On macroeconomics, in memory of David Graeber

On macroeconomics, in memory of David Graeber

David Graeber died a couple of months ago on 2nd Sept. I never met him but was introduced to his work by my son who pointed me at "On Flying Cars and declining rate of profit", and he was introduced to me as one of the world’s leading anarchist thinkers; he was teaching at Goldsmiths which is close to where I live. I didn't feel it appropriate to write anything at the time, however I was clearing up my desktop and came across "Against Economics", which is a review of Robert Skidelsky's book, "Money & Government: the past and future of economics". It is through these two articles, and his tweet stream, that I came to know him; there is much wisdom in these articles. In this blog post, I comment on three things which I think especially important. Firstly, the nature of capitalism has changed. Capitalism is no longer progressive, and its defenders are moving towards arguing there is no alternative. The problems that the economic system needs to solve are no longer growth and the resource allocation required to deliver it, but, in his words, "how to deal with increasing technological productivity, decreasing real demand for labor, and the effective management of care work, without also destroying the Earth". This would also require an equitable distribution of wealth and income, the lack which is one of the chief criticisms of capitalism. Secondly that amongst the fatal flaws in economics as a science is the truth that systems that promise a benevolent equilibrium cannot rely on expectations of exogenous rewards to act as stabilisers. Thirdly, I look at his critique of the quantitative theory of money, and his positioning of credit and debt as an exclusively social construct. For more, see below/overleaf ...

Valuing people

Valuing people

I was nudged to look at Psychometric systems, both Myers Briggs which I see as offering one insight into yourself and Belbin which more orientated to managing teams. Perhaps one reason they’re important is based on the insights one of my ex-managers shared with his team,

“You’ll be good at what you enjoy! What’s not going to happen, is that I sit you down in front of your manager who’ll tell you what you’re bad at and then we attempt to remedy your weaknesses through training; that’s how you build mediocrity”

One of my Old Managers

Shame he was shagged by his global management who introduced a system of stack ranking which means no-one will admit their weaknesses and managers recruit for the permitted talent spectrum.

Myers Briggs helps you understand your strengths and weaknesses and this know what help you need, If you build teams where people do what they’re good at and are encouraged to rely on the complementary strengths of others, you teams will perform well and even those perceived as adding the least value may be critical for success. No man left behind! As Belbin’s theory says, we can’t all be Plants, i.e. too many of some skills/personality types diminishes team effectiveness.  …

The danger of a false nostalgia

The danger of a false nostalgia

In the FT, “Britain will do a Brexit deal on Europe’s terms“, looks at the asymmetry of negotiating power and the role of khaki tinted nostalgia in shaping the Brexiteer’s negotiating position. I particularity like the line, “More broadly, Britain’s Leavers were guilty of swallowing their own propaganda.” and the article finishes with a skewering truth, that Britain “won” the second world war only with and solely because of the help of the USA and in this dispute, they will be on the side of the EU; whether all of this will make Johnson’s government agree a deal on Europe’s terms is another question. They might be too stupid and too proud and too frightened of the Tory party’s cleansed backbenches. …

Another stitch in time

Another stitch in time

Duncan Shipley Dalton writes, at the end of an exposition on the impact of the Human Rights Act on the Labour Party’s rules and my proposal to incorporate the ECHR directly into the rule book,

McDonnell is now proposing the left need to have a proper manifesto for Party reform with a clear plan of restructuring and reforming the Party. Would have been nice if that had been done when those like Dave [,that’s me that is,] and CLPD were pointing out these things years ago! Assuming McDonnell means it and is not just trying to divert energy to stop the current boat rocking it is a worthwhile idea. In my view the whole Rule book should be re written. It is a mess. A top to bottom rewrite to democratise the whole thing. Take away the kind of NEC discretion that gets abused , Local Govt selection rules, PPC selections, officers, Regional Officers etc. It means though a movement of ‘real’ democratic power to members. Jeremy and others talked about it but were not very good at giving actual power to members. The current leadership seem to be graduates of the Mussolini/Kim Jong Un school of democracy, so it is hard to see them agreeing to relinquish any real power to members. It is the right thing to do but it is hard to see it happening in the currently circumstances.

@baronvonduncs
 …

Ed Murrow on McCarthy’s witch hunt

No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities.

As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

Good night, and good luck.

Ed Murrow
 …

On DMCA takedown of youtube-dl

On DMCA takedown of youtube-dl

The EEF thought fit to comment on an RIAA DCMA takedown using §1201 of the DCMA aimed at a program called youtube-dl hosted on Github; I forwarded it via Facebook with a cryptic, acronym laden comment, and not surprisingly, some of my correspondents suggested I could have been more helpful and understandable. So I wrote an article on Linkedin, although much of it can be gained from the EFF article, however, this version includes a bit on oppressive economics of copyright maximalism, and a comment noting that Github have reposted the repo and revised their process to ensue their policies of supporting developers is fully considered when considering takedown notices. ...

A new Labour Left

A new Labour Left

I have been ill over the summer; I wish I had written this earlier as the wheel tracks of the political debate in the Labour Party are probably too deep for these thoughts to take hold, or maybe not, some of the articles bookmarked here suggest some deeper thinking is going on. This blog article examines the inter left dialogue and what might be done to promote a greater left unity. It notes the number of people who voted for Starmer and Corbyn, it’s a lot, and suggests that these people are key to the future platform pursued by the Labour Party. We need a majority that will build a fair and principled discipline system and a democratic policy development process that allows out membership to lead the party. This blog article , see overleaf, explores these issues in more detail

Labour, human rights and the #spycops bill

Labour, human rights and the #spycops bill

I am pretty disappointed with Labour’s decision to abstain on the 3rd Reading of the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill. It’s truly disgraceful and allowing the State’s secret policy to operate with impunity jeopardises important human rights such as the right to a fair trial and the right to organise (freedom of association) not to mention the rights to privacy although the investigatory powers act of 2016 put these on the bonfire. Most of its opponents focus on murder, torture and rape, but the destruction of the rule of law and its application to the police is an on-ramp to these crimes, the principle of an accountable police and prosecutor is the key.

However, Labour is not good on these issues, more recently the PLP led by Burnham & Starmer colluded with the IPA 2016, supported the retention of ‘economic’ security as a lawful purpose of the intelligence service’s activities and when I proposed the supremacy of human rights law as a conference policy, it got 2 votes on the NPF web site and my CLP has always sent other, yet important, motions to conference while CLPD’s support was ineffective as they pursued their doomed attempt to rewrite the Leadership election rules. I posted my moving speech to this blog. I am not sure if this is because many people consider the NPF to be a waste of time, or that support for human rights law is weak in the Labour Party, because you can’t eat or burn human rights.

Please vote up my NPF proposal, if its still open and if you can, the software is, to use a technical phrase, a bit shit. Also you might like to share my motion via social media.

ooOOOoo

Hansard have reworked the way in which they report votes, here is their record of the 3rd reading vote, the page opens on the not recorded page.

The Legislation tracker is here, the Lords Committee stage starts in 24th Nov and the Report stage & 3rd reading are not yet planned. If the Lords amend the Bill then it will return to the Commons for what is called the “Consideration of Amendments” where usually the Commons tell the Lords to “go away” (4,3). …

Abstention is not opposition.

Where’s Starmer? I didn’t think that “responsible opposition to the Tories” meant serial abstention. It’s not opposition! Labour has abstained on the Overseas Operations Bill and the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill; they also abstained on a LibDem resolution in the Lords to block evictions as the lockdown provisions expired. I should also add that Starmer’s “No ifs, no buts, get them back to school” is likely to haunt him and us. At least he should have added, when you’ve made it safe. The PLP have been absent on Brexit too. Abstention is not opposition.

 …