Coronavirus
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“Anyway we now know that some of it is useless for combating the new variants and for the over 65s”
I think that the words you are looking for rather than “useless” are something like “not effective enough” or “not (yet) proved”.
I agree, though, that competition and profit has to have been a factor with the various pharma companies competing to get their vaccine out first and to rake in profits whether short-term or long-term.
Of course – hasn’t that been our case for 100 years? [That capitalism corrupts everything]
No, I don’t think that’s ever been our case. It’s a meaningless statement.
‘Nuanced analysis’ is an argument our opponents have always used against, for instance, our view of the class struggle.
So you’re against nuanced analysis? Good to know. I’m against truculent denigrations and blanket dismissals.
‘I’m against truculent denigrations and blanket dismissals.’
How can you possibly characterise my position like that? I simply asked you if you denied the existence of a scientific establishment and if you trusted information within a capitalist context. Who am I denigrating or dismissing? I think it is very dangerous for us to suddenly put aside our skepticism. It wasn’t that long ago that scientists were assuring us that ‘mad cow disease’ could not be passed on to humans.
We have always accepted the Marxian analysis that capitalism was a progressive social system to earlier ones and that it produced certain benefits such as the Enlightenment (yes, even the welfare reforms), some of which still exist. We also accept that even though it has flaws, bourgeois democracy, not as the ideal to aspire towards but an adequate tool for social change, hence our sympathies for fellow-workers in Myanmar, Hong Kong and elsewhere.
Regards to the pandemic there is no doubt that the public health measures being enacted globally is to reduce the toll of it. Whether it is because of humanitarian motives to protect life or business self-interest in that the source of all value – human labour power – is being affected, is for me a moot point. Plus for different countries the emphasis varies hence the differing priorities given to the vulnerable in the vaccine roll-outs.
What we do as socialists is to direct attention to the failure of capitalism to fulfil its declared goals of ensuring safety and stability because it possesses particular inherent contradictions within it as a social system that exhibits themselves in vaccine nationalism and intellectual ownership and definitions of who are and what industries are “essential”.
Just as the Black Death contributed to the end of the tied servitude of the serf to the manor, we can take an opportunity to show a good reason for fellow-workers demanding better rewards for the previously low-paid and unappreciated wage-slaves, as well as another good reason for the end of capitalism.
What we should not do is pander to populism and partisan sectionalism which appear as anti-Statism plots to impose Big Brother and anti-scienceism. We do not possess a technocracy, the science is still subordinate to political constraints and “expert” advice ignored.
We expose ulterior purposes and the vested interests in the motives of some who wish to impose or remove collective actions in regards to this pandemic. That is how i see a nuanced approach to the pandemic, that is, not extracting advantage from fear and pessimism but with us making the most of the cooperative and creative responses to the pandemic eg hospitals built and factories re-tooled in a matter of days, food distribution networks put into place, the homeless housed in hotels, and at the end of the day, the speed of the vaccine development (there are many orphan diseases still awaiting their vaccines and cures which deserve the same urgency) etc. etc.
We as individuals and part of communities and not as party members accede to particular laws of the State for common-sense reasons. I follow the formal road traffic rules and i informally follow the unwritten rules of pedestrians on the pavements by following the flow. I cover my nose and mouth when i cough and sneeze. I need no government policing for that. We may still be living under capitalism but we are also still a human society and as such we do not engage in anti-social or harmful acts. Now we have grown accustomed to masks, i foresee in the future when the pandemic has abated, wearing masks will happen whenever we catch a cold or the ordinary flu and the fatalities from those will fall as an unintended consequence.
I repeat though, it is up to us to present the constructive lessons of the pandemic and how it relates to building upon the socialist case. We have an environmentalist pamphlet, but as yet no pandemic one. As always we have many informative articles but they remain stand-alone and scattered and not collated and re-edited in a one cohesive whole.
‘that capitalism was a progressive social system’
I can agree with that if you emphasise the word ‘was’ – it certainly isn’t today.
‘I simply asked you if you denied the existence of a scientific establishment and if you trusted information within a capitalist context.’
Actually, you didn’t ask either of those rather silly questions. What you did was equate all science with the establishment, a view that’s common among antivaxxers and red-top journalists. Let me remind you what you said:
‘Our sources of information are the pharmaceutical companies and their scientists, the tory government and their scientists and the NHS. The first two have little credibility and the NHS is in its usual chaos. I find it surprising that a comrade is so ready to accept the establishment’s word on anything since our whole case is that capitalism corrupts everything.’
There is no mention here of another source of information, the existence of an international scientific community with rigorous fact-checking procedures as well as a lively press which is able to offer an evidence-based perspective largely independent of national governments or big corporations. Much of this journalism is very accessible and of a far higher quality than anything you can read in BBC reports. Lots of ‘nuanced analysis’, indeed. If you were to read any of it you would soon realise how absurd it is to suggest that all science is establishment science and therefore none of it can be relied on.
But if you’re going to take the extreme view and argue that you can’t believe any information that derives from ‘a capitalist context’ then you are obliged to reject the validity of all information from all sources, which means you can have nothing useful to say on any subject, and no opinion worth hearing.
I simply urge us not to put aside our usual skepticism for this particular issue. Again I’m surprised by your naïve belief in the ‘international scientific community’ which you seem to have elevated into a religion. Do you really believe that scientists are not subject to the same ideological and financial pressures as the rest of us? Most do not get their information from such rarified scientific sources. You almost seem to be stating that science is perfect and exists outside of the capitalist context – well that’s ok then, we’ll leave the revolution to them. I admire science as much as you do and I’m no antivaxer but experience tells me we should always be skeptical in all areas of information within this political context and science is no exception. Our case depends on a critical assessment of everything and anything in the knowledge that the profit motive always lurks somewhere in the background. I hope you will respond to this in a comradely way and do not insult me again.
‘I’m surprised by your naïve belief in the ‘international scientific community’ which you seem to have elevated into a religion.’
If you don’t want insults, don’t dish them out, comrade.
Suggested logo for these forums:
‘I’m surprised by your naïve belief in the ‘international scientific community’ which you seem to have elevated into a religion.’
How is that an insult? It is an impression. I found this quote which summarizes some of the ideas of Paul Feyerabend who I admire as a philosopher of science:
‘ Feyerabend challenges what he sees in his view as some modern myths about science, e.g., he believes that the statement ‘science is successful’ is a myth. He argues that some very basic assumptions about science are simply false and that substantial parts of scientific ideology were created on the basis of superficial generalizations that led to absurd misconceptions about the nature of human life. He claims that far from solving the pressing problems of our age, scientific theorizing glorifies ephemeral generalities at the cost of confronting the real particulars that make life meaningful.’TM – I must admit that comrade Shannon’s style is rather combative and perhaps this has influenced my responses to him. I call for a truce.
A truce is fine with me. It is Valentine’s Day after all.
If there are any specific philosophical criticisms of science that Wez would like to raise I’d be interested to hear them. I might actually agree with some of them, as I am not as uncritical of science as Wez seems to think. Nevertheless it is surely a no-brainer that, flawed though it might be especially in capitalism, we’re a lot better off with science than we would be without it.
I don’t think anyone’s suggesting we do without science.
I believe it is a practice originally associated with spiritualist seances, but nonetheless good advice: to strike a happy medium.‘If there are any specific philosophical criticisms of science that Wez would like to raise I’d be interested to hear them.’
Are you familiar with Paul Feyerabend’s philosophical work? The above quote is from a Wikipedian summary of his perspective. Of all of the philosophers of science he is the most challenging. His book ‘Against Method’ is thought provoking and provocative and I highly recommend it. I don’t agree with everything in it but I do like his iconoclastic destruction of some of the myths that surround the discipline of science.
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