Looking at the media over the last few days, it has struck me how, in its various manifestations, it acts to subtly reinforce ideas. A few days ago, there was a report on the News, about the investigation into the Channel 4 Documentary, sometime ago, on Global Warming, which caused considerable controversy, because it challenged the consensus view that the world is going to hell in a handcart all caused by Man’s activities. The investigation concluded that Channel 4 had been correct to show the documentary – a conclusion now to be challenged by some of the scientists and others who disagree with the views expressed in the Programme, and so much for free speech – but that the programme, itself, had not been objective, by which it meant it had not reflected the majority view – which surely was the point of the programme in the first place!
Objectivity
A number of things strike me from this. Firstly, as I said the decision to challenge the ruling seems to give an indication of just how much the right to free speech is under threat. Those that advocate the thesis, that the world is on the edge of destruction due to Global Warming, already have behind them massive resources, and the majority of publicity. If opposing views cannot even be put forward, on a TV Programme, then this is a poor show, and to my mind says something about how sure those are that advocate this position of their views. It has often been the case that those who hold a minority viewpoint turn out to be right, and it is not uncommon that those who hold the majority viewpoint try to suppress the right of the Minority to express their views. Marxists in particular have personal experience of that.
Secondly, everyday we see newspapers like the Daily Mail and Daily Express print garbage about immigrants and asylum seekers being given free cars and houses, being paid thousands of pounds to live a life of luxury at the taxpayers expense. Anyone with a brain knows that such stories should be treated with the same contempt as those such as “Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster”, but unfortunately, talk to many ordinary workers and they will repeat these stories to you as though they were the Gospel truth. Such is the power of the media in being able to play on people’s prejudices, and limited knowledge. Yet, where are the worthies insisting on an enquiry into these stories that quite clearly are without any objective foundation?
Thirdly, why should such stories be “objective” i.e. try to provide a balance of differing views? When I write this blog I do not pretend to any such “objectivity”. In reality nor do the media. As a Marxist the basis of objectivity is to begin with the facts as you can as best uncover them, and to proceed from there. But, in proceeding from there you then reach conclusions based on a set of pre-existing value judgements. Certainly, for a Marxist those value judgements are not purely subjective based on some moral imperative of what is “good” or “evil”, but are based on a scientific understanding that everything changes, and that human society is ascending – not always in a straight line – to ever higher levels, based on the increasing development of the productive forces, and that consequently anything that facilitates such development is historically progressive and to be supported, or at least not opposed, and anything that hinders such development is to be opposed. But on that basis take two given facts. Let us say that an analysis shows that the working class is becoming increasingly unionised, and let us further say that this analysis shows that a larger number of strikes are taking place. On the basis of these facts a Marxist will conclude that the working class is becoming stronger, more confident, and more class conscious. As a Marxist views the working class as the vehicle of historical change this will be viewed as progressive and to be supported. But, a Conservative who views Capitalism as the end of history, as the best of all possible worlds will view such development with alarm, because it threatens to undermine and destabilise that best of all possible worlds, and will conclude that it is to be opposed. So, from the original objectively determined truths we have two contingent, but opposing truths.
Against the Flow
Marxists have experience of this in other respects too. Marxist Economics. Every Marxist economist knows that they have an explanation for the way that the economy works, whereas bourgeois economics does not. Yet, the vast majority of economic literature, all of economic teaching in school, and mostly in higher education only deals with bourgeois economic theory. In fact, most bourgeois economists if they were honest know that there are problems with their theories, even if that would not lead them to accept Marxist economic theory. And even Marxist economists are led in the academic world to have to accede to the prevailing viewpoint if they want to work. A self-reinforcing cycle is established. If you want to get a research grant to investigate Global Warming, you are much more likely to obtain one if the purpose of your research is to confirm existing theories, and the more that is true the more research does confirm existing theories.
In fact, I am impressed with the work of Bjorn Lomborg in this respect. See: Lomborg. Lomborg was a member of Greenpeace. He is a statistician, and began analysing the actual data rather than simply going along with his existing Green prejudices. As a result Lomborg found himself coming to a whole series of conclusions, which challenge the current consensus. It is not that Lomborg challenges the fact that Global Warming is occurring, or even that he believes that some if not a large part of it is due to human activity, but that he challenges the conclusions drawn from the facts. In large part I think he is right. For example, Lomborg points out that even if all of the tens of billions of dollars that Kyoto and other programmes require to be spent as part of the anti-Global Warming programme were actually spent, the consequence would be to put back the rise in sea levels by just 6 years. On a cost-benefit analysis that is simply a huge waste of resources. It would be far better as Lomborg argues to accept that sea levels will rise, and use those tens of billions of dollars to develop the economies of poor nations so that they are less effected by such climatic shifts, but moving their economies away from coastal areas, by lessening dependence on agriculture etc. etc. Capitalism will not do this because there is little profit in it. It will advocate the kind of Green Programmes required by Kyoto etc. because such programmes provide state subsidies for huge investment opportunities for the biggest companies, and therefore huge opportunities for guaranteed profits. Moreover, all of the environmentalist industry creates a climate in which consumer sentiment can be shifted. Just look at the way DIY companies began selling individual wind turbines for gullible consumers to put on their houses, which it turned out could barely in most cases produce enough electric to power a single light bulb.
One of the first things school students learn in elementary economics is about stratified marketing. The classic example that used to be given was of the two soap producers Lever brothers and Procter and Gamble. They produced essentially the same soap powder, and simply packaged it in different boxes. One set of boxes was designed to look cheap, another to look expensive. This was backed up with advertising, which emphasised to consumers the cheapness of one set, and the expensiveness of the other. By this means they could maximise profits. The middle class bought the soap powder, at a higher price because they thought they were getting something better, whilst the working class bought the soap powder in the cheaper boxes, because they thought they were getting better value. If you look in the supermarkets now you see the same thing, but in a different guise. There are a whole panoply of organic this and that, free range eggs, or whatever all at much higher prices than the same products in the non-organic packaging all aimed at assuaging the middle class angst, and making them pay through the nose to do so. All of the environmentalist industry and attendant propaganda plays into this as a means of shifting consumer preferences on to ranges of products that capitalists can sell at higher prices, and consequently higher profits having sated normal demand.
Burn Up
The other thing I was watching was last night’s first episode of “Burn Up” an environmentalist political thriller. One of the central themes is about the fact that there are vast reservoirs of methane gas locked up in frozen tundra around the world. Methane is 23 times more effective as a Greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide. As long as the gas is locked up in the frozen tundra everything is fine, but if it is released as a result of the ground beginning to that through Global Warming then the shit hits the fan as a snowball effect of warming is set in train. In fact we know such occurrences have happened in the Earth’s history due to other periods of warming.
But, watching the programme raised a fairly obvious question in my mind. The plot centres on a fictional Oil Company – Arrow Oil – which is heavily invested in exploiting Canadian tar sands. The company has a Green Division investing marginally in Solar Energy. The CEO having got his leg over Neve Campbell who plays the Vice President of this Division, and who has been badly affected by an Inuit woman campaigner who self immolates in front of him is led to consider increasing massively the role of the Solar Power division, funding it by pulling out of the expensive tar sands production.
Burn Off
But, here is the point. Tar sands extraction IS very expensive, some of the other sources of oil are becoming increasingly difficult to get at, and consequently very expensive too – hence the continuing rise in the price of oil. But, the methane locked up in this tundra, which threatens to destroy the Earth if its accidentally released is as the programme demonstrated just waiting to be tapped – huge quantities of it! This methane is effectively what is burnt now from the North Sea and elsewhere. So, why not reduce the possibility of the earth being destroyed by its accidental release, save the cost of extracting expensive oil, and instead simply tap this methane locked up in the tundra? Gas can be used not only for domestic heating, but for burning in power stations as a much cleaner fuel than oil or coal, it can be used in liquid form to fuel car engines and so on, again more efficient and cleaner than oil. This way not only is cheaper fuel produced, but a potential catastrophe waiting to destroy the Earth with or without Man’s help is reduced. Could it be that the reason this is not proposed is because the oil companies that own all the means of production that could exploit this cheap source of fuel, have trillions of dollars tied up in oil production, and it does not suit them to release a cheap source of fuel from which lower profits would derive?
Feast and Famine
The same thing is true of the other story I was watching the other day about famine in East Africa. The story said the famine was due to the high price of food. Actually, this was unlikely. The people shown in the clip were subsistence farmers. They would normally produce their own food not buy it. They were starving because of drought. In fact, the main cause of these people’s distress is not the high price of food, nor even Capitalism. As Lenin said about Russia in attacking the economic romanticism of the Narodniks, the problem is not Capitalism, but not ENOUGH Capitalism. The problem for most of the people in Africa is, in fact, that they live in societies dominated by precapitalist forms of economy, and consequently the productivity of labour is too low to enable subsistence let alone a decent way of life. Petit bourgeois moralising about trying to defend the very ways of life that cause this problem can then never offer any solution.
In fact, the high price of food is probably a means of salvation for such people. When oil prices rose in the 1970’s, it prompted the opening up of more marginal oil fields; it encouraged new types of technology to enable more oil to be extracted from existing fields. The high price of food arising from a rising demand as the people of China and the rest of Asia rightly demand a standard of living comparable to the West, means that other sources of food production will have to be opened up, and it will become profitable to do so. In most cases the real issue with food production is simply the application of enough and the right kind of Capital to overcome existing climatic, and soil conditions. As Lomborg points out, instead of spending tens of billions of dollars on ineffective anti-global warming measures, that Capital would be better employed in parts of Africa to provide irrigation, drainage, desalination plants etc. etc. in order to open up the vast potential that Africa offers for feeding the world. Yes, such developments would abolish the primitive ways of life that exist in some of these places, but as a Marxist we believe that is progressive. The question is how such change is brought about. But then given the choice of starving or working as an agricultural worker or even in areas where agriculture couldn’t be sustained working to maintain a wind farm, or solar energy farm on a living wage, I know which I would choose.
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