The EU and the HRA

Just a short post to express a fear I have regarding a forthcoming referendum on UK memebership of the EU. I have spoken to quite a number of well educated and informed people and find a fair proportion of them believe that the European Convention on Human Rights has something to do with th EU. In many cases people believe it is actually controlled by the EU. Of course this is entirely wrong. The European Convention and the Court that enforces it are part of the Council of Europe, a completely different body set up by, among others, Churchill, in the 1950s. If well informed people make this mistake, what chance the rest of the population ? The problem is that a great deal of anti European sentiment is based on opposition to the Convention, notably with regard to asylum seekers, immigration appeals and terrorist suspects. It is seen as unwarranted European interference with UK sovereignty with regard to the security of our borders. This is all very well but it has nothing at all to do with the EU. But it could well swing the referendum result against the EU.Supporters of a 'stay in' vote must therefore hope that the campaign will highlight this common misapprehension.

What Britain makes

We often hear complaints that Britain has lost its heritage as a great manufacturing nation, that we don't actually 'make' anything anymore. Well, in terms of metal and wood and plastic that may well be largely the case, though, for reasons I don't understand, we seem a popular place to make case. But it is far from the truth to say we don't make anything, we make plenty of things; its just that they are less tangible and are often of an intellectual, technical and creative nature. We are clearly very very good, sometimes world leaders in these kind of products : entertainment biotechnology and research environmental research and devlopment energy technology civil engineering medical research and treatments sport and related activities and services higher education design and architecture The 'Arts' computer technology software development financial services (with a health warning on that one !) There are more, I am sure, but this is an impressive list. What's more, these tend to be high value products while much traditional manufacturing involves low value products. So Britain is in a strong position to exploit our high value specialisations in which we seem to have a comparative advantage. So the first thing to say is to stop bleeting about the loss of our manufacturing tradition. More seriously, though, we need to recognise where our strengths and advantages lie and to nurture them carefully. This means being willing to invest a large proportion of our national income in these kinds of areas : education generally higher education and research sport and entertainent infrastructure Medical research and top class treatment centres biodevelopments, including sustainable energy The Arts Such investment can be undertaken both through the private and public sectors as appropriate. I think we could be on the brink of a new period of regional, if not global dominance in a variety of economic sectors. But before we do what is necessary to nurture them, we need to recognise what they are worth and not hanker after something that is well behind us and in which we do not enjoy comparative advantages.

Modern capitalism and the new marxism - part two

Part one of this post suggested that the excessive inequalities now being seen, especially since 2008, my be leading to a crisis of capitalism, perhaps as severe s 1968 or even earlier those in the nineteen-tens and twenties. But the prospect of hoards of the poor pouring into London from Cornwall, South Wales, Northern Ireland and Northern England seems rather remote. This kind of traditional revolutionary activity would be neither likely not effective. The growing importance of the Internet presents us, however, with a very different picture. The Internet, I would suggest, presents us with two alternative visions of revolution. The first is that revolutionary sentiments may become diffused by the internet. There may well be a groundswell of discontent, but this might lack focus and may fail to mobilise its forces effectively. the way in which the 'Occupy' movement seems to have blown itself out rapidly may be an appropriate model of such an effect. The second vision suggests that the Internet may indeed facilitate opposition to capitalism's excesses and may one day become so overwhelming that it will topple the vested interests that are promoting inequality. If we adopt a clasical marxist perspective, an Internet movement will not succeed because it would lack 'class consciousness'. The weakness of the working class, said Marx, lies in two of its characerists. One is a lack of awareness of its own position, notably its own exploitation. The other is the danger that memebers of the working class lack solidarity because individuals under capitalism are forced to compete with each other for scarce resources. The Internet certainly can encourage class consciousness, but it also prevents the formation of a class in the first place. Users of the internet are intensely individualistic - that is the nature of the beast and its attraction - and so it is difficult to envisage a coherent anti-capitalist movement springing from the social media. I therefore think I conclude that a marxist analysis does indeed suggest that the conditions for revolution certainly are coming into existence, but that capitalism will survive because of the lack of a strong enough class which could carry out the sentence of death that history has pronounced on it.