ALB
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And aren’t you being a bit un-Marxist by using a 19thC term defining gig and uber workers as “petty-bourgeois” because they are legally and technically independent self-employed artisans and are protesting at the restrictions being imposed on their livelihoods
Probably but it wasn’t me that introduced the term (I don’t like the term because of the way Leninists, real and cartoon, bandy it about). I was trying to work out who he might have had in mind. It turns out that he wasn’t talking about a particular socio-economic group but of an “ideology” that can be held by anyone, even wage workers; which makes it an even more unhelpful term, like “middle class”.
Ironically one group that is benefiting economically from the lockdown is small shopkeepers. (Others are capitalist enterprises making extra profits from supplying medical equipment and supplies.)
“Politicians respond with panic ; what can we do,
Responsible epidemiologists say “fuck all”.
Not even that Swedish professor says that. His case is that a general lockdown isn’t necessary, but still protect the vulnerable. Even you weren’t planning to invite the over 60s to your measles party.
But would “the poor” be any better off if there wasn’t a lockdown? Or, come to think of it, are the “petty bourgeois” garden-owners better off with it? I wonder how many of the current 6 million unemployed in Britain have gardens? And it is the self-employed (the Marxian definition of “petty bourgeoisie”) who are complaining loudly about the loss of income and being ruined by the lockdown.
You are not saying, are you, that the workers of the so-called “First World” are “privileged and pampered” ?
In any event, the “poor” (in the popular sense) are only a section of the section of the working class (properly defined).
Blaming the rich for spreading the virus is populism and in the same category as blaming the Chinese for starting it.
See tonight on Discord for the talk this evening at 6.30 GMT from the comrade in Las Vegas even if it is the middle of the night for you.
p.s. Dave, do you want an invite to join so you can listen to the EC meeting on Sunday 3 May?
“Lockdowns are class-based more than we are willing to admit. If I was ungenerous, I could say it is the “middle-class” protecting themselves from the great unwashed poor.”
This would not only be ungenerous but unMarxist ! It would be to divide the working class into two sections and setting one section against the other.
It also introduces a rather novel class division — between those with gardens and those without one. There will be millions of people surprised to find themselves denounced as “middle class” just because they have a garden. The sort of thing you would expect from Ian Bone’s “Class War” rather than something we could say.
What you are pointing to is one of the perverse effects of a lockdown under capitalism, not a case for not having a lockdown to deal with a pandemic of an infectious disease — even under capitalism.
So that people here can get a flavour of some of the conspiracy theories circulating, here’s a email we’ve received at Head Office (from someone in fact who is a subscriber to the Socialist Standard):
“The Covid-19 lockdown is a global power grab – pure and simple. The incremental steps towards a new world order has taken a giant stride forward with no going back. Economies worldwide have been destroyed by governments during a period when deaths globally are at normal levels. As science journalist, Peter Andrews, states, “Covid-19’s meant to be a new Black Death, but in Britain no more people are dying than normal. What does this say about the virus?” As Dr John Lee, a recently retired NHS consultant and professor of pathology says, writing in the Spectator, ‘’We have yet to see any statistical evidence for excess deaths, in any part of the world’’. So what’s it all about? It’s a false flag emergency that has been opportunistically created to curtail civil liberties across the planet, to roll out the globalist agenda at a faster pace (see Agenda 30, World Government Summit, etc).”
As reported into today’s Times, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, treasurer of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs. is calling for a gradual, step-by-step easing of restrictions to begin within two to three weeks, so as to enable the economy to recover more easily, adding nonchalantly :
“That inevitably will mean that there will be, at each time, more Coronavirus cases. And we just have to accept that.”
Talk about profit before people.
A reformist Social Democratic Party. Seen that. It’s the past and it doesn’t work.
In America the word “socialism” has come to mean government ownership and control of the economy — a misconception we have spent the last century trying to combat. The only saving grace of this is that in bringing the word into prominence it gives us a foot in the door to say what socialism really means.
“they should have locked all the vulnerable away and had measles parties for the under 60’s with no underlying medical conditions.”
I was going to suggest that that was the logic of the Swedish professor’s position but thought that might be going too far. But, now you have raised it, why don’t you set out to deliberately catch it. That would be a noble contribution — perhaps even sacrifice — to help achieve herd immunity.
If they don’t find an effective vaccine the only way to overcome it will be the herd becoming immune, which implies that many will die. It would just be a question of when: sooner or later ?
It seems that the government’s policy here is in effect to try to delay the spread until a vaccine is found. That way less people can be expected to die.
The Swedish government (and the government here originally) seems to be taking the view that you might as well get the deaths that will occur to get herd immunity over sooner rather than later.
That Swedish professor says that only the frail and elderly should be protected from catching it. Fair enough but the implication is that those of working age should not be protected. Maybe for some the effects of catching it will be relatively mild but clearly not for everyone. Some will die. Already there is talk based on some evidence that the age limit for the those more vulnerable should be reduced from 70 to 65 even 60.
Anyway in Sweden unless you area elderly or frail, it’s “may the most resistant survive”. Hard luck if you are not and don’t. It might work I suppose but.
Actually, Sweden has a track record in allowing mad professors free rein:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/sweden-admits-to-racial-purification-1247261.html%3famp
Come to think of it, consciously pursuing a policy of herd immunity can be seen as a form of eugenics, the survival of the fittest and the elimination of the weakest.
Yes it does seem that Sweden’s chief epidemiologist may be a bit of a Mad Professor carrying out an experiment on people. According to yesterday’s Times:
”Dr Tegnell suggested last week that Stockholm could achieve herd immunity, where a large enough majority of the population have recovered from the disease that the virus has little room to spread, within weeks. Most scientists estimate that this requires at least 60 per cent of people to become infected.”
That’s a lot of people and of course the more people are infected the more will die. Anyway. is the population of Stockholm large enough or isolated enough to constitute a herd?
We will see. The difference between scenarios about the pandemic and those about climate change is that for the pandemic we don’t have to wait until 2100 to see how accurate or inaccurate they are. We can known within weeks. So, we will be able to see fairly soon whether Dr Tegnell is a mad professor or not.
Not too bad. But this struck me. Can somebody quote chapter and verse on it?
”The “war of the masks” as media call it, is an edifying example of this. Each state is grabbing the material it can through speculation, bidding wars, and even out-and-out theft. The US has been nabbing planeloads of Chinese masks promised to France. France has confiscated cargoes of masks heading by air for Sweden. The Czech Republic has seized at its customs barriers ventilators and masks destined for Italy. Germany has made masks heading for Canada disappear.”
Quite believable of course. I wonder whether this is the cause of the delay in the famous air shipment of protective equipment from Turkey. Is the capitalist business selling them trying to extract a higher price? Are they threatening to sell them to a higher bidder? That would be normal capitalist behaviour.
It is this but I don’t suppose you’ll be able to see it as it’s an old Yahoo group that now only members can see.
