ALB
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“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.
Even so, can you advise on whether or not flu is a virus that crossed to humans from our feathered friends?
I don’t think that factory farming would qualify as an “endogenous” cause as it is not something that is inherently part of the way the capitalist economic system works.
This is how Wikipedia defines the difference (not giving a link as that just seems to bugger things up here at the moment) :
“In an economic model an exogenous variable is one whose value is determined outside the model and is imposed on the model (…) In contrast, an endogenous variable is a variable whose value is determined by the model.”
The 19th century economist Jevons’s theory that capitalist crises were caused by sun spots (because of their effect on agricultural production) would be a good example of an “exogenous” theory of capitalist crises.
Not into econometrics myself. It didn’t exist in my day.
Here is something Paddy has just put on our internal discussion forum:
Here’s an indication of the ruling class’s worst nightmare, if this news report is reliable:
Footage shows him shouting at officers, telling them the family has no money, his mother begging them to go to their home so she could show them they have no food. It’s hard to watch. It’s what desperation looks like.
He gestures to his little girl who is eating a piece of bread and says: “Like my daughter, other children in a few days won’t be able to eat this bit of bread. Rest assured, you will regret this because we’re going to have a revolution.”
Images have also emerged of police descending on supermarkets in Palermo in Sicily after reports people have started stealing to feed themselves. And groups have been set up in the last few days on social media to organise raids of supermarkets.
“Discomfort and malaise are growing and we are recording worrying reports of protest and anger that is being exploited by criminals who want to destabilise the system,” said Leoluca Orlando.
Italy is ahead of other countries in this outbreak and unrest threatens to be the next chapter in this crisis.
From https://uk.news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-italy-becoming-impatient-lockdown-social-unrest-brewing-203100320.htmlI think someone who knows what they’re talking about should explain to us exactly what “asymptomatic” means. Until I looked it up I thought it meant you hadn’t got it, but I see it means you’ve had it but didn’t show the symptoms ie you didn’t know you’d had it. Is this right? And is it a good thing or a bad thing?
I don’t think that the ruling class and their political representatives have been “struck by altruism”. In fact I don’t think they are doing what they are doing for any ideological reason.
Their representatives happen to be in charge of society’s central organ (currently taking the form of a state) at a time when there’s a threat to the whole of society. They are essentially just taking pragmatic measures to try to mitigate the consequences. Objectively these are in the interests of all the members of society, including themselves. But I don’t think we can say that have made a conscious decision to do what they are doing this just or even primarily to protect themselves. They are just doing it because they have to do something. They are navigating by sight.
Maybe, in fact probably but it won’t be an example of a crisis caused by the internal workings of the capitalist economic system as most are and as explained by Marxian economics.
It’s a rare example of a crisis provoked by something outside the system (the pandemic was not caused by the operation of the capitalist economy). What the academic economists call an “exogenous” factor as opposed to the “endogenous” one. In this case it happens to be one that would adversely affect production in socialism too.
“ i am still weighing up as the most likely such as the self-interest of the capitalist class to protect itself from a public health risk.”
I don’t think this works either though this will be a consequence of what they are doing. I know I keep harping on about this but I think that our late comrade Pieter Lawrence got it right in his novel about how capitalist governments would react to some asteroid or comet on a collision course with Earth. This would be an existential threat not just to capitalist society but to human society. As the class that happened to be in charge of society’s central administrative organ (in class society taking the form of the state) at the time their political representatives were in charge of dealing with it. In his novel they take measures pragmatically to deal with the threat. The ruling class and their political representatives are in the same position today.
Of course the threat from the current pandemic is not of the same magnitude as an asteroid collision but it is the same sort of thing. Those in charge of society’s central administrative organ are behaving pragmatically. Their main concern is to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. Of course they are operating within the context of a society with a capitalist economy and a ruling class and so protecting human society means protecting society in that form. Nevertheless they are still compelled to protect human society as such. If they refused to, they would be faced with social breakdown and revolts which could endanger their personal position as members of a ruling class. Of course social breakdown is something they want to avoid but avoiding it isn’t an unreasonable aim.
After all, socialist society could face a pandemic (and probably will at some point, also in fact from an object from Space) and would want to avoid this too. Clearly it would be in a better position to deal with one but one of the measures that would have to be taken would probably be social distancing and what that involves.
The pandemic of an infectious disease for which there is as yet no cure or antidote is real. The “threat” is that millions throughout the world will die from it.
Governments throughout the world are trying to minimise this, essentially by limiting physical contact between people so that they don’t infect each other. This has an economic effect in that, with people not going to work, production falls. This would happen anyway even if governments did nothing but in a completely uncontrolled and chaotic way; which is why doing nothing was not an option for governments.
To get people to isolate themselves governments have three ways: persuasion, legal enforcement , and paying people to.
Persuasion is the only one that will work in the end. Most people probably don’t need persuading as they understand the need to reduce social contact and will comply voluntarily. But not all. To persuade the others it does appear (as contributors have been pointing out here) that the government could be exaggerating how severe the pandemic could be and how severe the illness will be for most people who get it, so as to frighten them into complying. No doubt they calculate that the end justifies the means and maybe it does.
As the pandemic is happening under capitalism, where people have to have money to survive and for most people this involves going to work for an employer, if they are prevented from this they still need money. So compensating people for their lack of earnings has to be part of the policy of reducing social contact — in effect paying people to stay away from work and the social contact that involves. Hence, in Britain, paying 80% of the employer’s wage bill if their workers can’t work because of government policy. Sick pay has also been increased. Businesses that are losing income because of government policy need to be compensated too.
All this is costing large amounts of money, leading to a huge increase in government borrowing to a level only found in wartime. This is in fact the nearest parallel as, like in war, the government is spending “what it takes” to achieve the aim, in this case minimising the effect of a pandemic. The government is hoping that this will only be temporary (months rather than years) and that the normal business of capital accumulation will soon resume. It might well but governments will have acquired enormous debts which will weigh on any other spending plans they might have had.
