ALB
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“Only two individuals left.”
Not surprising since they didn’t believe in sex. In fact it’s a wonder where the two came from. Not for most people then.
Apparently the gorillas in the Congo are worried about getting it just like they got Ebola:
Good point. This article also explains why it was not mentioned in the Socialist Standard — news about it was censored:
https://www.history.com/.amp/news/why-was-it-called-the-spanish-flu
Although the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918-19 killed millions (including the Party’s first general secretary Con Lehane, by then an ex-member, in New York in 1919), there seems to have been no mention of it in the Socialist Standard of the time,
All I have come across is this passing reference a few years later in the April 1922 issue:
”During the last ten years probably a hundred millions of people have died as a result of war, famine, and pestilence (influenza).”
Another perverse effect the pandemic and necessary social distancing is having under capitalism — they’ve started pouring milk down the drain again as they always do when production exceeds paying demand.
Of course this time it’s because paying demand has suddenly fallen rather than through overproduction but the reason given is still the same— to protect the price (something that wouldn’t be necessary had this pandemic happened in socialism — other uses could be found for the temporary excess supply).
“Removing the excess distressed milk from the marketplace will help to stabilise the current spot price without causing long-term market distortion.“
Sent from my iPhoneIn the 1920s the comrades weren’t too keen on saying that our aim was Anarchy or on describing themselves as Anarchists !
The links below shows that conspiracy theories are not just wrong or something to laugh at but can have dangerous consequences. Anti-5G conspiracists have obtained considerable publicity by saying that 5G has made the current Coronavirus epidemic worse. Fortunately this seems to have backfired with scientists coming forward not only to reject this but that 5G is harmful.
https://fullfact.org/online/5g-and-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-came/
It is just unfortunate for humanity that this pandemic, something like which was predicted to happen at some time, should have occurred while we still have capitalism.
This means that stopping people going to work so they self isolate means depriving them of their source of income needed in a buying and selling society to acquire what they need to live ie their wages.
Under capitalism the government has to step in to ensure that their labour power is maintained for capitalist enterprises to exploit when capital accumulation resumes but it doesn’t cover everybody and in Britain involves a cut in living standards of those affected by at least 20 percent.
If this pandemic had occurred once we had established socialism we would still have to self isolate, but this would not deprive or reduce people’s access to what they needed to live as everybody would have continued access to what they needed by virtue of being members of society.
I have been spending part of my time on home detention scanning the Socialist Standards of the 1920s. Most writers called our aim Socialism. Others used Socialist Commonwealth. There was also Socialist Cooperative Commonwealth and one Socialist Republic. Communism with a small c was also used in some contexts.
But in 1920 the word Socialism had yet to be sullied by its association with the Russian state capitalist dictatorship and failed Labour governments.
This is good on the perverse effects of this pandemic having happened under capitalism where things are produced for profit and most people’s income depends on working for wages:
I’d say took us on the road that will eventually lead us to socialism.
But what do you mean by “manipulation and exploitation”? If you mean killing and eating then this would have started a lot longer before then; even before Homo sapiens evolved. In fact our species wouldn’t even have evolved biologically let alone socially if our preceding species of Homo hadn’t eaten animals.
Eating animals has nothing to do with class society, You could even saying that it is part of biological human nature as it is of other omnivores. Cruelty to animals is a different matter and could well be linked to class society. Certainly there will be no reason for it in the classless society that socialism will be.
“the manipulation and oppression of our own human race originate in the manipulation and exploitation of other animals.”
I would have thought it’s more the other way round, isn’t it?
Apparently when he was younger he was associated with some Trotskyists even if he might not have known that they were:
I am not arguing that the pandemic has nothing to do with capitalism and the factory farming method of production it has adopted as cheaper and more profitable. I am sure a good case for this can be made out.
My point is that this is something outside the system’s internal workings which result in the boom/slump cycle — the pursuit of profits leading to overproduction in a key sector and the consequent cutback in its production having a knock-on effect on the rest of the economy resulting in a generalised slump in production (and slump creating the conditions for an eventual resumption of production). Such slumps are caused by the internal workings of capitalism and so are “endogenous”.
A pandemic sparked off by factory farming (or whatever) is not part of the operation of the capitalist economy that leads to regularly occurring falls in production. A slump caused by this has a cause outside this and so will have been caused “exogenously”.
Saying this is not to let capitalism off the hook for causing this external factor but merely to classify a slump it causes as different from “normal” slumps resulting from the way the capitalist economic system works.
