「無敵鐵三角系列之二」 是道德敗壞還是制度使然？－－論統治階級，警察與媒體角色之關係。By Ulysses

文章連結：http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/07/ruling-britannia-ii.html


不知何時開始，警察一詞早已與正義劃上等號。早前與友人談到英國竊聽風暴中警察受賄一事，他的評價是：「樹大有枯枝嘛」。我追問其因由，他便說從小到大警察都是負責維持治安的角色，沒有他們，社會上便不得安寧。一兩個受賄的警員，不能抹殺他們整體的功勞。

嗯，維持治安，又是這一點。身為一個左翼分子，筆者在此不厭其煩地重申一次，警察口中所謂的治安，只是一套建基於資產階級（包括中產）意識形態及其實際利益的規則，而警察，正正就是這套規則的護衛，他們不分是非黑白，只會是資本所是，非資本所非，此點在下文中已清楚提及。


＂the state constitutes the economy in various ways, in that it condenses, concentrates, organizes and materializes the politico-ideological relations that are already inherent in the relations of production.  The police, by upholding the system's political and legal relations, assist in the reproduction of its productive relations; at the same time, by punishing transgressions (and normally issuing statements explaining the normative basis for such punishment), they assist in the moralization and legitimation of the same productive relations.＂


而正正是建基於這一點上，媒體與警察之間才有著密不可分的關係，皆因他們均是政府得以傳播其意識形態的有力工具。

＂...... the very fact of people having been arrested will certainly be presented in the media as evidence of serious disorder and violence, because the media automatically accept the legitimacy and validity of police claims until such time as they are rendered ridiculous - and sometimes not even then.  That is, the police don't merely exercise a part of the state's monopoly of legitimate violence; they are the authoritative moral arbiter.  And it is only because they are such that their highly ideological, politicised action is treated as neutral.  ＂


亦因如此，是次警察受賄一事，並不純然是道德的問題，而是制度本身使然。再者，即使神蹟降臨，全世界的警察都有高尚情操，拒絕這些不道德的交易，他們本身與媒體的「合作」依然會出現，他們的存在本身便意味著扼殺了某些話語－－一些有害於資本運作的話語。



－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－

Ruling Britannia II posted by lenin

Well, since you ask, the ruling class in the UK has been estimated to comprise about 0.1% of the adult population - at the time of this estimate (1991), this would have been 43,500 people.  That is the number of people who would both form part of the capitalist class, and rule politically.  Today, if the same proportions held, the ruling class would comprise about 50,000 people.  However, a caveat.  Quantifying the ruling class in this way can be useful for social imaging, but such figures should be taken with a pinch of salt. The ruling class should be understood not first as a quantity, but as a relation. And since those relations are in constant flux, constantly needing to be produced and reproduced, and since capital (and political power) tends to be progressively concentrated among smaller numbers of people, there will be a tendency for the ruling class to shrink relative to the population.  At any rate, no such quantity is stable. 

Further, in addition to the capitalist class itself, there is a bourgeois penumbra, a set of institutions and agents who rule alongside and on behalf of the capitalist class and whose social power is derivative of the capitalist class - these elites are particularly concentrated in the state.  Which brings us back to the point I left you with yesterday, namely that a ruling class is such when it commandeers the state - it must not merely hold wealth but rule politically by virtue of that wealth, and the most important strategic space within which political antagonisms are resolved is in the national state.  In the historic development of capitalist social relations, the emergence of a distinctly capitalist ruling class results in a distinctly capitalist form of state power.  Robin Blackburn, in the discussion of Hanoverian Britain in The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, describes how after the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688 the new political arrangements favoured the direct rule of capital, inasmuch as a monarch with weak legitimacy allowed the propertied oligarchy to be assertive of its interests in parliament, while dominating most state posts at a local as well as national level - as County Commissioners, Lords Lieutenant, or Justices of the Peace, as well as MPs.  Highly lucrative public offices - such as the Bank of England and chartered companies - were held as private property.  As statesmen, they established corporations; as corporate members, they profited from the enterprise.  As MPs they legislated; as Justices of the Peace they interpreted the law.  Blackburn points out that this system, with its narrow franchise and rotten boroughs, represented bourgeois rule at an immature stage.  As a result of this immaturity, the British capitalist state then had to proceed through centuries of struggle and adaptation, incorporating a franchise for the middle class, then working class men, then women, while also incorporating some popular demands in the form of social democracy.  But the major offices of the state, its laws, its apparatus and its division of labour (social as well as technical) were elaborated under bourgeois domination, thus giving us a concrete example of how a state becomes 'impregnated' (in Therborn's phrase) with the drives of a particular social class, the capitalist class, allowing that class to rule politically.

So, this brings us to the role of the police, whose relationship to News International becomes all the more understandable once the former's role is better understood.  This relationship included not merely the bribing of junior to middle rank police officers, and not merely wining and dining of senior officers, but the constant circulation of personnel between News International and the Met.  There was a confluence of interests and a concert of actions.  For example, when the police murdered Jean Charles de Menezes, it was the newspapers, particularly News International that they turned to to vilify the dead man.  Lo and behold, we discover that News International was hacking the phone belonging to Menezes' cousin.  And the favours were returned.  The police not only failed to properly investigate News International's phone hacking when it was revealed, but actively applied pressure on the competition not to pursue the case.  To say that this relationship facilitated a criminal conspiracy may be an understatement - when all the facts are out, it may prove more accurate to say that it was a criminal conspiracy.

But why should the police force be so available for corruption in tandem with the reactionary press?  To answer this, it is important not to start with too much of a 'police' conception of the police.  They are not merely a repressive apparatus.  Nicos Poulantzas points out (State, Power, Socialism) that even ‘mainly’ repressive apparatuses such as the army, police, courts, prisons etc., all produce the ideological bases of capitalism. The distinction between the repressive and ideological apparatuses can thus only function at a purely indicative level.  To insist on a strict division of labour along these lines leads to a mistaken conception of the state, in which it secures acquiescence either by means of coercion or through 'false consciousness', ignoring the fact that the state must produce a material substratum for consensus, organising aspects of productive relations in such a way as to generate consent.  There is a tendency to see the state's role as extrinsic to the economy, as merely the guarantor of an autonomous, self-sufficient capitalist economy.  This depends on a certain mechanistic 'base-superstructure' model of the relation of political structures to the economy.  It would be more accurate to say that the state constitutes the economy in various ways, in that it condenses, concentrates, organizes and materializes the politico-ideological relations that are already inherent in the relations of production.  The police, by upholding the system's political and legal relations, assist in the reproduction of its productive relations; at the same time, by punishing transgressions (and normally issuing statements explaining the normative basis for such punishment), they assist in the moralization and legitimation of the same productive relations.

Let's take a concrete example.  The police are aware of a protest that is due to take place in Whitehall.  They anticipate what they would term serious violence and disorder.  Part of the reason is that this protest is organised by people who challenge the existing social-property relations, and the police consider any attempt to seriously realise such a challenge, however peaceable and democratic, an affront to their authority.  Anyway, they coordinate a set of responses intended to bring the protest under tight spatial and physical control, until it can be dispersed.  But those responses are not merely technological and technocratic.  They proceed in a very ideologically sensitive manner, careful to produce the political-ideological pretext for each move they make.  Even if this involves nothing more than arresting many people on trumped up charges, the very fact of people having been arrested will certainly be presented in the media as evidence of serious disorder and violence, because the media automatically accept the legitimacy and validity of police claims until such time as they are rendered ridiculous - and sometimes not even then.  That is, the police don't merely exercise a part of the state's monopoly of legitimate violence; they are the authoritative moral arbiter.  And it is only because they are such that their highly ideological, politicised action is treated as neutral. 

We proceed with the example.  The police use a repertoire of violence to coerce and contain the protesters - punches, slaps, baton strikes, mounted charges - and finish the day by isolating a manageable number of protesters and kettling them in a space so confined as to be physically dangerous for a prolonged period of time.  The explicit reasoning is that they are being held to prevent a breach of the peace, and that their detention will last no longer than is necessary to assure a peaceful dispersal.  But this, of course, is an intensely ideological depiction of affairs, and requires a great deal of ideological preparation and foregrounding for its conduct to be coherent.  Certain things must be automatically airbrushed or discounted for.  Hence, the media, and especially the most right-wing and authoritarian tabloids, will be a natural ally in this process, particularly in the subsequent witch hunts.  At every step here, the police have conducted a series of movements along various dimensions - political, ideological, legal, economic, etc - which isn't reducible to the forms of repression deployed.  Even in its repressive moment, the state is enacting ideology - because ideology is not just a field of representation, but precisely a set of material practises, customs, lifestyle etc.  When the police punish individuals (and, relevantly, fail to punish others), they contribute to these practises.

So, what is left that is mysterious about the relationship between the police and the media?  Yesterday, I said that the capitalist media operates in a specific vector of class power concerned with the reproduction of ideas and images and that its relationship with politicians was thus very natural as the latter also play a key role in the reproduction of ideology.  The capitalist media's ability to reproduce the dominant ideas and images in society is expressive of the dominance of capital in and over society.  If the state, as we have also said, concretises social relations, then the police in a capitalist state concretise the political and ideological dominance of the capitalist class.  Nothing is more logical than an alliance of mutual dependence between a sector of capitalist class power that is ideologically dominant, and a sector of state power that materializes that ideological domination in its day to day practises.  Such an alliance, even a corrupt or criminal one, merely formalizes the implicit systemic co-dependence of the two.  The fact that it took the form of this kind of criminal conspiracy owes itself to more concrete determinations than we have discussed here - the specific history of the Metropolitan Police, the evolution of the Murdoch empire, the accumulated outcomes of past struggles, the politics of the modern Conservative and Labour parties, and so on.  But those will have to be followed up tomorrow.

「無敵鐵三角系列之一」 是「社會公器」，還是「政府公僕」？－－論統治階級，警察與媒體角色之關係。 By Ulysses

文章連結：http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/07/ruling-brittania-i.html



早前曾提及，警察，政府(又或政客)，以及媒體三者之間，有著千絲萬縷的關係。他們彼此間互相「幫助」，從而組成一個無敵的統治鐵三角。但，何以是此三者?他們當中各自擔當了什麼角色？

首先，我們要明白，所謂的「統治階級」並不是以財富多寡，聲望，又或其工作種類來定義，這些極其量共是特徵而非本質。統治階級之所以為統治階級，乃因其在生產關係中所扮演的角色。

"A society that does not reproduce itself at the same time as it is producing itself will not survive a day.  This means that the classes that constitute the society must, in the very act of reproducing themselves, also reproduce the society.  Therefore, to identify a class in any society is to identify its role in the reproduction of that society. "

基於此定義，下文帶出了媒體的角色對統治階級到底有何重要之處。皆因他們必須要「reprodece itselt」，而媒體就正正有助於宣傳各種各樣有利統治階級的思想，並在各種重要議題上搶奪輿論陣地，從而維持統治階級的根基－－亦即當下之生產關係亦因如此，是次英國新聞業風暴，從來就不是一個道德的問題，而是一個制度上的問題。



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Ruling Britannia I posted by lenin




As promised, this is the first in a series of posts looking at different aspects of the ruling class.  Before diving into some more abstract considerations, let me just draw your attention this description of the 'final hurrah' of the 'Chipping Norton set':

    Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth and her PR tycoon husband Matthew Freud threw a party of decadent opulence and excess that saw the political and media elite flock to their 22-bedroom Cotswolds mansion Burford Priory yet again.

    Just 24 hours later, the news broke that murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's mobile had been hacked by Rupert Murdoch's News of the World newspaper and his global empire was plunged into disarray.

    ...

    The group has been dubbed the Chipping Norton Set because its key members, including Prime Minister David Cameron, all own homes within a few miles of the Oxfordshire town. One prominent member of the set described its allure – and its value to the Murdochs.

    'It is like the social wing of the Murdoch media empire. Rupert wields his influence through his newspaper and TV network. Elisabeth and Matthew feed off this by providing a link between the worlds of politics, business and showbusiness. Their wealth means they can provide for them all to meet in complete privacy at Burford. Behind it all is the unspoken assumption that if you are out of favour with Rupert Murdoch, you are not likely to get invited.'


At the party, just before the fell of dark, are cabinet ministers and ex-cabinet ministers (Cameronites and Blairites - the Thatcherite coalition in parliament), media personnel, and corporate executives.  Aside from the Murdochs, there is Michael Gove, Peter Mandelson, Ed Vaizey, David Miliband, James Purnell, Douglas Alexander from the front benches,  Robert Peston, Alan Yentob and Jeremy Clarkson from the BBC, Rebekah Brooks and her Etonian husband Charlie Brooks, Cameron's policy advisor Steve Hilton, the PR man Matthew Freud (Elizabeth Murdoch's husband), and Google executive Rachel Whetstone (Steve Hilton's wife).  Put bluntly, at this little soiree you have a congregation of genuine members of the ruling class, alongside their courtiers, clerks and clowns.  I would suggest that they're united by a broadly very similar alignment of interests and perspectives, centring on Atlanticism and economic liberalism.    Such forms of socialisation and networking would surprise no one.  The papers are filled at the moment with other, similar fare - swish dinners between top police officials and News Corp. execs, for example - though none has quite the same decadent, gilded age feel of this gathering of the doomed.  They're like the rich in Diego Rivera's mural for the Rockefeller building, partying in obscene opulence, while the syphillis cell floats menacingly over their heads.

***

The sense in which this gathering is illustrative of ruling class power demands a little more elaboration, however, even at the risk of being pedantic.  Inasmuch as a ruling class is ever acknowledged (and there is some scholarly literature, much of it a bit dated, on the subject), it is usually discussed in terms of property, privilege, status and power, working within elitist or pluralist problematics.  Naturally, the discussion in the popular press tends to focus on 'colour', personality details, prestige, bank balance, geographies of privilege, social ties and inbreeding, but the truth is that the academia has done much to set the tone here by directing the focus to the attributes rather than sources of class power.  The marxist approach is quite different.  As Goran Therborn points out, the focus of marxist enquiries on the subject of a class is the process of its reproduction.

A society that does not reproduce itself at the same time as it is producing itself will not survive a day.  This means that the classes that constitute the society must, in the very act of reproducing themselves, also reproduce the society.  Therefore, to identify a class in any society is to identify its role in the reproduction of that society.  To analyse class relations is to analyse productive relations.  Capitalist production does not only create commodities and profits.  It produces the capital-relation itself.  It produces the capitalist, and the wage labourer.  This way of looking at things has an important implication - one cannot look to market transactions and flows of income to understand how class works.  Rather, it is outside the sphere of the market that classes are produced, in the workplace.  Marx puts it like this: "The consumption of labour-power is completed, as in the case of every other commodity, outside the market of the sphere of circulation. Let us therefore, in company with the owner of money and the owner of labour-power, leave this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in full view of everyone, and follow them into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there hangs the notice ‘No admittance except on business’. Here we shall see, not only how capital produces, but how capital is itself produced."

In this light, income flows, status, rank and prestige are attributes of class but do not define it.  Take, for example, the question of social ranking.  The distribution of rank in British society, as in most societies, is carried out on the basis of the evaluations of extant elites.  By definition, then, rank is derivative of class.  Rank may help define castes within classes, or may be part of the ideological sustenance of class domination, but it is secondary.  Having said all that, I can now look at the Murdochs' gathering in minted rural Oxfordshire and state more specifically where the class power lies.  The ruling class power lies principally with the hosts, the owners of major media & communications firms; as owners of capital, they reproduce the system by investing that capital and purchasing labour-power and productive technology in order to produce a surplus which they accumulate as profit.  Jeremy Clarkson, a clown of sorts, is also a major owner of capital, generating almost a million a year from his holdings in one production company alone.  Those whom I loosely characterised as courtiers and clerks, the politicians and corporate personnel who own no capital but exercise authority and social power on behalf of the owners (either directly or at some remove), would then be (upper) middle class.

***

But of course, there's more to it than this.  Because this is a very specific kind of class power, in that these individuals represent sectors of power that are central to the reproduction of images and ideas.  Unsurprisingly, there is a great deal of circulation between them - the Google PR woman Rachel Whetstone has also been an advisor to the Tories; Education Secretary Michael Gove is also a Times columnist (so in a very real sense was there to butter up his employers), and so on.  Because of the power that they exert, the images and ideas they produce tend to become the dominant ones in society.  For Marx and Engels, this could best be understood in light of the tendency for specialisation and the division of labour to be developed to a particularly marked degree under capitalism.  Thus, the division of labour entailed a division between physical and mental labour, not merely among workers, but within the ruling class "so that inside this class one part appears as the thinkers of the class (its active, conceptive ideologists who make the formation of the illusions of the class about itself their chief source of livelihood)".

Of course, no ruling class ever does anything entirely for itself - not the cooking, not the child-rearing, not the driving (or, in Rebekah Brooks' case, the helicopter piloting), and most certainly not the thinking.  Hence, the active, conceptive ideologists of the ruling class who precisely formulate "the illusions of the class" are only rarely members of the ruling class.  There are a few cases where they are - Thomas Friedman, and Bernard-Henri Levy are examples - but otherwise they tend to be simply well-remunerated professionals, the gold-diggers of the academia and media, the upper middle class.  The means by which this happens are straightforward in the proprietor-driven newspapers.  The owner has a particular world-view, the editorial staff are expected to promote this world-view, and they duly hire and promote a suitably submissive and obedient staff to do just this.  (Incidentally, such submissiveness is not only entirely compatible with hard-bitten individualism and self-interest, it is actually the form in which it is most encouraged as it constitutes an identification with the competitive weltanschauung of the master-class).  It has been pointed out, for example, that of all of Rupert Murdoch's dozens of newspapers across the globe, not a single one opposed the Iraq war.  It has also been pointed out that Murdoch was personally very close to and supportive of the Blair administration in this period.  But of course, it is doubtful that Murdoch even had to be persuaded to support the Iraq war, or that he ever had to pick up a 'phone to find out which way his editors were thinking of going on the issue.  It was probably just assumed, as Murdoch had specifically built his newspaper empire to automatically reproduce his general perspective - his reactionary politics and vicious morality, "the illusions of the class" - on a daily basis.

But even where a mega proprietor isn't involved, the market is such that there will always be more money in pleasing the ruling class.  Even if you're an academic working in a slightly insulated environment (ever so slightly insulated), the real money, the real kudos, comes not from doing solid work for obscure academic journals, but from producing ruling class ideology through house organs, thinktanks, newspapers, and documentaries.  Think were Niall Ferguson would be if he had been forced to rely on the Journal of Economic History and a shrinking humanities department for his income.  Politicians are slightly more tragic in that most of them don't seek a fortune, but instead defer to ruling class ideology to a considerable extent because of the flak which backs up that ideology.  The extent of this flak, the protection racket based on the potential for humiliating exposure and rabid denunciation, backed up by the police, has until recently only been guessed at.

This particular purview on ruling class power is ideal for discerning the way in which political and ideological relations are already present in productive relations.  It also illustrates one of the ways in which it colonises the state and imposes its own imperatives, the better to facilitate its further reproduction and expansion.  And this is an important point, leading into tomorrow's sequel: a ruling class is such when it commands the state, when the state responds to its needs as absolute imperatives.  It is not necessary for this to be effective that there should be corruption, that coppers should be bribed and top officers wined and dined.  Nor is it necessary that there should be the kinds of industrial scale corporate lobbying that is familiar in K-Street.  It is not necessary, but it helps - or rather, it represents a kind of advance for those sectors of capital able to effect it, because it circumvents the corseting formalities imposed by democracy (without suspending or overthrowing it).    The fact that politicians, policemen, and perhaps intelligence are imbricated with News International in networks of mutual corruption and lawlessness is indicative not that the system broke down, but that it worked as normal, producing the expected concentrations of capitalist class power in the hugely influential region of ideological reproduction.  Given the agents involved, and the relations of power involved, what else could have happened?  And now it's breaking down.

It is a characteristic of capitalism in crisis that the ruling class begins to fragment as its unifying discourses cease to be plausible, and as coherent responses to crisis fail to present themselves.  In such circumstances, a crisis that might previously have been regionalised and specific to one sector of the ruling class can suddenly have vertiginous implications for the whole class, its cohesion, its legitimacy and its ability to lead.  A crisis is not the same as downfall, by any means; it means, in this context, a disruption of the normal channels of power, and particularly in the flows of its reproduction, which may or may not be susceptible to resolution depending on the capacities of strategically important ruling class agencies, especially the political executive.  Much will depend now on how effectively Number Ten coordinates a variety of sympathetic networks to draw steam out of the issue while gradually closing down the debate and allowing the summer holidays to bury the story.  That depends, of course, on how much a divided Tory party is prepared to rally behind Cameron, and how much the Liberals are prepared to go along with it.

再戰阿拉伯世界 by蕭

文章連結：http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/15/arab-spring-rescue-renewed-protesters

 At first we lied to ourselves, we wanted to believe they were with us. But now the street has woken up and it is saying to SCAF 'we are the rulers, and you follow our orders – not the other way round. We are the fucking red line, you do not cross us.

－Shady Alaa El Din，一個埃及的示威者

 如果各位看倌一直有留意本站，其實老早在一個月之前我們已經說過類似的話：埃及革命只是換湯不換藥，當初民眾的經濟訴求通通都沒有改善。對，穆巴拉克被拉下台了，但經濟政策依舊、官僚制度依舊，通通都依舊。看來，成功的「革命」還是遙遠得很。
（見http://leftistreloaded.blogspot.com/2011/06/egypt-democracy-social-justice-and.html）

其實，類似的情況何止在埃及出現？這次北非及中東的革命浪潮是史詩級的，它波及約旦、敘利亞、突尼西亞、也門等地，它震撼了整個北非以致整個世界。

現在，震撼還是有的，但這種震撼不再源自那種高呼獨裁者下台的革命熱情 。讓我們回到現實，今天震撼各地群眾的原因是他們從來都未想過，革命過後的新政府竟然一如既往，竟然如此庸碌無能。

在北非及中東各地，成千上萬的群眾又走了出來。當初的開羅廣場又充滿了黑黝黝的人頭，他們又一次面對著那些荷槍實彈的警察。不計埃及，在敘利亞，已經有十九個示威者被殺。

當然，我們都知道今天北非革命的社會主義元素少到不得了。但是作為radical，我們相深信要改變世界就要從根本開始。若果革命沒有將軍商政三界糾纏的的根源－－資本主義連根拔起，那麼革命就只能獲得一個改朝換代的結果。蓋掩在新政府的面具的背後，仍舊是一個個肚滿腸肥的大商家、一個個權力慾澎湃的軍官。

可能，我們在此時此刻說要廢除私有產權、要廢除僱用勞動制只是天方夜譚，但我們不應忘記群眾從來不是靜止的，群眾的意識可被改變。面對龐大的群眾，一個社會主義者的任務就是要告訴群眾怎樣才能達成真正的革命，社會主義者必須改變群眾的意識。 
革命從來不是一次性的，革命是一個過程。托洛斯基說得對，革命是不斷的。

風暴中的微弱曙光－－－論英國竊聽風暴

文章連結：http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/07/killed-in.html


不論小學或中學，教科書都會告訴你以下內容：政府，人民的公僕；警察，正義的守衛；媒體，社會的公器。


可惜，現實的景像與書本的描繪，似乎有段距離。

在現世之，警察，是盲從於資本主義制度的國家機器；媒體，是政治家與資本家欺騙市民的面紗。而資本主義下的政府，則只顧維持資本家的利益而不顧人民死活－－除非你的屍骸會減少資本家的利益吧。三者之間彼此利用又或輸送利益，從而組成了一個互相扶持的堅固鐵三角。一個，只為了讓資本家積累更多資本的冷血三角。

不過，最近的英國，這個如此強大的鐵三角，在媒體與政府的一邊，似乎出現了裂縫並透出一絲曙光。 一宗竊聽風暴正席捲傳媒大亨梅鐸的新聞帝國，當中涉案的更包括部分受賄的英國警察高層，以及知名政客甚或前首相。而隨著這個帝國的動搖，英國媒體的工人將有機會進行一場大反擊，重新鞏固工人階級的勢力，打擊整個媒體工業的建制，以及對抗他們強大的盟力－－警察與政府。特別是英國政府內部亦不是鐵板一塊，當中不乏可利用的勢力。

可惜，工人的視野似乎只局限於他們的飯碗。筆者固然明白失業的問題對工人乃性命攸關之事。但正如下文所述，「The disproportionate focus on the loss of jobs at News International misses the point. The loss of jobs is a story; it's not the story. 」失業，只是問題的「果」。而真正的問題，在於整個制度本身。套用作者的話，若大家的視線只聚焦於失業之上，那麼這只是「 an extremely vulgar sort of reductionism. It does not rise to the level of political analysis and, in fact, is its own kind of moralism.」

假若在這個至為關鍵的關頭，我們未能捉實那絲微弱的曙光，那麼很快就會有「新梅鐸」的出現，重新修補那裂縫。到時候，世界將再漆黑一片，而我們只能再次靜待－－若還在生的話－－下一個風暴的來臨。



詳情請看以下文章。


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Let it bleed posted by lenin


I'll say it again. The disproportionate focus on the loss of jobs at News International misses the point. The loss of jobs is a story; it's not the story. To begin and end with jobs, to evaluate the closure of News of the World purely on that basis, as the Labour blogger Simon Hewitt does, is an extremely vulgar sort of reductionism. It does not rise to the level of political analysis and, in fact, is its own kind of moralism.

「競爭的」全球化？還是「壟斷的」全球化？ by kenef

文章連結：http://monthlyreview.org/2011/06/01/the-internationalization-of-monopoly-capital

暢銷書告訴我們：「世界是平的。」

「我們活在競爭日漸激烈的全球化年代，香港如果不能提高競爭力，將被上海淘汰！」這種日夜在報章新聞宣傳的屁話，比人肉錄音機更煩人。

如果資本主義的世界，真是一個開放的、人人有機會創業的、有商業頭腦肯吃苦就可成功的世界，我們這些「八十後」還用問「自己為何做不到李嘉誠」嗎？今天這篇文章，正是要點出所謂「全球化」，不啻是壟斷資本的全球化。

大陸「八十後」看工運策略 by kenef

文章連結：http://www.wyzxsx.com/Article/view/201101/206609.html

或http://red-mole.appspot.com/?p=109001

談起中國工會，我們只知道那個中共旗下的「全國總工會」，那些小型的獨立工會，只是偶爾聽內地工運朋友分享時才知道他們的存在，更不用談了解他們的事跡了。談起中國工運，我們最多只數到富士康和本田。我們對中國工運的認識是如何的缺乏！今次透過烏有之鄉找到這篇文，是關於六個月前哈爾濱鐵路工人發起的工會改組「運動」。文雖然舊了點，但似乎也足夠讓無知的我們一窺中國工運狀況。

事源一名基層鐵路工人李春生於網上論壇發表要求改組工會、保護工人權益的言論，立刻被論壇封殺，更被單位領導勸喻不要搞事。一再堅持己見的李春生，其後被單位威脅要開除他。網上因此聚集了不少關注和支持他的朋友。

浸大關愛神奇咒語－－外判外判責任走！ (by 東)

今次番黎本地少少o既議題
(普羅列塔網正式宣佈退休咁濟)

事緣：早前浸會大學外判酒樓聯福樓結束營業，承辦商拖欠近二十位員工逾八十萬元遣散費，於是工友聯同工會向校方施壓，希望在聯福樓的招標按金裡面賠錢給工人，豈料校方高層諸多阻撓及藉口，昨日工友們到立法會門外抗議。

細閱文章後，有些說話想說及經驗想分享：

大學成日都話自己「在明明德」，其實大家心知校方講得呢 d 說話其實都唔係好道德 (黃子華語)
校方自己有冇安守本份先？

我的意思是
1./ 最起碼，有冇平時監實條數，唔係外判就可以卸責架o麻；如果有睇實，點解依家搞到咁？
筆者最基本o既觀察係，校方以至好多政府部門及私人機構，無論係膳食服務定係清潔、保安管理，都經常採用外判制，一來價低者得，可以減少開支及行政負擔，二來有事o既時候隔多一重，可以推卸責任。

2./ 到依家出左事，校方反對工友的建議之後，有冇俾一個合理的方案去解決工友當下危險的處境先？定係睇住 d 工友死？

3./ 校方o既諗法，以及一般局外人都會話「去勞工處咪得囉，你地成班人搞屎棍o者」。對唔住，唔好成日覺得勞工處就係幫工友呢邊，佢目的係調停勞資雙方o既糾紛，而且好多時都係偏幫資方架喇，你細心睇下面篇文，其實連勞工處都支持老闆拖糧。到最尾如果老闆真係一個仙都唔俾，勞工處只係不斷勸籲、出信俾資方，搞到幾個月之後先至會到法庭（勞資審裁處），而呢幾個月o既時間足以消磨工友的意志，你估呢幾個月工友唔洗搵食咩，但係老闆就可以細水流長咁拖到你冇心力同佢鬥。而同樣的不了了之的經歷亦經常在建築行業入面發生，三判、四判o個 d 都會成日走數，愈判得多層問題就愈見嚴重。


4./ 請你睜開你的 C 眼睇下個現實吧
老闆拖糧搵埋 d 大隻佬迫你簽字，唔簽就係一個仙都冇
完完全全將勞資關係o既矛盾展現出黎, 呢個先係社會o既真象
呢 d 活生生o既見證我唔覺得係"Mutually benefitual "或者電視廣告所講o既 VV 雙贏


5./ 文章還帶我們認清事實，指出《蘋果日報》專門將一切店舖倒閉都怪罪到工資提升，尤其在最低工資成立之後抹黑就更嚴重，大家閱讀主流媒體時定必提防提防！

6./ 以後或者會有後續行動及報導，密切留意！

你外判，我捐款：記浸大聯福樓欠薪

東非大旱災與資本主義的美妙旅程 by蕭

文章連結：http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=25299
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/gallery/2011/jul/08/east-africa-drought-in-pictures#/?picture=376547799&index=1



只要隨便上網瀏覽，我們都可以見到一幅幅極之陌生、極為遙遠的相片，也許它們太過真實，真實得像幻覺一樣，使得它們從來都不佔我們生命的任何一個部份。那些火星來的相片全都是飢荒、貧窮及戰爭。

今天東非發生六十年來最大規模的旱災，近千萬人，對，是千萬人的生命也受到威脅，他們將要面對飢荒、疾病的巨大災難。

問問每一個香港人，誰會把這些東西放在眼內？誰會在乎地球的彼方在發生災難？到底有多少住在富裕地區的人們會問問自己需要為這些災難負上多大責任？

資本主義的遊戲規劃教導我們：我們要競爭！我們要力爭上游！我們要賺大錢！人人都是他媽的自私！你仆街？好，只要我無事就好。東非的飢荒？與我何干？我連自己的生活也未顧好啊。

回到今天的東非，他媽的旱災不只是因為天公不做美，而是每一個資本主義國家以致全世界資本主義體系推波助瀾的結果。英國說會為埃塞俄比亞提供三千八百萬磅的援助，但不好意思，埃國的債務還有幾十億呢。債務是打從哪來的？對不起，英國有份，美國有份，歐洲有份，原來大家都有份。

對了，真想不到這些年間糧食會變得那麼貴呢，自從金融海嘯以來，世界的對沖基金、投資銀行、退休基金把1250億美金都投入糧食市場炒賣了，炒得今天誰都買不起食物。噢，你們不要東張西望，IMF、美國、歐洲、全世界你們通通都有份，你們通通都在玩這個新自由主義的遊戲，都在進行這個資本主義的美妙旅程。

好像有點轉彎抹角，其實我想說的是：災難從一開始就是人為的。憑人類如此龐大的生產力，人類根本就不需要再面對飢餓、貧窮，人類一早就可以過一些更好的生活。你活在發達國家可能覺得資本主義不錯啊，你的生活也不錯啊。可是放眼世界，誰在承擔你的生活？誰在忍受你的富裕？是全世界的窮人、全世界的無產者。面對現實，我們雙手都沾滿了鮮血。


海明威的《喪鐘為誰而鳴》裡引過十七世紀英國詩人John Donne的詩：
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

千里之行，始於足下－－武力抗爭之外的另類可能 By Ulysses

文章連結：http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/16/spain-indignant-protesters-home-repossessions

以下是一則來自衛報的新聞，內容講述近數月來西班牙部分社區如何組織起來，對抗銀行家以及警察的收樓行動。他們在過程中並無使用任何「武力」又或「暴力」，只是純粹團結起來，在該名被收樓的伯伯之家外，阻止銀行家與警察進入伯伯家中。

他們這樣做，守法嗎？

答案顯然而見，不。但他們「和平」嗎？相信大家心裡有數。不過，若這件事在香港發生，可能主流媒體又會將之渲染為暴力抗爭吧，畢竟其直接挑戰了該地的法律系統以及資產階級的根本利益。不過，這裡無意拆解「暴力」與「和平」之迷思，又或梳清「暴力」與「武力」的分野。先勿論香港傳媒的報導手法如何荒謬，更為重要的是，我們千萬勿讓這些論述扼殺了對抗爭的想像空間。

抗爭，從來就不只局限於以「暴力」又或「武力」來對抗政府的衝突形式，即使不動粗（這並非暗示含有武力成分的抗爭就是次等抗爭，甚或是錯的舉動，只是想告訴大家和平抗爭的可能而已），我們仍可能撼動這個不公的制度，改變這個不義的國家。而代價，可能只是花費你走一兩條街的氣力。



千里之行，始於足下。要抗爭成功故然絕非一日之事，但要開始抗爭，則只是一念之差。


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Spain's 'indignant' protesters rise up against home repossessions

Luis Dominguez, 74, whose flat in Parla was saved by protesters from the indignant movement. Photograph: Giles Tremlett for the Guardian

Spain's peaceful "indignant" protest movement, which saw its image tarnished by outbursts of violence in Barcelona this week, has turned its attention to stopping banks from repossessing people's homes.

七一後我們應該幹甚麼? by kenef

文章連結：http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-next-after-30june.html

今年七一，二十萬人上街。比香港早一天，六月三十日，在英國亦有一場大型的運動——七十五萬公務員、教師罷工抗議削減退休金——而這更只是對抗政府緊縮政策的龐大運動中的一部分。這篇文正是想探討30.6大罷工後的運動走向，對七一後的我們或許也有點啟發？

不同的國家，相同的貨幣——矛盾的配搭 by LH

希臘的緊縮政策已經通過，短期內再討論其不可行和不公也屬無謂。本文並不針對這單一事件，而概括指出了歐洲統一貨幣與各國國情的衝突乃這類事件的背後推手。

一國若成為歐元區的一員，其經濟狀況便會影響歐元幣值，進而影響整個歐元區的經濟；但同時稅制和社會福利暫時都是國家層面的問題。面對經濟危機，到底是個別國家讓步還是連累歐元區，就視乎談判結果。文中作者進而指出，雖然歐元區的經濟連成一體，但礙於傳統和語言問題，卻沒有“歐洲的”工人階級，因此在跨國經濟問題上，工人仍沒有什麼談判力量。

national divisions and the eurozone in crisis

25 06 2011 
Oisín Mac Giollamóir explores the complexity of how the Eurozone crisis affects particular states

If the working class has no country it is for one reason: because capital has no country. But of course capital is often national. The emergence of the nation state and capitalism are contemporaneous. As capitalism emerged so did the nation state. As various historical class relations are dissolved into the capital/labour relation, the notion of the nation’s common interest emerges. But what happens when the nation becomes a constraint on capital accumulation? It expands.

黑塊戰術x社會運動 by蕭

文章連結：http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/black_bloc_a_tactic_for_june_30

文章是一篇有關英國六月三十號示威及罷工的評論，內容針對某些無政府主義者進行的「黑塊」(Black Bloc)戰術。黑塊真正受到注目可以追溯到1999年西雅圖示威，所謂黑塊指一班全身穿著黑身衣物，專門打碎高級商店玻璃及投擲煙霧彈的示威者，他們大多都是anarchist。

整篇文章圍繞著一個問題：我們的運動需要群眾支持才能成功，那麼，我們要怎樣做？作者得出的結論是，黑塊從戰術上來說並不恰當。

有幾個論點是頗為有趣的，譬如說作者認為黑塊騎劫了六月三十號整場運動，傳媒的鎂光鏡都跑到無政府主義去了。明明示威是打著退休金、打著福利政府的旗幟而來啊。你們無政府主義者不是說要廢除政府嗎？與廣大群眾的意願不符呢。

還有，黑塊的表達形式充滿著破壞性、男子氣概等等，排拒女性的加入；黑塊主要是以白人為主的運動，我們很難想像有更多其他種族加入，因為第一，白人有錢，打官司划算得多；第二，白人被控告的機會低於黑人太多等等，如此類推。

作者的觀點在此就不贅述了。顯然，他有些觀點是很薄弱的，例如他認為黑塊的破壞最終只是由低下階層負責等等。可是，回到作者的核心問題才是最重要的部份－－到底甚麼形式的示威才能奪取輿論陣地？同樣地，我們要爭取群眾支持，但要多少群眾支持到甚麼地步？

想不通，也沒有答案。撇開那些複雜的問題不處理了，就如何爭取民心來說，光說不做及光做不說也有其缺點，就像今次英國人根本無從理解那些anarchist的行徑，一切都被破壞、被黑色蓋掩掉，就像堵路、就像包圍政總一樣。看來，論述需要更多。

在怒吼之外－－帶領及組織群眾運動之必要 By Ulysses

文章連結：http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/21/austerity-politics-dissatisfaction-mainstream-parties

隨著歐洲多國的緊縮政策的推行，歐洲各地相繼出現暴動又或大型罷工，並直接影響到各大政府統治的根基。這些行動的力量固然不可忽視，如英國的75萬人大罷工，便直接癱瘓了社會上部分資本的運作。但，正如文中所指：

”It would also be foolish to underestimate the ability of the major parties to reconstitute their popular base.”The Tories' core vote is behind austerity. And they are past masters at macroeconomic manipulation intended to make just enough voters feel wealthy enough for long enough during election time. Labour, through its union affiliations and its base in working-class communities, will preserve its dominance over the left-of-centre vote for as long as there is no credible alternative. The major parties are in crisis, but a crisis is not terminal unless there are forces ready to exploit it”

不是各國政府均如我們的政府一樣那麼愚笨。他們面對這些有可能威脅其以及資本家根本利益的群眾運動時，定想扭盡六壬化解之。除了出動常見的國家機器－－警察－－之外，轉移群眾運動之目標（例如打著民族主義的旗幟將資本的剝削說為外國資本的入侵，彷彿只要外國資本撤退便天下太平）又或提出小修小補的方案欺騙人民，均是常見的手法。

而特別在沒有清晰的革命思想作指導以及更為良好的組織帶領時，群眾運動更易淪為一種怨氣之宣洩，難以對政府－－更遑論整個資本主義制度－－進行長期的抗爭。這一點，是全世界的抗爭者均必須記住的。