Prince Charles criticises capitalism
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Well, an aspect of it. But he used the c-word, which wouldn't have happened 20 years ago. What he said in a message to the National Association of Pension Funds on Wednesday was:
Quote:With an ageing population and pension fund liabilities that are therefore stretching out for many decades, surely the current focus on quarterly capitalism is becoming increasingly unfit for purpose.He was referring to the policy of pension funds of trying to maximise their income from investments over a short period. What he doesn't take into account is that the trustees of pensions and other funds are legally obliged to maximise profits and so are under more pressure to do this than capitalist firms, in fact to behave more capitalistically than them.
Still, it's nice to see that capitalism has become a dirty word again. That makes our task slightly easier.
He's done it again. Here he is offering a materialist explanation for the initial uprising in Syria:
Quote:"The tragic conflict in Syria provides a terrifyingly graphic example, where a severe drought for the last seven years has decimated Syria's rural economy," he said."Driving many farmers off their fields and into cities where, already, food was in short supply."This depletion of natural capital, inexplicably, little reported in the media, was a significant contributor to the social tension that exploded with such desperate results".What next? An interview with Paxman in which he calls for revolution?
I think the least we can do for the old chap, is send him a bunch of Standards, so that he has some info to broaden his attacks on Capitalism. You never know, he may even send a donation as a thank you! Or, heaven forfend, attend a meeting. Steve Colborn.
"What he doesn't take into account is that the trustees of pensions and other funds are legally obliged to maximise profits and so are under more pressure to do this than capitalist firms, in fact to behave more capitalistically than them." Years and years ago i worked with an ex- USDAW (shopworkers) EC member, who was also on the pensions board as a trustee. He explained how it was practically legally impossible for the pension fund to devest from apartheid South African investments. They would be liable not just for civil action but criminal charges, IIRC As an aside he told me visiting the USDAW members at Halls sausage factory in Aberdeen was the union meeting he most feared…a bunch of men, steeled to the sight of blood and gore, carrying razor sharped knives. Charles can join the ranks of the philanhropists like the Buffets, the Soros and Gates of the world. Nice sentiments yet I doubt very much if he is willing to kick away the foundations of the capitalist system and let his palace and duchy fall. Class interests trumps all. There will be some however who would challenge a purely materialist explanation of the civil war in Syria, based on a drought and urban migration. Wasn't the original rising more a "educated, middle class" Arab Spring and rising food prices not a particulr great issue as a yesr or so earlier in Egypt…Smoke and mirrors, perhaps…..Hey , thats the cause…unfixable environmental destruction….not Saudi money and politics. But i may do a blog on our revolutionary prince (had a draft based on his Time interview but binned it) along with the new poverty critic pope, some day soon….The Prince and the Pauper Pope …that could be a title
steve colborn wrote:I think the least we can do for the old chap, is send him a bunch of Standards, so that he has some info to broaden his attacks on Capitalism. You never know, he may even send a donation as a thank you! Or, heaven forfend, attend a meeting. Steve Colborn.I can see it in a year or so – Russell Brand and Prince Charles on the EC.
I remember an anecdote that used to circulate in the party about a visit in the 1930s to our Head Office by an equerry of the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII, who would be Prince Charles's grand-uncle) who purchased all the party pamphlets for his master to read. Apparently he wanted to know the cause of the misery his future subjects were suffering. I thought it was in Baltrop's book The Monument, that book of anecdotes about the party, but can't find it there. Anyway, it made me suspicious of the common view that he was a Nazi sympathiser.
Both hold a religious belief in God so neither will be admitted to membership. Perhaps like Mosley his highness's politics shifted left-wards and then right-wards again , Adam. I'm pretty convinced he was a Nazi.
alanjjohnstone wrote:There will be some however who would challenge a purely materialist explanation of the civil war in Syria, based on a drought and urban migration. Wasn't the original rising more a "educated, middle class" Arab Spring and rising food prices not a particulr great issue as a yesr or so earlier in Egypt…Smoke and mirrors, perhaps…..Hey , thats the cause…unfixable environmental destruction….not Saudi money and politics.Actually, he only said that it was a factor, not the factor, but them so did we in the article on "The Civil War in Spain" in the September Socialist Standard:
Quote:Hanna Batatu writing in the 1981 Middle East Journal is prophetic about the 2011 uprising: ' rural people, driven by economic distress or lack of security, move into the main cities, settle in the outlying districts, enter before long into relations or forge common links with elements of the urban poor, who are themselves often earlier migrants from the countryside, and together they challenge the old established classes'An Associated Press Report of 16 October 2012 identified that the rebels were poor, religiously conservative from the underdeveloped countryside who felt economically marginalised, were against elite merchants and industrialists who dominated Aleppo and allied to the regime. An ex-car mechanic now in the rebel army said: 'those who have money in Aleppo worry about their wealth and interests when we have long lived in poverty'. The report concluded that the uprising was 'as much a revolt of the underclass as a rebellion against the regime's authoritarian grip'.Of course, all sorts of elements have taken advantage of this to further their interests such as, precisely, Saudi Arabia to further its struggle with Iran for regional hegemony and Western capitalism to overthrow a hostile regime in an oil-rich part of the world.
Comrade Charles putting the boot into capitalism again. "Prince Charles has accused the big supermarkets and their shareholders of profiting from Britain’s farmers while taking on “none of the risk” of dealing with the roller-coaster economics of food production." http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/supermarkets-give-farmers-a-raw-deal-says-prince-charles-8935681.html He sheds tears of sympathy for the farm-owner…who according to HRH's figures earns less than the farm-labourer he employs…ahhhh…the miracle of accountancy and tax deductibles and EU subsidies… He ignores the mega agro-industry estates and live-stock factory farming to defend the "peasant" hill farmer.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Comrade Charles …………ha ha
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