Well said Carne. If you'd be up for having another go, I'd be up for a bit of a collective effort (by fellow sympathetic Green Party members) to persuade them to try this 'anti-system' approach. I'm sure we wouldn't be alone in wanting to fight for this amongst the membership. Congrats on finishing the book, looking forward to reading it. Morgan
Thanks Morgan. Not sure about an effort with the GP but happy to discuss with you further. And huge and renewed thanks for your help with the book. I drew on your comments in my latter revisions and they made a big improvement. Very helpful.
When you step back and look at the left it is huge, look at the websites, blogs, substacks, all good there's so many I could spend all my time on any number of them? But with all this intellectualism we can't put a simple program and explanation of tactics. I read that the CIA created a operation in the 1950s to divide and rule the left? (Don't know if we couldn't have divided ourselves without help?) They got a huge operation manipulating the press and politicians. Why don't we choose solidarity over cults? A United front over being right about something minor or historical. I know we need collective disciplined organisation, our own culture, newspapers, like you say why aren't we beating the right we have remedies and ideas they have hate and corruption, I wonder if it's due to the middle class takeover of the left? Or the shattering of communitys? I think someone needs to bring all these little groups together in a conference and move forward we all socialist FFS.
As ever Nigel, I totally agree. The Left must unite. I spent a dispiriting evening with a bunch of lefty Labour people a week or two ago. All they wanted to do was bitch about Starmer's people and vaguely hope that better people will replace them. No ideas or thought to structural change. They've totally lost their way.
My Parents were in Labour party for 50 years and it's like they give there agency to a leadership that they never actually studied? My dad and mum believed Attlee and wilison were good men when in reality they'd watered down revolution to small reforms and helped multinationals abroad secure their interests with genicide and violence? You'd think Labour members would be questioning the military support we give in Gaza? Or the military aid in Congo, or the imperialist aims in Ukraine, or austerity but no just a bit of bitching about left or right, I suppose if they actually smelled their own shit they'd have to leave their club? I've tried so many groups that promised to unite the Left? Diem25 left Unity, peace & justice, people's assemble, TUSC now the workers party are talking but not doing I believe because any democracy from bottom threaten GG, anyway I'm waffling again 🙄 thanks for the hope you give me.
There is a constant struggle between the individual and the collective at whatever scale and it feels to me that an essential component of a new way of living is to find a way to resolve this struggle. To see that both need each other, that the collective is a necessity to our well being and that we become more ourselves when we recognise and appreciate our individual contribution to a well-functioning body.
This is spot on. The centre has nothing to offer us. Indeed, the centre would rather partner with the right than the left. The response must come from a left perspective. There is nothing else out there. 'Socialism or barbarism' as the saying goes.
Thanks Chris. Fair point. But I don't believe in state socialism. Libertarian socialism! Equality brought about by self-government and autonomy. No political party will offer this.
For sure but I have never worked out how you run a high tec health care system under those political arrangements. Technology is the death of liberty (Jaques Ellul etc)
There are answers (or hyptotheses) about this problem ie how govern a complex society from the bottom up. Murray Bookchin thought about it. Basically confederalism, a commune of communes.
Congratulations on finishing the book! I can't wait to read it.
Great observations. Drug dealers operate closer to reality in that they are focused on delivering product, not like politicians who need to convince people to vote for them when they plan not to deliver the promised product. Consequently, drug dealers are more like scientists than politicians in that it is more important for them to understand the truth of their business (how best to deliver drugs) than to convince others that they have the correct world view. Drug dealers must deliver to survive. Politicians survive by promising but not delivering because the big donors funding the politicians want the status quo but the 1% are not a majority voting block. So the ordinary people (the 99%) must be convinced to vote without ever getting what they were promised. It's amazing to me how many times in a row that can work, judging by US elections.
Have you seen Peter Turchin's 'End Times' or 'Ages of Discord'? Very intriguing. He uses cliodynamics (dynamical systems modelling of historical data) to predict cycles of integration/disintegration in societies. I have not finished reading Ages of Discord yet so the following comments are preliminary. I mention it because you may want to check out Turchin's work if you have not yet done so. For me it has shown a very bright light on some things which were murky.
He finds that a primary driver of disintegration (as we seem to be currently experiencing very strongly in the US but also globally) is elite overproduction. When there are more elites than the system can support they start fighting each other for limited resources (power, money, status). Labor oversupply (resulting in immiseration of the masses) contributes to the instability and the elites and counter-elites can incite the immiserated masses to revolt, civil war, etc. Demographic factors (like you suggest with rapidly aging population, etc) and fiscal problems can also contribute. A striking prediction of his work is that the next stage of integration cannot begin until the elite overproduction is corrected; that is, unlike Malthusian theories, it is not enough to correct the labor oversupply. Anyway, this is a very skeletal outline of the theory but I am finding it to be very worthwhile reading.
Thanks Melissa. Revising the book made me doubly grateful to those who provided comments, so renewed thanks to you too. The Turchin stuff you relate is very interesting though I am often sceptical of sort of 'scientific' approaches to social change, such as the Hegelian dialectic or Marx's inevitability of the triumph of the proletariat. But I will check him out following your recommendation. Thank you!
I am also deeply skeptical of attempts to reason about the real world using 'logic' without checking one's results against empirical evidence. This is where economics often goes wrong these days (IMO): starting with the desired answer and building the logical argument (however unfounded) that gets one there. Also agree with your Marx/Hegel comment. And, as a mathematician, I am also aware of the common use of mathematics to create a snow screen of impenetrable equations behind which one can hide large piles of BS and I think this is very sad and unhelpful and I don't approve of the practice.
I read Turchin's End Times (actually listened to the audio book - not a great way to retain info) and it has no details to back up the theory but was intriguing. So I just got 'Ages of Discord' (print version) which has some of the theory in it.
I'm only starting the second chapter so not deep in yet but it looks like the math is not super difficult - mostly algebra and a few discrete dynamical systems (aka mappings). It is a modeling approach with 4 boxes: elites, general population, the state, and instability. The last box is a process, not a population. Each box has several variables associated to it describing the size and composition and qualities of the population or, in the case of instability, the quantity and type of events (radical ideologies, terrorism, civil war). The variables from each box feed back to those in other boxes through the model, causing changes to the state of each variable after each iteration of the mapping. I haven't read the details yet but that's what it looks like from the overview. The model is fed historical data from a very large database and the results are judged by how well they predict historical outcomes. Sounds like a promising start but I'm still reading.
The book reads a bit like joining in the middle of a conversation - like maybe one was supposed to have read the author's journal articles first or something. So there might be some gaps that need to be filled in but I'll finish reading the book first and see about any holes then.
Great stuff Carne. I love the fact that you self identify as an anarchist.
IMHO anarchism and it’s more modern variants of Democratic Confederalism etc are THE ONLY way for us to have a peaceful equitable world. Thats why it’s so important we protect Rojava.
Hey 👋 have you been following Gary’s Economics on you tube ( Gary Stevenson - The trading game - 📖 )
His last video I think titled - ‘ What does Elon Musk want ‘ he’s spot on. A found him via his first Navara media interview. His last one for them Normal is over forever. Really illuminating. If you haven’t heard what he’s got to say check him out. It’s gonna definitely add to your understanding.
Narcos is a great series and the break out role for the now ubiquitous Pedro Pascal, who is brilliant.
The series does a great job of showing the spectrum of corruption, from 'acceptable' political to downright unhinged, all creating death and mayhem for 'the little man'. The dual and interrelated questions of economy and agency are both deeply embroiled in systems of trade and exploitation of natural resources that extend far beyond our nation. As a reader of Chris Smaj's Small Farm Future blog, I'm duty bound to point out that any new settlement will involve the land (the region we live in) and our right to access it for community provisioning. Any thing less will entail the continued use of a set of relations that will continue to leave us open to exploitation economically and without agency even as we exploit others. Many political theories, including the 'elite over production' and Musa Al Garbi's version of this, Symbolic Capitalists, cannot except the great multitude of the world's population that operates outside of our inward gazing political structures. This is best seen through food, as the peasant movement 'Via Campasina' reminds us the greater part of food production is done by small farms, feeding the a majority of people on the earth.
We can feed the current population of the UK on just over a third of the agricultural land currently being used. These realities are carefully hidden from the view of the people, and we are poorer and more vulnerable for it.
To live a truly different system will mean finding satisfaction in living with the land, eating seasonally and working together. We will have the divest ourselves of the illusions that this present way of life is inevitable and the best way to deliver the collective security we seek.
Love this, Carne. I think a sense of the apocalyptical is rumbling through the whole world right now - one of my own recent posts is quite in tune with yours, for example. We need radical, transformative change, otherwise the reaction could become quite ugly. See my post on the superrich and inequality, 'I love the sight of guillotines in the morning.'
Well said Carne. If you'd be up for having another go, I'd be up for a bit of a collective effort (by fellow sympathetic Green Party members) to persuade them to try this 'anti-system' approach. I'm sure we wouldn't be alone in wanting to fight for this amongst the membership. Congrats on finishing the book, looking forward to reading it. Morgan
Thanks Morgan. Not sure about an effort with the GP but happy to discuss with you further. And huge and renewed thanks for your help with the book. I drew on your comments in my latter revisions and they made a big improvement. Very helpful.
When you step back and look at the left it is huge, look at the websites, blogs, substacks, all good there's so many I could spend all my time on any number of them? But with all this intellectualism we can't put a simple program and explanation of tactics. I read that the CIA created a operation in the 1950s to divide and rule the left? (Don't know if we couldn't have divided ourselves without help?) They got a huge operation manipulating the press and politicians. Why don't we choose solidarity over cults? A United front over being right about something minor or historical. I know we need collective disciplined organisation, our own culture, newspapers, like you say why aren't we beating the right we have remedies and ideas they have hate and corruption, I wonder if it's due to the middle class takeover of the left? Or the shattering of communitys? I think someone needs to bring all these little groups together in a conference and move forward we all socialist FFS.
As ever Nigel, I totally agree. The Left must unite. I spent a dispiriting evening with a bunch of lefty Labour people a week or two ago. All they wanted to do was bitch about Starmer's people and vaguely hope that better people will replace them. No ideas or thought to structural change. They've totally lost their way.
My Parents were in Labour party for 50 years and it's like they give there agency to a leadership that they never actually studied? My dad and mum believed Attlee and wilison were good men when in reality they'd watered down revolution to small reforms and helped multinationals abroad secure their interests with genicide and violence? You'd think Labour members would be questioning the military support we give in Gaza? Or the military aid in Congo, or the imperialist aims in Ukraine, or austerity but no just a bit of bitching about left or right, I suppose if they actually smelled their own shit they'd have to leave their club? I've tried so many groups that promised to unite the Left? Diem25 left Unity, peace & justice, people's assemble, TUSC now the workers party are talking but not doing I believe because any democracy from bottom threaten GG, anyway I'm waffling again 🙄 thanks for the hope you give me.
There is a constant struggle between the individual and the collective at whatever scale and it feels to me that an essential component of a new way of living is to find a way to resolve this struggle. To see that both need each other, that the collective is a necessity to our well being and that we become more ourselves when we recognise and appreciate our individual contribution to a well-functioning body.
Yes very well put Richard. Thanks for the comment.
This is spot on. The centre has nothing to offer us. Indeed, the centre would rather partner with the right than the left. The response must come from a left perspective. There is nothing else out there. 'Socialism or barbarism' as the saying goes.
Thanks Chris. Fair point. But I don't believe in state socialism. Libertarian socialism! Equality brought about by self-government and autonomy. No political party will offer this.
Am aware of a project to map leftie (prefer the term woke actually, good to reclaim) affinity groups , these guys https://movementecology.org.uk/
plan to chat and see how it can be supported. i call it 'conspiracy of the nice' :)
Thanks Matt. I will check that out.
Where can we pre-order the book?!
Thanks! It's not yet up on the publisher's site, but will be. I will post about it on my substack.
good and useful lens. we need new ideas urgently.
thanks Matthew
For sure but I have never worked out how you run a high tec health care system under those political arrangements. Technology is the death of liberty (Jaques Ellul etc)
There are answers (or hyptotheses) about this problem ie how govern a complex society from the bottom up. Murray Bookchin thought about it. Basically confederalism, a commune of communes.
sorry hypotheses
Congratulations on finishing the book! I can't wait to read it.
Great observations. Drug dealers operate closer to reality in that they are focused on delivering product, not like politicians who need to convince people to vote for them when they plan not to deliver the promised product. Consequently, drug dealers are more like scientists than politicians in that it is more important for them to understand the truth of their business (how best to deliver drugs) than to convince others that they have the correct world view. Drug dealers must deliver to survive. Politicians survive by promising but not delivering because the big donors funding the politicians want the status quo but the 1% are not a majority voting block. So the ordinary people (the 99%) must be convinced to vote without ever getting what they were promised. It's amazing to me how many times in a row that can work, judging by US elections.
Have you seen Peter Turchin's 'End Times' or 'Ages of Discord'? Very intriguing. He uses cliodynamics (dynamical systems modelling of historical data) to predict cycles of integration/disintegration in societies. I have not finished reading Ages of Discord yet so the following comments are preliminary. I mention it because you may want to check out Turchin's work if you have not yet done so. For me it has shown a very bright light on some things which were murky.
He finds that a primary driver of disintegration (as we seem to be currently experiencing very strongly in the US but also globally) is elite overproduction. When there are more elites than the system can support they start fighting each other for limited resources (power, money, status). Labor oversupply (resulting in immiseration of the masses) contributes to the instability and the elites and counter-elites can incite the immiserated masses to revolt, civil war, etc. Demographic factors (like you suggest with rapidly aging population, etc) and fiscal problems can also contribute. A striking prediction of his work is that the next stage of integration cannot begin until the elite overproduction is corrected; that is, unlike Malthusian theories, it is not enough to correct the labor oversupply. Anyway, this is a very skeletal outline of the theory but I am finding it to be very worthwhile reading.
Best luck with your book!
Thanks Melissa. Revising the book made me doubly grateful to those who provided comments, so renewed thanks to you too. The Turchin stuff you relate is very interesting though I am often sceptical of sort of 'scientific' approaches to social change, such as the Hegelian dialectic or Marx's inevitability of the triumph of the proletariat. But I will check him out following your recommendation. Thank you!
I am also deeply skeptical of attempts to reason about the real world using 'logic' without checking one's results against empirical evidence. This is where economics often goes wrong these days (IMO): starting with the desired answer and building the logical argument (however unfounded) that gets one there. Also agree with your Marx/Hegel comment. And, as a mathematician, I am also aware of the common use of mathematics to create a snow screen of impenetrable equations behind which one can hide large piles of BS and I think this is very sad and unhelpful and I don't approve of the practice.
I read Turchin's End Times (actually listened to the audio book - not a great way to retain info) and it has no details to back up the theory but was intriguing. So I just got 'Ages of Discord' (print version) which has some of the theory in it.
I'm only starting the second chapter so not deep in yet but it looks like the math is not super difficult - mostly algebra and a few discrete dynamical systems (aka mappings). It is a modeling approach with 4 boxes: elites, general population, the state, and instability. The last box is a process, not a population. Each box has several variables associated to it describing the size and composition and qualities of the population or, in the case of instability, the quantity and type of events (radical ideologies, terrorism, civil war). The variables from each box feed back to those in other boxes through the model, causing changes to the state of each variable after each iteration of the mapping. I haven't read the details yet but that's what it looks like from the overview. The model is fed historical data from a very large database and the results are judged by how well they predict historical outcomes. Sounds like a promising start but I'm still reading.
The book reads a bit like joining in the middle of a conversation - like maybe one was supposed to have read the author's journal articles first or something. So there might be some gaps that need to be filled in but I'll finish reading the book first and see about any holes then.
Great stuff Carne. I love the fact that you self identify as an anarchist.
IMHO anarchism and it’s more modern variants of Democratic Confederalism etc are THE ONLY way for us to have a peaceful equitable world. Thats why it’s so important we protect Rojava.
Hey 👋 have you been following Gary’s Economics on you tube ( Gary Stevenson - The trading game - 📖 )
His last video I think titled - ‘ What does Elon Musk want ‘ he’s spot on. A found him via his first Navara media interview. His last one for them Normal is over forever. Really illuminating. If you haven’t heard what he’s got to say check him out. It’s gonna definitely add to your understanding.
Loving this Substack. Thanks 🙏
Narcos is a great series and the break out role for the now ubiquitous Pedro Pascal, who is brilliant.
The series does a great job of showing the spectrum of corruption, from 'acceptable' political to downright unhinged, all creating death and mayhem for 'the little man'. The dual and interrelated questions of economy and agency are both deeply embroiled in systems of trade and exploitation of natural resources that extend far beyond our nation. As a reader of Chris Smaj's Small Farm Future blog, I'm duty bound to point out that any new settlement will involve the land (the region we live in) and our right to access it for community provisioning. Any thing less will entail the continued use of a set of relations that will continue to leave us open to exploitation economically and without agency even as we exploit others. Many political theories, including the 'elite over production' and Musa Al Garbi's version of this, Symbolic Capitalists, cannot except the great multitude of the world's population that operates outside of our inward gazing political structures. This is best seen through food, as the peasant movement 'Via Campasina' reminds us the greater part of food production is done by small farms, feeding the a majority of people on the earth.
We can feed the current population of the UK on just over a third of the agricultural land currently being used. These realities are carefully hidden from the view of the people, and we are poorer and more vulnerable for it.
To live a truly different system will mean finding satisfaction in living with the land, eating seasonally and working together. We will have the divest ourselves of the illusions that this present way of life is inevitable and the best way to deliver the collective security we seek.
Love this, Carne. I think a sense of the apocalyptical is rumbling through the whole world right now - one of my own recent posts is quite in tune with yours, for example. We need radical, transformative change, otherwise the reaction could become quite ugly. See my post on the superrich and inequality, 'I love the sight of guillotines in the morning.'
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/deborah-wa-foulkes_worlds-richest-use-up-their-fair-share-of-activity-7283391083156242432-gvzm?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios