ALB
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Anti-climate-change activists should be careful about pointing to the fall in greenhouse gas emissions because of the decline in economic activity brought about by measures to defeat the coronavirus as confirmation of their case.
It’s, rather, a reason why, as long as people support capitalism, the drastic measures that they call for to stave off too rapid global warming will not be taken.
The ILO is warning that up to 25 million workers worldwide could lose their jobs as a result of these measures. No government nor the population of any country is going to accept this or that these measures should be made permanent. But under capitalism that would be the only way to stop economic growth fuelling global warming. It’s not going to happen politically as long as people see no other way of organising production and distribution than capitalism and its production for profit.
This reinforces our view that the only framework within which the problem can be rationally tackled is the common ownership and democratic control of means of living and the production directly for us it will make possible.
If Biden, Bernie and Trump were here in England they wouldn’t be allowed out for 12 weeks. Mind you Bernie is taking a big risk as if he catches it, with his heart condition we may as well prepare his obituary. We probably should anyway. Already got an idea for the theme: the reformist who never got a chance to try to reform capitalism but if he had he would have failed anyway.
Continuing on this morbid theme, I think there was a US president in the 19th century who caught pneumonia the day of his inauguration and died. Can’t remember his name and when.
Yes, we mentioned this in the Socialist Standard a couple of years ago, perhaps you saw it:
Actually it is so-called “helicopter money” defined by Oliver Kamm in his column in the Times last week entitled “To rescue the economy, summon the helicopter and do a money drop” (13 March) as:
”The Bank of England could in effect create money and then distribute it direct to consumers. It’s known as helicopter money, on the model of a helicopter drop of banknotes to anyone underneath who’s lucky enough to pick them up.”
The idea is to increase aggregate demand and get the faltering economy expanding again. It’s been tried in Japan and Taiwan with the same trivial amount per person. But didn’t work because the capitalist economy isn’t driven by consumer (or for that matter government) demand. It’s driven by profitable capital investment. Without that, you can put as much water in front the capitalist horse as you like, but it won’t drink.
It’s not really got anything to do with helping people survive the loss of income many are suffering through the Coronavirus virus and the effect on the economy of the measures the US government has taken to combat it. But it’s useful to give this impression especially in a presidential election year.
Looks as if Trump is acting quicker and going further than the British government, by giving every US citizen a check for $1,000.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/salvadorhernandez/coronavirus-trump-mnuchin-1000-check-economy
What is that? About two weeks wages? That won’t go very far but it’s not every day that the government gives everybody something for nothing.
Some revealing ideas coming out. Today’s Times reports Julian Jessop, of the free-marketeer thinktank The Institute of Economic Affairs, as suggesting:
“that the government introduce ‘some sort of temporary universal basic income’ in the form of a £,1000 handout per person ‘to make sure people can afford essentials during this crisis.”
More here. Free handout to the workers to allow them to buy essentials.
Where will it end, die-hard supporters of capitalism must be asking.
Also, this scientific advice as a pretext for the government abandoning its previous mad “herd immunity” plan:
“More than a quarter of a million people would have died under previous plans to control the spread of coronavirus, according to the government’s own advisers.”
Advisers other “mad professor” Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s Chief Scientific Officer, that is. Fortunately, the Chief Medical Officer seems ok.
Not that it needed a team of experts to work that out. Anybody could have on the back of an envelope (and did).
Alan wrote: “This story sort of reminded me of the Lucas Plan from the 1970s. Defence work could be re-tooled for socially necessary production.”
I am sure it would be technologically possible to retool production lines to make respirators and I am sure the workers involved would be enthusiastic to respond. But this sounds like another of Johnson’s stunts. In this case to give the impression that, after previous talk about sacrificing them for the benefit of the herd, it’s now all about saving the most vulnerable victims of the virus. I doubt if it will happen.
If it did, it would give some credence to the Pieter Lawrence scenario of the state, in a dire emergency, resorting to production for use, presumably paid for with newly created payment vouchers. In fact they may have to do this to compensate the pubs, restaurants and places of entertainment whose business will be ruined by the government’s policy.
Of course the outcome won’t be socialism or a moneyless economy but, combined with Robbo’s point about the revival of community spirit, might make putting of the case for socialism easier — even the counter-example of the American response might help people realise where the capitalist ideology of individualism leads.
It seems that the government is now disavowing their chief scientific officer and his mad “herd immunity” scheme. From today’s Times:
“Mr Hancock has insisted that the government is not pursuing a policy of allowing the virus to spread in order to achieve ‘herd immunity,’ apparently contradicting a statement last week by Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific officer.”
That’s a relief.
Just heard on the news that the aviation sector are calling on the government to stop “bean counting”:
“In a stark message, industry body Airlines UK said the government’s “prevarication” and “bean counting” had to stop.”
That’s a bit rich. Just because they are not getting enough beans they are begging the government to hand them out a few. As if their whole business wasn’t based on bean counting, including making staff redundant and opposing strikes to keep as many beans for themselves as they can.
Still, ignoring bean counting and mobilising resources directly was how the changeover to a moneyless society started in Pieter Lawrence’s The Last Conflict ….
It looks as if other scientists are beginning to criticise the “mad professor” who is advising the government and his experiment in “herd immunity” with us as the herd of guinea pigs:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-scientists-share-fears-uk-21695523
It’s a no-brainer. With the date of conference coinciding with the period during which the government is planning the epidemic should reach its peak, with people falling sick in droves, it cannot take place then. It has to be postponed.
Even the Rebellion has been called off:
https://www.cityam.com/extinction-rebellion-cancels-london-protest-over-coronavirus/amp/
Meanwhile others are beginning to worry about the strategy the government here has adopted:
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/boris-johnson-turned-britain-petri-130300274.html
Don’t know how reliable this publication is but the government seems to be backtracking anyway. Giving the impression that they are carrying out some experiment on “the herd” as they call us is bad for publicity.
Missed this from yesterday’s Times:
“At the core of policy decisions, argues Roy Anderson, from Imperial College London, there is a dilemma. ‘The simple epidemiological rule is the earlier you intervene the better. Weighed against this is the economic impact. Governments cannot minimise mortality and economic impact.’”
If this is the dilemma, in deciding to delay the peak the British government appears to have decided to minimise the economic impact rather the number who will die.
Which might explain why the Prime Minister went out of his way to warn that “many more families are going to lose loved ones” — many more than strictly necessary?
The media are reporting that one of the strategic aims of the government’s policy is to achieve “herd immunity” so that the next time the virus comes around, like next year, it won’t be so bad as enough people will be inoculated against it. Since there is as yet no vaccination against it, this means that the only way to inoculate people will be for them to have contacted the virus and recovered.
According to an item in today’s I paper:
” for the UK population to gain herd immunity, a large enough number of people — 60 per cent of the country, 40 million people, in the words of the chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance — will need to contract the virus and then recover.”
But not everyone will recover. If the death rate is 3% then 1.2 million won’t. Even if it is only 1 percent some 400,000 won’t. These will be the number of us herd who will have be sacrificed to achieve “herd immunity”.
I don’t know if achieving herd immunity is the government’s aim or if the figure of 6 out of every 10 people having to get the virus and recover is valid, but if so it appears that the government is being advised by a mad professor.
The weight of evidence is that radiation from 5G does not have the dangerous effects that people like Firstenberg claim. See for instance:
http://skepdic.com/electrosensitives.html
Firstenberg seems to be regarded as a crank. The list of scientists signing that petition doesn’t seem very impressive.
The rational approach of the layperson to this sort of scientific issue is (as with climate change) to go along with the middle of the road view of the scientists in the field concerned.
