The current haggling between local Mayors and Westminster highlights why Marxists oppose regionalism, federalism, and devolution. Like sectionalism in industry, and nationalism at the level of the state, they all act to divide the unity of the working-class, along artificial borders, and enable our enemies to pursue a strategy of divide and rule.
The strategy of the government is clearly to play off different areas one against another. They did a deal with Liverpool and Lancashire, and isolated Greater Manchester. They are now trying, even within Greater Manchester, to play off individual council areas one against another to undermine the position of Burnham. And, having isolated Manchester, and threatened it with a worse deal than was originally offered, they are using that to have done a deal with South Yorkshire, which left Manchester twisting in the wind, before they move on to the North-East.
This is the strategy they wanted to employ in Brexit negotiations with the EU, but there, its Britain that is in the weak position of being supplicant, meaning it could not work. The EU has remained united, as it can afford to do, given that it is in the driving seat.
The events show why Marxists favour a unified state rather than federalism or devolution, from two opposing directions. On the one hand, the existence of regional decision making means that national decisions can be opposed and resisted. The Tories did that, for years, in relation to Grammar Schools, where they were able to retain them, in some Tory controlled council areas, despite the policy of Labour governments to replace them with comprehensives. Having retained them, they provided a springboard for future Tory governments to extend them, and to enable a return of Grammar Schools in other areas.
Its all well and good, opportunists looking on at the SNP resisting Tories in Westminster - not that they do that very effectively - but were a Workers' Government to be in place in Westminster, it would be by such means that the reaction would seek to build opposition to it, and prepare the ground for a counter-revolutionary strike against it.
As Marx put it,They know that this truth cannot be changed by simply handing over to people worthless bits of paper, plucked from the Magic Money Tree, to continue buying goods and services that people are being paid NOT to produce! The reason the Tories have implemented a national lockdown in the form of local lockdowns is to get local politicians to carry the can for their inevitable failure; to give the impression that a national lockdown is not in place, which would mean admitting the first one did not work, raising the question of why another one would; it means they can avoid having to pay out the kinds of financial compensation that accompanied the first national lockdown.
In reality, by framing the financial support in the way they have, the Tories know that they will have to pay out very much less. That is not because they have reduced the furlough payments from 80% to 66%, but because many employers will not subscribe to it at all. The incentive is for firms to sack some of their workers, and then employ the remaining workers on longer hours, paying them just their wages for these hours, and avoiding joining the furlough scheme at all, which would have involved them paying an increased amount to their workers for hours not worked. Indeed, some firms will just close down, sacking all their workers, who will then go on the dole, leaving the state to pick up 100% of the bill, in benefits.
The government is facing chickens coming home to roost. When all of the demands for a national lockdown were made back in March, it buckled and gave in to them, just as Boris has continually buckled and had to capitulate to the EU. In doing so it helped fuel the ridiculous moral panic that was generated over COVID. Had the NHS actually been an effective health service, then all of those deaths of elderly and vulnerable people could largely have been avoided, as is the case with all of the deaths in care homes. The UK could have followed the example of Sweden, and avoided much of the costs of lockdowns, avoided all of the borrowing and debt that has gone along with it, and had it simply ensured that the 20% of the population actually at risk - the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions - were isolated and protected from infection, then like Sweden, it could have effectively eliminated deaths from COVID, and developed herd immunity amongst the population, safely.
But, it failed to do that. If it were to change course, now, it would mean admitting the lockdown was a mistake, and that, by implication, indirectly, it along with all those that proposed the lockdown were responsible for tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, and the worst economic slowdown in 300 years, that could yet, in the event of further lockdowns, turn into the worst economic crisis ever. You can see why all those that pinned their colours to the lockdown mast, are now like a death cult that cannot brook any suggestion of an alternative strategy, for fear of having to accept their own culpability.
But, the government cannot simply continue that old strategy either, because it knows that having to pay out huge sums to bribe people not to work would quickly ruin the country. And, the government is simultaneously in the process of doing that with its equally idiotic policy of Brexit. So, all those that have propounded lockdowns are now living in a fantasy world, where they have to believe that salvation is at hand from some other source. That other source is either Test and Trace, which has not a cat in hell's chance of ever working, or providing a solution, or else the arrival of a vaccine.
The proponents of lockdowns are as desperate for a vaccine to save them, as Trump is in the hope of it saving his election chances. That is why we see them frantically cutting corners in the production of such a vaccine. Russia has rushed a vaccine out without the normal trials required to ensure safety, China is busy selling vaccines to guinea pigs, on a similar basis, whilst in Britain, people are being deliberately injected with the virus to speed up tests on potential vaccines. Experience with drugs like Thalidomide indicate what happens when corners are cut in safety trials before drugs are released on to the market.
Even so, its unlikely that any such vaccine is going to be available until at least the middle of next year. If the economy were to be shut down to any extent until such a vaccine was available, it would mean economic ruin would have occurred long before. So, the government is trying to con people into the idea that something less than a full national lockdown might be all that is required, whilst Labour cons them into the idea that a national lockdown is required, but only for three weeks - some hope! None of them want to admit their culpability for the disaster that their lockdown policy has caused, and the failure it has been even in its stated aims.
Financial markets are starting to wake up, with even the astronomically manipulated government bond markets seeing bonds being sold, and yields rising, even as central banks print more worthless bits of paper to buy up other bits of worthless paper, that they then stuff into their vaults, to try to prevent the prices of those bonds falling.
UK inflation last month, rose by about 0.5% as against August. If, that continued each month, then it means that inflation a year from now would have risen by 6%. In fact, August's figure was low, because of various factors, including the government's introduction of Eat Out to Help Out, and reductions in VAT on a range of goods and services. But, the direction of travel of inflation upwards is distinctly visible, not that you would know it from the media commentary. That it should be so is an inevitable consequence of supply being curtailed whilst all of the liquidity pumped into consumers pockets keeps monetary demand inflated. Stalled car production, during the lockdown, meant that car stocks disappeared, and now, as people demand cars rather than risk public transport, demand for cars is outstripping supply, causing car prices to rise. The same is true with many other products, and additional costs both from anti-COVID measures, and as a result of Brexit, means that will intensify.
But, as I set out some time ago, the official inflation data grossly understates the real rate currently. The prices of many things that consumers could not spend money on, are included in the basket used to calculate changes in prices, whilst the goods and services that now form a larger component of spending are underweighted, or not included at all. If adjustment for these factors is taken into account, we might expect to see UK inflation, in the next year, rising by 6-10%. Any suggestion that that is the case, would definitely mean that the bond vigilantes would sell off UK bonds hard, causing the cost of government borrowing to rocket, as well as the cost of borrowing of large companies.
In those conditions, the government would find itself in the kind of position that homebuyers were in back in 1990, when having been encouraged to borrow cheap (cheap then being a mortgage rate of 7.5%), saw mortgage rates rise to 15%, doubling their monthly mortgage payments, at the same time that their house price fell by 40%, and many of them faced the dole, as the economy went into recession. Any idea, as some Labour pundits have suggested, that this could be resolved by further recourse to the Magic Money Tree is insane, as it would simply send inflation into the kind of spiral seen in Weimar in the 1920's.
That is why the Tories are avoiding a national lockdown, because they know it would mean irresistible pressure to finance it with money printing that would just heap the worst financial crisis in history onto the catastrophe that the lockdowns have imposed on the economy itself.
Labour should be making hay, in putting forward an independent working-class strategy, but unfortunately, Starmer is useless. On the one hand, he has become Johnson's political hod carrier on Brexit and lockdowns, whilst at the same time he seems more concerned to rig the NEC in his favour, and against the Left, on paying out to right-wing wreckers, and removing any remnants of left social democracy from the Shadow Cabinet, whilst stuffing it full of the apologists for capital that are responsible for the kinds of conservative policies that landed us in this mess in the first place!
If Marxism is (for the reasons you lay out) inherently hostile to devolution and federalism, then why was Lenin's state a "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics", which as its title suggests was federal (or at least faux-federal) in structure?
ReplyDeleteDon't the supporters of suppressing Covid-19 have a strong argument in that no country managed to protect its vulnerable people from the virus without a policy of suppressing it in the general population, because the vulnerable were always infected by their carers? In their eyes the high per-capita death toll in Sweden cannot be defended simply by the observation that many other European countries did no better in spite of lockdowns.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, it could be argued that Western civilization as a whole has failed when faced with the Covid-19 challenge, as even European countries which did relatively well in the first (like Germany and the Czech Republic) are still orders of magnitude worse than the real success stories in East Asia, and often are suffering second waves of infection which are worse than the first.
Pedestrian Observations: Corona and Europe's Idiocy
The only Western countries which have actually succeeded were Australia and New Zealand, and they were not only assisted by a favourable geographic position but also by a long tradition of paranoia about biosecurity (which anyone who has flown there can attest to) which evolved as part of the development of their agricultural systems. And even those countries had to impose draconian economy-killing lockdowns in order to succeed, which were not required in East Asia.
In order to truly succeed, all of the following are required:
1. That all people coming into the country are locked up for 2 weeks: note that Trump's entry ban was completely useless because it didn't apply to US citizens, and that Victoria's recent outbreak happened because that quarantine was breached when the (low-paid private security) guards were bribed – can't remember though if they were bribed with money or with sex.
(Of course such a policy means that foreign travel must essentially be shut down, as sufficient quarantine capacity would only exist if entry is restricted only to returning citizens and residents.)
2. That all people who test positive are locked up for 2 weeks, rather than being trusted to self-isolate. As well as being the norm in East Asia, this is one way in which Australia and New Zealand succeeded where the rest of the Western world failed.
(continuing)
(continuing)
ReplyDelete3. That backward contact tracing is used. The UK's test-and-trace system wasn't just incompetently implemented (due to cronyism that resulted in it being outsourced to the private companies Serco and Deloitte) but it was fundamentally flawed in design in that it only looked forward from symptomatic individuals, and thus completely missed the people who have no symptoms themselves but are highly effective at spreading the infection (because they don't suspect they're infected). Note that the focus on smartphone apps is also misplaced as Japan managed to implement contract tracing effectively using low-tech methods.
4. That masks be worn at all times in public, perhaps extending even to the shared areas of apartment buildings. This is needed to stop asymptomatic super-spreaders from expanding outbreaks faster than the contact tracing can keep up.
Admittedly this was easier in East Asia where a pre-existing culture of mask-wearing (perhaps dating back all the way to Spanish Flu: the tradition was retained in the East while it died out in the West) meant that masks were plentiful in supply. The reason so many Western countries advised against masks initially was because of a supply shortage, along with bureaucratic arse-covering that led to an unwillingness to recommend reusing masks.
5. That large crowds are prevented from forming: this is perhaps something that the West failed at because its lockdowns created a psychological yearning to return to the pre-pandemic status quo.
It is obvious that East Asia developed a culture conducive to suppressing Covid-19 while the West has been crippled by a sense of learned helplessness: perhaps it is because Asians have the confidence that comes from their mercantilist economic success as well as from their victory over SARS, while the only epidemics which Western countries had experienced recently involved flu, which spreads in a different way which is far more difficult to suppress anyway (and perhaps fuelled a fatalistic "only herd immunity stops epidemics" mentality).
Do Western countries perhaps need leaders who will impose the superior East Asian culture upon them, just as Kemal Atatürk sought to impose the (then-)superior Western culture upon his Islamic nation? Widespread mistrust of the state is especially toxic for the West, especially for the Anglosphere where it is promulgated by the Murdoch media amongst others.
George,
ReplyDeletePushed for time. The answer to your first comment is easy. The Bolsheviks took over the territory of the Russian Empire, the biggest prison house of nations on the planet at the time. Part of the Bolshevik means of creating an alliance to overthrow Tsarism was their national programme for those oppressed nationalities, which involved giving them political rights.
As both Marx and Lenin say, federalism can be accepted as a compromise in the process of creating a one and indivisible republic, but only as a compromise, and never in place of an existing unified state. As I've said before we would accept federalism as a means of creating a United States of Europe, as an advance on the existing confederal situation, in which the nation state continues to dominate.
George,
ReplyDelete"Don't the supporters of suppressing Covid-19 have a strong argument in that no country managed to protect its vulnerable people from the virus without a policy of suppressing it in the general population, because the vulnerable were always infected by their carers? In their eyes the high per-capita death toll in Sweden cannot be defended simply by the observation that many other European countries did no better in spite of lockdowns."
Not at all. Its not a question of lockdown or no lockdown in relation to the failure protect the vulnerable. Both failed to do it. If anything those that imposed lockdowns failed to do it even more than did Sweden, which did not impose a lockdown. In part, that is itself due to the focus on the wrong target, i.e. the general population rather than the vulnerable part of it. In fact, Sweden does seem to have responded to its earlier error in that regard, judged by the number of new deaths there in the last few months, which have been near zero.
And, that is also the answer to your last sentence. The argument in favour of Sweden is not a comparison with other countries that did no better where they imposed lockdowns. The argument in favour of Sweden is that for the last four months its per capita rate is near zero, and much, much lower than for any other country, whether they employed lockdowns, test and trace or other such measures. The argument in favour of Sweden is that having reduced its current per capita mortality rate to near zero, over the last few months, it has remained at that level, and has no reason to change, whilst he mortality rates in all the countries that imposed lockdowns or test and trace are no rising sharply.
On your points 1 and 2, that is not required with a strategy of focused protection. It doesn't matter if people come into the country carrying the virus if they can't come into contact with anyone who would be badly affected by it! Indeed, by facilitating a faster spread amongst the rest of the population they assist in the more rapid development of herd immunity. Once herd immunity is established it doesn't matter, because the probability of them coming in to contact with someone who is not immune becomes near zero, so they are effectively isolated anyway. The same with those tested and found positive.
ReplyDeleteOn your point 3 backward contract tracing will not work, because it would be too long, and because you can only backward trace from known cases. The whole problem with test and trace is that the concept itself is flawed, not just the application of it.
ReplyDeleteThe focus on Serco is also misplaced. £9 billion has been spent on developing the test and trace system, money going into the hands of IT companies for something that does not work. But, more than that, there is the money paid out to the pharma companies who have produced the testing kits that also don't work. There is the money being paid out to the medical-industrial complex by the state, which will run into tens if not hundreds of billions of pounds, and which is being justified in the same kinds of ways that hundreds of billions is channelled to the military-industrial complex on a similar basis of the need for technological solutions, and the promotion of widespread fear and panic.
On your point 4, again not necessary if you isolate the vulnerable 20%, because more widespread transmission means faster development of herd immunity.
ReplyDeleteYour comments on advice against mask wearing is true, but also, it was the WHO which advised against it, along with having an abysmal record in general in its advice during the pandemic.
ReplyDeleteTotally disagree with your Point 5. Firstly, focused protection means there is no reason to suppress transmission. Secondly, mass gatherings usually occur outside where there is no evidence that transmission rates are high, other than where people are closely mingled. There was no increase in reported cases following the BLM demonstrations, nor the congregations on the beach in Bournemouth, nor from all the outdoor parties that occurred on Council estates in the North during the lockdown. The increase in reported cases in the North, now, is down to lockdown being relaxed and older people going out to pubs, restaurants, and generally mixing. It shows the power of focused protection, if only it had been used in place of lockdown, so that herd immunity would have been created during the Summer, making it safe for older people to come out.
ReplyDeleteThe last thing we want with an authoritarian government is people being denied he freedom of assembly. I view distrust of the state as entirely desirable and progressive, as Marx put it, its the state that is in need of a stern lesson from the people.
My list of 5 points was what appear to be the minimum requirements for making a suppression policy work without closing down the economy. If you do close down the economy (as Australia and New Zealand did) then only 1 and 2 are required as 3 thru 5 are essentially superfluous.
ReplyDeleteIf you are operating according to the opposite policy of focused protection, then it seems to me like you would want to impose the minimum level of restrictions necessary to avoid overwhelming the health care system (and note some lockdown advocates currently claim that the current level of restrictions in the UK are insufficient even for that minimal goal).
Contrast the deaths per million population in "successful" nations:
Taiwan 0.3
New Zealand 5
South Korea 9
Hong Kong 14
Australia 35
with those in "failed" nations:
Germany 117
Sweden 585
UK 641
USA 676
As for the recent increase in cases in the North, wasn't it driven almost exclusively by students in university towns? I remember that when I was a student there was always lots of coughs and sneezes in the first few lectures of term, no doubt caused by students converging on the university from their home towns all over the country.
There's a parallel with Singapore, which like New Zealand had only 5 deaths per million population, but which had 9876 cases per million population, almost as bad as the UK (10375) or Sweden (10200)! Almost all of these cases were among poor migrant workers living in dormitories: fortunately hardly any died because they were mostly fit and young.
As for the situation in the West now, is your argument that the current failures have already cost so many lives that a suppression strategy would likely save few lives now even if implemented correctly (although it might be worth adopting in the next pandemic), or is it that in general the costs of even a successfully-implemented suppression strategy (in lost civil liberties and the need to keep borders closed until a vaccine becomes available) outweigh the benefits in saved lives?
On the East/West cultural divide, it is notable that the suppression strategy which all East Asian countries are using against Covid-19 wasn't just a result of their experience with SARS, but was also their plan to deal with a flu pandemic. An epidemiologist with East Asian experience wrote in an article that the Chinese government in January 2020 (faced with the then out-of-control epidemic in Wuhan) would never have even contemplated a Swedish-style response, because "the CCP knows that the Chinese people would never let them get away with such a thing."
His view is that the Chinese people would have viewed the CCP in a such a scenario as failing in its duty to protect them, and thus forfeiting its legitimacy to rule (or the "Mandate of Heaven", in imperial Chinese terminology). It speaks volumes that the epidemiologist believes that the CCP (a brutal dictatorship let's not forget) would feel that its policy options were thus constrained.
I don't think you can compare Australia and New Zealand, or Japan, or S. Korea with many other places. The first three are islands, the last essentially an island given the cut off of the North. They could seal borders, in a way that other countries cannot. The point is that does severe economic damage, and it fails to build immunity, and when the restrictions are lifted, the virus re-emrges anyway.
ReplyDeleteFocused protection does avoid overwhelming the health service, because it aims to stop those who would become ill being infected! There is no reason why COVID should overwhelm health services. In Britain, one of the worst places for hospital admissions and deaths, there have been 40,000 deaths, which represents less that 10% of average annual deaths. The number of hospital admissions from COVID, even into ICU is a small proportion of total admissions. Only 1 or 2 hospitals came close to being overrun - in London - whereas, the large majority of hospitals across the country were far from overrun, with admissions down to around just 40% of normal! COVID patients might tip some hospitals over the edge, but only in the same way that a final straw breaks the camel's back. It is the lack of capacity of the NHS, the fact that it is constantly on the verge of collapse, especially during Winter, when it always faces additional admissions from flue and other seasonal illnesses that is the real issue.
The comparison of per capita mortality rates you have given is meaningless. There have been just 160 deaths in Sweden since August 1st. The per capita mortality rate in Sweden from COVID since August 1st, is then 16 per million of population! That puts it in the top 5 of the list of best performing countries. It has had an average of less than 2 COVID deaths per day since July. That is a consequence of dealing with the errors in its care homes, and of the development of herd immunity. Where others across the globe that implemented lockdowns or test and trace are seeing mortality rates spike again, Sweden is not and will not.
The students have only driven the increase in reported cases, not actual infections. The main cause is relaxation of restrictions, which led older people to come out and get infected resulting in a rise in those being testing - along with a general increase in testing. During the Summer, there were lots of younger people getting infected, because they are asymptomatic they did not get tested. Again its shows why isolating the elderly is the way to deal with the problem.
On suppression, I assume you mean test and trace. It depends on the virus. Faced with a disease that has high mortality rates in general, like Ebola at around 90%. Then close the borders, isolate the minority of carriers. Kill the disease. COVID is the opposite. For the large majority of the population, it has a lower mortality rate than flu or pneumonia. It is easily spread, so trying to stop it spreading is pointless. Its spread amongst those not affected by it is the best way of developing immunity to it, and killing it. Instead, just isolate the minority who might be badly affected, in the same way we do with nut allergies. But, the medical-industrial complex means that all solutions are based on what provides most money to the big medical supply industries, that boosts the health bureaucracy, and the Universities tied to the big pharma companies and m-ic.
On the state protection. Precisely. These states are paternalistic welfare states. Its classic Hobbes. Its also what collapsed the soviet economy, and is in process of doing the same to the global economy, though debt.
The first three are islands, the last essentially an island given the cut off of the North. They could seal borders, in a way that other countries cannot. The point is that does severe economic damage, and it fails to build immunity, and when the restrictions are lifted, the virus re-emerges anyway.
ReplyDeleteHasn't Taiwan been one of the few economies to actually grow during the pandemic, showing that the harm caused by sealing borders isn't that great? (Note that Taiwan closed its borders so early that it never really needed internal restrictions: pretty much the only internal change was widespread mask-wearing.)
Even in New Zealand the loss of revenue from foreign tourists hasn't been especially damaging, because it was in part compensated by domestic tourism – New Zealanders denied the chance of foreign travel were more likely to visit their own country's tourist attractions.
Where others across the globe that implemented lockdowns or test and trace are seeing mortality rates spike again, Sweden is not and will not.
Is it significant that all the countries other than Sweden which rejected lockdowns are likely to have had very few residents over 80 years old, either because they were poor third-world countries whose populations are much larger now, or (in Belarus's case) because they will have been small children at the time of Nazi occupation, and thus been exterminated by the Nazis as "useless eaters"?
The students have only driven the increase in reported cases, not actual infections.
Are you using the term "reported cases" to mean "positive tests" and arguing that the arrival of students led to an increase in testing that caused more infections to be detected, or are you using "reported cases" to mean "cases of notable illness", in which case it would be due to changes in the behaviour of older people due to the relaxation of restrictions, and nothing to do with students at all?
If students returning to universities did have a significant effect in would lead to both actual infections and positive test results increasing, but perhaps not to an increase in hospitalizations or deaths.
On suppression, I assume you mean test and trace.
Actually I mean any attempt to curb the virus that isn't based on immunity, so that would include test/trace/isolate as well as lockdowns.
On the state protection. Precisely. These states are paternalistic welfare states. Its classic Hobbes. Its also what collapsed the soviet economy, and is in process of doing the same to the global economy, though debt.
Perhaps your distrust of the state is why you sound like a right-winger on certain other issues too, such as basic income and gun control (both of which you oppose)?
I thought the fall of the Soviet Union was more driven in part by an inefficient industrial economy (from taking vertical integration to an absurd extreme, because it was the only way to simply the economy enough for central planning to be possible), in part by the extreme burden of its military spending, and in part because (like Venezuela) it allowed itself to become too dependent on oil exports and thus went bust when oil prices crashed.
Trade to islands can be by sea container, but trade across Europe, including to Britain involves a lot of lorry transport, which by implication means the movement across border of drivers.
ReplyDeleteOn your next point, possibly, but the over 60's are also at risk.
I am saying that its older people who started to get infected as they came out of lockdowns, and as some of them fell ill, they were tested, which then led to those they had been in contact with being tested, who previously would not have been. That simply showed up a level of infection in those areas that already existed but was undetected, because the younger sections of the population in those areas - irrespective of students - are asymptomatic. I doubt many of the students newly arrived had much contact with local elderly residents. But, local younger people - family members, friends, workers in local businesses - do. That explains why there has not been the same rise in areas of high student populations like Oxford and Cambridge or London.
My comments on suppression apply to lockdown as well as test and trace.
On distrust of the state, so did Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, none of whom are known as "right-wingers".
The economy in the USSR was inefficient because it was bureaucratically planned. The ideology of Socialism In one Country, meant it had to superindustrialise to outgrow the West, particularly the US. That meant throwing an ever growing proportion of production into the production of means of production relative to mean of consumption. The emphasis on very large capital projects meant that value was sucked out of the economy retarding the rate of growth. That was exacerbated by the spending on the military, which caused expanded negative reproduction, as Bukharin called it.
In order to try to pacify workers, and justify its claims to be a "Workers' State", it also devoted large amounts of value to welfarism, pumping huge amounts into its health service, education, subsidisation of public transport and so on. This again sucked value out of the economy resulting in expanded negative reproduction, increasingly covered over by inflation, requiring fictions to be created in relation to he value of the currency, as anyone who went to Eastern Europe during that period, and was pestered by people in the street wanting to exchange currency knows.
All that was in play long before, it became dependent on oil revenues.
Do you think that the pitiful failure of the UK and Ireland to control the virus (when contrasted with the success of island nations throughout the Asia/Pacific region) may built a movement to shift to the exclusive use of sea containers for trade between the British Isles and mainland Europe?
ReplyDeleteAnd why (in your view) was Boris Johnson so reluctant to shut down international travel even after mainland European countries started doing so (in spite of the Schengen Agreement)? Does the UK have more of its nationals living abroad (which the government was loath to strand there) affecting its decision-making processes?
George,
ReplyDeleteNo, because the large majority of UK-EU trade goes through Dover, by Ferry or Tunnel, and much of the rest goes to other Channel Ports. Some also goes across the North Sea to Holland, Scandinavia, and I think some to Hamburg. Its much cheaper, and quicker.
The decision on international travel is down to three things. Most UK people go to Europe for holidays, due to the terrible English weather, rundown nature of UK seaside resorts, and the expensive nature of UK holidays compared to a couple of weeks in the Spanish, Portuguese, or Greek sun. He didn't want to upset all those voters, especially those in the North, where its even more miserable. Secondly, the UK depends on high end services industry, and a lot of that is done via personal contact, which requires people to travel. Thirdly, the London economy is built on the fact it attracts the word's rich tax dodgers and money launderers. They need to be able to move in and out of the capital on a regular basis.
I suspect that in Europe, there was actually less conformance with restrictions than presented, because a lot of people can drive across borders.
You may be right about trade between Great Britain and mainland Europe, but might Ireland perhaps look more to container trade because even before Covid-19 hit it was looking more to trade directly with mainland Europe (bypassing Great Britain) as a result of Brexit?
ReplyDeleteMy thinking was that I imagined that a policy of "raising the drawbridge" against Covid would have appealed to Brexit supporters, as "raising the drawbridge" (against immigrants) was essentially the sales pitch which Leave used to win the referendum back in 2016. Are you saying that English Leave voters are mostly a lot more European than they like to think they are?
And I'm not sure what relevance beach holidays have here, when the big surge of introductions of the virus happened in February and March, and was primarily the result of Alpine skiing holidays: stereotypically the preserve of the middle-class Remain-voting types that Leave voters love to hate.
Your mention earlier on about the Soviets "throwing an ever growing proportion of production into the production of means of production relative to mean of consumption" also reminds me of Nazi Germany, specifically Adam Tooze's debunking (in The Wages of Destruction) of Albert Speer's claims about the "armaments miracle". The reason why German war production surged in the second half of World War was not because Speer rationalized German industry, but rather because the extensive capital investments that Germany had made in the first half of the war (such as the new industrial facilities in Upper Silesia, where the Nazis sought to build a "second Ruhr" out of range of RAF bombers) were finally coming online.
Ireland is already doing that. They supported by EU funs have expanded their port facilities, and hey have built some new ships to be able to undertake such trade. Of course, a lot of Ireland's tare is in services and technology, rather than goods, and this can be done electronically.
ReplyDeleteOn raising the drawbridge, it comes down to dealing with reality rather than Brexit rhetoric. Latest news out today from UK business says, Brexit is going to raise import costs on many basic items by 30%, not to mention the problems arising from a No Deal. Leave voters more European. Yes, absolutely. There is cognitive dissonance. Many go to the continent for holidays, they haven't even thought about the actual consequence. Of course, many of the better off Brexiters, like Lawson, actually live in France! ON middle-class Remain voters, and beach holidays v skiing holidays, its hot in the Canaries all year round, and I was in Spain in December a few years ago and it was more than hot enough. Have you not seen Johnny Vegas in Benidorm, where many UK wc pensioners go for extended holidays during the Winter?
On your last point. Quite right.
What do you think of this Twitter thread (by the same author as the blog post I mentioned in my first comment on this post)?
ReplyDeleteGeorge,
ReplyDeleteI'm loathe to make pronouncements on Twitter comments by people I don't know. One reason I don't use Twitter and wonder why politicians do, is experience shows its the easiest way of finding yourself being tied into a meme that you had not been aware of - pace Corbyn and murals.
Having scanned the comments, they seem to confirm the fears I expressed about people placing faith in the state, let alone the kinds of Bonapartist state, or at least governments we have in many countries. Its worth bearing in mind the comments I made some months ago in relation to Brexit about two competing Bonapartisms. We have, in Britain a Bonapartist in Johnson, but to oppose him, without mobilising the working-class, the ruling class also resorts to its own forms of Bonapartism, using the courts and so on.
But, I think the thing about Asians being compliant is a bit of a crock. Remember the Vietnam War, or what about the Chinese Revolution, the current mobilisations in Hong Kong, Tianenmen Sq., or the current uprising in Thailand?
There is another factor I saw recently, which is that of Neanderthal genes. It shows those with more such genes are more prone to severe response to COVID. Given that Neanderthals only existed in Northern Europe, it would explain some less susceptibility to COVID in Asia and Africa, though by far the biggest factor still seems to be age.
Alon Levy (The person who wrote the blog post and Twitter thread I cited here) is an Israeli living in France IIRC. His blog is mainly devoted to the issues of improving public transport and reducing car usage, positions which may be what has inclined him to a statist mentality in the first place.
ReplyDeleteHe had another Twitter thread recently about the Nordic countries, which in his view have been unfairly slandered as collectivist by US right-wingers (and their imitators in other English-speaking countries), when in fact they were highly individualist and are distinguished from the USA primarily in the competence and lack of corruption in their government, which as a result is far more trusted by the people.
His view on Asians being more compliant is focused purely on public health in a pandemic: perhaps the cause is simply that they'd already been burned by two nasty coronaviruses previously? I know that the surveillance state that South Korea erected to fight COVID was only made possible by changes in the law (which essentially abolished the right to privacy) enacted in the wake of the MERS outbreak of 2015.
Social-democrats have also presented Scandinavia as some kind of socialist Nirvanha, which it never was, so its no wonder that libertarians take them at their word. Incidentally, you could say that the Swedes have shown a similar attitude to Asians, and maybe what is actually at work, here, is not compliance with an overbearing state, but simply an aspect of people acting as intelligent adults able to think for themselves, and act responsibly, rather than thinking that the state can solve all problems for them, if they make reckless decisions.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, its interesting to look at the spike in infections in Denmark, previously compared favourably with Sweden. A similar picture appears for Norway and Finland. So much for their lockdowns having proved more effective than the strategy in Sweden.
Also look at the sharp spike in infections in Germany, renowned for its efficient track and trace system.
But infections in Sweden are also spiking, showing that they certainly haven't reached herd immunity yet as you earlier seem to have implied.
ReplyDeleteOn a per capita basis, infections in Sweden are less than half those in Denmark, currently. Its about half per capital that of Germany. And, its about a quarter that of Britain. Of course, this does not show the real picture, because actual infections are much greater than reported infections, and where lockdowns or efficient test and trace has been in place that has slowed the spread of infections and immunity. The actual new infections in Sweden are likely to be much lower than in these other countries, precisely because it did not impose lockdowns or extensive test and trace restrictions, and so built up immunity.
ReplyDeleteThat is why despite the rise in reported infections in Sweden, it is not seeing the same kinds of rises in hospitalisations and deaths that are being seen in these other countries. Essentially, in its population centres it HAS obtained something like herd immunity.
The findings in relation to the duration of antibodies in the system indicate why the estimates of existing immunity are likely to be wrong. Those findings suggest that antibodies decline noticeably after about three months. So tests for antibodies in people who had the virus six months ago are not likely to indicate the existence of immunity, suggesting populations may be a way from herd immunity. But, this is wrong. The situation with COVID is no different from other coronaviruses such as those that cause the common cold. The level of antibodies always declines when the body does not need them to destroy invading pathogens. However, the immune system comprises more than just antibodies.
It has its own memory, so that, for example, if you come into contact with a coronavirus you have had before that caused you to have a cold, the body quickly produces new antibodies to destroy the invading virus. It has he same effect as having a booster shot for a vaccine. Because people constantly come into these pathogens that their bodies previously built antibodies to kill, they constant get such booster shots to their immune system. I had so many colds when I was a kid, and came into contact with such pathogens regularly via my own kids that I can't remember the last time I had a cold.
People may have no COVID antibodies in their system, but there may be large numbers who are already immune, because their system has the memory to be able to quickly produce them if required to prevent infection. Similarly with the development of T-Cells, cell immunity and so on.
That scientist I mentioned in my post on 22 October 2020 at 15:28?
ReplyDeleteI've now tracked down who it was: it was Daniel Falush, who is a geneticist working at the Institute Pasteur in Shanghai, and the original source was an article in the Daily Telegraph on 18 April 2020: I'll quote the relevant passage here:
Professor Daniel Falush, a geneticist at the Institute Pasteur in Shanghai, China, believes UK and much western pandemic planning is characterised by a "fatalism" not evident in Asia. He says East and West "frame" their view of fighting new diseases differently.
"'There is no other realistic way out of Covid-19 to building up 'herd immunity' through vaccination/infection.'" This in my mind is the herd immunity mentality. It's a way of framing the argument. "The alternative framing is: 'there is no other realistic way out other than reducing viral transmission to zero'. That’s how they see it in Asia."
China's publicly available pandemic plans are thin but emphasise quarantine and isolation of infected individuals - a tactic it has used to good effect to contain the virus, if its data can be believed.
Professor Falush is not clear if China’s initial lockdown was pre-planned but thinks it had little choice - a herd immunity strategy would never have washed there.
"They are very conscious that their legitimacy is based on protecting the Chinese people and therefore had to act. In the west, it has never been viewed in those terms. Scientists are fatalistic. They say you just can't do it [contain the virus]."
I don't think you can contain the virus, and I don't think zero infection is possible. Ultimately, it will not work in Asia either, because this coronavirus is now endemic.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think of the view expressed by some scientists, that the number of cases and deaths in the Asia/Pacific region never got out of control in the early stages of the pandemic because it was the original D614 strain of the virus, rather than the more contagious G614 strain which first appeared in Lombardy and later became the dominant strain everywhere?
ReplyDeleteI'm not a virologist, so I'm not qualified to comment without adequate information.
ReplyDeleteWhat I will note is the current situation in relation to Denmark. It was one of those countries lauded and compared against Sweden. Now it is seeing infections rise again, as elsewhere, but it has also seen a new strained in mink hop over to humans. This shows another problem with suppression strategies such as lockdowns and test and trace.
These strategies mean that instead of allowing herd immunity to develop naturally or via vaccine, you simply try to slow down the rate of infection. For a virus like coronavirus, it is never possible to eliminate it in the way it is with say Ebola, which is why the calls for zero COVID are ignorant and stupid. Because the virus remains endemic with such strategies, and because suppression delays the production of herd immunity, it means the virus has a much longer time in which to mutate and develop new strains, so that the job of producing a vaccine becomes that much harder, again as I said at the beginning, because rather than dealing with one strain, any vaccine has to deal with several, as with the annual flu jab. That's okay where you have years to develop such vaccines, and where a level of herd immunity is already present amongst the population, but it isn't with COVID, where no such herd immunity has been developed, and where a vaccine to produce it is required in months.
On another point, the current lockdown are being described as "firebreaks", but of course they are not. A firebreak is where you blow up, cut down or otherwise remove a large area of forest to prevent a fire spreading to a larger area of the forest, or to nearby settlements. It means allowing the existing fire to burn itself out, whilst focusing on this strategy of cutting it off from the wider environs. That is actually closer to the strategy of focused protection. By contrast, what the strategy of lockdown or test and trace does is more like the attempt to dump water or fire retardant on a fire that is spreading rapidly amidst tinder dry forests, and which at best results in the spread of the fire being slowed, but because the areas that needed protecting from it have not been, because emphasis was placed on trying to suppress the fire, as soon as those efforts are relaxed, or a change of wind occurs, any existing embers simply result in a conflagration of those areas that should have been protected from it.
Which explanation for East Asia's hugely superior performance relative to Western countries do you consider more plausible?
ReplyDelete1) That East Asian societies responded better to the threat (with centralized quarantine likely being the key, as it prevented in-household transmission), or
2) That East Asia already had partial immunity, either due to the milder D614 strain of COVID or due to some other (as-yet unidentified) coronavirus?
I consider the history of extensive mask wearing has played a part. SARS has also been more prevalent in Asia than Europe, and so its possible that greater immunity has built up over the years, creating protection against COVID. I'd also want to investigate whether the elderly in East Asia, who are the ones at serious risk from it, were somehow better protected from it.
ReplyDeleteThe more we see of COVID deaths, the more it becomes apparent that it is really a story of a grotesque failure to fulfil a duty of care to the elderly and vulnerable in care homes and hospitals. Other countries eventually seem to have got some kind of hold on that, but Britain is still not protecting the elderly in care homes, and in hospitals. That is where the vast majority of deaths are occurring. May be given the veneration of the old in East Asia, more of them are in households rather than care homes, and so are being isolated from infection.
What we have in Britain is something akin to the MRSA scandal of some years ago, but on a much larger scale.