rodshaw
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I’ve posted a comment on this month’s SS front page. I think it’s most heartening that the two reviewed books have been published and that others are seemingly catching on to socialism (even though they don’t call it that – maybe a positive thing?) Will they succeed in getting the message across better than we do?
Football decided to pay its respects to the Queen by cancelling all fixtures over the entire weekend, right down to school level. Apparently it was thought that fans might run riot and cause a policing problem. This attracted much criticism, if not disdain, from other sports and many football pundits. The football authorities have been accused of not trusting their own fans to behave themselves.
But of course, the opponents of the decision to cancel fixtures based their view not on any disregard for the monarchy, but because they thought there were more appropriate ways for people to pay their respects.
Ho-hum.At least they are realising what we’ve been saying all along. But it still doesn’t occur to them to differentiate (or they take great care not to differentiate) between “classes” based on some sort of sliding monetary scale and political classes, i.e. capitalist and worker. That would be too near the uncomfortable truth.
Fair enough, but he’s implying that all that’s needed for meaningful change is for the Labour Party to be in the right hands and presumably follow some kind of left-wing agenda again. Previous decades of Labour leadership have shown how wishful this is.
And most people just tut and say well, that’s life, you can’t beat the system. No, but you can get rid of it.
If the arms industry doesn’t dictate foreign policy, they certainly can heavily influence it. At least if we are to believe our own journal:
‘The eastward expansion of NATO, especially when it extends to the ‘near abroad’ and right up to Russia’s borders, is a bitter grievance of Russia’s power elite. That is because it violates the security requirement of a ‘friendly neighbourhood’ deeply embedded in their psyche. It is also because it violates the verbal promises made by Western politicians to Gorbachev that if he allowed Germany to unite and united Germany to remain in NATO then NATO would not expand ‘an inch to the east’. These promises were ‘forgotten’ under pressure from American arms manufacturers, whose sales were flagging due to improved relations with Russia and who sought new markets in Eastern Europe.’
From the article on Ukraine in the SS March issue.
‘However, one concern was why NATO was pressing this belligerent position?’
Because it’s good trade for the arms dealers?Acccording to a BBC report Abramovich once swindled the Russian Government out of $2.7bn in an oil deal and they considered charging him with fraud:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60736185
Rather than sanctioning him, you’d think the UK would want to reward him.Doesn’t the purchase and sale of non-existent assets (or should I say, assets that exist only as ideas) happen daily on the Stock Exchange?
As a half-Neapolitan Yorkshireman I’ll always feel in chains as long as Yorkshire is part of the UK and Naples is part of Italy.
A newly formed socialist society is bound to inherit many nasty problems which will require some form of regulation. But I’m not sure they will take generations to fix. A society that is no longer sick at its roots won’t be breeding as many sick people, and I imagine the first generation to be born into that society will have a totally different outlook on life.
Just think how quickly attitudes and behaviour can change even in capitalism.
I daresay one big issue will be how the majority keeps a difficult minority in line, when that minority for whatever reason is determined to cause trouble.It’s interesting to see what is considered to be high inflation at different times. In the 1970s it was never below 7% and in 1975 it was over 24%. In the last few decades or so it’s been much lower.
Interest rates were also higher in the 70s and 80s. But I’m not clear whether consumer price inflation, as listed in the link above, would take interest rates into account.
‘What would be the Socialist position on the issue of lockdowns, mandatory vaccination and the like? Personally I think these are extraordinary times, and extraordinary measures are required.’
There would be no governments to lay down the law and such issues could only be decided democratically. People not ‘obeying’ a majority decision couldn’t be fined or jailed, but might perhaps be heavily ostracised and seen as personae non gratae, which might weigh more heavily.
It may be wishful thinking but I like to think that in a socialist society things would never get to the stage they have got to with this pandemic. With no commercial interests at stake and presumably better health precautions all round, dangerous viruses and so on would most likely be nipped in the bud, and such extraordinary times would not develop. Also there would be no (or far less) idiotic conspiracy theories and religious prejudices around, which really reflect people’s powerlessness and lack of trust in governments and being told what to do.
