THIRD WORLD USA 

Poor US students miss out as virtual learning sharpens divide
BROAD BAND PROMISES NOT KEPT

AFP / Frederic J. BROWNCalifornia teen Kenia Molina is relying on a donated laptop to be able to graduate high school

As a member of the 2020 "class of coronavirus," Kenia Molina needed to find a laptop in order to graduate high school -- a technology gap that has caused thousands of poorer students to miss out on weeks of education.

With many US schools and universities shut for the academic year, the Los Angeles student will be completing her final year via virtual learning on a home computer donated by her district.

"This is really important... for students that don't have any access to the internet or even have any devices, they can't even afford any devices," said Molina, wearing a protective mask and gloves as she collected her laptop.

The free computers handed out by Los Angeles school district -- second largest in the nation -- "help us to be there and connected to one another," she added.

But California's Department of Education estimates nearly 240,000 more computers are needed.

Some 7,400 of Los Angeles' 120,000 high school students have not logged in since quarantine began.

That number is down from 15,000 absentees in the first two weeks of lockdown, when at least 40,000 students had no daily contact with their teachers.

"This is something we should have been ready and prepared for years ago," said Rafael Balderas, principal of the school in Los Angeles suburb Bell where Molina studies.

"You can't take away from face-to-face learning -- it is the best form of instruction for kids," he told AFP.

"But this now has become our new normal," he added, with the pandemic and advances in technology spurring the school system to "move our kids to the 21st century."

- Six months' education -

The closures have caused particular challenges in poor or rural areas where families often lack computers or internet access.

AFP / Frederic J. BROWNRafael Balderas, a high-school principal in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell, is pictured with stacks of laptops for distribution to students in need -- he says online learning has become the new normal

Molina was one of 400 students at her school who received computers for viewing classes, turning in assignments and taking tests.

For families lacking internet, the school district is also working with technology providers to get them online.

In the school zone overseen by Andres Chait, one-in-five Telfair Primary pupils do not even have a home of their own.

Many of them live in motels or at the homes of other families, with no "desk in a quiet space" free from distractions, said Chait.

Parents who still have to work to pay the bills are making huge sacrifices to ensure their children have the opportunity to log in to lessons, or at times entrusting the supervision of young children to older siblings.

Teachers have also been forced to rapidly adapt, learning to use YouTube channels and video call applications like Zoom.

"They're keeping (students) within that educational space so that we don't have a whole generation that loses six months of instruction," said Chait.

The closure of schools also affects free meals on which poor families depend. Los Angeles school district has set up 63 drive-through distribution points, handing out half a million meals per day.

- 'Changed forever' -

California was one of the first US states to shut schools, in mid-March, under a containment policy that experts say has helped to contain the deadly coronavirus.

Even though the state has avoided the fate of eastern hotspots like New York, California has lost almost 900 people to the disease so far.

When schools finally reopen, Governor Gavin Newsom has warned that floorplans may need to be spaced out and start times staggered to maintain social distancing.

"It's safe to say that education has changed forever," said math teacher Andrew Rowland, who created education app Classkick.

"Many more teachers will have now been educated on how they can use virtual teaching more effectively."

For Molina, those changes are likely to continue through university.

But even before then, she faces another seminal real-life moment transplanted to computer screen -- her high school graduation, which will now be celebrated virtually.

"It's a memory that I'm never going to be able to experience," she said. "But we really can't do much about it."

Horrors revealed at virus-hit Canada nursing home

AFP Photo / Eric THOMAS

Flowers outside the Herron nursing home in the Montreal suburb of Dorval, where 31 deaths prompted an investigation for negligence after caregivers fled amid a coronavirus outbreak

Elderly residents left soiled and unfed after their caregivers fled the premises, 31 deaths in the space of a few weeks: a nursing home in Montreal has become the symbol of the terrible toll coronavirus is taking in Canada's long-term care homes.

The bleak situation discovered at the Residence Herron, in the Montreal suburb of Dorval, has triggered an investigation for gross negligence and a national reckoning about the conditions in long-term care homes which account for half the country's more than 1,250 COVID-19 deaths.

"I was sick to my stomach, I was really sick to my stomach," Moira Davis, whose father Stanley Pinnell died at the Herron facility on April 8, told AFP.

"All of a sudden these questions started flying through my head, 'What could we have done differently? Why did nobody tell us?... Why, why, why?'"

Called to the rescue after most of the staff deserted the facility, health authorities found residents dehydrated, unfed for days and lying listless in bed, some covered in excrement. Others had fallen to the floor. Two deaths had gone unnoticed for several days.

Courtesy of Moira Davis/AFP / FAMILY HANDOUT

Stanley Pinnell, 86, was a resident at the Herron long-term care facility in the Montreal suburb of Dorval. He died on April 8, 2020

At least five of the 31 recent deaths at the home have been officially attributed to the virus, with the others still being investigated by a coroner.

From her home in Creighton, Saskatchewan, Davis said she became concerned about her 86-year-old father, who is believed to have contracted coronavirus a week before his death, as he sounded weaker and weaker on the phone each time they spoke.

Davis says Residence Herron is a "poster child for what is wrong in our senior health care" -- but she is also certain it is not unique.

"There are other homes, I am sure, in every country of the world, where families have experienced a similar situation."

"It scares me, it terrifies me to think that I am 60 years of age, and I may someday end up in one of these homes."

- 'Gross negligence' -

In announcing the fatalities this week, Quebec Premier Francois Legault said it appeared to be a case of "gross negligence": just two nurses had been left to care for 130 elderly residents.

Further fuelling public outrage, Canadian media also revealed that the home's owner had once been convicted of drug trafficking, fraud and tax evasion.

For families, shock and anger mixed with the frustration of having been powerless to do anything, kept away by a ban on visits to the home to avoid contamination.

The Wheeland family/AFP / 

-Connie Wheeland, 87, pictured here with her son Peter, was a resident at the Herron nursing home before her transfer to hospital where she was diagnosed with COVID-19

Local health authorities have now taken control of the facility, and a Can$5 million class action has been launched against the owner alleging "inhumane and degrading maltreatment" for failing to ensure continued and adequate care.

"On April 7, my mother was left in her wheelchair with a full, soiled diaper for three hours because no one responded" to the emergency button and her cries for help, Peter Wheeland told AFP, adding that she had diarrhea, one of the symptoms of the new coronavirus.

"We weren't able to communicate with anyone: We called the nurses' station, we left messages, we did everything we could do to reach them and there was no answer," he said, recalling being overcome with fear "that my mother could suddenly die."

Connie Wheeland has since been transferred to a hospital where she was diagnosed with COVID-19. She will not return to Herron. Rather than continue to pay the home Can$45,000 each year, once she recovers her son plans to set her up in an apartment and hire a private nurse to care for her.

- 'We love you grandma' -

From the parking lot of the facility, Maxime Jacques, 35, along with his sister, wife and children, wave to his mother Jacqueline -- who from her room on the second floor can just see the sign they have hung on a fence: "We love you grandma."

"We feel a little let down," says Jacques, who is still trying to find out more from staff about the 86-year-old's health condition.

The dire situation uncovered at the Residence Herron has come as little surprise for experts, who point to decades of insufficient funding for senior care -- where the work is tough, and the pay rarely above minimum wage.

"We have neglected elderly care for a very long time," Rejean Hebert, a former Quebec health minister.

Responding to public outrage, Legault has called for health care workers to help feed, wash and tend to elderly residents at long-term care facilities across the province, where the staff shortage is estimated at 2,000 people. He also topped up the pay of care workers.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also Friday dispatched 125 military doctors and medics, requested by Quebec, to help personnel at the homes.

18APR2020

Pay the rent or eat? Suddenly jobless Americans face dilemma
THIRD WORLD COUNTRY

AFP / Julie JAMMOTGraffiti on a wall in San Francisco calls for a "rent strike"

Terra Thomas, one of the millions of Americans who have lost their income due to the coronavirus pandemic, was stuck between a rock and a hard place -- pay her rent or put food on the table?

"Looking at my finances, it was, 'do I give the last little bit of my money to my landlord -- who has a billion-dollar corporation -- or do I save this for necessities like food and health care?'" said Thomas, who lives in Oakland in the San Francisco Bay area.

Thomas is participating in a "rent strike" with four other residents in her building, a growing movement across the US among people who face the same dilemma.

"I risk a lot," said Thomas, but "I don't have a choice but to strike."

She works as a freelance florist for events, particularly weddings, so Thomas's income depends completely on the resumption of group activities. Refusing to pay her $833 rent "feels like a pretty common sense decision. It feels like a matter of survival," she told AFP.

Over the past month, a staggering 22 million Americans have lost their jobs as stores, restaurants and other businesses deemed non-essential were forced to close, shedding legions of workers.

The shutdown of all this non-essential activity, an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19, has had serious consequences in a country where many people struggle with debt and lack a financial safety net.

In 2018, 40 percent of Americans said they had less than $400 saved for emergencies, without selling belongings or borrowing, according to a report by the Federal Reserve.

Some small-scale landlords have proposed repaying rent via instalments. Several cities and states, including California, have passed executive orders prohibiting eviction of tenants affected by the coronavirus crisis.

But when the lockdown lifts, the moratorium will end. And tenants will have to pay their back-rent or move out.

- Indebted -

Getty/AFP/File / SPENCER PLATTA street in Brooklyn, in New York, which has become the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the US

"We can't have people accumulating debts during this time so when this is all over, they might end up on the street. They're working to pay off debts as opposed to getting their life back together and up and running," said Hillary Ronen, a San Francisco district supervisor.

"It's going to stall the economy. It makes no sense at all."

With other local elected officials, she called on the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, on Congress and on President Donald Trump to cancel rents and extend mortgage payments for landlords.

Washington's plan to jumpstart the US economy includes checks of about $1,200 or more for many Americans, particularly lower-income and middle-class households.

But the checks often won't be enough to cover fixed expenses, particularly in cities with high rent.

In San Francisco, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is "around $3,500-3,700 a month. It's obscene," said Ronen.

"We need either a mass infusion of cash directly to renters, or we need cancelation of rents during the period of stay-at-home order. If we do not have one of those two things, we will have a mass eviction crisis where individuals and families will end up homeless on the streets of this country, in huge large numbers," said Ronen.

About 2,000 people have pledged not to pay their next month's rent to the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, which provides legal aid to rent strikers as one of several organizations overseeing the movement. It is not known how many people are taking part overall.

- In survival mode now -

AFP/File / Frederic J. BROWNChecks being sent out to American households to help cope with the fallout from the coronavirus lockdown often won't be enough to cover fixed expenses, particularly in cities with high rent

Ricky Zepeda, 44, ended up paying $600 of his $1,600 rent for April on his three-room apartment in Richmond, in the Bay Area.

He acted as main spokesman for everybody in the seven occupied units of his building, who initially agreed to join the rent strike.

"Everybody said 'yeah let's do it,' but then they got scared and backed out. In April, half of them paid whole thing, most of the other paid part of it," Zepeda said.

Zepeda is legally blind, his wife lost her job at a food packing plant and his 22-year-old daughter, who also lives at home, say her hours cut to one day a week at the check cashing place where she works.

So what Zepeda did pay for the April rent came from his disability check.

He said he does not know what he will do in May. "We are in survival mode right now," Zepeda said.

"For a rent strike to work you need millions people doing it. It doesn't work unless a good portion of us do it," said Frederick Joseph, a New Yorker who founded his own marketing firm.

He issued an appeal for donations to help families struggling to buy even the basics of everyday life, and since the beginning of the crisis he has collected and distributed $170,000.

He, too, called on governments to pass laws forgiving back rent, insisting people will never be able to come up with that money anyway.

"People will try to find a way to pay it. Some might start criminal activity, people who feel they have to keep a roof over their head," said Joseph.

"It's in their best interest that elected officials step up right now."

Canada funds oil sector environmental cleanup during pandemic

OIL WELL CLEAN UP IS EMPLOYMENT INTENSIVE 

PROVING POLLUTER PAYES IS A MYTH

 WE NEED TO NATIONALIZE THE OIL INDUSTRY

SINCE WE FUND THEM WITH TAXPAYER MONEY

AFP/File / Dave Chan

The money will go specifically to clean up orphaned wells; pictured is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on March 29, 2020
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday announced Can$1.7 billion (US$1.2 billion) to help Canada's oil sector, struggling with low prices, survive a pandemic-related downturn by cleaning up environmental messes.

The money will go specifically to clean up orphaned wells -- inactive and abandoned by defunct firms that may now be contaminating groundwater and leaking greenhouse gases.

The prime minister also announced a Can$750 million (US$535 million) fund to help energy companies cut methane emissions under new, stricter environmental regulations.

"Just because we're in a health crisis, doesn't mean we can neglect an environmental crisis," Trudeau told a daily briefing in Ottawa.

Most of the wells are in the prairies of Alberta and Saskatchewan, where "thousands of energy sites, no longer in use, dot the landscape in various states of disrepair," according to the Alberta Energy Regulator website.

Trudeau said cleaning them up will be good for the environment, for landowners who have to contend with them, and for 10,000 workers the remediation effort will employ.

The issue of orphaned wells "has been festering for years or even decades. Cleaning them up will bring people back to work... and support our environmental targets," he said.

"Many, many energy firms are experiencing a cash crunch, so they don't have the funds to invest in technologies to reduce emissions, or fix methane leaks.

"Today's announcement will allow for this kind of work to be done and create jobs people need during this difficult time."

Greenpeace applauded the move, saying it rightly "helps workers and not polluters."

The Business Council of Alberta agreed in part, saying the federal aid will help many in the oil patch to keep working, but added that the nation's larger oil companies still need help.

"We will continue to look at ways we can support important industries in this country including the oil and gas sector," Trudeau said.

Canada is the world's fourth-largest oil producer, accounting for five percent of global output.

But it has been devastated by oil prices that have fallen as economies ground to a halt because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The situation was compounded by a supply glut resulting from a price war between OPEC cartel kingpin Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC rival Russia.

A compromise hammered out last weekend by Riyadh, Moscow and other crude producers to slash output by around 10 million barrels per day briefly boosted prices but the rally soon fizzled out.

Chile unrest simmers under pandemic lockdown

AFP / CLAUDIO REYES

Chile's social unrest that exploded in October exposed deep frustrations over inequality and the cost of living
Six months after the largest social unrest in 30 years broke out, the streets of Chile are calm once again as the coronavirus pandemic forces the country into lockdown.

But experts say the underlying frustration and social inequality that sparked the mass demonstrations have not disappeared and are merely simmering under the surface, potentially ready to explode again once virus measures are lifted.

A mass movement against President Sebastian Pinera and his government erupted on October 18, initially triggered by a modest rise in metro fares in Santiago before mushrooming into general dissatisfaction with the cost of living and a system that seems to benefit the rich at the expense of all others.

For the last month, though, the epicenter of the protests in Santiago's Plaza Italia, as well as other hotspot cities such as Valparaiso and Concepcion, have gone cool with the population barred from heading outside to prevent the spread of the deadly COVID-19 disease.

"The problems, whose public expression is currently suspended, are still there," Patricio Zapata, a constitutional lawyer and member of the opposition Christian Democratic Party, told AFP.

Faced with a health crisis that has left more than 110 dead and over 9,200 infected, Pinera actually has the wind in his sails.

His approval rating plunged to less than eight percent in January -- with weekly protests raging – but has climbed again to almost 20 percent.

The good news may not last, though.

"We're in something like a parenthesis, and there's the chance that after the parenthesis, things will return to a similar situation" that existed before the unrest erupted, said Juan Pablo Luna, a professor in the political science institute at the Catholic University of Chile.

But "that will only happen if the consequences of the crisis are such that the people prefer to postpone their demands in order to satisfy basic needs in economic terms," said Luna.

The inescapable economic downturn that the pandemic will wreak led the International Monetary Fund to warn that countries such as Chile, Ecuador or France "remain vulnerable to new protests, particularly if policy actions to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis are perceived as insufficient or as unfairly favoring large corporates rather than people."

- Shaky political future -

Despite Pinera's upturn in popularity, the virus pandemic will likely highlight the very inequality that fueled protests in a country whose health, education and pension sectors have been largely privatized since the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship from 1973-1990.

AFP / CLAUDIO REYES

Protesters smashed up metro stations and bus shelters, and torched supermarkets during the early days of October's unrest

"It seems to me that the crisis management will probably unveil new structural problems, like inequality, and in that case it seems obvious that the coronavirus will end up... hurting the government and provoking a new round of unrest," said Luna.

For Zapata, Pinera's political future looks shaky: "I can't see how he can regain the majority's trust," he said.

Many accuse millionaire 70-year-old businessman Pinera of being out of touch with the poor and middle classes in a country that posts impressive macroeconomic figures that mask a low average wage, high costs of basic services and the privatization of a huge part of its health and care sectors.

Pinera has been widely criticized not just for those imbalances but also his management of the unrest, while the security services were accused of abuses by human rights groups.

He then scored another own goal when, during the mandatory quarantine, he stopped a convoy of official vehicles on Plaza Italia to take a picture in the now deserted protest epicenter.

He's always committing unforced errors... and it will take a lot for the people to regain trust in the government," said Luna.

- Uncertain future -

Pinera's popularity had been starting to recover in part due to a decision to hold a referendum on changing the dictatorship-era constitution, which had to be postponed from April 26 to October 25 due to the virus.

But he remains in the eye of a temporarily paused storm.

"I want this chapter to end so we can return to uniting for change politically, of the constitution, (with) everyone healthy for October," said Maria Jose Gutierrez, a 30-year-old activist and supporter of constitutional change.

Zapata is unsure which way the crisis will affect the people.

It might "galvanize the forces of dialogue and cooperation, enabling great agreements," said Zapata.

Or the subsequent economic downturn, "added to the discovery that the health crisis hit the poor and excluded sectors much harder, will generate a stronger, including more violent, return to social protests."

18APR2020









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Global virus deaths pass 150,000 as Trump endorses lockdown protests

AFP / JEFF KOWALSKY

THIS IS WHAT WHITE PRIVILEGE LOOKS LIKE

People (WHITE MEN) take part in a protest for "Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine" at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing 
YOU CANNOT STOP A PANDEMIC WITH A GUN OR THE SECOND AMENDMENT
Coronavirus deaths have surged past 150,000 worldwide with nearly a quarter of them in the United States, where President Donald Trump lent his support to protesters rallying against lockdown orders.

Evidence is mounting that social distancing successfully slowed the pandemic after more than half of humanity -- 4.5 billion people -- were confined to their homes.

Governments around the world are now grappling with when and how to ease lockdowns that have crippled the global economy, even as the COVID-19 death toll climbs further in hard-hit countries.

AFP / Valentine GRAVELEAU

World toll of coronavirus infections and deaths as of April 18 at 1100 GMT

Demonstrators in three US states staged public rallies this week to demand an end to the restrictions, with the largest protest in Michigan attracting 3,000 people -- some of whom were armed.

Trump has largely left decisions on easing lockdowns to state officials even as he laid out guidelines for a staged reopening of the national economy.

But his call to "liberate" Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia in a series of tweets Friday were quickly rebuked by the Democratic leaders of all three states.

"I do not have time to involve myself in Twitter wars," said Virginia governor Ralph Northam.

- Africa deaths top 1,000 -

The United States accounts for nearly a third of the 2.25 million coronavirus infections reported globally.

It has also recorded over 37,000 deaths, more than any other nation, followed by Italy, Spain and France which have all been ravaged by their own outbreaks.

Many countries are testing only the most serious cases and the number of confirmed global cases is likely only a fraction of the true total.

AFP / Daniel MIHAILESCUMuch of the world's Orthodox Christian community is marking Easter without attending church services

Virtually no corner of the world has been left untouched, with deaths in Africa passing 1,000.

Nigeria announced the death of President Muhammadu Buhari's top aide on Saturday, the highest-profile person to succumb to the virus in Africa's most populous nation.

Meanwhile, many of the world's 260 million Orthodox Christians are preparing to mark Easter without attending church services.

The Russian Orthodox Church has asked the faithful to celebrate at home, even though many places or worship will remain open. Services in Turkey will be closed to the public and broadcast on the internet.

In Zimbabwe, celebrations and mass rallies to mark the country's 40th anniversary of independence from British colonial rule were cancelled.

And Buckingham Palace announced that Queen Elizabeth II will not mark her birthday on Tuesday with a traditional gun salute.

- Cover-up claims -

China sharply raised its death toll to 4,636 on Friday after adding another 1,290 fatalities for the city of Wuhan, where the respiratory disease first emerged late last year.

AFP / BAY ISMOYOA burial site in Jakarta

Trump, who has angrily shot back at claims he reacted too slowly to the virus threat, has accused Beijing of downplaying the impact of the virus within its borders.

"It is far higher than that and far higher than the U.S., not even close!" he tweeted.

Trump did not offer evidence to back the claim, but pressure has mounted in recent days on Beijing to come clean over its handling of the initial outbreak.

Leaders in France and Britain have also questioned China's management of the crisis but Beijing hit back, saying it had not concealed information about the illness.

Signs that the outbreak could be easing in parts of Europe prompted Switzerland, Denmark and Finland to begin reopening shops and schools this week.

AFP / NOEL CELIS 

China sharply raised its own death toll to 4,636 on Friday after adding another 1,290 fatalities for the city of Wuhan

Germany's health minister said Friday that the virus was "under control after 3,400 deaths in his country, which is now beginning the delicate task of lifting some restrictions without triggering a secondary outbreak.

Some small shops will be allowed to reopen Monday, and some children will return to school within weeks.

Parts of Italy also began emerging from lockdown, with Venice residents strolling around quiet canals.

But Spain, where the death toll topped 20,000 on Saturday, has extended its strict lockdown, while Japan, Britain and Mexico have all expanded their current movement restrictions.

- Economic damage -

Signs of the economic carnage wrought by the pandemic are mounting, with China reporting its first contraction in GDP since at least the early 1990s after several decades of breakneck growth.

AFP / Pierre FAVENNEC

African state leaders and global financial bodies warned on Friday that the continent needed tens of billions of dollars in additional funds to fight the outbreak

The Trump administration pledged another $19 billion in relief for farmers reeling from a massive jolt to the agricultural markets with schools and restaurants shuttered across the country.

Part of the funds will be used to buy up surplus dairy products and produce that farmers have been destroying, unable to get it to consumers or food processors.

"Having to dump milk and plow under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing, but it's heartbreaking as well to those who produce them," Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said.

African state leaders and global financial bodies warned Friday that the continent needed tens of billions of dollars in additional funds to fight the outbreak.

The IMF also warned the virus could spark another "lost decade" in Latin America and backed debt moratoriums to free up spending for the region's fragile economies.

18APR2020

Marx on the Concept of the Proletariat:
 An Ilyenkovian Interpretation 
https://marxismocritico.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/7452_azeri_siyaves.pdf

Siyaves Azeri

ABSTRACT
The notion of “concept” and the concept of “class” plays a central role in Marx’s and Marxist analysis of society and human activity. There is a large body of study about concepts, their formation and development, which has been made, in great extent, by Soviet psychologists from cultural-historical tradition that have been inspired by works of Lev Vygotsky. Yet, the achievements of the scientific works of these scholars have not been fully incorporated toward developing an epistemological-philosophical theory that aims at a proper understanding of concepts. Evald Ilyenkov is one of the major figures that has undertaken this task and has made great contribution to a Marxist philosophical theory of concepts and conceptual systems. Yet, his early tragic death has left his task unfulfilled. This paper is an attempt toward a first step of furthering and deepening Ilyenkov’s philosophical analysis of concepts. To this end, Marx’s concept of class will be analyzed with the use of Ilyenkovian approach to concepts. The paper attempts to show that contradiction is an essential aspect of conceptual and real development. It also aims at showing that the contradictory nature of concepts, on the other hand, reveals the normative aspect of conceptual activity: concepts and thus conceptual systems are not only contradictory but also normative. Normativity is a necessary aspect of conceptual development in that it put concepts into work, that is, it facilitates the resolution of contradictions that are inherent in reality and thus causes development of both the real and the conceptual realms; this development will reveal itself in form of a new, higher form of contradiction. 


Marx's Concept of Class: A Reconsideration
Article (PDF Available) in Critique 43(3-4):439-460 · October 2015 
DOI: 10.1080/03017605.2015.1099848
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291018920_Marx's_Concept_of_Class_A_Reconsideration

Siyaves Azeri University of Lorraine

Abstract

Marx's analysis of the concept of class in chapter 52 of Capital Volume III is unfortunately far from being complete. This paper aims at reconstructing a Marxian conceptualisation of class on the basis of Marx's own writings and with the aid of representatives of creative Soviet Marxism such as Evald Ilyenkov and contemporary Western critical theory, specifically the Open Marxism approach and Werner Bonefeld. It proposes that class is not a sociological entity signifying a group or a stratum in society. Rather, it is a fluid being that is logically preceded by its conceptuality: class is a continuously constituted social relation that is mediated politically; it is the mode of being of the human basis of capitalist social relations of production.

Creative Nature of the Ideal in Culture
Viktor Ivanovich Polishchuk1, Zoya Yanovna Selitskaya2 & Grigory Viktorovich Silchenko3
http://rupkatha.com/V8/n3/09_Ideal_in_Culture.pdf
Abstract

The article deals with the notion of the "ideal", its correlation with the notions of "idea", "appearance", "form", "image”, "seeing". The article analyses the contribution to the study made by the Russian philosophers Vladimir Solovyev and Evald Ilyenkov. The authors of the article argue that although they define the ideal differently, both thinkers identify it with the purpose of societal development, culture and history. The article reveals the mutual linkage of such notions as the ideal, the idol and the visibility. The fundamental problem of the discussion lies in determining the source of the ideal. The article uses the rules of deductive and inductive logic, the required analytical procedures, as well as diachronic, comparative historical, hermeneutic and phenomenological methods. The authors come to the following relevant conclusions: firstly, the ideal has a dual nature, which accounts for a tendency to identify it with the idol; secondly, childhood experience is the essential source of the ideal.


1
Professor, Chair of Russian and foreign philology, cultural science and technique of their teaching,  Socially-humanitarian faculty, Tyumen State University, 10 Semakova Str., Tyumen, 625003, Russia

2
Managing chair of Russian and foreign philology, cultural science and a technique of their teaching, is Senior Lecturer, Socially-humanitarian faculty, Tyumen State University, 10 Semakova Str.,
Tyumen, 625003, Russia

3
Senior Teacher of chair of Russian and foreign philology, cultural science and technique of their teaching, Socially-humanitarian faculty, Tyumen State University, 10 Semakova Str., Tyumen, 625003, Russia,

Received April 11, 2016; Revised July 07, 2016; Accepted July 10, 2016; Published August 18, 2016

The Future Has Already Happened
Alex Levant
Correspondence: alevant@wlu.ca

https://pubs.biblio.laurentian.ca/index.php/contexte/article/download/264/243/
Alex Levant is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. He specializes in critical media theory and emerging/future technologies. His work has appeared in various journals, including Historical Materialism, Critique, Stasis, Educational Review, among
others. He is editor (with Vesa Oittinen) of Dialectics of the Ideal (Brill, 2014).

Abstract: 

This article interrogates current conceptions of thinking machines of the future. In
contrast to dystopian visions of the future, where humans become dominated by machines of their own making, I argue that this future already happened some time ago, and that we are, in fact, already living in the future that we dread might come to pass.

Keywords: posthuman theory, artificial intelligence, capital, subjectivity

Con Texte 2 (2018) ISSN 2561-4770
CC-BY 4.0
Levant / The Future Has Already Happened
doi:10.28984/ct.v2i1.264

COGNITION, ACTIVITY, AND CONTENT: 
A.N. LEONTIEV AND THE ENACTIVE ORIGIN OF “IDEAL REFLECTIVE CONTENT” 
According to Leontiev’s “activity approach,” the external world is not something available to be “worked over” according to a subject’s inner or “ideal” representations; at stake instead is the emergence of an “idealized” objective world that relates to a subject’s activity both internally and externally construed. In keeping with a Marxian account of anthropogenesis, Leontiev links the emergence of “ideality” with social activity itself, incorporating it within the general movement between the poles of ‘inner’ cognition and ‘external’ action. In this manner, Leontiev both parallels and goes beyond Hutto and Myin’s recent “enactivist” account of “content-involving” cognition, where representational thought depends on socio-cultural scaffolding and, as such, is uniquely human. What traditionally comes to be called representational content is for Leontiev the result of the transition from a primitive cognitive apparatus of “imageconsciousness” to a one which is mediated by social activity. For the being endowed with “activity-consciousness,” mental content is something apprehended by assimilating “the objective world in its ideal form” [Leontiev, 1977, p. 189]. And the precondition for such assimilation is the apprehension of meanings from their origin in the social-material system of activity. The genesis of content-involving cognition is thus coeval with the development of socializing activity systems, replete with the external representations of values and norms as described in enactivist literature as publicly scaffolded symbol systems. Leontiev thus offers an anti-internalist account of cognition commensurate with Hutto and Myin but with the added dimension of a developmental scale of analysis with which to explain the origin of human-specific cognition. 

Keywords: A.N. Leontiev, Marx, activity theory, cognition, enactivism, mental content 

https://iphras.ru/uplfile/root/biblio/epst/03_2018/106-121.pdf