Decoding Korea: Using Context to Explain the Artillery Clash

Reading an obituary of Chalmers Johnson – the American East Asia expert who moved from being a Cold War warrior to a trenchant critic of US imperialism – I was taken with his stress on the importance of context. Talking about the need to strip away the lies of government he wrote ‘The concept ‘blowback’ does not just mean retaliation for things our government has done to and in foreign countries. It refers to retaliation for the numerous illegal operations we have carried out abroad that were kept totally secret from the American public. This means that when the retaliation comes—as it did so spectacularly on September 11, 2001—the American public is unable to put the events in context. So they tend to support acts intended to lash out against the perpetrators, thereby most commonly preparing the ground for yet another cycle of blowback’.
As with 9/11 so with the latest incident on the Korean peninsula..

If we were to believe the official line we would accept William Hague’s description of an ‘unprovoked attack’, a ‘brazen’ attack’ (Wall St Journal) on a ‘populated island’ (Guardian). If we understood the context we would be suspicious of this narrative and look closer. We would find that this is not just a ordinary fishing island. According to the New York Times, ‘Yeonpyeong Island sits just two miles from the Northern Limit Line, the disputed sea border which the North does not recognize, and only eight miles from the North Korean coast. The island houses a garrison of about 1,000 South Korean marines, and the navy has deployed its newest class of “patrol killer” guided-missile ships in the Western Sea, as the Yellow Sea is also known.’ The North Korea shelling, which targeted the marine base, followed a live firing exercise by South Korea. The North claims that the South was firing shells into its territory, the South denies that.

However, the actual events of this specific exercise are less important than a much larger one taking place at the same time. This is the Hoguk Exercise which is scheduled for 22 to 30 November and which ‘involves 70,000 South Korean military troops, 50 warships, 90 helicopters and 500 planes. The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) of U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Seventh Air Force will also participate in the exercise.’(Hankyoreh, Seoul) The 31st MEU is based in Okinawa (over the objections of the locals and, until recently, the Japanese government’) and is trained for a number of roles. One of them is to launch a commando raid during an invasion of North Korea. An article published by a US think tank puts it delicately: As a collapse of North Korea — rather than a North Korean invasion of South Korea — has become a more likely scenario, the 31st MEU can search and seize the North Korean nuclear arsenal, and prevent proliferation of those weapons.’ (PacNet, Honolulu)

The Hoguk Exercise, in turn, is just one of a series of joint US-South Korean military exercises, which have been going on for decades but which have increased in tempo, and aggressiveness, since the sinking of the Cheonan.

These exercises, and the Cheonan incident – or rather the use which has been made of it – can only be understood within the context of Korean politics and US global strategy. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak (in contrast to his two immediate predecessors) has a confrontational policy aimed at precipitating a collapse of North Korea – and really giving those guys in the 31st MEU something to get their teeth into. The United States, fearful of rising China and bereft of much idea what to do about it, seems happy to tag along.

The geopolitical context is tortuous, and often hidden from view by politicians and press, but it is the key to understand what is going on. The situation in Northeast Asia is becoming increasingly tense and dangerous. If real fighting breaks out, rather than the skirmishes of the past, then we might well end up with another war between the United States and China, with incalculable, but surely disastrous, consequences.

Tim Beal is currently working on another volume for Pluto provisionally titled The Cheonan Incident: On the brink of war in East Asia. He has just returned from Northeast Asia, spending one week in Beijing, four weeks in Seoul, and a week in Pyongyang.

North Korea The Struggle Against American Power Tim Beal This book demystifies North Korea by looking beyond the ‘axis of evil’ label. £19.99 only £17.5 on the Pluto site

The Collapse of the Irish Economy

Pluto author Gerard McCann on the current economic crisis in Ireland.

On the 19th November 2010 a dozen representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) backed by the European Central Bank and the European Commission arrived at the Irish government with a plan to bail-out the Irish economy from the debt crisis that has brought it to the verge of bankruptcy. Their mission is to ‘look at whatever measures might be needed’, the delegation’s spokeswoman Caroline Atkinson commented. In a typical condescending manner the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, let the population know that there is no ‘reason for the Irish people to be ashamed and humiliated’. On the back of a banking frenzy that lasted six years, an artificially sustained property boom, and a government that ran up a budget deficit of 32 per cent of the gross domestic product by 2010, the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy – so lauded by the international financial institutions – has collapsed. So ends one of the most vulgar exhibitions of monetaristic excess that have been visited upon any population in recent history. The unsustainable nature of the Irish economy can be seen in one statistic, that the difference between tax revenue and spending on public services is a massive 12 per cent of GDP. The result is that the Irish government can no longer pay for its own people’s health care and education, never mind the rest of public services.

Only three years ago, the Republic was celebrating the odd fact that it had the highest number of personal helicopters on earth, the highest property prices, the dearest places to live, the largest numbers of people going on foreign holidays, all based on a spending stupor facilitated by the government and banks and based on credit. When the recession broke and as property prices took a nose dive, the banks convinced the government to take on these toxic loans. Into recession the government forced an austerity programme which was seen as one of the harshest in Europe in order to release finance to support the failing Irish banking system. Over the autumn of this year this failed monumentally. Housing prices collapsed by up to 60 per cent leaving almost 70 new private sector housing estates unoccupied and abandoned; there was the loss of 100 jobs per day; 400,000 people on the live register for unemployment benefits, the highest ever; food queues in the cities; and the spectre of emigration again facing the young. If anything is to be learned by the demise of the Irish model of economic development, the death of the Celtic Tiger, it is that the archetypal neo-liberal economy that was created by the Irish government since the 1990s – and so celebrated by the organisations that are now picking over the bones – was fundamentally flawed.

Gerard McCann is writing a book on the economic conditions of Ireland, north and south, due to be published in Autumn 2011.

From the Local to the Global – Second Edition Key Issues in Development Studies Edited by Gerard McCann and Stephen McCloskey New, fully updated edition of accessible and comprehensive introduction to key concepts in development £17.99 only £16 on the Pluto site

In Defence of the Potlatch at Millbank

Owen Holland writes on the significance of the protests at Millbank Towers.

Something happened outside Millbank tower on Wednesday November 10^th, the upshot of which is still unclear. The exigencies of the 24-hour news economy are such that responses are required immediately – soundbites must be tongued and positions taken – but this demand for instantaneous analysis plays no small part in foreclosing the space which might allow people to continue to respond, to work through their bewilderment, and thus to keep open the moment’s newness.

It is clear that it represents a turning point for the student movement. Already it has opened up divisions in the NUS, whilst the government and its media lackeys are trying desperately to split the emergent movement, to choke it (violently) in the cradle – true to form. In a bizarre commingling of reactionary puritanical zeal with celebrity culture, the Telegraph has actually launched a public witch-hunt. It is a strategy of appropriation, offering up a safely containable form of popular ‘participation’, or rather, a parody of it: one which doesn’t involve the possibility of the government’s collapse. A little like the government’s own invitation to ‘suggest a cut’, here we are being offered the chance to play ‘hunt the protester’. Alternatively, of course, you can participate in building solidarity with the victimised. You can start by signing the petition.

They are attempting to polarise the situation from the right, but it could very easily backfire on them – as it backfired on Sussex University VCEG just last year. The bourgeois media is experiencing a contradiction: student ‘leaders’ need to be identified, in order to construct a demonology of shadowy and conspiratorial coup-plotters – with oddly German accents – to scandalise and titillate the middle classes. The journalistic feeding-frenzy is already beginning to resemble a gaudy pastiche of the situation in Germany in the 1960s when the media empire of Axel Springer was able to sell a fair few papers through construing the radicalised students as Soviet-backed fifth columnists, plotting coups and planning to overthrow the state. The reality was – and is – infinitely more chaotic and complexly mediated than that. And, as ever, the truly demoniacal conjuring trick is emanating from the environs of Fleet Street. But if the bourgeois press did not conjure into being the spectre of omniscient anarchist conspirators, it would be forced to confront the truly ‘frightening’ alternative (on its own conformist terms, at least): that the events at Millbank represent the first manifestation of a genuinely widespread and popular anger which is on the cusp of becoming a mass-mobilisation. Whether this happens or not depends in no small part on the media’s intervention and its selective reconstruction of events, so we must gather stones where we can and cast them at those whose words are put in service of maintaining the status quo. We should keep the Poll Tax riots firmly in mind here, the key word being ‘riot’. Rioting was successful in defeating Thatcher’s plan and, of course, all the usual suspects in the usual bureaucratic positions made the usual gestures to condemn the ‘violence’.

Two things need to be noted about the mainstream media’s response to the events at Millbank. Firstly, there were thousands of students involved in the climactic revelry, so it is extremely disingenuous and contradictory to construe the events as having involved no more than a hardened core of ‘professional’ agitators. At the latest count, 57 young people have been arrested for their part in the day’s activities: all of them are ‘ordinary’ students; not outsiders parachuted in to hi-jack the proceedings for their own malign ends. This stands in stark contrast to the bourgeois media’s initial attempt to portray the events as being down to the miscreant deeds of a “couple of hundred thugs”. This was a Bacchanalian revel in which no member was not drunk. Let us continue to reach for the corkscrews.

Secondly, to dwell on the violence provides a smokescreen to divert attention away from the cause of the violence. Universities have been caught in a pincer movement of the CSR and the Browne Review which, taken together, constitute an overtly ideological attack of the idea of Higher Education as a social good. This has been well-articulated elsewhere, by Stefan Collini amongst others.

In the present conjuncture, it is true to say that There is No Alternative. There is no alternative BUT to resist, to engage in forms of civil disobedience, to stand and fight. This is the way in which we can take the slogans of our enemies, with which they repeatedly attempt to destroy us, and turn them back upon the neoliberal ideologues, the sirens of an artificially constructed narrative of Necessity. This is the way in which we can create the space into which a conjuncture of dual power might emerge, thereby really opening up the ‘debate’ about cutting the deficit: we need to take the fight to the government. The memory of enslaved ancestors may be more likely to provoke resistance than the image of liberated grandchildren, but today it is the grandchildren themselves – the grandchildren of the social democratic compromise – who can feel in their bones that they are about to be enslaved.

The government are working to an ill-conceived script, and they are performing it with the dead eyes of the unconvinced. We have interrupted their performance, arriving on the stage without having learnt our lines, without having pre-blocked our movements, without scripts. And we will continue to arrive in this manner. We should not think of our interventions in terms of the dress-rehearsal – or series of dress rehearsals – before the main event; rather, we are engaged in a process of continuous extemporisation. Following Walter Benjamin’s essay on Brecht, we now need to find ways of “filling in […] the orchestra pit: the abyss which separates the players from the audience as it does the dead from the living”. If we do this, the gap between the ‘activists’ and the spectators dining in the media’s feeding-frenzy will begin to diminish and many, many more will begin to share in our improvisation.

Looking Beyond the Loyalty Oath: the Rising Tide of Jewish Nationalism and the Palestinian Factor by Ben White

This piece originally appeared in Muftah.org

On October 10, an overwhelming majority of the Israeli cabinet approved a proposed amendment to the country’s Citizenship Law, which if made into law would require any non-Jew seeking citizenship to swear his loyalty to Israel as a ‘Jewish and democratic’ state. This latest move, while headline grabbing in its own right, is reflective of a wider phenomenon within Israel today, in which the Jewish identity of the state has become central not only to negotiations with the PLO but also to relations with Israel’s Palestinian minority.

It’s Not Just Avigdor

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has been seen as largely responsible for the recent focus on ‘loyalty’, with his election platform and campaign slogans emphasizing the ‘threat’ posed by Israeli Palestinians. But Lieberman’s rhetoric, currently translated into various bill propositions included but not limited to the loyalty oath, is nothing new: as Transportation Minister in 2004, Lieberman publicised a plan “to separate Jews from Arabs” that included “exiling Israeli Arabs deemed disloyal to the state”.

More importantly, focusing exclusively on Lieberman and his ultra-nationalist right-wing party Yisrael Beiteinu is simplistic, as efforts to preserve Israel’s “Jewish identity” from perceived threats have emerged over the last several years from a variety of points along the Israeli political spectrum. Prime Minister Nehtanyahu himself, while a cabinet member in 2003, called the Palestinian citizens a “demographic problem”. In March 2007, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Office confirmed that Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, would “thwart” the activities of groups and individuals who opposed the Jewish character of the state, “even if such activity is sanctioned by the law”. Two months later, Shin Bet asserted its right to target individuals “conducting subversive activity against the Jewish identity of the state” even if the activity in question was legal.

A Growing Trend of Jewish Nationalism Inside Israel

The loyalty oath bill is but one example of an accelerating deterioration of the Israeli state’s relationship with its Palestinian minority on the legislative, national security and religious fronts. There are currently a variety of proposed bills at different stages within the legislative process, which are decidedly open in their nationalistic discrimination. One bill which recently passed its first legislative hurdle, receiving unanimous support in the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee of the Knesset, would give official license for small communities in Israel to reject potential residents on the basis of criteria like ‘social suitability’. During the debate, MK David Rotem from coalition party Yisrael Beiteinu commented that, in his opinion, “every Jewish town needs at least one Arab. What would happen if my refrigerator stopped working on a Saturday?” In fact, such selection committees already operate in hundreds of Israeli towns, effecting a de facto exclusion of Palestinian citizens.

A piece in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz made the point that the very creation of these small communities in the Galilee and Negev was “for the purpose of fulfilling the controversial goal of “Judaizing” regions around the country”. A geographer for the Jewish Agency’s “hilltop planning team” recently described the goals of these communities as “prevent[ing} Arabs from ‘taking over’ government lands, keep[ing] Arab villages from attaining territorial continuity and attract[ing] a ‘strong’ population to the Galilee”.

On the national security front, the country’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who has considerable authority with respect to immigration and security related matters, is personally committed to revoking “the citizenship of people convicted of offenses involving disloyalty to the state”. Yishai’s focus on “loyalty-related offenses” is complemented by Shin Bet’s declared support for “revoking the citizenship of anyone convicted of terror crimes”.

Then there are the increasing number of declarations by Jewish religious leaders, which promote ‘separation’ and contribute to a climate of hostility and mistrust towards Palestinian citizens. For example, a number of rabbis based in Safed responded to an increase in the Arab student population by “urging Jews to refrain from renting or selling apartments to non-Jews”, a move supported by groups concerned with the “creeping conquest” by “Arabs in mixed cities” that “endangers security and increases intermarriage”. Support for maintaining Israel’s “Jewishness” also came from a former chief rabbi of Israel, and the spiritual leader of coalition party Shas. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef emphasised a ruling “barring the sale of land in the Land of Israel to non-Jews”, not long after he also expressed his opinion that “the sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews”. Meanwhile in Lod, “gated estates…reserved for religious Zionists” are being constructed, “blocks” that in the words of the town’s chief rabbi, “will ensure Lod stays Jewish”. In Karmiel, the deputy mayor invited residents to “report Arabs who intend to buy flats in the town”.

The Palestinian Factor

The combination of exclusion and a discourse of dis/loyalty is a dangerous one, particularly if these recent measures are only the beginning of a more far-reaching process. As Israeli civil-rights organization Adalah has warned, “the approval of this loyalty oath may serve as a slippery slope, as declarations of allegiance to a Jewish and democratic state may soon be required from all newly elected ministers, members of Knesset, workers in the Israeli civil service and/or required when trying to obtain an Israeli identity card or passport, etc.”

In connection with these developments, it is useful to remember Israeli government initiatives put into place after 1948 to ensure that the country’s Palestinian minority would abandon its distinctive national identity and become loyal ‘Israeli Arabs’. These kinds of policies meant “no educational autonomy” for Palestinians, rewarding Arab villages and clans who voted for nationalist Zionist parties, firing school teachers who advocated for a unique Palestinian national narrative, and “attempt[ing] to divide and conquer the [Palestinians] by fostering religious differences between Muslim and Christian”. Ironically, having worked for decades to undermine a distinctive identity amongst its Arab minority, the Israeli government’s support for initiatives insisting on the exclusively Jewish identity of the state is prompting a resurfacing of questions about Palestinian-ness on a discursive level. This is occurring in parallel with an increasing sense of shared struggle among Palestinians on either side of the Green Line, after decades of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories and their effective incorporation into the fabric of the Israeli state.

Why then the counter-productive insistence on the “Jewishness” of the Israeli state? It appears that Palestinian assertiveness in demanding equality (in Israel) and freedom from military rule (in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) has prompted the Israeli establishment to engage in nationalistic measures and rhetoric as a form of “pushback”. The First and Second Intifadas, as well as the October 2000 uprising by Israel’s Palestinian citizens and its brutal suppression, have furthered a sense in the country that substantial threats are not only – or even primarily – external (i.e. a ‘traditional’ inter-state war), but rather ‘internal’. As the slew of initiatives emanating from the Knesset and religious authorities on ‘loyalty’ and separation shows no sign of slowing, it seems that this trend may in fact be a logical outcome of the Israeli government’s refusal to deal with the Palestinian question, outside of the parameters of ethno-exclusivist privilege, and the Palestinians’ refusal to accept these terms, whether in Ramallah, Silwan, or Nazareth.

Israeli Apartheid A Beginner’s Guide Ben White Indispensable introduction to the Israel/Palestine conflict, examining the current structures of Israeli domination. ‘A very strong and clear voice that does not shun from exposing in full, and in a most accessible manner, the essence of Zionism and Israeli policies in Palestine. In a world confused by competing narratives, disinformation and fabrication, this book is an excellent guide for understanding the magnitude of the crimes committed against the Palestinians and the nature of their present suffering and oppression.’ – Professor Ilan Pappe, University of Exeter, Israeli historian and author of ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’ (2007) ‘This book deals rationally and cogently with a topic that almost always generates considerable heat even just with book titles. The reader may not agree with everything that White asserts but it is a highly commendable effort to throw light on a fraught subject.’ – Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate £9.99 only £8.50 on the Pluto site

Pluto authors @ Historical Materialism (Part 2!)

Pluto Press is delighted to announce that the following authors will be speaking at the 2010 Annual Historical Materialism conference, which runs from today (Thursday 11th) to Sunday 14th November at SOAS in London.

Ben Fine, author of Theories of Social Capital – Researchers Behaving Badly and co-author of Marx’s Capital – 5th edition, is co-delivering the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Prize Lecture at 6.15pm on Friday – ‘Useless But True: Economic Crisis and the Peculiarities of Economic Science’. He will also be speaking on the panel ‘Rosa Luxemburg and the Critique of Political Economy: A Roundtable’ from 13.45 – 15.30 on Saturday. You can find an article by Ben on social capital at newhumanist.org.uk and a review of Marx’s Capital – Fifth Edition on the Counterfire website.

Theories of Social Capital Researchers Behaving Badly Ben Fine Forcibly demonstrates how social capital has expanded across the social sciences only by degrading the different disciplines it touches. ‘Ben Fine is the world’s most thorough and indefatigible critic of the abuse of the concept of capital that follows from adding “social” to it. … Here he … explore[s] the reasons behind the chaos this causes and the consequences of the penetration of notions of profit into every nook and cranny of our lives. A must-read for all irritated and irritable thinkers in social science.’ – Barbara Harriss-White, Oxford University £27.5 only £24.50 on the Pluto site

Marx’s ‘Capital’ – Fifth Edition Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho ‘This expert guide to the political economy of Marx’s Capital has always been the very best available.’ – David Harvey ‘This expert guide to the political economy of Marx’s Capital has always been the very best available. … It is thoroughly recommended not only for beginners but to anyone interested in the applicability of Marxian theory to the parlous condition of contemporary capitalism.’ – David Harvey, author of Limits to Capital and The Condition of Postmodernity ‘For almost thirty years, Marx’s Capital has provided an invaluable introduction to Marx’s great work. … It should be compulsory reading for all serious students of economics.’ – Professor Simon Clarke, University of Warwick £12.99 only £11.50 on the Pluto site

Rosa Luxemburg: Socialism or Barbarism Selected Writings Rosa Luxemburg, edited by Paul Le Blanc and Helen C. Scott The best introduction to the range of Rosa Luxemburg’s thought, including a number of writings never before anthologised. ”Rosa Luxemburg has never been more relevant! Here, at last, in a single volume is an accessible introduction to one of the most important radical political thinkers of the 20th century with analysis and insight for a new generation of activist.” – Elaine Bernard, Executive Director of the Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School £12.99 only £11.50 on the Pluto site

You can find an article by Paul Le Blanc, editor of Socialism or Barbarism at links.org.au

Mike Wayne, author of Marxism and Media Studies and other Pluto books, will be speaking on the panel ‘The Politics and Political Economy of the Media’ at 15.45 – 17.30 on Thursday. You can find an article by Mike on the International Socialism Journal website.

Marxism and Media Studies Key Concepts and Contemporary Trends Mike Wayne Clear and concise student guide that shows how Marxist theory can illuminate media studies. £24.99 only £22.50 on the Pluto site

Sheila Cohen, author of Ramparts of Resistance: Why Workers Lost Their Power, and How to Get It Back, will be speaking on the panel ‘Forms of Working-Class Resistance’ at 11.15 – 13.00 on Sunday. You can find a response by Sheila to two reviews of her book at workersliberty.org.

Ramparts of Resistance Why Workers Lost Their Power, and How to Get It Back Sheila Cohen A critical history of grasssroots labour struggles from the 1970s to today that calls for a new politics of trade unionism. £16.99 only £15 on the Pluto site

Neil Davidson, author of The Origins of Scottish Nationhood, will be speaking on the panel ‘The Working Class after Neoliberalism: From the World to the East End of Glasgow’ at 15.45 -17.30 on Saturday.

The Origins of Scottish Nationhood Neil Davidson ‘The great merit of The Origins of Scottish Nationhood is that it seeks to encourage clear thinking about the national condition.’ Allan Massie, TLS £18.99 only £17 on the Pluto site

Adam Morton, author of Unravelling Gramsci: Hegemony and Passive Revolution in the Global Political Economy, will be speaking on the panel ‘Approaching Passive Revolutions’ at 13.45 -15.30 on Saturday.

Unravelling Gramsci Hegemony and Passive Revolution in the Global Political Economy Adam David Morton Examines Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony within the context of uneven development and its links to the global political economy. £25.99 only £23.50 on the Pluto site

Books by all of these Pluto authors, and many others, will be on sale at discounted prices at the Pluto stand from Friday through to Sunday.

Another Journalist Targeted in Russia

The recent brutal beating of leading Russian journalist Oleg Kashin is just the latest in a long list of similar attacks against the country’s media and civil rights community. Kashin was severely beaten by two men on the doorstep of his Moscow home and is now in a serious condition in hospital. The journalist is known for his critical stance against youth groups, such as nationalist, Kremlin-sponsored Nashi, and has also reported on the controversial project to build a road through Khimki forest outside Moscow.

In the context of state repression, the diverse groupings of Russians who oppose Putin’s oligarchy are living under increasing precarious conditions. Corporate interests are viciously defended by the neoliberals in power and the gap between the rich and poor is widening. Living standards for most Russians have worsened over the past two decades, despite the oil ‘boom’ and claims the market economy would bring prosperity to the majority.

Change in Putin’s Russia Power, Money and People Simon Pirani Explains Russia’s political economy, and provides a unique account of the social movements fighting for change. £17.99 only £16 on the Pluto site

Russia Under Yeltsin and Putin Neo-Liberal Autocracy Boris Kagarlitsky A clear and concise introduction to modern Russian history and politics. A valuable resource for students and anyone requiring a basic understanding of post-Soviet Russia. £20.99 only £18.50 on the Pluto site

Pluto authors @ Historical Materialism (Part 1!)

Pluto Press is delighted to announce that several of our authors will be speaking at the 2010 Annual Historical Materialism conference, which runs from this Thursday 11th to Sunday 14th November at SOAS in London.

Gregory Sholette, author of the brand new Pluto Book Dark Matter – Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture, will be speaking on the panel ‘Art in Neoliberalism’ at 11.30 – 13.15 on Friday. You can find more information about his work on his website and an interview with him on the blog C_M_L.

Dark Matter Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture Gregory Sholette Shows that the elite of the art world are sustained by new forms and styles created by artists outside the mainstream. ‘With great verve and urgency, Gregory Sholette explores the economics of contemporary art production in an era of neoliberalism, and outlines the promises and pitfalls of various tactics of resistance. Dark Matter is a salient call-to-arms to all cultural laborers.’ – Julia Bryan-Wilson, author of Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era ‘Based on a multitude of examples from the heterocosmos of invisible art practices, Dark Matter is the ultimate companion to contemporary activist art. In his exquisite and theoretically informed style Gregory Sholette investigates the problematic functions of art practices in the processes of neoliberal appropriation, but above all the wild explosive, and deterritorializing lines that are drawn in the dark matter between art and politics.’ – Gerald Raunig, philosopher and art theorist and author of Art and Revolution £17.99 only £16 on the Pluto site

John Holloway, author of the Pluto Books Crack Capitalism and Change the World Without Taking Power, will be speaking on the panel ‘Crisis and Critique of Political Economy’ at 14.15 – 16.00 on Friday. You can find articles by John Holloway at libcom.org, and reviews of Crack Capitalism on the Guardian and Counterfire websites.

Crack Capitalism John Holloway A groundbreaking guide to moving beyond capitalism, which shows that radical change can only come from exploiting ‘cracks’ in the system. ‘infectiously optimistic’ – Guardian £17.99 only £16 on the Pluto site

Change the World Without Taking Power – New Edition The Meaning of Revolution Today John Holloway New edition of John Holloway’s contemporary classic fusion of political philosophy and activism, including an extensive new preface by the author. ‘Holloway’s Change the World Without Taking Power stands alongside Hardt and Negri’s Empire as one of the two key texts of contemporary autonomist Marxism.’ – Alex Callinicos, Capital & Class ‘This is a refreshing, thought provoking book … A must read for every student and practitioner of political science.’ – USI Journal £14.99 only £13 on the Pluto site

The above books, and many other Pluto titles, will be on sale at discounted prices at the Pluto stand from Friday through to Sunday.

The Neoliberal Attack on Social Housing Continues

Pluto author Sarah Glynn on the impact of the UK government’s housing benefit cuts.

The government’s attack on housing benefits and social housing has been so extreme that it has produced protest from the most unlikely quarters; and the relish and thoroughness with which the government has used the crisis of neoliberal capitalism as a pretext to attack what remains of the welfare state has put paid to the argument that there is no difference between the main political parties. However, what we are seeing is still the speeding up of processes set in train by Mrs Thatcher and continued, with the enthusiasm of a convert, by New Labour. Over the last 30 years, council housing has been systematically reduced from a mainstream tenure, which provided homes for a third of British households, to a minimally-funded safety net for the poor. Social rents have been deliberately brought closer to market rents, and English council housing has been used as a source of subsidy to government. Property speculation has become a mainstay of the economy, regardless of the devastating social impacts of soaring housing costs (and the inherent instability). Developer-driven regeneration has forced huge numbers of lower income families from the city centres. And rent restrictions have been lifted, and private landlordism promoted and subsidised through the tax system. Moreover, murmurs about ending security of tenure for council tenants have been heard in many places for some time, and New Labour even considered tying council tenancies to job-search as part of an increasingly punitive and coercive approach to welfare, in the US ‘workfare’ mould.

Government ministers now cynically point out that housing benefits subsidise landlords, and that many people are caught in a benefit trap where it doesn’t pay them to work; but these are issues that have long been raised by critics from the Left. The government is using these problems in the system as an excuse to cut benefits and effectively penalise the poor; however, the progressive solution is to cap rents and provide more subsidised social housing, and to develop a graduated system that reduces benefits as people begin to earn money but doesn’t penalise the increasing number of people who will be unable to find work. Government claims that council housing was a failed experiment. Supporters of council housing have long argued that it has always been treated as a second class system – even as it was built up in the period of post war boom – and could have been an awful lot better; but that even so, it has provided millions of families with a secure home that was a world away from the slums of the past and the vagaries of private renting. With proper investment it could do so again (while also learning from past mistakes).

Labour’s ability to criticise government policy is severely compromised; and with the media limiting most political debate to the competition between Labour and the Conservative coalition, and readily reproducing official press releases, critical analysis is still thin on the ground. But, as the government hurtles us back to a world of Edwardian attitudes to poverty and inequality, it has become even more important to look at why the inability of the market to provide decent housing forced governments to intervene in the first place, and to understand what the logic of neoliberal capitalism means for so many people’s ‘right’ to a decent home.

Where the Other Half Lives Lower Income Housing in a Neoliberal World Edited by Sarah Glynn A radical analysis arguing that the encroachment of neoliberalism into all areas of our lives is responsible for the housing crisis. ‘To feel secure people, particularly families, need good well maintained housing, where they know they can live without fear of having to leave. Our society has consistently failed to provide this. We are told the market will be the answer, but it isn’t. I hope this book will explain why, and point the way to a socially responsible economy.’ – Ken Loach ‘This book is a brilliant, compulsive and passionately written case for the continued importance of council housing, without means testing, mixed tenure or Methodists, and it should be read by anyone interested in the subject.’ – Mute Magazine £17.99 only £16 on the Pluto site

Iraq War Logs: The Tip of the Iceberg

Conor Deery on the horror in Iraq beyond the leaked war logs.

The recent release of almost 400,000 previously classified pentagon files by whistle blowing website Wikileaks has exposed in detail the scale of brutality in Iraq and the deceit of US authorities in covering up their wrongdoings. They reveal large numbers of prisoners abused, murdered and raped; the civilian death toll covered up (an extra 15,000 previously unacknowledged deaths have been recorded); the shooting of men trying to surrender; the killing of civilians by private security firms and hundreds of civilians killed at checkpoints. Also implicated in the exposure of these files is the Western corporate media who have consistently failed to question the government narrative of events during the Iraq war. Their failure/unwillingness to report the extent of wrongdoings perpetrated by US forces and their Iraqi allies has echoes in their coverage of the Iraq War Logs, which has often focused on the private life of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange rather than concentrate on the damning content of the leaked files.

Of course, none of this is news to Iraqis who have lived through the carnage of war for the past seven years. Western bombing and sanctions against the country had already inflicted a great deal of hardship and suffering on much of the Iraqi population, even before the US-led invasion in 2003. In their book Erasing Iraq, Michael Otterman, Richard Hill and Paul Wilson show the human cost of two decades of US-backed policy through those Iraqi voices that have been so absent from the official narrative of Western governments and news bulletins of corporate media outlets. Through accounts from Iraqi refugees and other witnesses, the authors uncover a portrait of the horrific conditions in Iraq today. Collapsed infrastructure, an ineffective state apparatus, sectarian division and the constant fear of violence are now prevalent. Over a million have been killed and 5 million made into refugees – all this is testament to a catastrophic legacy which the US and its allies have inflicted on Iraq.

The claim that the Iraq war was a ‘mistake’ – that the US government had benevolent intentions towards the citizens of that country, appear ridiculous in light of the true scale of the destruction in terms of Iraqi society and culture. Cultural Cleansing in Iraq documents the targeted assassination of over 400 academics, kidnapping and the forced flight of thousands of doctors, lawyers, artists and other intellectuals. The book argues that the occupiers wished to dismantle the state and create their own client regime, which resulted in the ravishing of one of the world’s oldest recorded cultures.

As important as the Iraq war logs are, it must be remembered that they are a military record of US actions in Iraq and are only a partial view of the war. They do not record the stories of the victims, the millions of shattered lives or the true motivations behind those who claimed they were only interested in bringing freedom and democracy.

Erasing Iraq The Human Costs of Carnage Michael Otterman, Richard Hil and Paul Wilson. Foreword by Dahr Jamail Reveals the true human costs of war in Iraq, an unfolding tragedy that has yielded millions of dead and displaced Iraqis since the first Gulf War. ‘If I could only recommend one book that provides a comprehensive overview of both the situation in Iraq today, and the decades of US-backed policy it took to create this nightmare scenario, Erasing Iraq is it.’ – Dahr Jamail, from the foreword £14.99 only £13 on the Pluto site

Cultural Cleansing in Iraq Why Museums Were Looted, Libraries Burned and Academics Murdered Edited by Raymond W. Baker, Shereen T. Ismael and Tareq Y. Ismael Argues that destruction of Iraqi culture was aimed at remaking Iraq as US client state ‘If you are looking for a textbook that provides a view of Middle East politics free of colonial bias, … [this] book plainly fulfil this fundamental requirement. Informed by the empathy of belonging as well as by a critical objectivity enhanced by a long experience in teaching the region to students … , this book is a safe guide to the political intricacies of the Middle East.’ – Gilbert Achcar, Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London £19.99 only £17.50 on the Pluto site