ALB
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Marx gives a good example of the fallacy of extrapolating existing trends to their “logical” conclusion in Chapter 24 of Volume 3 of Capital when discussing “the fabulous fancies of Dr. Price, which outdo by far the fantasies of the alchemists”:
“Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth to 5 per cent compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum, than would be contained in a hundred and fifty millions of earths, all solid gold. (…)
His fancy flies still higher in his Observations on Reversionary Payments, etc., London, 1772. There we read:
“A shilling put out to 6% compound interest at our Saviour’s birth” (presumably in the Temple of Jerusalem) “would … have increased to a greater sum than the whole solar system could hold, supposing it a sphere equal in diameter to the diameter of Saturn’s orbit.”The claim that all insect life “will” be extinct in a hundred years falls into the same category of fanciful (“would be if the existing rate of extinction were to be maintained” would be more acceptable, but then that wouldn’t attract the same headlines).
Apologies. I don’t read that thread any more. Hoping it dies a death. Perhaps because he’s not a native English-speaker that he can’t tell the difference between “would” and “will” especially after “if” but then Spanish does have a subjunctive to express conditionality.
I thought I’d beat Alan to draw attention to this particularly absurd extinction story:
Insects could vanish within a century at current rate of decline, says global review
No doubt there is a problem but this illustrates the fallacy of extrapolating current trends to their “logical” conclusion. Here the assumption is that insect species extinction will continue at its current rate of 2.5% a year:
The 2.5% rate of annual loss over the last 25-30 years is “shocking”, Sánchez-Bayo told the Guardian: “It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none.”
Note that he is not even cautious enough to say “would” rather than “will”.
Of course insects won’t become extinct. I’d have thought they’d be the last life-form to go, as some could even survive a nuclear war.
I suggest that the prevalence of such “scientific” scare stories reflects not so much the facts as that capitalism has no hope of a better future to offer. It’s reached an ideological dead end and can’t justify even to itself its continued existence.
Roberts well brings out the point that, while the governments can create (whether indirectly via the central bank or directly via the printing press) as much money as they want, they cannot control the purchasing power of that money. If they issue more than the capitalist economy needs for its activities, then it will depreciate:
The MMT and Chartalists propose that private-sector investment be replaced or added to by government investment ‘paid for’ by the ‘creation of money out of thin air’. But this money will lose its value if it does not bear any relation to value created by the productive sectors of the capitalist economy, which determine the SNLT and still dominate the economy. Instead, the result will be rising prices and/or falling profitability that will eventually choke off production in the private sector.
But then he goes and spoils it by talking about a Marxist monetary/financial policy:
Unless the MMT proponents are then prepared to move to a Marxist policy conclusion – namely, the appropriation of the finance sector and the ‘commanding heights’ of the productive sector through public ownership and a plan of production, thus curbing or ending the law of value in the economy – the policy of government spending through unlimited money creation will fail.
Oh dear. Another MMT — Marxist Monetary Policy!
Roberts is in favour of “public service banking”. Asked what it meant, he gave the example of China.
A proper banking service should take our deposits, look after our savings and offer loans to households and small businesses for big ticket items at reasonable interest rates (….) As for investment, take the role of China’s state banking system. Whatever we might say about the autocratic, one party dictatorship in China, its state-owned banks provide credit to support a national investment programme that has transformed China’s infrastructure.
He is also co-author of a pamphlet, It’s Time to Take Over the Banks published by the Fire Brigades Union, advocating the nationalisation of the banks. But that’s no more useful to the working class than MMT.
It gets worse. Just noticed that the same issue of the Weekly Worker also carries an article on “Working Class Trade Policy”:
https://www.weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1232/working-class-trade-policy/
What next.
Revealing list of the demands that US lobbyists would like to be pushed in any US/UK trade deal:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/us-lobbyists-brexit_uk_5c5b26c6e4b00187b5579f64
Of course this is only a wish list, some of which the US government might not accept and the UK government might try to resist, but it is an example of what is likely to be involved if the UK moves from EU to US regulatory standards.
This is not a necessary consequence of Brexit but of one type, that currently envisaged by the government under which the UK would be able to negotiate its own trade deals. Other types of Brexit, which keep the UK closely aligned to EU standards, as proposed by some Tories and now apparently by Labour, would avoid this.
Why not both, i.e twin-track, organisation to control and briefly use the state and organisation in workplaces (and elsewhere)? Actually, I think that’s what we’ve always said though insisting that the important thing is win political control. In any event, there will have to be coordination of the change to socialism (revolution) at society level. Since the means to do this already exists in the administrative side of the existing state, why not use this side for this purpose? Why re-invent the wheel by setting up a new administrative structure based on workplaces?
Come off it, Alan, you don’t really believe that, do you? It’s Monbiot at his worst turning himself into a vulgar conspiracy theorist. We know that there is a maverick section of the UK capitalist class that financed the Leave campaign in its own economic interest of escaping from EU regulation of its activities. And, yes, there will be, in far are, individual capitalists who are to banking on a no-deal to make a financial killing, but a group of “disaster capitalists” and “world plutocrats” plotting to turn the UK into
“a giant export-processing zone, exempt from the laws that govern other rich nations”?
I don’t think so. And even if there were they wouldn’t succeed against the will and political power against the dominant section of the UK capitalist class supported in all likelihood by the working class. It’s a fantasy.
A no-deal (if it happens, which is open to great doubt) would temporarily disrupt things but it wouldn’t bring about what Monbiot says these “world plutocrats” want. Eventually, things would settle down and capitalism as we know it in the UK continue.
Alan wrote:
Is Fully Automated Luxury Communism the way to go?
No. For a start, there doesn’t have to be “full automation” before communism/socialism can be established (otherwise it would be years away). Second, that everybody should live in “luxury” isn’t necessary either, bearing in mind the dictionary definitions of the word. “Abundance” or “plenty” is ok, but “luxury” is overdoing it. And the “hair-shirt” brigade you’ve been cultivating over climate change would be put off. 🙂
On the other hand, “Sufficiently Automated Abundance Communism” isn’t all that snappy.
What about “World of abundance”?
Actually it was the ineffable George Walford in his Idiotical Commentary who invented calling us “anarcho-socialists” as in this article from 1984:
He does come up with a good quip here, though, that the anarchists want to abolish the state the day before the revolution while we want to abolish it the day after.
I doubt that the NZ comrades would like us to take it up. After all, the word “anarchism” has negative popular connotations too (bomb-throwing, anarchy, individualism). So, by combining them, we’d get the worst of both worlds. I imagine what they’ve got in world is something like “free access society”, “world commonwealth”, “resource-based economy”.
Another contribution by us to Poliquads digital magazine, this time on the anti-fascist group Antifa:
https://www.poliquads.com/antifa-issue
And that’s in South East of England (almost as far South East as you can get) where everybody is supposed to be prospering at the expense of those Up North. It’s a wonder why 36% there voted Remain. Also be interesting to know what the turnout was. I would imagine that most didn’t bother to vote.
Correction: it is only until the end of 2020 (not 2021) that there will continue to be free entry for EU migrants into the UK.
However, there is a hare-brained scheme proposed by some Tories to unite their party that is being considered by the government. Under this free entry would be extended until the end of 2021. This scheme is hare-brained because, instead of the backstop if no comprehensive trade deal is reached by then, it propose an automatic free trade agreement, but this won’t address the EU’s concerns since it is not so much customs checks to see if tariffs have been levied that is the problem as checks to see if goods imported from Northern Ireland into the EU meet the EU’s single market regulatory standards.
And nobody is mentioning how the UK will preventing “illegal” migrants coming in through the backdoor that NI will be.
If/when Scotland votes for independence and applies to rejoin the EU, as the SNP proposes, then the same problem will arise over the Scotland/England border.
The whole thing is crazy. Reconstructing borders that the development of capitalism has already broken down. That’s what the capitalist class get when the are foolish enough to ask the working class to settle a disagreement they have amongst themselves.
If they voted to ‘kick the foreigners out’ and no doubt many did, they’ve been ‘betrayed’ by the government which has made it clear that not only can all EU migrants who are already here stay (and a good thing too) but so can any who enter until the end of 2021. The extreme Brexiteers have chosen to interpret the result as a mandate, not to kick the ‘foreigners’ out but to bring in more ‘free trade’, i.e more globalisation, which was a contributing factor in the deprived areas becoming deprived. But, if it comes to an another referendum, we can be sure that they will again be beating the xenophobic drum to win votes (I remember seeing one of their leaflets suggesting that the whole population of Rumania and Bulgaria had the right to come here; true but unlikely to be exercised any more than the right of the whole UK population to move to Spain was going to be). The Remain side had a bad hand since they were defending things are they are, that a general status quo that was indefensible should remain. Which all goes to show that a referendum is not the best way to make decisions since what motivates people to vote one way or the other often has nothing to do with the question at issue.
If the Kurdish Nationalists are “anarchists”, the Syrian Arab Nationalists are “socialists”:
http://www.aymennjawad.org/2019/02/the-arab-socialist-movement-interview
Whatever next.
