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Studies on specific biological aspects of this fully terrestrial salamander are lacking. It is likely that life-history characteristics are similar to those of the subspecies Salamadra atra atra, in which one embryo develops in each of the two uteri. Gestation takes 3 years at altitudes of 1,400 to 1,700 metres. Young are born fully metamorphosed and terrestrial; they are around 4 - 5 cm long. The golden alpine salamander lives for at least 10 years (1). | <urn:uuid:21a3937a-0cf2-4acb-8102-3f2aa96ac3a5> | {
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SAW BAND TEETH STRIPPING: (usually caused by chip welding)
Saw band pitch too coarse for thin work section.
Work not held firmly to stop vibration.
Feed pressure too high.
Band speed too low.
PREMATURE DULLING OF SAW BAND TEETH:
Not breaking in saw band on first few cuts. Reduce feed pressure and speed on first
(2) Band speed too high, causing abrasion. Reduce speed.
(3) Saw band pitch too coarse.
(4) Wrong type coolant or no coolant used.
(5) Feed pressure too light. Increase feed.
(6) Coolant not covering saw band.
(7) Cutting rate too high.
(8) Faulty material such as heavy scale, inclusions, hard spots, etc.
(9) Material analysis incorrect.
(10) Saw band vibration.
(11) Chipped tooth lodged in cut.
(12) Chip welding.
(13) Operator's error.
(14) Inserts too large for blade width, allowing inserts to hit set teeth.
MOTOR RUNS BUT BAND DOES NOT MOVE:
(1) Broken drive belts or belts off pulleys.
(2) Over-oiling of variable pulley, excess oil has coated pulley and belts.
(3) Drive belt tension too low.
(4) Wrong size drive belts.
(5) Band tension incorrect.
(6) Transmission bad.
BAND SLIPS OFF WHEELS:
Upper wheel not aligned correctly, band does not track on center of wheel tire.
Too much coolant used or wrong type coolant used, causing band to slip off wheel
(3) Initial machine alignment wrong. See Chapter 1. | <urn:uuid:7ac63d1a-b65c-4ff6-8b90-8e1c5223701d> | {
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Reincarnation: The Transmigration of a Jewish Idea
Though some Jewish thinkers vigorously rejected the notion of reincarnation, kabbalists embraced it enthusiastically.
The reincarnation of souls into other people or animals--known as gilgul hanefesh (lit. the rolling of the soul) in Hebrew--is an outgrowth of the idea of the soul's immortality. It has seized the imagination of many Jews and remains a popular literary subject. Numerous stories of demonic possession and exorcism by wonder rabbis are based on the idea of lonely souls, sinners in previous lives, entering into other bodies. Reprinted with permission from The Jewish Religion: A Companion, published by Oxford University Press.
Reincarnation is the idea that a soul now residing in a particular body may have resided in the body of another person in an earlier period of time. Theories of reincarnation or metempsychosis are found in many religions and cultures, ancient and modern, but there are no references to the idea in the Bible or the Talmud and it was unknown in Judaism until the eighth century CE, when it began to be adopted by the Karaites [a sectarian Jewish group] (possibly, it has been suggested, under the influence of Islamic mysticism).
The Philosophers Were Scornful
The usual Hebrew term for reincarnation is gilgul, "rolling," that is, the soul "rolls" through time from one body to a different body. The earliest [non-Karaite] reference to the doctrine is that of Saadiah [882-942] (Beliefs and Opinions, vi. 8). Saadiah writes:
"Yet I must say that I have found certain people, who call themselves Jews, professing the doctrine of metempsychosis, which is designated by them as the theory of the 'transmigration' of souls. What they mean thereby is that the spirit of Reuben is transferred to Simeon and afterwards to Levi and after that to Judah. [These names are generic, like Tom, Dick and Harry; no reference to the sons of Jacob is intended. Ed.] Many of them would even go so far as to assert that the spirit of a human being might enter into the body of a beast or that of a beast into the body of a human being, and other such nonsense and stupidities."
We learn incidentally from Saadiah's discussion that one of the reasons these people believed in reincarnation (this reason resurfaces in the Kabbalah) was because of the theological difficulties in God allowing little children to suffer. That they do, it was argued, is because of sins they had committed in a previous existence.
Among the other medieval thinkers, neither Judah Halevi [died 1141] nor Maimonides [1135-1204] makes any mention of the doctrine. Albo [15th century] (Ikkarim, vi. 20) refers to the doctrine only to refute it. He argues that the whole purpose for which the soul enters the body is to become a free agent, but once a soul has become a free agent why should it return to occupy another body? It is even more unlikely, says Albo, that human souls transmigrate into the bodies of animals.
Did you like this article? MyJewishLearning is a not-for-profit organization. | <urn:uuid:0bd87805-fe19-4211-b7dd-5ea4289c371d> | {
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Most of us probably hear the term ‘oral hygiene’ thrown around from time to time, but what does it really mean? Essentially, oral hygiene just means taking steps to keep your mouth clean, meanwhile preventing disease, cavities, bad breath, and other dental problems. It’s important to instill these traits in your children when they are young, and make sure you are being a good role model as well.
5 Things To Do If You Want Great Oral Hygiene
- Brush your tongue. Growing up we were always told to “brush our teeth,” but no one ever really mentions brushing your tongue. As we learn more about the bacteria that lives in our mouths, it becomes more and more evident that you should include brushing your tongue in your oral hygiene routine. Your tongue is home to bacteria and food particles that hide under a thin layer of mucus. If not properly cleaned, you can experience unhealthy buildup that can lead to bad breath, dry mouth, and spread bacteria to your gums. You can use a special tongue scraper, but the bristles of your toothbrush will work as well. Using toothpaste, gently brush the entire surface of your tongue, and finish by rinsing with water. Giving your tongue a nice scrub every time you brush your teeth will keep your mouth feeling fresher for longer.
- Floss: We see patients all the time who swear they floss everyday… but when we see that tell-tale sign of bleeding gums, we have a feeling you might be stretching the truth. We get it, flossing takes time and effort, but it is so worth the time. Flossing regularly can help prevent gum disease, as well as lessen your risk of cavities. Brushing your teeth alone cannot fully clean between teeth, and it makes sense that this is the place where many people experience cavities. To properly floss your teeth, wrap about 18-inches of floss around your middle fingers on each hand. Holding the floss taut, gently slide it between your teeth, pulling back and forth as you do so. When you reach your gumline, carefully pull the floss along the curve of your tooth, and then repeat on the adjacent tooth. Too much work? Flossing sticks make this task a little easier and achieve the same job!
- Keep an eye on your toothbrush. Many people think that their toothpaste, floss, or mouthwash is the most important part of oral hygiene – but just as important is the brush itself. While there is no need to go out and buy a fancy electric brush in most cases, be sure to replace your brush regularly. The American Dental Association recommends replacing your brush every three to four months, as well as taking some other precautions. Make sure to store your toothbrush upright out in the open. This will help to keep your brush dry and prevent the growth of bacteria. Also, watch out for frayed bristles. When the bristles begin to spread out and get frayed, it can be a sign that you are brushing too hard, which can damage your gums and enamel. Frayed toothbrushes do not clean nearly as well as toothbrushes that retain their shape.
- Don’t forget to rinse! Using an antimicrobial mouthwash can help to reduce harmful bacteria that could lead to gingivitis or other gum diseases. Gargling with a rinse can also help to keep your tonsils clean and promote overall mouth health. Mouthwashes that contain fluoride could help to prevent tooth decay, but should not be used by children under the age of six as they may swallow it. It’s best to use mouthwashes designed for kids for your little ones until they learn how to properly use the product. (And that yes, even though this mouthwash tastes like bubblegum, it will give you a tummy ache if you drink it like juice!)
Step 5: Schedule a checkup with Shores Family Dentistry
The best way to ensure that your teeth are clean and your gums are healthy is to schedule a routine dentist appointment with Shores Family Dentistry. Our Fort Collins dentist office is conveniently located off of Boardwalk Drive and has gorgeous lakefront views to add to your experience. Routine dentist checkups are an important step in catching diseases or cavities early, and also offer opportunities to talk with a specialist about cosmetic improvements, like teeth whitening or veneers. Contact us today to set up an appointment! | <urn:uuid:fbbd05dc-36d5-4e2d-a2bb-842d8878e855> | {
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Washington, March 3 (TruthDive): The 460 feet (140 meter) wide space rock, asteroid which is called 2011 AG5 could collide with Earth in 2040.
Talk about the asteroid was on the agenda during the 49th session of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), held earlier in Vienna.
Due to its current location in the daytime sky, observations of 2011 AG5 cannot be made by Earth-based telescopes, so its orbit has not yet been determined to a level where scientists can confidently project its location decades into the future. But that day is coming.
“In September 2013, we have the opportunity to make additional observations of 2011 AG5 when it comes within 91 million miles (147 million kilometers) of Earth,” said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
“It will be an opportunity to observe this space rock and further refine its orbit. Because of the extreme rarity of an impact by a near-Earth asteroid of this size, I fully expect we will be able to significantly reduce or rule out entirely any impact probability for the foreseeable future.” Even better observations will be possible in late 2015.
To be a real danger to Earth and have a strike probability of 1 in 625, the asteroid has to fly through a particular keyhole-like area of space in September 2013. Schweickart said a decision to deflect 2011 AG 5 away from this keyhole, by changing its path using gravitational effects, should be made “very soon, if not now”.
“If a keyhole deflection is ruled out as option, a direct deflection is marginally possible, at best,” he said, adding that directly deflecting the asteroid would be difficult with existing launch vehicle capability.
2011 AG5 will next be near Earth in February of 2023 when it will pass the planet no closer than about 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers). In 2028, the asteroid will again be in the area, coming no closer than about 10.4 million miles (16.7 million kilometers).
The Near-Earth Object Program Office states the Earth’s gravitational influence on the space rock during these flybys has the potential to place the space rock on an impact course for Feb. 5, 2040. | <urn:uuid:cc41f57f-f0bf-429d-b736-cad4187996b2> | {
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(statistics) a normal distribution with mean zero and variance 1, with probability density function [exp(–1/2x²)]/√2π
noun 1. a grade or level of subsistence and comfort in everyday life enjoyed by a community, class, or individual: The well-educated generally have a high standard of living. standard of living noun 1. a level of subsistence or material welfare of a community, class, or person standard of living definition A term describing the […]
- Standard operating environment
standard (SOE) A specification of the architecture, operating systems, application set and configuration of computers within an organisation. (2007-06-11)
noun 1. a set of fixed instructions or steps for carrying out usually routine operations. Abbreviation: SOP.
noun 1. something considered by an authority or by general consent as a basis of comparison; an approved model. 2. an object that is regarded as the usual or most common size or form of its kind: We stock the deluxe models as well as the standards. 3. a rule or principle that is used […] | <urn:uuid:9a78ee06-2230-4983-92d3-3b81171d4368> | {
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Studies show that spacing out learning over time works best
By Annie Murphy PaulJul 14, 2015
Nate Kornell would like to see a big step forward in the methods students use to prepare for tests. Kornell is a professor of psychology at Williams College whose research focuses on effective learning strategies. Teachers and students often do not employ such scientifically supported strategies, he notes—in part because superficial tests do not make them necessary. He offers two examples of instructional practices that could come into wider use if tests themselves made more rigorous demands.
The first is distributed practice, or spacing out exposures to the material to be learned at intervals spread out in time. The opposite of distributed practice—cramming—is the technique that now reigns in schools, and that’s true for a reason. “When tests emphasize superficial knowledge of facts, reviewing the day before, or cramming the night before, actually works pretty well,” Kornell says. “It’s all really fresh in the students’ minds, and they can disgorge it and get a decent score on the test.”
But, he says, that crammed-in material does not stay in the student’s memory for long. “A day or two after the test, it’s gone—seriously gone, as if they’d never learned it in the first place,” he says. Tests that ask more thoughtful and complex questions would be resistant to the strategy of cramming and last minute review. Instead, students and teachers might discover the rewards of distributed practice, returning again and again to the same material while adding more depth and nuance each time. A significant body of research shows that such distributed practice leads to more accurate and more durable learning. For example, in a study of fifth-graders published in Applied Cognitive Psychology in 2011, lead author Hailey Sobel of McGill University reported that students who learned definitions of vocabulary words on a spaced-out schedule remembered three times as many definitions as students who spent the same amount of time learning the material in a single session.
One instructor who has seen its benefits firsthand is Samantha Carr, a French teacher at Arroyo High School in El Monte, Calif. She uses a mobile flash card and quiz app called StudyBlue to spread out her students’ learning over the course of the semester. “I know that my students can pull an all-nighter and then come into class on test day and dump it out on the page,” Carr says. “But I also know that cramming like that won’t lead them to retain that knowledge over the long term. The app makes it easy for them to encounter the same material repeatedly over time, right on their own smartphones.”
Another instructional practice that might attract more adherents if tests were made more challenging is interleaving, or mixing up different types of problems during practice sessions. The way math is currently taught, “students typically work a set of practice problems devoted to the immediately preceding lesson, which means they often know the appropriate strategy for each problem before they read the problem,” says Douglas Rohrer, professor of psychology at the University of South Florida. “For instance, students might watch their teacher solve a few equations by factoring, and then solve a dozen equations by factoring.”
When problem sets are arranged this way, students’ performance rapidly improves. If they take a test with a similar format, they will likely do well. But they haven’t learned much that will stick with them in the long term because they haven’t practiced the most important skill of all: figuring out at the outset what type of problem this is. In order to give students practice at this kind of discernment, problems within class and homework assignments need to be interleaved—mixed up, all jumbled together, so that the student never knows in advance which type of problem she will be confronting but needs to figure it out afresh each time.
Rohrer has conducted a number of studies of interleaving in the laboratory; more recently, he has been trying out the technique with seventh-graders at Liberty Middle School in Tampa, Fla. In a study published last year in the Journal of Educational Psychology Rohrer and his two co-authors asked half of the 126 participating students to complete daily practice problems that were arranged by type: a set of graph problems, followed by a set of slope problems. The other students got the same problems, but mixed up: slope problems and graph problems presented in an unpredictable shuffle.
After three months all the students were led through a review session, and a day later took a test. The students who had been engaging in interleaved practice got 80 percent of the test questions right, compared with 64 percent on the part of students who had been completing blocked assignments—a not-inconsiderable difference. But the real value of interleaving became apparent when the students were tested a full month after the review session. On that test the interleaved students scored 74 percent, the blocked ones a paltry 42 percent.
Both distributed practice and interleaving enhance learning in part because they introduce what University of California, Los Angeles, psychologist Robert Bjork has termed “desirable difficulties”—that is, they make learning harder. For that reason, these techniques may require some adjustment. Jen DeMik is one of the teachers at Liberty Middle School who participated in Rohrer’s study; the experiment is now over but she continues to interleave the problems in her students’ assignments as often as possible. “It took a while for the kids to get used to it,” DeMik notes, “but after a while they could see that it was a better way to learn.” | <urn:uuid:f0918836-3cb8-40e8-8081-f42adaed2629> | {
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Elements of the evaluation
The Objective CAML distribution supplies two online compilers, one generating
bytecodes and the other producing instructions for the most modern
processors. The toplevel uses the bytecode compiler. Beyond that, the
distribution offers numerous libraries in the form of modules and some
tools for calculating dependencies between modules, for profiling, and for
debugging. Finally, thanks to its interface with the C language, it is
possible to link Objective CAML programs to C programs. Languages which
similarly offer an interface with C, such as the JNI (Java Native
Interface) of Java, become accessible in this way.
The reference manual gives the language syntax, and describes the
development tools and the library signatures. This set (language, tools,
libraries, documentation) makes up a development environment.
Specification and implementation
There are two ways to approach a new language. A first way is to read the
language specification to have a global vision. A second is to plunge into
the language's user manual, following the concepts illustrated by the
examples. Objective CAML has neither one, which makes a self-taught approach to
it relatively difficult. The absence of a formal specification (such as
SML has) or a descriptive one (such as ADA's) is a handicap for
understanding how a program works. Another consequence of the lack of a
specification is the impossibility of getting a language standard issued by
ISO, ANSI, or IEEE. This strongly limits the construction of new
implementations tailored for other environments. Fortunately INRIA's
implementation is of high quality and best of all, the sources of the
distribution can be downloaded.
The particulars of syntax are a non-negligible difficulty in approaching
Objective CAML. They can be explained by the functional origin of the language,
but also by historical, that is to say anecdotal, factors.
The syntax of application of a function to its arguments is defined by
simple juxtaposition, as in f 1 2. The lack of parentheses
bothers the neophyte as much as the C programmer or the confirmed
Lisp programmer. Nevertheless, this difficulty only arises when reading
the code of a programmer who's stingy with parentheses. Nothing stops the
neophyte Objective CAML programmer from using more explicit parenthesization and
writing (f 1 2).
Beyond the functional core, Objective CAML adopts a syntax sometimes at odds with
customary usage: access to array elements uses the notation t.(i)
and not the usual brackets; method invocation is noted by a pound
(# character) and not a dot, etc. These idiosyncrasies don't make it
easier to get a grip on Objective CAML.
Finally, the syntax of Objective CAML and its ancestor Caml has undergone
numerous modifications since their first implementation. Which hasn't
pleaded in favor of the enduring nature of the developed applications.
To end on a more positive note, the pattern-matching syntax, inherited from
the ML family, which Objective CAML incorporates, structures function definitions
by case pleasingly and with simplicity.
The fundamental character of the Objective CAML language resides in the
language's static typing of expressions and declarations. This guarantees
that no type error surfaces during program execution. Static type
inference was conceived for the functional languages of the ML family, and
Objective CAML has been able to maintain the greater part of this type discipline
for the imperative and object-oriented extensions. However, in the
object-oriented case, the programmer must sometimes give type inference
a hand through explicit type constraints. Still, Objective CAML preserves static
typing of expressions, and definitions, which provides an unsurpassed
measure of execution safety: an Objective CAML program, will not return the
``method not found'' exception, which is not the case for dynamically typed
Objective CAML's parametric polymorphism of types allows the implementation of
general algorithms. It is channeled into the object-oriented layer where
parametric classes produce generic code, and not an expansion of code as
generated by the templates of other languages. In itself, parametric
polymorphism is an important component of code reusability.
The object-oriented extension adds a notion of inclusion polymorphism which
is obtained by specifying subtyping relationships between objects. It
reconciles code reusability, which constitutes the strength of the
inheritance relationship between classes, with the security of static
Libraries and tools
The libraries supplied with the distribution cover great needs. The
programmer finds there, as a standard, the implementation of the most usual
data structures with their basic functions. For example: stacks, queues,
hash tables, AVL trees. More advanced tools can be found there as well,
such as the treatment of data streams. These libraries are enriched in the
course of successive language versions.
The Unix library allows lower-level programming as much for I/O as
for process management. It is not identical for all platforms, which
limits its use to some extent.
The exact arithmetic library and the regular expression library facilitate
the development of specific applications.
Unfortunately the portable graphics library offers little functionality to
support the construction of graphical user
C libraries can easily be interfaced with the Objective CAML language.
Here, the free availability of well-structured and duly commented sources
definitely unlocks the potential for contact with the outside world and the
various and sundry libraries to be found there.
Among the supplied tools, those for lexical and syntactic analysis,
indispensable whenever dealing with complex textual data, are especially
noteworthy. Based on the classic lex and yacc, they integrate
perfectly with sum types and the functionality of Objective CAML, thus making
them simpler to use than their predecessors.
Finally, no matter what soundness its features may bring, use of a language
``in actual practice'' never avoids the debugging phase of a program. The
Objective CAML 2.04 distribution does not supply an IDE. Certainly, using the
toplevel allows one to proceed rapidly to compilation and unit tests of
functions (which is an undeniable advantage), but this usage will vary by
platform and by programmer: cut-and-paste under X-Windows, calling the
shell under emacs, requesting evaluation of a buffer under
Windows. The next version (see appendix B) provides
for the first time an environment for Unix containing a browser for
interfaces and modules and a structured editor linked to the toplevel.
Finally the distribution's debugger remains hard to use (in particular,
because of the functional aspect and the language's parametric
polymorphism) and limited to the Unix system.
The documentation of the distribution consists of the reference manual in
printable (PostScript) and online (HTML) format. This manual is not in any
case an introduction to the language. On the contrary it is indispensable
for finding out what's in the libraries or what parameters the commands
take. Some pedagogical material can be found on Inria's Caml page,
but it is mostly regarding the Caml-Light language. Thus the language is
missing a complete tutorial manual, we hope that this book fills this gap. | <urn:uuid:1faa4435-5e2a-4d02-9795-69b80bc6b4aa> | {
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Located about 45 miles south of Baton Rouge, Assumption Parish carries all the charms and curses of southern Louisiana. Networks of bayous, dotted with trees heavy with Spanish moss, connect with the Mississippi River as it slowly ambles toward the Gulf of Mexico. Fishermen and farmers make their homes there, and so does the oil and gas industry, which has woven its own network of wells, pipelines and processing facilities across the lowland landscape.
The first sign of the oncoming disaster was the mysterious appearance of bubbles in the bayous in the spring of 2012. For months the residents of a rural community in Assumption Parish wondered why the waters seemed to be boiling in certain spots as they navigated the bayous in their fishing boats.
Then came the earthquakes. The quakes were relatively small, but some residents reported that their houses shifted in position, and the tremors shook a community already desperate for answers. State officials launched an investigation into the earthquakes and bubbling bayous in response to public outcry, but the officials figured the bubbles were caused by a single source of natural gas, such as a pipeline leak. They were wrong.
On a summer night in early August, the earth below the Bayou Corne, located near a small residential community in Assumption, simply opened up and gave way. Several acres of swamp forest were swallowed up and replaced with a gaping sinkhole that filled itself with water, underground brines, oil and natural gas from deep below the surface. Since then, the massive sinkhole at Bayou Corne has grown to 8 acres in size. | <urn:uuid:0789eba3-2d99-4397-bc3c-1a610b5e3907> | {
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How long does it take to make a bald eagle?
Oh, about four billion years.
How long does it take to kill one — or a whole species for that matter?
Not long at all, a flicker of time — a moment’s inattention.
So, should we care whether the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service extends endangered species protection to the unique, Arizona population of bald eagles?
What, after all, is in it for us? Do we have any stake in the continued existence of our fellow inhabitants perched unsteadily on the deck of this spinning ark? Do we have any responsibility to them?
The resurgent population of bald eagles that breeds in Arizona, mostly along the Salt and Verde rivers, but also now at Woods Canyon Lake and perhaps one day along the East Verde, provides one relatively easy answer to the question. Human beings nearly wiped out the national bird decades ago, with the careless use of the pesticide DDT — which caused an unintended, fatal thinning of their eggshells.
We banned the use of DDT in this country (although we still sell it elsewhere) and the raptors recovered — pulling both the bald eagles and the peregrine falcon back from the brink. Recently, the Fish and Wildlife Service de-listed the bald eagle nationally, a rare conservationist triumph.
But environmental groups and the Tonto Apache Tribe sued to compel the Fish and Wildlife Service to leave in place the full range of protections for the desert bald eagles, who form a separate, still imperiled subpopulation.
The eagles here are smaller and breed earlier and only their offspring are making a brave attempt to colonize Arizona’s endangered riparian corridors in the past 30 years.
Court documents show that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may have ignored the law in initially ruling the Arizona birds didn’t meet the clear legal definition of an important and endangered subpopulation. A federal judge called the agency’s action “arbitrary” and “capricious” and ordered a fresh review.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to make a new finding in October.
We hope this time they’ll come to the obvious conclusion and extend protections. That won’t have a huge impact — since a separate federal law protects both bald and golden eagles. However, an the extension of endangered status will give the federal government some additional power and responsibility to protect the bald eagle’s riparian habitat. That, in turn, will help protect a host of other equally endangered but less charismatic species — each the climax of its own four-billion-year journey.
We have come all this way ourselves, to this moment in our long history when we can make these choices — to dam the stream, turn the cottonwoods to bonfires and the streambeds to gravel pits.
We can ignore the law, grab our shotguns, run the world to benefit sparrows, cockroaches and rats while those other species vanish one by one.
Or we can save them, so that our children’s children’s children can turn their faces to the sky and cry out in joy as a bald eagle wheels past overhead. | <urn:uuid:1a6ef07b-1a6e-432a-9073-8f1d388c337a> | {
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COSTA RICA HISTORY
THE PRE-COLUMBIAN PERIOD
At the time of its discovery. America’s territory was populated by different groups of native peoples, whose population is calculated to have been around 400.000 studs. These were divided into kingdoms, grouped basically into Itvo great areas of culturul influence. On one side there was “Meso-America” (Mayans and Aztec), and on the other, the South American cultures.
Costa Rica was characterized by being the point where the two cultural traditions came together. This made our country the crossroads of culture and commerce, which explains the great cultural variety and richness to be found in such a small territorial space.
Another of Costa Rica’s characteristics is the relatively small size of its infrastructures. This is due to the fact that the territory did not belong directly to any of the major kingdoms. One could say that it was an unconquered land, as far as the great indigenous kingdoms are concerned. Its population was distributed in small hamlets or tribes, while the region of Meso-American influence was a bit more stratified with well-established settlements and with important population concentrations (several hundreds).
In the Caribbean region, there were small and very disperse settlements in groups of small membership, whose numbers did not exceed the two digits. The people in this region were quite belligerent and thus, were never conquered by the Spaniards. In what is known today as the Central Valley, there were well defined and stratified tribes, but they were also sparsely populated.
In his fourth and last trip to the New World, on the 18th of September of 1502, Christopher Columbus discovered our country’s Eastern Coast. In this trip, he set anchor in front of an island that the natives called Quiribriand which he named La Huerta (presently Isla Uvita).
In what today is the city of Limón, in front of the Island of Quiribrí, where Colon set anchor, there was a native village, called Cariay o Queria.
In 1519, Juan de Castañeda and Hernán Ponce de León, followed the Western seaboard of our country, from what is today Punta Burica, to the Gulf of Nicoya, discovering, among others, the gulf of Osa and the gulf of San Lucar.
FIRST STAGES OF THE CONQUEST
The process of the conquest and de-structuring of our country’s native societies and Indian Chieftains in the XVI and XVII centuries is immersed in what is known as the first and second stage of the conquest of the province of Costa Rica.
The first stage begins in 1522. with the expedition mounted by Andre’s Niño and Gil Gonzalez Dávila, who did not venture into the interior of the province. Niño traveled through the Pacific seaboard from Burica to Caldera, later directing his steps towards Nicaragua. González Dávila, by land, and leading one hundred men traveled the country’s South Eastern coast to the village of Abancari in the present canton of Puntarenas. He also visited Caldera and the Nicoya Peninsula, Diriá (in Santa Cruz) and also continued on to Nicaragua.
This first stage is characterized by brief contacts with the natives of the area. In 1524, Francisco de Cárdoba founded Villa Bruselas, in the East Coast of the Gulf of Nicoya. This was the first settlement founded by the Spaniards in Costa Rica.
GOVERNMENTS OF NUEVA CARTAGO AND COSTA RICA
In 1540, The Spanish King Carlos V granted the title of Governor of the Province of Cartago and Costa Rica to the conqueror Diego de Gutierrez. Three years later, he founded the hamlet of Villa Santiago, near the mouth of the river Suerre (today Pacuare).
In 1544, Diego de Gutierrez founded the city of San Francisco, thirty kilometers inland from the first settlement. However, his death that same year, ended in the dismembering of those settlements.
SECOND STAGE OF THE CONQUEST
It won’t be till 1561 that the Spaniards penetrate the interior of the province. Juan de Cavallón and the priest Juan de Estrada Rávago started the conquest anew. Father Estrada founded the Villa Castillo de Austria, in the mouth of the mouth of river Suerre, but he could not keep the position due to the interference of the natives. He then returned to Nicaragua.
Juan de Cavallón began his conquest through what is today the province of Guanacaste. Accompanied by 90 Spanish soldiers and some African slaves, he entered the territory bringing with him cattle and seeds and ready to colonize and make peace in the area. Thus, he became the first to found, on March 1561, a settlement in the Central Valley. This he called the City of Garcimuñoz.
In 1562. a new governor was named, Juan Vázquez de Coronado, who followed Cavallón’s route. He penetrated the region following Cavallón’s path, to the point that he transferred the city of Garcimuñoz to the Valle del Guarco and changed its name to Cartago. In spite of this, this hamlet was short lived.
The belated conquest and colonization of the Central Valley (1561) made it possible, during the colonial period, for practically the entire territory of the Province of Costa Rica to be under the jurisdiction of the Town Council (“Cabildo”) de Cartago, which, together with the figure of the governor, monopolized the political, economic, social and cultural control of the Province. For the establishment of Indian villages, “corregidores” were named. These were charged with keeping the natives in groups and making them comply with their assigned functions. For the administration of justice, Mayors were also named in the Indian villages. These positions were usually held by the “caciques”. Also, a catechist priest kept a strict religious and socio-economic control in these settlements. In 1601, a mule path was opened between Costa Rica and Panamá.
Likewise, another less conciliatory practices were carried out. With the naming of Perafdn de Rivera as governor, the parceling out of natives and the payment of tributes (taxes) by the Indians to the Spaniard in charge: “encomendero” (“encomienda de tributo”) were established in 1569. It must be kept in mind that before 1542. “encomienda” was synonymous with enslavement, but after that day, with the new Laws of Fray Bartolome de las Casas (“Leyes Nuevas de Fray Bartolome de las Casas”), the concept of “encomienda” became associated with service. The Indian, then, worked for the Spaniards. After 1550. the “encomienda” as tax “encomienda de tributo” was established.
Rivera moves the city of Cartago to the area known as Mata Redonda. And with Perafán de Rivera, the cycle of the conquerors comes to a close.
In 1574, Don Alonso de Anguciana de Gamboa was appointed Interim Governor and he moved the city of Cartago for the third time. This time, it went from Mata Redonda to the Valley of Guarco, and this time the move was definitive. Towards the end of the XVI century, motivated by land distributions, many of Cartago’s dwellers migrated West to Ochomogo. thus populating the Valley of Aserrí.
During the XVII and XVIII centuries, the colonization of the Province of Costa Rica continued to increase, but very slowly. This was due to the scarcity of cheap native labor, which did not make this province very attractive for commerce. It is a fact that Costa Rica was quite poor and a territory where the Spaniards had to produce their own food. The only source of commerce was tobacco, and given the scarcity of coins, cacao seeds were used instead for the purpose.
Towards the end of the XVIII century, the first coffee seeds were brought to the country, a product that would achieve great importance in the coming century.
INDEPENDENCE AND THE STRUCTURING OF THE COSTA RICAN STATE
The peoples of the Province of Costa Rica, who had elected their first Town Councils (“Cabildos”) in 1812 and 1813, would see them abolished with the return to the Spanish Throne of Fernando VII, in 1814.
In 1814, Fernando VII, also called “The Desired One” (“El Deseado”), returned to Spain after the expulsion of the French. He abolished the Cadiz constitution of 1812, which, among other things, had convened the formation of the “Cabildos”. With this act, Fernando began an absolutist reign eliminating the Spanish-American Town Councils.
Since Spain reestablished constitutional order when General Riego defeated the Kings followers and forced the King to swear the Constitution, in July 30, 1820, Costa Rica swore the Gaditana Constitution of 1812, for the second time.
Around those years, due to world events that had their repercussion in the Americas, and due to the continental nature of the liberation struggles, Guatemala declared its independence, at the same time urging the people of the other sister provinces to do the same. The copy of the Independence Declaration of September 15, 1821, arrived in Costa Rica on October 13 of the same year.
Notice was received of the sending of a printed official document, a declaration by the Captain General of Guatemala and an official document by the Political Chief of León, all accompanying an edict from the most excellent Provincial Delegation; all of which referred to the independence from Spain.
In the Town Councils of San Jose and Cartago. in their official minutes of the 14th and the 17th of October, and on the basis of the news contained in the mail received on the thirteenth of said month, the “opportune idea” arose of organizing a meeting of commissioners to promote order, peace and security, while the clouds of the day dissipated and a new way of life or a system of government that was convenient to adopt were defined. The object of the Meeting of Legates was to appoint an interim Governing Assembly that would substitute the Spanish Governor don Juan Manuel de Cañas.
At the invitation of the Cartago Town Council, all the Councils had to send their delegates to that city on the 25th of October, “but it so happened that due to the shortness of time, the difficulties in communications, or the ignorance of the proper proceedings to name such representatives, part of the Councils did not comply”.
In the city of Cartago, on the 25th of October of the year 1821, a group of Legates from the Town Councils of the villages of Costa Rica, presented their credentials before the Cartago Town Council and proceeded to install a Board of Legates, thus forming the First Provisional Government of Costa Rica.
The propaganda mounted by the Cartago Town Council was active in promoting that “to gather the Legates, it was respected and attended by the rest, and that it was truly a common center for all, and the one that, without declaration or opposition of any kind, would assume the Government in this acephalous situation”. This meeting resulted in the inauguration, on November 12, of the First Interim Superior Governing Assembly.
The Interim Fundamental Social Pact of Costa Rica (“Pacto de la Concordia”) known in session 17, was first signed on December of 1821 and it was made up of 58 articles and seven chapters, to wit: of the Province, of the Religion, of the Citizens, of the Government, of the election of Government, of the installation of the Assembly and its Faculties, of the restriction of the Government.
On the 3 of March of the year 1823, in the Most Noble and Most Loyal City of Cartago (“La Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de Cartago”), the Provincial Assembly was installed.
On May 16, 1823, the second Political Statute of the Province of Costa Rica was signed.
In 1824, Costa Rica became a State. It was also the year in which Costa Rica was swearing obedience to the national Constitutional Assembly of the United Provinces of Central America; the year in which the Superior Political Chief, don Jose María Peralla, ordered the publication, as edict, of the Law of the 23rd of July of 1823, which abolished the titles of Excellency, Messers, and don; it was the year in which the Assembly designated don Juan Mora Fernández as the First Head of State on September 9, 1824; and the year in which Our Lady of the Angels (“la Virgen de los Angeles”), was named the Patron Saint of the State of Costa Rica on September 24. | <urn:uuid:1c22e626-9591-4bc6-b733-c6560e546fae> | {
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In the Autumn Term, we conducted a parent technology survey to find out more about our students use of technology, and the issues that are arising outside of school time. Below are the key findings…
Summary: There were a total of 238 responses to the survey, with all year groups similarly represented.
Devices Used at Home
Summary: More than half the respondents used an Apple computer at home.
Technology use & Screen Time
Summary: The majority of respondents were very concerned about the time their child spends online and the time their child spends in front of a screen.
- Organise a round-table discussion with parents to further discuss findings of the survey ×
- Prioritise areas for development ×
- launch ‘Be Internet Awesome’ programme ×
- develop ’20 is plenty’ screen time initiative ×
- support families in implementing media/device contracts
- enhance resources available on school website ×
- raise awareness of parental control/monitoring on home devices
- enhance communication between school & home with (learning in technology)
- Host parent information evening ×
- promote creativity rather than consumption for student use of technology
- provide ongoing support to families with regard to technology | <urn:uuid:f0acf460-724d-4967-9a24-44a5d1604889> | {
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velocity of a wave
The velocity of a wave in deep water is V = K*sqrt(L/C+C/L) where K and C are known positive constants. What is the length of the wave that gives the minimum velocity?
I'm not sure how to really start this one? (Crying) All I can think is that we want the result of the square root to be as small as possible, right?
Any tips greatly appreciated.
I am not sure, but isn't the velocity at its minimum when the acceleration (derivate of velocity) is zero?
In this case you would differentiate V = K*sqrt(L/C+C/L) with respect to the length L (since C and K are constant)
That does sound correct, thank you very much. | <urn:uuid:7dbbc077-902a-4fd4-ae52-905aa1287b88> | {
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Planet Earth is in desperate need of superheroes — and they don't need tights and a cape. Roger Spotts, environmental education coordinator at Monroe County Environmental Education Center in Bartonsville, recently presented a lecture on global warming at the center.
Planet Earth is in desperate need of superheroes — and they don't need tights and a cape.
Roger Spotts, environmental education coordinator at Monroe County Environmental Education Center in Bartonsville, recently presented a lecture on global warming at the center. He said, "If the warming of our planet gets to the 'tipping point' and carbon comes out of the permafrost, it won't matter what kind of car you drive. We've had it."
Spotts, however, assured people that the planet could be saved and that everyone could be a superhero who helps to save it.
Spotts began by showing a picture of Earth: a pretty blue planet against a dark sky, which is traveling at 65,000 mph and spinning at 1,000 mph. "It is the only planet in our solar system that has the temperature to support life as we know it. We can't call Captain Kirk just yet to take us someplace else," he said.
In normal conditions, the sun's rays heat the earth and bounce harmlessly off the surface into space. In the abnormal condition of "global warming," carbon dioxide gunk forms a barrier around Earth that the rays cannot escape. Instead of bouncing off into space, they bounce back to Earth and reheat the planet.
That is the condition that Earth's population now faces.
Is runaway global warming real or is it just sunspots or a figment of someone's imagination? "It is real," Spotts said. Although articles in popular magazines often try to give a "balanced" presentation, articles in scientific journals virtually all say that it is real and caused largely by human contribution of excessive carbon dioxide to our atmosphere, he said.
Even a person who likes warm weather won't like what global warming will do to the planet if left unchecked. Spotts said, "If nothing is done to reverse the trend, by 2070-2090, Pennsylvania will have the temperature of southern Georgia, and Georgia will have a tropical climate, complete with tropical diseases. Philadelphia, which now has an average of one day of 100 degrees or more per summer will have 28 such days or more."
And the signs of global warming are evident. "Eleven of the hottest years on record occurred within the last 15 years," Spotts said. "In Alaska, many of the glaciers are melting. In the Alps, they are putting blankets on the glaciers to keep them from melting because the water they need to survive is in those glaciers. In Greenland, the pack ice is melting — ice that the polar bears need to hunt. Walruses are also being impacted."
The damage doesn't stop there. "The water from the glaciers is being dumped into the ocean, which causes sea levels to rise. If the flooding gets to 18 feet, many heavily populated coastal areas of Long Island will be flooded, and their fresh water will turn to salt," he said. "Intense weather events, such as Hurricane Katrina, typhoons, droughts and increased forest fires, have occurred in the United States."
Other things that are taken for granted are also being affected. "Agriculture is also changing. The planting zones are also changing. People have to plant in different times of the year, but there may not be enough water during those times," Spotts said. "In Pennsylvania, the third largest carbon emitter in the United States, we are seeing invasive species, such as Japanese knotweed, that wouldn't tolerate cold winters. The skiing season is tremendously shortened because it costs too much to make snow in the warmer weather. Businesses have started waterparks instead. In 30 to 40 years, there probably won't be any skiing here. In Southern states, fire ants and malaria-like illnesses have been seen. These will probably come to Pennsylvania, too."
In Pennsylvania, there are other problems, too.
"Usually, baby animals are born at the same time as their food supply arrives. Now, they often arrive at different times, with casualties resulting," Spotts said. "Our state fish, the brook trout, will not be able to live if the water temperature rises by 6 percent. Also, our (river and stream) banks are disappearing because between 2004 and 2006 we have had three 100-year storms. That should not have happened."
The good news is that the global warming nightmare can be stopped and reversed with only a little bit of effort from everybody.
Spotts explained that our present goal is to limit global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Farenheit by 2050. To achieve this, people must reduce their greenhouse gasses by only 2 percent a year.
That small effort would reduce the pollutants in the atmosphere to 20 percent of what they are at present, an 80 percent drop by mid-century.
As an added inducement, he noted that taking these steps would also save money. He then demonstrated the carbon footprint calculator at www.greenprogress.com
Irene McGinniss of Jackson Township, who attended the lecture, said that she's been noticing changes in the area. She said, "I remember that the summers used to be cool. We never needed an air conditioner. Now it stays hot. I learned that we can do things to help without waiting for the government."
Her sister Jane McGinniss, also of Jackson Township, said, "This explains all the heavy rains we've been having."
Dennis Stevens of Middle Smithfield came to learn more about global warming in general. He said, "I learned about carbon footprints and that we can do something to stop contributing to the problem, like doing more recycling and having less waste."
Emily Paulus of Tannersville said, "I learned what will happen to Pennsylvania if we don't do something about global warming." Paulus did a presentation on global warming to earn her Girl Scout Silver Award.
Ultimately, the problem of global warming can be fixed — by individual consumers.
"Consumers are much more powerful than the government, which often is slow to make regulations to protect the environment. If people demand environmentally friendly products, the market will respond, and changes will occur. It's the law of supply and demand," Spotts said. "Yes, global warming is happening; yes, it is scary; and yes, we can do something about it." | <urn:uuid:3b470f7b-46dd-46d2-9fcb-59d85e302f65> | {
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Mirach’s ghost (NGC 404) is a lenticular galaxy. It is disk shaped, with little ongoing star formation and no spiral arms. It lies hidden on the top right side of a red giant star called Mirach, which is cooler than the Sun but much brighter. In most telescopic view, glare and diffraction spikes caused by Mirach make NGC 404 look faint, fuzzy and ghostly which is how it became known to astronomers as the "Ghost of Mirach."
NGC 404 only has few luminous stars, but a lot of red giants and asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. The disk is made up of red giants while the bulges of the galaxy are composed of both red giants and AGB stars. The distance to this object is estimated to be 10,300,000 light years; we find a maximum angular size of 3.5 arcminutes, which corresponds to a linear size of 4.2 arcseconds.
"'Ghost Of Mirach' Materializes In Space Telescope Image." ScienceDaily. <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081102211541.html>.
"Mirach's Ghost (NGC 404)." The encyclopedia of science. <http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/M/Mirachs_Ghost.html>
|Right Ascension (J2000)||01:09:26|
|Filters used||B (Blue), R (Red), V (Green)|
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Throughout the ongoing “address canvassing” in preparation for the 2010 Census, the lives of the 140,000 field employees who took part in this operation were oftentimes put in jeopardy. In acts that are just as dangerous as using cell phones or writing text messages while driving, these workers were forced to look at the small screens of their handheld computers, commonly known as HHCs (the ones manufactured by Harris Corp. as part of the $600 million debacle that will likely be talked about for decades as one of the most pathetic partnerships of the U.S. Government with private industry) to find and mark addresses while driving. There is only one word to describe this situation: DANGEROUS.
Not only can driver distraction harm the employees, but it also has the potential to harm individuals, animals, and property in the vicinity of the distracted drivers. If the handheld computers had been built with a speaker that shouted directions (like any consumer GPS device), the employees would not be in this perilous situation.
It shocks the MyTwoCensus team that no individual from the Census Bureau or Harris Corp. ever considered the safety of the people who must operate these devices. Given that many 2010 Census employees are senior citizens, tasking them to drive while operating a computer is a recipe for disaster.
Update: The Census Bureau does its best to discourage employees from driving while using the HHCs, but these rules are not always followed in local offices throughout the country.
Note: Please e-mail MyTwoCensus @ MyTwoCensus.com if you are aware of any situations where car accidents or other unnecessarily dangerous situations have resulted from driver distraction due to the use of the Harris Corp’s handheld computers. MyTwoCensus has already heard reports of employees involved in fatal car accidents, and we are hoping to investigate whether the HHC played a role in these deaths. | <urn:uuid:c5c19386-cddb-4069-b75f-0cb55103674f> | {
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Reach out and touch someone -- over a smartphone.
By 2017, technology will have advanced far enough that computers will be able to see, smell, touch, taste and hear via digital taste buds, newly sensitive pixels and other innovations. You’ll even be able to touch something through your phone, announced Bernie Meyerson, IBM fellow and vice president of innovation.
“If you’re buying a textured fabric, you should be able to run your hand across the screen and get the feeling of touching that fabric,” Meyerson told FoxNews.com. “That’s not as impossible as it may seem.”
Every year, IBM announces the "5 in 5": Five technology innovations that seem ripped from the pages of a sci-fi novel, yet are arguably very realistic based on the state of the industry.
This year, the company looked to the next era of computing, which IBM called the era of cognitive systems, a new generation of machines that will learn, adapt, sense and experience the world as it really is. And these computers will mimic the human senses in their own way.
“Is a PC just a glorified calculator? Or can it learn?” Meyerson asked.
To enable a sense of touch in a smartphone or other screen, he predicted embeddable piezo-electric transducers -- nearly invisible elements that could produce vibrations and a sensation in the finger.
“You could mimic the sensation of moving your finger across something that had a rough degree of coarseness,” he explained.
This type of sensing capabilities will help computers see through complexity, keep up with the speed of information, make more informed decisions, and more
Take baby talk. Meyerson said future computers would be able to interpret an infant’s cries, listening through the background noise to parse emotion, sentiment, desire and more simply by studying changes in pitch and frequency.
“Machines are good at sensing that stuff,” he told FoxNews.com.
In a similar vein, a machine observing what you eat and eating it at the same time would be able to fine tune that food’s taste in real time.
“You could actually alter the taste of food by saying, no, I want a little more sugar, a little more starch.”
And as food goes bad, it releases tiny amounts of ammonia. A computer could sense that far better than a human could, and give you realtime status updates on the food in your fridge.
“It’s a viable thing. Five years out, that’s perfectly reasonable. We’re doing bits of it today,” Meyerson said. | <urn:uuid:e8ec6394-e15e-40b4-964b-d853ee891642> | {
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Chinese investigators from Hefei and Dutch researchers in Amsterdam have collaborated using for the first time a combination of new elegant methodology in Depression research. They used postmortem human brain tissue that was donated to the Netherlands Brain Bank for research purposes and investigated a region in the basal part of the brain, the hypothalamus, that is known to be of crucial importance for the development of symptoms of depression. This region is 6 mm3 large and is called the Paraventricular Nucleus (PVN) since it is situated along the third ventricle of the brain. This brain area is central in the regulations of our normal stress response, while a too high activity of the PVN is a pivotal characteristic of depression. The hypothalamus consists of a large number of very small specialized cell groups that all have different functions and should thus be studied separately, hence the necessity of the application of the methodology used.
Corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) cells in the PVN of human hypothalamus are the central driving force of the stress response and are hyperactive in depression. The investigators sampled the PVN using new technology in psychiatry to study its molecular changes related to CRF. Frozen hypothalami of 7 depressed patients and 7 controls of the same age, the same sex and obtained the same time after death. The frozen brain structures were serially sectioned and the PVN was dissected using a microscope with a laser beam. The micro-laser-dissected material was subsequently studied with a very sensitive and specific quantitative molecular technique for the analysis of gene expression (qPCR). From the 16 gene products that were studied, because they were presumed to be involved in CRF activation in depression, 5 were found to show significant changes. The molecular changes found may not only explain the hyperactivity of the CRF cells but may also be potential targets for new therapeutic strategies.
|Contact: Prof. Dick. F. Swaab| | <urn:uuid:3653a979-6872-465b-b0ce-c2f47e983116> | {
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In 1 Peter 5:5, Peter calls the church to “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” No one in their right mind wishes for God to oppose them, yet, so often we carry pride deep within our hearts. What are some ways we can cultivate humility?
(1) Humility understands one’s place under God as a sinner in need of God’s grace (Luke 18:31); God Himself teaches humility (Psa 25:9). To truly know God is to know humility (Dan 10:12).
(2) Humility is cultivated by walking with God (Micah 6:8)
(3) Humility is found in the example of Christ: He didn’t count Himself equal with the Father, but took on the form of a servant (Phil 2:5-7); Jesus did not consider Himself too good for any task (John 13:3-17).
(4) Humility is cognizant of the fact that Christ suffered humiliation; so should you (John 15:20).
(5) Humility doesn’t take itself too seriously, but takes God seriously. A humble person can laugh at himself, for he is not overly concerned with his dignity or ego.
(6) Humility can be developed by trying things that you are not good at.
(7) Humility depends upon and needs God’s Word in order to understand his or her place (Heb 4:12).
(8) Humility is aware of one’s own creaturely-ness before the Creator (Ezek 28:2, Luke 5:8).
(9) Humility is rewarded: it results in inheriting God’s blessing (Mat 5:5) and exaltation (James 4:10).
Do you see a pattern? Humility is cultivated when we know God and our place before Him. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you” (1 Pet 5:6). | <urn:uuid:6664d2c8-335d-4c79-a935-b4e08956d6d5> | {
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Omega 3 fatty acids are essential fats that constitute an integral part of cell membranes throughout the body. They play an integral role in the function of cell receptors in these membranes. Besides, omega 3 fats are also beneficial for our body as they provide the starting point for making hormones that regulate blood clotting, contraction and relaxation of artery walls, and inflammation. It also binds to receptors in cells that are concerned with genetic functions. As a result, omega 3 fatty acids have been shown to prevent heart disease and stroke to a considerable extent, besides having many other health benefits. There are 3 types of omega 3s: ALA (alpha-linolenic acid), DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid). DHA and EPA are the preferredomega 3 fatty acids sources in food, and these kinds of omega 3s are found in seafood sources like salmon and sardines. On the other hand, ALA is found in some plant foods, including certain nuts and seeds, as well as high-quality meat like grass-fed beef.
Omega 3 fatty acids foods have been proven to have strongly positive effects on our health for various body systems. Omega 3 rich foods benefits include promoting cardiovascular health by lowering blood pressure, cholesterol, and plaque buildup in the arteries. It also stabilizes blood sugar levels, thus preventing diabetes. Besides balancing cholesterol levels, omega 3 foods have been found to reduce muscle, bone and joint pain by lowering inflammation. Further, it has been closely associated with prevention of depression, boosting concentration and learning, improving immunity, etc. Skin health has also been shown to be linked with omega 3. What’s more, researches have revealed that these essential fatty acids can be highly beneficial in treating digestive disorders like ulcerative colitis, and reducing risk of cancer. It has also been showed to play an effective role in reducing menstrual pain. Besides, omega 3 supplements can considerably improve various symptoms related to ADHD in children, reduce risks of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, asthma, etc. What’s more, many studies have shown that DHA taken during pregnancy and breastfeeding can improve the baby’s intelligence and eye health.
Usually a minimum of 250-500 mg combined EPA and DHA each for healthy adults is recommended by mainstream health organizations like the WHO and European Food Safety Authority. The healthiest way to ensure optimal omega 3 intake is to eat fatty fish at least twice a week. However, if due to any reason you cannot include fatty fish in your diet, then you can consider taking supplements.
Nutralite is known to contain PUFA (poly unsaturated fatty acid) and MUFA (mono unsaturated fatty acid) which are known as cholesterol fighters. This should be reason enough to replace your regular butter with Nutralite, a table margarine that is as good as butter minus the health risks. | <urn:uuid:61b6d0ca-7453-4c87-8cc5-84d1098966d6> | {
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The health concerns about bisphenol-A (BPA), a component of hard polycarbonate plastic, has been extended once again (see here, here, here for previous posts on BPA). BPA, a ubiquitous contaminant of human bodies, leaches from water and baby bottles, the lining of tin cans, dental sealants and many other sources. BPA also looks a lot like potent hormones, like estradiol and the synthetic estrogenic agent, diethylstilbesterol (DES), the cause of transplacental carcinogenesis in humans. So there have been plausible concerns that BPA might increase the risk of cancer in humans, especially in hormonally sensitive tissues like breast. A new paper from Nira Ben-Jonathan’s laboratory at the University of Cincinnati now adds another concern: that BPA may be increasing resistance to chemotherapy for breast cancer.
The unfolding story of BPA is a good example of how the things we should fear the most are not what we don’t know but what we think we know but are wrong about. BPA is an estrogenic compound and hence attention focused on known mechanisms whereby estrogen and related hormones initiated their actions. One of the main ways estrogen works is through a receptor molecule, essentially a protein that combines with estrogen. The combination then sets in motion other effects, resulting eventually in genes being turned on or off, which in turn causes proteins to be made or not made. BPA can also push the main estrogen receptor button (ERalpha) but it takes a lot of BPA to do it. Then another estrogen receptor was discovered, ERbeta. Same story with BPA. So when BPA was tested for biological effects relatively high doses (relative to those circulating in the blood as a result of environmental exposure) were tested in the laboratory. This led some to conclude BPA could not be a problem at environmentally relevant doses. But data from the laboratory continued to accrue showing that there were biological effects at doses 100 to 1000 times lower than those used in those studies, i.e., doses at concentrations commonly found in the blood of the majority of residents of the US (typically 0.5 to 40 nanomoles/ml). Moreover, biological responses were actually higher for the lower doses than the higher doses, a phenomenon seen in hormones and other biological signalers and co-factors (like vitamins). The higher doses, based on the estrogen receptor mode of action, may have been masking effects that would have been seen at lower doses. While the naysayers continued to explain that nothing designed like a bumblebee could possibly fly, the BPA bumblebee was flying in study after study. There was clearly more to it than the known estrogen receptors.
Now there is good evidence for “non-classical” mechanisms (i.e., not through the two estrogen receptors) for estrogen action, including the G-protein coupled receptor GPR30 and members of the estrogen related receptor family: ERRalpha, ERRbeta and ERRgamma. It turns out that BPA binds to ERRgamma particularly strongly at concentrations normally found in environmentally exposed people. And one of the biological effects seen in tissue culture studies at environmentally relevant doses is induction of resistance of breast cancer cells to chemotherapy agents:
“Resistance to chemotherapy is a major problem for cancer patients, especially those with advanced or metastatic disease,” says Ben-Jonathan, a professor of cancer and cell biology at UC who has studied BPA for more than 10 years. “Finding out what contributes to that resistance can give us an idea of what to target in order to make chemotherapy as effective as possible.”
Researchers have suspected that BPA could play a role in cancer because of the chemical’s structural similarities to a cancer-promoting compound called diethylstilbestrol (DES). But Ben-Jonathan’s team found that BPA isn’t exactly mimicking the action of DES.
“BPA does not increase cancer cell proliferation like DES does,” she says. “It’s actually acting by protecting existing cancer cells from dying in response to anti-cancer drugs, making chemotherapy significantly less effective.”
Ben-Jonathan’s team studied human breast cancer cells, subjecting them to low levels of BPA consistent with levels found in the blood of human adults. The team found that BPA is acting in cancer cells similar to the way estrogen does–by inducing proteins that protect the cells from chemotherapy agents.
“These data,” study authors write, “provide considerable support to the accumulating evidence that BPA is hazardous to human health.” (U. of Cincinnati press release)
There is more to this interesting paper. Using breast cancer cells that are both estrogen responsive and non-responsive Ben-Jonathan and colleagues were able to show that BPA was not working through the classical estrogen receptor, ERalpha or ERbeta. More likely, BPA was preventing cancer cells altered by the routine chemotherapy drugs Doxorubicin, cisplatin and vinblastine from being eliminated by the normal process of programmed cell death (apoptosis). Interestingly, each of these drugs works by a different mechanism:
Doxorubicin causes DNA damage by chelating metal ions, generating free radicals and inhibiting topoisomerase, thereby blocking transcription. Cisplatin, a platinum based compound, causes DNA intrastrand crosslinking and inhibits replication. Vinblastine acts by interfering with microtubule dynamics, resulting in mitotic arrest and cell death. As mentioned above, estradiol protects against a microtubule altering, as well as a DNA damaging drug. (LaPensee, Tuttle, Fox,Ben-Jonathan, Bisphenol A at Low Nanomolar Doses Confers Chemoresistance in Estrogen Receptor Alpha Positive and Negative Breast Cancer Cells, Environ Health Perspect doi:10.1289/ehp.11788 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 8 October 2008])
This study simultaneously sheds light on chemotherapy resistance of breast cancer but also suggests that a ubiquitous environmental agent might be interfering with breast cancer treatment. BPA has a very short half-life in the body and thus there is a possibility that the BPA effect, if it is real, could be ameliorated in breast cancer patients by preventing any further exposure to BPA.
In any event, this paper is another entry in BPA’s rap sheet. How many more will it take before US FDA decides BPA isn’t so innocent, after all. | <urn:uuid:309cb8e8-e669-42a5-8b31-8759f2552627> | {
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Here is an excerpt as related to that last point:
Focusing on the past six decades, we observe no sustained upward trends in wind speed distributions (Figs. 1 and 3), the mean wind speed at landfall or the annual frequency of occurrence of landfalling segments (Fig. 8). (Note that this annual frequency is specific to landfalling segments and different from the annual frequency of landfalling events since some events have multiple landfalling segments, e.g. in 2005 Hurricane Katrina made landfall in both South Florida and Louisiana.) This being the case, the dramatic increases in total economic and insured losses from TCs, which have been manifest over the past six decades, indicates that the increasing losses must be attributed to the factors other than wind speed alone. This is in accord with recent studies (Pielke, 2005; Pielke et al., 2008; Crompton and McAneney, 2008), which demonstrate the importance of demographic changes in driving the increasing economic cost of hurricane losses.The paper concludes as follows:
The quality of observational data is central to the ongoing debate between a warming climate and consequences for TC frequency and intensities. Our analyses show clear, anomalous differences in the wind speed distributions between the early historical period and the very recent six decades. While these differences cannot unequivocally exclude a possible Global Climate Change cause, we suggest that data quality issues are more plausible.Find the paper here in PDF.
An enormous challenge lies ahead for recovering reliable wind estimates in the early historical record, especially for highly dynamic and short-lived extreme TCs. The counting of events by Saffir-Simpson Hurricane categories is determined by threshold wind speeds, and if the wind estimates are themselves unreliable, how can derivative statistics be trusted sufficiently for long-term trend analysis? It is timely to recognise that using the early historical record will inevitably involve some irreducible uncertainties and “fixing” these may not be possible and that more physically-based models are needed to help resolve the data impasse. Conclusions drawn from scientific and insurance applications using the inherently lower-quality components of the record should be treated with caution. | <urn:uuid:731c2f49-ebd6-413a-97e7-00ce77aa3acb> | {
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« In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. »
(Genesis Chapter 1).
The 7 Days of Creation
The heraldic system is the illustration and development of this creation. This is the hologamic conception of the coats of arms.
Let us underline here their main points of concordances :
1 / « Let there be light ». « God separated the light from the darkness.»
It is primarily the waiting table of heraldry, shield of plain silver, and his shadow.
2 / « There was evening and there was morning. ».
This is the geo-sacral orientation of the shield which gives it its meaning.
3 / « God made the firmament, divided the waters which were under the firmament and the waters that are above. "God called the dry land "earth," and he called the mass of the water "sea" . "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that bears his seed, and the fruit tree that gives its kind, the fruit that bears his seed.».
These are the divisions of space weapons and generation, reinforcements partitioning parts, and furniture and figures of regeneration.
4 / And God said « Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth. ». God made the two great lights - the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night - and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.
It is the progress of the time dedicated, that is the sacred space of the Symbol, and the emergence of the lights of his Bow of Alliance, which illuminates the field of the sheild of all its colors.
5 / « Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky. ».
It is the development of the dressings, the associations, the disjunction, the backwardations, the duplications and other developments.
6 / And God said : « Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. ».
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them ; male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them : « Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. » .
God said : « See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.
And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. ».
This is the completion of his works, singular passage by the duel, the multiplication of singularities, and all of his creation expressed by filems the adoption and transmission of Arms.
7 / Thus were finished the heavens and the earth, and every deployment.
On the seventh day God had finished the work he had done. He rested on the seventh day from all His work which he had made.
And God blessed the seventh day he made it holy, because on that day he had rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (Cf . culture-religieuse-sainte-anne.over-blog.com/).
This is the day «out of time», from its creation, the focal point of the center of the Abyss, meet his eternity in the heart of the shield, which is the Creative Word.
These 7 days, it is time nitescent of Divine Creation, (Nitescent: Term supported to characterize an object Where emanates a strong glow or something that shines brightly.)
[it is that of 52 (5 + 2 = 7) weeks of 364 (3 + 6 + 4 = 13 = 4) days of the solar year, the division 28 (4x7ou 2 + 8 = 10 = 1) days 13 (1 + 3 = 4) lunar months + 1 day "Time out of Time" rediscovered by the new Mayanism which advocates calendar syntropy]
which is that of the rhythmic harmonization of man,
by Radiant Cross the Lord , in his Divine Universe [4 + 3 = 7] = = The Christ.
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Suivre le flux RSS des commentaires | <urn:uuid:80c272d7-37a1-4055-a5d4-8ef5b236e896> | {
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Sedation dentistry options are perfect for patients, both adults and children, with dental phobia and who find dental treatment particularly stressful. Their role is to eliminate anxiety and fear in patients undergoing dental treatment. Inhalation sedation uses a combination of nitrous oxide (N2O) and oxygen (O2) that is inhaled through a nasal hood or cannula. As a result, the patient can fall into a pleasant state of relaxation without being fully detached from the environment. Children should be accompanied by parents when inhalation sedation is being administered. Their presence allows them to feel both safe and comfortable. Inhalation sedation should supplement, rather than replace, traditional forms of anaesthesia to provide a higher level of comfort during various treatment procedures.
Recommendations on sedation:
- Do not drive for 30 minutes following inhalation sedation.
- Do not eat for 2-3 hours before the treatment procedure.
- Do not drink alcohol on treatment day.
- Children must be accompanied by parents.
- Pregnant women should inform the dentist about their condition and consult their gynaecologist prior to the procedure. | <urn:uuid:25d54116-13f0-468c-a3af-46df83b464ec> | {
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The Essenes were members of an ascetic Jewish sect of the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD. Most of them lived on the western shore of the Dead Sea. They are identified by many scholars with the Qumran community that wrote the documents popularly called the Dead Sea Scrolls. They numbered about 4,000 members. Admission required two to three years of preparation, and new candidates took an oath of piety, justice, and truthfulness.
According to Philo of Alexandria and other writers of the 1st century AD, the Essenes shared their possessions, lived by agriculture and handicrafts, rejected slavery, and believed in the immortality of the soul. Their meals were solemn community affairs. The main group of Essenes opposed marriage. They had regular prayer and study sessions, especially on the Sabbath. Transgressors were excluded from the sect.
The similarity between a number of Essene and Christian concepts and practices (kingdom of God, baptism, sacred meals, the position of a central teacher, titles of officeholders, and community organization) has led some people to assume that there was a close kinship between the Essenes and the groups around John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. It is possible that after the dissolution of the Essene community some members followed John the Baptist or joined one of the early Christian communities, but any other direct connection seems unlikely.
|BELIEVE Religious Information Source - By Alphabet Our List of 2,300 Religious Subjects|
Beall, Todd S., Josephus' Descriptions of the Essenes Illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls (1988); Davies, Philip, Behind the Essenes (1987); Larson, Martin, The Essene-Christian Faith (1980); Simon, Marcel, Jewish Sects at the Time of Jesus, trans. by James Farley (1980).
The Essenes were an important Jewish group which flourished in Palestine from the late second century B.C. to the late first century A.D.
Though they explicitly mention the Essenes, these sources present several problems. None of them gives a firsthand, inside view of the Essenes. Furthermore, these sources generally cater to Greekor hellenized readers and thus, on some points, misrepresent Essene practices, doctrines, and motives. Finally, it is doubtful that any of these sources has anything to say, by way of description, about the Essenes as they existed before the reign of Herod the Great (37-4 B.C.).
In the last thirty years scholars have sought to mitigate these difficulties by using information derived from the Dead Sea Scrolls. This approach has problems of its own, however. The relationship between the Essenes and the Qumran sectaries is uncertain. The name "Essene" never appears in the Qumran literature, and viable cases have been made for identifying the Qumran sectaries with Pharises, Zealots, Sadducees, and other Jewish and Christian groups. Nevertheless, on the basis of archaeological and literary evidence most scholars now believe that the Qumran sectaries were Essenes, though not necessarily the Essenes. The inhabitants of Qumran may have been the leaders, or perhaps only a small branch, of a broad Essene movement. In either case it is impossible to know just how and to what extent the Qumran documents reflect standard Essene practices and beliefs. For this reason, it would seem prudent to make at least a provisional distinction between what Philo and Josephus claim to know about the Essenes and the potentially relevant evidence of Qumran. Of the Qumran documents the Manual of Discipline, the Damascus Document, the War Scroll, the recently published Temple Scroll, and the various pesher-type commentaries on the Minor Prophets are proving to be the most useful in the discussion of Essene life, doctrine, and history.
Essene life was also communal. Not only was property held in common, but it seems that many, if not all, of their meals were taken together as well. An essene traveler could always be certain of finding free lodging wherever fellow Essenes lived. Essene communities were highly structured with four different classes of membership divided according to seniority. It would seem that priests occupied the top rung of the Essene social ladder; Josephus explicity mentions that the ones who administered the communal finances were priests. The internal social structure of Essene communities was maintained by careful and exacting discipline. An entrance procedure requiring a three-year novitiate and solemn vows ensured a committed membership.
There is some disagreement between Philo and Josephus on the Essene attitude toward the temple and sacrifices. Philo claims that the Essenes abstained from animal sacrifices altogether, while Josephus reports that, because of their views on purity, the Essenes were excluded from the temple courts and for this reason sacrificed among themselves.
Finally, Josephus says that the Essenes were thoroughgoing predestinarians, and that along with a belief in the immortality of the soul they held to a doctrine of preexistence.
This picture of Essene life and doctrine is, on the whole, corroborated by the information derived from Qumran and its documents. As one might expect, however, the agreement is not perfect; there are some outright contradictions. For example, the Manual of Discipline mandates a two-year, not a three-year, novitiate. According to Philo, the Essenes eschewed oaths, but the Damascus Document prescribes several oaths for the Qumran sectaries. These and other incongruities highlight the uncertainties of using the Dead Sea Scrolls to illuminate Essenism. Even if one assumes that Philo and Josephus were mistaken on some points (and this is quite probable), one must still reckon with the possibility that the Dead Sea Scrolls do not reflect universal Essene characteristics.
Yet, with this possibility in mind, one can still appreciate the tremendous value of the Qumran scrolls for Essene studies. The scrolls give clear evidence that at least some of the Essenes followed a solar, 364-day calendar as opposed to official Judaism, which used a lunar one. Moreover, the scrolls intimate that the Qumran Essenes (if no others) were implacable foes of the Hasmonean high priests. In fact, it seems that many Essene leaders were Zadokites, members of the high priestly family displaced by the Hasmoneans. This information has in turn shed light on the vexing problem of the Essenes and temple sacrifices. It seems that the Qumranians abstained from temple sacrifices because of a rift with the ruling priests in Jerusalem, not because they repudiated the sacrificial system, as Philo implies. Finally, the scrolls expose an Essenism which was thoroughly eschatological in outlook. The writers of the scrolls believed themselves the true remnant of Israel living in the last days. They eagerly awaited the appearance of both a political messiah and an eschatological high priest.
In general it can be said that the Dead Sea Scrolls have preserved a place for Essenism within the mainstream of Judaism. Josephus's and Philo's accounts show it was difficult to fit the Essenes into what was known about late second temple Judaism. The Essenes were often regarded as syncretistic monastics, imbued with a hellenistic asceticism. Recent studies on the Qumran scrolls, however, have revealed an ascetic and communal life style not based on some Greek philosophical ideal but on an overwhelming concern for ritual purity. Regardless of the identity of the Qumran sectaries, it is now possible to understand the Essenes as one of the numerous purity-conscious groups which flourished in Judaism before A.D. 70.
Also still undecided is the importance and influence of Essenism within pre-A.D. 70 Judaism and early Christianity. It has often been dismissed as a peripheral Jewish sect or hailed as the very seedbed of the Christian faith. Both of these positions are too extreme. It is more likely that the Essenes were one expression of a widespread pietistic reaction to the pragmatic and tepid spirit of the official Judaism. From the ranks of such a reaction the early church would have drawn heavily.
(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)
G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English; A. Dupont-Sommer, The Jewish Sect of Qumran and the Essenes; M. Burrows, the Dead Sea Scrolls; F. F. Bruce, Second Thoughts on the Dead Sea Scrolls; W. S. LaSor, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the NT; R. deVaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls; J. H. Charlesworth, "The Origin and Subsequent History of the Authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Four Transitional Phases among the Qumran Essenes," RQum 10:213-33; C. D. Ginsburg, The Essenes.
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The main BELIEVE web-page (and the index to subjects) is at: BELIEVE Religious Information Source - By Alphabet http://mb-soft.com/believe/indexaz.html | <urn:uuid:91a576a3-2265-4629-9bfd-28c43498f784> | {
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Proposition 37 is simple. It would require a label on foods sold in California which are genetically engineered or contain engineered ingredients. Just like existing nutrition, ingredient, and allergen labels, a Proposition 37 label would provide relevant information to consumers about the food they might buy.
It's hard to imagine a rational argument against providing consumers with additional information about the products they buy. And opponents of Proposition 37 haven't provided one.
The opponents are mainly big pesticide and junk food companies who are worried that their products might not sell as well if consumers knew what they were eating. But they don't want to admit that their only concern is their own profits, so they're spending millions to try to confuse voters instead. That's why the opposition's advertising campaign doesn't actually argue against labeling per se; incredibly, its main argument is that Proposition 37 has too many exemptions!
Voters should know that many of the exemptions opponents highlight are the same ones that already apply to practically every other food label. Others are included to avoid duplication of existing laws or to make the law more enforceable. The fact that opponents have chosen to bombard us with ads about these arcane legal issues, rather than talking about labeling itself, shows that they have lots of cash but no good arguments.
If you think you have the right to know what's in your food, ignore all the misleading ads and vote yes on Proposition 37. | <urn:uuid:6f962968-fd22-4d51-9d94-939d3f06b511> | {
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PECAN Trivia and Facts
It takes about 78 pecans for one pecan pie.
It would take 11,624 pecans, stacked end to end, to reach the top of the Empire State Building in New York City.
It would take a line of over 10 billion pecans to reach the moon!
Georgia has been the top pecan producing state in the nation since the late 1800s.
According to USDA July 2011 Pecan Crop Production Report, the 2010-2011 U.S. pecan harvest yielded 293,470,000 pounds of pecans.
Estimates for the 2011-12 crop year suggest U.S. orchards will produce 280,000,000 pounds of pecans.
The U.S. produces roughly 90% of the world's pecans, with an annual production of over 250 million pounds.
The South Carolina Pecan Festival in Florence County was designated as the Official Pecan Festival of South Carolina in 2011.
There are 65 people in the U.S. listed on whitepages.com with the last name 'Pecan'
(Mark Morton, 'Gastronomica', Fall 2010)
The Pecan (Carya illinoinensis) is a kind of hickory, generally considered to be the best-tasting of the hickories, and the most significant of the hickories as a nut crop. Texas and Georgia are the largest producers of commercial pecans in the United States. The pecan is a major agricultural tree, but not top ranked as an ornamental. Pecans are difficult to transplant, and they cannot be counted on to produce good crops of nuts when used as landscape trees.
There are about 1,000 varieties of pecans, many of them named after Native American tribes.
Pecans are native to the Mississippi valley area of the U.S.
The Official State Nut of Alabama is the Pecan (1982).
The Pecan Tree (Carya illinoinensis) was designated as the Official Tree of Texas in 1919 and the Pecan was designated as the Official Health Nut of Texas in 2001.
Georgia is the largest producer of pecans in the U.S.
The world's largest pecan nursery is in Lumberton, Mississippi.
Pecan trees produce 25 to 45 pounds per tree in alternate years. They are an alternate-bearing tree, producing nuts every 2nd year. Researchers are working on developing a tree that will produce a large crop annually.
It would take about 144 million pecans to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
More than 80% of pecans sold are already shelled.
Okmulgee, Oklahoma, holds the world's record for largest pecan pie, pecan cookie, and pecan brownie. The town holds an annual Pecan Festival each June. The Pecan Festival was discontinued in 2009.
Astronauts took pecans to the moon in two Apollo space missions. Pecan wood is used in agricultural implements, baseball bats, hammer handles, furniture, wall paneling, flooring, religious carvings, and firewood. | <urn:uuid:b5b5316f-4f43-4010-9a4b-811be9c2191a> | {
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If you've been keeping up with NASA's research efforts on Mars, you know that their Opportunity rover is nearing the end of its over seven-year stay on the red planet. But NASA's already gearing up for its next stage of Martian research with Curiosity, the six-wheel-drive, plutonium-powered science lab slated to depart on its nine-month trip to Mars the day after Thanksgiving.
The picture up top shows Curiosity (also known as the Mars Science Laboratory) as it appeared in its fully-deployed configuration last Friday. Since Saturday, however, NASA engineers have been packing the rover down for its trip. So take a good look, everybody — this is probably the last time Curiosity will ever be pictured in this configuration; the next time Curiosity looks like this, it will be millions of miles away, recently landed on the surface of Mars.
To see a stunning depiction of Curiosity breaking Martian atmosphere and landing on the planet's surface, check out our previous post. | <urn:uuid:ac54b140-8235-4d97-86b8-84f1f7d92b13> | {
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Glomus jugulare tumors are highly vascular, benign (non-cancerous) tumors that arise along the dome of the jugular bulb. Centered within the jugular foramen, directly below the middle ear, tumor cells may eventually grow into the middle ear, along neural foramina, enter the posterior cranial fossa or invade either air cells or the marrow spaces of the lateral skull base. Pulsatile tinnitus, the most common symptom of glomus tumors, occurs due to the vascular nature of these tumors. Conductive hearing loss can also occur as the tumor grows into the middle ear space and prevents transmission of sound through the eardrum and ossicular (hearing bone) chain. Very large glomus jugulare tumors may cause vertigo (feeling that the world is spinning when you are not moving), facial paralysis or weakness, difficulty swallowing, hoarseness and sensorineural hearing loss.
Glomus jugulare tumors are first detected/evaluated in the office by a thorough microscope (binocular) evaluation of the ear and comprehensive cranial nerve examination. Due to the highly vascular nature of the tumor, a reddish mass is typically observed behind the eardrum. Imaging studies, including high-resolution temporal bone CT scans, MRI scans of the brain with internal auditory canal protocols and MR angiography (to get more information about the vascular properties of the tumor), are indicated. Three treatment options exist for glomus jugulare tumors and recommendations are based on the individual properties of each tumor. Because these tumors are slow growing, observation using serial imaging is an option if the tumor is small and not causing intra-temporal or neurologic symptoms. Due to the glomus jugulare tumor being located next to the jugular vein and several important nerves, a team of surgeons is often involved if surgical removal is recommended, including a neurotologist, neurosurgeon and head and neck surgeon. Lastly, conformal radiation is an option that may halt the growth of the tumor by cutting off its blood supply, but the tumor is not removed. Those undergoing surgery may require a formal cerebral angiogram with embolization of tumor vessels 24 – 48 hours prior to resection. | <urn:uuid:8c8bf0df-fbff-4b10-a93c-7b61eb9d3c25> | {
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I am writing this guide because once in a while people I know would run into problems with viruses and other kinds of digital evil so I'm writing this guide to point 'em all to this article in future, and who knows maybe it would help some others on the internet. I am very lazy so I'll keep it short and as simple as I can. Generally keeping your PC safe and online stuff safe is extremely simple if you follow some extremely simple rules.
Part 1: Keeping your PC clean from viruses.
This part is intended pretty much for Windows users only, if your on Mac or Linux you are more safe against these. If you wan't to know more how to protect your Mac or Linux system just read on how to set proper user permissions for your system.
How do this viruses get into your computer:
Most of the viruses and malware come from the internet. General rule of safety is to download stuff/open email/etc. only from trusted sources. This is especially important when free stuff is concerned. There are millions of 'free' software out there which are malware and viruses in disguise. So if you want to download software do so from a trusted source, say something from Microsoft or Apple is pretty much guaranteed to be safe. Always pay attention to the address bar of your browser when you are downloading, make sure its the right website and not a 'mikrosoft.kom' or 'apple.pie'. If software you are about to download is from a company you never heard about, research it, check if it has a wikipedia article, check if it is ranked on websites like download.com, or just put "TheAwesomeProgramYouWant is malware" in google search and see if anything will come up. By doing so you will eliminate 50% of virus threat that can come from the internet. Second virus threat from the internet comes from email attachments. You can't get a virus by just recieving it, but you can infect your computer if you open the email attachments. Every time you open an email attachment your pretty much tell your computer "I trust whatever is in there, and if will blow up my computer, so be it" <- and that's true about pretty much any other program you open your computer, most often you give it same level of control over your computer as you have... I got carried away, so email attachments - triple check from who the email came from, do you absolutely trust the sender? Generally text documents, images, spreadsheats are less likely to harm your computer, but you have to be able to distinguish between a program attachment and say image attachment before opening it. The good news is that most of the modern public email providers such as yahoo, gmail, gmx have built in virus scanners that scan the emails before you get them, but you can never be sure. So again, its all about trusting the sender of the email. Email viruses are I guess about 30%... or whateva% of virus threat for average internet user. The less common but yet very dangerous way of getting your computer sick is getting it infected from a flash drive or a CD that has been on someone else's computer. If the cd/usb flahs drive/memmory card is not your's, someone else has written on them than its better not to put em into your computer. Pictures/videos/audio are generally safe to copy from these, but the problem is that unlike with email attachments the virus can be sort of invisible for an unnarmed eye, they can be invisible, hidden, or affect your windows system before anyone knows it. I would probably be OK with a memmory card from friend's photo camera, but I would double check their flash drive with an antivirus before opening it. That's anothether 10% of virus threats, and the last but not least are the viruses that spread through the local network, such as your home network or your office network, not the internet. The only good way to protect against these is to have your system firewall running. Just google "windows XYZ firewall" and learn how to check if it's on.
How to defend against viruses/malware/spyware etc.
1) Have your Windows updated! I can't stress enough how important is this. Always do windows updates whenever it asks you. Oh and if your are still on Windows XP or older then just forget about it... I know Windows XP is still corporate standard (as of December 2011) at many companies but really its just too old already. Move on to Windows 7.
2) Have your Internet browser updated! Ok so unlike Windows which is preconfigured to run updates automatically your main favourite internet browser might not be, so check once in a while if your are running the latest version.
3) Have your every-day frequently running software updates. Such as office programs, email-client, instant messanger etc.
4) Have a free decent antivirus program installed on your computer. Why free? well because since you are reading this article you are probably someone I care about so, I wouldn't want you to waste your money on something useless that just makes your computer run 2 times slower. As of today my recomendations are: Microsoft Security Essentials or Avast! There are plenty of other good ones but these two happend to be my favourites.
5) Have an emergency malware wiper instelled on your computer. Ok so antivirus protects your computer by constantly scanning it and tracking all programs you are using in real time, and surprise - it misses sometimes. So your computer gets infected and your antivirus is unaware. There are other sorts of protection software that specialize in quick scanning and recovering your system in on-demand fashion. Now go get Malwarebytes. The free version is all you need, just run whenver your computer is in trouble or you suspect it's been infected. | <urn:uuid:2cc33e0c-3a22-4041-a1ba-d5a7f84a206a> | {
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Progressive weight training and weightlifting as a sport flourished in Ancient Greece and Rome. (Read about it: History of Weightlifting in Ancient Greece and Rome). As a sport, it subsided after the fall of the Roman Empire. During the Dark Ages weight training became mainly the tool of the warrior and the shows of strength became popular entertainment. Such competitions have remained relatively unchanged in Switzerland, Spain, and Scotland.
Numerous records exist that describe weight training for the knights, as well as for the army soldiers. A common practice of young knights was training with weapons of double weight in order to develop strength. The Roman military writer Vegetius was widely read at that time, describing the traditional training of young legionnaire recruits. They were given double-weight swords and shields to train hard by striking at posts. In this way, when the recruit took up real and lighter weapons, “as if freed from the heavier weight, he will fight in greater safety and speed”. Aegidius Romanus, an archbishop of Bourges in the early 14th century wrote that a military leader needed to be attentive to individual drill, noting that, “having arms unaccustomed to striking and limbs untrained for fighting” was useless for soldiers. He also stressed the importance of practice as toughening to endure hardship as well as “hardness of the body”.
A number of other 15th century humanist writers on physical education also repeatedly stressed the importance of muscular strength and conditioning. Various images of weight-training in Medieval artwork show the fencers performing heavy stone lifting or throwing (similar perhaps to the modern “medicine ball” exercise tool) as well as the use of heavy sticks equivalent to later “Indian club” exercise tools. Another proponent of physical exercise in the 15th century was the Hispano-Italian master of arms and knight, Pietro Monte, who wrote voluminously on fighting and military arts and included a concise chapter on body conditioning and diet in his Colecteanea work published in 1509. Monte advocated weight lifting, running sprints, and other calisthenic workouts in order to achieve the ideal martial physique—again, in the classic model. As many Renaissance writers did, Monte stressed the importance of physical conditioning and exercises as key to health, happiness, and martial prowess. Sir Thomas Elyot, in ‘The Boke Named the Governor’ (a treatise published in 1531), advised exercise “with poises (weights) made of lead or other metal” along with “lifting and throwing the heavy stone or bar.” In 14-15 centuries, British soldiers were known to exercise by pushing a metal bar.
As an example of weightlifting outside of the military training, lifting stones became popular in Iceland (where it was called steintökin), Scotland, Northern England, and Scandinavia. Usually, a lifting stone was simply an unmodified stone of a predetermined weight. The challenge was to lift the stone thus proving one’s strength. The weights and rules varied from country to country. In Iceland, the stones were categorized as “full strength” at 341 pounds/155 kg, “half strength” at 229 pounds/104 kg, “weakling” at 108 pounds/49 kg , and “Useless” at 50 pounds / 23 kg. Among many uses, they were used to qualify men for a job. In order to get a job on a fishing boat, a man had to lift a “half strength” stone to a ledge about a hip high. <IMG>. The famous Husafell Stone weighs 418 pounds and has been used for over two centuries.
In Scotland, “Manhood Stones” (Clach cuid fir) were used as tests of strength as part of the “Golden challenge”. Every young man had to lift the stone (weighting at least 220 pounds) and put it on another stone in order to be accepted into manhood (and be allowed to wear a hat).
Similar events existed in other countries. A popular variation was a “stone walk” where the participant had to carry the stone a certain distance. This type of event has become popular today in the strongman sport.
Another exercise with weights that dates back to middle ages is stone put in Scotland. Similar to shot put, it utilizes a rough round stone 16 to 30 pounds. The object is t throw (or put) the stone as far as possible. The Swiss variant of stone put is known as Steinstossen and utilizes a much heavier stone – 184 pounds (83.5 kg). An English text from the year 1184 noted knights “contended in throwing heavy stones”.
The word “Dumbbells” originated in Tudor England, where athletes used church bell clappers ranged in weight from a few ounces to many pounds, to develop the upper body and arms. The athletes would remove the clappers from the bells; hence, the name “dumb,” as in “silent,” and “bell” – dumbbell. When strongmen started to make their own equipment, they kept the name, even though the shape changed.
In the 18th century, interest in physical strength and well-being reappeared among the general population regardless of it’s practical application to warfare. Physical education was reintroduced to the university curriculum. Special exercise apparatus were developed and used along with programs using free weights and simple machines. The training was focused on musculature strength and endurance rather than physical development. In the middle of the 18th century, professional strongmen became popular, with feats of strength such as bending bars of iron, lifting various objects including people and farm animals, and breaking chains. In the mid-1800s, lifting as we know it today developed in parallel in several countries throughout Central Europe and in the United States. This time can be considered as the beginning of modern weightlifting. | <urn:uuid:df752f53-fb1f-44e4-a65d-f0faa7a5d850> | {
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Russia past and present, from a historian in Cambridge
‘Historians often dislike what happened or wish that it had happened differently,’ wrote AJP Taylor, the great British historian-provocateur of the last century. He concluded: ‘There is nothing they can do about it.’
It doesn’t stop them trying, of course.
Taylor was responding to criticism of his infamous book, The Origins of the Second World War (1961). In this book, Taylor sought to overturn conventional wisdom. Provoking angry international debate, as much on TV as among scholars, he argued that Hitler was not a rapacious lunatic, but a rational statesman in the Bismarckian mould. The war was a blunder, a malfunction of the international system, not an inevitable consequence of a pre-planned genocidal scheme.
The emphasis of Taylor’s argument was wrong. But not all of it. Take the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939.
For Taylor, the Soviet Union turned to Germany in the summer of 1939 after it failed to agree a treaty of collective security with Britain and France. Such a treaty would have been directed against Germany, the undisputed threat to all the other powers, but it failed because the British and French were obstructive. As the clock ticked in the weeks that followed the Nazi occupation of Prague, the only way left for the Soviets to defend themselves against Germany was by allying with — Germany.
So when Germany invaded Poland in September, the Red Army followed up with an invasion from the East. A dreadful occupation of the Baltic and Eastern Polish region followed. Its worst aspects, such as the massacre at Katyn, bear comparison with Nazi crimes. But was this risky foreign adventure really Stalin’s first choice? The evidence suggests it was not. After all, he was usually risk-averse in international affairs.
Although he didn’t always exercise it, Taylor had the gift of seeing the past on its own terms. When some commentators today argue that the Nazi-Soviet Pact was nothing more than Stalin’s plan for importing totalitarianism to eastern Poland and the Baltic States, they are confusing cause and side-effect. In forgetting such moments as the Nazi-Poland Pact of 1934 to 1939, and insisting on tendentious moral frameworks that are too weak to explain international events, they push a presentist agenda that dramatically exaggerates the danger Russia poses to European peace today.
‘I have never seen any sense in the question of war guilt or war innocence,’ Taylor wrote. He went on: ‘As a private citizen, I think that all this striving after greatness and domination [one could add ‘mass destruction’] is idiotic[.] […]. As a historian, I recognize that Powers will be Powers.’
AJP Taylor was not a humble man, but he was more humble than those who turn history into a crusade. | <urn:uuid:ec9001d3-c6dd-4a5b-bc9e-6058a78ad828> | {
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Ask most people what socialism means and they will point to the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and a host of other authoritarian, centralised, exploitative and oppressive party dictatorships. These regimes have in common two things. Firstly, the claim that their rulers are Marxists or socialists. Secondly, that they have successfully alienated millions of working class people from the very idea of socialism. Indeed, the supporters of capitalism simply had to describe the "socialist paradises" as they really are in order to put people off socialism. The Stalinist regimes and their various apologists (and even "opponents", like the Trotskyists, who defend them as "degenerated workers' states") let the bourgeoisie have an easy time in dismissing all working-class demands and struggles as so many attempts to set up similar party dictatorships.
The association of "socialism" or "communism" with these dictatorships has often made anarchists wary of calling themselves socialists or communists in case our ideas are associated with them. As Errico Malatesta argued in 1924:
"I foresee the possibility that the communist anarchists will gradually abandon the term 'communist': it is growing in ambivalence and falling into disrepute as a result of Russian 'communist' despotism. If the term is eventually abandoned this will be a repetition of what happened with the word 'socialist.' We who, in Italy at least, were the first champions of socialism and maintained and still maintain that we are the true socialists in the broad and human sense of the word, ended by abandoning the term to avoid confusion with the many and various authoritarian and bourgeois deviations of socialism. Thus too we may have to abandon the term 'communist' for fear that our ideal of free human solidarity will be confused with the avaricious despotism which has for some time triumphed in Russia and which one party, inspired by the Russian example, seeks to impose world-wide." [The Anarchist Revolution, p. 20]
That, to a large degree happened with anarchists simply calling themselves by that name (without adjectives) or libertarians to avoid confusion. This, sadly, resulted in two problems. Firstly, it gave Marxists even more potential to portray anarchism as being primarily against the state and not being as equally opposed to capitalism, hierarchy and inequality (as we argue in section H.2.4, anarchists have opposed the state as just one aspect of class and hierarchical society). Secondly, extreme right-wingers tried to appropriate the names "libertarian" and "anarchist" to describe their vision of extreme capitalism as "anarchism," they claimed, was simply "anti-government" (see section F for discussion on why "anarcho"-capitalism is not anarchist). To counter these distortions of anarchist ideas, many anarchists have re-appropriated the use of the words "socialist" and "communist," although always in combination with the words "anarchist" and "libertarian."
Such combination of words is essential as the problem Malatesta predicted still remains. If one thing can be claimed for the 20th century, it is that it has seen the word "socialism" become narrowed and restricted into what anarchists call "state socialism" - socialism created and run from above, by the state (i.e. by the state bureaucracy and better described as state capitalism). This restriction of "socialism" has been supported by both Stalinist and Capitalist ruling elites, for their own reasons (the former to secure their own power and gain support by associating themselves with socialist ideals, the latter by discrediting those ideas by associating them with the horror of Stalinism). The Stalinist "leadership thus portrays itself as socialist to protect its right to wield the club, and Western ideologists adopt the same pretence in order to forestall the threat of a more free and just society." The latter use it as "a powerful ideological weapon to enforce conformity and obedience," to "ensure that the necessity to rent oneself to the owners and managers of these [capitalist] institutions will be regarded as virtually a natural law, the only alternative to the 'socialist' dungeon." In reality, "if there is a relation" between Bolshevism and socialism, "it is the relation of contradiction." ["The Soviet Union versus Socialism", pp. 47-52, The Radical Papers, Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos (ed.), pp. 47-8]
This means that anarchists and other libertarian socialists have a major task on their hands - to reclaim the promise of socialism from the distortions inflicted upon it by both its enemies (Stalinists and capitalists) and its erstwhile and self-proclaimed supporters (Social Democracy and its offspring Bolshevism). A key aspect of this process is a critique of both the practice and ideology of Marxism and its various offshoots. Only by doing this can anarchists prove, to quote Rocker, that "Socialism will be free, or it will not be at all." [Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 14]
Such a critique raises the problem of which forms of "Marxism" to discuss. There is an extremely diverse range of Marxist viewpoints and groups in existence. Indeed, the different groups spend a lot of time indicating why all the others are not "real" Marxists (or Marxist-Leninists, or Trotskyists, and so on) and are just "sects" without "real" Marxist theory or ideas. This "diversity" is, of course, a major problem (and somewhat ironic, given that some Marxists like to insult anarchists by stating there are as many forms of anarchism as anarchists!). Equally, many Marxists go further than dismissing specific groups. Some even totally reject other branches of their movement as being non-Marxist (for example, some Marxists dismiss Leninism as having little, or nothing, to do with what they consider the "real" Marxist tradition to be). This means that discussing Marxism can be difficult as Marxists can argue that our FAQ does not address the arguments of this or that Marxist thinker, group or tendency.
With this in mind, this section of the FAQ will concentrate on the works of Marx and Engels (and so the movement they generated, namely Social Democracy) as well as the Bolshevik tradition started by Lenin and continued (by and large) by Trotsky. These are the core thinkers (and the recognised authorities) of most Marxists and so latter derivations of these tendencies can be ignored (for example Maoism, Castroism and so on). It should also be noted that even this grouping will produce dissent as some Marxists argue that the Bolshevik tradition is not part of Marxism. This perspective can be seen in the "impossiblist" tradition of Marxism (e.g. the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its sister parties) as well as in the left/council communist tradition (e.g. in the work of such Marxists as Anton Pannekoek and Paul Mattick). The arguments for their positions are strong and well worth reading (indeed, any honest analysis of Marxism and Leninism cannot help but show important differences between the two). However, as the vast majority of Marxists today are also Leninists, we have to reflect this in our FAQ (and, in general, we do so by referring to "mainstream Marxists" as opposed to the small minority of libertarian Marxists).
Another problem arises when we consider the differences not only between Marxist tendencies, but also within a specific tendency before and after its representatives seize power. For example, as Chomsky pointed out, "there are . . . very different strains of Leninism . . . there's the Lenin of 1917, the Lenin of the 'April Theses' and State and Revolution. That's one Lenin. And then there's the Lenin who took power and acted in ways that are unrecognisable . . . compared with, say, the doctrines of 'State and Revolution.' . . . this [is] not very hard to explain. There's a big difference between the libertarian doctrines of a person who is trying to associate himself with a mass popular movement to acquire power and the authoritarian power of somebody who's taken power and is trying to consolidate it. . . that is true of Marx also. There are competing strains in Marx." As such, this section of our FAQ will try and draw out the contradictions within Marxism and indicate what aspects of the doctrine aided the development of the "second" Lenin for the seeds from which authoritarianism grew post-October 1917 existed from the start. Anarchists agree with Chomsky, namely that he considered it "characteristic and unfortunate that the lesson that was drawn from Marx and Lenin for the later period was the authoritarian lesson. That is, it's the authoritarian power of the vanguard party and destruction of all popular forums in the interests of the masses. That's the Lenin who became known to later generations. Again, not very surprisingly, because that's what Leninism really was in practice." [Language and Politics, p. 152]
Ironically, given Marx's own comments on the subject, a key hindrance to such an evaluation is the whole idea and history of Marxism itself. While, as Murray Bookchin noted "to his lasting credit," Marx tried (to some degree) "to create a movement that looks to the future instead of to the past," his followers have not done so. "Once again," Bookchin argued, "the dead are walking in our midst - ironically, draped in the name of Marx, the man who tried to bury the dead of the nineteenth century. So the revolution of our own day can do nothing better than parody, in turn, the October Revolution of 1918 and the civil war of 1918-1920 . . . The complete, all-sided revolution of our own day . . . follows the partial, the incomplete, the one-sided revolutions of the past, which merely changed the form of the 'social question,' replacing one system of domination and hierarchy by another." [Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. 108 and p. 109] In Marx's words, the "tradition of all the dead generations weighs down like a nightmare on the brain of the living." Yet his own work, and the movements it inspired, now add to this dead-weight. In order to ensure, as Marx (echoing Proudhon) put it, the social revolution draws its poetry from the future rather than the past, Marxism itself must be transcended.
Which, of course, means evaluating both the theory and practice of Marxism. For anarchists, it seems strange that for a body of work whose followers stress is revolutionary and liberating, its results have been so bad. If Marxism is so obviously revolutionary and democratic, then why have so few of the people who read it drawn those conclusions? How could it be transmuted so easily into Stalinism? Why are there so few libertarian Marxists, if it were Lenin (or, following Lenin, Social Democracy) which "misinterpreted" Marx and Engels? So when Marxists argue that the problem is in the interpretation of the message not in the message itself, anarchists reply that the reason these numerous, allegedly false, interpretations exist at all simply suggests that there are limitations within Marxism as such rather than the readings it has been subjected to. When something repeatedly fails and produces such terrible results in the process then there has to be a fundamental flaw somewhere. Thus Cornelius Castoriadis:
"Marx was, in fact, the first to stress that the significance of a theory cannot be grasped independently of the historical and social practice it inspires and initiates, to which it gives rise, in which it prolongs itself and under cover of which a given practice seeks to justify itself.
"Who, today, would dare proclaim that the only significance of Christianity for history is to be found in reading unaltered versions of the Gospels or that the historical practice of various Churches over a period of some 2,000 years can teach us nothing fundamental about the significance of this religious movement? A 'faithfulness to Marx' which would see the historical fate of Marxism as something unimportant would be just as laughable. It would in fact be quite ridiculous. Whereas for the Christian the revelations of the Gospels have a transcendental kernel and an intemporal validity, no theory could ever have such qualities in the eyes of a Marxist. To seek to discover the meaning of Marxism only in what Marx wrote (while keeping quiet about what the doctrine has become in history) is to pretend - in flagrant contradiction with the central ideas of that doctrine - that real history doesn't count and that the truth of a theory is always and exclusively to be found 'further on.' It finally comes to replacing revolution by revelation and the understanding of events by the exegesis of texts." ["The Fate of Marxism," pp. 75-84 The Anarchist Papers, Dimitrios Roussopoulos (ed.), p. 77]
This does not mean forsaking the work of Marx and Engels. It means rejecting once and for all the idea that two people, writing over a period of decades over a hundred years ago have all the answers. As should be obvious! Ultimately, anarchists think we have to build upon the legacy of the past, not squeeze current events into it. We should stand on the shoulders of giants, not at their feet.
Thus this section of our FAQ will attempt to explain the various myths of Marxism and provide an anarchist critique of it and its offshoots. Of course, the ultimate myth of Marxism is what Alexander Berkman called "The Bolshevik Myth," namely the idea that the Russian Revolution was a success. However, given the scope of this revolution, we will not discuss it fully here except when it provides useful empirical evidence for our critique (see section H.6 for more on the Russian Revolution). Our discussion here will concentrate for the most part on Marxist theory, showing its inadequacies, its problems, where it appropriated anarchist ideas and how anarchism and Marxism differ. This is a big task and this section of the FAQ can only be a small contribution to it.
As noted above, there are minority trends in Marxism which are libertarian in nature (i.e. close to anarchism). As such, it would be simplistic to say that anarchists are "anti-Marxist" and we generally do differentiate between the (minority) libertarian element and the authoritarian mainstream of Marxism (i.e. Social-Democracy and Leninism in its many forms). Without doubt, Marx contributed immensely to the enrichment of socialist ideas and analysis (as acknowledged by Bakunin, for example). His influence, as to be expected, was both positive and negative. For this reason he must be read and discussed critically. This FAQ is a contribution to this task of transcending the work of Marx. As with anarchist thinkers, we must take what is useful from Marx and reject the rubbish. But never forget that anarchists are anarchists precisely because we think that anarchist thinkers have got more right than wrong and we reject the idea of tying our politics to the name of a long dead thinker.
Ultimately, the greatest myth of Marxism is the idea that anarchists and most Marxists want the same thing. Indeed, it could be argued that it is anarchist criticism of Marxism which has made them stress the similarity of long term goals with anarchism. "Our polemics against [the Marxists]," Bakunin argued, "have forced them to recognise that freedom, or anarchy - that is, the voluntary organisation of the workers from below upward - is the ultimate goal of social development." He stressed that the means to this apparently similar end were different. The Marxists "say that [a] state yoke, [a] dictatorship, is a necessary transitional device for achieving the total liberation of the people: anarchy, or freedom, is the goal, and the state, or dictatorship, is the means . . . We reply that no dictatorship can have any other objective than to perpetuate itself, and that it can engender and nurture only slavery in the people who endure it. Liberty can be created only by liberty, by an insurrection of all the people and the voluntary organisation of the workers from below upwards." [Statism and Anarchy, p. 179]
As such, it is commonly taken for granted that the ends of both Marxists and Anarchists are the same, we just disagree over the means. However, within this general agreement over the ultimate end (a classless and stateless society), the details of such a society are somewhat different. This, perhaps, is to be expected given the differences in means. As is obvious from Bakunin's argument, anarchists stress the unity of means and goals, that the means which are used affect the goal reached. This unity between means and ends is expressed well by Martin Buber: "One cannot in the nature of things expect a little tree that has been turned into a club to put forth leaves." [Paths in Utopia, p. 127] In summary, we cannot expect to reach our end destination if we take a path going in the opposite direction. As such, the agreement on ends may not be as close as often imagined.
So when it is stated that anarchists and state socialists want the same thing, the following should be borne in mind. Firstly, there are key differences on the question of current tactics. Secondly, there is the question of the immediate aims of a revolution. Thirdly, there is the long term goals of such a revolution. These three aspects form a coherent whole, with each one logically following on from the last. As we will show, the anarchist and Marxist vision of each aspect are distinctly different, so suggesting that the short, medium and long term goals of each theory are, in fact, different. We will discuss each aspect in turn.
First, there is the question of the nature of the revolutionary movement. Here anarchists and most Marxists have distinctly opposing ideas. The former argue that both the revolutionary organisation (i.e. an anarchist federation) and the wider labour movement should be organised in line with the vision of society which inspires us. This means that it should be a federation of self-managed groups based on the direct participation of its membership in the decision making process. Power, therefore, is decentralised and there is no division between those who make the decisions and those who execute them. We reject the idea of others acting on our behalf or on behalf of the people and so urge the use of direct action and solidarity, based upon working class self-organisation, self-management and autonomy. Thus, anarchists apply their ideas in the struggle against the current system, arguing what is "efficient" from a hierarchical or class position is deeply inefficient from a revolutionary perspective.
Marxists disagree. Most Marxists are also Leninists. They argue that we must form a "vanguard" party based on the principles of "democratic centralism" complete with institutionalised and hierarchical leadership. They argue that how we organise today is independent of the kind of society we seek and that the party should aim to become the recognised leadership of the working class. Every thing they do is subordinated to this end, meaning that no struggle is seen as an end in itself but rather as a means to gaining membership and influence for the party until such time as it gathers enough support to seize power. As this is a key point of contention between anarchists and Leninists, we discuss this in some detail in section H.5 and its related sections and so not do so here.
Obviously, in the short term anarchists and Leninists cannot be said to want the same thing. While we seek a revolutionary movement based on libertarian (i.e. revolutionary) principles, the Leninists seek a party based on distinctly bourgeois principles of centralisation, delegation of power and representative over direct democracy. Both, of course, argue that only their system of organisation is effective and efficient (see section H.5.8 on a discussion why anarchists argue that the Leninist model is not effective from a revolutionary perspective). The anarchist perspective is to see the revolutionary organisation as part of the working class, encouraging and helping those in struggle to clarify the ideas they draw from their own experiences and its role is to provide a lead rather than a new set of leaders to be followed (see section J.3.6 for more on this). The Leninist perspective is to see the revolutionary party as the leadership of the working class, introducing socialist consciousness into a class which cannot generate itself (see section H.5.1).
Given the Leninist preference for centralisation and a leadership role by hierarchical organisation, it will come as no surprise that their ideas on the nature of post-revolutionary society are distinctly different from anarchists. While there is a tendency for Leninists to deny that anarchists have a clear idea of what will immediately be created by a revolution (see section H.1.4), we do have concrete ideas on the kind of society a revolution will immediately create. This vision is in almost every way different from that proposed by most Marxists.
Then there is the question of the state. Anarchists, unsurprisingly enough, seek to destroy it. Simply put, while anarchists want a stateless and classless society and advocate the means appropriate to those ends, most Marxists argue that in order to reach a stateless society we need a new "workers'" state, a state, moreover, in which their party will be in charge. Trotsky, writing in 1906, made this clear: "Every political party deserving of the name aims at seizing governmental power and thus putting the state at the service of the class whose interests it represents." [quoted by Israel Getzler, Marxist Revolutionaries and the Dilemma of Power, p. 105] This fits in with Marx's and Engels's repeated equation of universal suffrage with the political power or political supremacy of the working class. In other words, "political power" simply means the ability to nominate a government (see section H.3.10).
While Marxists like to portray this new government as "the dictatorship of the proletariat," anarchists argue that, in fact, it will be the dictatorship over the proletariat. This is because if the working class is the ruling class (as Marxists claim) then, anarchists argue, how can they delegate their power to a government and remain so? Either the working class directly manages its own affairs (and so society) or the government does. Any state is simply rule by a few and so is incompatible with socialism (we discuss this issue in section H.3.7). The obvious implication of this is that Marxism seeks party rule, not working class direct management of society (as we discuss in section H.3.8, the Leninist tradition is extremely clear on this matter).
Then there is the question of the building blocks of socialism. Yet again, there is a clear difference between anarchism and Marxism. Anarchists have always argued that the basis of socialism is working class organisations, created in the struggle against capitalism and the state. This applies to both the social and economic structure of a post-revolutionary society. For most forms of Marxism, a radically different picture has been the dominant one. As we discuss in section H.3.10, Marxists only reached a similar vision for the political structure of socialism in 1917 when Lenin supported the soviets as the framework of his workers' state. However, as we prove in section H.3.11, he did so for instrumental purposes only, namely as the best means of assuring Bolshevik power. If the soviets clashed with the party, it was the latter which took precedence. Unsurprisingly, the Bolshevik mainstream moved from "All Power to the Soviets" to "dictatorship of the party" rather quickly. Thus, unlike anarchism, most forms of Marxism aim for party power, a "revolutionary" government above the organs of working class self-management.
Economically, there are also clear differences. Anarchists have consistently argued that the workers "ought to be the real managers of industries." [Peter Kropotkin, Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 157] To achieve this, we have pointed to various organisations over time, such as factory committees and labour unions. As we discuss in more detail in section H.3.12, Lenin, in contrast, saw socialism as being constructed on the basis of structures and techniques (including management ones) developed under capitalism. Rather than see socialism as being built around new, working class organisations, Lenin saw it being constructed on the basis of developments in capitalist organisation. "The Leninist road to socialism," notes one expert on Lenin, "emphatically ran through the terrain of monopoly capitalism. It would, according to Lenin, abolish neither its advanced technological base nor its institutionalised means for allocating resources or structuring industry. . . The institutionalised framework of advanced capitalism could, to put it shortly, be utilised for realisation of specifically socialist goals. They were to become, indeed, the principal (almost exclusive) instruments of socialist transformation." [Neil Harding, Leninism, p.145]
The role of workers' in this vision was basically unchanged. Rather than demand, like anarchists, workers' self-management of production in 1917, Lenin raised the demand for "country-wide, all-embracing workers' control over the capitalists" (and this is the "important thing", not "confiscation of the capitalists' property") [The Lenin Anthology, p. 402] Once the Bolsheviks were in power, the workers' own organs (the factory committees) were integrated into a system of state control, losing whatever power they once held at the point of production. Lenin then modified this vision by replacing capitalists with (state appointed) "one-man management" over the workers (see section H.3.14). In other words, a form of state capitalism in which workers would still be wage slaves under bosses appointed by the state. Unsurprisingly, the "control" workers exercised over their bosses (i.e. those with real power in production) proved to be as elusive in production as it was in the state. In this, Lenin undoubtedly followed the lead of the Communist Manifesto which stressed state ownership of the means of production without a word about workers' self-management of production. As we discuss in section H.3.13, state "socialism" cannot help being "state capitalism" by its very nature.
Needless to say, as far as means go, few anarchists and syndicalists are complete pacifists. As syndicalist Emile Pouget argued, "[h]istory teaches that the privileged have never surrendered their privileges without having been compelled so to do and forced into it by their rebellious victims. It is unlikely that the bourgeoisie is blessed with an exceptional greatness of soul and will abdicate voluntarily" and so "[r]ecourse to force . . . will be required." [The Party Of Labour] This does not mean that libertarians glorify violence or argue that all forms of violence are acceptable (quite the reverse!), it simply means that for self-defence against violent opponents violence is, unfortunately, sometimes required.
The way an anarchist revolution would defend itself also shows a key difference between anarchism and Marxism. As we discussed in section H.2.1, anarchists (regardless of Marxist claims) have always argued that a revolution needs to defend itself. This would be organised in a federal, bottom-up way as the social structure of a free society. It would be based on voluntary working class militias. This model of working class self-defence was applied successfully in both the Spanish and Ukrainian revolutions (by the CNT-FAI and the Makhnovists, respectively). In contrast, the Bolshevik method of defending a revolution was the top-down, hierarchical and centralised "Red Army". As the example of the Makhnovists showed, the "Red Army" was not the only way the Russian Revolution could have been defended although it was the only way Bolshevik power could be.
So while Anarchists have consistently argued that socialism must be based on working class self-management of production and society based on working class organisations, the Leninist tradition has not supported this vision (although it has appropriated some of its imagery to gain popular support). Clearly, in terms of the immediate aftermath of a revolution, anarchists and Leninists do not seek the same thing. The former want a free society organised and run from below-upwards by the working class based on workers self-management of production while the latter seek party power in a new state structure which would preside over an essentially state capitalist economy.
Lastly, there is the question of the long term goal. Even in this vision of a classless and stateless society there is very little in common between anarchist communism and Marxist communism, beyond the similar terminology used to describe it. This is blurred by the differences in terminology used by both theories. Marx and Engels had raised in the 1840s the (long term) goal of "an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" replacing "the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms," in the Communist Manifesto. Before this "vast association of the whole nation" was possible, the proletariat would be "raise[d] . . . to the position of ruling class" and "all capital" would be "centralise[d] . . . in the hands of the State, i.e. of the proletariat organised as the ruling class." As economic classes would no longer exist, "the public power would lose its political character" as political power "is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another." [Selected Works, p. 53]
It was this, the means to the end, which was the focus of much debate (see section H.1.1 for details). However, it cannot be assumed that the ends desired by Marxists and anarchists are identical. The argument that the "public power" could stop being "political" (i.e. a state) is a tautology, and a particularly unconvincing one at that. After all, if "political power" is defined as being an instrument of class rule it automatically follows that a classless society would have a non-political "public power" and so be without a state! This does not imply that a "public power" would no longer exist as a structure within (or, more correctly, over) society, it just implies that its role would no longer be "political" (i.e. an instrument of class rule). Given that, according to the Manifesto, the state would centralise the means of production, credit and transportation and then organise it "in accordance with a common plan" using "industrial armies, especially for agriculture" this would suggest that the state structure would remain even after its "political" aspects had, to use Engels words, "die[d] out." [Marx and Engels, Op. Cit., pp. 52-3 and p. 424]
From this perspective, the difference between anarchist communism and Marxist-communism is clear. "While both," notes John Clark, "foresee the disappearance of the state, the achievement of social management of the economy, the end of class rule, and the attainment of human equality, to mention a few common goals, significant differences in ends still remain. Marxist thought has inherited a vision which looks to high development of technology with a corresponding degree of centralisation of social institutions which will continue even after the coming of the social revolution. . . . The anarchist vision sees the human scale as essential, both in the techniques which are used for production, and for the institutions which arise from the new modes of association . . . In addition, the anarchist ideal has a strong hedonistic element which has seen Germanic socialism as ascetic and Puritanical." [The Anarchist Moment, p. 68] Thus Marx presents "a formulation that calls not for the ultimate abolition of the State but suggests that it will continue to exist (however differently it is reconstituted by the proletariat) as a 'nonpolitical' (i.e., administrative) source of authority." [Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom, p. 196fn]
Moreover, it is unlikely that such a centralised system could become stateless and classless in actuality. As Bakunin argued, in the Marxist state "there will be no privileged class. Everybody will be equal, not only from the judicial and political but also from the economic standpoint. This is the promise at any rate . . . So there will be no more class, but a government, and, please note, an extremely complicated government which, not content with governing and administering the masses politically . . . will also administer them economically, by taking over the production and fair sharing of wealth, agriculture, the establishment and development of factories, the organisation and control of trade, and lastly the injection of capital into production by a single banker, the State." Such a system would be, in reality, "the reign of the scientific mind, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant and contemptuous of all regimes" based on "a new class, a new hierarchy of real or bogus learning, and the world will be divided into a dominant, science-based minority and a vast, ignorant majority." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 266]
George Barrett's words also seem appropriate:
"The modern Socialist . . . have steadily worked for centralisation, and complete and perfect organisation and control by those in authority above the people. The anarchist, on the other hand, believes in the abolition of that central power, and expects the free society to grow into existence from below, starting with those organisations and free agreements among the people themselves. It is difficult to see how, by making a central power control everything, we can be making a step towards the abolition of that power." [Objections to Anarchism, p. 348]
Indeed, by giving the state increased economic activities it ensures that this so-called "transitional" state grows with the implementation of the Marxist programme. Moreover, given the economic tasks the state now does it hardly makes much sense to assert it will "wither away" - unless you think that the centralised economic planning which this regime does also "withers away." Marx argued that once the "abolition of classes" has "been attained" then "the power of the State . . . disappears, and the functions of government are transformed into simple administrative functions." [Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 76] In other words, the state apparatus does not "wither away" rather its function as an instrument of class rule does. This is an automatic result of classes themselves withering away as private property is nationalised. Yet as class is defined as being rooted in ownership of the means of production, this becomes a meaningless tautology. Obviously, as the state centralises the means of production into its own hands then (the existing) economic classes cease to exist and, as a result, the state "disappears." Yet the power and size of the State is, in fact, increased by this process and so the elimination of economic classes actually increases the power and size of the state machine.
As Brain Morris notes, "Bakunin's fears that under Marx's kind of socialism the workers would continue to labour under a regimented, mechanised, hierarchical system of production, without direct control over their labour, has been more than confirmed by the realities of the Bolshevik system. Thus, Bakunin's critique of Marxism has taken on an increasing relevance in the age of bureaucratic State capitalism." [Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom, p. 132] Thus the "central confusions of Marxist political theorists" are found in the discussion on the state in The Communist Manifesto. If class is "an exclusively economic category, and if the old conditions of production are changed so that there is no longer any private ownership of the means of production, then classes no longer exist by definition when they are defined in terms of . . . the private ownership of the means of production . . . If Marx also defines 'political power' as 'the organised power of one [economic] class for oppressing another', then the . . . argument is no more than a tautology, and is trivially true." Unfortunately, as history has confirmed, "we cannot conclude . . . if it is a mere tautology, that with a condition of no private ownership of the means of production there could be no . . . dominant and subordinate strata." [Alan Carter, Marx: A Radical Critique, p. 221 and pp. 221-2]
Unsurprisingly, therefore, anarchists are not convinced that a highly centralised structure (as a state is) managing the economic life of society can be part of a truly classless society. While economic class as defined in terms of ownership of the means of production may not exist, social classes (defined in terms of inequality of power, authority and control) will continue simply because the state is designed to create and protect minority rule (see section H.3.7). As Bolshevik and Stalinist Russia showed, nationalising the means of production does not end class society. As Malatesta argued:
"When F. Engels, perhaps to counter anarchist criticisms, said that once classes disappear the State as such has no raison d'être and transforms itself from a government of men into an administration of things, he was merely playing with words. Whoever has power over things has power over men; whoever governs production also governs the producers; who determines consumption is master over the consumer.
"This is the question; either things are administered on the basis of free agreement of the interested parties, and this is anarchy; or they are administered according to laws made by administrators and this is government, it is the State, and inevitably it turns out to be tyrannical.
"It is not a question of the good intentions or the good will of this or that man, but of the inevitability of the situation, and of the tendencies which man generally develops in given circumstances." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 145]
The anarchist vision of the future society, therefore, does not exactly match the state communist vision, as much as the latter would like to suggest it does. The difference between the two is authority, which cannot be anything but the largest difference possible. Anarchist economic and organisational theories are built around an anti-authoritarian core and this informs both our means and aims. For anarchists, the Leninist vision of socialism is unattractive. Lenin continually stressed that his conception of socialism and "state capitalism" were basically identical. Even in State and Revolution, allegedly Lenin's most libertarian work, we discover this particularly unvisionary and uninspiring vision of "socialism":
"All citizens are transformed into the salaried employees of the state . . . All citizens become employees and workers of a single national state 'syndicate' . . . The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory with equality of work and equality of pay." [Essential Works of Lenin, p. 348]
To which, anarchists point to Engels and his comments on the tyrannical and authoritarian character of the modern factory (as we discuss in section H.4.4). Clearly, Lenin's idea of turning the world into one big factory takes on an extremely frightening nature given Engels' lovely vision of the lack of freedom in the workplace.
For these reasons anarchists reject the simplistic Marxist analysis of inequality being rooted simply in economic class. Such an analysis, as the comments of Lenin and Engels prove, shows that social inequality can be smuggled in by the backdoor of a proposed classless and stateless society. Thus Bookchin:
"Basic to anti-authoritarian Socialism - specifically, to Anarchist Communism - is the notion that hierarchy and domination cannot be subsumed by class rule and economic exploitation, indeed, that they are more fundamental to an understanding of the modern revolutionary project . . . Power of human over human long antedates the very formation of classes and economic modes of social oppression. . . . This much is clear: it will no longer do to insist that a classless society, freed from material exploitation, will necessarily be a liberated society. There is nothing in the social future to suggest that bureaucracy is incompatible with a classless society, the domination of women, the young, ethnic groups or even professional strata." [Toward an Ecological Society, pp. 208-9]
Ultimately, anarchists see that "there is a realm of domination that is broader than the realm of material exploitation. The tragedy of the socialist movement is that, steeped in the past, it uses the methods of domination to try to 'liberate' us from material exploitation." Needless to say, this is doomed to failure. Socialism "will simply mire us in a world we are trying to overcome. A non-hierarchical society, self-managed and free of domination in all its forms, stands on the agenda today, not a hierarchical system draped in a red flag." [Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 272 and pp. 273-4]
In summary, it cannot be said that anarchists and most Marxists want the same thing. While they often use the same terms, these terms often hide radically different concepts. Just because, say, anarchists and mainstream Marxists talk about "social revolution," "socialism," "all power to the soviets" and so on, it does not mean that we mean the same thing by them. For example, the phrase "all power to the soviets" for anarchists means exactly that (i.e. that the revolution must be directly managed by working class organs). Leninists mean "all power to a central government elected by a national soviet congress." Similarly with other similar phrases (which shows the importance of looking at the details of any political theory and its history).
We have shown that discussion over ends is as important as discussion over means as they are related. As Kropotkin once pointed out, those who downplay the importance of discussing the "order of things which . . . should emerge from the coming revolution" in favour of concentrating on "practical things" are being less than honest as "far from making light of such theories, they propagate them, and all that they do now is a logical extension of their ideas. In the end those words 'Let us not discuss theoretical questions' really mean: 'Do not subject our theory to discussion, but help us to put it into execution.'" [Words of a Rebel, p. 200]
Hence the need to critically evaluate both ends and means. This shows the weakness of the common argument that anarchists and Leftists share some common visions and so we should work with them to achieve those common things. Who knows what happens after that? As can be seen, this is not the case. Many aspects of anarchism and Marxism are in opposition and cannot be considered similar (for example, what a Leninist considers as socialism is extremely different to what an anarchist thinks it is). If you consider "socialism" as being a "workers' state" presided over by a "revolutionary" government, then how can this be reconciled with the anarchist vision of a federation of self-managed communes and workers' associations? As the Russian Revolution shows, only by the armed might of the "revolutionary" government crushing the anarchist vision.
The only thing we truly share with these groups is a mutual opposition to existing capitalism. Having a common enemy does not make someone friends. Hence anarchists, while willing to work on certain mutual struggles, are well aware there is substantial differences in both terms of means and goals. The lessons of revolution in the 20th Century is that once in power, Leninists will repress anarchists, their current allies against the capitalist system. This is does not occur by accident, it flows from the differences in vision between the two movements, both in terms of means and goals.
Some Marxists, such as the International Socialist Tendency, like to portray their tradition as being "socialism from below." Under "socialism from below," they place the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, arguing that they and they alone have continued this, the true, ideal of socialism (Hal Draper's essay "The Two Souls of Socialism" seems to have been the first to argue along these lines). They contrast this idea of socialism "from below" with "socialism from above," in which they place reformist socialism (social democracy, Labourism, etc.), elitist socialism (Lassalle and others who wanted educated and liberal members of the middle classes to liberate the working class) and Stalinism (bureaucratic dictatorship over the working class). Anarchism, it is argued, should be placed in the latter camp, with Proudhon and Bakunin showing that anarchist libertarianism is a "myth".
For those who uphold this idea, "Socialism from below" is simply the self-emancipation of the working class by its own efforts. To anarchist ears, the claim that Marxism (and in particular Leninism) is socialism "from below" sounds paradoxical, indeed laughable. This is because anarchists from Proudhon onwards have used the imagery of socialism being created and run from below upwards. They have been doing so for far longer than Marxists have. As such, "socialism from below" simply sums up the anarchist ideal!
Thus we find Proudhon in 1846 arguing that socialism "springs up and grows from below" and a few years later how "from below signifies the people . . . the initiative of the masses." Every "serious and lasting Revolution" was "made from below, by the people." A "Revolution from above" was "pure governmentalism," "the negation of collective activity, of popular spontaneity" and is "the oppression of the wills of those below." The means of this revolution "from below" would be federations of working class associations for both credit (mutual banks) and production (workers' associations or co-operatives) as well as federations of communes (democratically organised communities). He "had always thought that the proletariat must emancipate itself without the help of the government" and so the "revolutionary power . . . is in you. The people alone, acting upon themselves without intermediary, can achieve the economic Revolution . . . The people alone can save civilisation and advance humanity!" Thus capitalism would be reformed away by the actions of the workers themselves. The "problem of association," he argued, "consists in organising . . . the producers, and by this subjecting capital and subordinating power. Such is the war of liberty against authority, a war of the producer against the non-producer; a war of equality against privilege . . . An agricultural and industrial combination must be found by means of which power, today the ruler of society, shall become its slave." Ultimately, "any revolution, to be effective, must be spontaneous and emanate, not from the heads of authorities, but from the bowels of the people . . . the only connection between government and labour is that labour, in organising itself, has the abrogation of governments as its mission." [Property is Theft!, p. 205, p. 398, pp. 26-7, p. 306, p. 336, p. 225 and p. 26]
Similarly, Bakunin saw an anarchist revolution as coming "from below." As he put it, "liberty can be created only by liberty, by an insurrection of all the people and the voluntary organisation of the workers from below upward." [Statism and Anarchy, p. 179] Elsewhere he wrote that "popular revolution" would "create its own organisation from the bottom upwards and from the circumference inwards, in accordance with the principle of liberty, and not from the top downwards and from the centre outwards, as in the way of authority." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170] His vision of revolution and revolutionary self-organisation and construction from below was a core aspect of his anarchist ideas and he argued repeatedly for "the free organisation of the people's lives in accordance with their needs - not from the top down, as we have it in the State, but from the bottom up, an organisation formed by the people themselves . . . a free union of associations of agricultural and factory workers, of communes, regions, and nations." He stressed that "the politics of the Social Revolution" was "the abolition of the State" and "the economic, altogether free organisation of the people, an organisation from below upward, by means of federation." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, pp. 297-8]
While Proudhon wanted to revolutionise society, he rejected revolutionary means to do so (i.e. collective struggle, strikes, insurrection, etc.). Bakunin, however, was a revolutionary in this, the popular, sense of the word. Yet he shared with Proudhon the idea of socialism being created by the working class itself. As he put it, in "a social revolution, which in everything is diametrically opposed to a political revolution, the actions of individuals hardly count at all, whereas the spontaneous action of the masses is everything. All that individuals can do is clarify, propagate and work out the ideas corresponding to the popular instinct, and, what is more, to contribute their incessant efforts to revolutionary organisation of the natural power of the masses - but nothing else beyond that; the rest can and should be done by the people themselves . . . revolution can be waged and brought to its full development only through the spontaneous and continued mass action of groups and associations of the people." [Op. Cit., pp. 298-9]
Therefore, the idea of "socialism from below" is a distinctly anarchist notion, one found in the works of Proudhon and Bakunin and repeated by anarchists ever since. As such, to hear Marxists appropriate this obviously anarchist terminology and imagery appears to many anarchists as opportunistic and an attempt to cover the authoritarian reality of mainstream Marxism with anarchist rhetoric. Moreover, the attempt to suggest that anarchism is part of the elitist "socialism from above" school rests on little more than selective quoting of Proudhon and Bakunin (including from Bakunin's pre-anarchist days) to present a picture of their ideas distinctly at odds with reality. However, there are "libertarian" strains of Marxism which are close to anarchism. Does this mean that there are no elements of a "socialism from below" to be found in Marx and Engels?
If we look at Marx, we get contradictory impressions. On the one hand, he argued that freedom "consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it." Combine this with his comments on the Paris Commune (see his "The Civil War in France"), we can say that there are clearly elements of "socialism from below" in Marx's work. On the other hand, he often stresses the need for strict centralisation of power. In 1850, for example, he argued that the workers must "not only strive for a single and indivisible German republic, but also within this republic for the most determined centralisation of power in the hands of the state authority." This was because "the path of revolutionary activity" can "proceed only from the centre." This meant that the workers must be opposed to the "federative republic" planned by the democrats and "must not allow themselves to be misguided by the democratic talk of freedom for the communities, of self-government, etc." This centralisation of power was essential to overcome local autonomy, which would allow "every village, every town and every province" to put "a new obstacle in the path" the revolution due to "local and provincial obstinacy." Decades later, Marx dismissed Bakunin's vision of "the free organisation of the worker masses from bottom to top" as "nonsense." [Marx-Engels Reader, p. 537, p. 509 and p. 547]
Thus we have a contradiction. While arguing that the state must become subordinate to society, we have a central power imposing its will on "local and provincial obstinacy." This implies a vision of revolution in which the centre (indeed, "the state authority") forces its will on the population, which (by necessity) means that the centre power is "superimposed upon society" rather than "subordinate" to it. Given his dismissal of the idea of organisation from bottom to top, we cannot argue that by this he meant simply the co-ordination of local initiatives. Rather, we are struck by the "top-down" picture of revolution Marx presents. Indeed, his argument from 1850 suggests that Marx favoured centralism not only in order to prevent the masses from creating obstacles to the revolutionary activity of the "centre," but also to prevent them from interfering with their own liberation.
Looking at Engels, we discover him writing that "[a]s soon as our Party is in possession of political power it has simply to expropriate the big landed proprietors just like the manufacturers in industry . . . thus restored to the community [they] are to be turned over by us to the rural workers who are already cultivating them and are to be organised into co-operatives." He even states that this expropriation may "be compensated," depending on "the circumstances which we obtain power, and particularly by the attitude adopted by these gentry." [Selected Writings, pp. 638-9] Thus we have the party taking power, then expropriating the means of life for the workers and, lastly, "turning over" these to them. While this fits into the general scheme of the Communist Manifesto, it cannot be said to be "socialism from below" which can only signify the direct expropriation of the means of production by the workers themselves, organising themselves into free producer associations to do so.
It may be argued that Marx and Engels did not exclude such a solution to the social question. For example, we find Engels stating that "the question is not whether the proletariat when it comes to power will simply seize by force the tools of production, the raw materials and means of subsistence" or "whether it will redeem property therein by instalments spread over a long period." To attempt to predict this "for all cases would be utopia-making." [Collected Works, vol. 23, p. 386] However, Engels is assuming that the political revolution (the proletariat "com[ing] to power") comes before the social revolution (the seizure of the means of production). In this, we can assume that it is the "revolutionary" government which does the seizing (or redeeming) rather than rebel workers.
This vision of revolution as the party coming to power can be seen from Engels' warning that the "worse thing that can befall the leader of an extreme party is to be compelled to assume power at a time when the movement is not yet ripe for the domination of the class he represents and for the measures this domination implies." [Op. Cit., vol. 10, p. 469] Needless to say, such a vision is hard to equate with "socialism from below" which implies the active participation of the working class in the direct management of society from the bottom-up. If the leaders "assume power" then they have the real power, not the class they claim to "represent." Equally, it seems strange that socialism can be equated with a vision which equates "domination" of a class being achieved by the fact a leader "represents" it. Can the working class really be said to be the ruling class if its role in society is to select those who exercise power on its behalf (i.e. to elect representatives)? Bakunin quite rightly answered in the negative. While representative democracy may be acceptable to ensure bourgeois rule, it cannot be assumed that it can be utilised to create a socialist society. It was designed to defend class society and its centralised and top-down nature reflects this role.
Moreover, Marx and Engels had argued in The Holy Family that the "question is not what this or that proletarian, or even the whole of the proletariat at the moment considers as its aim. The question is what the proletariat is, and what, consequent on that being, it will be compelled to do." [quoted by Murray Bookchin, The Spanish Anarchists, p. 280] As Murray Bookchin argued:
"These lines and others like them in Marx's writings were to provide the rationale for asserting the authority of Marxist parties and their armed detachments over and even against the proletariat. Claiming a deeper and more informed comprehension of the situation than 'even the whole of the proletariat at the given moment,' Marxist parties went on to dissolve such revolutionary forms of proletarian organisation as factory committees and ultimately to totally regiment the proletariat according to lines established by the party leadership." [Op. Cit., p. 289]
Thus the ideological underpinning of a "socialism from above" is expounded, one which dismisses what the members of the working class actually want or desire at a given point (a position which Trotsky, for one, explicitly argued). A few years later, they argued in The Communist Manifesto that "a portion of the bourgeois goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole." They also noted that the Communists are "the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties" and "they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the general results of the proletarian movement." This gives a privileged place to the party (particularly the "bourgeois ideologists" who join it), a privileged place which their followers had no problem abusing in favour of party power and hierarchical leadership from above. As we discuss in section H.5, Lenin was just expressing orthodox Social-Democratic (i.e. Marxist) policy when he argued that socialist consciousness was created by bourgeois intellectuals and introduced into the working class from outside. Against this, we have to note that the Manifesto states that the proletarian movement was "the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority" (although, as discussed in section H.1.1, when they wrote this the proletariat was a minority in all countries bar Britain). [Selected Works, p. 44, p. 46 and p. 45]
Looking at the tactics advocated by Marx and Engels, we see a strong support for "political action" in the sense of participating in elections. This support undoubtedly flows from Engels's comments that universal suffrage "in an England two-thirds of whose inhabitants are industrial proletarians means the exclusive political rule of the working class with all the revolutionary changes in social conditions which are inseparable from it." [Collected Works, vol. 10, p. 298] Marx, likewise, repeatedly argued along identical lines. For example, in 1855, he stated that "universal suffrage . . . implies the assumption of political power as means of satisfying [the workers'] social means" and, in Britain, "revolution is the direct content of universal suffrage." [Op. Cit., vol. 11, pp. 335-6] Yet how could an entire class, the proletariat organised as a "movement" exercise its power under such a system? While the atomised voting to nominate representatives (who, in reality, held the real power in society) may be more than adequate to ensure bourgeois, i.e. minority, power, could it be used for working class, i.e. majority, power?
This seems highly unlikely because such institutions are designed to place policy-making in the hands of representatives and were created explicitly to exclude mass participation in order to ensure bourgeois control (see section B.2.5). They do not (indeed, cannot) constitute a "proletariat organised as a ruling class." If public policy, as distinguished from administrative activities, is not made by the people themselves, in federations of self-managed assemblies, then a movement of the vast majority does not, cannot, exist. For people to acquire real power over their lives and society, they must establish institutions organised and run, as Bakunin constantly stressed, from below. This would necessitate that they themselves directly manage their own affairs, communities and workplaces and, for co-ordination, mandate federal assemblies of revocable and strictly controllable delegates, who will execute their decisions. Only in this sense can a majority class, especially one committed to the abolition of all classes, organise as a class to manage society.
As such, Marx and Engels tactics are at odds with any idea of "socialism from below." While, correctly, supporting strikes and other forms of working class direct action (although, significantly, Engels dismissed the general strike) they placed that support within a general political strategy which emphasised electioneering and representative forms. This, however, is a form of struggle which can only really be carried out by means of leaders. The role of the masses is minor, that of voters. The focus of the struggle is at the top, in parliament, where the duly elected leaders are. As Luigi Galleani argued, this form of action involved the "ceding of power by all to someone, the delegate, the representative, individual or group." This meant that rather than the anarchist tactic of "direct pressure put against the ruling classes by the masses," the Socialist Party "substituted representation and the rigid discipline of the parliamentary socialists," which inevitably resulted in it "adopt[ing] class collaboration in the legislative arena, without which all reforms would remain a vain hope." It also resulted in the socialists needing "authoritarian organisations", i.e. ones which are centralised and disciplined from above down. [The End of Anarchism?, p. 14, p. 12 and p. 14] The end result was the encouragement of a viewpoint that reforms (indeed, the revolution) would be the work of leaders acting on behalf of the masses whose role would be that of voters and followers, not active participants in the struggle (see section J.2 for a discussion on direct action and why anarchists reject electioneering).
By the 1890s, the top-down and essentially reformist nature of these tactics had made their mark in both Engels' politics and the practical activities of the Social-Democratic parties. Engels introduction to Marx's The Class Struggles in France indicated how far Marxism had progressed and undoubtedly influenced by the rise of Social-Democracy as an electoral power, it stressed the use of the ballot box as the ideal way, if not the only way, for the party to take power. He noted that "[w]e, the 'revolutionists', the 'overthrowers'" were "thriving far better on legal methods than on illegal methods and overthrow" and the bourgeoisie "cry despairingly . . . legality is the death of us" and were "much more afraid of the legal than of the illegal action of the workers' party, of the results of elections than of those of rebellion." He argued that it was essential "not to fitter away this daily increasing shock force [of party voters] in vanguard skirmishes, but to keep it intact until the decisive day." [Selected Writings, p. 656, p. 650 and p. 655]
The net effect of this would simply be keeping the class struggle within the bounds decided upon by the party leaders, so placing the emphasis on the activities and decisions of those at the top rather than the struggle and decisions of the mass of working class people themselves. As we noted in section H.1.1, when the party was racked by the "revisionism" controversy after Engels death, it was fundamentally a conflict between those who wanted the party's rhetoric to reflect its reformist tactics and those who sought the illusion of radical words to cover the reformist practice. The decision of the Party leadership to support their state in the First World War simply proved that radical words cannot defeat reformist tactics.
Needless to say, from this contradictory inheritance Marxists had two ways of proceeding. Either they become explicitly anti-state (and so approach anarchism) or become explicitly in favour of party and state power and so, by necessity, "revolution from above." The council communists and other libertarian Marxists followed the first path, the Bolsheviks and their followers the second. As we discuss in the next section, Lenin explicitly dismissed the idea that Marxism proceeded "only from below," stating that this was an anarchist principle. Nor was he shy in equating party power with working class power. Indeed, this vision of socialism as involving party power was not alien to the mainstream social-democracy Leninism split from. The leading left-wing Menshevik Martov argued as follows:
"In a class struggle which has entered the phase of civil war, there are bound to be times when the advance guard of the revolutionary class, representing the interests of the broad masses but ahead of them in political consciousness, is obliged to exercise state power by means of a dictatorship of the revolutionary minority. Only a short-sighted and doctrinaire viewpoint would reject this prospect as such. The real question at stake is whether this dictatorship, which is unavoidable at a certain stage of any revolution, is exercised in such a way as to consolidate itself and create a system of institutions enabling it to become a permanent feature, or whether, on the contrary, it is replaced as soon as possible by the organised initiative and autonomy of the revolutionary class or classes as a whole. The second of these methods is that of the revolutionary Marxists who, for this reason, style themselves Social Democrats; the first is that of the Communists." [The Mensheviks in the Russian Revolution, Abraham Ascher (ed.), p. 119]
All this is to be expected, given the weakness of the Marxist theory of the state. As we discuss in section H.3.7, Marxists have always had an a-historic perspective on the state, considering it as purely an instrument of class rule rather than what it is, an instrument of minority class rule. For anarchists, the "State is the minority government, from the top downward, of a vast quantity of men." This automatically means that a socialism, like Marx's, which aims for a socialist government and a workers' state automatically becomes, against the wishes of its best activists, "socialism from above." As Bakunin argued, Marxists are "worshippers of State power, and necessarily also prophets of political and social discipline and champions of order established from the top downwards, always in the name of universal suffrage and the sovereignty of the masses, for whom they save the honour and privilege of obeying leaders, elected masters." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 265 and pp. 237-8]
For this reason anarchists from Bakunin onwards have argued for a bottom-up federation of workers' councils as the basis of revolution and the means of managing society after capitalism and the state have been abolished. If these organs of workers' self-management are co-opted into a state structure (as happened in Russia) then their power will be handed over to the real power in any state - the government and its bureaucracy. The state is the delegation of power - as such, it means that the idea of a "workers' state" expressing "workers' power" is a logical impossibility. If workers are running society then power rests in their hands. If a state exists then power rests in the hands of the handful of people at the top, not in the hands of all. The state was designed for minority rule. No state can be an organ of working class (i.e. majority) self-management due to its basic nature, structure and design.
So, while there are elements of "socialism from below" in the works of Marx and Engels they are placed within a distinctly centralised and authoritarian context which undermines them. As John Clark summarises, "in the context of Marx's consistent advocacy of centralist programmes, and the part these programmes play in his theory of social development, the attempt to construct a libertarian Marxism by citing Marx's own proposals for social change would seem to present insuperable difficulties." [Op. Cit., p. 93]
As discussed in the last section, Marx and Engels left their followers with an ambiguous legacy. On the one hand, there are elements of "socialism from below" in their politics (most explicitly in Marx's comments on the libertarian influenced Paris Commune). On the other, there are distinctly centralist and statist themes in their work.
From this legacy, Leninism took the statist themes. This explains why anarchists think the idea of Leninism being "socialism from below" is incredible. Simply put, the actual comments and actions of Lenin and his followers show that they had no commitment to a "socialism from below." As we will indicate, Lenin disassociated himself repeatedly from the idea of politics "from below," considering it (quite rightly) an anarchist idea. In contrast, he stressed the importance of a politics which somehow combined action "from above" and "from below." For those Leninists who maintain that their tradition is "socialism from below" (indeed, the only "real" socialism "from below"), this is a major problem and, unsurprisingly, they generally fail to mention it.
So what was Lenin's position on "from below"? In 1904, during the debate over the party split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Lenin stated that the argument "[b]ureaucracy versus democracy is in fact centralism versus autonomism; it is the organisational principle of revolutionary Social-Democracy as opposed to the organisational principle of opportunist Social-Democracy. The latter strives to proceed from the bottom upward, and, therefore, wherever possible . . . upholds autonomism and 'democracy,' carried (by the overzealous) to the point of anarchism. The former strives to proceed from the top downward." [Collected Works, vol. 7, pp. 396-7] Thus it is the non-Bolshevik ("opportunist") wing of Marxism which bases itself on the "organisational principle" of "from the bottom upward," not the Bolshevik tradition (as we note in section H.5.5, Lenin also rejected the "primitive democracy" of mass assemblies as the basis of the labour and revolutionary movements). Moreover, this vision of a party run from the top down was enshrined in the Bolshevik ideal of "democratic centralism". How you can have "socialism from below" when your "organisational principle" is "from the top downward" is not explained by Leninist exponents of "socialism from below."
Lenin repeated this argument in his discussion on the right tactics to apply during the near revolution of 1905. He mocked the Mensheviks for only wanting "pressure from below" which was "pressure by the citizens on the revolutionary government." Instead, he argued for "pressure . . . from above as well as from below," where "pressure from above" was "pressure by the revolutionary government on the citizens." He notes that Engels "appreciated the importance of action from above" and that he saw the need for "the utilisation of the revolutionary governmental power." Lenin summarised his position (which he considered as being in line with that of orthodox Marxism) by stating: "Limitation, in principle, of revolutionary action to pressure from below and renunciation of pressure also from above is anarchism." [Op. Cit., vol. 8, p. 474, p. 478, p. 480 and p. 481] This seems to have been a common Bolshevik position at the time, with Stalin stressing in the same year that "action only from 'below'" was "an anarchist principle, which does, indeed, fundamentally contradict Social-Democratic tactics." [Collected Works, vol. 1, p. 149]
It is in this context of "above and below" in which we must place Lenin's comments in 1917 that socialism was "democracy from below, without a police, without a standing army, voluntary social duty by a militia formed from a universally armed people." [Op. Cit., vol. 24, p. 170] Given that Lenin had rejected the idea of "only from below" as an anarchist principle (which it is), we need to bear in mind that this "democracy from below" was always placed in the context of a Bolshevik government. Lenin always stressed that the "Bolsheviks must assume power." The Bolsheviks "can and must take state power into their own hands." He raised the question of "will the Bolsheviks dare take over full state power alone?" and answered it: "I have already had occasion . . . to answer this question in the affirmative." Moreover, "a political party . . . would have no right to exist, would be unworthy of the name of party . . . if it refused to take power when opportunity offers." [Op. Cit., vol. 26, p. 19 and p. 90] Lenin's "democracy from below" always meant representative government, not popular power or self-management. The role of the working class was that of voters and so the Bolsheviks' first task was "to convince the majority of the people that its programme and tactics are correct." The second task "that confronted our Party was to capture political power." The third task was for "the Bolshevik Party" to "administer Russia," to be the "governing party." [Op. Cit., vol. 27, pp. 241-2] Thus Bolshevik power was equated with working class power.
Towards the end of 1917, he stressed this vision of a Bolshevik run "democracy from below" by arguing that since "the 1905 revolution Russia has been governed by 130,000 landowners . . . Yet we are told that the 240,000 members of the Bolshevik party will not be able to govern Russia, govern her in the interests of the poor." He even equated rule by the party with rule by the class, noting that "proletarian revolutionary power" and Bolshevik power" are "now one the same thing." He admitted that the proletariat could not actually govern itself for "[w]e know that an unskilled labourer or a cook cannot immediately get on with the job of state administration . . . We demand that training in th[is] work . . . be conducted by the class-conscious workers and soldiers." The "class-conscious workers must lead, but for the work of administration they can enlist the vast mass of the working and oppressed people." Thus democratic sounding rhetoric, in reality, hid the fact that the party would govern (i.e., have power) and working people would simply administer the means by which its decisions would be implemented. Lenin also indicated that once in power, the Bolsheviks "shall be fully and unreservedly in favour of a strong state power and of centralism." [Op. Cit., vol. 26, p. 111, p. 179, p. 113, p. 114 and p. 116]
Clearly, Lenin's position had not changed. The goal of the revolution was simply a Bolshevik government, which, if it were to be effective, had to have the real power in society. Thus, socialism would be implemented from above, by the "strong" and centralised government of the "class-conscious workers" who would "lead" and so the party would "govern" Russia, in the "interests" of the masses. Rather than govern themselves, they would be subject to "the power of the Bolsheviks". While, eventually, the "working" masses would take part in the administration of state decisions, their role would be the same as under capitalism as, we must note, there is a difference between making policy and carrying it out, between the "work of administration" and governing, a difference Lenin obscures. In fact, the name of this essay clearly shows who would be in control under Lenin: "Can the Bolsheviks retain State Power?"
As one expert noted, the Bolsheviks made "a distinction between the execution of policy and the making of policy. The 'broad masses' were to be the executors of state decrees, not the formulators of legislation." However, by "claiming to draw 'all people' into [the state] administration, the Bolsheviks claimed also that they were providing a greater degree of democracy than the parliamentary state." [Frederick I. Kaplan, Bolshevik Ideology and the Ethics of Soviet Labor, p. 212] The difference is important. Ante Ciliga, a political prisoner under Stalin, once noted how the secret police "liked to boast of the working class origin of its henchmen." He quoted a fellow prisoner, and ex-Tsarist convict, who retorted: "You are wrong if you believe that in the days of the Tsar the gaolers were recruited from among dukes and the executioners from among the princes!" [The Russian Enigma, pp. 255-6]
All of which explains the famous leaflet addressed to the workers of Petrograd immediately after the October Revolution, informing them that "the revolution has won." The workers were called upon to "show . . . the greatest firmness and endurance, in order to facilitate the execution of all the aims of the new People's Government." They were asked to "cease immediately all economic and political strikes, to take up your work, and do it in perfect order . . . All to your places" as the "best way to support the new Government of Soviets in these days" was "by doing your job." [quoted by John Read, Ten Days that Shook the World, pp. 341-2] Which smacks far more of "socialism from above" than "socialism from below"!
The implications of Lenin's position became clearer after the Bolsheviks had taken power. Now it was the concrete situation of a "revolutionary" government exercising power "from above" onto the very class it claimed to represent. As Lenin explained to his political police, the Cheka, in 1920:
"Without revolutionary coercion directed against the avowed enemies of the workers and peasants, it is impossible to break down the resistance of these exploiters. On the other hand, revolutionary coercion is bound to be employed towards the wavering and unstable elements among the masses themselves." [Op. Cit., vol. 42, p. 170]
It could be argued that this position was forced on Lenin by the problems facing the Bolsheviks in the Civil War, but such an argument is flawed. This is for two main reasons. Firstly, according to Lenin himself civil war was inevitable and so, unsurprisingly, Lenin considered his comments as universally applicable. Secondly, this position fits in well with the idea of pressure "from above" exercised by the "revolutionary" government against the masses (and nothing to do with any sort of "socialism from below"). Indeed, "wavering" and "unstable" elements is just another way of saying "pressure from below," the attempts by those subject to the "revolutionary" government to influence its policies. As we noted in section H.1.2, it was in this period (1919 and 1920) that the Bolsheviks openly argued that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was, in fact, the "dictatorship of the party" (see section H.3.8 on how the Bolsheviks modified the Marxist theory of the state in line with this). Rather than the result of the problems facing Russia at the time, Lenin's comments simply reflect the unfolding of certain aspects of his ideology when his party held power (as we make clear in section H.6.2 the ideology of the ruling party and the ideas held by the masses are also factors in history).
To show that Lenin's comments were not caused by circumstantial factors, we can turn to his infamous work Left-Wing Communism. In this 1920 tract, written for the Second Congress of the Communist International, Lenin lambasted those Marxists who argued for direct working class power against the idea of party rule (i.e. the various council communists around Europe). We have already noted in section H.1.2 that Lenin had argued in that work that it was "ridiculously absurd, and stupid" to "a contrast, in general, between the dictatorship of the masses and the dictatorship of the leaders." [The Lenin Anthology, p. 568] Here we provide his description of the "top-down" nature of Bolshevik rule:
"In Russia today, the connection between leaders, party, class and masses . . . are concretely as follows: the dictatorship is exercised by the proletariat organised in the Soviets and is guided by the Communist Party . . . The Party, which holds annual congresses . . ., is directed by a Central Committee of nineteen elected at the congress, while the current work in Moscow has to be carried on by [two] still smaller bodies . . . which are elected at the plenary sessions of the Central Committee, five members of the Central Committee to each bureau. This, it would appear, is a full-fledged 'oligarchy.' No important political or organisational question is decided by any state institution in our republic [sic!] without the guidance of the Party's Central Committee.
"In its work, the Party relies directly on the trade unions, which . . .have a membership of over four million and are formally non-Party. Actually, all the directing bodies of the vast majority of the unions . . . are made up of Communists, and carry out of all the directives of the Party. Thus . . . we have a formally non-communist . . . very powerful proletarian apparatus, by means of which the Party is closely linked up with the class and the masses, and by means of which, under the leadership of the Party, the class dictatorship of the class is exercised." [Op. Cit., pp. 571-2]
This was "the general mechanism of the proletarian state power viewed 'from above,' from the standpoint of the practical realisation of the dictatorship" and so "all this talk about 'from above' or 'from below,' about 'the dictatorship of leaders' or 'the dictatorship of the masses,'" is "ridiculous and childish nonsense." [Op. Cit., p. 573] Lenin, of course, did not bother to view "proletarian" state power "from below," from the viewpoint of the proletariat. If he had, perhaps he would have recounted the numerous strikes and protests broken by the Cheka under martial law, the gerrymandering and disbanding of soviets, the imposition of "one-man management" onto the workers in production, the turning of the unions into agents of the state/party and the elimination of working class freedom by party power? Which suggests that there are fundamental differences, at least for the masses, between "from above" and "from below."
At the Comintern congress itself, Zinoviev announced that "the dictatorship of the proletariat is at the same time the dictatorship of the Communist Party." [Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress 1920, vol. 1, p. 152] Trotsky also universalised Lenin's argument when he pondered the important decisions of the revolution and who would make them in his reply to the delegate from the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist union the CNT:
"Who decides this question [and others like it]? We have the Council of People's Commissars but it has to be subject to some supervision. Whose supervision? That of the working class as an amorphous, chaotic mass? No. The Central Committee of the party is convened to discuss . . . and to decide . . . Who will solve these questions in Spain? The Communist Party of Spain." [Op. Cit., p. 174]
As is obvious, Trotsky was drawing general lessons from the Russian Revolution for the international revolutionary movement. Needless to say, he still argued that the "working class, represented and led by the Communist Party, [was] in power here" in spite of it being "an amorphous, chaotic mass" which did not make any decisions on important questions affecting the revolution!
Incidentally, his and Lenin's comments of 1920 disprove Trotsky's later assertion that it was "[o]nly after the conquest of power, the end of the civil war, and the establishment of a stable regime" when "the Central Committee little by little begin to concentrate the leadership of Soviet activity in its hands. Then would come Stalin's turn." [Stalin, vol. 1, p. 328] While it was definitely the "conquest of power" by the Bolsheviks which lead to the marginalisation of the soviets, this event cannot be shunted to after the civil war as Trotsky would like (particularly as Trotsky admitted that in 1917 "[a]fter eight months of inertia and of democratic chaos, came the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks." [Op. Cit., vol. 2, p. 242]). We must note Trotsky argued for the "objective necessity" of the "revolutionary dictatorship of a proletarian party" well into the 1930s (see section H.1.2) .
Clearly, the claim that Leninism (and its various off-shoots like Trotskyism) is "socialism from below" is hard to take seriously. As proven above, the Leninist tradition is explicitly against the idea of "only from below," with Lenin explicitly stating that it was an "anarchist stand" to be for "'action only from below', not 'from below and from above'" which was the position of Marxism. [Collected Works, vol. 9, p. 77] Once in power, Lenin and the Bolsheviks implemented this vision of "from below and from above," with the highly unsurprising result that "from above" quickly repressed "from below" (which was dismissed as "wavering" by the masses). This was to be expected, for a government to enforce its laws, it has to have power over its citizens and so socialism "from above" is a necessary side-effect of Leninist theory.
Ironically, Lenin's argument in State and Revolution comes back to haunt him. In that work he had argued that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" meant "democracy for the people" which "imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists." These must be crushed "in order to free humanity from wage-slavery; their resistance must be broken by force; it is clear that where there is suppression there is also violence, there is no freedom, no democracy." [Essential Works of Lenin, pp. 337-8] If the working class itself is being subject to "suppression" then, clearly, there is "no freedom, no democracy" for that class - and the people "will feel no better if the stick with which they are being beaten is labelled 'the people's stick'." [Bakunin, Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 338]
So when Leninists argue that they stand for the "principles of socialism from below" and state that this means the direct and democratic control of society by the working class then, clearly, they are being less than honest. Looking at the tradition they place themselves in, the obvious conclusion which must be reached is that Leninism is not based on "socialism from below" in the sense of working class self-management of society (i.e. the only condition when the majority can "rule" and decisions truly flow from below upwards). At best, they subscribe to the distinctly bourgeois vision of "democracy" as being simply the majority designating (and trying to control) its rulers. At worst, they defend politics which have eliminated even this form of democracy in favour of party dictatorship and "one-man management" armed with "dictatorial" powers in industry (most members of such parties do not know how the Bolsheviks gerrymandered and disbanded soviets to maintain power, raised the dictatorship of the party to an ideological truism and wholeheartedly advocated "one-man management" rather than workers' self-management of production). As we discuss in section H.5, this latter position flows easily from the underlying assumptions of vanguardism which Leninism is based on.
So, Lenin, Trotsky and so on simply cannot be considered as exponents of "socialism from below." Any one who makes such a claim is either ignorant of the actual ideas and practice of Bolshevism or they seek to deceive. For anarchists, "socialism from below" can only be another name, like libertarian socialism, for anarchism (as Lenin, ironically enough, acknowledged). This does not mean that "socialism from below," like "libertarian socialism," is identical to anarchism, it simply means that libertarian Marxists and other socialists are far closer to anarchism than mainstream Marxism.
No, far from it. While it is impossible to quote everything a person or an ideology says, it is possible to summarise those aspects of a theory which influenced the way it developed in practice. As such, any account is "selective" in some sense, the question is whether this results in a critique rooted in the ideology and its practice or whether it presents a picture at odds with both. As Maurice Brinton put it in the introduction to his classic account of workers' control in the Russian Revolution:
"Other charges will also be made. The quotations from Lenin and Trotsky will not be denied but it will be stated that they are 'selective' and that 'other things, too' were said. Again, we plead guilty. But we would stress that there are hagiographers enough in the trade whose 'objectivity' . . . is but a cloak for sophisticated apologetics . . . It therefore seems more relevant to quote those statements of the Bolshevik leaders of 1917 which helped determine Russia's evolution [towards Stalinism] rather those other statements which, like the May Day speeches of Labour leaders, were forever to remain in the realm of rhetoric." [The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. xv]
Hence the need to discuss all aspects of Marxism rather than take what its adherents like to claim for it as granted. In this, we agree with Marx himself who argued that we cannot judge people by what they say about themselves but rather what they do. Unfortunately while many self-proclaimed Marxists (like Trotsky) may quote these comments, fewer apply them to their own ideology or actions (again, like Trotsky).
This can be seen from the almost ritualistic way many Marxists respond to anarchist (or other) criticisms of their ideas. When they complain that anarchists "selectively" quote from the leading proponents of Marxism, they are usually at pains to point people to some document which they have selected as being more "representative" of their tradition. Leninists usually point to Lenin's State and Revolution, for example, for a vision of what Lenin "really" wanted. To this anarchists reply by, as we discussed in section H.1.7, pointing out that much of what passes for 'Marxism' in State and Revolution is anarchist and, equally important, it was not applied in practice. This explains an apparent contradiction. Leninists point to the Russian Revolution as evidence for the democratic nature of their politics. Anarchists point to it as evidence of Leninism's authoritarian nature. Both can do this because there is a substantial difference between Bolshevism before it took power and afterwards. While the Leninists ask you to judge them by their manifesto, anarchists say judge them by their record!
Simply put, Marxists quote selectively from their own tradition, ignoring those aspects of it which would be unappealing to potential recruits. While the leaders may know their tradition has skeletons in its closet, they try their best to ensure no one else gets to know. Which, of course, explains their hostility to anarchists doing so! That there is a deep divide between aspects of Marxist rhetoric and its practice and that even its rhetoric is not consistent we will now prove. By so doing, we can show that anarchists do not, in fact, quote Marxist's "selectively."
As an example, we can point to the leading Bolshevik Grigorii Zinoviev. In 1920, as head of the Communist International he wrote a letter to the Industrial Workers of the World, a revolutionary labour union, which stated that the "Russian Soviet Republic . . . is the most highly centralised government that exists. It is also the most democratic government in history. For all the organs of government are in constant touch with the working masses, and constantly sensitive to their will." The same year he explained to the Second Congress of the Communist International that "[t]oday, people like Kautsky come along and say that in Russia you do not have the dictatorship of the working class but the dictatorship of the party. They think this is a reproach against us. Not in the least! We have a dictatorship of the working class and that is precisely why we also have a dictatorship of the Communist Party. The dictatorship of the Communist Party is only a function, an attribute, an expression of the dictatorship of the working class . . . [T]he dictatorship of the proletariat is at the same time the dictatorship of the Communist Party." [Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress 1920, vol. 2, p. 928 and pp. 151-2]
It seems redundant to note that the second quote is the accurate one, the one which matches the reality of Bolshevik Russia. Therefore it is hardly "selective" to quote the latter and not the former, as it expresses the reality of Bolshevism rather than its rhetoric.
This duality and the divergence between practice and rhetoric comes to the fore when Trotskyists discuss Stalinism and try to counter pose the Leninist tradition to it. For example, we find the British SWP's Chris Harman arguing that the "whole experience of the workers' movement internationally teaches that only by regular elections, combined with the right of recall by shop-floor meetings can rank-and-file delegates be made really responsible to those who elect them." [Bureaucracy and Revolution in Eastern Europe, pp. 238-9] Significantly, Harman does not mention that both Lenin and Trotsky rejected this experience once in power. As we discuss in section H.3.8, Leninism came not only to practice but to argue theoretically for state power explicitly to eliminate such control from below. How can the numerous statements of leading Leninists (including Lenin and Trotsky) on the necessity of party dictatorship be reconciled with it?
The ironies do not stop there, of course. Harman correctly notes that under Stalinism, the "bureaucracy is characterised, like the private capitalist class in the West, by its control over the means of production." [Op. Cit., p. 147] However, he fails to note that it was Lenin, in early 1918, who had raised and then implemented such "control" in the form of "one-man management." As he put it: "Obedience, and unquestioning obedience at that, during work to the one-man decisions of Soviet directors, of the dictators elected or appointed by Soviet institutions, vested with dictatorial powers." [Collected Works, vol. 27, p. 316] To fail to note this link between Lenin and the Stalinist bureaucracy on this issue is quoting "selectively."
The contradictions pile up. Harman argues that "people who seriously believe that workers at the height of revolution need a police guard to stop them handing their factories over to capitalists certainly have no real faith in the possibilities of a socialist future." [Op. Cit., p. 144] Yet this does not stop him praising the regime of Lenin and Trotsky and contrasting it with Stalinism, in spite of the fact that this was precisely what the Bolsheviks did from 1918 onwards! Indeed this tyrannical practice played a role in provoking the strikes in Petrograd which preceded the Kronstadt revolt in 1921, when "the workers wanted the special squads of armed Bolsheviks, who carried out a purely police function, withdrawn from the factories." [Paul Avrich, Kronstadt 1921, p. 42] It seems equally strange that Harman denounces the Stalinist suppression of the Hungarian revolution for workers' democracy and genuine socialism while he defends the Bolshevik suppression of the Kronstadt revolt for the same goals. Similarly, when Harman argues that if by "political party" it is "meant a party of the usual sort, in which a few leaders give orders and the masses merely obey . . . then certainly such organisations added nothing to the Hungarian revolution." However, as we discuss in section H.5, such a party was precisely what Leninism argued for and applied in practice. Simply put, the Bolsheviks were never a party "that stood for the councils taking power." [Op. Cit., p. 186 and p. 187] As Lenin repeatedly stressed, its aim was for the Bolshevik party to take power through the councils (see section H.3.11). Once in power, the councils were quickly marginalised and became little more than a fig-leaf for party rule.
This confusion between what was promised and what was done is a common feature of Leninism. Felix Morrow, for example, wrote what is usually considered the definitive Trotskyist work on the Spanish Revolution (in spite of it being, as we discuss in the appendix "Marxists and Spanish Anarchism," deeply flawed). Morrow stated that the "essential points of a revolutionary program [are] all power to the working class, and democratic organs of the workers, peasants and combatants, as the expression of the workers' power." [Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Spain, p. 133] How this can be reconciled with, say, Trotsky's opinion of ten years previously that "[w]ith us the dictatorship of the party (quite falsely disputed theoretically by Stalin) is the expression of the socialist dictatorship of the proletariat . . . The dictatorship of a party is a part of the socialist revolution"? [Leon Trotsky on China, p. 251] Or with Lenin's and Trotsky's repeated call for the party to seize and exercise power? Or their opinion that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise the proletarian dictatorship? How can the working class "have all power" if power is held not by mass organisations but rather by a vanguard party? Particularly, as we note in section H.1.2 when party dictatorship is placed at the heart of Leninist ideology.
Given all this, who is quoting who "selectively"? The Marxists who ignore what the Bolsheviks did when in power and repeatedly point to Lenin's The State and Revolution or the anarchists who link what they did with what they said outside of that holy text? Considering this absolutely contradictory inheritance, anarchists feel entitled to ask the question "Will the real Leninist please stand up?" What is it to be, popular democracy or party rule? If we look at Bolshevik practice, the answer is the latter anarchists argue. Ironically, the likes of Lenin and Trotsky concurred, incorporating the necessity of party power into their ideology as a key lesson of the Russian revolution. As such, anarchists do not feel they are quoting Leninism "selectively" when they argue that it is based on party power, not working class self-management. That Leninists often publicly deny this aspect of their own ideology or, at best, try to rationalise and justify it, suggests that when push comes to shove (as it does in every revolution) they will make the same decisions and act in the same way.
In addition there is the question of what could be called the "social context." Marxists often accuse anarchists of failing to place the quotations and actions of, say, the Bolsheviks into the circumstances which generated them. By this they mean that Bolshevik authoritarianism can be explained purely in terms of the massive problems facing them (i.e. the rigours of the Civil War, the economic collapse and chaos in Russia and so on). As we discuss this question in section H.6, we will simply summarise the anarchist reply by noting that this argument has three major problems with it. Firstly, there is the problem that Bolshevik authoritarianism started before the start of the Civil War and, moreover, intensified after its end. As such, the Civil War cannot be blamed. The second problem is simply that Lenin continually stressed that civil war and economic chaos was inevitable during a revolution. If Leninist politics cannot handle the inevitable then they are to be avoided. Equally, if Leninists blame what they should know is inevitable for the degeneration of the Bolshevik revolution it would suggest their understanding of what revolution entails is deeply flawed. The last problem is simply that the Bolsheviks did not care. As Samuel Farber notes, "there is no evidence indicating that Lenin or any of the mainstream Bolshevik leaders lamented the loss of workers' control or of democracy in the soviets, or at least referred to these losses as a retreat, as Lenin declared with the replacement of War Communism by NEP in 1921. In fact . . . the very opposite is the case." [Before Stalinism, p. 44] Hence the continuation (indeed, intensification) of Bolshevik authoritarianism after their victory in the civil war. Given this, it is significant that many of the quotes from Trotsky given above date from the late 1930s. To argue, therefore, that "social context" explains the politics and actions of the Bolsheviks seems incredulous.
Lastly, it seems ironic that Marxists accuse anarchists of quoting "selectively." After all, as proven in section H.2, this is exactly what Marxists do to anarchism!
In summary, rather than quote "selectively" from the works and practice of Marxism, anarchists summarise those tendencies of both which, we argue, contribute to its continual failure in practice as a revolutionary theory. Moreover, Marxists themselves are equally as "selective" as anarchists in this respect. Firstly, as regards anarchist theory and practice and, secondly, as regards their own.
As is obvious in any account of the history of socialism, Marxists (of various schools) have appropriated key anarchist ideas and (often) present them as if Marxists thought of them first.
For example, as we discuss in section H.3.10, it was anarchists who first raised the idea of smashing the bourgeois state and replacing it with the fighting organisations of the working class (such as unions, workers' councils, etc.). It was only in 1917, decades after anarchists had first raised the idea, that Marxists started to argue these ideas but, of course, with a twist. While anarchists meant that working class organisations would be the basis of a free society, Lenin saw these organs as the best means of achieving Bolshevik party power.
Similarly with the libertarian idea of the "militant minority." By this, anarchists and syndicalists meant groups of workers who gave an example by their direct action which their fellow workers could imitate (for example by leading wildcat strikes which would use flying pickets to get other workers to join in). This "militant minority" would be at the forefront of social struggle and would show, by example, practice and discussion, that their ideas and tactics were the correct ones. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Bolsheviks argued that this idea was similar to their idea of a vanguard party. This ignored two key differences. Firstly that the libertarian "militant minority" did not aim to take power on behalf of the working class but rather to encourage it, by example, to manage its own struggles and affairs (and, ultimately, society). Secondly, that "vanguard parties" are organised in hierarchical ways alien to the spirit of anarchism. While both the "militant minority" and "vanguard party" approaches are based on an appreciation of the uneven development of ideas within the working class, vanguardism transforms this into a justification for party rule over the working class by a so-called "advanced" minority (see section H.5 for a full discussion). Other concepts, such as "workers' control," direct action, and so on have suffered a similar fate.
A classic example of this appropriation of anarchist ideas into Marxism is provided by the general strike. In 1905, Russia had a near revolution in which the general strike played a key role. Unsurprisingly, as anarchists had been arguing for the general strike since the 1870s, we embraced these events as a striking confirmation of our long held ideas on revolutionary change. Marxists had a harder task as such ideas were alien to mainstream Social Democracy. Yet faced with the success and power of the general strike in practice, the more radical Marxists, like Rosa Luxemburg, had to incorporate it into their politics.
Yet they faced a problem. The general strike was indelibly linked with such hearsays as anarchism and syndicalism. Had not Engels himself proclaimed the nonsense of the general strike in his diatribe "The Bakuninists at work"? Had his words not been repeated ad infinitum against anarchists (and radical socialists) who questioned the wisdom of social democratic tactics, its reformism and bureaucratic inertia? The Marxist radicals knew that Engels would again be invoked by the bureaucrats and reformists in the Social Democratic movement to throw cold water over any attempt to adjust Marxist politics to the economic power of the masses as expressed in mass strikes. The Social Democratic hierarchy would simply dismiss them as "anarchists." This meant that Luxemburg was faced with the problem of proving Engels was right, even when he was wrong.
She did so in an ingenious way. Like Engels himself, she simply distorted what the anarchists thought about the general strike in order to make it acceptable to Social Democracy. Her argument was simple. Yes, Engels had been right to dismiss the "general strike" idea of the anarchists in the 1870s. But today, thirty years later, Social Democrats should support the general strike (or mass strike, as she called it) because the concepts were different. The anarchist "general strike" was utopian. The Marxist "mass strike" was practical.
To discover why, we need to see what Engels had argued in the 1870s. Engels, mocked the anarchists (or "Bakuninists") for thinking that "a general strike is the lever employed by which the social revolution is started." He accusing them of imagining that "[o]ne fine morning, all the workers in all the industries of a country, or even of the whole world, stop work, thus forcing the propertied classes either humbly to submit within four weeks at most, or to attack the workers, who would then have the right to defend themselves and use the opportunity to pull down the entire old society." He stated that at the September 1 1873 Geneva congress of the anarchist Alliance of Social Democracy, it was "universally admitted that to carry out the general strike strategy, there had to be a perfect organisation of the working class and a plentiful funds." He noted that that was "the rub" as no government would stand by and "allow the organisation or funds of the workers to reach such a level." Moreover, the revolution would happen long before "such an ideal organisation" was set up and if they had been "there would be no need to use the roundabout way of a general strike" to achieve it. [Collected Works, vol. 23, pp. 584-5]
Rosa Luxemburg repeated Engels arguments in her essay "The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions" in order to show how her support for the general strike was in no way contrary to Marxism. [Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, pp. 153-218] Her "mass strike" was different from the anarchist "general strike" as mocked by Engels as it was dynamic process and could not be seen as one act, one isolated action which overthrows the bourgeoisie. Rather, the mass strike to the product of the everyday class struggle within society, leads to a direct confrontation with the capitalist state and so it was inseparable from the revolution.
The only problem with all this is that the anarchists did not actually argue along the lines Engels and Luxemburg claimed. Most obviously, as we indicated in section H.2.8, Bakunin saw the general strike as a dynamic process which would not be set for a specific date and did not need all workers to be organised before hand. As such, Bakunin's ideas are totally at odds with Engels assertions on what anarchist ideas on the general strike were about (they, in fact, reflect what actually happened in 1905).
But what of the "Bakuninists"? Again, Engels account leaves a lot to be desired. Rather than the September 1873 Geneva congress being, as he claimed, of the (disbanded) Alliance of Social Democracy, it was in fact a meeting of the non-Marxist federations of the First International. Contra Engels, anarchists did not see the general strike as requiring all workers to be perfectly organised and then passively folding arms "one fine morning." The Belgian libertarians who proposed the idea at the congress saw it as a tactic which could mobilise workers for revolution, "a means of bringing a movement onto the street and leading the workers to the barricades." Moreover, leading anarchist James Guillaume explicitly rejected the idea that it had "to break out everywhere at an appointed day and hour" with a resounding "No!" In fact, he stressed that they did "not even need to bring up this question and suppose things could be like this. Such a supposition could lead to fatal mistakes. The revolution has to be contagious." [quoted by Caroline Cahm, Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism 1872-1886, p. 223 and p. 224]
Another account of this meeting notes that how the general strike was to start was "left unsaid", with Guillaume "recognis[ing] that it as impossible for the anarchists simply to set the hour for the general strike." Another anarchist did "not believe that the strike was a sufficient means to win the social revolution" but could "set the stage for the success of an armed insurrection." Only one delegate, regardless of Engels' claims, thought it "demanded the utmost organisation of the working class" and if that were the case "then the general strike would not be necessary." This was the delegate from the reformist British trade unions and he was "attack[ing]" the general strike as "an absurd and impractical proposition." [Phil H. Goodstein, The Theory of the General Strike, pp. 43-5]
Perhaps this is why Engels did not bother to quote a single anarchist when recounting their position on this matter? Needless to say, Leninists continue to parrot Engels assertions to this day. The facts are somewhat different. Clearly, the "anarchist" strategy of overthrowing the bourgeoisie with one big general strike set for a specific date exists only in Marxist heads, nowhere else. Once we remove the distortions promulgated by Engels and repeated by Luxemburg, we see that the 1905 revolution and "historical dialectics" did not, as Luxemburg claim, validate Engels and disprove anarchism. Quite the reverse as the general strikes in Russia followed the anarchist ideas of what a general strike would be like quite closely. Little wonder, then, that Kropotkin argued that the 1905 general strike "demonstrated" that the Latin workers who had been advocating the general strike "as a weapon which would irresistible in the hands of labour for imposing its will" had been "right." [Selected Writings on Anarchism and Revolution, p. 288]
So, contra Luxemburg, "the fatherland of Bakunin" was not "the burial-place of [anarchism's] teachings." [Op. Cit., p. 157] As Nicholas Walter argued, while the numbers of actual anarchists was small, "the 1905 Revolution was objectively an anarchist revolution. The military mutinies, peasant uprisings and workers' strikes (culminating in a general strike), led to the establishment of soldiers' and workers' councils . . . and peasants' communes, and the beginning of agrarian and industrial expropriation - all along the lines suggested by anarchist writers since Bakunin." [The Anarchist Past and Other Essays, p. 122] The real question must be when will Marxists realise that quoting Engels does not make it true?
Moreover, without becoming an insurrection, as anarchists had stressed, the limits of the general strike were exposed in 1905. Unlike the some of the syndicalists in the 1890s and 1900s, this limitation was understood by the earliest anarchists. Consequently, they saw the general strike as the start of a revolution and not as the revolution itself. So, for all the Leninist accounts of the 1905 revolution claiming it for their ideology, the facts suggest that it was anarchism, not Marxism, which was vindicated by it. Luxemburg was wrong. The "land of Bakunin's birth" provided an unsurpassed example of how to make a revolution precisely because it applied (and confirmed) anarchist ideas on the general strike (and, it should be added, workers' councils). Marxists (who had previously quoted Engels to dismiss such things) found themselves repudiating aspect upon aspect of their dogma to remain relevant. Luxemburg, as Bookchin noted, "grossly misrepresented the anarchist emphasis on the general strike after the 1905 revolution in Russia in order to make it acceptable to Social Democracy." (He added that Lenin "was to engage in the same misrepresentation on the issue of popular control in State and Revolution"). [Towards an Ecological Society, p. 227fn]
As such, while Marxists have appropriated certain anarchist concepts, it does not automatically mean that they mean exactly the same thing by them. Rather, as history shows, radically different concepts can be hidden behind similar sounding rhetoric. As Murray Bookchin argued, many Marxist tendencies "attach basically alien ideas to the withering conceptual framework of Marxism - not to say anything new but to preserve something old with ideological formaldehyde - to the detriment of any intellectual growth that the distinctions are designed to foster. This is mystification at its worst, for it not only corrupts ideas but the very capacity of the mind to deal with them. If Marx's work can be rescued for our time, it will be by dealing with it as an invaluable part of the development of ideas, not as pastiche that is legitimated as a 'method' or continually 'updated' by concepts that come from an alien zone of ideas." [Op. Cit., p. 242f]
This is not some academic point. The ramifications of Marxists appropriating such "alien ideas" (or, more correctly, the rhetoric associated with those ideas) has had negative impacts on actual revolutionary movements. For example, Lenin's definition of "workers' control" was radically different than that current in the factory committee movement during the Russian Revolution (which had more in common with anarchist and syndicalist use of the term). The similarities in rhetoric allowed the factory committee movement to put its weight behind the Bolsheviks. Once in power, Lenin's position was implemented while that of the factory committees was ignored. Ultimately, Lenin's position was a key factor in creating state capitalism rather than socialism in Russia (see section H.3.14 for more details).
This, of course, does not stop modern day Leninists appropriating the term workers' control "without bating an eyelid. Seeking to capitalise on the confusion now rampant in the movement, these people talk of 'workers' control' as if a) they meant by those words what the politically unsophisticated mean (i.e. that working people should themselves decide about the fundamental matters relating to production) and b) as if they - and the Leninist doctrine to which they claim to adhere - had always supported demands of this kind, or as if Leninism had always seen in workers' control the universally valid foundation of a new social order, rather than just a slogan to be used for manipulatory purposes in specific and very limited historical contexts." [Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. iv] This clash between the popular idea of workers' control and the Leninist one was a key reason for the failure of the Russian Revolution precisely because, once in power, the latter was imposed.
Thus the fact that Leninists have appropriated libertarian (and working class) ideas and demands does not, in fact, mean that we aim for the same thing (as we discussed in section H.3.1, this is far from the case). The use of anarchist/popular rhetoric and slogans means little and we need to look at the content of the ideas proposed. Given the legacy of the appropriation of libertarian terminology to popularise authoritarian parties and its subsequent jettison in favour of authoritarian policies once the party is in power, anarchists have strong grounds to take Leninist claims with a large pinch of salt!
Equally with examples of actual revolutions. As Martin Buber noted, while "Lenin praises Marx for having 'not yet, in 1852, put the concrete question as to what should be set up in place of the State machinery after it had been abolished,'" Lenin argued that "it was only the Paris Commune that taught Marx this." However, as Buber correctly pointed out, the Paris Commune "was the realisation of the thoughts of people who had put this question very concretely indeed . . . the historical experience of the Commune became possible only because in the hearts of passionate revolutionaries there lived the picture of a decentralised, very much 'de-Stated' society, which picture they undertook to translate into reality. The spiritual fathers of the Commune had such that ideal aiming at decentralisation which Marx and Engels did not have, and the leaders of the Revolution of 1871 tried, albeit with inadequate powers, to begin the realisation of that idea in the midst of revolution." [Paths in Utopia, pp. 103-4] Thus, while the Paris Commune and other working class revolts are praised, their obvious anarchistic elements (which were usually often predicted by anarchist thinkers) are not mentioned. This results in some strange dichotomies. For example, Bakunin's vision of revolution is based on a federation of workers' councils, predating Marxist support for such bodies by decades, yet Marxists argue that Bakunin's ideas have nothing to teach us. Or, the Paris Commune being praised by Marxists as the first "dictatorship of the proletariat" when it implements federalism, delegates being subjected to mandates and recall and raises the vision of a socialism of associations while anarchism is labelled "petit-bourgeois" in spite of the fact that these ideas can be found in works of Proudhon and Bakunin which predate the 1871 revolt!
From this, we can draw two facts. Firstly, anarchism has successfully predicted certain aspects of working class revolution. Anarchist K.J. Kenafick stated the obvious when he argues that any "comparison will show that the programme set out [by the Paris Commune] is . . . the system of Federalism, which Bakunin had been advocating for years, and which had first been enunciated by Proudhon. The Proudhonists . . . exercised considerable influence in the Commune. This 'political form' was therefore not 'at last' discovered; it had been discovered years ago; and now it was proven to be correct by the very fact that in the crisis the Paris workers adopted it almost automatically, under the pressure of circumstance, rather than as the result of theory, as being the form most suitable to express working class aspirations." [Michael Bakunin and Karl Marx, pp. 212-3] Rather than being somehow alien to the working class and its struggle for freedom, anarchism in fact bases itself on the class struggle. This means that it should come as no surprise when the ideas of anarchism are developed and applied by those in struggle, for those ideas are just generalisations derived from past working class struggles! If anarchist ideas are applied spontaneously by those in struggle, it is because those involved are themselves drawing similar conclusions from their own experiences.
The other fact is that while mainstream Marxism often appropriated certain aspects of libertarian theory and practice, it does so selectively and places them into an authoritarian context which undermines their libertarian nature. Hence anarchist support for workers councils becomes transformed by Leninists into a means to ensure party power (i.e. state authority) rather than working class power or self-management (i.e. no authority). Similarly, anarchist support for leading by example becomes transformed into support for party rule (and often dictatorship). Ultimately, the practice of mainstream Marxism shows that libertarian ideas cannot be transplanted selectively into an authoritarian ideology and be expected to blossom.
Significantly, those Marxists who do apply anarchist ideas honestly are usually labelled by their orthodox comrades as "anarchists." As an example of Marxists appropriating libertarian ideas honestly, we can point to the council communist and currents within Autonomist Marxism. The council communists broke with the Bolsheviks over the question of whether the party would exercise power or whether the workers' councils would. Needless to say, Lenin labelled them an "anarchist deviation." Currents within Autonomist Marxism have built upon the council communist tradition, stressing the importance of focusing analysis on working class struggle as the key dynamic in capitalist society.
In this they go against the mainstream Marxist orthodoxy and embrace a libertarian perspective. As libertarian socialist Cornelius Castoriadis argued, "the economic theory expounded [by Marx] in Capital is based on the postulate that capitalism has managed completely and effectively to transform the worker - who appears there only as labour power - into a commodity; therefore the use value of labour power - the use the capitalist makes of it - is, as for any commodity, completely determined by the use, since its exchange value - wages - is determined solely by the laws of the market . . . This postulate is necessary for there to be a 'science of economics' along the physico-mathematical model Marx followed . . . But he contradicts the most essential fact of capitalism, namely, that the use value and exchange value of labour power are objectively indeterminate; they are determined rather by the struggle between labour and capital both in production and in society. Here is the ultimate root of the 'objective' contradictions of capitalism . . . The paradox is that Marx, the 'inventor' of class struggle, wrote a monumental work on phenomena determined by this struggle in which the struggle itself was entirely absent." [Political and Social Writings, vol. 2, pp. 202-3] Castoriadis explained the limitations of Marx's vision most famously in his "Modern Capitalism and Revolution." [Op. Cit., pp. 226-343]
By rejecting this heritage which mainstream Marxism bases itself on and stressing the role of class struggle, Autonomist Marxism breaks decisively with the Marxist mainstream and embraces a position previously associated with anarchists and other libertarian socialists. The key role of class struggle in invalidating all deterministic economic "laws" was expressed by French syndicalists at the start of the twentieth century. This insight predated the work of Castoriadis and the development of Autonomist Marxism by over 50 years and is worth quoting at length:
"the keystone of socialism . . . proclaimed that 'as a general rule, the average wage would be no more than what the worker strictly required for survival'. And it was said: 'That figure is governed by capitalist pressure alone and this can even push it below the minimum necessary for the working man's subsistence . . . The only rule with regard to wage levels is the plentiful or scarce supply of man-power . . .'
"By way of evidence of the relentless operation of this law of wages, comparisons were made between the worker and a commodity: if there is a glut of potatoes on the market, they are cheap; if they are scarce, the price rises . . . It is the same with the working man, it was said: his wages fluctuate in accordance with the plentiful supply or dearth of labour!
"No voice was raised against the relentless arguments of this absurd reasoning: so the law of wages may be taken as right . . . for as long as the working man [or woman] is content to be a commodity! For as long as, like a sack of potatoes, she remains passive and inert and endures the fluctuations of the market . . . For as long as he bends his back and puts up with all of the bosses' snubs, . . . the law of wages obtains.
"But things take a different turn the moment that a glimmer of consciousness stirs this worker-potato into life. When, instead of dooming himself to inertia, spinelessness, resignation and passivity, the worker wakes up to his worth as a human being and the spirit of revolt washes over him: when he bestirs himself, energetic, wilful and active . . . [and] once the labour bloc comes to life and bestirs itself . . . then, the laughable equilibrium of the law of wages is undone." [Emile Pouget, Direct Action, pp. 9-10]
And Marx, indeed, had compared the worker to a commodity, stating that labour power "is a commodity, neither more nor less than sugar. The former is measured by the clock, the latter by the scale." [Selected Works, p. 72] However, as Castoridias argued, unlike sugar the extraction of the use value of labour power "is not a technical operation; it is a process of bitter struggle in which half the time, so to speak, the capitalists turn out to be losers." [Op. Cit., p. 248] A fact which Pouget stressed in his critique of the mainstream socialist position:
"A novel factor has appeared on the labour market: the will of the worker! And this factor, not pertinent when it comes to setting the price of a bushel of potatoes, has a bearing upon the setting of wages; its impact may be large or small, according to the degree of tension of the labour force which is a product of the accord of individual wills beating in unison - but, whether it be strong or weak, there is no denying it.
"Thus, worker cohesion conjures up against capitalist might a might capable of standing up to it. The inequality between the two adversaries - which cannot be denied when the exploiter is confronted only by the working man on his own - is redressed in proportion with the degree of cohesion achieved by the labour bloc. From then on, proletarian resistance, be it latent or acute, is an everyday phenomenon: disputes between labour and capital quicken and become more acute. Labour does not always emerge victorious from these partial struggles: however, even when defeated, the struggle workers still reap some benefit: resistance from them has obstructed pressure from the employers and often forced the employer to grant some of the demands put." [Op. Cit., p. 10]
The best currents of Autonomist Marxism share this anarchist stress on the power of working people to transform society and to impact on how capitalism operates. Unsurprisingly, most Autonomist Marxists reject the idea of the vanguard party and instead, like the council communists, stress the need for autonomist working class self-organisation and self-activity (hence the name!). They agree with Pouget when he argued that direct action "spells liberation for the masses of humanity", it "puts paid to the age of miracles - miracles from Heaven, miracles from the State - and, in contraposition to hopes vested in 'providence' (no matter what they may be) it announces that it will act upon the maxim: salvation lies within ourselves!" [Op. Cit., p. 3] As such, they draw upon anarchistic ideas and rhetoric (for many, undoubtedly unknowingly) and draw anarchistic conclusions. This can be seen from the works of the leading US Autonomist Marxist Harry Cleaver. His excellent essay "Kropotkin, Self-Valorisation and the Crisis of Marxism" is by far the best Marxist account of Kropotkin's ideas and shows the similarities between communist-anarchism and Autonomist Marxism. [Anarchist Studies, vol.2 , no. 2, pp. 119-36] Both, he points out, share a "common perception and sympathy for the power of workers to act autonomously" regardless of the "substantial differences" on other issues. [Reading Capital Politically, p. 15]
As such, the links between the best Marxists and anarchism can be substantial. This means that some Marxists have taken on board many anarchist ideas and have forged a version of Marxism which is basically libertarian in nature. Unfortunately, such forms of Marxism have always been a minority current within it. Most cases have seen the appropriation of anarchist ideas by Marxists simply as part of an attempt to make mainstream, authoritarian Marxism more appealing and such borrowings have been quickly forgotten once power has been seized.
Therefore appropriation of rhetoric and labels should not be confused with similarity of goals and ideas. The list of groupings which have used inappropriate labels to associate their ideas with other, more appealing, ones is lengthy. Content is what counts. If libertarian sounding ideas are being raised, the question becomes one of whether they are being used simply to gain influence or whether they signify a change of heart. As Bookchin argued:
"Ultimately, a line will have to be drawn that, by definition, excludes any project that can tip decentralisation to the side of centralisation, direct democracy to the side of delegated power, libertarian institutions to the side of bureaucracy, and spontaneity to the side of authority. Such a line, like a physical barrier, must irrevocably separate a libertarian zone of theory and practice from the hybridised socialisms that tend to denature it. This zone must build its anti-authoritarian, utopian, and revolutionary commitments into the very recognition it has of itself, in short, into the very way it defines itself. . . . to admit of domination is to cross the line that separates the libertarian zone from the [state] socialist." [Op. Cit., pp. 223-4]
Unless we know exactly what we aim for, how to get there and who our real allies are, we will get a nasty surprise once our self-proclaimed "allies" take power. As such, any attempt to appropriate anarchist rhetoric into an authoritarian ideology will simply fail and become little more than a mask obscuring the real aims of the party in question. As history shows.
Some Marxists will dismiss our arguments, and anarchism, out of hand. This is because anarchism has not lead a "successful" revolution while Marxism has. The fact, they assert, that there has never been a serious anarchist revolutionary movement, let alone a successful anarchist revolution, in the whole of history proves that Marxism works. For some Marxists, practice determines validity. Whether something is true or not is not decided intellectually in wordy publications and debates, but in reality.
For Anarchists, such arguments simply show the ideological nature of most forms of Marxism. The fact is, of course, that there have been many anarchistic revolutions which, while ultimately defeated, show the validity of anarchist theory (the ones in Spain and in the Ukraine being the most significant). Moreover, there have been serious revolutionary anarchist movements across the world, the majority of them crushed by state repression (usually fascist or communist based). However, this is not the most important issue, which is the fate of these "successful" Marxist movements and revolutions. The fact that there has never been a "Marxist" revolution which has not become a party dictatorship proves the need to critique Marxism.
So, given that Marxists argue that Marxism is the revolutionary working class political theory, its actual track record has been appalling. After all, while many Marxist parties have taken part in revolutions and even seized power, the net effect of their "success" have been societies bearing little or no relationship to socialism. Rather, the net effect of these revolutions has been to discredit socialism by associating it with one-party states presiding over state capitalist economies.
Equally, the role of Marxism in the labour movement has also been less than successful. Looking at the first Marxist movement, social democracy, it ended by becoming reformist, betraying socialist ideas by (almost always) supporting their own state during the First World War and going so far as crushing the German revolution and betraying the Italian factory occupations in 1920. Indeed, Trotsky stated that the Bolshevik party was "the only revolutionary" section of the Second International, which is a damning indictment of Marxism. [Stalin, vol. 1, p. 248] Just as damning is the fact that neither Lenin or Trotsky noticed it before 1914! In fact, Lenin praised the "fundamentals of parliamentary tactics" of German and International Social Democracy, expressing the opinion that they were "at the same time implacable on questions of principle and always directed to the accomplishment of the final aim" in his obituary of August Bebel in 1913! [Collected Works, vol. 19, p. 298] For those that way inclined, some amusement can be gathered comparing Engels glowing predictions for these parties and their actual performance (in the case of Spain and Italy, his comments seem particularly ironic).
As regards Bolshevism itself, the one "revolutionary" party in the world, it avoided the fate of its sister parties simply because there was no question of applying social democratic tactics within bourgeois institutions as these did not exist in Tsarist Russia. Moreover, the net result of its seizure of power was, first, a party dictatorship and state capitalism under Lenin, then their intensification under Stalin and the creation of a host of Trotskyist sects who spend a considerable amount of time justifying and rationalising the ideology and actions of the Bolsheviks which helped create the Stalinism. Given the fate of Bolshevism in power, Bookchin simply stated the obvious:
"None of the authoritarian technics of change has provided successful 'paradigms', unless we are prepared to ignore the harsh fact that the Russian, Chinese, and Cuban 'revolutions' were massive counterrevolutions that blight our entire century." [The Ecology of Freedom, p. 446]
Clearly, a key myth of Marxism is the idea that it has been a successful movement. In reality, its failures have been consistent and devastating so suggesting it is time to re-evaluate the whole ideology and embrace a revolutionary theory like anarchism. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to argue that every "success" of Marxism has, in fact, proved that the anarchist critique of Marxism was correct. Thus, as Bakunin predicted, the Social-Democratic parties became reformist and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" became the "dictatorship over the proletariat." With "victories" like these, Marxism does not need failures! Thus Murray Bookchin:
"A theory which is so readily 'vulgarised,' 'betrayed,' or, more sinisterly, institutionalised into bureaucratic power by nearly all its adherents may well be one that lends itself to such 'vulgarisations,' 'betrayals,' and bureaucratic forms as a normal condition of its existence. What may seem to be 'vulgarisations, 'betrayals,' and bureaucratic manifestations of its tenets in the heated light of doctrinal disputes may prove to be the fulfilment of its tenets in the cold light of historical development." [Toward an Ecological Society, p. 196]
Hence the overwhelming need to critically evaluate Marxist ideas and history (such as the Russian Revolution - see section H.6). Unless we honestly discuss and evaluate all aspects of revolutionary ideas, we will never be able to build a positive and constructive revolutionary movement. By seeking the roots of Marxism's problems, we can enrich anarchism by avoiding possible pitfalls and recognising and building upon its strengths (e.g., where anarchists have identified, however incompletely, problems in Marxism which bear on revolutionary ideas, practice and transformation).
If this is done, anarchists are sure that Marxist claims that Marxism is the revolutionary theory will be exposed for the baseless rhetoric they are.
For anarchists, the idea that a state (any state) can be used for socialist ends is simply ridiculous. This is because of the nature of the state as an instrument of minority class rule. As such, it precludes the mass participation required for socialism and would create a new form of class society.
As we discussed in section B.2, the state is defined by certain characteristics (most importantly, the centralisation of power into the hands of a few). Thus, for anarchists, "the word 'State' . . . should be reserved for those societies with the hierarchical system and centralisation." [Peter Kropotkin, Ethics, p. 317f] This defining feature of the state has not come about by chance. As Kropotkin argued in his classic history of the state, "a social institution cannot lend itself to all the desired goals, since, as with every organ, [the state] developed according to the function it performed, in a definite direction and not in all possible directions." This means, by "seeing the State as it has been in history, and as it is in essence today" the conclusion anarchists "arrive at is for the abolition of the State." Thus the state has "developed in the history of human societies to prevent the direct association among men [and women] to shackle the development of local and individual initiative, to crush existing liberties, to prevent their new blossoming - all this in order to subject the masses to the will of minorities." [The State: Its Historic Role, p. 56]
So if the state, as Kropotkin stressed, is defined by "the existence of a power situated above society, but also of a territorial concentration as well as the concentration in the hands of a few of many functions in the life of societies" then such a structure has not evolved by chance. Therefore "the pyramidal organisation which is the essence of the State" simply "cannot lend itself to a function opposed to the one for which it was developed in the course of history," such as the popular participation from below required by social revolution and socialism. [Op. Cit., p. 10, p. 59 and p. 56] Based on this evolutionary analysis of the state, Kropotkin, like all anarchists, drew the conclusion "that the State organisation, having been the force to which the minorities resorted for establishing and organising their power over the masses, cannot be the force which will serve to destroy these privileges." [Evolution and Environment, p. 82]
This does not mean that anarchists dismiss differences between types of state, think the state has not changed over time or refuse to see that different states exist to defend different ruling minorities. Far from it. Anarchists argue that "[e]very economic phase has a political phase corresponding to it, and it would be impossible to touch private property unless a new mode of political life be found at the same time." "A society founded on serfdom," Kropotkin explained, "is in keeping with absolute monarchy; a society based on the wage system, and the exploitation of the masses by the capitalists finds it political expression in parliamentarianism." As such, the state form changes and evolves, but its basic function (defender of minority rule) and structure (delegated power into the hands of a few) remains. Which means that "a free society regaining possession of the common inheritance must seek, in free groups and free federations of groups, a new organisation, in harmony with the new economic phase of history." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 54]
As with any social structure, the state has evolved to ensure that it carries out its function. In other words, the state is centralised because it is an instrument of minority domination and oppression. Insofar as a social system is based on decentralisation of power, popular self-management, mass participation and free federation from below upwards, it is not a state. If a social system is, however, marked by delegated power and centralisation it is a state and cannot be, therefore, a instrument of social liberation. Rather it will become, slowly but surely, "whatever title it adopts and whatever its origin and organisation may be" what the state has always been, an instrument for "oppressing and exploiting the masses, of defending the oppressors and the exploiters." [Malatesta, Anarchy, p. 23] Which, for obvious reasons, is why anarchists argue for the destruction of the state by a free federation of self-managed communes and workers' councils (see section H.1.4 for further discussion).
This explains why anarchists reject the Marxist definition and theory of the state. For Marxists, "the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another." While it has been true that, historically, it is "the state of the most powerful, economically dominant class, which, through the medium of the state, becomes also the politically dominant class, and this acquires the means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class," this need not always be the case. The state is "at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy," although it "cannot avoid having to lop off at once as much as possible" of it "until such time as a generation reared in new, free social conditions is able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap heap." This new state, often called the "dictatorship of the proletariat," would slowly "wither away" (or "dies out") as classes disappear and the state "at last . . . becomes the real representative of the whole of society" and so "renders itself unnecessary." Engels is at pains to differentiate this position from that of the anarchists, who demand "the abolition of the state out of hand." [Selected Works, p. 258, pp. 577-8, p. 528 and p. 424]
For anarchists, this argument has deep flaws. Simply put, unlike the anarchist one, this is not an empirically based theory of the state. Rather, we find such a theory mixed up with a metaphysical, non-empirical, a-historic definition which is based not on what the state is but rather what is could be. Thus the argument that the state "is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another" is trying to draw out an abstract essence of the state rather than ground what the state is on empirical evidence and analysis. This perspective, anarchists argue, simply confuses two very different things, namely the state and popular social organisation, with potentially disastrous results. By calling the popular self-organisation required by a social revolution the same name as a hierarchical and centralised body constructed for, and evolved to ensure, minority rule, the door is wide open to confuse popular power with party power, to confuse rule by the representatives of the working class with working class self-management of the revolution and society.
Indeed, at times, Marx seemed to suggest that any form of social organisation is a state. At one point he complained that the French mutualists argued that "[e]verything [was] to broken down into small 'groupes' or 'communes', which in turn form an 'association', but not a state." [Collected Works, vol. 42, p. 287] Unsurprisingly, then, that Kropotkin noted "the German school which takes pleasure in confusing State with Society." This was a "confusion" made by those "who cannot visualise Society without a concentration of the State." Yet this "is to overlook the fact that Man lived in Societies for thousands of years before the State had been heard of" and that "communal life" had "been destroyed by the State." So "large numbers of people [have] lived in communes and free federations" and these were not states as the state "is only one of the forms assumed by society in the course of history. Why then make no distinction between what is permanent and what is accidental?" [The State: Its Historic Role, pp. 9-10]
As we discussed in section H.2.1, anarchist opposition to the idea of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" should not be confused with idea that anarchists do not think that a social revolution needs to be defended. Rather, our opposition to the concept rests on the confusion which inevitably occurs when you mix up scientific analysis with metaphysical concepts. By drawing out an a-historic definition of the state, Engels helped ensure that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" became the "dictatorship over the proletariat" by implying that centralisation and delegated power into the hands of the few can be considered as an expression of popular power.
To explain why, we need only to study the works of Engels himself. Engels, in his famous account of the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, defined the state as follows:
"The state is . . . by no means a power forced on society from without . . . Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is an admission . . . that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms . . . in order that these antagonisms and classes with conflicting economic interests might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have power seemingly standing above society that would alleviate the conflict . . . this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state." [Selected Writings, p. 576]
The state has two distinguishing features, firstly (and least importantly) it "divides its subjects according to territory." The second "is the establishment of a public power which no longer directly coincides with the population organising itself as an armed force. This special public power is necessary because a self-acting armed organisation of the population has become impossible since the split into classes . . . This public power exists in every state; it consists not merely of armed men but also of material adjuncts, prisons and institutions of coercion of all kinds." Thus "an essential feature of the state is a public power distinct from the mass of the people." [Op. Cit., pp. 576-7 and pp. 535-6]
In this, the Marxist position concurs with the anarchist. Engels discussed the development of numerous ancient societies to prove his point. Talking of Greek society, he argued that it was based on a popular assembly which was "sovereign" plus a council. This social system was not a state because "when every adult male member of the tribe was a warrior, there was as yet no public authority separated from the people that could have been set up against it. Primitive democracy was still in full bloom, and this must remain the point of departure in judging power and the status of the council." Discussing the descent of this society into classes, he argued that this required "an institution that would perpetuate, not only the newly-rising class division of society, but the right of the possessing class to exploit the non-possessing class and the rule of the former over the latter." Unsurprisingly, "this institution arrived. The state was invented." The original communal organs of society were "superseded by real governmental authorities" and the defence of society ("the actual 'people in arms'") was "taken by an armed 'public power' at the service of these authorities and, therefore, also available against the people." With the rise of the state, the communal council was "transformed into a senate." [Op. Cit., pp. 525-6, p. 528 and p. 525]
Thus the state arises specifically to exclude popular self-government, replacing it with minority rule conducted via a centralised, hierarchical top-down structure ("government . . . is the natural protector of capitalism and other exploiters of popular labour." [Bakunin, Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 239]).
This account of the rise of the state is at direct odds with Engels argument that the state is simply an instrument of class rule. For the "dictatorship of the proletariat" to be a state, it would have to constitute a power above society, be different from the people armed, and so be "a public power distinct from the mass of the people." However, Marx and Engels are at pains to stress that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" will not be such a regime. However, how can you have something (namely "a public power distinct from the mass of the people") you consider as "an essential feature" of a state missing in an institution you call the same name? It is a bit like calling a mammal a "new kind of reptile" in spite of the former not being cold-blooded, something you consider as "an essential feature" of the latter!
This contradiction helps explains Engels comments that "[w]e would therefore propose to replace state everywhere by Gemeinwesen, a good old German word which can very well convey the meaning of the French word 'commune'" He even states that the Paris Commune "was no longer a state in the proper sense of the word." However, this comment does not mean that Engels sought to remove any possible confusion on the matter, for he still talked of "the state" as "only a transitional institution which is used in the struggle, in the revolution, to hold down's one's adversaries by force . . . so long as the proletariat still uses the state, it does not use it in the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state as such ceases to exist." [Op. Cit., p. 335] Thus the state would still exist and, furthermore, is not identified with the working class as a whole ("a self-acting armed organisation of the population"), rather it is an institution standing apart from the "people armed" which is used, by the proletariat, to crush its enemies.
(As an aside, we must stress that to state that it only becomes possible to "speak of freedom" after the state and classes cease to exist is a serious theoretical error. Firstly, it means to talk about "freedom" in the abstract, ignoring the reality of class and hierarchical society. To state the obvious, in class society working class people have their freedom restricted by the state, wage labour and other forms of social hierarchy. The aim of social revolution is the conquest of liberty by the working class by overthrowing hierarchical rule. Freedom for the working class, by definition, means stopping any attempts to restrict that freedom by its adversaries. To state the obvious, it is not a "restriction" of the freedom of would-be bosses to resist their attempts to impose their rule! As such, Engels failed to consider revolution from a working class perspective - see section H.4.7 for another example of this flaw. Moreover his comments have been used to justify restrictions on working class freedom, power and political rights by Marxist parties once they have seized power. "Whatever power the State gains," correctly argued Bookchin, "it always does so at the expense of popular power. Conversely, whatever power the people gain, they always acquire at the expense of the State. To legitimate State power, in effect, is to delegitimate popular power." [Remaking Society, p. 160])
Elsewhere, we have Engels arguing that "the characteristic attribute of the former state" is that while society "had created its own organs to look after its own special interests" in the course of time "these organs, at whose head was the state power, transformed themselves from the servants of society into the masters of society." [Op. Cit., p. 257] Ignoring the obvious contradiction with his earlier claims that the state and communal organs were different, with the former destroying the latter, we are struck yet again by the idea of the state as being defined as an institution above society. Thus, if the post revolutionary society is marked by "the state" being dissolved into society, placed under its control, then it is not a state. To call it a "new and truly democratic" form of "state power" makes as little sense as calling a motorcar a "new" form of bicycle. As such, when Engels argues that the Paris Commune "was no longer a state in the proper sense of the word" or that when the proletariat seizes political power it "abolishes the state as state" we may be entitled to ask what it is, a state or not a state. [Op. Cit., p. 335 and p. 424] It cannot be both, it cannot be a "public power distinct from the mass of the people" and "a self-acting armed organisation of the population." If it is the latter, then it does not have what Engels considered as "an essential feature of the state" and cannot be considered one. If it is the former, then any claim that such a regime is the rule of the working class is automatically invalidated. That Engels mocked the anarchists for seeking a revolution "without a provisional government and in the total absence of any state or state-like institution, which are to be destroyed" we can safely say that it is the former. [Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 156]
Given that "primitive democracy," as Engels noted, defended itself against its adversaries without such an institution shows that to equate the defence of working class freedom with the state is not only unnecessary, it simply leads to confusion. For this reason anarchists do not confuse the necessary task of defending and organising a social revolution with creating a state. Thus, the problem for Marxism is that the empirical definition of the state collides with the metaphysical, the actual state with its Marxist essence. As Italian Anarchist Camillo Berneri argued: "'The Proletariat' which seizes the state, bestowing on it the complete ownership of the means of production and destroying itself as proletariat and the state 'as the state' is a metaphysical fantasy, a political hypostasis of social abstractions." ["The Abolition and Extinction of the State," pp. 50-1, Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review, no. 4, p. 50]
This is no academic point, as we explain in the next section this confusion has been exploited to justify party power over the proletariat. Thus, as Berneri argued, Marxists "do not propose the armed conquest of the commune by the whole proletariat, but they propose the conquest of the State by the party which imagines it represents the proletariat. The Anarchists allow the use of direct power by the proletariat, but they understand the organ of this power to be formed by the entire corpus of systems of communist administration - corporate organisations [i.e. industrial unions], communal institutions, both regional and national - freely constituted outside and in opposition to all political monopoly by parties and endeavouring to a minimum administrational centralisation." Thus "the Anarchists desire the destruction of the classes by means of a social revolution which eliminates, with the classes, the State." ["Dictatorship of the Proletariat and State Socialism", pp 51-2, Op. Cit., p. 52] Anarchists are opposed to the state because it is not neutral, it cannot be made to serve our interests. The structures of the state are only necessary when a minority seeks to rule over the majority. We argue that the working class can create our own structures, organised and run from below upwards, to ensure the efficient running of everyday life.
By confusing two radically different things, Marxism ensures that popular power is consumed and destroyed by the state, by a new ruling elite. In the words of Murray Bookchin:
"Marx, in his analysis of the Paris Commune of 1871, has done radical social theory a considerable disservice. The Commune's combination of delegated policy-making with the execution of policy by its own administrators, a feature of the Commune which Marx celebrated, is a major failing of that body. Rousseau quite rightly emphasised that popular power cannot be delegated without being destroyed. One either has a fully empowered popular assembly or power belongs to the State." ["Theses on Libertarian Municipalism", pp. 9-22, The Anarchist Papers, Dimitrios Roussopoulos (ed.), p. 14]
If power belongs to the state, then the state is a public body distinct from the population and, therefore, not an instrument of working class power. Rather, as an institution designed to ensure minority rule, it would ensure its position within society and become either the ruling class itself or create a new class which instrument it would be. As we discuss in section H.3.9 the state cannot be considered as a neutral instrument of economic class rule, it has specific interests in itself which can and does mean it can play an oppressive and exploitative role in society independently of an economically dominant class.
Which brings us to the crux of the issue whether this "new" state will, in fact, be unlike any other state that has ever existed. Insofar as this "new" state is based on popular self-management and self-organisation, anarchists argue that such an organisation cannot be called a state as it is not based on delegated power. "As long as," as Bookchin stressed, "the institutions of power consisted of armed workers and peasants as distinguished from a professional bureaucracy, police force, army, and cabal of politicians and judges, they were no[t] a State . . . These institutions, in fact comprised a revolutionary people in arms . . . not a professional apparatus that could be regarded as a State in any meaningful sense of the term." ["Looking Back at Spain," pp. 53-96, The Radical Papers, Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos (ed.), p. 86] This was why Bakunin was at pains to emphasis that a "federal organisation, from below upward, of workers' associations, groups, communes, districts, and ultimately, regions and nations" could not be considered as the same as "centralised states" and were "contrary to their essence." [Statism and Anarchy, p. 13]
So when Lenin argued in State and Revolution that in the "dictatorship of the proletariat" the "organ of suppression is now the majority of the population, and not the minority" and that "since the majority of the people itself suppresses its oppressors, a 'special force' for the suppression [of the bourgeoisie] is no longer necessary" he is confusing two fundamentally different things. As Engels made clear, such a social system of "primitive democracy" is not a state. However, when Lenin argued that "the more the functions of state power devolve upon the people generally, the less need is there for the existence of this power," he was implicitly arguing that there would be, in fact, a "public power distinct from mass of the people" and so a state in the normal sense of the word based on delegated power, "special forces" separate from the armed people and so on. [Essential Works of Lenin, p. 301]
That such a regime would not "wither away" has been proven by history. The state machine does not (indeed, cannot) represent the interests of the working classes due to its centralised, hierarchical and elitist nature - all it can do is represent the interests of the party in power, its own bureaucratic needs and privileges and slowly, but surely, remove itself from popular control. This, as anarchists have constantly stressed, is why the state is based on the delegation of power, on hierarchy and centralisation. The state is organised in this way to facilitate minority rule by excluding the mass of people from taking part in the decision making processes within society. If the masses actually did manage society directly, it would be impossible for a minority class to dominate it. Hence the need for a state. Which shows the central fallacy of the Marxist theory of the state, namely it argues that the rule of the proletariat will be conducted by a structure, the state, which is designed to exclude the popular participation such a concept demands!
Considered another way, "political power" (the state) is simply the power of minorities to enforce their wills. This means that a social revolution which aims to create socialism cannot use it to further its aims. After all, if the state (i.e. "political power") has been created to further minority class rule (as Marxists and anarchists agree) then, surely, this function has determined how the organ which exercises it has developed. Therefore, we would expect organ and function to be related and impossible to separate. So when Marx argued that the conquest of political power had become the great duty of the working class because landlords and capitalists always make use of their political privileges to defend their economic monopolies and enslave labour, he drew the wrong conclusion.
Building on a historically based (and so evolutionary) understanding of the state, anarchists concluded that it was necessary not to seize political power (which could only be exercised by a minority within any state) but rather to destroy it, to dissipate power into the hands of the working class, the majority. By ending the regime of the powerful by destroying their instrument of rule, the power which was concentrated into their hands automatically falls back into the hands of society. Thus, working class power can only be concrete once "political power" is shattered and replaced by the social power of the working class based on its own class organisations (such as factory committees, workers' councils, unions, neighbourhood assemblies and so on). As Murray Bookchin put it:
"the slogan 'Power to the people' can only be put into practice when the power exercised by social elites is dissolved into the people. Each individual can then take control of his [or her] daily life. If 'Power to the people' means nothing more than power to the 'leaders' of the people, then the people remain an undifferentiated, manipulated mass, as powerless after the revolution as they were before." [Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. xif]
In practice, this means that any valid social revolution needs to break the state and not replace it with another one. This is because, in order to be a state, any state structure must be based on delegated power, hierarchy and centralisation ("every State, even the most Republican and the most democratic . . . . are in essence only machines governing the masses from above" and "[i]f there is a State, there must necessarily be domination, and therefore slavery; a State without slavery, overt or concealed, is unthinkable - and that is why we are enemies of the State." [Bakunin, The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 211 and p. 287]). If power is devolved to the working class then the state no longer exists as its "essential feature" (of delegated power) is absent. What you have is a new form of the "primitive democracy" which existed before the rise of the state. While this new, modern, form of self-management will have to defend itself against those seeking to recreate minority power, this does not mean that it becomes a state. After all, the tribes with "primitive democracy" had to defend themselves against their adversaries and so that, in itself, does not means that these communities had a state (see section H.2.1). Thus defence of a revolution, as anarchists have constantly stressed, does not equate to a state as it fails to address the key issue, namely who has power in the system - the masses or their leaders.
This issue is fudged by Marx. When Bakunin, in "Statism and Anarchy", asked the question "Will the entire proletariat head the government?", Marx argued in response:
"Does in a trade union, for instance, the whole union constitute the executive committee? Will all division of labour in a factory disappear and also the various functions arising from it? And will everybody be at the top in Bakunin's construction built from the bottom upwards? There will in fact be no below then. Will all members of the commune also administer the common affairs of the region? In that case there will be no difference between commune and region. 'The Germans [says Bakunin] number nearly 40 million. Will, for example, all 40 million be members of the government?' Certainly, for the thing begins with the self-government of the commune." [Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, pp. 150-1]
As Alan Carter argues, "this might have seemed to Marx [over] a century ago to be satisfactory rejoinder, but it can hardly do today. In the infancy of the trade unions, which is all Marx knew, the possibility of the executives of a trade union becoming divorced from the ordinary members may not have seemed to him to be a likely outcome, We, however, have behind us a long history of union leaders 'selling out' and being out of touch with their members. Time has ably demonstrated that to reject Bakunin's fears on the basis of the practice of trade union officials constitutes a woeful complacency with regard to power and privilege - a complacency that was born ample fruit in the form of present Marxist parties and 'communist' societies . . . [His] dispute with Bakunin shows quite clearly that Marx did not stress the continued control of the revolution by the mass of the people as a prerequisite for the transcendence of all significant social antagonisms." [Marx: A Radical Critique, pp. 217-8] Non-anarchists have also noticed the poverty of Marx's response. For example, as David W. Lovell puts it, "[t]aken as a whole, Marx's comments have dodged the issue. Bakunin is clearly grappling with the problems of Marx's transition period, in particular the problem of leadership, while Marx refuses to discuss the political form of what must be (at least in part) class rule by the proletariat." [From Marx to Lenin, p. 64]
As we discussed in section H.3.1, Marx's "Address to the Communist League," with its stress on "the most determined centralisation of power in the hands of the state authority" and that "the path of revolutionary activity . . . can only proceed with full force from the centre," suggests that Bakunin's fears were valid and Marx's answer simply inadequate. [Marx-Engels Reader, p. 509] Simply put, if, as Engels argued, "an essential feature of the state is a public power distinct from the mass of the people," then, clearly Marx's argument of 1850 (and others like it) signifies a state in the usual sense of the word, one which has to be "distinct" from the mass of the population in order to ensure that the masses are prevented from interfering with their own revolution. This was not, of course, the desire of Marx and Engels but this result flows from their theory of the state and its fundamental flaws. These flaws can be best seen from their repeated assertion that the capitalist democratic state could be captured via universal suffrage and used to introduce socialism (see section H.3.10 but it equally applies to notions of creating new states based on the centralisation of power favoured by ruling elites since class society began.
As Kropotkin stressed, "one does not make an historical institution follow in the direction to which one points - that is in the opposite direction to the one it has taken over the centuries." To expect this would be a "a sad and tragic mistake" simply because "the old machine, the old organisation, [was] slowly developed in the course of history to crush freedom, to crush the individual, to establish oppression on a legal basis, to create monopolists, to lead minds astray by accustoming them to servitude". [The State: Its Historic Role, pp. 57-8] A social revolution needs new, non-statist, forms of social organisation to succeed:
"To give full scope to socialism entails rebuilding from top to bottom a society dominated by the narrow individualism of the shopkeeper. It is not as has sometimes been said by those indulging in metaphysical wooliness just a question of giving the worker 'the total product of his labour'; it is a question of completely reshaping all relationships . . . In every street, in every hamlet, in every group of men gathered around a factory or along a section of the railway line, the creative, constructive and organisational spirit must be awakened in order to rebuild life - in the factory, in the village, in the store, in production and in distribution of supplies. All relations between individuals and great centres of population have to be made all over again, from the very day, from the very moment one alters the existing commercial or administrative organisation.
"And they expect this immense task, requiring the free expression of popular genius, to be carried out within the framework of the State and the pyramidal organisation which is the essence of the State! They expect the State . . . to become the lever for the accomplishment of this immense transformation. They want to direct the renewal of a society by means of decrees and electoral majorities... How ridiculous!" [Kropotkin, Op. Cit., pp. 58-9]
Ultimately, the question, of course, is one of power. Does the "executive committee" have the fundamental decision making power in society, or does that power lie in the mass assemblies upon which a federal socialist society is built? If the former, we have rule by a few party leaders and the inevitable bureaucratisation of the society and a state in the accepted sense of the word. If the latter, we have a basic structure of a free and equal society and a new organisation of popular self-management which eliminates the existence of a public power above society. This is not playing with words. It signifies the key issue of social transformation, an issue which Marxism tends to ignore or confuse matters about when discussing. Bookchin clarified what is at stake:
"To some neo-Marxists who see centralisation and decentralisation merely as difference of degree, the word 'centralisation' may merely be an awkward way of denoting means for co-ordinating the decisions made by decentralised bodies. Marx, it is worth noting, greatly confused this distinction when he praised the Paris Commune as a 'working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time.' In point of fact, the consolidation of 'executive and legislative' functions in a single body was regressive. It simply identified the process of policy-making, a function that rightly should belong to the people in assembly, with the technical execution of these policies, a function that should be left to strictly administrative bodies subject to rotation, recall, limitations of tenure . . . Accordingly, the melding of policy formation with administration placed the institutional emphasis of classical [Marxist] socialism on centralised bodies, indeed, by an ironical twist of historical events, bestowing the privilege of formulating policy on the 'higher bodies' of socialist hierarchies and their execution precisely on the more popular 'revolutionary committees' below." [Toward an Ecological Society, pp. 215-6]
By confusing co-ordination with the state (i.e. with delegation of power), Marxism opens the door wide open to the "dictatorship of the proletariat" being a state "in the proper sense." In fact, not only does Marxism open that door, it even invites the state "in the proper sense" in! This can be seen from Engels comment that just as "each political party sets out to establish its rule in the state, so the German Social-Democratic Workers' Party is striving to establish its rule, the rule of the working class." [Collected Works, vol. 23, p. 372] By confusing rule by the party "in the state" with "rule of the working class," Engels is confusing party power and popular power. For the party to "establish its rule," the state in the normal sense (i.e. a structure based on the delegation of power) has to be maintained. As such, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" signifies the delegation of power by the proletariat into the hands of the party and that implies a "public power distinct from the mass of the people" and so minority rule. This aspect of Marxism, as we argue in the next section, was developed under the Bolsheviks and became "the dictatorship of the party" (i.e. the dictatorship over the proletariat):
"since Marx vigorously opposed Bakunin's efforts to ensure that only libertarian and decentralist means were employed by revolutionaries so as to facilitate the revolution remaining in the hands of the mass of workers, he must accept a fair measure of culpability for the authoritarian outcome of the Russian Revolution . . .
"Bakunin was not satisfied with trusting revolutionary leaders to liberate the oppressed . . . The oppressed people had to made aware that the only security against replacing one repressive structure with another was the deliberate retaining of control of the revolution by the whole of the working classes, and not naively trusting it to some vanguard." [Alan Carter, Marx: A Radical Critique pp. 218-9]
It is for this reason why anarchists are extremely critical of Marxist ideas of social revolution. As Alan Carter argues:
"It is to argue not against revolution, but against 'revolutionary' praxis employing central authority. It is to argue that any revolution must remain in the hands of the mass of people and that they must be aware of the dangers of allowing power to fall into the hands of a minority in the course of the revolution. Latent within Marxist theory . . . is the tacit condoning of political inequality in the course and aftermath of revolutionary praxis. Only when such inequality is openly and widely rejected can there be any hope of a libertarian communist revolution. The lesson to learn is that we must oppose not revolutionary practice, but authoritarian 'revolutionary' practice. Such authoritarian practice will continue to prevail in revolutionary circles as long as the Marxist theory of the state and the corresponding theory of power remain above criticism within them." [Op. Cit., p. 231]
In summary, the Marxist theory of the state is simply a-historic and postulates some kind of state "essence" which exists independently of actual states and their role in society. To confuse the organ required by a minority class to execute and maintain its rule and that required by a majority class to manage society is to make a theoretical error of great magnitude. It opens the door to the idea of party power and even party dictatorship. As such, the Marxism of Marx and Engels is confused on the issue of the state. Their comments fluctuate between the anarchist definition of the state (based, as it is, on generalisations from historical examples) and the a-historic definition (based not on historical example but rather derived from a supra-historical analysis). Trying to combine the metaphysical with the scientific, the authoritarian with the libertarian, could only leave their followers with a confused legacy and that is what we find.
Since the death of the founding fathers of Marxism, their followers have diverged into two camps. The majority have embraced the metaphysical and authoritarian concept of the state and proclaimed their support for a "workers' state." This is represented by social-democracy and it radical offshoot, Leninism. As we discuss in the next section, this school has used the Marxist conception of the state to allow for rule over the working class by the "revolutionary" party. The minority has become increasingly and explicitly anti-state, recognising that the Marxist legacy is contradictory and that for the proletariat to directly manage society then there can be no power above them. To this camp belongs the libertarian Marxists of the council communist, Situationist and other schools of thought which are close to anarchism.
As discussed in the last section, there is a contradiction at the heart of the Marxist theory of the state. On the one hand, it acknowledges that the state, historically, has always been an instrument of minority rule and is structured to ensure this. On the other, it argues that you can have a state (the "dictatorship of the proletariat") which transcends this historical reality to express an abstract essence of the state as an "instrument of class rule." This means that Marxism usually confuses two very different concepts, namely the state (a structure based on centralisation and delegated power) and the popular self-management and self-organisation required to create and defend a socialist society.
This confusion between two fundamentally different concepts proved to be disastrous when the Russian Revolution broke out. Confusing party power with working class power, the Bolsheviks aimed to create a "workers' state" in which their party would be in power (see section H.3.3). As the state was an instrument of class rule, it did not matter if the new "workers' state" was centralised, hierarchical and top-down like the old state as the structure of the state was considered irrelevant in evaluating its role in society. Thus, while Lenin seemed to promise a radical democracy in which the working class would directly manage its own affairs in his State and Revolution, in practice he implemented a "dictatorship of the proletariat" which was, in fact, "the organisation of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class." [Essential Works of Lenin, p. 337] In other words, the vanguard party in the position of head of the state, governing on behalf of the working class which, in turn, meant that the new "workers' state" was fundamentally a state in the usual sense of the word. This quickly lead to a dictatorship over, not of, the proletariat (as Bakunin had predicted). This development did not come as a surprise to anarchists, who had long argued that a state is an instrument of minority rule and cannot change its nature. To use the state to affect socialist change is impossible, simply because it is not designed for such a task. As we argued in section B.2, the state is based on centralisation of power explicitly to ensure minority rule and for this reason has to be abolished during a social revolution.
As Voline summarised, there is "an explicit, irreconcilable contradiction between the very essence of State Socialist power (if it triumphs) and that of the true Social Revolutionary process." This was because "the basis of State Socialism and delegated power is the explicit non-recognition of [the] principles of the Social Revolution. The characteristic traits of Socialist ideology and practice . . . do not belong to the future, but are wholly a part of the bourgeois past . . . Once this model has been applied, the true principles of the Revolution are fatally abandoned. Then follows, inevitably, the rebirth, under another name, of the exploitation of the labouring masses, with all its consequences." Thus "the forward march of the revolutionary masses towards real emancipation, towards the creation of new forms of social life, is incompatible with the very principle of State power . . . the authoritarian principle and the revolutionary principle are diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive." [The Unknown Revolution, p. 247 and p. 248]
Ironically, the theoretical lessons Leninists gained from the experience of the Russian Revolution confirm the anarchist analysis that the state structure exists to facilitate minority rule and marginalise and disempower the majority to achieve that rule. This can be seen from the significant revision of the Marxist position which occurred once the Bolshevik party become the ruling party. Simply put, after 1917 leading representatives of Leninism stressed that state power was not required to repress resistance by the ex-ruling class as such, but, in fact, was also necessitated by the divisions within the working class. In other words, state power was required because the working class was not able to govern itself and so required a grouping (the party) above it to ensure the success of the revolution and overcome any "wavering" within the masses themselves.
While we have discussed this position in section H.1.2 and so will be repeating ourselves to some degree, it is worth summarising again the arguments put forward to justify this revision. This is because they confirm what anarchists have always argued, namely that the state is an instrument of minority rule and not one by which working class people can manage their own affairs directly. As the quotations from leading Leninists make clear, it is precisely this feature of the state which recommends it for party (i.e. minority) power. The contradiction at the heart of the Marxist theory of the state we pointed out in the section H.3.7 has been resolved in Leninism. It supports the state precisely because it is "a public power distinct from the mass of the people," rather than an instrument of working class self-management of society.
Needless to say, his latter day followers point to Lenin's apparently democratic, even libertarian, sounding 1917 work, The State and Revolution when asked about the Leninist theory of the state. As our discussion in section H.1.7 proved, the ideas expounded in his pamphlet were rarely, if at all, applied in practice by the Bolsheviks. Moreover, it was written before the seizure of power. In order to see the validity of his argument we must compare it to his and his fellow Bolshevik leaders opinions once the revolution had "succeeded." What lessons did they generalise from their experiences and how did these lessons relate to State and Revolution?
The change can be seen from Trotsky, who argued quite explicitly that "the proletariat can take power only through its vanguard" and that "the necessity for state power arises from an insufficient cultural level of the masses and their heterogeneity." Only with "support of the vanguard by the class" can there be the "conquest of power" and it was in "this sense the proletarian revolution and dictatorship are the work of the whole class, but only under the leadership of the vanguard." Thus, rather than the working class as a whole seizing power, it is the "vanguard" which takes power - "a revolutionary party, even after seizing power . . . is still by no means the sovereign ruler of society." Thus state power is required to govern the masses, who cannot exercise power themselves. As Trotsky put it, "[t]hose who propose the abstraction of Soviets to the party dictatorship should understand that only thanks to the Bolshevik leadership were the Soviets able to lift themselves out of the mud of reformism and attain the state form of the proletariat." [Writings 1936-37, p. 490, p. 488 and p. 495]
Logically, though, this places the party in a privileged position. So what happens if the working class no longer supports the vanguard? Who takes priority? Unsurprisingly, in both theory and practice, the party is expected to rule over the masses. This idea that state power was required due to the limitations within the working class is reiterated a few years later in 1939. Moreover, the whole rationale for party dictatorship came from the fundamental rationale for democracy, namely that any government should reflect the changing opinions of the masses:
"The very same masses are at different times inspired by different moods and objectives. It is just for this reason that a centralised organisation of the vanguard is indispensable. Only a party, wielding the authority it has won, is capable of overcoming the vacillation of the masses themselves . . . if the dictatorship of the proletariat means anything at all, then it means that the vanguard of the proletariat is armed with the resources of the state in order to repel dangers, including those emanating from the backward layers of the proletariat itself." ["The Moralists and Sycophants against Marxism", pp. 53-66, Their Morals and Ours, p. 59]
Needless to say, by definition everyone is "backward" when compared to the "vanguard of the proletariat." Moreover, as it is this "vanguard" which is "armed with the resources of the state" and not the proletariat as a whole we are left with one obvious conclusion, namely party dictatorship rather than working class democracy. How Trotsky's position is compatible with the idea of the working class as the "ruling class" is not explained. However, it fits in well with the anarchist analysis of the state as an instrument designed to ensure minority rule.
Thus the possibility of party dictatorship exists if popular support fades. Which is, significantly, precisely what had happened when Lenin and Trotsky were in power. In fact, these arguments built upon other, equally elitist statements which had been expressed by Trotsky when he held the reins of power. In 1920, for example, he argued that while the Bolsheviks have "more than once been accused of having substituted for the dictatorship of the Soviets the dictatorship of the party," in fact "it can be said with complete justice that the dictatorship of the Soviets became possible only by means of the dictatorship of the party." This, just to state the obvious, was his argument seventeen years later. "In this 'substitution' of the power of the party for the power of the working class," Trotsky added, "there is nothing accidental, and in reality there is no substitution at all. The Communists express the fundamental interests of the working class." [Terrorism and Communism, p. 109] In early 1921, he argued again for Party dictatorship at the Tenth Party Congress:
"The Workers' Opposition has come out with dangerous slogans, making a fetish of democratic principles! They place the workers' right to elect representatives above the Party, as if the party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the passing moods of the workers' democracy. It is necessary to create amongst us the awareness of the revolutionary birthright of the party, which is obliged to maintain its dictatorship, regardless of temporary wavering even in the working classes. This awareness is for us the indispensable element. The dictatorship does not base itself at every given moment on the formal principle of a workers' democracy." [quoted by Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism, p. 209]
The similarities with his arguments of 1939 are obvious. Unsurprisingly, he maintained this position in the intervening years. He stated in 1922 that "we maintain the dictatorship of our party!" [The First Five Years of the Communist International, vol. 2, p. 255] The next year saw him arguing that "[i]f there is one question which basically not only does not require revision but does not so much as admit the thought of revision, it is the question of the dictatorship of the Party." He stressed that "[o]ur party is the ruling party" and that "[t]o allow any changes whatever in this field" meant "bring[ing] into question all the achievements of the revolution and its future." He indicated the fate of those who did question the party's position: "Whoever makes an attempt on the party's leading role will, I hope, be unanimously dumped by all of us on the other side of the barricade." [Leon Trotsky Speaks, p. 158 and p. 160]
By 1927, when Trotsky was in the process of being "dumped" on the "other side of the barricade" by the ruling bureaucracy, he still argued for "the Leninist principle, inviolable for every Bolshevik, that the dictatorship of the proletariat is and can be realised only through the dictatorship of the party." It was stressed that the "dictatorship of the proletariat [sic!] demands as its very core a single proletarian party." [The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1926-7), p. 395 and p. 441] As we noted in section H.1.2, ten years later, he was still explicitly arguing for the "revolutionary dictatorship of a proletarian party".
Thus, for Trotsky over a twenty year period, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was fundamentally a "dictatorship of the party." While the working class may be allowed some level of democracy, the rule of the party was repeatedly given precedence. While the party may be placed into power by a mass revolution, once there the party would maintain its position of power and dismiss attempts by the working class to replace it as "wavering" or "vacillation" due to the "insufficient cultural level of the masses and their heterogeneity." In other words, the party dictatorship was required to protect working class people from themselves, their tendency to change their minds based on changing circumstances, evaluating the results of past decisions, debates between different political ideas and positions, make their own decisions, reject what is in their best interests (as determined by the party), and so on. Thus the underlying rationale for democracy (namely that it reflects the changing will of the voters, their "passing moods" so to speak) is used to justify party dictatorship!
The importance of party power over the working class was not limited to Trotsky. It was considered of general validity by all leading Bolsheviks and, moreover, quickly became mainstream Bolshevik ideology. In March 1923, for example, the Central Committee of the Communist Party in a statement issued to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Bolshevik Party. This statement summarised the lessons gained from the Russian revolution. It stated that "the party of the Bolsheviks proved able to stand out fearlessly against the vacillations within its own class, vacillations which, with the slightest weakness in the vanguard, could turn into an unprecedented defeat for the proletariat." Vacillations, of course, are expressed by workers' democracy. Little wonder the statement rejects it: "The dictatorship of the working class finds its expression in the dictatorship of the party." ["To the Workers of the USSR" in G. Zinoviev, History of the Bolshevik Party, p. 213 and p. 214]
Trotsky and other leading Bolsheviks were simply following Lenin's lead, who had admitted at the end of 1920 that while "the dictatorship of the proletariat" was "inevitable" in the "transition of socialism," it is "not exercised by an organisation which takes in all industrial workers." The reason "is given in the theses of the Second Congress of the Communist International on the role of political parties" (more on which later). This means that "the Party, shall we say, absorbs the vanguard of the proletariat, and this vanguard exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat." This was required because "in all capitalist countries . . . the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts" that it "can be exercised only by a vanguard . . . the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organisation." [Collected Works, vol. 32, p. 20 and p. 21] For Lenin, "revolutionary coercion is bound to be employed towards the wavering and unstable elements among the masses themselves." [Op. Cit., vol. 42, p. 170] Needless to say, Lenin failed to mention this aspect of his system in The State and Revolution (a failure usually repeated by his followers). It is, however, a striking confirmation of Bakunin's comments "the State cannot be sure of its own self-preservation without an armed force to defend it against its own internal enemies, against the discontent of its own people." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 265]
Looking at the lessons leading leaders of Leninism gained from the experience of the Russian Revolution, we have to admit that the Leninist "workers' state" will not be, in fact, a "new" kind of state, a "semi-state," or, to quote Lenin, a "new state" which "is no longer a state in the proper sense of the word." If, as Lenin argued in early 1917, the state "in the proper sense of the term is domination over the people by contingents of armed men divorced from the people," then Bolshevism in power quickly saw the need for a state "in the proper sense." [Op. Cit., vol. 24, p. 85] While this state "in the proper sense" had existed from the start of Bolshevik rule, it was only from early 1919 onwards (at the latest) that the leaders of Bolshevism had openly brought what they said into line with what they did. Only by being a "state in the proper sense" could the Bolshevik party rule and exercise "the dictatorship of the party" over the "wavering" working class.
So when Lenin stated that "Marxism differs from anarchism in that it recognises the need for a state for the purpose of the transition to socialism," anarchists agree. [Op. Cit., vol. 24, p. 85] Insofar as "Marxism" aims for, to quote Lenin, the party to "take state power into [its] own hands," to become "the governing party" and considers one of its key tasks for "our Party to capture political power" and to "administer" a country, then we can safely say that the state needed is a state "in the proper sense," based on the centralisation and delegation of power into the hands of a few (see our discussion of Leninism as "socialism from above" in section H.3.3 for details).
This recreation of the state "in the proper sense" did not come about by chance or simply because of the "will to power" of the leaders of Bolshevism. Rather, there are strong institutional pressures at work within any state structure (even a so-called "semi-state") to turn it back into a "proper" state. We discuss this in more detail in section H.3.9. However, we should not ignore that many of the roots of Bolshevik tyranny can be found in the contradictions of the Marxist theory of the state. As noted in the last section, for Engels, the seizure of power by the party meant that the working class was in power. The Leninist tradition builds on this confusion between party and class power. It is clear that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is, in fact, rule by the party. In Lenin's words:
"Engels speaks of a government that is required for the domination of a class . . . Applied to the proletariat, it consequently means a government that is required for the domination of the proletariat, i.e. the dictatorship of the proletariat for the effectuation of the socialist revolution." [Op. Cit., vol. 8, p. 279]
The role of the working class in this state was also indicated, as "only a revolutionary dictatorship supported by the vast majority of the people can be at all durable." [Op. Cit., p. 291] In other words the "revolutionary government" has the power, not the working class in whose name it governs. In 1921 he made this explicit: "To govern you need an army of steeled revolutionary Communists. We have it, and it is called the Party." The "Party is the leader, the vanguard of the proletariat, which rules directly." For Lenin, as "long as we, the Party's Central Committee and the whole Party, continue to run things, that is govern we shall never - we cannot - dispense with . . . removals, transfers, appointments, dismissals, etc." of workers, officials and party members from above. [Op. Cit., vol. 32, p. 62, p. 98 and p. 99] Unsurprisingly, these powers were used by Lenin, and then Stalin, to destroy opposition (although the latter applied coercive measures within the party which Lenin only applied to non-party opponents).
So much for "workers' power," "socialism from below" and other such rhetoric.
This vision of "socialism" being rooted in party power over the working class was the basis of the Communist International's resolution on the role of the party. This resolution is, therefore, important and worth discussing. It argues that the Communist Party "is part of the working class," namely its "most advanced, most class-conscious, and therefore most revolutionary part." It is "distinguished from the working class as a whole in that it grasps the whole historic path of the working class in its entirety and at every bend in that road endeavours to defend not the interests of individual groups or occupations but the interests of the working class as a whole." [Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress 1920, vol. 1, p. 191] However, in response it can be argued that this simply means the "interests of the party" as only it can understand what "the interests of the working class as a whole" actually are. Thus we have the possibility of the party substituting its will for that of the working class simply because of what Leninists term the "uneven development" of the working class. As Alan Carter argues, these "conceptions of revolutionary organisation maintain political and ideological domination by retaining supervisory roles and notions of privileged access to knowledge . . . the term 'class consciousness' is employed to facilitate such domination over the workers. It is not what the workers think, but what the party leaders think they ought to think that constitutes the revolutionary consciousness imputed to the workers." The ideological basis for a new class structure is created as the "Leninist revolutionary praxis . . . is carried forward to post-revolutionary institutions," [Marx: A Radical Critique, p. 175]
The resolution stresses that before the revolution, the party "will encompass . . . only a minority of the workers." Even after the "seizure of power," it will still "not be able to unite them all into its ranks organisationally." Only after the "final defeat of the bourgeois order" will "all or almost all workers begin to join" it. Thus the party is a minority of the working class. It then goes on to state that "[e]very class struggle is a political struggle. This struggle, which inevitably becomes transformed into civil war, has as its goal the conquest of political power. Political power cannot be seized, organised, and directed other than by some kind of political party." [Op. Cit., p. 192, p. 193] And as the party is a "part" of the working class which cannot "unite" all workers "into its ranks," this means that political power can only be "seized, organised, and directed" by a minority.
Thus we have minority rule, with the party (or more correctly its leaders) exercising political power. The idea that the party "must dissolve into the councils, that the councils can replace the Communist Party" is "fundamentally wrong and reactionary." This is because, to "enable the soviets to fulfil their historic tasks, there must . . . be a strong Communist Party, one that does not simply 'adapt' to the soviets but is able to make them renounce 'adaptation' to the bourgeoisie." [Op. Cit., p. 196] Thus rather than the workers' councils exercising power, their role is simply that of allowing the Communist Party to seize political power.
As we indicated in section H.3.4, the underlying assumption behind this resolution was made clear by Zinoviev during his introductory speech to the congress meeting which finally agreed the resolution: the dictatorship of the party was the dictatorship of the proletariat. Little wonder that Bertrand Russell, on his return from Lenin's Russia in 1920, wrote that:
"Friends of Russia here [in Britain] think of the dictatorship of the proletariat as merely a new form of representative government, in which only working men and women have votes, and the constituencies are partly occupational, not geographical. They think that 'proletariat' means 'proletariat,' but 'dictatorship' does not quite mean 'dictatorship.' This is the opposite of the truth. When a Russian Communist speaks of a dictatorship, he means the word literally, but when he speaks of the proletariat, he means the word in a Pickwickian sense. He means the 'class-conscious' part of the proletariat, i.e. the Communist Party. He includes people by no means proletarian (such as Lenin and Tchicherin) who have the right opinions, and he excludes such wage-earners as have not the right opinions, whom he classifies as lackeys of the bourgeoisie." [The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, pp. 26-27]
Significantly, Russell pointed, like Lenin, to the Comintern resolution on the role of the Communist Party. In addition, he noted the reason why this party dictatorship was required: "No conceivable system of free elections would give majorities to the Communists, either in the town or country." [Op. Cit., pp. 40-1]
Nor are followers of Bolshevism shy in repeating its elitist conclusions. Founder and leader of the British SWP, Tony Cliff, for example, showed his lack of commitment to working class democracy when he opined that the "actual level of democracy, as well as centralism, [during a revolution] depends on three basic factors: 1. the strength of the proletariat; 2. the material and cultural legacy left to it by the old regime; and 3. the strength of capitalist resistance. The level of democracy feasible must be in direct proportion to the first two factors, and in inverse proportion to the third. The captain of an ocean liner can allow football to be played on his vessel; on a tiny raft in a stormy sea the level of tolerance is far lower." [Lenin, vol. 3, p. 179] That Cliff compares working class democracy to football says it all. Rather than seeing it as the core gain of a revolution, he relegates it to the level of a game, which may or may not be "tolerated"! And need we speculate who the paternalistic "captain" in charge of the ship of the state would be?
Replacing Cliff's revealing analogies we get the following: "The party in charge of a workers' state can allow democracy when the capitalist class is not resisting; when it is resisting strongly, the level of tolerance is far lower." So, democracy will be "tolerated" in the extremely unlikely situation that the capitalist class will not resist a revolution! That the party has no right to "tolerate" democracy or not is not even entertained by Cliff, its right to negate the basic rights of the working class is taken as a given. Clearly the key factor is that the party is in power. It may "tolerate" democracy, but ultimately his analogy shows that Bolshevism considers it as an added extra whose (lack of) existence in no way determines the nature of the "workers' state" (unless, of course, he is analysing Stalin's regime rather than Lenin's then it becomes of critical importance!). Perhaps, therefore, we may add another "basic factor" to Cliff's three; namely "4. the strength of working class support for the party." The level of democracy feasible must be in direct proportion to this factor, as the Bolsheviks made clear. As long as the workers vote for the party, then democracy is wonderful. If they do not, then their "wavering" and "passing moods" cannot be "tolerated" and democracy is replaced by the dictatorship of the party. Which is no democracy at all.
Obviously, then, if, as Engels argued, "an essential feature of the state is a public power distinct from the mass of the people" then the regime advocated by Bolshevism is not a "semi-state" but, in fact, a normal state. Trotsky and Lenin are equally clear that said state exists to ensure that the "mass of the people" do not participate in public power, which is exercised by a minority, the party (or, more correctly, the leaders of the party). One of the key aims of this new state is to repress the "backward" or "wavering" sections of the working class (although, by definition, all sections of the working class are "backward" in relation to the "vanguard"). Hence the need for a "public power distinct from the people" (as the suppression of the strike wave and Kronstadt in 1921 shows, elite troops are always needed to stop the army siding with their fellow workers). And as proven by Trotsky's comments after he was squeezed out of power, this perspective was not considered as a product of "exceptional circumstances." Rather it was considered a basic lesson of the revolution, a position which was applicable to all future revolutions. In this, Lenin and other leading Bolsheviks concurred.
The irony (and tragedy) of all this should not be lost. In his 1905 diatribe against anarchism, Stalin had denied that Marxists aimed for party dictatorship. He stressed that there was "a dictatorship of the minority, the dictatorship of a small group . . . which is directed against the people . . . Marxists are the enemies of such a dictatorship, and they fight such a dictatorship far more stubbornly and self-sacrificingly than do our noisy Anarchists." The practice of Bolshevism and the ideological revisions it generated easily refutes Stalin's claims. The practice of Bolshevism showed that his claim that "[a]t the head" of the "dictatorship of the proletarian majority . . . stand the masses" is in sharp contradiction with Bolshevik support for "revolutionary" governments. Either you have (to use Stalin's expression) "the dictatorship of the streets, of the masses, a dictatorship directed against all oppressors" or you have party power in the name of the street, of the masses. [Collected Works, vol. 1, p. 371-2] The fundamental flaw in Leninism is that it confuses the two and so lays the ground for the very result anarchists predicted and Stalin denied.
While anarchists are well aware of the need to defend a revolution (see section H.2.1), we do not make the mistake of equating this with a state. Ultimately, the state cannot be used as an instrument of liberation - it is not designed for it. Which, incidentally, is why we have not discussed the impact of the Russian Civil War on the development of Bolshevik ideology. Simply put, the "workers' state" is proposed, by Leninists, as the means to defend a revolution. As such, you cannot blame what it is meant to be designed to withstand (counter-revolution and civil war) for its "degeneration." If the "workers' state" cannot handle what its advocates claim it exists for, then its time to look for an alternative and dump the concept in the dustbin of history.
In summary, Bolshevism is based on a substantial revision of the Marxist theory of the state. While Marx and Engels were at pains to stress the accountability of their new state to the population under it, Leninism has made a virtue of the fact that the state has evolved to exclude that mass participation in order to ensure minority rule. Leninism has done so explicitly to allow the party to overcome the "wavering" of the working class, the very class it claims is the "ruling class" under socialism! In doing this, the Leninist tradition exploited the confused nature of the state theory of traditional Marxism. The Leninist theory of the state is flawed simply because it is based on creating a "state in the proper sense of the word," with a public power distinct from the mass of the people. This was the major lesson gained by the leading Bolsheviks (including Lenin and Trotsky) from the Russian Revolution and has its roots in the common Marxist error of confusing party power with working class power. So when Leninists point to Lenin's State and Revolution as the definitive Leninist theory of the state, anarchists simply point to the lessons Lenin himself gained from actually conducting a revolution. Once we do, the slippery slope to the Leninist solution to the contradictions inherit in the Marxist theory of the state can be seen, understood and combated.
As we discussed in section H.3.7, the Marxist theory of the state confuses an empirical analysis of the state with a metaphysical one. While Engels is aware that the state developed to ensure minority class rule and, as befits its task, evolved specific characteristics to execute that role, he also raised the idea that the state ("as a rule") is "the state of the most powerful, economically dominant class" and "through the medium of the state, becomes also the politically dominant class." Thus the state can be considered, in essence, as "nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another." "At a certain stage of economic development", Engels stressed, "which was necessarily bound up with the split in society into classes, the state became a necessity owing to this split." [Selected Works, pp. 577-8, p. 579 and p. 258] For Lenin, this was "the basic idea of Marxism on the question of the historical role and meaning of the state," namely that "the state is an organ of class rule, the organ for the oppression of one class by another." [Essential Works of Lenin, p. 273 and p. 274]
The clear implication is that the state is simply an instrument, without special interests of its own. If this is the case, the use of a state by the proletariat is unproblematic (and so the confusion between working class self-organisation and the state we have discussed in various sections above is irrelevant). This argument can lead to simplistic conclusions, such as once a "revolutionary" government is in power in a "workers state" we need not worry about abuses of power or even civil liberties (this position was commonplace in Bolshevik ranks during the Russian Civil War, for example). It also is at the heart of Trotsky's contortions with regards to Stalinism, refusing to see the state bureaucracy as a new ruling class simply because the state, by definition, could not play such a role.
For anarchists, this position is a fundamental weakness of Marxism, a sign that the mainstream Marxist position significantly misunderstands the nature of the state and the needs of social revolution. However, we must stress that anarchists would agree that the state generally does serve the interests of the economically dominant classes. Bakunin, for example, argued that the State "is authority, domination, and force, organised by the property-owning and so-called enlightened classes against the masses." He saw the social revolution as destroying capitalism and the state at the same time, that is "to overturn the State's domination, and that of the privileged classes whom it solely represents." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 140] However, anarchists do not reduce our analysis and understanding of the state to this simplistic Marxist level. While being well aware that the state is the means of ensuring the domination of an economic elite, as we discussed in section B.2.5, anarchists recognise that the state machine also has interests of its own. The state, for anarchists, is the delegation of power into the hands of a few. This creates, by its very nature, a privileged position for those at the top of the hierarchy:
"A government, that is a group of people entrusted with making the laws and empowered to use the collective force to oblige each individual to obey them, is already a privileged class and cut off from the people. As any constituted body would do, it will instinctively seek to extend its powers, to be beyond public control, to impose its own policies and to give priority to its special interests. Having been put in a privileged position, the government is already at odds with the people whose strength it disposes of." [Malatesta, Anarchy, p. 36]
The Bolshevik regime during the Russia revolution proved the validity of this analysis. The Bolsheviks seized power in the name of the soviets yet soon marginalised, gerrymandered and disbanded them to remain in power while imposing a vision of socialism (more correctly, state capitalism) at odds with popular aspirations.
Why this would be the case is not hard to discover. Given that the state is a highly centralised, top-down structure it is unsurprising that it develops around itself a privileged class, a bureaucracy, around it. The inequality in power implied by the state is a source of privilege and oppression independent of property and economic class. Those in charge of the state's institutions would aim to protect (and expand) their area of operation, ensuring that they select individuals who share their perspectives and to whom they can pass on their positions. By controlling the flow of information, of personnel and resources, the members of the state's higher circles can ensure its, and their own, survival and prosperity. As such, politicians who are elected are at a disadvantage. The state is the permanent collection of institutions that have entrenched power structures and interests. The politicians come and go while the power in the state lies in its institutions due to their permanence. It is to be expected that such institutions would have their own interests and would pursue them whenever they can.
This would not fundamentally change in a new "workers' state" as it is, like all states, based on the delegation and centralisation of power into a few hands. Any "workers' government" would need a new apparatus to enforce its laws and decrees. It would need effective means of gathering and collating information. It would thus create "an entirely new ladder of administration to extend it rule and make itself obeyed." While a social revolution needs mass participation, the state limits initiative to the few who are in power and "it will be impossible for one or even a number of individuals to elaborate the social forms" required, which "can only be the collective work of the masses . . . Any kind of external authority will merely be an obstacle, a hindrance to the organic work that has to be accomplished; it will be no better than a source of discord and of hatreds." [Kropotkin, Words of a Rebel, p. 169 and pp. 176-7]
Rather than "withering away," any "workers' state" would tend to grow in terms of administration and so the government creates around itself a class of bureaucrats whose position is different from the rest of society. This would apply to production as well. Being unable to manage everything, the state would have to re-introduce hierarchical management in order to ensure its orders are met and that a suitable surplus is extracted from the workers to feed the needs of the state machine. By creating an economically powerful class which it can rely on to discipline the workforce, it would simply recreate capitalism anew in the form of "state capitalism" (this is precisely what happened during the Russian Revolution). To enforce its will onto the people it claims to represent, specialised bodies of armed people (police, army) would be required and soon created. All of which is to be expected, as state socialism "entrusts to a few the management of social life and [so] leads to the exploitation and oppression of the masses by the few." [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 47]
This process takes time. However, the tendency for government to escape from popular control and to generate privileged and powerful institutions around it can be seen in all revolutions, including the Paris Commune and the Russian Revolution. In the former, the Communal Council was "largely ignored . . . after it was installed. The insurrection, the actual management of the city's affairs and finally the fighting against the Versaillese, were undertaken mainly by popular clubs, the neighbourhood vigilance committees, and the battalions of the National Guard. Had the Paris Commune (the Municipal Council) survived, it is extremely doubtful that it could have avoided conflict with these loosely formed street and militia formations. Indeed, by the end of April, some six weeks after the insurrection, the Commune constituted an 'all-powerful' Committee of Public Safety, a body redolent with memories of the Jacobin dictatorship and the Terror , which suppressed not only the right in the Great [French] Revolution of a century earlier, but also the left." [Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. 90] A minority of council members (essentially those active in the International) stated that "the Paris Commune has surrendered its authority to a dictatorship" and it was "hiding behind a dictatorship that the electorate have not authorised us to accept or to recognise." [The Paris Commune of 1871: The View from the Left, Eugene Schulkind (ed.), p. 187] The Commune was crushed before this process could fully unfold, but the omens were there (although it would have undoubtedly been hindered by the local scale of the institutions involved). As we discuss in section H.6, a similar process of a "revolutionary" government escaping from popular control occurred right from the start of the Russian Revolution. The fact the Bolshevik regime lasted longer and was more centralised (and covered a larger area) ensured that this process developed fully, with the "revolutionary" government creating around itself the institutions (the bureaucracy) which finally subjected the politicians and party leaders to its influence and then domination.
Simply put, the vision of the state as merely an instrument of class rule blinds its supporters to the dangers of political inequality in terms of power, the dangers inherent in giving a small group of people power over everyone else. The state has certain properties because it is a state and one of these is that it creates a bureaucratic class around it due to its centralised, hierarchical nature. Within capitalism, the state bureaucracy is (generally) under the control of the capitalist class. However, to generalise from this specific case is wrong as the state bureaucracy is a class in itself - and so trying to abolish classes without abolishing the state is doomed to failure:
"The State has always been the patrimony of some privileged class: the sacerdotal class, the nobility, the bourgeoisie - and finally, when all the other classes have exhausted themselves, the class of the bureaucracy enters upon the stage and then the State falls, or rises, if you please to the position of a machine." [Bakunin, The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 208]
Thus the state cannot simply be considered as an instrument of rule by economic classes. It can be quite an effective parasitical force in its own right, as both anthropological and historical evidence suggest. The former raises the possibility that the state arose before economic classes and that its roots are in inequalities in power (i.e. hierarchy) within society, not inequalities of wealth. The latter points to examples of societies in which the state was not, in fact, an instrument of (economic) class rule but rather pursued an interest of its own.
As regards anthropology, Michael Taylor summarises that the "evidence does not give [the Marxist] proposition [that the rise of economic classes caused the creation of the state] a great deal of support. Much of the evidence which has been offered in support of it shows only that the primary states, not long after their emergence, were economically stratified. But this is of course consistent also with the simultaneous rise . . . of political and economic stratification, or with the prior development of the state - i.e. of political stratification - and the creation of economic stratification by the ruling class." [Community, Anarchy and Liberty, p. 132] He quotes Elman Service on this:
"In all of the archaic civilisations and historically known chiefdoms and primitive states the 'stratification' was . . . mainly of two classes, the governors and the governed - political strata, not strata of ownership groups." [quoted by Taylor, Op. Cit., p. 133]
Taylor argues that it the "weakening of community and the development of gross inequalities are the concomitants and consequences of state formation." He points to the "germ of state formation" being in the informal social hierarchies which exist in tribal societies. [Op. Cit., p. 133 and p. 134] Thus the state is not, initially, a product of economic classes but rather an independent development based on inequalities of social power. Harold Barclay, an anarchist who has studied anthropological evidence on this matter, concurs:
"In Marxist theory power derives primarily, if not exclusively, from control of the means of production and distribution of wealth, that is, from economic factors. Yet, it is evident that power derived from knowledge - and usually 'religious' style knowledge - is often highly significant, at least in the social dynamics of small societies. . . Economic factors are hardly the only source of power. Indeed, we see this in modern society as well, where the capitalist owner does not wield total power. Rather technicians and other specialists command it as well, not because of their economic wealth, but because of their knowledge." [quoted by Alan Carter, Marx: A Radical Critique, p. 191]
If, as Bookchin summarises, "hierarchies precede classes" then trying to use a hierarchical structure like the state to abolish them is simply wishful thinking.
As regards more recent human history, there have been numerous examples of the state existing without being an instrument of (economic) class rule. Rather, the state was the ruling class. While the most obvious example is the Stalinist regimes where the state bureaucracy ruled over a state capitalist economy, there have been plenty of others, as Murray Bookchin pointed out:
"Each State is not necessarily an institutionalised system of violence in the interests of a specific ruling class, as Marxism would have us believe. There are many examples of States that were the 'ruling class' and whose own interests existed quite apart from - even in antagonism to - privileged, presumably 'ruling' classes in a given society. The ancient world bears witness to distinctly capitalistic classes, often highly privileged and exploitative, that were bilked by the State, circumscribed by it, and ultimately devoured by it - which is in part why a capitalist society never emerged out of the ancient world. Nor did the State 'represent' other class interests, such as landed nobles, merchants, craftsmen, and the like. The Ptolemaic State in Hellenistic Egypt was an interest in its own right and 'represented' no other interest than its own. The same is true of the Aztec and the Inca States until they were replaced by Spanish invaders. Under the Emperor Domitian, the Roman State became the principal 'interest' in the empire, superseding the interests of even the landed aristocracy which held such primacy in Mediterranean society. . .
"Near-Eastern States, like the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Persian, were virtually extended households of individual monarchs . . . Pharaohs, kings, and emperors nominally held the land (often co-jointly with the priesthood) in the trust of the deities, who were either embodied in the monarch or were represented by him. The empires of Asian and North African kings were 'households' and the population was seen as 'servants of the palace' . . .
"These 'states,' in effect, were not simply engines of exploitation or control in the interests of a privileged 'class.' . . . The Egyptian State was very real but it 'represented' nothing other than itself." [Remaking Society, pp. 67-8]
Bakunin pointed to Turkish Serbia, where economically dominant classes "do not even exist - there is only a bureaucratic class. Thus, the Serbian state will crush the Serbian people for the sole purpose of enabling Serbian bureaucrats to live a fatter life." [Statism and Anarchy, p. 54] Leninist Tony Cliff, in his attempt to prove that Stalinist Russia was state capitalist and its bureaucracy a ruling class, pointed to various societies which "had deep class differentiation, based not on private property but on state property. Such systems existed in Pharaonic Egypt, Moslem Egypt, Iraq, Persia and India." He discusses the example of Arab feudalism in more detail, where "the feudal lord had no permanent domain of his own, but a member of a class which collectively controlled the land and had the right to appropriate rent." This was "ownership of the land by the state" rather than by individuals. [State Capitalism in Russia, pp. 316-8] As such, the idea that the state is simply an instrument of class rule seems unsupportable. As Gaston Leval argued, "the State, by its nature, tends to have a life of its own." [quoted by Sam Dolgoff, A Critique of Marxism, p. 10]
Marx's "implicit theory of the state - a theory which, in reducing political power to the realisation of the interests of the dominant economic classes, precludes any concern with the potentially authoritarian and oppressive outcome of authoritarian and centralised revolutionary methods . . . This danger (namely, the dismissal of warranted fears concerning political power) is latent in the central features of Marx's approach to politics." [Alan Carter, Op. Cit., p. 219] To summarise the obvious conclusion:
"By focusing too much attention on the economic structure of society and insufficient attention on the problems of political power, Marx has left a legacy we would have done better not to inherit. The perceived need for authoritarian and centralised revolutionary organisation is sanctioned by Marx's theory because his theoretical subordination of political power to economic classes apparently renders post-revolutionary political power unproblematic." [Op. Cit., p. 231]
Many factors contributed to Stalinism, including Marxism's defective theory of the state. In stressing that socialism meant nationalising property, it lead to state management which, in turn, expropriated the working class as a vast managerial bureaucracy was required to run it. Moreover, Marxism disguised this new ruling class as it argues that the state 'represents' an economic class and had no interests of itself. Hence Trotsky's utter inability to understand Stalinism and his insane formula that the proletariat remained the ruling class under Stalin (or, for that matter, under himself and Lenin)!
However, there is more to Marxism than its dominant theory of the state. Given the blindness of orthodox Marxism to this issue, it seems ironic that one of the people responsible for it also provides anarchists with evidence to back up our argument that the state is not simply an instrument of class rule but rather has interests of its own. Thus we find Engels arguing that proletariat, "in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy," would have "to safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment." [Selected Works, p. 257] Yet, if the state was simply an instrument of class rule such precautions would not be necessary. Engels comments show an awareness that the state can have interests of its own, that it is not simply a machine of class rule.
Aware of the obvious contradiction, Engels argued that the state "is, as a rule, the state of the most powerful, economically dominant class which, through the medium of the state, becomes the politically dominant class . . . By way of exception, however, periods occur in which the warring classes balance each other, so nearly that the state power, as ostensible mediator, acquires, for the moment, a certain degree of independence of both." He pointed to the "absolute monarchy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries", which held the balance between the nobility and the bourgeoisie against one another as well as "the Bonapartism of the First, and still more of the Second French Empire." It should be noted that, elsewhere, Engels was more precise on how long the state was, in fact, controlled by the bourgeoisie, namely two years: "In France, where the bourgeoisie as such, as a class in its entirety, held power for only two years, 1849 and 1850, under the republic, it was able to continue its social existence only by abdicating its political power to Louis Bonaparte and the army." [Op. Cit., pp. 577-8 and p. 238] So, in terms of French history, Engels argued that "by way of exception" accounted for over 250 years, the 17th and 18th centuries and most of the 19th, bar a two year period! Even if we are generous and argue that the 1830 revolution placed one section of the bourgeoisie (finance capital) into political power, we are still left with over 200 hundred years of state "independence" from classes! Given this, it would be fair to suggest that the "exception" should be when it is an instrument of class rule, not when it is not!
This was no isolated case. In Prussia "members of the bourgeoisie have a majority in the Chamber . . . But where is their power over the state? . . . the mass of the bourgeoisie . . . does not want to rule." [Op. Cit., pp. 236-7] And so, in Germany, there exists "alongside the basic condition of the old absolute monarchy - an equilibrium between the landowner aristocracy and the bourgeoisie - the basic condition of modern Bonapartism - an equilibrium between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat." This meant that "both in the old absolute monarchy and in the modern Bonapartist monarchy the real government power lies in the hands of a special caste of army officers and state officials" and so the "independence of this case, which appears to occupy a position outside and, so to speak, above society, gives the state the semblance of independence in relation to society." However, this did not stop Engels asserting that the "state is nothing but the organised collective power of the exploiting classes, the landlords and the capitalists as against the exploited classes, the peasants and the workers. What the individual capitalists . . . do not want, their state also does not want." [Collected Works, vol. 23, p. 363 and p. 362]
So, according to Engels, the executive of the state, like the state itself, can become independent from classes if the opposing classes were balanced. This analysis, it must be pointed out, was an improvement on the earliest assertions of Marx and Engels on the state. In the 1840s, it was a case of the "independence of the state is only found nowadays in those countries where the estates have not yet completely developed into classes . . . where consequently no section of the population can achieve dominance over the others." [Op. Cit., vol. 5, p. 90] For Engels, "[f]rom the moment the state administration and legislature fall under the control of the bourgeoisie, the independence of the bureaucracy ceases to exist." [Op. Cit., vol. 6, p. 88] It must, therefore, have come as a surprise for Marx and Engels when the state and its bureaucracy appeared to become independent in France under Napoleon III.
Talking of which, it should be noted that, initially for Marx, under Bonapartism "the state power is not suspended in mid air. Bonaparte represents a class, and the most numerous class of French society at that, the small-holding [Parzellen] peasants." The Bonaparte "who dispersed the bourgeois parliament is the chosen of the peasantry." However, this class is "incapable of enforcing their class interests in their own name . . . They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented. Their representative must at the same time appear as their master, as an authority over them, as an unlimited governmental power . . . The political influence of the small-holding peasants, therefore, finds its final expression in the executive power subordinating society to itself." Yet Marx himself admits that this regime experienced "peasant risings in half of France", organised "raids on the peasants by the army" and the "mass incarceration and transportation of peasants." A strange form of class rule, when the class represented is oppressed by the regime! Rest assured, though, the "Bonaparte dynasty represents not the revolutionary, but the conservative peasant." Then Marx, without comment, pronounced Bonaparte to be "the representative of the lumpenproletariat to which he himself, his entourage, his government and his army belong." [Selected Works, p. 170, p. 171 and p. 176]
It would be fair to say that Marx's analysis is somewhat confused and seems an ad hoc explanation to the fact that in a modern society the state appeared to become independent of the economically dominant class. Yet if a regime is systematically oppressing a class then it is fair to conclude that is not representing that class in any way. Bonaparte's power did not, in other words, rest on the peasantry. Rather, like fascism, it was a means by which the bourgeoisie could break the power of the working class and secure its own class position against possible social revolution. As Bakunin argued, it was a "despotic imperial system" which the bourgeois "themselves founded out of fear of the Social Revolution." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 63] Thus the abolition of bourgeois rule was more apparent than real:
"As soon as the people took equality and liberty seriously, the bourgeoisie . . . retreated into reaction . . . They began by suppressing universal suffrage . . . The fear of Social Revolution . . . . hurled this downfallen class . . . into the arms of the dictatorship of Napoleon III . . . We should not think that the Bourgeois Gentlemen were too inconvenienced . . . [Those who] applied themselves earnestly and exclusively to the great concern of the bourgeoisie, the exploitation of the people . . . were well protected and powerfully supported . . . All went well, according to the desires of the bourgeoisie." [Op. Cit., pp. 62-3]
Somewhat ironically, then, a key example used by Marxists for the "independence" of the state is no such thing. Bonapartism did not represent a "balance" between the proletariat and bourgeoisie but rather the most naked form of state rule required in the face of working class revolt. It was a counter-revolutionary regime which reflected a defeat for the working class, not a "balance" between it and the capitalist class.
Marx's confusions arose from his belief that, for the bourgeoisie, the parliamentary republic "was the unavoidable condition of their common rule, the sole form of state in which their general class interest subjected to itself at the same time both the claims of their particular factions and all the remaining classes of society." The abolition of the republic, the replacement of the government, was, for him, the end of the political rule of the bourgeoisie as he argued that "the industrial bourgeoisie applauds with servile bravos the coup d’état of December 2, the annihilation of parliament, the downfall of its own rule, the dictatorship of Bonaparte." He repeated this identification: "Passing of the parliamentary regime and of bourgeois rule. Victory of Bonaparte." [Selected Works, pp. 151-2, pp. 164-5 and p. 166] Political rule was equated to which party held power and so, logically, universal suffrage was "the equivalent of political power for the working class . . . where the proletariat forms the large majority of the population." Its "inevitable result" would be "the political supremacy of the working class." [Collected Works, vol. 11, pp. 335-6] This was, of course, simply wrong (on both counts) as he, himself, seemed to became aware of two decades later.
In 1871 he argued that "the State power assumed more and more the character of the national power of capital over labour, of a public force organised for social enslavement, of an engine of class despotism." This meant that "in view of the threatened upheaval of the proletariat, [the bourgeoisie] now used that State power mercilessly and ostentatiously as the national war-engine of capital against labour" and so were "bound not only to invest the executive with continually increased powers of repression, but at the same time to divest their own parliamentary stronghold . . . of all its own means of defence against the Executive. The Executive, in the person of Louis Bonaparte, turned them out." Marx now admitted that this regime only "professed to rest upon the peasantry" while, "[i]n reality, it was the only form of government possible at a time when the bourgeoisie had already lost, and the working class had not yet acquired, the faculty of ruling the nation." However, "[u]nder its sway, bourgeois society, freed from political cares, attained a development unexpected even by itself." [Selected Works, p. 285, p. 286, pp. 286-7 and p. 287]
Yet capitalists often do well under regimes which suppress the basic liberties of the working class and so the bourgeoisie remained the ruling class and the state remained its organ. In other words, there is no "balance" between classes under Bonapartism even if the political regime is not subject to electoral control by the bourgeoisie and has more independence to pursue its own agenda.
This is not the only confirmation of the anarchist critique of the Marxist theory of the state which can be found in Marxism itself. Marx, at times, also admitted the possibility of the state not being an instrument of (economic) class rule. For example, he mentioned the so-called "Asiatic Mode of Production" in which "there are no private landowners" but rather "the state . . . which confronts" the peasants "directly as simultaneously landowner and sovereign, rent and tax coincide . . . Here the state is the supreme landlord. Sovereignty here is landed property concentrated on a national scale." [Capital, vol. 3, p. 927] Thus "the State [is] the real landlord" in the "Asiatic system" [Collected Works, vol. 12, p. 215] In other words, the ruling class could be a state bureaucracy and so be independent of economic classes. Unfortunately this analysis remained woefully undeveloped and no conclusions were drawn from these few comments, perhaps unsurprisingly as it undermines the claim that the state is merely the instrument of the economically dominant class. It also, of course, has applicability to state socialism and certain conclusions could be reached that suggested it, as Bakunin warned, would be a new form of class rule.
The state bureaucracy as the ruling class can be seen in Soviet Russia (and the other so-called "socialist" regimes such as China and Cuba). As libertarian socialist Ante Ciliga put it, "the manner in which Lenin organised industry had handed it over entirely into the hands of the bureaucracy," and so the workers "became once more the wage-earning manpower in other people's factories. Of socialism there remained in Russia no more than the word." [The Russian Enigma, p. 280 and p. 286] Capitalism became state capitalism under Lenin and Trotsky and so the state, as Bakunin predicted and feared, became the new ruling class under Marxism (see section H.3.14 for more discussion of this).
The confusions of the Marxist theory of the state ensured that Trotsky, for example, failed to recognise the obvious, namely that the Stalinist state bureaucracy was a ruling class. Rather, it was the "new ruling caste", or "the ruling stratum". While admitting, at one stage, that the "transfer of the factories to the State changed the situation of the workers only juridically" Trotsky then ignored the obvious conclusion that this has left the working class as an exploited class under a (new) form of capitalism to assert that the "nature" of Stalinist Russia was "a proletarian State" because of its "nationalisation" of the means of life (which "constitute the basis of the Soviet social structure"). He admitted that the "Soviet Bureaucracy has expropriated the proletariat politically" but has done so "in order by methods of its own to defend the social conquests" of the October Revolution. He did not ponder too deeply the implications of admitting that the "means of production belong to the State. But the State, so to speak, 'belongs' to the bureaucracy." [The Revolution Betrayed, p. 93, p. 136, p. 228, p. 235 and p. 236] If that is so, only ideology can stop the obvious conclusion being drawn, namely that the state bureaucracy was the ruling class. But that is precisely what happened with Trotsky's confusion expressing itself thusly:
"In no other regime has a bureaucracy ever achieved such a degree of independence from the dominating class . . . it is something more than a bureaucracy. It is in the full sense of the word the sole privileged and commanding stratum in the Soviet society." [Op. Cit., p. 235]
By this, Trotsky suggested that the working class was the "dominating class" under Stalinism! In fact, the bureaucracy "continues to preserve State property only to the extent it fears the proletariat" while, at the same time, the bureaucracy has "become [society's] lord" and "the Soviet state has acquired a totalitarian-bureaucratic character"! This nonsense is understandable, given the unwillingness to draw the obvious conclusion from the fact that the bureaucracy was "compelled to defend State property as the source of its power and its income. In this aspect of its activity it still remains a weapon of proletarian dictatorship." [Op. Cit., p. 112, p. 107, p. 238 and p. 236] By commanding nationalised property, the bureaucracy, like private capitalists, could exploit the labour of the working class and did. That the state owned the means of production did not stop this being a form of class system.
It is simply nonsense to claim, as Trotsky did, that the "anatomy of society is determined by its economic relations. So long as the forms of property that have been created by the October Revolution are not overthrown, the proletariat remains the ruling class." [Writings of Leon Trotsky 1933-34, p. 125] How could the proletariat be the "ruling class" if it were under the heel of a totalitarian dictatorship? State ownership of property was precisely the means by which the bureaucracy enforced its control over production and so the source of its economic power and privileges. To state the obvious, if the working class does not control the property it is claimed to own then someone else does. The economic relationship thus generated is a hierarchical one, in which the working class is an oppressed class.
Significantly, Trotsky combated those of his followers who drew the same conclusions as had anarchists and libertarian Marxists while he and Lenin held the reins of power. Perhaps this ideological blindness is understandable, given Trotsky's key role in creating the bureaucracy in the first place. So Trotsky did criticise, if in a confused manner, the Stalinist regime for its "injustice, oppression, differential consumption, and so on, even if he had supported them when he himself was in the elite." [Neil C. Fernandez, Capitalism and Class Struggle in the USSR, p. 180]). Then there is the awkward conclusion that if the bureaucracy were a ruling class under Stalin then Russia was also state capitalist under Lenin and Trotsky for the economic relations were identical in both (this obvious conclusion haunts those, like the British SWP, who maintain that Stalinism was State Capitalist but not Bolshevism - see section H.3.13). Suffice to say, if the state itself can be the "economically dominant class" then the state cannot be a mere instrument of an economic class.
Moreover, Engels also presented another analysis of the state which suggested that it arose before economic classes appeared. In 1886 he wrote of how society "creates for itself an organ for the safeguarding of its common interests against internal and external attacks. This organ is the state power. Hardly come into being, this organ makes itself independent vis-à-vis society: and, indeed, the more so, the more it becomes the organ of a particular class, the more it directly enforces the supremacy of that class." "Society", he argued four years later, "gives rise to certain common function which it cannot dispense with. The persons appointed for this purpose form a new branch of the division of labour within society. This gives them particular interests, distinct, too, from the interests of those who empowered them; they make themselves independent of the latter and - the state is in being." [Op. Cit., p. 617 and pp. 685-6] In this schema, the independence of the state comes first and is then captured by rising economically powerful class.
Regardless of when and how the state arises, the key thing is that Engels recognised that the state was "endowed with relative independence." Rather than being a simple expression of economic classes and their interests, this "new independent power, while having in the main to follow the movement of production, reacts in its turn, by virtue of its inherent relative independence - that is, the relative independence once transferred to it and gradually further developed - upon the conditions and course of production. It is the interaction of two unequal forces: on the one hand, the economic movement, on the other, the new political power, which strives for as much independence as possible, and which, having once been established, is endowed with a movement of its own." There were three types of "reaction of the state power upon economic development." The state can act "in the same direction" and then it is "more rapid" or it can "oppose" it and "can do great damage to the economic development." Finally, it can "prevent the economic development proceeding along certain lines, and prescribe other lines." Finally he stated "why do we fight for the political dictatorship of the proletariat if political power is economically impotent? Force (that is, state power) is also an economic power!" [Op. Cit., p. 686 and p. 689]
Conversely, anarchists reply, why fight for "the political dictatorship of the proletariat" when you yourself admit that the state can become "independent" of the classes you claim it represents? Particularly when you increase its potential for becoming independent by centralising it even more and giving it economic powers to complement its political ones!
So the Marxist theory of the state is that is an instrument of class rule - except when it is not. Its origins lie in the rise of class antagonisms - except when it does not. It arises after the break up of society into classes - except when it does not. Which means, of course, the state is not just an instrument of class rule and, correspondingly, the anarchist critique is confirmed. This explains why the analysis of the "Asiatic Mode of Production" is so woefully underdeveloped in Marx and Engels as well as the confused and contradictory attempt to understand Bonapartism.
To summarise, if the state can become "independent" of economic classes or even exist without an economically dominant class, then that implies that it is no mere machine, no mere "instrument" of class rule. It implies the anarchist argument that the state has interests of its own, generated by its essential features and so, therefore, cannot be used by a majority class as part of its struggle for liberation is correct. Simply put, Anarchists have long "realised - feared - that any State structure, whether or not socialist or based on universal suffrage, has a certain independence from society, and so may serve the interests of those within State institutions rather than the people as a whole or the proletariat." [Brian Morris, Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom, p. 134] Thus "the state certainly has interests of its own . . . [,] acts to protect [them] . . . and protects the interests of the bourgeoisie when these interests happen to coincide with its own, as, indeed, they usually do." [Carter, Op. Cit., p. 226]
As Mark Leier quips, Marxism "has usually - save when battling anarchists - argued that the state has some 'relative autonomy' and is not a direct, simple reflex of a given economic system." [Bakunin: The Constructive Passion, p. 275] The reason why the more sophisticated Marxist analysis of the state is forgotten when it comes to attacking anarchism should be obvious - it undermines both the Marxist critique of anarchism and its own theory of the state. Ironically, arguments and warnings about the "independence" of the state by Marxists imply that the state has interests of its own and cannot be considered simply as an instrument of class rule. They suggest that the anarchist analysis of the state is correct, namely that any structure based on delegated power, centralisation and hierarchy must, inevitably, have a privileged class in charge of it, a class whose position enables it to not only exploit and oppress the rest of society but also to effectively escape from popular control and accountability. This is no accident. The state is structured to enforce minority rule and exclude the majority.
One of the most widespread myths associated with Marxism is the idea that Marxism has consistently aimed to smash the current (bourgeois) state and replace it by a "workers' state" based on working class organisations created during a revolution.
This myth is sometimes expressed by those who should know better (i.e. Marxists). According to John Rees (of the British Socialist Workers Party) it has been a "cornerstone of revolutionary theory" that "the soviet is a superior form of democracy because it unifies political and economic power." This "cornerstone" has, apparently, existed "since Marx's writings on the Paris Commune." ["In Defence of October", pp. 3-82, International Socialism, no. 52, p. 25] In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, as Marx's writings on the Paris Commune prove beyond doubt.
The Paris Commune, as Marx himself noted, was "formed of the municipal councillors, chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town." [Selected Works, p. 287] As Marx made clear, it was definitely not based on delegates from workplaces and so could not unify political and economic power. Indeed, to state that the Paris Commune was a soviet is simply a joke, as is the claim that Marxists supported soviets as revolutionary organs to smash and replace the state from 1871. In fact Marxists did not subscribe to this "cornerstone of revolutionary theory" until 1917 when Lenin argued that the Soviets would be the best means of ensuring a Bolshevik government. Which explains why Lenin's use of the slogan "All Power to the Soviets" and call for the destruction of the bourgeois state came as such a shock to his fellow Marxists. Unsurprisingly, given the long legacy of anarchist calls to smash the state and their vision of a socialist society built from below by workers councils, many Marxists called Lenin an anarchist! Therefore, the idea that Marxists have always supported workers councils' is untrue and any attempt to push this support back to 1871 simply farcical.
Not all Marxists are as ignorant of their political tradition as Rees. As his fellow party member Chris Harman recognised, "[e]ven the 1905 [Russian] revolution gave only the most embryonic expression of how a workers' state would in fact be organised. The fundamental forms of workers' power - the soviets (workers' councils) - were not recognised." It was "[n]ot until the February revolution [of 1917 that] soviets became central in Lenin's writings and thought." [Party and Class, p. 18 and p. 19] Before then, Marxists had held the position, to quote Karl Kautsky from 1909 (who is, in turn, quoting his own words from 1893), that the democratic republic "was the particular form of government in which alone socialism can be realised." He added, after the Russian Revolution, that "not a single Marxist revolutionary repudiated me, neither Rosa Luxemburg nor Klara Zetkin, neither Lenin nor Trotsky." [The Road to Power, p. 34 and p. xlviii]
Lenin himself, even after Social Democracy supported their respective states in the First World War and before his return to Russia, still argued that Kautsky's work contained "a most complete exposition of the tasks of our times" and "it was most advantageous to the German Social-Democrats (in the sense of the promise they held out), and moreover came from the pen of the most eminent writer of the Second International . . . Social-Democracy . . . wants conquest of political power by the proletariat, the dictatorship of the proletariat." [Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 94] There was no hint that Marxism stood for anything other than seizing power in a republic, as expounded by the likes of Kautsky.
Before continuing it should be stressed that Harman's summary is correct only if we are talking about the Marxist movement. Looking at the wider revolutionary movement, two groups definitely recognised the importance of the soviets as a form of working class power and as the framework of a socialist society. These were the anarchists and the Social-Revolutionary Maximalists, both of whom "espoused views that corresponded almost word for word with Lenin's April 1917 program of 'All power to the soviets.'" The "aims of the revolutionary far left in 1905" Lenin "combined in his call for soviet power [in 1917], when he apparently assimilated the anarchist program to secure the support of the masses for the Bolsheviks." [Oskar Anweiler, The Soviets, p. 94 and p. 96]
So before 1917, when Lenin claimed to have discovered what had eluded all the previous followers of Marx and Engels (including himself!), it was only anarchists (or those close to them such as the SR-Maximalists) who argued that the future socialist society would be structurally based around the organs working class people themselves created in the process of the class struggle and revolution. For example, the syndicalists "regarded the soviets . . . as admirable versions of the bourses du travail, but with a revolutionary function added to suit Russian conditions. Open to all leftist workers regardless of specific political affiliation, the soviets were to act as nonpartisan labour councils improvised 'from below' . . . with the aim of bringing down the old regime." The anarchists of Khleb i Volia "also likened the 1905 Petersburg Soviet - as a non-party mass organisation - to the central committee of the Paris Commune of 1871." [Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists, pp. 80-1] In 1907, it was concluded that the revolution required "the proclamation in villages and towns of workers' communes with soviets of workers' deputies . . . at their head." [quoted by Alexandre Skirda, Facing the Enemy, p. 77] These ideas can be traced back to Bakunin, so, ironically, the idea of the superiority of workers' councils has existed from around the time of the Paris Commune, but only in anarchist theory.
So, if Marxists did not support workers' councils until 1917, what did Marxists argue should be the framework of a socialist society before this date? To discover this, we must look to Marx and Engels. Once we do, we discover that their works suggest that their vision of socialist transformation was fundamentally based on the bourgeois state, suitably modified and democratised to achieve this task. As such, rather than present the true account of the Marxist theory of the state Lenin interpreted various inexact and ambiguous statements by Marx and Engels (particularly from Marx's defence of the Paris Commune) to justify his own actions in 1917. Whether his 1917 revision of Marxism in favour of workers' councils as the means to socialism is in keeping with the spirit of Marx is another matter of course. For the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its sister parties, Lenin violated both the letter and the spirit of Marx and they stress his arguments in favour of utilising universal suffrage to introduce socialism (indeed, their analysis of Marx and critique of Lenin is substantially the same as the one presented here). For the council communists, who embraced the idea of workers' councils but broke with the Bolsheviks over the issue of whether the councils or the party had power, Lenin's analysis, while flawed in parts, is in the general spirit of Marx and they stress the need to smash the state and replace it with workers' councils. In this, they express the best in Marx. When faced with the Paris Commune and its libertarian influences he embraced it, distancing himself (for a while at least) from many of his previous ideas.
So what was the original (orthodox) Marxist position? It can be seen from Lenin who, as late December 1916 argued that "Socialists are in favour of utilising the present state and its institutions in the struggle for the emancipation of the working class, maintaining also that the state should be used for a specific form of transition from capitalism to socialism." Lenin attacked Bukharin for "erroneously ascribing this [the anarchist] view to the socialist" when he had stated socialists wanted to "abolish" the state or "blow it up." He called this "transitional form" the dictatorship of the proletariat, "which is also a state." [Collected Works, vol. 23, p. 165] In other words, the socialist party would aim to seize power within the existing republican state and, after making suitable modifications to it, use it to create socialism.
That this position was the orthodox one is hardly surprising, given the actual comments of both Marx and Engels. For example Engels argued in April 1883 while he and Marx saw "the gradual dissolution and ultimate disappearance of that political organisation called the State" as "one of the final results of the future revolution," they "at the same time . . . have always held that . . . the proletarian class will first have to possess itself of the organised political force of the State and with its aid stamp out the resistance of the Capitalist class and re-organise society." The idea that the proletariat needs to "possess" the existing state is made clear when he notes that the anarchists "reverse the matter" by advocating that the revolution "has to begin by abolishing the political organisation of the State." For Marxists "the only organisation the victorious working class finds ready-made for use, is that of the State. It may require adaptation to the new functions. But to destroy that at such a moment, would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the working class can exert its newly conquered power." [our emphasis, Op. Cit., vol. 47, p. 10]
Obviously the only institution which the working class "finds ready-made for use" is the democratic (i.e., bourgeois) state, although, as Engels stressed, it "may require adaptation." In Engels 1871 introduction to Marx's "The Civil War in France", this analysis is repeated when Engels asserted that the state "is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another" and that it is "at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the victorious proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at once as much as possible." [Selected Works, p. 258]
If the proletariat creates a new state to replace the bourgeois one, then how can it be "ready-made for use" and "an evil inherited" by it? If, as Lenin argued, Marx and Engels thought that the working class had to smash the bourgeois state and replace it with a new one, why would it have "to lop off at once as much as possible" from the state it had just "inherited"?
Three years later, Engels made his position clear: "With respect to the proletariat the republic differs from the monarchy only in that it is the ready-for-use form for the future rule of the proletariat." He went on to state that the French socialists "are at an advantage compared to us in already having it" and warned against "baseless" illusions such as seeking to "entrust socialist tasks to it while it is dominated by the bourgeoisie." [Marx and Engels, The Socialist Revolution, p. 296] This was, significantly, simply repeating Engels 1891 argument from his critique of the draft of the Erfurt program of the German Social Democrats:
"If one thing is certain it is that our Party and the working class can only come to power under the form of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the Great French Revolution has already shown." [Collected Works, vol. 27, p. 227]
Clearly Engels does not speak of a "commune-republic" or anything close to a soviet republic, as expressed in Bakunin's work or the libertarian wing of the First International with their ideas of a "trade-union republic" or a free federation of workers' associations. Clearly and explicitly he speaks of the democratic republic, the current state ("an evil inherited by the proletariat") which is to be seized and transformed.
Unsurprisingly, when Lenin came to quote this passage in State and Revolution he immediately tried to obscure its meaning. "Engels," he wrote, "repeated here in a particularly striking form the fundamental idea which runs through all of Marx's work, namely, that the democratic republic is the nearest approach to the dictatorship of the proletariat." [The Lenin Anthology, p. 360] However, obviously Engels did nothing of the kind. He did not speak of the political form which "is the nearest approach" to the dictatorship, rather he wrote only of "the specific form" of the dictatorship, the "only" form in which "our Party" can come to power. Hal Draper, likewise, denied that Engels meant what he clearly wrote, arguing that he really meant the Paris Commune. "Because of the expression 'great French revolution,'" Draper asserted, "the assumption has often been made that Engels meant the French Revolution of 1789; but the idea that he, or anyone else, could view 1789 (or 1793) as a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' is too absurd to entertain." [The 'dictatorship of the proletariat' from Marx to Lenin, p. 37fn]
Yet, contextually, no evidence exists to support such a claim and what does disputes it - Engels discusses French history and makes no mention of the Commune but does mention the republic of 1792 to 1799 (significantly, Lenin makes no attempt to suggest that Engels meant the Paris Commune or anything else bar a democratic republic). In fact, Engels goes on to argue that "[f]rom 1792 to 1799 each French department, each commune, enjoyed complete self-government on the American model, and this is what we too must have. How self-government is to be organised and how we can manage without a bureaucracy has been shown to us by America and the first French Republic." Significantly, Engels was explicitly discussing the need for a "republican party programme", commenting that it would be impossible for "our best people to become ministers" under an Emperor and arguing that, in Germany at the time, they could not call for a republic and had to raise the "demand for the concentration of all political power in the hands of the people's representatives." Engels stressed that "the proletariat can only use the form of the one and indivisible republic" with "self-government" meaning "officials elected by universal suffrage". [Op. Cit., pp. 227-9]
Clearly, the "assumption" Draper denounced makes more sense than his own or Lenin's. This is particularly the case when it is clear that both Marx and Engels viewed the French Republic under the Jacobins as a situation where the proletariat held political power (although, like Marx with the Paris Commune, they do not use the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" to describe it). Engels wrote of "the rule of the Mountain party" as being "the short time when the proletariat was at the helm of the state in the French Revolution" and "from May 31, 1793 to July 26, 1794 . . . not a single bourgeois dared show his face in the whole of France." Marx, similarly, wrote of this period as one in which "the proletariat overthrows the political rule of the bourgeoisie" but due to the "material conditions" its acts were "in service" of the bourgeois revolution. The "bloody action of the people" only "prepared the way for" the bourgeoisie by destroying feudalism, something which the bourgeoisie was not capable of. [Op. Cit., vol. 6, p. 373, p. 5 and p. 319]
Apparently Engels did not consider it "too absurd to entertain" that the French Republic of 1793 was "a 'dictatorship of the proletariat'" and, ironically, Draper's "anyone else" turned out to be Marx! Moreover, this was well known in Marxist circles long before Draper made his assertion. Julius Martov (for example) after quoting Marx on this issue summarised that, for Marx and Engels, the "Reign of Terror in France was the momentary domination of the democratic petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat over all the possessing classes, including the authentic bourgeoisie." [The State and Socialist Revolution, p. 51]
Similarly, Lenin quoted Engels on the proletariat seizing "state power" and nationalising the means of production, an act by which it "abolishes itself as proletariat" and "abolishes the state as state." Significantly, it is Lenin who has to write that "Engels speaks here of the proletarian revolution 'abolishing' the bourgeois state, while the words about the state withering away refer to the remnants of the proletariat state after the socialist revolution." Yet Engels himself makes no such differentiation and talks purely of "the state" and it "becom[ing] the real representative of the whole of society" by "taking possession of the means of production in the name of society." Perhaps Lenin was right and Engels really meant two different states but, sadly, he failed to make that point explicitly, so allowing Marxism, to use Lenin's words, to be subjected to "the crudest distortion" by its followers, "prune[d]" and "reduc[ed] . . . to opportunism." [Op. Cit., pp. 320-2]
Then there are Engels 1887 comments that in the USA the workers "next step towards their deliverance" was "the formation of a political workingmen's party, with a platform of its own, and the conquest of the Capitol and the White House for its goal." This new party "like all political parties everywhere . . . aspires to the conquest of political power." Engels then discusses the "electoral battle" going on in America. [Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 26, p. 435 and p. 437] Significantly, 40 years previously in 1847, Engels had argued that the revolution "will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct . . . dominance of the proletariat" where "the proletarians are already a majority of the people." He noted that "a democratic constitution has been introduced" in America. [Op. Cit., vol. 6, p. 350 and p. 356] The continuity is significant, particularly as these identical arguments come before and after the Paris Commune of 1871.
This was no isolated statement. Engels had argued along the same lines (and, likewise, echoed early statements) as regards Britain in 1881, "where the industrial and agricultural working class forms the immense majority of the people, democracy means the dominion of the working class, neither more nor less. Let, then, that working class prepare itself for the task in store for it - the ruling of this great Empire . . . And the best way to do this is to use the power already in their hands, the actual majority they possess . . . to send to Parliament men of their own order." In case this was not clear enough, he lamented that "[e]verywhere the labourer struggles for political power, for direct representation of his class in the legislature - everywhere but in Great Britain." [Op. Cit., vol. 24, p. 405] For Engels:
"In every struggle of class against class, the next end fought for is political power; the ruling class defends its political supremacy, that is to say its safe majority in the Legislature; the inferior class fights for, first a share, then the whole of that power, in order to become enabled to change existing laws in conformity with their own interests and requirements. Thus the working class of Great Britain for years fought ardently and even violently for the People's Charter [which demanded universal suffrage and yearly general elections], which was to give it that political power." [Op. Cit., p. 386]
The 1st of May, 1893, saw Engels argue that the task of the British working class was not only to pursue economic struggles "but above all in winning political rights, parliament, through the working class organised into an independent party" (significantly, the original manuscript stated "but in winning parliament, the political power"). He went on to state that the 1892 general election saw the workers give a "taste of their power, hitherto unexerted." [Op. Cit., vol. 27, p. 395] This, significantly, is in line with his 1870 comment that in Britain "the bourgeoisie could only get its real representative . . . into government only by extension of the franchise, whose consequences are bound to put an end to all bourgeois rule." [Selected Works, p. 238]
Marx seems to see voting for a government as being the same as political power as the "fundamental contradiction" of a democracy under capitalism is that the classes "whose social slavery the constitution is to perpetuate" it "puts in possession of political power through universal suffrage." [Collected Works, vol. 10, p. 79] For Engels in 1847, "democracy has as its necessary consequence the political rule of the proletariat." Universal suffrage would "make political power pass from the middle class to the working class" and so "the democratic movement" is "striving for the political domination of the proletariat." [Op. Cit., vol. 7, p. 299, p. 440 and p. 368] As noted in section H.3.9, Marx concluded that Bonaparte's coup ended the political power of the bourgeoisie and, for Engels, "the whole bourgeoisie ruled, but for three years only" during the Second French Republic of 1848-51. Significantly, during the previous regime of Louis-Philippe (1830-48) "a very small portion of the bourgeois ruled the kingdom" as "by far the larger part were excluded from the suffrage by high [property] qualifications." [Op. Cit., vol. 27, p. 297]
All of which, of course, fits into Marx's account of the Paris Commune where, as noted above, the Commune "was formed of the municipal councillors" who had been "chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town" in the municipal elections held on March 26th, 1871. Once voted into office, the Commune then smashed the state machine inherited by it, recognising that "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes." The "first decree of the Commune . . . was the suppression of the standing army, and the substitution for it of the armed people." Thus the Commune lops off one of the "ubiquitous organs" associated with the "centralised State power" once it had inherited the state via elections. [Selected Works, p. 287, p. 285, p. 287 and p. 285] Indeed, this is precisely what was meant, as confirmed by Engels in a letter written in 1884 clarifying what Marx meant:
"It is simply a question of showing that the victorious proletariat must first refashion the old bureaucratic, administrative centralised state power before it can use it for its own purposes: whereas all bourgeois republicans since 1848 inveighed against this machinery so long as they were in the opposition, but once they were in the government they took it over without altering it and used it partly against the reaction but still more against the proletariat." [Collected Works, vol. 47, p. 74]
Interestingly, in the second outline of the Civil War in France, Marx used words almost identical to Engels later explanation:
"But the proletariat cannot, as the ruling classes and their different rival fractions have done in the successive hours of their triumph, simply lay hold on the existent State body and wield this ready-made agency for their own purpose. The first condition for the holding of political power, is to transform its working machinery and destroy it as an instrument of class rule." [our emphasis, Collected Works, vol. 22, p. 533]
It is, of course, true that Marx expressed in his defence of the Commune the opinion that new "Communal Constitution" was to become a "reality by the destruction of the State power" yet he immediately argues that "the merely repressive organs of the old government power were to be amputated" and "its legitimate functions were to be wrestled from" it and "restored to the responsible agents of society." [Selected Works, pp. 288-9] This corresponds to Engels arguments about removing aspects from the state inherited by the proletariat and signifies the "destruction" of the state machinery (its bureaucratic-military aspects) rather than the republic itself.
In other words, Lenin was right to state that "Marx's idea is that the working class must break up, smash the 'ready-made state machinery,' and not confine itself to merely laying hold of it." This was never denied by thinkers like Karl Kautsky, rather they stressed that for Marx and Engels universal suffrage was the means by which political power would be seized (at least in a republic) while violent revolution would be the means to create a republic and to defend it against attempts to restore the old order. As Engels put it in 1886, Marx had drawn "the conclusion that, at least in Europe, England is the only country where the inevitable social revolution might be effected entirely by peaceful and legal means. He certainly never forgot to add that he hardly expected the English ruling classes to submit, without a 'pro-slavery rebellion,' to this peaceful and legal revolution." ["Preface to the English edition" in Marx, Capital, vol. 1, p. 113] Thus Kautsky stressed that the abolition of the standing army was "absolutely necessary if the state is to be able to carry out significant social reforms" once the party of the proletariat was in a position to "control legislation." This would mean "the most complete democracy, a militia system" after, echoing the Communist Manifesto, "the conquest of democracy" had been achieved. [The Road to Power, p. 69, p. 70 and p. 72]
Essentially, then, Lenin was utilising a confusion between smashing the state and smashing the state machine once the workers' party had achieved a majority within a democratic republic. In other words, Lenin was wrong to assert that "this lesson . . . had not only been completely ignored, but positively distorted by the prevailing, Kautskyite, 'interpretation' of Marxism." As we have proved "the false notion that universal suffrage 'in the present-day state' is really capable of revealing the will of the majority of the working people and of securing its realisation" was not invented by the "petty-bourgeois democrats" nor "the social-chauvinists and opportunists." It can be found repeatedly in the works of Engels and Marx themselves and so "Engels's perfectly clear, concise and concrete statement is distorted at every step" not only "at every step in the propaganda and agitation of the 'official' (i.e., opportunist) socialist parties" but also by Engels himself! [Op. Cit. p. 336 and pp. 319-20]
Significantly, we find Marx recounting in 1852 how the "executive power with its enormous bureaucratic and military organisation, with its wide-ranging and ingenious state machinery . . . sprang up in the days of the absolute monarchy, with the decay of the feudal system which it had helped to hasten." After 1848, "in its struggle against the revolution, the parliamentary republic found itself compelled to strengthen, along with the repressive, the resources and centralisation of governmental power. All revolutions perfected this machine instead of smashing it. The parties that contended in turn for domination regarded the possession of this huge state edifice as the principal spoils of the victor." However, "under the absolute monarchy, during the first Revolution, under Napoleon, bureaucracy was only the means of preparing the class rule of the bourgeoisie. Under the Restoration, under Louis Philippe, under the parliamentary republic, it was the instrument of the ruling class, however much it strove for power of its own." It was "[o]nly under the second Bonaparte does the state seem to have made itself completely independent." [Selected Works, pp. 169-70]
This analysis is repeated in The Civil War in France, except the expression "the State power" is used as an equivalent to the "state machinery." Again, the state machine/power is portrayed as coming into existence before the republic: "The centralised state power, with its ubiquitous organs of standing army, police, bureaucracy, clergy, and judicature . . . originates from the days of absolute monarchy." Again, the "bourgeois republicans . . . took the state power" and used it to repress the working class. Again, Marx called for "the destruction of the state power" and noted that the Commune abolished the standing army, the privileged role of the clergy, and so on. The Commune's "very existence presupposed the non-existence of monarchy, which, in Europe at least, is the normal encumbrance and indispensable cloak of class rule. It supplied the republic with the basis of really democratic institutions." [Op. Cit. p. 285, p. 286, p. 288 and p. 290]
Obviously, then, what the socialist revolution had to smash existed before the republican state was created and was an inheritance of pre-bourgeois rule (even if the bourgeoisie utilised it for its own ends). How this machine was to be smashed was left unspecified but given that it was not identical to the "parliamentary republic" Marx's arguments cannot be taken as evidence that the democratic state needed to be smashed or destroyed rather than seized by means of universal suffrage (and reformed appropriately, by "smashing" the "state machinery" as well as including recall of representatives and the combining of administrative and legislative tasks into their hands). Clearly, Lenin's attempt to equate the "parliamentary republic" with the "state machinery" cannot be supported in Marx's account. At best, it could be argued that it is the spirit of Marx's analysis, perhaps bringing it up to date. However, this was not Lenin's position (he maintained that social democracy had hidden Marx's clear call to smash the bourgeois democratic state).
Unsurprisingly, Lenin does not discuss the numerous quotes by Marx and Engels on this matter which clearly contradict his thesis. Nor mention that in 1871, a few months after the Commune, Marx argued that in Britain, "the way to show [i.e., manifest] political power lies open to the working class. Insurrection would be madness where peaceful agitation would more swiftly and surely do the work." [Collected Works, vol. 22, p. 602] The following year, saw him suggest that America could join it as "the workers can achieve their aims by peaceful means" there as well [Op. Cit., vol. 23, p. 255] If Marx had concluded that the capitalist state had to be destroyed rather than captured and refashioned then he quickly changed his mind! In fact, during the Commune itself, in April 1871, Marx had written to his friend Ludwig Kugelman "[i]f you look at the last chapter of my Eighteenth Brumaire you will find that I say that the next attempt of the French revolution will be no longer, as before, to transfer the bureaucratic military machine from one hand to another, but to break it, and that is essential for every real people’s revolution on the Continent. And this is what our heroic Party [sic!] comrades in Paris are attempting." [Op. Cit., vol. 44, p. 131] As noted above, Marx explicitly noted that the bureaucratic military machine predated the republic and was, in effect, inherited by it.
Lenin did note that Marx "restricts his conclusion to the Continent" on the issue of smashing the state machine, but does not list an obvious factor, that the UK approximated universal suffrage, in why this was the case (thus Lenin did not note that Engels, in 1891, added "democratic republics like France" to the list of states where "the old society may peacefully evolve into the new." [Op. Cit., vol. 27, p. 226]). In 1917, Lenin argued, "this restriction" was "no longer valid" as both Britain and America had "completely sunk into the all-European filthy, bloody morass of bureaucratic-military institutions." [Op. Cit., pp. 336-7] Subsequently, he repeated this claim in his polemic against Karl Kautsky, stating that notions that reforming the state were now out of date because of "the existence of militarism and a bureaucracy" which "were non-existent in Britain and America" in the 1870s. He pointed to how "the most democratic and republican bourgeoisie in America . . . deal with workers on strike" as further proof of his position. [Collected Works, vol. 28, p. 238 and p. 244] However, this does not impact on the question of whether universal suffrage could be utilised in order to be in a position to smash this state machine or not. Equally, Lenin failed to acknowledge the violent repression of strikes in the 1870s and 1880s in America (such as the Great Upheaval of 1877 or the crushing of the 8 hour day movement after the Haymarket police riot of 1886). As Martov argued correctly:
"The theoretic possibility [of peaceful reform] has not revealed itself in reality. But the sole fact that he admitted such a possibility shows us clearly Marx’s opinion, leaving no room for arbitrary interpretation. What Marx designated as the 'destruction of the State machine' . . . was the destruction of the military and bureaucratic apparatus that the bourgeois democracy had inherited from the monarchy and perfected in the process of consolidating the rule of the bourgeois class. There is nothing in Marx’s reasoning that even suggests the destruction of the State organisation as such and the replacement of the State during the revolutionary period, that is during the dictatorship of the proletariat, with a social bond formed on a principle opposed to that of the State. Marx and Engels foresaw such a substitution only at the end of a process of 'a progressive withering away' of the State and all the functions of social coercion. They foresaw this atrophy of the State and the functions of social coercion to be the result of the prolonged existence of the socialist regime." [Op. Cit., p. 31]
It should also be remembered that Marx's comments on smashing the state machine were made in response to developments in France, a regime that Marx and Engels viewed as not being purely bourgeois. Marx notes in his account of the Commune how, in France, "[p]eculiar historical circumstances" had "prevented the classical development . . . of the bourgeois form of government." [Selected Works, p. 289] For Engels, Proudhon "confuses the French Bureaucratic government with the normal state of a bourgeoisie that rules both itself and the proletariat." [Collected Works, vol. 11, p. 548] In the 1870s, Marx considered Holland, Britain and the USA to have "the genuine capitalist state." [Op. Cit., vol. 24, p. 499] Significantly, it was precisely these states in which Marx had previously stated a peaceful revolution could occur:
"We know that the institutions, customs and traditions in the different countries must be taken into account; and we do not deny the existence of countries like America, England, and if I knew your institutions better I might add Holland, where the workers may achieve their aims by peaceful means. That being true, we must admit that in most countries on the continent it is force which must be the lever of our revolution; it is force which will have to be resorted to for a time in order to establish the rule of the workers." [Op. Cit., vol. 23, p. 255]
Interestingly, in 1886, Engels expanded on Marx's speculation as regards Holland and confirmed it. Holland, he argued, as well as "a residue of local and provincial self-government" also had "an absence of any real bureaucracy in the French or Prussian sense" because, alone in Western Europe, it did not have an "absolute monarchy" between the 16th and 18th century. This meant that "only a few changes will have to be made to establish that free self-government by the working [people] which will necessarily be our best tool in the organisation of the mode of production." [Op. Cit., vol. 47, pp. 397-8] Few would argue that smashing the state and its replacement with a new workers' one would really constitute a "few changes"! However, Engels position does fit in with the notion that the "state machine" to be smashed is a legacy of absolute monarchy rather than the state structure of a bourgeois democratic republic. It also shows the nature of a Marxist revolution in a republic, in a "genuine capitalist state" of the type Marx and Engels expected to be the result of the first stage of any revolt.
The source of Lenin's restatement of the Marxist theory of the state which came as such a shock to so many Marxists can be found in the nature of the Paris Commune. After all, the major influence in terms of "political vision" of the Commune was anarchism. The "rough sketch of national organisation which the Commune had no time to develop" which Marx praises but does not quote was written by a follower of Proudhon. [Selected Works, p. 288] It expounded a clearly federalist and "bottom-up" organisational structure. It clearly implied "the destruction of the State power" rather than seeking to "inherit" it. Based on this libertarian revolt, it is unsurprising that Marx's defence of it took on a libertarian twist. As noted by Bakunin, who argued that its "general effect was so striking that the Marxists themselves, who saw their ideas upset by the uprising, found themselves compelled to take their hats off to it. They went further, and proclaimed that its programme and purpose were their own, in face of the simplest logic . . . This was a truly farcical change of costume, but they were bound to make it, for fear of being overtaken and left behind in the wave of feeling which the rising produced throughout the world." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 261]
The nature of The Civil War in France and the circumstances in which it was written explains why. Marx, while publicly opposing any kind of revolt before hand, did support the Commune once it began. His essay is primarily a propaganda piece in defence of it and is, fundamentally, reporting on what the Commune actually did and advocated. Thus, as well as reporting the Communal Constitution's vision of a federation of communes, we find Marx noting, also without comment, that the Commune decreed "the surrender to associations of workmen, under reserve of compensation, of all closed workshops and factories." [Op. Cit., p. 294] While Engels, at times, suggested that this could be a possible policy for a socialist government, it is fair to say that few Marxists consider Marx's reporting of this particular aspect of the Commune as being a key aspect of his ideology. As Marx's account reports on the facts of the Commune it could hardly not reflect the libertarian ideas which were so strong in both it and the French sections of the International - ideas he had spent much time and energy opposing. Moreover, given the frenzy of abuse the Communards were subject to by the bourgeoisie, it was unlikely that Marx would have aided the reaction by being overly critical. Equally, given how positively the Commune had been received in working class and radical circles Marx would have been keen to gain maximum benefit from it for both the International and his own ideology and influence. This would also have ensured that Marx kept his criticisms quiet, particularly as he was writing on behalf of an organisation which was not Marxist and included various different socialist tendencies.
This means that to fully understand Marx and Engels, we need to look at all their writings, before and after the Paris Commune. It is, therefore, significant that immediately after the Commune Marx stated that workers could achieve socialism by utilising existing democratic states and that the labour movement should take part in political action and send workers to Parliament. There is no mention of a federation of communes in these proposals and they reflect ideas both he and Engels had expressed since the 1840s. Ten years after the Commune, Marx stated that it was "merely an uprising of one city in exceptional circumstances. [Collected Works, vol. 46, p. 66] Similarly, a mere 3 years after the Commune, Engels argued that the key thing in Britain was "to form anew a strong workers' party with a definite programme, and the best political programme they could wish for was the People's Charter." [Op. Cit., vol. 23, p. 614] The Commune was not mentioned and, significantly, Marx had previously defined this programme in 1855 as being "to increase and extend the omnipotence of Parliament by elevating it to people’s power. They [the Chartists] are not breaking up parliamentarism but are raising it to a higher power." [Op. Cit., vol. 14, p. 243]
As such, Marx's defence of the Commune should not mean ignoring the whole body of his and Engels work, nor should Marx's conclusion that the "state machinery" must be smashed in a successful revolution be considered to be in contradiction with his comments on utilising the existing democratic republic. It does, however, suggest that Marx's reporting of the Proudhon-influenced ideas of the Communards cannot be taken as a definitive account of his ideas on social transformation.
The fact that Marx did not mention anything about abolishing the existing state and replacing it with a new one in his contribution to the "Program of the French Workers Party" in 1880 is significant. It said that the "collective appropriation" of the means of production "can only proceed from a revolutionary action of the class of producers - the proletariat - organised in an independent political party." This would be "pursued by all the means the proletariat has at its disposal including universal suffrage which will thus be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation." [Op. Cit., vol. 24, p. 340] There is nothing about overthrowing the existing state and replacing it with a new state, rather the obvious conclusion which is to be drawn is that universal suffrage was the tool by which the workers would achieve socialism. It does fit in, however, with Marx's repeated comments that universal suffrage was the equivalent of political power for the working class where the proletariat was the majority of the population. Or, indeed, Engels numerous similar comments. It explains the repeated suggestion by Marx that there were countries like America and Britain "where the workers can achieve their aims by peaceful means." There is Engels:
"One can imagine that the old society could peacefully grow into the new in countries where all power is concentrated in the people's representatives, where one can constitutionally do as one pleases as soon as a majority of the people give their support; in democratic republics like France and America, in monarchies such as England, where the dynasty is powerless against the popular will. But in Germany, where the government is virtually all-powerful and the Reichstag and other representative bodies are without real power, to proclaim likewise in Germany . . . is to accept the fig leaf of absolutism and to bind oneself to it." [Op. Cit., vol. 27, p. 226]
This, significantly, repeats Marx's comments in an unpublished article from 1878 on the Reichstag debates on the anti-socialist laws where, in part, he suggested that "[i]f in England . . . or the United States, the working class were to gain a majority in Parliament or Congress, they could by lawful means, rid themselves of such laws and institutions as impeded their development . . . However, the 'peaceful' movement might be transformed into a 'forcible' one by resistance on the part of those interested in restoring the former state of affairs; if . . . they are put down by force, it is as rebels against 'lawful' force." [Op. Cit., vol. 24, p. 248] Sadly, he never finished and published it but it is in line with many of his public pronouncements on this subject.
Marx also excluded countries on the European mainland (with the possible exception of Holland) from his suggestions of peaceful reform. In those countries, presumably, the first stage of the revolution would be, as stressed in the Communist Manifesto, creating a fully democratic republic ("to win the battle for democracy" - see section H.1.1). As Engels put it, "the first and direct result of the revolution with regard to the form can and must be nothing but the bourgeois republic. But this will be here only a brief transitional period . . . The bourgeois republic . . . will enable us to win over the great masses of the workers to revolutionary socialism . . . Only them can we successfully take over." The "proletariat can only use the form of the one and indivisible republic" for it is "the sole political form in which the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie can be fought to a finish." [Marx and Engels, The Socialist Revolution, p. 265, p. 283 and p. 294] As he summarised:
"Marx and I, for forty years, repeated ad nauseam that for us the democratic republic is the only political form in which the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class can first be universalised and then culminate in the decisive victory of the proletariat." [Collected Works, vol. 27, p. 271]
It is for these reasons that orthodox Marxism up until 1917 held the position that the socialist revolution would be commenced by seizing the existing state (usually by the ballot box, or by insurrection if that was impossible). Martov in his discussion of Lenin's "discovery" of the "real" Marxist theory on the state (in State and Revolution) stressed that the idea that the state should be smashed by the workers who would then "transplant into the structure of society the forms of their own combat organisations" was a libertarian idea, alien to Marx and Engels. While acknowledging that "in our time, working people take to 'the idea of the soviets' after knowing them as combat organisations formed in the process of the class struggle at a sharp revolutionary stage," he distanced Marx and Engels quite successfully from such a position. [Op. Cit., p. 42] As such, he makes a valid contribution to Marxism and presents a necessary counter-argument to Lenin's claims (at which point, we are sure, nine out of ten Leninists will dismiss our argument regardless of how well it explains apparent contradictions in Marx and Engels or how much evidence can be presented in support of it!).
This position should not be confused with a totally reformist position, as social-democracy became. Marx and Engels were well aware that a revolution would be needed to create and defend a republic. Engels, for example, noted "how totally mistaken is the belief that a republic, and not only a republic, but also a communist society, can be established in a cosy, peaceful way." Thus violent revolution was required to create a republic - Marx and Engels were revolutionaries, after all. Within a republic, both recognised that insurrection would be required to defend democratic government against attempts by the capitalist class to maintain its economic position. Universal suffrage was, to quote Engels, "a splendid weapon" which, while "slower and more boring than the call to revolution", was "ten times more sure and what is even better, it indicates with the most perfect accuracy the day when a call to armed revolution has to be made." This was because it was "even ten to one that universal suffrage, intelligently used by the workers, will drive the rulers to overthrow legality, that is, to put us in the most favourable position to make revolution." "The big mistake", Engels argued, was "to think that the revolution is something that can be made overnight. As a matter of fact it is a process of development of the masses that takes several years even under conditions accelerating this process." Thus it was a case of, "as a revolutionary, any means which leads to the goal is suitable, including the most violent and the most pacific." [Marx and Engels, The Socialist Revolution, p. 283, p. 189, p. 265 and p. 274] However, over time and as social democratic parties and universal suffrage spread, the emphasis did change from insurrection (the Communist Manifesto's "violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie") to Engels last pronouncement that "the conditions of struggle had essentially changed. Rebellion in the old style, street fighting with barricades . . . , was to a considerable extent obsolete." [Selected Works, p. 45 and pp. 653-4]
Obviously, neither Marx nor Engels (unlike Bakunin, significantly) saw the rise of reformism which usually made this need for the ruling class to "overthrow legality" redundant. Nor, for that matter, did they see the effect of economic power in controlling workers parties once in office. Sure, armed coups have taken place to overthrow even slightly reformist governments but, thanks to the use of "political action", the working class was in no position to "make revolution" in response. Not, of course, that these have been required in most republics as utilising Marxist methods have made many radical parties so reformist that the capitalists can easily tolerate their taking office or can utilise economic and bureaucratic pressures to control them.
So far from arguing, as Lenin suggested, for the destruction of the capitalist state, Marx and Engels consistently advocated the use of universal suffrage to gain control over the state, control which then would be used to smash or shatter the "state machine." Revolution would be required to create a republic and to defend it against reaction, but the key was the utilisation of political action to take political power within a democratic state. The closest that Marx or Engels came to advocating workers councils was in 1850 when Marx suggested that the German workers "establish their own revolutionary workers' governments" alongside of the "new official governments". These could be of two forms, either of "municipal committees and municipal councils" or "workers' clubs or workers' committees." There is no mention of how these would be organised but their aim would be to supervise and threaten the official governments "by authorities backed by the whole mass of the workers." These clubs would be "centralised". In addition, "workers candidates are [to be] put up alongside of the bourgeois-democratic candidates" to "preserve their independence". (although this "independence" meant taking part in bourgeois institutions so that "the demands of the workers must everywhere be governed by the concessions and measures of the democrats."). [The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 507, p. 508 and p. 510] So while these "workers' committees" could, in theory, be elected from the workplace Marx made no mention of this possibility (talk of "municipal councils" suggests that such a possibility was alien to him). It also should be noted that Marx was echoing Proudhon who, the year before, had argued that the clubs "had to be organised. The organisation of popular societies was the fulcrum of democracy, the corner-stone of the republican order." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 48] So, as with the soviets, even the idea of workers' clubs as a means of ensuring mass participation was first raised by anarchists (although, of course, inspired by working class self-organisation during the 1848 French revolution).
All this may seem a bit academic to many. Does it matter? After all, most Marxists today subscribe to some variation of Lenin's position and so, in some aspects, what Marx and Engels really thought is irrelevant. Indeed, it is possible that Marx faced with workers' councils, as he was with the Commune, would have embraced them (perhaps not, as he was dismissive of similar ideas expressed in the libertarian wing of the First International). After all, the Mensheviks used Marx's 1850s arguments to support their activities in the soviets in 1905 (while the Bolshevik's expressed hostility to both the policy and the soviets) and, of course, there is nothing in them to exclude such a position. What is important is that the idea that Marxists have always subscribed to the idea that a social revolution would be based on the workers' own combat organisations (be they unions, soviets or whatever) is a relatively new one to the ideology. If, as John Rees asserts, "the socialist revolution must counterpoise the soviet to parliament . . . precisely because it needs an organ which combines economic power - the power to strike and take control of the workplaces - with an insurrectionary bid for political power" and "breaking the old state" then the ironic thing is that it was Bakunin, not Marx, who advocated such a position. [Op. Cit., p. 25] Given this, the shock which met Lenin's arguments in 1917 can be easily understood.
Rather than being rooted in the Marxist vision of revolution, as it has been in anarchism since at least the 1860s, workers councils have played, rhetoric aside, the role of fig-leaf for party power (libertarian Marxism being a notable exception). They have been embraced by its Leninist wing purely as a means of ensuring party power. Rather than being seen as the most important gain of a revolution as they allow mass participation, workers' councils have been seen, and used, simply as a means by which the party can seize power. Once this is achieved, the soviets can be marginalised and ignored without affecting the "proletarian" nature of the revolution in the eyes of the party:
"while it is true that Lenin recognised the different functions and democratic raison d'être for both the soviets and his party, in the last analysis it was the party that was more important than the soviets. In other words, the party was the final repository of working-class sovereignty. Thus, Lenin did not seem to have been reflected on or have been particularly perturbed by the decline of the soviets after 1918." [Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism, p. 212]
This perspective can be traced back to the lack of interest Marx and Engels expressed in the forms which a proletarian revolution would take, as exemplified by Engels comments on having to "lop off" aspects of the state "inherited" by the working class. The idea that the organisations people create in their struggle for freedom may help determine the outcome of the revolution is missing. Rather, the idea that any structure can be appropriated and (after suitable modification) used to rebuild society is clear. This cannot but flow from the flawed Marxist theory of the state we discussed in section H.3.7. If, as Marx and Engels argued, the state is simply an instrument of class rule then it becomes unproblematic to utilise the existing republican state or create a new form of state complete with representative structures. The Marxist perspective, moreover, cannot help take emphasis away from the mass working class organisations required to rebuild society in a socialist manner and place it on the group who will "inherit" the state and "lop off" its negative aspects, namely the party and the leaders in charge of both it and the new "workers' state."
This focus towards the party became, under Lenin (and the Bolsheviks in general) a purely instrumental perspective on workers' councils and other organisations. They were of use purely in so far as they allowed the Bolshevik party to take power (indeed Lenin constantly identified workers' power and soviet power with Bolshevik power and as Martin Buber noted, for Lenin "All power to the Soviets!" meant, at bottom, "All power to the Party through the Soviets!"). It can, therefore, be argued that his book State and Revolution was a means to use Marx and Engels to support his new found idea of the soviets as being the basis of creating a Bolshevik government rather than a principled defence of workers' councils as the framework of a socialist revolution. We discuss this issue in the next section.
The short answer depends on which branch of Marxism you mean.
If you are talking about libertarian Marxists such as council communists, Situationists and so on, then the answer is a resounding "yes." Like anarchists, these Marxists see a social revolution as being based on working class self-management and, indeed, criticised (and broke with) Bolshevism precisely on this question. Some Marxists, like the Socialist Party of Great Britain, stay true to Marx and Engels and argue for using the ballot box (see last section) although this does not exclude utilising such organs once political power is seized by those means. However, if we look at the mainstream Marxist tradition (namely Leninism), the answer has to be an empathic "no."
As we noted in section H.1.4, anarchists have long argued that the organisations created by the working class in struggle would be the initial framework of a free society. These organs, created to resist capitalism and the state, would be the means to overthrow both as well as extending and defending the revolution (such bodies have included the "soviets" and "factory committees" of the Russian Revolution, the collectives in the Spanish revolution, popular assemblies of the 2001 Argentine revolt against neo-liberalism and the French Revolution, revolutionary unions and so on). Thus working class self-management is at the core of the anarchist vision and so we stress the importance (and autonomy) of working class organisations in the revolutionary movement and the revolution itself. Anarchists work within such bodies at the base, in the mass assemblies, and do not seek to replace their power with that of their own organisation (see section J.3.6).
Leninists, in contrast, have a different perspective on such bodies. Rather than placing them at the heart of the revolution, Leninism views them purely in instrumental terms - namely, as a means of achieving party power. Writing in 1907, Lenin argued that "Social-Democratic Party organisations may, in case of necessity, participate in inter-party Soviets of Workers' Delegates . . . and in congresses . . . of these organisations, and may organise such institutions, provided this is done on strict Party lines for the purpose of developing and strengthening the Social-Democratic Labour Party", that is "utilise" such organs "for the purpose of developing the Social-Democratic movement." Significantly, given the fate of the soviets post-1917, Lenin noted that the party "must bear in mind that if Social-Democratic activities among the proletarian masses are properly, effectively and widely organised, such institutions may actually become superfluous." [Collected Works, vol. 12, pp. 143-4] Thus the means by which working class can manage their own affairs would become "superfluous" once the party was in power. How the working class could be considered the "ruling class" in such a society is hard to understand.
As Oscar Anweiler summarises in his account of the soviets during the two Russian Revolutions:
"The drawback of the new 'soviet democracy' hailed by Lenin in 1906 is that he could envisage the soviets only as controlled organisations; for him they were instruments by which the party controlled the working masses, rather than true forms of a workers democracy. The basic contradiction of the Bolshevik soviet system - which purports to be a democracy of all working people but in reality recognises only the rule of one party - is already contained in Lenin's interpretation of the soviets during the first Russian revolution." [The Soviets, p. 85]
Thirteen years later, Lenin repeated this same vision of party power as the goal of revolution in his infamous diatribe against "Left-wing" Communism (i.e. those Marxists close to anarchism) as we noted in section H.3.3. The Bolsheviks had, by this stage, explicitly argued for party dictatorship and considered it a truism that the whole proletariat could not rule nor could the proletarian dictatorship be exercised by a mass working class organisation. Therefore, rather than seeing revolution being based upon the empowerment of working class organisation and the socialist society being based on this, Leninists see workers organisations in purely instrumental terms as the means of achieving a Leninist government:
"With all the idealised glorification of the soviets as a new, higher, and more democratic type of state, Lenin's principal aim was revolutionary-strategic rather than social-structural . . . The slogan of the soviets was primarily tactical in nature; the soviets were in theory organs of mass democracy, but in practice tools for the Bolshevik Party. In 1917 Lenin outlined his transitional utopia without naming the definitive factor: the party. To understand the soviets' true place in Bolshevism, it is not enough, therefore, to accept the idealised picture in Lenin's state theory. Only an examination of the actual give-and-take between Bolsheviks and soviets during the revolution allows a correct understanding of their relationship." [Oscar Anweiler, Op. Cit., pp. 160-1]
Simply put, Leninism confuses party power and workers' power. An example of this "confusion" can be found in most Leninist works. For example, John Rees argues that "the essence of the Bolsheviks' strategy . . . was to take power from the Provisional government and put it in the hands of popular organs of working class power - a point later made explicit by Trotsky in his Lessons of October." ["In Defence of October", pp. 3-82, International Socialism, no. 52, p. 73] However, in reality Lenin had always been clear that the essence of the Bolsheviks' strategy was the taking of power by the Bolshevik party itself. He explicitly argued for Bolshevik power during 1917, considering the soviets as the best means of achieving this. He constantly equated Bolshevik rule with working class rule. Once in power, this identification did not change. As such, rather than argue for power to be placed into "the hands of popular organs of working class power" Lenin argued this only insofar as he was sure that these organs would then immediately pass that power into the hands of a Bolshevik government.
This explains his turn against the soviets after July 1917 when he considered it impossible for the Bolsheviks to gain a majority in them. It can be seen when the Bolshevik party's Central Committee opposed the idea of a coalition government immediately after the overthrow of the Provisional Government in October 1917. As it explained, "a purely Bolshevik government" was "impossible to refuse" since "a majority at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets . . . handed power over to this government." [quoted by Robert V. Daniels, A Documentary History of Communism, pp. 127-8] A mere ten days after the October Revolution the Left Social Revolutionaries charged that the Bolshevik government was ignoring the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, established by the second Congress of Soviets as the supreme organ in society. Lenin dismissed their charges, stating that "the new power could not take into account, in its activity, all the rigmarole which would set it on the road of the meticulous observation of all the formalities." [quoted by Frederick I. Kaplan, Bolshevik Ideology and the Ethics of Soviet Labour, p. 124] Clearly, the soviets did not have "All Power," they promptly handed it over to a Bolshevik government (and Lenin implies that he was not bound in any way to the supreme organ of the soviets in whose name he ruled). All of which places Rees' assertions into the proper context and shows that the slogan "All Power to the Soviets" is used by Leninists in a radically different way than most people would understand by it! It also explains why soviets were disbanded if the opposition won majorities in them in early 1918 (see section H.6.1). The Bolsheviks only supported "Soviet power" when the soviets were Bolshevik. As was recognised by leading left-Menshevik Julius Martov, who argued that the Bolsheviks loved Soviets only when they were "in the hands of the Bolshevik party." [quoted by Israel Getzler, Op. Cit., p. 174] Which explains Lenin's comment that "[o]nly the development of this war [Kornilov's counter-revolutionary rebellion in August 1917] can bring us to power but we must speak of this as little as possible in our agitation (remembering very well that even tomorrow events may put us in power and then we will not let it go)." [quoted by Neil Harding, Leninism, p. 253]
All this can be confirmed, unsurprisingly enough, by looking at the essay Rees references. When studying Trotsky's work we find the same instrumentalist approach to the question of the "popular organs of working class power." Yes, there is some discussion on whether soviets or "some of form of organisation" like factory committees could become "organs of state power" but this is always within the context of party power. This was stated quite clearly by Trotsky in his essay when he argued that the "essential aspect" of Bolshevism was the "training, tempering, and organisation of the proletarian vanguard as enables the latter to seize power, arms in hand." [Lessons of October, p. 167 and p. 127] As such, the vanguard seizes power, not "popular organs of working class power." Indeed, the idea that the working class can seize power itself is raised and dismissed:
"But the events have proved that without a party capable of directing the proletarian revolution, the revolution itself is rendered impossible. The proletariat cannot seize power by a spontaneous uprising . . . there is nothing else that can serve the proletariat as a substitute for its own party." [Op. Cit., p. 117]
Hence soviets were not considered as the "essence" of Bolshevism, rather the "fundamental instrument of proletarian revolution is the party." Popular organs are seen purely in instrumental terms, with such organs of "workers' power" discussed in terms of the strategy and program of the party not in terms of the value that such organs have as forms of working class self-management of society. Why should he, when "the task of the Communist party is the conquest of power for the purpose of reconstructing society"? [Op. Cit., p. 118 and p. 174]
This can be clearly seen from Trotsky's discussion of the "October Revolution" of 1917 in Lessons of October. Commenting on the Bolshevik Party conference of April 1917, he stated that the "whole of . . . [the] Conference was devoted to the following fundamental question: Are we heading toward the conquest of power in the name of the socialist revolution or are we helping (anybody and everybody) to complete the democratic revolution? . . . Lenin's position was this: . . . the capture of the soviet majority; the overthrow of the Provisional Government; the seizure of power through the soviets." [Op. Cit., p. 134] Note, through the soviets not by the soviets, thus showing that the Party would hold the real power, not the soviets of workers' delegates. This is confirmed when Trotsky stated that "to prepare the insurrection and to carry it out under cover of preparing for the Second Soviet Congress and under the slogan of defending it, was of inestimable advantage to us" and that it was "one thing to prepare an armed insurrection under the naked slogan of the seizure of power by the party, and quite another thing to prepare and then carry out an insurrection under the slogan of defending the rights of the Congress of Soviets." The Soviet Congress just provided "the legal cover" for the Bolshevik plans. [Op. Cit., p. 134, p. 158 and p. 161]
Thus we have the "seizure of power through the soviets" with "an armed insurrection" for "the seizure of power by the party" being hidden by "the slogan" ("the legal cover") of defending the Soviets! Hardly a case of placing power in the hands of working class organisations. Trotsky did note that in 1917 the "soviets had to either disappear entirely or take real power into their hands." However, he immediately added that "they could take power . . . only as the dictatorship of the proletariat directed by a single party." [Op. Cit., p. 126] Clearly, the "single party" has the real power, not the soviets and unsurprisingly the rule of "a single party" also amounted to the soviets effectively disappearing as they quickly became mere ciphers it. Soon the "direction" by "a single party" became the dictatorship of that party over the soviets, which (it should be noted) Trotsky defended wholeheartedly when he wrote Lessons of October (and, indeed, into the 1930s).
This cannot be considered as a one-off. Trotsky repeated this analysis in his History of the Russian Revolution, when he stated that the "question, what mass organisations were to serve the party for leadership in the insurrection, did not permit an a priori, much less a categorical, answer." Thus the "mass organisations" serve the party, not vice versa. This instrumentalist perspective can be seen when Trotsky noted that when "the Bolsheviks got a majority in the Petrograd Soviet, and afterward a number of others," the "phrase 'Power to the Soviets' was not, therefore, again removed from the order of the day, but received a new meaning: All power to the Bolshevik soviets." This meant that the "party was launched on the road of armed insurrection through the soviets and in the name of the soviets." As he put it in his discussion of the July days in 1917, the army "was far from ready to raise an insurrection in order to give power to the Bolshevik Party" and so "the state of popular consciousness . . . made impossible the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in July." [vol. 2, p. 303, p. 307, p. 78 and p. 81] So much for "all power to the Soviets"! He even quotes Lenin: "The Bolsheviks have no right to await the Congress of Soviets. They ought to seize the power right now." Ultimately, the "Central Committee adopted the motion of Lenin as the only thinkable one: to form a government of the Bolsheviks only." [vol. 3, pp. 131-2 and p. 299]
So where does this leave the assertion that the Bolsheviks aimed to put power into the hands of working class organisations? Clearly, Rees' summary of both Trotsky's essay and the "essence" of Bolshevism leave a lot to be desired. As can be seen, the "essence" of Trotsky's essay and of Bolshevism is the importance of party power, not workers' power (as recognised by another member of the SWP: "The masses needed to be profoundly convinced that there was no alternative to Bolshevik power." [Tony Cliff, Lenin, vol. 2, p. 265]). Trotsky even provided us with an analogy which effectively and simply refutes Rees' claims. "Just as the blacksmith cannot seize the red hot iron in his naked hand," Trotsky asserted, "so the proletariat cannot directly seize power; it has to have an organisation accommodated to this task." While paying lip service to the soviets as the organisation "by means of which the proletariat can both overthrow the old power and replace it," he added that "the soviets by themselves do not settle the question" as they may "serve different goals according to the programme and leadership. The soviets receive their programme from the party . . . the revolutionary party represents the brain of the class. The problem of conquering the power can be solved only by a definite combination of party with soviets." [The History of the Russian Revolution, vol. 3, pp. 160-1 and p. 163]
Thus the key organisation was the party, not the mass organisations of the working class. Indeed, Trotsky was quite explicit that such organisations could only become the state form of the proletariat under the party dictatorship. Significantly, Trotsky fails to indicate what would happen when these two powers clash. Certainly Trotsky's role in the Russian revolution tells us that the power of the party was more important to him than democratic control by workers through mass bodies and as we have shown in section H.3.8, Trotsky explicitly argued that a state was required to overcome the "wavering" in the working class which could be expressed by democratic decision making.
Given this legacy of viewing workers' organisations in purely instrumental terms, the opinion of Martov (the leading left-Menshevik during the Russian Revolution) seems appropriate. He argued that "[a]t the moment when the revolutionary masses expressed their emancipation from the centuries old yoke of the old State by forming 'autonomous republics of Kronstadt' and trying Anarchist experiments such as 'workers' control,' etc. - at that moment, the 'dictatorship of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry' (said to be incarnated in the real dictatorship of the opposed 'true' interpreters of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry: the chosen of Bolshevist Communism) could only consolidate itself by first dressing itself in such Anarchist and anti-State ideology." [The State and Socialist Revolution, p. 47] As can be seen, Martov had a point. As the text used as evidence that the Bolsheviks aimed to give power to workers organisations shows, this was not an aim of the Bolshevik party. Rather, such workers organs were seen purely as a means to the end of party power.
In contrast, anarchists argue for direct working class self-management of society. When we argue that working class organisations must be the framework of a free society we mean it. We do not equate party power with working class power or think that "All power to the Soviets" is possible if they immediately delegate that power to the leaders of the party. This is for obvious reasons:
"If the revolutionary means are out of their hands, if they are in the hands of a techno-bureaucratic elite, then such an elite will be in a position to direct to their own benefit not only the course of the revolution, but the future society as well. If the proletariat are to ensure that an elite will not control the future society, they must prevent them from controlling the course of the revolution." [Alan Carter, Marx: A Radical Critique, p. 165]
Thus the slogan "All power to the Soviets" for anarchists means exactly that - organs for the working class to run society directly, based on mandated, recallable delegates. This slogan fitted perfectly with our ideas, as anarchists had been arguing since the 1860's that such workers' councils were both a weapon of class struggle against capitalism and the framework of the future libertarian society. For the Bolshevik tradition, that slogan simply means that a Bolshevik government will be formed over and above the soviets. The difference is important, "for the Anarchists declared, if 'power' really should belong to the soviets, it could not belong to the Bolshevik party, and if it should belong to that Party, as the Bolsheviks envisaged, it could not belong to the soviets." [Voline, The Unknown Revolution, p. 213] Reducing the soviets to simply executing the decrees of the central (Bolshevik) government and having their All-Russian Congress be able to recall the government (i.e. those with real power) does not equal "all power," quite the reverse - the soviets will simply be a fig-leaf for party power.
In summary, rather than aim to place power into the hands of workers' organisations, most Marxists do not. Their aim is to place power into the hands of the party. Workers' organisations are simply means to this end and, as the Bolshevik regime showed, if they clash with that goal, they will be simply be disbanded. However, we must stress that not all Marxist tendencies subscribe to this. The council communists, for example, broke with the Bolsheviks precisely over this issue, the difference between party and class power.
A key idea in most forms of Marxism is that the evolution of capitalism itself will create the preconditions for socialism. This is because capitalism tends to result in big business and, correspondingly, increased numbers of workers subject to the "socialised" production process within the workplace. The conflict between the socialised means of production and their private ownership is at the heart of the Marxist case for socialism:
"Then came the concentration of the means of production and of the producers in large workshops and manufactories, their transformation into actual socialised means of production and socialised producers. But the socialised producers and means of production and their products were still treated, after this change, just as they had been before . . . the owner of the instruments of labour . . . appropriated to himself . . . exclusively the product of the labour of others. Thus, the products now produced socially were not appropriated by those who actually set in motion the means of production and actually produced the commodities, but by the capitalists . . . The mode of production is subjected to this [individual or private] form of appropriation, although it abolishes the conditions upon which the latter rests.
"This contradiction, which gives to the new mode of production its capitalistic character, contains the germ of the whole of the social antagonisms of today." [Engels, Marx-Engels Reader, pp. 703-4]
It is the business cycle of capitalism which show this contradiction between socialised production and capitalist appropriation the best. Indeed, the "fact that the socialised organisation of production within the factory has developed so far that it has become incompatible with the anarchy of production in society, which exists side by side with and dominates it, is brought home to the capitalists themselves by the violent concentration of capital that occurs during crises." The pressures of socialised production results in capitalists merging their properties "in a particular branch of industry in a particular country" into "a trust, a union for the purpose of regulating production." In this way, "the production of capitalistic society capitulates to the production upon a definite plan of the invading socialistic society." This "transformation" can take the form of "joint-stock companies and trusts, or into state ownership." The later does not change the "capitalist relation" although it does have "concealed within it" the "technical conditions that form the elements of that solution." This "shows itself the way to accomplishing this revolution. The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into state property." [Op. Cit., p. 709, p. 710, p. 711, p. 712 and p. 713]
Thus the centralisation and concentration of production into bigger and bigger units, into big business, is seen as the evidence of the need for socialism. It provides the objective grounding for socialism, and, in fact, this analysis is what makes Marxism "scientific socialism." This process explains how human society develops through time:
"In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness . . . At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces come in conflict with the existing relations of production or - what is but a legal expression for the same thing - with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed." [Marx, Op. Cit., pp. 4-5]
The obvious conclusion to be drawn from this is that socialism will come about due to tendencies inherent within the development of capitalism. The "socialisation" implied by collective labour within a firm grows steadily as capitalist companies grow larger and larger. The objective need for socialism is therefore created and so, for most Marxists, "big is beautiful." Indeed, some Leninists have invented terminology to describe this, which can be traced back to at least as far as Bolshevik (and Left Oppositionist) Evgeny Preobrazhensky (although his perspective, like most Leninist ones, has deep roots in the Social Democratic orthodoxy of the Second International). Preobrazhensky, as well as expounding the need for "primitive socialist accumulation" to build up Soviet Russia's industry, also discussed "the contradiction of the law of planning and the law of value." [Hillel Ticktin, "Leon Trotsky and the Social Forces Leading to Bureaucracy, 1923-29", pp. 45-64, The Ideas of Leon Trotsky, Hillel Ticktin and Michael Cox (eds.), p. 45] Thus Marxists in this tradition (like Hillel Ticktin) argue that the increased size of capital means that more and more of the economy is subject to the despotism of the owners and managers of capital and so the "anarchy" of the market is slowly replaced with the conscious planning of resources. Marxists sometimes call this the "objective socialisation of labour" (to use Ernest Mandel's term). Thus there is a tendency for Marxists to see the increased size and power of big business as providing objective evidence for socialism, which will bring these socialistic tendencies within capitalism to full light and full development. Needless to say, most will argue that socialism, while developing planning fully, will replace the autocratic and hierarchical planning of big business with democratic, society-wide planning.
This position, for anarchists, has certain problems associated with it. One key drawback, as we discuss in the next section, is it focuses attention away from the internal organisation within the workplace onto ownership and links between economic units. It ends up confusing capitalism with the market relations between firms rather than identifying it with its essence, wage slavery. This meant that many Marxists consider that the basis of a socialist economy was guaranteed once property was nationalised. This perspective tends to dismiss as irrelevant the way production is managed. The anarchist critique that this simply replaced a multitude of bosses with one, the state, was (and is) ignored. Rather than seeing socialism as being dependent on workers' management of production, this position ends up seeing socialism as being dependent on organisational links between workplaces, as exemplified by big business under capitalism. Thus the "relations of production" which matter are not those associated with wage labour but rather those associated with the market. This can be seen from the famous comment in The Manifesto of the Communist Party that the bourgeoisie "cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society." [Marx and Engels, Op. Cit., p. 476] But the one relation of production it cannot revolutionise is the one generated by the wage labour at the heart of capitalism, the hierarchical relations at the point of production. As such, it is clear that by "relations of production" Marx and Engels meant something else than wage slavery, namely, the internal organisation of what they term "socialised production."
Capitalism is, in general, as dynamic as Marx and Engels stressed. It transforms the means of production, the structure of industry and the links between workplaces constantly. Yet it only modifies the form of the organisation of labour, not its content. No matter how it transforms machinery and the internal structure of companies, the workers are still wage slaves. At best, it simply transforms much of the hierarchy which governs the workforce into hired managers. This does not transform the fundamental social relationship of capitalism, however and so the "relations of production" which prefigure socialism are, precisely, those associated with the "socialisation of the labour process" which occurs within capitalism and are no way antagonistic to it.
This mirrors Marx's famous prediction that the capitalist mode of production produces "the centralisation of capitals" as one capitalist "always strikes down many others." This leads to "the further socialisation of labour and the further transformation of the soil and other means of production into socially exploited and therefore communal means of production takes on a new form." Thus capitalist progress itself objectively produces the necessity for socialism as it socialises the production process and produces a working class "constantly increasing in numbers, and trained, united and organised by the very mechanism of the capitalist process of production. The monopolisation of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production . . . The centralisation of the means of production and the socialisation of labour reach a point at which they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated." [Capital, vol. 1, pp. 928-9] Note, it is not the workers who organise themselves but rather they are "organised by the very mechanism of the capitalist process of production." Even in his most libertarian work, "The Civil War in France", this perspective can be found. He, rightly, praised attempts by the Communards to set up co-operatives (although distinctly failed to mention Proudhon's obvious influence) but then went on to argue that the working class had "no ready-made utopias to introduce" and that "to work out their own emancipation, and along with it that that higher form to which present society is irresistibly tending by its own economical agencies" they simply had "to set free the elements of the new society with which old collapsing bourgeois society itself is pregnant." [Marx-Engels Reader, pp. 635-6]
Then we have Marx, in his polemic against Proudhon, arguing that social relations "are closely bound up with productive forces. In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change their social relations. The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist." [Collected Works, vol. 6, p. 166] On the face of it, this had better not be true. After all, the aim of socialism is to expropriate the property of the industrial capitalist. If the social relationships are dependent on the productive forces then, clearly, socialism is impossible as it will have to be based, initially, on the legacy of capitalism. Fortunately, the way a workplace is managed is not predetermined by the technological base of society. As is obvious, a steam-mill can be operated by a co-operative, so making the industrial capitalist redundant. That a given technological basis (or productive forces) can produce many different social and political systems can easily be seen from history. Murray Bookchin gives one example:
"Technics . . . does not fully or even adequately account for the institutional differences between a fairly democratic federation such as the Iroquois and a highly despotic empire such as the Inca. From a strictly instrumental viewpoint, the two structures were supported by almost identical 'tool kits.' Both engaged in horticultural practices that were organised around primitive implements and wooden hoes. Their weaving and metalworking techniques were very similar . . . At the community level, Iroquois and Inca populations were immensely similar . . .
"Yet at the political level of social life, a democratic confederal structure of five woodland tribes obviously differs decisively from a centralised, despotic structure of mountain Indian chiefdoms. The former, a highly libertarian confederation . . . The latter, a massively authoritarian state . . . Communal management of resources and produce among the Iroquois tribes occurred at the clan level. By contrast, Inca resources were largely state-owned, and much of the empire's produce was simply confiscation . . . and their redistribution from central and local storehouses. The Iroquois worked together freely . . . the Inca peasantry provided corvee labour to a patently exploitative priesthood and state apparatus under a nearly industrial system of management." [The Ecology of Freedom, pp. 331-2]
Marx's claim that a given technological level implies a specific social structure is wrong. However, it does suggest that our comments that, for Marx and Engels, the new "social relationships" which develop under capitalism which imply socialism are relations between workplaces, not those between individuals and so classes are correct. The implications of this position became clear during the Russian revolution.
Later Marxists built upon this "scientific" groundwork. Lenin, for example, argued that "the difference between a socialist revolution and a bourgeois revolution is that in the latter case there are ready made forms of capitalist relationships; Soviet power [in Russia] does not inherit such ready made relationships, if we leave out of account the most developed forms of capitalism, which, strictly speaking, extended to a small top layer of industry and hardly touched agriculture." [Collected Works, vol. 27, p. 90] Thus, for Lenin, "socialist" relationships are generated within big business, relationships "socialism" would "inherit" and universalise. As such, his comments fit in with the analysis of Marx and Engels we have presented above. However, his comments also reveal that Lenin had no idea that socialism meant the transformation of the relations of production, i.e. workers managing their own activity. This, undoubtedly, explains the systematic undermining of the factory committee movement by the Bolsheviks in favour of state control (see Maurice Brinton's classic account of this process, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control).
The idea that socialism involved simply taking over the state and nationalising the "objectively socialised" means of production can be seen in both mainstream social-democracy and its Leninist child. Rudolf Hilferding argued that capitalism was evolving into a highly centralised economy, run by big banks and big firms. All what was required to turn this into socialism would be its nationalisation:
"Once finance capital has brought the most important branches of production under its control, it is enough for society, through its conscious executive organ - the state conquered by the working class - to seize finance capital in order to gain immediate control of these branches of production . . . taking possession of six large Berlin banks would . . . greatly facilitate the initial phases of socialist policy during the transition period, when capitalist accounting might still prove useful." [Finance Capital, pp. 367-8]
Lenin basically disagreed with this only in-so-far as the party of the proletariat would take power via revolution rather than by election ("the state conquered by the working class" equals the election of a socialist party). Lenin took it for granted that the difference between Marxists and anarchists is that "the former stand for centralised, large-scale communist production, while the latter stand for disconnected small production." [Collected Works, vol. 23, p. 325] The obvious implication of this is that anarchist views "express, not the future of bourgeois society, which is striving with irresistible force towards the socialisation of labour, but the present and even the past of that society, the domination of blind chance over the scattered and isolated small producer." [Op. Cit., vol. 10, p. 73]
Lenin applied this perspective during the Russian Revolution. For example, he argued in 1917 that his immediate aim was for a "state capitalist" economy, this being a necessary stage to socialism. As he put it, "socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly . . . socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly." [Op. Cit., vol. 25, p. 358] The Bolshevik road to "socialism" ran through the terrain of state capitalism and, in fact, simply built upon its institutionalised means of allocating recourses and structuring industry. As Lenin put it, "the modern state possesses an apparatus which has extremely close connections with the banks and syndicates [i.e., trusts] , an apparatus which performs an enormous amount of accounting and registration work . . . This apparatus must not, and should not, be smashed. It must be wrestled from the control of the capitalists," it "must be subordinated to the proletarian Soviets" and "it must be expanded, made more comprehensive, and nation-wide." This meant that the Bolsheviks would "not invent the organisational form of work, but take it ready-made from capitalism" and "borrow the best models furnished by the advanced countries." [Op. Cit., vol. 26, pp. 105-6 and p. 110]
The institutional framework of capitalism would be utilised as the principal (almost exclusive) instruments of "socialist" transformation. "Without big banks Socialism would be impossible," argued Lenin, as they "are the 'state apparatus' which we need to bring about socialism, and which we take ready-made from capitalism; our task here is merely to lop off what capitalistically mutilates this excellent apparatus, to make it even bigger, even more democratic, even more comprehensive. A single State Bank, the biggest of the big . . . will constitute as much as nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus. This will be country-wide book-keeping, country-wide accounting of the production and distribution of goods." While this is "not fully a state apparatus under capitalism," it "will be so with us, under socialism." For Lenin, building socialism was easy. This "nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus" would be created "at one stroke, by a single decree." [Op. Cit., p. 106] Once in power, the Bolsheviks implemented this vision of socialism being built upon the institutions created by monopoly capitalism. Moreover, Lenin quickly started to advocate and implement the most sophisticated capitalist methods of organising labour, including "one-man management" of production, piece-rates and Taylorism ("scientific management"). This was not done accidentally or because no alternative existed (as we discuss in section H.6.2, workers were organising federations of factory committees which could have been, as anarchists argued at the time, the basis of a genuine socialist economy).
As Gustav Landuer commented, when mainstream Marxists "call the capitalist factory system a social production . . . we know the real implications of their socialist forms of labour." [For Socialism, p. 70] As can be seen, this glorification of large-scale, state-capitalist structures can be traced back to Marx and Engels, while Lenin's support for capitalist production techniques can be explained by mainstream Marxism's lack of focus on the social relationships at the point of production.
For anarchists, the idea that socialism can be built on the framework provided to us by capitalism is simply ridiculous. Capitalism has developed industry and technology to further the ends of those with power, namely capitalists and managers. Why should they use that power to develop technology and industrial structures which lead to workers' self-management and power rather than technologies and structures which enhance their own position vis-à-vis their workers and society as a whole? As such, technological and industrial development is not "neutral" or just the "application of science." They are shaped by class struggle and class interest and cannot be used for different ends. Simply put, socialism will need to develop new forms of economic organisation based on socialist principles. The concept that monopoly capitalism paves the way for socialist society is rooted in the false assumption that the forms of social organisation accompanying capital concentration are identical with the socialisation of production, that the structures associated with collective labour under capitalism are the same as those required under socialism is achieve genuine socialisation. This false assumption, as can be seen, goes back to Engels and was shared by both Social Democracy and Leninism despite their other differences.
While anarchists are inspired by a vision of a non-capitalist, decentralised, diverse society based on appropriate technology and appropriate scale, mainstream Marxism is not. Rather, it sees the problem with capitalism is that its institutions are not centralised and big enough. As Alexander Berkman correctly argues:
"The role of industrial decentralisation in the revolution is unfortunately too little appreciated. . . Most people are still in the thraldom of the Marxian dogma that centralisation is 'more efficient and economical.' They close their eyes to the fact that the alleged 'economy' is achieved at the cost of the workers' limb and life, that the 'efficiency' degrades him to a mere industrial cog, deadens his soul, kills his body. Furthermore, in a system of centralisation the administration of industry becomes constantly merged in fewer hands, producing a powerful bureaucracy of industrial overlords. It would indeed be the sheerest irony if the revolution were to aim at such a result. It would mean the creation of a new master class." [What is Anarchism?, p. 229]
That mainstream Marxism is soaked in capitalist ideology can be seen from Lenin's comments that when "the separate establishments are amalgamated into a single syndicate, this economy [of production] can attain tremendous proportions, as economic science teaches us." [Op. Cit., vol. 25, p. 344] Yes, capitalist economic science, based on capitalist definitions of efficiency and economy and on capitalist criteria! That Bolshevism bases itself on centralised, large scale industry because it is more "efficient" and "economic" suggests nothing less than that its "socialism" will be based on the same priorities of capitalism. This can be seen from Lenin's idea that Russia had to learn from the advanced capitalist countries, that there was only one way to develop production and that was by adopting capitalist methods of "rationalisation" and management. Thus, for Lenin in early 1918 "our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not to shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it." [Op. Cit., vol. 27, p. 340] In the words of Luigi Fabbri:
"Marxist communists, especially Russian ones, are beguiled by the distant mirage of big industry in the West or America and mistake for a system of production what is only a typically capitalist means of speculation, a means of exercising oppression all the more securely; and they do not appreciate that that sort of centralisation, far from fulfilling the real needs of production, is, on the contrary, precisely what restricts it, obstructs it and applies a brake to it in the interests of capital.
"Whenever [they] talk about 'necessity of production' they make no distinction between those necessities upon which hinge the procurement of a greater quantity and higher quality of products - this being all that matters from the social and communist point of view - and the necessities inherent in the bourgeois regime, the capitalists' necessity to make more profit even should it mean producing less to do so. If capitalism tends to centralise its operations, it does so not for the sake of production, but only for the sake of making and accumulating more money." ["Anarchy and 'Scientific' Communism", pp. 13-49, The Poverty of Statism, Albert Meltzer (ed.), pp. 21-22]
Efficiency, in other words, does not exist independently of a given society or economy. What is considered "efficient" under capitalism may be the worse form of inefficiency in a free society. The idea that socialism may have different priorities, need different methods of organising production, have different visions of how an economy was structured than capitalism, is absent in mainstream Marxism. Lenin thought that the institutions of bourgeois economic power, industrial structure and capitalist technology and techniques could be "captured" and used for other ends. Ultimately, though, capitalist means and organisations can only generate capitalist ends. It is significant that the "one-man management," piece-work, Taylorism, etc. advocated and implemented under Lenin are usually listed by his followers as evils of Stalinism and as proof of its anti-socialist nature.
Equally, it can be argued that part of the reason why large capitalist firms can "plan" production on a large scale is because they reduce the decision making criteria to a few variables, the most significant being profit and loss. That such simplification of input data may result in decisions which harm people and the environment goes without a saying. "The lack of context and particularity," James C. Scott correctly notes, "is not an oversight; it is the necessary first premise of any large-scale planning exercise. To the degree that the subjects can be treated as standardised units, the power of resolution in the planning exercise is enhanced. Questions posed within these strict confines can have definitive, quantitative answers. The same logic applies to the transformation of the natural world. Questions about the volume of commercial wood or the yield of wheat in bushels permit more precise calculations than questions about, say, the quality of the soil, the versatility and taste of the grain, or the well-being of the community. The discipline of economics achieves its formidable resolving power by transforming what might otherwise be considered qualitative matters into quantitative issues with a single metric and, as it were, a bottom line: profit or loss." [Seeing like a State, p. 346] Whether a socialist society could factor in all the important inputs which capitalism ignores within an even more centralised planning structure is an important question. It is extremely doubtful that there could be a positive answer to it. This does not mean, we must stress, that anarchists argue exclusively for "small-scale" production as many Marxists, like Lenin, assert (as we prove in section I.3.8, anarchists have always argued for appropriate levels of production and scale). It is simply to raise the possibility of what works under capitalism may be undesirable from a perspective which values people and planet instead of power and profit.
As should be obvious, anarchism is based on critical evaluation of technology and industrial structure, rejecting the whole capitalist notion of "progress" which has always been part of justifying the inhumanities of the status quo. Just because something is rewarded by capitalism it does not mean that it makes sense from a human or ecological perspective. This informs our vision of a free society and the current struggle. We have long argued that capitalist methods cannot be used for socialist ends. In our battle to democratise and socialise the workplace, in our awareness of the importance of collective initiatives by the direct producers in transforming their work situation, we show that factories are not merely sites of production, but also of reproduction - the reproduction of a certain structure of social relations based on the division between those who give orders and those who take them, between those who direct and those who execute.
It goes without saying that anarchists recognise that a social revolution will have to start with the industry and technology which is left to it by capitalism and that this will have to be expropriated by the working class (this expropriation will, of course, involve transforming it and, in all likelihood, rejecting numerous technologies, techniques and practices considered as "efficient" under capitalism). This is not the issue. The issue is who expropriates it and what happens to it next. For anarchists, the means of life are expropriated directly by society, for most Marxists they are expropriated by the state. For anarchists, such expropriation is based on workers' self-management and so the fundamental capitalist "relation of production" (wage labour) is abolished. For most Marxists, state ownership of production is considered sufficient to ensure the end of capitalism (with, if we are lucky, some form of "workers' control" over those state officials who do management production - see section H.3.14).
In contrast to the mainstream Marxist vision of socialism being based around the institutions inherited from capitalism, anarchists have raised the idea that the "free commune" would be the "medium in which the ideas of modern Socialism may come to realisation." These "communes would federate" into wider groupings. Labour unions (or other working class organs created in the class struggle such as factory committees) were "not only an instrument for the improvement of the conditions of labour, but also . . . an organisation which might . . . take into its hands the management of production." Large labour associations would "come into existence for the inter-communal service[s]." Such communes and workers' organisations as the basis of "Socialist forms of life could find a much easier realisation" than the "seizure of all industrial property by the State, and the State organisation of agriculture and industry." Thus railway networks "could be much better handled by a Federated Union of railway employees, than by a State organisation." Combined with co-operation "both for production and for distribution, both in industry and agriculture," workers' self-management of production would create "samples of the bricks" of the future society ("even samples of some of its rooms"). [Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread, pp. 21-23]
This means that anarchists also root our arguments for socialism in a scientific analysis of tendencies within capitalism. However, in opposition to the analysis of mainstream Marxism which focuses on the objective tendencies within capitalist development, anarchists emphasise the oppositional nature of socialism to capitalism. Both the "law of value" and the "law of planning" are tendencies within capitalism, that is aspects of capitalism. Anarchists encourage class struggle, the direct conflict of working class people against the workings of all capitalism's "laws". This struggle produces mutual aid and the awareness that we can care best for our own welfare if we unite with others - what we can loosely term the "law of co-operation" or "law of mutual aid". This law, in contrast to the Marxian "law of planning" is based on working class subjectivity and develops within society only in opposition to capitalism. As such, it provides the necessary understanding of where socialism will come from, from below, in the spontaneous self-activity of the oppressed fighting for their freedom. This means that the basic structures of socialism will be the organs created by working class people in their struggles against exploitation and oppression (see section I.2.3 for more details). Gustav Landauer's basic insight is correct (if his means were not totally so) when he wrote that "Socialism will not grow out of capitalism but away from it" [Op. Cit., p. 140] In other words, tendencies opposed to capitalism rather than ones which are part and parcel of it.
Anarchism's recognition of the importance of these tendencies towards mutual aid within capitalism is a key to understanding what anarchists do in the here and now, as will be discussed in section J. In addition, it also laid the foundation of understanding the nature of an anarchist society and what creates the framework of such a society in the here and now. Anarchists do not abstractly place a better society (anarchy) against the current, oppressive one. Instead, we analyse what tendencies exist within current society and encourage those which empower and liberate people. Based on these tendencies, anarchists propose a society which develops them to their logical conclusion. Therefore an anarchist society is created not through the developments within capitalism, but in social struggle against it.
For anarchists, the idea that socialism can be achieved via state ownership is simply ridiculous. For reasons which will become abundantly clear, anarchists argue that any such "socialist" system would simply be a form of "state capitalism." Such a regime would not fundamentally change the position of the working class, whose members would simply be wage slaves to the state bureaucracy rather than to the capitalist class. Marxism would, as Kropotkin predicted, be "the worship of the State, of authority and of State Socialism, which is in reality nothing but State capitalism." [quoted by Ruth Kinna, "Kropotkin's theory of Mutual Aid in Historical Context", pp. 259-283, International Review of Social History, No. 40, p. 262]
However, before beginning our discussion of why anarchists think this we need to clarify our terminology. This is because the expression "state capitalism" has three distinct, if related, meanings in socialist (particularly Marxist) thought. Firstly, "state capitalism" was/is used to describe the current system of big business subject to extensive state control (particularly if, as in war, the capitalist state accrues extensive powers over industry). Secondly, it was used by Lenin to describe his immediate aims after the October Revolution, namely a regime in which the capitalists would remain but would be subject to a system of state control inherited by the new "proletarian" state from the old capitalist one. The third use of the term is to signify a regime in which the state replaces the capitalist class totally via nationalisation of the means of production. In such a regime, the state would own, manage and accumulate capital rather than individual capitalists.
Anarchists are opposed to all three systems described by the term "state capitalism." Here we concentrate on the third definition, arguing that state socialism would be better described as "state capitalism" as state ownership of the means of life does not get to the heart of capitalism, namely wage labour. Rather it simply replaces private bosses with the state and changes the form of property (from private to state property) rather than getting rid of it.
The idea that socialism simply equals state ownership (nationalisation) is easy to find in the works of Marxism. The Communist Manifesto, for example, states that the "proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production into the hands of the State." This meant: "Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly"; "Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State"; "Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State"; "Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture." [Marx and Engels, Selected Works, pp. 52-3] Thus "feudal estates . . . mines, pits, and so forth, would become property of the state" as well as "[a]ll means of transport," with "the running of large-scale industry and the railways by the state." [Collected Works, vol. 7, p. 3, p. 4 and p. 299]
Engels repeats this formula thirty-two years later in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by asserting that capitalism itself "forces on more and more the transformation of the vast means of production, already socialised, into state property. The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into state property." Socialism is not equated with state ownership of productive forces by a capitalist state, "but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution" to the social problem. It simply "shows itself the way to accomplishing this revolution. The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into state property." Thus state ownership after the proletariat seizes power is the basis of socialism, when by this "first act" of the revolution the state "really constitutes itself as the representative of the whole of society." [Marx-Engels Reader, p. 713, p. 712 and p. 713]
What is significant from these programmatic statements on the first steps of socialism is the total non-discussion of what is happening at the point of production, the non-discussion of the social relations in the workplace. Rather we are subjected to discussion of "the contradiction between socialised production and capitalist appropriation" and claims that while there is "socialised organisation of production within the factory," this has become "incompatible with the anarchy of production in society." The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that "socialism" will inherit, without change, the "socialised" workplace of capitalism and that the fundamental change is that of ownership: "The proletariat seized the public power, and by means of this transforms the socialised means of production . . . into public property. By this act, the proletariat frees the means of production from the character of capital they have thus far borne." [Engels, Op. Cit., p. 709 and p. 717]
That the Marxist movement came to see state ownership rather than workers' management of production as the key issue is hardly surprising. Thus we find leading Social-Democrats arguing that socialism basically meant the state, under Social-Democratic control of course, acquiring the means of production and nationalising them. Rudolf Hilferding presented what was Marxist orthodoxy at the time when he argued that in "a communist society" production "is consciously determined by the social central organ," which would decide "what is to be produced and how much, where and by whom." While this information is determined by the market forces under capitalism, in socialism it "is given to the members of the socialist society by their authorities . . . we must derive the undisturbed progress of the socialist economy from the laws, ordinances and regulations of socialist authorities." [quoted by Nikolai Bukharin, Economy Theory of the Leisure Class, p. 157] The Bolsheviks inherited this concept of "socialism" and implemented it, with terrible results.
This vision of society in which the lives of the population are controlled by "authorities" in a "social central organ" which tells the workers what to do, while in line with the Communist Manifesto, seems less than appealing. It also shows why state socialism is not socialism at all. Thus George Barrett:
"If instead of the present capitalist class there were a set of officials appointed by the Government and set in a position to control our factories, it would bring about no revolutionary change. The officials would have to be paid, and we may depend that, in their privileged positions, they would expect good remuneration. The politicians would have to be paid, and we already know their tastes. You would, in fact, have a non-productive class dictating to the producers the conditions upon which they were allowed to use the means of production. As this is exactly what is wrong with the present system of society, we can see that State control would be no remedy, while it would bring with it a host of new troubles . . . under a governmental system of society, whether it is the capitalism of today or a more a perfected Government control of the Socialist State, the essential relationship between the governed and the governing, the worker and the controller, will be the same; and this relationship so long as it lasts can be maintained only by the bloody brutality of the policeman's bludgeon and the soldier's rifle." [The Anarchist Revolution, pp. 8-9]
The key to seeing why state socialism is simply state capitalism can be found in the lack of change in the social relationships at the point of production. The workers are still wage slaves, employed by the state and subject to its orders. As Lenin stressed in State and Revolution:"All citizens are transformed into hired employees of the state . . . All citizens become employees and workers of a single country-wide state 'syndicate' . . . The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labour and pay." [Collected Works, vol. 25, pp. 473-4] Given that Engels had argued, against anarchism, that a factory required subordination, authority, lack of freedom and "a veritable despotism independent of all social organisation," Lenin's idea of turning the world into one big factory takes on an extremely frightening nature. [Marx-Engels Reader, p. 731] A reality which one anarchist described in 1923 as being the case in Lenin's Russia:
"The nationalisation of industry, removing the workers from the hands of individual capitalists, delivered them to the yet more rapacious hands of a single, ever-present capitalist boss, the State. The relations between the workers and this new boss are the same as earlier relations between labour and capital, with the sole difference that the Communist boss, the State, not only exploits the workers, but also punishes them himself . . . Wage labour has remained what it was before, except that it has taken on the character of an obligation to the State . . . It is clear that in all this we are dealing with a simple substitution of State capitalism for private capitalism." [Peter Arshinov, History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 71]
All of which makes Bakunin's comments seem justified (as well as stunningly accurate):
"Labour financed by the State - such is the fundamental principle of authoritarian Communism, of State Socialism. The State, having become the sole proprietor . . . will have become sole capitalist, banker, money-lender, organiser, director of all national work, and the distributor of its profits." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 293]
Such a system, based on those countries "where modern capitalist development has reached its highest point of development" would see "the gradual or violent expropriation of the present landlords and capitalists, or of the appropriation of all land and capital by the State. In order to be able to carry out its great economic and social mission, this State will have to be very far-reaching, very powerful and highly centralised. It will administer and supervise agriculture by means of its appointed mangers, who will command armies of rural workers organised and disciplined for that purpose. At the same time, it will set up a single bank on the ruins of all existing banks." Such a system, Bakunin correctly predicted, would be "a barracks regime for the proletariat, in which a standardised mass of men and women workers would wake, sleep, work and live by rote; a regime of privilege for the able and the clever." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 258 and p. 259]
Proudhon, likewise was well aware that state ownership did not mean the end of private property, rather it meant a change in who ordered the working class about. "We do not want," he stated, "to see the State confiscate the mines, canals and railways; that would be to add to monarchy, and more wage slavery. We want the mines, canals, railways handed over to democratically organised workers' associations" which would be the start of a "vast federation of companies and societies woven into the common cloth of the democratic social Republic." He contrasted workers' associations run by and for their members to those "subsidised, commanded and directed by the State," which would crush "all liberty and all wealth, precisely as the great limited companies are doing." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 62 and p. 105]
Simply put, if workers did not directly manage their own work then it matters little who formally owns the workplaces in which they toil. As Maurice Brinton argued, libertarian socialists "hold that the 'relations of production' - the relations which individuals or groups enter into with one another in the process of producing wealth - are the essential foundations of any society. A certain pattern of relations of production is the common denominator of all class societies. This pattern is one in which the producer does not dominate the means of production but on the contrary both is 'separated from them' and from the products of his [or her] own labour. In all class societies the producer is in a position of subordination to those who manage the productive process. Workers' management of production - implying as it does the total domination of the producer over the productive process - is not for us a marginal matter. It is the core of our politics. It is the only means whereby authoritarian (order-giving, order-taking) relations in production can be transcended and a free, communist or anarchist, society introduced." He went on to note that "the means of production may change hands (passing for instance from private hands into those of a bureaucracy, collectively owning them) without this revolutionising the relations of production. Under such circumstances - and whatever the formal status of property - the society is still a class society for production is still managed by an agency other than the producers themselves. Property relations, in other words, do not necessarily reflect the relations of production. They may serve to mask them - and in fact they often have." [The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, pp. vii-vii]
As such, for anarchists (and libertarian Marxists) the idea that state ownership of the means of life (the land, workplaces, factories, etc.) is the basis of socialism is simply wrong. Therefore, "Anarchism cannot look upon the coming revolution as a mere substitution . . . of the State as the universal capitalist for the present capitalists." [Kropotkin, Evolution and Environment, p. 106] Given that the "State organisation having always been . . . the instrument for establishing monopolies in favour of the ruling minorities, [it] cannot be made to work for the destruction of these monopolies. The anarchists consider, therefore, that to hand over to the State all the main sources of economic life - the land, the mines, the railways, banking, insurance, and so on - as also the management of all the main branches of industry . . . would mean to create a new instrument of tyranny. State capitalism would only increase the powers of bureaucracy and capitalism." [Kropotkin, Anarchism, p. 286] Needless to say, a society which was not democratic in the workplace would not remain democratic politically either. Either democracy would become as formal as it is within any capitalist republic or it would be replaced by dictatorship. So, without a firm base in the direct management of production, any "socialist" society would see working class social power ("political power") and liberty wither and die, just like a flower ripped out of the soil.
Unsurprisingly, given all this, we discover throughout history the co-existence of private and state property. Indeed, the nationalisation of key services and industries has been implemented under all kinds of capitalist governments and within all kinds of capitalist states (which proves the non-socialist nature of state ownership). Moreover, anarchists can point to specific events where the capitalist class has used nationalisation to undermine revolutionary gains by the working class. The best example by far is in the Spanish Revolution, when the Catalan government used nationalisation against the wave of spontaneous, anarchist inspired, collectivisation which had placed most of industry into the direct hands of the workers. The government, under the guise of legalising the gains of the workers, placed them under state ownership to stop their development, ensure hierarchical control and so class society. A similar process occurred during the Russian Revolution under the Bolsheviks. Significantly, "many managers, at least those who remained, appear to have preferred nationalisation (state control) to workers' control and co-operated with Bolshevik commissars to introduce it. Their motives are not too difficult to understand . . . The issue of who runs the plants - who makes decisions - is, and probably always will be, the crucial question for managers in any industrial relations system." [Jay B. Sorenson, The Life and Death of Soviet Trade Unionism, pp. 67-8] As we discuss in the next section, the managers and capitalists were not the only ones who disliked "workers' control," the Bolsheviks did so as well, and they ensured that it was marginalised within a centralised system of state control based on nationalisation.
As such, anarchists think that an utterly false dichotomy has been built up in discussions of socialism, one which has served the interests of both capitalists and state bureaucrats. This dichotomy is simply that the economic choices available to humanity are "private" ownership of productive means (capitalism), or state ownership of productive means (usually defined as "socialism"). In this manner, capitalist nations used the Soviet Union, and continue to use autocracies like North Korea, China, and Cuba as examples of the evils of "public" ownership of productive assets. While the hostility of the capitalist class to such regimes is often used by Leninists as a rationale to defend them (as "degenerated workers' states", to use the Trotskyist term) this is a radically false conclusion. As one anarchist argued in 1940 against Trotsky (who first raised this notion):
"Expropriation of the capitalist class is naturally terrifying to 'the bourgeoisie of the whole world,' but that does not prove anything about a workers' state . . . In Stalinist Russia expropriation is carried out . . . by, and ultimately for the benefit of, the bureaucracy, not by the workers at all. The bourgeoisie are afraid of expropriation, of power passing out of their hands, whoever seizes it from them. They will defend their property against any class or clique. The fact that they are indignant [about Stalinism] proves their fear - it tells us nothing at all about the agents inspiring that fear." [J.H., "The Fourth International", pp. 37-43, The Left and World War II, Vernon Richards (ed.), pp. 41-2]
Anarchists see little distinction between "private" ownership of the means of life and "state" ownership. This is because the state is a highly centralised structure specifically designed to exclude mass participation and so, therefore, necessarily composed of a ruling administrative body. As such, the "public" cannot actually "own" the property the state claims to hold in its name. The ownership and thus control of the productive means is then in the hands of a ruling elite, the state administration (i.e. bureaucracy). The "means of wealth production" are "owned by the state which represents, as always, a privileged class - the bureaucracy." The workers "do not either individually or collectively own anything, and so, as elsewhere, are compelled to sell their labour power to the employer, in this case the state." ["USSR - The Anarchist Position", pp. 21-24, Op. Cit., p. 23] Thus, the means of production and land of a state "socialist" regime are not publicly owned - rather, they are owned by a bureaucratic elite, in the name of the people, a subtle but important distinction. As one Chinese anarchist put it:
"Marxian socialism advocates the centralisation not only of political power but also of capital. The centralisation of political power is dangerous enough in itself; add to that the placing of all sources of wealth in the hands of the government, and the so-called state socialism becomes merely state capitalism, with the state as the owner of the means of production and the workers as its labourers, who hand over the value produced by their labour. The bureaucrats are the masters, the workers their slaves. Even though they advocate a state of the dictatorship of workers, the rulers are bureaucrats who do not labour, while workers are the sole producers. Therefore, the suffering of workers under state socialism is no different from that under private capitalism." [Ou Shengbai, quoted by Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, p. 224]
In this fashion, decisions about the allocation and use of the productive assets are not made by the people themselves, but by the administration, by economic planners. Similarly, in "private" capitalist economies, economic decisions are made by a coterie of managers. In both cases the managers make decisions which reflect their own interests and the interests of the owners (be it shareholders or the state bureaucracy) and not the workers involved or society as a whole. In both cases, economic decision-making is top-down in nature, made by an elite of administrators - bureaucrats in the state socialist economy, capitalists or managers in the "private" capitalist economy. The much-lauded distinction of capitalism is that unlike the monolithic, centralised state socialist bureaucracy it has a choice of bosses (and choosing a master is not freedom). And given the similarities in the relations of production between capitalism and state "socialism," the obvious inequalities in wealth in so-called "socialist" states are easily explained. The relations of production and the relations of distribution are inter-linked and so inequality in terms of power in production means inequality in control of the social product, which will be reflected in inequality in terms of wealth. The mode of distributing the social product is inseparable from the mode of production and its social relationships. Which shows the fundamentally confused nature of Trotsky's attempts to denounce the Stalinist regime's privileges as "bourgeois" while defending its "socialist" economic base (see Cornelius Castoriadis, "The Relations of Production in Russia", pp. 107-158, Political and Social Writings, vol. 1).
In other words, private property exists if some individuals (or groups) control/own things which are used by other people. This means, unsurprising, that state ownership is just a form of property rather than the negation of it. If you have a highly centralised structure (as the state is) which plans and decides about all things within production, then this central administration would be the real owner because it has the exclusive right to decide how things are used, not those using them. The existence of this central administrative strata excludes the abolition of property, replacing socialism or communism with state owned "property," i.e. state capitalism. As such, state ownership does not end wage labour and, therefore, social inequalities in terms of wealth and access to resources. Workers are still order-takers under state ownership (whose bureaucrats control the product of their labour and determine who gets what). The only difference between workers under private property and state property is the person telling them what to do. Simply put, the capitalist or company appointed manager is replaced by a state appointed one.
As anarcho-syndicalist Tom Brown stressed, when "the many control the means whereby they live, they will do so by abolishing private ownership and establishing common ownership of the means of production, with workers' control of industry." However, this is "not to be confused with nationalisation and state control" as "ownership is, in theory, said to be vested in the people" but, in fact "control is in the hands of a small class of bureaucrats." Then "common ownership does not exist, but the labour market and wage labour go on, the worker remaining a wage slave to State capitalism." Simply put, common ownership "demands common control. This is possible only in a condition of industrial democracy by workers' control." [Syndicalism, p. 94] In summary:
"Nationalisation is not Socialisation, but State Capitalism . . . Socialisation . . . is not State ownership, but the common, social ownership of the means of production, and social ownership implies control by the producers, not by new bosses. It implies Workers' Control of Industry - and that is Syndicalism." [Op. Cit., p. 111]
However, many Marxists (in particular Leninists) state they are in favour of both state ownership and "workers' control." As we discuss in more depth in next section, while they mean the same thing as anarchists do by the first term, they have a radically different meaning for the second (it is for this reason modern-day anarchists generally use the term "workers' self-management"). To anarchist ears, the combination of nationalisation (state ownership) and "workers' control" (and even more so, self-management) simply expresses political confusion, a mishmash of contradictory ideas which simply hides the reality that state ownership, by its very nature, precludes workers' control. As such, anarchists reject such contradictory rhetoric in favour of "socialisation" and "workers' self-management of production." History shows that nationalisation will always undermine workers' control at the point of production and such rhetoric always paves the way for state capitalism.
Therefore, anarchists are against both nationalisation and privatisation, recognising both as forms of capitalism, of wage slavery. We believe in genuine public ownership of productive assets, rather than corporate/private or state/bureaucratic control. Only in this manner can the public address their own economic needs. Thus, we see a third way that is distinct from the popular "either/or" options forwarded by capitalists and state socialists, a way that is entirely more democratic. This is workers' self-management of production, based on social ownership of the means of life by federations of self-managed syndicates and communes.
Finally, it should be mentioned that some Leninists do have an analysis of Stalinism as "state capitalist," most noticeably the British SWP. According to the creator of this theory, Tony Cliff, Stalinism had to be considered a class system because "[i]f the state is the repository of the means of production and the workers do not control it, they do not own the means of production, i.e., they are not the ruling class." Which is fine, as far as it goes (anarchists would stress the social relations within production as part of our criteria for what counts as socialism). The problems start to accumulate when Cliff tries to explain why Stalinism was (state) capitalist.
For Cliff, internally the USSR could be viewed as one big factory and the division of labour driven by bureaucratic decree. Only when Stalinism was "viewed within the international economy the basic features of capitalism can be discerned." Thus it is international competition which makes the USSR subject to "the law of value" and, consequently, capitalist. However, as international trade was tiny under Stalinism "competition with other countries is mainly military." It is this indirect competition in military matters which made Stalinist Russia capitalist rather than any internal factor. [State capitalism in Russia, pp. 311-2, p. 221 and p. 223]
The weakness of this argument should be obvious. From an anarchist position, it fails to discuss the social relations within production and the obvious fact that workers could, and did, move workplaces (i.e., there was a market for labour). Cliff only mentions the fact that the Stalinist regime's plans were never fulfilled when he shows up the inefficiencies of Stalinist mismanagement. With regards to labour, that appears to be divided according to the plan. Similarly, to explain Stalinism's "capitalist" nature as being a product of military competition with other, more obviously, capitalist states is a joke. It is like arguing that Ford is a capitalist company because BMW is! As one libertarian Marxist put it: "One can only wonder as to the type of contortions Cliff might have got into if Soviet military competition had been with China alone!" [Neil C. Fernandez, Capitalism and Class Struggle in the USSR, p. 65] Significantly, Cliff raised the possibility of single world-wide Stalinist regime and concluded it would not be state capitalist, it would "be a system of exploitation not subject to the law of value and all its implications." [Op. Cit., p. 225] As Fernandez correctly summarises:
"Cliff's position appears untenable when it is remembered that whatever capitalism may or may not entail, what it is is a mode of production, defined by a certain type of social production relations. If the USSR is capitalist simply because it produces weaponry to compete with those countries that themselves would have been capitalist even without such competition, then one might as well say the same about tribes whose production is directed to the provision of tomahawks in the fight against colonialism." [Op. Cit., p. 65]
Strangely, as a Marxist, Cliff seemed unaware that, for Marx, "competition" did not define capitalism. As far as trade goes, the "character of the production process from which [goods] derive is immaterial" and so on the market commodities come "from all modes of production" (for example, they could be "the produce of production based on slavery, the product of peasants . . ., of a community . . . , of state production (such as existed in earlier epochs of Russian history, based on serfdom) or half-savage hunting peoples"). [Capital, vol. 2, pp. 189-90] This means that trade "exploits a given mode of production but does not create it" and so relates "to the mode of production from outside." [Capital, vol. 3, p. 745] Much the same can be said of military competition - it does not define the mode of production.
There are other problems with Cliff's argument, namely that it implies that Lenin's regime was also state capitalist (as anarchists stress, but Leninists deny). If, as Cliff suggests, a "workers' state" is one in which "the proletariat has direct or indirect control, no matter how restricted, over the state power" then Lenin's regime was not one within six months. Similarly, workers' self-management was replaced by one-man management under Lenin, meaning that Stalin inherited the (capitalistic) relations of production rather than created them. Moreover, if it were military competition which made Stalinism "state capitalist" then, surely, so was Bolshevik Russia when it was fighting the White and Imperialist armies during the Civil War. Nor does Cliff prove that a proletariat actually existed under Stalinism, raising the clear contradiction that "[i]f there is only one employer, a 'change of masters' is impossible . . . a mere formality" while also attacking those who argued that Stalinism was "bureaucratic collectivism" because Russian workers were not proletarians but rather slaves. So this "mere formality" is used to explain that the Russian worker is a proletarian, not a slave, and so Russia was state capitalist in nature! [Cliff, Op. Cit., p. 310, p. 219, p. 350 and p. 348]
All in all, attempts to draw a clear line between Leninism and Stalinism as regards its state capitalist nature are doomed to failure. The similarities are far too obvious and simply support the anarchist critique of state socialism as nothing more than state capitalism. Ultimately, "Trotskyism merely promises socialism by adopting the same methods, and mistakes, which have produced Stalinism." [J.H., "The Fourth International", pp. 37-43, The Left and World War II, Vernon Richards (ed.), p. 43]
As we discussed in the last section, anarchists consider the usual association of state ownership with socialism to be false. We argue that it is just another form of the wages system, of capitalism, albeit with the state replacing the capitalist and so state ownership, for anarchists, is simply state capitalism. Instead we urge socialisation based on workers' self-management of production. Libertarian Marxists concur.
Some mainstream Marxists, however, say they seek to combine state ownership with "workers' control." This can be seen from Trotsky, for example, who argued in 1938 for "workers' control . . . the penetration of the workers' eye into all open and concealed springs of capitalist economy . . . workers' control becomes a school for planned economy. On the basis of the experience of control, the proletariat will prepare itself for direct management of nationalised industry when the hour for that eventuality strikes." This, it is argued, proves that nationalisation (state ownership and control) is not "state capitalism" but rather "control is the first step along the road to the socialist guidance of economy." [The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International, p. 73 and p. 74] This explains why many modern day Leninists are often heard voicing support for what anarchists consider an obvious oxymoron, namely "nationalisation under workers' control."
Anarchists are not convinced. This is because of two reasons. Firstly, because by the term "workers' control" anarchists and Leninists mean two radically different things. Secondly, when in power Trotsky advocated radically different ideas. Based on these reasons, anarchists view Leninist calls for "workers' control" simply as a means of gaining popular support, calls which will be ignored once the real aim, party power, has been achieved: it is an example of Trotsky's comment that "[s]logans as well as organisational forms should be subordinated to the indices of the movement." [Op. Cit., p. 72] In other words, rather than express a commitment to the ideas of worker's control of production, mainstream Marxist use of the term "workers' control" is simply an opportunistic technique aiming at securing support for the party's seizure of power and once this is achieved it will be cast aside in favour of the first part of the demands, namely state ownership and so control. In making this claim anarchists feel they have more than enough evidence, evidence which many members of Leninist parties simply know nothing about.
We will look first at the question of terminology. Anarchists traditionally used the term "workers' control" to mean workers' full and direct control over their workplaces, and their work. However, after the Russian Revolution a certain ambiguity arose in using that term. This is because specific demands which were raised during that revolution were translated into English as "workers' control" when, in fact, the Russian meaning of the word (kontrolia) was far closer to "supervision" or "steering." Thus the term "workers' control" is used to describe two radically different concepts.
This can be seen from Trotsky when he argued that the workers should "demand resumption, as public utilities, of work in private businesses closed as a result of the crisis. Workers' control in such case would be replaced by direct workers' management." [Op. Cit., p. 73] Why workers' employed in open capitalist firms were not considered suitable for "direct workers' management" is not explained, but the fact remains Trotsky clearly differentiated between management and control. For him, "workers' control" meant "workers supervision" over the capitalist who retained power. Thus the "slogan of workers’ control of production" was not equated to actual workers’ control over production. Rather, it was "a sort of economic dual power" which meant that "ownership and right of disposition remain in the hands of the capitalists." This was because it was "obvious that the power is not yet in the hands of the proletariat, otherwise we would have not workers' control of production but the control of production by the workers' state as an introduction to a regime of state production on the foundations of nationalisation." [Trotsky, The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany, p. 91 and p. 92]
This vision of "workers' control" as simply supervision of the capitalist managers and a prelude to state control and, ultimately, nationalisation can be found in Lenin. Rather than seeing "workers' control" as workers managing production directly, he always saw it in terms of workers' "controlling" those who did. It simply meant "the country-wide, all-embracing, omnipresent, most precise and most conscientious accounting of the production and distribution of goods." He clarified what he meant, arguing for "country-wide, all-embracing workers' control over the capitalists" who would still manage production. Significantly, he considered that "as much as nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus" required for this "country-wide book-keeping, country-wide accounting of the production and distribution of goods" would be achieved by nationalising the "big banks," which "are the 'state apparatus' which we need to bring about socialism" (indeed, this was considered "something in the nature of the skeleton of socialist society"). This structure would be taken intact from capitalism for "the modern state possesses an apparatus which has extremely close connection with the banks and [business] syndicates . . . this apparatus must not, and should not, be smashed." [Collected Works, vol. 26, p. 105, p. 107, p. 106 and pp. 105-6] Over time, this system would move towards full socialism.
Thus, what Leninists mean by "workers' control" is radically different than what anarchists traditionally meant by that term (indeed, it was radically different from the workers' definition, as can be seen from a resolution of the Bolshevik dominated First Trade Union Congress which complained that "the workers misunderstand and falsely interpret workers' control." [quoted by M. Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. 32]). It is for this reason that from the 1960s English speaking anarchists and other libertarian socialists have been explicit and have used the term "workers' self-management" rather than "workers' control" to describe their aims. Mainstream Marxists, however have continued to use the latter slogan, undoubtedly, as we note in section H.3.5, to gain members from the confusion in meanings.
Secondly, there is the example of the Russian Revolution itself. As historian S.A. Smith correctly summarises, the Bolshevik party "had no position on the question of workers' control prior to 1917." The "factory committees launched the slogan of workers' control of production quite independently of the Bolshevik party. It was not until May that the party began to take it up." However, Lenin used "the term ['workers' control'] in a very different sense from that of the factory committees." In fact Lenin's proposals were "thoroughly statist and centralist in character, whereas the practice of the factory committees was essentially local and autonomous." While those Bolsheviks "connected with the factory committees assigned responsibility for workers' control of production chiefly to the committees" this "never became official Bolshevik party policy." In fact, "the Bolsheviks never deviated before or after October from a commitment to a statist, centralised solution to economic disorder. The disagreement between the two wings of the socialist movement [i.e., the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks] was not about state control in the abstract, but what kind of state should co-ordinate control of the economy: a bourgeois state or a workers' state?" They "did not disagree radically in the specific measures which they advocated for control of the economy." Lenin "never developed a conception of workers' self-management. Even after October, workers' control remained for him fundamentally a matter of 'inspection' and 'accounting' . . . rather than as being necessary to the transformation of the process of production by the direct producers. For Lenin, the transformation of capitalist relations of production was achieved at central-state level, rather than at enterprise level. Progress to socialism was guaranteed by the character of the state and achieved through policies by the central state - not by the degree of power exercised by workers on the shop floor." [Red Petrograd, p. 153, p. 154, p. 159, p. 153, p. 154 and p. 228]
Thus the Bolshevik vision of "workers' control" was always placed in a statist context and it would be exercised not by workers' organisations but rather by state capitalist institutions. This has nothing in common with control by the workers themselves and their own class organisations as advocated by anarchists. In May 1917, Lenin was arguing for the "establishment of state control over all banks, and their amalgamation into a single central bank; also control over the insurance agencies and big capitalist syndicates." [Collected Works, vol. 24, p. 311] He reiterated this framework later that year, arguing that "the new means of control have been created not by us, but by capitalism in its military-imperialist stage" and so "the proletariat takes its weapons from capitalism and does not 'invent' or 'create them out of nothing.'" The aim was "compulsory amalgamation in associations under state control," "by workers' control of the workers' state." [Op. Cit., vol. 26, p. 108, p. 109 and p. 108] The factory committees were added to this "state capitalist" system but they played only a very minor role in it. Indeed, this system of state control was designed to limit the power of the factory committees:
"One of the first decrees issues by the Bolshevik Government was the Decree on Workers' Control of 27 November 1917. By this decree workers' control was institutionalised . . . Workers' control implied the persistence of private ownership of the means of production, though with a 'diminished' right of disposal. The organs of workers' control, the factory committees, were not supposed to evolve into workers' management organs after the nationalisation of the factories. The hierarchical structure of factory work was not questioned by Lenin . . . To the Bolshevik leadership the transfer of power to the working class meant power to its leadership, i.e. to the party. Central control was the main goal of the Bolshevik leadership. The hasty creation of the VSNKh (the Supreme Council of the National Economy) on 1 December 1917, with precise tasks in the economic field, was a significant indication of fact that decentralised management was not among the projects of the party, and that the Bolsheviks intended to counterpoise central direction of the economy to the possible evolution of workers' control toward self-management." [Silvana Malle, The Economic Organisation of War Communism, 1918-1921, p. 47]
Once in power, the Bolsheviks soon turned away from even this limited vision of workers' control and in favour of "one-man management." Lenin raised this idea in late April 1918 and it involved granting state appointed "individual executives dictatorial powers (or 'unlimited' powers)." Large-scale industry required "thousands subordinating their will to the will of one," and so the revolution "demands" that "the people unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of labour." Lenin's "superior forms of labour discipline" were simply hyper-developed capitalist forms. The role of workers in production was the same, but with a novel twist, namely "unquestioning obedience to the orders of individual representatives of the Soviet government during the work." This support for wage slavery was combined with support for capitalist management techniques. "We must raise the question of piece-work and apply and test it in practice," argued Lenin, "we must raise the question of applying much of what is scientific and progressive in the Taylor system; we must make wages correspond to the total amount of goods turned out." [Lenin, Op. Cit., vol. 27, p. 267, p. 269, p. 271 and p. 258]
This vision had already been applied in practice, with the "first decree on the management of nationalised enterprises in March 1918" which had "established two directors at the head of each enterprise . . . Both directors were appointed by the central administrators." An "economic and administrative council" was also created in the workplace, but this "did not reflect a syndicalist concept of management." Rather it included representatives of the employees, employers, engineers, trade unions, the local soviets, co-operatives, the local economic councils and peasants. This composition "weakened the impact of the factory workers on decision-making . . . The workers' control organs [the factory committees] remained in a subordinate position with respect to the council." Once the Civil War broke out in May 1918, this process was accelerated. By 1920, most workplaces were under one-man management and the Communist Party at its Ninth Congress had "promoted one-man management as the most suitable form of management." [Malle, Op. Cit., p. 111, p. 112, p. 141 and p. 128] In other words, the manner in which Lenin organised industry had handed it over entirely into the hands of the bureaucracy.
Trotsky did not disagree with all this, quite the reverse - he wholeheartedly defended the imposing of "one-man management". As he put it in 1920, "our Party Congress . . . expressed itself in favour of the principle of one-man management in the administration of industry . . . It would be the greatest possible mistake, however, to consider this decision as a blow to the independence of the working class. The independence of the workers is determined and measured not by whether three workers or one are placed at the head of a factory." As such, it "would consequently be a most crying error to confuse the question as to the supremacy of the proletariat with the question of boards of workers at the head of factories. The dictatorship of the proletariat is expressed in the abolition of private property in the means of production, in the supremacy over the whole Soviet mechanism of the collective will of the workers, and not at all in the form in which individual economic enterprises are administered." The term "collective will of the workers" is simply a euphemism for the Party which Trotsky had admitted had "substituted" its dictatorship for that of the Soviets (indeed, "there is nothing accidental" in this "'substitution' of the power of the party for the power of the working class" and "in reality there is no substitution at all." The "dictatorship of the Soviets became possible only by means of the dictatorship of the party"). The unions "should discipline the workers and teach them to place the interests of production above their own needs and demands." He even argued that "the only solution to economic difficulties from the point of view of both principle and of practice is to treat the population of the whole country as the reservoir of the necessary labour power . . . and to introduce strict order into the work of its registration, mobilisation and utilisation." [Terrorism and Communism, p. 162, p. 109, p. 143 and p. 135]
Trotsky did not consider this a result of the Civil War. Again, the opposite was the case: "I consider if the civil war had not plundered our economic organs of all that was strongest, most independent, most endowed with initiative, we should undoubtedly have entered the path of one-man management in the sphere of economic administration much sooner and much less painfully." [Op. Cit., pp. 162-3] Significantly, discussing developments in Russia since the N.E.P, Trotsky a few years later argued that it was "necessary for each state-owned factory, with its technical director and with its commercial director, to be subjected not only to control from the top - by the state organs - but also from below, by the market which will remain the regulator of the state economy for a long time to come." Workers' control, as can be seen, was not even mentioned, nor considered as an essential aspect of control "from below." As Trotsky also stated that "[u]nder socialism economic life will be directed in a centralised manner," our discussion of the state capitalist nature of mainstream Marxism we presented in the last section is confirmed. [The First Five Years of the Communist International, vol. 2, p. 237 and p. 229]
The contrast between what Trotsky did when he was in power and what he argued for after he had been expelled is obvious. Indeed, the arguments of 1938 and 1920 are in direct contradiction to each other. Needless to say, Leninists and Trotskyists today are fonder of quoting Trotsky and Lenin when they did not have state power rather than when they did. Rather than compare what they said to what they did, they simply repeat ambiguous slogans which meant radically different things to Lenin and Trotsky than to the workers' who thrust them into power. For obvious reasons, we feel. Given the opportunity for latter day Leninists to exercise power, we wonder if a similar process would occur again? Who would be willing to take that chance?
As such, any claim that mainstream Marxism considers "workers' control" as an essential feature of its politics is simply nonsense. For a comprehensive discussion of "workers' control" during the Russian Revolution Maurice Brinton's account cannot be bettered. As he stressed, "only the ignorant or those willing to be deceived can still kid themselves into believing that proletarian power at the point of production was ever a fundamental tenet or objective of Bolshevism." [The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. 14]
All this is not some academic point. As Brinton noted, faced "with the bureaucratic monstrosity of Stalinist and post-Stalinist Russia, yet wishing to retain some credibility among their working class supporters, various strands of Bolshevism have sought posthumously to rehabilitate the concept of 'workers' control.'" The facts show that between 1917 and 1921 "all attempts by the working class to assert real power over production - or to transcend the narrow role allocated by to it by the Party - were smashed by the Bolsheviks, after first having been denounced as anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist deviations. Today workers' control is presented as a sort of sugar coating to the pill of nationalisation of every Trotskyist or Leninist micro-bureaucrat on the make. Those who strangled the viable infant are now hawking the corpse around." [For Workers' Power, p. 165] Little has changes since Brinton wrote those words in the 1960s, with Leninists today proclaiming with a straight face that they stand for "self-management"!
The roots of this confusion can be found in Marx and Engels. In the struggle between authentic socialism (i.e. workers' self-management) and state capitalism (i.e. state ownership) there are elements of the correct solution to be found in their ideas, namely their support for co-operatives. For example, Marx praised the efforts made within the Paris Commune to create co-operatives, so "transforming the means of production, land and capital . . . into mere instruments of free and associated labour." He argued that "[i]f co-operative production is not to remain a shame and a snare; if it is to supersede the Capitalist system; if united co-operative societies are to regulate national production upon a common plan, thus taking it under their own control, and putting an end to the constant anarchy and periodical convulsions which are the fatality of Capitalist production - what else . . . would it be but Communism, 'possible' Communism?" [Selected Works, pp. 290-1] In the 1880s, Engels suggested as a reform the putting of public works and state-owned land into the hands of workers' co-operatives rather than capitalists. [Collected Works, vol. 47, p. 239]
These comments should not be taken as being totally without aspects of nationalisation. Engels argued for "the transfer - initially on lease - of large estates to autonomous co-operatives under state management and effected in such a way that the State retains ownership of the land." He stated that neither he nor Marx "ever doubted that, in the course of transition to a wholly communist economy, widespread use would have to be made of co-operative management as an intermediate stage. Only it will mean so organising things that society, i.e. initially the State, retains ownership of the means of production and thus prevents the particular interests of the co-operatives from taking precedence over those of society as a whole." [Op. Cit., p. 389] However, Engels comments simply bring home the impossibilities of trying to reconcile state ownership and workers' self-management. While the advocacy of co-operatives is a positive step forward from the statist arguments of the Communist Manifesto, Engels squeezes these libertarian forms of organising production into typically statist structures. How "autonomous co-operatives" can co-exist with (and under!) "state management" and "ownership" is not explained, not to mention the fatal confusion of socialisation with nationalisation.
In addition, the differences between the comments of Marx and Engels are obvious. While Marx talks of "united co-operative societies," Engels talks of "the State." The former implies a free federation of co-operatives, the latter a centralised structure which the co-operatives are squeezed into and under. The former is socialist, the latter is state capitalist. From Engels argument, it is obvious that the stress is on state ownership and management rather than self-management. This confusion became a source of tragedy during the Russian Revolution when the workers, like their comrades during the Commune, started to form a federation of factory committees while the Bolsheviks squeezed these bodies into a system of state control which was designed to marginalise them.
Moreover, the aims of the Paris workers were at odds with the vision of the Communist Manifesto and in line with anarchism - most obviously Proudhon's demands for workers associations to replace wage labour and what he called, in 1863, an "agricultural-industrial federation." Thus the Commune's idea of co-operative production was a clear expression of what Proudhon called "industrial democracy" based on "democratically organised workers’ associations" forming a "vast federation of companies and societies woven into the common cloth of the democratic and social Republic" (for "under universal association, ownership of the land and of the instruments of labour is social ownership"). [Property is Theft!, p. 711, p. 611, pp. 377-8] Thus, while Engels (in part) echoes Proudhon's ideas, he does not go fully towards a self-managed system of co-operation and co-ordination based on the workers' own organisations. Significantly, Bakunin and later anarchists simply developed these ideas to their logical conclusion.
Marx, to his credit, supported these libertarian visions when applied in practice by the Paris workers during the Commune and promptly revised his ideas. This fact has been obscured somewhat by Engels historical revisionism in this matter. In his 1891 introduction to Marx's "The Civil War in France", Engels painted a picture of Proudhon being opposed to association (except for large-scale industry) and stressed that "to combine all these associations in one great union" was "the direct opposite of the Proudhon doctrine" and so "the Commune was the grave of the Proudhon doctrine." [Selected Works, p. 256] However, as noted, this is nonsense. The forming of workers' associations and their federation was a key aspect of Proudhon's ideas and so the Communards were obviously acting in his spirit. Given that the Communist Manifesto stressed state ownership and failed to mention co-operatives at all, the claim that the Commune acted in its spirit seems a tad optimistic. He also argued that the "economic measures" of the Commune were driven not by "principles" but by "simple, practical needs." This meant that "the confiscation of shut-down factories and workshops and handing them over to workers' associations" were "not at all in accordance with the spirit of Proudhonism but certainly in accordance with the spirit of German scientific socialism"! This seems unlikely, given Proudhon's well known and long-standing advocacy of co-operatives as well as Marx's comment in 1866 that in France the workers ("particularly those of Paris"!) "are strongly attached, without knowing it [!], to the old rubbish" and that the "Parisian gentlemen had their heads full of the emptiest Proudhonist phrases." [Marx, Engels, Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 92, p. 46 and p. 45]
What did this "old rubbish" consist of? Well, in 1869 the delegate of the Parisian Construction Workers' Trade Union argued that "[a]ssociation of the different corporations [labour unions/associations] on the basis of town or country . . . leads to the commune of the future . . . Government is replaced by the assembled councils of the trade bodies, and by a committee of their respective delegates." In addition, "a local grouping which allows the workers in the same area to liase on a day to day basis" and "a linking up of the various localities, fields, regions, etc." (i.e., international trade or industrial union federations) would ensure that "labour organises for present and future by doing away with wage slavery." This "mode of organisation leads to the labour representation of the future." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 184]
To state the obvious, this had clear links with both Proudhon's ideas and what the Commune did in practice. Rather than being the "grave" of Proudhon's ideas on workers' associations, the Commune saw their birth, i.e. their application. Rather than the Parisian workers becoming Marxists without knowing it, Marx had become a follower of Proudhon! The idea of socialism being based on a federation of workers' associations was not buried with the Paris Commune. It was integrated into all forms of social anarchism (including communist-anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism) and recreated every time there is a social revolution.
In ending we must note that anarchists are well aware that individual workplaces could pursue aims at odds with the rest of society (to use Engels expression, their "particular interests"). This is often termed "localism." Anarchists, however, argue that the mainstream Marxist solution is worse than the problem. By placing self-managed workplaces under state control (or ownership) they become subject to even worse "particular interests," namely those of the state bureaucracy who will use their power to further their own interests. In contrast, anarchists advocate federations of self-managed workplaces to solve this problem. This is because the problem of "localism" and any other problems faced by a social revolution will be solved in the interests of the working class only if working class people solve them themselves. For this to happen it requires working class people to manage their own affairs directly and that implies self-managed organising from the bottom up (i.e. anarchism) rather than delegating power to a minority at the top, to a "revolutionary" party or state. This applies economically, socially and politically. As Bakunin argued, the "revolution should not only be made for the people's sake; it should also be made by the people." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 141] | <urn:uuid:ca3080e7-e1d3-472e-8489-9943cb640dda> | {
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- Learning to Forget
In China more people are on death row than the rest of the world combined. The children of the convicts are most often left alone, stigmatized and living in the streets. Some of the abandoned kids are picked up by an orphanage founded by a former prison guard that the children call Grandma Zhang. Here they learn to live a life without parents and prepare for a world outside where they have to prove the misconceptions about them wrong. We learn to understand the climate and the political issues of the Chinese system through Grandma Zhang, but the main stories of loss, shame, and hope are told through the children.
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We analyzed and compared the seismic activity that has occurred in the last two to three decades in three distinct volcanic areas: Phlegraean Fields, Italy; Vesuvius, Italy; and Long Valley, California. Our main goal is to identify and discuss common features and peculiarities in the temporal evolution of earthquake sequences that may reflect similarities and differences in the generating processes between these volcanic systems. In particular, we tried to characterize the time series of the number of events and of the seismic energy release in terms of stochastic, deterministic, and chaotic components. The time sequences from each area consist of thousands of earthquakes that allow a detailed quantitative analysis and comparison. The results obtained showed no evidence for either deterministic or chaotic components in the earthquake sequences in Long Valley caldera, which appears to be dominated by stochastic behavior. In contrast, earthquake sequences at Phlegrean Fields and Mount Vesuvius show a deterministic signal mainly consisting of a 24-hour periodicity. Our analysis suggests that the modulation in seismicity is in some way related to thermal diurnal processes, rather than luni-solar tidal effects. Independently from the process that generates these periodicities on the seismicity., it is suggested that the lack (or presence) of diurnal cycles is seismic swarms of volcanic areas could be closely linked to the presence (or lack) of magma motion.
Additional publication details
Common features and peculiarities of the seismic activity at Phlegraean Fields, Long Valley, and Vesuvius | <urn:uuid:81be61ba-afbf-43df-bff5-d8e5167e7dce> | {
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I once heard someone describe Yule as being half way out of the dark. I struggle without the warmth of the sun and the gentle kisses of its light on my skin. I crave and need that light, so for me Yule is one of the most joyous celebrations. This would be doubly true for the people for whom there was no such thing as the electric light. There is an ancient German custom of singing the sun up during the longest night. The Yule Log was lit, and the Yule hog, which has become the Christmas Ham, was served. Actually, many Pagan traditions have since become Christmas traditions.
"Two popular observances belonging to Christmas are more especially derived from the worship of our pagan ancestors—the hanging up of the mistletoe and the burning of the Yule log,” wrote Robert Chamber in his Book of Days (c. 1901).
The evergreens used for Christmas have Germanic as well as Roman influences. Saturnalia was a holiday at the time of the Solstice in which evergreen boughs were brought into the Roman home. The celebration would include masquerades in the streets, big festive meals, the visiting of friends, and the exchange of good-luck gifts called Strenae or lucky fruits. Masters and slaves would temporarily exchanging roles, which could be seen as a precursor to boxing day. The use of evergreens to decorate the streets and houses was also very noticeable during this great winter festival.
On the darkest night of the year, the winter solstice, we will gather in order to celebrate the rebirth of the Sun, as seen from societies of old. The rebirth of the great giver and sustainer of all earthly life, and the turning of the wheel of the year again. To paraphrase one of my favorite writers on the subject, if we did not celebrate the solstice, then the Sun would not rise again, and all we would have is a mere ball of flaming gas that would illuminate the world. | <urn:uuid:31115a17-8f22-4805-8ed1-a4cb46083051> | {
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Vapor-Liquid Data for Acetic Acid-Water Mixture: Effect of Gas Phase Dimerization
This Demonstration plots the vapor-liquid isobaric diagram and equilibrium curve at low to moderate pressures for a binary mixture of acetic acid and water.
Deviation from ideal behavior in the liquid phase is considered using the Wilson model. Gas-phase dimerization of acetic acid is also taken into account. The dimerization equilibrium constant was taken from G. Venimadhavan, M. Malone, and M. Doherty, "Bifurcation Study of Kinetic Effects in Reactive Distillation," AIChE Journal, 45(3), 1999 pp. 546–556:
, where is the temperature in Kelvins.
The bubble-point and dew-point curves are represented in red and green, respectively. The equilibrium curve is show in blue. | <urn:uuid:e3a572f1-4261-4abb-9562-9fb3436c97a1> | {
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Australian Pulse Industry
Pulses are relative new-comers in Australian cropping systems. Commercial production began in Kingaroy, Queensland with the production of navy beans to help feed the US troops nutritious and familiar food while they were based in Queensland during World War II. According to Bean Growers Australia, the first navy bean trials took place in the 1940s. Prior to this time many pulse crops were used as green manure and fodder crops because of the beneficial effect these crops have on the soil and their value as livestock feed. Since then the industry has grown significantly and pulses are being increasingly recognised for their role in sustainable and profitable production systems. While pulses are grown in all three major cropping regions in Australia, specific crops are better adapted to some regions.
The first fully domesticated Australian sweet lupin was developed in the late 1960s in Western Australia. Chickpea were first grown commercially near Goondiwindi, Queensland in the early 1970s. Mungbean was also first grown in Queensland in the 1970s. Commercial production of faba bean began in South Australia in the early 1980s and the lentil industry began in Victoria in the early 1990s.
Nationally, pulses average just under 10 per cent of the total area planted to crop however in favourable production areas they can occupy as much as 25% of the total crop area. When grown in rotation with cereals and oilseeds, pulses provide good returns, improve the soil condition, provide a break for important cereal diseases and reduce costs through their ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen for their own use and contributing additional nutrients to the following crop.
In 1990 total production amounted to only 1.3 million tonnes of pulses. The highest level of production to date occurred in 2005–06 when Australian growers produced over 2.5 million tonnes of pulse grain. In 2015, 1.8 million ha of pulse crops produced 2.2 million t of grain, worth A$1.2 billion in exports. The potential for the pulse crop in Australia, assuming all constraints are overcome, is to increase its current size to 4.2 million tonnes, with a commodity value of A$1.504 billion and a farm system benefit of A$538 million – a total of over A$2 billion.
The pulse industry in Australia has a mature value chain that provides stability and quality assurance from paddock to plate.
Australian farmers are increasingly incorporating pulse crops into their farming systems. Extensive information about growing each crop and the potential benefits within a cropping rotation can be found in the pulse crops section of this website.
Pulse Australia is a founding partner in Pulse Breeding Australia (PBA), an extensive network of plant breeders from all state governments and funded by the GRDC, dedicated to the development and testing of new pulse varieties.
The GRDC also funds researchers and grower groups as they investigate new agronomy practices and develop new food products using Australian grain.
Pulse Australia works with local, state and national bodies with an interest in the expansion and development of the Australian industry, including the oversight of the industry's grain standards.
A large number of grain marketing and trading businesses operate in Australia to facilitate both export shipments and domestic trade. There are also significant investments in pulse grain storage and logistics, processing and packaging.
The vast majority of the Australian pulse crop is exported to various markets around the world. | <urn:uuid:37ae6676-a9ca-449d-9330-e7392e7bd6c9> | {
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SummaryStudents learn how using spectrographs helps people understand the composition of light sources. Using simple materials including holographic diffraction gratings, students create and customize their own spectrographs—just like engineers. They gather data about different light sources, make comparisons between sources and theorize about their compositions. Before building spectrographs, students learn and apply several methods to identify and interpret patterns, specifically different ways of displaying visual spectra. They also use spectral data from the Cassini mission to Saturn and its moon, Titan, to determine the chemical composition of the planet's rings and its moon's atmosphere.
Spectrographs are used in ground-based telescopes and in space to help astronomers answer questions about what makes up the atmospheres of distant planets and stars. Engineers create these spectrographs to advance our knowledge of the universe. Spectrographs are designed very specifically to analyze certain types of light. The type of spectrograph materials used determines which spectral lines can be seen. Creating spectrographs to operate from space satellites is a special challenge, requiring the development of lightweight and durable materials and equipment that can withstand space travel.
More Curriculum Like This
Students use authentic spectral data from the Cassini mission of Saturn and Saturn's moon, Titan, gathered by instrumentation developed by engineers. Taking these unknown data, and comparing it with known data, students determine the chemical composition of Saturn's rings and Titan's atmosphere.
Students use the spectrographs from the "Building a Fancy Spectrograph" activity to gather data about light sources. Using their data, they make comparisons between different light sources and make conjectures about the composition of a mystery light source.
Students find and calculate the angle that light is transmitted through a holographic diffraction grating using trigonometry. After finding this angle, student teams design and build their own spectrographs, researching and designing a ground- or space-based mission using their creation.
Students explore the outermost planets of our solar system: Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. They also learn about characteristics of Pluto and its interactions with Neptune. Students learn a little about the history of space travel as well as the different technologies that engineers develop to make spa...
Each TeachEngineering lesson or activity is correlated to one or more K-12 science,
technology, engineering or math (STEM) educational standards.
All 100,000+ K-12 STEM standards covered in TeachEngineering are collected, maintained and packaged by the Achievement Standards Network (ASN),
a project of D2L (www.achievementstandards.org).
In the ASN, standards are hierarchically structured: first by source; e.g., by state; within source by type; e.g., science or mathematics;
within type by subtype, then by grade, etc.
Each TeachEngineering lesson or activity is correlated to one or more K-12 science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) educational standards.
All 100,000+ K-12 STEM standards covered in TeachEngineering are collected, maintained and packaged by the Achievement Standards Network (ASN), a project of D2L (www.achievementstandards.org).
In the ASN, standards are hierarchically structured: first by source; e.g., by state; within source by type; e.g., science or mathematics; within type by subtype, then by grade, etc.
We recommend this eight-activity middle school unit be conducted in the following order:
- Patterns and Fingerprints
- Graphing the Rainbow
- Using Spectral Data to Explore Saturn and Titan
- Building a Fancy Spectrograph
- Using a Fancy Spectrograph
- A Spectral Mystery
- Engineering Your Own Spectrograph
- Designing a Spectroscopy Mission (this last activity is suitable for grades 10-12)
Other Related Information
The holographic diffration gratings mentioned in the Summary are available online at many websites, including Edmund Scientifics and the Rainbow Symphony Store, for ~50 cents each.
A note about terminology: In creating the Spectroscopy curricular unit, the Project SPECTRA! program chose to use the term “spectrograph” (as opposed to spectroscope) for the engineering projects activities because a spectrograph is a tool used in spacecraft and modern telescopes, and Project SPECTRA! is an astronomy program. A spectrograph uses a detector, usually a CCD (a charge coupled device, similar to those used in digital cameras), to record the properties of light. Technically, in this unit, students build “spectroscopes,“ which are similar to spectrographs, however, instead of using a detector, the human eye directly observes the light within the scope or projected onto a screen. The primary difference between the two instruments is the method in which the light is detected. A spectrograph enables a person to observe light that cannot be seen with the eye (typically ultraviolet, infrared, and x-rays) because the detector records these wavelengths electronically, enabling the signals to be observed as plots or graphs. In this curricula, when students build their “space-worthy” spectrographs, we consider the students themselves to be the detectors, and leave to their instructors the option of providing students with more in-depth explanation.
ContributorsLaboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado Boulder
Copyright© 2007 by Regents of the University of Colorado
Supporting ProgramLaboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), University of Colorado Boulder
This digital library curricular content was developed with funding from Project SPECTRA!, a NASA-funded program.
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The yearly celebration born in the baby boomers' tumultuous youth is itself racking up a few candles: the 40th anniversary of Earth Day will be marked around the world on Thursday.
It's a firmly entrenched tradition in Orange County as well, with beach cleanups, nature tours, lectures and festivals, many of them meant to impart environmental messages to children.
But what was it like on the first Earth Day in Orange County?
Shirley Dettloff, a former Huntington Beach city councilwoman, was a young mother who had not yet begun what would turn into decades of environmental activism.
She remembers that something new was in the air in the Orange County of 1970.
"We were all just learning the word 'environmentalist,'" Dettloff said. "It was so new. I don't think anyone knew it would take on the scope that it took – that we would be having Earth Day celebrations every weekend in April, which we are."
Dettloff would go on, just a few years later, to become a founding member of Amigos de Bolsa Chica, a group dedicated to preserving the Bolsa Chica wetlands. Many years later, she saw her goal realized: the wetlands were purchased for preservation in 1997.
Retired Orange County park ranger Tom Maloney, then 15, remembers exactly what he was doing on Earth Day 1970: painting trash cans bright colors at Villa Park High School to battle a scourge of the time, littering.
Maloney's science teacher, Sophia Scheppe, got her students involved in several Earth Day projects around campus.
"We would take recycled paint and paint the trash cans more colorfully in order to draw attention to the trash cans, so the students wouldn't litter as much," he said. "It wasn't psychedelic. We didn't have fluourescent paint."
They also planted native flowers and built a pond for amphibians.
Biologist Elisabeth Brown thinks that was the year she attended an Earth Day celebration at the UCI.
She was a young graduate student at the time, and the celebration proved to be a turning point.
"That's the one where I met Jim Dilley," Brown said. "He had a table with a few others; he handed out materials about the green belt."
Dilley was, in fact, an early organizer of the group, Laguna Greenbelt. Brown is now its president.
And it's all because she happened to stop by Dilley's table.
"Little turnings end up being important," she said. "And you never know when you're making one of those little turnings."
Hank Wedaa, also an activist and political figure who lives in Yorba Linda, wasn't in Orange County, but remembers the day clearly. He'd taken a trip to New York, and attended the Earth Day festivities there.
Wedaa served for years on the South Coast Air Quality Management District board, some of the time as its chairman, and is a former Yorba Linda city councilman and mayor. He's also belonged to a variety of organizations pushing alternative fuels, such as hydrogen power, to reduce air pollution.
He moved to Yorba Linda in 1965 and, in 1970, took a break from his job – preparing environmental documents related to the Ontario Airport – for the trip to New York, where he found himself in the midst of the first Earth Day celebration.
"They had all these organizations interested in the environment spread up and down the street, mile after mile, like a big county fair," Wedaa said. "You could find whatever you wanted in that collection of people. People would support anything or detract from anything in those days in the environmental movement. It was very disparate, very uncoordinated, unfocused; as time went on, a lot of these very different organizations fell apart."
Today, he said, environmental groups are more tightly focused – and more effective.
"I think the environmental movement has a lot more credibility than it did in those days," he said.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:4e2dac57-58c5-457f-985f-6ca9970eeb21> | {
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Department of Horticulture
Patuakhali Science and Technology University
Course Title: Vegetable Production
Course Code: HRT 415, Credit: 3 (2+1)
Level- 4, Semester- 1
General Aspects of Vegetable Growing in Bangladesh: Background, present status, problems, scope, and importance in dietary and economic value
Classification and Nomenclature of Vegetables: Origin, distribution, classification and growth habit
Soil and Climatic Requirements in Vegetable Production: Soil, temperature, light, air, water, rainfall and humidity
Propagation and Planting Methods: Types, different methods with merits and demerits
Principles and Practices of Vegetable Growing: Land preparation, spacing, irrigation, manures and fertilizers, inter tillage, gap filling, weeding, mulching, thinning, pest and disease control, harvesting, crop rotation and multiple cropping
Production Technology of the Following Vegetable Crops: Potato, tomato, brinjal, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce, sweet gourd, cucumber, pointed gourd, aroids, sweet potato, lady's finger, carrot, mushroom
Post-harvest Management of Vegetables: Processing, grading, storing, packaging and marketing of different vegetables in Bangladesh
01. Identification of vegetables, vegetable seeds and seedlings
02. Computing manures and fertilizers for vegetables cultivation
03. Computing seed rates in vegetable production
04. Practicing intercultural operations in vegetable cultivation
05. Preparation of seedbed and raising of vegetable seedlings
06. Methods of planting vegetable crops
07. Field layout and cultivation of vegetables in plot
08. Visit to a vegetable producing and processing farm
09. Morphological study of vegetable crops
10. Vegetable seedling evaluation test
11. Determination of cost benefit ratio of potato, tomato and cabbage
12. Extraction and processing of tomato, brinjal and bottle gourd seeds
13. Grading and packaging of vegetables
01. S. P. Singh. 1997. Principles of Vegetable Production. Mrs. Geeta Somani. Agrotech. Publishing Academy, Udaypur, India.
02. I. P. Mathew and S. K. Karikari. 1986. Horticulture: Principles and Practices. Macmillian Intermediate Agriculture Series, America.
03. K. G. Shanmugavelu. 1989. Production Technology of Vegetable Crops. Oxford and IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd. NewDelhi, India.
04. P. Work and J. Carew. 1970. Vegetable Production and Marketing. Willey Eastern Pvt. Ltd. , NewDelhi, India.
05. T. K. Bose and M. G. Som. 1986. Vegetable Crops in India. Naya Prokash, Calcutta, India.
06. H. C. Thompson and W. C. Kelly. 1983. Vegetable Crops. Tata Mc Graw-Hill Publishing Co. Ltd., NewDelhi, India.
07. M. M. Rashid. 1999. Sabjii Bigyan. Bangla Academy, Dhaka.
08. D. K. Salunkhe; B. B. Desai and N. R. Bahat. 1987. Vegetable and Flower Seed Production. Agrocole Publishing Academy, Calcutta, India.
09. Anonymous. 1995. Winter Vegetables and Spices Production. Hort. Res. & Dev. Project, FAO/UNDP, DAE/BADC, Dhaka.
10. M. M. Hussain. 1995. Seed Production and Storage Technology. Meer Imtiaz Hossain; Dhaka.
11. A. F. M. Sharfuddin and M. A. Siddique. 1985. Shabji Biggan. Hasina Akter Beauty, BAU Campur, Mymensingh. | <urn:uuid:80a7c135-d52d-4d8b-9d13-4a9f46161d3c> | {
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Despite what many on the right think, however, [inequality] is a problem for everybody, not just those who are doing poorly or those who are ideologically committed to egalitarianism -- because if left unaddressed, rising inequality and economic insecurity can erode social order and generate a populist backlash against the capitalist system at large.
|(click to enlarge)|
110. Czech Republic
Hereditary endowments come in a variety of forms: genetics, prenatal and postnatal nurture, and the cultural orientations conveyed within the family. Money matters, too, of course, but is often less significant than these largely nonmonetary factors. (The prevalence of books in a household is a better predictor of higher test scores than family income.) Over time, to the extent that societies are organized along meritocratic lines, family endowments and market rewards will tend to converge.
Educated parents tend to invest more time and energy in child care, even when both parents are engaged in the work force. And families strong in human capital are more likely to make fruitful use of the improved means of cultivation that contemporary capitalism offers (such as the potential for online enrichment) while resisting their potential snares (such as unrestricted viewing of television and playing of computer games).
Those western European nations (and especially northern European nations) with much higher levels of equality than the United States tend to have more ethnically homogeneous populations. As recent waves of immigration have made many advanced post industrial societies less ethnically homogeneous, they also seem to be increasingly stratifying along communal lines, with some immigrant groups exhibiting more favorable patterns than the preexisting population and other groups doing worse.
In the United Kingdom, for example, the children of Chinese and Indian immigrants tend do better than the indigenous population, whereas those of Caribbean blacks and Pakistanis tend to do worse. In France, the descendants of Vietnamese tend to do better, and those of North African origin tend to do worse. In Israel, the children of Russian immigrants tend to do better, while those of immigrants from Ethiopia tend to do worse. In Canada, the children of Chinese and Indians tend to do better, while those of Caribbean and Latin American origin tend to do worse.
Much of this divergence in achievement can be explained by the differing class and educational backgrounds of the immigrant groups in their countries of origin. But because the communities themselves act as carriers and incubators of human capital, the patterns can and do persist over time and place.
In the case of the United States, immigration plays an even larger role in exacerbating inequality, for the country's economic dynamism, cultural openness, and geographic position tend to attract both some of world's best and brightest and some of its least educated. This raises the top and lowers the bottom of the economic ladder.
- That two of the most significant factors cited by Muller which promote inequality are parenting and ethnicity/culture is instructive. This suggests that much of the explanation for inequality lies not in systemic problems, but rather individuals and the choices they make.
- If inequality really is the first order, dire threat the left commonly claims it to be, leftists should also be leading the charge for restrictions to be placed on unskilled immigration, such as from Latin America. After all, fewer poor immigrants means fewer poor people which in turn means less inequality. Along similar lines, another logical initiative would be to encourage poor people to have fewer or no children (arguably this is already the case given leftist support for abortion and "free" birth control via health insurance, although neither is explicitly or exclusively aimed at the poor). | <urn:uuid:baf2c46d-6a30-4558-bfb3-86eccc5e02b7> | {
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Check it out!
I just moved the games on the Thinking Skills Club website to bpuzzle.ca (because of the Brain Puzzles used to track student progress and because I'm in Canada) to make it easier to type into the address bar.
Check it out!
SimCityEdu is a new version of the popular game for schools. Students manipulate variables that affect a city's growth, and see the results of their decisions evolve before their eyes.
Cognitive Scientist Andy Clark suggests in his book, Natural Born Cyborgs, that SimCity may be good for learning about emergent complex systems, including our own brains:
"gently manipulating a few variables, such as zoning and land prices, you may be able to bring about some effect, for example, to encourage the building of a new shopping mall. The domino effects here will surprise you, as new ghettos and high crime areas emerge in its wake. The bigger the city, the more complex the interactions. The skill of “growing” a thriving, happy city is precisely the skill of embracing co-control. It is the skill of respecting the flow, while subtly encouraging the stream in some desired direction.
"StarLogo, SimCity, and its recent companion “The Sims” are designer environments that can help biological brains learn to get to grips with decentralized emergent order. They can help us develop skills for understanding those peculiar kinds of complex systems of which we ourselves are one striking instance. Experience with such tools should be compulsory elements in our educational practice."
My weekly cartoon on Chalkes at Edreach.us. Interesting link re: robograding
The following poem is by a 14 year old girl named Rylie who has synesthesia, a quirk of the brain in which she sees colours attached to numbers and names and also has physical sensations about things like food.
There is research that says we all have this kind of experience as infants or in the womb when the thalamus, the place where information from different senses is processed and sorted in our heads, is being formed, and for some people it continues in various forms throughout their lives.
It can be an advantage (seeing numbers in colours can make them easier to recall) or not (people don't understand you, the sensations can be overpowering sometimes). For more information about synesthesia check Wikipedia.
Rylie VanOrsdol is currently a sophomore in college with a 4.0 and will start college at age 15.
Michael Schneider, says, “Mathematics is a way to read the world of nature and technology around us. If a teacher can convey this, the entire world becomes an exciting textbook.”
Nicely put, but that's a big IF.
This week's Chalkles cartoon (Edreach.us) illustrates the way school districts are committing themselves through purchasing to single, mostly opposing operating environments. The third player not included here is Samsung, who is distributing tablets with built in curricula and classroom management. Windows and the low coat Aakath tablet are other vendors vying for this market. It shows to an extent how technology is not only entering but commercializing the classroom. How much is educational improvement and how much is brand imprinting strategy? And do we care as long as the result is awesome?
From our recent press release:
The Thinking Skills Club, an innovative school club where kids play computer games that develop learning capacity, is showing up in a variety of settings this Fall:
For full press release see http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11252753.htm
This is my son's brain.
On my website, tskillsclub.com (an uninspired name if there ever was one--where are those marketing people when you need them?), it shows he's beaten:
The EF game is Bad Ice Cream. He had to get to level 15. It's very challenging, and I'm very proud. The graphic is supposed to show his progress through the site and also the balance of functionality in his cranium. He has a terrific memory, I'll have to get him to do some memory games to show it. He could use more focus; I'll try to get him to do Ping Pong 3D (he's great at ping pong in real life, and can actually focus really well when he wants to (which isn't always when others, esp. adults, want him to)). I should also get him over to the Processing Speed section to fill that up, he plays piano at home. He might have won some games he didn't claim for, but he does play some of the same games over and over. I think he's won more than one piece in a column, which doesn't register. I'll have to pay closer attention myself.
We had a session of the club yesterday at his school, 13 kids showed up (max. is 20). I was disappointed not to see any Grades 5 and 6's there, I'll have to talk to the principal. This was the first time I'd tried online registration and payment, and only half of the kids who came were paid up. Two weren't actually supposed to be there, their mom was looking for them all over. I'm thinking of running it as a drop in, $10 a visit (one of the kids who did register was sick).
I think it's hard for parents or a school to evaluate the club without having seen it in action. That's why I made a video two years ago, when the club was at its height, but it's only had under 200 views even though it's on the front page of my website (it doesn't run automatically, Weebly doesn't have that option). It's really perfect for public schools, because it's easy for a teacher to run, but here in Toronto, at least at our school, the teachers don't lead a lot of after school activities and they don't seem to be something the school really promotes or values. I've started calling private schools (should have started in September) and there seems to be some potential there but who knows. There were Boys and Girls clubs expressing great interest last Fall, but none of them came through due to budgets and key people being unable to sell it to higher ups.
I'll keep promoting it to the private schools and take it to the Learning and the Brain conference in Boston in November, people who actually see it get excited and some of them ought to be able to start new clubs this year. Really, if a teacher wants to do it they can start right away. Call it a computer game club if that gets more kids interested. It's so easy and I think so potentially beneficial, I'm really stumped that more people haven't glommed onto it by this point.
I think I'll promote the docu-style video on Youtube. I didn't before because I didn't think people would sit through it, but at least it could be inspiring.
Oh, and there are also no subscribers to this blog, which I used to write and promote more frequently. Blogs started as online diaries, not "10 Ways To Crimp Your Hair" lists and infographics. We are living in such commercial times, Twitter has turned everyone into a salesman. Charles Schultz would have a fit. | <urn:uuid:55d123cd-e886-48ad-81e2-ff6f96901bfa> | {
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(LifeScript Health News) Arthritis is the most common cause of disability, according to a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 48 million Americans suffer from arthritis, an increase of 1 million compared to a year ago. The number of arthritis sufferers will climb 40% by 2030 due to an aging baby-boomer population, says the Arthritis Foundation.
The report also found that women are more likely to cite arthritis as the cause of their disability (6.4 million women compared to 2.2 million men.)
Arthritis is a disorder in which the joints are inflamed. There are more than 100 types of arthritis, including rheumatoid arthritis (resulting from an overactive immune system) and osteoarthritis (resulting from the breakdown of cartilage). Symptoms of arthritis include joint stiffness, swelling, redness and warmth. The condition can be painful and debilitating, and may cause irreversible damage, such as joint destruction and deformity. Treatments include physical therapy, splinting, prescription and non-prescription medication, and surgical operations.
The study was published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
See All Health Alerts
Check out Health Bistro, where LifeScript editors let it all hang out. Share it with your friends (it’s free to sign up!), and bookmark it so you don’t miss a single juicy post! | <urn:uuid:bd13093a-9258-4d1f-a541-bd7dcb6b8d20> | {
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|Authors: ||D. Havkin-Frenkel, J.C. French, N.M. Graft, F.E. Pak, C. Frenkel, D.M. Joel|
The fruit of the climbing orchid Vanilla planifolia (vanilla bean) is used for the commercial production of the prized vanilla flavor, consisting of vanillin and other numerous flavor compounds, with the use of a curing process.
However, present curing methods yield only a fraction of the vanilla flavor from flavor precursors in green beans.
Studies on the botany of vanilla beans revealed that flavor precursors are found in the bean interior, where they are secreted onto the placental region around the seeds, whereas hydrolytic or other degradative enzymes, which catalyze the release of the flavor precursors to flavor compounds, are localized mostly in the outer fruit wall region.
This insight suggests that the objective of killing, the first curing stage carried out by hot water scalding, freezing or by other methods, is to disorganize the bean tissue, such that contact is created between substrates and their respective enzymes.
Sweating, a subsequent step in curing, entailing high temperatures (usually around 45° to 65° C) and high humidity, provides conditions for enzyme-catalyzed production of flavor compounds and also for non-enzymatic reactions.
The objective of the final curing steps, including drying and conditioning, is to dry the cured beans to preserve the formed flavor compounds.
Further understanding on the botany and curing of the vanilla bean may render a full recovery of flavor from the flavor precursors in vanilla beans and, subsequently, significant economic gains.
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software to read PDF files) | <urn:uuid:26796335-02f0-4a19-b4e4-b103806d2c3f> | {
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Wetlands such as rivers, streams, swamps, lakes, and estuaries play a critical role in supplying and regulating water quantity and quality. Conserving and restoring this natural water infrastructure is a cost-effective investment strategy to increase water security for vulnerable cities and rural communities.
We all depend on water – people, business and ecosystems. At the same time, people and business also impact water, creating problems of water scarcity, excessive floods and pollution. We use it, waste it and degrade it without realising its true value.
Growing demand and competition for freshwater for human consumption, food and energy production will be one of the biggest global challenges - environmental, economic, security - as scarcity increases in the coming years. Wetlands and other aquatic ecosystems are rapidly being degraded as a result.
What we do
Wisely using wetlands is essential for delivering water security solutions and sustainable water management. Wetlands provide natural water infrastructure that delivers a wider range of services and benefits than corresponding manmade infrastructure such as dams and dykes. Wetlands provide food and water, reduce flood risk and drought by regulating the water cycle and increase resilience to storms in deltas and coastal areas.
We protect, restore and demonstrate the cost-effective management of wetlands as natural water infrastructure around the world. We work to: | <urn:uuid:9d892124-95c0-4ce2-b294-c8fa87e26328> | {
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A Conservation Network for Orchids from French Guiana
Volume 2 Number 5 - August 1995
In January 1994, the floodgates of the dam at Petit Saut, built on the Sinnamary river in French Guiana, were closed to start the flooding necessary to provide power for the area. The result is that over 300 km of forest are now covered with water.
In September 1993, orchid enthusiasts collected a few hundred plants from the area. During a second expedition, when the level of the water was twenty metres higher with access to all the levels of the canopy, 2,500 orchids and 800 plants representing other epiphytic families (Araceae, Bromeliaceae, Filicinae, etc.) were collected.
To ensure the conservation of this plant material and plants collected by members of another society, a network of both amateurs and professionals was set up by the orchid society, Association Francaise Culture et Protection Orchidees (AFCPO).
Aims and Prospects
The first aim of the network was to rescue the wild genetic material. Each organization in the network was given enough individuals of a species to represent the biodiversity of the natural population. In this way, the genetic variability of the original plant population would be maintained. As the variation in the prospective area is relative homogenous, we decided that fifty specimens were sufficient to satisfy this criterion.
The second aim is to artificially propagate different species and offer them to orchid amateurs, thus helping to ease the pressure on wild populations.
The third aim is to help orchid enthusiasts learn about conservation problems.
Professional organisations were not able to make the salvage operation a priority or provide long-term storage for thousands of plants. Voluntary orchid enthusiasts were able to organize a rescue operation but again could not - as individuals or a group - provide long-term storage. Distributing the collected plants between several professional and voluntary organizations, made the keeping of this collection feasible at a low cost for all concerned. This was a task that could be carried out by amateurs.
Today, there are eight organizations which belong to our network. They had several motives - first was the concern for the conservation of the flora and second, it was an opportunity for some organizations to acquire a large number of orchids and other epiphytes, with the aim of creating specialized plant collections. For example, the botanic gardens of Besancon were given all the species of the sub-tribe Gongorinae (Orchidaceae) and the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris received the collection of Maxillaria. Educational opportunities were also important for botanic gardens to illustrate biodiversity and the necessity of preserving it.
Apart from these major organizations, we have three complementary members: Guy Joulin, from the "Les Cedres" garden in St Jean-Cap-Ferrat, where many orchids from Guiana are already in cultivation, the "Fort d'Emeraude" society (Emerald Forest), which specializes in the conservation of plants from Amazonia and AFCPO which has created an internal conservation network which consists of voluntary orchid enthusiasts with greenhouses and the necessary equipment.
The amateurs were given species with few plants because they have less space and the large populations were divided into 2 or 3 lots. For example, the 178 plants of Rodriguezia lanceolata Ruiz and Pavon were divided into three lots. The largest was given to the cultivation unit of the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN), Paris and the other two were entrusted to Guy Joulin and the "Fort d'Emeraude".
Size of plant was also important, the Conservatoire national de Nancy could offer more space than AFCPO members who were entrusted with miniature plants with small flowers such as Jacquiniella globosa (Jacquin) Schltr. or Reichenbachanthus reflexus (Lindl.) Brade (see Table). The other epiphytic families are less well represented as they were less familiar to the collectors. The bromeliads and cacti, were given to the MNHN in Paris and the remaining plants (Araceae, Columnea, Ficus, ferns) were given to the Conservatoire National de Nancy.
The Management of the Collection
The management of such a collection is complicated because it is allotted to different organizations. It is essential to record all information about the plants; their status and horticultural and propagation details in order to monitor the work done. Considering the constraints of professional organizations, only amateurs had the resources to accomplish this task. The AFCPO has taken charge of this aspect, concentrating its efforts on three points:
An annual survey in April of each collection will include the numbers of each batch after death or division, verification of the plant name, observations on the growth (health, flowering, pollinating) with extra comments from the grower.
The field data consists of the date and number (which gives the location and preliminary identification). The central register is updated as the accessions are re-identified; members being responsible for the collections in their care. Members are encouraged to take a sharp photograph of the plant and its inflorescence and preserve the flowers in spirit.
The aim is to propagate the population groups we have in care. With these critically small population sizes meticulous records must be made of the crosses made between each individual plant. This is to monitor genetic drift in the subsequent generations. Hopefully each lot will be as rich as the original wild batch but the genetic composition of the population is bound to be modified. These new lots will be distributed to other botanic gardens to increase the chances of conservation of the biodiversity they represent.
Obviously each network member can sow the seeds produced by their collection. The AFCPO will use the extra seed for propagation and batches of plantlets will be presented to different botanic gardens with which we have links and a number of these plantlets will be on sale to orchid enthusiasts. This will help limit the pressure of collecting on wild populations. Naturally, as our resources and our manpower are limited, we will set priorities for propagation, based on the rarity of each species and the threat in the wild.
The first part of our conservation project (collecting, setting up of a network, distribution) is now over. During this phase we have shown that amateurs are able to run such a project. This can only be beneficial for communication between professionals and amateurs and so for conservation. We now have to manage our "shared collection" and a controlled propagation programme.
Other societies involved are the "Orchides et Plantes Epiphytes d'Aquitaine" from Bordeaux which took part in our first field-trip, "Orchides 95" from Paris which organized two trips to the site of Petit Saut. The plants collected on the first trip were distributed within the network, the orchids collected on the second trip were shared between the botanic gardens of Caen and Montpellier. Finally, "Fort d'Emeraude" is taking part in the collective work of conservation of the collection. All this may seem but a modest effort. It is nevertheless contributing to the realization by amateurs of the role they can and must play in the domain of the protection of the flora. | <urn:uuid:a337dcce-d4b3-4dbe-9ab8-c6ab777e924b> | {
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Rethinking the Agenda for Democratic Schooling
Equality: A Principle of Democratic Education
For the general public, recent debate about public schooling expresses a rising fear about declining school performance and, perhaps more basically, fear about the future for youths in our society. This concern seems a natural product of recurring economic and social insecurity. The country is in the midst of profound structural shifts in technology, in job and income distribution, in family life, and in government commitments. These shifts intensify existing inequities and threaten familiar patterns of individual mobility and community cohesion.
Yet, the debate also expresses hope. People turn to the schools as a social tool, one of the few institutions that are both public and local, for adapting to new demands and for protecting the coming generation. But underlying the impulses to fear and hope is an unspoken tension between priorities for school change. We see this as a tension between two divergent goals for public education: a desire for schools to serve the competitive demands of a stratified society, and the desire for schools to play a socially integrative and democratic role, serving the right of all children to develop to their fullest potential.
Some people do not see these as incompatible functions; others deny that they require different kinds of schooling. Yet, choices are being made, and in the current wave of school reform, democratic values of education have not been the central concern.
Clearly, we feel that democratic concepts of schooling should govern the direction of change and, in particular, that the massive school failure experienced in low-income communities should be of primary concern. We believe that schools belong to citizens, not as clients but as owners of a public institution. And we believe that equality and participation in the educational process are essential conditions of educational excellence. But we are also aware that our beliefs require a much firmer vision of what constitutes quality schooling, and what is necessary to make quality a universal commitment, than has emerged in the debate thus far. The agenda for democratic schooling will itself be incomplete until a more active and cohesive citizens' movement develops in education. What we propose are ways of viewing the options that help break through the polarities of equity and excellence and move beyond the limits of past reform or present reaction.
Most current reform initiatives can be framed in ways that either support or undermine the spirit of democratic schooling. For the most part, today's popular reforms are put forward as universally beneficial panaceas, while in practice they function as elitist prescriptions. Struggles around reform designs can alter this direction and change the focus of public concern. If the first round of school reform in the 1980's has gone to the new elitists, the coming rounds may well be more contested.
The excerpt that follows is from Choosing Equality, the final report of a two-year project, by The New World Foundation, to advance equity issues and democratic values in the national debate over public-school reform.
The book argues that the front-line constituencies of education are parents, students, classroom teachers, support staffs, local school administrators, and community members, including youths and education-advocacy groups. They are necessary resources for school improvement; they are also necessary agents of change in a system that is increasingly distant from those it serves. This excerpt centers discussion on the empowerment of parents, because this constituency represents one of the most independent variables in the school-change equation.
Involving parents in the school life of their children and in education as a public institution is not a new idea for school improvement. In principle at least, the elected school-board and parent-teacher-association systems were constructed in recognition of parents' legitimate rights of consultation and their important support role in the education process. However, the parent role has been auxiliary and advisory, at best. Most typically, parent involvement is a token formality in both school governance and in the classroom.
Nonetheless, the benefits of parent participation are manifold. A number of recent studies show that active parent involvement in schooling is a consistent correlate of improved school performance and improved school climate.
With the decline of civil-rights activism in the 1970's, widespread parent activism in urban, minority communities became more sporadic. The legacy of earlier organizing and recent battles over school-funding cuts have spurred a number of local efforts to improve distressed urban schools, but without the context of an overarching social movement. In the absence of broader social activism, the intrinsic barriers to participation are more sharply felt. School-advocacy organizations have identified these general problems:
- The majority of parents face consuming pressures of economic survival and family maintenance. For the poor, these pressures on time, energy, and income can be overwhelming. The need for both parents to work, the extraordinary burden on women heads of household, even the expense of child care and travel to attend school meetings are real factors limiting parent inclinations to activism.
- Parents are often intimidated by cultural distances between themselves and school professionals. School practices are justified by educators who claim an expertise that working-class and poor parents cannot match. Professional elitism fosters the perception of parents as an intrusion rather than a resource. It is ironic that those whom the schools have most failed are considered the least qualified to speak on educational defects. The gap is reinforced when school personnel are not indigenous to the school community. In New York City, for example, 70 percent of public-school students are members of minorities, but 75 percent of the administrative and teaching staffs are not.
- Parents are often uncertain about who is responsible for school failure. Professional mystification frequently carries the implicit message that parents are to blame for their children's underachievement or alienated attitudes toward school. Parents may well reciprocate by holding teachers solely responsible for deficient school performance. An interlocking cycle of blame develops and, with it, a pervasive negativism that discourages interaction and cooperation.
- Parents lack clarity about what would improve the schools, which may reflect confusion among professionals as well. The absence of programmatic approaches to school improvement tends to isolate single issues, such as discipline, and tends to focus concern on the most tangible items, such as building repair. Qualitative-learning issues that involve multiple and interrelated factors seem difficult to address with concrete recommendations.
- Parents are shut out of the school-governance process. The existing participatory mechanisms do not provide genuine authority over key aspects of school management, such as budget and personnel, and are often controlled by professionals. Beyond the local school, the bureaucratic structures of education also pose formidable barriers. The complexity of the apparatus is inhibiting enough, but there is also a politics behind it. The centers of decisionmaking are systematically distanced from the local school, the level at which parents can most readily organize and sustain influence. It should not be surprising that parent disaffection is as often the expression of realism as of apathy.
Overwhelming as these barriers to parent involvement appear, there are signs that parent activism is reviving, particularly in the elementary schools. Parent-teacher organizations report that membership is at its highest levels since the early 1970's; the number of parents working as volunteers in schools doubled in 10 years, to around 5 million in 1980.
Nonetheless, while barriers to participation remain high for working parents and single parents and for poor and under-educated parents, successful efforts to stimulate and support their activism suggest that avenues for more widescale participatory reform can be opened.
Fiscal crises and the deterioration of urban school systems have prompted the formation of several impressive public coalitions around the country, acting as political-pressure groups and cultivating active parent constituencies. Such groups include the Philadelphia Parents Union for Public Schools, New York's Educational Priorities Panel, New Jersey's Institute for Citizen Involvement in Education, and the Chicago Citizens Panel on School Finance.
Many of these groups have moved beyond fiscal issues to address school-improvement needs, including parent involvement, curriculum development, and supportive services. The Philadelphia Parents Union has initiated a three-year parent-workshop program, reaching 3,000 public-school families, to ensure that new curricular, testing, and disciplinary standards are implemented to increase access, equity, and parent participation.
There is a wide range of concerns that stimulates parent organizing, apart from critical funding and instructional issues. A unique parent-organizing campaign, the Asbestos in School Project, has developed in New Jersey to remove asbestos hazards from school buildings. In the process, parents have challenged school-budget controls, designed state legislation, and sparked other parent groups to organize on the asbestos danger nationally.
Low-income parents have responded to the weakening of earlier Title I guidelines for parent involvement, which included explicit requirements for parent participation, consultation, and training through Parent Advisory Councils. Spearheaded by the national Title I/Chapter 1 Parent Coalition and state affiliates, parent activists are looking to both Congress and the states to restore the councils' strong mandates.
These programs provide clearly defined roles for parents, and work to implement participatory school-based management systems in low-income communities.
Campaigns for school accountability, when they engage and inform parents in a genuine attempt at reform, show that barriers to participation can be transcended and that a sophisticated and resilient core of local school activists can be formed. Through sustained organizing, parents can overcome intimidation and self-blame, can offer constructive criticism and assistance, can focus on issues that are central to improvement, and can create participatory vehicles.
The key, however, is generating a parallel institutional commitment to reform that recognizes the citizenship rights of parents in shaping school change. Such institutional commitment must include openness to structural reform in the policymaking and administrative process, so that parents become an established element of school authority. Parent involvement is most decisively discouraged when it does not make a difference. The incentives for parent participation do not arise out of moral or civic duties, but because children's well-being is at stake and because real possibilities exist to influence the outcome in an ongoing way.
Several structural approaches to promote parent empowerment have been raised or revived in the national school debate. Here we address an idea that has become more widely fashionable in school-policy circles: the concept of parent (and student) choice exercised through optional enrollment or voucher systems.
There is a growing call to restructure schools to compete for enrollments on the basis of performance and specialized programs. Given the vigor with which optional enrollment and voucher concepts are being espoused, it is important to clarify the different forms they take, as well as the dangers and potentials they represent in practice.
First, there can be no mistaking that the voucher programs advocated by the right, including the Reagan Administration's 1985 TEACH proposal, are designed to promote public funding of private education and the eventual displacement of public education. This intent was explicitly expressed in a fall 1985 commentary in the Heritage Foundation's Education Update, which urged Christian educators to support the TEACH initiative. The article states: "Americans interested in educational reform need to pursue the dual strategy of deregulation and educational choice. The Chapter 1 voucher, if passed, surely will be the forerunner of a much more I fundamental and comprehensive move to restructure the U.S. educational system through a general voucher. Therefore, steps must be taken to reduce the threat of regulation accompanying a voucher program."
Clearly, the ultra-conservative version of vouchers is directed by the broader policy goal of divesting government services in favor of the private sector, including, in the case of education, religious institutions. At stake is not only the viability of public-school services but, as these conservatives note, the public's capacity to regulate its investment in education.
By eroding or dismantling coherent public- school systems, by dispersing enrollments and atomizing parents into individual consumers, such voucher systems provide ample opportunity both to undermine community accountability and to circumvent mandates protecting both civil and equity rights. This danger is heightened by the Supreme Court's retreat on civil- rights enforcement, from the Bakke decision to the Grove City decision. Grove City bans discriminatory practices only in the specific program or department that receives federal funds, regardless of the discriminatory practices of the institution as a whole. The Reagan Administration goes further by claiming that vouchers, since given to parents, do not even qualify as federal funding to institutions.
When vouchers are proposed entirely within the public-education system, they present somewhat different potentials, although a parallel set of concerns. One immediate concern is that public voucher plans clear the path for extending vouchers into private schooling. This is certainly one motive behind conservative support for the choice movement in public schools. Yet, if we set aside this political consideration, what are the positive and negative arguments for public-school voucher plans?
Public-school vouchers are intended to encourage wider educational options and allow parents and students to vote with their feet on the ability of individual schools to meet standards and expectations.
In theory, this voucher concept endorses the expansion of alternative approaches and the flexibility of the system to meet the diverse needs it encompasses. Schools that do not suit a significant level of parent/student preferences or do not live up to their program goals would be faced with declining enrollments, not just declining test scores. Presumably, the result would be a mix of decent schools, from the traditional neighborhood school to the curriculum-specialized school to the pedagogically specialized school--and poorly functioning schools would simply go out of business.
But the theory of the open market is not the same as its practice. Where conditions throughout a school district are fairly equivalent, where populations are homogeneous and transportation feasible, it is possible that local schools will have equal resources to develop responsive programs and that students will have even chances of selecting an appropriate enrollment. Yet, apart from some suburban school districts, most systems start with wide differentials between schools and between students.
Enrollment options may compound these differentials by creaming the best-prepared students into limited, select institutions--leaving only undesirable and neglected schools for disadvantaged students to choose among. Choices in the school marketplace can end up as they do in the economic marketplace, where low-income consumers are free to live in tenements, free to pay higher prices in ghetto stores, free to compete for too few jobs, but not free or welcome to live somewhere else.
The New York City experience with specialized high schools, often called magnet schools, illustrates the double-edged potentials of optional enrollment systems. In New York, where magnet schools draw enrollment across the city through competitive admissions, a four-tiered structure has emerged that puts the comprehensive neighborhood high school in serious jeopardy.
The top-ranked academic high schools cream the most achieving and advantaged students out of the local schools. A second level of specialized theme schools, and a third level of vocational high schools, cater to the middle range of students and also draw off teaching resources in a particular field. What is left at the bottom is the neighborhood high school, with a restricted basic curriculum, the highest concentration of disadvantaged and poorly prepared students, and the most hard-pressed teachers.
Many of New York City's neighborhood high schools are little different today from the child warehouses faced by immigrants in the past, only now the students are overwhelmingly black and Latino. Counseling and preparation for high-school selection and entry are grossly deficient in the intermediate schools, so that students without independent resources cannot exercise meaningful or informed choices.
The New York City example suggests that an optional-enrollment system that does not equalize resources, mandate open admissions and retention, expand guidance services for parents and students, and simultaneously upgrade the quality of comprehensive schools can become another mechanism for stratification and segregation.
Geographic scope is an essential consideration in optional-enrollment or voucher systems. For the danger that voucherized schooling will be less accessible and responsive to parents and communities exists in public-school-option designs as well as in those that apply to private education. Parent choices about the education of their children should not begin and end with the selection of the school; and community accountability is not satisfied solely by parent choice. Some public voucher proposals advocate that competitive-enrollment systems be established over wide areas, even statewide.
In such dispersed systems, disadvantaged children and parents will typically be the ones to travel and bear the costs of choice. Disadvantaged communities, particularly inner cities and rural townships, may well lose their local school institutions. Working parents, taxpayers, and citizens will be further removed from the practical conduct of the school, concentrating greater control in the hands of school professionals and state administrators. Some schools may gain from a community of purpose, but there is also a community of people, a social and civic life, that schools should be rooted within and draw upon. We do not need to make schools worlds unto themselves to make them better; we need, in fact, to open schooling to the world that is shaping children and families.
Clearly, diverse school environments can benefit students, as demonstrated by the success of many alternative schools, and alternative programs within schools, over the past decade. Clearly, voluntary options in school and program assignments, for teachers as well as parents and students, can increase motivation and engagement. Clearly, the reconstruction of enrollment patterns across heterogeneous socioeconomic and racial groups can promote equity and opportunity.
Yet, public voucher systems and magnet schools are not, in themselves, sufficient strategies for meeting these goals or for fostering school improvement. Where optional-enrollment systems function as open markets with scarce resources, elitist sorting processes will prevail; students will not participate equally in selecting schools and schools will not function equitably in selecting students. However, where enrollment options are part of a larger commitment to enrich disadvantaged schools, to accommodate all varieties of need, and to stimulate community access, they may well enhance innovation, involvement, and meaningful choice.
Voucher concepts confined to public schooling can thus be vehicles for either divestiture or diversity, and the politics of schooling, not the ab tract merits of choice, will determine which. In today's context, where meritocratic concepts prevail and educational stratification is accelerating, public-school vouchers must be closely scrutinized for their impacts on equity, civic accountability, and community integrity.
Moreover, the present politics of schooling mean that we cannot disregard the privatization agenda of the right-wing choice movement and its vision of the educational marketplace. The fact that vouchers, public or private, have become their opening wedge for the deregulation and atomization of public commitments to education must weigh heavily in the debate. If we have learned anything from 20 years of school reform, it is that influence over the implementation of social policy counts far more than good intentions.
Vol. 06, Issue 19, Pages 22, 28 | <urn:uuid:829c89d4-3ac9-4d9c-af02-ca155e86587a> | {
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— [http://goo.gl/JMNr6i] Action research to improve student learning and_______________________Spanish pedagogy!
This method of engaging students with comprehensible input, TPRS, is powerful. Storytelling is a revolutionary approach that makes so much sense in so many ways. Briefly, TPRS is based heavily on Stephen Krashen’s (and others’) research on second language acquisition and theories of the Natural Approach, or the theory that people learn second and more languages in much the same way they learned their first.
The TPRS approach incorporates highly repetitive storytelling using the most frequently used words in a language, along with engaging reading materials, to deliver very comprehensible input to students.
Experts document that within TPRS, students learn Spanish through stories, dramatic play, and body movements. Using TPRS, teachers provide instruction exclusively in the target language, foster a brain-body connection, and engage students in developmentally appropriate activities. There are a few key components of the method:
1. Comprehensible input: In order to acquire a language, you must understand what you hear. If you mostly understand what you hear (or read), it is comprehensible to you. Listening is so important!!
2. Stories: It is easier to learn new vocabulary and pick up grammatical structures naturally by listening (and understanding) stories that are short, funny, silly and involve emotions or surprises. Learning new vocabulary by studying flashcards or vocabulary lists is not very effective, but you probably already know that by now.
3. Question and answer lessons: Telling the story and answering lots of questions serves two functions.
First, because the question and answer lesson is very repetitive, asking similar questions over and over again throughout the lesson, you get to hear the vocabulary and grammatical structures many, many times, which leads to better understanding and more retention. (This means you remember the words better!)
Second, because the questions are simple and repetitive, you begin to understand quickly and answer quickly. Learning how to answer the questions quickly, without translating, without thinking will lead you to becoming a fluent English speaker. | <urn:uuid:4f6821b6-5965-4db9-9f47-81bee7ae9085> | {
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The next few posts are going to focus on an Army of the Potomac regiment that seldom gets attention, the oft-ignored 3rd Delaware Volunteer Infantry. The 3rd Delaware began its life in November 1861, when Governor William Burton called up two additional infantry regiments to meet the War Department’s call for 500,000 three-year men. Throughout the winter and spring, recruits from Kent County assembled at Camp Fisher, near Camden. The 3rd Delaware did two stints with the Army of the Potomac. In the autumn of 1862, it joined the 12th Corps just in time for the Battle of Antietam, where it fielded only 120 men and five officers, losing six killed and eleven wounded. After the bloodbath in Maryland, the War Department detached it, putting it on sentry duty at Frederick and later at Relay House. In 1864, it rejoined the Army of the Potomac in the midst of the Overland Campaign and it fought with that army until the end of the war.
I find the 3rd Delaware especially interesting because it was a unit rife with feuds. Like every Union regiment ever created, its officers bickered over politics, a problem caused by the awkward mechanism of army promotion. The governors of the North—deeply partisan men themselves—appointed soldiers to the ranks of lieutenant, captain, major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel. The governors’ appointing power made it certain that accusations of political impropriety arose whenever an unlikable officer received promotion. But even among feuding regiments, the 3rd Delaware stood out, as its officers besieged the state house in Dover with almost daily complaints about the governor’s commissions. More often than not, these complaints derived from blind partisan loyalty, with Democrats complaining about Republicans and Republicans complaining about Democrats. However, the 3rd Delaware’s controversies reached a heightened level, largely because Delaware politics were especially brutal. Although Delaware Republicans called themselves the “Union Party” (the moderate name for their organization), they had a higher percentage of active abolitionists than most states. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party never experienced a fracture between its War Democrats and its Copperheads. Late in the war, it still contained southern sympathizers and closet-secessionists. This unusual pairing sowed the seeds for bitter political squabbles, both in camp and back home.
For our purposes, the 3rd Delaware’s story of promotions and injustice begins in March 1863, when a cluster of calculating junior officers orchestrated a vicious smear campaign aimed at getting one of their own elevated above another junior officer, one who, by seniority, was entitled to the position of lieutenant colonel. Here is how the story goes.
The timing of the event is crucial. Two important incidents occurred simultaneously in the late-winter of 1863. First, Delaware got a new governor, and second, a handful of officers resigned from the 3rd Delaware. The exodus of resignations was led by the first commander of the 3rd Delaware, Colonel William O. Redden—a long-time Whig who joined the Republican Party prior to the war. Delaware’s first wartime governor, Democrat William Burton, appointed him to the position on May 15, 1862, but Redden commanded the regiment for only a few months until he was forced to take a leave of absence on account of physical disability. He missed Antietam—the 3rd Delaware’s only major engagement at that point—and upon his return from leave, was called to stand before a Board of Examination, an internal U.S. Army organization often used by Democratic generals to rid regiments of unpleasant Republican commanders. Rather than stand before the Board and risk having his military acumen called into question, on December 6, Redden chose to resign. Strangely, twenty days later, he changed his mind and asked for reinstatement, but the officers of the Board refused to grant it, saying that his resignation had been designed to escape examination and therefore “you are considered . . . utterly incompetent.”
Redden was not the only officer from the 3rd Delaware to lose his position. The regiment’s original major, Arthur Maginnis, had been wounded at Antietam and mustered out. Maginnis’s replacement, James Marr, also resigned, as did a handful of other officers, all apparently called before a Board of Examination or disgruntled by news of Redden’s controversial dismissal. When all was said and done, the 3rd Delaware needed a new colonel, a new major, and handful of new captains and lieutenants. In 1863, the question of promoting officers fell to the newly elected 54-year-old governor, William Cannon, who had just won his own office amid considerable controversy. Until 1862, Cannon had been a Democrat, but just prior to the November elections, he switched parties. To ensure a Republican victory, the War Department sent additional troops into Delaware during the election week, which led to widespread accusations of undemocratic military intervention. The General Assembly of Delaware even held an investigation, hoping to turn up evidence of fraud and corruption (but that is another story).
Despite the misgivings of Delaware’s Democrats, the state’s Republican soldiers were elated. Early in the war, they had to endure Burton, a politician who had only mild love for the Union and a propensity for rewarding fellow Democrats with commissions. Now, with Cannon at the helm, they had an opportunity to request that Republican officers take charge of their regiments. The hard-luck 3rd Delaware with its newly-vacant officer corps seemed the likely place for those Republicans to rise to the fore.
Cannon had barely taken office when Redden and the other recently resigned officers of the 3rd Delaware warned him that the regiment was full of Democrats. They advised that “that no more promotions be made in the 3rd Regt Del. Vols.,” and, specifically, that Cannon grant no more commissions to applicants from that regiment, especially none recommended by Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Howell Jenkins, the twenty-six-year-old hardware merchant who now held command.
Amazingly, the news that the resigned officers had sent a letter to the governor reached the other officers of the 3rd Delaware, then encamped at Frederick, Maryland. On January 24, 1863, only eighteen days after Cannon’s inauguration, seventeen of the 3rd Delaware’s officers sent Governor Cannon a message, warning him not to listen to the false insinuations that came from the regiment’s former officers. “Now sir,” they wrote, “. . . We say nothing of ourselves but of Lt. Col. S. H. Jenkins we can & do say that after at least one years’ service under him as an officer that he is not only a good officer but a gentleman in every sense of the word and we therefore hope you will Commission him Colonel of the Regiment.”
Although Cannon was a Republican (albeit a newly-converted one) and had every reason to deny the claims of the seventeen officers, he nevertheless decided to take their advice. On February 5, 1863, he elevated Jenkins to colonel. Then, he decided to commission the senior captain, Frederick Hackett of Company A (an officer who had endorsed Jenkins in the petition of January 24), to fill the position of lieutenant colonel.
It must have caught Cannon by surprise, but his decision to promote Hackett led to another snide letter of protest from the officers of the 3rd Delaware. Now, a cluster of eight officers (Captain Richard E. Smith, Captain James E. Stewart, Captain William B. Dorrell, Captain Levin B. Day, First Lieutenant Benjamin F. Butler, First Lieutenant Dagworthy D. Joseph, Second Lieutenant Charles H. Muncey, and Second Lieutenant William S. Main) sent Governor Cannon a letter of protest, listing reasons why Hackett was unfit for command. The eight officers complained that Hackett had been tried by general court martial on charges “unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.” According to the eight officers, Hackett had defrauded an enlisted man belonging to his company out of money the soldier had placed in his charge. Although the eight officers did not know the results of the trial, they thought it “reasonable to suppose that he has been sentenced and that his sentence has been transmitted for the action of the President.”
Next, the officers pointed to an incident that occurred at Front Royal on August 11, 1862, when Hackett was in command of the regimental pickets. On that day, Confederate forces came in sight of Union sentries and fired a volley at them. Unaccountably, so they claimed, Captain Hackett “fled disgracefully from the field causing confusion and disorder among the men for the time being, while he, as their commander, should have remained with them and shared any danger to which they might have come become exposed.” To validate this charge of cowardice, the eight officers listed four witnesses (two lieutenants, a sergeant, and a corporal) who could testify to Hackett’s misbehavior. Due to the two incidents, the eight officers stated, the “promotion of Captain Hackett would not be justified by any merit on his part and . . . he has no just claim upon such distinction.”
Clearly, the eight officers leveled severe accusations against Captain Hackett, but in reality, all they did was narrate gross distortions of the truth. Hackett had, indeed, been tried by a court martial in October 1862, but it was not because he had defrauded an enlisted man. Just before the Battle of Antietam, Hackett fell ill with typhoid fever, and on the advice of the chief surgeon of his division, he went home on leave to recuperate. Due to miscue in paperwork, the Army filed charges against him and fourteen other officers for being absent without leave at the time of the battle. After examining the evidence, the court acquitted Hackett, as he said, the charges “being so groundless and the papers in my possession so strong in my favor that the court cast it a side and thus ended that shameful proceeding.” As for the accusation of cowardice, Hackett argued that he was not present with the regiment at Front Royal on August 11. Between June 3 and August 28, Hackett acted as brigade commissary, and again, he had the paperwork to prove it. Perhaps someone had abandoned the pickets during the Confederate raid, but it was not him. Hackett wrote, “at no time during that period did I have command of my own or any company and consequently could not have been guilty of the charges aledged against me.”
Why, then, did the eight officers misrepresent Hackett’s capabilities to the governor? Hackett believed he knew the answer. He wrote, “It is a well-known fact that the object was to defeat my promotion and elevate one of themselves.” Was Hackett correct? Maybe. The evidence is fragmentary, but his assertion makes sense. With a newly-elected Republican governor taking charge of Delaware, Democratic officers found it necessary to guard the 3rd Regiment’s promotions jealously, such that they impugned a brother officer in the process.
Hackett eventually discovered the charges leveled against him, and in March 1863, he confronted his accusers. In what must have been an incredible meeting, Hackett convinced all eight men to see the error of their ways and offer him “suitable apologies.” They immediately wrote another letter to Governor Cannon withdrawing their earlier protest against him. They wrote, “After calm and deliberate consideration, and consultation with Capt. Hackett in regard to his conduct, we fear that we may have done him injustice.”
What did Governor Cannon do about all this? Well, the situation did not get easier because another officer from the 3rd Delaware, Captain Thomas Draper, argued that he held a commission signed by Cannon’s predecessor, Governor Burton, one that elevated him to lieutenant colonel. Since Draper was not the senior captain, another disruption arose in the regiment. To satisfy the will of the majority, Colonel Jenkins asked the officers to vote for their favorite candidate. When all was said and done, thirty-one officers had voted and twenty-three of them endorsed Captain William B. Dorrell for the rank of lieutenant colonel. This came as little surprise, since Dorrell had been one of the officers who protested Hackett’s promotion and may have been the officer that the cluster of eight had conspired to endorse.
Colonel Jenkins made his opinion clear. He wanted Dorrell promoted to lieutenant colonel and then he wanted Governor Cannon to render a decision about Hackett. Jenkins believed Hackett to be innocent of the charges and was therefore entitled to the rank of major. However, if the charges were “true or even if believed to be true” it rendered his advancement detrimental to the service. If Hackett were to be promoted, then “the fact of his innocence of the charges should be clear and unquestionable.” In short, Hackett could not be merely innocent. His innocence had to be so obvious to all that his promotion would not cause morale to plummet among the contingent of officers who sincerely believed him to be incompetent.
In the end, Governor Cannon elevated Dorrell to lieutenant colonel and Hackett to major. This satisfied the unruly officers of the 3rd Delaware, at least for a time. As my future posts will show, it didn’t take long for another controversy to erupt. As one officer later wrote, his regiment was often filled with schemes “hatched in secrecy and reared in the dark.” That officer, the heretofore mentioned Captain Draper, who had himself schemed to get a promotion, complained, “I could not for a moment entertain an idea that . . . [the governor] would recognize such reckless and designing letters as being worthy of notice or of more value than the blank paper upon which they were written.”
Sometimes I think to myself that it must have been easy to be the Governor of Delaware. After all, it is only three counties. But the story of the 3rd Delaware proves to me what a headache it must have been to manage promotions in a small state where politics were so factious and personal. There was nothing easy about it. | <urn:uuid:4871fe1a-4d14-41c5-8821-fa222cfccbd9> | {
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10% of rural households face food insecurity
76%of rural households live in poverty
63%of the population lives below the poverty line
Sixty-seven percent of Zimbabwe’s population live in rural areas and 65 percent of its total population rely on agriculture for their livelihoods.
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), almost 72 percent of its 14 million people live under the total consumption poverty line and 17 percent of its children under 5 are malnourished. Zimbabwe’s economy has sharply declined in the last 10 years. Zimbabwe ranks 156 out of 187 countries according to the United Nation’s Human Development Index (2014).
One of Zimbabwe’s most pressing problems is food insecurity, worsened by a decline in agricultural production, because of weather conditions (drought); land disputes; and lack of access to training, resources and credit.
Our Work In Zimbabwe
Our key areas of focus in Zimbabwe are community mobilization and farmer training; sustainable livestock development and animal health; Passing on the Gift®; and gender equity and HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness. All families receive training in basic animal health and husbandry which enhances their food security, nutrition and income levels. Our unique Passing on the Gift® provides dignity, reconciliation and self-reliance. Women and youth are direct recipients of livestock and training, and 60 percent of leadership positions within our project groups are women and youth. HIV/AIDS is a significant concern in Zimbabwe. We provide livestock to many HIV/AIDS effected families and prevention training in every project.
High-quality livestock, Value chain development, Micro credit
HIV/AIDS training, Community organizing
Vegetable gardening, Fruit trees, Livestock
Natural resource management, Agroecology, Reforestation, Improved cookstoves
Programs and Projects
Food security and Poverty AlleviationMidlands Province
SustainabilityDeepening Impact for Sustainibility
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Young girls sold into forced labour are the largest group of trafficking victims identified by the UN Migration Agency (IOM) in Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps. IOM counter-trafficking experts warn that more than a year into a crisis that has seen the number of Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar soar to almost a million, more desperate families are sending their young daughters off into dangerous work situations because most households have no other way to earn money in the camps.
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At thirty, Olga Macz is a teacher and entrepreneur, and a force to be reckoned with. She leads a women’s group in Campur, a small municipality in the mostly rural Alta Vara Paz department of Guatemala, which makes and sells organic shampoo. For many of the women, this is the first time that they are making their own money and making decisions.
Alphonsine Nyiranzeyimana, a farmer from Cyahinda, in the southern part of Rwanda, says that learning new farming techniques completely changed her life. She’s not exaggerating. Today, Nyiranzeyimana is the leader of a farmers’ cooperative and the yield on some of her crops has more than doubled. The agricultural sector accounts for a third of Rwanda's GDP and more than 70 per cent of Rwandan women are engaged in farming activities since their childhood. Yet, they don’t have the same access to land, production inputs, finance or markets as men.
Women and girls make up nearly half of the 258 million people worldwide who have crossed international borders to escape danger or pursue opportunity. Amidst unprecedented levels of forced displacement – with 68.5 million people driven from their homes by the end of 2017 – about half of refugees, too, are women and girls.
Fishing has traditionally sustained communities in the Lake Chad Basin area, supporting nearly 30 million people living along its shores in Chad, but also Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger. However, the once huge lake which covered 250,000 km2 has now shrunk to one tenth of its original size, largely due to unsustainable water management and the corrosive effects of climate change. With fish now more scarce, and fisherfolk needing to travel further to find them, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has stepped in to offer support.
In Moldova, widespread patriarchal attitudes and gender-based stereotypes perpetuate the idea that women are responsible for child and home care, with fathers expected to be breadwinners. To challenge this widespread notion, the Embassy of Sweden organised in partnership with the UN in Moldova the photo exhibition Dads from Moldova and Sweden.
Retno Marsudi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia receives the Women of Achievement Award from President of Global Partnerships Forum, Amir Dossal and UN Women Deputy Executive Directory Lakshmi Puri. | <urn:uuid:ecbf94b3-a569-487a-aeb1-4b108568630f> | {
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In this article, we briefly review the epidemiology of nicotine dependence, the efficacy of nicotine dependence pharmacotherapies, and the pharmacogenetics of nicotine dependence treatment. Nicotine dependence is a complex trait, the end result of genetic susceptibility interacting with environmental risk factors to produce the syndrome (1). Similarly, response to pharmacotherapy in nicotine dependence is a complex trait. Pharmacotherapy for nicotine dependence is important to psychiatrists, as epidemiological studies indicate that a majority of individuals with schizophrenia or affective disorders are daily smokers (2).
Cigarette smoking is implicated in approximately 400,000 deaths annually (3). Cigarette smoking is the greatest preventable cause of cancer, accounting for at least 30% of all cancer deaths (4). Approximately 23% of American adults are cigarette smokers (5). The nicotine in tobacco is the primary rewarding compound that establishes and maintains tobacco use (5, 6), and most persons who smoke regularly (daily for at least 1 month) develop nicotine dependence (6–8). Regular smoking typically begins in adolescence (5, 9–11).
A complex set of factors allows for the initiation into smoking; those factors include the smoking status of friends and parents, economic status, and heritable factors (7, 12). Factors that facilitate continuation of smoking probably involve a complex interaction between aversive and rewarding influences of nicotine, as well as environmental variables, including peer group approval and economics. Continued regular smoking leads to nicotine dependence (7). For a DSM-IV diagnosis of nicotine dependence, a smoker must meet three or more of the following six major criteria:
Tolerance (e.g., the absence of nausea or dizziness despite substantial levels of smoking)
Daily use for at least several weeks
After abrupt cessation, reports of four or more of the following signs:
(1) dysphoric or depressed mood
(3) irritability, difficulty managing anger
(5) difficulty in concentration
(7) decreased heart rate
(8) increased appetite or weight gain
Repeated unsuccessful attempts to quit or reduce nicotine use
Reduction or elimination of social or occupational activities because smoking tobacco is not allowed in those settings
Continued use despite medical or psychological harm
Use that is often greater than intended or more frequent than intended
Once smoking becomes established (daily smoking for 1 month), approximately 20% of smokers develop nicotine dependence, based on responses to the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence, which consists of six questions (13) (A1). Although the maximal score is 10, a score >4 indicates probable nicotine dependence.
Most nicotine-dependent persons report annual attempts to quit smoking, but less than 15% are successful over the long term (5). To reduce tobacco-related morbidity and mortality, new approaches to nicotine dependence treatment are needed. Some of these new approaches may be developed on the basis of findings from the study of animal models of nicotine dependence.
The rewarding effects of nicotine are mediated, in part, by release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens from ventral tegmental area neurons (14–16). Increasing synaptic dopamine in the nucleus accumbens is a mechanism of reward for many abused drugs (17). The mechanism through which nicotine mediates the increase in nucleus accumbens synaptic dopamine may involve the μ opioid receptor and its endogenous ligand, β-endorphin (18, 19).
Several animal models have been developed for the rewarding valence of nicotine. Rodents can be trained to self-administer nicotine in an operant chamber, where a lever must be pressed to receive an intravenous bolus of nicotine. Drugs that reduce operant self-administration may show promise as smoking cessation medicines in clinical trials. One promising compound is baclofen, a γ-aminobutyric acid type B receptor antagonist, which has been shown to decrease intravenous self-administration of nicotine in rats (20, 21). A second compound deserving additional study is a specific inhibitor of norepinephrine reuptake, reboxetine, which also reduced intravenous nicotine self-administration in rats (22).
Another behavioral model of the rewarding valence of nicotine in rodents is conditioned place preference. This paradigm uses an apparatus consisting of a box divided into two distinct compartments, with a communicating door. The two compartments are distinguished by floors and walls of different appearance and/or texture (e.g., one compartment might have a wire mesh floor and vertical stripes on walls, while the other compartment has a solid plastic floor and horizontal dashes). Immediately after drug administration, which is usually by injection, the rodent is placed into one compartment, and the communicating door is locked. Exposure to the drug is paired consistently with the same compartment, with the communicating door locked, and placebo is paired with the other compartment. After several pairings of the drug with one compartment and placebo with the other over several days, the rodent (without any drug for the past day) is placed in the box with the communicating door open. If the animal spends more time on the drug-paired side, this result is taken as evidence that the animal experienced the drug as rewarding. Similarly, avoidance of the drug-paired side is evidence that the drug was aversive.
Drugs that block nicotine place preference in rodents may be useful compounds for smoking cessation trials in humans. This conceptual leap is often assumed to be valid because cigarette smoking is valued in part for its rewarding effects (e.g., mild euphoria). If a medication blocks the rewarding effects, it may reduce cigarette consumption.
However, drugs that universally block experience of reward for any event would not be acceptable compounds for clinical trials in smoking cessation, for obvious reasons. For example, a partial agonist at the strychnine-insensitive glycine receptor site blocks nicotine, morphine, cocaine, and amphetamine place preference in mice, but it does not interfere with place preference for sucrose pellets (23). The absence of an effect on the natural reward of food suggests that the drug does not block all hedonic mechanisms in the brain.
Nicotine withdrawal may be studied by chronic nicotine administration in rodents, followed by a nicotinic antagonist injection (24). Compounds that attenuate the severity of nicotine withdrawal symptoms in rodents may have promise in treatment of nicotine dependence because smoking may be maintained in part through avoidance of withdrawal.
Implicit in these studies is the assumption that drugs that reduce the rewarding valence of nicotine, or reduce nicotine withdrawal symptoms, may be useful clinically in treating nicotine dependence. Although this assumption may not be correct, it is supported by the use of nicotine replacement therapy as a means to manage nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
Studies of transgenic mice have provided some insights into the rewarding mechanisms of nicotine, and these findings have suggested pharmacological approaches to the treatment of nicotine dependence. Nicotine has been found to induce release of β-endorphin (18, 19) and met-enkephalin (25) from neurons. Mice lacking the μ opioid receptor gene, for which β-endorphin and met-enkephalin are naturally occurring ligands, do not show nicotine place preference (26). Thus, some aspect of the rewarding valence of nicotine requires μ opioid receptors and (presumably) an endogenous ligand, either β-endorphin or met-enkephalin or both. These studies suggest a role for opioid antagonists in smoking cessation.
Mice lacking the β2 subunit of nicotinic receptors do not experience nicotine as rewarding (27). These data are consistent with the finding that the β2 subunit is essential for nicotine to elicit dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens (28). This assumption leads to the hypothesis that nicotine’s rewarding actions are mediated through binding to nicotinic receptors containing the β2 subunit in the nucleus accumbens, yielding increased release of dopamine, with an essential role for a functioning μ opioid receptor system.
Mice lacking cannabinoid type 1 (CB1) receptors do not show nicotine place preference (24). This study and other studies have led to the development of a promising compound for smoking cessation, the CB1 receptor antagonist rimonabant (29).
Promising compounds for smoking cessation may also be identified by screening for blockade of nicotine-induced increases in synaptic dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, an action of nicotine that is essential to its rewarding valence (15, 16). A recent example of this strategy is found in the observation that cannabinoid receptor antagonists can block the nicotine-induced release of presynaptic dopamine in the shell of the nucleus accumbens (30).
In multiple instances, animal model studies have yielded promising compounds for clinical trials in nicotine dependence. These clinical trials will most likely lead to new pharmacotherapies approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for nicotine dependence in the near future. At present, however, only two pharmacotherapies for nicotine dependence have FDA approval: nicotine replacement and bupropion.
Nicotine Replacement Therapy
Nicotine replacement therapy increases smoking cessation rates significantly, compared to behavioral counseling (31, 32). However, nicotine gum is often not used properly and is not effective across all settings (33). Similarly, nicotine nasal spray is aversive for many smokers, and adherence rates tend to be lower than those for other forms of nicotine replacement therapy (34). Thus, transdermal nicotine ("the patch") is the preferred first-line treatment (31).
Although transdermal nicotine is significantly more effective than placebo or behavioral counseling, only 20%–30% of smokers are able to quit with this form of treatment, and up to 95% relapse to their former smoking practices (35–37). Moreover, a short course of nicotine replacement therapy (e.g., 4 weeks) may not be effective in the long term (38). Although it has been suggested that the modest efficacy of transdermal nicotine is attributable to inadequate nicotine replacement with the 21-mg standard clinical dose, abstinence rates with a 44-mg dose are not maintained at 12-month follow-up, and significant side effects have been reported (39). Other studies have not found better outcomes with the 44-mg dose of transdermal nicotine, even in the short term (37, 40).
With regard to the optimal duration of transdermal nicotine treatment, the results of meta-analyses (36, 41) and clinical trials (42, 43) provide little support for improved outcomes with treatment longer than 8 weeks in duration or with tapering versus abrupt cessation of treatment (44). In a comparison of standard transdermal nicotine treatment and extended treatment (8 additional weeks of "maintenance" therapy with the 21-mg dose, followed by a tapering phase) in a group of 55 smokers with abstinence-induced depressed mood, significant differences in abstinence rates were not observed; however, when treatment dropouts were excluded, the extended treatment group had significantly lower rates of relapse (45). This effect of extended therapy was observed only during the 21-mg dose phase and not during the tapering phase, suggesting that the benefits of extended high-dose treatment may be achieved only if individuals continue taking this dose (45). Although these studies do not provide strong support for higher-dose or longer-duration nicotine replacement therapy overall, the optimal dosage and duration of treatment for subgroups of smokers remain to be determined.
Bupropion, an antidepressant used to treat nicotine dependence, has an unclear mode of action, although there is evidence that bupropion inhibits uptake of dopamine and norepinephrine (46–48). Bupropion is also a nicotinic receptor antagonist, which suggests the hypothesis that treatment may reduce the reinforcing effects of smoking (49). Sustained-release bupropion has been shown to produce significantly higher abstinence rates, compared both with placebo (50–52) and with transdermal nicotine (53, 54). Six-month abstinence rates of 18%–26.9% have been reported for bupropion, compared to rates of 7%–15.7% for placebo (50, 51). Bupropion is efficacious for smokers who may be more prone to relapse, such as women (55, 56), African Americans (57), and smokers with higher levels of nicotine dependence (58).
Bupropion’s efficacy in the treatment of nicotine dependence may be partly attributable to beneficial effects on abstinence-induced weight gain (51, 59) and negative mood symptoms (57, 60). The beneficial effects of bupropion have been observed only during active treatment (61, 62). The benefits of sustained bupropion treatment for nicotine dependence remain unexplored.
Medications Used for Other Indications
Several medications are being studied as treatments for nicotine dependence. Brief treatment with naltrexone, an opioid antagonist, has been shown to reduce cigarette consumption and levels of plasma nicotine, compared to placebo (63). Naltrexone in combination with transdermal nicotine attenuates cue-elicited craving in the laboratory (64), but an earlier report cited no effect of a single acute dose of naltrexone on smoking behavior (65). Clinical data on the efficacy of naltrexone as a smoking cessation therapy have been equivocal (66–70). Fluoxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, has been studied as a smoking cessation treatment, but largely negative results have been documented (71, 72). Preliminary evidence suggested that fluoxetine may be more effective than placebo among smokers with higher levels of pretreatment depression symptoms (73).
Despite progress made in the pharmacological treatment of nicotine dependence, the efficacy of available treatments is limited. Although current guidelines recommend transdermal nicotine as a first-line treatment for nicotine dependence (31), the vast majority of smokers receiving transdermal nicotine relapse to their former smoking practices (35, 36). Bupropion has been shown to produce higher quit rates than nicotine replacement therapy (53), yet it is effective for only a minority of smokers.
Several studies have attempted to identify pretreatment variables that can be used to individualize pharmacotherapies for nicotine dependence, but with limited success. Measures of nicotine dependence, such as smoking rate, level of dependence, and cotinine level, have predicted outcome in some nicotine replacement therapy studies (40, 74) but not in others (75). Smokers with low to moderate nicotine dependence levels, nonobese smokers, and Caucasian smokers may benefit more from transdermal nicotine, and smokers who are highly dependent, obese, or members of minority groups may benefit more from nasal spray (76). Bupropion may be a more effective treatment for women (55) and smokers with higher levels of nicotine dependence (58). These data do not provide an empirical basis on which to tailor the choice of treatment to individual smokers, but pharmacogenetic research may identify smokers for whom bupropion and nicotine replacement therapy will have the strongest benefit. Research on the role that inherited variation plays in the response to pharmacotherapy for nicotine dependence may yield individualized treatments based on genotype and may thereby improve efficacy.
A pharmacogenetic approach to nicotine dependence treatment may yield knowledge of DNA variants that influence treatment outcome, under the assumption that inherited differences in drug metabolism and drug targets influence toxicity and efficacy (77–79).
Pharmacogenetic Investigations of Nicotine Replacement Therapy
In a pharmacogenetic study conducted in the United Kingdom, 755 of 1,500 smokers participating in a placebo-controlled trial of transdermal nicotine also provided blood samples for DNA analysis (80, 81). The DNA analysis focused on genetic variation in the dopamine pathway, on the basis of previous evidence that nicotine’s rewarding effects are mediated, in part, by dopaminergic mechanisms (82). Transdermal nicotine was significantly more effective than placebo for carriers of the A1 allele of the D2 dopamine receptor gene (DRD2) but not for A2 homozygotes (80). The difference in the odds ratios for the treatment effect between the genotype groups was significant after the first week of treatment but not at the end of treatment. This study also examined a polymorphism in the dopamine β-hydroxylase gene (DBH). Transdermal nicotine was effective (odds ratio of 3.6 for transdermal nicotine versus placebo) in producing abstinence among smokers with both the DRD2*A1 allele and the DBH*A allele and was less effective for smokers with other genotypes. This genetic association with treatment response was significant at both 1 week and 12 weeks of treatment, suggesting that the efficacy of transdermal nicotine may be modulated by DRD2 and DBH. A follow-up study supported the association of the DRD2*A1 variant with abstinence at 6 and 12 months posttreatment; however, the effect was observed only among women. Results for DBH were not reported (81).
In an open-label pharmacogenetic trial of transdermal nicotine versus nicotine nasal spray, the role of the μ opioid receptor gene (OPRM1) gene was examined (83). The μ opioid receptor is the primary site of action for the rewarding effects of the endogenous opioid peptide, β-endorphin, which is released afer acute and short-term nicotine administration (18, 19). Exon 1 of the human OPRM1 gene includes a common Asn40Asp (A118G) mis-sense single nucleotide polymorphism. The Asp40 variant increases the binding affinity of β-endorphin for this receptor threefold, relative to the wild-type Asn40 OPRM1(84). The Asp40 variant is found in about 25%–30% of individuals of European ancestry (85, 86) and is therefore sufficiently common to explain clinically significant differences in response to different forms of nicotine replacement therapy.
Among 320 smokers of European ancestry, persons carrying the OPRM1 Asp40 variant (Asn/Asp or Asp/Asp, N=82) were significantly more likely than those homozygous for the Asn40 variant (Asn/Asn, N=238) to be abstinent at the end of the treatment (83). The differential treatment response was evident among smokers who received transdermal nicotine (quit rates of 52% versus 33% for the Asp40 and Asn40 groups, respectively; odds ratio=2.4) but was not significant among smokers who received nicotine nasal spray. Among smokers who received transdermal nicotine, the advantage for the Asp40 group was significantly greater during the 21-mg dose phase. Smokers with the Asp40 variant also reported significantly less severe withdrawal symptoms and mood disturbance during the first 2 weeks of abstinence and gained significantly less weight at the end of treatment, compared to those with the Asn40 genotype. Although these results must be validated in future research, the findings suggest a hypothesis that smokers with the OPRM1 Asp40 variant may achieve significant benefit from transdermal nicotine and may be candidates for extended high-dose patch treatment, or even maintenance therapy, to reduce risk of relapse.
Consistent with this pharmacogenetic hypothesis, a longitudinal analysis in the transdermal nicotine group revealed that the OPRM1 genotype effect in the Asp40 group was greatest during 21-mg patch treatment, declined as treatment was tapered, and disappeared after treatment was discontinued. In the Asn40 homozygotes, dose tapering did not appear to alter abstinence rates, which declined steadily from the quit date. Event history analysis of lapse and recovery events showed that transdermal nicotine-treated smokers with the Asp40 variant were significantly more likely to recover from lapses than were Asn40homozygotes during the 21-mg dose phase (83). There was no genotype effect on recovery from lapses during the 14-mg or 7-mg phase or after treatment was discontinued. Thus, nicotine-dependent persons with the Asp40 allele may benefit from extended higher-dose transdermal nicotine therapy.
Consistent with the treatment outcome data from this trial (83), smokers with the OPRM1 Asp40 variant reported significantly less severe withdrawal symptoms and mood disturbance during the first 2 weeks of abstinence, compared to the Asn40homozygotes. An increase in negative affect during this period strongly predicted relapse. Smokers with the Asp40 variant also had significantly less weight gain at the end of treatment than did the Asn40 homozygotes. OPRM1 genotype effects on these intermediate outcomes may be mediated by greater β-endorphin occupancy at the μ receptor. Although these results must be validated in future research, the findings suggest a hypothesis that smokers with the OPRM1 Asp40 variant may be candidates for extended high-dose patch treatment, or even maintenance therapy, as an alternative to smoking.
Pharmacogenetic Investigations of Bupropion
A placebo-controlled smoking cessation clinical trial of bupropion (87) was the source of pharmacogenetic analyses focused on the cytochrome P450 2B6 gene (CYP2B6), which has been implicated in bupropion kinetics (88) and in brain nicotine metabolism (89). In this trial, 426 smokers of European ancestry provided blood samples and received bupropion (300 mg/day for 10 weeks) or placebo, plus counseling. Smokers with decreased activity alleles of CYP2B6 (slower metabolizers) reported greater increases in cravings for cigarettes following the target quit date and had significantly higher relapse rates. These effects were modified by a significant gender-by-genotype-by-treatment interaction, suggesting that bupropion attenuated the effects of genotype among female smokers. The findings of a significant association of CYP2B6 genotype with smoking cessation in the placebo group and absence of a genotype association with bupropion side effects suggest that the genotype effect on treatment outcome is not attributable to bupropion pharmacokinetics. Rather, the greater relapse liability in the genetically slower metabolizers may be attributable to slower rates of inactivation of nicotine (by conversion to cotinine) in the central nervous system. Additional trials are warranted to confirm these results, as are studies to explore the neurobiological mechanisms of the observed genetic effect.
A second report from this clinical trial (87) examined genetic variation in the dopamine pathway, based on the premise that bupropion’s effects are attributable, in part, to inhibition of dopamine reuptake (46). The genetic analysis focused on common polymorphisms in the dopamine transporter (SLC6A3) gene and the DRD2 gene, both of which had been associated in previous studies with smoking behavior (90–93). Although the analysis did not support the hypothesis of genetic modulation of response to bupropion, the results revealed a significant gene-gene interaction effect on liability to relapse, mirroring results from a previous study of smoking status (90). Specifically, smokers with DRD2*A2 and SLC6A3*9 alleles had significantly higher abstinence rates at the end of treatment (53% versus 39%) and a longer latency to relapse at the end of treatment (28 versus 21 days) and at 6-month follow-up (83 versus 65 days). By contrast, among smokers with DRD2*A1 genotypes, the effect of SLC6A3 on abstinence rates and time to relapse was not significant.
On the basis of existing biological and epidemiological data on DRD2 and SLC6A3, a biobehavioral mechanism for the observed findings can be postulated. Data suggest that individuals with DRD2*A1 genotypes exhibit lower dopamine D2 receptor density and, therefore, may have lower levels of neuronal dopamine-dependent activity, compared to individuals with DRD2*A2 genotypes (94–96). This interpretation is consistent with epidemiological evidence for association of DRD2*A1 with cognitive function (97, 98), as well as with a variety of addictive behaviors (99). With regard to SLC6A3, the 9-repeat genotype has been associated with lower levels of dopamine transporter protein expression (100, 101). This lower level of expression may yield less neuronal dopamine reuptake and higher levels of synaptic dopamine. Thus, individuals with this 9-repeat allele may derive less reinforcement from nicotine-induced dopamine release, by virtue of a chronically high level of synaptic dopamine at baseline. Thus, one could speculate that in the presence of normal receptor function (i.e., in individuals with DRD2*A2 genotypes), lower dopamine transporter levels and higher levels of synaptic dopamine (i.e., in individuals with SLC6A3*9 genotypes) would minimize the phasic effects of nicotine on dopamine release, thereby reducing positive reinforcement from smoking. This effect, in turn, would make it easier for smokers with the DRD2*A2/SLC6A3*9 haplotype to maintain smoking abstinence. By contrast, individuals with lower synaptic dopamine levels (i.e., those with SLC6A3*10 genotypes) and normal receptor density (i.e., those with DRD2*A2 genotypes) might have the greatest need for and reinforcement from nicotine.
An association of the DRD2 Taq1 polymorphism with bupropion’s effects on subjective withdrawal symptoms has also been reported in a small investigation (102). The A1 allele of DRD2 has also been linked with smoking cessation and abstinence-induced negative mood symptoms following treatment with venlafaxine, a serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (103).
Weight gain occurs in a majority of daily smokers after quitting (104, 105), and weight gain predicts relapse to smoking (105). To investigate possible mechanisms, we examined genetic variations in the dopamine pathway as moderators of the effect of bupropion on abstinence-induced changes in the rewarding value of food (106). This analysis was based on the evidence described earlier for the beneficial effects of bupropion on weight gain after smoking cessation (51). Seventy-one smokers of European ancestry participated in this experiment; all of them were genotyped for the DRD2 Taq1 polymorphism and randomly assigned to treatment with bupropion (300 mg/day) or placebo. They participated in two behavioral laboratory sessions during which the rewarding value of food was assessed with a behavioral economics measure: session 1 occurred before medication and before cessation of smoking; session 2 occurred after 3 weeks of bupropion treatment and 1 week of sustained abstinence. Carriers of the DRD2*A1 allele exhibited significant increases in the rewarding value of food after abstinence from smoking, and these effects were attenuated by bupropion treatment (a significant medication-by-genotype interaction). Further, higher levels of food reward at session 2 (postquit) predicted a significant increase in weight by 6-month follow-up in the placebo group but not the bupropion-treated group. These results provide new evidence that the increase in body weight that occurs after smoking cessation is related to increases in food reward and that food reward is partly determined by genetic factors. Bupropion’s efficacy in attenuating abstinence-induced weight gain may be attributable, in part, to its effect in decreasing food reward.
Given the complexity of nicotine dependence, including its multiple genetic and environmental components, it is difficult to imagine that a single compound could provide effective pharmacotherapy for the millions of nicotine-dependent individuals in the United States. Rather, a given medication may be useful for a minority of nicotine-dependent persons. Thus, it becomes essential to optimize pharmacotherapy by using reliable predictors of therapeutic response. Genetic background will be one of those reliable predictors, but only one. It will be necessary to develop new phenotypes related to the multidimensional nature of nicotine dependence. These new phenotypes may provide better prediction of pharmacotherapy response.
As a complex trait, nicotine dependence has multiple facets, including molecular brain adaptations to chronic nicotine use, electrophysiological alterations, structural and functional brain abnormalities, and neurocognitive changes. Therapeutic response to pharmacotherapy has been measured typically in terms of reduction in the number of cigarettes smoked per day or in terms of absolute abstinence, confirmed by carbon monoxide in exhaled air and/or measures of plasma (or salivary) cotinine, a nicotine metabolite. Therapeutic response to pharmacotherapy for nicotine dependence might be more closely related to pharmacogenetics when that therapeutic response is also defined partly in terms of nicotine-evoked electrophysiological parameters, brain imaging findings for responses to nicotine, or nicotine-induced cognitive changes. Research in these areas is needed.
The overwhelming majority of daily smokers gain weight after smoking cessation (104), and the average increase may be as high as 5 kg. Weight gain is one predictor of relapse after smoking cessation (105). Thus, studies of weight gain after smoking cessation (107), as a nicotine-related phenotype, are needed for a more adequate response to this public health concern.
The complexity of the phenotype requires that pharmacogenetic studies of nicotine dependence have adequate statistical power to detect small gene effects, especially when the model includes gene-gene and gene-environment interactions in the presence of active (versus placebo) pharmacotherapy. It will be necessary to study hundreds to thousands of clinical trial participants to identify the key genetic variants predicting therapeutic and adverse responses.
In any approach to estimating sample sizes for pharmacogenetic studies of nicotine dependence, several parameters must be estimated and several modes of inheritance must be assumed. One parameter estimated is the allele frequency of a hypothetical DNA variant that increases the probability that a nicotine-dependent person will stop smoking if given a certain medication. It does not seem reasonable to study alleles that are present at less than 10% frequency in the population, as these alleles will be too uncommon to influence the outcome for most treatment seekers. A second parameter estimated is the size of the effect of the variant in increasing the probability that a nicotine-dependent person will stop smoking if given the medication under study. Reasonable assumptions of effect size are in the range of 1.5 to 2 (expressed as the odds ratio). Several modes of inheritance (recessive, dominant, and additive) are included. t1 gives the sample sizes required for 90% power to detect a significant (p=0.05, one-sided) effect of an active compound under these reasonable assumptions for the typical study in which subjects are randomly assigned to receive either the active compound or placebo.
Individuals with psychiatric illness carry a disproportionate burden from cigarette smoking and tobacco-related mortality. Data from a nationally representative survey indicated that individuals with a current psychiatric illness are not only more likely to be regular smokers but also less likely to quit smoking (108). Ninety-two percent of persons with a diagnosis of schizophrenia have been estimated to have a lifetime history of smoking and 83% to be current smokers, compared to about one-quarter of the general population (109). Rates of current smoking are also elevated among persons with bipolar disorder (69%), major depression (37%), and generalized anxiety disorder (46%) (108). Further, there is evidence for a common genetic etiology for smoking and psychiatric illness and support for the role of the α7 neuronal nicotinic receptor in both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (110).
Although smoking cessation treatments have not been extensively studied in persons with psychiatric illness, some pharmacotherapies have shown promise. For example, in a randomized clinical trial of a smoking cessation intervention for persons with schizophrenia, bupropion was found to be safe and significantly more effective than placebo (111). Evidence for the safety and efficacy of transdermal nicotine, especially in conjunction with atypical antipsychotic agents, has been reported (112).
Pharmacogenetics research in smoking has the potential to advance the science and practice of smoking cessation treatment in the general population and among persons with psychiatric illness. In addition to providing insights into targets for novel pharmacotherapies, information about smokers’ genotypes may allow practitioners to select the optimal type, dosage, and duration of treatment for individual patients. Although this research is still in its infancy, recent data suggested that health care providers are very favorably disposed toward providing genetically tailored treatment in practice; for example, among 1,120 physicians in the American Medical Association, the average reported likelihood of adoption of genetic testing to tailor smoking treatment (on a 0%–100% scale) was 73.5% (113). However, several barriers to clinical translation of pharmacogenetics research in smoking must be addressed, including a lack of preparedness of health care providers to counsel patients about genetic results and concerns regarding the potential for stigmatization and discrimination based on genetic findings (113, 114). Such findings highlight the importance of provider education in genetics, as well as the need to address broader health care policy issues.
Despite 40 years of government warnings regarding the negative health consequences of smoking, roughly 23% of adults in the United States are daily tobacco smokers. Nicotine produces a dependence syndrome that renders abstinence a difficult goal. Social pressures against smoking have increased, producing fewer opportunities to smoke, yet smoking represents the single largest preventable source of morbidity and mortality in the United States. Thus, the need for new medications is great.
New medications for nicotine dependence may be developed through animal models of the reinforcing value of nicotine as well as through pharmacological studies of nicotine withdrawal. Studies of transgenic rodents have been valuable in identifying specific genes whose proteins can be targeted for pharmacotherapy.
The initial pharmacogenetic studies of FDA-approved pharmacotherapies, including nicotine replacement and bupropion, have appeared in the literature. These studies have identified (in a preliminary manner) candidate alleles at the D2 dopamine receptor gene and μ opioid receptor gene that may predict therapeutic response. Given the complexity of the nicotine dependence phenotype, it seems that no one medication will show efficacy and safety for a majority of nicotine-dependent individuals. Thus, it will be essential to use genetics and other tools to predict therapeutic response in subgroups of nicotine-dependent persons.
This research is of particular importance to psychiatrists, as a large fraction of individuals with behavioral disorders are daily smokers, including the majority of persons with schizophrenia and affective disorders (2). Psychiatrists must consider smoking cessation therapy a high priority in their clinical practices, and newer, more efficacious medications will facilitate this change.
Received July 12, 2004; revision received Aug. 31, 2004; accepted Sept. 10, 2004. From the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior and the Tobacco Use Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Berrettini, Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Clinical Research Bldg., Room 111, 415 Curie Blvd., Philadelphia, PA 19104; [email protected] (e-mail). Supported in part by grant P5084718 from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and by NIDA grants R01 DA-14008 and P60 DA-05186. | <urn:uuid:e8ea4bdc-ce84-4dcc-92cd-17a447102c00> | {
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Tips for Successful Assignments
- Assume students have minimal library knowledge (unless you know differently).
- Review the course syllabus and assignments to ensure that your session is directly relevant to student needs.
- Make sure the activity has a goal and that the students understand this goal.
- Provide any necessary structure or directions in writing.
- Have students work in groups or pairs.
- If possible, have sequential activities build on the last skill learned.
- Review the activity with your students and discuss how these skills are relevant to the larger research process and/or how these skills are transferable. | <urn:uuid:cd4d9d05-a3e6-44b6-be2a-d8de43edf37c> | {
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Almost all of us have lost friends and parents to cancer. Surgery, radiation and chemotherapy can prolong a patient's life, but now there's hope for a real CURE to this dreaded disease.
Scientists have learned how to create stem cells from human fat and turn them into "suicide genes" that seek out and destroy tumors like tiny homing missiles. Researcher Cestmir Altaner says, "Nearly everyone has some fat tissue they can spare, and this tissue could be a source of cells for cancer treatment that can be adapted into specific vehicles for drug transport."
In New Scientist, Celeste Biever describes a different kind of anti-cancer "bullet." Other scientists have created gold-coated glass "nanoshells" can seek out the location of tumors and then destroy them in a burst of heat. It's almost like an anti-cancer video game!
When it comes to treating cancer, there's real hope for the future?at last.
Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
Here at unknowncountry.com, we sometimes we wonder if there?s any hope for OUR future, and frankly, there won't be if we don?t get more support from our readers and listeners, and that means YOU!
To learn more, click here and here.
NOTE: This news story, previously published on our old site, will have any links removed. | <urn:uuid:d1cf07e3-b19b-482a-83c8-f22ba09197f6> | {
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System manual pages are referenced in the format name(number), where number is the section number of the manual. The pointer value that means ``does not point anywhere'' is called NULL; C compilers will convert the integer 0 to the value NULL in most circumstances where a pointer is needed, but note that nothing in the C standard requires that NULL actually be implemented by a series of all-zero bits. C and C++ treat the character '\0' (ASCII 0) specially, and this value is referred to as NIL in this book (this is usually called ``NUL'', but ``NUL'' and ``NULL'' sound identical). Function and method names always use the correct case, even if that means that some sentences must begin with a lower case letter. I use the term ``Unix-like'' to mean Unix, Linux, or other systems whose underlying models are very similar to Unix; I can't say POSIX, because there are systems such as Windows 2000 that implement portions of POSIX yet have vastly different security models.
An attacker is called an ``attacker'', ``cracker'', or ``adversary'', and not a ``hacker''. Some journalists mistakenly use the word ``hacker'' instead of ``attacker''; this book avoids this misuse, because many Linux and Unix developers refer to themselves as ``hackers'' in the traditional non-evil sense of the term. To many Linux and Unix developers, the term ``hacker'' continues to mean simply an expert or enthusiast, particularly regarding computers. It is true that some hackers commit malicious or intrusive actions, but many other hackers do not, and it's unfair to claim that all hackers perform malicious activities. Many other glossaries and books note that not all hackers are attackers. For example, the Industry Advisory Council's Information Assurance (IA) Special Interest Group (SIG)'s Information Assurance Glossary defines hacker as ``A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of computers and computer networks. The term is misused in a negative context where `cracker' should be used.'' The Jargon File has a long and complicate definition for hacker, starting with ``A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.''; it notes although some people use the term to mean ``A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around'', it also states that this definition is deprecated and that the correct term for this sense is ``cracker''.
This book uses the ``new'' or ``logical'' quoting system, instead of the traditional American quoting system: quoted information does not include any trailing punctuation if the punctuation is not part of the material being quoted. While this may cause a minor loss of typographical beauty, the traditional American system causes extraneous characters to be placed inside the quotes. These extraneous characters have no effect on prose but can be disastrous in code or computer commands. I use standard American (not British) spelling; I've yet to meet an English speaker on any continent who has trouble with this. | <urn:uuid:b093a63b-7c45-4ae6-8f97-88faaf88b248> | {
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Home Schooling Disadvantages and Learn Home School Disadvantages Basics
Article by Carol Currie
Home schooling has a growing number of supporters, but it would be unwise to ignore the many home school disadvantages, not just of the children but also for the parents.
Home schooling requires a lot of sacrifice on the part of the parents in physical, financial and emotional and social terms. Parents have to devote time to learning the matter they will be teaching, teach it, organize future schedules, arrange for field trips and other outside activities and then arrange for some social inter action for their children with their peers. That’s a full day job.
Another of the many home school disadvantages is the cost when the expense of all the inputs required for home schooling are weighed against that of sending a child to a public school. Additionally one parent may have given up a lucrative job to stay at home and this loss of income should be treated as an expense, especially for families that were used to a double income.
Home schooling means that parents are constantly with their children and have not time to themselves which can be emotionally demanding and may cause emotional traumas in the family.
Another of the many home school disadvantages is that parents’ social circles are often made up of their children’s’ friends parents. Home school parents are cut off from this and, especially if there are no support groups available, get trapped into an inward looking lifestyle.
There are many home school disadvantages for the children, the chief among them being limited or no opportunities to develop social skills. Home schooled children are often awkward in social situations and have limited opportunities for making friends. Even when the opportunities come their way, they often have little in common with the majority of children who attend regular schools and so have nothing to talk about or activities they can indulge in together. Many communities have home school support groups but these are artificial social units and the children associate only with families with the same values and beliefs. They are deprived of the opportunity to meet with children of varied backgrounds and beliefs. While such interactions may sometimes be painful and lead to arguments and fights, it is an essential part of the growing up process that enables a child to be able to function in a varied and culturally complex society.
One of the home school disadvantages that many home schooling parents also recognize is that their children cannot take part in extra curricular activities and sports. Things like debating, dramatics, camping, school excursions and sports are important to developing a child’s character and self confidence.
Sports are not just about physical exercise but about understanding and working with a team. Home school parents often feel that their family is a team and if their children can work with this team they are fine. What they overlook is that the family is a team with strong emotional bonds. What the children are being deprived of is the ability to learn how to function in a team where people will have different priorities, attitudes and goals.
Home school disadvantages for children are not in the quality of the education they receive, but in their social development and ability to function effectively in a complex society.
About the Author
Go to Home School Jewel to get your free ebook on Home Schooling at Home Schooling. Home School Jewel also has Home School Forum, HomeSchooling Blog and a Home Schooling Blog with daily news on Home Schooling. You can Find Home School Jewel at http://www.homeschooljewel.com | <urn:uuid:74e9d23c-faa3-4a75-b5cd-9853777ef08b> | {
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Anything that prevents, controls, or eradicates pests is great for your yard. You need to deal with weeds, diseases, and insects, but pesticides are also toxic for people. Warn people using our Pesticide Safety Signs and Pesticide Application Signs.
• Signs are mandated by the EPA. Display messages to inform workers and passerby about the presence of pesticides.
• Prevent adverse health effects including skin irritation, neurological disorders, cancer, or death.
• Avoid misapplication or mismanagement of pesticides with bold warning symbols and graphics in a variety of materials. | <urn:uuid:dd21941e-39fb-47cb-867f-51911c5ac42e> | {
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Wednesday 15 May
Philippine duck (Anas luzonica)
Philippine duck fact file
- Find out more
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Philippine duck description
With its rusty-cinnamon head and bluish-grey bill, the Philippine duck is a rather distinctive bird. The cinnamon coloured head is boldly decorated with a black crown and a black stripe through the eye, while the rest of the plumage is brownish-grey. When in flight, a well-defined patch of glossy green on the wing can be clearly seen (2), which is bordered with black and has a narrow white edge (3), and the underside of the wing is also white (2). Immature Philippine ducks have slightly duller plumage than that of adults, while ducklings are olive-brown with a bright yellow face and neck (2). It calls with a typical duck-like quack (3).
- Length: 48 – 58 cm (2)
Philippine duck biology
This shy and nervous species, which will quickly fly off if approached, may be seen in large flocks outside of the breeding season, but usually occurs in pairs or small groups (2). The breeding season is thought to extend between March and November, with a peak in activity in July and August, although this may vary throughout the range (2). The Philippine duck constructs a nest obscured from view under a thick cover of aquatic vegetation, such as water bindweed. Clutches consist of 8 to 10, sometimes 15 to 16, eggs, which are dull white with a brownish tinge. These are incubated for 25 to 26 days (2).
Most active in the early morning, late afternoon, and during moonlit nights, the Philippine duck forages in shallow water for plants, molluscs and crustaceans (2). Fish and frogs may also be consumed, as well as insects, rice and the shoots of young plants; some farmers have complained of the damage this duck had done to newly sown fields and sprouting crops (4).Top
Philippine duck rangeTop
Philippine duck habitat
The Philippine duck can be found in both freshwater and saltwater habitats, including small streams in forests, lakes, marshes, swamps, mangroves, tidal creeks, and the open sea (2) (4). It prefers areas with marsh vegetation, which offers vital food and cover, and is found up to elevations of 300 to 400 metres (2).Top
Philippine duck status
Classified as Vulnerable (VU) on the IUCN Red List 2007 (1).Top
Philippine duck threats
Hunting and habitat loss pose the greatest threat to the Philippine duck’s survival, and evidence from the last 20 years suggest that numbers are declining (2). Since the 1960s, high levels of hunting and trapping of this species have been recorded, with thousands allegedly shot each week in certain months in the late 1980s (3), for both food and sport (5). Many wetland habitats of the Philippines have been drained, or converted for aquaculture and shrimp- or fish-ponds (3) (5). Most devastating to this species was the drainage of Candaba Marsh in the 1990s, which was once one of the most important sites for the Philippine duck, but is now too dry to support a large population (5). The recent extensive use of pesticides on rice-fields may also have had serious impacts on the Philippine duck (3).Top
Philippine duck conservation
The Philippine duck receives legal protection at five locations, including Lake Naujan National Park on Mindoro and Maria Aurora Memorial Natural Park on Luzon (3). In addition, hunting of all bird species is illegal in the Philippines, with the government banning firearms in 1972, although unfortunately, this law lacks enforcement (3) (5). Education and awareness programmes are required to enable local people to understand the effects of hunting on birds and the relevant laws (5). Further protection of the Philippine’s wetlands is also essential for this species’ survival; for example, the protection and restoration of Candaba Marsh has been recommended (3).Top
Find out more
For further information on the conservation of the Philippines’ wetlands see:
- Society of the Conservation of Philippine Wetlands:
For more information on this and other bird species please see:
- BirdLife International:
AuthenticationThis information is awaiting authentication by a species expert, and will be updated as soon as possible. If you are able to help please contact: [email protected]
- The cultivation of marine or freshwater food fish or shellfish under controlled conditions.
- Diverse group of arthropods (a phylum of animals with jointed limbs and a hard chitinous exoskeleton) characterised by the possession of two pairs of antennae, one pair of mandibles (parts of the mouthparts used for handling and processing food) and two pairs of maxillae (appendages used in eating, which are located behind the mandibles). Includes crabs, lobsters, shrimps, slaters, woodlice and barnacles.
- A species or taxonomic group that is only found in one particular country or geographic area.
- A diverse group of invertebrates, mainly marine, that have one or all of the following; a horny, toothed ribbon in the mouth (the radula), a shell covering the upper surface of the body, and a mantle or mantle cavity with a type of gill. Includes snails, slugs, shellfish, octopuses and squid.
- IUCN Red List (April, 2008)
- Kear, J. (2005) Ducks, Geese and Swans. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- BirdLife International (April, 2008)
- BirdLife International. (2001) Threatened Birds of Asia: the BirdLife International Red Data Book. BirdLife International, Cambridge, UK.
- Crosby, M.J. (2003) Saving Asia’s Threatened Birds: A Guide for Government and Civil Society. BirdLife International, Cambridge, UK.
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The Curiosity rover is now well on its way to its first major destination, a site called Glenelg that's only about 100m from its current position. On its drive, which it started over 50 sols (Martian days) ago, it has continued to check out its equipment, almost all of which seems to be working well. In its next test, planned for sometime over the next few days, the rover will start checking out its chemistry lab in preparation for analyzing the material it encounters in future drives.
The system is comprised of a scoop at the end of its robotic arm, which can pick up loose material from Mars' surface and deposit it into a chamber in the rover's body. From there, the material can be sent on to on-board laboratory hardware, which actually performs the analysis. Conceptually, this is similar to the setup that operated on the Mars Phoenix Lander, which found evidence of perchlorates in soil from near one of the Martian poles. The system can also take input from a drill to allow it to sample solid rocks.
Currently, the rover is at Rocknest, a site with (as you might expect) a set of rocks poking out of a sandy bed. Curiosity used one of its wheels to dig into the bed as shown above, confirming that the material is appropriate for accessing with the scoop. The goal is to run a couple of scoops through the sample-handling machinery in order to clear out any material that has gotten into it during the rover's travels to its current location. After two samples a run through, the third will actually be sent off to the different chemistry labs within the rover.
The process will be slow, and personnel at the Jet Propulsion Lab don't expect the first samples to be analyzed for a couple of weeks. During that time, the rover will remain at the Rocknest formation. | <urn:uuid:3fbe6694-9f2a-40d4-b93d-6afc35c0691d> | {
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Equality and Diversity
County Council is committed to equality of opportunity for all
citizens and celebrates the diversity of all its residents.
This is treating people fairly. The law seeks to prevent and
eliminate unlawful discrimination for people who have one or more
of the following protected characteristics. These areas are age,
disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership,
pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual
This means “variety”. Valuing diversity means valuing people and
recognising that everyone is unique/different but of equal worth.
This is treating a person, without a justification, less favourably
than another, particularly because of one’s feelings, assumptions
or prejudices about the characteristics, attributes or
circumstances of that person. This can include certain forms of
harassment or abuse.
Our Council's Approach to Equality and Diversity
This includes information and details about Our Council's leadership, the work we do and
the standards that guide us.
To find out more about the Equality and Diversity please contact
Sandy Bannister, the Equality and Diversity Manager
on 01905 766225 or email the Equality and Diversity
- Equality and Human Rights
Works to eliminate discrimination, reduce inequality, protect human
rights and to build good relations, ensuring that everyone has a
fair chance to participate in society.
- Plain English
A website of an organisation who have been fighting for
crystal-clear communication since 1979.
Worcestershire Racial Equality Council (WREC)
The WREC assists people who believe they have been discriminated
against, or who experience difficulty in using mainstream services
because of language and cultural differences.
- BBC Interfaith
Interfaith holy days and festivals Calendar.
We are not responsible for the content of external sites.
This page was last reviewed 13 June 2014 at 8:52.
The page is next due for review 10 December 2015. | <urn:uuid:28b73674-fc19-4e21-8ccb-241d4189ca69> | {
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Essential Guide to the Steel Square: Facts, Short-cuts, and Problem Solving Secrets
An indispensable guide to an indispensable tool!
Open up any craftsmen’s tool box and you will more than likely find a steel square. It’s a standard that has been around for centuries. Yet few actually know how to use this simple tool to its full potential. With Ken Horner’s guide you will learn how to quickly solve endless construction, layout, and geometric problems involving arcs, angles, circles and squares—with just your steel square. Seventeen chapters cover the history of the tool, different types of squares, problem-solving techniques, how to use the scales on a square, circles, angles, arches and ellipses, cylinders and cones, stairs, roofs, rafters and much more. Also included are several skill-building exercises and rules of thumb. Learning about this most versatile tool is a benefit to any woodworker, carpenter, do-it-yourselfer or even antique tool collector. Who’d have thought that a tool without a power cord could do so much! | <urn:uuid:642b9c4b-097c-4f94-a2e7-cfc38a0e8b22> | {
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In the last hours of his presidency, Barack Obama designated two new national monuments — Bears Ears in Utah and Gold Butte in Nevada. That’s more than 1.5 million acres.
The Bears Ears monument takes up an amazing 1.35 million acres, a region larger than the state of Delaware.
President Trump traveled to Salt Lake City to sign the National Monuments Proclamation, which shrinks the Bears Ears and the Grand-Staircase Escalante national monuments spanning millions of acres in Utah, returning about 2 million acres to the people of Utah. The two national monuments were among 27 that Trump ordered Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review earlier this year.
As of 2012 – before Obama’s action last December – the Federal government had control of 66.5% of all land in the state of Utah – or 35,033,603 acres. That is a pretty large percentage of land in the state, and it is not even the most extreme example. That prize goes to Nevada, where the Federal government controls more than 80% of the land – 81.1% in 2012, or 56,961,778 acres. If you are interested in seeing statistics for all of the states, you can see them here – | <urn:uuid:13d685c2-c22a-49d3-87e1-6fe2ca6c9d23> | {
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Speak Your Truth
An important distinction for us to remember is the difference between our opinions and our truth. We all have opinions—lots of them. Many of us think our opinions are actually facts, though they're not! There's nothing wrong with having and expressing opinions. However, many of them are filled with righteous judgment and an arrogant sense that we're right and those who don't agree with us are wrong.
Our "truth" runs much deeper than any of our opinions. Truth is about how we feel and what is real for us. Truth is not about being right; it's about expressing what we think and feel in an authentic, vulnerable and transparent way.
For example, I might have an opinion that you are rude. I'm entitled to this opinion and I may even have specific evidence of times you have done things that I think are rude. There may also be other people who agree with me that you're rude. However, this opinion will probably not help our relationship, bring us closer or help us have honest conversations with each other.
My "truth," however, might be that when you're around me I get scared because I worry you might say something that will hurt my feelings. Or, I get angry because I don't like some of the things you say and do. In other words, I sometimes don't feel safe or comfortable around you.
This distinction is not just about semantics or words, it is total shift in perspective and context. When we let go of being "right" about our opinions and take responsibility for our experience, we can speak our truth from a much deeper and more authentic place. Speaking this deeper truth will not only liberate us, but has the potential to make a difference for others while bringing us closer together.
3 ways to speak your truth | <urn:uuid:28f9101c-8948-42a4-9d4e-3cc0264ea98a> | {
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Is the Drinking Bird a perpetual motion machine?
Depending on what type of perpetual motion machine is being described, all perpetual motion machines violate either the First or Second Law of Thermodynamics, so the answer is no, the Drinking Bird is not a perpetual motion machine.
So what powers the Drinking Bird? If it is moving it must have kinetic energy and the Principle of the Conservation of Energy says that this kinetic energy must have come from somewhere. It does not come from the water as, despite what you might have read about “water powered cars”*, water is not a fuel and does not store or transfer energy.
The correct answer is that the Drinking Bird is powered by the ambient heat of the room it is placed in. The process that occurs is as follows:
- The head of the bird is placed in the water and the cloth material of its head soaks up some of this water.
- The water evaporates from the cloth head, lowering the temperature of the vapour trapped inside it. The movement of the head through the air as the bird oscillates back and forth helps speed up this evaporation. (The red fluid is dyed dichloromethane and the bird is evacuated during construction so that only dichloromethane and dichloromethane vapour is present in the central column.)
- As the temperature of the vapour decreases it turns back into a liquid, lowering the pressure inside the central column.
- This lowered pressure draws dichloromethane from the reservoir at the base of the bird up the central column.
- The fluid being drawn up the central column of the bird raises its centre of gravity and causes it to tip over.
- As the bird tips over, the central column becomes open to the reservoir at the base of the bird, causing pressures to equalise and the fluid to drain back out into the reservoir. At the same time the head is resubmerged into the water and the process repeats.
The Drinking Bird is a heat engine that uses the difference in temperature between the head and the base of bird to perform work, transferring thermal energy to kinetic energy. This temperature difference is created by evaporation that is powered by a room’s ambient heat. If you were able to perfectly insulate a room so that no thermal energy could enter or leave then you could cool the room down by leaving a drinking bird running.†
* “Water powered cars” are actually being powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The hydrogen comes from the water and is extracted using electricity, making “water powered cars” actually powered (indirectly) by electricity.
† Friction between the air and the bird, and between the bird and its bearings would transfer some of the bird’s kinetic energy into thermal energy, heating the room back up. | <urn:uuid:d6394ed4-3c17-4c96-a81b-ef4d641bb615> | {
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Not Khaleesi's Dragons: Komodo Dragon Blood Could Help Fight Antibiotic Resistance
It's not magic or fiction; the blood of the dragons -- komodo dragons, that is -- might actually save us.
In a new paper published in the Journal of Proteome Research, scientists from the George Mason University revealed that they were able to detect antimicrobial protein fragments in the blood of the Komodo dragon. If successful, this could be the key in the creation of drugs capable of attacking a number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that has been becoming more and more of a threat to the public.
According to a report from ACS, Komodo dragons are the world's largest lizard, living in the islands of Indonesia. Even with at least 57 species of bacteria found in their saliva, these creatures remain unharmed by these bacteria, which are discovered to even help them kill their prey.
"The ability of Komodo dragons to endure numerous strains of pathogenic bacteria in their saliva, yet show no signs of infection, and furthermore recover from wounds inflicted by other dragons reflect the inherent advantage of their innate immune defence and demands further investigation," Dr. Barney Bishop of the George Mason University said in a report from Mirror.
Seeking to understand the lizard's impressive immunity, the researchers used a technique called bioprespecting to isolate the cationic antimicrobial peptides (CAMPs) in their blood. There were 48 potential CAMPs, all of which were derived from a protein called histone that has antimicrobial properties.
Eight of the collected CAMPs were synthesized and tested on two different "superbugs": Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. Seven were able to kill both of the strains, while the eighth was only effective against the P. aeruginosa.
While it could be a while before "dragon blood" antibiotics hit the market, the study is a significant step in the right direction.
"The role that CAMPs play in the innate immunity of the Komodo dragon is potentially very informative, and the newly identified Komodo dragon CAMPs may lend themselves to the development of new antimicrobial therapeutics," Bishop concluded. | <urn:uuid:ec47014c-8fb7-4d0e-b818-40c3f09f1d93> | {
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For many students the most dreaded part of a test is discovering their final score. However, if one pays close attention to the number of possible questions missed during the exam, a single mathematical calculation can be used to determine the final grade. When the test contains 33 questions, this odd number can make the math slightly more difficult than calculating a test grade from an even number of questions. However, by using a calculator and a mathematical formula, the process is actually quite simple.
Write down the number of questions you missed.
Subtract the number written down in question one from 33. Use your calculator if necessary. For example, if you missed four questions, you would get 29. Write this number down.
Sciencing Video Vault
Divide the number in Step two by 33 using your calculator. For example, if you missed four questions and wrote down 29 in Step two, you would divide 29 by 33 and get the decimal number 0.878787879 on your calculator.
Multiply the decimal number obtained in Step three by 100. Continuing with the above example from Step three, you would get the decimal number 87.878787879.
Round the decimal number obtained in Step four to the nearest one. To do this, if the number just to the right of the decimal is between zero and four, round to the lower one. If the number just to the right of the decimal is between five and nine, round to the higher one. Thus, for 87.878787879, since the number to the right of the decimal is eight, the rounded number would be 88.
TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)
If your school uses a letter grading system, find where your rounded percentage falls in the grading rubric to assign a letter grade. For example, 80-89 is typically given the letter grade B, so an 88 would be a B. | <urn:uuid:b505c9e2-6343-4bec-9026-aa55a4cdcc6e> | {
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public member function
template <class... Args> void emplace (Args&&... args);
Construct and insert element
Adds a new element at the end of the queue, after its current last element. This new element is constructed in place passing args as the arguments for its constructor.
This member function effectively calls the member function emplace_back of the underlying container, forwarding args.
- Arguments forwarded to construct the new element.
#include <iostream> // std::cin, std::cout
#include <queue> // std::queue
#include <string> // std::string, std::getline(string)
int main ()
myqueue.emplace ("First sentence");
myqueue.emplace ("Second sentence");
std::cout << "myqueue contains:\n";
std::cout << myqueue.front() << '\n';
One call to emplace_back on the underlying container.
The container and up to all its contained elements are modified.
Provides the same level of guarantees as the operation performed on the underlying container object.
- Insert element (public member function
- Remove next element (public member function | <urn:uuid:67da0188-e392-41e8-a554-f977f929510b> | {
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Monarchs of the House of Tudor ruled England between 1485 and 1603. While there were many advances in learning, the arts and society during this period, medicine had progressed little since the middle ages. The average life expectancy for someone in Tudor times was 40 years, although this figure does include a high level of infant mortality. The Tudor doctor had to contend with a range of fatal illnesses with very little knowledge or skills to help him.
Common illnesses during Tudor times were the sweating sickness (possibly influenza) and the plague, carried by fleas on rats and other vermin. There were also epidemics of smallpox. Many women died of puerperal fever from infections contracted during childbirth. Diet-based conditions included scurvy. This was particularly prevalent in the rich, who ate expensive meat rather than cheap vegetables.
Types of doctor
Physicians were university-educated, with knowledge of astronomy, astrology, geometry, mathematics, music and philosophy. Their services were expensive and they were therefore available only to the wealthy. Most people had to make do with the local barber/surgeon, who would pull teeth, lance boils, let blood and conduct emergency surgery, with skills often learned on the battlefield. Below the surgeon in rank was the apothecary, who made up herbal remedies. The local wise woman, with her mix of folk remedies and possibly genuine knowledge of herbs, may have been the only recourse for the rural poor.
A diagnosis was usually reached after inspecting the patient's urine. The doctor would interpret the urine sample's look, smell, and even taste. The patient did not have to be present for this procedure: a servant would often deliver a specimen in a "jordan." In addition, a horoscope would be drawn up. The position of the stars were thought to influence specific parts of the body.
Whatever the diagnoses, the usual treatment was purging the patient in some way. What passed for medical knowledge was based on the teachings of Aristotle and his theory of the four "humours" of the body: yellow bile, black bile, phlegm and blood. Illness was thought to be the result of an imbalance of the humours. Purging or bloodletting, sometimes using leeches, were popular ways of attempting to restore balance.
- Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:7b7052fd-7a5f-4219-9745-25fd814b3a32> | {
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Connected Histories Fall 2013 Book Discussion series
This is a series of five book discussions on the theme Connected Histories and led by Giancarlo Casale, associate professor of the history of the Islamic world at the University of Minnesota.
Centuries before the dawn of the modern age, the world was already a surprisingly interconnected place. Readings for this theme introduce a way of understanding the past in which Islam and the West are seen as products of a shared, cosmopolitan, and inextricably intertwined past. These books help envision the world of our ancestors, which was every bit as complex and dynamically interconnected as the world we live in today.
The five books to be discussed:
- “When Asia Was the World: Traveling Merchants, Scholars, Warriors, and Monks Who Created the ‘Riches of the East'”
by Stewart Gordon
- “The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance”
by Jim Al-Khalili
- “The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain”
by María Rosa Menocal
- “Leo Africanus by Amin Maalouf”
translated by Peter Sluglett
- “In an Antique Land”
by Amitav Ghosh
Sponsored by the University of Minnesota Libraries and Hennepin County Library.
About Giancarlo Casale
Giancarlo Casale holds a Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. He is currently associate professor of the history of the Islamic world at the University of Minnesota, where he has taught since 2005. Casale is an expert in Ottoman history, early modern empires, and the history of geography and cartography. His book, “The Ottoman Age of Exploration,” was awarded the Cundill Recognition of Excellence prize in 2011.
About Muslim Journeys
The Muslim Journeys project presents to the American public resources representing diverse perspectives on the people, places, histories, beliefs, practices, and cultures of Muslims in the United States and around the world.
Muslim Journeys is a component of the National Endowment for the Humanities’ agency-wide Bridging Cultures initiative, which engages the power of the humanities to promote understanding and mutual respect for people with diverse histories, cultures, and perspectives within the United States and abroad.
Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys, a reading and discussion series, has been made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in cooperation with the American Library Association.
Other sponsors: Government and Community Relations, Department of History, Religious Studies Program, Cedar-Humphrey Action for Neighborhood Collaborative Engagement, Department of Art History , Department of English, Hennepin-University Partnership, Augsburg College. | <urn:uuid:f7d08079-2ebc-4597-a655-823f08d7b3af> | {
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In a stem cell transplant — also called a bone marrow transplant — a patient's blood-forming stem cells are replaced by infusing new ones into his or her bloodstream. The procedure can be an effective form of treatment for certain forms of cancer, specific genetic diseases, and other types of blood disorders. For most people, the aim of the transplant is to cure the disease.
Blood-Forming Stem Cells
Blood-forming, or hematopoietic, stem cells are immature cells that can develop into any type of blood cell, including:
- white blood cells, which help the body fight infections
- red blood cells, which carry oxygen throughout the body
- platelets, which are important in blood clotting and controlling bleeding
Stem cells are produced in the bone marrow, a sponge-like tissue that is found inside large bones (for example, in the breastbone, pelvis, ribs, and spine). Before a transplant, stem cells can be collected from a person's bone marrow or from the bloodstream, where peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs) circulate.
Another source of stem cells is blood from a newborn's umbilical cord and placenta, which can be donated to a stem cell bank by the baby's mother.
Types of Transplantation
The are two main types of transplant: autologous transplant, in which a patient's own stem cells are collected and then transplanted back into the patient, and allogeneic transplant, in which the stem cells are obtained from another person, most commonly a brother or sister.
Dr. Sergio Giralt, Chief of the Bone Marrow Transplantation Service, explains how transplantation is used in the treatment of cancer.
Before an autologous or allogeneic transplant, a patient receives either chemotherapy or a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. This treatment, called the preparative regimen or conditioning, eradicates cancerous cells as well as the blood-forming stem cells in the bone marrow, decreasing the number of mature blood cells in a person’s body.
Next, stem cells are infused into the patient's bloodstream through an intravenous catheter, in a procedure that is similar to a blood transfusion. No surgery is required. Over the following days, the transplanted stem cells travel to the bone marrow, where they will grow and develop into new mature blood cells, including red and white blood cells and platelets.
It usually takes several weeks before all the mature blood cells are replenished. During this time, special measures are taken to protect the patient from infections and bleeding.
Successful autologous and allogeneic transplants provide patients with new, healthy bone marrow. Allogeneic transplants also give patients a new immune system, which is derived from the donor's stem cells and may provide protection against cancer.
Diseases Treated with Transplantation
Different types of transplants are known to be more effective for some diseases than others. Your team of doctors will determine which type of transplant is best for you after considering the specifics of your disease and a number of other factors — for instance, what other treatments you have received and your general health status. Your transplant doctor will discuss these factors in detail with you.
Autologous transplantation can be used to treat a person who is diagnosed with:
Allogeneic transplantation can be used to treat a person who is diagnosed with:
Either autologous or allogeneic transplantation can be used to treat people diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, or multiple myeloma.
Who Is Eligible for a Transplant?
Transplantation can be an extremely challenging procedure for a patient and family. This is both because of the toxicity of the high-dose preparative regimens and the extended period during which the patient’s immune system is suppressed. For this reason, physicians carefully select patients for this procedure. Newer technology has allowed us to transplant patients who are older and sicker, but an extensive pre-transplant evaluation is still necessary. | <urn:uuid:bd545107-953d-48f7-a9c4-c968a55cbcda> | {
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10 YEARS AGO — 2001
Electronic brakes note telltale signs of panic: The Mercedes-Benz SL coupe/roadster uses a computer to tell four valves exactly how hard to hit the brakes. An electrically driven hydraulic pump and high-pressure reservoir help put full brake pressure at each wheel, eliminating bulky vacuum-brake boosters.
The brakes recognize early signs of an emergency and react. Pressure in the brake connectors rises, moving the pads onto the discs, permitting instant reaction when the brakes are pressed.
30 YEARS AGO — 1981
New way to make big plastic parts: Molds for plastic aircraft components can be rapidly and economically produced by a new method, says TAFA Metallisation Inc., Bow, N. H. Based on high-velocity arcspraying, the process is intended for large (over 100 ft2) prototype molds for runs of 400 to 500 units and molds for production runs up to 20,000 units, depending on pressure and temperature. The process can be used for composites, vacuum forming, rotational molding, SMC, RIM tooling, and injection molding. Molds are formed by spraying zinc on model material, such as wood, plastic, leather, and wax, to exactly reproduce both shape and finish. With arcspray, zinc can be applied at 30 lb/hr and a mold-wall thickness of 1/8 in. can be built up rapidly. The metal shell is then backed by a special laminating paste with compatible expansion characteristics.
50 YEARS AGO — 1961
Plastic sandwiches in a new refrigerated freight car can maintain any temperature from –10 to 70°F. The three-layer panels which line the car are made of Cycolac polymer, a rigid ABS plastic from Marbon Chemical Div. of Borg-Warner Corp.; Dylite expandable polystyrene insulation from Koppers Co.; and a ¼-in. plywood back. These panels reduce weight of the refrigerator car and, because they are only 6½-in.-thick, add 451 ft3 of space to the car’s capacity. | <urn:uuid:b4603934-8be1-410d-a7f8-6a094a3ccad4> | {
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AIDS Trestment News
Major Vaccine Project: Largest AIDS Research Grants Ever to Two "Most Promising" Approachesby John S. James
DNA Plus MVA Vaccine
One of the research programs, led by researchers at Oxford University and the University of Nairobi, will combine two vaccines which may work well together. One consists of DNA for HIV core proteins; it is produced in genetically engineered bacteria. When injected, this DNA is taken up by cells in the body, which then produce those proteins -- hopefully stimulating the desired immune response against HIV. Four years of preliminary work have already been done in developing this vaccine.
The other technology to be used in this vaccine is MVA (modified vaccinia Ankara), a harmless virus used in smallpox vaccines. In this case, the vaccinia virus has been modified to encode certain HIV core proteins; the virus carries the DNA for these proteins into the cells. The virus does not replicate in humans, however.
In both mice and monkeys, this dual-vaccine approach has been shown to produce strong T-helper and CTL (cytotoxic T lymphocyte) responses. Phase I safety testing will be done at Oxford, followed by phase I, II and II/III trials in Kenya.
Other research teams are developing HIV vaccines which use the DNA or MVA technology, but this is the only project which will use them together. Another team at Oxford is using the two together, to develop a vaccine against malaria.
The VEE Replicon Vaccine
A second vaccine uses a delivery system called VEE replicon, first tested at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, and then in commercial development by AlphaVax Human Vaccines Inc. of Durham, North Carolina, for several diseases not including HIV. The IAVI project will fund the development of an HIV vaccine using this technology, which employs a non-virulent form of Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEE) to carry HIV (or other) genetic material into human cells. The replicon does reproduce in human cells, but it does not produce infectious progeny. This vaccine produces both cellular and humoral immune responses, and targets lymphoid tissue.
This vaccine technology has protected monkeys against a highly pathogenic strain of SIV -- providing better protection than otherwise achieved except with a live vaccine, which has safety problems. In a separate experiment, it also protected monkeys against the Marburg virus, which is related to Ebola.
Intellectual Property Innovation
IAVI has also developed innovative business arrangements on intellectual property, to combine "the best mechanisms of the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors to achieve our goals," according to Lita Nelsen, director of the technology licensing office of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who was IAVI's principal advisor on intellectual property issues.
The basic arrangement is that IAVI invests money in promising technologies, in return for rights or other agreements that assure that the results will be available to the public sectors of developing countries, at a cost based on production cost. This way the company gets needed investment at an early stage of product development -- allowing it to move faster in producing the vaccine -- without interfering with its most valuable market, which will be in the developed countries. "Developing country" is defined according to World Bank criteria, and the "public sector" means government and non-profit organizations in those countries.
"By addressing these issues early and systematically, IAVI seeks to more effectively advance its overall mission. For-profit companies are where most of the world's vaccine development expertise resides. IAVI and its partners are creating the win-win situation necessary to fully engage the expertise of the private sector in this challenge. In doing so, they may also be able to help others successfully negotiate these issues to ensure that development moves ahead rapidly and access issues are addressed early on." (from "IAVI Intellectual Property Backgrounder," November 26, 1998).
"The current paradigm, where vaccines are developed in the industrialized world and sold exclusively there at high prices to recoup R & D costs, should not be acceptable for any vaccine, and certainly not for AIDS," said IAVI's president, Seth Berkley, M.D. "Developing countries should not be forced to wait 10 to 15 years for an AIDS vaccine to trickle down to them. We need to start now to ensure that a successful AIDS vaccine will be made available simultaneously in developed and developing countries."
IAVI began in 1997, with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and public support from Princess Diana. Other supporters include the Alfred P. Sloan, Starr, William H. Gates, and Until There's A Cure Foundations; the World Bank; UNAIDS; Fondation Marcel Merieux; the UK Government; Levi Strauss International; and Glaxo Wellcome, in addition to individual donors. Crusaid, the Elton John AIDS Foundation, and others have contributed to the vaccine development effort.
For More Information
More information on the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, on the vaccines, and on the intellectual-property arrangements is available at http://www.iavi.org.
Disability and Returning to Work: Proposed Change to Let Disabled Keep Benefitsby John S. James
Since the details will matter, we asked benefits expert Tom McCormack what our readers should know about these proposals. While not yet familiar with the details of the president's plan, McCormack worked extensively in drafting the Congressional version (known as the Jeffords-Kennedy Work Incentives Improvement Act), as a consultant to the Title II Community AIDS National Network. Here are some of the issues he suggested for advocates to watch:
According to McCormack, current law, if read literally, seems to suggest that a person who still has the condition on which he or she received the determination of disability should not lose their disability status for medical-treatment purposes -- even if they are currently in remission, able to work, and no longer disabled enough for disability income payments. But the Federal regulations implementing the law have been written so that if someone flunks the disability review they lose medical care as well as disability income.
So McCormack and others tried to get the Jeffords-Kennedy bill to clarify the intent of Congress -- so that, for example, if someone became disabled due to HIV disease, but later was able to go back to work, they would not then lose access to their medical care, since they still had the underlying condition (HIV disease). McCormack explained that this provision did not get into the bill only because of the desire to avoid anything that might have raised controversy, in the failed hope of getting the legislation into the omnibus bill (in which case it would have been law today).
The New York Times article suggests that the Clinton proposal is particularly targeting rules which discourage people from working, for fear of losing their medical care if they do. For example, people who lose Social Security disability benefits because they return to work would be able to keep Medicare, and could buy Medicaid coverage under rules which could be set by the states.
For more information on these issues, call Tom McCormack at 202-479-2543.
Low-Dose Cyclosporin: Government Trial Recruiting, CD4 Count Over 500
Baltimore, Cambridge, Chapel Hill, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Galveston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle
ACTG 334 Entry Criteria
ACTG 334 is a phase II, placebo-controlled study of cyclosporin and immune activation in persons with HIV; its purpose is to advance knowledge of the disease, but there is no reason to expect that patients will benefit directly from the treatment. Some persons will want the extensive test results, many of which are not available commercially.
Volunteers must have a CD4 count greater than 500, and a viral load greater than 600. They may either be on no anti-HIV treatment, or be taking two nucleoside analog drugs (e.g. AZT plus 3TC, or d4T plus ddI). They cannot currently be using protease inhibitors, nor NNRTIs (such as efavirenz or nevirapine), although past use is allowed. They must not be planning to change their anti-HIV medications during the course of this 16-week study.
A total of 9 study visits (plus 5 additional short visits to have a skin test read) will be required; volunteers will be paid a small compensation for their time (the amount can vary by site). The following tests will be run: soluble IL-2 receptors, beta-2 microglobulin, neopterin, CD-25, CD-38, HLA-DR, lymphoproliferative assay, apoptosis, DTH (skin test of immune function), viral load, proviral DNA, and HIV microculture.
The cyclosporin dose in this trial is 2 mg/kg twice a day (a total of 4 mg/kg per day). Half of the volunteers will be assigned to a placebo group, and they will not receive any cyclosporin.
For More Information
For more information about ACTG 334, including how to contact a site near you, call the AIDS Clinical Trials Information Service, 800-TRIALS-A.
Note: ACTG 334 should not be confused with a separate cyclosporin study, being run by ViRx, Inc., in three California cities: Palm Springs, San Francisco, and San Jose. The ViRx study is for persons with somewhat more advanced HIV disease (CD-4 count between 300 and 600). For more information about this study, call the ViRx office, 415-474-4440.
1. Loftus, R. Sandoz axes cyclosporine research. GMHC Treatment Issues December 12, 1995; volume 9, number 12.
2. Kinoshita S, Chen BK, Kaneshima H, and Nolan G. Host control of HIV-1 parasitism in T cells by the nuclear factor of activated T cells. Cell November 25, 1998; volume 95.
IDSA Conference: Abstracts on the Webby John S. James
Major HIV Topics CoveredHIV-related topics at the IDSA conference included antiretroviral therapy (with a section on salvage therapy), HIV transmission and prevention, HIV care delivery and economics in the U.S. and elsewhere, perinatal transmission and HIV in children, lipodystrophy and other adverse effects of drug therapy, drug resistance, opportunistic infections, tuberculosis, hepatitis B and C, post-exposure prophylaxis of HIV, physician experience, patient adherence, basic research on HIV biology and pathogenesis, newer antiretrovirals (including hydroxyurea, and FTC), new diagnostic tests, and vaccines.
IDSA presentations that were not AIDS-specific included evidence that CMV infection may be a risk factor for heart disease (in the U.S., CMV infects more than half of the population by age 20); and a report that syphilis has reached an all-time low in the U.S. (but is concentrated in certain areas, with 6% of U.S. counties, mostly in the South, accounting for 85% of newly reported cases in 1997).
Summaries of several of the most important HIV-related sessions -- written by Frederick L. Altice, M.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine at Yale -- are online at The Body, http://www.thebody.com.
AIDS Treatment News did not cover this IDSA meeting in person.
Searching the IDSA 98 Abstracts
The abstracts of the IDSA conference were submitted in advance, and those which were accepted for presentation are available online. You can search these abstracts -- almost 800 of them -- for any word or for combinations of words, at the IDSA Web site, http://www.idsociety.org. (At the site, select "IDSA Meetings & Conferences," then "1998 Annual Meeting Abstracts," then "Abstracts-On-Line®.") The first time you use this software, you will be asked to make up a user name and password; remember these for faster access next time.
The software at the site allows you to create a "personal itinerary" -- a collection of results from multiple searches -- which can then be printed in order, without repeating abstracts which turned up in more than one of your searches. Also, the personal itinerary feature is helpful if you want to print a large number of abstracts or titles (or save them locally on your computer).
Comment: Conference Confusion
The IDSA conference received little attention for a meeting of its size -- a result of historical accident, especially the fact that there are too many AIDS-relevant meetings in the fall and too few in the spring. Until recently, the IDSA meeting was coordinated with ICAAC (the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, an annual meeting organized by the American Society for Microbiology); the IDSA meeting was two days before or after ICAAC, in the same city and usually the same hotel, so it was easy to attend both. Those IDSA meetings were much smaller -- several hundred physicians sitting in a single hall all day, hearing ten to 20 top-quality lectures by leading physician-scientists, primarily reviewing changes in the field, rather than presenting original research findings.
Now the organizations have ended their coordination, and the IDSA meeting has expanded to compete with ICAAC as a large, multi-track forum for presentation of new medical and scientific information. So ICAAC, IDSA, and the International Congress on Drug Therapy in HIV Infection are bunched together -- between the World AIDS Conference (in June or July, even-numbered years only), and the important Retroviruses conference in January or February. Researchers do not know whether to present at ICAAC or IDSA, as the audience is split since it is hard to attend both.
Meanwhile there is a lack of similar conferences in the spring. So if a research advance misses the Retroviruses conference, the researchers may not present it at all until next summer or fall -- often more than a six-month delay.
A solution would be for IDSA to hold its research conference in the spring, so that it does not compete with ICAAC for the same presentations -- as is now the case not only in AIDS, but in other areas as well. Then researchers could present their results more quickly, at whichever meeting happened next, and more people would attend both.
Another helpful conference innovation would be a public online forum where researchers could add new information to their conference abstracts at any time, if they chose to do so.
4th International Congress on Drug Therapy in HIV Infection: Summaries on Web
This conference focused on HIV clinical practice now and in the future.
New Drug Pricing: Progress on World AIDS Day?by John S. James
Ziagen is not yet approved for marketing, but approval has been recommended and could come this month.
Also DuPont Pharma announced modest price concessions -- promising not to raise the price of Sustiva for at least three years, and to guarantee for five years an additional 5% rebate for ADAPs, which it offered in October.
As this issue goes to press on December 2, early community reaction to these announcements has been mostly positive or mixed.
Copyright 1998 by John S. James. Permission granted for noncommercial reproduction, provided that our address and phone number are included if more than short quotations are used. | <urn:uuid:b347e3c1-f2f1-44bd-bb7c-52db7258f275> | {
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Answer: Highly oxygenated blood enters the heart via the pulmonary veinsinto the left atrium of the heart. Veins return to the heart andnormally have relatively deoxygenated blood (pulmonary veins are anexception to this rule and have freshly-oxygenated blood) whilearteries go away from the heart and have highly oxygenated blood(the pulmonary artery bringing blood from the right ventricletoward the lungs is an exception and has poorly oxygenated blood).
Answer: It depends on what you mean by "warts" Warts are cause by a virus, so this virus in in the blood stream. HPV is the main cause of genital warts and is transmitted sexually. The virus attacks the cells of the skin, and causes warts to develop on the surface
Answer: ÝApproximately 80% of total body iron is ultimately incorporated into red cell hemoglobin. An average adult produces 2 x 1011 red cells daily, for a red cell renewal rate of 0.8 percent per day. Each red cell contains more than a billion atoms of iron, and each ml of red cells contains 1 mg of iron. To meet this daily need for 2 x 1020 atoms (or 20 mg) of elemental iron, the body has developed regulatory mechanisms whereby erythropoiesis profoundly influences iron absorption. Plasma iron turnover (PIT) represents the mass turnover of transferrin-bound iron in the circulation, expressed as mg/kg/day (Huff et al., 1950). Accelerated erythropoiesis increases plasma iron turnover, which is associated with enhanced iron uptake from the gastrointestinal tract (Weintraub et al., 1965). The mechanism by which PIT alters iron absorption is unknown.
Why does oxygen enter the blood stream?
so you can breath and ur blood goes arou nd your body for you to breath and it circulates good
The oxygen then clings to red blood cells as they pass through the alveolar capillariaries The inhaled oxygen passes into the alveoli and then diffuses through the capillaries into the arterial blood. Meanwhile, the waste-rich blood from the veins releases its carbon dioxide into the alveoli. The carbon dioxide follows the same path out of the lungs when you exhale.
Answer: It may help to step back and think about what blood does, and why it would matter that the blood is rich in oxygen (or CO2).Among other things, blood acts to transport oxygen and CO2 to or from tissues and organs, right? In order for the blood cells to carry them, the binding site on the blood cell would have to be open.So, if the blood is oxygen rich, that means that those blood cells are carrying as much oxygen as they can...there is simply no room for any CO2 to bind to the cells.So the reason it never mixes is because the oxygen is hogging the blood cells binding sites (or vice versa).
Answer: Large venous air embolisms (centimeters) may lead to death if they become lodged in the heart. if big enough they can cause the heart to loose prime and as a result stop the bood from flowing from the right ventricle to the lungs. Gas embolism into an artery, termed arterial gas embolism, or AGE, is a more serious matter than in a vein, since a gas bubble in an artery may directly cause stoppage of blood flow to an area fed by the artery. The symptoms of AGE depend on the area of blood flow, and may be those of stroke or heart attack if the brain or heart, respectively, are affected. The amount of arterial gas embolism which causes symptoms depends on location, but in the brain may be a bubble with a volume only a fraction of a milliliters. (sourced from wikipedia) | <urn:uuid:29c8d944-7981-4189-b510-eab3f06ae3d8> | {
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Drilling into 3D printing: Gimmick, revolution or spooks' nightmare?
Top prof sorts the hype from the science for El Reg
The challenges facing 3D printing even though it is more and more accurate
Deloitte conceded that 3D printers are improving in accuracy enough to be able to make objects with moving parts; it also registered that 3D printing is "extremely useful for creating prototypes, highly customised items or small production runs". However, the firm went on to list the following home truths:
- 3D printing can mostly only fabricate relatively homogeneous objects made up of a small number of distinct materials. Printing out small, really complex electronics, or with multiple materials, remains tricky.
- The products of 3D printing are not as durable as conventional products.
- Production runs with 3D printing "do not scale well beyond 10 items".
- Using a 3D printer "tends to be extremely expensive".
Perhaps Deloitte was a little harsh. It could, however, only be right to argue that while some of 3D’s limitations "will be overcome in the medium term", others "are the result of fundamental constraints that are unlikely to be resolved".
3D printing is no gimmick and it will certainly change important dimensions of manufacturing. It is good for customised products and, working hand in hand with other technologies, can bring about remarkable results. But neither SMEs, nor 3D printers, can reinvent or revolutionise manufacturing. Despite their numbers and their populous employee base, SMEs never dominate a developed capitalist economy the way large, multinational, capital-exporting firms do. And 3D printers simply will not have the clout or the versatility that attended the development of, say, the personal computer.
Like the categories of nanotechnology and robotics, 3D covers a vast range of different techniques: if you register on the website MakePartsFast.com and use the "3D printer selector" tool there, you will see dozens of pages of different printers, listed by supplier, "build envelope", market sector and printing material. However, 3D printing is a manufacturing technology that must both work with and compete with other wide-ranging technologies such as nanotechnology and robotics. For example, 3D printing must vie with other methods of prototyping and testing, such as Caterpillar’s "immersive visualisation", which enables earth-shifting equipment to be designed with the aid of a "virtual cab" that is climbed into like an aircraft simulator.
The Makerbot Replicator 2: Copy'n'paste engineering
To do justice to 3D printing, it needs to be seen clearly, without rose-tinted spectacles, and in perspective. Let’s therefore now add a little more historical and contemporary perspective to the technology’s apostles, before dealing with those who, conversely, fear 3D printing today.
Automated machinery inaugurates a new era
Behind the rise of euphoria about 3D printing lies not just experiences with the web and a desire to revive indigenous manufacturing. We need also to recall, first, that America, land of the car, inventor of the assembly line and inventor of the sit-down strike, has paradoxically long dreamt of independent producers as an alternative to factories and mass production. It’s here that the subtitle to Rheingold’s Virtual Community, published 20 years ago, is very notable: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier.
Growing your own IT, and now growing your own IT-based manufacturing with the help of 3D printers, has more than a whiff of the frontier American farmer of the nineteenth century. Of course, small firms, not just homesteaders, figure prominently in the new era thought to be inaugurated by 3D printing. Nevertheless, in a mass property-owning and share-owning economy like the US, it is the householder, perhaps aspiring to run a small and eventually a large firm, who has long been the ultimate hero in accounts of the future that centre on production technique. In his 1980 bestseller The Third Wave, for example, the renowned US futurologist Alvin Toffler famously coined the phrase "prosumer" to describe consumers who, he believed, would more and more engage in production.
Toffler, an ex-member of the Communist Party of the USA, was one of the first to promote the mirage of the mass, cheap, batch production of differentiated products, with consumers specifying designs as their fast-changing lifestyles demanded. Around the same time, French left-wingers and others declared the end of what they called "Fordist", uniform production and homogenous products. In place of these things, they said, had come post-Fordist, "flexible" manufacturing with specialised, heterogenous outputs. Nobody mentioned 3D printers, for it was only in 1986 that Chuck Hull first patented "stereolithography", a process in which a computer-directed beam of ultraviolet light is used to solidify liquid plastic. Nevertheless, the theoretical ground-rules for today’s 3D-printer cultists were firmly laid.
Of course, the technical possibility of automating production to make customised products at low cost is greater with 3D printers and other technologies in 2013 than it was in the Eighties. However, just as another app on your mobile phone tomorrow does not foretell a new era of buoyant, innovative capitalism, so does another thousand 3D printers sold over the web not usher in a new mode of production. It is social and political relations, not the supposedly all-powerful influence of technology, which establish wholly new structures for creating wealth.
In the late Nineties, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), whose Media Lab was, as Anderson notes, the first to rhapsodise about atoms and bits, argued that the web could bring about a radical change in economic regime. In the pages of a late-1998 Harvard Business Review, MIT’s Thomas Malone and Robert Laubacher suggested that the US auto industry had already moved toward a new economy of individual "e-lancers" – one in which temporary, autonomous and self-organising coalitions of car designers and engineers could become multi-millionaires overnight. In the US automotive industry of the mid-21st century, the two academics argued, "while much of the venture capital goes to support traditional design concepts, some is allocated to more speculative, even wild-eyed ideas… A small coalition of engineers may, for example, receive funds to design a factory for making individualised lighting systems for car grilles".
These different conceptions of IT-assisted individualism, each more facile than the last, might be thought to exhaust the homesteading ethos, and certainly should guard us against the sillier extremes of the Maker Movement. But there is more. In the realm of energy, hopes of a kind of hardy independence from electricity networks, powered by solar panels and other renewable energy sources, have bolstered the idea that, if "the personal is the political", then the domestic can also be economic. | <urn:uuid:13773b73-27ca-4e9b-bc30-b3d8801ba53d> | {
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The music therapy concentration is uniquely structured to provide not only an intensive study of music, but also an in-depth understanding of the behavioral and natural sciences (such as psychology, anatomy and physiology) and sociology. Music used as a therapeutic modality is frequently applied to a wide range of people with psychological, physical, emotional, social or cognitive disabilities. The curriculum is structured to provide an intensive coverage of these areas throughout the four-year program.
An important aspect of the music therapy curriculum is the practical field involvement of the student from the sophomore through the senior years. This high degree of clinical exposure culminates with a six-month internship at an AMTA approved facility under a board-certified music therapist. The internship can be taken anywhere in the country upon completion of all degree course work. Upon successful completion of the internship, the student is eligible to sit for the national board certification exam offered by the Certification Board for Music Therapists (CBMT).
The concentration involves research as well as clinical work. The goal of the concentration is to produce highly qualified and knowledgeable music therapists who will become growing and productive assets to their clinical program and profession. The field of music therapy is an exciting one, utilizing a unique combination of art and science to improve the quality of life for persons with disabilities.
What is Music Therapy?
While music has been used for centuries as a therapeutic tool, the profession of music therapy as we currently know it did not develop until the middle of the 20th century. By today's standards, we might view music therapy as the use of music in the accomplishment of therapeutic aims: the restoration, maintenance and improvement of mental and physical health.
Find the answers to additional frequently asked questions. | <urn:uuid:ecd1f8c4-ded4-4098-8038-6db15b1cdebf> | {
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Flowering bulbs provide some of the finest things to be found in any indoor collection of plants. There is something particularly clean and crisp about the flowers-a quality which may be depended upon to add a halo of brilliance to many otherwise drab days. Then, too, numerous species may be potted to provide a long succession of bloom-from late autumn until spring if it is your wish. Bulbs are most punctilious in their flowering schedule. While they may be questionable as guides for catching trains, they unfurl their buds at remarkably precise intervals.
For purposes of general information relative to house specimens, the bulbs are divided into two main sections hardy bulbs and tender bulbs. The hardy kinds are those which are grown out of doors throughout most of the United States. Among them are found such plants as glory-of-the snow (Chionodoxa), crocus, grape hyacinth (Muscari), hyacinth, iris, lily, tulip, etc. Bulbs which are garden tenants only in the warmer states are regarded as tender; they include Amaryllis, calla lily (Zantedeschia), Cape cowslip (Lachenalia), Clivia, Cyrtanthus, fairy lily (Zephyranthes), Gloxinia Hippeastrum, Scarborough lily (Vdlota speciosa), Ornithogdum, Oxalis, and Sprekelia.
The specific reason for dividing bulbs into these groups, as far as house plants are concerned, is because each group calls for a different potting treatment.
Let us consider the hardy bulbs first. They are planted in the early fall in pots or bulb pans. Use Potting Mixture 3, omitting the cow manure, unless otherwise indicated and plenty of drainage material. After the bulbs are potted (instructions for potting are included with description of species), they are ready for storing. Storing is extremely important in the successful culture of hardy bulbous house plants; indifference to this essential step is responsible for many failures in flowering. Hardy bulbs require a strong root structure before top-growth is allowed to develop. When planted outside in -the garden, -they develop roots normally during the fall and winter. If they are to be forced indoors, some substitute for the natural root-developing period must be provided. This is accomplished by burying the bulbs, pot and all, in cold frames, trenches, or pits out of doors. Place the pots on a layer of ashes and cover them to a depth of 6 inches to 1 foot with ashes or sand. After the bulbs have been in storage for six or seven weeks, examine the pots. If roots project through the drainage hole, they are ready to be taken into the house. If no roots show, let the pots remain buried for a week or two longer (the relative rooting period is given in the table of species). When several containers of tulips or hyacinths are stored at the same time, the additional pots may be brought into the house at two-week intervals which will give a succession of flowers. It will not injure the bulbs to leave them in the ground in the meanwhile.
If you live in an apartment house, or do not find it convenient to store bulbs out of doors, the process may be attended to in the cellar, or any dark spot where the temperature does not exceed 45-50 degrees. Place the potted bulbs on a pile of earth or slightly dampened sawdust and cover them with peat moss.
Some gardeners prefer to plant bulbs in prepared fiber rather than in soil, and it is true that fibre offers much in the way of convenience and cleanliness. The method of growing in this medium is simple. Fill the pot or pan to the top with fiber, previously saturated with water and then squeezed out. Plant the bulbs exactly as you would if you were using soil. Store in the cellar and add water every two weeks. When the bulbs are well rooted, water should be added more frequently. Fiber is not recommended, how ever, for bulbs which remain in the same container for several years, as in the case with many of the tender species.
After the pots are brought into the house, or out of the cellar, they should be placed in a cool room in dim light. They may have more heat and light as the tops develop. While most bulbous plants demand sun to mature strong flower buds and healthy foliage, it is advisable to remove them from direct sun as soon as the first flower opens. The blossoms will last longer and retain their brilliancy better if out of the sun.
Hyacinths, and tulips sometimes, have a mean habit of opening their flowers while they arc still squatting at the base of the leaf spike. The result, as you can imagine, is a poor specimen of greatly reduced beauty. Fortunately, it is quite easy to overcome this fault by either capping the pot with a cornucopia of paper or inverting another pot, with the drainage hole enlarged, over it. This allows the flower stalk to gain height before the buds open
It may be properly asked--~'why grow the small Dutch bulbs, such as crocus and grape hyacinths and scillas indoors when they flower so early in the garden?" True, March and April find these plants welling from the awakening soil like livid drops of color, yet if -their bulbs or corms are potted early in the fall, they will flower for you in January and February; and it is well worth the effort to beat spring by a month or more. They are very welcome in the house and are a promise of what is to follow outside.
After hardy bulbs have flowered in their containers many gardeners wonder what to do with the bulbs. Throw them away? Save them for forcing another season? Plant them outside? By all means don't throw them away; it is a waste of perfectly good plants.
In keeping hardy bulbs for further use one -thing must be clearly understood. The formation of embryo flowers and leaves inside -the bulb is largely dependent upon the present leaves. They must grow and ripen, taking their allotted time in which to do so, otherwise, no future flowers are formed within the bulb. With this in mind you may do one of two things to ripen your bulbs. They may be left in the pot after flowering and kept watered until the foliage turns yellow, then brown, and finally dies down. After that, water should be withheld entirely and the bulbs stored away in a cool, dark place. This is the usual procedure when bulbs are to be forced a second time. Second forcing, in most instances, are very unsatisfactory; unless you are an expert, the practice is not recommended.
Tulips, for instance, make new bulbs each season; and in a pot the new bulbs seldom grow large enough to produce flowers the second year. The same is true of crocus corms. While more success may be expected from narcissi, which produce bulb offsets instead of new bulbs, the results are still apt to be disappointing. It is better to purchase new bulbs each year for forcing.
Forced bulbs may, however, be planted outside in the garden when they have served their purpose in the house. It will often take them a year to gain renewed vigor and the ability to produce flowers of normal stature or at all; yet the second year after planting most of them will act as though they had been dug into the garden in the first place -they will have forgotten their apprenticeship in the house. This is true of all but the early tulips-the type most often used for forcing-they usually continue to produce leaves without flowers unless put through a course of lifting, ripening, and storing. In any event, it is better to try them in the garden than to discard them abruptly.
BULBS FOR INDOOR CULTURE | <urn:uuid:092992d6-57ab-4235-b200-8deed12008ba> | {
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The study of the influences of the stars is known as astrology. For Centuries, people have believed that the position of the stars and planets has an influence on human life. The study of this influence is known as astrology. It began about 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia (Modern Iraq) and eventually spread throut the ancient world. In most cultures astrology was regarded as a science and many rulers even used this system when making important political decision. Today, although there is no scientific proof for its accuracy, many people still believe in astrology.
Astrology and Astronomy:
The scientific study of stars and planets is known as astronomy. For thousands of years, astronomy and astrology were closely linked. From the 17th century onwards, however, leaps in scientific knowledge resulted in astronomy becoming increasingly important, while belief in astrology began to wane.
Ancient astrologers believed that the universe was a gigantic sphere with the earth the centre and the stars circling around it. They divided this sphere into 12 sections, each of which was named after a constellation of fixed stars – the signs of the zodiac.
Casting a Horoscope:
To draw up your horoscope or birth chart astrologers need to know the exact date, time and place of your birth. They then use careful calculations to plot the position of the sun, moon and planers. Astrologers claim that they can interpret the finished horoscope to reveal your character.
Signs of the Zodiac:
Each sign of the zodiac takes its name from ancient mythology. Early astrologers chose names to suit the shapes formed by the constellations – the stars that make up Leo, for example, were thought to resemble a lion.
Unlike western astrology which is based on the movement of the sun and planets, Chinese horoscopes are based on the cycle of the moon Each Chinese year is named after a different animal – the Rat, Ox , Tiger, Rabbit Dragon, Snake, Horse, Ram Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig.
Chinese astrology features 12 animals and each represents a different personality type. For example people born in the year of the snake are said to be sociable, confident and energetic,
Each astrological animal is associated with a certain food, color and symbol. The Rat’s symbol is the set of balances, its color is black and it is linked with salty – tasting foods.
People’s desire to see into the future has given rise to many different forms of prediction which vary from culture to culture. They include crystal ball gazing; dream interpretation, palmistry divination sticks, tarot reading, runes, numerology and the I Ching, an ancient Chinese oracle.
The Role of Chance:
Many Fortune – telling systems use dice, coins or cards to introduce an element of randomness.
Tarot cards are found worldwide. They can be dealt in many different ways and are thought to answer specific questions or be a guide to the future.
From Astrology to HOME PAGE | <urn:uuid:5693775a-03a3-4e55-b1cc-e7a788ff9e7b> | {
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Mary's Role in Salvation History
This time of year, the Christian world once again takes a look at Mary's role in salvation. I always hope and pray that someone's heart will be open to understand Mary from the Catholic perspective this time of year. Why is that so important? Because ultimately Mary leads us to her son and by proclaiming her immaculate state, we further glorify Christ. "What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ." (CC487) God of the universe made Mary fit for the purpose of bringing the second person of the Trinity, in the flesh, to our world. From the Catechism:
From among the descendants of Eve, God chose the Virgin Mary to be the mother of his Son. “Full of grace,” Mary is “the most excellent fruit of redemption” (SC 103): from the first instant of her conception, she was totally preserved from the stain of original sin and she remained pure from all personal sin throughout her life.
509 Mary is truly “Mother of God” since she is the mother of the eternal Son of God made man, who is God himself.
510 Mary “remained a virgin in conceiving her Son, a virgin in giving birth to him, a virgin in carrying him, a virgin in nursing him at her breast, always a virgin” (St. Augustine, Serm. 186, 1: PL 38, 999): with her whole being she is “the handmaid of the Lord” (Lk 1:38).
511 The Virgin Mary “cooperated through free faith and obedience in human salvation” (LG 56). She uttered her yes “in the name of all human nature” (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 30, 1). By her obedience she became the new Eve, mother of the living.
(Catholic Church. (2000). Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd Ed.) (128). Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference.) | <urn:uuid:a7ffd87d-3aee-4caa-93b5-6593204969d3> | {
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How to explain record cold temperatures? Well, global warming has “paused,” according to warmist scientists.
EPA Administrator: We ‘Look at Climate Change As Something Where We … Can Grow Jobs’
‘Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), asked scientists at a climate change conference on Thursday in Arlington, Va., to explain the science of climate change.
She also said that the EPA looks at climate change as an opportunity to grow the economy and create jobs.
“Scientists, you folks help us understand our world,” McCarthy said at the 14th National Conference and Global Forum on Science, Policy and the Environment: Building Climate Solutions, sponsored by the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE). “You help EPA to meet our mission of public health protection and environmental protection.’
They cite a study published in the Nature Climate Change journal. It says increased trade winds in the central and eastern areas of the Pacific have forced warm surface water deep within the ocean and that has reduced the amount of heat released into the atmosphere.
The warming pause was taken up by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It declared in its 2013 climate report that the Earth is going through a solar minimum and the oceans are sucking up most of the heat.
Not to worry, though. “This hiatus could persist for much of the present decade if the trade wind trends continue, however rapid warming is expected to resume once the anomalous wind trends abate,” the Nature Climate Change report states.
Here’s another anomaly. For the first times in decades, Lake Superior, the largest body of fresh water in the world, is predicted to freeze over this winter. A sheet of ice will form over the surface of the three-quadrillion-gallon lake. The mean thickness of the ice, reports the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, will be over 10 inches.
According to Jay Austin, associate professor at the Large Lakes Observatory in Duluth, Minnesota, the ice will produce an “air conditioning” effect this summer. “Typically, the lake will start warming up in late June, but it will be August before we see that this year,” Austin told CNSNews.com.
In September, there was a 29 percent increase in the amount of ocean covered with ice over the previous year. An unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe stretched from the Canadian islands to the north shores of Russia, The Telegraph reported. The Northwest Passage, the route through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago that links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, was clogged with ice all last year.
And then somebody at the IPCC leaked a report last year that had scientists reversing their convictions on global warming. Some now believe we’re in for a period of global cooling, not warming.
For now, it looks like civilization will not have to be dismantled to save us from the threat of “human-induced” global warming. Instead, civilization will benefit from more efficient ways to keep humans warm as the “hiatus” continues. | <urn:uuid:7a538c7f-5ee7-42fa-9f5d-87bb9fa73fc5> | {
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Marine protected areas: Sharing the Mediterranean experience
11 November 2013 | News story
In recent years we have witnessed the growing importance of marine issues, both in the scientific and political field but at the same time, the effects of overfishing, pollution and especially acidification of the oceans are becoming more and more worrisome.
The Mediterranean Sea due to its enclosed situation suffers most from the effects of these threats. However, this Regional Sea is considered to be one of the world’s priority ecoregions and is one of the major marine and coastal biodiversity hotspots, hosting almost 20% of global marine biodiversity while representing less than 1% of the global surface.
At the recent 3rd International Marine Protected Areas Congress (IMPAC3), it was revealed that Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) now cover 2.8% of the global ocean according to an official map provided by the World Database on Protected Areas, run by IUCN and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The good news for the Mediterranean region is that its average is a little bit higher, about 4.6 %. Despite the serious financial, economic and political crises and uncertainties faced by most Mediterranean countries, policy makers at all levels have shown that they are firmly committed to creating new MPAs and supporting existing sites within the common framework of governance in the region, the Barcelona Convention.
From the Mediterranean side, we would like to share with our colleagues across the world the main lessons learned over the last few years. A combination of initiatives at regional and national level jointly promoted by the network of MPA managers in the Mediterranean (MedPAN), along with various international and regional institutions such as RAC/SPA, ACCOBAMS, IUCN, WWF, MedWET and Oceana, have allowed us to disseminate best practices, facilitate dialogue and establish links between the main stakeholders.
The result of this cooperation is the Antalya Road Map approved at the 2012 Forum of MPAs in the Mediterranean where the MPA community reviewed the status of MPAs in the region and identified the actions needed to establish an ecological network of MPAs which is effectively and sustainably managed. The roadmap is intended to guide the Mediterranean region effort in making its MPA network conform to the 2020 Aichi targets under the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Two other important bits of good news for the Mediterranean region coming from IMPAC3 were the announcement of negotiations for the creation of a trust fund for MPAs in the Mediterranean supported by Monaco, France and Tunisia; and the support announced by the LifeWeb Initiative to a project that aims to establish and strengthen an effective MPA network in Lebanon, particularly the Palm Islands MPA. The LifeWeb initiative will help to secure funds to develop this project, which started in 2010, through collaboration between the Ministry of Environment in Lebanon and IUCN, and which culminated in the 2012 Lebanon Marine Protected Areas Strategy.
Other highlights at IMPAC3 were the progress of Blue Carbon projects and studies in the Mediterranean that could help finance marine conservation and MPAs in some countries.However, there is still much to be done to achieve effective management in all the existing MPAs in the Mediterranean and worldwide in terms of coherence, connectivity and representativeness as well high seas and deep seas protection.
The new ideas and strong conviction shared at IMPAC3 will help us push the pace of establishing well-managed marine protected areas and mobilize the necessary financial resources.
Blog's article by: Alain Jeudy de Grissac | <urn:uuid:d8b2772a-7512-424a-a096-30b7590adb84> | {
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A hormone with anti-diabetic properties also reduces depression-like symptoms in mice, researchers from the School of Medicine at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio reported today.
All types of current antidepressants, including tricyclics and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, increase the risk for type 2 diabetes. "The finding offers a novel target for treating depression, and would be especially beneficial for those depressed individuals who have type 2 diabetes or who are at high risk for developing it," said the study's senior author, Xin-Yun Lu, Ph.D., associate professor of pharmacology and psychiatry and member of the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies at the UT Health Science Center.
The hormone, called adiponectin, is secreted by adipose tissue and sensitizes the body to the action of insulin, a hormone that lowers blood sugar. "We showed that adiponectin levels in plasma are reduced in a chronic social defeat stress model of depression, which correlates with the degree of social aversion," Dr. Lu said.
Facing Goliath over and over
In the study mice were exposed to 14 days of repeated social defeat stress. Each male mouse was introduced to the home cage of an unfamiliar, aggressive resident mouse for 10 minutes and physically defeated. After the defeat, the resident mouse and the intruder mouse each were housed in half of the cage separated by a perforated plastic divider to allow visual, olfactory and auditory contact for the remainder of the 24-hour period. Mice were exposed to a new resident mouse cage and subjected to social defeat each day. Plasma adiponectin concentrations were determined after the last social defeat session. Defeated mice displayed lower plasma adiponectin levels.
Withdrawal, lost pleasure and helplessness
When adiponectin concentrations were reduced by deleting one allele of the adiponectin gene or by a neutralizing antibody, mice were more susceptible to stress-induced social withdrawal, anhedonia (lost capacity to experience pleasure) and learned helplessness.
Mice that were fed a high-fat diet (60 percent calories from fat) for 16 weeks developed obesity and type 2 diabetes. Administration of adiponectin to these mice and mice of normal weight produced antidepressant-like effects.
Possible innovative approach for depression
"These findings suggest a critical role of adiponectin in the development of depressive-like behaviors and may lead to an innovative therapeutic approach to fight depression," Dr. Lu said.
A novel approach would benefit thousands. "So far, only about half of the patients suffering from major depressive disorders are treated to the point of remission with antidepressant drugs," Dr. Lu said. "The prevalence of depression in the diabetic population is two to three times higher than in the non-diabetic population. Unfortunately, the use of current antidepressants can worsen the control of diabetic patients. Adiponectin, with its anti-diabetic activity, would serve as an innovative therapeutic target for depression treatments, especially for those individuals with diabetes or prediabetes and perhaps those who fail to respond to currently available antidepressants."
The study is published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More information: Adiponectin is critical in determining susceptibility to depressive behaviors and has antidepressant-like activity, by Jing Liu et al. PNAS. | <urn:uuid:7950643d-f2cb-4b1d-86de-5c0f1df488ca> | {
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Prose is a written form of language that has no defining metrical structure, which means that almost any short story, critical essay or novel serves as an example of a piece of prose. Prose is often said to be the most direct and effective way of communicating everyday speech through writing, making it very accessible and popular.Continue Reading
Prose comes in a variety of forms. Fictional prose, for example, encompasses any literary work that is fully or partially imagined. "Harry Potter" and many other novels fall into this category.
Critical essays and biographies are referred to as nonfictional prose, although these works may at times have some fictional or creative elements added, depending on the nature of the piece and subject matter.
Prose poetry is an amalgamation of poetic qualities such as emotion, enhanced visual language and formatting, while retaining the straight-forward free metrical structure of everyday language.
Prose is also used in scripts for dramatic works or speakers, although dramatic scripts will often feature much more intense content to create tension and emotion.
Prose is almost everywhere in everyday life, from newspapers, magazines, to online blogs and social media. It is also the standard form of written communication for academia, learning and science.Learn more about Literature | <urn:uuid:c690c476-07a7-4b53-9f13-e2a4e0208089> | {
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The Torrie Ecorché.
A Bronze, Equestrian Statuette.
Attributed to Giambologna (1529 - 1608), 1585.
but perhaps a cast by Valadier (1762 - 1839) or Righetti
This version with the University of Edinburgh since 1836.
90.2 x 87.3 x 23 cm. plinth: 81.1 x 41.6 x 7 cm.
For an interesting article in French see -
Le cheval en images. Art et société - Anatomie, esthétique et didactique
The Torrie horse bears a close relationship to several drawings by da Vinci related to this project in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor. Other artists, too, knew and learned from da Vinci’s study of the horse, but none came so close as Giovanni da Bologna to his vision of the beauty of the animal celebrated by art and science together.
This ecorche bronze horse of Giovanni da Bologna is in the Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. The Edinburgh horse was acquired by Sir James Erskine of Torrie from the Villa Mattei in Rome, probably in 1803. He bequeathed it to the University of Edinburgh with the rest of his collection of old master paintings and bronzes, and it came into the possession of the University in 1836.
The date of its purchase and size would suggest that it is not an original but a copy of the Mattei Horse (see below).
Illustration from Carlo Ruini (1530 - 1598), Anatomia del Cavallo, Venetia: Fioravante Prati, 1618.
The Bronze Equestrian Ecorche
From the Villa Mattei, now in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
Christophe. © Degueurce, Christophe, mars 2014.
Bronze Equestrian Ecorche cast after the Mattei Horse.
Christie's King St. London 4 July 2013, Lot 10.
90.5 x 87.2 x 30.5 cm.)
Christie's attributed this bronze to Giusseppi Valladier
Reduced copy of the Mattei Bronze Ecorche
cast by Francesco Righetti
23.3 x 20.4 cms (1749 - 1819)
This bronze with the estimable dealers Tomasso Brothers in August 2016.
Tomasso Brothers state that it was at one time considered to be a study by Giambologna (1529-1608) for the equestrian statue of Cosimo I de’ Medici. Whilst evidence to support such a theory has not to this day come to light, the pose of the Écorché certainly recalls the Flemish master’s famed Pacing Horse, and an engraving in Carlo Ruini’s treaty Anatomia del Cavallo features an Écorché closely comparable to the present model.
These considerations strongly point towards a 16th century prime composition, possibly to be identified with the so-called Mattei Horse now in Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (92.5 cm high), documented in the Mattei collection in Rome from 1703 and subsequently in the possession of Cardinal Fesch (1763-1839), until sold in his estate’s 1814 sale.
It was already famous at the beginning of the 18th century, when Pope Clement XIV had forbidden its sale, at the end of the century the Mattei Horse was cast in bronze by Luigi and Giuseppe Valadier. The former was Righetti’s master, which explains the sculptor’s familiarity with this composition and its presence in the catalogue of works offered by Righetti’s studio published in 1794.
see - F.
Righetti, Aux Amateurs de l’Antiquite et des Beaux Arts, Rome, 1794, p. 3, as
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WEDNESDAY, May 23 (HealthDay News) –Office kitchens and break rooms are germ “hotspots,” and sink and microwave handles in these areas are the dirtiest surfaces touched by office workers on a daily basis, according to a new study.
Researchers collected nearly 5,000 individual swabs over six months from office buildings with more than 3,000 employees. The offices included law firms, call centers and manufacturing, health care and insurance companies.
High levels of germ contamination were found on 75 percent of break-room faucet handles, 48 percent of microwave handles, 27 percent of keyboards, 26 percent of refrigerator handles, 23 percent of water fountain buttons and 21 percent of vending machine buttons.
“A lot of people are aware of the risk of germs in the restroom, but areas like break rooms have not received the same degree of attention,” Gerba said in a Kimberly-Clark news release. “This study demonstrates that contamination can be spread throughout the workplace when office workers heat up lunch, make coffee or simply type on their keyboards.”
It doesn’t have to be this way and you DO NOT need harsh chemicals to maintain a healthy environment in and out of the office. Kangen Water machines produce 5 different types of water, including a 2.5 pH water that will kill ALL bacteria on contact.
Tell your boss to clean up their act with a Kangen Water machine. Not only will you have the purest drinking water on the planet for all to enjoy but you’ll also have a germ free environment resulting in a healthier staff.
Change your water…change your LIFE! Ask us how at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:73850124-0864-4dfc-aeee-06e2dd80abd4> | {
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On this day in 1914, at 11:00 am or thereabouts (10:00 am British Summer Time, 09:00 GMT), a young Serb named Gavrilo Princip stepped out in front of a car carrying the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife, Sophia, and fired two shots from an FN model 1910 Browning pistol. The first hit Franz in the neck, the second hit Sophia in the abdomen. By 11:30, both were dead.
It's well known that this event was the spark that ignited the powder keg of the First World War. But how did the powder keg come to be there? Why did Princip take the action he did?
Needless to say, the events that led to the war were many and varied, and played out over a long time. I present here a simplified account - a detailed account would be, and is, the subject of a great many books.
Setting the Scene
Europe at the time was the home of several large empires, referred to as the Great Powers. These were:
Great Britain and The British Empire
Comprising 25% of the earth's land surface and 25% of its population, the British Empire was at the time the most powerful nation on the planet. Ruled by King Edward VII until his death in 1910, when his son George V became King.
France, and her Empire
A long-time rival and enemy of the British Empire, the two were now in an uneasy alliance, with little to gain from conflict with one another.
The German Empire
Formerly a sprawling mass of principalities, kingdoms and republics, had been welded into the German Empire in 1870 by Otto von Bismark. The ruler at the time we are looking at was Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire
Bear with me here, because this one is not simple. The legacy of the Holy Roman Empire, Austria-Hungary (cobbled together from a large and diverse number of nations with fifteen official languages) was the constitutional union of the Empire of Austria and the Apostolic Kingdom of Hungary, and for this reason was also known as the Dual Monarchy. Hungary had only relatively recently been granted equal status to Austria within the Empire, but had always had its own parliament and laws. Croatia-Solvenia was an autonomous country under the Hungarian crown, and Bosnia-Herzegovina was under Austro-Hungarian military and civil rule from 1878 until 1908, when it was annexed and became part of the Empire. At the time we are concerned with, Franz Josef I was emperor, with his nephew Franz Ferdinand as Heir.
The Russian Empire
Existing as a state since 1721, the Russian Empire spanned Europe and Asia from the White Sea to the Pacific, and also included Alaska. Tsar Nicholas II was ruler at the time.
The Italian Empire
Existing as a unified state only since 1861, Italy's empire was a result of its participation in the scramble for Africa.
The Ottoman Empire of Turkey
Powerful throughout the Nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was in decline by the beginning of the Twentieth. Several of its European territories had declared independence from the empire, which Istanbul seemed powerless to prevent.
So things ticked along in the usual grumbling European manner, with the Great Powers eyeing one another suspiciously and carrying out their usual intrigues.
The Bosnian Crisis of 1908 and the Balkan Wars
It was Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 that really set the cat amongst the pigeons.
The neighbouring nations of Serbia and Montenegro were also deeply unhappy about it; 40% of the Bosnian population were ethnic Serbs, and doubtless both they and Serbia would have preferred Bosnia to come under Belgrade's influence. So great was Serbia's pique that it ordered a general mobilisation, and demanded that either the annexation was reversed, or that Serbia should receive compensation in the form of territory. A strip of land was handed over and the Serbians backed down. Russia was similarly annoyed, but with the threat of Germany backing Austria-Hungary and the careful leaking of documents in which Russia had secretly agreed the Austria-Hungary could do as it pleased with Bosnia, Russia backed down but was not at all happy.
Things rumbled on for a time; Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Greece had gained independence form the Ottoman Empire by the early 20th century, but large ethnic populations remained under Turk rule. In 1912, these four nations set up the Balkan League, partly in response the the Ottoman Empires lack of ability to govern itself and also in response to the failure of the other Great Powers to ensure that Turkey would carry out the needed reforms. Confident that they could defeat the Turks, the Balkan League took up arms and the First Balkan War began, ending the same year with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and the drafting of the Treaty of London. This ended five centuries of Turkish rule in the Balkans.
Bulgaria was unhappy about the division of the spoils of the war, however, particularly with regard to a secret agreement between Serbia and Greece with regard to Macedonia. Accordingly, it attacked them, and the Second Balkan War began in June 1913. Romania and the Ottoman Empire also joined in, attacking Bulgaria. The war ended with the Treaty of Bucharest, under which Bulgaria lost most of the territory it had gained in the first war.
So what had all this to do with anything?
Well, for one thing, it annoyed the Serbs. The annexation of Bosnia in 1908 led them to set up the Narodna Odbrana (National Defence) and its more radical spin-off, Ujedinjenje ili Smrt (Union or Death), known as the Black Hand. Both organisations were well known to Belgrade - in fact, the Head of Serbian Military Intelligence, col. Dragutin Dimitrijevitch, was the head of the Black Hand. And it was with these organisations, with their help and blessing, that Gavrilo Princip and his fellow conspirators were affiliated.
The Balkan Wars had shown the Serbs that they were strong, and Austria-Hungary's refusal to involve itself in the wars had convinced the Serbs that the Dual Monarchy was weak. Ironically, it was Franz Ferdinand who had been a major influence in preventing Austria-Hungary's involvement in the wars, with the support of Count Stefan Tisza, the minister-president of Hungary.
Secondly, it annoyed the Russians. Forced to back down over the Balkan Crisis of 1908, Russia was smarting where Austria-Hungary was concerned, and felt a strong affiliation with the Serbs, their fellow orthodox Slavs.
Russia had other, pressing concerns. The Russo-Japanese war and the subsequent rebellion within Russia in 1905 had highlighted to the Russians just how precarious their domestic situation was. Agricultural reforms were needed, and mechanisation required. A programme of improvement had been embarked upon, with Russia trading grain for machinery; the problem was that the Black Sea ports were the only ports Russia had on its western end that could remain open all year round. The Turks had briefly closed the Ottoman Straits (the Bosphorus, Sea of Mamara and the Dardanelles) in the First Balkan War in 1912, during which time Russia's Black Sea exports dropped by a third and their heavy industry in Ukraine all but ground to a halt. When the Russians learned that a German general had been placed in charge of the Ottoman troops defending the straits, the Russians really began to worry.
Russia had had to make plans, therefore; in the event of a European war, one of her first acts would be to attack the Ottoman Empire and seize Constantinople and the Straits, in an attempt to keep trade flowing. In an effort to check Germany, Russia had developed strong ties with France, with much in the way of trade and joint defence treaties between the two nations.
And Britain too had allegiance with France, with much of the naval strategy of the two Empires being interdependent.
And so a group of young, idealistic Serbs hatched a plan to strike at the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and attack the heir as he toured the recently annexed province of Bosnia - a province that the Serbs felt should belong to them. And on the 28th of January, on the last day of Franz and Sophia's tour, they struck. | <urn:uuid:e05890ce-4d94-4d3f-afc1-22990e3903b6> | {
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Pros, Cons to Dissolving Lung Clots: Study
Clot-busting drugs appear to save lives but increase risk of serious bleeding
"The rate of death has decreased significantly over the more than four decades of studies included, making it harder to show a benefit of clot-busting therapy in the most recent studies," Beckman said.
He'd like to see how clot-busters compare to newer blood thinners, he said. Also, it's still not clear if the drugs should be delivered intravenously or by catheter directly to the lungs, he noted.
Whether only younger patients should receive thrombolytics is another question for future study, Beckman said.
For the current study, Giri's team analyzed data from studies published over 45 years that included 2,115 patients in all.
The investigators found that clot-dissolving drugs reduced the relative risk of dying early by 47 percent. Among those given these drugs, 2.2 percent died, compared with 3.9 percent of those not receiving clot-busting therapy.
But the risk of major bleeding was nearly tripled with clot-busting drugs compared with drugs used to prevent clotting -- 9.2 percent versus 3.4 percent, the researchers found. Major bleeding was not significantly increased in patients 65 and younger, the authors noted.
Those receiving the clot-busting therapy were also more likely to suffer brain bleeding than those given anti-clotting drugs (1.5 percent versus 0.2 percent). But they were less likely to have another clot in the lung (1.2 percent versus 3 percent), the study found.
Each year pulmonary embolism contributes to almost 30,000 U.S. deaths. Risk of death is heightened for up to three months after the clot occurs, the researchers said. | <urn:uuid:32a87920-51f0-475f-945d-6250094909b9> | {
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If you post a negative comment about someone online is that just harmless banter, or cyberbullying? What about freedom of speech?
Cyberbullying (AKA Trolling) is bombarding someone online with insults and threats.
The rise of social media and online chatrooms has made it a lot easier for people to engage in cyberbullying. It’s a lot easier to say something nasty online, rather than to someone’s face. Victims of trolling can be celebrities but can also be ordinary people.
Cyberbullying can be as simple as leaving a hateful comment on someone’s profile, all the way up to posting naked pictures of someone online, or threatening them.
Apps like Tripadvisor, where you can rate restaurants and hotels, are often hijacked by trolls. In some cases the trolls haven’t even visited the restaurant they are slamming.
As soon as a high-profile news story breaks, you can bet that people online will be expressing their views pretty vocally. There’s nothing wrong with expressing an opinion, but often people go a step too far. Charlotte Proudman, the barrister who called out sexism online received a barrage of death threats and menacing messages.
As with regular bullying, what can seem to the bully as harmless banter can be experienced by the victim as cyberbullying.
Defining cyberbullying is a question of proportion. Posting a single joke, or negative comment could be seen as harmless, but if this happens regularly then it could be seen as trolling.
However, even a single comment can be damaging, especially if you haven’t asked for feedback. That’s why everyone is getting vocal about a new app called Peeple. This app allows you to rate and review people you know, just like Tripadvisor.
People are irked because there is no way to opt out from being rated. The Telegraph describes how you can rate other people even if they don’t have the app, by simply entering their mobile number. To remove the review they have to sign up to the app themselves.
Peeple CEO Julia Cordray said “You’re going to rate people in the three categories that you can possibly know somebody — professionally, personally or romantically”.
Ratings and reviews are not anonymous, something which the developers hope will prevent trolling and increase the amount of positive reviews. If someone calls you out with a negative review you get a 48 hour window to sort things with them before the comment is posted online.
It could be argued that Peeple users should be allowed to air their views. You know, freedom of speech and all that. Despite this people are still worried this is basically a trolling app; whereas some others are going to give Peeple a chance.
Cordray acknowledges that “there seems to be some fear and I have a lot of empathy for that… But I’m going to lead by example and show that this app is actually more positive than it ever could be negative.”
Which is fair enough, but as Cordray also says that we “deserve to see where you could improve” perhaps the negative comments about aspects of the Peeple app should be used to improve it?
Some are calling for Peeple to be banned by the app store – others think governments can do much more to stop trolling ruining lives.
Is Peeple a good or bad thing? Let us know;
— Scenes of Reason (@scenesofreason) October 1, 2015
The number of cyberbullying victims in the UK is on the rise. A man called Sean Duffy was jailed in 2011 for posting insulting and insensitive messages about people who had died. In 2013 a teenage girl committed suicide after being bullied online.
Yet for now there is no specific law against cyberbullying.
We have three different laws; the Malicious Communications Act, the Communications Act and the Protection from Harassment Act. Overkill much?
Messages which show intent to cause physical harm or violence, harassment or stalking will get you into trouble. But the Crown Prosecution Service (the guys who take you to court) is quite strict about who gets served.
Children who are unlikely to know the damage their comments may cause are unlikely to be prosecuted.
The UK government has just released a new anti-trolling website to help victims of cyberbullying. Should we go further, following New Zealand in making cyberbullying illegal?
New Zealand’s anti-trolling law was voted this year. It focuses on hate speech – so racism, sexism, homophobia are all no-goes. Trolls using offensive language or bullying people could end up with a fine or even jail time.
Despite most New Zealand MPs voting in favour of the new law many people worry it will limit freedom of speech. They say people offended by jokes, satirical articles or opinion pieces could use the law to attempt to get them removed.
Trolling is becoming a real problem, but is restricting people’s comments online prohibiting freedom of speech?
Should the UK create a specific cyberbullying law? Are apps like Peeple just a harmless bit of tech, or something more sinister?
If you or someone you know is the victim of cyberbullying, Childline offers support and has guidance pages about what to do. | <urn:uuid:a1d1dcc0-99e9-47e4-a18f-d66fad35be5e> | {
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I long held concern of how USA's history involved so many things I consider evil: anti-woman, children and women as property, racism, slavery, hierarchy, notions of domination and giving men the authority to physically and mentally abuse women and children. The ability and willingness of very wealthy people to remain blind to growing poverty, hunger and disease only increased my concerns. Discussing these matters with my religious leaders and community and reading the Bible from cover to cover inevitably led me to atheism and the refutation the existence of god and the supernatural.
Reading outside the realm of "religious" material it was very easy to dismiss religion as fabrication, delusion, and living in denial. Religion earned its rejection. No one rejects religion out of choice, but out of necessity.
"many Nazis understood themselves to be the true political expression of Christianity.(p. 49) On this basis, and in due course, he echoes Rubinstein's observation that Christianity brought with it slavery, wars and exploitation. It has been responsible for as much darkness as light.
"The discovery that so many Nazis considered themselves or their movement to be Christian makes us similarly uncomfortable. But the very unpleasantness of this fact makes it all the more important to look it squarely in the face.(p. 267)"
~ Richard Steigmann-Gall
"Analyzing the previously unexplored religious views of the Nazi elite, Richard Steigmann-Gall argues against the consensus that Nazism as a whole was either unrelated to Christianity or actively opposed to it. In contrast, Steigmann-Gall demonstrates that many in the Nazi movement believed the contours of their ideology were based on a Christian understanding of Germany's ills and their cure. He also explores the struggle the "positive Christians" waged with the party's paganists and demonstrates that this was not just a conflict over religion, but over the very meaning of Nazi ideology itself."
Religion is evil. At best, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Mark Twain said that religion was invented when the first con man met the first sucker. Religion is a way of enslaving those who are mentally weak so as to extort money from them and to coerce them to behave in a certain way. Fundamentally, the Nazis did the same thing. They has an ideology that they forced on people, like Christianity they killed whoever they felt were an opposition, and they forced their slaves to behave a certain way that benefited the leaders, or otherwise face death and imprisonment (just like excommunication). I don't disagree with the comparison at all. I think comparing Nazis to Christians is like comparing different shades of grey.
When it comes to ways to con people, religion and politics have their ways, many of them common. In any event, when children or naive people reach out for comfort from religion, failing to understand the consequences and cost of that comfort, they learn outlandish stories told as facts and succumb to simplistic solutions to very complex human problems.
Politicos use many of the same tactics, claiming solutions that will make life better and easier for those who are not involved in watching legislation and consequences and don't realize it until they are sucked dry of resources. Without resources and without power, people feel hopeless and helpless, when indeed, they have far more power than they imagine.
I therefore agree, "comparing Nazis to Christians is like comparing different shades of grey." Exploitation and manipulation are the same, whether wearing the garment of bankers or generals or politics.
I also would like to address the statement that nobody chooses atheism. I disagree. I'd say that only people who are intelligent enough to discern between reality and delusions are capable of becoming atheists, but many people are faced with the choice at some point. I was in deep depression when I felt that Christianity was crap, both the first time and the second time. It was an intellectual choice. Why is it my fault I sin if God knew I would sin when he created me? It's the question of divine foreknowledge. Some people are intelligent to see a duck and call it a duck, and most others just aren't. I consciously chose not to fight logic. I chose to worship logic. Instead of burying my head in the warmth and fuzziness of doing what I have to do to get to heaven, my personality allowed me to become realistic and see that there's no good reason to think heaven or hell exists. Other people don't live through the type of drama I've endured. They pray to god and get something good. They didn't get what they asked for, or otherwise asked god for something they already knew they were going to get anyway, but their lives were good so they didn't feel like they should take a risk and shake the apple cart. For many people, living in a delusional fantasy world works, because we're living in a very prosperous country with many people enjoying undue prosperity of their own. I've learned never to take anybody seriously unless they're an atheist. Nobody who is delusional enough to believe in any god has enough sense for me to trust their judgment. Whatever they say is suspect. They have never had what it takes to make that decision that their fairy tale Sunday School dreams from when they were 5 years old were just a bunch of crap. I must say it really takes something to outsmart your own delusions, and most people don't have what it takes.
The Nazi's were Christians - but most Christians will tell you they are atheists or something so very untrue. There's even picture of Hitler in a church with the pope or Cardinal. The church gave Hitler their support.
Steph, there is just too much evidence about the collaboration of Christians with Nazi's to deny it happened. Yes, there are photos, and proclamations, and agreements in writing. You are right, "The church gave Hitler their support." Maybe not all of them, and there were some religious who held out in resistance to Hitler; many paid the ultimate price for it. However, to claim no religious support for Hitler is a delusion.
I think the reason that many of the German Christians accepted the Nazi dogma was due to the heavy influence of Calvinism. The belief that they are predestined to do whatever they do. It's a depressing view that makes the individual a player in a world in which the script has already been written by god. Kill a Jew - it's preordained. Kill a million - just following the script already written by god.
Among the German Lutherans was a strong antisemitism grown from the seed planted by Luther from the offset
I wonder why the book is confined to the relationship between the Nazi government and Protestantism when Hitler and a significant part of the German population where Catholic.
There is no concensus among historians that Nazism was either unrelated to Christianity or actively opposed to it.
Martin Boorman defined Nazism as the will of Hitler, who was a member of the Catholic church and believed in the supernatural.
I think the writer of the book is a poor historian and some kind of 'believer' himself.
I think the Catholic Church is trying to keep that information about Hitler being a member hush hush. They certainly don't want people to know that.
Napoleon, you correctly state "There is no concensus among historians that Nazism was either unrelated to Christianity or actively opposed to it." All one has to do is a quick Google search and find support for either side. My concern is really not solving that conflict and I didn't clearly state what my motive is for bringing this up.
People in Nazi Germany had religious support; people in USA who support right wing causes have the support of religious groups, or at least they are silent in the face of fascism. I am comparing right wing religious groups here and now with Nazi fascist of the 1930-40s.
You may be right, Napoleon, about Richard Steigmann-Gall's bias and if so, I need to be aware and I appreciate your challenge. I've just read too many books about WWII to think other than I do.
Something similar happened with me too, Joan. Atheism helped me face reality, and face the facts. I'd been through trauma. I suffered a lot of psychological abuse in my nuclear family when I was growing up. So it made it easier to question whether there was anybody there to answer my prayers. I'm a trauma survivor, and my emotions have been tied in knots, too. I'm scarred for life, because trauma never goes away. I still think I'm better off than any believer, though. The day they die they're in for a real wake-up call. That's trauma. Heaven doesn't exist. In a way, they blew their whole lives, and made the lives of others worse, according to their beliefs. (I suppose the physical abuse never happened to me. But the emotional abuse was intense and stressful.)
I had similar experiences in my fundie nuclear family - psychological abuse and neglect - but even so we must be very strong: we survived and started to thrive! | <urn:uuid:26a347be-7179-456f-8cd0-8c89b6ff0f4a> | {
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(Last Updated on : 29/09/2014)
India is a pluralistic, multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual population. Any brief essay runs the risk of inaccuracy and incompletion about the cultural fresco of this country.
The word Dussehra can be bifurcated into two halves: 'Dus' meaning 'Ten' and 'Hara', meaning 'annihilated'. Dussehra marks the day when the ten facets of evil were destroyed. It is celebrated on the tenth day, after the new moon in the month of Ashwina and this festival is also called the Vijayadashmi. There is also a legend behind the celebration of Dussehra. Celebration of the victory of Lord Rama of his rescuing his wife, Sita
, in a fierce battle serves to be the back story behind Dussehra. It is believed that Ravana had ten faces. The ten faces likely represent the ten evil facets of his character. One myth speaks of Ravana being the cursed Kinnar, and was invariably fated to be killed by Rama (the messiah) and later retreating to heaven. On this day, massive effigies of Ravana, his younger brother Kumbhakarna
and son Meghanatha are built and packed with crackers set on fire in the evening.
In West Bengal
, this day is the one when Goddess Durga
is believed to retreat to kailash, and celebrated despondently amidst Bengal with sidurkhela (smearing forehead with vermillion) and spreading mouthful of sweets ultimately ending with the immersion. In Kullu, Himachal Pradesh
Dussehra awaits celebration three days later. The reason for this dates back to the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the ruler of Punjab. The hill states of Punjab, now in Himachal Pradesh, were under the court at Lahore. The Maharaja expected the less powerful kings to be present at his court during the Dussehra celebrations. After the celebrations at Lahore, the rulers would speed back to their hill kingdoms to celebrate Dussehra there. It took them three days to reach their states. Since then, the custom has continued.
The fundamental nature of the festival is the same and is celebrated all over India as a symbol of victory over the evil. Thus, at some places, instead of the three effigies, five animals - a cock, a fish, a lamb, a crab and a buffalo - are sacrificed and pile of wood is burnt seven days later to symbolize the victory of good over evil. In Karnataka
, they place lemons on the road in front of the wheels of cars, buses, scooters, and drive their vehicles over them, since it symbolizes sacrifice. Scarified rites have long lasting tradition amidst India where it depicts the purification of the soul, the cathartic purgation.
On this day, weapons are also put to the pedestal and worshipped. Mother Goddess is being worshipped during the Navratras (nine day celebrations coming before Dussehra) she being the epitome of 'Fight against Evil'. It is believed, that one worships weapons, to remember to use them in a wise manner. Here, the people also exchange leaves of Apta tree. There is also a legend associated to this tradition. King Raghu, one of Sri Rama's ancestor, was very generous. A great 'Yagna' (sacrificial fire) ascended the king distributed all his wealth among the poor. A poor boy came to him asking for alms. Raghu had nothing left to give the poor boy; hence he attacked Kuber, the God of Wealth. When he did that, then gold rained on earth and some of it fell on the Apta tree. Since then, exchanging leaves of the Apta tree on Dussehra day is believed to be auspicious and practiced as a custom.
Thomas Friedman, the notable author, observes in the dynamic of globalization we are witnessing the complex interaction between a new system and our old passions plus aspirations. Dusshera thus not only brings to the fore the traditional centralism but the spirit of festival where whole of India surpassing the little traumas and trifles of life transcends to the charm of the same. | <urn:uuid:2f3a244b-0267-4fed-afc4-a9844d48f523> | {
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Health scientists are constantly looking at research data to determine why so many people are so huge. Lack of enough deep sleep, no adequate exercise, stress, and unhealthy food and drinks are well-known to be linked to overweight and obese populations. But the one widely underreported, underrated, and downplayed factor might be side effects from popular prescription and over the counter medications. Millions of unsuspecting patients may be experiencing something called drug-induced obesity. This article will discuss the current overweight and obesity statistics in the US as well as common medications that have been linked to obesity. Medical science literature has suggested healthcare professionals avoid using pharmaceutical agents that contribute to obesity, especially in already overweight-vulnerable patients. There are numerous questions patients should ask doctors as well as personal steps that can be taken to avoid the use of counterproductive medicine by becoming a more informed patient.
Underestimated Impacts of Obesity
Having such a large population of overweight and obese people means a country has a huge national security risk, enormous loss of capital and production (US costs estimated $147+ billion annually), and higher rates of depression. The impacts of being overweight can include loss of organ function, isolation, heart disease, heart attack, diabetes, and even early death.
As of 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates at least 71% of US adults over 20 years of age are overweight. As of 2016, at least 40% of American adults over 20 years of age were considered obese, according to the American Medical Association. Obesity means a Body Mass Index of 30 or more, which is determined by calculating height in meters squared and then dividing it by weight in kilograms.
Table for BMI of Adults Ages 20 and Older
|18.5 to 24.9||Normal weight|
|25 to 29.9||Overweight|
You can calculate your BMI with the CDC’s BMI online calculator tool.
In a perfect world, without lots of people on questionable prescription drug medications, without lots of digital distractions, we might say the solution for obesity is a simple matter of getting more exercise and reducing the intake of unhealthy foods and drinks. But this isn’t reality in 2018 America. The normal stresses of modern life, a poor economy, high amount of depression, and lots of technological distractions make finding solutions harder for most people. Losing weight is no longer a matter of just a diet change.
Not So Fast
The mental focus to remain on a diet and regularly exercise means a constant challenge exists for people that previously weren’t maintaining such a healthy lifestyle. It’s not just your focus, it’s pre-existing conditions. Going on a low calorie diet can be potentially dangerous for people with diabetes, liver disease, or other health problems. The internet is also full of junk science (untrue/unproven) claims about quick weight loss diets, supplements, and “broth formulas”. Some people are desperate and willing to spend money on fixes that don’t require personal effort or long-term commitments.
Scientifically-proven weight loss methods always involve well-known mechanisms — and time. It takes time to lose any significant weight. Although rigorous and reasonable exercise regimens can speed up short and long-term weight loss, healthy living is a matter of continuously eating and drinking the right things, mixed with regular exercise habits. To keep that weight off you’ll need to continue living a healthy life. Nothing else works.
Losing weight in 2018 means considering *every* possible contributing factor to your current weight situation. If you are overweight and on prescription drugs of any kind, you must think about the biological effect your prescriptions have on your body. You might be suffering from medication-induced obesity. Read on for more helpful health science tips to focus on improving your health status.
Medication & Side Effects
According to modern science, all medications have side effects. There are no exceptions. Unfortunately, not every person is willing to accept that fact — and not all doctors adequately address the side effect concerns of their patients.All drugs have side effects, but some of them don’t become apparent until after the drugs have been approved and in use for some time, according to Harvard Medical School.
Patients should also beware (read) of newer medications, which may have little to no long-term testing or undiscovered effects.
Some side effects are more lasting or serious than others. Practicing medicine involves weighing the benefits versus consequences of a medication or action (e.g., surgery). There is ample scientific evidence of inappropriate and overprescription drug trends occurring, but some drugs are a necessity for a select population, especially to maintain quality of life, to address insulin imbalances, and so forth. An informed patient has to consider how their prescription regimen may impact a diet or cause weight gain.
Many drugs cause complex interactions with your body’s metabolism, hormones, nutrient absorption, neurogenic status, and muscle function. Your strength, water retention, salt and sugar balances, and even mood can be impacted by prescription drugs.
Examples of drugs that can cause weight gain include:
Antidepressants & Antipsychotic Drugs
People with depression were 58% higher risk for becoming obese, according to a 2010 study. Antidepressants were strongly linked to weight gain. Examples of the drugs linked included amitriptyline (Elavil) and nortriptyline (Pamelor), paroxetine (Paxil), and phenelzine (Nardil). In fact, the mirtazapine (Remeron) antidepressant is so powerful at promoting weight gain that it is sometimes used to help underweight senior adults gain weight.1
Popular antihistamines are also more likely to be linked to overweight people and higher insulin concentrations, such as Cetrizine (Zyrtect) and fexofenadine (Allegra). Histamine receptors are part of the brain’s appetite messaging center. Any interference or suppression of your histamine receptors can cause changes in your appetite (hunger).1
Beta-blockers are prescribed for high blood pressure and heart attack prevention. Drugs, such as metoprolol (Lopressor) and atenolol (Tenormin), can cause low exercise motivation and weight gain. Beta-blockers can lower the metabolism and be counterproductive for obese patients.1 Some newer beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, and ACE inhibitors are considered weight-neutral alternatives (you might ask your doctor about them to assist with weight management).
Insulin drugs for diabetes1
Steroid drugs (e.g., prednisone)1
Hormone drugs (e.g., birth control pills)1
Drugs Caused Massive 150+ lbs. Weight Gain for 19-Year-Old
John Morton, MD is director of bariatric surgery at Stanford Hospital. He discusses the issue of patients gaining massive amounts of weight due to medications. One of his patients was a teenager that gained more than 150 pounds because of her lupus medication. Corticosteroids such as prednisone, antidepressants, Depakote, and heartburn drugs can also cause massive weight gain.
“Medication use is rampant in the U.S., with different medications at different stages of life causing weight gain, including: children and antibiotic use, teens and antidepressants and central nervous system stimulants, and adults with cholesterol-lowering medications, anti-rheumatism medications, anti-depressants, anti-bipolar and anti-psychotic medications, estrogen and insulin. Patients need to be made more aware of those drugs that can cause serious weight gain. And physicians should educate patients about the risks and offer available alternatives, especially in a case like Jena’s where diet and exercise recommendations to offset the effects were out of the question.” – John Morton, MD. Stanford Medicine.
Questions to Ask Your Doctor
Informed patients working with great doctors have the best outcomes. Being informed doesn’t mean reading random internet forums, trendy social media posts, drug advertisements, or being a hypochondriac. Being informed means studying the science, body of objective evidence, and being receptive to evidence-based medicinal information. Being informed also means being confident enough to ask your doctor questions and expecting open communication from your doctor.
Are my medications contributing to weight gain or difficulty losing weight?
Are my medications more harmful than beneficial?
Are there alternatives I can try that are safer than medications?
Is it safe to discontinue one or more of my prescriptions?
A good doctor will discuss the benefits and limitations for any of your prescriptions. If you ever hear your doctor say there are no side effects — for any drug, it’s time to find a more honest healthcare professional. Be ready to ask your doctor questions, which will help you make informed decisions.
Finally, just like you must think about the contributing factors to your current health situation, a professional with years of college training (e.g., your doctor) should be digging even deeper. The best healthcare comes from informed doctors and patients that work together.
How Your Doctor Can Help
Recent 2017 research published in the journal Gastroenterology suggests doctors should consider avoiding agents that contribute to weight gain. This means that your doctor needs to dig deeper into all of the drugs you’re taking and make sure that these are not promoting weight gain. Your doctor should also consider alternative treatments that may be more beneficial to your weight management, especially for obese patients. Alternative treatments might include another medication that doesn’t contribute to weight gain or other effective alternatives.
A good doctor will spend more than a few seconds discussing your medication regimens, current health status, your safe exercise regimen, and future health goals. It takes more time to perform a thorough assessment on a patient, especially for those with pre-existing health conditions. This must involve more careful consideration for how your medications are either helping or hurting your long-term health goals. Do not be afraid to seek second opinions or to seek help from a different doctor.
This article was provided for educational and information purposes and is not intended to be used for medical advice. Consult a physician about your condition(s) or medication(s). Do not start, discontinue or modify any prescription medication use without first consulting your doctor. By using our site, you agree to our Terms of Service.
Help Support Expert Science and Tech Articles
It takes hours, months, and years to research the articles we produce. We present unique science and tech from expert perspectives. Please help us by linking to our page, sharing it with friends, and liking our social media accounts (Facebook and @ULTRATechLife on Twitter) — coming soon in late summer 2018! | <urn:uuid:ca2f52fe-d78a-4b7d-99db-0162610c6d9a> | {
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Research- Advantage of using MIDI
Despite controversies over use of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), it has clearly helped composers create music and edit them easily. Not only professional, but also armature musicians have become more aware of producing music. Thus, MIDI has contributed to the world of music society over all. Although it is mechanical sound, the tremendous variety of sound sources are nearly close to the original instrumental sound. The most beneficial part of MIDI is reducing labor costs. Besides, increase in speed of processing music revitalizes music industries. Why do some people dislike MIDI? We should all take the advantage of the technology given to us. I would like to research benefit of having MIDI technology and how to utilize it. | <urn:uuid:ec5478d3-9a73-40a0-9c1f-20387943c502> | {
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Integrating climate change into development
Much of the thinking to date on how to address climate change has focused on incrementally reducing emissions - such as the commitment to reduce emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels under the Kyoto Protocol. These incremental improvements are important first steps, but successful climate change management calls for a new development paradigm that integrates climate change into strategies and plans, and that links policy setting with the financing of solutions.
To do this, UNDP collaborates with other UN agencies under the "Delivering as One" framework to help United Nations Country Teams integrate climate risk into the formulation and implementation of key UN cooperation frameworks such as the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF). As the co-chair of the United Nations Development Group's Task Team on Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability, UNDP helping to develop a guidance note to assist UNCTs mainstream climate change into the UNDAFs. This guidance note will be available in early 2010.
UNDP has also stepped up its own policy and capacity development services on climate change and assists UNDP country and regional offices in climate proofing their development assistance to countries. This includes targeted efforts to integrate climate risks into UNDP programming and providing methodological tools and advisory services.
Related Publications and Resources
Programmes and initiatives
Integrating climate change risks: Integrating risks into national development processes and UN country programming.
United Nations Development Group: The UN Development Group unites the 32 UN funds, programmes, agencies, departments, and offices that play a role in development.
Integrating Adaptation into Development: UNDP works to incorporate climate change risks and opportunities into national strategies and plans.
MDG Achievement Fund: Through the MDG Achievement Fund countries can seek support for activities to reduce poverty and enhance capacity to adapt to climate change. | <urn:uuid:ae64bf19-1813-4249-9bfb-effec2374daa> | {
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The Racers – Illustration
By Hans Christian Andersen (1858)
A prize, or rather two prizes, had been announced a big one and a little one for the greatest swiftness, not in a single race, but for swiftness throughout an entire year.
‘ I got the first prize 1 ‘ said the Hare ; there must be justice when relations and good friends are among the prize committee ; but that the Snail should have received the second prize, I consider almost an insult to myself.’
‘ No ! ‘ declared the Fence-rail, who had been witness at the distribution of prizes, ‘ reference must also be had to industry and perseverance. Many respectable people said so, and I understood it well. The Snail certainly took half a year to get across the threshold ; but has broken his thigh-bone in the haste he was compelled to make. He devoted himself entirely to his work, and he ran with his house on his back ! All that is very praiseworthy, and that ‘s how he got the second prize.’
‘ I might certainly have been considered too,’ said the Swallow. ‘ I should think that no one appeared swifter in flying and soaring than myself, and how far I have been around far far far ! ‘
‘ Yes, that ‘s just your misfortune,’ said the Fence-rail. ‘ You’re too fond of fluttering. You must always be journeying about into far countries when it begins to be cold here. You’ve no love of fatherland in you. You cannot be taken into account.’
But if I lay in the swamp all through the winter ? ‘ said the Swallow. ‘ Suppose I slept through the whole time ; should I be taken into account then ? ‘
‘ Bring a certificate from the old swamp-wife that you have slept away half the time in your fatherland, and you shall be taken into account.’
‘ I deserved the first prize, and not the second,’ said the Snail. ‘ I know so much at least, that the Hare only ran from cowardice, because he thought each time there was danger in delay. I, on the other hand, made my running the business of my life, and have become a cripple in the service. If any one was to have the first prize, I should have had it ; but I make no fuss, I despise it ! ‘
And so he spat.
‘ I am able to depose with word and oath that each prize, at least my vote for each, was given after proper consideration,’ observed the old Boundary-post in the wood, who had been a member of the body of judges. ‘ I always go on with due consideration, with order, and calculation. Seven times before I have had the honour to be present at the distribution of prizes, but not till to-day have I carried out my will. At each distribution I have started from a fixed principle. I always went to the first prize from the beginning of the alphabet, and to the second from the end. And if you will now take notice, when one starts from the beginning, the eighth letter from A is H, and there we have the Hare, and so I awarded him the first prize ; the eighth
letter from the end of the alphabet is S, and therefore the Snail received the second prize. Next time, I will have its turn for the first prize, and R for the second : there must be due order in everything ! One must have a certain starting-point ! ‘
‘ I should certainly have voted for myself, if I had not been among the judges,’ said the Mule, who had been one of the committee. One must not only consider the rapidity of advance, but every other quality also that is found as, for example, how much a candidate is able to draw ;
but I would not have put that prominently forward this time, nor the sagacity of the Hare in his flight, or the cunning with which he suddenly takes a leap to one side to bring people on a false track, so that they may not know where he has hidden himself. No ! there is something else on which many lay great stress, and which one may not leave out of the calculation. I mean what is called the beautiful. On the beautiful I particularly fixed my eyes ; I looked at the beautiful well-grown ears of the Hare : it ‘s quite a pleasure to see how long they are ; it almost seemed to me as if I saw myself in the days of my childhood. And so I voted for the Hare.’
‘ But,’ said the Fly, ‘ I ‘m not going to talk, I’m only going to say something. I know that I have overtaken more than one hare. Quite lately I crushed the hind legs of one. I was sitting on the engine in front of a railway train I often do that, for thus one can best notice one’s own swiftness.
A young hare ran for a long time in front of the engine ; he had no idea that I was present ; but at last he was obliged to give in and spring aside and then the engine crushed his hind legs, for I was upon it. The hare lay there, but I rode on. That certainly was conquering him ! But I don’t count upon getting the prize ! ‘
‘ It certainly appears to me/ thought the Wild Rose but she did not say it, for it is not her nature to give her opinion, though it would have been quite as well if she had done so it certainly appears to me jthat the sunbeam ought to have had the first prize and the second too. The
sunbeam flies in a moment along the enormous path from the sun to ourselves, and arrives in such strength that all nature awakes at it ; such beauty does it possess that all we roses blush and exhale fragrance in its presence. Our worshipful judges do not appear to have noticed this at
all. If I were the sunbeam, I would give each of them a sunstroke but that would only make them mad, and that they may become as things stand. I say nothing,’ thought the Wild Rose. ‘ May peace reign in the forest ! It is glorious to blossom, to scent, and to refresh to live in song and legend. The sunbeam will outlive us all.’
‘ What ‘s the first prize ? ‘ asked the Earthworm, who had overslept the time, and only came up now.
‘ It consists in a free admission to a cabbage garden,’ replied the Mule. ‘ I proposed that as the prize. The Hare was decided to have won it, and therefore I, as an active and reflective member, took especial notice of the advantage of him who was to get it : now the Hare is provided for.
The Snail may sit upon the fence and lick up moss and sunshine, and has further been appointed one of the first umpires in the racing. It is so good to have a professional in the thing men call a committee. I must say I expect much from the future we have made so good a beginning.’ | <urn:uuid:d9255b7b-96d9-4a63-80d3-b5acf89e0689> | {
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Saturn's Phoebe 'most like Pluto'
Origins of rocky moon revealed
The latest data sent back from the Cassini spacecraft, along with previously-gathered results, have confirmed that the mysterious moon, Phoebe, is a remnant from the early days of our solar system.
Astronomers suspected Phoebe was a captured moon, and now they have the proof: composition data sent back by Cassini shows that of all the objects we have studied in the solar system, Phoebe is most similar to Pluto. She matches the composition expected of the objects in the Kuiper Belt, an icy region beyond Neptune, and thought to be the place most comets come from. Indeed, some speculate that Pluto itself is a Kuiper Belt object, not a planet at all.
Torrence Johnson, on the Cassini science team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said: "This is pretty good evidence that Phoebe was put together in the outer parts of the solar system."
So, at more than four billion years old, Phoebe is a battered, but otherwise perfectly-preserved example of the protoplanetary building blocks that eventually combined to form the planets.
Speaking to Nature, Johnson explains that the outer solar system would have been chock-full of icy planetesimals like Phoebe. Many of these bodies collected together to form the cores of the gas giants. Most of the others were swept into the outer solar system by the gravitational effects of these new, huge, planets. Phoebe remained behind, dragged into her orbit of Saturn as the planet was swallowing the streams of gas that make up its atmosphere.
Despite having taken a heavy battering over the last four billion years, Phoebe is still mostly round with an average diameter of 214 kilometres. The spherical shape is broken up by one especially large crater whose walls are 16 kilometres high.
The details of Phoebe's radius, combined with its orbit, reveal the body's composition. It is approximately 50 per cent rock - very like Pluto - and strikingly different from Saturn's other moons, which are around 35 per cent rock.
As for the rest of the moon, the data shows frozen carbon dioxide, water ice, hydrocarbons and iron minerals all present on the surface. As well as proving that Phoebe is no asteroid, this shows that chemically at least, Phoebe is very similar to the comets, also Kuiper belt objects. ® | <urn:uuid:911d3d77-659a-4a6b-b997-90f890a4bb8d> | {
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FREE Video Lesson Worth $20! Access 10000 Questions From P1 to P6! Access 300 Hours of Video Explanations! Video Tutorials to Tough PSLE Questions!
Primary 5 Problem Sums/Word Problems - Try FREE
- Attempting as Guest
- Attempt Mode: Attempt Single Question
Angel saved some money in June.
She saved $600 more in July than in June.
If she saved $600 more in each subsequent month than the month before, she would have saved $10000 by October.
Find the total amount which she saved in June and October. | <urn:uuid:6213fd4c-80fd-4fe6-b65c-7734d7a91bfb> | {
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I remember back when I was in high school and came across lists of the greatest mathematicians ever. They almost always included Archimedes, Newton and Gauss. Sometimes Euler made it in. I knew who these guys were, but every once in a while, there was this guy I had never heard of, Alexander Grothendieck. I with pretty much no idea what he had done until I hit graduate school where I began to appreciate his contributions to/invention of modern mathematics. I’d like to talk a little about a philosophical aspect of his work here. I don’t know the history so well, and I’m sure all these ideas were developed by a group of people, but I think it safe to say that Grothendieck was central to this.
Before the middle of the twentieth century, mathematician studied various objects in terms of what they were made up of. To get the usual number systems, for example, Peano defines the rules that a set of objects have to obey to be the natural numbers, and from there, you can build up the integers, the rationals, and the real and complex numbers. In most algebraic structures, you have a set of objects, some operations you can perform on them, and various properties that the operations have to satisfy. A particularly simple example is called a “group”. A group roughly consists of a set of objects and rules for multiplying and dividing them. (For the experts, yes, I know. Anyone interested in the precise definition of a group can see here.) Thus, if we have two objects ‘a’ and ‘b’, in a group we have to have another object ‘ab’ which is the product of ‘a’ and ‘b’. We also require that this product is “associative” which means that
Or, in words, if we multiply ‘a’ and ‘b’ and then multiply the result by ‘c’, we get the same thing as if we had multiplied ‘b’ and ‘c’ first and then multiplied the result by ‘a’.
This is a particularly simple example of a structure you can put on a set, abstracting some of the properties of the rational numbers. You can add more and more operations and properties, and a fair chunk of mathematics is studying what you get.
For years, sets seemed such an intuitive and obvious notion that they served as a foundation for mathematics. Various axiomatics for set theory were developed, and people studied what could and could not be proven from those axioms. Much fun was had. Grothendieck’s great insight, or at least the great insight I will assign to Grothendieck because I don’t know the history so well, is that there is another way one can look at structures in mathematics. Instead of thinking about constituents and what we can do to constituents, we should instead think about how things relate to each other.
What does this mean? Let’s rephrase the notion of a group in this language. The point of a group is that we can multiply things. We can rephrase this as a function:
What are relating here? Well, on one side, we have two copies of the group, G. On the other side, we have one copy of the group. So, we have a map from two copies of the group to one copy of the group. We write this as an arrow:
G x G is just a way to say that we have two copies of the group. Recall the associativity rule:
Rewritten in terms of functions, this is
The left and right sides of this equation are maps from three copies of the group (which we write G x G x G) to G. So, we have two maps
that we form out of our m. Associativity is the statement that these two maps are equal. Mathematicians have a fancy way of writing this called a commutative diagram:
What this diagram means is that if we follow the arrows in either order, we arrive at the same thing. The symbol “id” is the identity map from G to itself. The composition of the upper and right arrows corresponds to the right side of the above equation expressing associativity, and the composition of the left and lower arrows correponds to the left side. Groups also have division and an identity (something so that ai = a and ia = a), but we’ll neglect those. If you know about them, you’ll find it easy to rephrase division (by which I mean, of course, inverses) in this language. The identity takes another bit of data (called a terminal object) which I’ll mention in a moment.
What we have done is to rephrase this notion of a group without ever talking about the constituents of it. A group is just a set with various ways of relating its self-product to itself satisfying certain properties. In fact, we only need to understand a few things to say what a group is. We need to know what an arrow and a commutative diagram are. We need to know what a product is, so that something like G x G makes sense. And lastly, we need to know what a ‘terminal object’ is.
Let’s start with the first. An arrow is a way of saying that two things relate to each other. It can be by a function or by anything else. The formalization of this idea is something called a category. Modulo some details, a category is simply a collection of objects and arrows between them. We need to say that if we travel along consecutive arrows, we can obtain another arrow. This is called composition and is the statement that if A relates to B in some manner and if B relates to C in a similar way, then A relates to C. For example, as suggested by the name, if we’re relating sets by functions between them, the composition of arrows is composition of functions. (nb: I’m using “relation” in a hopefully intuitive way here, not in any technical sense.)
So, if we have a category around, we are saying that we have a bunch of things, and we know how they can relate to each other. This is sufficient to be able to make commutative diagrams. There is an amazing amount one can say with just this simple structure. Because of its generality, most (every?) objects in mathematics can usefully be thought of as living in a category, and everything we can say about categories in general can then be applied to specific cases. In this way, one can understand many phenomena that occur in a broad array of seemingly unrelated situations. They’re all examples of category theory.
But, as fun as categories are, they’re not enough to get us a group. But we don’t need much more. The first thing we need is to be able to take products. Thus, if we have two objects A and B, we need to be able to obtain a new object A x B. I’ll chicken out of trying to explain exactly what that object needs to do to be considered a product. Finally, we need this terminal object which is an object such that there is a unique arrow to it from every other object. The identity arises as a map from this object to the group. If we have these extra structures on a category, we can define a “group object” in it. By a group object, I mean an object in the category, a map from G x G -> G obeying the above commutative diagram, and the various maps and diagrams that give the other properties of groups.
If we think of all sets and functions between them, that’s a category, so a group as we initially defined it is a group object in the category Set. But we don’t need to stop there. All categories with products and terminal objects admit the possibility of group objects. Much of group theory applies to group objects as well as ordinary groups, ie, group objects in Set. So, by phrasing things in terms of how things relate to each other, we’ve immediately found ourselves tons of new objects that we’ve already proven things about.
If you find this stuff fun, ask yourself what a terminal object is in the category of Set. Then figure out what an element of a set is in this relational language.
This might seem like a silly exercise in abstraction, but thinking this way can be immensely powerful. There’s a famous theorem in geometry called the Hirzebruch-Riemann-Roch theorem. At the risk of being so sketchy so as to be completely incomprehensible, this theorem takes as its input a space and something that lives on it, a “coherent sheaf”. Out of this, you can associate a number in two different ways. One involves something called a K-group, and the other involves something called a Chow group. There are ways of getting numbers out of each. The theorem gives a map from the K-group to the Chow group such that if we start with an object in the K-group, map it to the Chow group and get a number, it’s the same thing as just getting the number from the K-group.
What Grothendieck realized is that the both the K-theory and the Chow group of a point give numbers and that the integers obtained from them as above are associated to the map from the space to a single point. Thus, instead of being a theorem about numbers associated to spaces with sheaves on them, we should think of the theorem as being about how the space and the sheaf on it relate to the point (there is only one map from any space to a single point making it a terminal object). Once you think about the theorem this way, there’s no particular reason to only relate your space to a point. You can look at pairs of spaces with nice enough maps between them. Let’s call these spaces X and Y and the nice map f. To each space, we have the K-group which we’ll write as K(X) and K(Y) and the Chow group which we’ll write as A(X) and A(Y) (for the experts, I’m implicitly assuming rational coefficients). Then, we can take the previous map which we’ll call
and get a commutative diagram.
The horizontal rows here are the map i and the vertical lines are maps of K-groups and Chow groups that arise from the map f between the spaces X and Y. Since I’ve probably lost everyone who didn’t already know this at this point, let me just say what the moral is. What everyone had thought to be a theorem about spaces instead turned out to be a theorem about relations between spaces. Before Grothendieck, no one had realized that they were only looking at relations between spaces and a point. This perspective has lead to many other new theorems and restatements of old theorems in this relative context.
What about analysis, you say? Well, I wanted to end this by explaining what I consider one of the most beautiful things in mathematics, Grothendieck’s generalization of topology. There, instead of thinking of open sets as subsets of a space, you instead consider them as nice maps into a space. The intersection becomes a type of product (a “fiber product”) and one formalizes the notion of an open cover. You end up being able to put a topology on a category, and do all sorts of amazing and cool stuff. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t come up with a comprehensible explanation. But I hope the message is clear: in math, it’s not always about what you’re made of, but rather it’s about how you relate. | <urn:uuid:71acfd4e-0a27-4063-976f-0c0062a27fa5> | {
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Edited by Kenneth J. Korane
Pins can be an economical and durable alternative to other mechanical fasteners.
Slotted and coiled spring pins offer flexibility and don’t require exacting hole tolerances.
Fasteners are usually the smallest, least-expensive components within a machine, but OEMs depend on them to hold entire assemblies together — often for years or decades. And assemblies can be held together in many ways: bolts, rivets, screws, and pins, to name a few.
Assembly techniques generally fall into two broad categories: Methods that take two components or two operational steps to hold parts place; and methods where the components are self-retaining. The challenge for the design engineer is to choose a method that provides the highest quality joint with integrity over time at the lowest manufacturing cost.
For many applications, a self-retaining pin is the winning solution. The difficulty is selecting a pin with the appropriate strength and flexibility for the application. Technically, when a load is applied, something has to give: the pin, the hole, or an element of the assembly. A pin that is too rigid causes the hole in which it is retained to elongate and leads to eventual assembly failure. A pin that is too flexible fatigues under dynamic loading.
Solid pins come in many different forms, including dowel, knurled, and grooved pins. In general, solid pins are strong and relatively inflexible. They do not absorb shock and dynamic loads but, rather, transmit these to the mating components. Solid pins are often effective, but engineers need to closely examine the dynamic forces in many applications.
For example, a common perception is that solid pins are the best option for heavy-duty applications. On the contrary, due to the pin’s inflexibility, solid pins often damage the holes in dynamic-loading applications, which leads to premature failure. Using a softer solid-pin material reduces host damage, but commensurately reduces the pin’s strength. Alternatively, a heat-treated spring pin is often stronger than a solid pin and its inherent flexibility maximizes assembly life in dynamic, heavy-duty applications.
Two distinct types of spring pins are slotted and coiled versions. Both share characteristics such as flexibility and the ability to accommodate wider hole tolerances, compared with solid pins.
Slotted pins’ flexibility reduces manufacturing costs. But several disadvantages limit their applicability in new designs — particularly in applications with a soft host material, such as aluminum or plastic, which are subject to dynamic loading.
Slotted pins are significantly less flexible than the coiled pin and they only flex 180° from the gap. This combination can cause premature assembly failure.
Additionally, slotted pins are difficult to automatically feed and install. The most appropriate applications for slotted pins are noncritical assemblies, manufactured out of mild to hardened steel, that are manually assembled.
Coiled pins address the drawbacks of the slotted pins and let design engineers tailor pin strength and flexibility to match the application. Light-duty pins are generally recommended for soft or brittle materials. Medium (or standard) duty pins are recommended for mild steel and nonferrous assemblies. Heavy-duty pins should be used in hardened components.
Coiled pins are the most capable of absorbing shock and vibration after insertion, often prolonging the useful life of an assembly. And they are conducive for automatic feeding and installation in high-volume production.
They can be used as hinge pins, alignment pins, and stop pins, and to fasten components together (such as to pin a gear and shaft). Coiled pins are not usually recommended as cam followers, or where the pin has a limited length of engagement. These applications are usually best served by a solid pin with retention features.
As important as fasteners are, design engineers usually receive no formal training on the mechanics of fastening and joining. (Not something you want to think about next time you are on an airplane.) And fasteners are often overlooked until the end of the design. That can limit an engineer’s choices and compromise performance, increase costs, or require expensive redesign that delays product introduction. That’s why considering the many different ways to fasten assemblies, engineers should take advantage of the application-engineering services that manufacturers of engineered fasteners provide. This will ensure that the assembly is equipped with the most cost-effective solution that will provide exceptional performance and preserve the integrity of the application throughout the life of the product. | <urn:uuid:8aa2ee37-4ce6-4789-acc2-0a53cb1aa581> | {
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Resources for Preemption Checks
One of the first steps to writing an article is to check to see whether there are any new materials that may change or affect the content of the article.
A preemption check is “conducted to determine whether there is new law or a prior publication (whether by student author or expert) that renders an article moot.” See Scholarly Writing for Law Students, pages 22 & 154 @KF250.F34 2005 Reserve.
The library offers this guide to help you in your search. Be sure to check through all the databases in this guide, as they each offer varying coverage.
If you have any questions, please contact a reference librarian.
Preemption Checks in Pre-printed Sources
There is no consensus on the preemptive nature of conference papers and pre-prints. We recommend that you search papers and pre-prints so that you know what materials are out there. We also recommend that you consult with your faculty or journal advisor on this matter.
In the legal arena, there are two main working paper repositories: the Social Science Research Network's Legal Scholarship Network and the Bepress Legal Repository. Both websites offer searchable archives of working papers.
Additionally, you may want to examine Google Scholar and the University Law Review Project. | <urn:uuid:4ddca0a3-8f20-410d-831d-74ec9d745c0c> | {
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CAN I GROW PEPPERS?
Peppers are a breeze to grow. Basically, you plant them and watch them take off! But, for maximum production, a little pampering helps. Plant peppers in a bed that receives full sun. Provide a sandy loam soil that drains well and contains plenty of organic matter. Depending on the size of the pepper varieties planted, spacing should be 12-18 inches apart. Peppers can double as ornamentals, so tuck some into flowerbeds and borders. Most sweet peppers mature in 60-90 days; hot peppers can take up to 150 days. Keep in mind, however, that the number of days to maturity stated on the seed packet refers to the days after transplanting until the plant produces a full-sized fruit. You must add 8-10 weeks for the time between sowing and transplanting which means most of us will be starting pepper plants indoors in January or February!
If you're new to growing peppers, you may want to start with one of the early varieties,
like the bell pepper 'Early Crisp' or the 'False Alarm' Jalapeño variety. But, really, try any
variety and you're likely to be pleased.
Peppers were grown extensively in Central and South America, Mexico, and the West Indies long before birth of Christ. But it was Columbus and other early explorers who introduced peppers to a welcoming European market. In fact, the pepper is a major New World contribution to the cuisine of the Old World. The Europeans became so fond of peppers, they carried them throughout the known world.
By the 17th century, peppers were cultivated not only in Europe, but in much of Asia and Africa.
Oddly enough, even though peppers are indigenous to the Americas, they were not introduced
to North America until they arrived with the early colonists --- something of a circuitous
PEPPER SEEDS OR PLANTS?-Shop all Peppers
Only gardeners who enjoy long growing seasons in the Deep South should attempt to sow pepper seed directly in the garden. Most of us must start our own plants indoors about 8-10 weeks before transplanting, which should be done 2-3 weeks after the expected last frost.
Most pepper seeds sprout in about a week at a temperature of 70-80 degrees F., but
germination can be spotty depending on variety. Hot peppers can be very
finicky. To speed the process, place the seeds between damp sheets of paper towel, put them in
zippered plastic bag, and put the bag in a warm place (the top of the refrigerator works fine).
As soon as the pepper seeds sprout, carefully plant them in individual containers such as peat pots. When the first true leaves
develop, move the plants to a sunny southern window until you can transplant them into the
garden. Don't set out your pepper transplants until night temperatures average around 55-60
If you'd rather not start seedlings, you can order Sure Start Plants from Burpee which will arrive shortly before transplanting time or purchase peppers at a local garden center. However, choice of varieties is generally very limited.
Here are two key cultivation tips to keep in mind.
Water in moderation.
Peppers are thirsty plants! They need a moderate supply of water from the moment they sprout until the end of the season. However, peppers won't tolerate a saturated soil that waterlogs their roots. The soil must drain well, yet hold enough moisture to keep the plants in production. To maintain a proper balance, before transplanting, work some organic matter into the soil to enhance moisture retention. Use mulch to prevent excessive evaporation from the soil during the dry summer months.
This tends to make the pepper plants develop lush foliage at the expense of fruit production. Peppers are light feeders. If you work 5-10-10 fertilizer into the soil prior to transplanting, that's probably sufficient. You can also side-dress the plants with a light sprinkling of 5-10-10 when blossoming starts, just to give them a boost if needed.
PEPPER GROWING TIPS
To improve overall pepper production, consider using the following techniques.
To get an early start with your peppers, particularly in the North, cover the prepared bed with a dark colored polyethylene mulch at least a week before transplanting. This will heat the soil beneath and provide a better growing condition for young pepper plants. The mulch will also help the soil retain moisture throughout the season as the plants grow.
If you practice this technique, try planting peppers near tomatoes, parsley, basil, and carrots. Don't plant peppers near fennel or kohlrabi.
Peppers are easily damaged when laden with fruit. For support, tie the plants to stakes using old nylons, which have some 'give' as the stems enlarge. Don't use wire twist-ties or twine which will gradually choke off or even snap the stem.
INSECTS & DISEASES
Generally, peppers are problem-free. The same pests and diseases that plague other members
of the Nightshade family (tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants), however, will occasionally attack
peppers. With a few precautions, you can keep your peppers "clean."
Use organic pesticides to eliminate common pests. Destructive caterpillars like cutworms, tomato hornworms, and borers are easily controlled with Bacillus thuringensis (BT or Thuricide). Rotenone and pyrethrum will readily handle pepper maggots and weevils, leaf miners, flea beetles, and aphids.
Plant disease-resistant pepper varieties, especially if anthracnose, mosaic, and bacterial spot are a problem in your area. (Ask veteran gardeners in your neighborhood or the County Extension agent.)
Avoid working in the garden after a rain. Diseases can spread rapidly among wet pepper plants.
Weed the garden. Weeds provide a refuge for garden pests and can also spread fungi and
viruses to nearby healthy pepper plants.
PEPPER HARVEST TIPS
Like cucumbers and summer squash, peppers are usually harvested at an immature stage. The traditional bell pepper, for example, is harvested green, even though most varieties will mature red, orange, or yellow. Peppers can be harvested at any stage of growth, but their flavor doesn't fully develop until maturity. This creates a dilemma for the home gardener.
Frequent harvesting increases yields, often at the sacrifice of flavor. If you continually pick the peppers before they mature, the plants will continue to produce fruit in their quest to develop viable seed.
Allowing fruits to fully ripen enhances flavor, often at the sacrifice of yields. Plus, you
will have to wait until late in the season before harvesting table-ready peppers.
To avoid this dilemma, and if you have enough garden space, plant at least two of each pepper variety you've selected. Allow one plant of each variety to fully ripen to maturity, and harvest the other throughout the season. Also, when picking peppers, refrain from tugging on the fruit, which may break off a branch or even uproot the entire plant. Use a sharp knife or garden shears to cut the tough stem.
RECIPES & STORAGE
For maximum flavor, eat peppers on the same day they are picked. You can also leave them on a kitchen counter for a day or two to ripen further. Do not place peppers in the crisper drawer or in plastic wrap or bags in the refrigerator. Peppers are warm-weather fruits and do not store well in cold temperatures. If you have too many peppers, consider the following storage options.
This is the easiest storage method, but the peppers will be soft when thawed. The flavor is retained, however, so use frozen peppers primarily for adding 'spice' to soups, stews, and sauces. If you stuff the peppers before freezing, you'll have a ready-made dinner, perfect for the microwave.
Peppers can also be preserved by canning them, but they're low-acid fruits and thus require canning under pressure. It's easier to pickle peppers as you would cucumbers in a crock filled with a simple brine of four cups of water, four cups of vinegar, and 1/2 cup of pickling salt. Add a clove or two of garlic and some fresh herbs for added flavor.
This method works best with the thin-walled hot peppers, particularly the smaller varieties that can be dried whole right on the plant. The key to drying peppers is doing it slowly to retain their color and flavors.
Be especially careful when handling the blistering hot peppers like 'Habanero' and 'Thai Dragon.' Capsaicin, the chemical that provides the 'heat' in a hot pepper, is in a volatile oil that can actually burn your fingers. The pain can sometimes last for days. When handling hot peppers use latex or plastic gloves and make sure not to touch any part of your body, particularly your eyes or mouth.
See all our hot peppers or sweet peppers | <urn:uuid:f98d5c13-6622-42f8-8d9a-2b4be34c101e> | {
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