Their "rule of law" must be broken and ours must replace it

We can out a stop to this

A few thoughts about the "Rule of Law" that the capitlaist class always talks about.

Mikhail Khodorovsky is a martyr as far as the global capitalist class are concerned.  He is serving his second prison sentence in Russia for money laundering and tax evasion.  He has also been accused of embezzling oil from Yukos, the Russian energy company he founded.

In an interview with Business Week Khodorovsky warns global investors about investing in Russia.  The country is "bogged down by corruption" he says. Western governments have condemned his treatment arguing for more judicial independence.    Khodorvsky's Yukos was declared bankrupt and dismantled by the state prior to which,  the 47 year old was once worth $15 billion according to reports, 16th in Forbes list of worlds richest human beings.  Russia's president Dmitry Mevedev is a former corporate lawyer who Khodorovsky says might be able to institute the reforms that would make Russia a "lawful and democratic" country in five years.  But Russians must have "100% guarantees for private property and an effective, law-based state" he says.

We might wonder how a Russian capitalist can accumulate $15 billion in such a short time but Khodorvsky, like most of them, used his position as a top functionary in the misnamed Russian Communist Party.  Prior to the collapse of Stalinism he was a major figure in the Komsomol the Communist Party's youth section. So prior to becoming a exploiter of workers in the new "free" and "capitalist" Russia, he was one of the thugs scrambling up the party ladder in the former Soviet state.  What Gorbachev did was facilitate the handing over of state property and wealth to KGB murderers, Communist Party hacks and other apparatchiks like Khodorovsky, after all, they were in the right position and the rightful inheritors of the nation's wealth.  The folks that lived of the Russian masses in the former totalitarian system are now the new capitalist class. Corruption is now legal.

The capitalist class use this term "rule of law"  or "law based" that Khodorovsky refers to,  all the time. What they mean is a set of laws that protect capitalist property rights and by private property they mean the means of production not your house or shelter which under their rule of law can be taken any time they see fit.  What Khodorovsky is referring to is the absence of laws that forbid a state from interfering in his oil company. The same laws that make it illegal to take over factories or the productive forces anywhere without compensation and their permission----- any laws that interfere with market forces.

The land pimp's dream

The law of the land in feudal society was that the king was the king by divine right.  But history proves that laws are written and set in to place by the ruling classes to defend their interests.

We live in an economic system where the market rules. Here in California conservationists have just been given a small victory by market forces. The Solano land trust has just paid $3.5 million for 330 acres of beautiful land; its name speaks for itself-----Green Valley.  My local paper describes it as an area with "sloping rocky mesas and sweeping panoramas so intoxicating that developers have sought for decades to plop homes on the silky golden fields and bluffs." The area is home to bald eagles, an extinct volcanoe and other natural including remnants of ancient Indian settlements. The developers see bald eagles if they last, as a means to capital accumulation.

The 330 acres is a down payment on 1500 acres in all, former  Indian hunting grounds and an important home to some of the San Francisco Bay Area's most "sensitive" habitat. The conservationists now have until February next year to come up with another $10.5 million to purchase the rest.

The developer is a group called White Wing Highlands Associates, an entity I would normally refer to as "land pimps".  White Wing wanted to build 370 of their horribly designed homes on this land something the county supervisors unfortunately agreed to.   Conservationists including the Sierra club filed a lawsuit and the suit was settled after they agreed to buy the land.

The collapse of the housing market and subsequent crisis caused the value of the land to drop from its previous value of $125 million which is what opened this door of opportunity.  Part of the deal was that the developer could still build half the 330 homes if the conservationists can't come up with the money, another $10 million.

But who or what is White Wing Highlands Associates?  I have just spent half hour trying to find out and was not successful and didn't want to take more time.  The closest I came was a White Wing Associates that were a front for Enron. I have no idea if they are connected.   White Wing, whoever or whatever it is, is also a staunch supporter of the rule of law---that set of laws that allows them to blackmail communities and destroy the natural world in their rapacious thirst for profits.   The market has forced their hand in this situation and they'll move on to more lucrative ventures.

But they have no right to that land.  How did they get it?  They have no right to build homes on it or build homes at all in my opinion as I don't accept that the construction of homes, or human shelter, and our communities should be determined by market forces and entities like a group of investors whose sole purpose is profit and the accumulation of more capital.  The right people have won in this case due to market forces.  They've won in the sense that they might be able to save this land from the land pimp's clutches if they can come up with the money. 

We reject the right of the corporation to own this land and determine how it is used.  And if that is the case then our alternative is to take this land in to public ownership without compensation with an exception.  If the corporation has shareholders and there are some workers whose retirement or savings, in other words, their means of subsistence is invested in these shares then they should be compensated. The land speculators, professional investors and other wasters lose out.

This is our rule of law.