ALB
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Actually, the production of a diamond might well cost as much in terms of needed labour (prospecting, finding, extracting, polishing, etc) as the development of a vaccine.
As to Messi, his income is a rent and so not dependent on how much he works. He has the monopoly of a unique skill (his prowess as a soccer player) and so the price of which depends entirely on the demand for it. The more he is in demand, the higher he can charge, just as the monopolist of some natural resource (such as a Gulf Sheik) can.
Is his work more “valuable” than than that of a Nobel Prize winner? Probably not, at least not for prize-winners for physical or medical science (though it will be more than that of most of those winning a prize for economics). But that’s the way of the capitalist world where everything has a price.
In a socialist/communist society a good soccer player or a good scientists will be in the same position as everybody else — they will have free access to what they need to live and to enjoy life. That’s what “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” means in practice.
I think that Putin was trying to be funny (believe it or not). Following the coup in 2014 which overthrow the pro-Russia president, the Ukrainian government passed a “de-communisation” law which, among other things, outlawed the Communist Party and ordered the toppling of all Soviet-era statutes including those of Lenin.
Putin is saying that he is an anti-Communist too and is prepared to “decommunise” Ukraine — by undoing what the Bolsheviks did in setting up a fake Ukrainian state as member state of the so-called USSR (“Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”) and indeed of the UN. Which ought to mean that he too is all in favour of toppling of the statues of Lenin.
Putin the humourist, not a side we normally see.
Wolff is a good communicator. He is wrong about the way to stop inflation bring to simply impose a price freeze but that wasn’t his main point here.
He is right that it is the sanctions imposed by the US and Europe that is going to cause more problems than the war itself. It is going to impose pain on the population of the Middle East in terms of a rise in the price of bread. Bread riots can be expected there. It is going to impose pain on the population of Europe in terms of a rise in the price of energy to heat homes and drive cars. Whether the working class there will accept that remains to be seen.
NATO propaganda claims that it is the World v Russia. Actually most of the world — China, India, Indonesia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America — is neutral and won’t be thanking the US and its militarily dependent allies for provoking a global slowdown and a disruption of global trade.
Wolff could be right that this episode could hasten the decline of the US as the dominating world power that it has been since the end of WW1.
To return to what we were discussing the other day, here is chapter and verse from Putin blaming Lenin and “Communists” for creating Ukraine:
The reason why gold, diamonds, pearls etc are more “valuable” than more useful things like water and air is that, in an exchange (trading, buying and selling) economy such capitalism is, the “value” of anything is determined by how much work has on average to be put in to produce it. And more work has to be put into first finding gold and diamonds and then extracting them than has to be put into finding and extracting water. Air has no “value” because no work is needed to find it.
In a socialist/communist society where things will be produced to be used rather than to be sold this contradiction between use-value (usefulness) and “value” (exchange-value, price) won’t exist, if only because nothing will have an exchange-value as nothing will be produced with a view to being exchanged for something else. Everything will be being produced and distributed simply to be used.
Here’s a picture of the poor sod mentioned in that article and detained by the police for beating up and perhaps the application of the rule of “Lynch Law”. We are being asked to support one gangster regime against another:
From Wikipedia entry on Kreminna:
“In March 2022, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the pro-Russian mayor Volodymyr Struk who welcomed the Russian move, was found shot dead in the street after having been kidnapped from his home.
Official advisor and a former deputy minister at the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs Anton Herashchenko said that Struk was judged under the Lynch Law. Herashchenko suggested that the mayor was murdered by “unknown patriots” as the Russian forces were 15 kilometers away from Kreminna.”
I wonder how many other opponents of the current Ukrainian government have been judged under “the Lynch Law”. Is this what they mean by the “rule of law”?
By today’s legalistic standards Trotsky would be Ukrainian as would Martov, Brezhnev and Khrushchev. Or would they? Which goes to show how stupid nationalism and “national identity” are.
More about Lenin statutes in Ukraine here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-53500436.amp
The ironic thing is that, as Putin himself has pointed out, it was Lenin who created Ukraine by making it a separate administrative unit of Bolshevik Russia:
https://huri.harvard.edu/news/serhii-plokhii-casus-belli-did-lenin-create-modern-ukraine
That was part of my point. They have better — or, rather, worse — things to do.
There are also nostalgics in Russia for the pre-Bolshevik, Tsarist regime, including, apparently, Putin.
Fair enough. Ok there will be nostalgics in the Russian army for the old USSR. But I still don’t believe that they restored that statute of Lenin or even that it was restored at all. The Ukrainian side also has an interest in cultivating the idea that the Russian government wants to recreate the USSR.
This looks like another piece of fake news. Why would Russian troops bother to restore a statute of Lenin? Don’t those behind this know that “communism” (state capitalism) ended in Russia 30 years ago?
We have discovered a hustings to which we have not been invited:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lambeth-community-hustings-tickets-307494082077
The claim that is only for “major parties” is refuted by fact that the Women’s Equality Party which, like us, is only contesting one ward (as it happens, one bordering on ours), has been invited and given a link to their website.
We don’t suppose many, if any, will attend their online event but it’s a question of principle. So we wrote asking for an invitation, to which we got the following reply:
“Thanks for getting in touch. As we already have five confirmed candidates taking part we will need to put Danny on a holding list for the panel. Lambeth Labour are still to reply; we need to hold a spot for them in case they do want to take part, and any more than six on the panel will be unworkable.
Leave it with us and we’ll come back to you if a space opens up.
Thank you
Ben”Naturally, this is unacceptable and we have replied insisting on being invited.
We shall certainly be leafletting their day of action of Saturday 23rd even though it coincides with Conference (but Windrush Square isnt all that far from Clapham High Street).
That article, in view of other reports, is not unbelievable. One criticism of it would be that it describes the pro-Russian politicians and parties as “leftwing” whereas they are Russian nationalists.
As in all wars, atrocities are being committed by both sides but we are being asked to back one of them. What is particularly hypocritical is that the side we are told that we should back is claimed to be fighting for democracy, the rule of law and all that. But they are just Ukrainian nationalists out to defend the existence and territorial integrity of the Ukrainian capitalist state.
Meanwhile, that we are standing in Tunbridge Wells gets a mention in the local media:
