Marx Bicentennial. . .

This year is Marx’s bicentennial.  He was born in 1818 (May 5).  And March 14 was the 135th anniversary of his death.

This year is also the 170th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto.

Below are some of the pieces we have run on Redline about Marx’s ideas, including pieces which showing their continuing relevance to understanding the world as it is and as it could be.

What is Marxism?

What is exploitation?

How capitalism works – and why it doesn’t

Two articles on Wages, prices & lies and capitalist crisis

4,000 words on Capital

Karl Korsch on “tremendous and enduring” impact of Marx’s Capital (1932)

Engels on Marx on the Working Day

Marx’s critique of classical political economy

Capital, the working class and Marx’s critique of political economy

Capital and the state

How capitalist ideology works

Pilling’s Marx’s Capital: philosophy, dialectics and political economy

How capitalism under-develops the world

The political economy of low-wage labour 

Whatever happened to the leisure society?

Pensions and the retirement age – the problem is capitalism, not an aging population

A nightmare in whiteware: the ‘teamwork’ system, exploitation and alienation

Value, price and the ‘transformation problem’ in Marx’s Capital

The transformation problem and Marx’s crisis theory

Productive and unproductive labour in capitalist society

The use-value of Marx’s value theory

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Fair Pay Agreements: Well, they would call them that, wouldn’t they?

Labour’s key concern is keeping in with business and making it more profitable (Photo: Thomas Coughlan)

by Don Franks

Sometime next year your pay and working conditions may be completely rejigged by the government.

For better or worse?

The fine print is yet to be penned. Workplace Relations Minister Iain Lees-Galloway has announced that a 10-person working group would report back by the end of 2018 on the design of new workplace laws setting minimum terms and conditions for workers in the same industry or occupation. The resulting terms will be called Fair Pay Agreements.

Through strike action Unite has won significant improvements in pay and conditions for fast food workers. This, not corporatism, is the way forward for workers. Photo: Unite

What’s prompted this new course?

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has stated that employers approached the government to express their interest in sector-wide agreements, because they wanted a level playing field when bidding against competitors who currently have lower labour costs.

“This isn’t just something that employees have been asking for so I want to correct the record on that,” she said.

What employees have been actually asking for, or rather, demanding, in sectors where they’re organised in unions is

Abortion referendum: Historic victory for women’s rights and social progress in Ireland

Crowd welcomes the result, Dublin Castle, Saturday afternoon, May 26 (Irish time)

by Philip Ferguson

“I think for so many people in this country the weekend’s vote was just like an enormous weight being lifted – a ball and chain that dogged us all our adult life being finally gone. And I can’t believe that I’m 50 years of age and it’s taken this long. . .  I think for so many women it represented so much.  It’s almost like society atoning for everything it’s done to women in this country.  Atoning for how we stigmatised women faced with crisis pregnancies, the Magdalene Laundries, the Mother and Baby Homes, the shaming, the forced adoptions, the robbed identities. . .  For me, the biggest sentiment of the Yes vote, the thing that people said the most was, ‘Who am I to judge? It’s not my decision.'”

‘Kicking Bishop Brennan up the arse!’ The making and popularity of the ‘Father Ted’ TV comedy series, made in the mid-1990s, was an indication of changing attitudes towards the Catholic hierarchy.

With these words, spoken this week in the Dublin parliament, independent Marxist TD (MP) Clare Daly, welcomed the massive victory for women’s rights and human progress in the referendum vote last Friday, May 25.  The referendum was on whether or not to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution (the constitution of the southern or 26-County state).  The amendment, which had been passed in 1983 effectively banned abortion in Ireland.

Scale of victory

On May 25 66.4% voted Yes for repeal and just 33.6% voted No.  In numerical terms this was a vote of 1,429, 981 to repeal the anti-abortion amendment and 723,642 to maintain it.

Indicating the sea-change of attitudes among the people in the 26-Counties, this was a

Ireland’s abortion referendum – interview with Eirígí activist Cat Inglis

Eirígí banner: “No freedom without the freedom of women; Cat Inglis is on right

In 2015 the south of Ireland became the first state in which the people voted for gay marriage.  In a referendum in May that year a decisive majority voted in favour of the right of same-sex couples to marry.

The next big battle for social progress was inevitably going to be abortion, as the reactionaries had got in early, securing a victory in a 1983 referendum that added a ban on abortion to the constitution of the state (the 8th amendment).

On Friday this week (Irish time), voters in the south will go to the polls to vote on whether to repeal the 8th amendment,

Recently Philip Ferguson of Redline interviewed Cat Inglis, a long-time left-wing activist and a member of the socialist-republican organisation Éirígí about the issues.

Philip Ferguson: Could you tell us a bit about the role of religion, especially the Catholic Church as an institution, in the life of southern Irish society and in terms of the state, public services etc?

Cat Inglis:  Since the inception of the state the church has had a firm grip on many aspects of Irish life, schools are still run mainly by the diocese and are mostly catholic although in recent years there has been an upsurge in educate together style model among others.  Until about 20 years ago hospitals were run by sisters from various orders.  Overall there was a large religous presence in daily life; in recent years it has been greatly reduced.

PF: How did the 8th amendment come about and what was its practical, legal effect?

CI: Abortion was already

Auckland solidarity with Palestinians

by Daphna Whitmore

Several hundred people turned out yesterday in Auckland to rally in solidarity with the people of Gaza. The vicious response of the Israeli army to the mass demonstrations at the Gaza prison fence has created a sense of urgency  that the situation demands action. The rally turned into a spontaneous march to the US Consulate.

Auckland solidarity march with Gaza

Ahmad Abdullah Abdullah al-Adaini, 1981-2018

by Susanne Kemp

It’s always problematic to point to this or that particular individual in the context of a massacre by state forces.  All lives lost are to be mourned – and we should get angry about all of them.

But in the case of the latest murder spree by the Israeli state, I want to mention Ahmad Abdullah Abdullah al-Adaini, a Palestinian Marxist and activist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.  This comrade was murdered while participating in the right-of-return protest near the al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Comrade Ahmad was born in the Gaza Strip in 1981 and later studied in Yemen.  Due to his studies and his English-language proficiency, Ahmad could have chosen a

Ramzy Baroud national speaking tour in New Zealand, May 18-24

Below we’re reprinting the official statement and itinerary for the speaking tour.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud’s NZ speaking tour itinerary – 18 to 24 May 2018.

Hosted by the NZ Palestine Solidarity Network

Ramzy Baroud brings the authentic voices of the Palestinian struggle for human rights to New Zealand, as part of a world-wide launch of his new book The Last Earth: a Palestinian Story.

Please note that signed copies of Ramzy’s book will be on sale for $35 at each venue – cash or EFTPOS (bookshop retail prices may vary). Other merchandise will be available also.

Each event is free entry and open to the public – bring your friends & workmates. There will be a collection for donations towards tour costs.

 

AUCKLAND: FRIDAY 18 MAY

10:30am: A special book signing event at UBIQ Auckland University Bookshop, 2 Alfred Street, Student Commons (off Princes or Symonds Street, City.)
12:00 midday: Listen to 95bFM radio for Kelly Enright’s studio interview with Ramzy Baroud on ‘The Wire’ current affairs programme.

AUCKLAND: SATURDAY 19 MAY

9:00am: Listen to Kim Hill’s face-to-face live interview with Ramzy on her popular ‘Saturday Morning’ programme, on RNZ National radio (FM 101.4)
2:00pm: Ramzy will speak at the Nakba Rally for Free Palestine, Aotea Square, Queen St, CBD.

AUCKLAND: SUNDAY 20 MAY

Free public talk: 7pm Freemans Bay Community Hall, 52 Hepburn St, Auckland.

 

HAMILTON: MONDAY 21 MAY
Free public talk: 7pm: Wintec, Room A2.05, City Campus, Hamilton.
Access via Gate 3 or Gate 2 on Tristram Street. Free parking.

 

WELLINGTON: TUESDAY 22 MAY

Book signing from 12pm to 1pm: Vic Books, Easterfield Building, 1 Kelburn Parade, Wellington 6012.
Evening event: 6pm Free Public talk: St Andrews on the Terrace, 30 The Terrace, Wellington City 6011. (Wellington event book sales by Vic Books).

 

CHRISTCHURCH: WEDS 23 MAY
Free public talk: 7pm Christchurch Cardboard Cathedral, 234 Hereford St, Christchurch 8011.

 

DUNEDIN: THURSDAY 24 MAY

Free public talk: 5:15pm Burns 2 Lecture theatre, Ground Floor Arts Building, Albany Street, University of Otago.

 

ABOUT THE BOOK AND ITS AUTHOR:

Gaza-born Palestinian author Ramzy Baroud is