ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
It wasn’t your bad but please start any new thread under the World Socialist Movement section as the appropriate place.
I see that the outcome of COP26 has sent Monbiot completely off the rails. Instead of moving on to becoming a socialist he has regressed to supporting XR tactics.
Here he is in yesterday’s Guardian:
“Our survival depends on raising the scale of civil disobedience until we build the greatest mass movement in history, mobilising the 25% who can flip the system.”
Granted, he doesn’t agree with XR that 3.5% is enough to flip the system but it’s the same idea of a movement to bring pressure on governments to do more to combat global overwarming, especially as he is not saying what he thinks the system should be “flipped” into.
It will of course take the “greatest mass movement in history” to create the framework within which the problem of global warming (and many other problems) can be effectively and lastingly tackled — the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth’s productive resources.
But that needs to be a conscious movement for that, not a movement to bring pressure to bear on “world leaders” to try to get them to do something that the capitalist economic system won’t allow them to do.
Or maybe he is thinking like a Trotskyist — that you mobilise people to demand something that is impossible under capitalism, banking on them turning against capitalism when the demand is not granted?
Anyway, he is all over the place.
In Britain they are called ”Chelsea tractors” after an upmarket area of London where there is no need to have a four wheel drive vehicle costing tens of thousands of £s. In fact there is no need to have them in any part of London.
No capitalist state is going to allow unrestricted immigration. What a world we are living in where the action of some capitalist states effects or tries to effect regime change by direct intervention or sanctions and then has to deal with wave of economic migrants their actions have caused.
Despite the rain (Glasgow is definitely not the place to go for a vacation) they did manage to distribute half of the 3000 leaflets they had.
It wouldn’t have to go that far. You have already drawn attention to attacks on what the Americans call SUVs. I imagine attacks on butchers’ shops, car sales rooms, fossil fuelled power stations, airports. All of which have been tried.
Actually, given capitalism and the division of the world into competing capitalist states with different economic interests, it’s surprising that there was any agreement.
If the rulers of Indian capitalism didn’t want to commit, for vital economic reasons, to “phasing out” their coal industry there’s nothing the rest of the world can do about it. After all, India is a nuclear power.
I don’t think our position should be that nothing was achieved in Glasgow but that it was the most than can be achieved under capitalism, and that the only framework within which the problem of global overwarming and climate change can be rationally dealt with is on the basis of world socialism. As then there will be no economic incentives and vested interests holding up what needs to be done.
It’s time climate activists faced up to the fact that this is the best capitalism can do and stopped trying to pressurise “world leaders” into doing what is required which is something they just cannot do. If the activists continue this strategy they will be diverting time and energy from working to establish the only framework in which the problem can be solved and so postponing its solution.
I suspect, however, that if they do change their strategy it will be to pressurise individuals to change their lifestyle. Equally futile and counter-productive.
I have just got round to reading this and there is something wrong with Ian Wright’s argument as he ends up by saying that, at some point in future, machines that produce surplus value could exist.
I think that’s what wrong is that he thinks that “value” is a thing that exists in any society, not just capitalism. He is a sort of “market socialist” in that he envisages a post-capitalist economy made up of workers cooperatives producing for sale. He knows us and our position but doesn’t think that it would work. But he always has something stimulating to say.
As to the answer to his analysis, I think it will be along the lines of that capitalists pay for the machines but that the work they do is a natural force (like that of animals) that costs them nothing and so doesn’t produce value or surplus value.
If the government does go in for more nuclear power you can bet that the greenies will be demonstrating against it. They probably still have their anti- nuclear banners stored somewhere in their attic. They also demonstrate against big projects like tidal barrages and dams for hydro-electricity.
It’s as if they don’t realise to what extent modern production and living are dependent on a regular and dependable supply of electricity.
Apart from the title — “Permission to Say ‘capitalism’” — that article is rather pretentious. It reads like one of those that academics have to write to fill their quota of so many ‘research’ papers a year. I doubt if it made any useful contribution to research to develop Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR) technologies.
I quite liked this passage aimed at the extinction-mongers in a trot leaflet handed out at the 6 November climate marches in Oxford and Manchester:
“The world isn’t ending.
We are facing an ongoing struggle, not a single apocalypse. There may be tipping points and disasters in climate breakdown, but there is no end point on the horizon after which nobody will be left to suffer, or to fight.”Pity that the fight they envisage is not for socialism but only against the effects of capitalism. But, then, they are only trots after all. In this case RS21, a breakaway from the SWP.
Here is a summary of the IPCC’s 5 possible “pathways” to 2100:
“1. SSP1 – 1.9 Sustainability
Warming levels reach 1.50C above 1850-1900 levels in 2100 after a slight overshoot. Net zero CO2 emissions are achieved by 2050.2. SSP1- 2.6 Middle of the Road
Warming stays below 2C by 2100
Net zero CO2 emissions achieved in second half of century.3. SSP2 – 4.5 Regional Rivalry
Emission reductions approximately in line with upper end of the combined Paris Agreement pledges. Estimated warming of 2.7oC by 2100.4. SSP3- 7.0 Inequality
No additional climate policy is enacted
Particularly high non-CO2 emissions released including aerosols.5. SSP5 – 8.5 Fossil-fulled development
No additional climate policy is enacted
Economy is still fossil-fulled.”(Source)
The worst case scenario (5) is not going to happen. In fact isn’t happening. At the time of the report scenario 3 seemed the most likely. With the additional pledges at Glasgow it seems that the move is towards scenario 2 rather than scenario 4 (the second worst). My guess is that net zero carbon will be achieved before the end of the century but not in time not to overshoot 2 degrees by 2100. That will cause problems, big problems, but not the collapse of civilisation or of capitalism
So, not enough to be too alarmed and catch “eco-anxiety”.
Ok, the rise since 1850 in average global temperature is not going to be limited to 1.5 degrees (to a further 0.4 degrees) by the end of the century. But a rise by 2.4 degrees would mean neither the end of the human race nor the end of civilisation. The real tragedy is that people can conceive of the end of these but not of the end of capitalism.
Two South West regional branch comrades were at the Bournemouth seafront demo on Saturday where there was about 100 people at its height and distributed a good few hundred leaflets to demonstrators and passers-by. The remaining leaflets will be distributed door to door in Portsmouth and Poole.
If you have the patience the 20 minute live report will give some idea of the sort of people on these marches and their views. Note the two people interviewed carrying SWP placards saying “System Change not Climate Change” who had nothing to do with them but were from some environment charities.
