Wez
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Robbo – wasn’t diamond production and sale controlled by a monopoly cartel? Is it still? If so doesn’t this explain the price of diamonds?
Prakash RP – Volume one of Marx’s Capital gives a fascinating history of what societies considered to represent value and how that has changed.
‘Class identity etc. did not prevent English, French or German workers from seeing Britain, France and Germany as in some sense “their country” in World Wars I and II. Tragic it surely was, but it’s an historical fact.’
pgb -But the 2nd International had a chance of stopping the 1st world war ever starting but was betrayed by leftist reformists and you, I fear, would have been one of them.
‘All this media attention. Yet the Iraq war barely got a mention, least of all the 1m dead’
James19 – yes and the utter hypocrisy of the Haig embarking immediately on an investigation of ‘crimes against humanity’ in the Ukraine war. Apparently the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis doesn’t count as a war crime and the oligarchs Blair and Bush can rest easy in their dachas.
‘Where do the capitalists find these second-raters to look after their political affairs?’
I’d be interested to know who ALB considers as a ‘first rate’ statesman or woman? I’m sure you’re correct that there has been a drop in quality of these careerist lickspittles of the parasite class but who do you consider the best of a rotten bunch?
‘But WHY do states such as Germany and France go along with it? They must be afraid of Washington, since they are opposing their own capitalist interests.’
As we keep trying to explain to you – the ruling classes of any nation state, such as Germany & France, are not one homogeneous group with identical economic interests. Capital is global so the interests of one capitalist is not identical with that of another. This has to be balanced with the necessity of preserving the illusion of ‘National interests’ for the working class so dividing them against each other politically.
‘What’s wrong with appeasement? Surely, the socialist movement being so small and ineffective, this is the best outcome we can expect under capitalism? Anything but war. Better anything than the shedding of a single drop of working class blood.’
Exactly – who cares which parasitic class claims to own which patch of mud?
‘Why do people find it easier to conceive of the end of the world than of the end of capitalism,’
ALB – One of the reasons maybe the continuous repetitive narratives in our culture that problems can be resolved by violence. Revenge on and/or the extermination of the ‘bad guys’ in so many movies, graphic novels, TV dramas and versions of history all insist that violence (war) is the only solution. In some versions it is the planet itself that takes revenge on our species – something many environmentalists seem to look forward to but, of course, they will be the first to complain if it becomes a reality just as those who advocate war will not be the first to join up to kill or die.
ALB says: ‘the various members of a national capitalist class are not a monolithic bloc with a common interest on day-to-day issues.’
then goes on to say: ‘… considering Ukraine joining NATO to be a threat to the overall interest of Russian capitalism.’
So who decides national policy if the interests of the ruling class are fractured? It seems to me that the ideology of national interests is anachronistic for both the ruling and working classes. I do not like the rhetoric of Russia does that or China thinks this etc. which I believe to be very tabloid and just BS. Socialists should not be part of this ideological debate and should rather expose it for what it is – meaningless tribal atavistic nonsense.I’m always rather uncertain by what is meant by ‘Russian’ or ‘Chinese’ interests or any other nation state for that matter. Presumably we’re talking about ruling classes here. But in these days of global capitalism surely the 1% have investments in many multinational companies so what defines their ‘national interests’? Isn’t Putin’s egotism a factor? Do the international bourgeoisie still identify with the one nation state within which they were born?
Of course, from the ruling class point of view, socialism is ‘evil’ since it would destroy their wealth and power.
‘I see no problem for the lay-out team to select suitably sized images that are not too small, nor too big, but as Goldilocks said, just right.’
So says someone who is obviously ignorant of graphic design. It can literally sometimes take many hours to find an uncopyrighted suitable image. That together with the variable quality of images (if you can find a suitable one) makes the process incredibly tortuous on occasion.
