ALB
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This one might be sufficiently “internationalist” to do ? After all, the “No War Between Peoples” is one of the reasons the founding fathers of the EU gave for it and which went down well on the Continent.
Depending on how things develop before then this could be a big one, perhaps even bigger than the anti Iraq War one. Although the substantive issue is the trading arrangements of the UK capitalist class, it won’t be this that will be motivating those taking part. Most will be ordinary decent people protesting against the xenophobia and intolerance of the Brexiteers. So we should definitely be there. Unfortunately it clashes with a Party meeting on the same subject on the same afternoon, but there’s enough of us to be able to cover two things at the same time. I don’t think we need a special leaflet as they won’t be interested in our views on that. We already have a couple of leaflets that can fit the bill — the Identity leaflet and The Problem isn’t the Tories or Labour … it’s Capitalism (the LibDems who will be there in their tens of thousands as they were on the Iraq Wat one will love that !),
This week’s Weekly Worker has published s letter on this. For the record, here it is. Somebody will probably reply, so watch this space:
“Money theories
Michael Roberts brings out well the point that, while 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 (‘Chartalism and Marxism’, February 8). If they issue more than the capitalist economy needs for its activities, then it will depreciate and, as he says, “the result will be rising prices and/or falling profitability that will eventually choke off production in the private sector”.
Good stuff. But then he goes and spoils it by talking about a “Marxist policy” for banks and money, which would seem to be a state investment bank which will be able to do what the ‘modern monetary theory’ people want – supply the money needed to expand production and ensure full employment. Maybe it can (for a while and in a developing capitalist country), but there’s nothing ‘Marxist’ about the finances of a state-capitalist economy.
How could there be? Marx was analysing capitalism, not advising what policies should be pursued under capitalism. In any event, his conception of socialism/communism (the same thing) involves the disappearance of commodity production and so of value, money and banks: ie, a ‘Marxist monetary policy’ is a contradiction in terms. From this perspective, Mike Macnair’s article in the same issue on a “working class trade policy” is also dodgy.
Adam Buick, Socialist Party of Great Britain”By coincidence (or perhaps not) there is a letter in this week’s Weekly Worker which illustrates the thinking of those who carried out this attack:
“With three million refugees and over two million dead in Venezuela, it must be apparent to even the most immoral and obtuse socialist or communist that the ‘socialist project’ inevitably means mass murder. Socialism and death go together like beans and toast: 100 million people killed in the Soviet Union, 50 million in China, 40 million in North Korea and untold millions more in Cuba, Vietnam and Laos.
Nobody likes to think that they might have been wrong, but it is important to face up to reality and admit that not only has the ‘socialist project’ failed in the most spectacular manner possible, but that the very idea of socialism is a killer. All assumptions that socialists make about race, gender, intelligence, equality and, most importantly, human nature are wrong and have conclusively been proved to be wrong.
Socialism now is simply a religion for people who are not quite stupid enough to believe in Islam – a very similar death cult to socialism and often associated with it. When one looks at people like Corbyn, Abbott and McDonnell, it is remarkable just how stupid they are. People who cannot put a coherent sentence together want to lead us into a socialist paradise!
I fully realise that the people who produce the Weekly Worker and the plethora of other publications may have good intentions, but, as they say, ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’. For people embedded in the concept of socialism it will be hard to come to grips with reality, but hopefully the more intelligent and ethical members will so do. If not, many more people are going to die in a totally immoral and useless cause.
Malcolm Scott
email”That reminds me I meant to ask this before. In that interview with Olga Guerin, Maduro said there were over a million Colombians living in Venezuela. Is that true? Anyway what is the difference between a Colombian and a Venezuelan beyond being born different sides of a completely artificial and accidental frontier?
To return to plastics, BP would say that wouldn’t they? Though I don’t suppose too much of their profits comes from selling oil to make plastic bags (only about 4% of oil production is currently used to make plastics). Actually, using it to make plastics is a more rational use of oil than burning it to generate electricity or power transport. Just because oil is a villain in global warming doesn’t mean it should be blacklisted from being put to other uses. A lot more things are made of plastics than throwaway bags. Pipes, solar panels and wind turbines contain plastics. And when we’ve all got 3D printers we’ll need them. They will survive into socialism. We can no more do without plastics than we can without metals. Just because some of them are a source of pollution under capitalism is no reason to abandon them nor oil, their main raw material. Just cut back and eventually phase out burning oil (in socialism).
Alan, when Matt says that other members are engaged elsewhere he doesn’t mean that the are sitting at home watching football (or nature) programmes. He means they are on other “forums”. At the moment the most lively is one of our Facebook pages where members, sympathisers, ex-members and others from all parts of the world are involved. I don’t think it would be suitable for you as the exchanges are shorter and quickfire as opposed to our more ponderous ones here and on the Party blog.
I know the Conference agenda has been hi-jacked and swamped by one branch riding its particular hobby horse, but there is in fact an Item for Discussion on climate change (arising in fact from our exchanges here — which reminds me, I need to put the other side of your anti-plastics piece !). This month’s Socialist Standard also anticipated the school students anti-climate change strikes yesterday.
Anyway, here’s the Item for Discussion:
What should we say (and not say) about climate change?
Supporting statement:
Climate change is real and is being brought about by past and present human activity, in particular by the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy and power transport. This is an incontrovertible fact.
But does it represent a threat to human existence or civilisation? Is the end of the world nigh?
Some argue that it is, maybe just as a tactic to spur governments into doing more, but there are people who really believe it. But is such a what might be called “alarmist” approach justified? In other words, is it true? Is it a good tactic?
Without belittling the extent of the problem, the evidence is that it is not true. On the most plausible worst- case scenario (of nothing being done) the result would be disastrous, especially for low-lying coastal areas, but it would not mean the collapse of civilisation and certainly not the extinction of the human race. Nor, if you don’t really believe it, is it a sensible tactic, since if people come to think that the end of the world is nigh, then they are likely to conclude that nothing can be done about it and so not try to do anything – the exact opposite of what is intended. And, of course, there is also the chance of ending up with egg on your face as happened to the Club of Rome who predicted in 1972 that key metal and mineral resources would be begin to be exhausted in thirty years and that this would limit economic growth.
There are also other questions.
What do we think of those who argue that individuals should cut their personal consumption to help avert the problem? Should we?
And the more theoretical question of whether there are ecological limits to capitalism. The Party rejects the view that there are economic limits (i.e., that capitalism will collapse economically at some point) but does this apply to capitalism’s treatment of nature? Could there be natural limits to the accumulation of capital?
Relevant article in today’s Grauniad about why even some “immigrants” voted to Leave (alongside others who wanted to kick them out too) but who have since regretted it:
I see. Fair enough but they might be contributing to something being done so that the worst case scenario of the collapsologists won’t be reached (even if the capitalist authorities might not need prompting as they are not going to do nothing either).
I agree that a better socialist approach might be to record, not the predictions of doom, but technological developments which bring out that there are known technological solutions that could be applied in socialism but which are not being applied (or not quickly enough) under capitalism. The main one that is awaited is an efficient system of electrical storage as this would allow energy generated by renewables such as solar power and wind energy to be stored when there’s no sun shining or winds blowing. Arthur C. Clarke in his 1962 book Profiles of the Future imagined “efficient electrical storage” being achieved some time in the 1980s. Progress has, and is being made, but we are not there yet but could be achieved quicker if resources were thrown at it as a socialist society could.
Good stuff about Capitalocene, but what do you mean by this:
But isn’t part of the problem is that even those who actively campaign against climate change can be charged with a form of climate change denialism yet another depressing fact and evidence that collapsology has a strong element of reality within it.
Do you mean that because they deny that capitalism has caused the problem they are contributing to the problem not being solved?
Just followed up a link in that article I gave attacking collapsology. It says that the name of the present/coming geological age should not be Anthropocene (age of human influence on climate and environment) but Capitalocene (age of capitalism’s influence). That’s more like it.
https://en.unesco.org/courier/2018-2/view-dominica-anthropocene-capitalocene
(c) Report of the Election Committee (27 December)
OutdatedThe Election Committee’s report raised three points, only one of which — a council by-election in Lambeth — was outdated by February (because the EC had deferred consideration of the report at its January meeting). The other two — a possible general election and the UK having to organise elections to the European Parliament — are by no means outdated, both because of Brexit uncertainty.
The EC did discuss later in the meeting the possibility of a general election in noting that South Wales branch were prepared to contest a seat in Cardiff in that event.
If Brexit is delayed beyond June then there would have to be European elections in the UK in May. Nobody knows whether or not this will happen but it can’t be ruled out as “outdated”.
Apparently, Alan, you’re like the poet who didn’t know and are a collapsologiste without knowing it:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/french-braced-for-the-end-of-the-world-b68zktcqb
More on collapsology here.
I remember reading something about the Orinoco Valley in something August Bebel wrote. I did, and have found it again here. Writing in 1910 he refuted Malthus by referring to something the American economist Henry Carey had written 40 years previously:
Carey maintained forty years ago that the 360-mile long Orinoco valley alone could supply sufficient food to feed the whole human race.
If this is true the fact that anyone is starving in Venezuela today is to be blamed on capitalism and its production for profit rather than to directly satisfy people’s needs.
