Where Is The Monument To The Victims Of Capitalism?

I'm beginning to weary of fruitlessly championing the truth, and sometimes I am quite unhinged by it.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part 1, Section Thirty Two, Constance Garnett Translation.

It doesn't happen often in Ottawa that an issue arises where every level of government rises up in an uproar, but that is exactly what happened when the 'Harper Government' announced the building of the Victims of Communism monument, at a site that was reserved for the new Supreme Court Building, located at the most prime location in downtown Ottawa. This was no doubt done to celebrate the 'Harper Government's many successes pleading before this august body.

 

proposed victims of communism monument...

The local burg(h)ers of Ottawa would be even more alarmed if they did their research a little deeper and discovered that the said monument stands to raise a ton of cash far in excess of its initial costs. There has been no report from the 'Harper Government' where the said hoped for excesses are going to go.. As always in Ottawa if there is even the semblance of smoke you can be utterly certain that at some point there will be fire. You see Dear Reader, if you are so inclined to celebrate the memory of a long gone "loved ones" misfortune of running into communism, you can have the loved ones name inscribed on the above mentioned monster, or rather monument, for a very small fee, not un-adjacent to one thousand dollars! Why just do the math! The sky is the limit!

 Now in Canada there has been very many social systems in vogue over the many years that Canada has been a Colony and later as a nation state. The first system that was found in use by Native Canadians was the tribal system. Then the French brought feudalism, that had a hell of a run from 1600 until well into the beginning of the 20th century! Along the way we also experimented with indentured labor and even slavery, just like in the United States! But the hands down winner was of course the best worst system of good old capitalism. And in the early days it was rabid tooth and claw, right out of Das Kapital as written by Karl Marx.

You had the lumber barons, the rail barrens, the press barons, and of course you had the mighty banking barons. And they have nearly all carried on into the kinder and gentler world of today, many of them such as say the Bank of Nova Scotia in there unbroken histories... But we never tried communism in Canada at all, not even once, that the Oracle of Ottawa is aware of. So The Oracle of Ottawa thought that it would be probably much more fitting to have a monument to The Victims Of Capitalism.  

 It as all tentative so far, but I have some basic ideas for the monuments basic design. In the center would be a huge hand cast in Pyrex Glass holding a very real steel double edge dagger! The glass hand would signify Adam Smith's Invisible Hand, but the real reality would be the 100 foot long dagger! Get it? When you play around in capitalism the invisible hand is bound to get you right in the back, even if you do every thing right...

Then, of course, we must high light the wonderful upside of capitalism in its unregulated glory, just like the 'Harper Government' pushes. How about this? We would have cast in bronze two young girls sorting medical linen waste, just like in the 19th century. Of course these children never got to be teenagers, let alone get into the ages of the double digits. Isn't the invisible hand awesome?

Then to one side we could have the tribute to the great bankers of the world. Such as that one old house in Europe that used to loan money to one country and with their underwriting fees would make a loan to the enemy of the first customer! Why, the first classic two fer! Then with the profits from the gouging interest rates of all the customers, you could sell both sides arms and create a virtuous cycle of misery and death. Yes Sir! Capitalism, how awesome is that? The 'Harper Government' should know this story very well, They are very close friends with the bankers that bought their own state in the Middle East.... 

Justin Trudeau - The Budget WILL Take Care Of Itself

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
Adam Smith, Lecture, 1775, quoted by Dugald Stewart,  Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, Section IV, 25  

It was a short time ago now, when the Oracle of Ottawa heard the young Justin Trudeau take a lot of heat by the members of the 'Harper Government', when he said right out loud that the budget will take care of itself. Now the Oracle of Ottawa knows that the young Justin is most certainly the 'Next One', and that what he just said was utter and proven truth. The Oracle of Ottawa had heard that line of thought before. It was mentioned by one of the great classical economists. The problem was that the Oracle could not remember which one it was. 

Justin Trudeau is right. The budget Will take care of itself...

 The answer came to the Oracle of Ottawa totally by accident and perhaps by Divine intervention, when by chance he was reading the 2005 edition of David N. Weill's most excellent book Economic Growth. The quote and author that the Oracle was seeking occurs on page 332, at the head of Chapter 12, the chapter on government. It was then a very easy step to source the quote perfectly at the Adam Smith Institute page that popped up with an elementary Google search. 

What the young Justin took so much heat over, was indeed the same attitude of Adam Smith himself! The Hallowed father of capitalism and modern economics. It must be very embarrassing to conservatives of the 'Harper Government' that the leader of the Third party (at present), knows his Adam Smith better then the lacky conservatives that claim to be his soul and authentic voice. 

Again this proves rather strongly, that Adam Smith was anything but a right wing neo-con wacko. To any one who has carefully read The Wealth of Nations in its unabridged massive whole, one soon see's that Adam Smith would be right at home as Finance Minister in the next Trudeau government! If you carefully read Adam Smith's greatest work and then read Capital by Karl Marx, Book I, you will soon come to the incredible realization that not only was Adam Smith the father of economics, he was the first Marxian, way before Karl Marx! 

                                           Soon - The 2015 Liberal Campaign Theme Song?

Proof of this is the creation of the concept of the idea of Surplus Labour, asking any right winger who the father of that idea was, will always lead to the answer that it was Karl Marx, which would be totally wrong. It was an idea, and a very true and important one, that Karl Marx borrowed from Adam Smith! Yes that young Justin Trudeau is indeed very well informed, indeed...

Sheeple - You Gotta Love Them

The Bible invariably uses the sheep as the typical apocalyptic or ideal animal. I suggested in one of my books that the reason for that is that sheep societies are perhaps more like human societies than those of any other animal: because the sheep is gregarious, stupid, and easily stampeded.
Northrop Frye, Symbolism In The Bible, Lecture 4, p. 47

Well Dear Reader, it is that time of year again in the Western World. The coming end of the year holidays known as Christmas And New Years. This used to be the time of the year that the Sheeple used to drive the Oracle of Ottawa just crazy. You know the standard aggravations. Joe the Chinese peasant that tries to back into his parking spot at the mall and takes the doors and mirrors off your brand new car. Or some pathetic trot that whips out a debit card to buy a newspaper and a pack of gum. The Oracle of Ottawa could go on and on, but he won't.

Sheeple - Learn to love them....

It was just recently that the Oracle of Ottawa has had another bit of profit from his ongoing thinking about thinking project, and that is that you must come to learn to love the Sheeple. There is simply no percentage in getting all Agent Smith with them. Yes they are a disease, a virus, and they do have a lingering odor, that can really get on your nerves. But the Sheeple at the end of the day have many very important qualities. The most important of them is that Sheeple constantly want things, and there is no way to reason with them is there?

Sheeple - Wallyus Simplicus

And if you are a very smart and shrewd person, you will learn to be very interested in what the Sheeple as a herd want next. Especially if you own a ton of common stocks. When the herd of Sheeple move as a group, shit, they can really move a stock, even a once sure as hell soon to be dead and gone stock. Just ask anyone that works for Apple! Now the Sheeple don't know why they want certain things, all they know is that they want what the other Sheeple want, and they will darn near do anything to be good Sheeple to have exactly what the other guy Sheeple wants and / or already has.

The thing that the Oracle of Ottawa has learned is that the Sheeple can make you really stinking rich. You just have to be able to guess somewhat closely what you think they might possibly want in the near future. This means that you must always have a nice inventory of common stocks that in any way could be possibly affected by the Sheeples herd mentality. Just remember that once one of those stocks goes off and turns a ten to fifteen bagger, be smart enough to get rid of it right away to some other sucker, preferably one of the Sheeple who thinks that he is smarter then you.  

Now the average Sheeple come in four common varieties. The Preps, The Wally's, The Trots, and the most common and dangerous, the skidmarks. Now the Preps are at the appex, the Wallys just like the Dilbert cartoon character fills up over 85% of all corporate cubicals at the time of this writing. The Trots are like specs in a Brownian motion, they just smile and hope to get along, somehow.  The skidmarks are the largest, most powerful and certainly the most dangerous of all the Sheeple. They seem to come from all levels of society. There is no understanding them on an individual basis, mostly because most of them don't even know they are alive. And if you investigate into the situation, they really couldn't care less. But when they want something, look out, they can move stock markets around the world, and just as quickly forget about it when they stray on to something more desirable that they had no idea that they wanted....    

Marxian Thought - The Best Introductory Lectures

In fact of course, this 'productive' worker cares as much about the crappy shit he has to make as does the capitalist himself who employs him, and who also couldn't give a damn for the junk.
Karl Marx, Grundrisse, Notebook II, The Chapter on Capital, p. 193

It was just in the recent past that the Oracle of Ottawa wrote a little missive on the best introductory documentary on the life of Karl Marx. The post was written to share with what I suspected would be one or two of my Dear Readers that might become interested in such a topic. Much to the Oracles surprise it has been garnering much more hits than first suspected. No doubt it would be really a great public service to the world wide readership of this 'umble blog if the Oracle of Ottawa could direct you to a very high quality introduction to Marxian thought and theory. 

Richard D. Wolff - Feisty as Hell!!

This of course was a bit more difficult than fist imagined. But by total accident the Oracle of Ottawa has found a most excellent source for your continuing Marxian education. There are very many people talking about the works of Marx on You-Tube, but alas, most all of them prove after just the first few words that they have never read any of the great mans work ever in their lives. Wouldn't it be great if there was just one lone Ivy League prof that had somehow gone completely rogue, and became utterly obsessed with spreading the Marxian message?

Well Dear Reader, Richard D. Wolff is your man. Harvard, Stanford, and Yale! Is that wicked or what? And not only that, he was a student of the great Paul A. Baran , The only tenured Marxian prof in the United States, and as fate would have it, one his students was Richard D. Wolff! Well as fate would  again have it, (and doesn't it always?), the wheel of life has turned another full revolution and it is now Richard D. Wolff that is practically the only prof of Marxian thought in the Western Hemisphere at the time of this writing.

The main reason that the Oracle of Ottawa has singled him out is that you don't have to come to Richard D. Wolff already completely read up on Karl Marx. He will instruct you to all the reasons why knowing about Karl Marx is important. He will not harangue you to read Capital, (like David Harvey), after one or two Wolff lectures you will be starting your own collection of the works of Marx, you will be inspired, you will read Capital all on your own, and thank your maker that Doctor Wolff was generous enough to post his lectures on You-Tube for your free viewing and learning enjoyment.

He yells, he spits, he curses, he implores, he sweats. Damn! You won't forget it any time soon. This guy is not very concerned about making the faculty lounge for happy hour. Now the Oracle of Ottawa knows that someone with a resume that contains Harvard, Stanford and Yale, regarding the study of any economics could be hauling a great salary as an indentured slave of a galaxy of corporate over whores. Yet the good Doctor continues to spread his message. The Oracle of Ottawa would love to know what made him go rogue, what the full circumstances were. The Oracle of Ottawa suspects that would be darn near as good as one of Doctor Wolff's lectures. 

The Next Pope - My Top Three Picks

In the Bible poverty is a scandalous condition inimical to human dignity and therefore contrary to the will of God.
Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology Of Liberation, p. 165

The Oracle of Ottawa was mildly shocked at the news of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI as it rolled past the bottom off my screen on the news crawler while I was checking the market open. It was in no way the feeling of utter dejection that the Oracle of Ottawa felt at his election! And I remember the occasion very clearly. The inside power of Opus Dei had a lot to do with this screw-up. At the time I felt it was all going to be a total fail, and history has proven me correct.

Of course the world bookmakers have already opened book on the next Pontiff. But what are the qualities that the Oracle of Ottawa and all the world want in the next Pope? It has to be someone of the political left, and it has to be someone that understands that the social contracts of the world are under constant attack. It has to be someone that understands that the Roman Catholic Church is only as big and powerful as its members. With all that in mind the Oracle of Ottawa will share his picks for the next Pope. I will start with my third choice, ending with my favorite last.

Cardinal Francis Arinze

 For my third choice, the Oracle of Ottawa has to go with the book-makers favorite at 3-1 odds. And that gentleman is Cardinal Francis Arinze,of Nigeria. He is a strapping, good looking man but alas he is 80 years old at the time of this writing.... Hugely respected, but in tight with the right wing that made him. At the end of the day, not a chance.

Cardinal Luis Tagle - The Prince...

 My second choice is Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle. Aged 55! And now presently the Archbishop of Manila and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Deeply involved in many social issues, and being from the Philippines, the Oracle of Ottawa has heard there are quite a few of those presently outstanding in his patch. This guy seems to have the iron and the spine of a real Italian Prince. And he is sharp as hell (or rather heck), in that it is recorded that he could recite the complete Rosary at the age of three years. No doubt a good choice, but guys like this scare the hell out of the Oracle of Ottawa!

For the Oracle of Ottawa's first choice a small disclaimer must first be stated in that all this data and biographies are in earnest. The Oracle of Ottawa is not having the dear reader on, and that the Oracle of Ottawa takes this issue seriously. It is just that my favorite choice, not even the Oracle of Ottawa could make this up! 

Cardinal Reinhard Marx (seriously...)

The Oracle of Ottawa's first choice for the next Pope is Cardinal Reinhard Marx  (59 years old), former Bishop of Trier, Germany, really! Like the Oracle of Ottawa said, you can't make this up! And pardon me but there is a warm resemblance to Karl Marx, which really makes the Oracle of Ottawa wonder could he be even distantly related? And the good Cardinal has written a book recently (2008) entitled "Das Kapital: A Plea For Man" !! The good Cardinal truly believes that capitalism and the messes it creates requires a "fundamental social debate" Amen to that Your Eminence!! Now if you are a clever Catholic punter, the Oracle of Ottawa is sure that you could get the good Cardinal at around 500-1 at your local bookmaker, and the more the Oracle digs on Cardinal Reinhard Marx the more he is very impressed. This is the Pope the whole world really, really needs. And right now, if not sooner!! 

This is the Pope the Holy Roman Catholic Church  and the whole world needs. Now, Right freaking NOW!!

The Best Karl Marx Documentary

The process is so complicated that it offers ever so many occasions for running abnormally.
Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Buch II, p. 500

It is a great comfort to the Oracle of Ottawa that there are still in existence some organizations that have the greater good at the top of mind. One of those organizations is the great BBC of the United Kingdom, and another is the Open University. Recently they have collaborated to produce a series of documentaries of the worlds greatest economists. The first episode covered the legacy of John Maynard Keynes, The second episode was on Hayek, and the third and greatest episode was on the subject and modern rising influence and seeming rebirth of Karl Marx.

Karl Marx - 1870

 The series was hosted by a most beguiling young lissome lass by the name of Stephanie Flanders. The host and the series reminded the Oracle of Ottawa of John Kenneth Galbraith and the series The Age of Uncertainty. It was eerie how Ms. Flanders has the same ability to captivate as did the great John Kenneth! The Oracle of Ottawa loved the lavish production in HD. And the stops at all the major way-points of the life of Karl Marx. It was just entrancingly fascinating. You could really tell that Stephanie Flanders totally "gets" Karl Marx, and it truly did shine through and is most worthy and without fault.

Stephanie Flanders

 What the Oracle of Ottawa enjoyed the most, and found most impressive, was the quality of guests that made themselves available for very frank and candid interviews for the Karl Marx segment! The Oracle of Ottawa won't give them away, save for one, Sir Mervyn King, yes that Mervyn! Governor of The Bank of England! Damn! That Stephanie Flanders sure has some kind' a pull. The Oracle of Ottawa damn near fell of his chair! And dear reader, it was all awesome, and perfectly and seamlessly edited. And Sir Mervyn really knows his stuff, you could tell that he actually read a lot of the texts of Karl Marx.

Could it be? This documentary was very recent. Could it have played a role in present day events? Could this appearance and rather forthright honest opinions have cost Sir Mervyn his reappointment? Is this the real reason that Mark Carney, the Judas head of the Bank of Canada and the International Stability Board has been named the next Bank of England Governor? The Oracle of Ottawa is of the opinion that the only thing that Mark Carney knows about Karl Marx is that he never made partner at Goldman Sachs...

But be that as it may. The Oracle of Ottawa digresses. There were two small omissions that were missed that would have really rubbed salt into all the right wingers watching the aforesaid segment, that the Oracle of Ottawa must really point out. The first being the lack of mention of Karl Marx's neighbor in Highgate Cemetery. And that is the fact that Herbert Spencer  , who coined the term "survival of the fittest" has a forever face fronting view to the great monument erected in the honour of the now great and again up and coming friend and contemporary Karl Marx! In one of the most ironic grave placements in the history of economics and science, they are forever "grave buddies"! And as you watch the whole episode you can readily see who has won the prize for fame for all time! The second slight omission  was at the last of the episode when the question was bandied about what change could be possibly made or what could replace capitalism as it now exists. 

Well the Oracle of Ottawa has the answer for this! It is the greatest economic concept that you have probably never heard of. And it was coined by the aforementioned John Kenneth Galbraith. And that concept was called "countervailing power". Perhaps you should look into it.

The fastest and most brilliant hour of television of 2012... They can't make this go away, it will always pop up somewhere... (But as of January 2015, it has been made to completely vanish...)

Globalization - How It Will End

In the end, we can't outsource more than 100 per cent of manufacturing, we can't transport goods with zero energy, and we can't enlist the efforts of workers and count on their buying our products while paying them nothing.
Richard Heinberg, The End Of Growth - Adapting To Our New Economic Realty, p. 12

Yes, the Oracle of Ottawa has been tardy as of late, but he has hit a very rich patch, yet again, with the ongoing "Thinking About Thinking" project. This one has been very productive, and is being pursued on several fronts all at once. William Greiders "Globalization - One World Ready Or Not", Anthony Kenny's "A New History Of Western Philosophy", Hans Kung, "Does God Exist?" and Rene Descarte, "The Meditations", in a most excellent and full translation. Arthur Schopenhauer; "The World As Will And Idea".  And, oh yeah, David Hume, "A Treatise Of Human Nature", now that sucker was tough! But the Oracle of Ottawa is deep into volume three of the unabridged edition, which was a real bitch to find, you believe me! 

Rosa Luxemberg

Yet even though the Oracle of Ottawa was off his usual prodigious amount of pensive missives, last month was an all time record month in the "hits" department! Ye Gods! Perhaps less is more after all! But the Muse is rising again just as the scum always rises...and the Oracle of Ottawa is feeling up to explaining how the dreaded age of Globalization will actually come to an rather abrupt and ugly end. Also the Oracle of Ottawa will share some possible investment tips that you might want to consider in the ongoing future, which will soon belong to the people that created it in the first place.

The New World Order losses its hard on....

It was Rosa Luxemburg that originally figured out how globalization would end, way back, in the early 20th century! Why, it can, and still could be argued that she even predicted globalization! She saw some things much further out than Marx himself did. She correctly predicted the future algorithm of big capital in the far future with an uncanny accuracy that makes the Oracle of Ottawa shudder with envy and awe. She predicted that as big capital grew larger and larger it would fan out farther and farther on the face of the Earth in search of new Surplus Labour. Farther into the future, she predicted that since the resources of the Earth are at the end of the day finite, big capital, or otherwise known today as Multinational Corporations (MNE's), could literally run out of new surplus labour, that it would underpay for and then ship the product to the "developed" world for the same price as if it was made in the first world! Got that? Now we all know it is that kind of thinking that will eventually get you dead at the age of forty seven. And that is what happened to Rosa Luxemberg.

Well, it dawned on the Oracle of Ottawa recently that we are very near to that time. Now a lot a very real weird things will seem to happen all at once. And if you don't understand the game plan, it will all appear as chaos and anarchy. As the past endless supply of surplus labour dries up, and the MNE's have no other next cheap country to open up in, costs will start to rise. The Oracle of Ottawa suspects that around this time, the Chinese peasants will make their move. And like the Boxer Rebellion  it will all rise up at many places all at once, and when it gets going it will all be very interesting CNN coverage. Party officials of whole areas hanging off of freeway light standards and overpasses will continue for months, possibly years.

Of course this will cause a massive shortage of stock for the dollar stores of the Western World. Not to mention all the other more valuable manufactured goods. So the moral of this story is that if you still have that huge milling machine and drop forge press, you might want to put it some place in the back room so to speak. There may be a very big demand for such tools again in the near future...     

Chris Hedges explains the collapse of globalization....

Suhana Meharchand - Awesome Again!

There is no need for torture: Hell is other people.
Jean Paul Sartre, No Exit, Act 1, Scene 5

It still appears that Suhana has still not signed the Jimmy Moore purity pledge! You go girl! And though she is one of the few full time federal civil servants still employed with the Mother Ship of the CBC, otherwise known by the 'Harper Government' as the "state broadcaster". She is certainly not "dogging it" like Rex Murphy by choosing only the wimpy safe topics for the great radio show Cross Country Checkup.

Suhana for the Order of Canada!

Today's topic was the incredibly hot "How do we stop bullying" on the internet! Well it was on in the car for about ten minutes before the Oracle of Ottawa and his significant other broke out into a terrible row! The Oracle of Ottawa has a few things that he simply must get off his handsome and fulsome chest on this very hot issue.

What the hell does a brat under the age of twenty one need a Facebook page for anyway? The Oracle of Ottawa pondered if he would have opened one in his youth and I always give it the fail! Who the hell needs a hundred "friends"?? The Oracle of Ottawa is amazed at all the I-Phone zombies that he always observes in Ottawa while out for recreation from the secure bunker. Why it was only a few weeks ago that the Oracle of Ottawa observed a sweet young thing melt down into a complete nervous breakdown because her facebook page was somehow screwed  up! The Oracle of Ottawa is still shaken by the event. The whole freaking world is going freaking nuts!!

It was Karl Marx who once said in volume one of Capital, that men had successfully dressed themselves for centuries without ever knowing what a tailor was! Well the Oracle of Ottawa is saying that you don't need stupid facebook and an I-Phone to get friends. And if you do, and your brats do, it is time for the kitty shrink! The Oracle of Ottawa will explain how this all came about....

It is all to do with corporate over whore marketing. The parents are part of the frightened and obedient work force of surplus labor. They have no time to be engaged in anything except their own selfish goals of like; surviving. They instill the same values into their brats. Go along and get along. Start whoring out yourself now brat, just like Mommy and Daddy do with a smile on their face everyday. Because sweetheart although you are not working yet you are already owned by Capital, lock stock and soul, which if you could, you would probably try to sell on E-Bay like Bart Simpson! How long will a society like this stand? Not very long...

It seems that just as the crime stats are crashing like the mortgage market in 2008, the corporate over whores need a new crime and they need it soon! There is going to be a Super-Max prison system in Canada and damn it, the corporate over whores have got to have candidates, any candidates! The Oracle of Ottawa feels like he is living in a cross of 1984 and the Brave New World!

When  the Oracle of Ottawa went to high school in the 1970's there was not one suicide of a peer that I can recollect! And this was in the era of an insane drug culture that was just everywhere in Canada at the time. Kids did not burn down their parents for the new pair of Nikes, threatening permanent personality damage if they had to go with out! But in today's world I have seen a good Dad go to death from the never ending demands of daughters and wives. God this world is so insane and it is so greedy ugly!! The Oracle of Ottawa needs a good old style tune to lift him up....

 Sigh... The Oracle of Ottawa is just an analog man, Thank God....

Slogging Through With Leszek Kolakowski

'Genuine' works of literature are those which seek to to mirror the world as a whole,and it is for the critic or ideologist to ensure, as far as he may, that the work embodies a true reference system giving significance to its component parts and subordinating them to an over-all artistic purpose.
Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism, Book Three, p. 1018

It was earlier this week that the Oracle of Ottawa turned past page 1,000 of Leszek Kolakowski's monumental work; Main Currents of Marxism, only about another 200 odd pages to go! How sick is that? The Oracle of Ottawa got the unabridged complete edition, containing all three volumes, all piled into one very large volume, that was masterfully printed by W. W. Norton & Company. Not only did the great Pole get all the main currents, but he seemed, in this readers estimation, to get each and everyone of the slightest eddy currents also!

Leszek Kolakowski

This work is the most complete history of Marxism as a philosophy that this humble reader has seen to date. It is most exhaustive and very extensive. It covers everyone from Marx to Marcuse.  And many of the players were known personally by Leszek Kolakowski. For anyone who is interested in the historical effects of Marx on the history of the world, what more could you ask for? No one can truthfully say even today, no matter where they live, that Marx has had no affect on them. As the great Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith said (The Affluent Society) Marx  (still) affects you, no matter if you were or are aware of him or not!

The Oracle of Ottawa must warn you that Main Currents of Marxism is not for the faint of intellect. Truth be told, the Oracle of Ottawa had to lay the work aside for periods of time, to let it all sink in. One should not be discouraged that it will not not be dealt with like a work of pulp-able science fiction that is somewhat precariously perched upon the present day "best sellers" list. This is a work for the ages, and in turn will go mostly unnoticed and unread by the great unwashed masses. And the fact that the work contained thirty years of the life of Lezek Kolakowski should give the reader of just average intelligence some solace if it takes a few months to get carefully through. Diligence however, as per usual, will be, in this case very well rewarded.

There were very few people of the 20th century who fate had perched in such a perfect position, place and time as Leszek Kolakowski. There were even fewer people that had such rock solid guts and sense of purpose and fate to fulfill their destiny. Although a dissident and outcast in the times of the Soviet Union and still practically unknown in the West, Leszek Kolakowski is considered today as one of the greatest Poles to have ever lived in modern times, even more so that he lived to observe and enjoy total vindication in his lifetime.

Here is a small bio, in Polish, but you can get the real sense and greatness of the man. If you doggedly stick with it, you will become a greater person....

Tripping On Steve Keen

The belief that a capitalist economy is inherently stabilising is also one for which inhabitants of market economies may pay dearly in the future.
Steve Keen, Debunking Economics, p. 213

The Oracle of Ottawa is off his routine. The usual subject matter has been getting pretty boring. And on top of that the Canadian public has finally clued in and it is all back on track. My work on those recent subjects are all but done now.(See earlier postings...) The truth of the matter is that the Oracle of Ottawa has been side-tracked by a most amazing book written by one Steve Keen, of the University of Western Sydney, way down under, called Debunking Economics...

Steve Keen - equilibrium is bunk!

Frequent fliers to the Economy of Media know that the Oracle of Ottawa loves his books and is most interested in economics. And that he has read all the major "classical" economists texts in their unabridged entirety. Including the General Theory by Keynes in a very, very, early edition. Why the Oracle of Ottawa even read all the small print, how sick is that? And he still can't understand why every one says it is a "difficult book"? A lot of the trouble was due to war time paper and printing restrictions. The Oracle of Ottawa has always thought that Keynes was always a very good read!

But over the years the Oracle of Ottawa has been getting that anxious nervous feeling that a lot of what is taught to young economists is all very, very, well, wrong. This feeling got worse and worse as the Oracle of Ottawa put together a rather nice pile in a stock portfolio over the years, by breaking all the rules that are taught to all the up and coming portfolio mangers. According to the text books the Oracle of Ottawa has just been really lucky, so far...

But according to Steve Keen the Oracle of Ottawa may just be a very early adaptor! All the Oracle of Ottawa can tell you is that if you read one economics book this year make it Debunking Economics! This guy could be the most important economist in our lifetime. This guy is as important as Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Maynard Keynes! So that of course means that he will never win the Nobel Prize for economics, because he is too right! But the upside is that he will be famous forever!

The part where he utterly demolishes the Efficient Market Hypothesis is worth the ten times the price of the book! And I am sure that Warren Buffet would back him up on his conclusions... The Oracle of Ottawa wasn't lucky at all, he was just and truly freaking brilliant!  

And he is a very relaxing guy to listen to, unlike most stuffy pedantic Nobel Laureates. Watch this guy, he is going to be very important and world famous...

Who Is Mary Gabriel?

All those years ago they had said hello to each other and could not look away. Soon, both knew, they would have to say good bye forever. But for now, just for now, it was as it had ever been.
Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital, p. 486

Well, it is all in, and all done. All 709 pages of it. I even thought the notes were good reading! How sick is that? Love and Capital was even nominated for a National Book Award for non-fiction! For an American to write about Karl Marx and get nominated for a National Book Award is like you or me making a short film with a cell phone and having it nominated for an Oscar! Writing about Karl Marx in America automatically puts you way behind the eight ball, so to speak. She should have won! But she got beat out by some tall guy with big hair, that wrote once about Shakespeare, a guy who was merely a front man for the Earl of Oxford. But you get invited everywhere when you write about Shakespeare. It is like recommending a blue chip stock. No one ever got fired for doing that.

Mary Gabriel (Yeah..She is hot, isn't she?)

As I neared the end of her book, I started to wonder; Who is Mary Gabriel? There was practically no information about her in the book, save and except that she was an editor with Reuters for twenty years and the names of two other earlier books, and the fact that she now lives in Italy. Well the Oracle of Ottawa was not happy with that. So I did some simple digging on Google. I found that she had recently did two interviews. So I watched both of them. The first was her December 1, 2011 appearance on Charlie Rose! Like the book must have been really good, if Charlie Rose will have the author of a book on Karl Marx on his nationally syndicated television show!

Why am I not surprised?

But the interview that you simply have to see is the "After Words" interview she did on C-SPAN on October 06, 2011! It is near an hour long and was conducted by Bertell Olman. A lot of information about Mary Gabriel leaks out here between the lines. But you have to watch for yourself... The real interesting thing that I found concerning her education was at Smashwords - About Mary Gabriel- and my earliest suspicions were all but confirmed. She is a native of Minneapolis and a long time resident of Baltimore! Why a nice Catholic girl no doubt? And as I suspected she has had a dream education. A "Diplome" from the University of Paris at the Sorbonne! A B.A. in fine arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art ! And for good measure, cause a girl should always having something financially fungible to fall back on; a Masters degree from American University in journalism!! Man those student loans must have been a real bitch!!

The Oracle of Ottawa did not receive a free copy of Love and Capital. I paid full hardcover price for my copy like everyone else. And I didn't mind a bit, because it was worth it.

Mary Gabriel reading at the National Book Awards. Think of her as the Ian Fleming of biography...

'Harper Government' To Raise Retirement Age?

The truth is that the wants of the people are complex historical phenomena reflecting the dialectic interaction of their physiological requirements on the one hand, and the prevailing social and economic order on the other.
Paul A. Baran, The Political Economy of Growth, p. xvi

Very shortly, just like in the United Kingdom, Canadians are going to have to work longer, pay in more, and eventually receive less during their retirement. It is quiet simple to put the nuts to this plan and the whole 'Harper Government' by simply retiring as soon as possible. This simple realization came to the Oracle of Ottawa as he remembered a nice clear example that Karl Marx used in Das Kapital, Volume I, where he explains that the ultimate profit in a business rests solely on the last ten to fifteen customers standing in the daily line up of about 100 customers. It is the last ten people in the line that keep the doors open! Think about it...

Doomed?

Well dear reader, it is the same for governments. The much longer line of the citizenry pays income and other taxes. It is a very simple matter to bring that government down. You only need a small fraction of that line of taxpayers to stop paying taxes, by simply retiring now. Contrary to all the spin and black hole marketing, you will require much less then you think to retire. As a matter of fact the Oracle of Ottawa has discovered that up to 40- 60% of what you earn "working" is simply lost in the costs of the honor of having a stupid "job"! Your results may vary, but I doubt it.

Is that RRSP still bulging Fat? Is the house paid off? The wife is already retired? Are the kids all gone and out there kicking serious career ass? Then why in heavens name are you still hanging around in your civil service job? Especially you people in the Federal Civil Service! Do you really think that that last ugly budget paring before Christmas last is the last one? Well let the Oracle of Ottawa disavow you of that silly notion! The 'Harper Government' could be sitting on the largest surplus in Canadian history and it would not make any difference! They are coming for you out of ideology. Not facts, not science, not reason. They are coming for the workers for the sheer sadistic right wing joy of being able for once to actually to do it.

Just as a serial killer always keeps a souvenir of his last victim, so do the right wing wack ball contractors and managers that are going to call you in to fire your ragged ass. Yes sir they have it all on tape... Many of them will pull themselves for years when you start to cry in front of them. They practically come in their pants when that happens. But it is a much different story when that same pig opens his inbox one morning and finds over a dozen resignations with attached leave forms! No bonus or video jollies!

Us "over fifties", are from the greatest generation that has ever lived. We have taken no crap and no prisoners. Are we going to let everything that has gone before us vaporize with out a fight? Flip that cocksucker manager you email resignation. Watch on CPAC how the little shit ball finance minister tries explain why tax revenues are virtually drying up! There will be other days and other governments. Then we can return to work (or not) and double, triple dip like wild crazy bastards! After all we are the entitled generation. We are entitled to our entitlements. We just have to sit it out and watch the 'Harper Government' go down in flames.  And there is not a goddamn thing the right wing, gap tooth, mouth breathing, knuckle dragging social darwinists can do about it!

Love And Capital - Best Book of 2011

The traditions of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.
Karl Marx, MECW, Volume 11, 103-104, 106

The Oracle of Ottawa reads at least a hundred books a year. No Tom Clancy, no John Grisham. Only non-fiction works of science, economics, history and philosophy. He is also very careful of the text he chooses. Only complete unabridged texts will do. He has even been known to do extensive research on the text before he acquires it. The Oracle of Ottawa is on a mission from God. The search for enlightenment is not to be taken lightly.

Karl Marx and daughter Jenny Marx

It is seldom that I come across a real page turner in the non-fiction genre. And even rarer is one that is written by a woman. The year past has been very good to the Oracle of Ottawa indeed. I first saw Love and Capital by Mary Gabriel in a local Chapters retail store. As all my dear readers know the Oracle of Ottawa has developed in to real little Marxian scholar in the last few years. And anything new about Karl Marx is looked into deeply, immediately. Open Love and Capital anywhere and start to read, and it is riveting. The style is like oil, smooth and viscous. And it flows for ever. Bet you can't read just one page!

I have read a few Karl Marx biographies and I have a few more standing by to be read. But I am sure that Mary Gabriel's book will become the modern standard. It is based on the familial level, which I do not believe has ever been attempted before. And it contains some real new revelations which I will not give away here. Having access to the secret Stalin files was surely a help. And it was put to very good use by the author.

There were two theories that I had developed  from my reading of the text of various works of Marx. First the Communist Manifesto was written in bars by a couple of wild young lads with the world by the tail, with unlimited tomorrows. I was right on that one partly. The final editing of the work was done at the kitchen table with the wife Jenny. I did not know that. The second theory that I have developed was the that the turning point of the "young" Marx into the "raging" Marx occurred with the death of his son Edgar on April 6, 1855. This event more than any other in Karl Marx's life started the gestation of Das Kapital. And only a woman could have caught all the nuances and the importance as well as it is related in Love and Capital. Mary Gabriel gave this book years of her life and I am predicting it will surely be one that will live forever.

Another thing I noticed from the text; Jenny Marx, the daughter always is wearing a crucifix! And even when photographed with her "atheist" father Karl Marx! Perhaps another myth bites the dust? And another shocker, Karl Marx and his family celebrated Christmas and New Years just like you and I. That fact wasn't in my high school history book....

Searching For Schopenhauer

Money is human happiness in abstracto, consequently he who is no longer capable of happiness in concreto sets his whole heart on money.
Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms, On Psychology, No. 9

Arthur Schopenhauer lived from 1788 to 1860. Karl Marx lived from 1818 to 1883. Yet as far as my research has gone, these two men did not even know of the others existence. My introduction to Arthur happened in a book store in Ottawa, where I came across a stray volume II of The World as Will and Representation, while on the search for unabridged texts on philosophy for my ongoing Thinking About Thinking Project. Not only was Arthur a legend of a philosopher, but he could write like hell. The man knew totally how to turn a word.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Now the big idea of Schopenhauer was the Will To Power, and how it was futile to even try to satisfy all your piggish Babylonian fantasies! You simply can't drink all the booze, smoke all the dope, have all the money, and fuck all the ladies! The Oracle of Ottawa quite regrets not having discovered Schopenhauer sooner. But better late than never! We live, love and hopefully learn. And if I had discovered Schopenhauer at 17, instead of 54 I probably wouldn't have half the wicked and riotous memories that I now still very much enjoy! There is quiet a lot to be said for late blooming.

Karl Marx

As you have probably deduced, for some strange reason, the Oracle of Ottawa is quite familiar with Karl Marx. This guy has fascinated me most all my life. Now his big idea was the dialectic of class struggle. Or more simply put; us getting fucked over by them until we all have had enough and start stringing them up on lamp posts and lining them up against a wall, to clear the way to start again. Got that? But the really important part is the dialectic bit. If you are an old white guy like me, the method of dialectical thinking is why you have the leisure to read this. The Asian guys, that are driven by Confuscist thought are still too busy working...Loyalty to the Family (nepotism), and letting yourself get drilled up the ass by the state (corruption) is simply not axiomatic to a lot of free time! Remember that Grasshopper!!

Then I had a real brainer. It was like a mercury vapor lamp going off in my head. What would happen if you used The World as Will and Representation as the thesis, and Capital as the antithesis? Could the resulting synthesis be a guide book for the 21st century?

Arthur Schopenhauer was quiet the lad! Pay attention!

Canadian Labour And The Three Tired Regimes

Forget the shrimp Honey I'm coming home with the crabs
Hunter S. Thompson, Better Than Sex, p. 94

The one thing that really eats the Oracle of Ottawa is the deal that today's youngsters are getting in the work place. When I think of the deal that my nieces and nephews have today compared with what the Oracle of Ottawa once enjoyed, well, a man could get weary. Although union labour is still strong in Canada, it just isn't what it once was. Recently I have been pondering much on the problem. When and where did it start to go off the rails? It has been a long and slow process, but the answer came to me just recently. Labour power, in Canada and America especially, started declining on July 30th, 1975. The day that Jimmy Hoffa disappeared.

Winnipeg General Strike - June 21, 1919

At first hearing it all sounds a bit much over the top. But like all profound revelations, it improves with each and every additional pass. What are the foundations of the whole worker thing? What is it all based on? How is that labour got so far behind the eight ball? Well the Oracle of Ottawa actually rounded up some material on the subject recently. The reason there is not much good information on the subject is that the works are so incredibly expensive! It seems to be a conspiracy of some nefarious powers of billable hour powered interests. But already I have learned that the basis of labour law is based on three (tired) regimes. And I will try to share with you what I have gleaned so far.

The first regime is the common law of employment. "Which treats employers and employees as free and equal contracting parties in the buying and selling of labour." Don't you just get a real laugh out of that howler? This is essentially the same common law that Adam Smith and Karl Marx bitched about in their major works over a hundred years ago. And what is even more depressing is that their arguments are still as relevant today as the centuries of the past that they first recorded them! You as a worker, essentially have no power what so ever under the common law. We had better hope that the other two regimes left have something better to offer.

Jimmy Hoffa - Left - Where Labour Leaders Come From...

The second regime is collective bargaining. " It is based on the realization that the usually inferior economic position of the employees vis-a-vis the employer keeps the individual employment contract from being a satisfactory mechanism." No shit! Once labour was totally on top of this and really ran successfully with it for many many years. Then somehow, during the recent right wing wave that has circled the earth, this most powerful tool has been slowly and very successfully undermined. The one weird thing about all this to the Oracle of Ottawa is that the corporate overlords have no problem forming as a block against the workers of the world, through such "unions" as the Bilderberg Group, and all the other various secret societies! And yet they will not seem to allow and are never at all happy when we try to do the same thing for our own protection! Are you starting to see the problem here? 

The third regime is statutory regulation. This is the employment standards legislation of you province or state, that you happen to reside and / or work in. You don't need the Oracle of Ottawa to tell you that, depending where you live, this regime is now, it seems, constantly under attack. The Oracle of Ottawa is just in shock when he watches the incredible decline of American workers rights, especially as of late. It seems that the corporate blue suited whores will use any trick method, or naked power to even accelerate this dismantling. The old days of hearing the knees knock on the other side of the table is long gone it seems to me. What is to be done?

We need another Golden Age. And perhaps a Global Master Freight Agreement??

Globalization Free Trade Fail

The fox has been in the henhouse for many years, but now the coon is coming.
Hunter S. Thompson, Better Than Sex, p. 88

God! What a haul it was! Finally finished reading George Ritzers monster book on globalization, entitled Globalization - A Basic Text. Yes, dear reader,  the Oracle of Ottawa read it so you wouldn't have to. Drier than all the sand dunes in Libya. But in conjunction with the Oracle of Ottawa's Thinking About Thinking Project, I think I have made several breakthroughs! You don't need the Oracle of Ottawa to tell you that there is really something fishy with this globalization crap. When you hear the knuckle dragging social Darwinist's of the Conservative Party of Canada going on about its wonders you know you have to be worried. And when you are sitting at home in, say, Southern Ontario, waiting for your first unemployment check, that you are not going to get, because your workplace just left for Mexico or China without you, then you will know that globalization is a crock of crap. How did it all come to this?

Milton Friedman - Fooled ya!

It is all a very convoluted and twisted tale. The two names you will hear the most often are Adam Smith and David Ricardo. The right wing Chicago School economist will go on endlessly about the benefits of the Invisible Hand as first written about by Adam Smith, then this will lead invariably to a long dissertation on the brilliance of Comparative Advantage. Now the Chicago School is big and unquestioned ever since Milton Friedman did his big thing in Chile, you know that miracle story? But when you really look at the whole thing closely today, you see it was all an engineered set up. It seemed to be old Milty's big rush to get into the Ivy League. Never happened, alas. Now you will hear about the miracle of the Chicago Boys, but did you hear about the bits about the Ford Foundation and the United States State Department? Geez, you soon come to realize that once with the full unimpeded power of the United States of America you could make darkness happen at noon! Let us just say that the playing field was altered somewhat before the said great experiment even started! And of course that coup thing had nothing to do with the "successful" outcome...

We will get it all back Comrade....

Well, the Oracle of Ottawa has discovered two new logical fallacies that allow this crap to be continued to be sold. The first fallacy I call Era Displacement. For example comparing the workings of comparative advantage in the time of David Ricardo to the modern world of today! Workers at the time of Ricardo who were engaged in so called foreign trade were not much better off in respect to one another, more or less. In todays modern world, there are great differences between the workers of the first world and the third world! And when you allow the capitalist corporate pigs to carry off our factories to third world countries, you are essentially allowing them to export unpaid for surplus labour back to the originating country, got it? Talk about adding insult to injury! Ponder that for a moment! And soon your first world country will be transformed ever so slowly to a third world country! Don't believe me? Just ask anyone that lives in say Windsor, Ontario...

Working through another problem....

The second fallacy is very similar to the first, but very subtle, I call it the fallacy of Proportion Displacement. Free trade between similar countries of social development will more or less work pretty well. But so called free trade between a first world country and a third world country is a total rip off for the citizens of the first world country, and the citizens of the third world country. The only ones that really laugh all the way to the bank coming and going are the right wing economists and the global corporate whores, of no fixed address.
Now the Oracle of Ottawa has a solution to these two newly discovered fallacies. See my blog post entitled "A Gold Standard For the Rest Of Us". (Not a neo-con rant...) Totally solved it didn't I? And by the way, it was not Karl Marx who first coined the concept of surplus labour, it was Adam Smith! Can you find the exact reference in The Wealth of Nations?  No? Some economist you are!
        

Now watch this carefully and then read the above text again...

Thinking About Thinking

As a person puts on new garments, giving up the old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.
Bhagavad Gita As It Is, Text 22, p. 89

As mentioned in an earlier post the Oracle of Ottawa has been involved in a little side project about thinking. Taking the advice of Peter Drucker, who by the way I was quite surprised to learn did a stint as a philosophy prof early in his life, that you should ponder all the activities in your life and decide what is working and what is not. It sounds really stupid at first glance but try it. I have discovered that it is the things that you hardly even acknowledge, that are going all gang busters. But the old ambitions is what takes up all your time. The key to success is stop doing the things that are not going well and give more time to the things that are going really well.

Getting all Hegelian...

You will soon discover that it is the thinking that makes the real money, not the "working", which is totally of course the absolute inverse to the way most of us in the Western world were raised. The Oracle of Ottawa is nearly totally convinced that ignoring this process can take years off your life or your life itself! It was in the Grundrisse that Karl Marx said something about a man cannot become a child again as he will only become childish. For this humble blogger this is one of the greatest quotes of Karl Marx. 

If one lives long enough and gets in the habit of regular and dangerous reflection, you soon have to face the fact that life is all pretty Hegelian all in and after all. The actual process of the now is the result and cause of change. It is the Classical Dialectic in reverse. And it all grinds on with infinite torque. The key is to understand the process...

Love him or hate him, he just won't go away..