A Political Education

The New Global Economy is Local

2009-04-03T22:04:00.001+01:00

It's pretty obvious by now (at least, I think so) that modern capitalism is in the process of failing. There are a number of good reasons for this, some to do with greed and short-sightedness, others to do with the strange idea that infinite growth is possible. That latter has always been a strange idea to me; not just unintuitive, but demonstrably wrong. However, the major concern now seems to be that money is essentially fictional, on a worldwide basis.

For most of human history, money - currency - has represented something real. Sometimes it was gold, sometimes grain, and there have been currencies backed by things as diverse as beef and beer. Modern money, though, is backed by... nothing much. Agreement, between national banks, that we might as well jst pretend there's something there, and as long as nobody stops pretending, we're all fine. The trouble of late seems to have been that many of the people working in and around these banks had too much imagination, and a truly stupendous amount of pretend money went into circulation.

There was an occasion last year in the US in which the imaginary money had to be reined in. Had it not, we're told, the US economy would have completely vanished down an equally imaginary plughole, leaving rather a vaccuum - all, essentially, by agreement.

Anti-globalist protestors have been pointing out the flaws of modern capitalism for more than a decade now. The main trouble seems to be that nobody has been able to suggest anything to replace it - nobody seems to be able to conceive of a global system that will work, be reasonably fair, and not subject to abuse by any party involved. I'm beginning to suspect that this is because we're looking in the wrong places - or, rather, the wrong place.

We're not finding a global solution because there is no global solution. We need local solutions, and each local solution needs to be able to negotiate exchanges with other local solutions, situation by situation. Different areas worldwide have widely different priorities.

Look at real estate, for instance. In Ireland, despite recent falls in house and land prices, you still need to go into debt for, essentially, the rest of your life in order to own a piece of ground. There are exceptions; I know of a site in Wicklow which you could probably have for about 33% of a year's average pre-tax salary, rather than the 1000% you'd pay for a house near Dublin. Unfortunately, it's boggy, isolated, you can't buy it unless you have ancestors who were born in Wicklow, and in any case, planning permission will never be granted on it becase it's right beside the Wicklow Way.

On the other hand, in Detroit, you can buy a house - with some land - for less than a month's take-home pay. At the moment, these two situations exist in the same economy. There are all kinds of reasons for this, but look: it makes no sense. It's perfectly reasonable for land prices to vary based on location, quality, accessibility, and even historical notability, but these places in Detroit are not very different to the ones in Dublin that are selling for more than three hundred times the price. The prices are instead determined by... the prices, in a self-referential spiral.

It would make a lot more sense to decouple these. If you break the global system up into national, or even regional chunks, deliberately isolate them so that they have to make sense internally first, and only then permit an interchange, there will be more stability. No region, having to keep its own books straight first, is going to tangle with regions who don't have things settled - and that's good.

Let me pull out an analogy here. If you need a huge amount of computing power, you don't try to build a single supercomputer. Nobody has tried to do that in years. Instead, you build hundreds of smaller, reasonably powerful computers, and then connect them together sensibly. You get a lot of computation, your whole system can no longer break down at a single point of failure, and the whole thing works better. And, obviously, anyone attempting serious computing with imaginary cycles is going to crash into reality rather quickly - as should have happened to the global economy years ago.

The best thing about this idea, I think, is that it will probably happen on its own. Sooner or later, some nation or region is going to look at its own economy, and say "Look, we can basically be self-sufficient. Take your fictional debts and credits and shove them; we're going our own way for a few years, and you can come back and talk to us when you have real goods and services to trade." Certainly, they'll need to import things - I don't think there's anywhere in the world that produces all the raw goods it needs, and very few regions can produce all the pharmaceuticals their population requires. But as long as the trade for such goods happens in real rather than imaginary terms, it will work.

Recession Era Supplies

2008-11-14T12:54:00.002Z

I've been debating for a few days where to post this article - here, on my house-and-garden blog, or on my livejournal. I've eventually settled, as you can see, on posting it here, and I'll probably link to it from LJ, because I want to hear people's opinions on this.

Ireland officially entered a recession a couple of months back. So far, this has made little enough difference in areas immediately visible to me - one friend was made redundant, another was refused a car loan, and that's been about it. But assuming this continues - and it almost certainly will - there will be changes in the local economic landscape. The main one, I think, is not going to be in terms of money coming in, but in terms of what you can get for it, and how much what you can get costs.

I grew up in a recession, one in which Ireland was, to all intents and purposes, a second-world country. I didn't actually realise this until I was in my twenties; it was just how things were. There were a few things that were markedly different about that era and now, and some of them will return. First and foremost, we have access today to a vast range of goods. Many of these goods are imported. I'm not going to look at consumer goods or clothes here, just food. For an agricultural country, Ireland imports a frightening amount of food. Second, we don't have to go far to get those goods. Most people in Ireland, even in rural areas, can buy Parmesan cheese and out-of-season strawberries within, say, five miles of their homes. I'm pulling that figure out of the air, but considering Ireland's population density, and the distribution of Spars, Centras, Supervalus, etc, it seems reasonable.

These two things are going to change. First, importing food is expensive. It may not look like it, but that's because each step in the process has been optimised until it can't be optimised any more. To get to your table, the following things have to happen to food: it has to be grown, harvested, transported to a storage facility, if imported it's flown or shipped to another storage facility, distributed to the retailer, and then you go in, buy it, and bring it home. Each stage of that process involves a cost - in many cases, it's the cost of fuel, but there's also rental on storage locations and shelf space, and the credit facilities that all the companies involved make use of. Fuel costs will rise. Rentals will rise. Credit facilities will not be available. Each of these will impose an increase in the eventual retail price of food. And when food prices rise, and people cut down on what they can buy, retailers will go out of business.

The result of this will be that people will have to travel further to get their food, and when they get there, they'll get less for their money. As a corollary, fuel prices may rise enough that running cars becomes too expensive for everyday use, and then people are confined to the walkable (or cyclable, or ridable) distances - but that's outside the scope of this current set of thinking.

So, what can people do to cope with these new circumstances? Here's a list of things my folks did when I was a kid.

Store Cupboards: When you DO get to a retailer, buy large amounts of storable food. Bread goes off within days, but flour keeps for months. Fresh vegetables are unusable after a few days as well, but canned goods last for years. Smoked fish and meat keeps longer, and frozen goods will last better as well, assuming you can rely on not having many power cuts. Rice and pasta keep better than potatoes.

Grow Your Own: My grandfather grew about an acre of vegetables every year. I don't know if we ever bought vegetables; they certainly don't appear on the lists of groceries my mother kept. There's been a movement toward growing food lately anyway, for entertainment and health reasons more than economic ones, but it still works. I don't have an acre, but I'm willing to bet that will careful planning, I can supply all the vegetables we use for about 75% of the year from the space I do have.

Local Co-operatives: Somewhere near you (unless you're right in the middle of Dublin, and sometimes even then), there is someone who has the space and knowledge to keep a couple of pigs, and a number more who can keep chickens, ducks, or even quail. If you can offer some money to contribute to feeding these, or vegetables in exchange, you're on your way to having meat that hasn't come through the retail chain. It may involve a local retailer, certainly, but the butcher may well be happy to deal with the raw materials in exchange for a share.

Planning: This is something that plenty of people do anyway, but more of it is needed if you have limited resources. You can't rely on buying what looks good when you do get to a stocked supermarket; you need to go out with a list of goods, and a set of planned meals that will last until you're next out. If the market is offering special deals, you can adjust your plan on the fly, but arriving home with goods that won't last you until the next trip, or will go off before they can be used, is no longer a viable option. You can only change the plan if you have a plan to begin with.

Deliveries: For something that's seen as a bit of a luxury now, deliveries will become a lot more useful. In plain old cost terms, both in time and money, it's a lot more efficient for a retailer to send out one driver with boxes of goods on a round trip to multiple customers than it is for each customer to drive in, select their own goods, and drive back again. Deliveries work well with planning.

There are a few things that are going to make things easier, though, than it was in the 80s. First, we have computers, the internet, and mobile phones. This makes many things easier - planning, deliveries, running a co-op, and managing your stores. Second, we have better public transport now, and that's going, of necessity, to see more use. Thirdly, more people can work from home now than ever before. And fourthly, the whole how-do-I-deal-with-all-this question is much easier to answer when you can hit the internet for information than when you were reliant on books and occasional phone calls.

So - am I overthinking all this? Or do you agree, and have more coping strategies in mind? Or do you think that none of this is going to happen? Let me know, in comments or emails.

Economies after the Decline of Capitalism

2008-10-16T08:52:00.007+01:00

There have been predictions for years of the crash of civilisation, due to running out of oil, catastrophic climate change, or even epidemics. Few enough people have taken seriously the idea of a crash due to capitalism failing, though.

For what it's worth, I don't think it's likely, even with panicky stock markets, falling currencies, banks in trouble, and so on, that capitalism will fall. It's enshrined in the entire legal system of the West, in our habits and livelihoods, and the vast majority of us literally have some investment in it, be it savings, land, loans, or whatever.

There is a rising opinion, though, with government bailouts of large financial institutions happening worldwide, that capitalism has now been, for want of a better word, broken. Some people will say it was broken to begin with, others will say it was greedy banks who broke it, and some few will hold the perverse opinion that the bailouts are the breakage, not the fix.

The problem is: even if we acknowledge that capitalism is broken, what can we replace it with?

I don't think it's possible, or even desirable, to replace capitalism overnight with anything else. We'd need to rewrite our laws, change large chunks of infrastructure, and everyone would need to undergo fairly extensive re-education.

Instead, I'm thinking of the current economic climate as being like an ebbing tide. It has covered over all the underwater mountains of other systems and ideas for some centuries now, but that doesn't mean that they're gone, or that people can't build on them as the decline of capitalism turns them back into visible islands. And new ones may be revealed as well, because who knows what's been going on under the surface?

So here are two things that may happen, on a small or local scale, which can partially replace capitalism.

Small Scale Socialism

This is most visible at the moment in Credit Unions - there are probably similar institutions elsewhere, but that's what we call them here. These are essentially small, community owned banks, which do not (as far as I'm aware) have external debts. They take in savings, give out loans, and pay interest on savings from the interest on the loans. They pay no heed to external credit records, and are very flexible about repayments. These already exist, and they shouldn't be harmed much, if at all, by the damage to larger financial institutions.

The idea of the cooperatives is another sub-surface practice that is going to come into its own again. During the lates 70s and early 80s, when Ireland was in a depression that essentially made it a second-world country, small co-ops sprang up all over. Some still exist as Farmers Co-ops, which sell hardware and farm supplies in rural towns, but there were other, far more local ones where one household kept a couple of pigs, another chickens, another goats for milk, and so on, and the goods were divided up between the participants. And, of course, everyone grew their own vegetables, and when there was a glut of some produce, it got shared with the neighbours. We have the internet and mobile phones now, so this kind of thing should be far easier to arrange.

Small Scale Feudalism

Economic feudalism has never completely gone away. It'll take a greater decline in capitalism to bring it to light, but there are small bits still there. Anyone who pays attention in rural areas of Ireland or the UK knows of a farm where there are labourers who have lived and worked on that farm all their lives, in a house owned by the landholder, and who inherited that position from their parents, grandparents, and so on. Some of these will pass it on to their children. They may receive a paycheck, and pay rent (sometimes nominal) to the landlord, but these people are effectively living in a feudal situation.

It's hard for many of us to see a feudal situation as being good, but imagine this: you have a situation where your job in a bank has disappeared, and there's no sign that you can get another one that will even pay the rent and bills. Your partner is similar straits; maybe they worked for an insurance company that's gone bust. You're renting an apartment, and while you have some savings, they're not going to last long. And someone comes along and says, "Here, I have a big farm. I need someone to do some numbers, and help with running the place. And maybe drive a tractor, or help with lambing, when the need arises. I'll give you a place to live with heating and water and so on, provide food, and pay you a bit as well. I need people who aren't going to jump ship, and you need some security. How about it?"

And suddenly, feudalism looks a lot more reasonable.

I've no doubt there are other systems I haven't thought of, more equitable ones, or those that use modern technology better. I'm looking forward to finding out about them.

Secret Suffrage in an Era Without Privacy

2008-10-02T09:01:00.002+01:00

My new job has led me into all kinds of interesting fields of research and thinking. One of these fields is eGovernment, and I was involved in running a conference dealing with advances in eGovernment earlier this week.

One of the speakers observed that the generation currently coming to voting age have completely different expectations with regard to privacy. They fully expect anyone in public life to have a visible profile somewhere - not necessarily Facebook, or social networks, but a profile page on a local council website, or an election site, or the like - which would include various personal details, pictures, and so forth. Having been exposed to 'fake' personalities as marketing tools all their lives, they're perfectly ready to conclude that if they can't find this information online, these public figures don't actually exist, any more than Ronald McDonald exists. The concept that the public figure might not want those details online is completely incomprehensible to them; they happily put up all their own details, and privacy simply is not an issue for them.

The next step is that they fully expect to see voting records for public figures. This makes sense in many ways, and indeed, voting records can be found for some bodies. It's the next step which gets interesting in this context - are these people going to comprehend a secret ballot? Is it going to be something alien to them? With that level of secrecy, how do you know that a given person is voting Labour? Might he not just say he's voting Labour, and then tick all the boxes for Sinn Fein when nobody can see him? Of course he might, and according to the original thinking, that's a strength and virtue of the system. But I'm starting to wonder if that won't be seen as a flaw.

Oil Prices

2008-08-08T17:26:00.003+01:00

There's an article on the BBC saying that oil prices could hit $200 within 10 years. Thing is, I think that's really, really optimistic. Look at this: in late February, oil prices hit $103. In July, they hit $147. That's not going to stop, and there are a few reasons for this.

First and foremost, there's simple supply and demand. China and India are still on the upward part of the curve with regard to oil use, and all the environmental policies in the world are not going to change that; industrialisation needs oil, and the Western-style status symbol of the car needs oil. So demand will go up. Supply - unless massive reserves are found under the Arctic ice - is going to go down, because there's a limit to the amount of oil that's there, and a limit to how fast it can be pulled out of the ground.

Second, the oil producers can see that they're onto the last of a good thing here. At this stage, with the peak of production either here, or already past, their livelihood is going to be gone in, say, twenty years' time. None of them are going to cut the prices much, and even if oil is a commodity, there are still people who can say "I'm not selling for less that $145, and that's final". And it will still sell, even as they up the price.

What the really sensible oil producers will be doing around now is gouging the oil industry for every cent they can get out of it, and pouring that money into developing solar and wind power, and ever-more-efficient batteries - and particularly, getting patents on the cutting edge technology in those areas. Once they have those nailed down, they'll be sorted for income for good.

The Lisbon Treaty

2008-05-22T13:58:00.002+01:00

I've been asked - like, actually, seriously asked - for my opinion on the forthcoming Lisbon Treaty referendum in Ireland, by three separate people now (and jokingly by half a dozen more). So here goes - this was originally a comment on someone else's blog, edited here for usefulness.

It's a treaty, so of course it's complicated. It's a treaty which is catering to special circumstances of 27 participant countries, so of course it's even more complicated. Nobody else is having a referendum about it, because everyone else in Europe has real governments, and constitutions that aren't made of 19th century wishes and conservative horse glue.

I've read the Referendum Commission's leaflet, and done some more research. It's pretty much unreservedly useful, and should go straight ahead. They've even made special provision for us in the various military aspects.

There are two referenda we actually need to have:

On that excises all the nonsense about neutrality - at the moment, we're hanging onto it for historical romance and a feeling of "ah, sure, who'd invade us anyway" - and

One that leaves us with a situation where the government can do what we're paying them to do, instead of spending ludicrous amounts of money asking the whole damn voting population about a multi-hundred-page treaty. It's closer to democracy in the proper sense of the word, but until it's all online - and everyone has access to it - it's not practical in terms of cost.

Last Feudal Government in Europe Falls

2008-04-23T09:50:00.002+01:00

Being as there are only 600 people on the island of Sark, one of the Channel Islands, their move from what was essentially a feudal system to a democracy didn't get much news coverage. I'm amused to note, though, that since the old ruling body had 52 members, and the new one 28, the proportion of representation has gone down. I don't imagine that in what's essentially a large village, a change in the exact rules by which they operate will make much difference, though.

Food Shortage & Western Impacts

2008-04-23T08:51:00.003+01:00

It's been a busy few months for me, so while I've been keeping track of the news - and taking more interest than usual in the US presidential elections - I haven't had much time to post here.

However, an article about people not being able to buy rice in California is so unexpected that it's making me sit up and take notice. This is one of the wealthiest states in one of the world's wealthiest countries. The notion that global food shortages are already at the point where people are noticing there means that things are already pretty bad, even if it's just an inconvenience, rather than starvation. And this whole thing centres on rice.

It's not easy to point at any one cause, but there are a few likely culprits here. First, the last year's incredibly poor rice harvest in Australia has a lot to do with it. Second, the desire in many parts of the developing world to eat more meat reduces the land that can be used for rice, giving it over instead to pasture. There's also land being devoted to biofuel production, and finally, the rising price of oil is having an impact on transport and agricultural machinery use.

A few months back, I wrote a short piece elsewhere on what I thought I'd be doing in ten years' time. A lot of that basically said, I'm going to be taking a mild survivalist tack. I'm going to plant vegetables, get in touch directly with people who have farms, and make sure I'm living well above sea level, and not in a major city. I'm sure a number of people saw it as being a bit on the crazy side, but this is exactly the kind of event that makes me think I'm on the right track.

The Modern Eye

2008-01-16T22:52:00.000Z

It has often been remarked upon that we have difficulty seeing events through the eyes of another culture. However, I've rarely seen such a classic case of this as one LTG H Steven Blum, of the US National Guard, who visited Masada in Israel. His first quote is a little odd, but I can forgive it; he's explaining to an audience who may not know of much outside the US:

"Masada is roughly analogous in importance to the Israelis as the Alamo is to Texas”.

However, it's with his second quote that I have to stop and scratch my head and wonder if he understood any of what he was seeing there:

"It really helps you understand the history of this region, the millennium-long struggles that have gone on for democracy and individual rights and freedoms".

I really can't comprehend the mindset that would lead him to say that. Does he really think Masada was about "democracy"?

Royal Put-down

2007-11-12T11:29:00.001Z

Apparently, King Juan Carlos of Spain recently told Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, to "shut up". I don't know whether I'm more amused by the event itself, or Chávez' response, in true esprit de l'escalier, of "The king is a head of state like me, only that I have been elected three times with 63% support."

There's a whole raft of clichés and archetypes in here; mannered Old World vs. brash New World, noble privilege vs. democratic rabble, and I can't help a feeling that King Juan Carlos got the better of the exchange. Chávez does rabbit on, and he does interrupt other people, and that would bug me as much as it did the King.

I'm still not sure where I stand on the notion of monarchy as a form of government. On the one hand, it's outdated, undemocratic, archaic - and on the other, I have a sneaking liking for it, and a notion that democracy isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Turkey, Armenia, and the US

2007-10-11T13:01:00.000+01:00

There is a vote by a US congressional committee recognising as genocide the 1915-17 mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

Apparently a sizable group of people of Armenian ancestry has been lobbying for this in the US for some time, and the Turks are furious about it, and moving towards cooperating less with the United States.

I do not get this. Or rather, I do, but surely an event nearly a hundred years ago is a matter for historians, rather than modern politicians? There can't be many people who were involved still alive. So the congressional committee, the resolution, and the reaction all mystify me.

Can we get something done about the Potato Famine in Ireland? How about a congressional investigation of the Moorish Occupation of Iberia? Maybe one to find out what happened to the Neanderthals?

China Miéville: Anti-Libertarianism At Sea

2007-10-10T13:11:00.000+01:00

One of my favourite authors, China Miéville, is also a fairly active figure in socialist politics. In this article in On These Times, he's going all-out on the notion of libertarian seasteading - the notion of ships and artifical islands as offshore tax-havens. It's an interesting read.

New Direction

2007-09-26T11:51:00.001+01:00

This blog has been sitting dormant now for over a year. There are two main problems with its central theme of a learning process concerning global geo-politics, and one lesser one (which might be a much bigger question, really).

1. My Time & Interest

My time is a resource that I'm beginning to value more and more. The kind of research I was hoping to do for this blog takes a lot of time, and I don't have that to spare. It's also the case that an awful lot of the research I was having to do didn't interest me. This came to the fore as I tried, again and again, to read The Right Nation. I couldn't do it; I kept losing track of events, and very nearly every single political figure in it was using some bizarre form of thought that bore no resemblance to logic. So that made it even more difficult to get things done here.

2. Neutral Sources & Neutral Writing

My main discovery here has been: There are no neutral sources in history or politics. If someone says they're neutral, they're lying. Human use of language does not allow for neutrality. A statement as bald as "The operation was a success" can be slanted in favour of many different sides. "Napoleon went to Elba" is true, and sounds neutral, but "Napoleon was sent to Elba" is also true, gives a better indication of events, but has a different slant.

Equally, my efforts to write neutral accounts of my findings have been stymied by my own biases. Try as I might, I cannot see American neo-conservatives as anything other than wilfully short-sighted and selfish. This taints almost anything I can research in the modern world. Likewise, I don't see communism as a bad concept, and anything I try to research in the latter half of the twentieth century gets seen through that lens.

3. GEO-politics?

Finally, I've been trying to look at geo-politics, and I'm beginning to wonder if this still exists. The whole notion is the interaction between states, and a great many of the significant events are now happening at a non-state level. The WTO and the World Bank are non-state entities that control a great deal of the movement of money. The EU is a non-state entity that controls a great deal of law in member states and, crucially, in prospective member states. I'm not sure if geo-politics is a working label anymore; you need to stand back and look at global events.

So, rather than let this blog languish, I'm going to change direction a bit, and use it as a dumping ground for political and/or global thoughts. A chunk of my thinking lately has been on the evolution of the nation state, and you might see some of that here, and there's a good level of background anger at the Irish political situation as well. I won't promise to write a lot here, but I'll try to write more.

Global Warming Declared Real

2006-06-23T16:06:00.000+01:00

... rest of world goes "Yes, we knew that."

A report requested by the US Government has concluded that global warming is real. I understand that there are political aspects surrounding this otherwise obvious conclusion, but they're all concerned with short term gain.

I think the concept I have most difficulty wrapping my head around in modern politics is that fact that nobody, anywhere, seems willing to make changes that will return benefits in more than about five years. The fact that a major report had to be commissioned to convince people of such a fact annoys me greatly. Anyone with some basic ability to remember from one year to the next, let alone keep records, can see that the climate is changing. A little examination of history and historical data will show that the change happens in line with human activity. And the likelihood that some of those naysayers are going - still on a political, short-term gain basis - to produce a few tame scientists who'll babble a bit about faulty data and unreliable conclusions and not actually do any studies themselves - annoys me even more.

There's a notion doing the rounds that a lot of the motivations of environmental "sceptics" are based in religious ideas - namely, that the planet belongs to any given current generation of humanity (or the sceptics' particular sub-sub-segment of it) to do what it wants with, and second, that the world will end soon anyway, so it doesn't matter. These two notion, above all others, makes me see red. Being objective in this area is a real strain.

Wave of Microstates

2006-06-13T23:40:00.000+01:00

And while I'm posting like mad, here's some opinion from ComingAnarchy.com on the long-term effects in other Balkan regions of the independence of Montenegro.

View of Democracy

2006-06-13T23:18:00.000+01:00

Here's an interview by Jennie Rothenberg with Robert Kaplan about the stablisation of the city of Mosul, in Iraq. There's one vastly interesting quote of a quote (this is the interviewer):

Is it possible that some people are genuinely comfortable living under a hierarchical structure and really don't want democracy at all? One Sunni man you interviewed for this piece asked, "What good is voting if the Shiites and Kurds will vote, too?"

I find it fascinating that Rothenberg, despite her experience of political systems and current affairs and journalism in general, apparently finds it hard to conceive of someone preferring a hierarchical system to democracy. How did the West get from "everyone having a say in government sounds like a good idea" to an inability to comprehend any other form of society?

Realtime Attention-to-News

2006-06-13T20:31:00.000+01:00

The BBC news website has made available a rolling, real-time monitor of what stories are being read most. You can even see what traffic to the site is like from each part of the world. Combined with Google Trends, it's a great way to see where people's attention is. I wonder if there's any way to track most popular or most discussed stories on Google News?

Action, Reaction: al-Zarqawi's Death

2006-06-10T14:06:00.000+01:00

I've been following the news of the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, with some interest. The first thing that puzzled me is that he was actually killed, not captured. Surely someone like al-Zarqawi is more useful when he can be questioned? Calling in an air strike on a target like him seems strategically clumsy. It's reported here that they opted for an air strike in case he got away, but the building he was in is repeatedly described as "isolated" - thereby making escape difficult. Hard to know without seeing the place, I suppose, and I'm not a strategist or tactician.

Second was that all the coverage, down to images on the news of Iraqi police forces dancing with large guns in their hands, was of people who were pleased.

That second one seems to be partly balancing out now, with a Jordanian Shalafi, Sheikh Jarrah Kada, who describes al-Zarqawi as a martyr. Yet, bizarrely, he's pleased al-Zarqawi is dead too, because he's now "going to heaven". I wonder how much of that point of view we're going to see reported in Western media.

Montenegro Progress

2006-06-09T15:58:00.000+01:00

I've been following the development of Montenegro's independence. It's fascinating watching the progress, which is generally civil and agreeable, in an area that's about as war-torn as you can get in Europe. Serbia declared independence (which seems an odd way to put it) and also laid claim to the continued statehood, which basically means that Serbia is the state that was Serbia & Montenegro, and Montenegro is a new state. The EU has said that it might be possible to reach a "stability and association agreement" in 2006, which would be the first step for Montenegro to join. The EU is likely to recognise Montenegro's statehood as a block, rather than as individual countries, although Iceland recognised it yesterday.

There doesn't seem to be any information available yet as to what changes in form of government Montenegro will have, if any. It almost goes without saying that it will be something democratic, but there are many forms to choose from. The Head of State (currently President Filip Vujanovic) could continue as a president of some kind, or possibly a monarch - there is an existing royal house, which has not given up the claim. At present, the existing parliament and prime minister, Milo Djukanovic, are in control. Djukanovic, according to the BBC article linked above, "is still under investigation in Italy for cigarette smuggling."

Obviously, there are still differing views within Montenegro - with the margin having been so slim in the referendum, that's inevitable.

Burma, Iraq, Democracy, Capitalism

2006-05-27T12:48:00.000+01:00

I've been doing a little bit of research over the past few days into the current situation in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest by the ruling military junta. As I understand it, Suu Kyi is the closest that Burma has to a legitimate democratic leader, in that she won the last election with an 83% majority. The military, however, refused to recognise that result, and have kept Suu Kyi under house arrest for 10 of the last 16 years.

Given that this is profoundly undemocratic, it seems that other nations currently claiming an interest in the spread of democracy (the US and UK, in particular)should be taking an active part in negotiations, but the news of Suu Kyi's renewed house arrest is the only coverage I've seen Burma receive in the mainstream press this year. I've been looking into the differences between this situation and the situation in Iraq prior to the US-led invasion of 2003, for which the restoration of democracy was quoted as a justification, secondary to the presence of WMDs.

Essentially, it comes down to the fact that the military junta are not making any moves to threaten anyone outside their own borders, and Burma's lack of importance in world trade. Iraq had invaded both Iran and Kuwait under the governance of Saddam Hussein, and holds considerable oil reserves. Both have or had undemocratic governments and bad human rights records.

This is leading back to a conclusion that I'm approaching carefully, because it seems inflammatory: The leading political system of the Western World is not democracy, but capitalism.

I'm also working on a notion that capitalism is closely related to feudalism, but I'm going to have to come back to that one, as I don't have much to support it yet. I'm trying hard not to simply search for "capitalism is feudalism" and quote that, but to build up the argument myself.

New Resolve & Montenegro

2006-05-26T09:45:00.000+01:00

I'm coming to the conclusion that worthy and all as it is to concentrate on one or two research projects at a time, it's preventing me from posting about other aspects of global geopolitics that I'm interested in. Therefore, I'm going to loosen things up a little, and post a bit more off my main research topics.

In that vein, I'm watching the separation of Montenegro from Serbia with great interest. I'm finding it fascinating, too, that the word Balkanization (the American spelling seems more used) is still most useful here in the area of its origin.

I'm not sure if this is the first peaceful secession in my lifetime, but it's certainly the first I'm paying attention to. I note in particular from the maps that this leaves Serbia with no sea-ports, which is definitely interesting - I wonder how much of their import/export trade comes in by air or on the Danube?

Evo Morales' First Move

2006-01-27T11:59:00.000Z

Evo Morales was recently elected president of Bolivia. He has just fulfilled a campaign promise by reducing his own pay by more than half. Further, since no public official may earn more than the President, this means that a full review will happen shortly.

Mr Morales said the money saved would be used to increase the numbers of doctors and teachers.

I've no real comment on this yet; I just want to draw some attention to it because, being perfectly honest, I've never heard of any politician reducing his own pay before.

Irish Postal Strikes: Initial Research

2005-11-09T11:20:00.000Z

Initial research is showing that looking at the Irish Post Office strikes is going to be complex. I've been starting from keywords of "privatisation", "labour", and "strike".

Some Wikipedia articles, as good starting points:

Privatisation
Strike Action
Labour Relations

And a note on the right to strike in Ireland, from the US Department of State's Report on Human Rights Practices:

"The law provides for the right to strike, and this right was exercised in both the public and private sectors; however, police and military personnel are prohibited from striking."

I'm not yet certain if the right to strike is included in US law, or if it only applies to private companies. The Wikipedia article on Strike Action above says:

"The Railway Labor Act bars strikes by United States airline and railroad employees except in narrowly defined circumstances. The National Labor Relations Act generally permits strikes, but provides for a mechanism to enjoin strikes in industries in which a strike would create a national emergency."

Generally speaking, it looks, at least initially, as though strikes are far more acceptable at a policy level in Europe than in the US, especially for something as wide as the postal service. There have certainly been postal strikes here before, some lasting several weeks. I'll be looking into the effects of these past strikes next.

Meta: Comments

2005-11-09T07:38:00.000Z

I've just noticed that there are some comments appearing on the Livejournal RSS feed of this blog. However, since it's an RSS feed, those comments don't get mailed to me, and they'll get lost when that particular article on the feed expires. That's rather a pity, and I suspect I've been missing some good discussions because of it. I'll try to include a direct link to the blog with posts in future, and in the meantime, if you're reading this and can remember what you said in comments on older articles, please do re-comment.

[A Political Education]

Agricultural Subsidies: Almost Conclusions

2005-11-07T14:38:00.000Z

I've been doing a good bit more research into agricultural subsidies, and the effects they have on politics. At the heart of it, they're very simple - basic free market economics have a drive toward producing the goods that are most profitable, and to counter this, states offer money to produce goods that are necessary - wheat, milk, or the like. However, with demands now coming from various parts of the world (Brazil, most recently) for the USA to do away with subsidies, the response has been that they'll drop them when Europe does. And Europe is not quite unwilling to do so.

As I understand it, the Republican party in the USA is generally in favour of unfettered trade. As such, the current administration will probably be reasonably happy to stop paying subsidies. There are two reasons they can't simply do so. One of these is that with the subsidies gone, farmers will turn to more profitable crops, and the goods will have be imported from other areas, hence raising prices, with that money flowing out of the country. The second is the agricultural industry itself, and while it's not as powerful in terms of liquid cash as other industries, it reaches deeper and further in terms of influence. Washington is driven by industrial lobbying groups as much as any other mechanism, and a great many of the Republican states are stronger in agriculture than the more urban Democratic ones.

Europe's more left-leaning governments are much inclined towards subsidies to begin with, and agricultural subsidies are a major component of the economic functioning of Europe. The US offer to drop subsidies if Europe will do likewise has therefore led to some not inconsiderable campaigning, with France leading the pro-subsidy efforts. Ireland has thrown its weight behind France on this, at least officially, and probably with considerable public support. Part of this is because, two years ago, France did away with the connection between produce and subsidies, and agreed to pay each farm then in existence a standard subsidy for the following ten years, based on previous subsidies. The argument is that French farmers are now free to produce for the market, and after the ten years are up, the subsidies can be done away with. According to an article in The Australian, some French farms are now receiving 40-50% of their income in subsidies.

From that same article, "Across Europe, however, there is a growing view that the massive agricultural subsidies cannot be maintained. While gradually declining, agricultural subsidies still represent as much as 55per cent of the EU budget even though farmers account for less than 5per cent of the EU's labour force." Particularly considering the expansion of the EU, that number is becoming very significant.

At the core of it, the political maneuvering around subsidies come down to two points: money, and the principle of free trade. Money is a little alrge for me to examine just yet. I'll move on soon to examining free trade as a principle, but I want to look first at a topic that's having effects here in Ireland at the moment: strikes within essential services. One friend of mine in the US was surprised to find that the Post Office here is a company, not an arm of the state, and has asked me to comment on the effects of that. Given that there's no postal delivery today in Ireland, due to a strike that is sort-of going ahead despite some resolutions yesterday, this is rather timely. Of course, privitisation of services concerns free trade in any case, so I expect one to lead into the next.

Part of the point of this research, of course, is to make up my own mind on things. I haven't yet come to a conclusion about subsidies. It seems obvious to me that the production of necessities like wheat and milk should not be left to the market to determine, because it may choose simply not to provide them. Envoronmental concerns are also important, and they simply will not be addressed by the market. However, 55% of the budget for 5% of the workforce is clearly not sustainable. So I have more thinking to do, and while I'm moving my research on to other topics, I'll be keeping an eye on news coverage of subsidies.

Agricultural Subsidies: Initial Information

2005-10-03T00:31:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the long gap in posting; work gets chaotic every year around the beginning of autumn, and this year was no exception. I've had time to do some reading on both my research topics, but not really to compile my thoughts. However, here're some first impressions, and some links about agricultural subsidies.

Essentially, agricultural subsidies are funds paid out to farmers to compensate for unprofitable but necessary activities. These vary from paying a set price for a particular crop, which is higher than the price the market would pay to paying an amount per acre for land to be left wild. Subsidies are also paid out in various places for certain eco-friendly practices, tree-planting, and conservation of native species.

The necessity of the activities subsidised is often under debate. Some of the subsidies seem to be for no other purpose than to maintain population in isolated or underpopulated areas. However, in countries like Ireland, subsidies are seen to be essential to maintain the agricultural sector.

The groups that argue for completely free markets without government aid (the term "neo-conservative" is used here, but I'm not yet happy with my knowledge of that term) are, obviously, opposed to subsidies. The groups that prefer government intervention in markets usually support subsidies, and hold that they are necessary.

Wikipedia Articles:
Agricultural Subsidies
European Common Agricultural Policy
Agricultural Policy

Websites:
Kick All Agricultural Subsidies - dedicated to getting rid of all American agricultural subsidies.
Environmental Literary Council - (somewhat out of date)

Economic Freedoms

2005-08-17T17:45:00.000+01:00

Of late, there have been a number of discussions happening around me concerning economics, freedoms, employment, and social attitudes toward all of the above. Those don't really touch on any of my current research topics, but I want to talk about them a bit anyway.

A major topic of conversation in Ireland these days is the price of housing. Housing is ludicrously expensive, right across the country. Further items that are expensive are energy - both fuel for cars, and household forms, with prices reupted to be set to rise this winter again - food, and childcare. In essence, the cost of living has increased to an unreasonable degree over the last ten years.

There's a feedback mechanism at work here, centered around an expectation that all adults in any given household will be employed outside the home. The more that this expectation becomes normal, the more pressure there is - both economic and social - to conform to this norm. If everyone else who wishes to buy a house has a double income, then you need a double income, or a very large single income, to have a chance of buying.

However, I'm not convinced that this is healthy, from two separate points of view. Firstly, a great deal of Irish - and indeed worldwide - day to day processes assume that there is someone at home during the day. Postal deliveries, meter readings, grocery and household shopping all work on this principle, even though it's no longer true in the majority of cases. The rise of late-opening shops and supermarkets, online and phone meter readings all show an adjustment to this, but require even more money and, more importantly, time. The result of this is that after the 40+ hours a week that work takes, everyone must now turn around and take care of household processes. The cumulative stress from this, across the entire population, must be huge.

Second, there's childcare. I don't have kids, and have no intention of having any, but people around me are starting to, and the stories I hear about the cost of childcare are terrifying. In essence, one-third to a half of the disposable income of one parent must go, each month, on creche and after-school care bills, per child. Obviously, there comes a point when one parent is working fulltime so that the children can be taken care of full-time.

And yet, let someone stay home to take care of the household and/or kids, and they're in economic and social trouble straight away. Society no longer sees value in these tasks, and resents the "leisure" of those who take them on. This is particularly applied to women who stay in the home, and a great deal of this social pressure comes from other women. Men who do so are still unusual enough that people often move to the assumption that there must be good reason - an odd piece of social "thinking", but one that's prevalent. If not, the unfortunate bloke comes in for even more pressure, as people wonder aloud when he's going to get a job, and stop living off his partner.

To my mind, neither of these situations make sense; in chasing after more and more money, whose purpose is to make our lives and those of our families easier, we end up making them more diffiicult. There's an apocryphal story about an Amazonian tribe, who, having tried the comforts and benefits of modern life for a few decades, vanished back into the rainforest to get away from the hassle - I sympathise. Solutions to these problems are hard to see, but I'm starting to wonder if there isn't a tipping point ahead, if the double income of the last generation isn't an anomaly in the longer-term economic trends.

Vladimir Putin & Russia

2005-07-08T10:08:00.000+01:00

This is not on topic for either of my current research areas, but interesting nonetheless. The Guradian have a long article on state control of Russian resources and media, and the power President Putin wields. I think Russia and the ex-USSR might form a good topic for future research - there's certainly plenty of material there to examine.

The article seems to summarise the situation there pretty well. This quote is one that stands out: "There is no democracy in Russia," says Khakamada: "There is only a virtual matrix of democratic space created by the Kremlin's political department. It copies reality. If there is a democratic opposition to the Kremlin, the Kremlin automatically creates a different one loyal to the Kremlin."

Khakamada was one of Putin's opponents in the last presidential election. I'm finding the fact that she's using an American film as the metaphor for the Kremlin's control fascinating, too.

Issues to Examine

2005-07-07T10:03:00.000+01:00

I've now decided on two issues I want to take as my first learning projects. Both are fairly important issues on a global scale, and have definite relevance in Ireland. The first is the issue of agricultural subsidies, the second immigration. I'm not sure that's quite the concept I want to address in the second issue, but it's the label used for it at the national level.

Agricultural subsidies have been brought up by the African Union in the material they intend to put to the G8 summit in Gleneagles. They say that subsidies in the US are damaging their export capabilities, and that they want them to be dropped. The US President has said that he'll drop the subsidies if the EU will do the same. This is not expected to happen. New Zealand is repeatedly mentioned in this context, as they dropped all agricultural subsidies a number of years ago, and farming is apparently thriving there now. Anecdotally, almost all farmers in Ireland recieve some level of subsidy.

The questions I initially want to ask to get a complete picture of this issue are: How are agricultural subsidies in the US and the EU awarded? How were they awarded in New Zealand? What are they meant to achieve? Do they currently achieve the aims they set out for? What effects do these subsidies have on the African Union's exports? What effect would dropping the subsidies in the US and the EU have, first in those places, and then worldwide? Is there an ecological effect of the subsidies?

The second issue, immigration, is one that's important in Ireland and the UK now. Ireland recently passed, by an overwhelming majority, an amendment to the Constitution that essentially moved the right to citizenship from those born on Irish soil (including the North) to those whose parents were Irish citizens. This was purportedly to prevent the situation whereby immigrants arrive from other places in the world, quickly have children (possibly arriving while pregnant) and then claim a right to stay as their child is an Irish citizen. In the UK, there are political parties such as the UK Independence Party and the British National Party whose platform is very much concerned with "the immigrant problem".

The questions I intend to look for answers to are: Why do people immigrate? What effect do they have on the places they immigrate to? What effect do they have on the places they emigrate from? What are the arguments used by natives of the destination countries against immigration? What restrictions are currently in place with regard to immigration? What are the aims of these restrictions? Do they achieve the aims they set out with?

I have no doubt that other questions will arise as I look into these ones. The first two that come to mind are: How does it come about that one government figure (the US president) can say that he will drop subsidies across a nation the size of the United States? Assuming that he did say it, and not "subsidies will be dropped", or "every attempt will be made to drop subsidies", or the like. Second, with the immigration laws that currently exist, what is the position of illegal immigrants in Ireland, the UK, the US (where illegal Mexican immigrants seem to be a large group, and Cubans significant) and France (where the group called the sans-papiers are notable)? I'll try to decide as I proceed if these questions are revelant or not.

Difficulties

2005-07-06T13:01:00.000+01:00

I'm trying very hard to keep my attitude neutral as I learn. When the material you're learning from is all slanted one way or another, and can't be measured in any way, this is difficult. I have very definite leanings to the left anyway, and I'm not really inclined to shift that, and that makes for more problems. I try to read the right-wing material with an open mind, but I keep seeing problems with it.

Primarily, the problems I'm seeing are to do with marketing. I work as a web developer, so I've had a fair bit of experience with edits and re-edits of material until they say one thing and convey quite another. The problems are that the right has too much marketing going on, and it sets off my alarm bells immediately. The left has too little, and so leaves its arguments flawed. Now, I'm more in favour of the left approach of presenting all the facts, not just the ones that suit, but the right simply won't do that, it seems. This leaves me trying to get the facts from the left - where they're slanted.

Then there's the issue of current affairs versus history. There's no understanding current politics without delving into history - at least as far back as World War II. That's an era of history I have no other interest in, though, and besides, there's so damn much of it. You need to understand things like the American New Deal before you can examine the current economic shape of the US, and then the economic state of the US has effects right across the world, not just because of the amount of trading, but also because of things like the World Bank and the IMF. The Marshall Plan affects the current shape of Europe. But I don't want to take time out from the current events to understand all of those, because by the time I do, things will have moved on again. I want to understand it all now.

What I'm considering doing is picking a few current events - probably not massive ones, like the war in Iraq or the G8 summit, but smaller ones - and reading up as much as I can on their current states. Then I can look into the history of those issues, while keeping an eye on progress in real time. Once I have all of that, I can come to an actual informed opinion. When I've practiced this technique a bit more, I can then turn to the major events, whatever they may be by then, and work them through in the same way. And hopefully, I'll be able to set aside my own biases and decipher the spin on the material I'm reading, in order to arrive at an informed state.

Once I get to that, I can let the biases back, see how they stand up in the cold light of reason, and decide where I really stand, and what I can do.

England & America

2005-07-05T16:14:00.000+01:00

Now let's see about England and America. I'm guessing that what I know about these is considerably less than about Ireland.

England has almost a three-party system. Labour, the Conservative Party, and Liberal Democrats are the three parties, but the LDs are yet to fully become a power. Most of the elections come down to competitions between the other two. Parties like the UK Independence Party are far-right, and very much minority. At present, the Labour government is behaving in a manner much more like the Conservatives, especially with regard to foreign policy, under the leadership of Tony Blair.

The US definitely has only a two-party system - while there are some minor parties and independents, they're almost completely insignificant. The two parties are the Democrats (centrist), and the Republicans (right-wing). At present the Republican party is in control. The system in the US affords a great deal of power to the winner of the presidential elections - more so than in any other country in the West, as far as I know. The current president is George Bush. It's an understatement to say I'm not keen on Bush. Quite apart from any of his actual policies, he makes far too many decisions based on his own opinion and religious beliefs to be considered good.

What I Think I Know

2005-07-05T13:44:00.000+01:00

So, if I'm going to educate myself, perhaps I should start by setting down what I already know. In terms of politics, this shouldn't take long. I know some about Irish politics, some about British politics, and some about American politics. I'm talking here about the governmental structures in each of these countries, and the groups involved in those structures. Some of what I write here could well be wrong - if I find that it is, I'll try to correct it in future posts. I'm making no checks as I write here on google or any other site, so if I make blatant mistakes, they're all my own fault. I'll deal in this post with Irish politics.

Irish politics is a small field. Most of the major debates in recent years have involved movements away from the rules of the Catholic church, and the rights of immigrants and citizens. Scandals have been concerned for the most part with money, in the areas of embezzlement and bribery.

There are four major parties in Ireland: Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, the Progressive Democrats, and Labour. Minor parties include the Green Party, Sinn Fein, and the Socialist Workers' Party.

Fianna Fail are currently in government (possibly with the aid and/or coalition of the PDs - I'm uncertain of this, as detailed below). FF are, at least in Irish terms, conservative, with most of their voters being elderly, comfortably-off, or both. Their major policies center around things staying largely the same, attracting foreign (particularly American) investment, and not being Fine Gael. FF is headed by Bertie Ahern, commonly referred to as the Teflon Taoiseach, since nothing anyone says about him, true or not, seems to stick. He is most notable in my mind for referring to large protest marches as "support for the government position", or words to
that effect.

Fine Gael are the second-largest party at the moment. They're almost solely defined by not being Fianna Fail, and can't always even make a stand on that - when there were protests against the war in Iraq, and American planes landing in Shannon, Fine Gael were notably absent from the protests, with the rather feeble excuse that they had an annual meeting the same day as the largest march. I think Fine Gael might be headed by Enda Kenny. They're currently in opposition, of course.

The Progressive Democrats are a "break-away" part of Fianna Fail, and seem to provide nothing more than an opportunity for those not comfortable being identified with the original party to march in step regardless. The PDs' policies are almost invariably the same as those of FF. I think they may be in coalition with FF at the moment, but the only way it's evident is that the PDs occasionally threaten to break the coalition if they don't get their way on a particular issue.

Labour are Ireland's only credible left-wing party. Despite voting for them, for the most part, in the last election, I can bring to mind remarkably little about them, and can't name any leaders of the party. Labour stand mostly for the rights of the people, the protection of trade unions, and, of course, opposition to Fianna Fail. I've rarely, if ever, disagreed with anything a Labour representative had to say.

The Green Party are a rather poor shadow of their European counterparts. While they claim to be concerned mostly with environmental matters, their actual conduct seems to belie this. Much as I'd like to vote for them, the amount of wavering they do pushes me away from them regularly.

Sinn Fein are an anachronism in Irish politics, concerned almost solely with Northern Ireland. They're widely seen as the political arm of the IRA, a terrorist group which is now falling in on itself more than anything else. Sinn Fein are the only party on my "never, ever vote for these" list.

The Socialist Workers Party seems to be composed of young, hyper-idealistic Marxists and idiots who like to protest, in equal part. They're notable for little more than opposing everything any government do, and also for having almost no actual political power. Nonetheless, they endure, and since their use of a term to refer to themselves that no real socialists would use provoked my current examination of politics, I suppose they have some uses.

Introduction

2005-07-05T04:50:00.000+01:00

Hi, I'm Drew, and I'm just discovering that, as global politics go, I'm pretty clueless. This was brought home to me by my assuming that the anti-globalisation movement, as represented to me for the most part by the local Irish Socialist Workers Party, were a crowd of idiots.

Two misconceptions have since become clear to me. First, the SWP have little to do with the global citizens movement, and second, "anti-globablisation movement" is a label applied by the media. There's a lot of clue available in the movement.

So I'm setting in to explore global politics as best I can, and come to whatever conclusions I can make stand up. I'm starting by reading Susan George's Another World is Possible if..., and will be proceeding through other texts as I get my hands on them, both left and right-wing. I suspect there's not much centrist material out there at present; politics from my initial point of view appears extremely polarised.

I'm probably starting from a fairly left-wing position - in ideal terms, I'd prefer that there were no governments, and that people were smart enough to make their own rational decisions. Confronted with the native stupidity of humanity, I think I'll have to regretfully lay practical anarchism to one side. I'm also interested in environmental questions, and am a practicing pagan. I'm interested in hearing from everyone, though - my political stance is much less firm that I'd like it to be, and I'm persistent in wanting to form my own opinions.

Over time, as I inform myself better, I except those opinions to solidify, and for this blog to move from exploration to commentary, and possibly even on into activism in areas I then find important. I'm looking forward to the trip.