France had, I believe, the first one up and running a few decades ago but has done little with the technology. South Korea, China and India are the frontrunners as it stands, which suggests short-sightedness here is Europe where we have no really viable fuel sources such as natural gas and liquid air is a few decades away. It is a case of the speculative nature of capitalism, that a quick buck is preferred over long term sound investment.
One of the joys of wind turbines in the British Isles. Winter brings large static anticyclones with intense cold and no wind just when the power is needed or intense low pressure systems that produce winds too high for the turbines to operate without risking destroying the gearing. It's usually the risk of physical damage to the turbine rather than the capacity of transmission cables which requires shut down. In contrast tidal power is entierely predictable!
The owners of wind turbines in the Orkneys have to turn them off from time to time because they are producing too much wind for the cables to the mainland to take.
Oh yes David, now that is a scam to beat them all in terms of the porkie pies told.
Problem with the whole dilemma is that democracy is actually abstract and cannot be defined or precisely described so it has a multitude of variables, whereas other systems of organising society from within rather than without tend to be very structured. Politics is entirely opportunistic as analysis of every system that has cast off the old order such as a royalty since perhaps the 18th century will show. No big promise has ever been kept, a few crust thrown to the public certainly. Apathy is the greatest gift any political system can wish. Thus capitalism within a democracy, as it normally would be (there are contradictions), also feeds on voter apathy. So, to that extent you are right but who engages the public and how?
@Glen. Not only have they been "sweating the assets"; that infamous expression of the Mutt Romneys of the world but they have been transferring resource from the less well off to the rich via the windmill wheeze. Rewarding the wind turbine farmers for erecting largely useless but subsidy rich bits of kit. We have got so leery about nuclear power that we'll all be shivering in fifteen years time while vultures perch on the non turning blades of the turbines. There has been little investment in renewable energy from tidal power which is a proven technology because building tidal stations don't fall within the ridiculously short time horizons that are nowadays required by investors whereas you can stick up a windmill and get that cash flowing inside a month.
Hi Brian
I am not saying that society should not be based on a pyramid, its an inevitable consequence of the way wealth, good fortune and talent are distributed.
My point relates to the fundamental ungovernable nature of the public if they continue to dis-engage, point fingers and miss the point about what democracy really is.
My wife is Danish and I have spent some years living there. I dont want to paint a glowing picture of Danish society because it has its faults. However one difference I notice compared with the UK is the attitude of "us and them" is less prevelent when disaster strikes - in otherwords "its our problem because its our society - the person who caused this problem is one of us". Its a characteristic I feel is less prevelent in the UK - and US people seem to miss this connection and find scapegoats at the top of the pyramid to blame rather than taking a good look at themselves.
The capitalist society tries to deliver what people want its good business. When this fails its because people did not clearly articulate what they wanted or because they took no interest in the consequences of what they wanted or failed to understand that asking for X means you cannot have Y. Furthermore we all tend to be guilty of forgetting that in a democracy we cannot always have what we want because the wishes of others may contradict this - its easier to blame a politician than actually admit our wishes are only minority views.
It seems clear to me that one way and perhaps the only healthy way to at least steer the goals of capitalism is to make good use of the ballot paper by becoming properly informed, immersed and vocal in issues and then realising that ones consumer choices determine the way that the finanical players will react. In a sense the only people who really control the strings are found in the lower and middle parts of the pyramid but this power is overlooked much of the time because of apathy, finger pointing and a general wish to offload the burden of democratic direction on leaders rather than realising that leadership is not a substitute for public engagement and the desire to be informed, demand accurate undiluted information.
Jon, there has always been a question about how the triangle holds up as a model of hierarchy anyway. In fact, as we know from pyramids that have withstood millenia with little damage, the triangular shape is the one one can break down least easily. So perhaps it is something else and given the oppositional forces within society and most other structures and the fact that triangles rarely occur in nature, it must be some kind of polyhydron which can be either distorted (e.g. squeezed out of shape), bent, totally deformed or crushed easily. I know I used the playing card simile earlier, but that was an example of weakness in structures only.
At present society is not looking very triangular at all, or has it ever although at times having had an illusion of being so. Look at society that way and whoever sees the weak point first will break its back, I suspect those who believe they are undisputedly at the top of a triangular hierarchal schema have overlooked that point and since they are at the top will be swallowed up and crushed in the middle of the structure when it breaks down. Capitalism suffers from the fallibility of blind faith in itself and when the whole thing collapses theirs will be the wailing and gnashing of teeth from their self made Hell.
Sadly, to boot a lot of that is in 'traditional fuel' and nuclear sectors Glen and the bast**ds only want government to mainly build replacement up-dates of those at a time when it is very clear that alternative power sources are necessary. The development of liquid air fuel will be too slow to match the pace of this good illustration of power supply greed, stinginess and lack of foresight.
Yes Brian
Much complication, creativity, economic empowerment and crucially room for catastrophe came about once we added abstraction to the simple concept of merely exchanging one commodity directly for another - the first abstraction was money, then came credit and then came derivatives - each allowing greater and greater freedom over distance as well as time to make financial contracts in abstration and increasingly without the underlying capitalisation to support the contract - spending virtual money on an outcome X without having the necessary funds to pay the toll if Y happens. Personally I find that once I start the thought experiment on how to legislate against activities of economic abstraction on a global basis then most seem inevitable, difficult to properly define and therefore difficult to legislate against - abstraction is in our nature - we always try and invent in abstraction - the amount of time people spend in cyberspace is testament to our ability to make something out of apparently nothing.
I think the best you can hope for at this time is democracy, boom and bust and hope that the bank police manage to keep up.
I also feel we are all part of the problem - financial institutions do serve us, we are all part of the system and every person who has ever complained about their pension prospects is part of the issue, those who benefited from the bubble did not seem to make much noise when it was on the way up.
To some degree I think one the most harmful things we have in modern society is our ability to abstract and compartmentalise - as a society we employ politicians and bankers but we separate ourselves from responsibility for their actions. My view is that we get precisely the politicians we deserve - if we are not interested in the full argument, if we only like sugar coated pills and take note of what "The Sun Says..." then spin doctors, simplified or mis-leading argument are inevitable.
For me the greater issue is something in society or human nature which means we collaborate with our leaders (financial and political) with only moderate (and often selfish) interest until it goes wrong or we hear something we do not like and all of a sudden its "us and them". The day that ordinary people want the real facts, want to engage in an informed (non-knee jerk or predujiced) discussion is the day that a politician can openly discuss the real picture without the sugar coating and we can all properly take responsibility for our society.
Personally I feel the most potent symbol of our current predicament and many related ills is the tabloid press not the banker - it is symbolic of what is really wrong in society and something we may find hard to cure - it is typified by partisan thinking, ill informed judgement, repetition of hearsay and a general lack of will or inclination to gain clarity and understanding of the deeper issues we face in todays society - we only have to look at the abmisal quality of the US elections to see an even more striking example. Society is essentially a pyramid - I disagree that the problems start at the top - I think in a more subtle way they start at the bottom - as I said I believe people get exactly the type of politician they deserve, the political machine delivers what it thinks we want in order to stay in business.
I don't think Nicole Foss is actually questioning capitalism as much as its fuel policies. The supply of money and fuel are so closely enmeshed that they are almost inseparable. Think how much conflict is actually over parts of the world the world that are fuel sources such as the present dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands that possibly have oil beneath them...
But yes, it contributes to the questions. People have been writing about capitalism critically for the best part of two centuries now. Some of the most learned people of their time have raised questions, Yet it marched forward relentlessly and the many things that were predicted as negatives in advance such as the industrialisation of agriculture, monopoly industries, too few and too powerful banks have all come to pass. Susan George has been very actively critical in most time of capitalsim without calling for its end:
"Either we achieve together a new level of human emancipation, and do so in a way that preserves the earth, or we shall leave behind us the worst future for our children that capitalism and nature can deal them. No one knows in which direction the balance will tip nor does anyone know which actions, which writings, which alliances may achieve the critical mass that leads us one way or another, backwards or forwards."
It does, like most other critique, effectively demand rethought on the part of capitalism. I come from the other 'camp' across the ideological divide and see that the system I prefer and believe could work but has NEVER been attempted has no actual line on our rapine treatment of this planet. So it goes beyond the realms of capital, which feeds a dominant few with power and wealth no matter what their apologists say about them being drivers of economies, etc, and goes toward what we are doing to ourselves and what the solution will be. Pessimist talk about overpopulation already, well no not yet, that is a question of distribution but relatively soon in historical terms yes. So what will happen then? Eugenicists are re-emerging from the metaphorical woodwork with suggestions about enforced birth control (through water supplies, sterilisation at birth and so on), population selection ('throw away' the disabled, handicapped, etc) and such ideas we had hoped disappeared with 1945. All, note well, are capitalist driven notions.
Part of the rationale offered is usually about distribution of scarce resources such as energy. It has been part of the rhetoric of US Republicans, especially Paul Ryan, although usually with carefully chosen phraseology but a few open gaffes we caught. So sure Susan, what you (or Foss really) are saying is right but thus far in real terms of minority are thinking about these issues and quite honestly, excuse me the scepticism, like those who have examined capitalism critically since the first half of the 19th century it is being passed by.
We may have bigger problems than whether or not capitalism is a good model for us and our governments to follow.
This from Nicole Fosse of The Automatic Earth:
"In the process of credit expansion, we borrow from the future through the creation of debt. Our focus on virtual wealth has very significant real world effects, as it distorts our decision-making in ways that guarantee bust will follow boom. We bring forward tomorrow's demand to over-consume today, frantically building out productive capacity in order to satisfy that seemingly insatiable demand.
As money supply increase leads the development of productive capacity during this manic phase, increasing purchasing power chases limited supply and consumer prices rise. Increasing virtual wealth also drives up asset prices across the board, strengthening speculative feedback loops that inevitably strain the fabric of our societies, all too easily to the breaking point.
However, concern about the inflationary trend continuing into the future is misplaced. That is where we have come from, but it is not where we are going. Simply extrapolating past trends forward is tempting, but does not constitute meaningful analysis and has no genuine predictive value. It is far more important to be able to identify coming trend changes and to understand where these will lead.
Decades of inflation lie behind us. It is deflation - the contraction of the supply of money plus credit relative to available goods and services - that lies ahead. The threat we are facing is the rapid and chaotic extinguishing of the myriad excess claims to underlying real wealth created during our thirty years of credit hyper-expansion."
We will soon have a big problem with lack of energy. Here's a link to a lecture she gave
and another on Nicole's view of the wider picture:
and how she has prepared her family to cope:
I know I'm not addressing the immediate question of capitalism - good or bad? However, I think we have more important considerations right now, if what Nicole says has some foundation. She's well-qualified and I think she speaks more sense than anyone else I've heard. Hope you all have the patience to view the videos. I find them all very interesting and food for thought.
In that case I shall be glad to receive a cheque sharing your billions by return post ;-)
Maybe capitalism is working too well depending on your point of view.
Income tax was first found in China in the first century AD, but it appeared in western culture when Henry II needed money to fight Saladin. From that time on every layperson in England paid 10% of all incomes to the Exchequer up until Cromwell's lot ditched it. In 1799 good old William Pitt (young one) introduced a new income tax that was required to fight Napoleon was intoduced at a rate of tuppence in the pound to all people earning over £60 a year. That was repealed in 1816, but when the USA was fighting its Civil War the federal government started it again after examining what Pitt had achieved (six million quid in the first year, equivalent of a lot now) with his. They raised the money that won them the war. Since then, and mid-19th century mainly, progressively all countries have adopted it and what is shocking is that the largest part of all revenues has been spent on 'defence' and actual wars since. You get what you reap!
Now taxes are being raised to pay off government/national debts. The debts do not really exist because the 'money' the countries owe is just treasury generated notional money and there is a lot of it around at the moment. So, to pay off debts they need to raise taxes on a one for one repayment basis to get back to zero then begin to build up positive reserves. But hang on, haven't all big economies been printing this Mickey Mouse money in vast quantities in the last decade and debts actual now exceed national assets? Taxes are taken off people at source as far as possible to avoid evasion, which is what cannot be done by most people who are entrepreneurs whose buisnesses earn money that may largely not be in their country of residence. So it goes somewhere neutral. The government may know, roughly speaking, what that person is worth and wish to tax them to the hilt but some of them have an old ten bob note in their home country and the rest in tax havens. But still governments want to get the money, so gradually they will drive those big companies out of their countries which is how so much (just one example) 'European' car production is now in China, Korea, Brazil, etc, countless other goods too. So the people with a sizeable amount of public responsibility as taxpayers are not contributing anywhere and their money just 'floats' free and grows simultaneously. They would not solve the debt situation but would provide a good argument by setting the example the ordinary citizen who has no choice must follow.
Something has to break but nobody wants it to be them so they are building a playing card pyramid - it does not matter whether you are at the top or the bottom because when it goes, it all goes.
Too much truth in that... alas!
Who was it that said 'Those who can - Do, whilst those who can't -Teach'?
Three glasses of wine went into that last post!
What the pollies don't seem to grasp is that wealth (profits et al) does not just materialise - even for the very wealthy, it is created somewhere, somehow by someone. If there is no wealth there is no income/tax or otherwise. As Brian says, if money (profits) is/are not distributed then wealth is scoring an own goal.
Wealth creation needs CUSTOMERS (aka Buyers). So starting from this perspective anything that stands in the way of those producing something to sell - products or services, is by definition counter-productive, socially morally and ultimately economically.
You cannot tax that which does not exist! No matter how hard politicians seem to miss this point. At ALL levels we work with a system that says 'earn money and we will take our share of it in tax'. The philosophy is not that old either, I think it was somewhere in the mid-19th century that Income Tax was introduced, someone I am sure will correct me if I am wrong. However it is my contention that the pollies opened up a Pandora's box when this started, as no-one even dreamed of taking away 50% of someone's income when it was introduced, and there are signs of even more being confiscated.
How can we be surprise when people starting looking to ways of avoiding this Draconian charge by the State? Particularly when closer examination reveals everything from MP's fiddling (more orchestrating) their expenses on top of very good salaries, and where Leaders of Nations for whatever perverse or psychological hang-ups they have are determined to embark on unwinnable and costly Wars to create some sort of Great Leader Macho image.
We have governments put in place by we the Sheeple, and until we demand better and higher quality, and paid accordingly, I fear we are condemned to the slippery path.
Thank the Gods that as an Oldie I won't be reaping the whirlwind, but spare a thought for those who will.
Now Neil there is a big problem for France. Most teachers have done another job, left it and done a minimal retraining and become teachers. Most go frrom one functionary post to another in so doing. There is a pretty reasonable curriculum. Nobody really seems to keep to it. My children are not, nor are friends' children, so there is a corps of people who could teach life skills but do not because they have changed job. However they do not have the real skills to do what they are doing, so that in educational terms the quality is on the downslide. What that means is that France will be open to the whims of capitalism from without sticking their noses further in and buying up what they can. In the last few days an acquaintance has received notice from his US employer in Bordeaux, that was previously British. he would still be in work had he gone to the UK when they sold up here but was under the impression French business were interested. Nope, USA lot have pulled out and no French interest at all and so outflow of capital, jobs lost and that's that.
Capitalism has no rationale at all. So yes Neil, there is a whole range of informal economies that are not just black but various shades of grey, plus green and red (either of which many cooperatives are by their nature). Greece is not the own place where that has happened but what is more interesting that in each place they run a dual economy, which is to say Euro (or whatever) plus carrots, groats or choose your own name, that operate parallel. Conventional economists will not go near any of that with a bargepole because it all goes against the (their) grain, but in my chosen field anthros are filling pages of journals with articles on the phenomenon.