https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/15/ken-clarke-mp-brexit-parody-student-politics-conservative-tory-europe
This interview was posted here yesterday. This one passage in particular has been in my head since then:
>“We achieved considerable economic success from the 1980s, 1990s, onwards, which hugely advantaged the young, the educated and the entrepreneurial. We neglected that bulk of the population being left behind and living in post-industrial towns where their living standards were static or falling. And the new globalised economy, the rules-based order, the digital revolution meant nothing to them."
I'm as remainer as they come, but it's sometimes easy to paint Brexiteers as people who didn't know what they were voting for, or as having been 'tricked' into voting for Brexit against their own interests.
But I think this sentence has some truth to it. The EU, with its single market and loose approach to borders, is a representation of the 'global digitised economy'. The very same that left behind many people who didn't adapt from the manufacturing world into a more services-based economy.
There are as many types of Brexiteers as there are types of Brexit, but maybe not all Brexiteers voted against their interests or were unaware of what they were voting for.
As I understand it, the Means of Production has traditionally referred to things such as natural resources, factories, and distribution networks. That's fine, but seems insufficient for our modern day when si much of what we do is electronic based.
For example: I work at a company that makes software for doctors offices. What my job effectively boils down to is that I use an array of computer programs to make a different computer program. The only tangible good I have is my company laptop, I work remotely so there isn't even a physical office.
I can't even comprehend what seizing the means of production would look like here. Government created copies of task management software? Freely available testing environments? And that's not even getting into IP or social media and the roles they play in our economy. It's not something I've ever seen discussed in communist literature and I'd love perspectives or if someone has any good writing on the topic.
To be fair, I totally understand why one holding a factory job would want to keep it, but it seems like the inevitable, natural progression in economics (like from agricultural to manufacturing in 1800's Britain). It just seems like willful ignorance to want to reverse the process of shifting from manufacturing to service.
Cory Morningstar's articles are a scrupulously factual, thorough and detailed account of the creation of the Greta Thunberg PR campaign by a network of nefarious pseudo-environmental NGOs, multinational corporations and pseudo-progressive foundations.
https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/01/17/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/
I'm talking groups like Sisters Of Mercy, Bauhaus, Peter Murphy, Joy Division, Siouxsie And The Banshees, Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Rendez-Vous, Type O Negative, and Paralysed Age.
