The Glasgow & Edinburgh Branches Blog. Towards a better understanding of the world, in order to change it.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
A SHAMEFUL WASTE
"China spent $84.9 billion (£53 billion) on is military last year, second only to the United States, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Its report said that France moved into third place in spending with Britain fourth. Military spending worldwide rose by 4 per cent to $1.46 trillion, the report said." (Times, 9 June) RD
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Paternalism is a common attitude among well-meaning social reformers. Stemming from the root pater, or father, paternalism implies a patria...
4 comments:
Your title "A Shameful Waste" says it all.
When such facts are contrasted with the needs of the people of the world, it seems like such a no-brainer that if put to the people of the world, they would choose an alternative allocation of resources.
Why can't we get world leadership that will present this dichotomy in simple terms to everybuddy and rally world unity towards the necessary reallocation and adjustments in production and distribution?
Certainly, it is not the language barrier.
Because War and the preparation for it, misnamed "defence spending", is an enevitable concommitant of capitalist competition ,for markets ,trade routes, raw materials and other resources.
Even if,we stretch a point and see some leaders, elected with naive but benign intentions, political leaders would soon be disabused of those, when they face the real nature of their job, to manage and represent the vested interests of the Class which dominates society.
This is true whether on a local, national or global stage.
Workers are just peripheral to their concerns as leaders, except in the sense of, having won the the vote,workers confer legitimacy to their own continual exploitation as wage-slaves, producing everything of value,vast commodities, of which armaments are one example,to be traded on the markets,cannon-fodder,in wars arising from the above intense competition and increasingly see their allegiances as bound up in tandem with their exploiters in opposition to the other competitors. When push comes to shove they still see the nation as their nation.One purpose of public 'education'.
Despite this , of course, when war breaks out nowadays,'volunteers' are in shorter supply than they used to be.
WW1 started with volunteers and ended with conscripts.WW2 saw conscription, but the puny condition of many of those conscripts was a factor in the subsequent setting up of the health service in the U.K.after it.(to get them fit to work their asses off producing surplus - value and fit to fight)Enlightened reform?
Your point about war and the preparation for it being a necessary concomitant of Capitalist competition for materials, trade routes, and markets is very astute and well communicated. I would add labor, cheap labor, to the list.
Now that we have identified the basic problem, how would we propose to counteract that problem?
It seems that we have two basic forces of State Capitalism in competition for those resources, one being the USA and its NATO and other nation-state contolling Capitalist interests, the other being China, which according to the belief of most (how much tempered by Capitalist propaganda?)is nothing more than another State Capitalist. That is, according to the beliefs of most socialists and Capitalists alike, the Chinese have abandoned their socialist intentions and their military spending in order is to fuel and extend their State Capitalist hegemony and not to counteract the State Capitalist imperialism of the United States (and associated Capitalists).
Then there are others struggling to resist the hegemonies and maintain control over their regions' resources and labor rights.
The problem is that those who survive wars are almost never the ones that witness the horrors of them. They stay home and direct and profit from them. If they were one and the same (but how could the dead and maimed run and manipulate a Capitalist economy) they might insist putting a stop to the madness (the exception being driven mad by the madness of war and its toll on your family, community and, ahem, countrymen.
I am not suggesting running peace candidates. They never get very far, not surprisingly. I am beseeching the current leaders on the world stage to take the lead against the madness. Who could step forward and do that?
Is there no one that intelligent, that caring, that bold in the world arena? Or does being prominent preclude such characteristics based on the prerequisites that the economic powers have for them?
Are those controlling economic powers a tiny minority, who are almost perfectly cognizant of the game that they play or are they a larger and confused culture that develop allegiances with less rational criteria? My take is that they are a combination, the former who would never relinguish their real competitive advantage, the latter who as nations and families have enjoyed the allegiance but now only perceive a competitive advantage for their progeny, if that. Educating the latter is a key undertaking.
I carry on like this, because quite some years ago, I was exposed to the adage, "I will act as if what I say and do make a difference".
Let's pretend.
Enough for now. I will be looking forward to your reply, Prolerat.
Mike:
... I would add labor, cheap labor, to the list.
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Prolerat:
I wouldn't add that.The availability of that is managed by by markets and national decisions which sometimes allow immigration, when it suits to drive down wages.
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Mike:
It seems that we have two basic forces of State Capitalism in competition for those resources, one being the USA and its NATO and other nation-state contolling Capitalist interests, the other being China,
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Prolerat:
They are not state capitalist but a mixture of Free and State resourced capitalism.
Nato is just an adjunct of USA defence pact ,a North Atlantic Treaty ,nothing to do with trading as such,but originally meant to curtail Soviet expansion.
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Mike
the Chinese have abandoned their socialist intentions and their military spending in order is to fuel and extend their State Capitalist hegemony and not to counteract the State Capitalist imperialism of the United States (and associated Capitalists).
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Prolerat:
The Chinese were never socialist.They haven't abandoned their military spending ,on the contrary,they were able to extract raw materials from countries in Africa in return for weaponry,as those countries were cash poor,they have certainly refocussed much in favour of capitalist expansion, much like the Soviets attempted until the cold War re-asserted itself.The Nixon -China deals allowed this, to some extent ,to play them against the Soviets.This put the one group over the edge unable to expand appropriately and retool ,or replace its lost labour as a consequence of the WW2 loss of life, while the other managed to prosper considerably more,in capitalist terms,even to the extent ofowning large chunks of American industry.None were ever fully free in capitalist terms, hence the tensions of the Gorbachev era,and the crackdown in Tianamen square being examples of those symptons.
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Mike:
I carry on like this, because quite some years ago, I was exposed to the adage, "I will act as if what I say and do make a difference".
Let's pretend.
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Prolerat:
I stopped pretending a long time ago,when I was into social reform,that any difference could be made, save making socialists.If even the most powerful of leaders can't alter the status -quo, then ,
it is a huge answer to make the socialist revolution, all else is futile in my estimation.This activity is itself in a state of flux,as factory structures were alterred ,making them into smaller self contained working units,than they used to be.
This curtailed union organisation to some extent,detaching members form stewards and making for more a form of insurance paid at check-off, but unions becoming bureaucratic orgs. rather than shop floor upwards ones.Workers will overcome this in time,but you will see most big strikes are in sectors which use the larger units.
Socialists of our kind don't attempt ,except as workers ,to subvert,control,direct or organise, shop floor organisations the way the Left have done,we are there, just as fellow-workers earning a coin and if we are organisers,it is on merit, voted in by fellow -workers engaged in the class struggle.Unions are a reflection of their members and when members are also socialist, in time this will be reflected in the changing nature of the unions.
We have been acused by Leftists,off, "not getting our hands dirty in the class struggle",w ewere that badge,of "having clean hands", with some pride.
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