ALB
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Hume’s writings on philosophy are compulsory reading by all students of politics and philosophy in all English-speaking countries. I didn’t find him an easier read as he tends to ramble.
If you want to read anything of him his chapter arguing against the possibility of miracles is a classic.
Yes that was a good find and a good article. By coincidence there will be a review of Caffentzis’s companion book on John Locke in next month’s Socialist Standard. Here is an essay on it by Harry Cleaver. It is not as good as Linebaugh’s nor as well- written, but at the end he says that post-capitalist society has to escape from money and that this idea is gaining ground amongst revolutionaries. Hope so.
I wouldn’t describe those capitalist corporations who are concerned about climate change as “less anti social”. They are just as profit-oriented as any other capitalist enterprise.
They are concerned about their future profits and taxes on them (they reckon that it is better for them to pay less tax now to deal with the problem instead of waiting for it to get worse and have to pay more); some are looking to make a profit out of other sources of energy or new technologies.
It is not a question of rationality but of calculated self-interest.
What will happen will depend on how successful the fossil fuel lobby is, but most governments are not listening to them any more. Some are such as Australia, as did the US under Trump.
I don’t think we can get away with saying or implying that all governments are in the pocket of the fossil fuel lobby.
Haven’t you heard? Hume has been cancelled and the name of that building changed because he supported and had some investment in chattel slavery?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-54138247”It is corporate accountants who have the ear of governments.”
But which corporations, as not all corporations have the same interest? The capitalist class is not a monolith with the same immediate commercial interests.
A government is the executive committee of a ruling class and its remit is to look after the general and long-term interests of a ruling capitalist class as a whole.
True, some one section of the capitalist class can come to control a government and use this to further their own sectional interests. And all capitalist corporations lobby governments to take measures that favour their sectional interest.
But it is equally true that a government can sacrifice the interest of a section of the capitalist class in the general interest of the capitalist class as a whole.
This seems to happening in many countries over measures to deal with global warming with the interests of the fossil fuel capitalists being sacrificed to deal with a problem which, if it gets out of hand, will cost the capitalist class as a whole more. In these countries the accountants of the fossil fuel corporations do not have the ear of the government.
But not in all countries. In some, those with cheap supplies of oil or coal within their frontiers, which gives them a competitive advantage, the overall interest of the capitalist class there is not to sacrifice this section of their class.
It is such differences between the interests of different national capitalist classes that is making it difficult for a co-ordinated global approach to climate change to be implemented.
I would have thought, Alan, that that’s a rather a daring claim: That the IPCC report isn’t giving an accurate or balanced picture of the situation and the prospects.
We as lay people are not in any position to take sides in disagreements amongst scientists, so it’s probably best that to go along with what most scientists in the field feel they can agree on, as reflected in the IPCC report.
The report sets out five scenarios.
In the worst case (that nothing is done to change the current trend) the “best estimate” is that by 2100 average global temperature rise to 4.4 degrees about the pre-industrial level (since 1850), which, since it has already risen by about 1 degree since then is a rise of 3.4 from now. On this scenario the best estimate of the situation in that an increase to 2 degrees and more would take place in the years 2041 to 2060.
In the best case scenario, the best estimate for 2010 is an increase to 1.4, reaching to 1.6 in 2041 to 2060 and then falling.
The same figures for middle scenario are 2.7 degrees in 2100 and 2.0 in 2041-2060.This in fact corresponds more or less to what would happen if all current commitments by governments were carried out.
What will actually happen will depend on what industry and government do from now on. Since they will do something the worse case scenario can be ruled out. Given conflicting commercial interests between capitalist states, which will lead those who benefit from using indigenous coal and oil to drag their feet, the best case scenario can be ruled out too. In fact it could only be implemented if we already had socialism or if socialism were to be established tomorrow.
So we are talking about something in between. If capitalist states do implement what they have already said they will, then it will be an increase to 2.7 by 2100. If they don’t, then it will be more. If they implement more than that then it will be less but unlikely to be less than 1.5 (the target under the Paris Agreement) by 2100. Anyway, that would be my guess.
We’ll see. Well, nobody here will, though some around today will have a better idea in 2050 how things are going. But I doubt whether it will be towards the collapse of civilisation or the extinction of the human species.
”The essential radical change in an economic system whose perverse operation of accumulation and reproduction of capital in perpetuity has brought us to the current critical point is not clearly mentioned.”
That is a good quote, a very good one in fact, but it’s not from the scientists themselves but from the Spanish publication, CTXT, that published their leaked report and seems to be a comment on it.
Perhaps Marcos can have a look at what they say about themselves:
Yes, as the old Music Hall song put it:
It’s the same the whole world over,
It’s the poor wot gets the blame,
It’s the rich wot gets the gravy.
Ain’t it all a bleedin’ shame?Yes, it is and the poor should do something about it instead of just complaining.
I suppose that in the context of this thread the opening lines are also relevant:
She was poor but she was honest
Victim of a rich man’s game.
First he loved her, then he left her,
And she lost her maiden name…This summary I found on the internet puts it well:
At the core of Marxist political economy is the idea that capitalism is highly dynamic and inevitably expansionary through accumulation. Exclaiming, “Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets,” Marx (1967), in Volume One of Capital, defined the most important driving force and the inner law of motion of the capitalist mode of production. What makes capitalism tick is not only that capitalists make a profit by exploiting workers, but that they reinvest part of the profit in further production. Capitalists are forced to act in that way as a result of competition. The rule that governs the behavior of all capitalists is, then, “accumulation for accumulation sakes, production for production sakes” (Marx 1967: 595). The inner logic of capitalism is thus not only to “work for profit,” but also to “work for capital accumulation.”
“Just occasionally conspiracy theories are true.”
Precisely. That’s my point. Most of the time they are not. So we need to be sceptical about them.
In any event, scandals involving the ruling class are of no interest to socialists. Even if they were all saints they would still be exploiters and privileged parasites.
It is a bit disturbing that there seem to be members that fall for these conspiracy theories. I remember — I think it was about ten years ago — when allegations emerged about a sex ring involving Edward Heath, Leon Britain, Harvey Proctor, the head of the army and others, that there were some members who believed this. Luckily, we didn’t fall for this in the Standard. The allegations were later found to be groundless and the man who spread them is now in prison.
Yes, they are “servile servants to the system”. As Marx put it is section 3 of chapter 24 of Volume 1 of Capital:
“Except as personified capital, the capitalist has no historical value (…) But, so far as he is personified capital, it is not values in use and the enjoyment of them, but exchange-value and its augmentation, that spur him into action.(…) Fanatically bent on making value expand itself, he ruthlessly forces the human race to produce for production’s sake (…) Only as personified capital is the capitalist respectable. As such, he shares with the miser the passion for wealth as wealth. But that which in the miser is a mere idiosyncrasy, is, in the capitalist, the effect of the social mechanism, of which he is but one of the wheels. Moreover, the development of capitalist production makes it constantly necessary to keep increasing the amount of the capital laid out in a given industrial undertaking, and competition makes the immanent laws of capitalist production to be felt by each individual capitalist, as external coercive laws. It compels him to keep constantly extending his capital, in order to preserve it, but extend it he cannot, except by means of progressive accumulation.”
Prince Charles now? I don’t think we should waste any time on these conspiracy theories. There are more important things to talk about.
It’s not the CEOs either of course, but capitalism and the way it obliges those in charge of capitalist corporations to behave economically.
George Monbiot makes the same misidentification in this otherwise generally ok video.
He correctly identifies that capitalism is committed to infinite growth (infinite capital accumulation) but he doesn’t explain why.
The only reason he seems to give is the greed of the rich but this won’t do. The greed of the rich is only a reflection in their minds of the economic imperative of capital to expand, through the competitive struggle for profits leading to more innovation and investment in machines and processes to keep costs down. Hence the infinite accumulation of capital, the infinite self-expansion of value. He needs to read some more Marx.
Also to say more about the new economic system to replace capitalism he mentions at the end and how it can come about. Even on this seeming view on why capitalism means infinite growth it would have to involve the expropriation of the rich. And the useful projects he envisages can only be implemented if the Earth’s really have become humanity’s “common treasury”.
All in all, though, his video is grist for the socialist mill.
