ALB
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That’s an oxymoron, a bit like him:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Knight_(anthropologist)
Long-time Labour Party member and well-known eccentric.
To keep this monkey business on theme, in the search for a vaccine it seems scientists will be experimenting on monkeys. Ideally they should experiment on humans but this is regarded as “unethical” but J O’s point will be that it is unethical, perhaps more so, to experiment on other animals.
What makes it “unethical” to experiment on humans is not just an ethical question. It is also a legal one as humans have legal rights and if anything goes wrong the experimenter can be sued. In fact the whole testing procedure for vaccines and drugs, which requires testing on animals first, is designed precisely to lessen the risk of people suing the drug company. And so is a direct consequence of capitalism.
In socialism there would be nothing in the way of experiments directly on humans, volunteers of course.
I hold no brief for the sod but he might not be lying as memory is anything but reliable;
The same applies of course to his accuser.
Both could believe they are telling the truth but not be accurately recalling events of thirty years ago. Which means there is no way of establishing what happened.
In the first twenty or so years of the last century when industrial unionism was a big issue, the SPGB never denied that the working class, when it had become socialist, would need to organise both politically ( to gain control of the political power vested in the state ) and economically (to keep production going both during and immediately after the socialist revolution).
The difference between us and De Leon and the SLP was over three questions.
1. Which was the more important. We said political (because that’s where ultimate social control of lay). The SLP said economic (as that’s where the workers’ economic power was). We replied that working class economic power was an illusion — the employers could always starve the workers back to work especially if they had the backing of the state, and to try to “take and hold” the means of production while the capitalist class controlled the state was a recipe for disaster.
2. Who were to be the members of the socialist economic organisation. The SLP implied anybody. We said that this would mean it would include non-socialists and, in that case, how could then it be an instrument for socialism. If, on the other hand, it was to be composed only of socialists it would not have many more members than the socialist political party and so be ineffective even as an organisation to extract better wages and conditions from employers.
3. When should it be formed? The SLP said now even though only a small minority of workers were socialists. Hence the dilemma outlined above that they faced: either it would include non-socialists or it would be small and ineffective. We said that the workers would form it when large numbers of them had become socialists and that it wasn’t just idle speculation and even undemocratic for a tiny number of socialists to lay down what it should be. In the meantime socialists should join existing unions as the best way to protect wages and conditions. I think that the SLP soon abandoned its position of trying to form a revolutionary socialist union to rival the existing pure and simple unions (“dual unionism”) and in practice now adopt the same practice as us of joining existing unions. I could be wrong as maybe they don’t join any union, i.e. take up the anti-union position that we are always falsely accused of.
What are we to make of these stats?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52507770
“People living in more deprived areas have experienced Covid-19 mortality rates more than double those living in less deprived areas,” said Nick Stripe of the ONS.
“General mortality rates are normally higher in more deprived areas, but so far Covid-19 appears to be taking them higher still.””
Does it mean that, if there had been no lockdown, even more people per head from “deprived” areas would have died ? Or that it is because of the lockdown that more people per head from these areas are dying, as this is where those least protected from its economic effect live? Or simply that mortality rates are “normally” higher in these areas?
Maybe but stuff is retrievable. Also you are forgetting that the internet provides wide access to the content of the books you value. For instance there’s the Gutenberg Project:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gutenberg
This allows people to read books they would otherwise find difficult to get hold of in book form.
I am sure they will all be backed-up somewhere.
The Internet is a great invention. Of course under capitalism it’s full of crap (adverts and scams not to mention ravings of the likes of David Icke) but we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
They are just as stupid but not as cruel in the Ivory Coast:
The old Aberdeen Group of the Party produced a document on Marx’s Economic and Political Manuscripts in the early 1970s. If anyone would like an electronic version of it, email Head Office at spgb [at] worldsocialism.org
Yes, those workers are fucked whatever the governments there decided or didn’t decide. No lockdown and they risk death from the virus; lockdown and they starve — because they are living in a capitalist world where you have to have a money income to survive.
The pope recognised this, hence his call for them to be paid a universal basic income. But there’s no chance of that happening. In fact as long as there’s capitalism there’s nothing that can be done about it.
So, socialism is quite literally the only way out for them, where everybody would have access to what they needed to live and enjoy life as a matter of right, only possible on the basis of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources having become the common heritage of all.
Dave, what point are you trying to make by repeating these news reports in lengthy detail? Is it that the government should not have treated the epidemic as a public health emergency and not give priority to trying to deal with it, to do “fuck all” as you once put it, and let it run its course?
You do realise that nobody’s going to read a post of that length? Why not just summarise what is reported and provide a link for anyone to follow up if they want to check or know more?
Thanks twc. I have bookmarked Professor Doherty’s blog to follow. We may as well become amateur virologists as well as amateur epidemiologists. Then we won’t make mistakes like misunderstanding what “asymptomatic” means !
A comrade in Australia has sent this from the Sydney Morning Herald of 14 April.
Anybody know who this Professor Doherty is? He seems to know the score:
[Quote] Nobel laureate and immunologist Professor Peter Doherty said the world needed to change its funding model for vaccine development.
“There is just not enough profit margin in it for pharma companies,” he said.
“They live by profits and the rules of capitalism. And capitalism has no interest in human beings other than as consumers.”
A bit comprehensive Robin but thanks. I looked up a few to see what Naomi Klein, Paul Mason and Militant had to say.
Klein thinks that this is another case of “disaster capitalism” and that Halliburton and the others will be given contracts to reconstruct the economy. Mason’s article had the promising title of “The coronavirus crisis shows we need an entirely new economic system” but he didn’t link it with his previous interesting views on “post capitalism” and only envisaged more state control. As for Militant, they “demanded” full wages not just 80 percent for those “furloughed” but not that the TUC call a general strike to enforce this.
Obviously a lockdown in countries with a large informal economy is going to deprive people of their only source of income.
Your favourite pope has understood this but what he proposes is not going to happen:
Socialism is a more realistic proposition !
Ozy , we’re on to this sort of thing but it’s Discord not Zoom. See here:
Saturday 2 May, a full day’s events on Discord to mark Mayday Under Lockdown
If you want an invite to join the Party server there email us at the usual address of spgb at worldsocialism.org
