<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
		xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd"
	xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"
>

<channel>
	<title>World Socialist Party (US) &#187; MS</title>
	<atom:link href="http://wspus.org/author/ms/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://wspus.org</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sat, 21 Apr 2012 02:20:32 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=</generator>
	<copyright>Copyright &#xA9; World Socialist Party (US) 2010 </copyright>
	<managingEditor>joinwspus@wspus.org (World Socialist Party (US))</managingEditor>
	<webMaster>joinwspus@wspus.org (World Socialist Party (US))</webMaster>
	<ttl>1440</ttl>
	<image>
		<url>http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4016/4261195043_233c9929ca_o.jpg</url>
		<title>World Socialist Party (US)</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org</link>
		<width>144</width>
		<height>144</height>
	</image>
	<itunes:subtitle></itunes:subtitle>
	<itunes:summary></itunes:summary>
	<itunes:keywords></itunes:keywords>
	<itunes:category text="Society &#38; Culture" />
	<itunes:author>World Socialist Party (US)</itunes:author>
	<itunes:owner>
		<itunes:name>World Socialist Party (US)</itunes:name>
		<itunes:email>joinwspus@wspus.org</itunes:email>
	</itunes:owner>
	<itunes:block>no</itunes:block>
	<itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
	<itunes:image href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4016/4261195043_233c9929ca_o.jpg" />
		<item>
		<title>What Was He Fighting For? (Phil Ochs as the Sound of the New Left)</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2011/02/what-was-he-fighting-for-phil-ochs-as-the-sound-of-the-new-left/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2011/02/what-was-he-fighting-for-phil-ochs-as-the-sound-of-the-new-left/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Feb 2011 12:52:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[History]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Music]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2067</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new documentary film on the life and music of Phil Ochs, “There But For Fortune,” is being shown in a several US cities now. It hasn’t come too soon, certainly, because Ochs today is largely unknown outside the circle of lefty baby-boomers. Often Ochs is dismissed as a “topical” songwriter whose music, for that reason, hasn’t stood the test of time. “He’s no Bob Dylan,” his critics sometimes say. Dylan himself famously told Ochs he was “just a journalist” (as he threw him out of his limousine). This image of Ochs owes much to his own statements, for he frankly admitted that the pages of newspapers and magazines were a source of songs ideas, saying “every headline is a potential song.” He underscored this by naming his first album “All The News That’s Fit To Sing” – punning on the masthead of The New York Times. The origin of a song hardly determines its value, though; and in his best political songs Ochs cultivated poetry out of such pulpy fertilizer, just like Hank Williams finding song ideas from his sister’s True Romance comic books. Whatever one thinks of his music, though, it was clearly linked to the 1960s New [...]


No related posts.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://wspus.org/2011/02/what-was-he-fighting-for-phil-ochs-as-the-sound-of-the-new-left/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Socialist Guide to Marx&#8217;s Capital (4. Mystery of Money)</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2010/03/socialist-guide-to-marxs-capital-4-mystery-of-money/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2010/03/socialist-guide-to-marxs-capital-4-mystery-of-money/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Mar 2010 01:13:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1471</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A “world without money” describes one essential aspect of socialism. But to get a clearer idea of how society can function without money we need a better understanding of money and why it must exist under capitalism. It might seem odd to suggest that people don’t really understand money all that well, for it is hard to get through a single day without thinking about money in some way or another. Yet for all the thought given to money, or how to get more of that magical substance, most people pretty much take its existence for granted, which is why the idea of a world without money seems ludicrous. Most economics textbooks more or less try to define money by listing up a number of its functions, as reflected also on the Wikipedia page for money: “Money is anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts.  The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value, and occasionally, a standard of deferred payment.&#8221; This is certainly true enough, and Marx also discusses the various functions of money in Chapter 3 of Capital, but listing [...]


No related posts.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://wspus.org/2010/03/socialist-guide-to-marxs-capital-4-mystery-of-money/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Socialist Guide to Marx’s Capital (3. Labor Theory of Value)</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2010/02/socialist-guide-to-marx%e2%80%99s-capital-labor-theory-of-value/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2010/02/socialist-guide-to-marx%e2%80%99s-capital-labor-theory-of-value/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:33:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1404</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We have seen, then, that capitalism is no different from any other form of society insofar as wealth must be produced through the productive activities of human beings. This goes without saying, for without such wealth production no society (or the people living in it) could continue to exist for very long. The key difference in the case of capitalism, though, is that this indispensable wealth takes the form of commodities, which simply means that the things produced are exchanged on the market. People today are so accustomed to this capitalist world, where everything has a price, that the word “commodity” itself has become more or less synonymous with “product,” but Marx draws an important distinction between the two terms and the reader of Capital needs to be aware of that specific usage. A commodity, as a product produced for exchange, thus has two aspects. On the one hand, it is a thing that satisfies some human want or another, while on the other hand, it is a thing with a certain value or worth on the market. In other words, the commodity is a unity of “use-value” and “exchange-value,” as Marx puts it (borrowing the same basic terminology used [...]


No related posts.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://wspus.org/2010/02/socialist-guide-to-marx%e2%80%99s-capital-labor-theory-of-value/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Socialist Guide to Marx&#8217;s Capital (2. The Starting Point)</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2010/01/socialist-guide-to-marxs-capital-2-the-starting-point/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2010/01/socialist-guide-to-marxs-capital-2-the-starting-point/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 24 Jan 2010 12:24:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1214</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Marx begins his examination of capitalism in Capital with the analysis of the commodity; and he succinctly explains the reason for his starting point in the first paragraph: “The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an ‘immense collection of commodities’; the individual commodity appears as its [wealth’s] elementary form. Our investigation therefore begins with the analysis of the commodity.” (Penguin edition; p. 126) The term “wealth” is used here not to refer to riches in the form of money, but rather to the material wealth essential to any form of society: the products produced and consumed by human beings to sustain and improve their lives. Material wealth is the basis for the existence of any society, including socialism, but only under capitalism does wealth overwhelmingly take the form of products that are bought and sold on the market; which is to say, only under capitalism does wealth appear as a “vast accumulation” or “vast heap”[1] of commodities. Commodities of course existed prior to the emergence of capitalism, as did money, but it is only under the specific mode of production of capitalism that the bulk of material wealth—the vast majority of products of [...]


No related posts.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://wspus.org/2010/01/socialist-guide-to-marxs-capital-2-the-starting-point/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Socialist Guide to Marx&#8217;s Capital (1. Intro)</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2010/01/socialist-guide-to-marxs-capital-1/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2010/01/socialist-guide-to-marxs-capital-1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:55:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1204</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This series of short articles will examine the first volume of Marx’s Capital from a “socialist perspective,” which is to say, with an eye to how an understanding of capitalism can contribute to our understanding of socialism. I should recognize the obvious fact, right away, that a worker hardly needs to read Capital to arrive at an anti-capitalist position. Life under capitalism is negative advertisement enough for that social system. Who knows, there may have been a budding capitalist at some point in time who mistook Capital for a how-to guide, and part-way through reading it saw the error of his ways and converted to socialism. But it is not a polemical work aimed simply at fostering a hatred of capitalism (even though there are memorable passages throughout that attest to Marx’s own steady-burning hatred for this class-divided system). Capital is not a book in which Marx simply lists up a bunch of social problems under capitalism to stir up the reader’s moral outrage against that system. Rather, he clarifies how problems (for workers) emerge inevitably from the fundamental nature of capitalism; from its irresolvable contradictions and insurmountable limitations. One might wonder, though, why socialists would need to exert such [...]


No related posts.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://wspus.org/2010/01/socialist-guide-to-marxs-capital-1/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Latest from &#8220;Comrade Žižek&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2009/12/the-latest-from-comrade-zizek/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2009/12/the-latest-from-comrade-zizek/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:32:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Books]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1131</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(A review of First as Tragedy, Then as Farce by Slavoj Žižek) Has Slavoj Žižek (the superstar Slovenian &#8220;theorist&#8221;)  signed a piece-work contract with Verso Books? One can&#8217;t help wondering because this slim volume brings his tally with that publisher alone to around 21 titles. This Stakhanovite output would be more impressive were it not for his notorious habit of recycling old  material, like any good stand-up comedian does. This two-chapter offering is no exception: Žižek seems to have rapidly assembled the book by combining his favorite quotes and theoretical hyperbole with some recent news stories from the unfolding economic crisis. The first chapter (lamely entitled: “It’s Ideology Stupid!”) promises a “diagnosis of our predicament, outlining the utopian core of the capitalist ideology which determined both the crisis itself and our perceptions of and reactions to it.” Setting aside the question of whether ideology can determine a crisis, Žižek does at least provide some valid observations on capitalist ideology aims to shift the blame for a crisis away from the capitalist system itself. Yet few of his ideas strike the reader with much force of insight or novelty; and the chapter is haphazardly organized – as if Žižek’s only aim was [...]


No related posts.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://wspus.org/2009/12/the-latest-from-comrade-zizek/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Debating the &#8220;S&#8221; Word</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2009/12/debating-the-s-word/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2009/12/debating-the-s-word/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:04:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1090</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Is any word more over-used and misunderstood today than “socialism”? In the United States, the “S-word” appears in almost every other sentence uttered by Republicans, who depict the Democratic Party as marching – or at least creeping – towards socialism. “Socialist” has replaced “liberal” in their vocabulary as an insult to hurl at political opponents, while the meaning remains unchanged as a term to indicate an advocate of government intervention in production and the social infrastructure. Everything from Keynsianism to Communism (= state capitalism) falls under this blanket definition, which means that Republicans must feel terribly outnumbered by their socialist foes. If Republicans didn’t seem to relish that paranoid feeling, which certainly helps to rally the Party faithful, we could point out to them that socialists are in fact a rather rare breed at this point in time. Although that would also require explaining how our concept of socialism has nothing in common with their understanding of the term. Of course, if the distortion of socialism were limited to the world of Republican ideologues it would hardly matter – as their ideas are not taken all that seriously, even by themselves. But the fact is that many of the supposed [...]


No related posts.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://wspus.org/2009/12/debating-the-s-word/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Marx’s Contribution to the Critique of Reformism</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2009/06/marx%e2%80%99s-contribution-to-the-critique-of-reformism/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2009/06/marx%e2%80%99s-contribution-to-the-critique-of-reformism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2009 04:30:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1014</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, first published in 1859, only consists of two chapters (apart from its famous Preface). Marx had intended it to be the first installment in a massively ambitious project that was to include six separate “books” addressing, respectively, the topics of capital, landed property, wage labor, the state, international trade, and the world market. The first book on the topic of capital was to have included four “sections” dealing with: capital in general, competition, credit, and share capital. In other words, the two chapters of Contribution (“The Commodity” and “Money, or Simple Circulation”) are just the first “installment” of the first section of the first book – to have been followed promptly by a second installment that would move on to introduce capital, its circuit, etc. Things did not exactly proceed according to the original plan, needless to say. Not only did Marx fail to complete the six books, he did not even publish the additional chapters on capital for the first section of Book one. This has led to scholarly debates over the degree to which the content of the three volumes of Capital – of which Marx only oversaw publication of [...]


No related posts.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://wspus.org/2009/06/marx%e2%80%99s-contribution-to-the-critique-of-reformism/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Capitalism in Crisis: Reforms, Collapse &#8212; Or a Socialist Revolution?</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2009/02/capitalism-in-crisis-reforms-collapse-or-a-socialist-revolution/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2009/02/capitalism-in-crisis-reforms-collapse-or-a-socialist-revolution/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:39:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=947</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[  The severe economic crisis has dominated newspaper headlines – day after day for at least the past six months – like no other story in recent history. The massive layoffs, losses and bankruptcies have grown as familiar as the daily death-count in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ranks of the unemployed are overflowing and no job seems secure.   Not only is the situation spinning out of control, but workers are being reminded how little control they have over their lives. Their own futures are in the hands of business leaders and politicians, who themselves can do nothing more than follow the inhuman impulses of capital.   One bright spot, however, is the market for solution-peddlers and doom-prophesiers, which is booming. On the one hand, there are the experts claiming to know the secret for getting capitalism back on its feet and curing the system of its manic-depressive tendencies; while on the other hand, there is the minority that views the crisis as the beginning of the final collapse of capitalism.   The articles on this website, in contrast to that commotion, might seem calm, or even complacent. Not unlike the quieter days before the crisis, we continue to advocate [...]


No related posts.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://wspus.org/2009/02/capitalism-in-crisis-reforms-collapse-or-a-socialist-revolution/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Good Cap, Bad Cap</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/10/good-cap-bad-cap/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/10/good-cap-bad-cap/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2008 01:02:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=628</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[[pdf leaflet] Investment bankers have gone in the past few months from being the “masters of the universe” to the object of universal scorn. Across the political spectrum in the United States, particularly at the fraying ends of its two main political parties, criticism of Wall Street can be heard. Even McCain and Obama– whose presidential campaigns have been generously funded by Wall Street– have had to make half-hearted statements about how “greed is, um, bad.” This criticism is richly deserved, of course, but many of the harshest critics of speculators are fond of capitalism itself and take a rather benevolent view towards other types of capitalists. Greedy bankers and stockbrokers are lambasted, but in the next breath the capitalists involved in the actual production and sale of commodities are portrayed as unfortunate victims of the credit crisis. This one-sided criticism suits the capitalist class as a whole just fine. Now that capitalists themselves are at least exposing some of the high crimes and low comedy connected to their own financial system, and so much popular attention is focused on the role of money capitalists, it seems particularly necessary for us to attack the false notion that there are “good” and [...]


No related posts.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://wspus.org/2008/10/good-cap-bad-cap/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

