Anti-Duhring, Part III – Socialism, I – Historical - Part 1

The Enlightenment philosophers appealed to Pure Reason. Only the rational was real.

“A rational state, a rational society, were to be founded; everything running counter to eternal reason was to be remorselessly done away with.” (p 327)

But, what appeared to be rational was only a manifestation of the world view of the rising bourgeoisie. A premature, and inevitably confused, example of that came with the English Civil War. But, the consequence of the, as yet, immature condition of the bourgeoisie meant that, having seized power, it did not know what to do with it, and soon resorted to the Protectorate of Cromwell, as an uncrowned King. It was another 100 years before the bourgeoisie had developed enough to take control of the state, and to install its own constitutional monarch via The Glorious Revolution.

Even then, this was not a total victory for the bourgeoisie. It was a victory for the the commercial bourgeoisie and financial oligarchy, in alliance with the landed aristocracy, based on Mercantilism, and the creation of a colonial empire. As Engels points out, it was only after 1848 that the industrial bourgeoisie asserts its dominance, and, in alliance with the industrial workers, defeats that old alliance of the landed aristocracy, commercial bourgeoisie and financial oligarchy. A similar pattern emerges in France, later, but in a more condensed sequence.

“The state based upon reason completely collapsed. Rousseau’s Social Contract had found its realization in the Reign of Terror, from which the bourgeoisie, after losing faith in its own political capacity, had taken refuge first in the corruption of the Directorate, and, finally, under the wing of the Napoleonic despotism. The promised eternal peace was turned into an endless war of conquest. The society based on reason had fared no better. Instead of dissolving into general prosperity, the antagonism between rich and poor had become sharpened by the elimination of the guild and other privileges, which had bridged over it, and of the charitable institutions of the Church, which had mitigated it.” (p 327-8)

It was these birth pangs of the new bourgeois society that enabled sections of the old feudal ruling class not only to effectively snipe at their successors, but to periodically appeal to the workers and petty-bourgeoisie against them. It was what enabled the likes of Sismondi to expose in stark tones the inevitability of an overproduction of commodities, in turn, plagiarised by Malthus, to justify his calls for the parasites of the landed aristocracy, church and state to have greater revenues, for the benefit of society, to avert such overproduction. The role of the guilds formed the basis of other forms of reactionary socialism, as with William Morris and the Guild Socialists.

“As far as the small capitalists and small peasants were concerned, the “freedom of property” from feudal fetters, which had now become a reality, proved to be the freedom to sell their small property, which was being crushed under the overpowering competition of big capital and big landed property to these very lords, so that freedom of property turned into “freedom from property” for the small capitalists and peasant proprietors.” (p 328)

Back To Part II, Political Economy, X – From The Critical History

Was This TACO Trump Again?

Trump clearly blinked first, leading commentators to see this as yet further confirmation of the TACO Syndrome (Trump Always Chickens Out). As the time arrived for Iran to capitulate to his latest childish tantrum, and it didn't, he and US imperialism, were left with the option of carrying out his promise to end Iranian civilisation in just 4 hours – which could only be done via a widespread nuclear attack on a country that is as big as France, Germany, Spain and Britain combined, and with a population of over 90 million – or else to back down. Given the childish nature of Trump, and the fact that, in the end, he and his friend Netanyahu, are implementing the interests of US imperialism, albeit in their own, moronic fashion, I would not have been surprised had it been the former rather than the latter.

Trump blinked first, but maybe not last. He blinked because, everyone knew that his threat was either empty, or just as fatal for US imperialism, its Zionist and Gulf allies, and for Trump, as it was for the Iranian regime. Already, the propaganda wheels have come off the western imperialist, i.e. NATO wagon. The claims of it being a purely benign, “defensive” alliance, that its global military adventures, thousands of miles away from its own territory, were, merely, it acting as a global policeman, to uphold international law, and a rules based order, were always pompous bullshit, believed only by the most gullible, or the campists who were prepared to tightly close their eyes to reality, as they chose to align with the western “democratic-imperialist” camp, as the means of fulfilling their own moral imperatives, having accepted their own impotence, and long since abandoned the working-class, as the revolutionary agent of historical change.

The façade of international law, of the so called rules based order has been stripped away, as has the veneer of bourgeois-democracy itself, most notably in the US and UK, where governments and the state, responded to growing protest at the genocide being committed against Palestinians by the Zionist state and armed, funded and politically defended by western imperialism, with the most brutal repression, on campuses across the US, and in Britain by the ridiculous labelling of Palestine Action as a “terrorist organisation”, leading to thousands of police hours being taken up to arrest peaceful grannies, sitting in protest. That began not with Trump, but under Biden, and was given the full-throated support of Starmer and his government. It has cratered support in the electorate for Trump, but not yet clearly manifested itself as a support for those to the Left of the Democrats. It has destroyed the Labour Party, but again, has created only support for the Greens, who in the latest polls, now have a clear lead over all the other parties.

NATO and its media propaganda machine have spent the last 4 years spelling out the idea that Putin's invasion of Eastern Ukraine was “illegal”, because they shot first. The facile nature of such claims was made clear by Lenin and others more than a century ago, when they were made by the imperialists in relation to Germany. Lenin noted,

“Imperialism camouflages its own peculiar aims – seizure of colonies, markets, sources of raw material, spheres of influence – with such ideas as “safeguarding peace against the aggressors,” “defence of the fatherland,” “defence of democracy,” etc. These ideas are false through and through. It is the duty of every socialist not to support them but, on the contrary, to unmask them before the people. “The question of which group delivered the first military blow or first declared war,” wrote Lenin in March 1915, “has no importance whatever in determining the tactics of socialists. Phrases about the defence of the fatherland, repelling invasion by the enemy, conducting a defensive war, etc., are on both sides a complete deception of the people.” “For decades,” explained Lenin, “three bandits (the bourgeoisie and governments of England, Russia, and France) armed themselves to despoil Germany. Is it surprising that the two bandits (Germany and Austria-Hungary) launched an attack before the three bandits succeeded in obtaining the new knives they had ordered?””

(Trotsky – Lenin On Imperialism)

That was not seen by Lenin and Trotsky as a reason to defend, let alone support, the actions of German imperialism, but merely to point out the hypocritical and lying nature of the claims by Britain and France. There was no need to side with either of these two camps, but, instead to side with the independent camp of the global working-class, whose position should be to turn the guns on their own respective ruling-class, to turn the world war of nation against nation, into a global class war of proletariat against bourgeoisie, as Marx had called for in “Wage-Labour and Capital”.

Russia had openly said that if NATO sought to expand into Ukraine, it would be seen as an aggressive move, preparatory to war, back in 2007, at the time that Saakashvilli, who sought to ingratiate himself with NATO and the EU, by wrapping himself in those flags at every press event, and by his attacks on ethnic Russians in South Ossetia, gave Putin the reason to annex South Ossetia. The idea of a pre-emptive invasion of Ukraine by Russia has been repeatedly dismissed as “illegal” by NATO imperialism and its apologists.

But that same justification has been used by Trump and Netanyahu for their bombing of Iran, and of Lebanon, Syria etc. What really upsets western imperialism/NATO is that the moronic nature of Trump, and of Netanyahu, exposes all of the carefully crafted veneer to their global military strategy. Trump/Netanyahu do not bother with all the old claims about upholding “international law”, or a “rules based system”, or “liberal intervention” to prevent atrocities. Why would they? They are not “liberals”, i.e. “neo-liberals/conservative social-democrats”, of the type that constructed the global order, after WWII, for the benefit of large-scale, multinational capital. They are petty-bourgeois nationalists, proponents of a system that died even by the end of the 19th century.

Trump makes clear that what he wants is simply a return to colonialism, which itself died along with the economic system that created it – mercantilism. The return of those ideas, is simply a reflection in the mind of the fact that, as western industrial capitalism has relatively declined, over the last 40 years, a decadent class of billionaire owners of fictitious-capital has grown alongside a 50% growth of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie. Trump is emblematic of it.

He openly says he “wants the oil”, he wants to “make a fortune” from robbing it from the people of Venezuela, or Iran. He has fantasies about becoming a new George III, who the Americans overthrew as their King, in the American Revolution, 250 years ago. George III, of course, had his own mental health issues, as, clearly does Trump. Trump's statements about seizing Greenland/Iceland and so on both reflect his moronic nature, but, also, expose the underlying conflict between US imperialism, and its NATO subordinates within EU imperialism. Its partly why those EU subordinates in NATO have continued to de facto support Trump's war against Iran, whilst denying they are doing so.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a comment on James O'Brien's LBC YouTube video, which had asked whether the Iran War was just a distraction, used by Trump, from the Epstein files – itself a symptom of that decadence of the billionaire class that has settled on the surface of the ruling-class like scum. O'Brien at the time asked the question whether, in that case, Trump would look for an off-ramp. I pointed out, in my comment that whatever Trump's personal motivation, the fact remains that US imperialism locked in a global imperialist struggle with a rising Eurasian imperialism, whose influence is growing in the Middle-East, embarked on the Abraham Accords, so as to promote the Zionist state, and ensure that it, along with US other allies in the region, Egypt, the Gulf monarchies etc., to create a politico-economic bloc that is friendly to the US-EU, and able, thereby to resist the advances of China.

The genocide against the Palestinians is fundamental to that plan, but, so too is the neutering of Iran, which acts as the proxy for China-Russia, just as the Zionist state does for NATO. Consequently, whether Trump again chickened out again or not, last night, the reality is that the task of US imperialism and of Zionism is not done. The Iranian regime may have made a big mistake in agreeing a ceasefire and opening the Straits of Hormuz, because as seen last year, and as the Iranian people seem to understand, once the oil has flowed again, and the financial markets have made trillions for the billionaire class, in a relief rally, US imperialism and its Zionist ally will be back to finish the job.

Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, X – From The Critical History - Part 39 of 39

Engels returns to British political economy.

“Just as the bold stroke drawn through the years 1691 to 1752 removed all of Hume’s predecessors, so another stroke obliterated Sir James Steuart, who came between Hume and Adam Smith. There is not a syllable in Herr Dühring's “enterprise” on Steuart’s great work, which, apart from its historical importance, permanently enriched the domain of political economy.” (p 323)

Duhring uses past theorists in one of two ways.

“either as “pegs” of Herr Dühring's “authoritative” and deeper foundations, or, still more because of their badness, as a foil to him.” (p 323)

In relation to Steuart, he says nothing of his work, but falsely states that “he was “a professor” in Adam Smith’s time.” (p 323)

Steuart was not a professor but a large landowner in Scotland. Having been banished from Britain, he used his extensive travels in Europe to familiarise himself with the economic conditions there.

“Nevertheless, there are also a few heroes of political economy who represent not only the “pegs” of the “deeper foundations”, but the “principles” out of which these “foundations”, are not “developed” but actually “composed”, as prescribed in the natural philosophy - for example, the “ eminent and incomparable” List, who, puffed up the “more subtle” mercantilistic teachings of a Ferrier and others into “mightier” words for the benefit of German manufacturers”. (p 323-4)

The more the superficial nature of Duhring is considered, and his attraction to the likes of List, the more the image of Trump, also, comes into mind. List was one of those early advocates of economic nationalism, and protectionism, of the kind that, today, admires and appoints such as Peter Navarro.

Another theorist used by Duhring in this way is the American economist Carey, who wrote of Ricardo's system,

“the true manual of the demagogue, who seeks power by means of agrarianism, war, and plunder” (p 324)

Finally, in that category Engels cites Macleod, “the Confucius of the London City” (p 324)

Engels summarises what has been learned from Duhring's exposition, and concludes that it is nothing. As with Duhring's philosophy, we have a lot of big words, but very little illumination. Duhring's theory of value resulted in him putting forward five different, contradictory definitions of value.

“The “natural laws of all economics”, ushered in with such pomp, prove to be merely the worst kind of universally familiar platitudes, and often even these are wrongly grasped.” ( p 324-5)

His theory fails to explain how class society arises, and how one form of class society is replaced by another, just as his theory of Natural Philosophy was unable to explain how nothing becomes something, or how a condition of stasis becomes one of motion. In relation to exploitation, he can only resort to the claim that it is the product of force, but is unable to say how this condition of superior force is produced.

“Compelled to give further elucidations of the capitalist exploitation of labour, he first represents it in general as based on taxes and price surcharges, thus completely appropriating the Proudhonian “prior deduction” (prélèvement), and he then proceeds to explain this exploitation in particular by means of Marx’s theory of surplus-labour, surplus-product and surplus-value. In this way he manages to bring about a happy reconciliation of two totally contradictory outlooks, by copying down both without taking his breath.” (p 325)

That, of course, having first lambasted and lied about Marx's theories, just as, in relation to Philosophy, he vilified Hegel, before plagiarising him, and presenting a diluted version of his ideas. Throughout, Duhring shows a staggering lack of knowledge in relation to the things he writes about, even in relation to his own profession – Law. It displays a narrow Prussian parochialism. In history, his claim that it was the large landed proprietor that stands at the dawn of civilisation “is oblivious of the common ownership of land in the tribal and village communities, which is the real starting-point of all history — this ignorance, which is nowadays almost inconceivable, is well-nigh surpassed by that of the Kritische Geschichte, which immoderately glories in “the universal breadth of its historical survey”, and of which we have given only a few deterrent examples. In a word: first the colossal “input” of self-praise, of charlatan blasts on his own trumpet, of promises each surpassing the other; and then the “output” — exactly nil.” (p 325-6)

Back To Part 38

Forward To Part III - Socialism

The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 8

Except for a short period during its inception, when the Zionist state was backed by the USSR, on the basis that its terror campaign against British colonialism, in Palestine, was part of the global “anti-imperialist alliance”, the role of the Zionist state has been to act as a proxy for Western imperialism. The Zionist terrorists of the Irgun and Lehi, became the politicians and Ministers of the Zionist state. The terrorists that murdered British representatives, and blew up hotels, now sat down with representatives of the British and French states, in 1956, to plan the seizure of the Suez Canal.

The old European colonial powers, however, fell into a trap, much as did Saddam Hussein in 1990. Saddam had been assigned the role of US proxy against Iran, after the fall of the Shah, in 1979. His regime was provided with chemical and biological weapons (WMD) to use against Iran, as well as technical-military advice on how to best use them, by the US and Europe. But, after years of conflict, Iraq was unable to defeat Iran, despite all of this assistance. In 1990, as Iraq attempted to rebuild its economy, it, also, faced economic crisis. On the one hand, it had large debts to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, run up during the Iran-Iraq War, which they refused to cancel. On the other, the US and NATO was pressing OPEC to increase oil production to reduce global oil prices, as the 1980's period of stagnation dragged on, and as the USSR was sustained by its own global oil revenues. It was the subsequent fall in oil prices that put the final nail in the coffin of the USSR, and of Gorbachev's policies of détente and perestroika.

Iraq also saw the actions of other Gulf states as effectively “economic warfare” against it. That was exacerbated by the fact that Kuwait was “slant-drilling”, into Iraqi oil fields in Rumallah. In discussions with the US, Iraq was given the impression that the US was not concerned with disputes between Arab countries. Of course, once Iraq invaded Kuwait, that provided a basis for the US mobilising military forces behind it for its invasion of Iraq. Saddam had failed to be the US's effective proxy against Iran, and now paid the price. As the USSR collapsed, US imperialism, saw the possibility of forging new alliances in the Middle-East, with the oil rich Gulf states, especially as their petrodollars fed back into a developing financial market bubble that, eventually, led to the global financial crisis of 2008.

Similarly, in 1956, when Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt, to seize the Suez Canal, they saw their erstwhile ally, the United States, condemn their actions. Richard Nixon, later explained,

"We couldn't on one hand, complain about the Soviets intervening in Hungary and, on the other hand, approve of the British and the French picking that particular time to intervene against Nasser".

That has echoes of today's hypocrisy of NATO's position in relation to Russia's invasion of Eastern Ukraine, as against its position in relation to Israel's invasion of its neighbours, and the US war against Iran. But, although Eisenhower, also, later, argued that if the US had supported the invasion of Egypt, it would have swung the Arabs behind the USSR, the real motivation was that US imperialism used this opportunity to assert its hegemony, to tell the old European colonial powers, “You do not start wars, unless we tell you,” and it, also, meant that it put the nail in the coffin of those old European colonial powers in the Middle-East, introducing US imperialism to them, as the new sheriff in town.

To the Zionist state, in Israel, it also conveyed that message loud and clear. Its future depended on acting as the Deputy to the US Sheriff.

Back To Part 7

SNNS 37

 

Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, X – From The Critical History - Part 38 of 39

“ But, according to Quesnay, this fund of one milliard serves, for the most part to cover the repairs which become necessary in the course of the year and the partial renewals of invested capital; further, as a reserve fund against accidents, and lastly, where possible, for the enlargement of the invested and working capital, as well as for the improvement of the soil and the extension of cultivation.” (p 321)

In part, this is true. The capitalist farmer, in so far as they undertake labour, covers their own personal consumption out of the wage fund (variable-capital), as with other labour. It is part of the working-capital. But, the repair and renewal of capital should, also, form part of that working-capital. The amount to cover accidents, and for capital accumulation are valid elements of this “interest”. The same categories are listed by Marx, in The Critique of the Gotha Programme, in his explanation of why, even under communism, the workers could never receive “the full fruits of their labour”. Indeed, because workers, under communism, would want to develop production and productivity as much, and as quickly, as possible, so as to raise living standards for all, they would need to expand the amount of surplus-value going to this accumulation of capital, i.e. to raise the rate of surplus-value.

Whilst Quesnay's argument may have had validity at the time, and similar arguments were made in relation to the industrial capitalists, at the start of the Industrial Revolution, it soon ceased having any such validity. As profits expanded, the capitalists, also, expanded their own personal consumption, including conspicuous consumption of luxury goods.

“The whole process is certainly “pretty simple”. There enter into circulation: from the farmers, two milliards in money for the payment of rent, and three milliards in products, of which two-thirds are means of subsistence and one-third raw materials; from the sterile class, two milliards in manufactured goods. Of the means of subsistence amounting to two milliards, one half is consumed by the landlords and their retainers, the other half by the sterile class in payment for its labour. The raw materials to the value of one milliard replace the working capital of this latter class. Of the manufactured goods in circulation, amounting to two milliards, one half goes to the landlords and the other to the farmers, for whom it is only a converted form of the interest on their invested capital which accruing at first hand from agricultural reproduction. But the money thrown into circulation by the farmer in payment of rent flows back to him through the sale of his products, and thus the same process can take place afresh in the next economic year.” (p 321-2)

Engels, having given this explanation of the Tableau, then returns to Duhring, and his “truly critical” exposition of it. Duhring had admitted that he did not understand what happened to the net product, and had also, falsely, claimed that the Tableau contained only money values. But,

“We have seen that the Tableau — this description of the annual process of reproduction through the medium of circulation which was as simple as for its time inspired — gives a very exact answer to the question of what becomes of this net product in the course of economic circulation. Thus once again it is with Herr Dühring alone that the “mysticism” and the “confusion and arbitrariness” remain as “the most dubious aspect” and the sole “net product” of his study of Physiocracy.” (p 322)

Engels notes Duhring's other claims about the Physiocrats and their historical influence.

““With Turgot,” he teaches us, “Physiocracy in France came to an end both in practice and in theory”.” (p 322)

That Mirabeau was essentially a Physiocrat in his economic views, a leading authority in the Constituent Assembly of 1789, and this assembly put a large part of Physiocratic principles into practice, including a heavy tax on ground-rent, “all this does not exist for “a” Dühring.” (p 323)

Back To Part 37

Forward To Part 39

Artemis & Artifice

On Wednesday, NASA launched the Artemis Mission to the Moon. When Man first left behind the shackles of the Earth, and entered the Space Age, I was in Infant School. I grew up with the adventure of Torchy the Battery Boy, when my parents rented our first tiny black and white TV from Rediffusion. I was still at Infants School, when the USSR, put Yuri Gagarin into space, 65 years ago, in April 1961. By then, I had moved on to watching Supercar, and was fully committed to becoming a scientist like Professor Popkiss. At the start of Junior School, I was avidly watching the adventures of Steve Zodiac and the crew of Fireball XL5, and at weekends the missions of Space Patrol.

Anyone growing up at the time could hardly not be influenced, in some way, by the fact that a new age had begun. The other darker side, of course, was that the rocket technology that was sending humans into space, had first been developed as a means of delivering explosives, as a means of killing other human beings. The Chinese, centuries earlier, had developed the basic principles of rocketry, along with their development of gunpowder. Although the story of modern rocketry has focused on the role of the Nazis's V1 and V2 rockets, developed by Werner Von Braun, who was quickly snatched up by the US, and central to its rocket development, the first such developments came in the USSR, in the early 1920's. With the US, developing the technology at around the same time, led by the likes of Robert Goddard. The soviets, also, took back their fair share of former Nazi scientists.

So, along with the excitement of entering a new space age, came, also, the sheer terror of the same technologies, now, resulting in our own nuclear annihilation. Few people who grew up during that time, did not have similar dreams about nuclear warheads raining down on their heads, as they tried, in vain, to escape the explosion, especially as the memory of World War II, was still fresh. I remember, while at Junior School, in 1962, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, waking up, in the middle of the night, to a loud thunderous bang, and the curtains in the bedroom being brightly illuminated from without, thinking that this was it. Fortunately, it was only a very loud thunderstorm.

In that space race, despite the US having the most advanced economy in the world, and having the services of Von Braun, it was the USSR that led the way.

Key Soviet Space Firsts:

• First Artificial Satellite: Sputnik 1 (October 4, 1957).
• First Animal in Orbit: Laika on Sputnik 2 (November 3, 1957).
• First Spacecraft to Impact the Moon: Luna 2 (September 14, 1959).
• First Human in Space & Orbit: Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1 (April 12, 1961).
• First Human in Space for >24 Hours: Gherman Titov on Vostok 2 (August 1961).
• First Group Flight: Andrian Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich on Vostok 3/4 (1962).
• First Woman in Space: Valentina Tereshkova on Vostok 6 (June 16, 1963).
• First Spacewalk: Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2 (March 18, 1965).
• First Robotic Moon Rover: Lunokhod 1 (1970).
• First Space Station: Salyut 1 (1971).

But, the soviets also had many other firsts, such as the first fly by of the Moon, and first photographing of the far side of the Moon, by its Luna Missions, in 1959. It was also, first in its missions to Venus, Mars and other planets. This was at a time, in the 1950's, and early 1960's, when despite the US being the most advanced economy, the USSR was industrialising very fast, and many in western governments seriously feared that its planned economy was soon going to overtake them. In fact, no such thing happened, because although the soviet centrally planned, and so bureaucratic, economy was good at directing resources to such heavy industrial development, as seen during WWII, it was, for the same reasons, poor at adapting, or meeting the needs of its citizens for consumer goods.

Nevertheless, it was enough for the US to see the need to outdo the USSR in that race, even if, as is the nature of US capitalism, to do so, at a superficial rather than fundamental level. JFK promised to put a man on the Moon by the end of the 60's, “not because it was easy, but because it is hard.” Exactly why you would want to put a man on the Moon, was not quite clear, because the soviets had already landed unmanned spacecraft on the Moon, as well as Venus and Mars by that time. It was artifice, as the US sought to capture the headlines.

In terms of why it was harder to send a manned mission, rather than an unmanned mission, that too was unclear, as I and a number of my school friends, now at secondary school, argued with our teacher at the time, who seemed to be concerned at the steady leftward drift of his students. Is it easier to have a human drive a car, or fly a plane, we asked, rather than have a robot do it? Given that 60 years later, we still do not have reliable self-driving vehicles, or planes, the answer to that question in 1967, was quite obvious, if not to our teacher.

Yet, the soviets had done the hard thing, focusing on unmanned missions to the Moon and elsewhere, perhaps because, in those first Luna missions, they had detected strong ionising radiation from the Sun, which is lethal to organic life, without the protection of the Earth's magnetic field (seen in the Aurorae), and of Earth's atmosphere. The soviets also pioneered the work on space stations, which, even with the development of the ISS, was invaluable. Even so, learning from those earlier observations in relation to the Solar Wind, as the crew spend months in space, it orbits below the Van Allen Belts.

When NASA landed men on the moon, in 1969, as JFK had promised to do, our teachers sat us down, as a school, to watch the virtually indecipherable, grainy black and white images sent back from the Moon. Given that only a few years earlier, TV pictures sent across the Atlantic, by means of the Telstar satellites, had only just occurred, pictures sent from a distance more than 80 times greater was inevitably grainy, not helped by the fact that we only had black and white TV's. To have coped with the vast differences in temperature on the Moon, between its areas of light and shade, and the problems of the solar radiation, with more or less just Kodak 70mm medium format film was quite an achievement.

The Moon landing was a major media event, in 1969, even though, in reality, it achieved nothing that had not been achieved years before, other than using a manned spacecraft. Even the fact that Apollo 11 returned to Earth, was not that significant. In 1970, the USSR sent its Luna 16 to the Moon to collect samples, and it successfully returned them to Earth. By the time, NASA sent Apollo 12 to the Moon, the public had already grown tired. It was no longer new. TV audiences for the first landing were estimated at 125-160 million in the US, and 650 million globally, whilst for Apollo 12, despite its much better image quality, they fell to around 11 million in the US. Only with the drama of Apollo 13, did interest recover, but quickly dissipated again, as TV screens, across the globe, were filled with the images of US war crimes committed in South-East Asia, for example the My Lai massacre.

In the immediate aftermath of Apollo 11, and, especially as the US and USSR began to engage in a period of detente, and cooperation in space, the Sunday newspapers filled with stories of imminent manned bases on the Moon, and manned missions to Mars to be undertaken by the end of the 70's, or early 80's at the latest. The same stories have emerged at regular intervals in the 50 years since then. So, although I watched the launch of the Artemis Mission with interest, I could not help feeling that, once again, this was more about artifice, given the current competition between the US and a dynamic China.

Someone commented on the TV, in one of the channels coverage of the launch, that it was something new, that the mission was to go to the other side of the Moon, but the USSR had done that in 1959, nearly 70 years ago, now. Someone else, commented that they were going deeper into space than ever before, but that is clearly not true either, even for manned flight, let alone unmanned flight. Given that in 1969, 57 years ago, we did not have even personal computers, and the power of a £2 million mainframe computer, was about the same as today contained in a microchip in a toaster, the current mission seems underwhelming.

In 1903 the Wright Brothers undertook the first manned flight. They did so in a plane that was basically held together by glue and string. By the 1950's, we already had passenger jet flights across the globe. By the 1970's, we had Concorde. But, despite the huge developments in technology, not least in computing power, this Artemis Mission still amounts to 4 humans “sitting in a tin can” to use David Bowie's description, on top of a huge fuel bomb! It is not even achieving a Moon landing, as happened nearly 60 years ago, in 1969. Even the advances made in the 1980's, with the Space Shuttle, are a distant memory.