Wednesday 28 October 2020

Greta T may not "vont to be alone", but ...

Notwithstanding her much trailed return to being an ordinary school student, Greta seems still to pout in public quite a bit.  Must be very tempting, I guess.  She may not vont to be alone.

So what plans do her NGO handlers have for further exploiting her enormously successful global brand?

I'm rather repeating myself here, having written about the shift in climate-change response several times, and can't stress enough how the whole thing has now gone 100% mainstream, as of mid 2019.  The NGOs did their job too well !  As such, they risk being completely swept aside by Big Business / Big Banking, as it swings into full action mode.  Yes, we really get it, we're really doing it - now just piss off!   (We don't take advice from people in sandals.)

They never really knew how business worked, and they don't know how to intervene in a genuinely purposeful business dynamic such as is happening everywhere now, except as spectators and way-behind-the-curve cheerleaders.  They'd be gobsmacked if they saw the detail of what the heavy-duty, truly purposeful reengineering of whole, real, steel-&-concrete sectors of industry actually involves.  (I'm working on a hydrogen project right now - it's mind-boggling in its ambition.)  They have nothing to contribute! 

It'd be like a 1930's refugee, fetched up in America, who'd been writing to her congressman for a couple of years urging him to drop his isolationism and get the USA into the war.  Then along comes 1941-42.  What does Roosevelt or Ford or Bethlehem Steel or Boeing need to hear from her on the subject of how you build tanks and ships and aircraft by the thousand?  

I'm guessing the NGOs (the ones with the really devious world-government plans) were hoping, or planning, that their Big Chance was if business continued to dig in against change, and would need ongoing and detailed cajoling / direction / manipulation / hand-holding / external interventions of all kinds, by self-appointed green missionaries. 

Too bad, Greta - it'll be Goldman Sachs in charge, as ever.

ND

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Big business/banks and the greenies are on the same side. They both want a society of atomised and helpless individuals, without families or neighbourhoods or friends or purpose or culture. They both want the global car park, which requires the dissolution of national and regional differences -- in other words, anything that makes life interesting and worthwhile. They both want people who are useful to them, but nothing more -- not intelligent or happy or flourishing.

They want this goal for different reasons (money in the one case, hatred of humanity in the other), but the goal is the same.

Look up Chesterton's discourse on Hudge and Gudge. The examples have changed but the principle is the same. Big business and big government are on the same side. The labels of 'left' and 'right', unless used sparingly, tend to confuse rather than clarify. The real contest is between a society of human beings, and an an ant colony. Grasp this and you grasp the essence of the matter. Marxism is not primarily economic; it's primarily social and cultural. Few conservatives grasp this.

Go and read Engels' mad ravings about the family and how it needed to be destroyed. Read Kuehnelt-Leddihn, who saw where all this was leading and tried to warn conservatives, to little avail.

This development is entirely predictable.

-EC

Nick Drew said...

or ... Big Business just wants Big Contracts: businessmen enjoy war-profiteering

it's not doctrinaire at all !

I keep telling my leftie acquaintances: Capitalism isn't (as they imagine) a Party, still less a conspiratorial party: it's a way of life, for a certain type of human being, in China as in Chingford

so no, the "Capitalist Party" doesn't "want a society of atomised and helpless individuals, without families or neighbourhoods or friends or purpose or culture"

individual capitalists want money! simples

Anonymous said...

That was sort of my point. The capitalist doesn't want the global car park as an end in itself; he wants it as a means to the end of making more money. He can make more money in the atomised global car park than in a healthy society, because a healthy society includes a huge amount of interpersonal relations and social webs that can't be monetised, and that remove the need for whatever he's selling. (Who need childcare when your wife is at home? Who needs Netflix every night when you have friends? Etc.) Healthy societies also come with customary (not legal) restrictions that restrict his activities.

The greenie wants such a society as an end in itself because he hates humanity.

Therefore, both want the global car park, although for different reasons.

"I keep telling my leftie acquaintances: Capitalism isn't (as they imagine) a Party, still less a conspiratorial party: it's a way of life, for a certain type of human being, in China as in Chingford"

One person's choice about what kind of life he wants affects other people. Politics is about resolving these differences and deciding what's good for a society and what isn't. Therefore, the way someone makes, spends and invests money -- especially enormous sums of money -- combined with the means he employs for this end, is a political question. Obviously, the correct answer depends on various factors and circumstances. But whatever the answer, it's a political question.

-EC

DJK said...

One could equally well state that any faceless group wants "... a society of atomised and helpless individuals, without families or neighbourhoods or friends or purpose or culture". Lefties want a society of ...., capitalists want..., rightwing populists want ..., the Catholic church wants... etc. Real capitalists (or greenies) being actual human beings are much more complex. Apart from a few sociopathic individuals (Mr. Bezos springs to mind) most human beings have a stake in society as it actually exists and are too busy with the business of looking after themselves and their families --- and for some people, doing so might involve making oodles of money --- to try to follow some grand, madcap scheme of redesigning human relations.

E-K said...

Perhaps it is this.

The fiat era has imperilled the West. Too much credit (far too much credit- based on house ramping) has left us indebted beyond being able to repay it.

What is needed is a new technological dawn to get us out of the financial shit, probably much more than the ecological shit.

This is what generally saves us. An new technological dawn - a period of new demand and expansion, but this time with the promise of ecological sustainability (as if.)

This is a false one in my view. It relies too much on bogus science and the outsourcing of our dirty work to the East with not much net benefit to the environment.

The next technological dawn will be virtual reality. People living in hives and their desires sated by hours plugged into their ideal lives... either that or mass extinction of the human race.

I don't know what these people will be good for - The Matrix had to suppose that they would be needed as an energy source, human batteries... so I expect I am being optimistic about VR then.

Lad No 2's extended research project is on AI in Neuro Oncological Triage.... he's already convinced that he'll be out of a job before he qualifies.

God. I need the pint Thud suggested !

Nick Drew said...

it's a political question ...

Agreed!

and I'll tell you what the question is (as regards Capitalism)

to what extent does a society allow 'ordinary' individuals to accumulate, and then keep, sums of money & other assets large enough to represent capital?

obviously, if the answer is broadly "not at all" then we're in some kind of feudal (everything belongs to the King / High Priest / warlord / whomever), or communistic / communitarian set-up (everything belongs to everyone equally - whatever that might mean)

if there are circumstances where it IS allowed, it doesn't mean "to an unlimited extent" or "with no taxation" or "by any means whatever including piracy and extortion"

in whatever space society allows for capitalistic activity, it will take place actively in that space (and also, probably, outside the confines of the space - illegally), carried out by that section of humanity which hankers after accumulation by commercial endeavour

that includes the school playground!

what does the capitalist want? As much freedom as anyone is willing to give him! which is, as you say, a political qn .

E-K said...

https://www.privatelaw.law.cam.ac.uk/events/CambridgeFreshfieldsLecture

Lord Sumption - the abuse of law by this government over CV-19... on top of everything else.

hovis said...

ND: I think you made a typo in NGO :-)

Anonymous said...

"to what extent does a society allow 'ordinary' individuals to accumulate, and then keep, sums of money & other assets large enough to represent capital?"

'Allow' is a bit of a loaded word. If a government 'allows' one person to get extremely rich and buy up all the competition, it's implicitly forcing other people to shop at his store. If it 'allows' employers to pay someone so little that he can't accumulate any capital of his own, it's implicitly forcing him to accept such a wage. With any political question (which is always a disputed question with at least two parties), allowing one person's desired situation to prevail logically implies that someone else's desired situation is suppressed.

'Ordinary' is a bit loaded too. Bill Gates may have been ordinary in 1970 (I think he was actually pretty comfortable already, let that pass for argument's sake) -- but he certainly ain't now. Financial power has brought him and the others political power, and 'society' has decided to allow this and do nothing to restrict it. Whether this is good or bad is a different question of course.

So while there isn't a capitalist 'party' in the strict sense, there's certainly a capitalist interest, with a very particular view of what it wants to happen, and what laws (force) it's prepared to apply to bring it about. This interest represents a tiny number of very rich men, not the Del Boys and the corner shop owners and the like, whose interests are very different.

This is obviously distinct from the capitalist 'way of life', but none the less real for that.

--EC

Nick Drew said...

There are of course several completely conventional answers to this, EC

If a government 'allows' one person to get extremely rich and buy up all the competition...

Competition law.** Next

If it 'allows' employers to pay someone so little...

(a) Mimimum wage

but, as it's totally fair to say that's never going to be set at a level to allow massive savings

(b) very, very many entrepreneurs didn't get started with their own savings. Good ideas (and good salesmanship) attract finance, for one thing. Ducking and diving is another. Not everyone is good at this? Yup, correct. Next

there's certainly a capitalist interest, with a very particular view of what it wants to happen, and what laws (force) it's prepared to apply to bring it about

You're back to positing a monolithic Capitalist Party with a "very particular view", and the power to enact laws or exert force. That sounds like an outright formal oligopoly to me. That's a caricature of Marxist analysis which, despite faint echoes we can relate to various situations (Rupert Murdoch's lobbying, e.g.), we do not need to accept at all, either as analysis or in our politics.

Are things currently sliding too much in that direction? I reckon so, hence I am a big proponent of strongly enforced competition** policy, inter alia. And I'd give lobbyists short shrift, too - and bribes to political parties etc. That doesn't make me any less a capitalist, not any less inclined to laud the benefits of an economic system firmly based on (well ordered) capitalism.

Funnily enough, the CCP seems to agree ... Different view on "well-ordered", though

CityUnslicker said...

China has a very capitalist economy commingled with state communism. You can’t square that with say capitalism is always a political stance. As ND says, this is just what Marx says because he whole thesis is based on the dialectic - hence commies always have to end up saying it has never really been tried or else they falsify their god.

Jan said...

I blame the split between arts and science. I have a son who is a history graduate and has his head in the clouds and is busy haranguing his MP about climate related matters. I would have more sympathy for the greenies as a species if they turned their hands to projects where they can put their money where their mouth is eg come up with a way to take CO2 out of the atmosphere.

It's very simple to come up with something such as saying we will be carbon neutral by 2050 (or whatever it was TM pledged) but not quite so simple to put into practice. Hats off to all those clever engineers etc who may actually be able to achieve it. Ironically a lot of them are in the big oil companies

Greta would gain my respect if she studies engineering or a similar stem subject and could contribute something practical.

Bill Quango said...

We interrupt this discussion with a newsflash.

Jeremy Corbyn has been suspended by the Labour Party. Civil war has broken out. The Starlimists have the greater numbers, but key Korbotsky members hope to rally their yoof army around the aging Messiah and use them on the streets to intimidate and suppress the Blairite Faction.

Anonymous said...

@Jan

Greta is obvously studying advanced Diverse Bio-protestology at the Universty of Upps-apocalipsa

Its a STEM subject Jan, doncha know (Strop/Tantrum/Existential-angst/Media-performace)

Anonymous said...

I honestly thought you were talking about Teresa May, who's raking it in on the speech circuit.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1351115/theresa-may-earnings-money-public-speaking-fees-register-financial-interests

I think the corruption of our political class is an interesting topic. The deal offered by GlobalismInc seems to be - "as long as you have our backs, you'll be rewarded, even if you get slung out. It's not necessarily whether you won or lost, but how you played our game." The rewards, at least the monetary ones, are rarely upfront but delivered after the event.

Who in God's name would pay money to hear Teresa May speak? Yet it's rolling in. Not the way it did for Blair, but then Blair did far more for GlobalismInc than May managed.

"May has made her million, and Blair has made his tens of millions!"

Look at Joe Biden's declared income pre-and post-Obama.

"Joe Biden’s income soared from less than $400,000 a year while he was vice president to more than $15 million in the two years after leaving the Obama White House, a spike in wealth due to sales of his 2017 book and speaking fees that routinely ran more than $100,000 per event."

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-2020-joe-biden-income-20190709-story.html

Who in God's name has bought Biden's book? It's just laundering money to him. Even Blair's various works were soon in the remainder bins.

Of one thing you can be sure. While he didn't make PM, Jeremy Corbyn's story is a far more interesting one than Teresa May's, yet no merchant banks here or in Singapore will be paying him six figures for 45 minutes work.

Charlie said...

JFC, people pay good money to hear Teresa May speak?!

I assume she goes with the tech startup mantra, fail big and fail often!

I can't think of a single topic I'd listen to her on.