid family and sick leave permanent, increasing taxes on the rich, and vastly increasing fines for labor law-breaking, among other goals.

“We don’t only need roads & bridges,” said Roxanne Brown, USW’s Vice President At Large and Legislative Director. “We need the infrastructure of the people of this country. It’s not just the building of things, it’s the parts that go into building things. You, your families, our communities are infrastructure.”

​Conway in particular stressed the importance not just of building American and buying American but of making American, especially in the supply chain. That’s also a big Biden and labor theme. The coronavirus pandemic exposed U.S. dependence on supplies from abroad—supplies that could easily be interrupted or politically manipulated by foreign governments.

“We need a national infrastructure that keeps us safe, that is modern, that keeps our supply chains stocked with the materials we need, and that keeps the country moving in the right direction,” said Conway, whose home local was 6787 in Chesterton. “As a union, we have the skilled workforce to accomplish all these goals.

“This is about so much more than fixing roads and bridges. We need an ambitious overhaul of our entire critical infrastructure from modern schools and health care facilities to state-of-the-art communications networks. Everything that USW members make and everything that we do contributes in some way to this vital project.”

The tour took the We Build America bus from Local 6787 in Chesterton to Local 525 in Newark, Ohio, where members of Locals 9118 and 1237 spoke. It then proceeded to Weirton, W. Va., home of Weirton Steel and Locals 2911 and 419M. From Weirton, the bus traveled to Danville, Va. Members of Local 831L at the Goodyear tire plant there spoke. It then traversed Virginia, to Newport News and the unionized—by Local 8888—U.S. Navy shipyard.

The bus’s southernmost stop was at a Corning plant, manned by members of Local 1025, in Wilmington, N.C., before the vehicle headed back to USW headquarters in Pittsburgh on August 20, there to host members of at least four locals, plus USW officers. The union posted videos of all the stops on YouTube.

Besides the bus, the union launched an electronic petition campaign and urged members to mass-mail postcards to lawmakers demanding they approve the two pieces of legislation. The petition is here.

​Shareholders beware, socialism is back.

That’s the warning being sounded by stock market analysts and financial advisors to anyone parking their money in Chinese tech stocks. Behind the investor panic is a stepped-up regulatory campaign by the Communist Party of China that aims to combat inequality, lower living costs for working families, impose order on often chaotic markets, and prevent monopoly control over key sectors of China’s economy.

President Xi Jinping told the world in July that China’s leaders were determined to “safeguard social fairness and justice and resolve the imbalances and inadequacies in development” to solve what he called “the most pressing difficulties and problems that are of great concern to the people.”

​Waves of new regulations issued by the State Council have targeted various sub-segments of China’s $4-trillion tech economy lately: education, insurance, gaming, e-commerce, fintech, and others. Fresh controls to contain rising costs and bend industries to better serve the public interest are emerging on an almost weekly basis.

No less than 50 different regulatory actions have been executed against dozens of different firms for a range of offenses and lapses—price gouging, false advertising, monopolistic exploitation, failure to protect users’ data privacy, and more. Calculations made by The Economist magazine estimate that government enforcements have chopped at least $1 trillion from the share prices of the various companies involved, exacting a big hit on investors’ portfolios.

Given the dizzying pace of legislation, some in the Western business press have resorted to old-school anti-communist rhetoric to criticize the government. The right-wing journal National Interest claims “Xi Jinping’s personal dictatorship” is destroying all of China’s capitalists and decimating the wealth of many outside the country.

Other outlets have been slightly less hysterical, preferring a more sophisticated style to deliver a similar message. The Wall Street Journal, flagship paper of the U.S. financial establishment, warned in a July 27 editorial that Xi is on a mission “to bring ever greater swathes of China’s private economy under the state’s control.”

Alan Song, founder of private equity firm Harvest Capital, speaking to Reuters, lamented last month that “a new era that prioritizes fairness over efficiency” has unfortunately begun in China. “Chinese entrepreneurs and investors,” Song said, “must understand that the age of reckless capital expansion is over.”

​In the wake of the changes, some of the top Chinese tutoring companies listed on the U.S. stock market—names like TAL Education, New Oriental, and Gaotu Techedu—saw their share prices plunge up to 90% almost overnight. Billions were wiped out, leaving a lot of investors shocked and angry.

In another example, online insurance sellers have been ordered to halt illegal marketing and pricing practices that bilked workers out of their hard-earned yuan. According to the Shanghai Securities News, the state wants to “purify the market environment” and “protect the legal interests of consumers.”

As of last year, some 146 insurance companies had entered the so-called “insurtech” sector in China, hawking health insurance, life insurance, property insurance, and all manners of coverage online. Many unlicensed companies also rushed to make fast cash in the sector, which saw high double-digit expansion. Banking regulators have given companies until the end of October to clean up their act, or else.

And when it comes to online shopping and social media, the National People’s Congress just passed a new Personal Information Protection Law that will force companies like e-commerce giant Alibaba, tech conglomerate Tencent, Tik Tok owner ByteDance, and others to obtain consent before collecting people’s data and follow strict new requirements to keep it safe.

​Tutoring, insurance, and data privacy are just chapters in a much bigger story of government action against unchecked private economic power.

For the beleaguered investor class, the tale of their suffering begins with the supposed martyrdom of Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba. Last fall, Ma was planning the initial public offering (IPO)—the first public sale of shares—for Ant Group, his company’s fintech spin-off. Ant was anticipated to be the largest IPO in history, with possible valuations of up to $37 billion being floated.

At a meeting in Shanghai connected to the IPO, Ma laid into China’s financial regulatory system, saying it was outdated and stifled innovation. He called for an overhaul. In the months that followed, Ma got what he asked for, if not in the form he wanted.

The tech CEO had called for liberation of banks and lenders; instead, the government has answered with measures aimed at protecting consumers from reckless financial practices and a crackdown on poor management of people’s personal data. Ma took to ground and hasn’t been heard from much ever since.

Investors reacted to this injection of “government-fueled uncertainty” into the market in a predictable fashion: sell-off. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Golden Dragon Index, an exchange-traded fund of U.S.-listed Chinese stocks, has lost over 41% of its value in the past six months. And as for the IPO of Ant Group? Indefinitely postponed.

Although many bourgeois commentators are eager to denounce China as “crazy” for undermining its own domestic tech companies with such strenuous legislation, what they fail to see is that rather than destroying its economy, the government is laying the basis for sustainable and, hopefully, more equitable growth.

​China has no intention of crippling or crushing the tech sector; the government knows it is a hub for the innovation and growth that will be needed to keep China economically successful in the 21st century. (So U.S. competitors shouldn’t salivate too much.) The Chinese state also knows that contain-and-control measures are needed to make sure tech serves society rather than society being held hostage by tech. If the financial wellbeing of some investors’ portfolios is the price of achieving that goal, then the government of China seems willing to pay.

Another motivation behind the new measures is to prevent China from ending up in a situation like the U.S., where giant tech companies have already achieved monopoly market power and heavily influence government policymaking. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook—they’ve all become powerful enough to influence elections, buy legislation, and crush any possible challenges to their position. The Communist Party of China appears determined to never allow China to be subject to the whims of Alibaba, Didi, ByteDance, and the rest in a similar way.

​For years, smug commentators ridiculed the “socialist market economy” formulation that China uses to describe its hybrid economic model. Critics on the left say you can’t have socialism if there is a market, while critics on the right argue there’s no such thing as a free market when socialist policies are involved. The two sides were joined in the belief that the CPC claim of building a “socialist market economy” was just political cover for a ruling elite determined to quietly retreat from communist ideology.

The current regulatory wave should prompt a second look at such notions, however accurate they might have seemed in the 1990s or 2000s. The determination of Xi Jinping and the Chinese government to “pursue common prosperity” is looking pretty serious these days. And there’s probably more to come: The CPC Central Committee and the State Council just released new guidelines for a five-year plan for the “construction of a government under the rule of law.” Translation: Expect more regulation.

But even if one doesn’t subscribe to socialist notions, there is a way of seeing the current government moves as being good for business, too. The smart capitalists, if they can admit it, should know that these rounds of regulation are actually beneficial for them as a group. The anarchy of competition under the market system has always meant that it’s not in any single capitalist’s interest to look out for the health of the system as a whole. Instead, it has always been the state which has to do that.

Right now, that process is happening fast in China, and it’s costing a lot of people a lot of money. But in the long term, these measures will ensure stronger rule of law and protect the system from both reckless firms and the “too-big-to-fail” problems that persistently plague Western capitalism from one recession or depression to the next. It will also protect working people from some of the tech sector’s most exploitative business practices.

China is laying the foundation for a healthier mixed economy that will be less prone to economic crisis. And for the long, long term, China’s leadership is making it clear that all its talk of Marxism and socialism are more than just political window-dressing.

As with all op-eds published by People’s World, this article reflects the opinions of its author.

Communal gardens and farming enterprises are the beginning of sustainable food sovereignty in South Africa, but a basic income grant is essential to address hunger in the shorter term.

​In a country where 10 million people go to bed hungry every night, the government’s COVID-19 social relief of distress grant was a lifeline. A tiny lifeline for a fraction of the estimated 28.4 million unemployed and “economically inactive” people in the country, according to researcher Siyabulela Mama, but a lifeline nonetheless.

So when the government ended the grant after just nine months, as part of its economic austerity measures, it cut more than five million people off from a monthly payout of R350 (about $23.50). Although only enough to buy a loaf of the cheapest bread each day and little else – and even though it excluded women whose minor children were already getting a child support grant of R470 a month – it kept casual and precarious workers, restaurant workers, street traders, artists and others who had lost their jobs during the pandemic from starving.

The widespread unrest triggered by a disgruntled ANC faction violently attacking delivery trucks in July quickly foregrounded hunger in the country, as thousands of starving South Africans took advantage of the chaos to loot supermarkets and food warehouses in the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

The government reintroduced the social relief of distress grant in response to the chaos, extending it to March 2022. Many hope it will convert to a basic income grant.

Mama, who works at the Centre for Integrated Post-School Education and Training at Nelson Mandela University, is a spokesperson for the #PayTheGrants campaign, which wants a basic income grant of R1 268 a month for those between the ages of 19 and 59. South Africa does not have a dole system and this age group falls outside the old age pensions and child support grants that the government offers.

Television news stations call him frequently to discuss the basic income grant and he says “over 10 million people go to bed hungry every night while living near shops with plenty of food that they cannot afford. That created a crisis. But this time the crisis exposed that the South African food system is so unjust and needs to be overhauled.”

Activists first proposed a basic income grant 20 years ago. The government has been “contemplating” it since 2002. A new generation of activists, such as Mama, is taking this campaign forward and combining it with grassroots food sovereignty projects based on communal gardens and poultry farming. Mama works with such projects in the coastal city of Gqeberha in Eastern Cape province.

​Women living in the eKhenana shack settlement in the coastal city of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, are part of a growing national trend of occupying unused land and using it for the communal production of food.

Nokuthula Mabaso, 38, says the communal vegetable garden that the members of shack dwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo established allowed them to generate enough revenue to supplement their savings of R3 000 and set up a communal poultry farm.

“When the COVID-19 lockdown was announced, we were all in financial trouble. We realized that our piece jobs [informal work] could no longer help us and our families survive … We called a meeting and discussed ways to create sustainable income for the community. We’ve made an oath to never allow anyone here to starve while there is food or money from the food projects in the community,” explains Mabaso.

The residents have about 300 Rhode Island Red chickens, commonly known as red or Zulu chickens, and a vegetable farm. “The poultry farm now helps all families struggling because we are a united community. No child in eKhenana goes to school or bed on an empty stomach,” she adds.

​This is no small feat in a country where 2.2 million people lost their jobs in last year’s COVID-19 lockdown, with the result that by June 2021, Statistics South Africa put the expanded unemployment rate at a record high of 43.2%. Even the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a scale agreed by organizations ranging from Oxfam to USAid, recently concluded that “9.34 million people in South Africa (16% of the population analyzed) faced high levels of acute food insecurity and required urgent action to reduce food gaps and protect livelihoods”. The IPC said this number would rise to almost 12 million by June 2021.

In South Africa, the persistence of shack settlements reflects the lack of affordable accommodation options available to impoverished families in well-situated areas near public amenities. The 109 families of eKhenana occupied two hectares of land in 2018 after being evicted from rented shacks, naming their new village eKhenana because it is isiZulu for Canaan. Residents say the name represents their aspirations to transform eKhenana into a place fit for humans, with all the residents’ needs catered for collectively.

“Land occupations allow people to live on well-located land close to opportunities for livelihoods, education and to participate in urban planning and other ways of shaping the cities from below. Of course, land occupations also allow people to build homes, community halls, crèches and political schools. But land occupations are often also spaces that allow for urban gardening and farming,” says Abahlali baseMjondolo president S’bu Zikode.

The movement has been establishing collective farming projects for 13 years, the first in Motala Heights in 2008. A women’s organic community garden project, it went on to support the development of a similar garden group in the nearby eMmaus shack settlement. “This project did not only ensure that families had food, it also gave women some autonomy from exploitative and racialized forms of labor,” says Zikode.

​The Eastern Cape is the second-most impoverished province in South Africa. Recently, 78.7% of children living here were found to be in “multidimensional poverty”. This means not only are the adults unemployed and without an income but the family as a whole has no vehicle, no way to obtain food, cooking fuel, electricity or clean drinking water, and lives in a home that is not weatherproof, lacks basic appliances and has no sanitation.

The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown marked a resurgence in working-class efforts to produce food on unused land in the province. In Gqeberha, 10 activist food gardens have taken off on reclaimed land and the grounds of public schools and clinics. Under colonialism and apartheid, the most fertile and well-positioned land was set aside for white people. Black townships were established on land that is difficult to farm.

“It takes tremendous effort for people to create healthy soil out of marginal land. It is very hard work,” says Mama. He works closely with Sibanye Eco-Gang, a group of activists and former trade unionists that is reclaiming marginal land in KwaZakhele, a township established in the late 1950s to accommodate Black South Africans forcibly removed from Korsten near the city center.

​Roger Mafu, 45, was retrenched from General Motors two years ago. He has been a full-time, unpaid community activist in KwaZakhele since then and is an active member of Sibanye Eco-Gang.

“Working in a place like that is modern slavery anyway. So I was not disappointed by my retrenchment,” says Mafu. “Politically, these are disadvantaged areas. There is a high rate of unemployment and poverty. So, I decided during the lockdown that why don’t we mobilize and start gardens? People who are educated call it food sovereignty.”

​Sibanye Eco-Gang has organized some of the gardens on small squares of empty land that used to house the “gap taps” favored by the apartheid regime. These single taps each served 36 Black families who had no running water in their homes and had to line up to collect water in buckets.

Mama says the use of gap taps ended when low-cost housing was built after the end of apartheid and the patches of land they stood on became informal, hazardous dumping sites. “When the hard lockdown came, we saw an opportunity to change those dumping sites into community gardens. This was done through a number of community meetings with everyone in the area … Those who are interested now meet every weekday at 8am to see what needs to be done in each garden.”

Food is provided to everyone from these gardens, whether they can pay for it or not. “This is an understanding that only social markets can have, that people may not have money immediately. Food is first and foremost a source of nutrition and only secondarily an item for trade,” says Mama. The various gardens hold assemblies every two months, to bring members together to share and protect traditional knowledge of food production. When valuable crops such as sweet potato cuttings are sourced, it is at the assemblies that a democratic decision is made about how to share them.

Because they are reclaiming marginal land for political purposes, the activists don’t view themselves as gardeners.

“We have come to see this work not as gardening, a word in English associated with middle-class leisure, but with the hard work most often performed by the working-class men whose labor has been marginalized and racialised in our society. This word, ‘gardener’, we would like to suggest, erases the socially useful work of livelihood food production … It is the isiXhosa term ukulima (to farm) and abalimi (farmers) that people involved in community farming refer to themselves and their work as,” says Vuyokazi Made, 35, a farmer with the Amandla Collective in Kwadwesi Extension, a few kilometres from KwaZakhele.

​On the other side of the city, the Zweledinga shack settlement of just 400 people is combining political organizing with food sovereignty projects.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the residents knew that the long-promised development of their area would be put on hold, so they tapped into the electricity supply for the affluent neighboring suburb of Seaview. When the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality disconnected their supply a few months later, they felled an enormous tree to block the road, cutting off access for the wealthy residents. This led to Zweledinga’s electricity being reconnected.

The settlement has been highly organized for the past 30 years, since its residents occupied public land. A democratically elected citizens’ committee organizes strikes. The committee includes three representatives of the garden subcommittee, which oversees six gardens in the settlement that provide spinach, carrots, beetroot and cabbage for all residents and houses goats.

“Politically, we are advocating for more taps. We have only three communal taps for all our families to fetch water from, and sometimes all three taps have no water. Then we basically experience a drought,” says garden subcommittee member Welile Gonqoba.

“We are also planning another political action to demand houses. We are going to close the road like we did last time. It was because of that political action that the municipality provided us with electricity,” he adds.

​Socialist Ntsika Mateta, 31, hopes to expand the movement by piloting communal and backyard permaculture gardens in rural villages, and supporting urban projects to set up seed banks and protect and grow indigenous medicinal plants. Mateta is the coordinator of the Eastern Cape Water Caucus, an umbrella organization for about 40 communities affected by water and food shortages and high water bills.

He recently took the unusual step of relocating to a remote village of just 200 families, Elundini, about 30km from the university town of Alice in the Eastern Cape. Elundini, built on a steep and rocky hillside, was founded in 1986 after the apartheid government forcibly removed hundreds of Black people from much better land about 20km away, which was then turned into a dam. “People were just put into bungalows by the apartheid government and left here without water,” says Mateta.

He has been offered 10 hectares of land owned by Eco-hostel Elundini Backpackers to farm and has started by establishing an experimental permaculture garden with more than 50 different types of vegetables, herbs, indigenous medicinal plants and berries. In this garden, Mateta tests useful farming techniques that do not require a lot of money, such as no-dig and waterless farming. This pesticide-free garden produces organic seeds that are grown into seedlings in a greenhouse constructed from recycled materials.

​“We saw the need to build more food resilience when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The food relief from the government [mainly small hampers of processed, white carbohydrates with little protein or vegetables] failed our people. The most important thing was to form a collective commons so that people can take ownership of their welfare. We are trying to make a localized circular economy here because we are far from the town, and we don’t want people to waste money on traveling to buy food.”

On the recent unrest and looting of food, Mateta says “”rising food prices, price-fixing by corporate food manufacturers and the fact that food is inaccessible to the majority of us clearly show that the entire food system in South Africa is broken”.

Like the food sovereignty groups in Gqeberha, 250km away, Mateta consults village committees and conducts workshops with villagers to motivate them to expand the project.

“People here grow only mielies and potatoes, so they don’t see vegetable farming as a reliable way to feed themselves. People are used to using pesticides.” But now, from the experimental garden, villagers can harvest pesticide-free vegetables and more rare food items such as dandelion, berries, clover and other wild plants, which offer nutrition in the form of salads.

“There is a lot that can thrive here. We just need to experiment first and see what works. My philosophy here is if I give you five seeds this season, then next season you must give me 50 seeds. That is a good way of expanding our movement.”

Mateta says the farming project has become an important organizing tool as “people here are depoliticized and alienated from what is happening both nationally and on the continent and in the rest of the world. The political system that holds the reins is an anti-human system that shows no respect for the environment or the people.”

​A long-term aim expressed by these urban and rural farming groups is to establish democratic grassroots farmers’ assemblies that meet regularly and connect with the workers’ movement, bringing food sovereignty into everyday working-class organizing.

Collective food sovereignty projects are not the norm, though, and it will take time for them to spread to other impoverished areas. In the meanwhile, the basic income grant appears to be the only way to stave off mass hunger in South Africa.

But Mama cautions that for the grant to succeed, it is essential that it be devised by “the unemployed, women and precarious workers. The government must consult and talk to the people that it is meant for. It cannot be the product of discussions with NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and technocrats.”

Hunger in the World is a collaborative series produced by ARGMedios, Brasil de Fato, BreakThrough News, Madaar, New Frame, NewsClick and Peoples Dispatch.

​California’s Governor Gavin Newsom is facing a recall election that, up until recently, the Democratic Party had brushed off as a frivolous inconvenience. Now, just days before the election, vote-by-mail ballots have been sent to California’s 22 million active registered voters in a statewide off-year election that offers a bewildering array of nearly four dozen alternate choices to Newsom if he were to lose. Polls show that even in a state with a clear majority of voters identifying as Democratic, Newsom is in trouble.

It shouldn’t have turned out this way. Just a few years ago, Newsom was seen as a progressive superstar, elected in 2018 to lead the world’s fifth-largest economy after serving as mayor of San Francisco. These were the same midterm elections that saw progressive newcomers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and others elected to federal congressional seats in what was seen as a game-changing year for liberal politics and a worthy consolation prize to Bernie Sanders’ 2016 Democratic nomination loss.

Newsom’s campaign slogan, “Courage for a Change,” led political pundits to dub him the “next head of the California resistance.” He campaigned on ushering in a statewide Medicare for All or single-payer system and won the endorsement of the National Nurses United (NNU) as a result. A year before his win, Newsom addressed NNU members on the issue of health care, saying, “If we can’t get it done next year, you have my firm and absolute commitment as your next governor that I will lead the effort to get it done. We will have universal health care in the state of California.”

Nearly three years since Newsom took office, there is no whiff of Medicare for All in sight aside from a tabled bill, and a commission that Newsom appointed nearly two years ago. It seemed as though the fervent backer of single payer was no longer as enthusiastic about health care as he had appeared to be. As John Marty, writing for Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), said, “Newsom’s shifting position on single payer shows why voters become cynical.” Is it any wonder then that California’s Democratic voters are not as enthused to show up to the polls on September 14 even though most voters oppose the recall? One Republican analyst said, “Newsom doesn’t have to worry about the Democratic base voting for the recall.” Instead, “He has to worry about them not voting at all.”

True, the timing of the recall does not benefit the governor. Newsom’s unpopular positions on COVID-19 restrictions and perceived hypocrisy on safety measures are among the reasons why voters might want to punish him. Frankly, he hasn’t inspired voters enough to reward him with a “No” vote on the recall.

But, California’s liberal voters also likely do not want to see him replaced by a Republican, let alone a right-wing extremist. The GOP’s front-runner in the crowded field of alternates to replace Newsom is conservative celebrity talk radio host Larry Elder. Polls show roughly 18 percent of voters would choose Elder to replace Newsom. As with the 2020 presidential election, California progressives may once again find themselves in a position of having to choose a milquetoast Democrat in order to stave off an extremist Republican takeover.

Although 18 percent of the vote is not remotely close to democratically representative, by the bizarre rules of California recalls, Elder could still assume the governor’s seat if Newsom garners less than 50 percent support. In other words, even if Newsom wins 49.9 percent support and the “Yes on Recall” wins 50.1 percent, Newsom has lost. At that point, the alternate candidate with a plurality of votes will walk off with the prize. And that could be Elder with a mere 18 percent of the votes compared to Newsom’s 49.9 percent. If that sounds unconstitutional, as per numerous legal experts, it absolutely is.

Elder is the author of The Ten Things You Can’t Say in America, a book that inspired none other than Donald Trump’s former immigration adviser Stephen Miller, the director of Trump’s family separation horror show.

Indeed, the arguments published by recall supporters in the state voter guide use standard dog-whistle anti-immigrant arguments such as claiming that Newsom, “endorsed [laws that] favor foreign nationals, in our country illegally, over that of our own citizens,” and that he, “imposed sanctuary state status.” The recall election’s lead proponent Orrin Heatlie is a retired sheriff’s sergeant who in 2019 wrote a Facebook post saying, “Microchip all illegal immigrants. It works! Just ask Animal control.”

Given the racist forces behind the recall and the front-runner Elder’s political leanings, the California recall has become a microcosm of what many feared the 2020 presidential race would turn into: a Trumpian conservative hoping to govern the state by minority rule and prevailing over an uninspiring Biden-like moderate.

A recall effort to oust the governor has only ever succeeded once in California’s history. That was in 2003 when Republican challenger Arnold Schwarzenegger beat the Democratic incumbent Gray Davis. It seems as though the GOP must resort to undemocratic means to gain political power in the staunchly liberal state—similar to the federal-level modus operandi for the conservative party.

There is no doubt that a second term for Trump would have been an utter tragedy for the United States. The January 6 coup attempt was evidence enough of that. Similarly, there is no question that sticking it to the disappointing governor of California by not showing up to the polls would be a self-destructive move for liberals and progressives alike.

Whether it is anger at Newsom’s capitulation on progressive campaign promises or sheer voter ignorance and apathy matters little. A Democratic California state senator who is advocating against the recall worried that “folks seem distracted or unaware” about an election that could yield a Trump-like leader in California.

In spite of the deep disappointment over Newsom’s failures, there are many reasons to oppose a recall. At stake are some of Newsom’s executive actions on climate change that a Republican governor would surely overturn. Some worry that a Republican governor might get the chance to appoint a replacement for California Senator Dianne Feinstein if she retires or passes away in the next two years, which in turn would flip the U.S. Senate to GOP control. Feinstein is the nation’s oldest sitting senator.

Additionally, many fear Republican leadership in California would mean a rollback of voting rights as seen in states like Texas and Florida. And of course, given Elder’s anti-immigrant tendencies, a Newsom loss could spell doom for the state’s undocumented population.

Those who want to teach Newsom a lesson—and he surely deserves to be punished for his failure to live up to his progressive pledges—have a chance at judging him in next year’s gubernatorial race. If he wins the recall, he has one more year to make good on promises like Medicare for All. Then, come 2022, there will be an election based on direct democracy, rather than the whims of right-wing extremists hoping to game a flawed system.

“Well Fred, are you ready to discuss Guo Xiang (252-312)? We are now dealing with thinkers in the Wei-Jin period (220-420 AD) are we not?”

“We are. This period is named after dynasties that succeeded the Han Dynasty We have moved on a long way from the kind of thinking represented by Dong Zhongshu (179-104 BC). A move that has led us closer and closer to naturalistic ways of thinking.”

“Then I guess Xunzi (c.310-c.235 BC) should be popular again.”

“That may be, but we are going to discuss philosophers who, while paying lip service to Confucius (551-479 BC), wrote commentaries on the Laozi and the Zhuangzi as a way of expressing themselves. We call them ‘Neo-Daoists.’”

“Yes, but that’s not what they called themselves as I remember. I think Fung says they were known as  Xuanxue or ‘Dark’ (Xuan) or ‘Mysterious Learning.’” [History of Chinese Philosophy vol. 2]

“That’s right Karl. Besides, the Neo-Daoists there was another group of thinkers at this time called the ‘Light’ or ‘Pure Conversation School.’ They seem to have been of minor importance-- at least from the strictly philosophical point of view.”

“And who were they?”

“Just groups of men who liked to get together and discuss contemporary issues, ethics, philosophy, etc. They hung out in bamboo groves drinking and arguing and rejecting social conventions and propriety.”

“Sounds like a wild bunch! They would fit in today, no doubt.”

“They seem to have been harmless. The most famous group was called the ‘Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove.’ We are not going to deal with them as such.”

“OK. On to the ‘Dark Learning’ of the Neo-Daoists. The most important was Guo Xiang, was he not.”

“ Yes, but first, as an introduction, we have to go over two predecessors who were instrumental in the development of Neo-Daoism.  First is a gentleman called Wang Bi.”

“Yes, I remember studying about him. He died when he was only 23 or 24 years old-- living from 225 to 249 in Wei. That is unusually young to have left behind really important philosophical works.”

“At any rate, Chan [Source Book in Chinese Philosophy] has given us three excerpts from his writings. You ready?”

“Ready.”

“This is from his Simple Exemplifications of the Principle of the Book of Changes. He is trying to explain hexagrams in the YI Jing. He develops the idea of ‘the one’ and the key to this passage is his statement, ‘Things never err; they always follow their principle.’ This is actually a scientific way of looking at things-- i.e., the laws of science don’t change [I mean the underlying ‘laws’ of the world which the ‘laws of science’ attempt to describe] so ‘things never err.’ The entire quote is: ‘Now, the many cannot be regulated by the many. They are regulated by the smallest in number (the one). Activity cannot be controlled by activity. They are controlled by that which is firmly rooted in the one. The reason why the many can exist is that their ruling principle returns always to the one and all activities can function because they have all come from the same source. Things never err; they always follow their principle. There is the chief to unite them, and there is the leader to group them together. Therefore, though complex, they are not chaotic, and though many, they are not confused. Hence the intermingling of the six lines in a hexagram can be understood by taking up one [of them, for one is always the ruling factor of the six] and the interaction of weakness (yin) and strength (yang) can be determined by having the basic controlling principle well established.... Therefore if we investigate things by approaching them as a united system, although they are many, we know we can handle them by adhering to the one, and if we view them from the point of view of the fundamental, although their concepts are broad, we know we can cover all of them under a single name.’”

“You know Fred, Fung Yu-lan remarks on this [HCP:2, p.180] that the key to this passage is to understand that for Wang all multiplicity stems from oneness-- just as everything in our universe goes back to or stems from the one singularity, if it really was a singularity, we call the ‘Big Bang’. This is an analogy, of course, Wang Bi didn’t know anything about the ‘Big Bang.’ He is really explaining why there is always a leading line in the hexagrams comprising the YI Jing. Here is what Fung says: ‘In this passage Wang Bi’s aim is to explain the general concept underlying the statements made by the First Appendix on the separate hexagrams.’ He also says, with respect to Wang’s mentioning a ruling hexagram, that ‘he means that among the six lines comprising any given hexagram, there is always one that acts as ruler over the others. That is why he begins his treatise with the general thesis that all multiplicity must be ruled by oneness, and all activity controlled by quiescence. This is the first of his metaphysical principles.’”

“OK. We next turn to Wang’s Commentary On The Book of Changes itself. Here again we see the ‘one’: ‘Only because there is ultimate principle in the world is it possible to employ strength and uprightness completely and to drive far away those who ingratiate by flattery.... If we understand the activities of things, we shall know all the principles which make them what they are’ [On hexagram one ‘Heaven’].

“Very empirical Fred, if you ask me. Study the activities of things to determine their principles. This is consistent with a materialist worldview.”

“And this next passage shows how his views apply to society and politics: ‘If one is agreeable but does not follow indiscriminately and is joyful without deviating from the Mean, one will be able to associate with superiors without flattery and with subordinates without disrespect. As he understands the causes of fortune and misfortune, he will not speak carelessly, and as he understands the necessary principles, he will not change good conduct.’ [On hexagram sixteen ‘Happiness’] "

“A science of society is possible based on his views.”

“And no simple minded one either Karl. Listen to this: ‘[A superior man sees] similarity in general principles but diversity in function and facts.’ [On hexagram thirty eight ‘To part’] "

“To see the one in the many and vice versa is almost the definition of philosophy. Remember the Prime Directive? "

“How could I forget it?” [Use science and logic NOT emotion and religious dogma-- see Dialogue #1: Confucius].

“And the Second Directive?”

“Don’t discuss things with people who reject the Prime Directive.”

“Well, I think we get another directive about philosophy here-- based on Wang Bi. Here is Schopenhauer’s version: ‘Knowledge of the identical in different phenomena, and of difference in similar phenomena is, as Plato so often remarks, a sine qua non of philosophy.’ [The World as Will and Idea: 2nd bk, 1st aspect, sec. 22] What Plato says is, ‘’those who are able to grasp what is always the same in all respects are philosophers, while those who are not able to do so and who wander among the many things that vary in every sort of way are not philosophers...’ [Republic 484b].

“You certainly get a lot out of one sentence from Wang! Chan’s comment is: ‘Note the contrast between principle and facts. Later, in Chinese Buddhism, the realm of principles and the realm of facts constitute the two realms of existence. They are, however, not to be sharply contrasted, for they involve each other and are ultimately identical. This one-is-all and all-is-one philosophy is a common heritage of all Chinese philosophical systems-- Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist.’”

“The more we discuss Chinese philosophy, the more parallels I see to certain Western trends Fred.”

“Here is his commentary on hexagram twenty four ‘To return’: ‘Whenever speech ceases, there is silence, but silence is not opposed to speech. Thus although Heaven and Earth are vast, possessing the myriad things in abundance, where thunder moves and winds circulate, and while there is an infinite variety of changes and transformations, yet its original [substance] is absolutely quiet and perfect non-being. Therefore only with the cessation of activities within Earth can the mind of Heaven and Earth be revealed.’”

“Let me read to you what Fung says about this passage. ‘When Wang speaks of the ‘myriad things’ of Heaven and Earth and the ‘myriad transformations’ resulting from their operations, what he means is all being and all transformations, that is all phenomenal activity. But the cause of all transformations or activity must itself be unchanging and quiescent.... It cannot itself be being, for if it were, it would simply be one among all the many other kinds, and as such it could not be the origin of ‘all’ being. ‘ [HCP:2, p.181] Thus Wang maintains that non-being (wu) is the basis of being. I don’t think we just equate non-being with ‘nothingness’ either. And, so we don’t anthropomorphize, let us remember that the ‘mind of Heaven and Earth’ is just the set of natural principles or operant laws of physics, etc. It would be like saying if you understand general relativity you understand the mind of Heaven.”

“We will trudge along to find out because Wang Bi’s views are going to be developed by succeeding generations. Here is Chan’s remark on this passage: ‘Wang Bi is characteristically Daoistic in saying that only in a state of tranquility can the mind of Heaven and Earth be seen.... [Neo-Confucianists] maintained that the Mind of Heaven and Earth is to be seen in a state of activity instead of tranquility"

“Fred, that passage from Wang on wu is also commented upon by Fung. He says, ‘Wu or “non-being” is, in Wang’s philosophy, equivalent to the “super-ultimate” or “Supreme Ultimate” (Taiji) of the Book of Changes, or to the Dao of the Laozi. Its functioning, however, can only be made manifest on the form of being (you).’” [HCP:2, p.183]

“Time for our last selection--Commentary on the Laozi.”

“Bring it on.”

“Chan lets us know that Wang Bi was really interested in metaphysics. He considers ultimate reality to be ‘original non-being’ or ben-wu. It’s not ‘nothing’ but rather the original substance, ben-ti, that is the basis of all existing things. He develops this idea in the Laozi commentary. Chan says, ‘Where Laozi had destiny (ming, fate), Wang Bi would substitute principle, thus anticipating the Neo-Confucianists, who preferred to speak of the Principle of Nature (Tien-Ming).’”

“Are you ready to read Wang’s text?”

“Yes I am. Wang says, ‘All being originated from non-being... After forms and names appear, Dao (the Way) develops them... becomes their Mother. This means that Dao produces and completes things with the formless and nameless. Thus they are produced and completed but do not know why. Indeed it is the mystery of mysteries.’ [ch 1].”

“What else?”

“He continues, ‘Man does not oppose Earth and therefore can comfort all things, for his standard is the Earth. Earth does not oppose Heaven and therefore can sustain all things, for its standard is Heaven. Heaven does not oppose Dao and therefore can cover all things, for its standard is Dao. Dao does not oppose Nature and therefore it attains its character of being.’ [ch. 25]. He tells us ‘By Nature is meant something that cannot be labeled and something ultimate’ [Ibid.].”

“This seems to give a materialist basis to his metaphysics. What would knowledge of ‘Nature’ lead to?”

“He says, ‘The sage understands Nature perfectly and knows clearly the conditions of all things. Therefore he goes along with them but takes no unnatural action. He is in harmony with them but does not impose anything on them. He removes their delusions and eliminates their doubts. Hence the people’s minds are not confused and things are contented with their own nature.’ [ch. 29] And also, ‘How is virtue to be attained? It is to be attained through Dao. How is virtue to be completely fulfilled. It is through non-being as its function. As non-being is its function, all things will be embraced. Therefore in regard to things, if they are understood as non-being all things will be in order, whereas if they are understood as being, it is impossible to avoid the fact that they are products (phenomena). Although Heaven and Earth are extensive, non-being is the mind, and although sages and kings are great, vacuity (xu) is their foundation. Therefore it is said that by returning and seeing [absolute quiet and perfect non-being], the mind of Heaven and Earth will be revealed.’ [ch. 38].”

“This reminds me of Buddhist notions.”

“Some Buddhist notions in China may actually come from Wang Bi! Remember, all the things that exist (‘the myriad things’) have their own unique being-- their own substance and function. Chan comments, ‘This is the first time in the history of Chinese thought that substance (ti) and function(yong) are mentioned together.... The concepts of substance and function definitely originated with Wang Bi. They were to become key concepts in Chinese Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism.’”

“I see that Chinese Buddhism and Daoism are mixed up together, but who is influencing whom?”

“It was probably a two way street Karl. Here is how Wang Bi relates existing things to his ultimate substance. ‘The ten thousand things have ten thousand different forms but in the final analysis they are one. How did they become one? Because of non-being.... Therefore in the production of the myriad things, I know its master.’ [ch. 47].”

“So much for Wang Bi. How about He Yan? He was also an important contributor to this school.”

“Yes. He, born 195 AD, also died in 249 AD, the same year as Wang Bi. Like Wang, although a Daoist, he considered Confucius to be the ‘Sage.’ That is to say, in things social and political-- in practice-- he followed Confucius, but he nevertheless turned to Laozi in things metaphysical, an area that Confucius was not particularly interested in. We can see Wang’s influence in the following quote from He’s Treatise on Dao: ‘Being, in coming into being, is produced by non-being. Affairs, as affairs, are brought into completion by non-being. When one talks about it and it has no predicates, when one names it and it has no name, when one looks at it and it has no form, and when one listens to it and it has no sound-- that is Dao in its completeness. Hence it is able to make sounds and echoes brilliant, to cause material force (qi) and material objects to stand out, to embrace all physical forms and spiritual activity, and to display light and shadow.’”

“Does Chan say anything about this?”

“He has the following comment: ‘It is characteristic of both the Light Conversation movement and the Metaphysical School to reject all words and forms as descriptions of the ultimate reality. These may be used, then forgotten, as the fish trap is forgotten once the fish is caught. The whole spirit is to get at the ultimate totality, which is not to be limited even by a name.’”

“That fish analogy is similar to one used by Wittgenstein (1889-1951), another ‘mystic.’ Just as our Daoist friends keep saying that ‘Dao’ is unnamable and we can’t really grasp it, Wittgenstein ends his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by saying, ‘My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them-- as steps-- to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)’”

“Very apt Karl.”

“And mystics are not the only ones to think this way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen to Sextus Empiricus (c.160-c.210 ) the Greek Skeptic, explaining how it’s possible to ‘know’ that you can't ‘know’--i.e., that you can use logic against logic! He says, ‘just as it is not impossible for someone, after climbing up a ladder to a higher place, to knock down the ladder with his foot after he gets up there, so too it is not unreasonable for the skeptic, after arriving at the establishment of his point by using the argument which demonstrates that there is no demonstration as a kind of step-stool, thereupon to destroy this argument itself.’”

“So Daoists are not the only ones with these problems of trying to explain what seems at first glance unexplainable. Now listen to this from He’s Treatise On The Nameless: ‘Now Dao never possesses anything. But since the beginning of the universe it has possessed all things and yet it is still called Dao because it can exercise its ability not to possess them. Therefore although it dwells in the realm of the namable, it shows no sign of the nameless.’”

“Hmmmm. I’m not ready to throw away the ladder.”

“Maybe this will help. He continues: ‘Essentially speaking, Dao has no name. This is why Laozi said that he was “forced to give it a name.” Confucius praised (sage emperor) Yao, saying, “The people could find no name for him,” but continued to say, “How majestic” was “his accomplishment!” It is clear that to give a name perforce is merely to give an appellation on the basis of only what people know. If one already has a name, how can it be said that people could find no name for him? It is only because he has no name that all possible names in the world can be used to call him. But are these really his names? If from this analogy one still does not understand, it would be like looking at the loftiness and eminence of Mount Tai and yet saying that the original material force [which makes the productions of things possible] is not overwhelming or extensive.’”

“Now I see, Fred. The names and descriptions we give to reality in order to try and understand it are ‘only what people know.’ Reality, the Dao, is much more extensive than what can be conceptualized by the human understanding. This is what Wittgenstein (1889-1951) meant. He says it even better, right after the passage I just quoted, when he writes ‘He must transcend the propositions [Wittgenstein’s philosophical claims] and then he will see the world aright.’ Somehow or other, I think Ho Yen and Wittgenstein are are on the same wavelength.”

“Be that as it may Karl, we must now turn to our title Neo-Daoist. His name was Guo Xiang [Kuo Hsiang] and he expressed his views in his Commentary on the Zhuangzi. To prepare you for what is to come, let me read what Chan says is the great difference between Guo and Wang; ‘Just as Wang Bi went beyond Laozi, so Guo Xiang went beyond Zhuangzi. The major concept is no longer Dao, as in Zhuangzi  but Nature (Ziran). Things exist and transform themselves spontaneously and there is no other reality or agent to cause them. Heaven is not something behind this process of Nature but is merely its general name. Things exist and transform according to principle, but each and every thing has its own principle. Everything is therefore self-sufficient and there is no need of an over-all original reality to combine or govern them, as in the case of Wang Bi. In other words, while Wang Bi emphasizes non-being, Guo emphasizes being. To Wang Bi, principle transcends things, but to Kuo it is immanent in them.’ And Chan also notes, ‘In their philosophy of life, Guo Xiang differed greatly from Wang Bi in one respect. Guo was a fatalist while Wang was not. Since according to guo everything has its own nature and ultimate principle, everything is determined and correct. Therefore he taught contentment in whatever situation one may find himself. Neither free will nor choice has meaning in his system.’”

“Guo sounds like a radical pluralist. But I think modern science points towards an original unity with everything in Nature evolving from the Big Bang. At any rate, let’s go over Guo Xiang’s Commentary.”

“First, let’s note that this is not just Guo’s Commentary. One of the Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove was a man named Xiang Xiu (c. 221-c. 300 AD) who wrote commentaries on the Zhuangzi . Guo’s commentary is either an edited version of Xiang’s or an expanded version. However, it is traditionally called Guo’s commentary!”

“Next!”

“There are thirty nine numbered paragraphs in Chan from this commentary , and I will begin with number three. ‘To be natural means not to take any unnatural action. This is the general idea of [what Zhuangzi means by] roaming leisurely or freedom. Everything has its own nature and each nature has its own ultimate.’”

“This clarifies a lot Fred, especially the Daoist confusion about doing ‘nothing’-- it means ‘nothing unnatural.’ Even more interesting is the definition of man via Aristotle (384-322 BC)— i.e., ‘rational animal’ and ‘political animal.’ One could argue that since that is the nature of humans, the Confucian approach is perfectly natural and there is no ultimate conflict with Daoism!”

“Let’s look at number four: ‘Being natural means to exist spontaneously without having to take any action. Therefore the fabulous peng bird can soar high and the quail can fly low, the cedrela [Chinese mahogany tree] can live for a long time and the mushroom for a short time.’”

“This confirms my view. Everything has its own nature and way of acting.”

“Listen to number five: ‘It is he who does no governing that can govern the empire. Therefore Yao governed by not governing. It was not because of his governing that his empire was governed. Now (the recluse) Xu You [who refused the empire] only realized that since the empire was well governed, he should not replace Yao. He thought it was Yao who did the actual governing. Consequently he said to Yao “You govern the empire.”’” Guo thinks Yao is a good example of governing by not governing.”

“This looks bad for my theory.”

“Just wait a minute. Xu You was a recluse, his example seems to have been sitting ‘in silence in the middle of some mountain forest’ and had the approval of Laozi and Zhuangzi. Kuo seems not to have approved of their ideas in this respect and thought one should remain ‘in the realm of action.’”

“My theory is back.”

“Pay attention now to the end of number five: ‘[R]esponsible officials insist on remaining in the realm of action without regret.... For egotistical people set themselves up against things, whereas he who is in accord with things is not opposed to them.... Therefore he profoundly and deeply responds to things without any deliberate mind of his own and follows whatever comes into contact with him. He is like an untied boat drifting, claiming neither the east not the west to be its own. He who is always with the people no matter what he does is the ruler of the world wherever he may be.’”

“Oh no, Fred, that’s no good either. A drifting untied boat is a poor representation of the Ship of State. A good ruler should guide the state by certain plans and principles and not just drift along. Also, ‘being with the people’ must be interpreted as being ‘for the people’ if it is to make any sense. The ‘people’ can be wrong headed sometimes and a good ruler has to know how to counter that. I know that Chan and Fung, among others, say the Neo-Daoists rated Confucius higher that Lao or Zhuang when it came to practical actions, but obviously they did not really understand Confucianism if they thought analogies such as the ‘drifting boat’ were compatible with it.”

“Well in number six he says, ‘When everything attains its reality, why should it take any action? Everything will be contented and at ease. Therefore, although Yao and Xu You and Heaven and Earth are different, their freedom is the same.’”

“Yes, I understand this determinist outlook. Nevertheless, the freedom of Yao and of Heaven and Earth differs in one essential respect which is that Yao is conscious of his freedom and also self-conscious.”

“In number eight Guo says, ‘The mind of the sage penetrates to the utmost the perfect union of yin and yang and understands most clearly the wonderful principles of the myriad things. Therefore he can identify himself with changes and harmonize with transformations, and finds everything all right wherever he may go. He embraces all things and thus nothing is not in its natural state. The world asks him [to rule] because of disorder. He has no deliberate mind of his own.’”

“I take this to mean that the sage doesn’t use his leadership position for personal emolument, but because he knows ‘the wonderful principles of the myriad things’ he rules according to the true requirements of every situation and always in the interests of the ruled. He is a philosopher king.”

“In number eleven he reinforces this objective outlook: ‘Everything is what it is by nature, not through taking any action. Therefore [Zhuangzi] speaks in terms of Nature.... Nature does not set its mind for or against anything. Who is the master to make things obey? Therefore all things exist by themselves and come from nature. This is the Way of Heaven.’”

“The subjective interests of the sage must not try to force themselves on to reality.”

“What you just said Karl about the sage and leadership is borne out by the following: ‘If people with the capacity of attendants are not contented with the responsibilities of attendants, it will be a mistake. Therefore we know that whether one is a ruler or a minister, a superior or an inferior, and whether it is the hand or the foot, the inside or the outside, it is naturally so according to the Principle of Nature.’ And also, by number 14: ‘”This” and “that” oppose each other but the sage is in accord with both of them. Therefore he who has no deliberate mind of his own is silently harmonized with things and is never opposed to the world.’”

“It's all very Stoic Fred.”

“I’ll say. How about this from number 15: ‘When their physical forms are compared, Mount Tai is larger than an autumn hair. But if everything is in accord with its nature and function, and is silently in harmony with its ultimate capacity, then a large physical form is not excessive and a small one is not inadequate.... As there is nothing small or large, and nothing enjoys longevity or suffers brevity of life [since all natures are equal], therefore the chrysalis does not admire the cedrela but is happy and contented with itself, and the quail does not value the Celestial Lake [destination of the peng bird]  and its desire for glory is thus satisfied.’”

“Some might say this type of worldview leads to quietism, but I’m not so sure. I will say it’s more passive than a Confucian would be comfortable with.”

“Here is number 18, an example of the Sage vs. hoi polloi: ‘The ordinary people will consider it lack of simplicity to harmonize all the changes throughout ten thousand years. With a tired body and a frightened mind, they toil to avoid this and to take that. The sage alone has no prejudice. He therefore proceeds with utter simplicity and becomes one with transformation and always roams in the realm of unity. Therefore, although the irregularities and confusions over millions of years result in a great variety and infinite multiplicity, as “Dao operates and given results follow,” the results of the past and the present are one.’”

“And we should note that hoi polloi still exist, even as in Guo’s day, although in some societies universal educational opportunities have brought about qualitative differences in hoi polloi. The Confucian ‘Utopian’ ideal, as the Marxist, is that some day all humans will be sages.”

“And now for some metaphysics. Listen to this from number 19: ‘If we insist on the conditions under which things develop and search for the cause thereof, such search and insistence will never end, until we come to something that is unconditioned, and then the principles of self-transformation will become clear.... ‘”

“A monistic view, Fred. Modern science, at least speculative forms of it, has this view too. The search for the so-called unified field theory-- the one big equation that unifies quantum mechanics and general relativity would, hopefully, bring it about that the ‘principles of self-transformation will become clear.’”

“This same paragraph, Karl, also rules out the existence of a religious, in the Western sense, explanation for the universe. Guo says, “There are people who say that shade is conditioned by the shadow, the shadow by the body, and the body by the Creator. But let us ask whether there is a Creator or not. If not, how can he create things? If there is, he is incapable of materializing all the forms. Therefore before we can talk about creation, we must understand the fact that all forms materialize by themselves. If we go through the entire realm of existence, we shall see that there is nothing, not even the shade, that does not transform itself behind the phenomenal world. Hence everything creates itself without the direction of any Creator. Since things create themselves, they are unconditioned. This is the norm of the universe.’” And Chan remarks, ‘The denial of a Creator is complete. Whereas Zhuangzi raised the question whether there is a Creator or not, Guo Xiang unreservedly denied its existence. Given the theory that all things come into existence by themselves and that their transformation is also their own doing, this is the inevitable outcome. Thus Daoist naturalism is pushed to its ultimate conclusion.’”

“Yes, but we must not forget that, ‘Dao operates and given results follow.’ Fung is useful at this point as he says, concerning this passage [HCP:2, p. 210], ‘The statement: “Everything produces itself and does not depend on anything else,” means merely that we cannot designate any particular thing as the cause of any other particular thing. It does not at all mean that there are no relationships between one thing and another.’ In fact he maintains that this view is compatible with Marxism! He says [Ibid., p. 112], ‘This point of view is very similar to the materialistic concept of history. The Russian Revolution, for example, was, according to this concept, the inevitable result of the total objective environment of its time; it was not caused by Lenin or any other particular individual. The statement quoted earlier, that things, “though mutually opposed, at the same time are mutually indispensable,” may also be interpreted as an illustration of Hegelian dialectic....’ So we must not think that there is no underlying unity to reality. That there is no Creator is, I take it, put forth to ward off the type of superstitious religious explanations for things that Mozi tried to use to bolster his system.”

“In number 20 Guo says, ‘When a person loves fame and is fond of supremacy and is not satisfied even when he has broken his back in the attempt, it is due to the fact that human knowledge knows no limit. Therefore what is called knowledge is born of losing sight of what is proper and will be eliminated when one is in silent harmony with his ultimate capacity. Being silently in harmony with one’s ultimate capacity means allowing one’s lot to reach its highest degree, and [in the case of lifting weights] not adding so much as an ounce. Therefore though a person carries ten thousand pounds, if it is equal to his capacity he will suddenly forget the weight upon his body.’”

“This isn’t just Daoist either. I think almost any philosopher would hold a similar outlook. It amounts to ‘nothing in excess’ and would be applauded by Plato as support for his views in the Republic on education and finding the employment best suited for each citizen.”

“In number 21 he maintains, ‘ Where does gain or loss, life or death, come in? Therefore, if one lets what he has received from Nature take its own course, there will be no place for joy or sorrow.’”

“This is a little more than human! The sage qua sage may understand this, but it is difficult to believe that qua human it would be possible to be completely exempt from all feelings of joy and sorrow. After all, Zhuangzi , when his wife died, felt sorrow and his drum beating only meant that he did not give in to despair. And Confucius , the sage par excellence, mourned for Yan Hui.”

“I think the following, number 24, could be used to justify the extension of public education. Any Confucian would be able to subscribe to it. ‘When a thousand people gather together without a person as their leader, they will either be disorderly or disorganized. Therefore when there are many virtuous people, there should not be many rulers, but when there is no virtuous person, there should be a ruler.’”

“I agree Fred. Education leads to virtue, therefore the more educated people are the less a “leader” is needed-- i.e., a Hobbesian absolutist type leader.”

“In number 25 he says, ‘Things happen by necessity, and principle, of course, prevails at all times. Therefore if we leave things alone, they will accomplish their purpose.’”

“A scientific outlook if our goal is to understand the world. We get in trouble when we try to change it. The problem is it just cries out to be changed! At least humans think so. How can we leave things alone since it appears to be our principle to change things?”

“Perhaps we have to think of the problems that cry out for change doing so as a result of a previous disruption of principle. Reforms, even revolutions, are only attempts to reestablish principle at least in the social world.”

“A worthy thought, Fred.” 

“Do you find any problem with the following? It is number 28. ‘The principles of things are from the very start correct. None can escape from them. Therefore a person is never born by mistake, and what he is born with is never an error. Although heaven and earth are vast and the myriad things are many, the fact that I happen to be here is not something that spiritual beings of heaven and earth, sages and worthies of the land, and people of extreme strength or perfect knowledge can violate.... Therefore if we realize that our nature and destiny are what they should be, we will have no anxiety and will be at ease with ourselves in the face of life or death, prominence or obscurity, or an infinite amount of changes and variations, and will be in accord with principle.’”

“Well, let’s think of a person born with a birth ‘defect’-- no arms, or only a brain stem, or something like that. Would Guo really want to say ‘what he is born with is never an error,’ that principles ‘are from the very start correct?’”

“I guess not Karl. Maybe Guo didn’t think this through?”

“And maybe he did!”

"What do you mean?”

“I mean, using modern examples, think of the laws of genetics and heredity. These are principles of the transmission of inherited characteristics and also of the effects of outside influences on the genetic composition of DNA-- say exposure to radiation or certain chemicals. It is not by a ‘mistake’ that deformed or ‘defective’ animals are born. They are ‘defective’ only in relation to our expectations and social constructions of ‘perfection.’ In reality, the li, the principles, are always correct. A certain combination of genes, or exposure to chemicals, etc., will result in, for example, only a brain stem. That is just as much a regular feature of development as the frequency of having blue eyes. This is why, with respect to the li, Kuo says, ‘None can escape from them.’ It is not an error that a birth defect occurs! If we don’t want them we had better understand the li involved and clean up the environment and/or the gene pool.”

“It seems like this requires too much action on the part of a Daoist. What happened to the drifting boat?”

“Well, what if while you are drifting along you see rapids and a water fall coming into view? Li will take you right over Niagara. I think even Guo would start to row his boat. That too ‘will be in accord with principle.’”

“And Chan’s comment is: ‘Determinism and fatalism are here explained in terms of principle and correctness. Fate is not something merely beyond human control or understanding; it is necessary truth. Nowhere else in Chinese thought is it asserted so strongly.’”

“Fate and determinism are always difficult concepts to reconcile with our ideas of choice and freedom. Life and death may be ‘determined,’ but you still don’t let your children play in traffic.”

“This is from number 29. ‘To cry as people cry is a manifestation of the mundane world. To identify life and death, forget joy and sorrow, and be able to sing in the presence of the corpse is the perfection of the transcendental world.... Therefore principle has its ultimate, and the transcendental and the mundane world are in silent harmony with each other. There has never been a person who has roamed over the transcendental world to the utmost and yet was not silently in harmony with the mundane world, nor has there been anyone who was silently in harmony with the mundane world and yet did not roam over the transcendental world. Therefore the sage always roams in the transcendental world in order to enlarge the mundane world.’”

“This only makes sense, Fred, if we think of the ‘transcendental world’ not in some mystic sense as ‘another world’ but rather as the world of li. Take Einstein as an example. The mundane world is the world we all share in common-- work, social relations, politics, etc. But the ‘transcendental world’ is the world revealed by physics and mathematics-- what is ‘really’ going on behind the scenes: E=mc2 and all that. So there is nothing supernatural about it.”

“Chan has a comment on this passage.”

“Let’s hear it”

“OK: ‘As pointed out before, neither Wang Bi nor Guo Xiang considered Laozi a sage. Instead, their sage was Confucius. This is amazing, but the reason is really not far to seek. For to Guo Xiang, especially, the ideal person is a sage who is “sagely within and kingly without” and who travels in both the transcendental and mundane worlds. According to the Neo-Daoists, Laozi and Zhuangzi traveled only in the transcendental world and were thereby one-sided, whereas Confucius was truly sagely within and kingly without.’”

“Interesting, but I don’t think it entirely true, at least with regard to Zhuangzi. I think he too traveled in the mundane world, he just didn’t focus on it-- it wasn’t his ultimate concern. As for Confucius, well he didn’t pay that much attention to the transcendental world ( the metaphysical aspects of li). He had little interest in metaphysical speculation (science) as his concerns were primarily practical. So I think for the Neo-Daoists, whatever their considerable virtues may have been, accurate historical understanding of their predecessors may not have been one of them.”

“Here is some political philosophy from number 34. ‘If the ruler does the work of his ministers, he will no longer be the ruler, and if the ministers control the ruler’s employment, they will no longer be ministers. Therefore when each attends to his own responsibility, both ruler and the ruled will be contented and the principle of taking no action is attained. We must not fail to discern the term “taking no action.” In ruling an empire, there is the activity of ruling. It is called “taking no action” because the activity is spontaneous and follows the nature of things. And those who serve the empire also do so spontaneously. In the case of ministers managing affairs, even Shun and Yu, as ministers, would still be regarded as taking action. Therefore when the superior and inferior are contrasted, the ruler is tranquil and the minister is active.... But in each case they allowed their nature to work and their destiny to unfold itself in its wonderful way. Thus neither the superior not the inferior, neither antiquity nor the later period takes any action. Who then will?’”

“We must always remember to keep in mind that ‘taking no action’ means ‘no unnatural action.’”

“And number 35. ‘The past is not in the present and every present event is soon changed. Therefore only when one abandons the pursuit of knowledge and lets Nature take its own course, and changes with the times, can one be perfect.’”

“Well, Fred, we just have to disagree here. The li are always operative and the effects of the past are in the present. Who could deny that the past of China-- its feudalism, its victimization by the West in the last couple of centuries, its invasion by Japan in World War II, is responsible for and still influences the Communist Revolution and the present day actions of the Chinese government? Kuo is just off base on this. The past is transmitted in a myriad of ways not just in writings, and the answer to the question ‘can the past exist in the present’ is yes. As for abandoning the pursuit of knowledge, Guo’s own model for the Sage, Confucius, is remembered for saying, ‘Is it not a pleasure to learn and to repeat or practice from time to time what has been learned.” It is the first sentence of the Analects!”

“Finally, number 39. ‘Not only is it impossible for non-being to be changed into being. It is also impossible for being to become non-being. Therefore, although being as a substance undergoes infinite changes and transformations, it cannot in any instance become non-being....’”

“This must refer to ordinary ‘non-being’-- i.e, ‘from nothing, nothing comes’-- but not to ‘original non-being’ as the major Thesis of Neo-Daoism is that everything comes from original non-being-- i.e., pen-wu ‘pure being’.”

“Well, that about wraps up Guo Xiang, what should we do next?”

“Well, Buddhism was coming to China just after the development of Neo-Daoism, and I think we should discuss one of the most important early Chinese Buddhists-- namely, Jizang (Chi-tsang).”

“So, Buddhism from a Marxist point of view as well, Chinese Buddhism, ok, Jizang next.”

To read the Confucius Dialogue click here.
To read the Mencius Dialogue click here.
To read the Xunzi Dialogue click here. 
​To read the Mozi Dialogue click here.
To read the Laozi Dialogue click here.
To read the Zhuangzi Dialogue click here.
To read the Gongsun Dialogue click here.
To read the Great Learning Dialogue click here.
To read the Doctrine of The Mean Dialogue click here. 
To read the Book of Changes Dialogue click here.
To read the Dong Zhongshu Dialogue click here.
To read the Wang Chong Dialogue click here.
To read the Philosophy of Liezi Dialogue click here.

​As a tsunami of crocodile tears engulfs Western politicians, history is suppressed. More than a generation ago, Afghanistan won its freedom, which the United States, Britain and their “allies” destroyed.

In 1978, a liberation movement led by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) overthrew the dictatorship of Mohammad Daoud, the cousin of King Zahir Shar. It was an immensely popular revolution that took the British and Americans by surprise.

Foreign journalists in Kabul, reported the New York Times, were surprised to find that “nearly every Afghan they interviewed said [they were] delighted with the coup.” The Wall Street Journal reported that “150,000 persons… marched to honor the new flag… the participants appeared genuinely enthusiastic.”

The Washington Post reported that “Afghan loyalty to the government can scarcely be questioned.” Secular, modernist and, to a considerable degree, socialist, the government declared a program of visionary reforms that included equal rights for women and minorities. Political prisoners were freed and police files publicly burned.

Under the monarchy, life expectancy was 35; one in three children died in infancy. Ninety percent of the population was illiterate. The new government introduced free medical care. A mass literacy campaign was launched.

For women, the gains had no precedent; by the late 1980s, half the university students were women, and women made up 40 percent of Afghanistan’s doctors, 70 percent of its teachers and 30 percent of its civil servants.

So radical were the changes that they remain vivid in the memories of those who benefited. Saira Noorani, a female surgeon who fled Afghanistan in 2001, recalled:
“Every girl could go to high school and university. We could go where we wanted and wear what we liked… We used to go to cafes and the cinema to see the latest Indian films on a Friday… it all started to go wrong when the mujahedin started winning… these were the people the West supported.”
For the United States, the problem with the PDPA government was that it was supported by the Soviet Union. Yet it was never the “puppet” derided in the West, neither was the coup against the monarchy “Soviet backed,” as the American and British press claimed at the time.

President Jimmy Carter’s secretary of state, Cyrus Vance, later wrote in his memoirs: “We had no evidence of any Soviet complicity in the coup.”

In the same administration was Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security adviser, a Polish émigré and fanatical anti-communist and moral extremist whose enduring influence on American presidents expired only with his death in 2017.

On July 3, 1979, unknown to the American people and Congress, Carter authorized a $500 million “covert action” program to overthrow Afghanistan’s first secular, progressive government. This was code-named by the CIA Operation Cyclone.

The $500 million bought, bribed and armed a group of tribal and religious zealots known as the mujahedin. In his semi-official history, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward wrote that the CIA spent $70 million on bribes alone. He describes a meeting between a CIA agent known as “Gary” and a warlord called Amniat-Melli:
“Gary placed a bundle of cash on the table: $500,000 in one-foot stacks of $100 bills. He believed it would be more impressive than the usual $200,000, the best way to say we’re here, we’re serious, here’s money, we know you need it… Gary would soon ask CIA headquarters for and receive $10 million in cash.”
Recruited from all over the Muslim world, America’s secret army was trained in camps in Pakistan run by Pakistani intelligence, the CIA and Britain’s MI6. Others were recruited at an Islamic college in Brooklyn, New York—within sight of the doomed Twin Towers. One of the recruits was a Saudi engineer called Osama bin Laden.

The aim was to spread Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia and destabilize and eventually destroy the Soviet Union.

In August 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul reported that “the United States’ larger interests… would be served by the demise of the PDPA government, despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reforms in Afghanistan.”

Read again the words above I have italicized. It is not often that such cynical intent is spelled out as clearly. The United States was saying that a genuinely progressive Afghan government and the rights of Afghan women could go to hell.

Six months later, the Soviets made their fatal move into Afghanistan in response to the American-created jihadist threat on their doorstep. Armed with CIA-supplied Stinger missiles and celebrated as “freedom fighters” by Margaret Thatcher, the mujahedin eventually drove the Red Army out of Afghanistan.

Calling themselves the Northern Alliance, the mujahedin were dominated by warlords who controlled the heroin trade and terrorized rural women. The Taliban were an ultra-puritanical faction, whose mullahs wore black and punished banditry, rape and murder but banished women from public life.

In the 1980s, I made contact with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, known as RAWA, which had tried to alert the world to the suffering of Afghan women. During the Taliban time they concealed cameras beneath their burqas to film evidence of atrocities, and did the same to expose the brutality of the Western-backed mujahedin. “Marina” of RAWA told me, “We took the videotape to all the main media groups, but they didn’t want to know. …”

In 1996, the enlightened PDPA government was overrun. The president, Mohammad Najibullah, had gone to the United Nations to appeal for help. On his return, he was hanged from a streetlight.

“I confess that [countries] are pieces on a chessboard,” said Lord Curzon in 1898, “upon which is being played out a great game for the domination of the world.”

The viceroy of India was referring in particular to Afghanistan. A century later, Prime Minister Tony Blair used slightly different words.

“This is a moment to seize,” he said following 9/11. “The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us reorder this world around us.”

On Afghanistan, he added this: “We will not walk away [but ensure] some way out of the poverty that is your miserable existence.”

Blair echoed his mentor, President George W. Bush, who spoke to the victims of his bombs from the Oval Office: “The oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America. … As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering…”

Almost every word was false. Their declarations of concern were cruel illusions for an imperial savagery “we” in the West rarely recognize as such.

In 2001, Afghanistan was stricken and depended on emergency relief convoys from Pakistan. As the journalist Jonathan Steele reported, the invasion indirectly caused the deaths of some 20,000 people as supplies to drought victims stopped and people fled their homes.

Eighteen months later, I found unexploded American cluster bombs in the rubble of Kabul which were often mistaken for yellow relief packages dropped from the air. They blew the limbs off foraging, hungry children.

In the village of Bibi Maru, I watched a woman called Orifa kneel at the graves of her husband, Gul Ahmed, a carpet weaver, and seven other members of her family, including six children, and two children who were killed next door.

An American F-16 aircraft had come out of a clear blue sky and dropped an Mk 82 500-pound bomb on Orifa’s mud, stone and straw house. Orifa was away at the time. When she returned, she gathered the body parts.

Months later, a group of Americans came from Kabul and gave her an envelope with 15 notes: a total of $15. “Two dollars for each of my family killed,” she said.

The invasion of Afghanistan was a fraud. In the wake of 9/11, the Taliban sought to distance themselves from Osama bin Laden. They were, in many respects, an American client with which the administration of Bill Clinton had done a series of secret deals to allow the building of a $3 billion natural gas pipeline by a U.S. oil company consortium.

In high secrecy, Taliban leaders had been invited to the United States and entertained by the CEO of the Unocal company in his Texas mansion and by the CIA at its headquarters in Virginia. One of the deal-makers was Dick Cheney, later George W. Bush’s vice president.

In 2010, I was in Washington and arranged to interview the mastermind of Afghanistan’s modern era of suffering, Zbigniew Brzezinski. I quoted to him his autobiography in which he admitted that his grand scheme for drawing the Soviets into Afghanistan had created “a few stirred-up Muslims.”

“Do you have any regrets?” I asked.

“Regrets! Regrets! What regrets?”

When we watch the current scenes of panic at Kabul’s main international airport, and listen to journalists and generals in distant TV studios bewailing the withdrawal of “our protection,” isn’t it time to heed the truth of the past so that all this suffering never happens again?

The US left wing paper People's World has published an opinion piece by a spokesperson for the prostitution lobby called Mr Wright, that bemoans the fact that Only Fans is being closed as a pornography channel.

In defense of the People's World, it does say that the article represents the opinion of the author not the paper, but it is a telling indictment of the general strength of liberal ideology in the USA that such an explicitly liberal article is published in what was once a communist paper.

In the course of the article Mr Wright takes exception to some things that I wrote in a blog article a few years ago. He writes:

​Just to be clear, the passage in my article that he appears to be referring to says:

What does he mean that I make "the very mistake of comparing labor from our hands and brains to the labor of our sex organs"?

Does he object in principle to comparing them? If so why?

He purports to believe that both hands and sex organs 'labor', so if he is consistent then he must believe that both the action of the sex organs and those of hands and brains are abstract labour and thus comparable in quantitative terms.

So is my mistake in what I say about what hands and sex organs produce?

Does he deny that human sex organs produce human beings?

Does he deny that the labour of hand and brain can produce physical vendible commodities?

Both propositions are so obviously true as to brook no contradiction.

What then is his objection?

He says sex organs are not always used for penetrative intercourse. Wanking is widespread and hands are not just used for making things. We fidget, gesticulate and run our fingers through our hair. But in considering the claim that 'sex work' exists the question of what sex produces and what hands produce must, in logic, be addressed. The frequent unproductive use of both classes of organs is irrelevant.

My statement that post slave economies treat humans and non-human things distinctly is a simple statement of fact. The buying and selling of human bodies as commodities was perfectly permissible in the USA before its great Civil War. Sex farms existed for the purpose of breeding slaves, just as cattle ranches existed to breed cattle.

Both calves and the slave children were things that could be sold. That was the legal superstructure of the slave mode of production. But bourgeois law, the legal superstructure of capitalism, forbids this. People can not legally be sold as commodities. People can own property but not be property.

According to the founder of historical materialism Adam Smith the difference between productive and unproductive activities is whether an activity fixes itself in a vendible commodity that persists beyond the instant of the action.​

On this account, the genital activity of breeding slaves was indeed commercially productive. It fixed itself in a vendible commodity - slave children. But the so-called 'sex work' that Mr Wright advocates clearly falls into the same category as the activity of what Smith calls menial servants. Its "services generally perish in the very instant of their performance, and seldom leave any trace of value behind them" since the whole aim of commercial prostitution is to separate genital activity from procreation.

The one exception to this, is the growing practice of commercial surrogate motherhood. This is a modern day version of what the slave breeding farms did. It effectively turns babies into commodities. Because this contradicts basic premises of bourgeois law, the transactions have either to be disguised as adoptions performed abroad, or done in secret. At this point it shades over into the people smuggling that feeds the brothels. The commercial purveying of sexual intercourse, the commercialisation of pregnancy, hidden bonded labour by gangmasters, all these are parts of an underground servile economy alongside the legal capitalist economy. To the extent that these practices are allowed to grow, are not suppressed by the state, servile social relations and the specific patriarchal ideologies associated with servile relations re-infiltrate civil society.

A central component of these patriarchal ideologies is the notion that men with money have the right to dominate the bodies of those below their social class, particularly women below their social class. Whether a monied heterosexual man hires sexual services2 by the hour, or a still more wealthy homosexual one hires motherhood by the 9 months, the motivating assumptions are the same: women's bodies are a thing to be used.

US capitalism has, for almost half a century, been moving from a productive economy to an unproductive one. As the concentration of wealth and income become more extreme, so the subordination of mass of the population grows albeit prettified by liberals like Wright under guise of 'agency'.

For liberals, the freedom of the wealthy to rent the bodies of the poor for sexual purposes can not be questioned. Wealthy men's right to dominate is sacred. The bottom line of pimping companies like Only Fans, must be defended.

The social democrat, let alone socialist response is quite different. Social democracy says - no, these men are sex criminals. Prosecute them. Name them and shame them. If the offence is repeated, imprison them. If a firm profits
from it, lock the directors up.

Socialists should be propagandising to work up anger at the corruptors and exploiters. They should be organising vigilante groups to photograph and shame the sleazy bastards.
​

Notes

1 - By manufacturer he means a worker in a branch of manufacture. Manufacture from the Latin to make using hands.
2 - Latin servus = slave.

Recently, People’s World published an article in which the author, Andrew Wright, criticizes OnlyFans, a popular pornography platform, for banning some forms of sexual content. Wright forgoes a Marxist position of the sex trade, and instead, espouses a neoliberal line on the topic, claiming “sex work is work,” in defence of preserving the industry. In Wright’s worldview, the ruling class is pitted against those dependent upon the sex trade for survival, viewing them as social pariahs rather than an asset for mass capital accumulation. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In this piece, I argue that the ruling class continues to profit off of a sex industry which needs to abolished and only uses regulation as an afterthought to cover their tracks.

The article begins by vagueley reporting on the recent developments of OnlyFans, an online platform where content creators sell private content, mostly pornography, to subscribers. In an update to the terms of service for content creators, OnlyFans officially banned some sexually explicit content on the platform in an attempt to shift the company’s brand to one similar to Patreon or other fan-based subscription services. While they are specifically banning image and video content which include masturbation, penetrative and oral sex, and prescence of bodily fluids, other forms of nudity and sexual content are still allowed. The reason for this, as cited by Wright, is “mounting pressure from banking partners.”​

While it is true that financial institutions are applying pressure, they and digital pimps such as OnlyFans, view the issue of hosting sexually explicit content as more of a financial or legal liability, rather than a moral one. Wright conveniently omits the reason why financial insitutions are hesitant to continue ties with sex trade startups, corporations, and monopolies, such as OnlyFans, PornHub, and it’s parent enterprise, MindGeek. These companies openly and commonly host sexually explicit content of minors, revenge porn, filmed rape, and other forms of real world sex trafficking. Further, it is still impossible to get age or consent verifications on the more “tame” media. Getting caught profiting off of more explicit sexual exploitation creates legal and investing difficulties for the growing company. Their inability, or more frankly, unwillingness, to regulate content is a testament to their business model: perpetuating harm in exchange for short-term profit. 

Fortunately, sustained pressure from organizers can sometimes force regulation. For example, in December of 2020, PornHub scrubbed all unverified content (millions of videos and 80% of PornHub’s total content) from the site only after lawsuits by dozens of victims, backed by campaigns such as #TraffickingHub, were filed. The ensuing bad publicity caused partnering companies Visa, Discover, and Mastercard to take cover and pull out. 

Wright poses this contradiction as one of conservative vs. liberal moralism rather than one of capital accumulation. For example, the idea that social stigma is the main perpetrator of harm against participants of the sex trade implies that moral repositioning of society will improve their conditions. In reality, Western society, specifically directed by men, increasingly encourages women towards sexual liberalism. Yet in the process, the social objectification of women, mass rape culture, and commodification of sex worsen. No matter what moral position they claim to take, it is understandably easier to ban sexual content completely as an appeal to future investors than it is for them to do the impossible task of regulating digital content for age and consent verification. ​

​OnlyFans accumulated over $2 billion dollars in sales in 2020 alone, raking in 20% of the income of all of their content creators---most of whom were women pushed into the sex trade during the global pandemic. Tim Stockely, son of a banker and owner of OnlyFans, stated that in May 2020, the site was onboarding 7,000-8,000 new content creators and 150,000 new users per day, expanding by 615% in one year. The company utilizes it’s top content creators to propagandize for the platform in the style of multi-level-marketing schemes, otherwise known as pyramid schemes. Those facing poverty are told that they can easily make a living by becoming a “sex worker”. For each new content creator onboarded, the referrer is awarded 5% of the new content creator’s revenue. Like in every pyramid scheme, only those at the apex are profitable. In a now over-saturated market of tens of thousands of women vying for survival, the average income of an OnlyFans content creator is only $180 per month.

“Sex work is work” is typically circulated as blind rhetoric in response to complicated contradictions and shared as a common sense truth among academic and reformist activist circles. It intentionally obscures the basis upon which the sex trade is perpetuated, primarily upon the backs of the most marginalized in society. As pointed out by revolutionary communist and sex trade survivor Esperanza Fonseca, ​

​As socialists, we must view socialism as the pathway to the abolition of all forms of exploitation. I encourage all those who care about the lives of those in the sex trade to abandon their liberalism and adopt the communist line against the institutions of capitalism and patriarchy, and against sex exploitation of all forms.

​The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey, has also been made into a major motion picture. I am only dealing with the book. It was written by Ernesto Guevara (he had not yet become "Che") from notes he made when he was 23 years old and traveling from Cordoba in Argentina to Caracas in Venezuela in late 1951 through the summer of 1952 with his friend Alberto Granado on the latter’s motorcycle La Poderosa II – which vehicle broke down and was discarded early in the trip (in the south of Chile) leaving both young men as vagabonds for the remainder of their journey.

 Not much has really changed since this trip, at least as far as the US relationship to the peoples of the region is concerned. In 2021 we see the Biden/Harris regime still trying to overthrow any and all progressive movements in Latin America (especially the one true democracy in the hemisphere, Cuba) and happily living with the fascist governments in Brazil  and Columbia.

In any case, the book is an enjoyable and brisk read. The adventures of the two young men, Guevara, a year away from graduating from medical school, and the slightly older Granado, a biochemist specializing in the study of leprosy, as they make their way up the Pacific coast through Chile to Peru and then inland to Cusco, the Amazon and on up to Bogota and finally Caracas by means of hitching rides, buses, steamships, a raft on the Amazon, and various other modes of transport, is an engaging tale.

But what makes it particularly interesting is the hints the book contains of the future "Che." It is this aspect on which I want to comment. The first seventy or so pages are devoted to describing the journey and the problems encountered along the way. But social commentary then begins. It first turns up when Guevara encounters a dying woman in Valparaiso in early March of 1952 – three months into the trip. The woman is poor and suffering from diseases she cannot afford to treat, and of course, she can no longer work.

In her plight, Guevara sees "the profound tragedy circumscribing the life of the proletariat the world over." This leads him to the following reflection, somewhat mild considering what will come later. "How long this present order, based on the absurd idea of caste, will last is not within my means to answer, but it’s time that those who govern spent less time publicizing their own virtues and more money, much more money, funding socially useful works."

The two leave Valparaiso for Antofagasta by sea as stowaways on the freighter San Antonio. A hint of the travels of the future Che may be read into Guevara’s musings during this trip: "There we understood that out vocation, our true vocation, was to move for eternity along the roads and seas of the world. Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes, sniffing out each corner but only ever faintly – not setting down roots in any land or staying long enough to see the substratum of things: the outer limits would suffice." I wonder if a clue to the tragedy of Quebrada del Yuro is here foreshadowed?

A few days after they arrive in Antofagasta they make it to the great copper mine of Chuquicamata. Here Guevara meets communist workers. At this time the Communist Party was illegal and repressed. Communists were imprisoned, denied the right to vote and many had just disappeared "and said to be somewhere at the bottom of the sea."

"It’s a great pity," Guevara writes with reference to a worker he had met, "that they repress people like this. Apart from whether collectivism, the ‘communist vermin,’ is a danger to decent life, the communism gnawing at his entrails was no more than a natural longing for something better, a protest against persistent hunger transformed into a love for this strange doctrine, whose essence he could never grasp but whose translation, "bread for the poor," was something he understood and, more importantly, that filled him with hope." Needless to say, workers at Chuquicamata were in a living Hell.

It is interesting to note that the 1952 Chilean Presidential elections were about to take place. One of the candidates was Salvadore Allende. The winner was Carlos Ibañez del Campo who was progressive and said he would legalize the Communist Party – which happened in 1958. "The biggest effort Chile should make," Guevara notes, "is to shake its uncomfortable Yankee friend from its back, a task that for the moment at least is Herculean, given the quantity of dollars the United States has invested here and the ease with which it flexes its economic muscle whenever its interests seem threatened."

I wonder if there may not be something subconsciously autobiographical in Guevara’s comments about the conquistador Valdivia. "Valdivia’s actions symbolize man’s indefatigable thirst to take control of a place where he can exercise total authority. That phrase, attributed to Caesar, proclaiming he would rather be first-in-command in some humble Alpine village than second-in-command in Rome, is repeated less pompously, but no less effectively, in the epic campaign that is the conquest of Chile." Caesar aut nihil.

From Chile the two friends head into Peru where they encounter the problems of the indigenous peoples. They soon make it to Bogota and find Colombia, then as now, the most repressive country of their tour. They finally end up in Caracas where they go their separate ways. Guevara flies to Miami for a few days and then flies back to Buenos Aires and returns to his family in Cordoba. He is almost, but not quite yet "Che" – but he does see the future. "I see myself," he notes on the last page of his diary, "immolated in the genuine revolution, the great equalizer of individual will, proclaiming the ultimate mea culpa."

The Motorcycle Diaries
By Ernesto Guevara
New York, Ocean Press, 2004.

​After the lightning collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government, the managers of the U.S. war machine and their cheerleaders in the corporate media have been scrambling to defend the image of their empire. The bulk of the corporate media and both Democratic and Republican politicians are condemning Biden’s handling of the withdrawal. Several Congressional investigations have already been announced. 

Critics of the withdrawal claim to be appalled at the shocking scenes at the Kabul airport and the repressive policies of the Taliban. They play the part of outraged defenders of democracy or women’s equality or human rights. But these same pundits and politicians expressed no such outrage over the course of the last 20 years when at least 71,000 Afghan civilians were killed in the war and more than 5 million Afghans became refugees. 

The real reason for all their criticism of Biden and his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan is because the withdrawal exposes that the U.S. empire has been defeated and a defeat makes the empire look weak. To appear weak is disastrous for an empire reliant upon the illusion of military invincibility. 

Of course, there never was and never could be any possibility of U.S. “victory” in Afghanistan because U.S. domination over the country was rejected by the vast majority of the Afghan people. The success of the Taliban was not necessarily a reflection of the popularity of their political program. Politically speaking the Taliban are a reactionary, theocratic movement born of the U.S.-organized insurgency against the socialist government of Afghanistan which came to power in 1978. 

There was no alternative to U.S. withdrawal other than an endless occupation. By condemning the decision to end the occupation, imperialist critics are effectively expressing their support for a war that would be literally never-ending, inflicting even more enormous suffering on the Afghan people. But for U.S. militarists, that would be an acceptable price to pay to protect the dominant status of U.S. imperialism on the world stage.

​The United States’ junior partners in imperialism are looking at the defeat in Afghanistan with alarm. Leader of the largest party in Germany and possible next German prime minister Armin Laschet noted that the defeat in Afghanistan is, “the biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding, and we’re standing before an epochal change.” German chancellor Angela Merkel commented that the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was made for American domestic political reasons, the implication being that U.S. junior partners were not consulted about the decision — something that has been widely reported in the press. 

Czech president Milos Zeman too has been vocal calling the legitimacy of NATO into question, and emphatically stated that the Czech Republic should focus on national defense and stop “wasting money” on the alliance. “The distrust towards NATO from a number of member countries will grow after this experience, because they will say – if you failed in Afghanistan, where is a guarantee that you won’t fail in any other critical situation?” Zeman said in an interview. 

Despite pledging to strengthen U.S. alliances, Biden seems to be following a similarly unilateral policy as Trump in Afghanistan, alienating allies of the empire.  

​Chinese state media is making the point that the fall of Kabul should be considered a warning to Taiwan, which the People’s Republic of China rightfully considers part of its national territory. In recent years the U.S. has stepped up arms sales to Taiwan, angering China. Several articles in the influential publication Global Times argued that developments in Afghanistan should serve as a warning to Taiwanese separatist forces. China is making the point that U.S. assurances of support to client governments like Taiwan’s are merely empty words — something that the U.S. State Department felt compelled to officially respond to in public.

China and Russia concluded major military exercises in China’s Xinjiang province last week, practicing a joint reaction in a scenario where the fighting in Afghanistan spills over into neighboring countries. Russia and China now appear to be more reliable guarantors of regional stability than the United States. Furthermore, the U.S. military defeat in Afghanistan is giving China confidence that it can defeat the U.S. military in the event of a showdown between the two countries.

In addition to holding military drills in central Asia with members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Russia is also boosting its ties with central Asian governments in the Collective Security Treaty Organization. As former soldiers of the Afghan proxy government flee to neighboring Uzbekistan, Russia is strengthening intelligence and military cooperation with its neighbors to the south and helping guard their borders with Afghanistan.

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan — presided over by a triumphant Taliban — is a clear acknowledgement of defeat for the U.S. empire. While the media is trying to dupe the people into thinking that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan was humanitarian, their rhetoric is completely hypocritical and disguises their true objection.