If you wanted an example of how the UK is becoming more like the USA look at the roads.... the appalling state of many roads in the USA partly prompted John Kenneth Galbraith's observation some 50 years ago that the US combined public squalor with private affluence.
Given the concentration of wealth in the UK & the ever growing problem of potholes in roads, a similar observation would seem (and has seemed for some time) apposite for the UK.
@Herefordrob @ChrisMayLA6 This is a very good interview. Some takeaway ideas that resonated with me:
"If you want people to get fed, then you are a revolutionary because the logic of profit will never bring you there."
Value defined in terms of food security, not an abstraction like money.
Participatory funding decisions by local councils. The workers decide what programs their taxes fund.
Local-->National-->Global
Revolution = Change
Agree completely. Change cannot come from the top down when the top has been captured by lobbyists and foreign investment.
I think that better regulation might have prevented the situation reaching the current point, but govt has been playing catchup for a long time, and rather than addressing emerging concerns they've become mired in trying to regulate things that have already evolved into something else.
Localising power and decision-making would break the lobbyists' strangle hold on central govt and allow for new structures of control to develop.
@JeanieBurrell @Herefordrob @ReggieHere
Really crucial to distinguish between communism as a political project & Marxist (and Marxist-related) economics as a critique of the capitalist system - of course they meet with some Marxist economic theory explicitly intended to support a transition to communism, but there is a lot of insight from Marxist economics that I use & have used without entailing buying into the political project....
Yes, and Marxism was both preceded and influenced by the Chartist movement, which itself has parallels with the Levellers.
It's arguable that given the hugely negative and defensive rhetoric that surrounds Marxism, socialism and communism, a modernised Chartist movement could be seen as a less-contentious political model for reform.
@ReggieHere @JeanieBurrell @Herefordrob
Yes, I agree; the insights of Marxist economics have often been integrated into other analytical model (but not named for exactly this reason) - so yes, I can see the need to 'badge' any new approach to minimise the knee-jerk 'resistance' based on the word 'Marxism'
@ChrisMayLA6 @JeanieBurrell @Herefordrob @ReggieHere
Indeed - a distinction possibly noted by Marx himself who was reported as refuting a comment regarding the Paris Commune thusly: "Je ne suis pas Marxiste!"
Emeritus Prof Christopher May
Herefordrob
book_dragon
Reg
AM💙🏴
Simon Johnson