Book Review: The Railway Children by E. Nesbit

I must admit that it took me almost four months to read this book. Not because of the complexity of the novel. In fact while I was reading other books I could not dedicate time for this one. At times I found it dull and boring. I kept reading at a slow pace and now I discover that it is already four months! Anyway, today I congratulate myself on achieving this great milestone. 

When their father is mysteriously taken away, Roberta, Phyllis and Peter have to leave the comfort of their London house for a humble dwelling in the country. There is not much to do there, no places to go to either, save the nearby railway station. The children like it. The children visit the nearby coal mine and discover many interesting things. They also admire the passing train and wave at passengers. The children's action in time also helped in avoiding major accidents, which saved human lives.

They befriend the porter and the stationmaster. They make it a habit to wave everyday to the same old gentleman on the London train. they hardly have a clue that the railway will not only fill their lives with adventure but also help unveil the truth behind the disappearance of their father.

 At one point in the book the author writes "very wonderful and beautiful things do happen, don't they? And we live most of our lives in the hope of them. I may come again to see the boy?" (p. 224). Regarding lessons the author is of the view that "however nice the person who is teaching you may be, lessons are lessons all the world over, and at their best are worse fun than peeling  potatoes or lighting a fire." 

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Book Review: Antonio Gramsci: Working-Class Revolutionary- Essays and Interviews (Edited by Martin Thomas)

The essays and the interview collected in this booklet discuss the ideas and the politics of Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), especially in the light of a major recent study of Gramsci, Peter Thomas's book The Gramscian Moment. They argue that Gramsci's ideas are best and most loyally understood as a contribution to working-class revolutionary socialist battle against the capitalist system, which as the financial crash of 2008 and its sequels show, is as much a system of class exploitation and social destruction as ever.

Italy stayed out of World War I (p. 6). The workers defeat opened the way for the rise of fascism. Mussolini took power in 1922 (p. 8).  Mussolini consolidated his power in 1926 (p. 8). Mussolini was a former member of the Socialist party (p. 9). 

Gramsci spent much of his life building a Marxist party (p. 13). For some time he operated from Vienna. Gramsci was developing themes first sketched by Antonio Labriola, a late 19th century philosopher who gradually, as a maverick on the fringes of the socialist movement, developed a supple and imaginative version of Marxism as "philosophy of practice" (p. 74)

In chapter two, Peter Thomas writes that 'we need to reaffirm that deepening the conception of politics and political organization- and linking that with a Marxist critique of political economy- remains at the absolute center of Gramsci's project the entire way through (p. 19).

In the third chapter Peter Thomas says that 'for a proletarian hegemony , Gramsci argues that a politics of truth is necessary. He states on many occasions that the precondition for doing mass politics in the working classes need to speak the truth (p. 22). Politics, for Gramsci, was not conceived of as a moment of administration or command from above, but always in terms of the transformative dimensions of a social  formation or relations between social formations (p. 24).

Peter Thomas says that Gramsci 'came to the view that it is only by acknowledging the always-already-practical nature of philosophy that it is possible not only to criticize previous forms of philosophy (including, crucially, the criticism of previous conceptions of Marxist philosophy), but also to go further and attempt to develop a new form of philosophical practice that would arguably be more genuinely philosophical than the contending and rival positions, if we are to understand philosophy as always a practice, as "love of wisdom", in the classic sense' (p. 37-38).

Moreover, Peter Thomas mentions that 'the "democratic philosopher", for Gramsci, became the philosopher who was mature enough to acknowledge the foundation of their thought in the common every day practices of the people, a philosopher who was open to the capacity for transformation of those instances, and sought himself or herself to contribute to their transformation through his or her intervention in linguistic, conceptual, or political forms' (p. 39). He believes that the democratic philosopher means an active citizen.

In chapter six, Martin Thomas states that 'the last 25 years prove that a battle for democratic forms is ineffectual if not tied together with a socialist battle to reorganize the working-class as an assertive, militant combatant for its own interest, as the champion of democracy, and as the leader of all the oppressed and plebeians' (p. 65).

Further themes in the book include hegemonic apparatuses, Gramsci's analytical developments, neo-liberalism and class organization (p. 35), 'democratic philosopher', Marx, French Communist party philosopher Louis Althusser, cosmopolitan academic and Eurocommunist. This booklet discusses a major recent study on the Notebooks- Peter Thomas's The Gramscian Moment- and argues that the Notebooks were in fact a powerful contribution to the working-out of revolutionary working-class strategy in developed capitalist societies. 

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Book Review: Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Ngugi says that the very words we use are a product of a collective history (p. x-xi). He says that the present predicaments of Africa are often not a matter of personal choice; they arise from an historical situation. Their solutions are not so much of a matter of personal decision as that of a fundamental social transformation of the structures of our societies starting with a real break with imperialism and its internal ruling allies. Imperialism and its comprador alliances in Africa can never never develop the continent (xii).

According to the author 'the biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the cultural bomb. The effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people's belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves (p. 3). Ngugi remembers the time when speaking his native tongue Gikuyu in school led to punishment (p. 11). Writing about his younger days he also narrates how a button was used as a tool to punish those students who spoke their native tongue (p. 11).

The author writes that Swahili in East and Central Africa is used as a means of  communication across many nationalities, but it is not a carrier of culture and history of many of those nationalities whereas in parts of Kenya and Tanzania, particularly in Zanzibar, Swahili is inseparably both a means of communication and a carrier of the culture of those people to whom it is a mother-tongue (p. 13). Ngugi writes that 'rival imperialisms and the colonial practice of divide and rule introduced contradictory representations of the sound systems of the same language, let alone of similar African languages within the same colonial boundary. For instance the Gikuyu language had two rival orthographies developed by protestant and catholic missionaries (p. 67). 

Ngugi was put in prison, banned from teaching at the University of Nairobi and the exiled (p. 62). He was at his home on 31 December 1977. Ngugi wrote on toilet paper when he did not have paper in jail (p. 74). There was so much repression from 1952 to 1962 during the Mau Mau struggle that more than five people were deemed to constitute a public gathering and needed a license (p. 37).

The author stresses that African literature can only be written in Africa languages, that is, the languages of African peasantry and working class, the major alliance of classes in each our nationalities and the agency for the coming inevitable revolutionary break with neo-colonialism (p. 27). Ngugi stresses on the oral literature (orature). According to him orature ha sits roots in the lives of the peasantry. It is primarily their compositions, their songs, their art, which forms the basis of the national and resistance culture during the colonial and neo-colonial times (p. 95).

The land question is basic to  an understanding of Kenya's history and contemporary politics, as indeed it is of twentieth century history wherever people have had their land taken away by conquest, unequal treaties or by the genocide of prat of the population (p. 44). The colonizers also introduced categorization. The good African was the one who cooperated with the European colonizer whereas the bad African character was the on who offered resistance to the foreign conquest and occupation of his country. The bad character was portrayed as being ugly, weak, cowardly and scheming (p. 92).

Because of its intermediate economic position between the many contending classes, the petty- bourgeoisie develops a vacillating psychological make-up. Like a chameleon it takes on the color of the main class with which  it is in the closest touch and sympathy (p. 22). The author states that under the colonial system, through the racist ideologies the private appropriation of wealth was ensured in a few hands- mostly white (p. 66).

On page 53, Ngugi shares a play in which one of the character named Wangeci says: 

"Think about today and tomorrow.

Think about our home.

Poverty has no permanent roots!

Poverty is a sword for sharpening the digging sticks..."

Ngugi says that 'when that day comes, when the African writer will naturally turn to African languages for his creative imagination, the African novel will truly come into its own, incorporating into itself all the features developed in the different parts of Africa from the different cultures of African peoples as well as the best progressive features of the novel or fiction developed in Asia, Latin America, Europe, America, the World (p. 85). Ngugi also writes that 'drama is closer to the dialectics of life than poetry and the fiction' (p. 54).

While writing about the main aim of the book the author states that 'in this book I have pointed out that how we view ourselves, our environment even, is very much dependent on where we stand in relationship to imperialism in its colonial and neo-colonial stages; that if we are to do anything about our individual and collective being today, then we have to coldly and consciously look at what imperialism has been doing to us and to our view of ourselves in the universe' (p. 88). Ngugi says that 'economic and political control of a people can never be complete without cultural control' (p. 93). 

On page 105 Ngugi quotes Brecht who says in a poem:

"Your science will be valueless, you'll find

And learning will be sterile, if inviting

Unless you pledge your intellect to fighting

Against all enemies of Mankind."

Further in the book Ngugi also writes about colonialism in education, Kamiriithu Community Centre, racism of Hume, Thomas Jefferson and Hegel, class origin of discoveries, his view about the appropriation of the novel, his learnings from different writers, African children and colonial schools. Ngugi has very clearly addressed the main issues on the language question in literature. This book is the author's farewell to English as a vehicle for any of his writings.

In the concluding chapter Ngugi writes that the aim of this book has been about 'national, democratic and human liberation' (p. 108). I want to paraphrase but I think it would be injustice to the powerful words of the author. Ngugi says that 'the call for the rediscovery and the resumption of our language is a call for a regenerative reconnection with the millions of revolutionary tongues in Africa and the world over demanding liberation. It is a call for the rediscovery of the real language of humankind: the language of struggle. It is the universal language underlying all speech and words of our history. Struggle. Struggle makes history. Struggle makes us.  In struggle is our history, our language and our being. That struggle begins wherever we are; in whatever we do; then we become part of those millions whom Martin Carter once saw sleeping not to dream but dreaming to change the world' (p. 108).

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Book Review: Pakistan: The Economy of the Elitist State by Ishrat Hussain

In this second edition (published in 2019), Ishrat Hussain presents an analysis of the economic development in Pakistan. Hussain compares Pakistan's case with other countries in South Asia and East Asia. He also presents an outline for the economic and social reforms in Pakistan. Hussain believes that the elite in Pakistan continues the unjust accumulation of wealth because the respective roles of the state and the market have been reversed in the case of Pakistan.

Ishrat Hussain says that the share of agriculture has declined to 25 percent (p. 6). In 1947 Pakistan only had 57 MW of installed capacity of electricity (p. 249). Tracing the history of Pakistan's economic development Hussain writes that due to the Korean War a new class of industrialists developed in Pakistan (p. 13). Hussain says that in the 1950s there were food shortages. Pakistan became a net food importer. Despite having such fertile agricultural land and a well-developed irrigation system speaks volumes of the anti-agriculture bias of Pakistan's ISI (import substitution industrialization regime).

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto provided subsidies on wheat, edible oils and other goods consumed by the poorer section of the population. This consumed 2 per cent of the GDP by the mid-19970s (p. 128).The average inflation rate from 1971 to 1977 was 16 percent (p. 23). In the 1980s steel, automobile and engineering were the weakest sectors and the better preforming ones were cement and fertilizers (p. 102). After Zia, when Benazir Bhutto took over she strengthened the private industry. In Pakistan's history the interim government of Moen Qureshi introduced an agricultural income tax which was vehemently opposed by large feudal and land-owing interests (p. 43). PPP's performance from 2008 to 2013 was on average 2 percent of growth (p. 446).

Comparative advantages based on high skills, product differentiation, and new technologies last much longer (p. 107). Hussain states that the aim of the financial-sector reform is to establish a flexible system of financial intermediation in which a variety of instruments are made available to savers and borrowers through stable financial institutions (p .145). Ishrat believes that 'success of Pakistan's economic policy will depend on its ability to maintain fiscal discipline' (p. 171). Ishrat suggests that 'international experience suggests that in low-income developing countries, small scale agriculture, small and medium enterprises, and, more recently, knowledge-based enterprises are the main avenues for productive employment' (p. 232).

Ishrat is of the view that at the time of public procurement of wheat the food inspectors make purchases from influential farmers (p. 461). Husain states that estimates suggest that about one-third of the sick in developing countries are victims of nutritional disorders (p. 224). The author writes that low-cost arrangements to mobilize savings in the rural areas have proven effective in Bangladesh, Bolivia and Bangladesh (p. 164). The author does not even mention a single example of rural support programs in his home country Pakistan, where the rural support programs achieved a lot in terms of mobilizing savings in rural areas.

Throughout the book Ishrat criticizes the civilian bureaucracy, labor union leaders, engineers and other factors that hinder growth and development, but he refrains from writing about the military establishment's role in Pakistani politics and economy. According to the author, in practice the elitist growth works on three factors. one, a strong leader who has concentrated power without any checks and balances. Two, a bureaucratic class which implements the wishes of the leader. Three, a dormant and subservient population that is passive and indifferent to the actions of the leaders and bureaucracy (p. 381). Ishrat does not mention about the reasons behind the subservience of the population. In fact, Ishrat Hussain himself writes in a very subservient tone throughout the book. At times it feels like reading a text book on the economic history of Pakistan.

The author is in favor of allowing Independent Power Producers (p. 427). Hussain writes about GST, VAT, inflation, foreign banks in Pakistan, local banks, Pakistan's financial sector, foreign currency deposits, measuring poverty, primary and tertiary education, value addition, child labor, some useful tables comparing Pakistan with other regional and international figures, and private sector involvement in energy. Hussain also discusses sources of external capital flows to Pakistan, misery index, the impulses of greed, corruption in Pakistani society and social ostracism (p. 453), Benazir Income Support Program, role of FBR and the need for improvement and issues of obtaining finances in Pakistan.

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Book Review: Critical Theory and Society: A Reader (Edited with an Introduction by Stephen Eric Bronner and Douglas Mackay Kellner)

The Frankfurt School was the first Marxist-oriented research institute in Europe. Its members made an effort to revise both the Marxian critique of capitalism and the theory of revolution, as after the death of Marx new social and political conditions had evolved. The broad themes included in this book are social psychology, cultural criticism, philosophy and political theory. During World War II Marcuse and others went to USA to work for the US government. Horkheimer and Adorno went to California where they worked on theory.

Erich Fromm states that 'what psychoanalysis can bring to sociology is the knowledge- though still imperfect- of the human psychic apparatus, which is a determinant of social development alongside technical, economic, and financial factors, and deserves no less consideration that the other factors mentioned' (p. 38). Erich Fromm writes that 'every form of society has not only its own economic and political, but also its specific libidinous structure, and psychoanalysis can finally explain certain deviations from the course of development expected on the basis of the economic preconditions (p. 216).

Leo Lowenthal says that 'a genuine, explanatory history of literature must proceed on materialistic principles' (p. 44). He further says that 'psychology must be considered as one of the principal mediating processes, particularly in the field of literary studies, since it describes the psychic processes by means of which the cultural functions of a work of art reproduce the structures of the societal base' (p. 45). Lowenthal critiques social research as it 'takes the phenomena of modern life, including the mass media, at face value. It rejects the task of placing them in a historical and moral context' (p. 191). In the same chapter the author states the popular culture has its own characteristics of standardization, stereotypy, conservatism, mendacity, manipulated consumer goods (p. 195).

Horkheimer writes that an existing society is increasingly endangered by its internal tensions, the energies spent in maintaining an ideology grow greater and finally the weapons are readied for supporting it with violence (p. 55). Writing on the Jews and Europe Horkheimer states that 'whoever is not willing to talk about capitalism should also keep quiet about fascism' (p. 78). In the same chapter on page 79, the interesting connection between the market economy and the advertising signs is presented. Further in the chapter he critiques liberalism,  writes about Mandeville's view on fascism and Kant's categorical imperative. Horkheimer says that 'not ideas but utility are decisive for the bourgeoisie' (p. 88). He further writes that 'someone who can only play at politics should keep away from it' (p. 93).

On state capitalism, Pollock writes that 'the genuine problem of a planned society does not lie in the economic but in the political sphere, in the principles to be applied in deciding what needs shall have preference, how much time shall be spent for work, how much of the social product shall be consumed and how much used for expansion, etc. (p. 99).

Marcuse writes that civilization is man's subjugation to work (p. 125). On the same page he writes that satisfaction is postponed and enjoyment sacrificed. Writing on philosophy and critical theory Marcuse is of the view that 'critical theory is, last but not least, critical of itself and of the social forces that make up its own basis' (p. 72). Marcuse writes that the proletariat's quality of being  'potentially revolutionary force' is definitive of its very existence (p. 288). In the chapter, The reification of the proletariat, Marcuse is of the view that 'within the global system, the multinational corporations keep the competitive conflicts from becoming explosive' (p. 291).

Adorno mentions that 'the power of the culture industry is such that conformity has replaced consciousness' (p. 133). Critical Theorist Walter Benjamin opines that 'discretion concerning one's own existence, once an aristocratic virtue, has become more and more an affair of petit-bourgeois parvenus' (p. 174).

Jurgen Habermas writes about the public sphere in which he traces the link between the newspaper and public opinion (p. 140). In the last chapter Jurgen Habermas writes that 'In the past decade or two, conflicts have developed in advanced Western societies that deviate in various ways from the welfare-state pattern of institutionalized conflict over distribution. They no longer flare up in domains of material reproduction; they are no longer channeled through parties and associations; and they can no longer be allayed by compensations. Rather, these new conflicts arise in domains of cultural reproduction, social integration, and socialization; they are carried out in substitutional - or at least extra parliamentary- forms of protest; and the underlying deficits reflect a reification of communicatively structured domains of action that will not respond to the media of money and power' (p. 305). 

Habermas mentions about the 'old politics' and the new politics. New politics find strong support among new middle classes, among the younger generation, and in groups with more formal education (p. 305). The old politics has strong support base among employers, workers, and the middle-class tradesmen.

In this book there is discussion on the differences between between Horkheimer and Marcuse, Adorno's views on Jazz- which he considers "utterly impoverished" (p. 14), Marcuse's marginal groups theory, points in favor of state capitalism, scarcity economy, French Enlightenment, Adorno on Lyric poetry and society, Adorno's view on Jazz in Europe, Erich Fromm's critique of Marcuse, Marcuse's critique of Marx and Marcuse's mention of the surplus consciousness.

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