Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Discussion of science, technology, politics, and other topics that aren't strictly philosophical.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Dan Rowden wrote:I love the irony of where this convo has gone: the Palestinians get forgotten about, yet again.
Finally I hear some honesty from media and officials [world wide] who suggest that a population that voted Hamas in power is just as guilty as any Hamas militant firing a rocket. The whole population at last is judged criminal! Penalty: death! Completely with the terrorists or against them, after all.

Had this happened in former Yugoslavia the Nato jets would have been bombing Tel-Aviv by now! Of course this is different.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by brokenhead »

Dan Rowden wrote:I love the irony of where this convo has gone: the Palestinians get forgotten about, yet again.
Agreed. Marxist theory has little to do with the recent - or any - history of the Middle East. In 50 years, it will be even more of a footnote in world history than it is now.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

brokenhead wrote: In 50 years, it will be even more of a footnote in world history than it is now.
If any, or course, according to 'modern' thought.

Just to showcase that leading thinkers of this current age aren't exactly promising either, to say the least.
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Unidian
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Unidian »

Ugh. As much as I hate to say this, those defending Marxism are putting their eggs in an untenable basket. The labor theory of value is irredeemably wrong and Marxist economics are therefore fatally flawed. I would love for Marxist economic theory to be a viable alternative, but it just isn't.

Capitalism in some form is really the only game in town these days. That being said, it need not be the faith-based free market religion we have in America. The Scandinavian model is a vast improvement. What is needed is broad-based "welfare capitalism" in which the market generates wealth and the government administers it.
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Unidian
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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Oh, and one more thing:

Jews did WTC. LOL Jews!
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Nick »

Unidian wrote:What is needed is broad-based "welfare capitalism" in which the market generates wealth and the government administers it.
That's exactly what the government is doing. In fact, that is exactly what all governments do, but with varying degrees of efficiency and goals.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Nick »

Unidian wrote:Ugh. As much as I hate to say this, those defending Marxism are putting their eggs in an untenable basket.
I don't think anyone here is defending Marxism as a philosophy or movement. What I'm defending is that Karl Marx's analysis of society is pretty insightful, and his predictions may very well come true. It's an irrefutable fact that capitalism can not be sustained due to high populations and limited resources, and it's readily apparent that it will lead to a slow and steady socialist transition as we have already been witnessing for quite some time now. This is unlike the Marxist movement where they consciously try to a achieve a socialist/communist state. Karl Marx's philosophy and Marxism really don't have much to do with each other.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by vicdan »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:But long-term averages show the tendency to settle around a price in many cases.
1) All it means is that you are capable of taking an average. It doesn't mean that price is an attractor.

2) 'in many cases'? What a ringing endorsement of the idea that all commodities have a 'natural price'.

3) natural price as minimum price of commodity production labor (i.e. for the low-hanging fruit of commodities) by definition doesn't work for any commodity which isn't absolutely overwhelmingly available. Average market price will almost always be higher, precisely because more labor-intensive commodity sources will get used in real-world situation. Don't you see how this renders your very thesis incoherent?
This makes me wonder. I'm not saying its evidence or a demonstration but one cannot wave it away either.
Sure we can. We wave it away the same way we wave away the existence of god and Santa. To believe in those just because it hasn't been disproven is religious faith. You know, just like marxism.
No, you don't realize that it proves that free-market would wipe away industries
of course I do. If european dairy farmers or american steel mills cannot compete on the global market, then we all would be better off getting our milk or steel from someone who can make it cheaper. Yes, entire industries might die -- and in the long run, the whole world will be better off.

Dude, do you seriously think i would be unaware of such a painfully, glaringly obvious economic fact? or do you think it's an esoteric, obscure economic wisdom available only to the select few?
The US steel industry: protected. Car industry: protected many times and now bailed out. Electronics: for long periods protected. Reason: the capital would flee the country and massive unemployment and economic implosion nation-wide.
No, dude, capital would migrate into other things we do better. Our government protects those uncompetitive industries because they have small but vocal political participation, while the great unwashed masses, who pay excessively for steel, cars, and electronics, don't generally voice themselves on this matter.

Man, you know very little about economics, huh? This issue has been understood two centuries ago, by one David Ricardo. it's called comparative advantage. A globalized economy would end up producing that which it's best at, no matter where the absolute advantage lies.
As did Marx, who leaned on Smith's work as well. This is no argument.
of course it's an argument. You can't both believe that free market will make the workers better off, and that free market will only keep exacerbating the workers' exploitation.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by vicdan »

Nick Treklis wrote:
Unidian wrote:Ugh. As much as I hate to say this, those defending Marxism are putting their eggs in an untenable basket.
I don't think anyone here is defending Marxism as a philosophy or movement.
Leyla and Diebert are, at least on the former count.
What I'm defending is that Karl Marx's analysis of society is pretty insightful, and his predictions may very well come true. It's an irrefutable fact that capitalism can not be sustained due to high populations and limited resources
<groan> Oh, no, not another Malthusian fool...

Dude, the greatest resource of them all is the human mind; and that is exactly as big as the population -- more so, in fact, as it grows both with population and with social and technological development.

We are not running out of resources in any existential sense. Sure, specific resources can run out, but the human mind always comes up with substitutions. For a stark demonstration, read up on the Simon-Ehrlich Wager:
Ehrlich was the author of a popular book, The Population Bomb, which argued that mankind was facing a demographic catastrophe with the rate of population growth quickly outstripping growth in the supply of food and resources. Simon, a libertarian, was highly skeptical of such claims.
...
[in 1980] Simon had Ehrlich choose five of several commodity metals. Ehrlich chose 5 metals: copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Simon bet that their prices would go down. Ehrlich bet they would go up.
...
As a result, in October 1990, Paul Ehrlich mailed Julian Simon a check for $576.07 to settle the wager in Simon's favor.
...
Julian Simon won because the price of three of the five metals went down in absolute terms and all five of the metals fell in price in inflation-adjusted terms,[2][3] with both tin and tungsten falling by more than half. So, per the terms of the wager, Ehrlich paid Simon the difference in price between the same quantity of metals in 1980 and 1990 (which was $576.07).
For example, consider the most obvious short-supply commodity: oil. Sure, liquid oil is running low. However, just one oil deposit -- Green River oil shale basin in Colorado -- contains more oil in it than all the world's proven liquid crude reserves combined. it's much harder to extract than liquid crude, but if liquid oil is short, oil shale will do nicely. And while that happens, ITER TOKAMAK fusion reactor went positive with energy flow; we will likely have commercially feasible fusion power in 2-5 decades. how much hydrogen does the world have for fusion fuel?
and it's readily apparent that it will lead to a slow and steady socialist transition as we have already been witnessing for quite some time now.
Like in the 80ies and 90ies when a lot of government participation in economics had been rolled back all over the world. Right.

Isn't reality simple when you get to pick-n-choose your facts?
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Leyla Shen
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Leyla Shen »

The labor theory of value is irredeemably wrong and Marxist economics are therefore fatally flawed.
Another blind, herdly assertion.

What are you saying, exactly? That labour is not an intrinsic part of all commodities? That what is, in turn, paid for human labour has no relationship or affect upon the value of a commodity, the bottom line and social relations? That the fact that one can buy the same commodity one day for $50 and the next for $10 isn’t an objective expression of the equality of all sorts of human labour as value?
Unidian wrote:Oh, and one more thing:

Jews did WTC. LOL Jews!
That's relevant, how? Let me know when kissing Jew arse becomes less than at the top of your list of priorities.

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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Unidian »

Kissing Jew arse? You gotta be kidding me.

Everyone knows I'm completely anti-Zionist and borderline anti-Semitic. I made the WTC joke because it's funny to me.

Argue with Vickie. I'm a socialist at heart. Pointing out that the labor theory of value is wrong does not make me the bourgeois enemy.

Get that hysteria under control, please.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Leyla Shen »

Dan Rowden wrote:I love the irony of where this convo has gone:
This has indeed been a great thread for irony!
[...] the Palestinians get forgotten about, yet again.
Insofar as my part goes, only temporarily in name, Dan—but, by no means in spirit.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Leyla Shen »

Pointing out that the labor theory of value is wrong does not make me the bourgeois enemy.
I'm assuming you're deliberately behaving like an idiot. I'm waiting for you to make the point. That should be obvious.

You do know how to make one, right?
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Leyla Shen »

VD wrote:Keep the faith, my deluded friend. Reality is obviously too tough a place for you.
[laughs] This is hysterical. I’m beginning to think you really are—“innocent.” In which case, my expectations have been entirely misplaced and I really do need to change my approach dramatically. Perhaps your bravado really is no more than self-defense.

From Marx (Das Kapital) [notes in square brackets and emphases, mine]:
Whence, then, arises the enigmatical character of the product of labour, so soon as it assumes the form of commodities [essentially, exchange value]? Clearly from this form itself. The equality of all sorts of human labour is expressed objectively by their products all being equally values [i.e., the value of petrol; the value of bread; apples, oranges, jeans, linen, coat, etc.]; the measure of the expenditure of labour power by the duration of that expenditure [how long it takes to produce each product], takes the form of the quantity of value of the products of labour [e.g., a litre of petrol as a third of the price of a loaf of bread]; and finally the mutual relations of the producers, within which the social character of their labour affirms itself, take the form of a social relation between the products [e.g., refinery workers are to bakers as petrol is to a loaf of bread. What sort of a social relation is that, you ask? Exactly, I say!].

A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men’s labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour. This is the reason why the products of labour become commodities [products with exchange value], social things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses [the sex worker is an insightful example, here]. In the same way the light from an object is perceived by us not as the subjective excitation of our optic nerve, but as the objective form of something outside the eye itself. But, in the act of seeing, there is at all events, an actual passage of light from one thing to another, from the external object to the eye. There is a physical relation between physical things. But it is different with commodities [objects of labour as exchange value]. There, the existence of the things quâ commodities, and the value relation between the products of labour which stamps them as commodities, have absolutely no connection with their physical properties and with the material relations arising therefrom. There it is a definite social relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things [devaluation of commodity is devaluation of the social relation]. In order, therefore, to find an analogy, we must have recourse to the mist-enveloped regions of the religious world. In that world the productions of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with one another and the human race. So it is in the world of commodities with the products of men’s hands. This I call the Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are produced as commodities [objects (necessarily of labour since they don’t come from God!) for exchange], and which is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities.
And you earlier asserted:
This is the same old noumenalist delusion, the ancient assumption that things have intrinsic nature apart from their perceptible attributes. Quinn does it, Leyla does it, Marx did it, and it seems you might be doing it too.
Are you SURE about that?? What in the above quote indicates anything even close to “noumenal delusion”? Given the facts, your accusation makes no sense. Given the facts, the idiocy you see is actually your own, Victor.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by vicdan »

I see you are still completely unable to defend any of the three major marxist errors I mentioned. It is amusing to see your utter inability to defend the labor theory of value. :)
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Unidian »

Leyla Shen wrote:
Pointing out that the labor theory of value is wrong does not make me the bourgeois enemy.
I'm assuming you're deliberately behaving like an idiot. I'm waiting for you to make the point. That should be obvious.

You do know how to make one, right?
Why? Victor already established why it is wrong in considerable detail.

You do know how to read, right?
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Leyla Shen »

VD wrote:I see you are still completely unable to defend any of the three major marxist errors I mentioned. It is amusing to see your utter inability to defend the labor theory of value. :)
(You wish, sweetheart.)

Oh, sorry. You mean, assertions on the order of this beauty:
This is the same old noumenalist delusion, the ancient assumption that things have intrinsic nature apart from their perceptible attributes. Quinn does it, Leyla does it, Marx did it […]
If the life of product X is 1 every 10 years per person and I have purchased enough labour power to fill that demand, what is product X’s intrinsic nature apart from its perceptible attributes? I think you should tell me, because I actually have no idea.

And this one:
The problem with labor theory of value is not even so much that it gives wrong answers; it's that it doesn't even ask the right questions. [...]
Oh, really?! [laughs] Unbelievable.
[...] The marxist approach cannot result in efficient production, because it's ignoring the dynamic signal interaction of the supply and demand -- the needs signals sent by consumers' consumption choices, the labor signals sent by workers' employment choices, and the costs signals sent by the producers' production choices.
Oh, “dynamic signal interaction”! It fucking does no such thing except under the specific conditions wherein YOU pull such meaningless, sleight of hand phrases as this and as “the Marxist approach” that have nothing to do with what Marx added to the LTV!

Even in the case where a commodity (an object of production as exchange value) is sold for less than its value at production, the capitalist (purchaser of labour power) certainly paid its value IN labour power at the time of production but OBVIOUSLY the trader can only sell it purely as a commodity into a market at a price relative to supply and demand and to the existing value of labour power of the market into which the commodity might be sold. That is, price is still a question of labour power, albeit a matter “external” to the commodity in question rather than as an intrinsic part of it in this instance, since the only thing that has changed is WHAT is in demand. At any given moment, available labour power is simply being utilised in the production of different commodities and is never absent in the consideration of commodity price, value and, therefore, profit.

Like I said, you talk so much shit it makes sanitation work smell like roses—and just as appealing! At this rate, you’d have to pay me $1,000/hr to properly disabuse you of your misconceptions! Since you clearly have no demand for such things as integrity, I am under no delusion that you would appreciate the need for and actual value of that offer...
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Leyla Shen »

Unidian wrote:
Leyla Shen wrote:
Pointing out that the labor theory of value is wrong does not make me the bourgeois enemy.
I'm assuming you're deliberately behaving like an idiot. I'm waiting for you to make the point. That should be obvious.

You do know how to make one, right?
Why? Victor already established why it is wrong in considerable detail.

You do know how to read, right?
Fuck off, you petty, spineless little parasite.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by vicdan »

Leyla Shen wrote:
VD wrote:I see you are still completely unable to defend any of the three major marxist errors I mentioned. It is amusing to see your utter inability to defend the labor theory of value. :)
(You wish, sweetheart.)
Not really. I wish for you to start thinking, to actually address the detailed and specific arguments I gave you, but it seems you prefer to blabber on. Good little marx-droid. You remind me of randroids to an amazing extent, in fact. The conclusions are different, but the bullshit, the ignorance, the naivete and irrationality, are the same.

You wouldn't know economics if it ran up to you and bit on on the leg.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Leyla Shen »

VD wrote:You wouldn't know economics if it ran up to you and bit on on the leg.
Believe me, your little mutt does. Which is why I kick the rabid little bastard in the head at every opportunity.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by vicdan »

Yeah, I figured actually understanding economics was very low on your list of priorities, somewhere between stabbing yourself in the eye and having your genitals ripped up by a wild boar. You seem to find vacuous, ignorant bloviation to be much more fun.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by brokenhead »

So back to the actual topic: A brief summary of the Ottoman Land Law of 1858 from here:
1858, April 21

THE OTTOMAN LAND LAW. The code, and its amendment in 1867, had the dual intention of reasserting the state's legal right of ownership in the face of widespread usurpation of its lands and providing each cultivator with secure title that would encourage investment. It made provisions for cultivators and others with limited rights over state (miri) land to acquire full private ownership confirmed by official titles. Much state land was subsequently converted into private property (mulk) by legal and illegal means. But because of the increasing value of agricultural land, the power relations in the countryside, and peasant suspicion of the authorities, the bulk of the land ended up in the hands of wealthy notable families that by the 20th century had accumulated large landed estates and a new source of power.
The wealthy Palestinian residents who owned this land often did not work it. They were more interested in making a profit from the ownership of the land and many liquidated by selling plots to wealthy European Zionists towards the end of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th. The land law is notable because it is an historical legal basis for Jewish ownership of large tracts of property in Palestine.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by brokenhead »

Here is a Jewish account of the results of the Ottoman Land Act and the consequent antagonism between Jews and Arabs:
In 1948 the Israeli Government took over all British Government Lands in the area of Palestine which it controlled.37  These State Lands included mawāt, matrūk maḥmiyya, and abandoned mīrī, and represented about 70% of all Israeli-controlled Palestine.38  The mawāt lands, which accounted for over half of the State lands, had been (as of 1931) supporting 7,869 landowners and 2,508 tenants.39  Although previously reckoned as owners of the land "by the act of possession"40 these farmers had no title-deeds and therefore had little legal claim to the land. As noted above, matrūk lands were sometimes registered in the name of Mandate officials; these now become State Lands as well. Finally, "security" orders were used to "temporarily" clear certain lands of inhabitants; and after a specified time such lands were then declared uncultivated (maḥlūl), thereby transferring full legal title to the State.41  In these ways antagonisms between Jews and Arabs — which continue to a great degree to center on the issue of land — were exacerbated.

The Ottoman Land Codes and Laws of 1858 and 1859, then, were issued in order to assure state control over the lands of Palestine and to increase state revenues from those lands. For a variety of reasons much of the cultivated or occupied land was never registered or was registered in the name of someone other than the individual or collective that actually worked it. The resulting concentration of land ownership and the confusion as to legitimate title contributed significantly to the development of antagonism and ill-will between Jews and Arabs in Palestine and Israel.
In other words, relatively vast areas of land changed hands and no one consulted or notified the people actually residing on and working that land.

So far, no Marxism involved.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by brokenhead »

Passis is an Arab organization (Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs.)

The maps link is especially informative as is the Palestinian Chronology link to see the roots of the current situation from the Palestinian (Arab) viewpoint.

I'm just doing a quick reading from these links but here are two developments in 1950 that stand out:
1950
March 14: Absentee Property Law; whereby any person who on 29 Nov. 1947 was a citizen or resident of the Arab States or who was a Palestinian citizen who had left his/her place of residence even if to take refuge within Palestine, is classified as an "absentee". Absentee property is vested in the custodian of absentee property who then "sells" it to the Development Authority authorised by the Knesset. The theft of the property of a million Arabs seized by Israel in 1948 is thus authorized.
April 24: Unification of the West Bank and Kingdom of Jordan; Gaza Strip comes under Egyptian administration.
April 27: British government recognises the union between West Bank and Jordan.
May 1: UN Gen. Assembly establishes UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency) based on Res. 302 of 3 Dec. 1949.
May 25: The United States (US) joins Britain and France in the Tripartite statement of policy, binding the 3 nations to oppose "the use of force between any states" in the area and to supply only those arms to Israel and Arab countries which needed for "legitimate self-defence".
July: "Law of Return" passed by Knesset whereby any Jew, from anywhere in the world, is entitled to full Israeli citizenship.
Sept. 1: Jordanian Dinar becomes the sole legal currency on both banks of Jordan.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Unidian »

Fuck off, you petty, spineless little parasite.
LOL. Try decaffienated, hon. And maybe a Midol.

BTW, to be called a "parasite" by a Marxist is definitely a new (and amusing) one. Chuckles abound. You should work on those anger issues, though. Meanwhile, I think you're buying me a twinkie, proletarian comrade. Viva la revolucion!

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