Radical Urbanism, The Right to the City, concluding panel

[chandranale]

thanks you for posting this!

[BHBdrummer]

It's so cool to have all this mind-expanding stuff so available. Gotta love YouTube.

[stochasticmonk]

some people espousing more militant and rigid ideological viewpoints here should lighten up. Lefebvre understood the importance of living spontaneously in the moment and getting some enjoyment out of life beyond hurling the words of dead or dying people at each other from various entrenched camps. What we need here is a festival, eh?

[miroma]

Lenin's writing is better than the writing of any of the scared academics at this conference.

Peter Marcuse is scared of liberals and the use of the word 'radical' to describe the philosophy of participants is extremely vague.

Harvey, in his actual political practice, is really a combination of a Keynesian who 'uses' Marxism and a 19th century utopian socialist, despite his great contributions to Marxist theory in The Limits to Capital and through his online lectures on Das Kapital.

[kdurston1]

utopian clap-trap. has anyone told this guy communism has been proven not to work? anyone who thinks there are big injustices in the world are oppressed? that's everyone. that many of these injustices are justified is a more meaningful discussion.

[DANxTHExRED]

Has anyone told you it's never been given a chance to fail? Smashing something in its infancy isn't "proven not to work", chummer.

[kdurston1]

95+ years of Communism including China is not infancy. I used to use those excuses when i was a communist sympathizer. but i have found over time and study that basing social discourse on oppression and conflict dosen't actually end in the unity desired.

[DANxTHExRED]

Shame you never got clued up after all those years then eh?

China, USSR, Cuba, etc. are not communist. Communism is a classless and stateless society, with the workers owning the means of production. These are obviously not stateless states. Furthermore, the state owned the means of production, what is known as state capitalism.

Communism in praxis was the Paris Commune, or collectivised parts of Spain. Both crushed before they had a chance to fail.

Ignorance is fucking irritating.

[kdurston1]

i am also aware of this excuse as well. i used it often myself. however, what you find in your two examples is still murder, intolerance, and persecution of minorities. indeed, it can be observed that in the time that these "communes" existed, they did not actually produce anything close to the promises of Marx.

[DANxTHExRED]

Handy that facts can be dismissed as "excuses", isn't it?

I'm afraid the reality of overthrowing a system does mean murder. But what makes the difference is the fact it is justified. To break capitalism, you have to smash it; they will not demolish themselves by request.

But intolerance and persucution is nonsense, given these exist because of capitalism. It makes no sense to alienate any section of the working class, required to defeat it.

And there's much more to theory than Marx.

[kdurston1]

you have just given up the arguement. you have just given the reason why communism (perpetual oppression mentality) doesn't work. murder is never justified. blood begets blood until there is a thug with a monopoly on violence... Gosh, we're back at Leninism-Stalinism. these "justified" murders don't end, they just find new victims. Distributism allows for the RULE OF LAW and SOCIAL JUSTICE without you stealing my stuff. Left wing intolerance and persecution is happening right now in the states.

[DANxTHExRED]

You need an argument to lose one; I'm stating facts, you're stating strawmen. That's fine, but lets not mishmash our words here.

Obviously the murder in a revolution occurs so that the monopoly of violence (which is firmly in the state's hand) ceases; a communist society would never allow a return of that in any way.

As for left wing intolerance, you're right, the majority of Americans are intolerant towards the 'left wing'. Years of McCarthyism will have that effect.

[bapyou]

"Left wing intolerance and persecution is happening right now in the states."

Oh, boo fucking hoo. Who persecuted you today?

The right cries "Persecution!" "We have the money, but we're presecuted!"

How long do you think anyone is going to buy such bullshit?

[raphaelnik]

Well said.

[DANxTHExRED]

I must say, your "it can be observed that in the time that these "communes" existed, they did not actually produce anything close to the promises of Marx" did make me laugh. Nevermind the fact that Marx isn't the only Marxist theorist, he did in actuality approve of the Paris Commune.

He said it was the government for the future; he even wrote a book about it, and found it revolutionised his thinking.

What is more humourous is non-communists go on more about Marx than we do!

[kdurston1]

I'm afraid you have exposed yourself as a sympathizer of organized murder based on ideology. you have discredited yourself in any civilized discourse. you may disagree with Stalin, Lenin, Moa, for the butchers of the Paris commune, however your bloody reliance on violence based on 2 demensional dehumanizing radicalism HAS BEEN PROVEN TO END IN TOTALITARIANISM EVERYTIME. But you are only19. blind idealism is the last vestage of childhood.

[DANxTHExRED]

Communism is built on materialism; you should know that, since you were apparently a communist. Non-violence has never won, nor threatened anything. Its greatest success? Replacing the British ruling class in India, with the Indian ruling class.

There's no "exposing" being done here; I happily state violence is necessary, it's no secret!

Again, obviously got some reading problems, communism hasn't resulted in totalitarianism; there was none of that in Paris nor Spain.

What a fruitloop.

[bapyou]

"every socialist experiment of any significance in the 20th century - without exception - has either been crushed, overthrown, or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized, or otherwise had life made impossible for it, by the United States. Not one socialist government or movement...was permitted to rise or fall on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad & freely & fully relax control at home."

- William Blum

[kdurston1]

fascism, nazism, hell even christianity could claim their failures on such examples of.... oh yea, reality.

[bapyou]

Well, maybe. But that isn't the topic of this thread is it? The poster to whom I was commenting was making a point about the failures of socialism. If you subvert every attempt to do something, then claiming the failure is not your fault, that's a bit disingenuous, ain't it?

It's like tripping someone every time they begin to run, and the tripper blaming the failure to run on the tripee.

Take the Paris Commune. Wouldn't you say the murder of 30,000 people a slight obstacle to "success"?

[bapyou]

"organized murder based on ideology"

"violence based on 2 demensional (sic) dehumanizing radicalism."

Yeah. That reminds me of Ronald Reagan funding the death squads in El Salvador. Ronnie ascribed to that wide spread American ideology: Good old fashioned commie-hatin'.

Is good old fashioned American commie-hatin' an example of blind idealism? I think I have a case for the affirmative answer to that question. How 'bout you creampuff?

[Antiks72]

@bapyou Ditto for Iraq, and in particular Falluja. Neocon ideology precipitated a blood bath.

[jumpnjza2]

Hear Hear.

[willwkrueger]

China is radically capitalist. It's like the west during its industrial revolution where vast amounts of public wealth was quickly distributed to the robber barons of new industry. America by virtue of its social security alone, not to mention legalized workers unions is more socialist than China.

[osam14]

What does harvey mean when he says the "right to the city?"

[raphaelnik]

He means a city that all of its inhabitants can freely live in. Read the works of Henri Lefebvre who wrote 'Right to the City'.

Harvey and his peers argue that the city is being taken away from many people by the monied-class. Examples being gentrification projects in Manhattan.

[echopedos]

thank you for posting

[alovelytime]

thanks joe

[kingeric77]

superb analysis from harvey