Towards the beginning of his paper at last weekend’s ‘On the Idea of Communism’ conference at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, self-described ‘anomalous sociologist’ Alberto Toscano cited the Observer’s recent review of The Meaning Of Sarkozy (2009) by Alain Badiou: ‘[W]hen he quotes Mao approvingly, and equivocates over the rights and wrongs of the Cultural Revolution,’ the review went, ‘it is hard not to feel a certain pride in workaday Anglo-Saxon empiricism, which inoculates us against the tyranny of pure political abstraction.’ Perhaps the inoculation isn’t as powerful as the reviewer hoped; the article goes on to admit that Badiou’s book is ‘strangely compelling’. In any case, it is an odd time to take a pride in ‘Anglo-Saxon empiricism’, since it is the unreflective, plain-speaking commonsense on which the British commentariat pride themselves that has led to the UK falling prey to the tyranny of another kind of abstraction, that of finance capital. More..
Archive for March, 2009
A Return to Communism?
by Chris on Mar.30, 2009, under philosophy, politics
frieze.com
The Fall of Rome
by Chris on Mar.11, 2009, under poetry
The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.
Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.
Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.
Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.
Caesar’s double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.
Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.
Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.
W. H. Auden
Two views of the London Blitz, 1940
by Chris on Mar.11, 2009, under Uncategorized
Leave a Comment :history, war more...
Financial ‘Advice’
by Chris on Mar.11, 2009, under Uncategorized
Leave a Comment :capitalism more...
A Prehistoric Camp
by Chris on Mar.07, 2009, under poetry
It was the time of year
Pale lambs leap with thick leggings on
Over small hills that are not there,
That I climbed Eggardon.
The hedgerows still were bare,
None ever knew so late a year;
Birds built their nests in the open air,
Love conquering their fear.
But there on the hill crest,
Where only larks or stars look down,
Earthworks exposed a vaster nest,
Its race of men long flown.
Andrew Young
A Load of Bankers.
by Chris on Mar.05, 2009, under politics
- ‘Sir’ Fred Goodwin: does he look bothered?
So ‘Sir Fred’ Goodwin, aged 50 and 3/4 is to walk away from the RBS banking catastrophe he caused with a 700,000 + per year pension for life, funded by the tax payer (us). What kind of government is it that let’s this happen? This New Labour Government is the kind, apparently. More seriously, why have they only just noticed the revolting injustice and lack of general proportion in the remuneration of Britain’s ‘Top’ CEOs (I use the adjective purely in a quantitative sense, to describe fat payouts)? Why are we the most unequal country in Europe?
Sir Fred is the target because of the gargantuan losses he has foisted on to the taxpayer. But a £700,000-a-year pension is by no means tops: at least 12 other CEOs are well ahead of him, and most bosses enjoy lavish schemes denied to their staff. Remember, top CEO pay has multiplied from 17 times that of their average workers to 75 times in just 20 years. (Polly Toynbee, The Guardian 28/02/09 – my emphasis)
It’s not just the UK of course, there’s always US reptiles like Dick Fuld, the ex head of the ex Lehman Bros, with his multiple mansions and his general failure to grasp why all those ordinary folks out there like us can’t see he isn’t part of the problem. The big difference here is that he said he was honestly very sorry at all the job losses and and misery and so forth he’s been instrumental in causing. So that’s OK, then. At least he’s prepared to act a bit. Don’t expect that from “Sir” Fred and his chums . Apologies from the likes of them are as scarce as rocking horse droppings. They intend to look dignified, keep quiet and keep the money.
- Dick Fuld: he knows when to look serious
Gordon, here’s what you do, man: you take the damn money back off them, you know, the way you take money off the poor when you miscalculate their tax credits. Oh, and another thing: nationalise the banks and don’t ask, make them give money to people who can make stuff. Remember making stuff? it’s what we did a lot of before we decided everybody on Airstrip One (a.k.a. the UK plc) was going to work in call centres and, er, banking.
And while we’re on the subject of the bold Sir Fred, why the knighthood? What’s he done for it? saved orphan children? worked weekends in an old people’s home? nope. It was for ‘services to banking’ apparently. What would these services be, exactly? Making hay while the sun shone? being extra creative with the tax avoidance schemes? It’s the mark of a decrepit regime like ours that a certain class of people get knighthoods for just doing the job they are paid handsomely for anyway. Any knighthoods for, say, teachers and social workers? apparently not.
Face it: it’s not a few bad apples we’re on about here. It’s a system that doesn’t deserve anyone’s loyalty, based on a radically unfair distribution of life’s goods (ie, 90 % of the wealth to 5% of the population); one that robs the poor of the world in the name of free trade (aka globalisation) and then asks the plebs to dig deep for charity (go on: do something funny for money while we get on with making sure the poor of Africa stay poor). What’s the name of this set up? oh yes: capitalism.
