Mar 31, 2009

Long Live Revolution

23rd march 1931 was the day of Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom, the day he was hanged till death. Every year on 23rd March various political organizations; leaders give tribute to the brave revolutionary, who sacrificed his life for freedom of the nation from British colonialism. If this was the dream of Bhagat Singh then on 15th august 1947 that did happen, our country got freedom from British colonialism, no! the dream of Bhagat Singh was not this political freedom which India achieved when British slipped power in hands of the bourgeois congress party, by freedom he meant end of exploitation of every kind of one man by other, and quite clearly the task of completion of his dream still beckons us.
Bhagat Singh said- “the sleeping lion once awakened from its slumber shall become irresistible even after the achievement of what our leaders aim at”. Time has come for justifying the prophecy of Bhagat Singh, as congress was able to achieve the kind of freedom it wanted in 1947. We will have to awake the “sleeping lion” the toiling masses from its slumber, to awake the irresistible storm which will make tyranny, cruelty and private property history and will be a harbinger of a new era, the era of humanity.
Post freedom we have read about Bhagat Singh, in our history books, as a hero, a courageous youth who shouted the slogan “Long Live Revolution” and longed for freedom from British Rule. This is only half truth, Bhagat Singh said-“The political revolution does not mean the transfer of state (or more crudely, the power) from the hands of the British to the Indian, but to those Indians who are at one with us as to the final goal, or to be more precise, the power to be transferred to the revolutionary party through popular support. After that, to proceed in right earnest is to organize the reconstruction of the whole society on the socialist basis. If you do not mean this revolution, then please have mercy. Stop shouting "Long Live Revolution." The term revolution is too sacred, at least to us, to be so lightly used or misused”.
The bourgeoisie historians have tried hard to quell the fire of Bhagat Singh’ ideas, never is the intellectual side of young Bhagat Singh is revealed. Bhagat Singh at the age of 23 became committed Marxist, he analyzed the economic and social conditions of India and proposed a very clear goal to the youth; the goal was the proletarian revolution.
“Revolution is a very difficult task. It is beyond the power of any man to make a revolution. Neither can it be brought about on any appointed date. It is brought about by special environments, social and economic. The function of an organized party is to utilize such an opportunity offered by these circumstances. And to prepare the masses and organize the forces for the revolution is a very difficult task. And that required a very great sacrifice on the part of the revolutionary workers. Let me make it clear that if you are a businessman or an established worldly or family man, please don't play with fire. As a leader you are of no use to the party. We have already very many such leaders who spare some evening hours for delivering speeches. They are useless. We require — to use the term so dear to Lenin — the "professional revolutionaries". The whole-time workers who have no other ambitions or life-work except the revolution. The greater the number of such workers organized into a party, the great the chances of your success”.
Keeping in mind the ideals of Bhagat Singh we invite every youth, brave sons and daughters of India, to carry on the struggle waged by Bhagat Singh. To join hands and promise ourselves to complete the dreams of martyr Bhagat Singh. And finally with his words to which he wrote to youths we wait for your reply……
“Cast aside the youthful dreams of a revolution within ten years of Gandhi's utopian promises of Swaraj in One Year. It requires neither the emotion nor the death, but the life of constant struggle, suffering and sacrifice. Crush your individuality first. Shake off the dreams of personal comfort. Then start to work. Inch by inch you shall have to proceed. It needs courage, perseverance and very strong determination. No difficulties and no hardships shall discourage you. No failure and betrayals shall dishearten you. No travails (!) imposed upon you shall snuff out the revolutionary will in you. Through the ordeal of sufferings and sacrifice you shall come out victorious. And these individual victories shall be the valuable assets of the revolution”.

With revolutionary regards
Scientists for society

Aparajita

In our country lakhs of women sell themselves everyday in brothels, thousands of girl children are killed because they are girls. Domestic servitude, violence, sexual abuse, rape are social evils soul of woman is indefatigably struggling against for past few centuries. Even in the “democratic and free” capitalism these evils loom over society. The “end of history” capitalism has not able to untie this knot because this knot and several other intricate knots compose this self strangled system, and yes it is not possible to eradicate these practices in this system unless the bourgeoisie machinery is not smashed and replaced with a better social system. Although the subjugation of women by men arose when private property came to existence, but capitalism is not birth place of supremacy of men. We must look historical development of family and its transformation as history moves so as to understand the polarization of power between two sexes.
The course of history does not transverse linearly but spirally evolves along the axis of class struggle. But this spiral itself is very intricate, fabricated of various interwoven spiral, circular and complex developments which keep melting and thawing as the contradictions governing them change. The family evolves as the relations between its constituent atoms, men and women, change. Whole development of family in most scientific way is explained by Engels in his book “The Origin of Family, Private Property and the State”. The transition of human from ape, for achievement of greatest advance nature can show, an animal as defenseless as evolving man required united strength and co-operation of herd to survive, mutual toleration among adult males, freedom from jealousy, was the first condition for formation of large herds. Thus came into existence the most primitive form of family-Group marriage, the primitive communistic household , the form of family in which whole groups of men and women mutually posses each other. The kind of marriage existed for whole savagery and lower stage of barbarism, and with time different forms of group marriages gradually arose. First one reported to have existed was Consanguine family, where practice of promiscuous intercourse gives way to sexual intercourse between women and men of same generations, and this to finally Punaluan family, form in which brother and sister were excluded from sexual intercourse. On account of greater nearness in age, this second advance was infinitely more important but also more difficult. It was effected gradually, beginning with exclusion from sexual intercourse of own brothers and sisters first and then ending with prohibition of marriage even between first, second and third cousins. Here it can be seen this change affords the operation of principle of natural selection but which acted unconsciously. In all forms of group family it is uncertain who is the father of a child; but it is certain who its mother is, the recognition of descent was exclusively through mother, or the family was matriarchal family. “This communistic household, in which most or all of the women belong to one and same clan [gens], while men come from various gens, is the material foundation of supremacy of women”. (Engels) But still there was no subjugation of one sex by other. In transition from savagery to barbarism with the practice of prohibition of marriage between relatives which include several hundred degrees of kinship, complications of these prohibitions made group marriages more and more impossible; and finally they were displaced with pairing family in which one man lives with one woman. Other very important reason for this transition was the increased oppression on women. “The more the traditional sexual relations lost the native primitive character of forest life, owing to development of economic conditions with consequent undermining of the old communism and growing density of population, the more oppressive and humiliating must the women have felt them to be, and greater their longing for right for chastity, of temporary or permanent marriage with one man only, as a way of release”. (Engels)
In this stage, in barbarism with domestication of animals and breeding of herds humans found hitherto unsuspected source of wealth. And as instruments of labour belonged to men and household goods to women, the increase in wealth strengthened the position of men in family. This strength is quite reflected in the social decrees, although one man lives with one woman but polygamy and occasional infidelity remain the right of men, while for woman strictest fidelity is demanded and adultery on her part is cruelly punished. And still according to custom of that society mother-right was followed; his children could not inherit from him. In proportions wealth increased it made men’s position in family more strong, which finally led to overthrow of mother-right, “the overthrow of mother-right was world historic defeat of female sex. The men took command in home also; the women were degraded and reduced to servitude, she became slave of his lust and mere instrument for production of children”. (Engels) This also served the development of monogamous family which men affected to develop, to strengthen his position strong ever. The period of transition from barbarism to civilization comes out with development of monogamous family. It was first form of family to be based, not on natural, but on economic conditions. It differentiates itself from pairing marriage on basis of much stronger marriage tie, as it was only men who could dissolve it. Monogamous marriage comes as subjugation of one sex by other; it announces a struggle between the sexes unknown throughout the whole previous prehistoric period. Along with the supremacy men enjoy over in the house, the old comparative sexual freedom has yet not disappeared but this develops in favour of men. Co-existent with monogamous marriage, sexual intercourse between men and unmarried women flourishes throughout the period of civilization and develops more and more into open prostitution. With rise of private property which distributes unequally wage labour appears sporadically side by side with slave labour, as appears the open prostitution of free women side by side with forced surrender of slave. “The heritage which group marriage has bequeathed to civilization is double edged, double tongued, divided against to itself, here monogamy there prostitution.” (Engels) Along with this a second contradiction on the part of women arises, as opposition must have other side the reaction, adultery on the part of women became an unavoidable social institution-denounced, severely penalized but impossible to suppress.
With entering into civilization and till now monogamous marriage has not change much of its character, only change being in the bourgeoisie law which gives equal rights to both sexes and both can now call off the marriage if required, but what happens inside the household is not a matter of concern to law, and supremacy of men domestic servitude of women, prostitution and adultery have remained intact. From savagery to civilization human society evolved a lot and the cell of this society, family also evolved from group marriage to monogamy. Should a new family arise out of the monogamous family, it did but the change is not evolution but a metamorphosis, proletarian class possess no private property, for preservation and inheritance of which monogamy and male supremacy were established, here there is no incentive to make this male supremacy effective. Also there is no means to do so. “Bourgeois law, which protects this supremacy exist only for possessing class and their dealings with the proletarians. Large scale industry has taken the proletarian wife out of the home onto the labour market and into industry, and made her often the bread-winner of family, no basis for any male supremacy is left in the proletarian household – except, perhaps, for something of the brutality towards women that has spread since the introduction of monogamy. The proletarian family is therefore no longer monogamous in the strict sense, even where there is passionate love and firmest loyalty on both sides and may be all the blessings of religious and civil authority. Here, therefore eternal attendants of monogamy, hetaerism and adultery, play only an almost vanishing part. The wife has in fact regained the right to dissolve the marriage, and if two people cannot get with one another, they prefer to separate. In short, proletarian marriage is monogamous in the etymological sense of the word, but not at all in its historical sense”. (Engels)
The most advanced class of our time, proletarian class shows the society a sight of our future, the futuristic relations and the futuristic society which in coming time will replace the present crisis-ridden, filthy, parasitic capitalist system. Then only women will again participate into social production, which was excluded for her in historical monogamous marriage, both women and men will come on level of equal economic and political freedom. The only way to do this is in understanding our historical duty, to guide the proletarian men and women to the way of socialism, by ruthlessly smashing the faulty bourgeois machinery. So called evils will slowly wither away as new social relations will slowly crystallize. Then only the struggle of Aparajita will finally be destined.

Feb 28, 2009

Science in service of capital

Science originated because of the need of fulfilling the requirements of advanced human society. Advancement of human society gave imputes to the development of science which in turn further advanced the society to a higher level.
The role of science in advancing the society is connected to its role in increasing the productivity of labour, or in other words, to develop the productive forces. The rise and development of present capitalist society cannot be imagined without unprecedented progress of science. As the science progressed the new machines and technologies came into being which advanced the productive forces and increased the production to a larger extent than ever before. With the increase in production large industries came into existence and big capitalist class arouse. This started the whole new concept of “free market competition” and the tendency of extracting as much profit as they can to increase their private property. The new heavy machinery and technologies helped these capitalists in decreasing the number of workers in the process of production; thus decreasing the cost of production and increasing the profit; the gap between mental labour and manual labour, rich and poor started widening; unemployment, starvation and malnutrition of large masses became common problem and science became a property of only rich classes, far from the reach of common masses. Development of science became concerned only with increasing the private profit and creating the things for the comfort and amusement of rich classes.
In fact, science in itself is of no interest to the capitalists but only through its application in the more efficient production of commodities. With the further advancement in science and productive forces the concept of patent monopolies and cartels originated which helped these capitalists to establish their monopoly over market. In this era of monopoly capitalism and imperialism, scientific research is more highly organized than ever before, but always with an overriding aim of private profit. The monopolization of market to get more and more profit supports only those inventions and discoveries which are able in decreasing the cost of production of commodities and devoted increasingly to war and producing arsenal for protecting the private property. Thus in the capitalist society science became ‘a productive force distinct from labour and pressed into the service of capital’.
The training of a natural scientist is so departmentalized as to make it difficult for them to acquire a theoretical grasp of natural science as a whole and, even more, they receive no training at all in the study of human society. Conversely, social science and historical studies are so organized as to exclude the natural science. Economics is separated from history and both from politics. In the natural sciences student may know nothing of Marxism, yet at least he recognizes dialectical processes in nature, even though he doesn’t know them by that name; but the laws of dialectics mean nothing to bourgeois historian, who doesn’t even recognize the class struggle.
This contradiction in the bourgeois educational system between the study of nature and study of human society reflects the conflict in bourgeois consciousness between the need to develop science as a productive force and the need to conceal true relationship between capital and labour. This contradiction is also the base of metaphysical and idealistic approach of bourgeois scientists towards reality and this marks an upper limit on the development of science in capitalist system.
Thus to attain the full and unrestricted use of research laboratory and modern technology, developed in capitalist society, it is necessary first to remove private control over the modern technologies and scientific research and development; to reunite the science with labour as a force devoted to produce use-values in the service of people and to use science in the progress of whole human society and not for only the rich classes. This can be achieved only by the abolition of capitalist ownership of all the means of production and by establishing the dictatorship of proletariat class over them, that is, the establishment of socialism.

The Fleeting Capitalism

Since the last year capitalism is fearful, fearing of what it has done, running away from its very own shadow. Searching remedy for its incurable disease, “economic crisis” is this incurable disease of capitalism, the crisis of overproduction. The crises arise because of antagonistic contradictions present in capitalism itself. This can be understood by considering the history and fate of present day crisis, and by identifying correct contradictions present in today’s capitalist system. Current Economic crisis will prove (is proving) to be greatest crisis after crisis of 1930s decade. Its symptoms started to appear in mid 2007, and till the end of 2007 foreclosures started to affect the economy. During 2008 it first consumed many giant banks, financial organizations and insurance companies and then spread to the global world market. Stimulus packages and bailouts were injected to stabilize the economy but crisis is still developing tyrannously, spreading to new branches of the industry and to new districts, and is becoming more and more acute as a result of failure of more banks. The bubble filled with speculations, greed couldn't last very long, at last it touched the surface of reality, and its busting destroyed capital on a very large scale while on the other hand with the fiscal and financial crises worsening, inflation, higher taxation, relatively falling real wages, and relative reduction in the purchasing power of the masses have inevitably further aggravated the economic crises of overproduction. Those bourgeois economists who first claimed it to be minor crash are now blaming on few individual capitalists for this crisis and are prescribing various “injections” to recover from it. But all these are wasting their wasteful ideas, rather if we look at the projections of world economy as predicted by World Bank which although optimistic are more realistic; it says that in 2009 the economic growth of world economy will only be 0.9% falling from 2.8% in 2008, and was 4.0% in 2006. UN report is also similar to that. Overall it can be said that even if national governments intervene to save the financial organizations it won’t be possible for world economy to recover till 2012.

Economic crises are not new, capitalism in old capitalist countries or rather we should now say imperialism is very much familiar with this chronic disease, whatever “injections” are given can relieve for time being but like steroids are shortening its life, it is a capitalist vicious circle in which same events repeat itself like summer and winter, and one need not to be prophet to foretell the next round of crash. In this capitalist cycle each recovery period of crisis sews the seeds of next round of crisis which is more severe and more frequent than earlier one. The rotation is more of a spiral than circle as Engels said “this circle is gradually narrowing; that the movement becomes more and more a spiral, and must come to an end, like the movement of the planets, by collision with the centre.” The current crisis itself is temporary phenomenon of this vicious spiral and not isolated or unique. It all started in 2002 when Fed reduced the interest rate to an unprecedented level, and injected capital into market in order to recover from dot-com crash. From this point onward starts the story of housing boom, real estate replaced the risky stock market and served as new “casino” for quick profit obsessed gamblers. After the crash people were reluctant to buy or invest, to increase the costumer sale “wealth effect” was created by providing easy loans, and dreams of owing house were filled, with the help of media and cheap bourgeois intellectuals like David Lereah who chew the bones thrown by real estate lobby to them, in people’s mind. Investment banks after the saturation of prime loans, to make more profit, started giving subprime loans blindly. Investment banks devised new methods to sell these dangerous (subprime) loans in packages. These packages were sold to other financial organizations like hedge funds, banks and insurance companies so as to distribute bad loans and avoid their accumulation at one place which could have been explosive. Various institutes gave these loans good credit history, but with the rise of subprime loan interest rate hedge funds and banks realized about the poisonous weed they bought and this inaugurated the bankruptcy of banks and hedge funds and thus started the subprime crisis.
The housing boom and then subprime crisis started with the end of dot-com crash, which itself was followed by boom during blowing of dot-com bubble, but story does not start from here, this boom was actually followed by 1997 crisis of East Asian economies for which Fed bank reduced the interest rate that time and helped in getting start-ups for companies like e-biz, e-commerce. The cyclic nature of crisis is inherent characteristic or rather contradiction of capitalism and even presently sciophobic capitalism in order to recover from depression will prepare base for even more severe crisis.

The vicious spiral of crises in capitalism has its origin in basic contradiction of capitalist system, contradiction between social production and capitalist private ownership. Economic crises fully expose the transitory nature of capitalism; reveal the existence of antagonistic contradictions between its productive forces and production relations. Whether it is East Asian crisis, dot-com crash or subprime crisis, all are capitalist crisis of over production and concentration of capital. Crises occur with increased “frequency and intensity” but with different faces. The overproduction and lack of options in investment results in rise of speculations and then finally to crash. The remedy to this disease does not lie in this system but only in crushing this illogical system, and replacing it with a system in which productive relations are compatible to socialized productive forces, then and only then this world can be saved from plundering of greedy capitalists, this task awaits us, to torch the oppressed class on the path of revolution against this profit based system.

Jan 27, 2009

RAJ THACKREY: NEW ADDITION TO FASCIST BRIGADE

There has been new addition to the fascist brigade of this country in the name of Raj Thackrey. Very much like his forefathers, he has recited words of praise for people like Hitler which clearly state his ideological inclination. It is not for the first time that a person with this sort of an agenda has come to the forefront. In 1968 it was the same ground which led to the rise of Bal Thackrey. The reason behind their rise is the regional and linguistic diversity of the labour force in the metropolitans of this country. These states and cities being the main industrial centers are looked upon by the people all over the country as employment providing zones. The state, having profit generation as its primary motive is unable to provide employment to all these people. As a result in these places islands of luxury are created in the oceans of unemployment, misery, and deprivation. There is always a danger of these people getting united on the lines of their distress and fighting for their rights. Hence to keep them divided, it is necessary for the state to create people like Raj Thackrey. This becomes even more necessary when the state itself is in a condition of crisis.
In response to it, different electoral parties like Congress, CPI, CPM have been doing very much the same, as they have done in the past for their vote bank politics. Now the onus rests upon us who understand the truth of this politics, whether we remain mute spectators to it, or take a firm stand against it.

HERO TO ZERO

The name is ‘Satyam’ and a scam of 7000 crore. Yes, as many of our many readers would be aware, we are talking about Mr. Ramalinga Raju the CEO of the largest IT company having done a scandal of 7000 crore rupees and given further hiccups to already crisis ridden Indian economy.
The incident has left our government and media with no other option but to shed tears because he is the same ‘Raju’ whom they projected as youth icon before two years and today are compelled to initiate a CID inquiry against him. Our all market analysts and intellectuals are also appearing as if they are shocked with this incident. But is there anything really shocking! Satyam, Wipro, Infosys and all other such companies, which comprise of about 80 percent of economy, are not involved in any productive sector. They make an annual turnover of thousands of crores just with selling and buying of their shares. The more you make the market opinion in your favor the stronger you are. This making of market opinion is the basis of today’s global capitalism. Until and unless you are not caught while ‘building this opinion’ you are the ‘hero’ of the market, when caught you fall to ‘zero’. Raju has met with the same end.
Another class of people who are shouting their slogans and pleading for mercy from the government are the small investors. Until the market is on a rise they invest hugely in these unproductive sectors and try to make maximum money by doing anything. As they have enjoyed their days of fortune by doing nothing they should be shown no mercy but allowed to bear the brunt. This might make them to refrain from game of gambling next time.
Another important aspect of this incident, which is being completely overlooked by the media, is the kind of treatment shown to Mr. Raju having committed a scam of thousands of crores, he is being given all sorts of assistance by the police, and the lawmakers. Had a man caught for stealing a piece of bread or Rs 10, received the same treatment?

Jan 18, 2009

Philosophy in science

Change is the only constant; constant development and transformation, explosiveness and changeability, all based on the struggle of opposites, drives forward the entire world.
This change or advancement in different forms of matter is through contradictions within them; whether it is contradiction of hydrogen nuclei in sun, contradiction of adaptability and heredity or contradiction of human thoughts. The latter contradiction is not itself of matter but of consciousness; particular quality of matter which developed as the life originated in organic matter. This contradiction is source for knowledge; clash between opposite ideas and struggle to resolve the contradiction is lifeblood of knowledge. The struggle of contending theories advances the level of human understanding; with one theory negating other and finally subsuming it. Einstein’s theory, for example, first overthrew and then subsumed the accepted view of universe developed by Isaac Newton.
To explain a phenomenon one must recognize the contradictory, mutually exclusive, and opposite tendencies; this is the way of science and the way of Marxism: dialectical materialism. One has his own methodology to approach all phenomena around him; this methodology is developed by philosophy.
Today when all around the world, there is a dominance of non-dialectical philosophies, and Scientists also; being a part of this world ; lack the philosophy of dialectical materialism in their approach and this has hindered the further development of science. They lack to identify the contradictions and their interdependence, and generally come to wrong conclusions. One such wrong interpretation was the theory of thermal death of universe.
PARADOX OF THERMAL DEATH
In 1854 Helmholtz pointed out in a lecture that second law of thermodynamics implies that the whole universe will eventually reach in a state of uniform temperature and “from this point onwards, universe will be in the state of eternal rest”. Thus was born the thesis of thermal death of universe.
Its theoretical basis is thermodynamics. According to second law of thermodynamics, in nature, the direction of flow of heat is spontaneous from a hot body to a cold body. By spontaneity we mean processes occurring in nature. When Helmholtz applied this law to universe, he assumed universe to be isolated and concluded that the whole universe would eventually evolve spontaneously from a state of thermal non equilibrium to one of thermal equilibrium. But today we know that no such thermal death of universe will occur and it was just a paradox.
The reason for this paradox was the wrong methodological approach to the problem. This methodology has its philosophical origin in metaphysics, which is unable to identify the actual contradictions and views the phenomenon in isolation.
The right way to view it is given by Marxism, the view of dialectical materialism. As Engels said, “in motion of heavenly bodies there is motion in equilibrium and equilibrium in motion”. No equilibrium is permanent only temporary equilibrium exists which is in motion itself. “All equilibrium is only relative and temporary”, Engels wrote. Until the end of 19th century, no explanation of the paradox of thermal death was given.
The solution to the paradox was solved considering the universal gravitational effect, which showed that the whole universe will never come to equilibrium; and all equilibria are temporary.
“In sun there is no equilibrium of various substances, only of mass as whole, or at any rate only a very restricted one determined by considerable differences of density; on the surface there is eternal motion and unrest, dissociation. On the moon, equilibrium appears to prevail exclusively, without any relative motion-death (moon = negativity). On earth motion has become differentiated into interchange of motion and equilibrium, the individual motion strives towards equilibrium, the motion as a whole once again destroys the individual equilibrium”- Engels
Scientists were not able to interpret the result when they applied second law of thermodynamics to universe and paradox of thermal death arose, this is not only one example list is quite long, what we need today is to understand the importance of correct philosophy, philosophy of dialectical materialism.
Today it is our responsibility to equip ourselves with the philosophy of dialectical materialism and apply it to our society, which is the basis of our life, to change the existing corroded, anti-people system and hence shed all barriers in the path of advancement of science.

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