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This news item, drawn attention to on our blog, brings out well why capitalism can’t deal with the problem of climate change:
“Many Asian countries’ existing and expanding dependence on coalpower is undermining international efforts to fight greenhouse gas emissions and keeping the world on course to see catastrophic impacts from the worsening climate crisis, the United Nations has warned. Amid surges in demand for electricity, countries including India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam are accelerating their move to cheap coal power.”
As long as burning coal (or oil or gas) is cheaper than using renewables, capitalist states are going to have recourse to it. In the competitive world that capitalism is states cannot be expected to opt for more costly energy, so undermining their competitiveness. It’s just not going to happen. Those for whom coal is the cheapest will only abandon this when other sources becomes cheaper. This might well happen eventually. but we can’t wait for this.
While I’m writing, I agree with Brian that this thread would be better if, instead of repeating doom and gloom stuff, we highlighted technical innovations and possibilities which show how the problem might be tackled if we had common ownership and democratic control of the Earth’s resources.
Here is further demonstration that Israel is a sectarian state whose non-Jewish inhabitants are second-class citizens, even those who are happy to be Israeli citizens and serve in its army and diplomatic corps:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-ambassador-to-panama-a-druze-decries-treatment-at-ben-gurion-airport/
You’re right. Here is an article from the April 1968 Socialist Standard analysing the Race Law that the Labour government had just brought in. And here’s the front cover:
CWO’s reply here, re-affirming that they still think that another world war will ultimately be needed if capitalism continues and their explanation why this hasn’t happened yet:
https://libcom.org/blog/review-money-totality-fred-moseley-28082019#comment-615245
So if global warming does get us a global war will. Talk about doom and gloom.
Amid all the events going on in Westminster at the moment this news item is perhaps not getting the significance it might deserve: the DUP agreeing to a border down the Irish Sea for agriculture and food products.
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/dup-open-to-talks-on-allireland-food-zone-to-ward-off-backstop-38464852.html
“DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds says his party is open to discussions with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on a possible all-Ireland food standards zone as part of a solution to the Brexit backstop.
Mr Johnson told MPs yesterday that he wants talks on an all-Ireland approach to agriculture and food products.
He has suggested that agri-food could continue to be regulated on an all-island basis after Brexit, creating a regulatory barrier down the Irish Sea.”
Don’t know if the EU will agree to this, but it maybe part of the face-saving formula the Johnson regime is working on.
Definitely two (Cardiff Central and Folkestone & Hythe). We could add a third, in London, if a branch wanted. If so, the best would be Vauxhall (in which Head Office is situated) and where we have stood many times.
Somebody gave me their copy of the 15 August issue of the London Review of Books. There’s an article by Alexander Zevin ( of New Left Review) which makes a relevant point:
“The image of the EU held by those who still hope to reverse the Brexit vote is rarely darkened by its actions, from the devastation of Greece under Troika-imposed austerity, to the stagnation of Italy, whose modest fiscal stimulus runs foul of Europe’s draconian deficit and debt rules, to the way it treats those who cross its southern and eastern borders. Membership of such a club may look preferable to exclusion from it, but it’s unclear why there should be much enthusiasm about the choice.”
Or, of course, why people should get worked up in favour of the choice to leave it.
Here’s my answer to Jem Bendell, posted here a few days out:
I’ve just finished reading the XR Handbook, This is Not a Drill published for them by Penguins, which expounds the ideology behind their actions.
Here’s an example of their alarmism, from Professor Jem Bendell (echoed by Roger Hallam in that interview):
“My guess is that, within ten years from now, a social collapse of some form will have occurred in the majority of countries round the world … A likely collapse in rain-fed agriculture means that governments need to prepare for how to ration some basic foodstuffs …”
I predict that in ten years time he’ll have egg on his face. If I’m wrong, I’ll let him have some of my ration tickets.
Of course we are. We’ve been nursing two constituencies: Folkestone & Hythe and Cardiff Central.
The Election Committee has not been in favour of contesting a London constituency in view of the really derisory vote last time but maybe North London branch will want to stand again against Corbyn as at the last two general elections. Personally I’d be against this since, like the Euroelections, this one will be fought on a single issue with us not being able to get a word in edgeways and our small vote being squeezed even more, making us look stupid. We will have a chance to stand in London, covering a much wider area, in the Greater London Assembly elections next May.
Missed this at the time (last week, 26 August) but here’s Corbyn denouncing no deal as a “bankers’ Brexit”:
The anti-Corbyn media, i.e. most of them, criticised this as absurd, pointing to the list of bankers and other financiers who had bankrolled the Remain campaign. I didn’t notice any mention of the fact that a different group of financiers bankrolled the Leave campaign. Clearly, there was a split amongst financiers, with the mainstream City establishment supporting Remain (for fear of being cut off from selling their “financial services” in the EU) with a smaller number of mavericks engaged in less respectable dealings supporting Leave (as they didn’t want EU regulation of their activities).
The second lot will indeed benefit from a No Deal Brexit, in fact from any Brexit. Which is why of course they bankrolled the Leave campaign.
Yes it is linked to their theory that another world war is needed to devalue capital, by literally destroying what is it embodied in, so that the rate of profit can be restored (the same amount of profit on a smaller amount of capital) capital accumulation can resume. Since, however, it is nearly 85 years since the end of the last world war, they need a theory to explain why there has not been another one and how capitalism has survived — hence their recourse to a monetary explanation.
Ok, will post something on libcom blog.
The article in this month’s Socialist Standard does not criticise her nor her condition (in fact it shares her own assessment of it that it means she gets straight to the point). It was a criticism of making her a celebrity and the dangers of this. Personally, I think she is alright, just drawing attention to the problem and saying something must be done about it. At least she hasn’t talked about 6 million people perishing starting in 2029 nor claimed to have been moved to act in response to a message from some god. Good luck to the schoolkids’ strikes.
Just got round to reading this. It’s really two articles. One on Moseley’s book. The other on capitalism in the 20th century. The part on Moseley is okay, saying more or less what we did when we reviewed it
But they imply it’s only valid for the so-called ascendant period of capitalism up to 1914 when capitalism for them supposedly entered into its period of “decadence”. Here they go off the rails by seeming to suggest, as Noa points out, that capitalism has been kept going, as it were “artificially”, by inflation of the money supply by both the state central bank and by private banks.
But while the state can create more money-tokens commercial banks cannot. They are, as Mark himself accepted, essentially financial intermediaries shuffling already existing money. Their lending cannot cause inflation.
Banks can only be regarded as creating new money if you extend the definition of money to include bank loans. But this only confuses things.
What is really surprising is that a group in the Martian tradition should reference a rightwing banking reform group like Positive Money which seeks to explain why booms end in purely monetary terms.
Perhaps what the CWO has in common with them is that it offers a purely monetary explanation for capitalism’s continuation beyond the sell-by date they have fixed for it.
