rodshaw
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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.
I personally believe Karl Marx will come back one day and lead us all to socialism. Ah wait, that can’t be right…
To me one significant thing is that Thunberg is saying she doesn’t trust politicians to cut the mustard. She knows it’s useless pleading with them, unlike what she used to say. They are “pretending to take our future seriously”. Still a long way from real socialist consciousness but not to be knocked.
There we go again, the inability to think of a world without money as a practical alternative. One day the penny will drop.
There’s apparently a shortage of about 100,000 lorry drivers and last I read the govt. plan is to let about 5,000 from Europe get temporary visas till the end of the year. Fat lot of help that is, surely. I can see some sort of disruption for months to come, not just at petrol stations but in supermarket supplies and home deliveries. One good thing that may come of it is better rates for the drivers.
And for the rest of us, at least it may mean less lorries trying to carve you up on the motorway. Assuming you have the petrol to get there.
I wonder if we’ll see an intensified campaign for people to switch to electric cars?
Many workers in the UK have been clearly disadvantaged by Brexit. It’s sometimes hard to maintain the WSM position that voting to be in or out of the EU was of no relevance to workers.
I think Rev. Stephens was wrong on both counts – God isn’t going to teach us anything, and a revolution will be manufactured – not by leaders, but (we hope) by the working class.
I’m amazed anyone wants to go abroad at all. The quarantine hotels seem like a nightmare too, little more than prisons, with reports of women getting harassed by the “guards” who are supposed to be looking after them and the companies that administer them trying to pass the buck to the hotels and vice versa.
The Red Arrows want to be the first net-zero air force by 2040:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-58173637
Such ambition – only 19 years away!! That should do it then, the answer to our problems.
Such are the token gestures of the capitalist system.“Has he become the male version of Katie Hopkins, seeking media exposure by making ridiculous statements.”
Clarkson has always made a living out of making ridiculous statements. I read that he’s had Covid himself so you’d think he’d know better. Hyperbole is his stock in trade. You only have to read his nonsense in the Sunday Times every week to see. He’s an arch supporter of capitalism, labels anyone who’s not right wing a socialist, and takes great amusement in winding them up. A bit like his fellow ST writer Rod Liddle. He’s also until recently been a climate change denier but may have slightly changed his tune on this because he’s bought a farm with some of his millions and at least nominally has something to lose by it.
If faced with the calm and collected arguments of the WSM he’d probably just give us a raspberry.
You just can’t win with capitalism. Lockdowns damage the economy (well, for most). Removing them causes hundreds of thousands of people to be pinged into self-isolation, damaging the economy.
Same old same old, isn’t it. Maybe we should invite the Global Alliance for a Green New Deal to a debate, and suggest they become the Global Alliance for World Socialism. They can’t think beyond governments and economics.
Ten or twenty years from now, how much impact is a ‘Green New Deal’ really going to have on all the crap being spewed world-wide into the atmosphere, even if governments get serious about it?
I read somewhere, or was told by a party member, that the biggest polluter of all is the armed forces. So maybe they’ll start dropping green bombs.
