Greek Myth
‘The Global Minotaur. America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy’, by Yannis Varoufakis. Zed Books. 2015.
It will only be because the author later become Greek Finance Minister for a while that this book, that originally came out in 2011, has been republished (with a new introduction and an added chapter, plus a preface by Paul Mason). It’s an account and attempted explanation for the course of the world economy since the end of WW2 and up to the crash of 2008.
Venue: The Socialist Party’s premises, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN Directions: About four minutes walk from Clapham North tube on the Northern line and three minutes walk from Clapham High Street station on the circular overground line A talk by guest speaker Andrew Kliman Andrew Kliman is a professor emeritus of economics at …
Read more “‘The Failure of Capitalist Production: Political Implications of the Great Recession’ (Head Office – 3pm) – 5th July 2015”
Too Many People?
Danny Dorling: ‘Population 10 Billion’. Constable £8.99.
Yet another book by the prolific Danny Dorling: this one is not about the current state of Britain but the developments in world population, past, present and future.
For tens of thousands of years, the human population grew very slowly, and only in 1820 did it reach one billion. But after that it grew very rapidly, and the rate of increase itself advanced: two billion by 1926 (perhaps slightly delayed by the Great War influenza epidemic), three billion by 1960, four billion by 1975, five billion by 1988, six billion by 2000 and seven billion by the end of 2011. The population ‘explosion’ began in 1851, and Dorling claims that, despite appearances, a slowdown started in 1971.
Chris Dillow’s article on ‘Robot Dangers’ raises other issues about profits. Noting that ‘profits don’t come merely from being able to produce goods cheaply’ but that ‘you have to sell these goods’, he asks:
‘And if millions of people are out of work, who will you sell to? In theory, therefore, robots aren’t good for profits and might be disastrous for them.’
This is the old one about mechanisation causing continually rising unemployment. It hasn’t happened in practice, though it could theoretically. It doesn’t happen if capital accumulation continues and the extra demand for labour it entrains rises faster than the displacement of labour by machines. This is what has happened in the past. So, Dillow’s investors needn’t worry too much on that score.
After noting that technology has been eliminating many routine white-collar jobs in recent years, Dillow continues:
On 5 December there was an interesting meeting in New York organised by the Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI) and Internationalist Perspective (IP). It’s on YouTube at http://tinyurl.ms/yvwx Like us, the four speakers all argued that the populist policy advocated by trade unions and leftwing demagogues of redistributing income from the rich to the working class was not a way out of the crisis.
Anne Jaclard (MHI) pointed out that this was a typical example of trying to reform capitalism to make it work in the interest of the working class, but this could not be done. Pursuing it was not just futile but a diversion from acting to get rid of capitalism. Redistributive politics, or ‘redistributionism’, was a view that needed to be combatted. This was not to say that workers should not try to get more under capitalism; that was part of the class struggle.
Comical revolution
The Revolution Will Be Hilarious. By Adam Krause, New Compass Press, 2013
The cover of Adam Krause’s book features the unlikely combination of Lenin and Groucho Marx. Groucho would be uncomfortable with being in such proximity to Lenin whose regime announced ‘without mercy, without sparing, we will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds, let them be thousands, let them drown themselves in their own blood’. Groucho observed about capitalism ‘the secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.’
Taxation. In the long run taxes are a burden on the capitalist class only. Wages and salaries (not some theoretical gross, but what is actually received, what the employer invests as ‘variable capital’) corresponds more or less to the cost of maintaining and reproducing the working skills which employees sell to employers. During their time in employment employees perform surplus labour, they create surplus value which belongs to the employer. The upkeep of the state and its machinery of government ultimately fall on surplus value, or incomes derived from surplus value, through taxation. Moreover, it is in the interest of the ruling class to maintain the state apparatus because it maintains their dominant social position – though of course that doesn’t stop them complaining about the cost and demanding cuts in its running charges.
Sick Society
Stan Cox: Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine. Pluto Press £14.99.
