{"id":12819,"date":"2014-03-22T21:54:56","date_gmt":"2014-03-23T05:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/?p=12819"},"modified":"2014-03-22T21:54:56","modified_gmt":"2014-03-23T05:54:56","slug":"rouge-forum-dispatch-not-ruled-by-dead-labor-unruly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/rouge-forum-dispatch-not-ruled-by-dead-labor-unruly\/","title":{"rendered":"Rouge Forum Dispatch: Not Ruled by Dead Labor–Unruly!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We Say Fight Back!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"capitalist-greed\"<\/a>The capitalist has bought the labour-power at its day-rate. To him its use-value belongs during one working-day. He has thus acquired the right to make the labourer work for him during one day. But, what is a working-day?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

At all events, less than a natural day. By how much? The capitalist has his own views of this ultima Thule [the outermost limit], the necessary limit of the working-day. As capitalist, he is only capital personified. His soul is the soul of capital. But capital has one single life impulse, the tendency to create value and surplus-value, to make its constant factor, the means of production, absorb the greatest possible amount of surplus-labour.<\/em><\/p>\n

Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.<\/strong> The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him.<\/em><\/p>\n

If the labourer consumes his disposable time for himself, he robs the capitalist.<\/em><\/p>\n

The capitalist then takes his stand on the law of the exchange of commodities. He, like all other buyers, seeks to get the greatest possible benefit out of the use-value of his commodity. Suddenly the voice of the labourer, which had been stifled in the storm and stress of the process of production, rises:<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Nast<\/a>The commodity that I have sold to you differs from the crowd of other commodities, in that its use creates value, and a value greater than its own. That is why you bought it. That which on your side appears a spontaneous expansion of capital, is on mine extra expenditure of labour-power. You and I know on the market only one law, that of the exchange of commodities. And the consumption of the commodity belongs not to the seller who parts with it, but to the buyer, who acquires it. To you, therefore, belongs the use of my daily labour-power. But by means of the price that you pay for it each day, I must be able to reproduce it daily, and to sell it again. Apart from natural exhaustion through age, &c., I must be able on the morrow to work with the same normal amount of force, health and freshness as to-day. You preach to me constantly the gospel of \u201csaving\u201d and \u201cabstinence.\u201d Good! I will, like a sensible saving owner, husband my sole wealth, labour-power, and abstain from all foolish waste of it. I will each day spend, set in motion, put into action only as much of it as is compatible with its normal duration, and healthy development \u00a0(Marx–Capital \u00a0https:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1867-c1\/ch10.htm)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Vet<\/a>The City of Oakland has agreed to pay Scott Olsen $4.5 million to compensate him for devastating brain injuries he suffered when an Oakland Police officer shot him in the head with a \u201cless lethal\u201d munition on October 25, 2011, during a demonstration in support of Occupy Oakland.<\/strong> <\/em>The lead filled \u201cbean bag\u201d round, fired from a 12 gauge shotgun, shattered Mr. Olsen\u2019s skull and permanently destroyed part of his brain. The settlement in Olsen v. City of Oakland, 3:12-cv-06333, is pending final approval by the Oakland City Council. Mr. Olsen was represented by attorneys Jim Chanin, Rachel Lederman, and Julie Houk. \u00a0\u201cAfter serving two tours of duty as a United States Marine in Iraq, Scott Olsen could never have imagined that he would be shot in the head by an Oakland Police officer while he was peacefully exercising his First Amendment rights in support of the budding \u201cOccupy\u201d economic justice movement,\u201d said Rachel Lederman. \u201cScott was 24 years old when the shooting and ensuing brain damage robbed him of what had been a promising career as a computer network and systems administrator.\u201d
\nJim Chanin said, \u201cThere was no dispute that Scott Olsen never posed a threat and was protesting peacefully. He was shot because OPD commanders decided to simultaneously use chemical agents to disperse the demonstrators and have officers shoot impact munitions at anyone who might be throwing something \u2014 even though this violated their own written policies. The obviously foreseeable result was that the officers shot people who were desperately trying to flee the scene, including Mr. Olsen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Congratulations on the Publication of\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Capitalism<\/a><\/p>\n

From the poisoned rivers, barren wells, and clear-cut forests, to the hundreds of thousands of farmers who have committed suicide to escape punishing debt, to the hundreds of millions of people who live on less than two dollars a day, there are ghosts nearly everywhere you look in India. India is a nation of 1.2 billion, but the country\u2019s 100 richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of India\u2019s gross domestic product.
\nCapitalism: A Ghost Story examines the dark side of democracy in contemporary India, and shows how the demands of globalized capitalism has subjugated billions of people to the highest and most intense forms of racism and exploitation.<\/em><\/p>\n