ALB
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They show that it is possible to provide everybody on the planet (and more) with a “decent-living standard” (DLS) without overburdening the world ecosystem.
They define a decent standard of living as:
“Recent empirical studies have established the minimum set of specific goods and services that are necessary for people to achieve decent-living standards (DLS), including nutritious food, modern housing, healthcare, education, electricity, clean-cooking stoves, sanitation systems, clothing, washing machines, refrigeration, heating/cooling, computers, mobile phones, internet, transit, etc.”
And provide the evidence that everybody could be provided with all of these.
They realise that this can’t be achieved within capitalism as the economic laws of capitalism enforce giving priority to accumulation out of profits rather than to meeting people’s needs. But they seem to think that what they propose can be introduced gradually by government action within the shell of the system.
What they propose — essentially production geared to meeting people’s needs — could in fact only be implemented on the basis and within the framework of the common ownership and democratic control of the world’s natural and industrial resources.
That basis must be established first; otherwise any attempt to implement it would provoke an economic crisis as it would be interfering with the normal functioning of the economic laws of capitalism.
Here is the original YouGov poll that UnHerd commenting on:
More food for thought, from what YouGov say:
“Among Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters, environmentalism (74-83%) and feminism (68-80%) are the overall most favourably viewed ideologies. Additionally, over six in ten Labour and Green voters (62-63%), as well as half of Lib Dems (49%), see socialism positively, while 64% of Lib Dems, 56% of Labour voters and 47% of Green voters are favourable towards liberalism.
(. . .)
Most likely to be approving of far-left ideologies are Green voters, with three in ten (31%) having a positive opinion of communism and a quarter (25%) looking at anarchism favourably. While one in seven Labour voters (14%) also have a positive view of communism, this is less than the 23% with such an opinion of capitalism.”That could prove to be counter-productive from their own point of view. Being taught about “communism” may lead some to go further and seek out what the word originally meant and so to realise that the so-called “communist” countries aren’t communist. Actually, as Lew points out here, they don’t even claim to be.
This one needs be recorded as a most egregious (as they say in America) example of political opportunism and cynicism in recent decades.
For years the top leaders of the Labour Party — Starmer himself, Rayner, Reeves, Kendall (the minister now in charge of pensions) — all gave the impression that, if elected, they would do something to compensate women who said they weren’t properly informed of exactly when the pension age for women was going to be raised (in the name of sex equality) to be same as that for men. The press have dug up many photos and statements by them to prove this.
This will have helped Labour garner a few more votes. But, once in power, what do they do? They refuse to do anything about it on the grounds that the women’s case wasn’t valid and anyway would cost to much.
Whether the women’s case is valid is irrelevant. What is relevant that Labour said they would support it. And this turned out to be either a lie or a vote-catching ploy.
It is conceivable some Labour candidates, now MPs, sincerely believed what they promised. The test of their sincerity will be if there ever comes to be a vote on the matter in the House of Commons.
In any event, the Labour Party’s image is now more tarnished than ever. And truth confirmed of the folk saying “Labour Tory, sane old story”.
https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/new-crisis-hotline-for-ceos
Of course shooting them does no good even if it is good that they are afraid. It’s the system that has to go not the people who run it, even if they do enjoy screwing the workers.
I don’t think this is what the war there is primarily about but here is a list of the key mineral resources in Ukraine from an official Russian state news site:
https://sputnikglobe.com/20241216/what-are-ukraines-top-10-minerals-1121192641.html
Harris made exactly the same pie-crust promise to bring down the price of groceries. The only difference is that she’s not going to get a chance to fail to honour it (in fact she’ll probably never be heard of again).
Three hundred years after its appearance Christianity was the recognized state religion in the Roman World Empire, and in barely sixty years socialism has won itself a position which makes its victory absolutely certain.
As this was written in 1894 if it takes socialism as much time to triumph as Christianity that means we are talking about 2134 — another 110 years.
Actually that socialism will have been established by then doesn’t seem an unreasonable assumption. Personally I would agree that this is an absolute certainty on the grounds that sooner or later people will realise that, as a matter of fact (not opinion) the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth’s resources, natural and industrial, is the only framework within which the problems currently facing humanity can be effectively tackled.
Israel’s war in Syria continues:
“Israel’s military says it carried out 480 attacks on Syria in the past 48 hours, destroying 15 naval vessels, anti-aircraft batteries and weapons production sites in several cities.”
What they are trying to do of course is to ensure that the Syrian state, whoever controls it, is weakened.
As in inter-state relations night is right, Israel wants to weaken Syria so that it has less weight in diplomatic negotiations as well as less ability to defend itself, another Lebanon.
In any event, I have posted a reply referring people to this article from the October Socialist Standard which, incidentally, has been translated into Spanish and Italian:
Meanwhile in the north of Syria Turkey, through its proxy gangsters called the “Syrian National Army”, is taking advantage of the situation to implement its agenda of ethnic cleansing Kurds from the western side of the Euphrates:
“The SNA’s main focus of attack then turned to Manbij, which they have just captured after fierce resistance. Since the Kurds liberated the city from ISIS, they worked hard to bring together its different ethnic groups and to incorporate them into their system of local administration. Manbij is home to around 30,000 Kurds, but is not a Kurdish city. It was an important example of the peaceful coexistence that all who care about the future of Syria’s people want to see, and was run by, and defended by, the people of different ethnicities that make up its population. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights report that SNA factions executed dozens of wounded soldiers in a military hospital north of Manbij city after blocking their evacuation, and that they have carried out identity-based killings of Kurds as well as looting and burning Kurdish property. SNA fighters have shared videos of themselves murdering men in the hospital and capturing Manbij women. The future looks grim. The SNA on the ground were supported by Turkish planes and drones.”
So now Israel is waging war against Syria as well, taking advantage of the power vacuum there to destroy the Syrian state’s armed force.
Those who argue that the establishment of a “Jewish colony” and eventually a “Jewish state” in the former Ottoman province of Palestine was a historic mistake are being vindicated. In fact the whole Zionist project was misconceived and its implementation has proved to be a disaster both for the region, and for Jews everywhere by fuelling and feeding anti-semitism.
Some argue that Israel is just another capitalist state like any other and shouldn’t be singled out for special criticism. A case for this can be made out but this does not refute the argument that it should never have been established and that, financed and armed by the USA for its own capitalist economic and strategic reasons, it has proved to be a cancer in the region.
