Bijou Drains
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In defence of James’ suggestion, what he is saying is with regards to those MPs whose continuing family fortunes have been made on slavery and slavery comepensation, not those who have ancestors who were slavers.
Surely we would be making the point that the despite the claim that we live in a meritcracy, and that those who have reached the upper echelons of society have done so on their merit. The fact is that the whole system is built on the inheritance of wealth, wealth which was created by land enclosures, slaveery, wage slavery, theft and violence.
It’s like the self made man/woman myth. The self made man Trump, got $30-40 million from his father, Elon Musk’s father owned an emerald mine, and even Mike Ashley started his business off with a £10,000 family loan (£32,500 in 2020) to start his buiness off, way beyond the family resources of the vast majority.
I don’t know if Marxism will ever recover from the savaging the great intellectual Elon Musk has handed out. (Irony Alert)
I am at a loss as to why Karl Mark should speak with what appears to be a cod version of the accent of a black slave?
To be fair to the British Police they seem to be have an equal opportunities approach to supression and brutality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liddle_Towers
http://www.users.ic24.net/~terrynorm/Justice/civil_liberties.htm
I’ve noticed that a big theme on the right at the moment is to call everything Marxist. There is even an article that has been dredged up from the Spectator from about 10 years ago where Boris Johnson referred to the banning of fox hunting as a being part of a “Marxian agenda” (perhaps BoJo should have researched Engels’ view on that particular “pastime”).
For someone who the pro capitalists claimed to have buried so many times, the ghost of old Karl certainly seems to still fill their very bones with dread and horror.
The spectre that once haunted Europe appears to have travelled a little further.
Shellenberger promotes industrialization as humanity’s savior.
“While industrialization causes a short-term rise in carbon emissions, in the long term it’s beneficial to the environment as people move to cities, allowing farmland to revert to nature, and as prosperity enables them to switch to cleaner and more compact forms of energy.”
______
Whilst completely disagreeing with the conclusions that Shellenburger reaches, I would think that the development of a Socialist, production for use society would also result in a short term, but necessary increase in environmental damage in some areas. Although a fall similar to the one we have seen in the early days of lockdown, where reduction in travel, etc. occurs, there would be an increase in other areas as we move to less envirnmentally harmful production and transport measures. This would occur because whilst newer and cleaner technology was being built, which would necessarily require the production of greenhouse gases, we would also need for a while to keep some of the older less environmentally friendly production processes running.
As in every aspect of capitalism, the environmental movement has been influenced by the vested interests and financial motivations of Capital. For instance the move towards the replacement of petrol/diesel cars and lorries with electric versions is being driven by the interests of car manufacturers, who conveniently ignore the level of greenhouse gasses which are created in the manufacture of the car in the first place. The Union of Concerned Scientists (USA) reckon that by the end of their lives, petrol-powered cars create almost twice as much global warming pollution than the equivalent electric car and that disposing of both types of vehicles (excluding reusing or recycling their batteries) produces less than a ton each. That said the actual manufacture of a either type of car is responsible for up to about 1/2 of the entire production of greenhouse gases the car will produce. Strange as it is seems therefore it is less harmful to keep old polluting vehicles on the road and trying to mitigate and retro fit them, than trying to replacing them with newer cleaner cars, lorries, buses, etc.
Obviously that logical and coordinated approach to environmental issues cannot be replicated in a market based society where the need for built in obsolecence and replacement is required and where individual financial concerns will always trump the collective requirements of humanity as a whole.
I think this in itself is proof (there is a mass of similar such evidence) that Mises diatribe on the “Socialist Calculation Debate” is built on a false premise. The idea that a Socialist society would not determine how resources could be used rationally, presupposes that captialism actually currently uses resources rationally, a premise which is demonstrably false.
For example global food production per head of global population currently runs at about the 3,000 calories per person. The recommended calorie in take per person is about 2,000 calories for women and 2,500 for men, so a rough average of 2,250 per person. Given the cost of waste, which is bound to happen we still produce enough food for everyone with a 25% over production to take into account waste, yet The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that about 815 million people of the 7.6 billion people in the world, or 10.7%, were suffering from chronic undernourishment and that whilst almost all the hungry people live in lower-middle-income countries, there are 11 million people undernourished in developed countries.
So we can see that on when looking at the main resource we need to produce, there is absolutely no rationality in the way it is distributed, leaving aside the ridiculously inefficient and polluting way food in which food is produced in a capitalist society.
But as the defenders of capitalism would say, never mind we have the important essentials covered. It is clear they would argue that any rational use of resources, any sane society indeed, would ensure that the well known all round good guy, Philip Green has access to a £120,000,000 yacht and no doubt they would argue, the fact that £9,400,000,000 of human resources have been used to build the current 20 most expensive super yachts in the world is a clear demonstration of just how well capitalism rationally distributes resources. (Those of you worrying about the impoverished conditions the super rich have to put up with on their boating holidays will take solace from the fact that the Sinot Aqua, a hydrogen-powered superyacht with an estimated price tag of $644 million is currently under production in the Netherlands, so at least one super rich family will be lifted from the dispicable conditions they currently have to holiday in)
Why do you insist on repeating this rubbish?
I think the poster is probably a “prankster” with too much time on his/her hands due to the current health situation and no friends to play FIFA with.
Looks like its going to be required to wear a face mask to go into shops. Any way we can start to sell SPGB/World Socialism face masks? I am for once being serious, I think it would be a really good way to get the message across.
there is something curious about it. Marx mentions one-pound notes but there hadn’t been any issued in England since the middle of the 1820s, a situation regularised by the Bank Act of 1833 which laid down that only Bank of England notes of at least £5 were legal tender. After that the only banks that could issue one pound notes were in Scotland and Ireland and weren’t issued in England again till 1914.
Although the Bank of England didn’t issue, I think there was still the practice of regional banks in England that were issuing notes, (a bit like the current situation in Scotland and Northern Ireland) which as I understand counted as legal money but not legal tender. I don’t know if the County Banks were able to issue notes of £1?
There is a link to some Bank of Newcastle Notes from the 1830s that are up for auction
http://www.londoncoins.co.uk/?page=Pastresults&searchterm=Newcastle&category=1&searchtype=1
Perhaps these notes circulated enough to be a common place, which might be why Marx picked it up
Surely the best advice Elon could give any child in the Capitalist system is:
“Make sure you get born between the right pair of legs”
“preferrably in a country that gives you privilege because of the colour of your skin and where you have a father who has amassed massive wealth as an engineering consultant and as a real-estate developer, owns several mines and other natural-resources infrastructure and has a share in an emerald mine near Lake Tanganyika”
Simple enough for anyone to do!
Sadly I made the mistake of picking an Engine Driver’s daughter from Walker and a Shipyard worker’s son from Byker. What was I thinking of.
“So the cattle rustlers don’t kill farmers? They are such good people that they only sell cows into a nightmare and don’t hurt people?”
I never for one moment stated that cattle rustlers don’t kill farmers. I am fairly sure that they do, in the same way as Hindu mobs have been lynching non Hindus and Low caste Hindus over accusations of cattle theft.
What I did say was that you were using very questionable sources to back up your claims, sources which have been using the on going cattle situation in India to whip up religious hatred, Hindu Nationalism and spreading stories very akin to the Blood Libel story of the anti semitic type
In fact the wikipedia article you have linked demonstrates that it was possible to get your point across without using such disreputable sources.
So, in a comradely spirit, I will ask you again, are you comfortable using sources such as these propaganda sites, to illustrate your argument?
(Please note, there has been no mockery, jest or vulgarity in this post)
MA – I have no wish for you or anyone else to leave the party.
It is clear my unrefined Northumbrian sense of humour offends you, which is why I posted that I had no intention of returning to this debate. I will admit that at times, I can go a little further than is in good taste and if that gets on your wick, I apologise and will attempt to desist.
However, and crucially, my posting (which appears to have so outraged you) was not poking fun but was about the sites you are linking to this discussion and was not made in a crude or offensive way. It also did not comment one way or the other about how animals are treated in the Indian sub continent, it was pointing out to you that stories of villagers being killed by beef rustlers and other such stories are being propagated in India by Hindu nationalists to attempt to foment religious hatred and intolerance in India, in a similar way to Populist movements in other parts of the world. The fascistic leanings of some of these organisations are clear to see. The parallels with historic anti Semitic libels are also clear to see
The site you linked, Opindia in particular has been likened on a number of occasions an to Indian version of some of the extreme news sites in the USA.
https://www.thequint.com/news/webqoof/opindia-loses-ads-after-uk-based-stop-funding-hate-campaign
I would politely ask you to answer the following question “can you say honestly that sites like this and The Times of India (which is in Modi’s pocket) are sources you are comfortable posting links to on the forum?”
With regard to the ways in which animals are slaughtered under capitalism (whether it be in Bangladesh or in Doncaster), you will not find me defending it. I eat meat, but I know where it comes from and I know how it was treated, I know where it was bought and sold (usually Hexham Cattle Mart) and I know the small slaughterhouses that the meat came from. I don’t eat supermarket or mass produced meat, as I have posted on here many times before.
