Keep It Dense, Keep It Futile, Yeah?

I recently had some conversations with proponents of capitalism regarding the meaning of economics and rather than engage in thoughtful processes of discussion and inquiry, they found it necessary to fling around anti-socialist dogma and doubled down on almost sociopathic concepts of economy. Typically when talking with so-called pro-capitalists, instead of engaging in good faith and inquiry, they’ll point at the USSR or Cuba etc. and sneer the usual banal dogma about how they had breadlines, or that they’re “dictatorships”, as if that somehow constitutes not only an argument, but also a full resolution of, or petty dismissal of the problems we socialists seek to address — the contradictions of capitalism. It’s childishly tedious and easily rebutted if you have the patience of a saint and aren’t dealing with the proverbial chess playing pigeon. I’ve digressed here already, so from here on I’ll refrain from further venting of my frustration. Although I couldn’t get a comprehensible ...

A History of Leftist Failure 13th December 2019 will forever be remembered in the bourgeois establishment’s and media’s annals of history as being the day the left lost its argument. We should strongly admonish this notion; the loss of the Labour Party is not a statement on the nature, state or veracity of the left’s arguments for a better kind of world. The left’s arguments and policies are in fact more popular[1] than ever according to recent surveys[2]. If this truly is the case, then what went wrong? I’ll tell you, but you will not like this one bit: We stopped listening to the working class as a whole. This is a hard pill to swallow since many of us will consider ourselves, friends and families to be working class and will be unable to see past this. I’m suggesting that we’ve stopped listening to a specific, generational parts of the working class and instead started sneering at them. “Sneering at them?”, I hear you ask. Yes, sneering at them. These older generations of the...

The Conservatives have now been in power for 9 years and their list of achievements is replete with and splendidly adorned by numerous glorious and monumental failures. Let's take a look at some of these "achievements", shall we? 1,000 sure start centres closed. At least 370 libraries closed. 700 football pitches closed. Food bank use up by at least 73%. Homelessness up at least 165% since 2010. Rough sleeping up by 1,600% in some areas, 106% nationally Around 1/7 people to at risk of eviction due to Bedroom Tax. Evictions are running at record highs, up 53% since 2010. 30% of U.K. children live in poverty . Student fees tripled . Student debt has risen dramatically . Eradication of EMA (education maintenance allowance) . National debt has risen from £0.95trillion to £1.8trillion. Brexit related fall in national revenue £500b (between 1.5 - 2.5% GDP) GDP fallen to -0.1% in September, barely growing otherwise. GBP fallen by up to 12% vs EUR & U...

"But where will the money come from?" - This is the typical appeal to fiscal responsibility that you hear from people who should but won't vote Labour. Let me show you where that money went, because we had it in the first place: - Corporation tax cuts have cost us £110 billion since 2010 - Latest proposals will see another £12 billion lost - A reduction in the top rate of income tax from 50p to 45p has left an £8.6 billion black hole - Boris wants to raise the higer rate of income from £50,000 to £80,000 which could cost us £8 billion a year! And these are just the cuts I could be bothered to find out about! It results in a gross sum of £138.6 billion. Imagine what we could've done with that! Never mind the tax revenue lost from businesses going into liquidation, people unable to spend or save due to stagnating wages, or business lost from Brexit uncertainty or even leaving the EU etc. But Wait, There's More! Taxation is only but a portion of the ...

A greater issue haunts the conundrum of Brexit than many people, at least outwardly, acknowledge. That issue is the withdrawal of your rights as a working class citizen. Put it this way - if we leave the EU without a withdrawal agreement, the thing that everyone is fussing over at the moment, we will have a near instantaneous withdrawal of certain rights. Rights that have been democratically earned and conferred upon us by virtue of being a member state of the EU. Leaving without an agreement means the withdrawal of a citizen's right to freedom of movement within the EU, the free movement of goods within the EU, the free movement of capital within the EU and the freedom to provide services within the EU. It's not hard to imagine someone who runs a small business that might export or import goods to and from the EU as an essential part of their business, or student wishing to do a masters degree within another EU country, or even the fact that some of us just like to go on hol...

There has been a resurgence of pro British Empire propaganda oozing out of the jingoistic woodwork of social media debate over Brexit, capitalism and conservatism (both big and little C). One of the popular, recurrent and broad motifs is that the British Empire was good  because it gave, a rather uniquely defined, "freedom" to many countries who apparently weren't free before the colonial forces of the British Empire took hold. That occupied countries only had freedom once they were occupied is a clear contradiction. Let's not fuss too much over the "you're only free when I say you're free" quandary, but instead talk briefly about the economic basis for the Empire, its implications and consequences. Thanks, PragerU. Very cool! Given that the British Empire was primarily a manifestation and emergence of early mercantile and then capitalist forces searching for new sources of raw materials, markets and labour, you can start to get a glimps...

A friend posted a garbage-level article from the Spectator yesterday and it has really bugged me for a number of reasons so I'm just going to sit here and dismantle the arguments and rhetoric in the article for funsies. The first part of the article is obvious rabid polemical pish where the author just bizarrely rants about Nick Clegg and makes the claim that "rEmAnIeRs" aren't really  pro free-trade because... um, well there doesn't actually appear to be any reasoning for this claim bar attempting to paint his opponents as the real  Little Englanders in what appears to be a magnificent example of projection. From here on, I'm going to dispel some of the misleading statements and blatant bullshit in the article. " In fact, the European Food Safety Agency has passed chlorinated-washed chicken for safe consumption. " This isn't the issue and the author is both dishonest and dense for trying to misrepresent it. Besides that, anti-microbial ...