ALB
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I thought you were worried, and rightly, about the effect on people’s mental health of alarmist talk of an impending nuclear war between Russia and America. As you pointed out earlier, Al Jazeera takes a more balanced approach. President Zeletsky of Ukraine seems to too.
The one in Canada seems to be a genuine working-class protest (even if hi-jacked by dubious elements) against unnecessary measures that would deprive them of earning a living, just like the ones elsewhere by health service workers — unnecessary as even if you’ve been vaccinated three times you can still get and spread the disease. Don’t know about the copy cat ones though, they seem more ideologically motivated.
The Labour Party has always been intellectually bankrupt. I am sure some capitalist donor will step in to stop them going financially bankrupt. An effective alternative government is useful for capitalism as it stops one set of politicians being in power too long and getting sticky fingers. And as a bonus maybe they will get a knighthood or lordship when the next Labour government of capitalism comes in.
I don’t think that means she “contributed” to the ideas expressed in the Communist Manifesto. It just means she was his secretary. Darwin too had his family help out with his writing but that didn’t mean they contributed to his ideas:
“Members of his family acted as his amanuenses, read to him, helped with experiments, and read drafts of his work; from time to time he employed someone to make fair copies of his manuscripts.”
Marx did the same with his wife and daughters.
Thanks,Alan, for the CWO link. I see they still stick to their view that there is a cycle of accumulation, over accumulation, war to destroy the “excess” capital, then reconstruction, accumulation, etc. Most of the article is explaining why a global war hasn’t broken out in the last 50 years when it should have happened, on their theory, not long after the post-war boom came to an end in 1973.
Anyway, it ends with this expectation:
“It cannot be predicted when this will lead to a more generalised conflict, although Admiral Davidson, the outgoing head of US command for the Indo-Pacific, openly declared that it would be within “the next six years” (as he, of course, called for an increase in the military budget).The system is inexorably taking us down that more than dangerous road. The actual flashpoint might not be either Ukraine or Taiwan, but in these uncertain times nothing can be ruled out. This is a struggle for mastery over the planet, and it will not go away. As our Italian comrades concluded in a recent article on Taiwan:
‘It is obvious that capitalism is preparing a new conflict of global significance and is not afraid of pushing the planet to the brink, not only on the environmental level, but now openly also on the economic and social level. Even if sometimes unconsciously, capitalism pursues the idea which every sensible human being instinctively hates and rejects: the idea of destruction, as its salvation, its resurrection. By devaluing capital and obtaining the much desired “creative destruction” according to the famous Schumpeter definition, capital would then have the paved the way to restart a new cycle of accumulation as after previous wars, regardless of the effects that this “regeneration” would have on the planet and on its population.’”
This recalls the joke about the person who predicted nine of the last two world economic crises. It doesn’t work in this instance because the CWO haven’t even been right on two occasions since there hasn’t been a world war. The fact is that there doesn’t necessarily need to be one as the economic theory on which it is based is wrong.
The question of whether or not another world war is inevitable came up at a meeting three years ago on “No War but the Class War” between the ACG and the CWO which we attended as observers.
Here is an account of the discussion:
“On war, the CWO has the position that another world war is inevitable in order to devalue capital by destroying it so that capital accumulation can continue, something they predicted in the 1970s and are still expecting. The ACG and us argued that, while capitalism was the cause of wars due to its built-in competition over markets, source of raw materials, investment outlets and trade routes, a world war was neither necessary nor inevitable (in fact not really likely); but rather that war would continue to take the form of scattered proxy wars, in which the “Great Powers” (and some lesser ones) use locals in disputed areas as cannon fodder to further their interests, and probably become more frequent. Despite this divergence, everyone agreed that workers should not take side in wars.”
Does anyone know if the CWO is saying that this is it?
Is a war from the Baltic to the Black Sea impossible?
Lots of things are “possible”. For instance, it is not logically impossible that Russia hands back Crimea to the Ukraine. A more meaningful question is what is likely or probable.
If Russia attacked a NATO country that is what would happen but the likelihood of Russia doing that is as near to zero as you can get.
Biden reiterated that under no circumstances would he send US troops to Ukraine, even to rescue Americans in case of a Russian invasion. “That’s a world war. When Americans and Russians start shooting one another, we’re in a very different world,” he said.
I interpret that to mean that, in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US would not react militarily and that Biden and his generals want to avoid a conventional war with Russia let alone a nuclear one.
So, once again, though a nuclear war is not logically impossible, the likelihood of one happening is virtually zero.
The most likely outcome is a diplomatic solution. So, if we want to speculate, we should speculate on what that might be.
Unlike the ICC and the CWO we are not committed to the view that there must be another, inevitably nuclear, world war. There is nothing in the nature of capitalism that says there has to be. That capitalism breeds local wars (often by proxies of the “great powers”) and obliges states to arm themselves with the most destructive weapons they can afford (so as to avoid going into the conference chamber naked) is sufficient condemnation of capitalism.
Here are the details of the meeting to be addressed by Corbyn that the Times editorial refers to.
It’s strange title for them since the only side to have threatened war is Russia, with the Western powers saying would not respond militarily to a Russian invasion. But, who knows, perhaps their message is aimed at Putin too.
A reminder that the Labour Party is right behind Boris Johnson in supporting NATO expansion into Ukraine. Today’s Times even calls Starmer a “NATO hawk” and supports him in this.
But this is what you have to do if you want to be considered fit to be the CEO of UK Capitalism plc.
Today’s Times says that the person who shouted about “what about the working man”.
“One man approaching Starmer was Eillism Coleshill, a former Tory councillor who is co-editor-in-chief of the anti-lockdown YouTube channel Resistance GB, which made a recording of the incident. Coleshill, who was suspended from the party making racist remarks, shouted at Starmer : ‘Why aren’t you standing up for our constitution? Why aren’t you standing up for Labour, for the working-class man?”
Doesn’t sound like a Corbynista, at least not a Jeremy one.
Sorry we can’t help. We are not “Marxist-Leninists”. In fact, as far as we are concerned, that’s a contradiction in terms as Marxism and Leninist are not the same. Leninist was the ideology of the ruling class in the old USSR which was state capitalist not socialist. It is still the ideology of various movements in parts of the world to establish a state capitalist regime. Marxism is quite different and stands for “the emancipation of all human beings irrespective without distinction of dec or race.”
