alanjjohnstone
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Another article on UBI proposals in the USA
Progressives embrace its ability to help redress staggering inequality and bolster the social safety net, while some libertarians like UBI’s potential to shrink government bureaucracy.
Amnesty International USA said:
“The U.S. government cannot unilaterally redefine which human rights will be respected and which will be ignored.
“The U.S. State Department’s effort to cherry-pick rights in order to deny some their human rights is a dangerous political stunt that could spark a race to the bottom by human rights-abusing governments around the world.
“The administration is seeking to create a hierarchy of rights, where it gets to decide which rights are ‘unalienable’ and which rights are what it calls in the report ‘divisive social and political controversies,’ a category which predictably includes sexual and reproductive rights and LGBTI rights.
“Human rights are not a choose-your-own-adventure in which the U.S. government gets to pick a different ending because it doesn’t like a particular set of rights. This report, made through an illegitimate process, only further shows the contempt this administration has for human rights and its desire to excise certain rights.”
https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/unalieablaerightscomissionreport/
But i think this overlooks the relevance of the new US declaration. It isn’t about an individual’s human or civil rights. Its all about a new political campaign by the right-wing to polarise public opinion. They are resorting to pander to their perceived political base – and as you say – in the US its the Christian right. I’m sure it won’t be about offering increased religious liberty to Muslims.
And of course they also seek to appeal to the libertarians – or as they should be called – the propertarians. Certainly they won’t be strengthening the trade unions so that they can extract a bit more of the surplus value stolen from them or even acknowledge that workers are the source of the fruits of labour, something even Abe Lincoln had to concede.
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
“The world is agreed that labor is the source from which human wants are mainly supplied. There is no dispute upon this point.”
“If at any time all labour should cease, and all existing provisions be equally divided among the people, at the end of a single year there could scarcely be one human being left alive—all would have perished by want of subsistence.”
“Labor is the great source from which nearly all, if not all, human comforts and necessities are drawn.”
“And I am glad to know that there is a system of labor – where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I would to God that such a system prevailed all over the world.”
“And, inasmuch as most good things are produced by labour, it follows that all such things of right belong to those whose labour has produced them. But it has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To secure to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.”
<p class=”story-body__introduction”>Millions of people around the world could be exposed to dangerous levels of heat stress – a dangerous condition which can cause organs to shut down.</p>
“We humans evolved to live in a particular range of temperatures, so it’s clear that if we continue to cause temperatures to rise worldwide, sooner or later the hottest parts of the world could start to see conditions that are simply too hot for us.” – Prof Richard Betts of the UK Met OfficeAnother study, published earlier this year, warned that heat stress could affect as many as 1.2bn people around the world by 2100, four times more than now.
Many live in developing countries, and do jobs that expose them to potentially life threatening conditions. These include being out in the open on farms and building sites or indoors in factories and hospitals. Global warming will increase the chances of summer conditions that may be “too hot for humans” to work in.
Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) measures not only heat but also humidity and other factors to give a more realistic description of the conditions.
So if anyone “steals” these research results and makes the public they would be doing humanity a favour.
Sadly, he or she may go the same way as Julian Assange.
Something else to note. That medicine patents can be by-passed under existing international law by countries if they feel it is necessary and generics used. As it undermines intellectual ownership, such a process is very rarely applied and imho will never be by such as the UK and the USA and the EU.
“…German nurses and carers would probably swap some sanctimonious public applause for improved pay and conditions. They’ve been fighting for change for years…”
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-germany-nursing-wage/a-54197056
I dare say the same feeling exists in all the other countries. Clapping doesn’t substitute for a clapped out health service and it doesn’t pay the bills.
I’m not fond of such research findings but i think there is a case that there exists a trend that developing and undeveloped nations are following in the footsteps of the developed countries, spurred on by the global advertising and media industry and the fast food corporations.
At least seven planets would be required for the world to sustain the level of food consumed by G20 countries. Only India and Indonesia maintain a diet low enough in carbon emissions to meet the Paris climate target. Argentina and the United States are among the least sustainable food consumers in the G20.
“This report clearly shows that food consumption in G20 countries is unsustainable and would require up to 7.4 Earths if adopted globally,” said Joao Campari of the World Wildlife Fund.
Rich countries are consuming more red meat and dairy than is laid out in their countries’ nutritional guidelines and much more than experts say is sustainable for the planet.
“…This report shows the food system has a long way to go in delivering diets that achieve health and wellbeing within planetary boundaries…”
The problem of wasted food is particularly important among the world’s wealthiest nations, said the report’s lead author, Brent Loken, who added that rich countries currently waste too much food.
Be careful of disinformation even when on “progressive” websites
Humans and monkeys do not speak the same language, but their ways of thinking are much more similar than previously assumed. This is confirmed by new research results from the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University and Carnegie Mellon University.
In an experiment with 100 test subjects from different age groups, cultures and species, the researchers found out that indigenous Chimane people from Bolivia, adults, preschool children from the US and macaque monkeys all have an affinity for so-called recursion which is a cognitive process that takes place in the brain when, for example, a person is arranging words, sentences or symbols that express complex commands, feelings or ideas.
https://www.dw.com/en/monkeys-and-humans-think-more-alike-than-we-knew/a-54183973
I would think that the development of a Socialist, production for use society would also result in a short term, but necessary increase in environmental damage in some areas.
I think our goal of achieving a steady-state zero-growth society takes into account that there will indeed be a first phase of raising production and output levels arising from the urgent emergency action to relieve the worst problems of food shortages, health care and housing which affect billions of people throughout the world. Then there would be follow-up stage of further infrastructure improvements and re-designing such things as cities, transport and manufacturing. Although focused on sustainable methods and processes, as you say, there will be an unavoidable initial consequence of some degree of environmental damage. But once reached, from then on, socialism would be a slowly developing society as peoples basic needs change slowly and production would fall with the disappearance of the capitalist consumerist culture.
Although no Malthusians we can look forward to the present trend of a future falling population and with the higher levels of automation and accompanying reduced work-force, we can become a society that can support the increasing longevity of its people and honour and respect our aged and elderly, our disabled and infirm (areas of our case against capitalism, we sometimes overlook.)
Shocking that no one has mentioned that there was a late SPGBer who had a brief cameo in ‘Pennies From Heaven’.
And do you intend to keep his or her identity all to yourself, Imposs and not share?
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30677-2/fulltext
Even more evidence that over-population crisis doesn’t exist. But the ageing of population is a problem.
The number of people will peak at 9.7 billion around 2064, before falling down to 8.8 billion by the end of the century.
While the numbers of over-80s will go from 141 million in 2017 to 866 million in 2100.
Animal farming and fossil fuels have driven global emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane to the highest level on record, putting the world on track for dangerously increased heat levels of 3C to 4C.
The findings, published in Earth System Science Data and Environmental Research Letters, show that more than half of the methane in the atmosphere now comes from human sources. Of this share, ranching, agriculture and landfills account for about two-thirds, while the fossil fuel industry, composed of oil, gas and coal, makes up the rest.
I’m not so sure about all that.
I feel there is a change in people’s attitudes and an increase in discontent and resistance. Yes it is misdirected but it exists and i believe it is growing.
We cannot expect class struggle to be so linear and without turns and twists. There will be set-backs but there will also be progress culminating in ideas being transformed.
He might not be everybody’s favourite but i found these observations from Wilhelm Reich in Sex-Pol to be pertinent.
“Everything that contradicts the bourgeois order, everything that contains a germ of rebellion, can be regarded as an element of class – consciousness; everything that creates or maintains a bond with the bourgeois order, that supports and reinforces it, is an impediment to class consciousness”
And:
“Against the principle of self-denial preached by political reaction, we must set the principle of happiness and abundance…Any socialist political economist can prove that sufficient wealth exists in the world to provide a happy life for all workers. But we must prove this more thoroughly, more consistently, in greater detail than we generally do”
and again in these days of riots and looting“Question: If two human beings, A and B, are starving, one of them may accept his fate, refuse to steal, and take to begging or die from hunger, while the other may take the law into his own hands in order to obtain food. A large part of the proletariat, often called the lumpenproletariat, live according to the principles of B. Which of the two types has more elements of class consciousness in him? Stealing is not yet a sign of class consciousness but a brief moment of reflection shows, despite our inner moral resistance, that the man who refuses to submit to law and steals when he is hungry, that’s to say, the man who manifests a will to live, has more energy and fight in him than the one who lies down unprotesting on the butchers slab…we have said that stealing is not yet class consciousness. A brick is not yet a house, but you use bricks to build a house.”We concede that socialist consciousness on a wide scale is not going to emerge from mere abstract propagandising or proselytising.As Marx explains:
“Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness , and for the success of the cause itself , the alteration of man on a mass scale is necessary , an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement , a revolution. The revolution is necessary , therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way , but also because the class overthrowing itcan only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew” – Feuerbach and Materialist OutlookWe accept our role as more of a study group right now because they can only learn from their own experience. We see socialist consciousness emerging from people’s experiences of capitalism coupled with hearing the case for socialism through discussion and analysis. We may not seek to “lead” our fellow workers but it doesn’t stop us giving them a “push” forward, so to speak.
