Monthly Archives: November 2018

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Jason Hickel Features On Citations Needed

The latest episode Neoliberal Optimism Industry of the podcast Citations Needed features Jason Hickel, who has done a lot of work to bust the narrative of the World Bank on poverty.

Excerpt:

Jason Hickel: So Gates is sort of the forefront of this aid narrative and the way that I see this as problematic is because it effectively ends up obscuring the real causes of the problems that are at stake. Right? So we’re all concerned about global poverty and human suffering, etcetera. But what’s really causing these problems? So the aid discourse makes it seem as though what’s needed is like little technocratic fixes here and there, some more malaria bed nets here and there, but it distracts our attention away from the fundamental structure of the international economy and you know, the rules that govern international trade and that’s really what needs to be addressed because effectively if you look into the way that that system operates, it’s effectively designed in such a way that facilitates the siphoning of wealth and cheap labor and resources from the South to the North.

I am not a fan of degrowth in the episode but the podcast is for an hour and worth your time. The title is the link to the audio and transcript. You can alternatively find the episode on iTunes.

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Angela Nagle — The Left Case Against Open Borders

Angela Nagle writing for American Affairs:

The destruction and abandonment of labor politics means that, at present, immigration issues can only play out within the framework of a culture war, fought entirely on moral grounds. In the heightened emotions of America’s public debate on migration, a simple moral and political dichotomy prevails. It is “right-wing” to be “against immigration” and “left-wing” to be “for immigration.” But the economics of migration tell a different story.

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Today’s well-intentioned activists have become the useful idiots of big business. With their adoption of “open borders” advocacy—and a fierce moral absolutism that regards any limit to migration as an unspeakable evil—any criticism of the exploitative system of mass migration is effectively dismissed as blasphemy. Even solidly leftist politicians, like Bernie Sanders in the United States and Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom, are accused of “nativism” by critics if they recognize the legitimacy of borders or migration restriction at any point. This open borders radicalism ultimately benefits the elites within the most powerful countries in the world, further disempowers organized labor, robs the developing world of desperately needed professionals, and turns workers against workers.

[the title is the link]

Fine Jeremy Corbyn Speech From 2010

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I came across this fine Jeremy Corbyn Speech in which he explicitly talks about the ideology of the ruling class which is utterly deflationary to output. It’s from 2010, and shows how clear his understanding of the way the world works, is. It is extremely rare and in my opinion, no politician has come even remotely close to it.

Some excerpts, link below.

I was at the European Social Forum last week and we heard what is happening in Greece, in Spain, in Portugal, in France and other places where the government is imposing wage cuts, where thousands tens of thousands are you losing their jobs and the media say well it’s all to do with the psychology of the Greek people, it’s all to do with the manana concept in Spain, it’s all to do with the wine in Portugal.

Utter tosh!

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The economic medicine that’s being imposed on those countries now is exactly the same economic medicine that’s been imposed on sub-saharan African and Latin American and South Asian countries for decades where they’ve been forced to pay an unpayable debt, where they’ve been forced to privatize public services, where they’d be forced to destroy all the gains they thought they’d made on independence from colonies.

Well that whole philosophy is now coming home to roost.

Are we going to accept this economic orthodoxy that creates poverty creates misery and creates division or are we going to fight back against it? Are we going to stand up for the values of the labor movement for socialism, for peace, for justice, for the needs of education, housing and everything else?

… They, the world’s bankers, International Monetary Fund, European Union, they are utterly United in what they want. Utterly united in deflation, suppressing the economy and creating unemployment. Utterly united in that. We need to be equally united not just across every union in this country, in every community in this country and every social demand in this country but all across Europe and internationally to show that the voice of those campaigning for peace, justice and socialism will not be silenced by these people. We will win through we will defeat them and we will win that decency that we want in this world.

Jeremy Corbyn, Durham Miners Gala, 2010

You can watch the video on YouTube.