CONJUNCTION

GREAT CONJUNCTION:
      A great conjunction in the east south east sky tonight. Perfect visibility here in Winnipeg with Jupiter slightly to the left and above the waxing Moon. Gotta get out there with binoculars, 41 below windchill or not.
Frozen but happy in Winnipeg.

A Freer Market

A FREE-ER MARKET
       One of the perpetual myths of our so-called capitalist society is that we have the closest approach to a "free market", and that this is all to the good as it connects with our other freedoms. Is this true ? Certainly some like the left libertarians who are in favour of an actual free market would disagree with the idea that our present system is approximating an such thing. The left libertarians are actually quite the dissidents as not just apologists for the present order but "critics" such as academo-Marxists assume that free market describes the present state of things. The proof of the assertion that we don't live in a free market I will leave to the left-libs with their criticism of the many monopolies that states grant to certain insitutions and individuals but not to others. I can do more better than recommend the works of Kevin Carson, an outstanding modern exponent of their views.

     How a real free market differs from what we call it today can be found in what is called dynamic pricing. This goes along well with internet marketing as it consists of constantly chaging prices to reflect an actual "market in the here and now". Obviously not all goods can be sold in such a way, and the ability of this much closer representation of marginal utility to the purchaser says nothing about the various advantages (monopolies) granted to some venders but not others prior to placing the commodity on the market.

     I came about this interesting development in a recent (Jan 21/2013) issue of Time Magazine. The article was titled 'This Offer Won't Last: Why Sellers are Switching to Dynamic Pricing' (page 56). I strongly recommend this article on how our version of a "market" is evolving back to how town markets used to be and still are in many minor ways

LIFE IN MUTUALISM:
IN THE BEGINNING PART ONE-THE TIMES OF GENESIS:

  Life probably began about 3.8 billion years ago.during the Eoarchaen Era (4  > 3.6 Billion years ago).This is the approximate time that we find the oldest rocks of Earth. Before this time the surface of the Earth was molten, and hence there there is no recoverable record., This was the Hadean eon. The Eoarchaen era left few signs in the fossil record, but of those which remain there is at least some evidence of bacterial colonies. Why 'colonies' ? Why was life undetectable until the arrival of a colonial lifestyle ? It's a question that can presently have no definitive answer, but there is the distinct possibility that colonial forms of life had an advantage in terms of natural selection. Individual organisms no doubt evolved before the colonial forms that give the first fossil evidence of life.Yet, invoking nothing but natural selection it seems that "collections" of organisms had a selective advantage over those who remain as singular cells.

     The evolution of a cooperative way of living, insofar as certain cellular organs such as mitochondria and chloroplasts were probably in place before the colonial stage came into being. But this is not necessarily so. It could be that the mass of a colonial group of organisms was an easier target for so-called parasites which later became indispensible to life.It would be interesting see if this question of priority will be addressed in the future. For the moment let us note that the earliest definite evidence of life is of "cells living together", and that these cells were either likely to become composites or were formed of cells that were already "mutualistic". Lets keep this in mind.

PREDICTABLE AND OTHERWISE PART 2
RECENT  REBELLIONS:
     Once more it has been an extended time since I posted here. All this time I have been quite (excessively ?) active on Facebook, Almost always reposting the stories of others. If this blog continues to exist it has to have some purpose. I think that its purpose is to be a sounding board for my own personal opinions. Too bad that it can no longer be a collection of links to other anarchist sites. All my links got dumped into the aether when I foolishly signed up for the 'new look' Blogger. Live and learn I guess, though I greatly miss all the hours I put into that list.

     All that being said I have delayed the second part of this article far too long. This has been not only because of a lack of time. In setting my beliefs out I have found that I have changed my opinion in the many years since I first formulated it. I am still of the opinion that managerial societies have been and will be racked by periodic crises and that the triggers for such crises are something beyond simple economics. What I now doubt is that idea that they can be predicted in terms of timing. The problem comes with the variable nature of such crises. When the duration of a crisis varies, and it is hard to set a reference point in terms of beginning, middle and end it is pure hubris to imagine that one can calculate a predictable timeline.

      I's still like to return to thius subject, but other matters call for attention. See you soon.

A MOLLY POINT OF VIEW:
PREDICTABLE AND OTHERWISE PART 1:



      For many years I have held a rather heretical (in the usual lefty point of view) opinion. I personally believe that we are living in a post capitalist society that is better described as "managerial" rather than "capitalist". This is, of course, a moot point, and I recognize that no society is purely dependent on only one mode of production and exchange. The inclusion of exchange is important to differentiate my point of view from merely another 'historical materialist' point of view, one that is solely focused on prouction and neglects to one degree or another the world of consumption.

     I'll leave the justification of this opinion for another time.What is important here is just like an idealized "capitalist" society has its periodic crises somehow connected to "overproduction" so does managerial society has its own cycles.of crisis. The business cycle, of course, never followed the rule book laid out by Marx in Capital  . When Marx wrote his magnum opus in the most free trade society  in the world at the time of its maximum free trade existence ie its closest approach to an ideal "capitalism" it was at least seeminly possible that history would follow the schemata that Marx laid out.

     There was, however, a fly in the soup.History didn't march to a Marxist drumbeat. This was amptly demonstartrated by Eduard Bernstein in the early years of the 20th century ( see Evolutionary Socialism ). The proletariat was not forced into increasing poverty. So-call "intermediate strata' did not disappear and instead multiplied. The force of monopoly went so far and then settled into a dynamic balanceas new economic opportunities opened up. The Leninist incantations of ìmperialism`failed to explain the fact that the workers found  that they could improve their position by both trade union and political ways.The marxist left was left with a theory of price that always failed to either predict or explain the cost that a commodity fetched on the market (free, semi-free or stateized).

      In the end there was a business cycle that was more of less controlled (abolished ? ) by state management- both the authoritarian communist and the Keynesian methods. What was left was a society that continued to have periodic crises. Only some of these were classically economic. Others were very much social/political as various underclasses would rebel against their managerial overlords. Of course the eruptions of such rebellion was not wholly predictable, but I seemed to have found a least a crude periodicity of such rebellions in both the so-called capitalist world and in the state socialist world as well. The period was anywhere from 7 to 10 years, and it would often be demonstarted in the state socialist societies not as open rebellion but rather as economic crises, presumably due to somewhat "passive rebellion" on the part of workers and consumers.

      Thyere was also the fact that no economic system in history has been pure. The state socialist societies existed only because of an underground capitalist black market that made said societies livable. Feudalism contained elements of both capitalism (the merchants) and managerial rule (many of the monastic orders). Our present society wavers between a managerial system and a capitalist one with the caveat that the decision to adapt prouction and consumption to the rules of the market lies with managers, especially those of the state, the managerial class par excellance.

      Next time: Recent rebellions.

AGRICULTURE:
BREAKING THE ANTIBIOTIC ADDICTION:
 For many  years it has been a common practice to add antibiotics to food animal rations (poultry, pigs and to a lesser extent cattle). The rationale is that said antibiotics, even if they are in too low a concentration to actually treat any disease, act as growth promoters leading to btter and faster slaughter weights. The mechanism whereby they do this is unclear. It may be by suppressing the growth of pathogenic bacteria, by treating subclinical infections or by promoting the growth of mutualistic bacteria.
    
     No matter what the mechanism there is a downside to this common practice ie the promotion of bacteria that are resistant to not just common antibiotics but also to such "last choice" therapeutics as vancomycin or methicillin.This is because these antibiotics are similar to those used as "growth promoters" in animal feed. The sub-optimal concentrations of such additives is almost gauranteed to promote antibiotic resistant bacteria.This connection has been amply demonstrated in the scientific literature of the last decade.

      The demonstration of the promotion of resistant bacteria is now a matter of major concern in public health. This means that various jurisdictions are trying to curb this use (misuse ?) of antibiotics or to ban it entirely. The Swedish example of a total ban is instructive. While there was an initial drop in productivity during the 1986 ban on growth promotant antibiotics the deficit in production was soon made up as farmers paid attention to other facters of production such as hygiene, reduction of stress and other management practices such as "all in all out". The present opinion is that antibiotics have no benefit as growth promoters if of producion are optimized. This has been the experience of Sweden.

      The latest country that has opted for a total ban is Denmark, and an editorial (page 440) and article (pages465-466) describe how another country, Denmark, is in the process of such a ban. The articles describe how the ban was faciliated in that Danish farmers are almost all members of the Danish Agriculture and Food Council. I do not wish to oveemphasize the role of this body, but it undoubtedly a major factor in the elimination of food additive antibiotics in Denmark.

    The actual article in  Nature (June 2012, Vol 486,pp 465-466) tells how the ban was implimented, and gives proof of the harm done by sub-therapeutic antibiotics, and it also describes how the argument from production is false . If a person is farming as they should, with proper feed, housing, disease treatment and nutrition   then antibiotics add NOTHING to production. In other words if you are a good farmer antibiotics will add nothing to your operation.Do I have to say it again ?                                                                                                      

PERSONAL:
DRIVING AROUND WINNIPEG:
      It's a quick trip from the Slav Rebchuk bridge and the missing "People Before Profit" sign to Selkirk Avenue, the main drag of Canada's second poorest neighbourhood. That's Winnipeg for you. This burg can't even be the winner in a competition for bad.
     Anyways  it's an east turn down Selkirk to Main Street, and the first block shows where the 'People Before Profit' sign may have gone. Yup it's up in BIG LETTERS on the local headquarters of the goddamn Communist Party. Now the commies have been many things in their regretable history, and "thief" is one of the minor insults that could be thrown their way. But there it is in big red letters for all to see.This slogan has also been present for years (decades ?), but it only becomes apparent when the entering North End sign disappears.
     I don't know whether to congratulate or laugh at the commies plunking their head office down in thne middle of a decidedly non-proletarian neighbourhood. To say that it has been useless in signing up the lumpen proletariat would be understating the case.Most cemetaries do a far more lively business than these souls nostalgic for the days of Moscow gold. I do a lot of driving back and forth in this city, and the only sign of life that I have ever seen at Commie HQ is that once they cut the grass/weeds in their yard.Never in hundreds of passes have I seen a person enter, leave or merely hang around this particular mausoleum to an idea past its best before date.
      Not that I am at all displeased by this. As the subtitle of this series of vignettes says, "may they never rise from the dead". A resurgence of sympathy for organizations involved in the cover-up of the greatest atrocities in history would be the death certificate of any radical opposition.
     But then we sail past this monument to an unlamented past, and head out to "Pharmacy Row" on Main Street. Makes you wonder why a neighbourhood with the highest concentration of addicts in the city also has the highest concentration of drug stores.Heading north now, and we leave the dreaded North End behind.