The Political Physicisthttps://politicalphysicist.github.io/2019-04-28T22:00:00+01:00Beyond Local Energy: Delivering Public Power2019-04-28T22:00:00+01:002019-04-28T22:00:00+01:00C MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2019-04-28:beyond-local-energy-delivering-public-power.html<p>Rhetorically, Labour has fully committed itself to fighting climate
change and recognises that public ownership of energy will be vital in
doing so. However, as yet they do not have a practical plan for
achieving this. As I have explained previously, Labour’s policy
proposals on green energy and climate change more generally have been
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/labours-energy-plans-technically-questionable-politically-vacuous.html">disappointingly vague and limited</a>. Unfortunately,
the party has done little better when it comes to more explicitly
political
<a href="https://weownit.org.uk/blog/labour-beyond-national-grid-public-ownership">questions such as nationalisation</a>. Its
proposals will not amount to anything like a restoration of the
post-war energy sector: only the grid is to actually be taken out of
private ownership, while new
local public generators and suppliers will continue to compete in the
market against private ones. This fails to tackle the neoliberal
electricity market which Margaret Thatcher imposed on this country, greatly
limiting the public’s ability to plan and exert democratic control
over energy companies. Below I will attempt to outline what a more
appropriate ownership structure could be for energy.</p>
<h3>The Limits of Localism</h3>
<p>Before proposing a new ownership structure for electricity, it is
useful to understand how the sector is currently structured. Upon
privatisation, it was split into four components: generation,
transmission, distribution, and supply. <em>Generation</em> refers to the
powerplants which produce electricity and these are owned by a wide
range of companies including the Big Six, other energy multinationals,
and small businesses. <em>Transmission</em> is owned by National Grid, plc,
and consists of the high-voltage wires used to send electricity from
powerplants to where it is needed across the country. National Grid
also has the responsibility of “system operator”, turning powerplants
on and off (via elaborate market mechanisms) to match supply and
demand. <em>Distribution</em> is made up of the 14 low-voltage regional grids
which carry electricity from the national grid to homes and
businesses. A number of companies own these, including some of the Big
Six as well as multinational energy corporations. Finally, <em>supply</em>
refers to the retailers from whom we actually purchase our
energy. They buy electricity from the generators on a wholesale market
through a mixture of long-term contracts and spot-trading, attempting
to match the demand of their customers. The Big Six are the dominant
players in the residential supply market, although a large number of
private and a few local authority-owned alternatives have become
available in recent years.</p>
<p><a href="https://newsocialist.org.uk/ownership-and-markets-energy/">I have written previously</a>,
about how the nature of the electrical system means that a high degree
of centralisation will remain vital in this industry, even if
individual power plants become more diffuse with the adoption of
renewable sources. I gave numerous detailed arguments for this which
there is not sufficient space to repeat here. Suffice is to say there
is no avoiding the fact that a national authority will be required to
plan load balancing and the correct combination of investments needed
to ensure the lights stay on. The only possible alternative would be
the electricity market, which for a host of reasons is unacceptable to
socialists (and in any case, probably wouldn’t work). Furthermore, the
concentration of people in relatively dense urban centres means that
there is not sufficient space for energy production to be local to
them. Some have suggested that it at least does no harm to allow
people to generate some of their own electricity, but even this isn’t
entirely true. While households owning, e.g., solar panels would
reduce the amount a utility needs to spend producing electricity, the
utility still needs to pay to maintain backup capacity to provides
households with electricity when the sun isn’t shining.
<a href="http://www.nbpower.com/media/772015/nb-power-2017-irp-public-english.pdf">One public utility in Canada</a>
claims that the revenue lost from widespread adoption of solar panels
would thus be greater than the reductions in costs of operating the
electrical system and that this would resulting in higher prices
overall. Such a possibility is something we must be aware of when
developing energy policy; what makes economic sense at the level of
the individual does not necessarily lead to optimal outcomes at the
national level.</p>
<p>While it is true that centralised institutions can, at times, be
alienating, that doesn’t <em>necessarily</em> mean that decentralised ones
will be more resistant to privatisation. On a recent panel discussion
hosted by We Own It, Leo Murray (of <a href="https://1010uk.org/">10:10</a>)
argued that it would be impossible to privatise the solar panels on
the roof of your local primary school. Given that schools have been
known to sell off their sports grounds (not to mention academisation,
which is another form of privatisation despite continued receipt of
state funding), I find this unconvincing. Indeed, attempts to
privatise the <span class="caps">NHS</span> have often involved greater decentralisation and
fragmentation of its management, thus breaking it into pieces of a
size more digestable for the private sector. This is a common tactic
in the process of privatisation, as can currently be seen with the
much-vaunted <span class="caps">SNCF</span> in France.</p>
<p>With all of that said, energy policy will still necessarily require local
involvement. In addition to democracy and public participation being
easier at this level, it can help to overcome NIMBYism and to
coordinate more locally-based projects such as the upgrading of
housing stock. Such arguments make the idea of a local authority-owned
grids and energy suppliers attractive. While such suppliers
(purchasing from a public monopoly in generation) do allow for the
level of planning I have called for, they come with their own
issues. First and foremost, the distribution grid is currently
organised at the regional scale and it is unclear if it would be
practical to break it up into locally-sized units. Secondly, if such
suppliers are created with the goal of out-competing the Big Six, then
this would represent a threat to (or at least disruption of) the <a href="http://docs.google.com/document/d/1UVM8kOfWfoyMWrMbb0XyUpuaQVD19NXscVjnXNnDWhI/edit">jobs
of existing employees</a>.</p>
<h3>A Public Monopoly on Power</h3>
<p>Given the current fragmentation of the electricity structure,
returning it to public ownership can not be simplified to demands such
as nationalising the Big Six. Instead we must focus on the individual
services and pieces of infrastructure which we wish to see under
public control. Thus, the model I propose would see the creation of a
nationally owned public utility made out of</p>
<ul>
<li>the national transmission grid</li>
<li>the regional distribution grids</li>
<li>connections to the other countries</li>
<li>zero-carbon generators (except those small enough to
receive a feed-in tariff)</li>
<li>energy storage facilities</li>
<li>the supply divisions of the Big Six</li>
</ul>
<p>During a transition period, the electricity market would continue to
operate as before, despite most of the components being owned by the
same parent company. Over this time, the divisions of the national
utility would be fully merged and made to operate as a single,
vertically-integrated enterprise. Contracts would be negotiated with
the remaining fossil fuel power-plants to buy any additional
electricity needed to meet demand from them. All new powerplants would
be built in the public sector and, as fossil fuels are phased out, the
public utility would come to own the vast majority of generating
capacity. If desired, it could also make contracts to purchase power
from locally-owned generators, although I would generally advise
against this as it is likely to increase costs. The national utility
would be <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/beyond-slogans-sketching-a-green-new-deal.html">required to develop plans</a>
stretching 20 to 30 years into the future indicating paths it can take
to eliminate fossil fuels and regularly report to parliament on its
progress. Gas heating will likely need to be phased out (more on this
below), so it doesn’t make sense to nationalise the gas infrastructure
and instead we could just have the national supplier make use of the
private network and producers. There is some risk that the remaining
private generators and gas companies would be uncooperative faced with
their imminent extinction, failing to invest adequately in
maintenance. There is no simple answer to addressing this, but
vigilance will be required to ensure this does not happen and, if it
is found to be cheaper than bribing the private companies to
cooperate, nationalisation should remain on the table.</p>
<p>Of course, none of this provides for any localism, so I propose that
each local authority would be charged with creating what I will call a
Local Energy Service Company (<span class="caps">LESC</span>). The LESCs would have numerous
roles and local authorities would be encouraged to experiment. However
they would have two core purposes: providing an interface by which
local residents could interact with the national utility and
implementing energy-related projects which <em>are</em> inherently local in scale.</p>
<h3>Linking the National and the Local</h3>
<p>In service of the first of these goals, each <span class="caps">LESC</span> would be required to
establish at least one storefront, preferably on the High
Street. These would be similar to the storefronts which used to be
operated by the old Area Electricity Boards, where people could pay
their bills as well as buy electrical appliances. Both of these would
also be possible at the <span class="caps">LESC</span> storefront. The exact relationship
between the <span class="caps">LESC</span> and the national utility could be something like a
franchise system. The national utility (or a subsidiary) would provide
the stock for the store and set prices, but the <span class="caps">LESC</span> would handle the
day-to-day management of the premises.</p>
<p>Such public distribution would sell people high efficiency appliances
at-cost. Sales could be integrated with government grants for home
energy efficiency. Another possibility is leasing appliances, helping
avoid the issue of high up-front cost. The national utility could try
to build a supply chain of cooperatively-owned manufacturers, thus
providing a mechanism for broader economic planning. However, there is
an even bigger advantage to this system when it comes to the energy
transition. If the electricity grid is to handle large-scale
deployment of intermittent renewable energy sources, “smart grid”
technology will be necessary to allow demand to adjust to meet
supply. In the present system, this is often argued for in terms of
consumers becoming savvier, choosing when to use electricity based on
market conditions. This becomes particularly true with regards to the
“prosumer” model, in which we all become both producers and consumers
interacting on the liberalised energy market. In reality, I doubt many
would actually find this prospect attractive; what people really want
out of their electricity is the ability to use it without having to
think too much about it. I suspect most people would rather leave such
matters to the national utility which would be responsible for
rationally planning the system as a whole.</p>
<p>If the national utility begins to supply people’s electrical
appliances (via the <span class="caps">LESC</span> stores) then it becomes relatively
straightforward to distribute smart appliances which can be controlled
by the the grid operator. The best way to achieve this would likely be
by leasing the appliances to consumers (also avoiding high up-front
costs which might otherwise make them unaffordable). Customers would
receive discounts on the lease depending on how aggressive the demand
management is (and thus how likely it is to be noticed).</p>
<p>Additionally, the <span class="caps">LESC</span> would be tasked with consulting local residents
on energy plans. This could involve identifying potential sites for
new generators (with the information passed on to the national
utility) as well as providing feedback on national proposals. While
the goal would always be to bring local communities along with
decisions made by the national utility, it remains possible that
NIMBYism would result in an insufficient number of locations for new
power plants being identified to meet demand. Should such situations
arise, it will likely be necessary for the national plan to overrule
local preferences. While the Left typically takes the side of local
communities against national priorities, it would be naive to ignore the
fact that sometimes the national interest must take priority over
local objections.</p>
<h3>Giving the Local its Due</h3>
<p>The above dealt with how the LESCs would relate to the national
utility. However, there are numerous areas where they could act on
their own initiative. Key to these is heating. While electricity tends
to get the most attention when discussing energy, in truth it only
makes up about 20% of
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-consumption-in-the-uk"><span class="caps">UK</span> energy usage</a>. Gas
(used for heat) is about 30% and petrol products (mostly used for
transport) make up 50%. The latter will be left to an article in its
own right.</p>
<p>Burning gas is a source of <span class="caps">CO</span>~2~, meaning we can’t use it
indefinitely. Biogas (produced by fermenting food waste) presents a
green alternative but it won’t provide enough to replace our current
level of gas use. It may, however, be sufficient to power gas stoves
and barbecues. Hydrogen is sometimes suggested as a
replacement. However, it is often produced by removing carbon from
natural gas. That carbon will have to be stored somewhere. In any
case, natural gas is a limited resource. Hydrogen can also be produced
cleanly from water using only electricity. Unfortunately, this wastes
a fair amount of energy and other technologies, such as heat pumps,
would use far less electricity to deliver the same amount of
heat. These devices are very similar to air conditioners except,
rather than moving heat from a relatively cool home to a warmer
outdoors they move heat from a cold outdoors <em>into</em> a relatively warm
home. Because they make use of existing heat they are far more energy
efficient than conventional electric space-heaters, which must produce
all of it themselves. As previously mentioned, the LESCs could supply
heat pumps through their high-street retailers.</p>
<p>However, the single most cost effective way to reduce emissions from
heat is through energy efficiency. The next Labour government should
immediately update the building code so that homes are built to the
highest standards (i.e.,
<a href="http://www.passivhaustrust.org.uk/">PassiveHaus technology</a>),
drastically reducing energy use. It probably won’t be possible to bring
most existing housing stock up to this standard, but considerable
improvements can be made. This is another area in which LESCs can
become involved. They could offer household efficiency assessments and
work with local builders and city works departments to perform
renovations. LESCs can also partner with existing grassroot
initiatives along these lines, such as
<a href="https://carbon.coop/">Carbon Co-op in Manchester</a>, where they are
present. The local company should offer to finance these renovations,
although that would likely require a partnership with a larger
organisation such as the national utility, public banks, or credit unions.</p>
<p>While I have tended to dismiss local ownership of energy systems,
there is a notable exception to this: district heating networks. These
consist of centralised boilers for entire neighbourhoods (typically
municipally or cooperatively owned), with hot water pipes carrying the
heat to residents’ homes. Often the heat is provided via
“co-generation” (i.e., producing heat and electricity at the same
time), although
<a href="https://www.withouthotair.com/c21/page_144.shtml">the efficiency of this is disputed</a>.
This probably will be less viable in future as gas must be phased out
and the supposedly green alternative (biomass) has
<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/congress-says-biomass-is-carbon-neutral-but-scientists-disagree/">dubious environmental credentials at best</a>. Waste
incineration will be able to contribute, although will not be enough
on its own. Some have suggested using small modular nuclear reactors
(with the
<a href="http://energyforhumanity.org/en/news-events/news/news/finnish-cities-investigate-potential-small-nuclear-reactors-decarbonize-district-heating/">city council in Helsinki actively investigating this</a>
at behest of the local Greens, of all people) and this would be
acceptable from a climatological perspective, although needless to say
that most on the Left would not be comfortable with it.</p>
<p>However, other sources are available to district heating
networks. They can make effective use of heat which would otherwise be
wasted, such as that from heavy industry, the Underground, data
centres, cooling systems, large bodies of water, sewage, and heavy
industry. One European study suggested that such heat sources
<a href="https://vbn.aau.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/77342092/Heat_Roadmap_Europe_Pre_Study_II_May_2013.pdf">could provide about 20%</a>
of the <span class="caps">EU</span>’s total heating demand by 2050. <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/environment/energy/london-heat-map">London has been developing a “heat map”</a>
to identify such sources and other cities should follow
suit. Renewable sources such as geothermal energy and solar thermal
panels can also be used, with the potential to store heat from the latter in the
ground or water-filled tanks during the summer, for extraction
come winter. The LESCs would be ideally placed to plan, build, own, and
operate these district heating systems where heat sources are
available and population density makes them viable. They would be a natural
monopoly, allowing progressive tariffs to be set and/or subsidies to
be given to low-income users, funded by high-income consumers.</p>
<p>The final big user of energy is the transport sector. This is such a
massive topic that it deserves an article of its own but, once again,
the goals will be efficiency and electrification. Efficiency will
primarily take the form of getting people out of private cars and onto
public transit, bikes, or their feet. This will be a massive,
multi-decade project involving the redesigning of our
cities. Electrification means that the national energy utility will
need to project for an increase in demand and plan its generating
capacity accordingly. Meanwhile, the LESCs would be well placed to
oversee the build-out of charging stations for electric vehicles. This
would allow local involvement in deciding where to place them,
ensuring they do not become a nuisance. Ideally, all such charging
stations would be brought into local or national public ownership and
payment integrated with people’s monthly electricity bills.</p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>Like all aspects of climate policy, governance of the energy grid must
be able to operate on both the local and national scale. In its haste
to reject “top-down” solutions, much of the Left in this country has
lost sight of the benefits which come from being able to engage in
nation-wide planning of industry. In climate policy, as in all other
policy areas, we must be able to distinguish which sectors are
well-suited for decentralised local control and which are not.</p>Beyond Slogans: Sketching a Green New Deal2019-04-28T22:00:00+01:002019-04-28T22:00:00+01:00C MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2019-04-28:beyond-slogans-sketching-a-green-new-deal.html<p>The last few months have seen an impressive shift in public discussion
on how to address climate change. Thanks in large part to
newly-elected democratic socialist congresswoman Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, the concept of a
“<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jxUzp9SZ6-VB-4wSm8sselVMsqWZrSrYpYC9slHKLzo/edit">Green New Deal</a>”
has come to the fore. This marks a significant move away from previous
policy proposals which have tended to rely on free market mechanisms
such as carbon taxes or (worse) cap-and-trade systems to encourage a
shift away from fossil fuels. Instead, Ocasio-Cortez proposes
government planning and investment to achieve a rapid change in the
American energy system, while providing employment for everyone
willing and able to take it. As big and important a step as this is,
however, we must quickly begin developing detailed proposals and
demands if it is to be
<a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/12/21/18144138/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez">more than a slogan</a>. We
must start by stepping back and deciding how much future emission of
greenhouse gases will be deemed acceptable. We then need to consider
when and for what purposes these emissions will be produced. This
will require planning at the national, local, and sectoral level. We
also need to think about how mitigating climate change will shape our
future R&D priorities. Finally, we must consider what strategies and
tactics will be required to instigate and see through such a sweeping
economic overhaul.</p>
<h3>Choosing Emissions Limits</h3>
<p>The first thing to be considered for any Green New Deal is what
climate science says regarding how much more greenhouse gas (<span class="caps">GHG</span>) can
be emitted. Of course, any emissions will make climate change that
little bit worse, so what we really mean is what level of emissions is
compatible with the amount of global warming we are willing to
accept. The Paris Agreement commits us to limit warming to 2°C
above pre-industrial temperatures, with some language about aspiring
to keep warming below a 1.5°C rise. The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (<span class="caps">IPCC</span>) does seem to believe the latter goal is
theoretically possible (although some scientists dispute this), but it
<a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/summary-for-policy-makers/">would require emissions falling by about half by 2030 and reaching a net level of zero by 2050</a>. The
emissions reductions actually pledged in the Paris Agreement, however,
would
<a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28663-paris-climate-deal-is-agreed-but-is-it-really-good-enough/">only limit temperature rises to 3°C</a>. All
of this is further complicated by the fact that any statements of what
reductions are needed to achieve a temperature goal are
probabilistic. Because our climate models contain uncertainty, we must
run a large number of subtly different simulations and analyse the
range of results. Scientists will then state what will be required to
have a certain probability of limiting climate change to the desired
level. The upshot of this is that even if we were to cut emissions as
rapidly as described above, there is still a non-negligible chance
that warming would be greater than 1.5°C above pre-industrial
levels—perhaps considerably so.</p>
<p>What this means is that we, as a global society, must choose
the level of warming we consider to be acceptable and how confident we
want to be of limiting warming to that level. At this point you might
be tempted to say that there should be no further warming beyond what
has already occurred and that you want to be as close to certain of
that as possible. However, then we start running into a second
consideration: cost. Decarbonising our society will be an expensive
affair, taking up resources which could have been used for other
things such as non-climate related infrastructure, increased leisure
time, or international development. The faster we
want to achieve it, the more expensive it will be. We thus need to
consider what is the optimal trade-off between sacrifice today and
climatic chaos tomorrow.</p>
<p>This is not simply a matter of people in the Global North trying to
justify inaction. Even if all <span class="caps">GHG</span> emissions ceased tomorrow, a certain
amount of climate change is now inevitable and will require societal
adaptation, particularly in the Global South. Such adaptation means
building massive amounts of new infrastructure and much of this will
be made from steel and concrete. Producing these materials emits
<span class="caps">CO</span><sub>2</sub> due to the chemical reactions involved. Thus, if this
infrastructure is needed before these industries can be decarbonised,
protecting the Global South from existing climate change may mean
making climate change a little bit worse. That is not even to consider
the massive amounts of non-climate infrastructure needed in developing
countries, such as hospitals, decent housing, and reliable electricity.</p>
<p>As can be seen, even the relatively simple task of deciding how much
more <span class="caps">GHG</span> we will allow to be emitted involves very difficult and
inherently political questions. The issue of which countries are
allowed to produce the emissions is even more fraught. Those of us on
the Left would, I hope, agree that developed countries such as the <span class="caps">UK</span>
must take the lead in decarbonising, with much more aggressive
time-tables than their developing counterparts. In the absence of a
global body able to come to and enforce decisions along these lines,
it will be necessary for us as socialists and internationalists to
make this case domestically when emissions targets are being decided.</p>
<h3>Allocating Emissions</h3>
<p>Given the political nature of emissions goals for the <span class="caps">UK</span>, it is
probably necessary for these to be set by Parliament. Obviously, there
should also be extensive national education and debate to help inform
parliament’s decision; the more grassroots involvement the better,
both in its own right and as a way to achieve buy-in for the
decarbonisation project. The point is that this decision must not be
left up to a technocratic body.</p>
<p>There is no purely technical fix for
global warming. We have to organise society differently to make
technical solutions possible.
However, when it comes to deciding how to achieve climate goals and
allocate the <span class="caps">UK</span>’s remaining <span class="caps">GHG</span> emissions, technical matters do come
into play. In order to ensure sufficient technical expertise is
available, I would suggest that parliament create a permanent body I
will call the National Decarbonisation Committee (<span class="caps">NDC</span>). This would
include MPs, members of devolved governments, local councillors, civil
servants, union members, scientists, engineers, everyday citizens, and
representatives of industry.<sup id="fnref:0"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:0" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> The goal would be to bring
together people from all of the sectors which will be most affected by
decarbonisation plans, such as electricity, gas, construction, rail,
haulage, aviation, shipping, agriculture, and heavy industry. Clearly
the <span class="caps">NDC</span> would be very large (practically a parliament in itself) and
would have to contain a number of subcommittees.</p>
<p>The role of the <span class="caps">NDC</span> would be to develop and implement a binding plan
for the complete decarbonisation of Britain, starting now and
stretching until whatever date Parliament has specified to achieve
that goal. This would mean taking on a number of responsibilities
currently held by the Committee on Climate Change (such as developing
carbon budgets and commissioning research papers), although the latter
body should likely continue to exist in a reduced capacity to provide
independent oversight of the <span class="caps">NDC</span>. The decarbonisation plan would set
binding <span class="caps">GHG</span> emissions for each year and for each sector. Of course,
the plan would be less detailed the further into the future it goes
and the <span class="caps">NDC</span> must be able to adapt based on changing conditions or the
development of new technology. However, the initial plan should be one
which we are confident can be achieved with minimal reliance on future technologies.</p>
<p>In addition to planning <span class="caps">GHG</span> emissions, the <span class="caps">NDC</span> would also need to
consider the availability of so-called
“<a href="https://nerc.ukri.org/research/partnerships/ride/lwec/ppn/ppn24/">critical metals</a>“. These
are relatively rare materials which, to date, there has not been a
great demand for. Examples include lithium, cobalt, rare earth
elements, and platinum. However, these metals are critical to the
manufacture of green technology such as batteries, generators,
photovoltaic cells, and electric motors, causing concerns that
shortages may hold up decarbonisation. The <span class="caps">NDC</span> will need to include in
its plans future extraction of critical metals and allocate investment
towards this. Furthermore, we must ensure that the rising demand for
said elements does not result in a
<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-corbyn-colonialism-climate-change-a8899876.html">new wave of imperialism</a>
with large countries racing to control reserves in Africa and turning
a blind eye to environmental and human rights abuses. This is one of
many ways in which we will need to link climate policy with foreign
policy, as will be discussed in a future article.</p>
<p>To develop such plans it will be useful to have some idea of what a
(net) zero carbon society will look like. For example, how much energy will
we need and how will it be produced? What sort of transportation will
people use? What materials should we be constructing buildings from?
This way, we can identify which pieces of infrastructure will prove
vital and account for their construction when budgeting for
emissions. It will also inform what sorts of research and development
will be required in coming years and prevent us building
infrastructure which might reduce emissions in the short term but not
in the long term (e.g., switching from coal powerplants to
gas). Compiling this information will require extensive consultation
both with experts (to determine what is actually possible) and the
general public (to determine what is desirable). These goals can be
achieved through planning at the local and sectoral level.</p>
<h3>Sectoral and Local Plans</h3>
<p>Once the broad outlines of carbon budgets are known for each year and
sector, it will be necessary to develop more detailed plans to meet
these objectives. This will be necessary in all sectors, but key ones
to consider will be energy, transport, agriculture, steel, and cement.
Each of these must develop their own plan for complete
decarbonisation, in line with the limits set out by the <span class="caps">NDC</span>.<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">2</a></sup>
This could be done by subcommittees of the <span class="caps">NDC</span> working with the key
companies in each industry.</p>
<p>At this point we begin to run into the classic problem of social
democratic economic planning: how do you make private industry
cooperate with your plans? At a minimum, clearly enforceable
regulation would be required, although this can be vulnerable to
corporate capture. In any case, how do we then ensure that companies
comply with the regulations in a socially responsible way and without
exploiting loopholes? Furthermore, industrialists are loathe to
concede any control over their enterprises to workers or the state and
may choose simply not to invest in retaliation. Under capitalism, the
state is sensitive to such actions and naturally sympathetic to the
needs of capital, as it relies on a well-functioning private economy
with which to fund itself via taxation. Thus it would be difficult for
the state to enforce such a decarbonisation program on capital unless
the latter is also under pressure from a militant working class. The
<span class="caps">NDC</span> should therefore orient itself towards empowering and educating
workers. Unions could be legally empowered to take measures up to and
including strike action to keep their employer in line. Needless to
say, we are a long way from trade unions in this country being
sufficiently mobilised or radical to do this successfully. Work must
begin to develop these capacities. In the absence of such militancy,
the <span class="caps">NDC</span> would need to rely on legal and regulatory means alone to
enforce its program as much as possible, although these are likely to
be insufficient.</p>
<p>I would argue that energy and transport are both of such importance to
decarbonisation that even worker militancy would not be sufficient,
however. Furthermore, both require integrated national planning which
is not possible in a fragmented and competitive market (as some
<a href="https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/the-green-new-deal-and-the-legacy-of-public-power">relatively centrist figures have
argued</a>
with regards to energy). As such, both will need to be taken into
public ownership in
their entirety. I will suggest a model for publicly owned energy in an
upcoming article, but suffice to say that Labour’s current policies
<a href="https://weownit.org.uk/blog/labour-beyond-national-grid-public-ownership">are not nearly ambitious enough</a>. On transport Labour is somewhat better, having
committed to nationalise rail (although we need to consider how the
<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/rail/packages/2013_en">Fourth Railway Package</a>
would effect this, depending on our future relationship with the <span class="caps">EU</span>).
Calls to regulate local busses and create new public bus companies
should go a bit further to include buying out existing bus companies
and must be extended to long-distance coach service as well. We should
also look to take as much as possible (given the balance of class
forces) of ferry services, airports, road haulage, and airlines into
national public ownership. Each of these nationalised industries would
then report to the <span class="caps">NDC</span> on their plans and progress in complying with
decarbonisation objectives.</p>
<p>The role of local government will also be very important. As such,
councils should develop their own decarbonisation plans. Key areas to
be addressed would likely be transport and housing. The former would
involve reducing car use in urban areas, perhaps including an outright
ban on personal vehicles in city centres (where feasible). This would
require a dramatic increase in public transit provision. Further
planning would be needed to electrify public transit, taxis, service
vehicles, and remaining cars. More details on this ambitious and
long-term project will be provided in a future article. Any socialist
government should instigate a new wave of
<a href="https://newsocialist.org.uk/a-socialist-housing-policy/">council house construction</a>,
which provides an opportunity to drastically improve energy efficiency
in homes. Furthermore, these should be multi-use developments which
are pedestrian-friendly and reduce the need for car ownership. The
<a href="https://newsocialist.org.uk/labour-and-planning-system-lessons-fracking/">planning system</a>
must begin to centre climate change in all of its decisions: no
project should be given planning permission unless it is shown to be
compatible with local and national decarbonisation goals. Finally, as
the level of government closest to individual citizens, local
authorities would be well placed to carry out education and
consultations on behalf of the <span class="caps">NDC</span>. It should be clear that these
commitments could not be carried out without reversing many of the
damaging austerity cuts to central and local government.</p>
<h3>Fixing our Technology</h3>
<p>While we should try to avoid making plans that rely on
yet-to-be-developed technology, in some cases this may be
unavoidable. Furthermore, even where current technology might, in
principle, be sufficient to allow decarbonisation we should still look
to improve upon it where possible. As previously mentioned,
decarbonisation will also greatly increase demand for certain critical
metals, which current mining technology may not be able to meet.</p>
<p>The rule of thumb for addressing climate change is to “electrify
everything and clean up the grid”. For example, we can address
emissions from gas boilers by switching to heat pumps powered by clean
electricity. By and large we know how to produce large amounts of
green electricity and all that is required is the political will to do
so. However, there are a few sources of emissions for which this
approach is not applicable. It could be that it is not practical to
electrify them because batteries would be too heavy and wiring can not
be made to stretch far enough (e.g., aviation and shipping). Or it
could be that something unrelated to energy consumption produces the
GHGs, such as the methane produced in the stomachs of cattle. Key areas of research would
thus be</p>
<ul>
<li>developing a carbon-neutral fuel for aviation, shipping, and
long-distance road transport (e.g., hydrogen or synthetic hydrocarbons)</li>
<li>finding a way to smelt steel without using coal</li>
<li>producing cement without emitting <span class="caps">CO</span><sub>2</sub></li>
<li>capturing and storing unavoidable <span class="caps">GHG</span> emissions</li>
<li>improving agricultural techniques to reduce emissions</li>
<li>developing extraction and recycling techniques for critical metals</li>
</ul>
<p>If we are to see a large increase in the use of intermittent renewable
energy sources then we will also need far better energy storage
capabilities than available now. Furthermore, while
this is something it would be better to avoid, it looks increasingly
likely that some form of “negative emissions” technology will be
needed later this century to minimise warming, so research into this
should also be pursued.</p>
<p>In all of this we will need to harness the powers of the
entrepreneurial state. We will also need to do our utmost to integrate
research (up to and including the development of new products) with the
work of the <span class="caps">NDC</span>. Here a proposal made by Canadian socialist <a href="https://www.leftfutures.org/2017/08/a-canadian-corbyn/">Niki
Ashton</a> during
her (sadly unsuccessful) bid to lead the New Democratic
Party is instructive. <a href="https://www.leftfutures.org/2017/08/on-climate-change-the-ndps-niki-ashton-beats-corbyn/">She suggested</a> that a new state enterprise
(or “crown corporation”, to use the Canadian term) be created called
Green Canada. This would:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Accelerate pollution-fighting technology by funding open-source
research into solutions for the climate change challenges we face
and invest in public sector clean energy innovation. Every scenario
for avoiding runaway climate change includes a technological
breakthrough we don’t have yet. The public sector has an important
role to play in fostering innovation. Green Canada will partner with
our public universities to fund and carry out basic and applied
research in renewable energy and energy efficiency at dedicated new
research institutes. The rewards of research breakthroughs will be
shared by all of us: selected successful research will be the basis
for new manufacturing projects run directly by Green Canada. In
time, this crown corporation will grow into a complex green
technology actor, reinvesting funds into research, taking on
strategic production tasks that aid in meeting climate goals and
providing the federal government with streams of revenues for other needs.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such an approach could usefully be applied in this country as well. In
addition to fostering vital research and development, by producing new
goods in-house such an enterprise would ensure that the rewards of
publicly-funded research are enjoyed by the public, rather than
privatised as often happens now. It would be able to lead the
re-purposing of polluting industries and redevelop production centres
struck by capital flight. It would also begin to cultivate
technological expertise within the state and assert the importance of
public leadership in industry, without involving the level of
confrontation with capital that would be involved in outright nationalisation.</p>
<h3>From the Technocratic to the Popular</h3>
<p>The scope of such a national decarbonisation project is almost
incomprehensible. It would require economic planning on a scale
unknown outside of a world war. However, while capital has every
reason to cooperate with the government in the context of a war, we
cannot expect it to be so enlightened in this instance. Despite
climate change posing arguably an even greater threat than the Nazis,
it is a distant one which, in any case, falls most heavily on the
poor. As such, it would be folly to expect companies to submit
themselves to a democratically decided-upon plan.</p>
<p>There are no easy answers to this. Subjecting capital to democratic
planning will require the workers in affected industries to be
extremely well-organised and militant to be able to scare it into
acquiescence. Unfortunately, there are no signs that this will be
available any time soon. As such, doom-mongering about the need to fix
climate change by 2030 (or whatever is the latest cutoff date) is not
useful; there is every chance that, despite our best efforts as
activists, we will not be strong enough soon enough to meet that
deadline. In this context, setting relatively short-term hard
deadlines could easily cause people to give up in despair or collapse
into nihilism.</p>
<p>Instead we must accept that there are no shortcuts to building a
working class movement and commit to it for the long haul. In the
short term we must take whatever inadequate climate policy is
available, while constantly arguing for much more ambitious action. By
the time we are powerful enough to carry out a full-throated program
of decarbonisation as described above it may already be too late
to limit warming to 1.5 or even 2°C. However, that doesn’t mean we
shouldn’t still do it, as even then we’d still have the potential to
prevent the damage from being yet greater.</p>
<p>With that sombre note in mind, what can be done now to start building
the forces we need? Given the amount of democratic control over
industry which will be required, the trade unions will be key
allies. Right now they can start developing plans for
<a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2019/01/gm-oshawa-democratic-planning-nafta">converting factories to green production</a>. As
this will have implications far beyond a single workplace or even a
single industry, it must be a collaborative effort between
individuals unions. The <span class="caps">TUC</span> would be well placed to take the lead on
this. More generally, all unions need to start developing proposals for
how to go about decarbonising their industries. Of course, union
representation is at fairly low levels in this country and this would
limit the portion of the economy which such an approach could
cover. As such, a strong push to organise in new workplaces will also
be very important.</p>
<p>However, such plans are of limited use if they are never
implemented. Unions cannot expect to make this happen simply by
asking their employers or lobbying the government. As already
mentioned, even in the context of a national push for decarbonisation,
a body like the <span class="caps">NDC</span> could easily find itself contending with
uncooperative private companies. In such circumstances one would hope
to push for worker control and self-management to break the
deadlock. In the near term, and as a step towards building the
capacities for that, unions might try to make decarbonisation part of
their bargaining demands. As an example, <span class="caps">RMT</span> could demand rail
electrification in future negotiations with Network Rail and the Train
Operating Companies. Even if this isn’t something
<a href="https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/mbzza3/how-illegal-teacher-strikes-rescued-the-american-labor-movement">over which unions can legally bargain</a>,
recent strikes by educators in the United States have shown that
unions can
<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/12/one-two-many-chicago-teachers-strikes-2">strike over demands which are not officially up for negotiation</a>. The
same approach should be applied here.</p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>Climate change is a daunting problem. Although formulating solutions
demands extensive technical knowledge, technocracy is wholly
inadequate to see these solutions implemented. The only thing which
will make capital cooperate with such plans is workers threatening to
(or actually) assert control over the workplace. Our strategy for
addressing climate change must be relentlessly focused on developing
the requisite level of knowledge and capacity to do this among
workers. This means working to educate and organise workers in
industries which will be affected by decarbonisation. The tactics
which we have seen widely used by climate activists to date have
instead focused on public spectacle (e.g., marches) or disruption
(e.g., gluing themselves to trains), which will at best temporarily
raise awareness of the issue. However, such approaches are unable to
build the capabilities of workers to oversee decarbonisation and as
such do more to make activists feel better that they are doing
something than to actually address the problem. With the limited time
and resources available to the Left, such tactics are a level of self
indulgence which we cannot afford.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr />
<ol>
<li id="fn:0">
<p>It would be preferable if trade unions alone could act as
industrial representatives, but given that we live under capitalism
for the moment it seems inevitable we will at least need to hear the
opinion of management. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:0" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>In reality, there may be a certain amount of back and forth here
as different industries provide information on what resources they
will need to stay within their carbon budget. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Labour’s Energy Plans: Technically Questionable, Politically Vacuous2019-04-28T22:00:00+01:002019-04-28T22:00:00+01:00C MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2019-04-28:labours-energy-plans-technically-questionable-politically-vacuous.html<p>During last year’s conference, the Labour Party
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/24/labour-wants-green-energy-to-power-most-uk-homes-by-2030-greenhouse-gas-emissions">made headlines</a>
with its seemingly bold promises on energy and climate change. These
included a massive build-out of wind turbines, solar panels, and a
housing retrofit programme. We were promised that these pledges would
be elaborated on in a report to be released that weekend. However,
<a href="https://www.labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Achieving-6025-by-2030-final-version.pdf">said report</a>
proved to be woefully inadequate in terms of what we need to tackle
climate change, as will be revealed in the summary and discussion
below. Despite the apparent magnitude of its programme, Labour still
has not truly grasped the scale of the task of confronting climate change.</p>
<h3>What’s in the Report</h3>
<p>The report opens with a one-page overview explaining that it sets out
key findings of research into how to achieve Labour’s 2017 commitment
to get 60% of the <span class="caps">UK</span>’s electricity and heat from renewable and
low-carbon sources. (Note that the exact relationship between these
two types of energy is not made clear in this paper; much heating is
powered by electricity.) This research focuses on “the scale and scope
of technologies required for Labour to meet the 60% target”. Future
work will consider the concrete actions needed to achieve it. It
states that this work is merely to provide information and “does not
represent Labour Party policy”. A number of “industry professionals
and experts … from right across the energy sector” who contributed
to the document are listed.</p>
<p>Rebecca Long-Bailey (Shadow Secretary for Business, Energy, and
Industrial Strategy) provides a foreword. This does not go beyond
indicating that Labour is determined to address climate change in an
equitable manner. She reaffirms Labour’s policy of net zero emissions
by 2050 and pledges Labour will ensure “60 per cent of the <span class="caps">UK</span>’s energy
comes from renewable and low carbon sources within twelve years of
coming to power.” This contradicts statements made elsewhere in the
document which said the 60% target applied only to electricity and heat.</p>
<p>The single longest portion of the report is the introduction, which
makes it clear that this document is only a “briefing note”. A “full
report, to be published later in the year … will set out our
intended pathways for upgrading the whole energy system, including
other electricity generation technologies, <span class="caps">UK</span> heating and our approach
for non-domestic buildings”. To date the full paper still does not
appear to have been published, but given Labour’s haphazard way of
publishing and publicising its own policy documents it is difficult to
know for certain. The introduction goes on to claim that “Britain has
the best opportunities for renewable energy of almost any country in
the world” and explains that the current paper will look at “four key
elements” of Labour’s plans: energy efficiency, offshore wind, onshore
wind, and solar power.</p>
<p>Many short-term benefits of such a policy are described: eliminating
fuel poverty (and improved well-being that results), cleaner air,
eliminating “the obscene wastefulness of our current, high-polluting
energy system”, and energy security for “decades to come” with
protection from fluctuations in fuel prices. This will be achieved by
reducing heating demand by 23% and producing 85% of electricity and
44% of heat from renewable sources. Such actions are estimated to
create 410,000 jobs, will require massive infrastructure renewal, and
will affect “almost all [non-energy] sectors”. These steps will allow
the <span class="caps">UK</span> to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement. We are
reassured that, despite the intermittency of wind and solar power,
“the lights will stay on” and that “this paper shows that even a
limited selection of the cost-effective technical solutions available
today would be more than sufficient” to do this.</p>
<p>The report proposes installing <span class="caps">4GW</span> of new offshore wind capacity every
year through the 2020s, bringing the <span class="caps">UK</span>’s total up to <span class="caps">52GW</span>. This will
allow the <span class="caps">UK</span> to harness “the largest wind resource in Europe”, taking
advantage of falling costs and new technologies. It is mentioned that
offshore wind works well to offset lower solar power production in
winter. It is estimated that, by sourcing components from domestic
suppliers, this policy would result in the creation of 120,000
jobs. There is a further proposal to bring installed onshore wind
capacity to <span class="caps">30GW</span> by 2030, taking advantage of cheaper building costs
than offshore wind and a “low footprint”. This is expected to create
an additional 60,000 jobs.</p>
<p>On solar power, the report suggests increasing installed capacity to
<span class="caps">35GW</span> by 2030, installing 2.<span class="caps">2GW</span> per year and creating 70,000 jobs. It
is noted that capacity has grown massively since 2010, despite a
slowdown due to “actions of the Tory government”. While installations
were initially small scale, it is noted that larger installations now dominate.</p>
<p>Finally, it is proposed to cut domestic heat demand by about one
quarter by 2030 by upgrading buildings to the highest standards of
efficiency (as well as making non-energy related improvements), with
24 million homes upgraded by 2030. Higher energy standards will be
enforced for all new homes. In addition to addressing climate change,
this policy will improve energy poverty and quality of
life. Efficiency is noted as being vital to meet the 60% target, given
the large amount of heating currently used and difficulty in shifting
to renewable heat. This project will “require a scale of investment,
supply chain capacity building and innovation <strong>as yet unseen in
post-war Britain</strong>” (emphasis added) and would create 160,000 jobs.</p>
<h3>Problems</h3>
<p>Though described as a summary, the above is a fairly complete
reproduction of the actual content present in this 14 page report. No
citations or arguments were given for any of the claims made. Given
how little information the document contained, it is unclear what it
was intended to achieve.</p>
<p>It is essential that we are told what sectors the 60% clean energy
target applies to. The manifesto simply pledged to “ensure that 60 per
cent of the <span class="caps">UK</span>’s energy comes from zero-carbon or renewable sources by
2030”, but this document (except the comments made by Rebecca
Long-Bailey) claims this referred only to electricity and
heating. However, together these make up less than half of current <span class="caps">UK</span>
energy consumption. If this is current policy then it represents a
massive retreat by Labour.</p>
<p>The relationship between “zero carbon” and “renewable” sources is also
unclear. The plans presented in this document are for 60% renewable
(electric and heating) energy by 2030. Is it intended that we should
take “zero carbon” to just be a synonym for “renewable”? If so, what
do we make of biomass which, while renewable, even the most generous
estimates show emitting some greenhouse gases.
(<a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_annex-iii.pdf">The <span class="caps">IPPC</span></a>
estimates 230gCO<sub>2</sub>/kWh, about 1/3 those from gas, but
<a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2114993-europes-green-energy-policy-is-a-disaster-for-the-environment/">under certain circumstances</a>
it may be even worse than fossil fuels.) Jeremy Corbyn has indicated
that nuclear will also make up part of the zero-carbon energy
mix. Even existing reactors are not shown in this paper’s plans for
2030 (let alone the new ones Labour supposedly supports). Do the
authors not think we need them? Whatever one’s stance on nuclear
energy, Labour members deserve to know how it fits into climate change plans.</p>
<p>If existing hydro and biomass capacity is included, then the proposed
new wind and solar installations would produce the promised amount of
renewable electricity. However, that’s only a small part of the
battle. The real challenge will be to achieve “system integration”,
allowing the lights to remain on when the wind isn’t blowing. These
problems are dismissed as easily solved, with no explanation of
how it would be done. It would probably be possible to do this for 60%
renewable electricity, but gas plants would be needed for
backup. Rather than just looking at the requirements for 60% renewable
energy, as this paper claims to do, we need to think about how we’ll
actually achieve 100% clean energy. Otherwise we could lock ourselves
into dependence on fossil fuels in the medium term.</p>
<p>No explanation is given of what will provide the 44% renewable
heat. Indeed, the term itself is never defined
(although in the energy literature it is often taken to mean solar,
geothermal, and biomass heating). Electricity and hydrogen are
mentioned. However, all existing and proposed renewable installations
will be needed to meet targets for existing electricity
demand. Hydrogen takes energy to produce and this is not budgeted for either.</p>
<p>There are a number of other issues I could also challenge this paper
on, but I will end here for reasons of space. As the authors say, we
urgently need a plan to address climate change. It is a shame,
therefore, that they have not provided us with one. Hopefully they
will do so in the full report (if it is ever published) but, if so, I
don’t see why this lightweight document was released.</p>
<p>Finally, we need to consider the way in which this report was
written. Of the 10 authors, Internet searching revealed details on 8 of
them. One of these is an academic researcher, another is a policy
analyst at Ofgem, and the rest are energy or climate change
consultants. All of the consultants work for the same company
(Arup). One of the remaining two may run a business installing solar
panels, but I’m not sure. All things considered, this seems like a
less-than-diverse pool of expertise. Why weren’t the unions involved?
What about people who work at power plants, build wind farms, or do
load balancing for National Grid? Even beyond exactly who was chosen
to write this report, given the weakness of its arguments and how
little effort was made to distribute it to members, it feels like
policy is being formed by small groups of leadership-appointed
experts. This is a far cry from the membership-led policy formation
which Jeremy Corbyn promised when he was elected leader.</p>
<h3>The Missing Ingredient: Politics</h3>
<p>This report and, it seems, the full version of it which is to come,
deals with technical, rather than political questions. In and of
itself, this is fine; Labour needs to ensure its policies are grounded
in what is technologically feasible. However, we mustn’t lose sight of
the political aspects of these issues, either. Political assumptions
inform the context in which technical discussions take place. For
example, anti-nuclear activists often argue that this technology only
receives consideration due to its compatibility with centralised
government and big business (not to mention its military
applications). Conversely, its few left wing supporters suggest that
nuclear power appears artificially expensive due to the high cost and
short-term thinking of private finance and can be built much more
cheaply in the public sector. The technical and political
are linked, forming a dialectic which we must navigate.</p>
<p>The most obvious case of missing politics is the paper’s support for
rooftop solar panels. Their installation in uncritically treated as a
good thing, without any consideration of who benefits. To date this
has largely been well-off property owners, who’ve received a subsidy
paid for by other electricity consumers. Labour seems to want solar
panels to also be placed on rental property, which begs the question
of who will own them. It’s hard to imagine how the tenant could be the
ones to finance the panels, but if it’s the landlord who iss paying
for them then presumably it would also be the landlord receiving the
government subsidy (either directly or through increased rent). We
thus see how politics can very quickly infringe upon technical
plans. Rather than examine these issues, the paper ignores them.</p>
<p>As Labour continues its work on energy policy, it is vital that it
considers exactly how it wishes to organise ownership of the
sector. To date it seems to have endorsed a plurality of structures,
consisting of regional, local, personal, and cooperative ownership. I
have, in the past,
<a href="https://newsocialist.org.uk/ownership-and-markets-energy/">criticised this approach</a>
as incapable of delivering the national-level planning that will be
necessary to build a low-carbon grid
and will not repeat myself here. However, even many proponents of such
a system often acknowledge the need to abolish the energy market and provide
some sort of national guidance. Yet we have been given no indication
of what form this might take, by Labour or anyone else.</p>
<p>Probably the closest this Labour document comes to truly considering
the political implications of its proposals is when it says about its
energy efficiency measures that “This level of ambition represents an
unprecedented transformation of the <span class="caps">UK</span>’s housing stock and will
require a scale of investment, supply chain capacity building and
innovation as yet unseen in post-war Britain”. This is a fair
assessment, with the task becoming all the more massive when
considering the myriad other policies needed to address climate
change. In short, it would require something on the scale of war-time
economic planning. The problem is that, during the World Wars, the
government could rely on an alliance with business. While capital
might not have liked submitting to government control, it acknowledged
that this was necessary in order to win the war. As national capital
would not have fared well had Britain been on the losing side, they
had a fairly immediate interest in cooperating.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the effects of climate change are sufficiently distant
and diffuse (not to mention, concentrated in the Global South) that
business is unlikely to see the need for such cooperation with public
planners today. This represents a formidable obstacle which, as far as
I’m aware, no one has really considered. I can not confidently propose
a solution to this, other than to say that clearly a
powerful working class movement, dedicated to an environmental
transition in the economy, will be necessary. Only such a popular
force can scare capital into acquiescence or (as I think will likely prove
necessary) actually begin to take democratic control of key economic sectors.</p>
<p>Over the following series of articles, I will outline some of the
necessary technical elements of a strategy to address climate change
and suggest policies which a socialist government could use to achieve
these. By and large this will be focusing on what policies Labour
government can adopt at the national and (to a lesser extent) local
level, rather than the equally important grassroots mobilisation and
capacity building which must also occur. Where possible, I will
indicate where government policy could link up with grassroots
efforts. My first article in the series will focus on the concept of a
“Green New Deal”, providing an overall strategy for decarbonisation
and examining how this requires cooperation across a wide range of
both sectors and scales. I will then focus on some key individual
sectors, including energy, transport, housing, and
food/agriculture. Finally (and perhaps most importantly), the
international dimensions of climate change will be considered.</p>Resolving the Brexit Impasse2018-12-15T23:30:00+00:002018-12-15T23:30:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2018-12-15:resolving-the-brexit-impasse.html<p>Well, we finally have a proposed agreement by which the <span class="caps">UK</span> could
withdraw from the <span class="caps">EU</span>. It’s just a pity that no one actually agrees
with it. In fact, disagreeing with it is about the only thing the House of
Commons can agree on.</p>
<h3>The Situation as it Stands</h3>
<p><span class="caps">OK</span>, smart-assed comments aside, the Brexit process is in dire
straights. With barely more than 100 days until Brexit, Theresa May
has secured a deal which the <span class="caps">EU</span> insists is not up for any
renegotiation. However, her MPs (and the Democratic Unionists, on
whose votes she relies) won’t pass it because of the controversial
“backstop” measure. Should the <span class="caps">UK</span> and <span class="caps">EU</span> fail to negotiate a
post-Brexit agreement which would prevent the re-assertion of a “hard
border” in Northern Ireland, the backstop will automatically enter
into effect at the end of Britain’s two year “transition period”. It
provides something similar to single-market membership (although with
some important differences).<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> Terminating the backstop will require
mutual consent of both the <span class="caps">UK</span> and <span class="caps">EU</span>, causing some to fear that the <span class="caps">EU</span>
will trap Britain in a perpetual “Brexit in name only”.</p>
<p>I understand why the <span class="caps">EU</span> wants this. They need a guarantee the Northern
Irish border will remain open. The backstop wouldn’t be able to
offer that if the <span class="caps">UK</span> could unilaterally renege. That said, I also
completely understand why MPs are uncomfortable with this; signing an
agreement which you can not get out of is a risk.</p>
<p>For its part, the Labour Party was never going to accept any deal
which the Tories brought to parliament. Their six tests were designed
to be impossible to achieve from the start.<sup id="fnref:2"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:2" rel="footnote">2</a></sup> Rather than put any
serious work into fleshing out what they’d like Brexit to look like,
alongside various alternatives should the <span class="caps">EU</span> prove unforthcoming in
negotiations, they’ve taken an obstructionist stance. I suspect this
is in an attempt to manage the internal contradictions within the
party. Its members are majority pro-<span class="caps">EU</span>, but a majority of its
constituencies voted to leave. To get elected requires the votes of
both Remainers and Leavers. The party’s current stance has proven
sufficiently ambiguous that it hasn’t alienated either of these
groups, but a serious discussion of how to go about Brexit would
likely do just that.</p>
<p>So there is no way the deal is getting through parliament. However,
without a deal, the <span class="caps">UK</span> will automatically exit the <span class="caps">EU</span> on 29 March. It
would revert to <span class="caps">WTO</span> rules for trade with the <span class="caps">EU</span>, while Europeans
living in Britain would be left in a legal limbo of being neither
legal nor illegal. None of the bilateral treaties which normally
facilitate commerce, trade, and travel between countries would exist
and nor would the infrastructure needed to process trade without such
benefits. This would likely cause massive backlogs at ports of entry
which are predicted to lead to shortages of food and medicines, as
well as halt any manufacturing which depends on European supply chains.</p>
<h3>The Irish Question</h3>
<p>The real root of the problem is Northern Ireland. Key to the Good
Friday Agreement was keeping a soft border between Ireland and
Ulster. However, so the logic goes, a soft border is only possible
with a high degree of regulatory harmonisation and free movement of
goods, people, and services, i.e. membership of the Single
Market. Thus, any attempt to take the <span class="caps">UK</span> out of the Single Market was
always going to cause problems.</p>
<p>In many regards this is the tail wagging the dog. A tiny region with
less than 2 million people, disconnected from the country at large, is
preventing the results of a referendum in which 33 million people
voted from being implemented. What’s more, it’s a region which is
only part of the <span class="caps">UK</span> due to past imperialism. In many ways, the tidiest
solution would be a united Ireland (which may actually happen,
depending on how Brexit proceeds, although not in time to make
negotiations any more straightforward).</p>
<p>Anyway, barring that, there are limited options. One is to give
Northern Ireland special status within the <span class="caps">UK</span>, so that it remains
within the Single Market while Great Britain leaves. There would thus
need to be customs on goods moving between the two; i.e., the hard
border would lie in the Irish Sea. That is certainly much more
practical to implement than a hard border between Northern Ireland and
the Republic of Ireland and it is sort of the inverse of the current
situation with overseas territories of <span class="caps">EU</span> member states (e.g., islands
in the Caribbean). The <span class="caps">EU</span> appears to be open to this option, but it is
unpopular with Unionists and has been completely ruled out by the
Democratic Unionist Party supporting Theresa May in parliament.</p>
<p>Another option would be to accept that the border won’t be quite as
soft as it has been in the past, but pursue every possible means to
minimise it. This has been achieved to some degree at the Swiss border
using digital systems to process customs in advance and avoid the use
of checkpoints. If coupled with limited checks between Northern
Ireland and Britain (e.g., for transport of animals) then this <em>might</em>
be technically achievable. However, it doesn’t look like Ireland or
the <span class="caps">EU</span> would consider it sufficient to meet their requirements. It’s
also not clear that the Northern Irish themselves would accept
it. However, if such a system could be implemented then it might
conceivably represent a means to get out of the backstop.</p>
<h3>What Should We Want?</h3>
<p>So far I’ve been discussing this purely in terms of what can get
through parliament as it stands now. However, there is also the
question of what the Left would like as an outcome. Most supported
Remain and would thus prefer to simply revoke Brexit and stay in the
<span class="caps">EU</span>. As such, there has been a lot of demand for a second referendum on
the final terms of the deal. However, many other Remainers are worried
about that, feeling that we need to respect the democratic decision of
the original referendum and fearing not doing so could massively
embolden the reactionary Right. And then there are those, such as
myself, who think that pursuing socialism will be impossible within
the <span class="caps">EU</span> and would thus like a Brexit which gets the <span class="caps">UK</span> out of Single
Market rules which inhibit state aid, enforce open competition, and
forbid capital controls.</p>
<p>This entails a relatively hard Brexit. While I don’t object in
principle to Labour’s desire for a customs union with the <span class="caps">EU</span> which
nonetheless would not bind the <span class="caps">UK</span> to neoliberal <span class="caps">EU</span> policy, I don’t
think such a deal is likely to be forthcoming. Given that, the <span class="caps">UK</span>
should have told Northern Ireland that one way or another Britain will
be leaving the Single Market and the customs union. It would then have
been up to them whether this would mean a united Ireland, special
status for Northern Ireland within the <span class="caps">UK</span>, or some hardening of the
Northern Irish border. Of course, it would be necessary to evaluate
whether any or all of these outcomes would be likely to restart the
Troubles (although I’m inclined to doubt they would). Assuming they
wouldn’t, these choices could be put to the Northern Irish people in a
ranked-choice referendum.</p>
<p>The <span class="caps">UK</span> would then get to work establishing a framework to
leave the Single Market. This wouldn’t happen immediately and would
require <em>at least</em> a couple years of transition period, during which the
<span class="caps">UK</span> is outside of the <span class="caps">EU</span> but inside the Single Market. This would
provide time to negotiate the agreements necessary for a hard Brexit
to work. These would not necessarily be free trade agreements in the
sense of eliminating tariffs; with the exception of a few sectors,
tariffs would probably be low enough to be manageable. The real issue
is all the other barriers to trade such as regulatory inspections,
paperwork around customs, sanitary provisions for the export of live
animals, etc.<sup id="fnref:3"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:3" rel="footnote">3</a></sup> Agreements exist with other countries which would
harmonise and expedite all of this sufficiently to allow relatively
smooth trade. However, it would take time to negotiate and implement
these for the <span class="caps">UK</span>, hence the need of a transitional period within the
Single Market. This could potentially take the form of a phased
withdrawal, with different aspects of Single Market membership being
dropped over time (assuming the <span class="caps">EU</span> would agree, of course). For
example, liberalisation directives for railways might be dropped
immediately, on the condition that <span class="caps">UK</span> rail companies would no longer
be eligible to bid for <span class="caps">EU</span> operating contracts. This would allow Labour
to immediately begin the process of taking the railways back into
public ownership.</p>
<p>There’s not guarantee that these negotiations would be easy and at
least some aspects of them would probably drag on for many
years. However, it at the very least seems like a more reality-based
plan than what the Labour Party is currently calling for. However, now
we are at a point where there is no time to negotiate such
an agreement.</p>
<h3>The Options Before Us</h3>
<p>At this point, there are really only three plausible options:</p>
<ol>
<li>The deal which the <span class="caps">EU</span> has offered (or something very similar).</li>
<li>No deal.</li>
<li>Remaining.</li>
</ol>
<p>Labour continues to call for a general election to resolve the
parliamentary deadlock and while I would be pleased with anything
which would get the Tories out of government, whoever succeeds them
will face the same set of choices as we do now. Unfortunately,
publicly at least, Labour has not realised that. At a recent
Constituency Labour Party meeting I asked the local <span class="caps">MP</span> (who is in the
Shadow Treasury Team) what Labour would like to change about the
existing deal and it basically came down wanting a commitment a
permanent customs union. I’m given to understand that the <span class="caps">EU</span> is not
willing to negotiate such agreements at this point,<sup id="fnref:4"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:4" rel="footnote">4</a></sup> but even if
that’s not the case there is simply no time to negotiate a customs
union before Brexit day. Perhaps the <span class="caps">EU</span> could be convinced to extend
the negotiation period, but it would require all 27 other member
states to agree and this is by no means guaranteed.</p>
<h4>This Deal</h4>
<p>No one on the Left likes the current deal. It would lock the <span class="caps">UK</span> into
Single Market rules (including all of the neoliberal ones) without
having any say over them, at least until the backstop is over. The
attached (non-binding) political declaration indicates a desire for
any future agreement negotiated by the Tories to do much the same
around issues of state aid and competition. As such, not only
Remainers object to the current settlement, but most left-Leavers
too. However, Chris Bickerton (a left-Leaver and European scholar who
wrote
<em><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/293/293941/the-european-union--a-citizen-s-guide/9780141983097.html">The European Union: A Citizen’s Guide</a></em>)
has argued that at this point it is the best we are going to get, that
the <span class="caps">EU</span> has ample incentive not to keep the <span class="caps">UK</span> trapped in the backstop,
and that it represents something from which we can negotiate
improvements.<sup id="fnref:5"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:5" rel="footnote">5</a></sup></p>
<h4>No Deal</h4>
<p>For the most part, only the Right has flirted with the prospect of No
Deal, believing it would give them <em>carte blanche</em> to turn the <span class="caps">UK</span> into
a libertarian free-trade hellhole. Most people reject it out of hand,
given the projection of shortages, planes being grounded, and Kent
being turned into a car-park for lorries that aren’t being allowed
into Calais. Nonetheless, at least one left-Leaver has suggested that
we should take this option, viewing it as the option least likely to
constrain a future socialist government.<sup id="fnref:6"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:6" rel="footnote">6</a></sup> A number of pro-Brexit
sources have sought to downplay fears around No Deal, although many of
them are based on arguments of how other countries trade with the <span class="caps">EU</span>
while ignoring the numerous treaties which they have negotiated to
make this possible.<sup id="fnref:7"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:7" rel="footnote">7</a></sup></p>
<p>While some contingency plans have been agreed
between the <span class="caps">UK</span> and <span class="caps">EU</span> in case of a No Deal outcome and both parties
have made some unilateral preparations, these hardly appear sufficient
to avoid at least some disruption.
As far as I can tell, what would be likely to occur in the event of No
Deal would be a failure to enforce the usual rules of international
trade. Britain would likely continue to treat trade entering the
country the same was as the day before, despite the fact this would
technically violate <span class="caps">WTO</span> rules (as they would be favouring some nations
over others, without having free trade agreements). It’s harder to
predict the actions of the <span class="caps">EU</span>, as they’d be less affected by the
cessation of trade and would thus have less incentive to bend
rules. It appears only minimal air service would be permitted. It
seems clear that neither the <span class="caps">UK</span> nor Ireland have any plan of enforcing
the Northern Irish border in the event of No Deal, so who knows what
the legal status of trade would be there. The best that could be hoped
for in this outcome is that basic trade would be allowed to prevent
the <span class="caps">UK</span> from collapsing and that the chaos would force the <span class="caps">EU</span> and <span class="caps">UK</span> to
rush through the agreements necessary to make trade possible. All
things considered, to me this does not sound like an outcome the Left
should permit.</p>
<h4>Remain</h4>
<p>The Labour Party is divided on the prospect of a second referendum (in
Oxford, a motion calling on the leadership to call for one and
campaign for remain passed by only a few votes). As a solution, it
comes with an awful lot of practical problems of its own. There is
the issue of what exactly the question would be and what options would
be available. May’s deal and no deal? May’s deal and remain? All
three? It would also almost certainly be impossible to pass the
requisite legislation and hold the legally-required campaign prior to
Brexit Day and very difficult to do so before the coming spring’s <span class="caps">EU</span>
elections (by which time the <span class="caps">EU</span> wants the <span class="caps">UK</span> to have left). But,
without another referendum, Remaining could massively undermine the
legitimacy of the <span class="caps">UK</span>’s democratic institutions (and they aren’t in
great shape already). I suppose the <span class="caps">UK</span> could withdraw its invocation
of Article 50, thus cancelling Brexit, and then reactivate it should
Leave win the referendum, but I’d imagine this would be a tough sell.</p>
<p>There is also the question of whether Labour could implement its
policies within the <span class="caps">EU</span>. Lots of people claim it can, but they don’t
seem to know about the 4th Railway Package which insists that in
future all routes either be put out to tender or be open to
competition from other operators. This would seem to limit Labour’s
pledge to renationalise the railways to having a public operator
compete for franchises, as was party policy under Ed Miliband. At the
time this was seen by the Left as a half measure meant to avoid talk
of nationalisation. The other major issue is capital controls. While
Labour hasn’t really talked about these, historically the Post-War
Consensus relied on such controls and capital flight has often been
able to undermine radical Left governments. The real issue, though, is
that even if Labour’s last manifesto may have been permitted under <span class="caps">EU</span>
law, more radical policy (which we should be pushing towards) would
not.<sup id="fnref:8"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:8" rel="footnote">8</a></sup></p>
<p>Some suggest, with varying degrees of reluctance or excitement, a
“Remain and Reform” position.<sup id="fnref:9"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:9" rel="footnote">9</a></sup> I think this is naive about
prospects for reform. Despite the rhetoric you sometimes hear about
uniting with other socialists within Europe, this usually means social
democrats that I do not believe will work for the policies
required. I’ve yet to see a serious strategy for how to go about
achieving reforms, given the massive democratic deficit inherent in <span class="caps">EU</span>
bodies and the lack of any European demos.<sup id="fnref:10"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:10" rel="footnote">10</a></sup> If we are to pursue
this approach then it seems to me that the only practical policy is
“Remain and <em>Rebel</em>”, knowingly and wilfully violating neoliberal <span class="caps">EU</span>
directives and refusing to obey <span class="caps">ECJ</span> rulings against the <span class="caps">UK</span>. We’d have
to hope this would expose the <span class="caps">EU</span> for the neoliberal machine it is and
create a movement for reform, before any retaliatory sanctions become
too unbearable. Unfortunately, hardly anyone in Labour conceives of Remain
this way and I have serious doubts that it could work. As
circumstances change, that may yet become the best strategy, but I
don’t think we’re there yet.</p>
<p>One final note on this. The <span class="caps">EU</span> has a history of repeating, or outright
ignoring, referenda which went against further integration. I admit
that part of my resistance to another referendum is the feeling that
it continues this dangerous and undemocratic history. This despite the
fact that the arguments for a second referendum in this case are far
better than those in previous ones. I’m not saying this is a strong
argument on my part, but it is there in the back of my mind
nonetheless. More important is that this would perpetuate the whole
narrative that There Is No Alternative to the <span class="caps">EU</span>. I’m deeply
uncomfortable with creating a precedent which suggests leaving
the <span class="caps">EU</span> is impossible.</p>
<h3>So, What’s the Best Choice?</h3>
<p>No, I’m not going to borrow that old cliche from Lenin… Nonetheless,
clearly the Left needs some sort of strategy going forward. For what
it’s worth, I think that the best choice is accepting something like
the current deal. It’s not a good deal, but I found Bickerton’s
arguments for it far more convincing than arguments for No Deal and
I’m not at the point yet where I think we should go for Remain.</p>
<p>Were I leading the Parliamentary Labour Party, I would go through the
agreement with a fine-toothed comb and find exactly what the most
problematic aspects of it are. I would then write up a series of
amendments I would like to see. At present I can think of a few:</p>
<ul>
<li>Make the backstop only apply to Northern Ireland, which the <span class="caps">EU</span> was
open to in the past</li>
<li>If that proves possible, add a referendum in Northern Ireland as a
way of ending the backstop</li>
<li>Removal of commitments in the political declaration (which details plans
for negotiation future agreements) dealing with maintaining <span class="caps">EU</span> rules
on state aid, competition, etc. If the Tories won’t agree to that,
then ask them to leave these in as only a <em>possible</em> path.</li>
<li>Clarification that, should there be a change of government prior to
finalising the post-Brexit agreements, the new administration can
change its negotiating priorities</li>
<li>A commitment that all future agreements can be will be open to
renegotiation and will not lock in either party in perpetuity</li>
</ul>
<p>Labour would then offer to help Theresa May pass her Brexit agreement
<em>if she can get these amendments and commits to triggering a general
election immediately afterwords</em>. The first of these would, of course,
alienate the Democratic Unionists and a good number of Tories, but
hopefully Labour would be able to marshal sufficient numbers in
parliament that this would not be a problem. Should May then try to
renege on holding a general election, the Unionists could almost
certainly be relied upon to give a vote of no confidence against her,
bringing the government down anyway.</p>
<p>Of course, the <span class="caps">EU</span> probably won’t agree to all demands. They’re
insisting that the deal is now closed. The first demand
is something they’ve proposed in the past themselves, though, so if
changes can be made it would be that one. The penultimate point
wouldn’t require reopening the withdrawal agreement and would likely
just be an annex to the political declaration (which is itself
non-binding), so it should be achievable. This is the commitment which I
think should be an absolute red line. If Labour can’t get that out of
either the Tories or the <span class="caps">EU</span> then it is time to start thinking about
Remain as an option. </p>
<p>There are, of course, risks to this approach. If Theresa May or the <span class="caps">EU</span>
won’t apply the backstop only to Northern Ireland then there is
nothing to ensure she’ll stick to her promise to hold new
elections. Or, Labour might lose those elections. This, of course, is
the risk of democracy: sometimes people disagree with you. Elections
could also yield a similarly unworkable parliament. However, in that
case the backstop would kick in, so there wouldn’t be an immediate
threat to the economy like now. It would essentially stabilise us on
the status quo. Labour’s capacity to fight to change the <span class="caps">EU</span> rules
would be little changed from what it is now (i.e., extremely limited)
and rebelling would be about equally effective. If that really is the
best we can achieve then we could consider trying to transfer to <span class="caps">EFTA</span>/<span class="caps">EEA</span>
membership, which would likely have some minor advantages over the backstop.<sup id="fnref:11"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:11" rel="footnote">11</a></sup></p>
<p>The final question is whether this would be seen as Labour conspiring
with the Tories, causing a wave of anti-establishment disgust with the
party. I hope that demanding amendments to the agreement would help
to mitigate this. Even without those amendments, however, I don’t see
the risks as being any worse than those of backing another referendum
to Remain.</p>
<h3>Final Thoughts</h3>
<p>Brexit looks set to be the defining issue in <span class="caps">UK</span> politics for the
foreseeable future. As an issue it is uniquely polarising and one
about which few have shown any ability to hold informed
discussion. Both of the major parties are deeply divided on the issue
and it will be incredibly difficult for either of them to pursue a
coherant policy. Although I hope I’m wrong, at this point it is
starting to feel inevitable that there will be another
referendum. Though I think there is little prospect of it being
adopted, I hope something like my strategy might provide a way to keep
Labour relatively united, avoid alienating too many voters on either
side, and prevent any serious economic damage. At the same time, it
would keep open the possibility of negotiating a permanent deal which
would allow a Left government to begin to challenge capitalism in the
<span class="caps">UK</span>.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>For a detailed overview of the agreement, see <a href="http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-brexit-withdrawal-agreement.html">“The Brexit
Withdrawal Agreement: Overview and First Observations”</a>, <em><span class="caps">EU</span> Law
Analysis</em>, Steve Peers, 22 November 2018. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2">
<p>See, for example
<a href="https://www.thefullbrexit.com/labour-stands-exposed">“Labour Stands Exposed on Brexit”</a>“,
<em>The Full Brexit</em>, Lee Jones. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:2" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:3">
<p><em><a href="http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/BrexitMonograph002.pdf"><span class="dquo">“</span>Brexit Monograph 2: The <span class="caps">WTO</span> Option and its application to
Brexit”</a></em>,
The Leave Alliance, 29 July 2016. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:3" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:4">
<p>Apparently the <span class="caps">EU</span> maintains that it is legally impossible for it
to negotiate binding treaties with the <span class="caps">UK</span> until after Brexit Day:
<a href="http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2018/12/to-boldly-go-euuk-future-relationship.html">“To Boldy Go? Analysis and annotation of the <span class="caps">EU</span>/<span class="caps">UK</span> Future Relationship declaration”</a>,
<em><span class="caps">EU</span> Law Analysis</em>, Steve Peers, 8 December 2018. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:4" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:5">
<p><a href="https://www.thefullbrexit.com/wa-accept"><span class="dquo">“</span>Why We Should Accept the Withdrawal Agreement”</a>,
<em>The Full Brexit</em>, Chris Bickerton. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:5" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 5 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:6">
<p><a href="https://www.thefullbrexit.com/wa-reject"><span class="dquo">“</span>May’s Deal Threatens National Sovereignty: It’s Time for a Full Brexit”</a>,
<em>The Full Brexit</em>, Lee Jones. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:6" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 6 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:7">
<p>E.g.,
<a href="https://briefingsforbrexit.com/no-deal-is-no-nightmare-facts-about-eu-trade-after-brexit/">“No Deal Is No Nightmare: Facts About <span class="caps">EU</span> Trade After Brexit”</a>,
<em>Briefings for Brexit</em>, 8 December 2018. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:7" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 7 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:8">
<p><a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/05/corbyn-labour-eu-single-market-economic-policy"><span class="dquo">“</span>Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour vs. the Single Market”</a>,
<em>Jacobin</em>, Costas Lapavitsas, 30 May 2018. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:8" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 8 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:9">
<p>One article which I think approaches the problem in the correct
manner, although I disagree with a number of its arguments, is
<a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/laurie-macfarlane/left-brexit-trilemma">“Labour’s Brexit trilemma: in search of the least bad outcome”</a>,
<em>OpenDemocracy</em>, Laurie MacFarlane, 11 December 2018. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:9" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 9 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:10">
<p>For a very good analysis, see <a href="https://www.thefullbrexit.com/the-eu-s-democratic-deficit">“The <span class="caps">EU</span>’s Democratic Deficit:
Why Brexit is Essential for Restoring Popular Sovereignty”</a>,
<em>The Full Brexit</em>, Chris Bickerton and Lee Jones. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:10" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 10 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:11">
<p>See this analysis (admittedly, with decidedly non-socialist end
goals) of different options:
<em><a href="http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/flexcit.pdf">Flexcit: A plan for leaving the European Union</a></em>,
The Leave Alliance, 17 May 2018, (p. 61-75). Interesetingly, it’s noted that
Norway has been able resist applying some <span class="caps">EU</span> directives, such as
postal liberalisation (p. 71). <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:11" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 11 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Ownership and Markets in Energy2018-12-08T22:00:00+00:002018-12-08T22:00:00+00:00C MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2018-12-08:ownership-and-markets-in-energy.html<p><em>I wrote this article for the</em> New Socialist <em>website, where
<a href="https://newsocialist.org.uk/ownership-and-markets-energy/">it appeared</a>
on 16 April 2018 with a few changes.</em></p>
<p>One of the most popular elements of Labour’s 2017 manifesto was the
pledge to
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/01/jeremy-corbyn-nationalisation-plans-voters-tired-free-markets">return energy to public ownership</a>.
At last year’s conference John McDonnell said “Rail, water, energy,
Royal Mail—we’re taking them back”. This makes it sound like he’s
pledging to renationalise energy, but examining Labour’s manifesto
policies it quickly becomes clear that he is either being deliberately
misleading or displaying a stunning lack of understanding of how the
energy sector functions in this country. Below, I will explain how
electricity was structured when it was publicly owned and how Margaret
Thatcher went about privatising it. I will then examine the technical
and democratic shortcomings of the electricity market which she
created. (While electricity only makes up
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-consumption-in-the-uk">20% of the <span class="caps">UK</span>’s energy use</a>,
electrifying the remaining 80% will form a key part of addressing
climate change, so I will use the terms interchangeably throughout
this article and have chosen not to look at gas and petrol markets.)
I go on to analyse exactly what Labour has promised and lay out why
their plan to move to a decentralised energy system is
implausible. Finally, I will argue that we should embrace the need for
national planning of the electricity sector and the centralised
ownership that entails.</p>
<h3>Nationalisation and Privatisation</h3>
<p>Nationalised electricity was once the norm across much of the world
and how Britain structured the industry was fairly typical.
The Central Electricity Generating Board (<span class="caps">CEGB</span>) owned all power plants
and the national grid. The distribution infrastructure (wires leading
into people’s homes) was owned by 14 area electricity boards. The <span class="caps">CEGB</span>
was responsible for ensuring that there was always sufficient
electricity supply for the country, which was bought by the area
electricity boards and then sold on to customers. Scotland had a
separate electricity company which handled all of generation,
transmission, distribution, and sales in that jurisdiction.</p>
<p>It was once thought that electricity was a natural monopoly, but
Margaret Thatcher showed much of the sector could be “liberalised” to
operate in a competitive environment. She split the <span class="caps">CEGB</span> into the
national grid and three generating companies. These were sold off over
a few years, along with the area electricity boards. A system was
introduced by which the electricity boards purchased electricity from
the generators on a national wholesale market. This was achieved
through a combination of bilateral contracts, real-time bidding, and a
futures market. After a transition period, retail companies were
allowed into the market to compete against the area electricity
boards, the latter being required to separate operation of the
distribution grid from the supply of electricity. Matching electricity
production to demand has gone from a technical exercise to something
more like the trading floor of the stock exchange. Yet even that is
not sufficient to make the grid function properly, because generators
and suppliers only trade with each other to cover half-hour
intervals. Demand varies on considerably shorter time scales so there
must also be a “capacity market” through which National Grid plc pays
generators to stay on standby and turn production up and down as
needed. Similar markets exist for other “ancillary services” such as
maintaining the correct voltage.</p>
<p>If ever you need an example of the role of the state in constructing
and maintaining markets, electricity is where you should look. None of
this could exist if not for government regulations. Nothing that
happens can be considered some sort of “natural” market outcome, as it
is a direct consequence of the decisions the government made when it
constructed the market. If the design is faulty then a serious crisis
can develop. We saw this in when the Canadian province of Ontario
liberalised electricity; after a few months the wholesale price
climbed so high that the market had to be suspended, to be replaced by
an even stranger quasi-liberalised system. A much more serious case was the
Enron scandal in California, where companies manipulated the market to
boost profits, causing blackouts.</p>
<h3>The Inevitability of Planning</h3>
<p>Beyond this, there is one fundamental
problems of electricity markets: they are really terrible at getting
sufficient investment. The old vertically-integrated companies used to
simply forecast demand and build accordingly, setting rates to cover
cost. In a liberalised electricity market, generators have to hope
that they can supply at the wholesale price, without being certain
what that price will be in 10, 20, or 50 years’ time. In practice,
building new power plants has often required the government to
guarantee a price for the generator. Risk has been shifted off of
the utility and back onto rate-payers, which is precisely what
liberalisation was supposed to avoid!</p>
<p>This is true for conventional energy sources, but the problem becomes
even worse with intermittent renewables. A wind farm on its own isn’t
of much use to the grid, because its output can’t be set to meet
demand. Somehow you need to ensure that there are sufficient other
mechanisms to adjust supply and/or demand to be equal, regardless of
how quickly the wind is blowing. This has been a
serious problem for the government’s attempts to incentivise green
energy and can result in some very inefficient
decisions. Fortunately, researchers at Imperial College have developed
a model which can determine the cheapest combination of energy sources
to achieve this “system integration”. In
<a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/system-integration-costs-for-alternative-low-carbon-generation-technologies-policy-implications/">a report</a>
commissioned by the Committee on Climate Change, we are told that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A range of market and regulatory mechanisms and commercial
arrangements exist to allocate and recover system integration
costs. Ideally, such arrangements should ensure that the operational
and investment decisions made by private entities achieve outcomes as
close as possible to the theoretical ideal prescribed by Imperial’s modelling.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is being said is that the government is trying to construct the
market so that it will choose what we already know to be the optimal
outcome. The absurdity of this should be apparent.</p>
<p>The only solution is to start to move away from markets. To
an extent this is acknowledged in an independent report to the government
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-energy-independent-review">proposing a set of reforms</a>. In
simple terms, these would see the national transmission grid operator
putting contracts out to tender for new generating capacity, with the
requirement that the winner be able to meet certain levels of demand
when needed. The generating company would then be responsible for
getting the correct mix of generation, storage infrastructure, and
demand management to achieve this, likely via subcontracting.</p>
<p>What we would see, then, is the nation’s electricity supply being
planned in little pieces. The problem is not the presence of
planning, <em>per se</em>, but the fact that it is being done by
unaccountable private firms. The piecemeal nature also prevents
economies of scale, leading to more expensive electricity. Similarly,
it is likely that by planning the grid as a whole we could arrive at a
more optimal solution than planning it as many small units
(<a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/reaction-dieter-helms-least-cost-ideas-for-meeting-the-uk-climate-targets">as critics of the report have noted</a>).</p>
<h3>Labour’s Unfocused Vision</h3>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>What does all of this have to do with Labour?” I hear you
cry. “Didn’t they promise to nationalise the Big 6?” While last year’s
manifesto was often reported that way (including in a breathless
Momentum email after it was leaked), no such promises were made. We
are
<a href="https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/creating-economy-works/#eighth">told that</a>
Labour will “regain control of energy supply networks through the alteration of
operator license conditions, and transition to a publicly owned,
decentralised energy system.” The
<a href="https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/creating-economy-works/#ninth">following steps</a>
are laid out to achieve this:</p>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Regaining control of energy supply networks through the alteration of
the National and Regional Network Operator license conditions.</li>
<li>Supporting the creation of publicly owned, locally accountable energy
companies and co-operatives to rival existing private energy
suppliers, with at least one in every region.</li>
<li>Legislating to permit publicly owned local companies to purchase
the regional grid infrastructure, and to ensure that national and
regional grid infrastructure is brought into public ownership over time.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>The only nationalisation mentioned here is of the grid, and this is
only “over time”. Any energy retailers will have to compete against
the Big 6. Given that “Labour understands that many people don’t have
time to shop around, they just want reliable and affordable energy”,
it is exceptionally odd that their solution is to create a seventh
choice in the market.</p>
<p>Strikingly, absolutely nothing is said about electricity
<em>generation</em>. No commitments are made to buy out existing
power plants and only vague statements are given on ownership of new
infrastructure. We are told that Labour supports new projects
such as carbon capture and storage, renewables, and
nuclear, but not who will own them. The accompanying
<a href="http://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Richer-Britain-Richer-Lives-Labours-Industrial-Strategy.pdf">report on industrial strategy</a>
commits to “support local renewable energy generation” but doesn’t
define what this means. Could “local” include ownership by small
businesses? Would that be any more democratic that ownership by the
Big 6? The report also pledges to continue to support <em>private</em>
development of schemes such as the Swansea tidal lagoon, Hinckley C,
and a potential nuclear power plant at Moorside. Offshore wind
development is endorsed, but no clue is given over ownership,
especially considering no one is particularly “local” to an offshore
wind farm.</p>
<p>Labour has also spoken about encouraging the installation of solar
panels on houses. This idea is technically, socially, and
ideologically unsound. As
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/mar/01/solar-panel-feed-in-tariff">George Monbiot explains</a>,
it is technically unsound because solar panels produce the most
electricity in the summer and the middle of the day, and little or
none at periods of peak demand. It is socially unsound because it
means that those people sufficiently well-off to own a house are given
generous subsidies for solar panels, paid for by higher energy
bills for everyone else. And it is ideologically unsound because it
represents a petty-bourgeois, individualised vision of addressing
climate change, in which power production becomes a literal cottage
industry for which households must take personal responsibility.</p>
<p>Being charitable, it sounds like Labour wants to support the
development of cooperative and local-authority owned renewable energy
sources, rather than seeking national ownership. This is similar to
the approach promoted by the
<a href="https://weownit.org.uk/public-ownership/energy">We Own It</a> campaign
and by
<a href="http://www.psiru.org/sites/default/files/2016-04-E-UK-public.pdf">David Hall</a>
of the University of Greenwich. They point to the success of existing supply
companies like Robin Hood Energy (owned by Nottingham City Council)
and to Germany where “council owned energy companies supply around
half of the market”. They are also enthusiastic about the “democratic”
system of numerous small, locally controlled energy companies which
will bring the “clean, green, decentralised energy future we need”.</p>
<p>It is very odd that public suppliers competing with private ones
is the model offered here, given that most on the Left would reject
that as a half-measure if proposed for the railways. Competition would
probably require the continued operation of the electricity market. It
would certainly prevent full public control over tariff structures, as
anything which benefits the poor at the expense of the rich or
households at the expense of business would simply cause the worse-off
party to switch to a competitor. If we really want to meet people’s
desire for “reliable and affordable energy” without them having to
“shop around”, it would be better to have a single supply company in
any given area, which also operates the distribution grid. This would
likely be more efficient than the competitive market, as it would
prevent needless duplication, advertising, and the bureaucracy needed
to switch suppliers.</p>
<p>However, what I find truly bizarre about these proposals is that
Left-wing people are advocating for energy co-ops. In most sectors, a
co-operative is owned by its employees or its customers. In rural
parts of North America there do exist electricity supply consumer
co-operatives, but this is not what people are talking about
here. Instead, locals would become members of the co-operative by
paying to finance new energy projects. Given how energy is regulated,
it is impossible for them to then buy their power from the co-op, so
instead it sells its power into the market and returns the profits to
its investors as dividends. These are fairly generous dividends at
that: the
<a href="https://brightonenergy.org.uk/">Brighton Energy Co-operative</a> aims to
make a 5% return on investment each year, which is substantially
higher than the cost of servicing public-sector borrowing. Whatever
their talk of “community ownership”, energy co-ops would appear to
have far more in common with Margaret Thatcher’s “share-owning
democracy” than with socialism. We should be seeking to sell energy at
cost, rather than use energy bills as a way to pay a low-risk,
comfortable rate of return to middle class people looking for a
feel-good investment. We certainly should not make participation in
decision-making around energy contingent on being able to pay £300 to
buy shares (the minimum purchase for the Brighton Energy Co-operative).</p>
<h3>The Localist Fantasy</h3>
<p>Even leaving co-ops of this sort aside and assuming that local
authorities will own the generators, there are evident problems with
Labour’s policies. The market is never mentioned here and no proposals
are made for reforms. We are not told how these new democratic energy
companies will interact with each other and with the existing private
components of the market. It is implied that energy will increasingly
be generated locally, allowing for easy democratic control and
bypassing the market. To the extent that energy needs to be imported
from elsewhere, we are forced to conclude it will be sourced from the
energy market more-or-less as it exists now.</p>
<p>This is a problem. Few places in the <span class="caps">UK</span> will ever be self-sufficient
in energy. To generate, on average, <span class="caps">50GW</span> of electricity from wind (this
being roughly equal to current peak demand, which will only grow as we
phase out gas and petrol) would require
<a href="http://www.withouthotair.com/c4/page_33.shtml">covering about 10% of the country</a>
in wind farms. That might not sound like a huge amount, but
considering that
<a href="https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/land-cover-atlas-uk-1.744440">only 6% of the <span class="caps">UK</span> is “built upon”</a>,
the scale of the task quickly becomes apparent. Most people live in
cities, where there is simply not enough room for much energy
generation to be “local” to them.</p>
<p>It gets worse. Those who are against tackling climate change often ask
“what happens when the wind isn’t blowing?” Though arguing in bad
faith, they make a valid point. There is an issue of “intermittency”
in wind, solar, wave, and (to a lesser extent) tidal power. When these
sources are part of a broader mix then other power plants can easily
adjust their output to take the load. However, what happens if half of
your power comes from intermittent sources? What if it’s 100%? What’s
left to take the load? In countries without massive hydroelectric or
geothermal resources it’s not clear that 100% renewable energy is even possible.</p>
<p>One of the answers put forward to address this is the “European
super-grid”, connecting renewable resources in different countries so,
e.g., Danish wind could provide power to the <span class="caps">UK</span> when it is calm over
Britain, and vice versa. This could certainly help with the worst
lulls, although
<a href="http://euanmearns.com/wind-blowing-nowhere/">considerable variability remains</a>. Regardless,
the requirement for not only a national grid but a continental one
clearly cuts against the argument that we can have local energy. We
also hear about the potential of different storage technologies. If
we’re being honest, the only one of these which <em>might</em> be able to
<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261914010290">work on a sufficient scale</a>
is pumped-hydro, which can only operate in certain areas and thus is
inherently non-local for most people. There are suggestions about a
“smart-grid” which can adjust demand to meet supply, but this could
only be a part of the solution and would therefore have to work on the
(supra-)national scale. Maybe we could make everything work if
different renewable energy and storage infrastructure is carefully
selected and sited to compliment each other, but who is going to
coordinate this in a decentralised system? We’d be back to the current
problem of trying to plan the market.</p>
<p>Even leaving the issue of coordination aside, in practice this model
leaves much to be desired. In principle, all of the wind-farms, dams,
solar panels, etc. could be publicly owned by different local
authorities. They could then trade electricity on the national market,
much as happens between the Big 6 now. However, we’re quickly losing
any semblance of local control and accountability, with electricity
coming from the National Grid, purchased on a contract with who-knows
which generating company, who may well have subcontracted to another
company. Gaps would be filled by hedging and buying on the spot
market. The local supply companies would only be able to choose from
what is available on the market and generating companies would only be
able to build what they think they could sell. This market mediation
would seriously encumber democratic decision making.</p>
<h3><span class="dquo">“</span>Local” is not a Synonym for “Democracy”</h3>
<p>I do not see any way to have significant local ownership of
energy production without a national electricity market and all of the
insanity that entails. It would be much more transparent and easier to
understand if we were to develop a national plan for energy (with
local consultation, of course). Generation and transmission would be
owned by a single national Power Generation Board. Distribution and
retail could, if desired, operate on a regional or local level,
leaving some room for local input into exact tariff structures. The
downside to this is that people in low density areas (with greater
infrastructure requirements) will likely end up paying more than those
in big cities. In any case, the big decisions about what sort of
energy we want and where to build the infrastructure are inherently
national in scale. The Left needs to face the fact that only a
centralised model for generation is likely to achieve the economies of
scale and capacity for planning which we will need to get ourselves
off of fossil fuels. Despite the obvious risk that such a centralised
institution would be aloof from local concerns, the improved
transparency of decision-making would still make this the more
democratic approach.</p>
<p>Indeed, conflation of “democratic” with “local” is something we should
be suspicious of. Certainly local control has its place, but that does
not mean it is the best choice in all cases. We need to
examine what we mean when we say something is “democratic”, as was
argued in
<a href="https://bravenewclimate.com/2014/06/11/germany-energiewende-oz-critical-review/">an article</a>
surveying Germany’s famous Energiewende (the name for their attempted
move towards renewable energy):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is interesting the way in which the language of German
environmentalism has become incorporated into an Australian
environmentalist narrative… [It] was the German
[solar energy feed-in-tariff] model that became the template for
small-scale support mechanisms from the 1990s. This became aligned
with the concept of democratised energy, which was imported into
Australia via green groups and solar advocates.</p>
<p>What makes the democracy idea interesting in an Australian context is
that there is little precedent for the concept in relation to
utilities and public services—indeed, Australians generally express
a preference for socialised public services (such as Medicare)…
It is easier for a household to go “off-grid” for their
water supply, for example, yet nobody discusses “the suburban
democratisation of water”….</p>
<p>In contrast, the democratisation of personal transport—motor
cars—is strongly critiqued by green groups in favour of the
socialised model of urban transport—trains and public transport. So
we can see that the “democratised” model is really an opportunistic
use of language—democracy is adopted as a universal virtue and
associated with a value-laden cause, rather than representing a
coherent argument.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One can see parallels and similar inconsistencies in this country.
For example, the Left favours national management of the <span class="caps">NHS</span>, feeling
this to be more accountable and thus “democratic”. Yet, for some
reason, a fragmented and competitive system is viewed as “democratic”
in energy despite it bearing more resemblance to the present Health
and Social Care Act than the vision of the
<a href="http://www.nhsbillnow.org/"><span class="caps">NHS</span> Reinstatement Bill</a>. So, what do we
actually mean by democracy? To me, it means that everyone who is
affected by a decision should be involved in the decision. Some
issues will inherently involve vast numbers of people and therefore
must be dealt with on that scale. Energy is one example of this.</p>
<p>Desire to cut oneself off from other people and be totally
self-sufficient is a hallmark of the lunatic fringe of the
Right. Human beings are social creatures who depend upon
each other for survival. As socialists we acknowledge and embrace
this, fighting for the system managing these inter-dependencies to be
fair, transparent, and democratic. If we want a democratic energy
system, then we must abolish the electricity market and embrace the
accountable, centralised control that entails, rather than retreat
into conservative fantasies of local self-reliance.</p>Oxford & District Labour Party AMM May 20182018-05-10T23:00:00+01:002018-05-10T23:00:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2018-05-10:oxford-district-labour-party-amm-may-2018.html<p>The <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-05-10-amm/amm-10may2018-agenda.docx">agenda for this meeting</a> was
approved. The
anti-semitism motion ws deffered until next meeting (see below). The
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-05-10-amm/amm-9feb2018-minutes.docx">minutes for the February <span class="caps">AMM</span></a>
were approved with minor corrections. <span class="caps">AGM</span> minutes are approved next
year but a brief review was given.</p>
<h2>Matters Arising and Urgent Business</h2>
<p>None.</p>
<h2>Local Elections</h2>
<p>Gained ground among young voters and Greens, while Lib Dem vote went
up in some of the more affluent area. Lost one seat to the Lib
Dems. Lots of thanks for door-knockers, etc. More wards were
campaigned in and more new candidates put forward than ever
before. Best ever result since current wards were created and have
highest share of council seats ever. Campaign organiser
has been offered a permanent position. Increased ethnic diversity and
number of people with disability on the council, while number of women
stayed the same. In Kidlington the Lib Dems and Greens teemed up which
cost us some. Was an issue with housing where Greens said nothing in
the greenbelt, full stop, whereas Labour was more pragmatic. The
Green position was more popular locally. Cherry suggested we may be
able to start making progress in Oxford West and Abingdon, having won
a seat there for the first time. In North ward Oxford sent long
letters whereas Lib Dems had shorter and more memorable
leaflets. Housing is important to keep campaigning on, as that’s what
wins in many areas (even Tories had to pay lip service to it). Asked
for posters explaining why people do telling so people realise why
they’re being asked how they vote and that this means they won’t be
bothered later by door-knockers. Mentioned that Lib Dems are really
good self-publicists and their leaflets can make a really big
difference. In particular, they are very professional looking.</p>
<h2>Parliamentary Report</h2>
<p>Long printed report was provided (as it has been two months since the
last one). Spring Statement (talking about state of the economy)
happened which showed that austerity has not worked, long term
problems persist, growth rates have to be adjusted down, growth rates
poorer than other countries, etc. Labour argues government should look
at these stats and reverse course. Should remove changes to banking
levy (which returns money to profitable banks) and use money for
children’s services. 1/3 of councils are saying they can not properly
provide these statutory services. Want government to look at funds for
local government which have been slashed (claiming they can always
raise council tax, despite them then campaigning against Labour on
this basis). Wrong decision to cut stamp duty for first time buyers,
because without more houses all it does is push up prices. Now need to
develop a more detailed Labour policy on housing (one has now been
released—I remember seeing some on the Left being disappointed by
it). Wants a local event to get people’s expertise involved.</p>
<p>Managed to get a win on tax transparency for overseas
territories. Will mean transparent property registers will now be
required, allowing us to see what oligarchs own things where.</p>
<p>Was a Customs Union vote in Parliament, which passed unanimously
(because Tories boycotted, knowing they would loose—similar thing
happened on Universal Credit). Government is ignoring it. MPs insist
some electronics at the border can sort it out. Cuts to <span class="caps">HMRC</span> would
make it very difficult to implement new customs control as well.</p>
<p>She knew of Windrush, having helped some constituents with it. Have
managed to get some people out of trouble, but setting up a special
surgery to try to get in contact with <em>everyone</em>. Want an enquiry to
find out exactly how this happened, who’s been deported, etc.</p>
<p>Treasury team is trying to develop the plans for government and this
will continue over summer. Locally she hopes we can develop links with
other councils and constituencies to help more marginal areas get elected. </p>
<p>Question on whether the finance team could try to come up with ways to
continue the Iran agreement without (in spite of) <span class="caps">US</span>. Alternative
currencies to buy oil? Emily Thornberry spoke very harshly about it
and we should continue to support it but need to think in practical
terms. Banks are nervous about having activity in countries with <span class="caps">US</span>
sanctions. Anneliese will try to raise the issue in Parliament.</p>
<p>I asked about member involvement in policy formation. Deferred to Ann
on <span class="caps">NPF</span> process. Shadow Treasury policy making does have various events
which can be attended. Will be a state of the economy event next
Friday. Mentioned that manifesto was popular so feels there is a
mandate to develop that further, but member consultation obviously
needed when new directions taken. Ann agreed that <span class="caps">NPF</span> documents were
not useful but pledged to improve things as newly elected chair.</p>
<p>Someone asked about children denied free school meals if in immigrant
family. Labour government on these issues and how government
accounting works in this regard.</p>
<p>Question on what Labour will do to commemorate anniversary of
Grenfell. Planning is underway on this. Wants to focus on changing the
system so fire can’t happen again and survivors will be properly
looked after. Government not giving straight answers on fire
regulations and whether they apply to private housing. Also refusing
to pay councils that have replaced flammable cladding.</p>
<p>Someone asked what an adequate response to Windrush would
be. Compensation is being mentioned, but that doesn’t seem
sufficient. No one listened to those speaking out about the issue and
it took investigative journalists to bring it out. Referenced a few
good speeches in Parliament we should listen to (David Lamb, Dianne
Abbott, someone else). Reports of how awful and arbitrary the Home
Office is. Any compensation will have to cover less tangible losses
(health, broken families, etc.). Most important thing is to find out
how it happened and make sure Amber Rudd isn’t just the scapegoat. It
was Theresa May who was the architect of the system and she seems to
be getting away with it.</p>
<h2>Oxford East <span class="caps">NPF</span></h2>
<p>Tom Hayes (not the Momentum candidate) won the vote 26-13.</p>
<h2>Party Democracy Review</h2>
<p><a href="DemReview2.docx">A report</a> from the meeting we had on Part <span class="caps">II</span> of the
review was submitted to the party.</p>
<p>We broke into groups to discuss electing the leadership (from party 3
of the review). We were given a set of questions to consider. There
were a couple, for if we had the time, dealing with the <span class="caps">NEC</span>. However,
there is absolutely no mention of policy formation. Ann explained that
this is because it’s something most people understand and there are a
small number of finite options on which we can vote. Groups will
discuss it and propose any other options they can think of after we
reconvene, then vote on it.</p>
<p>In the meeting we decided on:</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="caps">OMOV</span>, with some people emphasising the role for trade unionists</li>
<li>A percentage of MPs/CLPs with CLPs having equivalent status</li>
<li>Overall voted against registered supporters 33-24 (didn’t split
cleanly along left/right lines)</li>
<li>No vote on how much registered supporters pay, due to previous</li>
<li>Multiple suggestions that only those who were members when
leadership election called should vote in it,
which ultimately won 39-19 (latter for no qualifying period)</li>
</ul>
<p>Surprised to see John Tanner opting for the less democratic choices.</p>
<h2>Motions</h2>
<h3>Trans women and all-women shortlists</h3>
<p>The motion we passed at <span class="caps">SWC</span> branch finally came to the debate. John
Tanner spoke for it as proposer. Liz seconded and also spoke,
emphasising we want to forward it to the relevant section of the
party. Ann said <span class="caps">NEC</span> will be trying to come up with new wording to
satisfy all involved. She will take the motion to the meeting in the
spirit it was submitted. Two spoke in support, none against. Passed unanimously.</p>
<h3>Anti-semitism motion</h3>
<p>Ann felt there were so many amendments to (each different) that it was
worth passing it back to the proposers and the amenders, to try to get
it reformed and with no more than two amendments. We will vote on it
next time. The party’s General Secretary sent some
<a href="ant-semitism.docx">guiding notes</a> to all <span class="caps">CLP</span> secretaries for
discussing this topic.</p>
<h2>Executive Committee Report</h2>
<p>We received minutes from the last <span class="caps">EC</span> meeting. Stephen Marks announced
an economics day school on 23 June, which is mentioned in the
minutes. Will be looking at childcare as a generator of jobs and
the topic of precarious work.</p>
<p>Agreed next meeting will be on 14th June (in Abingdon) and then 13th
of July.</p>The Implications of Portugal for a Renewal of Social Democracy2018-03-18T02:30:00+00:002018-03-18T02:30:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2018-03-18:the-implications-of-portugal-for-a-renewal-of-social-democracy.html<p>For some time I’ve been curious about what’s been happening with of
the Left-supported social democratic government in Portugal. It struck
me as the best argument against my suspicion that a classical social
democratic government are not possible within capitalism today. This
was brought to the fore the other day when a Portuguese member of the
Labour Party in Oxford posted a link on the local Momentum Facebook
group to a pamphlet called
<a href="http://www.feps-europe.eu/assets/8fe67afb-3ddd-4ccf-b35e-baa2ece549df/book-portugal-dec2017-web-pppdf.pdf"><em>The Portuguese Government Solution: The “Fourth Way” to Social-Democratic Politics?</em></a>. This
was produced by a European social democratic think-tank
(<span class="caps">FEPS</span>—Foundation for European Progressive Studies) looking at the
model provided by the Socialist Party government in Portugal and
suggesting this shows “that there is a way for these parties to
reaffirm a left-wing agenda within the <span class="caps">EU</span>”.</p>
<figure><img alt="Catarina Martins and prime minister António Costa, leaders of the Portuguese radical left party Bloco de Esquerda and the social democratic Socialist Party, respectively." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/Catarina-Martins-e-António-Costa.jpg"/><figcaption>Catarina Martins and prime minister António Costa, leaders of the Portuguese radical left party Bloco de Esquerda and the social democratic Socialist Party, respectively.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The document explains how in 2015 the right wing government which had
been pursuing fierce austerity lost its overall majority in parliament
(while still remaining the largest party). The Socialist Party (<span class="caps">PS</span>)
chose not to support them or to enter a grand coalition, instead
opting to form a minority government with the support of the radical
Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc) and the orthodox Communist Party of
Portugal (as well as the latter’s close allies, the Greens). While
there were large areas of disagreement between these parties, they
were able to unite around policies which reversed course on austerity
while respecting <span class="caps">EU</span> rules. Representatives of <span class="caps">PS</span> say that this was
largely consistent with what they had run on in the election, except
with the implementation of some policies accelerated. They have since
celebrated the success of this government, claiming it has functioned
far more smoothly than anyone expected. The economy has started
growing again while the deficit has fallen to within <span class="caps">EU</span>-sanctioned
levels. The government is popular, with support for <span class="caps">PS</span> growing
significantly and support for the juniour partners staying relatively stable.</p>
<p>I had read a fair bit about the situation in Portugal when this
government was formed in late 2015, but had not heard much
since. Nonetheless, much of what I was now reading ran counter to the
more critical line I remembered coming from members of Bloco. As such,
I read the report with a great deal of scepticism. One thing which I
noticed, in particular, was how modest most of the measures enacted by
the government were. By and large, they were simply reversing some of
the worst policies of the previous government, doing little to
actually implement new progressive measjres. Personally, I would
question whether that really amounts to a repudiation of the Third Way
and a return to social democracy’s roots, as the <span class="caps">PS</span> claims.</p>
<p>I was very interested to hear Bloco’s side of the story. I started by
rereading some of the
<a href="(https://jacobinmag.com/2015/11/bloco-esquerda-portugal-silva-ps-pcp-be-austerity-merkel-troika)">material produced in 2015</a>. These
contradcited on a number of assertions made by the <span class="caps">FEPS</span> report,
starting with the idea that the <span class="caps">PS</span> had campaigned on ending
austerity. Bloco members claimed that <span class="caps">PS</span> had run a
contradictory campaign and ran on policies similar to those of their
right wing opponents. As such, it was
<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/10/left-bloc-portugal-austerity-social-democracy">initially expected</a>
that they would support a minority right wing government. In fact, it
seems to be a running theme that Bloco was overly pessimistic about
the prospects for a left government. They didn’t expect <span class="caps">PS</span> to be
interested in trying to build one, then they didn’t expect <span class="caps">PS</span> to agree
to their demands, and then they assumed that fulfilling even these
modest demands would quickly require defying <span class="caps">EU</span> budgetary rules and
collapse the government. In all of this they have been proven wrong.</p>
<p>What I really wanted to learn, though, was how the situation had
progressed since then. Unfortunately, much of the international
left-wing websites are very good about reporting on developments when
something exciting like an election happen, while very bad at letting
us know what actually comes of those events. After a bit of digging I
found an
<a href="https://www.freitag.de/autoren/der-freitag/die-austeritaet-ist-eine-grosse-luege">interview with Bloco’s leader</a>,
Catarina Martins, from sometime last year. While published in German,
Google Translate proved sufficiently advanced for me to get a good
grasp of what was said. It is clear that Martins views the
government’s achievements as extremely limited. She points out that
most of what it has done has simply been to stop the implementation of
new austerity and reverse some of what had already been applied, as I
noted earlier. She does not consider Portugal to have a left
government, as action has been woefully inadequate to address the deep
problems facing the country and been unable to undo the effects of austerity.</p>
<p>This was an interesting corrective, but didn’t provide the deep level
of analysis I was looking for to contrast with the <em>The Portuguese
Government Solution</em>. After some rooting around on the
<a href="https://www.rosalux.de/en/">Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung</a> website, I
eventually found an English-language report written by Bloco and Die
Linke activist Catarina Príncipe (whom I hold in high regard as a
leftist commentator). This report, titled
<a href="https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/sonst_publikationen/Politics_of_Toleration_Portugal.pdf"><em>Anti-Austerity and the Politics of Toleration in Portugal: A way for the Radical Left to develop a transformative project?</em></a>
explains the government experience from Bloco’s point of view; indeed,
although I am not certain of this, possibly from the perspective of
someone on the left of Bloco.</p>
<p>This report provides background on the pre-2015 political situation in
Portugal which complements that of <span class="caps">FEPS</span>. Once again, Príncipe
emphasised how Bloco had not expected a deal to be reached to support
a <span class="caps">PS</span> government. As such, they were on the back foot during
negotiations. Claims by the <span class="caps">PS</span> that they had always supported many of
policies demanded by the left parties are cast into doubt. Príncipe
suggests that many of these they were pushed by Bloco and the
Communists against great resistance from <span class="caps">PS</span>. While the government has
introduced some progressive measures, it was pointed out that Bloco
has not been completely successful in preventing new privatisation,
particularly of banks which were bailed out by the state at massive
cost to the public purse. Though not stated outright, other reading I
have done suggests that <span class="caps">EU</span> pressure contributed to those
privatisations. It is noted that the <span class="caps">EU</span> demanded new cuts in some
areas to offset increased social spending, while <span class="caps">NATO</span> insisted on an
increase in the military budget.</p>
<p>Príncipe also present a considerably less optimistic view of the state
of the economy in Portugal. She points out that while the revival is
partially due to citizens now having more spending power, it is also
heavily dependent on external factors such as an increase in tourism
and the low price of oil. Crucially, it is the result of unused
economic capacity being utilised once again and not of new
investment. In
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-132-blocos-modern-life-81217">an interview</a>
(starts at 24:56) she says that public investment is extremely low,
with the funds instead being used for increases in current
expenditure. Likewise, there has been little investment in the private
sector. This contradicts claims made in the <span class="caps">FEPS</span> report, although some
of their investment figures are in terms of year-on-year percent
increases and could be hiding a very low starting point. Príncipe
feels that the lack of investment and precarious state of the
financial sector leaves Portugal’s economy vulnerable. Should there be
a new downturn or crisis, she predicts that the <span class="caps">PS</span> and the <span class="caps">EU</span> will
quickly insist on the return to austerity in order to balance
budgets. Of course, she had also predicted that they would not agree
even to their current policy.</p>
<p>The report ends with an assessment of Bloco’s strategy, as well as
some notes on the relation of the Left to the <span class="caps">EU</span>. While acknowledging
that Bloco had little choice but to support the <span class="caps">PS</span> government,
Príncipe is clearly uncomfortable with parts of the direction her
party has taken. At times this comes across quite clearly in the
above-mentioned interview. She believes the party must be reoriented
away from an overly parliamentary focus and seek to build the capacity
to fully challenge austerity and even capitalism.</p>
<p>There are some areas of clear contradiction between the two accounts,
particularly around the <span class="caps">PS</span>’s electoral campaign and levels of
investment in the Portuguese economy. Not being able to read
Portuguese, I’m unable to properly assess who is correct in these
areas. Overall, however, I find Príncipe’s account of the situation to
be the more convincing one. Of course, that may just be because it
agrees more with my preconceived notions.</p>
<p>So, what are the consequences for a Labour government trying to
implement something like the
<a href="https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/">2017 election manifesto</a> in the <span class="caps">UK</span>?
That manifesto was, after-all, essentially just a return to mild
social democracy (although John McDonnell’s
<a href="https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Alternative-Models-of-Ownership.pdf">Alternative Models of Ownership</a>
report starts to point in some more radical directions). In one
regard, at least, Labour will have it easier: even in the <span class="caps">EU</span>, the <span class="caps">UK</span>
retains more control of its monetary and fiscal policy than Portugal
by virtue of not being in the Euro. On the other hand, there are a
number of extra difficulties. For one, the <span class="caps">PS</span> has implemented this program
with Bloco and the Communists in parliament holding their feet to the
fire. Labour would have no such anti-capitalist left force keeping
them accountable. On the contrary, they would have a rump of
right-wing MPs who may well defy party discipline and vote against
even mildly progressive measures.</p>
<p>Labour’s program would also go considerably further than what has been
done in Portugal, to include much greater increases in social spending
and some nationalisation. These measures are more likely to antagonise
capital, with the <span class="caps">CBI</span>
<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/labour-nationalisation-hard-brexit-cbi-president-paul-dreschler-a8252136.html">already denouncing</a>
the latter and claiming they would deter investment. Perhaps this is
just an empty threat (there was plenty of such rhetoric during the
formation of the <span class="caps">PS</span> government), but perhaps not. British capital is
very powerful, after all, and has often defeated measures which its
European counterparts accommodated themselves to. What’s more, while
the <span class="caps">PS</span> remains very much an establishment party whose leaders are
trusted by Portuguese and European capital, the same can not be said
of the current Labour leadership. As such, capital may be particularly
unwilling to tolerate progressive measures coming from Corbyn and McDonnell.</p>
<p>But most of all, we must remember how vulnerable the Portuguese
government is. If Príncipe is to be believed, the economic recovery
has been contingent on factors outside of their control. Should the
economy sour, the entire project of “turning the page on austerity”
would be at risk. Labour might find there is suddenly no room to
implement their mild social democratic program if there is a recession
in the <span class="caps">UK</span>. Given the sickly state of the British economy and the
uncertainty surrounding Brexit, a recession could certainly
happen. There is no indication that the sort of soft end to austerity
practised in Portugal would be able to counteract it. On the contrary,
I’m inclined to believe that only a more radical left project which
started to look at asserting public control over investment decisions
would be able to prevent the return of austerity.</p>
<p>So, while the Portuguese experience may suggest a bit more room for
social democracy than I expected, I still don’t think there is all
that much.</p>Oxford & District Labour Party AGM 20182018-03-09T23:00:00+00:002018-03-09T23:00:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2018-03-09:oxford-district-labour-party-agm-2018.html<p>The <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-03-09-agm/agm-9mar2018-agenda.docx">agenda for this meeting</a> was
approved (with national nominations moved ahead to give extra time for
counting) as were the
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-03-09-agm/agm17min.docx">minutes for the previous <span class="caps">AGM</span></a>. </p>
<p>Note that votes on officers, nominations, etc. were done by
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-03-09-agm/agm-9mar2018-dels.docx">branch delegates</a>
only. <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-03-09-agm/agm18-rules.docx">Full rules</a> for the <span class="caps">AGM</span> were sent
in advance.</p>
<h2>Matters Arising and Urgent Business</h2>
<p>None.</p>
<h2>National Nominations</h2>
<p>These were moved ahead to give more time to count ballots (unanimously
approved). Late arrivals will be able to submit ballots right until
the originally scheduled time. See the
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-03-09-agm/agm18-nc-nominations.docx">list of candidates</a> to the
national positions, with candidate statements and lists of those
nominating them to the <span class="caps">AGM</span>.</p>
<h2>Treasurer’s Report</h2>
<p>Had £15k more income than anticipated, due to the general
election. About £5k more was spent than expected due to the election,
although lost the organiser so savings on payroll. Surplus of £9000,
although £3000 deferred expenditure to pay salary of
organiser. Surplus largely due to large donation from a
union. Projecting balanced budget for this year. Increased income
donated by Labour Group of councillors. More money will be spent on
conference delegates (sending two per <span class="caps">CLP</span>, rather than one). Want to
keep things reasonably solid so can do the campaigning they want
without having to worry about cost. Accounts unanimously approved.</p>
<h2>Officers’ Report</h2>
<p><a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-03-09-agm/agm18-officers-reports.docx">These reports</a> were sent in
advance (I didn’t read them). The chair gave a brief summary of her
report. She was pleased to fight on a “socialist” manifesto and see
how popular it was. She was pleased at how all of the 10 key positions
in the local party/government are filled by women. Thanked retiring
council leader. Congratulated equalities commission and diverse slate
of candidates, though we can’t rest on our laurels. Talked about how
to broaden support and campaign beyond canvassing. Talked about
needing to be welcoming to everyone and respectful of all views. Team
will try to be inclusive. Thanked Ann Black for her hard work.</p>
<p>No objections to the reports.</p>
<h2>Amendments to Rules and Standing Orders</h2>
<p>Andrew Smith proposed
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-03-09-agm/agm18-camp-comm-members.docx">changes to campaign committee</a>,
though Ann spoke on it. Only meets 3 times a year and operates on
ad-hoc basis, but has become something of a club of friends. Want to
formalise it. Spending decisions will be OKed by the <span class="caps">GM</span>. All branches
will now send representatives. No questions or challenges were made
and it was passed overwhelmingly.</p>
<h2>Election of Officers and Delegates</h2>
<p>We were sent a
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-03-09-agm/agm18-nominations.docx">list of nominated candidates</a> in
advance. More detailed
<a href="agm18-candidates-statements.docx">candidate statements</a> were also provided.</p>
<p>Almost all officer posts were uncontested. One of the challengers for the <span class="caps">BAME</span>
Officer withdrew, so that is no longer contested (Momentum candidates
winning by default). We will hear speeches from trade union
officer. At least one conference delegate must be female. Conference
delegates are elected by first past the post (<span class="caps">FPTP</span>). Luke Akehurst asked
about run-off voting and said it should be done this way in
future. Ann Black rebuked him as having ample opportunity to raise
such a procedural issue and <span class="caps">FPTP</span> has always been used in the past so
it’s not like it’s a surprise.</p>
<p>Mark Ladbroke (incumbent) spoke about how trade unionists are transformative and
how nice it is to be in a position which allows him to work with those
who are actually fighting back. Has worked on living wage campaign,
including with competitor. Said up to Peter if wants to continue
working jointly with him in future.</p>
<p>Peter Nowland who I don’t recognise) said would
like to work with Mark to get unions back into workplaces fighting for
better conditions.</p>
<p>Unclear whether were proposing job-sharing. Ann seemed to indicate it
would be working together on a more informal basis, as they had not
been nominated on a jobshare. At last minute the two candidates did
agree to jobshare, so no contested positions.</p>
<p>Couldn’t be bothered to take detailed notes on conference delegate
speeches. Some were obvious Corbynites, some were obvious
anti-Corbynites. Most were a bit more guarded on these issues. I
already knew who were the Momentum candidates.</p>
<h2>Oxford City Labour Group</h2>
<p><a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-03-09-agm/agm18-oxford-city-council-report.pdf">This report</a> was
emailed sent with the email. The council leader was here to take any
questions, but there didn’t appear to be any.</p>
<h2>Oxfordshire County Labour Group</h2>
<p>The report was supposed to have been sent in advance, but I couldn’t
find it. The leader of the group wasn’t here, but a councillor was
present to take questions. She started by noting that the group
managed to get £500k maintained in homelessness services. Also that
voted against Tory idea of giving some new central government money to
councillors to administer, instead wanting it to go to children’s services.</p>
<h2>Parliamentary Report</h2>
<p>Anneliese’s printed report didn’t seem to make it to me, somehow. She started
by mentioning the Oxfam crisis, as they are a major employer in the
city. Employees admitted bad mistakes were made, but expressed concern
that the Right is using it as an excuse to gut foreign aid,
particularly where it involves more political charities such as
Oxfam. The minister claims no weaponisation of the issue, but
Anneliese feels this is not her experience. Also stressed that lessons
need to be learned beyond just the charity structure.</p>
<p>Reiterated that Corbyn has committed to membership of “a” customs
union, saying she thinks this is the right decision and what she hoped
Labour would move to. Also campaigning against the government using
Brexit as an attempt to grab power and avoid parliamentary
scrutiny. Recently the government has tried to water down anti-money
laundering laws and Anneliese thinks they might be able to pull some
Tories towards them on this.</p>
<p>Shadow treasury team is preparing for spring statement. Supposedly
will be no changes to spending etc. in it, but will reveal the bad
state of the economy. Tories will try to spin it as not as bad as
everyone thought, but it is still bad. Hoping can use this as an
opportunity to push them on council funding. Cuts to taxes benefiting
companies and the rich were made at the same time council funding was
drastically cut. Those decisions will have long-term costs for our communities.</p>
<p>John Tanner asked when Labour will come out in favour of single market
membership. Anneleise felt the <span class="caps">UK</span> will be “rule-takers” whether in
single market or not. Seems to indicate single market membership is
her preferred option.</p>
<p>Someone else asked whether the number of Tory councils facing
bankruptcy might force the government to soften its
approach. Apparently MPs are trying to bring this up with
Conservatives. They just say “councils can raise council tax”, which
is cynical for obvious reasons. Would mean those on low income would
be paying for central government tax.</p>
<p>Was a question on homelessness; something about it’s relation to
national policy. Theresa May seemed to be trying to spin action as
helping with homelessness, nut planning bill doesn’t really change
power imbalance between councils and developers. Trying to give
free-market solutions to a problem that requires public action.</p>
<p>Someone from student union asked about what Labour is doing locally
and nationally to support <span class="caps">UCU</span> strike. Anneleise noted how she was a
lecturer and as, a student, managed to get <span class="caps">USS</span> ethically invested. As
such she is appalled by what <span class="caps">UUK</span> is doing to it now. Has been asked to
sign an early day motion on this, but as a front-bencher she has to be
told to do so by whips. She hopes she will be allowed to sign it soon.</p>
<p>Someone brought up university hospitals where, in exchange for 2% pay
rise for next 3 years staff are being asked not to take annual
leave. This, of course, is leading to even deeper
demoralisation. Labour feared this sort of thing when Tories formally
removed pay cap a few months ago. In any case, that’s a
below-inflation pay rise. Where pay rises do occur, it seems to come
out of services, but Labour has shown that cancelling tax cuts would
allow everyone to have proper raises. She met with <span class="caps">CCG</span> recently but
stressed they are between a rock and a hard place. Conservatives
claiming problems in Oxford are just down to local management not
adopting Tory policies is absurd. Someone pointed out lots of people
are doing unpaid work already and Anneliese agreed the <span class="caps">NHS</span> is just
running on goodwill and if there were work to rule the whole thing
would fall apart.</p>
<h2>Motions</h2>
<h3>Eastern Ghouta</h3>
<p>Ann acted as proposer because the proposers in the branch
were absent. This was asking Corbyn to condemn Assad’s action in one
region. I don’t know what to think of this one, given that it’s a war
against <span class="caps">ISIS</span>, etc.</p>
<p>Someone spoke against (also did so at branch, but was caught by
surprise then). He said he knows this was tabled with good intentions,
but believes that in the context we should oppose it. Said Boris
Johnson is threatening airstrikes in Syria and Trump wants to start a
war somewhere. Had two parliamentary debates on action in Syria over
last few years. This motion would help provide a pretext for western
bombing. Said these are the kinds of arguments which led to disaster
in Iraq and Libya.</p>
<p>Someone said “we need to do something”, which I find unconvincing.</p>
<p>Another person insisted this does not provide a pretext for
international intervention. Said Assad is responsible for the vast
majority of civilian casualties, according to Amnesty International.</p>
<p>Luke Akehurst said in motions we should vote for what is written on
paper. No reason not to vote for calling for immediate ceasefires and
humanitarian corridors. Only military intervention mentioned in motion
is that of Russia.</p>
<p>Someone claimed motion is completely unbalanced for condemning what
Russia is doing but not Al Queda for controlling regions and refusing
to let civilians leave. Felt is was one-sided because of this.</p>
<p>Didn’t count number in favour. 11 against and “more than a dozen
abstentions”. I abstained, feeling I had insufficient knowledge to
judge. Passed overwhelmingly. I couldn’t quite tell, but I think some
Momentum members voted for.</p>
<h3><span class="caps">NHS</span></h3>
<p>Jane Stockton spoke as mover for this, noting that she hopes it isn’t
controversial. Calls on party at local level to act against 5 year
plan for <span class="caps">NHS</span> and introduction of “accountable care
organisations”. Labour-controlled bodies mentioned in the motion, such
as the city council, have the power to call for changes to be
halted and reviewed at a higher level. This is in line with national
policy. We need to act now to prevent damage being done before Labour
makes it into power. In other areas nearby we have seen such action be
successful. Have failed to halt privatisation and downgrades, so must
do more.</p>
<p>A speaker (consultant at the hospitals) emphasised that narrative we
hear of needing to carry out central government policy is false. In
other areas there has been management resistance, but needs to be
popular pressure.</p>
<p>No one wanted to speak against. Passed unanimously.</p>
<h3>Immigration</h3>
<p>This motion called for proper debate in
the party on immigration and the different types of immigration. Was
based on a discussion in the branch. Couldn’t really do a complicated
issue like this through a simple motion. Want to use leavers of the
party (<span class="caps">NPF</span>, etc.) to get a proper discussion going, with goal of
bringing something to Conference in 2019. Pointed out that for most
people immigration is a secondary issue. Speaker says Labour should be
a party that welcomes immigrants, but need a proper policy on it.</p>
<p>Someone spoke against language which suggests good immigrants and bad
immigrants and proposed that sentence be removed. Another felt motion
was poorly worded, unclear, and can reproduce negative ideas on
<span class="caps">UK</span>. Pointed out a number of problematic sentences. Felt motion
emphasised what is good for country (vague) but not what’s good for
immigrants. Said language of compassion is in contradiction with
continuing to support border regimes. Wants to have free
movement (what with “migration crisis”) paid for by taxing the global
rich. More people wanted to speak against, but standing orders seemed
to require any additional speakers to be in favour for reasons of balance.</p>
<p>In the end, John Tanner asked for motion to be returned to branch to
remove problematic wording. This was accepted.</p>
<h2>Results of Elections and Nominations</h2>
<p>For Oxford East conference delegates there was a 3-way tie between
Becky, Dan, and Marie, so we had to do a revote. Results were somewhat
delayed as they were not finished yet.</p>
<p>While we waited we heard from the taxi driver (can’t remember name and
don’t see it written down) who was fired for being a trade union shop
steward. Reported on how his tribunal over this was a failure. Will be
launching an appeal.</p>
<p>Both CLPs nominated the entire left slate for <span class="caps">NEC</span> (plus Ann
Black). Oxford East for <span class="caps">NPF</span> had 3 of the left slate but a recount is
needed for the last one (youth is uncontested). West <span class="caps">NPF</span> nominations
were also left slate. Oxford East conference delegates: Becky and a
tie between Dan and Marie. There was a runoff, but at the end of the
meeting there was still a tie. Since some delegates had left by the,
the <span class="caps">GM</span> decided (by popular request) to look at whether they could
afford to send all 3. In West, at least one and possibly both of the
Momentum candidates were chosen as delegates.</p>
<p>I missed this result on the night but I found out the next day that
bot CLPs voted against nominating an <span class="caps">NCC</span> candidate. Only a candidate
from the right was on the ballot, so this is what Momentum wanted in
order that we’ll have a chance to nominate someone from the left at
the next meeting.</p>
<p>We were sent <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-03-09-agm/results.zip">official results</a> the next day.</p>Oxford & District Labour Party AMM February 20182018-02-09T23:00:00+00:002018-02-09T23:00:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2018-02-09:oxford-district-labour-party-amm-february-2018.html<p><a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-02-09-amm/amm-12jan2018-minutes.docx">Minutes of last meeting</a> were
approved, as was the <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-02-09-amm/amm-9feb2018-agenda.docx">agenda for this meeting</a>.</p>
<p>At start of the meeting we had to decide whether to debate a motion on
the <span class="caps">NHS</span> or on Haringey (both submitted by the same branch). Haringey
was selected.</p>
<h2>Giampi Alhadeff, Speaking on Brexit</h2>
<p>General secretary of the European Parliamentary Labour Party. Started with lots of waffle, country divided, etc. Identified 4 issues:</p>
<ol>
<li>The union of the <span class="caps">UK</span> (due to the Northern Ireland situation),
especially with the Good Friday agreement.</li>
<li>Jobs and prosperity. Was at lots of <span class="caps">WTO</span> summits (including Seattle)
and the negotiators are tough. Trade with other countries will hurt
British sectors, losing jobs. Can’t make up <span class="caps">EU</span> trade with overseas
trade. Any international business will move out (according to
Japanese Ambassador)</li>
<li>Health <span class="amp">&</span> safety, workers’ rights, and the environment. This is what
the right-wingers talk about when they mean “red tape”. Want a
Singapore for European (which won’t happen, but anyway). <span class="caps">UK</span> will
diverge with <span class="caps">EU</span> as latter introduces new laws.</li>
<li>Big issues facing the world: China developing internationally,
Russia and its meddling abroad, climate change, artificial
intelligence (peace, business, war, etc.)</li>
</ol>
<p>Leaving the <span class="caps">EU</span> will impact the <span class="caps">UK</span>’s ability to deal with these
issues. It will address them but the <span class="caps">UK</span> won’t have a voice.</p>
<p>Problem for Labour is 2/3 or members want to remain while 2/3 of
constituencies want to leave. He believes Labour must say that regions
which voted leave will be hit hardest, so let’s remain.</p>
<h2>Brexit Motion</h2>
<p>A range of views on this. I pointed out some of the downsides of the
<span class="caps">EU</span>. It was amended to remove the talk of a second referendum. The
motion now reads “This meeting believes that the Labour Party’s policy
on Brexit should be to remain in the Customs Union”. This was
overwhelmingly carried
with about 17 votes against and 15 abstentions. Many questioned what
the point of the motion was given that the customs union doesn’t exist
as an institution. Liz noticed that a lot of Momentum people voted for
the motion.</p>
<h2>Parliamentary Report from Anneliese Dodds</h2>
<p>Praised that we had such a passionate but still civil debate on
Brexit. Thinks party should press harder on the customs union issue
because government is currently week on that, especially with the <span class="caps">EU</span>
expressing doubts about the whole situation in Ireland. Has been
arguing in parliament to support at least <em>a</em> and possibly <em>the</em>
customs union so that Tories will split on it. Also wants to maintain
unity, as election could be coming earlier than expected.</p>
<p>Managed to get a vote against a tax treaty rejected, as these are used
for tax avoidance (in the guise of international aid). A few similar
bills which were coming up seem to have vanished… Also pushing
transparency for trust. Other <span class="caps">EU</span> countries are coming out against that
but not the <span class="caps">UK</span>. The lack of transparency is abused for money
laundering, etc. Dealing with some tax issues, particularly how
raising the income tax threshold has <em>not</em> (as the government likes to
pretend) solved poverty. Cuts to benefits have had a much bigger
impact. Pushing on the <span class="caps">NHS</span> as the winter crisis is far worse than in
previous years. Sent out an emergency budget for health which showed
where money could be found to help address these issues. Managed to
get a requirement that homes be fit for habitation, now need to make
sure tenants can actually exercise those rights.</p>
<p>Some discussion of Helen and Douglas House (a local hospice). It seems
to be having to close a lot of services because there is no public
money going into it. Talk about trying to get the <span class="caps">CCG</span> to reconsider
given the situation. Meeting gave unanimous permission to send a
letter in our name.</p>
<h2>Motions</h2>
<h3>Afrin</h3>
<p>Materials were circulated about this. Basically this is Turkey
attacking the Kurdish, <span class="caps">YPG</span>-controlled areas in northern Syria. Lots of
war crimes, civilian deaths, targeting of women. No one from
international community has spoken up, so the drafter put forward this
motion. Turkey seems to be trying to annex and ethnically cleanse
it. Boris Johnson has effectively supported the invasion saying
Turkey has a right to keep its borders secure. Emotional pleas to
help. One speaker checked to ensure her ammendment noting how the <span class="caps">UK</span>
is a <span class="caps">NATO</span> member was included (it was) and anther spoke in favour. The
motion was unanimously carried.</p>
<h3>Haringey and the <span class="caps">NEC</span></h3>
<p>Pointed out how <span class="caps">HDV</span> is a continuation of the disastrous privatisation
agenda which Labour now opposes. Haringey’s attempt at the <span class="caps">HDV</span> split
the council and went against CLPs, MPs, unions. <span class="caps">NEC</span> intervened on
behalf of councillors and union members in a very measured
manner. This was all within party rules. Critics have gained massive
coverage in the media, so important to put our views forward. Dan
seconded and drew attention to how broad the opposition to the <span class="caps">HDV</span>
is. Motion through the <span class="caps">NEC</span> was unanimously supported (after an
amendment). Luke Akehurst spoke against, claiming not because he
supported <span class="caps">HDV</span> but because the it fell within spectrum of allowable
policies to be decided on a local level. Nonetheless seemed to speak
in support of the <span class="caps">HDV</span>. Claims new council houses, even under Labour,
will be built privately. Another person said it wasn’t our place to
stick the oar in. Others pointed out that our council leader was one
of those condemning the <span class="caps">NEC</span>, making it our business. Overwhelmingly
carried with 6 against and 20 abstentions. </p>
<h3>Rough sleeping</h3>
<p>Cherry informed me a row is brewing over the provision of this to open
shelters when even one night is predicted to be below freezing (rather
than 3 consecutive nights). The Labour Club says won’t support any
candidates failing to support this, while the council is saying won’t
support candidates who are in favour of it. Momentum councillors (and
prospective councillors) are willing to break rank on this, but best
to get this through at the <span class="caps">CLP</span> level to try to force council’s
hand. Richard presented the Southwest Central motion on rough
sleeping. Made a positive case for it, emphasised working with
council, not trying to be confrontational. A Momentum member
(forgotten her name) proposed ammendments supporting rights of
“non-statutory homeless” and civil rights of homeless, which Richard
accepted. These were accepted. Deputy-leader of the council
spoke. Says will be a church open for rough sleepers every night
through January to March. To date have had enough capacity. Says <span class="caps">SWEP</span>
is inefficient way of doing things and could make it difficult to
extend current scheme. Will still vote for motion, but shouldn’t get
too caught up on <span class="caps">SWEP</span>. Unanimously carried.</p>
<h2>Executive Committee Report</h2>
<p>We were sent the <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-02-09-amm/ec-minutes-18jan2018.docx">full report</a> in
advance. Advertised dinner with Keir Starmer. Unfair dismissal rally
tomorrow in support of <span class="caps">GMB</span> taxi drivers, marching from city council to
Osney. Speakers on Afrin offering to speak at branch
meetings. Finally, were some forms to join Labour Movement for Europe
(I did not sign up).</p>
<h2><span class="caps">NEC</span> Report</h2>
<p>Left as had to leave to let cold weather shelters set up. In advance
we were sent one report by
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-02-09-amm/nec-jan2018-annblack.docx">Ann Black</a> and another by
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2018-02-09-amm/nec-jan2018-petewillsman.docx">Pete Willsman</a>.</p>Inequality is in the Air2017-12-16T17:40:00+00:002017-12-16T17:40:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2017-12-16:inequality-is-in-the-air.html<p><img alt="The rich don't have to deal with this when they fly..." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/economylounge.jpg"/>
It’s been the time of year for flying. First I travelled from the <span class="caps">UK</span>
to a conference and then home to Canada for Christmas. Oh
flying… There have been some many advances in the last few
years. You arrive at the airport to be greeted by friendly staff who
quickly and efficiently check your suitcases. Because you got there
ahead of schedule, you’re offered a seat on an earlier flight which
you happily accept. You enjoy quick lines heading through security to
sit down in a comfortable chair to wait to board. On the plain you
stow your carry-on in the ample space and settle down into a roomy,
state-of-the-art seat with ample leg-room, specifically designed to
make it easy to sleep. Flight attendants offer you drinks and take you
through the gourmet menu for the trip. As you take off you look
through the large selection of complimentary entertainment options
which will keep you occupied throughout the flight. You arrive at your
destination rested and well-fed and give the crew a genuine thanks for
the service. Lines at border control are short and your luggage
arrives at the carousel immediately.</p>
<p>Of course, for most of us this description could hardly be more
different from our actual travel experience. In fairness, in-flight
entertainment has massively improved, even for economy passengers, at
least on some airlines. And many airports do have very efficient
check-in or security systems (although I don’t think I can come up
with one which has <em>both</em> of these). However, by and large, only those
people who inexplicably manage to end up in business class (tickets
for which tend to be at least 4 times more expensive than economy)
have the sort of experience I described.</p>
<p>There has always been business class service which offers a
better experience for those able to pay, but in the past both the
price and service differentials were smaller. Over the past decade ore
two we have seen massive strides forward in business and first class
service: priority lines to go through security, priority lines to go
through border control (and believe me, for a non-<span class="caps">EU</span> traveller in
Heathrow this is a <em>big</em> benefit), noise-cancelling headphones, seats
which convert into lie-flat beds, premium airline lounges at an
ever-larger number of destinations, the list goes on. Airlines show
luxurious pictures of these facilities in their marketing, despite the
fact that only a tiny percentage of passengers will ever get to use them.</p>
<p>As for the rest of us… Fees have been added to services which used
to be included in the ticket price, such as having the ability to
change flights, choosing your seats, checking bags, having a pillow on
board, and being served a meal. On those flights where complimentary
food is served, meal size and quality has gone down
dramatically. Discount airlines go even further, charging for such
luxuries as a carry-on bag and printing a physical boarding
pass. Seats remain essentially unchanged from 40 years ago except that
legroom has decreased and, on some of the big planes, they’ve gotten
narrower thanks to the addition of an extra one in each row. In-flight
service is offered is slower and less efficient than before, with the
number of flight attendants cut. Fare structures have become
increasingly incomprehensible and it has gotten even more difficult to
accumulate enough frequent-flyer miles to be treated with some
baseline level of decency. These changes also have a toll on
operational efficiency. For example, with so many people now carrying
luggage on board, flights are delayed as people fight for space in
overhead bins and staff find themselves having to police carry-on allowances.</p>
<p>What we’ve seen is ever-increasing inequality in air travel. The rich
get richer with new perks and amenities. On some airlines this is
taken to truly ludicrous levels, with the offering of limousine
service to first class passengers and exclusive terminals. The poor
get poorer with fewer and fewer services offered and more and more
ancillary charges. Some argue that service may have declined but at
least flying is cheaper than ever. I’m not so sure. I strongly suspect
that if you included all of the extra fees needed to get what used to
be standard levels of service and ticket flexibility then tickets
would be as expensive as ever.</p>
<p>Just as economic inequality has grown over the past 30 years, so too
has inequality in air travel. I expect there is a causal link here. As
some people have become fantastically wealthy they have gained the
means to float through airports in their exclusive bubble of
privilege. Meanwhile, as the incomes of most people have stagnated or
declined, we’re stuck with lousy service. But in addition to direct
causality, I believe these trends share a common source. Both have
their origins in neoliberalism. On the one hand, this resulted in a
weakened labour movement, a strengthened capitalist class, a rise in
outsourcing, and a reduced social wage, preventing most people from
sharing in the gains of growth. On the other hand, it has resulted in
privatisation and deregulation of airlines and airports, as well as
increased international competition from open sky
agreements. Neoliberalism helped ruin flying.</p>
<p>Let’s fight back! Nationalise the airways! Fewer seats, more leg room,
cheaper tickets for all! Eliminate economy class! Would that it were
that simple. There is no way that flying would be affordable for the
great majority of people if everyone had current first/business class
seating. There will always be a tension between making flying cheap
for everyone and making it of decent quality of everyone. Furthermore,
flying is a major source of greenhouse gases and one without any
immediate prospect of fixing. Ecologically, it is currently in our
interest to cram as many people into an airplane as possible, while
ensuring that as few airplanes are flying as possible.</p>
<p><img alt="One idea of how to improve economy seats, with enough arm-rest space for everyone and a nicer middle seat." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/innovativeEconomy.jpg"/>
By all means, nationalise and merge the airlines. It would allow
national planning and optimisation of the network as a whole, along
with a greater choice of flights. There would no longer be a need to
introduce hidden fees so as to appear cheaper than the competition. We
could restore a number of services which are relatively inexpensive
and have little environmental impact. But we must not build our
transport policy on simple populist grounds.</p>
<p>Where practical, we’ll have to replace flying with rail, which is more
comfortable anyway. We’ll also have to research alternatives to jet
fuel. Meanwhile, let’s equalise the flying experience! Strip out the
absurd first class seats and give a little bit more space in
economy. Bring back decent in-flight meals (with real table-wear,
please!), a complimentary checked bag, pillows and blankets on short
haul flights, and hot towel service. Invest some R&D into making
economy seats more comfortable while still affordable. Get rid of
priority lines at airports and bring in some extra staff so that
everyone can be processed efficiently and make the seats by the gates
a bit more comfortable.</p>
<p>Perhaps under fully automated luxury communism everyone will
experience first class levels of comfort. Until then, let’s at least
eliminate the inequities of flying and make flying under socialism a
vaguely human experience.</p>Oxford & District Labour Party AMM October 20172017-10-13T23:00:00+01:002017-10-13T23:00:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2017-10-13:oxford-district-labour-party-amm-october-2017.html<p>Agreed on
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2017-10-13-amm/amm-8sep2017-minutes.docx">minutes of last meeting</a> and the
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2017-10-13-amm/amm-13oct2017-agenda.docx">agenda for this meeting</a>. We
were also provided with the
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2017-10-13-amm/ec-minutes-14sep2017.docx">minutes for the last <span class="caps">EC</span> meeting</a>.</p>
<h2>Oxfordshire county Labour group report</h2>
<p>Noted massive cuts to council funding. Makes things very
difficult. However, noted one major success of reversing an
outsourcing contract (with company called Carillion). Working to get
home care, school meals, etc. back in house.</p>
<p>Trying to open up the cabinet system in the county. Even non-cabinet
Tories fed up and can’t get information. Managed to get a motion
passed to conduct a review, although was watered down somewhat.</p>
<p>Noted that merging adult social care and health care is missing the
point that quality has suffered due to cuts. For most part these are
different systems so integration pointless. In any case, majority of
people needing social care aren’t eligible for it through the council.</p>
<p>Have also added system for investigating and addressing elder
abuse. Safeguarding children and children social care becoming a big,
expensive problem. While built new children’s homes to bring back
people who had to be sent out of county. However, that hasn’t happened
because so many new children entering care—often because parents
can’t afford to feed them. Universal Credit will likely make this worse.</p>
<p>Noted in case of closed Children Centres that cuts were made there
because they are non-statutory and the money was needed for
(statutory) children’s social care. Austerity makes it very difficult
to fund statutory requirements and everything else is cut to the bone.</p>
<p>In responses to questions became clear how shortages of housing,
fragmentation of schools, homelessness, crisis in social care are all
related and feed into each other.</p>
<p>The unitary authority proposal seems to have stalled.</p>
<h2>Annual conference report</h2>
<p>Full written report will be provided with the minutes. Cherry gave
highlights (Lotte was stuck on a bus from Manchester). Was very
positive about the experience, felt was in-tune with everyone for the
first time. Notes how well-organised Women’s Conference was and how
good the speakers were.</p>
<p>Reminded us that there <em>was</em> discussion of Brexit. She got the
impression that, should talks breakdown and there be a Labour
government then might see it reversed.</p>
<p>For the most part this was a review of what she told us at the
Momentum meeting. For example, she told the story of how the the
compositing process tried to neuter the <span class="caps">NHS</span> motion.</p>
<p>Felt that conference is too much to have just one delegate. In future
we should consider sending more. This will be discussed at an
executive meeting next week.</p>
<p><a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2017-10-13-amm/nec-conf2017-annblack.docx">Ann Black circulated a report</a>
giving a behind-the-scenes view. Notes there were way more <span class="caps">CLP</span>
delegates than usual.</p>
<p>Cherry was called out on not voting to debate the Brexit motions. She
said while she wants it reversed (and thinks it will be) she didn’t
want to tie the <span class="caps">PLP</span>’s hands at this point—unlike things like
the <span class="caps">NHS</span> where she does. Ann noted that there was a vote on the <span class="caps">NEC</span>
statement of party policy on Brexit and a failed attempt to refer back
part of the <span class="caps">NPF</span> International report. She also noted that the Brexit
motions were varied and contradictory. Cherry added that there wasn’t
a clear vision to vote for on the Brexit motion.</p>
<p>The chair said the executive will look to have an <span class="caps">AMM</span> discussing Brexit.</p>
<h2>Oxford city council report</h2>
<p>Co-deputy council leader spoke about a range of issues. Council chief
executive given a 3 year contract, despite continued uncertainty over
local government. Previously just had a 6 month contract. Westgate due
to open on October 24th. Investment going ahead on East Oxford
Community Centre. Zero-emissions zone mentioned (although John Tanner
knows more), which will be a way to help bring down currently-illegal
levels of air pollution. More information on council website.</p>
<p>Spoke about Universal Credit and how disappointed that it will
continue. Delays can cause major hardship in terms of paying rent,
buying food, etc. Have concerns about the government’s advanced
payment system because there is such a quick clawback. City decided to
set up a small fund to help people in dire need. This is needed
because county council was the first in the country to get rid of
their hardship fund. Trying to communicate with landlords to prevent
evictions. Also engaging in a publicity campaign to help claimants
understand the system.</p>
<p>Other deputy leader (not an official post, just something Oxford is
doing) also spoke. Noted that rules now require at least one women in
the three leadership positions. Reported finances are stable and
shouldn’t be any major cuts in services in next few years. Council
taxes will continue to increase at rate allowed without
referendum. Continue benefits for low income people who can’t afford
tax. Capital funding still strong and engaging commercial development
to help pay for services.</p>
<p>Pay deal with unions will expire in a few years which leaves question
mark. More risks have also been shifted onto local authorities. Have
created own building company as way to get around limits for borrowing
for council housing. Have been selling services for past few years to
bring in money, but have been pushing up against legal limits set by
central government. Setting up council-owned company to allow further
expansion of this. Continuing to press central government on housing
benefits. Council will not evict its own tenants and has been trying
to prepare them for changes.</p>
<p>Legal restrictions make it difficult to help homeless (especially if
not citizens). Trying to build another hostel and have other housing
options. Commitment to no cuts to homeless services (unlike county
council, which has cut it almost entirely).</p>
<p>Council threatening to strip Aung San Suu Kyi of freedom of city if
doesn’t step up around ethnic cleansing. Motion pointing out
importance of single market access to city. Motion on improving
cycling safety. Think I might have missed one because spoke very quickly.</p>
<p>I asked about zero emission zone and what can be done in shorter term
to improve air quality. Noted delivery lorries use those roads a lot
and this will help. I’m pretty sure that requirement won’t go into
force until 2035. Waffled about how changes need to be phased in to
allow people/companies to adjust. No time for me to respond.<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup></p>
<h2><span class="caps">BMW</span> pension dispute</h2>
<p>Motion to prevent companies dismissing and rehiring workers to
“resolve” a strike (referred to as “termination and
re-engagement”). As we were running over and this is an important
issue we will discuss it next month when there is more time. Will be a
union speaker next month, so will fit in well with that.</p>
<h2>Parliamentary report</h2>
<p>Handed out copy of detailed report. Didn’t speak very long so time for
questions. Says her constituency role is getting harder. Lots of
issues around immigration system, housing, and universal
credit. Contact with Home Office has gotten even worse. Access to the
hotline for Universal Credit only through MPs office, which places an
extra hurdle and makes it harder for advocates. <span class="caps">DWP</span> no longer sharing
info with council which will make it harder for council to offer
support. Lots of calls to stop the role-out but government haven’t
listened so far. Opposition day debate will be on this and she hopes
maybe they can get something done because situation is terrible.</p>
<p>Also talked a bit about conference. She was on compositing committee
for pay cap motion and was quite happy with how that went. Pleased
with treasury announcements, particularly around credit card debt
which she has worked on. Industry hasn’t given much pushback. Positive
about <span class="caps">PFI</span> announcement and notes that, even if expensive, not changing
it is also expensive. Same applies to tuition fees where public purse
id dealing with much lower payback rate than expected. Feels lots of
common ground in <span class="caps">LP</span> over transitional period and limiting
consolidation of government power. She’s very concerned about
government policy on customs, which she works on. She feels two
proposals put forward are a mess and badly thought through (either
similar to <span class="caps">EU</span> scheme, but not, or different custom scheme for goods
destined for <span class="caps">EU</span>). Government accruing more power over severance
payment. Non-dom reform is inadequate and leaves lots of room to avoid
tax. Labour is continuing to develop its own budget plans and draw up
amendments for the upcoming budget.</p>
<p>I asked for more details on McDonnell’s “war-gaming”. Backed him on
planning for such thing. Her impression is that business thinks Labour
seems more sane than Tories. Very concerned about complacency in
government over various economic issues and we need to think about how
to deal with this.</p>
<p>Responded to various other questions. Noted in particular that we need
transparency around Brexit. Lack of transparency breads distrust and
doesn’t help anyone. Shouldn’t treat negotiations like a poker game
but as something where we have a grown-up discussion.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>I spoke to John Tanner after the meeting. He confirmed that lorries will still be allowed in Cornmarket Street until 2035, although their times will be restricted. Other, short-term measures are being looked at for air pollution, such as shifting bus stops (although that requires county-council cooperation). I asked about whether George Street inclusion means busses to Gloucester Green will all have to be electric. He said they will, starting in 2025. This could just be hybrid-electric and using the electric motors while on George Street. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Oxford & District Labour Party AMM September 20172017-09-08T23:00:00+01:002017-09-08T23:00:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2017-09-08:oxford-district-labour-party-amm-september-2017.html<p><a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2017-09-08-amm/agenda.docx">Timings for this meeting</a> and
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2017-09-08-amm/prev-amm-minutes.docx">minutes from last meeting</a> passed
without comment. There was one piece of urgent business, with a city
councillor reminding us about the Oxford Living Wage Campaign and
asking us all to show up to the launch.</p>
<h2>Parliamentary Report</h2>
<p>Anneliese thanks us for our help in the election and for continued
campaigning. She mentioned that she thinks the Tories have dug in for
awhile, so we’ll have to stick with the campaigning. Also
congratulated the council election result in Didcot.</p>
<h3>Brexit</h3>
<p>Felt government’s position hasn’t improved over summer and continues
to alienate partners. Reminded us Labour’s position is to have an
interim agreement so that the <span class="caps">UK</span> won’t fall off a cliff. In the
meantime, Labour is pressing the Tories for details and votes in the
house of commons. Not accepting the government rewriting
labour/environmental laws without discussion. Criticised government
for saying Electric Mini production in the <span class="caps">UK</span> is vote of confident in
<span class="caps">EU</span> negotiations—it’s a testament to the quality of the workforce. For
long-term sustainability need a sensible trade relationship.</p>
<h3>Tax Issues</h3>
<p>Called out the government for continuing to tax redundancy payment
while giving further concessions for non-doms. On the first there will
be a vote but without any debate. Feels government is weak on this,
with only 2 MPs willing to defend finance bill in the commons. Thinks
Labour can push them on this.</p>
<h3>Housing</h3>
<p>Knows this is important to local activists. Post-Grenfall we were told
would be an open debate on social housing, but it hasn’t happened. The
government still hasn’t changed its views on regulations. Is afraid
Tories will push ahead forcing housing associations to sell
properties. Notes developers in Oxford salivating. Affordability is
still defined too narrowly. Roll-out of Universal Credit is shambolic
and could mean people will lose access to housing benefit.</p>
<h3>Questions</h3>
<p>Government trying to manipulate committees so they have a majority and
also timing of committees. Seems to be an attempt to avoid
scrutiny. When asked if anything we can do she only referred to work
of MPs.</p>
<p>Anneleise confirmed reduction in seats in parliament doesn’t seem to
be happening. This would have particularly hurt Labour. Not sure why
government stepped away from this. (Ann heard <span class="caps">DUP</span> won’t have it
because would give Sinn Fein extra seats.) Will still be a boundary
review. Will be some changes about parties registering which will make
things more difficult for Labour.</p>
<p>On questions of unity in <span class="caps">PLP</span>, she said she always seems to get on with
everyone. Wasn’t there when things were tense, so that might
help. Says atmosphere remains good and hopes it will continue. In
particular, hopes it will continue through Conference. If focus can
stay on policies while Tories tear themselves apart then that will put
Labour in a good position.</p>
<p>Reiterated that doesn’t see the government falling soon. Majorities
typically around 14, which will be hard to break. Was asked about
detailed policy work says trying to strike a balance between
developing detailed policies and keeping focus on broad goals
(i.e. keeping in election footing). Felt good progress being made in
some parts of the party and reported that shadow Treasury team
continues to engage with all relevant stakeholders.</p>
<p>I asked how members can get more involved with policy, mentioning that
<span class="caps">NPF</span> reports are vague and have no content. She didn’t respond to my
question, instead focusing on other questions asked in my tranche (see
next paragraph).</p>
<p>Expressed concern about international situation (refugees, etc.). Felt
hasn’t been sufficient response in Britain. Reports Labour has been
doing some work on specific issues (such as persecution of Muslims in
Burma). Highlighted insufficient support given to refugees. Wants to
be sure it doesn’t get lost in debate. Agreed with a member that it’s
important for party to stand up against hate crime. Called out Sarah
Champion and worried it’s distracting from real issues of child abuse,
etc. Expressed worry about Islamophobia which has gotten worse since
referendum. Is glad community in Oxford has tended to stand against
any attempt to stir racism etc. up here.</p>
<p>Expressed concern over academics making homophobic comments. Doesn’t
know what was said but feels if students were upset enough to complain
then comments would have to be unacceptable. Equivocated a bit over
vice-chancellor’s high pay. Seemed to be saying she’s concerned with
this being used as a way to claim universities awash with money when aren’t.</p>
<p>Confirmed will continue her work around tax transparency and tackling
tax avoidance. Will bring this up with finance bill next week. Wants
to tighten rules for non-doms and to tackle money laundering, which
Britain is becoming something of a centre for.</p>
<p>Worker brought up <span class="caps">BMW</span>’s recent settlement of a pension dispute by
essentially changing a contract. Asked if anything she could do to
help from parliament, particularly if Labour forms government. She
felt would be difficult to resolve situation under current
legislation—will need to be changed. Could potentially become
relevant in context of Brexit. Reminded us this will take a fight.</p>
<p>Expressed concern about government position on immigration. Doesn’t
like how Tories have made this a big issue. Said Britain has low
unemployment and needs immigrants to fill a wide range of jobs of
varying levels of skills. Feels like immigration system for non-<span class="caps">EU</span>
citizens isn’t working for immigrants, businesses, public services, etc.</p>
<p>Was asked about housing development with very expensive flats. As not
in local government she could only make general comments. Said she
understands it is difficult for local authorities to force developers
to include affordable housing under current law. Hopes new
infrastructure commission for Oxford-Cambridge corridor will allow new
investment in housing, transport, public services in the area.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Also see provided handout from Anneliese.</p>
<h2>Annual Conference</h2>
<h3>Women’s Confernce Arrangement Committee</h3>
<p>Delegates for Women’s Conference not present. Branch delegates chose
who they want our conference delegates to vote for on the
committee. Chair expressed extreme displreasure that that women’s
delegates absent. Was some protest from the floor that there were
extenuating circumstances.</p>
<h3>Resolutions</h3>
<p>Can send two resolutions (one from each constituency). First debate
motions and vote on whether we support them. Then, if all three pass,
choose which ones to prioritise.</p>
<h4>Ending <span class="caps">UK</span> support for Saudi Arabia</h4>
<p>John Tanner spoke on importance of ending attack on Yemen and increase
pressure on Suadi’s. Reminded us that motions must be contemporary and
feels recent <span class="caps">UN</span> report means this one is. Resolution also refers to
arms conversion to protect jobs in the <span class="caps">UK</span> arms industry. Unite has put
out report on past proposals and successful conversions. No one spoke
against, vote unanimous except for one abstention.</p>
<h4>A publicly owned banking system</h4>
<p>Calls for nationalising and democratically controlling large
banks. Said was good thing that Labour bailed out banks, but wasn’t
enough control and bad how resulted in austerity. Points out bad
behaviour of Loyd’s and <span class="caps">RBS</span> while large stakes held by state. Similar
motion being raised in Leeds. Feels this will continue developing
manifesto. Contemporary because final shares in Loyd’s just recent sold
off. One person spoke against saying it’s not a priority (costs lots of
money). Also said looks like there might be another crash and better
wipe-out private equity than public (plus would make cheaper if then
want to nationalise). Felt connection between ownership and control
insufficiently dealt with in motion. Another person spoke about it
being an obvious policy. Someone else pointed out we’d be better off
trying to stop another crash (via nationalisation) and that the public
is on the hook anyway when private equity is lost. Ann Black thought
incoming Labour government will have too much to do without running
banking system. Politicians are not bankers. Not a priority.</p>
<p>28 for, 15 against, 26 abstentions by my count. Committee agreed it
was carried but not by majority.</p>
<h4><span class="caps">NHS</span> and Accountable Care System</h4>
<p>Liz said described how new Accountable Care System (<span class="caps">ACS</span>) bundles all
health commissioners etc. in an area and takes it away from public
scrutiny. These are equivalent to HMOs in United States and will make
things ripe for privatisation. Also current move to sell off <span class="caps">NHS</span>
properties which must be opposed. We need these properties to provide
for increased care needs. Highlighted this is needed for next 20
years, not next 2. Motion based on one forwarded by Socialist Health
Association. Seconder reminded of need for more money and for all
Labour officials to oppose any cuts. One person felt there could be
good debate for centralising certain services (based on medical issues
rather than saving money) and worried this motion goes too far in
blanket opposition. Another person said will abstain because arguments
not based on studies of outcomes. Overwelmingly carried with only a
few abstentions.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Then we could each cast two votes for which resolutions to submit. I
voted for bank nationalisation and the <span class="caps">NHS</span> motion. Was clear <span class="caps">NHS</span> and
Suadi Arabia ones were far more popular—-only a few people voted for
bank nationalisation.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Someone spoke for continued membership of the Single Market. Hoped
delegates would raise it at conference. Another speaker said she
thinks Kier Starmer’s stated position more realistic.</p>
<h3>National Constitutional Committee election</h3>
<p>This was up to branch delegates.</p>
<h3>Constitutional Amendments</h3>
<p>Lots to go through so Ann said we could just leave it to delegate’s
judgement. Ann’s recommendations in
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2017-09-08-amm/rulechanges.docx">her report</a> were available. The floor
thanked Ann for her work. One person wanted us to take a position on
the McDonnell Amendment. May not come to a vote and instead be pushed
towards other reforms. This was defeated by small margin. Ann a bit
irritated that a lot of people voting to leave things to the delegates
last time wanted all of the debated (hence prompting her to go to the
effort of putting together a large document).</p>
<h2>Motion on Hate Crimes</h2>
<p>Increase in hate crimes over last year, especially towards
Muslims. Women afraid to go out. Oxford East motion to bring back
Commission of Racial Equality with authority to investigate hate
crimes. Passed with overwhelming support and no extensions.</p>
<h2>Minutes of Executive Committee</h2>
<p>Have minutes of
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/Politics/Meetings/2017-09-08-amm/exec-meeting-minutes.docx">July executive committee</a>.</p>
<h2>Future Meetings</h2>
<p>Next meeting October 13 with delegates reporting back from conference.</p>On Climate Change, Ashton Beats Corbyn2017-07-29T11:00:00+01:002017-07-29T11:00:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2017-07-29:on-climate-change-ashton-beats-corbyn.html<p><img alt="Niki Ashton, the left-wing candidate for leadership of the NDP." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/ashton-climate/ashton.jpg"/>
There is now wide-spread knowledge of the Labour Party’s recent left
turn under leader Jeremy Corbyn in the <span class="caps">UK</span> and its surprising success
in recent elections. This, coupled with the even more surprising rise
of Bernie Sanders in the United States, opens the question of whether
something similar could happen in Canada. Cue
<a href="http://www.nikiashton2017.ca/">Niki Ashton’s</a> candidacy in the
ongoing federal leadership race of the New Democratic Party (<span class="caps">NDP</span>). As a
Canadian living in Britain I’ve followed her campaign with great
interest to see how it stacks up against the Corbyn project.</p>
<p>One area where I have been distinctly disappointed in Corbyn has been
on
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/attachments/ManifestoResponse.pdf">energy and climate policy</a>.
Rather than argue for a rationally planned, publicly owned electricity
system, he has pandered to the current “progressive” fad of an energy
market made up of many small, competing renewable energy
generators. Instead of replacing the private energy suppliers, he has
opted to merely to add a public supplier to the market. While nuclear
energy is not rejected, it is clearly seen as secondary to renewable
energy and will also remain in the private sector. I have argued in
the past why renewable energy
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-1-all-thats-wrong-with-renewables.html">will not be sufficient</a> to power
Britain and why a
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-4-the-institutions-to-make-it-happen.html">competitive energy market</a> is an
obstacle to addressing climate change.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, very little concrete is said by Labour about tackling
climate change. There is a commitment to have 65% clean energy by
2030, which is either an ambitious goal they have not developed policy
to meet or an extremely unambitious one stemming from a confusion of
“energy” and “electricity”. In the
<a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017">election manifesto</a>
there is some vague talk of home insulation and electrifying the
railways (although the latter was not discussed in an environmental
context), but otherwise nonelectric energy use is unaddressed. A
<a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/page/-/PDFs/ONLINE%209756_17%20Richer%20Britain%2C%20Richer%20Lives%20%C2%AD%20Labour%C2%B9s%20Industrial%20Strate....pdf">supplementary document</a>
mentions other technologies such as heat pumps, district heating,
carbon capture and storage, and electric vehicles but says little
about the type or scale of investments to be made in them, or how they
come together in a broader climate plan. Indeed, the need for a
comprehensive climate plan seems to be ignored, with a piecemeal
approach of disconnected commitments offered instead.</p>
<p>In stark contrast to Corbyn, Ashton has made
<a href="http://www.nikiashton2017.ca/environmental-justice/">fighting climate change</a>
a central feature of her campaign, rather than just one area to which
to direct stimulus funding. While not perfect, there is a lot about
her proposals which are very good. First and foremost, rather than
talk about tackling climate change in terms of sacrifices people will
have to make (as do many environmentalists), she does so by laying out
a positive vision of the country we want to live in. She describes how
her policies will bring better employment, housing, and
communities. She even extends this to workers in polluting industries,
sketching a framework which would see them usefully redeployed. This
is the sort of approach which will motivate people to take action.</p>
<p><img alt="Niki Ashton campaign material calling for public sustainable energy sources." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/ashton-climate/publicEnergy.jpg"/>
Unlike many liberal environmentalists, such as those in the Green
Party of Canada and its provincial affiliates, Ashton recognises the
role which the public sector must play in fighting climate change;
collective solutions are favoured over individual actions. Rather than
the usual emphasis on feed-in-tariffs and independent electricity
producers, she stresses that new energy infrastructure will be
public. Like Corbyn she calls for a public investment bank to fund
projects, but she goes further and proposes an additional crown
corporation<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> called Green Canada<sup id="fnref:2"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:2" rel="footnote">2</a></sup>. This entity would not only
assist in basic research in green technology, but commercialise and
manufacture it. It would</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Accelerate pollution-fighting technology by funding open-source
research into solutions for the climate change challenges we face and
invest in public sector clean energy innovation. Every scenario for
avoiding runaway climate change includes a technological breakthrough
we don’t have yet. The public sector has an important role to play
in fostering innovation. Green Canada will partner with our public
universities to fund and carry out basic and applied research in
renewable energy and energy efficiency at dedicated new research
institutes. The rewards of research breakthroughs will be shared by
all of us: selected successful research will be the basis for new
manufacturing projects run directly by Green Canada. In time, this
crown corporation will grow into a complex green technology actor,
reinvesting funds into research, taking on strategic production tasks
that aid in meeting climate goals and providing the federal
government with streams of revenues for other needs.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This exactly the sort of approach needed for decarbonisation. Just as
importantly, it reintroduces the idea of public ownership not simply
to run what is unprofitable, but for the purpose of economic
development and innovation. This pledge is honestly one of the most
exciting proposals I have seen from a politician in my lifetime.</p>
<p>The other exciting aspect of Ashton’s proposals are the Green Canada
Advisory Boards. Four such boards would be created, working in
forestry, agriculture, fishing, and energy and made up of
representatives of workers, environmental experts, different levels of
government, industry, and indigenous people. Together they would
direct the operations of Green Canada and set best practices. One
advantage of such a system is that it would give workers in polluting
industries a say over how they are to be reformed or wound down. This
would make it easier to achieve buy-in for potentially controversial
reforms. More broadly, this would begin to provide democratic control
over public industry, something which has been missing from crown
corporations in the past. While Corbyn has paid lip-service to this
goal, Ashton has done more to spell out what it could look like.</p>
<p>Ashton’s pledges are a bit weaker when it comes to non-electric forms
of greenhouse gas (<span class="caps">GHG</span>) emissions. Indeed, she currently lacks
a clear schedule for reductions, although a promise is made to convene
a group of experts for this purpose. Presumably the Green Canada
Advisory Boards for agriculture and forestry would be responsible for
addressing <span class="caps">GHG</span> emissions from their respective sectors and from land
use change. Home heating is explicitly mentioned as an issue which
needs to be addressed, but more details could be provided. It would
also be good if district heating schemes were developed, given that
they fit well with Ashton’s emphasis on collective ownership.</p>
<p>Electric vehicles are mentioned with a laudable emphasis on building
charging infrastructure, particularly on federal property such as post
offices. Unfortunately, no commitment is made to electrify the
government fleet of vehicles—creating a large initial
market for them—although this may have been an oversight.
Electrifying local public transit is another important issue which she
addresses. However, her goal of phasing out the sale of internal
combustion engines by 2040 is not ambitious enough. She also does not
address transport over longer distances, particularly of freight. We
need to electrify Canada’s railways and move goods off of roads and
onto trains. Ideally this would be achieved by nationalising the rail
companies and folding them into the public passenger operator, Via Rail.</p>
<p><img alt="Niki Ashton campaign material calling for citizens, communities, and the public sector to fix climate change." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/ashton-climate/publicSector.jpg"/>
My final concern is that Ashton seems intent on powering Canada using
only renewable energy. If this can even be done<sup id="fnref:3"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:3" rel="footnote">3</a></sup>, it will almost certainly
require a significant build-out of new hydro dams. These are often
controversial, given that they flood large areas of land, and can lead
to conflicts with local aboriginal groups. Given Ashton’s (laudable)
championing of aboriginal issues and the Left’s opposition to the
Site C hydro damn in British Columbia, I’m not sure the will
would exist to pursue this. Hydro is also distributed very unevenly
across the country, meaning some provinces would become extremely
reliant on others for their electricity. I rather doubt this
would be well received, especially for those which would come to
depend on Quebec. Ideally, a renewable plan would see the creation of
a single national power company out of existing provincial ones, to
utilise hydro nation-wide. However, constitutionally this would
require all provinces to agree and I can’t see hydro-rich ones
(particularly Quebec) doing so. Indeed, such jurisdictional issues
will make it more difficult for the federal government to pursue any
green energy policy and Ashton does not address this.</p>
<p>For provinces without much hydro and which want a degree of
self-sufficiency in electricity, the options are carbon capture and
storage or nuclear. Neither of these are mentioned in Ashton’s
proposals, although I was very pleased to see that they are not
explicitly ruled out either. My preference would be for nuclear, as
nuclear waste will likely be easier and cheaper to store than carbon
dioxide. Canada also has existing expertise in nuclear energy on which
to build, with over half of Ontario’s electricity coming from this
source. To this end, I would like to see Ashton commit to
renationalise <a href="http://www.snclavalin.com/en/nuclear"><span class="caps">CANDU</span> Energy</a><sup id="fnref:4"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:4" rel="footnote">4</a></sup>
and fold it into Green Canada.</p>
<p>These criticisms aside, Ashton has laid out a very good initial
blueprint for fighting climate change. While more detail is needed on
some issues, this is only a policy proposal for party leadership and
it can be expected to undergo further development before a general
election. Despite this, in some areas it is already better developed
than the policies which the Labour Party ran on. Furthermore, unlike
Corbyn’s proposals, there are no fundamental problems with what Ashton
has put forward; any changes which I want to see made only involve
tweaking or expanding upon the framework already developed. I
sincerely hope that these proposals will gain broad attention within
Canada and beyond. In particular, socialists and environmentalists in
the <span class="caps">UK</span> would do well to take notice.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Crown corporation” (or “crown corp”) is the Canadian term for a
state enterprise. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2">
<p>Which, despite fitting the usual naming scheme for federal
bodies, I must say is a horrible awkward name. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:2" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:3">
<p>Unlike Britain, Canada has enough land that we can definitely
capture enough renewable energy to meet our needs. The problem is that
it
<a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/4/7/15159034/100-renewable-energy-studies">remains unclear</a>
if <em>any</em> country can provide a continuous, reliable electricity supply
using only renewable sources without massive hydro and geothermal
capacity. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:3" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:4">
<p>The division of engineering firm <span class="caps">SNC</span> Lavalin formed when they
bought the reactor-design portion of crown corporation Atomic Energy
Canad Limited. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:4" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Labour Policy Responses: Environment, Energy and Transport2017-04-11T11:00:00+01:002017-04-11T11:00:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2017-04-11:labour-policy-responses-environment-energy-and-transport.html<p><em>In response to the recent publication by the Labour Party’s National
Policy Forum (<span class="caps">NPF</span>) of various policy statements, a number of us on the
Labour Left have written responses. My response on environmental,
energy, and transport policy was published on
<a href="http://www.leftfutures.org/2017/04/npf-policy-responses-environment-energy-and-transport/">Left Futures</a>. This
is the longer, original version. I have have also produced
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/attachments/PolicyStatement-Environment.pdf">another version of this report</a>
which is more suited for use amending or replacing parts of the <span class="caps">NPF</span>’s
document, taking into account comments received on my article. Thanks
you to David Pavett for his comments and suggestions.</em></p>
<p>The National Policy Forum has made the strange decision to group
culture with the
<a href="http://www.policyforum.labour.org.uk/agenda-2020/commissions/environment-energy-and-culture/npf-consultation-2017-environment-energy-and-culture?download=true">environment and energy</a>. Meanwhile,
<a href="http://www.policyforum.labour.org.uk/agenda-2020/commissions/housing-local-government-and-transport/npf-consultation-2017-housing-local-government-and-transport?download=true">transport</a>
is placed, not completely without justification, with local government
and housing. However, as transport is a major consumer of energy and a
transport policy will be essential to fighting climate change, I
decided to address it along with energy and the environment, in place
of culture.</p>
<h2>Climate Change</h2>
<p>The <span class="caps">NPF</span> document rightly identifies climate change as one of the
greatest challenges of the century. However, beyond this, it has
little to say. It refers to the Paris Agreement of 2015, but does not
acknowledge that the stated goal of keeping warming below 2°C, or
even 1.5°C,
<a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28663-paris-climate-deal-is-agreed-but-is-it-really-good-enough/">is not going to be achieved</a>
with the emissions commitment which were made. Nor is the
<a href="http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/3/23/15028480/roadmap-paris-climate-goals">magnitude of the challenge</a>
of keeping temperatures below those limits recognised. It seems
inconceivable that it could be done without state-directed economic
planning on a scale previously unseen in the West during peacetime.</p>
<figure id="figref-ukghg"><img alt="ukghg::United Kingdom greenhouse gas emissions, 1990-1995. (Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, 7 February 2017)" src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/uk-ghg-emissions.png"/><figcaption><strong>Figure 1:</strong> United Kingdom greenhouse gas emissions, 1990-1995. (Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, 7 February 2017)</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <span class="caps">NPF</span> believes that “Labour has a strong record in pressing for and
tackling climate change.” While it is true, as they say, that Labour
passed the Climate Change Act in 2008, this was
<a href="https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm081028/debtext/81028-0021.htm">also supported</a>
by all but three of the Tories. The actual reductions in emissions
during Labour’s time in government were not much different from what
occurred under John Major and the Coalition (see Figure <a href='#figref-ukghg'>1</a>) and
did not come close to what is necessary. A recently published climate
plan required global emissions
<a href="http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/3/23/15028480/roadmap-paris-climate-goals">to fall by half every decade</a>
until at least 2050 and a developed country like Britain will be
required to making even faster cuts than that. If it is felt that this
is unachievable, then we need to be upfront about that and begin
preparing for the negative impacts of climate change.</p>
<p>Three omissions by this policy document should be noted. The first is
its failure to mention high-potency greenhouse gases such as methane,
nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases. When weighted for global warming
potential, these make up
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/589825/2015_Final_Emissions_statistics.pdf">nearly 20%</a>
of <span class="caps">UK</span> emissions, with methane being the most significant. Typically,
emissions of these gases are easier to prevent than those of carbon
dioxide, so rapid action should be taken to reduce them. Secondly, no
reference is made to the use of
“<a href="http://roadtoparis.info/2015/03/30/will-negative-emissions-technology-get-us-to-2-degrees/">negative emissions</a>”
technology, which most plans for combating climate change now
require. This involves planting trees, burning them, and sequestering
the released carbon underground. Finally, the effect of land use
changes (e.g. deforestation, conversion to agriculture) is not
mentioned, although at least
<a href="http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/3/23/15028480/roadmap-paris-climate-goals">one climate plan</a>
requires net emissions from this to reach zero by 2050. Overall, it
appears that the authors of this document know little about climate
change and have vastly underestimated the magnitude of the challenge
it now represents.</p>
<p>The closest the <span class="caps">NPF</span> comes to suggesting actual policy is to commit
that “By investing £500 billion in infrastructure backed up by a
publicly owned National Investment Bank and regional banks we will
build a high-skilled, high tech, low carbon economy to help generate a
million good quality jobs.” Lacking any details of what sorts of
investments are involved, this pledge is useless. Where specific
sectors, such as energy, are mentioned, no solutions are proposed. In
the following sections, some priority sectors will be examined in
closer detail. In the following sections, some priority sectors will
be examined in closer detail and some broad policies put forward.</p>
<h2>Energy</h2>
<p>More than once, the <span class="caps">NPF</span> comments on the importance of decarbonising
energy while at the same time tackling energy bills. The obvious
tension between wanting to “curb energy bill rises” while at the same
time invest in new energy infrastructure is never acknowledged. While
it is said that the “energy market is in need of reform”, what this
reform would look like is never stated. Indeed, the very existence of
a market in energy is never questioned; despite
<a href="https://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/11/04/nationalise-energy-and-rail-companies-say-public/">widespread support</a>
for renationalisation, the most the <span class="caps">NPF</span> has to say on this issue is
calling for a “National Investment Bank to promote public investment
and community ownership across future energy solutions”.</p>
<p>Although acknowledging that “A fully costed low carbon energy platform
that includes renewables, nuclear and green gas should be developed
and publicly financed options should be considered to ensure that the
<span class="caps">UK</span> has a low carbon economy that works for consumers moving forwards”,
no effort has been taken to do this. As I have
<a href="http://www.leftfutures.org/2017/02/energy-for-the-21st-century-part-i-fossil-fuels-renewables-and-nuclear/">argued elsewhere</a>,
any realistic decarbonisation plan will need to rely heavily on
nuclear energy. Although this would be an unpopular proposition among
many on the left, we need to face up to
<a href="http://www.withouthotair.com/c18/page_103.shtml">the impossibility</a>
of powering Britain solely off of her own renewables.</p>
<p>Nuclear power can be most effectively deployed by the state using a
standardised design, adding another argument for nationalisation. A
similar argument could be made about renewable power sources. As I
have
<a href="http://www.leftfutures.org/2017/02/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-3-the-institutions-to-make-it-happen/">argued in the past</a>,
a new Power Generation Board (<span class="caps">PGB</span>) should be created out of existing
nuclear and renewable capacity and be given control over the national
grid. This would go some way to ending the absurdity which is the
market in electricity and would give the stability needed for the <span class="caps">PGB</span>
to make long-term investments</p>
<p>To eliminate fuel poverty, progressive tariffs could be used. This
would see every household given a minimum amount of electricity at low
or zero-cost, with the price per additional kilowatt-hour rising to
current levels and above depending on how much is used in a given
month. The price bands could be structured such that high-use
customers are effectively paying for the electricity of low-use
customers and this system would not be a cost to the
government. However, for this to work, all consumers would need to be
buying from the same electricity supplier. As such, supply and
distribution should also be nationalised and either folded in the <span class="caps">PGB</span>
or passed to a devolved body.</p>
<p>Little is said in the <span class="caps">NPF</span> document about non-electric energy use. As
electricity only represents
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/589825/2015_Final_Emissions_statistics.pdf">29% of greenhouse-gas emissions</a>,
this is a glaring omission. “Green gas” is mentioned and this could be
introduced into the gas supply as a short-term measure to reduce
emissions from heating. Some hydrogen could also be added and, if
appliances are converted, the gas supply could be switched entirely to
hydrogen. However for new houses (and, in the mid-term, for existing
ones), better energy efficiency can achieved using electric heat
pumps. Transport will also need to be electrified and this will be
discussed in more detail below.</p>
<p>Finally, nothing is said in the document about energy efficiency. All
new homes should be built to the highest standards of insulation and,
to the extent feasible, old homes should be retrofitted along these
lines. New home designs should try to maximise daylight and heat from
the sun. Even in the <span class="caps">NPF</span> document on housing, such things are not
considered. Appliances should be subject to strict efficiency
requirements and the government could create a program to buy old,
inefficient models back from citizens.</p>
<h2>Agriculture</h2>
<p>Agriculture is included in environmental policy, although the main
focus of the <span class="caps">NPF</span> draft seems to be on the issue of subsidies
post-Brexit. I will leave this issue to someone who knows more about
agricultural economics. However, it might be worth considering whether
a system of
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_management_(Canada)">supply management</a>
could replace subsidies. This would involve farmers selling to
marketing boards which they run in partnership with the state. The
marketing boards then operate a monopoly on wholesale and return any
profits to the farmers. For the overall system to be effective,
controls would be required on imports and exports of the managed
agricultural products, which may not be possible depending on the <span class="caps">UK</span>’s
relationship with the <span class="caps">EU</span>.</p>
<p>Agriculture is also a major source of greenhouse gases, making up
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/589825/2015_Final_Emissions_statistics.pdf">10% of the <span class="caps">UK</span>’s total</a>. These
are mostly in the form of methane and nitrous oxide. The former is
produced in the digestive systems of livestock (particularly cattle)
while the latter comes from the use of fertilisers. While this is not
an area which I am greatly knowledgeable about, measures such as
<a href="https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#agriculture">more precise application of fertiliser</a>,
better soil management, different crop rotations, new animal
feeds, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36315952">supplements to animal feeds, and breading</a>
could all play a role. Any agricultural subsidies should be made
conditional on farmers taking action to reduce their emissions.</p>
<h2>Transport</h2>
<p>The only policies which can be found within the <span class="caps">NPF</span> report on
transport are to take “the railways back into public ownership” and
“give local authorities franchising powers to run and manage their
local bus routes”. While the inadequacy and expense of public
transport are acknowledged, there are no concrete proposals to tackle either.</p>
<h3>Rail</h3>
<p>While the commitment to bring rail franchises back into public
ownership is laudable, there are many other questions to be answered
about rail. First, what is to happen to the Rolling Stock Companies
(ROSCOs) which lease the trains to the franchise operators? These are
<a href="http://www.cresc.ac.uk/sites/default/files/GTR%20Report%20final%205%20June%202013.pdf">obscenely profitable</a>,
take essentially no risk, and have failed to adequately invest in new
rolling stock. While nationalising franchises would cost essentially
nothing, the ROSCOs would be quite expensive. One approach would be
for the government to regulate them and trim the profit margins. Where
new rolling stock is introduced, it should be publicly owned. As
decarbonisation demands a campaign of rail electrification, plenty of
new stock will be required. It would be worth considering recreating
British Rail Engineering Limited to build this in-house.</p>
<p>Network Rail present another question. Currently it provides a hidden
subsidy to the train operators by charging
<a href="http://www.cresc.ac.uk/sites/default/files/GTR%20Report%20final%205%20June%202013.pdf">artificially low track access fees</a>. The
difference is made up by a government grant and borrowing. With each
infrastructure upgrade, its debt continues to
ballootheytheytheyn. While not sustainable, this has led to increased
investment compared to the days of British Rail, when funding was at
the whim of whoever was in government. A new model is clearly needed,
but what it should be is unclear. Furthermore, the question of exactly
<em>what</em> new investments are needed in rail (e.g. electrification) needs
to be addressed.</p>
<p>A final consideration for rail is how a newly nationalised sector
should be structured. It
<a href="http://www.redpepper.org.uk/getting-back-on-track-an-alternative-to-private-railways/">has been suggested</a>
that the railways should be more decentralised than they were under
British Rail. Allowing large local authorities to manage commuter
rail, in the model of London Overground, does seem
reasonable. However, devolving regional rail services risks continuing
the fragmentation which has marked the sector since
privatisation. Perhaps a compromise would be to have trains operated
by a single national company but allow local and regional governments
to be represented in the administration of regional routes.</p>
<h3>Buses</h3>
<p>It is welcome that the buses are acknowledged by the <span class="caps">NPF</span> and giving
local authorities more control over service is undoubtedly a good
idea. However, it is unclear what exactly is meant by “franchising
powers to run and manage their local bus routes”. Presumably it refers
to a system such as that in London where, even if a private company
operates the buses, they do so under contract with a local authority,
which sets and collects fares, determines routes, etc. Private
operators will
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/sep/02/bus-battle-test-case-tyne-wear-privatisation">fight attempts</a>
by local authorities to do this, so the process should be tilted in
favour of the councils. Additionally, funding should be provided by
central government to help buy or create council-owned bus
companies. There should also be an emphasis of integrating buses and
local transport with the rail system. Regional and national buses were
not mentioned by the report. These should also be re-regulated and,
preferably, taken back into public ownership. There may be a role for
devolved administrations to play in the management of these
services. New buses should be electric, either being trolley-buses or
battery powered.</p>
<h3>Other Public Transport</h3>
<p>No reference at all is made to other forms of transport. It is worth
considering whether current ferry services are adequate and whether
these should be brought back into the public sector. Ferry service
could be integrated with rail so as to provide a seamless alternative
to flying. Rationalising air routes would also go some way to reducing
emissions from aviation, suggesting that renationalisation of airports
and re-regulation of airlines should be on the table. It would be
worth considering whether a rail tunnel could be built to Ireland to
replace many flights.</p>
<p>A running theme through all of this has been the need to integrate
transport across jurisdictions and modes. This would make public
transit a more viable alternative to driving and flying. There is a
strong argument for making local transport free at the point of use,
to make it more accessible to those on low incomes and to encourage
use by everyone. Regional and national travel would still require
fares, but a single, simple ticketing system should be adopted across
the entire country for buses, trains, and ferries, allowing trips to
be planned and purchased in a single place.</p>
<h3>Private Vehicles</h3>
<p>Private transport goes completely unmentioned by the <span class="caps">NPF</span>. While an
affordable and comprehensive mass transit system will go some way to
reducing the use of private automobiles, it obviously can not
eliminate it. A date should be set beyond which all cars sold in
Britain must be zero-emissions vehicles. For this to be practical, an
expansion in charging infrastructure is needed for electric cars. Fast
charging stations could be placed at existing petrol stations, while
(cheaper) slower ones could be placed in car-parks. A public
electrical company would be ideally placed to operate
these. Widespread adoption of electric vehicles would also be useful
in levelling out peaks in electricity demand, as owners could program
them to charge when demand is low (e.g. overnight) and, if necessary,
feed some of their energy back into the grid when demand is high.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Climate change is perhaps the greatest threat humanity has ever faced,
and mitigating it will be a task similar in scale to the conversion to
a wartime economy. The <span class="caps">NPF</span> displays no awareness of this fact and has
made no effort to draw up the detailed plans which will be
required. Instead they have contented themselves with vague, feel-good
slogans while ignoring crucial areas of climate policy. If Britain and
the rest of the world continue to take such an approach, then climate
change will be a catastrophe and perhaps even an existential threat to
future generations.</p>A 21st Century Energy Policy, Part 4: The Institutions to Make it Happen2017-01-29T09:03:00+00:002017-01-29T09:03:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2017-01-29:a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-4-the-institutions-to-make-it-happen.html<p><em>I have written a series of four articles discussing Britain’s energy
policy for the left-wing Labour-supporting website
<a href="http://www.leftfutures.org/">Left Futures</a>. In
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-1-all-thats-wrong-with-renewables.html">Part 1</a> I explain the limits of
renewable energy sources. <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-2-nuclear-powered-socialism.html">Part 2</a>
advocates for the role of nuclear power in an energy
transition. Various technologies which should be used and policies
which should be enacted in order to improve energy efficiency and
electrify heat and transport are discussed in
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-3-the-technology-of-the-future.html">Part 3</a>. Finally,
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-4-the-institutions-to-make-it-happen.html">Part 4</a> proposes an ownership
framework capable of building the electricity infrastructure needed.</em></p>
<p><img alt="National Grid transmission lines in the over water meadows owned by the Oxford Preservation Trust. Source: Marion Phillips CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/energyPolicy/nationalGrid.jpg"/>
As discussed in Part 3, the transition to a low-carbon economy is a
massive task which will require extensive government
intervention. During the most recent leadership campaign, Jeremy
Corbyn promised to “promote the growth of over 200 ‘local energy
companies’” and to “support the development of 1,000 community energy
co-operatives”. Although the exact meaning is unclear, presumably by
“local energy companies” he is referring to council-owned gas and
electricity distributors such as Nottingham’s
<a href="https://robinhoodenergy.co.uk/">Robin Hood Energy</a>. The “community
energy co-operatives” would appear to refer the small generators of
renewable electricity which can be found across Britain. The
<a href="http://www.brightonenergy.org.uk/">Brighton Energy Co-operative</a>
presents an example.</p>
<p>While placing electricity distribution in the hands of local authorities
may well be a good idea, it is important to consider what Corbyn’s
proposal actually involves. It is in no way, shape, or form
nationalisation of any part of the electricity industry. In Nottingham,
the physical infrastructure is owned by <a href="http://www.westernpower.co.uk/Home.aspx">Western Power
Distribution</a>, a subsidiary of
the American energy company <span class="caps">PPL</span> Corporation. Nor do all Nottingham
residents purchase their electricity from the council; Robin Hood Energy
is simply one option along with the Big Six and other, smaller,
competitors. In fact, the way the energy market is currently regulated
means that Robin Hood Energy must offer to sell electricity and gas to
people all across Britain. Should such municipal companies become
wide-spread across the <span class="caps">UK</span>, one would expect them to make inroads
against the Big Six, but remain only one set of players in the market.
This would not address the problems of money wasted on advertising,
promotions, and the bureaucracy needed to manage people changing suppliers.</p>
<p>On the other hand, there is almost nothing positive to be said about
energy co-operatives. In most sectors, a co-operative is owned by its
employees or its customers, but for energy this is not the case.
Instead, locals become members of the co-operative by <a href="http://www.uk.coop/sites/default/files/uploads/attachments/renewableenergy_0_0_0.pdf">paying to finance
new energy projects</a>.
Given the way the energy market is structured in the <span class="caps">UK</span>, it is
impossible for them to then buy their power from the co-op. Instead, the
co-op sells its power to one of the energy supply companies and returns
the profits to its investors as dividends. These are generous dividends
at that: Brighton Energy Co-operative aims to make a <a href="http://www.brightonenergy.org.uk/financial-benefits/">5% return on
investment each
year</a>, which is
substantially higher than the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates-bonds/government-bonds/uk">cost of servicing public-sector
borrowing</a>.
Despite all their talk of “community ownership”, energy co-ops would
appear to have far more in common with Margaret Thatcher’s “share-owning
democracy” than with a socialist vision of society and are a far-cry
from Corbyn’s calls, early in his first leadership campaign, to
nationalise the energy companies.</p>
<h3>Historical Energy Ownership</h3>
<p><img alt="The CEGB logo. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CEGB.png" src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/energyPolicy/CEGB.png"/> While the exact structure of the nationalised British electrical sector
changed somewhat under different post-war governments, it was broadly as
follows. The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/228961/0315.pdf">Central Electricity Generating
Board</a>
(<span class="caps">CEGB</span>) owned all power plants and the national grid. The distribution
infrastructure (wires leading into people’s homes) was owned by 14 area
electricity boards. The <span class="caps">CEGB</span> was responsible for ensuring that there was
always sufficient electricity supply for the country, which was bought
by the area electricity boards and then sold on to customers. Scotland
had a somewhat different structure to this, which is beyond the scope of
this article.</p>
<p>Upon privatisation, the <span class="caps">CEGB</span> was split up into the national grid and
three generating companies. These were sold off over a few years,
along with the area electricity boards. Today, there are four
components to the
sector. <a href="http://www2.nationalgrid.com/about-us/our-history/">National Grid plc</a>
owns the high-voltage transmission lines and is the “system operator”
(turning power plants on and off to match supply and
demand). Similarly, in each region there will be a single company
owning and maintaining the
<a href="https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/electricity/distribution-networks/gb-electricity-distribution-network">distribution network</a>.
Generation consists of various companies, ranging from giants like
<a href="https://www.edfenergy.com/energy"><span class="caps">EDF</span></a> to small renewable
<a href="http://www.uk.coop/sites/default/files/uploads/attachments/renewableenergy_0_0_0.pdf">energy co-ops</a>.
Finally, there are the supply companies that we all actually purchase
our electricity from. The
<a href="https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/electricity/retail-market/gb-electricity-retail-market">supply companies</a>
purchase electricity on a
<a href="https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/electricity/wholesale-market/gb-electricity-wholesale-market">wholesale market</a>
from various generating companies. <!--Vertical integration is not allowed
in this system; a single company is not allowed to be both a generator
and a supplier. Needless to say, many companies get around this by
using different subsidiaries. Hence companies like SSE own power
plants, distribution networks, and energy suppliers.--></p>
<p>Initially upon nationalisation, gas was the responsibility of 12 <a href="http://www.gasarchive.org/Nationalisation.htm">area
gas boards</a>, with a
central Gas Council acting a a coordinator and liaison with the
government. In the 1970s these boards were merged in to the single
<a href="http://www.gasarchive.org/BritishGasCorp.htm">British Gas Corporation</a>.
Prior to privatisation, the Thatcher government required British Gas to
carry natural gas for other suppliers. Unlike electricity, gas was
privatised as a single unit, becoming <a href="http://www.gasarchive.org/privatisation1.htm">British Gas
plc</a>. A series of
restructurings and demergers followed, with the <a href="http://www.gasarchive.org/privatisation2.htm">gas mains now owned by
National Grid plc</a>.
Exploration, production, storage, and sale of gas is now performed by
various companies.</p>
<h3>The Ownership Structures of Tomorrow</h3>
<p>So much for the past; what of the future? The three over-riding
requirements for a 21<sup>st</sup> century electricity sector are to
produce energy cleanly, reliably, and as cheaply as possible. A Labour
government must act to ensure rapid decarbonisation of the electricity
supply, while at the same time increasing electricity production and
ensuring that the lights remain on. As all low-carbon sources of
electricity are capital-intensive and have slow return on investment, the
only way to make the private sector build it is to provide generous
fixed prices for the electricity. This is expensive, so it makes far
more sense to build these projects in the public sector, especially
given the low interest rates at which a government can borrow. Thus,
public ownership is a practical policy in this situation.</p>
<p>A newly-created Power Generation Board (<span class="caps">PGB</span>) would be given a strict and
aggressive time-table to build new infrastructure with which to
decarbonise Britain’s electricity supply and begin replacing
non-electric energy sources. The exact details of how this would be
achieved are a technical matter best addressed by experts. However,
for reasons discussed in earlier sections, it seem clear that nuclear
power will have to play a major part in any sustainable energy mix.</p>
<p><img alt="The logo for former state enterprise British Nuclear Fuels Limited." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/energyPolicy/BNFL.png"/>
Nuclear power is cheapest when built by a public sector with
capacities for economic planning and direction, as was the case for
France in the 1970s. Currently Britain lacks such capacities. To begin
to regain them, measures should be taken to concentrate nuclear
expertise in the state. One important step in this direction would be
nationalising the existing nuclear power plants, to be placed in the
hands of the <span class="caps">PGB</span>. Furthermore, an additional state enterprise, in the
vein of the old
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Nuclear_Fuels_Ltd">British Nuclear Fuels Limited</a>
(<span class="caps">BNFL</span>), should be created and tasked with developing new reactor
designs, advising the <span class="caps">PGB</span>, decommissioning old reactors, proposing new
fuel cycles, examining issues around waste, etc. Initially, it would
be formed out of the existing
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/nuclear-decommissioning-authority">Nuclear Decommissioning Authority</a>,
with all outsourced operations brought back in-house, and the
<a href="http://www.nnl.co.uk/">National Nuclear Laboratory</a>. The Office for
Nuclear Regulation (“Ofnuke”) would remain strictly independent from
both this enterprise and the <span class="caps">PGB</span>. Britain should support international
cooperation and research in the nuclear sector and, contrary to
current Conservative plans, remain a member of
<a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/energy/euratom/index_en.cfm">Euratom</a>.</p>
<p>Given that the cost of government borrowing is lower than the returns
expected by private (even co-operative) electricity producers, it would
also make sense to nationalise the existing renewable infrastructure. As in
the case of nationalising nuclear reactors, this has the further
advantaging of bringing expertise into the public sector. On the other
hand, given that fossil fuel assets are to be phased out as rapidly as
possible, it would likely be better to leave most of these in the
private sector and avoid the public having to pay decommissioning costs.
The <span class="caps">PGB</span> would act as a single purchaser (monopsony) for all
privately-produced electricity, which would provide an effective form of
public control over this sector. In order to ensure that pressure to cut
electricity costs does not lead to poorer pay or working conditions in
the private companies, sectoral collective bargaining should be used. In
the event that the <span class="caps">PGB</span> deems the cost of purchasing electricity
privately is greater than the cost of nationalising the producer, the
producer should be taken into public ownership.</p>
<p>Such an arrangement would require a radical change to current
regulations. At a minimum, distribution companies must be prohibited
from purchasing electricity from anyone other than the <span class="caps">PGB</span>, in order to
ensure that low-carbon electricity is being used. Given this, the <span class="caps">PGB</span>
should take over the role of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_system_operator">transmission system
operator</a>
from National Grid plc. Ideally, the transmission infrastructure itself
would also be nationalised, although this is not strictly necessary for
the energy transition described here.</p>
<p>A monopoly in generation also means there is little point in having
competing distribution companies selling electricity to customers or
in separating them from the distribution networks. In the event of
devolution to the English regions, a tidy approach would be to require
each of them (along with Scotland and Wales) to maintain an
electricity board to operate the distribution infrastructure and be
the monopoly supplier of power to consumers. It would also be possible
to have local authorities play this roll. In either case, it should be
illegal for them to reprivatise these assets. Alternatively, the <span class="caps">PGB</span>
could perform this role too, forming a fully vertically-integrated
utility. While this might achieve greater economy of scale and such a
move was
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/228961/0315.pdf">recommended in the 1970s</a>,
it does somewhat cut against the present zeitgeist for localism.</p>
<h3>Nationalisation Costs</h3>
<p>There would be a cost of nationalising the electricity transmission and
distribution networks. This might lead some to argue that a Labour
government should hold off on such actions. However, it makes more sense
to structure the <span class="caps">PGB</span> and any newly-created public distributors to be
able to operate these assets from the start rather than have to
reorganise them later. Additionally, the cost of servicing any debt
incurred would almost certainly be less than the cost of paying to use
these networks.</p>
<p>While it has been claimed that nationalising the energy sector would
cost an eye-watering
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/07/jeremy-corbyns-bill-nationalising-energy-sector-185bn">£185 billion</a>,
this number is flawed as it assumes compensation would be paid at
full-market rates and that overseas assets would also be purchased.
<a href="http://www.psiru.org/sites/default/files/2016-04-E-UK-public.pdf">Another report</a>
argued that compensation could be provided only at the value of a
company’s equity, making nationalising Britain’s electricity
transmission and distribution infrastructure cost £8.4
billion<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup>. Nationalising all of the Big 6 would cost £44.4
billion. However, there is no need to expropriate their supply
businesses—these would simply become obsolete with the introduction
of publicly-owned ones. As stated above, fossil fuel power plants
would be left in the private sector—at least initially. Given that
all of these companies have diverse energy portfolios, the cost of
nationalising just nuclear and renewable generation can only be
estimated. The Big 6 make up
<a href="https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/chart/wholesale-electricity-generation-market-shares-company-2015-gb">about 70%</a>
of the <span class="caps">UK</span> generation market. If all of their equity is in this portion
of of their business, then the equity-value of the entire generation
sector is about £63.4 billion. Nuclear and renewable sources supply
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/513244/Press_Notice_March_2016.pdf">about 45%</a>
of Britain’s electricity, so the cost of nationalising this
infrastructure should be about £30 billion. It must be stressed that
this is an extremely pessimistic number, as it assumes all equity is
tied up in generation infrastructure.</p>
<p>As gas should be phased out and replaced with electricity, there is
little point in nationalising this side of the energy industry. Should
some other use be found for parts of the gas network (e.g. transporting
hydrogen or providing district heating) then the relevant portions of it
should be brought into public ownership. The supply-side of this
industry could either be regulated or this role could be performed in
the public sector, e.g. by councils or the <span class="caps">PGB</span>.</p>
<h3>European Energy Directives</h3>
<p>The above represents an idealised scenario for energy ownership.
However, it is in radical violation of current <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/energy/node/50"><span class="caps">EU</span> energy
policy</a>. This policy requires an
open market, unbundling of electricity distribution from generation, and
regulators independent from government. During Brexit negotiations,
Britain should strive to avoid being bound by these directives. Should
this prove unsuccessful, then there are two options: knowingly
disobeying the directives or adapting the above strategy to lie within them.</p>
<p>Could this plan be sufficiently adapted? The following components would
not be possible: integrating the system operator into the <span class="caps">PGB</span>, requiring
all electricity to be purchased from the <span class="caps">PGB</span>, permitting private
generators only to sell to the <span class="caps">PGB</span>, and creating a public monopoly in supply.
It would still be possible to have the system operator in the public
sector and to direct it to prefer clean energy sources over fossil
fuels, so long as it in no way favoured the <span class="caps">PGB</span>. It would also be
possible to require a certain portion of electricity purchased by
private suppliers to be clean.</p>
<p>Should an electricity wholesale market remain in any form, it will
likely make investment in new energy sources more difficult. All
low-carbon electricity has high capital costs but low operating costs.
This means that investment only makes sense if future electricity prices
are known. When electricity is produced by a single
vertically-integrated supplier this is the default position, but not so
in a market where the wholesale price fluctuates on an hourly basis. The
existence of multiple suppliers is also problematic, as it would prevent
more direct means of controlling price and tariff structures.
Inefficiencies associated with having multiple suppliers, such as
marketing and promotional deals, would persist. If Britain chooses to
stick to the <span class="caps">EU</span> energy regulations, then we will have to content
ourselves with much less direct means of influencing the energy system
and the possibility that companies will be able to exploit loopholes or
sabotage government plans.</p>
<p>Most concerning of all, European officials <a href="http://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/commission-set-for-climb-down-on-ownership-unbundling/">have
indicated</a>
that state-backed investment and regulated prices (as done during
France’s past build-out of nuclear reactors) would violate state-aid
rules. As that is the model set forth here for Britain, this is very
worrying. This must be the ultimate red-line. Without this
form of state-aid, decarbonisation is all but impossible. Whatever is
decided with regards to the existence of an electricity market, the <span class="caps">UK</span>
must be willing to violate <span class="caps">EU</span> rules on state aid.</p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>Energy policy is a highly technical matter involving politics,
economics, engineering, fundamental physics, and law. Books can, and
have, been written on these matters, so this series of articles can
only provide an overview of the issues. As has been seen, transition
to a low carbon economy will not be easy and will not be possible
using only (or even mainly) renewable energy. Nuclear power must play
a role. The sort of transition described here will require not only
active state intervention in the energy sector, but in many other
parts of the economy as well. A Labour government intent on protecting
the environment must be prepared for the magnitude of the task and be
willing to violate <span class="caps">EU</span> directives in order to achieve it. To paraphrase
a cliché, the choice before us is clear: socialism or environmental disaster.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>The lower value of £7.5 billion quoted in the report seemed to assume that money would <em>be paid to the government</em> when nationalising those distribution companies with negative equity. This seems unlikely—the best we could hope for in those cases is not to have to pay any compensation. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>A 21st Century Energy Policy, Part 3: The Technology of the Future2017-01-29T09:02:00+00:002017-01-29T09:02:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2017-01-29:a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-3-the-technology-of-the-future.html<p><em>I have written a series of four articles discussing Britain’s energy
policy for the left-wing Labour-supporting website
<a href="http://www.leftfutures.org/">Left Futures</a>. In
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-1-all-thats-wrong-with-renewables.html">Part 1</a> I explain the limits of
renewable energy sources. <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-2-nuclear-powered-socialism.html">Part 2</a>
advocates for the role of nuclear power in an energy
transition. Various technologies which should be used and policies
which should be enacted in order to improve energy efficiency and
electrify heat and transport are discussed in
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-3-the-technology-of-the-future.html">Part 3</a>. Finally,
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-4-the-institutions-to-make-it-happen.html">Part 4</a> proposes an ownership
framework capable of building the electricity infrastructure needed.</em></p>
<p>If humanity is to have any hope of avoiding catastrophic climate
change, developed countries must take aggressive steps to decarbonise
as quickly as possible. This will mean not only replacing existing
fossil-fuel power plants, but greatly expanding all electricity
production to replace gas and petrol. Such a task demands not just an
energy policy, but a
<a href="http://www.leftfutures.org/2017/01/a-left-economic-strategy-for-labour-putting-meat-on-the-bones/comment-page-1/">comprehensive economic plan</a>.</p>
<p>For reasons discussed in Part 1, decarbonisation is not achievable
using only renewable sources. Investments should certainly be made in
wind, and (where feasible) hydroelectric, tidal, and geothermal power,
but even combined these are unlikely to provide more than half of the
current supply. The remainder must be made up by nuclear power. This
is broadly in line with what energy analyst David MacKay proposed as
“<a href="http://www.withouthotair.com/c27/page_211.shtml">Plan E</a>” in his
book
<a href="http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html"><em>Sustainable Energy—Without the Hot Air</em></a>. This
was the plan which he deemed to be the most economical of those he proposed.</p>
<figure><img alt="*Sustainable Energy--Without the Hot Air*, by David MacKay, offers an extremely detailed examination of how energy is used, how it can be conserved, and how it can be produced." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/energyPolicy/withoutHotAir.jpg"/><figcaption><em>Sustainable Energy—Without the Hot Air</em>, by David MacKay, offers an extremely detailed examination of how energy is used, how it can be conserved, and how it can be produced.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To improve cost effectiveness, new nuclear reactors should be built to
a standard design, perhaps initially an established one with known
costs; the spiralling costs at Hinkley C (which
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/18/we-are-pro-nuclear-but-hinkley-c-must-be-scrapped">should probably be cancelled</a>)
show what can happen when a new and untested design is used. Such a
strategy is similar to the mass build-out of nuclear reactors in
France during the 1970s and 80s. Unfortunately, Britain today lacks
the capacity for state-directed economic development which France had
at that time. Steps to regain it will be discussed in Part 4.</p>
<p>According to
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-consumption-in-the-uk">statistics provided by the Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy</a>,
currently electricity makes up about 20% of Britain’s energy usage,
while gas accounts for about 30% and petroleum products for almost all
of the rest. Gas and petrol will need to be phased out, as they can
not be decarbonised. When faced with these numbers, the scale of the
task ahead becomes apparent; not only must the majority of the
existing electricity supply be replaced, but it must be expanded
several times over. Fortunately, there is much which can be done to
improve efficiency, somewhat reducing the amount of new capacity needed.</p>
<p>Measures such as insulation could realistically result in a
<a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Next-steps-for-UK-heat-policy-Committee-on-Climate-Change-October-2016.pdf">reduction of 15%</a>
in energy used for heating existing buildings by 2030. Obviously, new
buildings should be required to meet high efficiency standards.
Old and inefficient boilers could be replaced, although the phasing out of gas might mean that this is not worthwhile. The question then emerges as to
how to achieve the upgrading of old buildings. The Green Party has, in
the past, proposed that households should simply be given the
insulation for free. However, this amounts to little more than a gift
to those well-off enough to own their house or a gift to
landlords. The government could offer to finance insulation at a rate
where the cost would be covered by savings in gas bills. However,
landlords would have to be permitted to increase rents accordingly for
this to provide them with an incentive. Further discussion will be
needed on this issue.</p>
<p>Various options exist to replace gas for heat and hot water. The
simplest would be electric baseboard heating and immersion heating,
which are a well-established technologies with cheap up-front
costs. The upfront costs for these are relatively cheap, although
still significant. In
<a href="http://nbpower.ca/en/products-services/water-heaters/your-options">parts of Canada</a>
most people rent their water heaters from the power company and a
similar option could be pursued here. Note, however, that with the
<span class="caps">UK</span>’s present electricity supply, this form is heating is actually
<a href="http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-energy/heat/air-source-heat-pumps">worse for the environment</a>
than gas, so it should only be rolled out after substantial
electricity decarbonisation.
<a href="http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-energy/heat/air-source-heat-pumps">Heat</a>
<a href="http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-energy/heat/ground-source-heat-pumps">pumps</a>
offer a few times better energy efficiency than conventional electric
heating but have very high up-front costs. Mass producing heat pumps,
in order to bring down the price, should be one aim of national
industrial policy and the government should also offer to finance
their installation or allow customers to rent them from the power
company. <a href="http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-energy/heat/solar-water-heating">Solar thermal</a>
panels can be coupled with these systems to help provide hot water.</p>
<p>In areas with sufficiently high population density, district heating
should likely play a substantial role. Where practical, this should
use waste heat from power plants. This
<a href="http://www.cwh.org.uk/assets/_files/documents/oct_13/CITY__1382345517_Factsheetfinal2013.pdf">was done in Westminster</a>
with the old Battersea Power Station. A publicly owned electricity
company should build such systems around any nuclear or geothermal
power plants, possibly in partnership with local authorities. Heat can
also be extracted from
<a href="http://enwave.com/locations/toronto/">large bodies of water</a>,
<a href="http://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/neighbourhood-energy-strategy.aspx">sewage</a>,
and the ground using heat pumps. The government should offer loans to
councils which wish to invest in such projects.</p>
<!--![District heating accumulator tower in Westminster. Source: Fin Fahey at the English language Wikipedia, [CC-BY-SA-2.5](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/deed.en), via Wikimedia Commons]({filename}/images/energyPolicy/heatingTower.jpg)-->
<p>Binding efficiency requirements must be set for consumer and
industrial goods and these should be regularly updated. A government
program to purchase older white-goods, similar to Obama’s
“<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System">cash for clunkers</a>”
program, could be used to incentivise upgrading to more
energy-efficient models. A similar approach could be taken with other
goods such a televisions and light-bulbs. Gas ovens and hobs will
eventually become obsolete and need to be replaced.</p>
<p>A concerted effort should be made to shift people out of cars and onto
public transit. One step in this direction would be
<a href="https://farefreepublictransport.com/">free public transit</a>. Congestion
charges, pedestrian zones, road tolls, and reduced speed limits can
all be used to discourage car use. Cycling routes and infrastructure
should be improved. 100% electrification should be a goal for railways
and some of the routes closed under the
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts">Beeching Axe</a> of the
1960s should be considered for reopening. The current bus fleet should
be gradually replaced by trolleys, trolley-buses, and battery-powered
buses. This will be more difficult for long-distance buses, as
batteries have limited range and it may be impractical to run wires
over the long stretches of highway. To the extent that private
vehicles continue to be used, they will have to be electric and
government action will be needed to develop the charging
infrastructure. Long-distance freight should increasingly be
transported by rail and local freight by electric trucks.</p>
<p>Long distance travel by air or sea is more difficult as there are no
nearby electrical wires to power it. The energy density of batteries
is
<a href="https://carboncounter.wordpress.com/2015/06/18/flying-without-fossil-fuels-the-need-for-high-energy-density/">only a few percent of diesel or jet fuel</a>,
making it impossible to fit enough of them on a ship or plane to power
a voyage. Alternatives such as biofuels or hydrogen are still decades
away and, in the case of the former, there are concerns about them
displacing essential food production. In the meantime, rail should
start to replace short-haul aviation, particularly for domestic
flights. Various
<a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/5/6/11569202/aviation-emissions-solar-plane">incremental improvements</a>
can be made to reduce energy use by planes. Research into alternatives
to jet fuel should be continued and expanded. Shipping remains quite
energy efficient and thus is not an initial priority for
decarbonisation but, in addition to developing biofuels, the government could look to develop
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_marine_propulsion">nuclear powered freighters</a>
similar to the nuclear powered aircraft carriers, submarines, and ice
breakers which already exist. Some of the same safety measures could be used as when <a href="http://www.pntl.co.uk/safety/">transporting nuclear waste by ship</a>.</p>
<figure><img alt="The NS Savannah, the first nuclear powered merchant vessel. It was largely experimental and suffered design issues unrelated to its engine. Source: US Government NARA (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/energyPolicy/NSsavannah-1962.jpg"/><figcaption>The <span class="caps">NS</span> Savannah, the first nuclear powered merchant vessel. It was largely experimental and suffered design issues unrelated to its engine. Source: <span class="caps">US</span> Government <a href="http://arcweb.archives.gov"><span class="caps">NARA</span></a> (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a final note, there are also various non-energy related sources of
greenhouse gases. Particular culprits are
<a href="http://www.withouthotair.com/c13/page_76.shtml">agriculture</a> and the
<a href="https://carboncounter.wordpress.com/2015/06/11/can-you-make-a-wind-turbine-without-fossil-fuels-2/">manufacture of steel and cement</a>.
These issues are beyond the scope of these articles, but it should be
noted that they are not easy to solve. Furthermore, at present the
greenhouse gases emitted in the production of Britain’s imports
<a href="http://www.withouthotair.com/c15/page_93.shtml">are almost equal</a> to
those of Britain itself. Rebuilding Britain’s manufacturing sector
will help with this, but ultimately it represents the need for
international action to fight climate change.</p>
<p>As can be seen, the task of moving Britain over to a low-carbon
economy is a Herculean one. It will require government intervention on
an unprecedented scale. Only a left-wing government, armed with a
detailed and carefully worked-out economic plan, can hope to achieve
it in an equitable manner.</p>A 21st Century Energy Policy, Part 2: Nuclear Powered Socialism2017-01-29T09:01:00+00:002017-01-29T09:01:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2017-01-29:a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-2-nuclear-powered-socialism.html<p><em>I have written a series of four articles discussing Britain’s energy
policy for the left-wing Labour-supporting website
<a href="http://www.leftfutures.org/">Left Futures</a>. In
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-1-all-thats-wrong-with-renewables.html">Part 1</a> I explain the limits of
renewable energy sources. <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-2-nuclear-powered-socialism.html">Part 2</a>
advocates for the role of nuclear power in an energy
transition. Various technologies which should be used and policies
which should be enacted in order to improve energy efficiency and
electrify heat and transport are discussed in
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-3-the-technology-of-the-future.html">Part 3</a>. Finally,
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-4-the-institutions-to-make-it-happen.html">Part 4</a> proposes an ownership
framework capable of building the electricity infrastructure needed.</em></p>
<p>As described in the previous article, renewable energy will not be
able to provide the backbone of Britain’s electricity
supply. Geothermal power might provide a minority of the baseload
capacity, it may be worth building new hydroelectric dams where
possible, and there is a place for some intermittent energy capacity,
but this still requires a substantial portion of the supply to come
from another source. If fossil fuels must be abandoned<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> and
renewable energy isn’t up for the task, that leaves nuclear
power. Nuclear power is, today, almost universally reviled by the left
(with the notable exception of the Communist Party of France). It is
viewed as dirty, dangerous, and expensive. The truth is, it need be
none of these things.</p>
<p>Much of the fear around nuclear power comes from not understanding the
science and risks of radiation. It is notable that scientists tend
<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3700115">not to be afraid of radiation</a>
and are
<a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/">significantly more in favour</a>
of building nuclear power plants than the general population. The fact
of the matter is that the extra radiation experienced by people living
near a nuclear power plant is insignificant in comparison to
background radiation, as can be seen in the chart below.</p>
<figure><img alt="Radiation doses experienced from every-day activity, compared to those from nuclear accident and doses which are actually dangerous. Source: Randall Munroe, XKCD (follow link for larger image)." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/energyPolicy/radiation.png"/><figcaption>Radiation doses experienced from every-day activity, compared to those from nuclear accident and doses which are actually dangerous. Source: Randall Munroe, <a href="https://xkcd.com/radiation/"><span class="caps">XKCD</span></a> (follow link for larger image).</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The threat of accidents has also been greatly overblown. The major
accidents which are cited are Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and
Fukushima. The
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Health_effects_and_epidemiology">consensus among peer-reviewed studies</a>
is that the Three Mile Island accident led to few or no deaths. The
<a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html">causes of the accident</a>
have been thoroughly investigated and reactor design and operating
procedures have been improved as a result. Chernobyl, far and away the worst of these incidents,
<a href="http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub913e_web.pdf">was the fault of</a>
a uniquely bad reactor design and a poorly executed experiment. <span class="caps">RBMK</span>
reactors, such as the one at Chernobyl, are known to be unstable, had
a control rod design which initially <em>increases</em> the reaction rate,
are surrounded by flammable graphite, and lack the containment
buildings seen in all other nuclear power plants. An accident like
that at Chernobyl would not be physically possible in the types of
reactors used in the West.</p>
<p>Fukushima is the most recent of these and has resulted in a renewed
backlash against nuclear power. It is important to remember that this
event was initiated by an a 13m-15m tsunami resulting from a magnitude
9 earthquake,
<a href="http://earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/research/events/tohoku/BritishTsunami.html">neither of which are events which can strike Britain</a>. Furthermore,
the private operator <span class="caps">TEPCO</span>
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20141006070548/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/world/asia/tepco-admits-failure-in-acknowledging-risks-at-nuclear-plant.html?_r=0">had been</a>
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20131005004918/http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/2012/10/12/japan-utility-admits-nuke-crisis-avoidable-says-feared-consequences-new-safety-measures/NK3yENYHgVPQZ76POvbBLL/story.html">cutting corners</a>
in terms of disaster preparedness. Clearly, strong independent
oversight is needed for nuclear power and reactors should be in public
ownership to make corner-cutting less likely. However, Fukushima is
not an indictment of nuclear energy <em>per se</em>. No one died from
radiation poisoning and any increase in cancer deaths looks
<a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/fukushima_report_20130228/en/">set to be very small</a>
(even when using pessimistic models) and difficult to separate from
background rates. As with Chernobyl,
<a href="http://www.nature.com/news/fukushima-fallout-of-fear-1.12194">mental illness</a>
is a bigger threat to the effected population.</p>
<p>Obviously every death is tragic, but
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima">no energy source is without risks</a>.
Despite its scary reputation, nuclear power has the
<a href="http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml">lowest or second lowest number of deaths per gigawatt-hour</a>
of any energy source. When things go wrong, they tend to do so in a
big, scary way, which misleads people as to the threat. New reactor
designs (and, indeed, some older ones such as the
<a href="http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionD.htm#q"><span class="caps">CANDU</span></a>) include “passive
safety” features which do not depend on human or electronic
intervention, making accidents like those at Three Mile Island,
Chernobyl, and Fukushima physically impossible.</p>
<p>The other big argument against nuclear power is what to do with the
waste. It is important to keep this problem in perspective. Currently,
only
<a href="http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_170.shtml">25ml of high level nuclear waste</a>
(the stuff which needs to be stored for thousands of years) is
produced per person, per year in Britain. Even if all of the <span class="caps">UK</span>’s
present energy demands were met by nuclear, it would produce about a
pint of high level waste per person, per year. This is a small volume
to deal with when compared to other forms of waste. We can keep the
waste in <a href="http://www.pntl.co.uk/safety/packages/">dry cask storage</a>
indefinitely as we look for longer-term solutions, so unlike <span class="caps">GHG</span>
emissions this is not a pressing issue. Ultimately,
<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/research/energy/pdf/waste_disposal_en.pdf">burying nuclear waste</a>
deep in dry, geologically stable regions looks to be a viable
solution. Furthermore,
<a href="https://www.gen-4.org/gif/jcms/c_59461/generation-iv-systems">Generation <span class="caps">IV</span></a>
reactor designs promise to be able to use existing nuclear waste as
fuel and produce much lower volumes of their own waste.</p>
<p>There is no denying that many nuclear projects have been
expensive. New reactor designs have been known to go over-budget. On
the other hand, while results of studies examining energy costs vary
greatly
(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source">see the Wikipedia article</a>),
they tend to show that overall nuclear is of comparable cost to other
energy sources. In recent years it can appear that renewable energy is
cheaper, but these studies do not seem to take into account
requirements for storage and changes to the electricity grid. Nuclear
power plants have large capital costs and low operating costs, which
means that building them in the private sector requires expensive
subsidies. Nuclear-dependent France has
<a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Electricity_prices_for_household_consumers,_second_half_2015_(¹)_(EUR_per_kWh)_YB16.png">middling</a>
to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25200808">low</a> electricity
costs and demonstrates the savings which can be achieved by building
reactors through a public sector energy monopoly to a standard
design. In the future,
<a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/3-ways-small-modular-reactors-overcome-existing-barriers-to-nuclear/">small modular reactors</a>
could potentially be mass-produced, bringing prices down
further. While no clean energy source is cheap, nuclear is likely to
be the cheapest option for countries without hydroelectric or
geothermal capacity. </p>
<figure><img alt="Hunterston B nuclear power plant in Scotland. Nuclear power plants take up minimal space and are much less of an imposition on the landscape than windmills. Source: Jonathonchampton at English Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/energyPolicy/hunterstonB.jpg"/><figcaption>Hunterston B nuclear power plant in Scotland. Nuclear power plants take up minimal space and are much less of an imposition on the landscape than windmills. Source: Jonathonchampton at English Wikipedia <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0"><span class="caps">CC</span> <span class="caps">BY</span>-<span class="caps">SA</span> 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While most leftists are today opposed to nuclear energy, ironically it
is only within a left-wing
<a href="http://www.leftfutures.org/2017/01/a-left-economic-strategy-for-labour-putting-meat-on-the-bones/comment-page-1/">comprehensive economic plan</a>
that nuclear power can reach its full potential. The energy transition
of
<a href="http://www.iea.org/stats/WebGraphs/FRANCE2.pdf">France in the 1970s and 1980s</a>
shows what can be achieved by a state intent on transforming its power
supply. For a country to prosper, it must have a clean, reliable,
abundant energy supply and renewables alone will not provide this in
Britain. If socialism is to bring prosperity, rather than a more
equitable distribution of misery, our socialism must be nuclear powered.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>Carbon capture and storage (<span class="caps">CCS</span>) technology is sometimes invoked as a way for us to continue using fossil fuels. The issue with it is how we go about ensuring that the captured <span class="caps">CO</span><sub>2</sub> <em>stays where we put it</em>. Usually it is suggested that it be stored underground, but were it to leak then it would undo all of our work capturing it in the first place. In many ways this is a more concerning problem even than nuclear waste, since the latter is solid—making it much easier to contain than a gas—and needs to be stored for only a finite time. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>A 21st Century Energy Policy, Part 1: All that’s Wrong with Renewables2017-01-29T09:00:00+00:002017-01-29T09:00:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2017-01-29:a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-1-all-thats-wrong-with-renewables.html<p><em>I have written a series of four articles discussing Britain’s energy
policy for the left-wing Labour-supporting website
<a href="http://www.leftfutures.org/">Left Futures</a>. In
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-1-all-thats-wrong-with-renewables.html">Part 1</a> I explain the limits of
renewable energy sources. <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-2-nuclear-powered-socialism.html">Part 2</a>
advocates for the role of nuclear power in an energy
transition. Various technologies which should be used and policies
which should be enacted in order to improve energy efficiency and
electrify heat and transport are discussed in
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-3-the-technology-of-the-future.html">Part 3</a>. Finally,
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/a-21st-century-energy-policy-part-4-the-institutions-to-make-it-happen.html">Part 4</a> proposes an ownership
framework capable of building the electricity infrastructure needed.</em></p>
<p>With the exception of Arthur Scargill, most on the Left agree that the
days of fossil fuels must soon come to an end. Whatever nostalgia some
may have for the Miner’s Strike, we all know that it would be
environmental catastrophe to revive the coal industry. But if we are
to wean ourselves off of coal and other fossil fuels, what will take
their place?</p>
<p>The answer which springs to everyone’s lips is “renewable energy”.
Jeremy Corby has promised to have
<a href="http://www.jeremyforlabour.com/energy">65% of electricity</a> coming
from renewable sources by 2030, with a longer term goal of 85%. There
is also a promise to phase out coal power plants by the early 2020s,
strive to keep 80% of global fossil fuel reserves in the ground, and
create 300 000 jobs in the renewable energy supply chain. All of this
chimes well with the calls for a
<a href="http://www.greennewdealgroup.org/">Green New Deal</a> which have been
coming from progressives since the financial crisis of 2008.</p>
<figure><img alt="The Scroby Sands Wind Farm which produces, on average, less than 20MW of power. Source: Miss.hyper at the English language Wikipedia, CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/energyPolicy/scroby_windfarm.jpg"/><figcaption>The Scroby Sands Wind Farm which produces, on average, less than <span class="caps">20MW</span> of power. Source: Miss.hyper at the English language Wikipedia, <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"><span class="caps">CC</span>-<span class="caps">BY</span>-<span class="caps">SA</span>-3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there are two problems. First, it’s not enough. Given that there are
some sectors (such as agriculture, steel, and concrete production) which
would be difficult or impossible to decarbonise, we must have greater
reductions in greenhouse gas (<span class="caps">GHG</span>) emissions from electricity than 65,
or even 85, percent. Ultimately, it will need to be 100% and it will
need to be achieved as quickly as possible. Second of all, even a target
of 65% renewable electricity is not achievable for Britain.</p>
<p>To date, the following types of renewable energy have found extensive
use: hydroelectric, wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass. Of these,
hydro, geothermal, and biomass energy are able to provide stable,
base-load energy supplies. Hydro-power is the best-established of these
technologies and provides the vast majority of electricity in Norway and
parts of Canada. However, it requires specific geographical features to
be viable. As such, only a <a href="http://www.british-hydro.org/UK%20Hydro%20Resource/England%20and%20Wales%20Resource%20Study%20Oct%202010.pdf">few hundred
megawatts</a>
of new hydro capacity could be built in England and Wales. Scotland has
somewhat more potential, with a <a href="http://www.british-hydro.org/UK%20Hydro%20Resource/Scottish%20Hydro%20Resource%20Study%20Aug%202008.pdf">few
gigawatts</a>
of new capacity possible, but only a fraction of this would be viable in
practice. Furthermore, it is still only a few percent of the <span class="caps">UK</span>’s <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129501.900-electricity-use-drops-as-uk-passes-peak-light-bulb/">50-60
gigawatt peak power
consumption</a>.
The role of geothermal energy in the <span class="caps">UK</span> is unclear: a renewable industry
group estimates that it could provide up to <a href="http://www.r-e-a.net/news/deep-geothermal-resource-has-potential-to-produce-up-to-20-of-uk-electricity-and-heat-for-millions">20% of the country’s
current electricity
needs</a>
and be used very effectively to heat homes, while others have suggested
that it is an <a href="http://www.withouthotair.com/c16/page_98.shtml">impractical power
source</a> for Britain.
Even in the former case, however, other energy sources will be needed.
Biomass power (largely consisting of burning wood-chips) is expensive
and of dubious environmental benefit. While it is claimed to be “carbon
neutral”, <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2114993-europes-green-energy-policy-is-a-disaster-for-the-environment/">this is
untrue</a>
on the time scales relevant to mitigating global warming. In fact, it
can release more GHGs than fossil fuels.</p>
<p>That leaves solar power and wind. Given the relatively high latitude
of the <span class="caps">UK</span>, general cloudiness, and fact that energy consumption is
highest at the times of day and year with the least sunlight,
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/mar/01/solar-panel-feed-in-tariff">solar panels are massively unfit</a>
as an energy source in this country. Furthermore, solar and wind are
known as <em>intermittent</em> energy sources, as their output varies, often
in an unpredictable manner. This makes them considerably more
difficult to manage than conventional power plants. In an electricity
system with other energy sources that can be turned on and off,
intermittent energy sources could provide a significant minority of
the supply. However, as their share grows, you begin to run the risk
of brownouts. Thus, it becomes necessary to both build excess
generating capacity and to build storage capacity. This way, when the
sun is shining and the wind is blowing, some of the energy can be set
aside for when it’s dark and calm. Unfortunately, at present, we
<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261914010290">do not have technologies</a>
capable of economically delivering storage at the scale
needed. Stepping back to examine the how
<a href="https://bravenewclimate.com/2011/10/29/gws-sg-es/#attachment_5198">vast this scale is</a>,
it is questionable if sufficient technology will ever exist.</p>
<p>One of the standard responses to this is the suggestion of building a
Europe-wide smart-grid. While this may help even out some of the most
extreme troughs in generation, it is still insufficient. There is a
great deal of
<a href="http://euanmearns.com/wind-blowing-nowhere/">correlation between wind-speeds</a>
across the continent, so that at times when the wind isn’t blowing
much in Italy, it also won’t be blowing much in Denmark, Germany, the
<span class="caps">UK</span>, or anywhere else on the continent. The net result is that for wind
energy to be a major component of the electricity supply, massive
amounts of more reliable generating capacity
<a href="https://bravenewclimate.com/2011/10/29/gws-sg-es/">are also needed</a>. The
eye-catching headline about Germany generating the majority of its
electricity from renewables on some day in July miss the point that it
fails to generate this much on most other days.</p>
<p>Given these problems, how have even existing levels of intermittent
renewable energy proven economical? What about all the people and
companies we hear about running completely off of renewable energy?
While it is, strictly speaking, true that such customers are paying
for all energy they consume to be produced by renewable sources, that
is not to say that the electricity they use <em>at a given time</em> was from
a renewable source. There would be times when they’re consuming
electricity generated from nuclear power or fossil fuels. It’s just
that at other times, the company they’re buying energy from is
producing more electricity than needed, which is then sold to other
consumers, reducing the need for fossil fuel power plants at that
time. This is all well and good for a consumer who wants to feel smug
about their purchasing decisions, but isn’t of much use if the goal is
powering an entire country (let alone the world) with renewables.</p>
<figure><img alt="The carbon intensity of electricity across Europe, at 5:30PM GMT January 28 2017. Germany and Denmark, darlings of renewable energy proselytisers, are mediocre at best. The countries with the cleanest electricity are Norway (hydro), Sweden (hydro and nuclear), and France (nuclear). Source: electricitymap.org" src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/energyPolicy/carbon_map.png"/><figcaption>The carbon intensity of electricity across Europe, at 5:<span class="caps">30PM</span> <span class="caps">GMT</span> January 28 2017. Germany and Denmark, darlings of renewable energy proselytisers, are mediocre at best. The countries with the cleanest electricity are Norway (hydro), Sweden (hydro and nuclear), and France (nuclear). Source: <a href="http://www.electricitymap.org/">electricitymap.org</a></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Furthermore, despite the starry-eyed praise often heard for Germany’s
“democratic” energy system, the truth is less than pretty. It is true
that a number of municipalities have bought back their energy grids
and that there are a number of energy co-ops. However, the vast
majority of the renewable capacity is owned by
<a href="http://www.energiewende2015.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Factsheet-Renewables-from-Germany.pdf">private companies and individuals</a>.
The feed-in tariffs used to incentivise investment in renewable energy
are set well above market energy prices and have led to the
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25200808">highest</a> or
<a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Electricity_prices_for_household_consumers,_second_half_2015_(¹)_(EUR_per_kWh)_YB16.png">second highest</a>
energy prices in Europe, while enriching investors and those well-off
enough to own a home on which to install solar panels. And yet, Jeremy
Corbyn
<a href="http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/labour_leader_labels_fit_cuts_nonsensical_in_renewables_research_pledge">slammed the Conservatives for cutting feed-in tariffs</a>.
Worse, the actual reductions in <span class="caps">GHG</span> emissions is
underwhelming. Assuming that Germany meets its targets
(<a href="https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-set-miss-climate-goals-think-tank/energiewende-what-do-new-laws-mean">which is dubious</a>),
it plans for
<a href="https://www.bmwi.de/BMWi/Redaktion/PDF/V/vierter-monitoring-bericht-energie-der-zukunft-englische-kurzfassung,property=pdf,bereich=bmwi2012,sprache=de,rwb=true.pdf">80% of electricity</a>
to be renewable by 2050. On the other hand, France was able to move a
similar proportion of its electricity production to low-carbon sources
<a href="http://www.iea.org/stats/WebGraphs/FRANCE2.pdf">in a decade</a>.</p>
<p>Most damming of all, there simply
<a href="http://www.withouthotair.com/c18/page_103.shtml">are not enough</a>
renewable energy sources in Britain to meet our needs. To come close
would require using every available technology (many of which are
unproven or expensive) and massive amounts of land. There would be
essentially no remaining wilderness and generating capacity would need
to intrude massively upon living areas. More realistic estimates
suggest that renewables can provide just a fraction of
Britain’s power.</p>
<p>All of this makes renewables insufficient if our goal is to
decarbonise our energy production. The problem becomes even worse when
considering that currently
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-consumption-in-the-uk">electricity makes up only 20%</a>
of Britain’s energy usage. Even with efficiency gains, electricity
production will have to grow massively if it is to heat homes, fuel
cars, and power trains, and it does not appear that renewables are up
for the task.</p>
<p>Much of the appeal of renewable energy seems to come from a “small is
beautiful” approach to electricity production. Many people find the idea
of having a distributed energy system made up of individuals, small
businesses, and co-operatives to be appealing. It only goes to show how
much neoliberalism has altered the left’s thinking, that this is
considered a progressive approach. A market of many small producers has
more in common with Adam Smith than with any strain of socialist
thought. Such a policy would be insufficient to fight climate change,
not be able to provide a reliable electricity supply, and enrich a few
well-to-do owners of solar panels and wind farms at the cost of higher
electricity prices for everyone else.</p>No Limits on the Left2016-09-27T01:00:00+01:002016-09-27T01:00:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2016-09-27:no-limits-on-the-left.html<figure><img alt="The left-wing extremest/Leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition" src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/JeremyCorbyn.jpg"/><figcaption>The left-wing extremest/Leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here’s something you won’t hear everyday: I’m to the left of
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Corbyn">Jeremy Corbyn</a>. If you
listened to much of the British media, you wouldn’t think that’s
possible, given that the now twice-elected leader of the Labour Party
is apparently a Lenin-loving, Hamas-hugging, business-bashing commie
fiend dead-set on nationalising your children and making them go on
strike in reopened coal mines. And yet, here I am, proudly nailing my
colours to the mast, revealing them to being considerably redder than
those of certain bearded Bolshevik.</p>
<p>In all seriousness, anyone who is actually paying attention to what
Corbyn has been saying and is being intellectually honest will have to
admit that his politics aren’t <em>that</em> radical. He’s promised
significant public investment, a move away from fossil fuels, faster
Internet connections, stronger collective bargaining, and a number of
other extremely welcome measures which nonetheless would keep Britain
a firmly capitalism society. The only industry which he’s promised to
nationalise is rail, which is so obviously sensible that even a
majority of Tory voters support it, and possibly portions of the bus
network. This barely scratches the surface of the nationalisations
overseen by
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Attlee">Clem Attlee’s</a> postwar
Labour government, let alone the sorts of proposals put forward by
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn">Tony Benn</a> (<em>de facto</em>
leader of the Labour Left) in the 1970s and ‘80s. This is not to say
that I don’t think that, at heart, Corbyn is considerably more radical
than his policies suggest, but his actual platform is some way to the
right of what I’d like.</p>
<p>But I’m not writing this simply to moan about Corbyn being too
moderate or betraying his roots or anything like that. I get that he
is in a difficult position where he has to put forward policy which
can win elections, hold the Labour Party together, and successfully be
implemented without insurmountable resistance from the
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister">civil service</a> or
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_British_Coup#Differences_between_novel_and_TV">military</a>. At
some point compromises are going to be made and some of those are not
going to be ones which I’ll find acceptable. A case in point is the
recent move of some of those around the leadership to
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/26/jeremy-corbyn-puts-aside-objections-to-renewing-trident">get behind the renewal</a>
of the Trident nuclear weapons<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup>. I get that this may be seen as a
necessary compromise if they are to pursue their agenda of
democratising the economy. At the same time, though, I <strong>can not in
any way support</strong> any policy which would see tens, if not hundreds, of
billions of pounds spent on weapons of mass destruction. It would be
bad enough keeping the weapons if they were already built and just
sitting there, but it is utterly unconscionable to actually be
spending the money to build them yourself. Yes, the renewal will
likely be underway by the time Labour could hypothetically be elected,
but it will not be finished, will still be costing money, and could
still be stopped.</p>
<p>One of the problems we now face is that the Labour Party now has no
left wing. Most people would look at me very strangely indeed for
saying that, given that one of its most left wing MPs is now the
leader. What I mean is that there is now no one to the left of the
leader who can hold him to account and act as the party’s
conscience. Having an uncompromising left block in parliament is
important because it is able to act as a counterweight on the
leadership when it is under pressure from business, the civil service,
or the international community to abandon its goals. This is similar
to the problem experienced in places like Bolivia and
<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/panitch-greece-baltas-syriza-leadership-tsipras/">Greece</a>
where the most capable left-wing organisers ended up being drawn into
the state, with little capacity for independent organising left.</p>
<p>Ideally this could be a role played by the membership, or at least a
subset of it. However, most of the new members are left-progressive
types rather than hard-core socialists (let-alone the
<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/watson-corbyn-red-scare-militant-trotskyists/">Trotskyists</a>
that the media would have us believe no run the party). These are
people who would have voted
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_England_and_Wales">Green</a>
or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaid_Cymru">Plaid Cymru</a> or
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_National_Party"><span class="caps">SNP</span></a> or even
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democrats">Lib-Dem</a> in previous
elections and are not familiar with the detailed socialist
analysis<sup id="fnref:2"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:2" rel="footnote">2</a></sup>. I don’t mean to be condescending to these people, as
socialists must be able to reach out to them and convince them, but my
point is that quite a bit of work is required before much of the
membership is likely to be able to act as a significant counterweight
to right-wing pressure on the leadership. The fact that much of the
politics of these new members seems to be based around supporting
Corbyn will also make it more difficult for them to apply pressure on
him when necessary.</p>
<p>Many of the left-wing currents within labour are not helping with
this. While they could be staking out a space to develop the left
policy they want, without having to worry so much about not
antagonising the Labour Right, instead their approach seems to be to
provide uncritical support to the leadership and its policies. The
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/JeremyCorbyn4PM/">Jeremy Corbyn for <span class="caps">PM</span></a>
Facebook page seems to consist mainly of praising whatever the
leadership says, while <a href="http://www.peoplesmomentum.com/">Momentum</a> has
been little more than a Jeremy Corbyn fan club. Both display a
slightly revolting level of sycophancy and hero-worship.</p>
<p>This must not continue. We on the left must not be afraid to publicly
disagree with the leadership if they are doing something which we
consider to be wrong. Motions should be put forward to conference
calling for more radical actions than Corbyn has been willing to
discuss so far. I’m not saying that we should just propose whatever we
want, regardless of its practicality or ability to get traction with
the electorate. There’s no point trying to get a demand for collective
ownership of the means of production and distribution into the next
Labour manifesto<sup id="fnref:3"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:3" rel="footnote">3</a></sup> or to propose budgets using misleading
figures. We still need to consider what is achievable, but if our
opinion on this differs from that of the leadership (as mine does in
many cases) then we should not be afraid to say so.</p>
<p>Jeremy Corbyn’s positions should not represent the limit of left wing policy.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>The reference to <span class="caps">NATO</span> a collectivist, internationalist organisation during this speech also really took the cake. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2">
<p>By which I mean a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism">materialist</a> approach to history and society, with all that this entails. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:2" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:3">
<p>But stating this as a long term goal in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clause_IV">party constitution</a>, on the other hand… <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:3" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>You Don’t Have to Like Brexit, But You do Have to Live With it2016-06-25T00:30:00+01:002016-06-25T00:30:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2016-06-25:you-dont-have-to-like-brexit-but-you-do-have-to-live-with-it.html<p>Well, the vote was for Brexit. I am stating this as a fact, not meaning to
place any particular mourning or celebration in it. I can’t say I’m a fan of
the <span class="caps">EU</span>. I think it is neoliberal and unaccountable, probably
irredeemably so in both cases. But I take no joy in the outcome of
this vote. The narrative leading to Brexit was not one of building a
better future based on cooperation, without the constant calls for
greater “competitiveness”. Instead, it was a narrative of
out-of-control immigration, the interfering outsiders, Britain no
longer being Great thanks to the burdens of the <span class="caps">EU</span>. It was not a
pleasant campaign for those of us on the Left.</p>
<p>Let me be clear: I am a believer in democratic
European federalism. However, I have serious doubts that the <span class="caps">EU</span> can
ever become such a system, given its extreme democratic deficit. At
best, I think that a set of countries, which would likely need to be
lead by Leftist governments, would essentially secede from the <span class="caps">EU</span> at
once to form some other institution. More likely,
any such government would be forced out of the <span class="caps">EU</span> if it tried to
implement a serious Leftist program, long before a coordinated
secession could be achieved. I don’t think the <span class="caps">EU</span> will ever be
a conducive battleground for Leftist ideas.</p>
<p>So, this leaves us in a depressing state. The exit vote was driven by
right-wing narratives, while staying would have locked us into a neoliberal
framework. I knew this was the choice ahead of us long before the vote
occurred. We were faced only with bad outcomes. Given that, I
won’t condemn anyone on the Left for their choices, whether they voted
to leave, remain, spoiled their ballot, or abstained. I knew that,
however they voted, Leftists were not motivated by racism or
nationalism but by a genuine concern for building a better world. I knew that,
regardless of the result of the vote, we were going to need to fight
harder than ever to build international solidarity, to develop
coherent policies for a socialist program, to bring the hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, of dispossessed Britons and Europeans into
the struggle for a better future.</p>
<p>Well, the vote was for Brexit. We have to accept that. We don’t have
to like it or agree with it, but we have to accept it. Calling the
people who voted for it stupid, or racists, or saying that you’re
ashamed to be British isn’t going to do any good. In fact, it will
only alienate the Brexit voters—who we’ll need if the Left is ever to
get elected—even more. Today may well have been a defeat for
the Left, but the Left has had almost nothing but defeats in this
country (or anywhere else) since 1979. We know how to keep on
going. Raging against the outcome won’t help us do that. </p>
<p>The Brexit vote happened. We don’t yet know what the final resolution to
this story will be, but we have to do everything in our power to ensure
that our future outside of the European Union is as just and humane as possible.</p>
<p><em>Note: My reaction to the vote on leaving the <span class="caps">EU</span> was confusing and
complex. This was an attempt to put it into words. I’m not entirely
satisfied with what I’ve written; I feel like I could have been more
eloquent and have perhaps missed a few points. Nonetheless, I’ve
managed to clarify and codify at least some of my thoughts on this
confusing issue.</em></p>Tsipras, go to Hell2015-07-10T23:30:00+01:002015-07-10T23:30:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2015-07-10:tsipras-go-to-hell.html<p><em>Edit: Once the initial disappointment was over, I was able to step back and
appreciate that this was a rather infantile post. While I stand by my comments
that Tsipras was naive and feel that, if they weren’t going to use it to fight
back against the <span class="caps">EU</span>, calling the referendum was ultimately harmful because of
the ensuing economic turmoil, name calling such as this is
not very helpful. On the other hand, I don’t wish to erase history, so I have
decided to leave the post up, but with this disclaimer.</em></p>
<p><em>January 21, 2016</em></p>
<p>So it’s come to this. After my fierce criticism a
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/greeks-bearing-debts.html">few weeks ago</a>,
Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras briefly managed to redeem himself somewhat
in my opinion by calling a referendum on the (incredibly bad) deal which Greece
had been offered and asking people to vote “no” (“oxi,” in Greek). As the
population was scared of the possibility of being forced out of the Euro,
everyone expected the result to be close and no one was sure which way it would
go. Much to everyone’s surprise, Greeks gave “oxi” a landslide victory of over
60%. Finally, I thought, Tsipras might actually play hardball with Europe.</p>
<figure><img alt="One of the few remotely unflattering pictures of Greek PM Alexis Tsipras" src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/tsipras-bad-photo.jpg"/><figcaption>One of the few remotely unflattering pictures of Greek <span class="caps">PM</span> Alexis Tsipras</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, Europe took no notice. They
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/07/greece-crisis-eurozone-tsipras-banking-collapse">told him</a>
he had until midnight Wednesday
to submit a “credible” proposal for a deal, or Europe would begin preparing
for Greece’s departure from the Eurozone (the so-called “Grexit”).
So now Tsipras has
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/09/greece-debt-crisis-athens-accepts-harsh-austerity-as-bailout-deal-nears">submitted a proposal</a>
for a deal that is objectively worse than the one rejected in the referendum. </p>
<p>There is a lot that I could say about this. I could mention how incredibly
naive Tsipras and the leadership of his party (<span class="caps">SYRIZA</span>) were. I could mention
how incompetent there were when it came to planning for other eventualities.
I could question why they even held a referendum if this was to be the result.
But I’m too frustrated to form a coherent blog post about that. In any case, it
has already been said by others, both
<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-syriza-greece-euro-debt/"><span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> members</a>
and international
<a href="http://www.leninology.co.uk/2015/07/syriza-defeat-victory-defeat.html">sympathizers</a>.
What I have to say is much simpler, far more puerile, and infinitely more satisfying:</p>
<p><strong>Alexis Tsipras, go to Hell! Seriously, <span class="caps">FUCK</span> <span class="caps">OFF</span> <span class="caps">TO</span> <span class="caps">HELL</span>, <span class="caps">YOU</span> <span class="caps">FUCKING</span> <span class="caps">QUISLING</span>
<span class="caps">BASTARD</span>!</strong></p>
<p>I want you to starve to death on the poverty income
that nearly half of all Greek pensioners are receiving. I want you to feel
the despair and hopelessness which has caused a
<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/04/greek-austerity-sparks-sharp-rise-in-suicides.html">35% increase in suicides</a>
since the beginnings of austerity. I want you to go down in history as a traitor
to your cause, more reviled by your party than even
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsay_MacDonald">Ramsay MacDonald</a> was in Britain.</p>
<p>It may well be true that the situation is complex and there are reasons for
what you did. But I don’t care. I want you chained to a rock where buzzards
will peck out your liver each morning for the rest of eternity. Or perhaps you
could be made to push a bolder up a hill every day, only to have it roll back
down just before reaching the summit.</p>
<p>Barring that, I at least want you kicked out of your party and force from office.</p>Greeks Bearing Debts2015-06-23T01:30:00+01:002015-06-23T01:30:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2015-06-23:greeks-bearing-debts.html<p><img alt="SYRIZA supporters celebrating their election victory in January" src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/syrizaVictory.jpg"/>
Just over five months ago, Greece elected a new government lead by left-wing
party <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span>. <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> comes out of a radical tradition rejecting both
reformist social democracy and authoritarian communism and was swept to power
on a wave of anti-austerity sentiment. Austerity refers to the massive cuts to
public spending (tending to hurt particularly those on lower incomes) which
Greece has endured over the past five years, along with
the associated policies of deregulation, cuts to the minimum wage, an end to
collective bargaining, and the privatization of anything which actually makes
a profit for the government. These policies have been devastating for Greece,
resulting in a 26% contraction in <span class="caps">GDP</span>, ~25% unemployment, over 50% youth
unemployment, and a humanitarian disaster as people can’t get access to food,
energy, shelter, or basic healthcare.<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup></p>
<p>Now, it is fair to say that Greece did borrow too much money over the years
leading up to the crisis. However, I think it is also fair to say that there
is an inverse relationship between someone’s culpability for the debt and the
pain which they have experienced under austerity. It is also true that the
Greek state is hopelessly corrupt. That said, of all of the parties represented
in the Hellenic Parliament, <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> is probably the one with the greatest
commitment to try to tack that.</p>
<p>Anyway, none of this is new—it was all equally the case when <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> was elected
in January. At that time, <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> had pledged to end austerity while staying a
part of the Eurozone and refraining from any unilateral actions (i.e. defaulting
on the debt). Given that Greeks overwhelmingly favour staying in the Euro, it
is not surprising that <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> would make such a commitment. They insisted that
they would be able to reverse austerity by:</p>
<ol>
<li>Immediately implementing the
<a href="http://www.syriza.gr/article/SYRIZA---THE-THESSALONIKI-PROGRAMME.html#.VYjAUnMl_VM">Thessaloniki Program</a>
which purported to provide a mild Keynseianism with the resources already
available to the Greek government.</li>
<li>Renegotiating the debt with Europe, on the basis that austerity clearly was
not leading to growth and was hurting the Eurozone as a whole. Furthermore, they
would point out that there was no way that Greece would ever be able to repay
the debt as the situations currently stands, whether they want to or not.</li>
</ol>
<p>However, it almost immediately<sup id="fnref:2"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:2" rel="footnote">2</a></sup> became clear to anyone who was watching with
a remotely level head that this would not be as easy as was claimed. The
leadership of <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> are die-hard Europeans who, reportedly, believe in the
European project (European integration which, in reality, means the <span class="caps">EU</span> and the
Euro) at a deep emotional level. They were thus extremely reluctant to
countenance any sort of break with Europe, even without considering that public
opinion took a similar view. It would thus appear that they genuinely thought
that, if they were to sit down and explain to the <span class="caps">EU</span> why austerity was
wrong-headed then it would see the light. Now, I certainly would not condemn
giving this a try—after all, what have they got to loose? But I found it
incredibly hard to believe that they would go into these quixotic negotiations
without even a sketch of an alternative plan to pursue if they failed.</p>
<p>And yet that is what seems to be the case. In February, prompted by the
potential collapse of the Greek banking sector, Athens signed a deal with the
European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary
Fund (previously called “the Troika,” since renamed “the institutions” or “the
Brussels group” for reasons of political spin) in order to ensure that the
European Central Bank would keep it afloat. However, this deal represented
a <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/02/syriza-euro-austerity-troika/">major retreat</a>
from their election promises, as it committed them to austerity (with vague
enough language that <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> naively hoped that they could wriggle out of it)
and forbade them from passing any legislation which could, in the view of
“the institutions,” endanger the Greek “recovery.” The worst part of all of this
was that the <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> leadership tried to portray this as a victory and proof that
it was possible to negotiate a resolution with Europe.</p>
<p>However, since that time, Greece has not actually seen any of the money that
they were promised from the Troika, as they must first start to implement the
structural adjustments demanded. This has left Athens with very little money
to make repayments on various loans coming due and, over the past few month,
the government has been drained of any remaining cash. With a major repayment
due to the <span class="caps">IMF</span> at the end of June, things were getting desperate.</p>
<p>In an attempt to get access to the funds that they had been promised, the Greek
government began backsliding on ever more of their promises. A call to halt
(and even reverse) privatizations gave way to pursuing “partnerships” with the
private sector to develop state assets, to partial privatization, to
privatization full-stop. Commitments to restore pensions to their previous
levels became a promise not to decrease them further. Promises to reduce sales
tax have turned into pledges not to raise it on essential items. A goal of
running balanced budgets (rather than a surplus) became a request to simply run
a smaller surplus. And any talk of a comprehensive investment plan to spur
growth has vanished. <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span>’s insistence that there were certain red lines which
they would not cross looked ever more dubious.</p>
<p>And now, at the eleventh hour, <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> has
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/22/greece-deal-red-lines-blur-and-bend">given way</a>
on their pledges to protect pensions and not to raise sales tax. They’ve even
succumbed to calls for a higher budget surplus. To be honest, I’m somewhat
surprised by this; I had expected that if they were going to give in on those
issues then they would have done it before now. All I can conclude is that the
leadership really didn’t know what it was doing and had persisted in the blind
belief that Europe was bluffing and would give in if they waited long enough.
But to anyone with half a brain it should have been obvious that this was a
delusion, at least after the agreement in February.</p>
<p>For <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span>’s Left Platform, this has long been the case. Prominent members have
<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/greece-syriza-eurogroup-negotiations-austerity/">consistently</a>
<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/04/syriza-eurozone-default-exit-stathis/">been calling</a>
<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/kouvelakis-syriza-ecb-grexit/">for a</a>
<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/greece-syriza-european-union-austerity-troika/">break with</a>
<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/06/kouvelakis-greece-europe-negotiations-debt-default/">Europe</a>
since February. Economist and <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> <span class="caps">MP</span> Costas Lapavitsas has been
<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/lapavitsas-varoufakis-grexit-syriza/">urging an exit</a>
from the Eurozone since before the election and has
<a href="http://www.versobooks.com/books/1949-against-the-troika">drawn up plans</a>
for how this could be accomplished. A growing number of people on the left
of <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span>’s mainstream faction have also been won over to this view after having
witnessed the ever greater concessions which have been offered in order to
avoid rupture with Europe. However, none of this has affected the official
discourse of the party and, as such, the Greek public has been fed the delusion
that relief from austerity is possible within the Euro and support for some sort
of compromise—which, seeing as <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> has given way on virtually all of its
initial bargaining positions while the institutions have given way on hardly any, is
impossible. The end result: Greeks remain totally unprepared for any sort of
rupture with Europe, having been scared stiff by the media and pandering
<span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> politicians of the consequences of doing anything which might endanger
their place in the Euro.</p>
<p>So, what now? Well, there are
<a href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/deal-with-greece-still-looks-wobbly.html">still questions</a>
over whether a deal will actually be reached. But if it is, <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span>’s leaders
will still need to sell it to the rest of the party. And it is
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/23/greek-crisis-bailout-deal-eurozone-crucial-optimism-rises">not at all clear</a> that this will happen. While it
may get the support of a majority of the cabinet, there is every sign that
<span class="caps">SYRIZA</span>’s coalition partner will reject it (especially if it involves hikes
to sales tax) and I suspect that at least 20% of <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span>’s own MPs would vote
against it. This would be enough to make <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> rely on the support of
opposition parties to pass such a bill, which would be humiliating and would
damage the party’s image.</p>
<p>Furthermore, it remains a distinct possibility that the party’s central
committee will vote down accepting any such deal. A few weeks ago there was
a vote on a motion to break with Europe, which lost 75-95. That means only 11
committee members would have to swing in order for such a proposal to win now.
Given the scope of <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span>’s retreat, such a result would seem entirely
possible. Then there is the prospect of discontent in the party grassroots.
Already the youth wing has held protests indicating that they would prefer
<a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6a111b26-1583-11e5-8e6a-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3dvfKopVr">“chaos to capitulation”</a>.
So a split in the <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> ranks is looking increasingly likeley.</p>
<p>Now, onto the point which caused me to write this article: how should the
international Left respond to these developments? For months socialist across
Europe have been expressing solidarity with Greeks and the Greek government,
while upstart parties have been advertising themselves as the
<a href="http://podemos.info/">Spanish</a>/<a href="http://leftunity.org/">British</a>/<a href="https://hdpenglish.wordpress.com/">Turkish</a>
<span class="caps">SYRIZA</span>. Should they continue to offer <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> their
unconditional support? Should they condemn this retreat?</p>
<p>It’s a tricky question, made all the harder by these groups’ uncritical approach
to <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> over the past while. Billing yourself as a party in the image of
<span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> will be distinctly damaging if <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> is forced to retreat. I think it’s
fair to say that we on the Left must continue to offer the Greek people our
solidarity. However, no such solidarity should be extended to any <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> member
who is willing to implement austerity. Fair enough, they are in an incredibly
difficult situation and it is all too easy for us to criticize when we can’t
even imagine being able to form a government in our home countries. But the fact
remains, if we are to be at all consistent then we must not endorse anyone who
implements austerity, whether they come from a left-wing background or not.</p>
<p><img alt="Free Greece from the European Prison" class="img-center" src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/greeceEuropeCage.jpg"/></p>
<p>So what should <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> do? From the comfort of my armchair in a country which
has not been ravaged by austerity and is safely on its own currency and who
won’t be hurt if things go wrong, here are
my thoughts. For starters, they should get rid of their
leader, Alexis Tsipras, finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, and the inner circle
which surrounds them. This group has clearly revealed
themselves to be incapable of pushing back austerity in Greece, let alone of
laying the ground for overcoming capitalism. At the very least, Varoufakis
should be forced to resign.</p>
<p>Next comes the problem that <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> does not have a mandate for breaking with
Europe. As I said earlier, they were elected promising to end austerity while
remaining in the Eurozone. However, nor do they have any mandate to implement
austerity as they look prepared to do. I’m not totally adverse to the concept
of pushing ahead and breaking with austerity, leaving the Euro if necessary,
mandate be damned. To be sure, such an approach has risks, but I can’t help but
feel that those risks are better than the certainty of austerity-induced
misery within the Euro.
In all probability, this will require a fresh election or a referendum in order
to justify it to the electorate. What’s
more, there is a very good chance that <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> would lose such an election and
it would almost certainly lose such a referendum. Well, so be it.</p>
<p>If the Greek people decide that they would prefer austerity over leaving the
Euro, then <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> should resign. Let a party which really believes in austerity
be the one to implement it. <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> would be better off in opposition, agitating
for an end to austerity even if it does mean a break with Europe. This would be
a serious setback but, unlike giving in to austerity, not a fatal one.
Let <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> live to fight another day.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>Sorry I haven’t provided any references here. It’s fairly common knowledge for anyone whose been following the Greek crisis and I didn’t have the energy to track the citations down when I was writing this. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2">
<p>If it wasn’t clear even before the election. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:2" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Blog, Rebooted2015-05-17T10:30:00+01:002015-05-17T10:30:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2015-05-17:blog-rebooted.html<p><img alt='The silhouette of a "dreaming spire" in Oxford. A larger version of my new favicon.' src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/spire-smaller.png"/>
For awhile now I’ve been meaning to create a new theme for my blog. Previously
I was using a modified version of the
<a href="https://github.com/getpelican/pelican-themes/tree/master/gum">Gum theme</a>, but
I wanted one which was all my own. I also decided that I wanted a distinctly
different look for my blog, using serif fonts and darker colours. Years of
procrastination finally came to an end when I knew that I would need to design
such a theme for a professional website (I’ll post more on that once it’s
finished) and thought I might as well design a similar blog theme while I was
at it. You can find the theme
<a href="https://github.com/cmacmackin/backdrop-theme">on GitHub</a>.
You may also notice
that I have a new favicon (shown here at higher resolution). This is the
silhouette of one of Oxford’s many “dreaming spires.” For those of you who
don’t know, I’ll be starting my graduate studies at Oxford this fall. As I quite
like Oxford’s nickname as “the city of dreaming spires,” I decided that
this would be a nice symbol for my blog. Incidentally, that silhouette was
traced from the image to the right (or on the bottom, depending on your screen size).</p>
<p>While I was at it, I got around to updating various pages on this website. I
have added a more detailed About page, provided an up-to-date listing of
software that I have written, and changed the Technical page to more accurately
represent how the blog now works. I have also reorganized the categories I give
articles, eliminating the two which had the fewest articles. As a note, those
articles were not deleted—simply folded into other categories. The main
motivation for this was simply to ensure that everything fit well on the
navigation bar. Next year I will be moving back into residence for grad school
and thus won’t be able to run a server on which to host my blog. In preparation
for this, I decided to move it to GitHub pages. This will likely also be (at
least temporarily) the host of my professional website, once it is completed.</p>
<p>Most importantly, I decided to change the name of my blog from <em>Red Shades of
Green</em>. I had originally chosen that title in order to reflect that I was
concerned about the environment, but that I was a bit of a pinko. Since then,
I feel that I have become much more stridently left-wing and, at the same time,
have lost a certain amount of patience with the environmental movement and the
behaviour of ecosocialists. Not to say that I care about the environment any
less; I simply take a different approach to the issue than I used to<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup>.
One which is more firmly pro-technology. And one which integrates environmental
issues into socialism, rather than the other way around. I suppose these days
a more accurate title would be <em>Green Shades of Red</em>.</p>
<p>Instead I went with <em>The Political Physicist</em>. At risk of explaining the
obvious, this is a play on political science. As a scientist (well, a student
scientist) who cares deeply about politics, you might say that I’m a political
scientist. However, this makes it sound like I study political science, rather
than physics. And the rest, as they say, is history.</p>
<p><img alt="Relativity is a communist conspiracy. Of course, as it happens, Einstein actually _was_ a socialist." class="img-center" src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/SocialistRelativity.png"/></p>
<p>But while the appearance, location, and name of my blog has changed, none of the
content has really. I will still write my extremely biased political articles.
I will still complain about petty things, like the use of the phrase “growing
exponentially,” and I’ll still write in great detail about programming and
software despite the fact that most of my audience can’t understand a thing I
say about it. Even as I prepare to travel across the ocean to spend the next
three years in grad school, studying a totally different branch of physics from
what I have so far, I am still essentially the same person and that fact is
reflected here. As I enter this new chapter of my life, I invite you all to
share the adventure with me, knowing that, in all probability, at the end of it
I will be just as neurotic, pedantic, and idealistic as I am today.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>And have come to accept that I will never quite see eye-to-eye with ecosocialists on a number of issues. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Let’s Talk About Bell2015-01-28T14:15:00+00:002015-01-28T14:15:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2015-01-28:lets-talk-about-bell.html<p>Well, it’s that time of year again. The good people at Bell, through their
Let’s Talk campaign, are once again
donating money to mental health initiatives. All they ask in return is that
we spread the word by sharing their posts about it on Facebook. Isn’t that
nice of them?</p>
<figure><img alt="The Let's Talk ad" src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/bell-lets-talk.jpg"/><figcaption>The Let’s Talk ad</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Well, no, it’s not, on several levels. First and foremost, if they really care
about mental health then surely they can just donate the money anyway, rather
than only do so if people share their Facebook posts. Which let’s us know that
mental health is <em>not</em> what they really care about here. As, I suspect, with
most corporate donations, the real motivation is how it will effect their image.
Donating to charity will make them appear to be generous and good corporate
citizens, at least to those who are less cynical than me. Presumably they feel
that this will make people slightly more likely to choose them over Rogers (or
whatever other company you decide on from the myriad of—pardon me, virtually
<em>no</em>—other choices that exist in Canada).</p>
<p>But here Bell are exceptionally clever. In addition to the usual posturing you
get when a company donates to a good cause, this campaign is all about providing
Bell with advertising. It’s built into the model, as the more people who share
Bell’s post, the more money they will donate.
They say that for every time their post
is shared they will donate 5 cents to mental health initiatives. According to
one website, it costs about 25 cents to reach 1000 people on Facebook. That
means that each person sharing the Bell post would only need 201 friends in
order for this to be cheaper.<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> This is far cheaper than advertising in
conventional media, or even most other online media. Furthermore, these shared
Bell posts will not be susceptible to adblocking software, as normal Facebook
advertising is.</p>
<p>So, we’ve established that Bell is not doing this out of the kindness of their
heart, but because of the positive impact on their brand and the advertising
which it generates. But surely we can still be happy about the positive outcome,
regardless of the motives behind it? Well, in a sense I suppose we should, as
this money is certainly better spent on mental health initiatives than on
returns to shareholders. But then again, we shouldn’t. If Bell feels that it
has this money to give away, then to me that indicates that they aren’t being
taxed enough. If they were then the revenue could be used by the government to
provide mental health initiative directly. Moreover, it would be under our
democratic control to decide if this is, indeed, the best way to spend it.
Maybe we’d decide that there is some other health concern which would be a
better use of the money. As it stand now, we have no choice in the matter.</p>
<p>You might ask why we should have a choice. After all, it’s Bell’s money. But
where does Bell get it’s money from? Consumers, of course. So it’s all of our
money really. That means that we should have a say over how it’s spent.<sup id="fnref:2"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:2" rel="footnote">2</a></sup>
Furthermore, as a way of collecting money to provide services, this is highly
regressive. Why should the amount that we spend on telecom determine how much
we contribute towards mental health initiatives? Shouldn’t those who have more
money be contributing a greater percentage of their income? This is the
approach we take to taxation, after all. This argument, of course,
applies to all corporate charity. Given this, surely the best way to fund things
like mental health initiatives is via taxation.</p>
<p>So, Bell, if you want to help contribute that money to good causes, why don’t
you give it to the government? They can spend it as necessary. Better yet, you
could let yourself be voluntarily nationalized, so that telecom could be
provided at cost, or even for free. Let this essential service, like those
surrounding mental health, be funded progressively.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>In fairness, that is probably rather optimistic, as there is plenty of overlap between people’s groups of friends. Nonetheless, it’s pretty good value. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2">
<p>If you feel tempted to argue that this logic applies to any way in which a company spends its money, then I agree. That is why I’m a socialist and believe in public ownership. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:2" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>FORD: FORtran Documentation2015-01-05T00:15:00+00:002015-01-05T00:15:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2015-01-05:ford-fortran-documentation.html<p>Over Christmas break I’ve been working on this project to produce documentation
for Fortran programs. I’ve (just) managed to finish it before school starts
again! Here is the <span class="caps">README</span> for it, containing the documentation which I wrote.
You can find the code <a href="https://github.com/cmacmackin/ford">on Github</a>.</p>
<hr/>
<p>This is an automatic documentation generator for modern Fortran programs.
<span class="caps">FORD</span> stands for FORtran Documenter. As you may know, “to ford” refers to
crossing a river (or other body of water). It does not, in this context, refer
to any company or individual associated with cars.</p>
<p>Ford was written due to <a href="http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/">Doxygen</a>‘s
poor handling of Fortran and the lack of comparable alternatives.
<a href="http://rfsber.home.xs4all.nl/Robo/index.html">ROBODoc</a> can’t actually extract
any information from the source code and just about any other automatic
documentation software I found was either proprietary, didn’t work very well
for Fortran, or was limited in terms of how it produced its output.
<a href="http://erikdemaine.org/software/f90doc/">f90doc</a> is quite good and I managed
to modify it so that it could handle most of Fortran 2003, but it produces
rather ugly documentation, can’t provide as many links between different parts
of the documentation as I’d like, and is written in Perl (which I’m not that
familiar with and which lacks the sort of libraries found in Python for
producing <span class="caps">HTML</span> content).</p>
<p>The goal of <span class="caps">FORD</span> is to be able to reliably produce documentation for modern
Fortran software which is informative and nice to look at. The documentation
should be easy to write and non-obtrusive within the code. While it will never
be as feature-rich as Doxygen, hopefully <span class="caps">FORD</span> will be able to provide an
alternative for documenting Fortran projects.</p>
<h3>Disclaimer</h3>
<p>This is a young project. While it has bee tested somewhat, the testing has been
far from comprehensive. Various options have not been tested and obscure uses
of the Fortran syntax could still potentially cause <span class="caps">FORD</span> to crash. If you
get an error message while processing a file, first check to make sure that the
file actually compiles. No effort has been made to be able to process files
which contain syntax errors. Next ensure that you aren’t using any of the
lingering <span class="caps">FORTRAN77</span> syntax. If you are still experiencing errors, comment
out the <code>try</code>/<code>except</code> statement on lines 59-63 of
./ford/fortran_project.py. Leave only line 60 uncommented. You will probably
need to remove four spaces from line 60’s indentation, as well.
This will give you
a proper Python backtrace. Submit a bug report on this Github page, including
the backtrace and, if possible, the file which <span class="caps">FORD</span> crashed while processing.
If an error occurs elsewhere, you will most likely get a backtrace by default.
Once again, please include this backtrace in your bug report.</p>
<h3>Dependencies</h3>
<p>In addition to the standard Python libraries, the following modules are needed:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/dev/">Jinja2</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pygments.org/">Pygments</a></li>
<li><a href="https://pypi.python.org/pypi/toposort/1.0">toposort</a></li>
<li><a href="https://pythonhosted.org/Markdown/">Markdown</a></li>
</ul>
<p>A near-term goal will be to write a setup script which will check for
these dependencies and install those which are missing. I’d also like to
make <span class="caps">FORD</span> available on PyPI so that all dependencies will be installed automatically.</p>
<h3>Basic Usage</h3>
<p><span class="caps">FORD</span> usage is based on <em>projects</em>. A project is just whatever piece of software
you want to document. Normally it would either be a program or a library. Each
project will have its own
<a href="http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax">Markdown</a> file which
contains a description of the project. Various options (see below for a
description) can be specified in this file, such as where to look for your
projects source files, where to output the documentation, and information about
the author.</p>
<h4>Running Ford</h4>
<p>Once you have written a project file which you’re satisfied with, it is time to
run <span class="caps">FORD</span>. Make sure that it is in the path/Python-path. The most basic syntax
for running ford is just</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>ford project-file.md
</pre></div>
<p>Assuming that there are no errors, your documentation will now be available
in the path you indicated for output.</p>
<h4>Writing Documentation</h4>
<p>All documentation, both that provided within the source files and that given
in the project file, should be written in
<a href="http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax">Markdown</a>. In addition
to the standard Markdown syntax, you can use all of the features in Python’s
<a href="https://pythonhosted.org/Markdown/extensions/extra.html">Markdown Extra</a>. Other
Markdown extensions automatically loaded are
<a href="https://pythonhosted.org/Markdown/extensions/code_hilite.html">CodeHilite</a>
which will provide syntax highlighting for any code fragments you place in your
documentation, <a href="https://pythonhosted.org/Markdown/extensions/smarty.html">SmartyPants</a> which gives the typographically correct version of various characters,
and <a href="https://pythonhosted.org/Markdown/extensions/meta_data.html">Meta-Data</a>.
The latter is used internally as a way for the user to provide extra information
to and/or customize the behaviour of <span class="caps">FORD</span>. Information on providing meta-data
and what types of data <span class="caps">FORD</span> will look for can be found in the next section.</p>
<p>In modern (post 1990) Fortran, comments are indicated by an exclamation mark
(!). <span class="caps">FORD</span> will ignore a normal comment like this. However, comments with two
exclamation marks (!!) are interpreted as documentation and will be captured
for inclusion in the output. <span class="caps">FORD</span> documentation must come <em>after</em> whatever it
is that you are documenting, either at the end of the line or on a subsequent
line. This was chosen because it was felt it is easier to make your
documentation readable from within the source-code this way. This</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">subroutine </span><span class="n">feed_pets</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">cats</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">dogs</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">food</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">angry</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="c">!! Feeds your cats and dogs, if enough food is available. If not enough</span>
<span class="c">!! food is available, some of your pets will get angry.</span>
<span class="c">! Arguments</span>
<span class="kt">integer</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="k">intent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">in</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">cats</span>
<span class="c">!! The number of cats to keep track of.</span>
<span class="kt">integer</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="k">intent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">in</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">dogs</span>
<span class="c">!! The number of dogs to keep track of.</span>
<span class="kt">real</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="k">intent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">inout</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">food</span>
<span class="c">!! The ammount of pet food (in kilograms) which you have on hand.</span>
<span class="kt">integer</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="k">intent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">out</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">angry</span>
<span class="c">!! The number of pets angry because they weren't fed.</span>
<span class="c">!...</span>
<span class="k">return</span>
<span class="k">end subroutine </span><span class="n">feed_pets</span>
</pre></div>
<p>looks better/more readable than</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="c">!! Feeds your cats and dogs, if enough food is available. If not enough</span>
<span class="c">!! food is available, some of your pets will get angry.</span>
<span class="k">subroutine </span><span class="n">feed_pets</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">cats</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">dogs</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">food</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">angry</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="c">! Arguments</span>
<span class="c">!! The number of cats to keep track of.</span>
<span class="kt">integer</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="k">intent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">in</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">cats</span>
<span class="c">!! The number of dogs to keep track of.</span>
<span class="kt">integer</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="k">intent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">in</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">dogs</span>
<span class="c">!! The ammount of pet food (in kilograms) which you have on hand.</span>
<span class="kt">real</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="k">intent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">inout</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">food</span>
<span class="c">!! The number of pets angry because they weren't fed.</span>
<span class="kt">integer</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="k">intent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">out</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">angry</span>
<span class="c">!...</span>
<span class="k">return</span>
<span class="k">end subroutine </span><span class="n">feed_pets</span>
</pre></div>
<p>in the opinion of this author, especially with regards to the list of arguments.
Unfortunately, if you disagree, it is unlikely that there will ever be a switch
available to change this behaviour, as it would require a drastic rewrite of
large parts of the structure of the code.</p>
<p>Please note that legacy Fortran (fixed-form code) is not supported at this
time. If anyone would like to contribute the necessary modifications to
./ford/reader.py to convert fixed-form syntax into free-form, it should not be
difficult (see the approach taken by
<a href="http://erikdemaine.org/software/f90doc/">f90doc</a>). However, it is not a
priority for me at this time (since I regard fixed-form Fortran as an
abomination which should be wiped from the face of this Earth).</p>
<h4>Output</h4>
<p>Output is in <span class="caps">HTML</span>. By default, all links will be relative, meaning that the
output can be placed and viewed anywhere. The
<a href="http://getbootstrap.com/">Bootstrap</a> framework was used to make it easy to
quickly design professional looking pages. An example of some output from
my project <a href="https://github.com/cmacmackin/futility">Futility</a> is shown below.</p>
<figure><img alt="Some example output." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/ford.png"/><figcaption>Some example output.</figcaption>
</figure>
<h3>Options</h3>
<p>While not nearly as configurable as the likes of
<a href="http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/">Doxygen</a>, <span class="caps">FORD</span>’s output can still be
customized to some extent by users.</p>
<h4>Command-Line Options</h4>
<p>The command-line interface is given below:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>ford.py [-h] [-d PROJECT_DIRECTORY] [-o OUTPUT_DIR] [-s CSS]
[--exclude EXCLUDE] [-e [EXTENSIONS [EXTENSIONS ...]]]
project_file
</pre></div>
<dl>
<dt>PROJECT_DIRECTORY</dt>
<dd>The directory where the source-files are to be found for
this project. This must not be a subdirectory of the OUTPUT_DIR (see below).</dd>
<dt>OUTPUT_DIR</dt>
<dd>The directory where the project output will be placed.
<strong>Any content already present there will be deleted.</strong></dd>
<dt><span class="caps">CSS</span></dt>
<dd>The path to a custom style-sheet which can be used to modify the
appearance of the output.<dd>
<dt><span class="caps">EXCLUDE</span></dt>
<dd>A source file which should not be read. If you want to specify more than
one then you will need to do it in the project file.<dd>
<dt><span class="caps">EXTENSIONS</span></dt>
<dd>File extensions which will be read by <span class="caps">FORD</span> for documentation.
(<em>default:</em> f90, f95, f03, f08)</dd>
<dt>project_file</dt>
<dd>The file containing a description of your project and various settings
for <span class="caps">FORD</span>.</dd>
</dd></dd></dd></dd></dl>
<p>Settings specified at the command-line will override those specified in the
project file.</p>
<h4>Project File Options</h4>
<p>You can specify various options and information for your project in the
meta-data of your project file. Quoting from the
<a href="https://pythonhosted.org/Markdown/extensions/meta_data.html">Markdown Meta-Data</a> page:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Meta-data consists of a series of keywords and values defined at the beginning of a markdown document like this:</p>
<p><pre>Title: My Document<br>Summary: A brief description of my document.<br>Authors: Waylan Limberg<br> John Doe<br>Date: October 2, 2007<br>blank-value: <br>base_url: http://example.com</br></br></br></br></br></br></pre></p>
<p>This is the first paragraph of the document.
The keywords are case-insensitive and may consist of letters, numbers, underscores and dashes and must end with a colon. The values consist of anything following the colon on the line and may even be blank.</p>
<p>If a line is indented by 4 or more spaces, that line is assumed to be an additional line of the value for the previous keyword. A keyword may have as many lines as desired.</p>
<p>The first blank line ends all meta-data for the document. Therefore, the first line of a document must not be blank. All meta-data is stripped from the document prior to any further processing by Markdown.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The options which can be specified in the meta-data are listed below. Defaults
are included in the description, if they exist.
<dl>
<dt>project</dt><dd>The name of this project.
(<em>default:</em> Fortran Project)</dd>
<dt>summary</dt><dd>A summary of the description of your project. If present
it will be printed in a “Jumbotron” element at the top of the documentation
index page. This will be processed by Markdown before being used.</dd>
<dt>project_url</dt><dd>The <span class="caps">URL</span> at which the documentation will be available. If
left blank then relative URLs will be used for links. (<em>default:</em> blank,
i.e. relative links)</dd>
<dt>project_directory</dt><dd>The directory where the source-files are to be
found for this project. This must not be a subdirectory of the output_dir (see
below). (<em>default:</em> ./src)</dd>
<dt>output_dir</dt><dd>The directory where the project output will be placed.
<strong>Any content already present there will be deleted.</strong></dd>
<dt>css</dt><dd>The path to a custom style-sheet which can be used to modify the
appearance of the output. (<em>default:</em> ./doc)</dd>
<dt>extensions</dt><dd>File extensions which will be read by <span class="caps">FORD</span> for
documentation. Each extension must be on its own line.
(<em>default:</em> f90, f95, f03, f08)</dd>
<dt>exclude</dt><dd>A source file which should not be read. Each excluded file
must be on its own line. Provide only the file name, not the full path.</dd>
<dt>display</dt><dd>How much documentation should be printed. Options are
‘public’, ‘private’, ‘protected’, or any combination of those three. Each
choice must be on its own line. (<em>default:</em> ‘public’ and ‘protected’)
</dd>
<dt>version</dt><dd>The version name/number of your project.</dd>
<dt>year</dt><dd>The year to display in the copyright notice. (<em>default:</em>
the current year)</dd>
<dt>project_github</dt><dd>The <span class="caps">URL</span> of the Github repository for this project.
</dd>
<dt>project_bitbucket</dt><dd>The <span class="caps">URL</span> of the BitBucket repository for this project.</dd>
<dt>project_sourceforge</dt><dd>The Sourceforge repository for this project.
</dd>
<dt>project_download</dt><dd>A <span class="caps">URL</span> from which to download the source or
binaries for this project.</dd>
<dt>project_website</dt><dd>The homepage for this project.</dd>
<dt>author</dt><dd>The name of the person(s) or organization who wrote this project.</dd>
<dt>author_description</dt><dd>A brief description of the author. You could
provide biographical details or links to other work, for example. This will
be processed by Markdown before being used.</dd>
<dt>author_pic</dt><dd>A picture of or avatar for the author.</dd>
<dt>github</dt><dd>The author’s Github page.</dd>
<dt>bitbucket</dt><dd>The author’s BitBucket page.</dd>
<dt>facebook</dt><dd>The author’s Facebook profile.</dd>
<dt>twitter</dt><dd>The author’s Twitter.</dd>
<dt>google_plus</dt><dd>The author’s Google+</dd>
<dt>linkedin</dt><dd>The author’s LinkedIn profile.</dd>
<dt>email</dt><dd>The author’s email address.</dd>
<dt>website</dt><dd>The author’s website.</dd>
</dl></p>
<h4>Meta-Data in Documentation</h4>
<p>When documenting your source files you can provide meta-data at the top of an
item’s documentation. There can not be any other documentation before it; not
even a blank line of documentation. This will work</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="c">! Good</span>
<span class="k">type</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">cat</span>
<span class="c">!! author: A Fortran Programmer</span>
<span class="c">!! version: v0.2</span>
<span class="c">!!</span>
<span class="c">!! This data-type represents a cat.</span>
</pre></div>
<p>but this won’t</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="c">! Bad</span>
<span class="k">type</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">cat</span>
<span class="c">!!</span>
<span class="c">!! author: A Fortran programmer</span>
<span class="c">!! version: v0.2</span>
<span class="c">!!</span>
<span class="c">!! This data-type represents a cat.</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The meta-data will be displayed for procedures, derived types,
files, programs, modules, type-bound procedures, and interfaces. It may be
displayed in more cases in future. Recognized types of meta-data are:</p>
<dl>
<dt>author</dt><dd>The author of this part of the code</dd>
<dt>date</dt><dd>The date that this part of the code was written (or that the
documentation was written; whichever makes more sense to you).</dd>
<dt>license</dt><dd>The license for this part of your code. If you want
to provide a link then it will have to be in <span class="caps">HTML</span>, as it won’t be processed
by Markdown.</dd>
<dt>version</dt><dd>The version number (or name) of this part of the code.</dd>
<dt>category</dt><dd>A category for this part of the code. Currently this is
fairly useless, just being printed in the documentation. In future, <span class="caps">FORD</span> may
provide lists of things in each category.</dd>
<dt>summary</dt><dd>A brief description of this part of the code. If not
specified then <span class="caps">FORD</span> will use the first paragraph of the body of your documentation.</dd>
<dt>deprecated</dt><dd>If this is present and not “False“ then a
label saying “Deprecated” will be placed in the documentation.</dd>
</dl>
<h3>ToDo</h3>
<p>This software is still extremely young and much remains to be done. Various
things which I’d like to do at some point include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Support some of the old Fortran 77 ways of doing things, as these are often
still used. This includes <span class="caps">PARAMETER</span> statements and <span class="caps">EXTERNAL</span> statements.
Support for fixed-form code is less of a priority.</li>
<li>Add the ability to produce dependency diagrams and inheritance diagrams for
modules and types, respectively.</li>
<li>Make more options configurable from the command-line.</li>
<li>Integrate the Pelican MathJax plugin.</li>
<li>Add MathJax support. <strong>Priority Task</strong></li>
<li>Add a search feature.</li>
<li>Test on some more code, including that of other people, who may have different
coding styles.</li>
<li>Add the ability to identify function calls and use this to work out
call-trees (subroutine calls are already captured, although not yet used
in any of the output).</li>
<li>Add the option for users to specify a Creative Commons license for their
documentation, which will be inserted into the page footer.</li>
<li>Make it possible to override the display options within a particular
part of the code and/or for an individual item within the code.</li>
<li>Provide an option to force all (non-string) text which is captured to be
lower case.</li>
<li>Add the ability to recognize the use of intrinsic modules</li>
<li>Add the ability to allow for <code>only</code> statements when loading modules and for
renaming module procedures when loading them.</li>
<li>Improve the sidebar for source files so that it will link to the items that it lists.</li>
<li>Allow the user to provide a favicon.</li>
<li>Provide a directory in which the user can place any images and/or other
media they want available.</li>
<li>Use summaries of the description in some places.</li>
<li>Improve the way procedures are handled as arguments. In particular, allow
any abstract interface which was used as a template to be visible somehow.</li>
</ul>
<p>Things which ideally I would do, but are not currently on the radar include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Add the ability for people to customize appearance of the output more (this
would require drastic changes to the template system).</li>
<li>Support fixed-form Fortran (doable, but low priority).</li>
<li>Add the ability to identify type-bound procedure calls and use these to
construct call-trees. This would be extremely difficult, as it would
require keeping track of names and types of variables throughout the code.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Approach</h3>
<p>The basic algorithm for generating the documentation is as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Get instructions from user. These are to be passes as command-line arguments
and meta-data within the project file.</li>
<li>Parse each file which is to be documented.</li>
<li>Create a file object. This will contain any documentation meant for the
file as a whole and a list of any file contents.</li>
<li>Create module, subroutine, function, and/or program objects for each of
these structures within the file. Each of these objects will also store
comments, contents, and parameters.</li>
<li>Continue to recurse into these structures, adding interface, type,
variable, subroutine and function objects as necessary.</li>
<li>Perform further analysis on the parsed code, correlating anything defined
in one place but used in another. This will be used to generate hyperlinks
when producing the documentation.</li>
<li>Convert comments into <span class="caps">HTML</span>. Assume that they have been written in Markdown.
Also make sure to process LaTeX (not yet implemented).</li>
<li>Produce the documentation. This will be done using Jinja2 templates.</li>
</ul>The Rights and Wrongs of Remembrance2014-11-09T11:20:00+00:002014-11-09T11:20:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2014-11-09:the-rights-and-wrongs-of-remembrance.html<p>Well, it’s that time of year again. 95 years and 362 days ago we saw the
Armistice that ended World War I. This marked the end of the first case
technological war, which caused the world to realize the horrors that could
be inflicted by industrial-scale killing. It was a horrible, pointless
event in which some 16 million people lost their lives. The world, including
the victors, reacted in horror to what they had unleashed. We quickly saw the
establishment of Remembrance Day, to commemorate the tragedy, and the red poppy
as a symbol of remembrance. Of course, as we all know, this was followed two
decades later by another, even worse, case of mass slaughter.</p>
<p>I tend to identify as a moderate pacifist. I’m not an absolute pacifist like
Gandhi was; I think that violence is justified if it is absolutely necessary for
self-defence. I will reluctantly admit that we probably did have to fight in
World War <span class="caps">II</span>, such was the threat of Hitler.<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> But I do not believe that the
First World War was in any way necessary or justifiable. Moreover, I would argue
that the Second World War was ultimately the result of how Germany was treated
in the Treaty of Versaille and was thus, ultimately, avoidable. As for
subsequent wars in which we’ve been involved: I can’t honestly say that I would
consider them much (if any) better than World War I.</p>
<p>My relative pacifism results in my having rather ambivalent feelings towards
Remembrance Day. These are difficult to put into words, but I’m going to try my
best here. While I certainly do think that we should remember the tragedy
that was the <span class="caps">WWI</span>, <span class="caps">WWII</span>, the Korean War, the Gulf War, and Afghanistan, I must
say that I have my qualms over how this is done. We are told to be grateful to
those who made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our freedom. But to me it
feels wrong to feel grateful to people for going off to kill and be killed.
Certainly this is the case in the First World War, where I would argue that
the Allies weren’t even that much more free than Germany; just look at the
treatment of
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs#Arrest_and_imprisonment">Eugene Debs</a>
in the United States. But even in <span class="caps">WWII</span>, the most that I can say for those
who went off for war is that their actions were necessary but unfortunate and
tragic. To say that I am grateful for those actions would make it sound like I’m
celebrating them, which I emphatically do not want to do.</p>
<p>I have been told by one person that we should respect the fact that these soldiers
were, rightly or wrongly, willing to give up their lives for their country. But
why? We don’t celebrate, in and of itself, the fact that people are willing to
give up their lives for their convictions. We only celebrate that sort of
martyrdom of we happen to agree with the convictions. We don’t celebrate suicide
bombers, after all. So I’m not willing simply to celebrate that soldiers were
brave enough to go off to battle. Even if we justify their actions by saying that
they were misled, I still don’t think that justifies any feelings of gratitude.
Pity, perhaps, but not gratitude. I can’t even bring myself to feel respect for
that, as doing so feels like it would be to endorse uncritical obedience.</p>
<p>I guess what I’m saying is that Remembrance Day asks us to celebrate the
sacrifices made by soldiers without ever questioning why those sacrifices were
made. It assumes that the wars in which we engaged were just. Worse still, it
often becomes a celebration of military history. In Canada in particular, we are
told about how the battles at Passchendaele and Vimy Ridge saw the “birth of a
nation.” Well, the Canada that I would consider to be my country (if that
idealized country has ever actually existed) was not born in any battle.
It was born in the
establishment of trade unions, the development of our shared public
infrastructure, the creation of medicare, our rejection of the
war in Vietnam and later Iraq,<sup id="fnref:2"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:2" rel="footnote">2</a></sup> the writing of the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms. I think that most Canadians perceive ourselves as being fairly peaceful,
nonviolent people. So why should we consider these battles to be the birth of our
nation? Why should a military event be given such an important role in our history
when the Armed Forces play such a small role in our culture?</p>
<p>But my bigger problem with Remembrance Day is how it relates to the wars that are
going on now. There is, of course, a “support our troops” message. Now, one could
argue that even this is objectionable, as the Armed Forces are basically salaried
killers. I’m not going to get into that here. In any case, no matter what my
objections may be to the Armed Forces, I’d still like to see the troops come home
safely. In fact, to me, the <em>best</em> way that you can support our troops is to
demand that they come home. But “support our troops” always seems to have a strong
subtext of “support our wars.” When I was in grade 9,
my school attended a “support our troops” rally rather than having our own
Remembrance Day ceremony. I think this was related to the fact that an alumnus had
recently been killed in Afghanistan. We were assured by the principal that this
was distinct from supporting our war. Seven years on, I can’t remember exactly
what was said at the rally. But I do recall it being emphasized how brave and noble
the soldiers were being. And I distinctly remember feeling that I had been
duped into attending a pro-war event. That, to me, is not an appropriate way to
commemorate the ending of World War I.</p>
<p>It seems that, rather than being a time to mourn the horrendous loss of life that
we see in modern warfare, Remembrance Day has become a time when we are meant to
celebrate the sacrifices of soldiers, past and present. Implicit to this
celebration is the idea that their violence was justified. Consider “In Flanders
Field.” I don’t think that there is a single Remembrance Day ceremony, anywhere
in Canada, where that poem isn’t read. But think about the last stanza:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Take up our quarrel with the foe:<br/>
To you from failing hands we throw<br/>
The torch; be yours to hold it high.<br/>
If ye break faith with us who die <br/>
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow<br/>
In Flanders fields.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s asking us to continue fighting. Not to realize the folly of war and lay down
our arms, but to persist with it. What’s more, it was written during World War I,
which was a pointless war between imperialist powers. Canadian soldiers <em>had</em> no
quarrel with German soldiers and I consider them just as worthy of our
remembrance. But I don’t recall that ever being mentioned at any of the numerous
Remembrance Day ceremonies that I have attended over the years.</p>
<p><img alt="A white and a red poppy." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/poppies.jpg"/>
All of these feelings are the reason why I haven’t made it a point to wear a
poppy in recent years. To be clear, it’s not that I specifically avoid wearing
a poppy. It’s just that I haven’t had one with me in Halifax and haven’t made it
a point to buy one. I’ve been thinking for awhile that I should get my hands on a
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_poppy">white poppy</a>. It seems that it would
more accurately convey my mixed feelings about Remembrance Day. I know that many
veterans find it offensive and I regret causing offence. However, if they find
the idea of denouncing the violence of the wars they fought in offensive, then
they are in the wrong and I would not censor myself for their sake.</p>
<p>I guess the point that I’m trying to make is: at 11:<span class="caps">00AM</span> on November the 11<sup>
th</sup> we <em>should</em> remember everyone who has suffered in war. But I do mean
everyone. We should remember the Canadian and American and British soldiers who
fell. We should remember those who lived, but with both mental and physical injury.
We should remember the German and Austrian and Italian soldiers. And we should
remember the civilians who died as armies marched across the world and bombs
fell from the skies. We should remember how horrific war was. We should remember
why war should never be allowed to happen again. Lest we forget…</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>I do, however, have a lot of respect for the pacifists within the <span class="caps">CCF</span> (the more radical predecessor to the <span class="caps">NDP</span>) who argued in parliament against our involvement in World War <span class="caps">II</span>. It’s certainly a far cry from the <span class="caps">NDP</span>’s support, a few years ago, for bombing Libya. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2">
<p>Although both of these were only partial objections. We, unfortunately, did provide support for the Americans—we just never actually engaged in battle. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:2" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>A (Not as Brief as I’d Hoped) Fortran Tutorial2014-10-31T23:00:00+00:002014-10-31T23:00:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2014-10-31:a-not-as-brief-as-id-hoped-fortran-tutorial.html<p><em><strong>Note:</strong> I wrote this guide for the Saint Mary’s University Astronomy and
Physics Society to go along with a tutorial that I will present on the Fortran
programming language. I thought I’d post it here in addition to the
<a href="http://ap.smu.ca/~smuaps/an-introduction-to-modern-fortran-programming.html"><span class="caps">SMUAPS</span> website</a>.</em></p>
<p>Fortran, which stands for FORmula TRANslator, is the oldest high level
programming language and remains, albeit with significant improvements,
one of the main languages used by physicists.<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup>
Most computational physics is done using Fortran and this is the language
typically used in <span class="caps">SMU</span>’s Computational Methods for Physicists class. This
introduction will show you how to use various useful features of the language
in its modern form.<sup id="fnref:2"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:2" rel="footnote">2</a></sup> It will do this by defining a problem which we wish a
program to solve and then showing how to write such a program. The program
can be <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/attachments/fortran/potential_field.f90">downloaded here</a>
if you want to follow along (which I’d recommend
doing). I assume that you already know how the basics of computer programming
but have not previously done scientific computing or worked with Fotran. Of
course, this will only be a taste of Fortran’s abilities and there will be
many features, both simple and complex, which I will not be able to mention.
For a good overview of them, see
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran_95_language_features">this Wikipedia article</a>.</p>
<h3>Table of Contents</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="#problem">The Problem</a><ul>
<li><a href="#method">The Numerical Method</a></li>
<li><a href="#stats">Statistics</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#algorithm">The Algorithm</a></li>
<li><a href="#style">A Note on Style</a></li>
<li><a href="#space">Comments and White Space</a></li>
<li><a href="#basics">Fortran Basics</a><ul>
<li><a href="#structure">Basic Program Structure</a></li>
<li><a href="#variables">Variables</a></li>
<li><a href="#conditional">Conditional Statements</a></li>
<li><a href="#loops">Loops</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#instructions">Getting Instructions from the User</a></li>
<li><a href="#reading">Reading and Writing Data</a></li>
<li><a href="#procedures">Procedures</a><ul>
<li><a href="#pass">Pass by Reference</a></li>
<li><a href="#functions">Functions</a></li>
<li><a href="#subroutines">Subroutines</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#array">Array Syntax</a></li>
<li><a href="#compiling">Compiling and Running Your Program</a></li>
<li><a href="#packaging">Packaging Your Procedures</a></li>
<li><a href="#summing">Summing Up</a></li>
<li><a href="#resources">Useful Resources</a></li>
</ul>
<p><a name="problem"></a></p>
<h3>The Problem</h3>
<p>Say we’ve measure the electric potentials at various points in one dimension.
We have recorded the location at which the measurement was taken and the value
of the potential in a file on our computer. We now want to calculate the
electric field that exists at each point where we took a measurement. These
results will be printed to a second text file on the computer. The program
should also find the average electric field and the standard deviation.</p>
<p><a name="method"></a></p>
<h4>The Numerical Method</h4>
<p>To do this, we need to recall that
</p>
<div class="math">$$ \mathbf{E} = -\nabla V. $$</div>
<p>
In our simple, one dimensional case, this becomes
</p>
<div class="math">$$ E = -\frac{dV}{dx}. $$</div>
<p>
However, we don’t actually know the function <span class="math">\(V(x)\)</span>, only the value of <span class="math">\(V\)</span> at
particular values of <span class="math">\(x\)</span>. So, how do we calculate the derivative? In reality,
we’ll have to estimate it. The limit definition of the derivative says
</p>
<div class="math">$$ \frac{dV}{dx} = \lim_{h \to 0} \frac{V(x + h) - V(x)}{h}, $$</div>
<p>
so you might be tempted to use
</p>
<div class="math">$$ \frac{dV_{i}}{dx} \approx \frac{V_{i+1} - V_{i}}{x_{i+1} - x_{i}}. $$</div>
<p>
However, that is only accounting for the rate of change on one side of your
data-point, <span class="math">\(i\)</span>. Thus, it would be better to use
</p>
<div class="math">$$ \frac{dV_{i}}{dx} \approx \frac{V_{i+1} - V_{i-1}}{x_{i+1} - x_{i-1}}. $$</div>
<p>
Of course, this won’t work at two ends of the data set, so in those cases we’ll
simply have to make do with half of the information and use something along
the lines of our first guess of how to take the derivative.</p>
<p><a name="stats"></a></p>
<h4>Statistics</h4>
<p>As I hope everyone will know, the average value of some data is given by
</p>
<div class="math">$$ \overline{x} = \frac{1}{N}\sum_{i=1}^{N} x_i~. $$</div>
<p>
As a reminder, the standard deviation of a data-set is
</p>
<div class="math">$$ \sigma = \sqrt{\frac{1}{N-1} \sum_{i=1}^N (x_i - \overline{x})^2}.$$</div>
<p><a name="algorithm"></a></p>
<h3>The Algorithm</h3>
<p>The basic structure of our program will be as follows</p>
<ol>
<li>Determine the files from which to read and to which to write data.</li>
<li>Read the data from the input file.</li>
<li>Take the derivative of the data and multiply by negative one.</li>
<li>Write the processed data to the output file.</li>
<li>Calculate the mean and standard deviation of the processed data.</li>
<li>Print these statistical values to the screen.</li>
</ol>
<p>The calculations in steps 3 and 5 are to be done using the techniques and
equations discussed in the previous section.</p>
<h3>A Note on Style</h3>
<p><a name="style"></a>
Fortran, as a language, is case-insensitive. This means that “<span class="caps">HELLO</span>”,
“hello”, and “hElLo” are equivalent. The original standard style for programming
in Fortran was to use all upper-case letters. Personally, I find this hard to
read. Many people, today, will use entirely lower-case letters, and some will
use a mixture of both. I have read that the standard now is to use
upper-case letters for anything that is intrinsic to the language, and
lower-case letters for everything else. Although it is debatable how many
people actually stick to this, I will be using this style throughout this
tutorial. Note that case-insensitivity does not apply to the contents
of strings.</p>
<p><a name="comments"></a></p>
<h3>Comments and White-Space</h3>
<p>From Fortran 90 onward, comments are designated by an exclamation mark.
Anything on a line following an exclamation mark (assuming that the
exclamation mark isn’t inside a string) will be ignored by the
compiler. Comments should be used to document your code. I’d recommend
having a standard template that you use at the top of each program
explaining what it does. An example of the format I use is provided below.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="c">!==============================================================================!</span>
<span class="c">! B E G I N P R O G R A M : !</span>
<span class="c">! P O T E N T I A L _ F I E L D !</span>
<span class="c">!==============================================================================!</span>
<span class="c">! !</span>
<span class="c">! AUTHOR: A Fortran Programmer !</span>
<span class="c">! WRITTEN: October, 2014 !</span>
<span class="c">! MODIFICATIONS: None !</span>
<span class="c">! !</span>
<span class="c">! PURPOSE: Processes data on potential to calculate a field. Then !</span>
<span class="c">! finds some statistics on the field. The input file should !</span>
<span class="c">! consist of two columns of data, separated by spaces. The !</span>
<span class="c">! first column should be a position and the second should be !</span>
<span class="c">! the potential at that position. All values should be in SI !</span>
<span class="c">! units. The default input file is 'in.dat' and the default !</span>
<span class="c">! output file is 'out.dat'. Optionally, these may be !</span>
<span class="c">! overridden by providing these two file names as arguments !</span>
<span class="c">! when executing the program. !</span>
<span class="c">! !</span>
<span class="c">! I.e. $ ./potential_field [input_file [output_file]] !</span>
<span class="c">! !</span>
<span class="c">! EXTERNALS: None !</span>
<span class="c">! !</span>
<span class="c">!------------------------------------------------------------------------------!</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The Fortran 90
standard saw the adoption of free-form programming. This means that you
can insert any number of blank lines that you like between successive lines
of code and that there can be as many spaces as you like within a line of code.
Note, however, that most compilers will place a limit on the number of
characters that you may have in a line; often this is 132 characters. In
any case, it is bad style, in my opinion, to have lines longer than about
80 characters.</p>
<p><a name="basics"></a></p>
<h3>Fortran Basics</h3>
<p>Before we fully begin, there are a few more things I want to discuss. These are
some of the fundamental concepts seen in every programming language. I’m going
to assume that you are familiar with these principles and will just show
how they are applied in Fortran.</p>
<p><a name="structure"></a></p>
<h4>Basic Program Structure</h4>
<p>The great advantage of Fortran is the fairly obvious meaning of all of its
syntax—something which can emphatically <em>not</em> be said for C. The
basic structure of our program will be:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">PROGRAM </span><span class="n">potential_field</span>
<span class="k">IMPLICIT NONE</span>
<span class="c">! Variable declarations</span>
<span class="c">! ...</span>
<span class="c">!---------------------------------------!</span>
<span class="c">! Main program</span>
<span class="c">! ...</span>
<span class="k">STOP</span>
<span class="k">END PROGRAM </span><span class="n">potential_field</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The first line says that you are writing a stand-alone program (as opposed to,
say, a subroutine) called “potential_field”. <code>IMPLICIT NONE</code> instructs the
compiler to give an error message if it
encounters any variables which haven’t been declared. This should always be put
at the start of programs in order to prevent bugs occurring due to typos in
variable names. After this we would declare our variables and then would come
the program itself. <code>STOP</code> stops the
execution of the program and the final line designates the end of the program
within your text file. You are then free to write any procedures you want
below that. Unlike many other programming languages, Fortran does not allow
anything in your source file to fall outside of a program unit—that is, outside
of a program, subroutine, function, or module (more on the latter three later).</p>
<p><a name="variables"></a></p>
<h4>Variables</h4>
<p>Fortran has five fundamental data-types:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>INTEGER</code>s are integer values, which can be represented exactly by the computer.</li>
<li><code>REAL</code>s are floating point numbers, representing real numbers. They are not
exact representations of real numbers, having only a finite number of decimal places.</li>
<li><code>COMPLEX</code> variables are effectively just two real variables, one storing
the real component of a number, the other storing the imaginary component.
These don’t need to be used very often.</li>
<li><code>CHARACTER</code>s are text characters, usually encoded as <span class="caps">ASCII</span>. Character
variables can be given a length, allowing them to be used as strings.</li>
<li><code>LOGICAL</code>s are boolean variables, which can store a value of either
<code>.TRUE.</code> or <code>.FALSE.</code></li>
</ul>
<p>You can also define “derived types,” which are the equivalents to structs in
C or objects/classes in other languages. These are only really needed in
larger programs, where they can provide a useful way of organizing
data and code.</p>
<p>A sample of the variable declarions in our code are given below.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="kt">CHARACTER</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">LEN</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">32</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">infile</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s1">'in.dat'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">outfile</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s1">'out.dat'</span>
<span class="kt">INTEGER</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="k">PARAMETER</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">data_max</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">1012</span>
<span class="kt">INTEGER</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">i</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">ioval</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">num_args</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">data_size</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">data_max</span>
<span class="kt">REAL</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">mean</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">stdev</span>
<span class="kt">REAL</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="k">DIMENSION</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data_max</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">field</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">postn</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">potntl</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The ampersands indicate line continuation.</p>
<p><code>CHARACTER(LEN=32)</code> means that these variables are strings containing 32
characters. The <code>PARAMETER</code> attribute means that the variable is a constant,
whose value is set at declaration. <code>REAL(8)</code> means that this is an 8-byte real
variable (the equivalent of a <code>double</code> in C), which provides about twice the
precision of a standard <code>REAL</code> variable. The <code>DIMENSION()</code> attribute
indicates that this variable will be an array. The number inside the parentheses
is the length of the array. It must either be a literal or a parameter.
You can also have multidimensional arrays, which are declared with a
<code>DIMENSION(dim1,dim2,dim3,...)</code> attribute. By default, Fortran arrays are
indexed starting at 1, unlike most other languages. On a technical note,
they are stored in column major order rather than the more typical
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Row-major_order">row major order</a>.</p>
<p><a name="conditional"></a></p>
<h4>Conditional Statements</h4>
<p>If you want a single line to be executed only if <code><condition></code> is true, you
would use the following syntax:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">IF</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="o"><</span><span class="n">condition</span><span class="o">></span> <span class="p">)</span> <span class="o"><</span><span class="n">statements</span><span class="o">></span>
</pre></div>
<p>The general form for an if-statement is</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">IF</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="o"><</span><span class="n">condition</span><span class="o">></span> <span class="p">)</span> <span class="k">THEN</span>
<span class="o"><</span><span class="n">statemtents</span><span class="o">></span>
<span class="k">ELSE IF</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="o"><</span><span class="n">condition2</span><span class="o">></span> <span class="p">)</span> <span class="k">THEN</span>
<span class="o"><</span><span class="n">statemtents</span><span class="o">></span>
<span class="k">ELSE IF</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="o"><</span><span class="n">condition3</span><span class="o">></span> <span class="p">)</span> <span class="k">THEN</span>
<span class="o"><</span><span class="n">statemtents</span><span class="o">></span>
<span class="k">ELSE</span>
<span class="o"><</span><span class="n">statemtents</span><span class="o">></span>
<span class="k">END IF</span>
</pre></div>
<p>There can be an arbitrary number of <code>ELSE IF</code>s, including zero. The <code>ELSE</code>
statement is optional, but if it is used then it must come at the end.</p>
<p><code><condition></code> is a <code>LOGICAL</code> variable or a logical test. The logical
operators in Fortran are <code>==</code>, <code>/=</code>, <code>></code>, <code><</code>, <code>>=</code>,
<code><=</code>, <code>.NOT.</code>, <code>.AND.</code>, <code>.OR.</code>, and <code>.XOR.</code>. The meaning of all of
these is what
you would expect, except possibly for <code>/=</code>, which corresponds to “not equal
to.” Fortran can not use <code>!=</code> because the exclamation mark is the symbol for
a comment.</p>
<p><a name="loops"></a></p>
<h4>Loops</h4>
<p>The main type of loop which you’ll use in Fortran is a “do-loop,” the equivalent
of a for-loop. This takes the form</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">DO </span><span class="nb">index</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">lower</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">upper</span><span class="p">[,</span> <span class="n">step_size</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="o"><</span><span class="n">statements</span><span class="o">></span>
<span class="k">END DO</span>
</pre></div>
<p>where <code>index</code> is the counter variable in the loop, <code>lower</code> is the
lower bound, <code>upper</code> is the upper bound, and <code>step_size</code> is the increment
by which to increase the index. The upper and lower bounds are inclusive.</p>
<p>There are also while loops, which have the syntax</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">DO WHILE</span><span class="p">(</span> <span class="o"><</span><span class="n">condition</span><span class="o">></span> <span class="p">)</span>
<span class="o"><</span><span class="n">statements</span><span class="o">></span>
<span class="k">END DO</span>
</pre></div>
<p>You can exit a loop with the command <code>EXIT</code>, or skip to the next iteration
with the command <code>CYCLE</code>. The <code>EXIT</code> command allows us to use the loop structure</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">DO</span>
<span class="o"><</span><span class="n">statements</span><span class="o">></span>
<span class="k">END DO</span>
</pre></div>
<p>which would otherwise be an infinite loop.</p>
<p><a name="instructions"></a></p>
<h3>Getting Instructions from the User</h3>
<p>We need our program to read in data provided by the user. The best way to do
this is to read it from a text file. We could simply “hardcode” into the
program the name of the file in which the data is to be placed. However,
it would be preferable if the user were to be able to over-ride this default.
The same applies for the file to which we want our results to be written.
We could simply ask the user for the file names when the program is running,
but this is rather ungainly. A far nicer solution is for the user to, if they
desire, specify the file names as command-line arguments. To accomplish this
we use the following bit of code:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">num_args</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">COMMAND_ARGUMENT_COUNT</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="k">IF</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="n">num_args</span> <span class="o">>=</span> <span class="mi">1</span> <span class="p">)</span> <span class="k">CALL </span><span class="nb">GET_COMMAND_ARGUMENT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">infile</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">IF</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="n">num_args</span> <span class="o">>=</span> <span class="mi">2</span> <span class="p">)</span> <span class="k">CALL </span><span class="nb">GET_COMMAND_ARGUMENT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">outfile</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The first line here asks for the number of command-line arguments which
have been provided. If any have been then the first will be the file
containing the data to be read in and we will place that data in the
appropriate string variable (<code>infile</code>). If there is also a second argument
then it will
be the name of the file to which to output the data, and it will also
be placed in the appropriate variable (<code>outfile</code>). The default input
and output file names were assigned when <code>infile</code> and <code>outfile</code> were declared.</p>
<p>In this snippet of code there are a few things worth noting.</p>
<ol>
<li>I make use of two intrinsic procedures: the function
<code>COMMAND_ARGUMENT_COUNT</code> and the subroutine <code>GET_COMMAND_ARGUMENT</code>. I will
explain subroutines and functions in more detail soon. These two procedures
happen to be part of the Fortran 2008 standard. Most compilers featured
equivalent functions prior to the 2008 standard, but there was never any
guarantee that they would be the same between compilers.</li>
<li>We encounter variable assignment in the first line. This is unremarkable
and just like every other high-level programming language. Values are
also assigned in second and third line, but to the arguments of a subroutine.
More on that in a bit.</li>
</ol>
<p><a name="reading"></a></p>
<h3>Reading and Writing Data</h3>
<p>Now that we know the names of the input and output files, we want to write
the code needed to actually perform input and output. If there was one
thing that I could change about Fortran, it would be how it does <span class="caps">IO</span>; the
technique it uses is old-fashioned and extremely clunky.</p>
<p>First, we must open a file. To do this, we use the command
<code>OPEN(unit, FILE='<filename>'[, <other options>])</code>. The unit is an integer,
specifying which <span class="caps">IO</span> “stream” we want to use. There are a few which are reserved:
0 for standard-error, 5 for standard-in, and 6 for standard-out. You should
use a positive integer less than 100. Perhaps the most important of the
other options which may be used when opening a file is <code>STATUS="..."</code>. The
string may be set to “unknown,” indicating that we don’t know whether or not
the file already exists, “new,” indicating that the file should <em>not</em> already
exist, or “old,” indicating that the file <em>should</em> already exist. You may
also use the option <code>IOSTAT=variable</code>, where <code>variable</code> should be an
integer. If, after the operation has been completed, <code>variable</code> is equal to
zero, then it was successful. Otherwise, it indicates that there was an error
of some sort. Without specifying an <code>IOSTAT</code> the program would crash on you.</p>
<p>To open our input file, we use the code</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="c">! Read in data from the input file</span>
<span class="k">OPEN</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">UNIT</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="k">FILE</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">infile</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">IOSTAT</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">ioval</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">STATUS</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'old'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">IF</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="n">ioval</span> <span class="o">/=</span> <span class="mi">0</span> <span class="p">)</span> <span class="k">THEN</span> <span class="c">! Make sure file exists</span>
<span class="k">WRITE</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">filedne</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="nb">TRIM</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">infile</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">STOP</span>
<span class="k">END IF</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The statements within the if-statement will write an error message and then
stop the program if there was some problem opening the file.
We see here our first example of actual <span class="caps">IO</span>. This is done by the <code>WRITE</code>
statement, which is writing a message to standard error. The next argument,
<code>filedne</code> is a format
string. I won’t go into detail about how these work—you can Google it if
you’re interested. Essentially, all that they do is specify how to format the
output of any variables provided. In this case that
variable is <code>TRIM(infile)</code>, where <code>TRIM()</code> is a built-in function which
strips any trailing spaces from the string. Instead of using a format string,
you can just replace the variable name with an asterisk, causing Fortran to
automatically format your output for you. This is often sufficient and we
will see examples of it below. The general form for output statements is
<code>WRITE(<unit>,<format-string>) <variables...></code>. Here, <code><variables...></code>
are the variables whose values are to be outputted.</p>
<p>Next we’ll read in the data. Input statements are very similar to output
statements, except that <code>WRITE</code> is replaced with <code>READ</code>. The general form
is <code>READ(<unit>,<format-string>) <variables...></code>. In this case, the input
data will be placed into the variables we specify in <code><variables></code>. Input
is done line-by-line with as many variables filled as possible, given the
amount of data on the line. For input you should almost always use an asterisk
instead of a format string. An additional argument which can be provided for
<code>READ</code> statements is an <code>IOSTAT</code>. This works in exactly the same way as
in the <code>OPEN</code> statement and can be useful to know when you’ve read to the
end of a file.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">DO </span><span class="n">i</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">data_max</span> <span class="c">! Read until end of file or reach maximum amount of data</span>
<span class="k">READ</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">IOSTAT</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">ioval</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="n">postn</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">potntl</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">IF</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="n">ioval</span> <span class="o">/=</span> <span class="mi">0</span> <span class="p">)</span> <span class="k">THEN</span>
<span class="k"> </span><span class="n">data_size</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">i</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="k">EXIT</span>
<span class="k"> END IF</span>
<span class="k"> IF</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="n">i</span> <span class="o">==</span> <span class="n">data_max</span> <span class="p">)</span> <span class="k">WRITE</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">6</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="s1">'POTENTIAL_FIELD: Could not read '</span><span class="o">//</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="s1">'all input data. Truncated after '</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">data_max</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">' elements.'</span>
<span class="k">END DO</span>
</pre></div>
<p>This bit of code will read in as much data from the file as we have room for in
our arrays, storing it in the arrays <code>postn</code> and <code>potntl</code>. If it reaches
the end of the file then it will remember the amount of data read in and exit
the loop. If it reaches the end of the array then it will print a warning
message saying that some of the data may have been truncated. The two slashses
that you see in the <code>WRITE</code> statement are the concatenation operator.</p>
<p>Now that we’re done with the input file, we’ll close it using the command
<code>CLOSE(<unit>)</code>. In this case we simply add the line <code>CLOSE(10)</code>.</p>
<p>After all of this, outputting our results will seem easy. This is done
with the following code fragment which will go after the actual calculations
in our program</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="c">! Send the data to the output file</span>
<span class="k">OPEN</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="k">FILE</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">outfile</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">STATUS</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'unknown'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">WRITE</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="s1">'#Position Field Strength'</span>
<span class="k">DO </span><span class="n">i</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">data_size</span>
<span class="k">WRITE</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="n">postn</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">field</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">END DO</span>
<span class="k">CLOSE</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
<p>There is little to remark upon here, except to note that the first line
we write to the file is</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>#Position Field Strength
</pre></div>
<p>This provides a header for the file. Most pieces of plotting software know to
ignore lines beginning with a hash-sign. Thus, this provides a way to remind
yourself what the data in your file are, without getting in the way if you want
to make a graph from it. I consider it to be good style to put such a header
at the top of all of your data files.</p>
<p><a name="procedures"></a></p>
<h3>Procedures</h3>
<p>When writing a program, it is often useful to place some of your code into
subprograms. There are two main reasons for this.</p>
<ol>
<li>It allows the code to be executed multiple times without having to be
rewritten each time.</li>
<li>It allows the code to be reused in future programs.</li>
</ol>
<p>In Fortran we call these “procedures.” In most languages they are called
“methods.” Fortran has two types of procedures: functions and subroutines.
Functions produce a value and are akin to the methods that you see in
other languages. Subroutines do not produce a value and are similar to void
methods in other languages.</p>
<p>It is best to place any procedures at the end of your program. Just below
where your program ends (after the <code>STOP</code> command) type a line containing only
the word <code>CONTAINS</code>. Place your procedures below that and before the end of
the program.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">PROGRAM </span><span class="n">potential_field</span>
<span class="k">IMPLICIT NONE</span>
<span class="c">! Variable declarations</span>
<span class="c">! ...</span>
<span class="c">!---------------------------------------!</span>
<span class="c">! Main program</span>
<span class="c">! ...</span>
<span class="k">STOP</span>
<span class="k">CONTAINS</span>
<span class="c">! Subroutines and functions</span>
<span class="c">! ...</span>
<span class="k">END PROGRAM </span><span class="n">potential_field</span>
</pre></div>
<p>There is another way to package procedures, using “modules.” I’ll
explain those later. I should also mention that it is possible to place your
procedures entirely outside of any program or module and in older versions of
Fortran this was the only option. However, unless you need to do this in order
to work with some legacy code, this is not a practice that I would
recommend.<sup id="fnref:3"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:3" rel="footnote">3</a></sup>
When procedures are stored in this way, the compiler won’t be able to check
that you have passed the correct number and types of arguments and these bugs
are, in my experience, immensely frustrating to catch.</p>
<p><a name="pass"></a></p>
<h4>Pass by Reference</h4>
<p>In most programming languages, when you pass a variable to a method as an
argument, a new
copy of that variable is created for the method to use. This variable will
then be deleted once the method has finished executing. This technique is call
“pass by value.” Fortran, however, works differently. Instead of creating
a copy of the passed variable, the procedure will be told where the original
variable is located and will then access the original whenever the variable
is used. This is called “pass by reference.”</p>
<p>If you are only using the variable’s value as input then this is irrelevant to
the end user. However, if you modify the value of an argument in the procedure,
then that modification will be reflected in the calling
program once the procedure has finished executing. At the end of the day, what
this means is that we have a way for procedures to return multiple pieces of
information. This also means that whether you use a function or a subroutine
is entirely a matter of taste. Typically, I will use a function if I only
want to return a single value. They are particularly useful for representing
mathematical functions in numerical routines such as root-finders, integrators,
<span class="caps">ODE</span> solvers, etc. I use a subroutine if I know that I want to return multiple
variables. You will see an example of each in the program we are writing today.</p>
<p><a name="functions"></a></p>
<h4>Functions</h4>
<p>I wrote a function to calculate derivatives. The basic syntax
for such a function is</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">FUNCTION </span><span class="n">differentiate</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="n">independent</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">dependent</span> <span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">IMPLICIT NONE</span>
<span class="c">! Argument declarations</span>
<span class="kt">REAL</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="k">DIMENSION</span><span class="p">(:),</span> <span class="k">INTENT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">IN</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">dependent</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">independent</span>
<span class="kt">REAL</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="k">DIMENSION</span><span class="p">(:),</span> <span class="k">ALLOCATABLE</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">differentiate</span>
<span class="c">! Local variables</span>
<span class="c">! ...</span>
<span class="c">! Perform the calculation</span>
<span class="c">! ...</span>
<span class="k">RETURN</span>
<span class="k">END FUNCTION </span><span class="n">differentiate</span>
</pre></div>
<p>We see that this function is called <code>differentiate</code> and takes two arguments:
<code>independent</code> and <code>dependent</code>. While programs are ended with the keyword
<code>STOP</code>, functions (and subroutines) are ended with the keyword <code>RETURN</code>.
We call the function with</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">field</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="n">data_size</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">differentiate</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">postn</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="n">data_size</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">potntl</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="n">data_size</span><span class="p">))</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The <code>(1:data_size)</code> is an example of “array-slice notation.” More on that later.</p>
<p>Unlike languages based on C, arguments are not declared in the argument list
but in the body of the procedure alongside the local variables. You also need
to declare the return variable, which, by default, has the same name as the
function. When
declaring the arguments you should add the attribute <code>INTENT(<value>)</code> where
<code><value></code> may be <code>IN</code>, <code>OUT</code>, or <code>INOUT</code>. The first instructs the
compiler that the value of the argument must not be changed within the
procedure, while the second tells the compiler that the variable <em>must</em> have a
new value assigned to it within the procedure. The initial value of this
argument in the procedure is not guaranteed to be the same as the one it held
prior to being passed. The final option basically tells
the compiler that there are no such requirements for that argument and is the
default case if you omit the <code>INTENT</code> attribute. No <code>INTENT</code> should be
given to the return variable, although it is treated as if it were declared
with <code>INTENT(OUT)</code>.</p>
<p>Something which you may have noticed here is how we declared our input arrays
with <code>DIMENSION(:)</code>. This syntax can be used for procedure arguments to
indicate that the size of the array is not known in advance. The size will be
set to be however large the array passed to the procedure is. A similar
notation is used for our return value, but that’s because it is an
<code>ALLOCATABLE</code> array. More on that in the sidebar below.</p>
<p>The full code for this function is provided below.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">FUNCTION </span><span class="n">differentiate</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="n">independent</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">dependent</span> <span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">IMPLICIT NONE</span>
<span class="c">! Input and output variables</span>
<span class="kt">REAL</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="k">DIMENSION</span><span class="p">(:),</span> <span class="k">INTENT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">IN</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">dependent</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">independent</span>
<span class="kt">REAL</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="k">DIMENSION</span><span class="p">(:),</span> <span class="k">ALLOCATABLE</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">differentiate</span>
<span class="c">! Local variables</span>
<span class="kt">INTEGER</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">i</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">ret_size</span>
<span class="c">!--------------------------------------------------------------------------!</span>
<span class="c">! Figure out how much data there is to process</span>
<span class="n">ret_size</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">MIN</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">SIZE</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">dependent</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="n">SIZE</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">independent</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="k">ALLOCATE</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">differentiate</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="n">ret_size</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="c">! Calculate derivative for first data-point</span>
<span class="n">differentiate</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">dependent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="n">dependent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">independent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">independent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="c">! Calculate derivative for data-points in the middle</span>
<span class="k">FORALL</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">i</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">:(</span><span class="n">ret_size</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">))</span> <span class="n">differentiate</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">dependent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">dependent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">independent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="n">independent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="c">! Calculate the derivative for the last data-point</span>
<span class="n">differentiate</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">ret_size</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">dependent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">ret_size</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">dependent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">ret_size</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">independent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">ret_size</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">independent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">ret_size</span> <span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="k">RETURN</span>
<span class="k">END FUNCTION </span><span class="n">differentiate</span>
</pre></div>
<p>I should mention that Fortran comes with a number of built-in functions. In
particular, it has all of the mathematical functions that you’d expect. We
also so the <code>MIN()</code> and <code>SIZE()</code> intrinsic functions. The first returns
the smallest value in a list of arguments or in an array. The second returns
the number of elements in an array.</p>
<p><strong>Sidebar:</strong> You may notice that our return-variable here is declared with
the attribute <code>ALLOCATABLE</code>. By default, Fortran arrays are static, meaning
that they have a fixed length determined at compile-time. However, sometimes
you might not know what size you want at compile-time or you might want to
adjust the size part way through your program. (Here it is the former.)
In that case, you use
an allocatable array. When first declared, these arrays have no determined size,
although you do have to specify their rank by using colons in the <code>DIMENSION</code>
attribute. For example, a 3D array would be declared with <code>DIMENSION(:,:,:)</code>.
Once you know they size you want, you allocate them as follows</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">ALLOCATE</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="k">array</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">lower</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="n">upper</span><span class="p">))</span>
</pre></div>
<p>where <code>lower</code> is the index which you want the array to start at while
<code>upper</code> is the index that you want it to end at. These bounds are inclusive.
Once you are done with the array, you can deallocate it with
<code>DEALLOCATE(array)</code>. You can then reallocate
it again (potentially to a different size) if you wish. When a procedure
exits, all local allocatable arrays are automatically deallocated.</p>
<p><strong>Sidebar 2:</strong> Another new feature which I’ve introduced here is the <code>FORALL</code>
construct. This structure is used for array assignment and manipulation. It
behaves similarly to a loop, but there are some important
differences. From the old array, it will calculate values for the new array
and place them in temporary storage. Once it has calculated the value for every
element it will place them in the new array. The forall construct may iterate
over the array in any order. Its main purpose is to
make it easier for the compiler to optimize your code and run it on parallel
architectures, but it is also just a convenient way of writing certain
expressions. You can learn more <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran_95_language_features#The_FORALL_Statement_and_Construct">here</a>.</p>
<p><a name="subroutines"></a></p>
<h4>Subroutines</h4>
<p>In our programming exercise, I used a subroutine to calculate
some statistical information. The basic syntax for such a subroutine is given below.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">SUBROUTINE </span><span class="n">stats</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="k">array</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">mean</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">stdev</span> <span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">IMPLICIT NONE</span>
<span class="c">! Argument declarations</span>
<span class="kt">REAL</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="k">DIMENSION</span><span class="p">(:),</span> <span class="k">INTENT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">IN</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="k">array</span>
<span class="k"> </span><span class="kt">REAL</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="k">INTENT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">OUT</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">mean</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">stde</span>
<span class="c">! Local variables</span>
<span class="c">! ...</span>
<span class="c">!Perform the calculation</span>
<span class="c">!...</span>
<span class="k">RETURN</span>
<span class="k">END SUBROUTINE </span><span class="n">stats</span>
</pre></div>
<p>Other than the fact that you don’t need to declare a return value, there isn’t
much to say about subroutines which wasn’t covered in the discussion about
functions. The full code for the subroutine is</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">SUBROUTINE </span><span class="n">stats</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="k">array</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">mean</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">stdev</span> <span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">IMPLICIT NONE</span>
<span class="c">! Input and output variables</span>
<span class="kt">REAL</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="k">DIMENSION</span><span class="p">(:),</span> <span class="k">INTENT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">IN</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="k">array</span>
<span class="k"> </span><span class="kt">REAL</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="k">INTENT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">OUT</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">mean</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">stdev</span>
<span class="c">! Local variables</span>
<span class="kt">INTEGER</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">i</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">&</span>
<span class="n">num</span>
<span class="kt">REAL</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="kd">::</span> <span class="n">running_tot</span>
<span class="c">!--------------------------------------------------------------------------!</span>
<span class="c">! Compute the mean</span>
<span class="n">num</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">SIZE</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="k">array</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">mean</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">SUM</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="k">array</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">/</span> <span class="kt">REAL</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">num</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="c">! Compute the standard deviation</span>
<span class="k">DO </span><span class="n">i</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">num</span>
<span class="n">running_tot</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">running_tot</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="p">(</span> <span class="k">array</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="n">mean</span> <span class="p">)</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span>
<span class="k">END DO</span>
<span class="k"> </span><span class="n">stdev</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">SQRT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">1.</span><span class="n">d0</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="kt">REAL</span><span class="p">((</span><span class="n">num</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="n">running_tot</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">RETURN</span>
<span class="k">END SUBROUTINE </span><span class="n">stats</span>
</pre></div>
<p><a name="array"></a></p>
<h3>Array Syntax</h3>
<p>Fortran features powerful array syntax, similar to what is available in
Python. The simplest bit of this syntax is if you want an array which,
element by element, is the sum of two other arrays of the same size. You
simply use the syntax
<code>array1 = array2 + array3</code>. You can use similar syntax for just about any
operation on an array, including single-argument operators and operators with
scalars:
<code>array1 = array2 + scalar</code>. In this case <code>scalar</code> will be treated as though
it were an array of the same size as <code>array1</code> and <code>array2</code> where every
element had the same value as <code>scalar</code>. With the right keywords, you can even
apply your own functions and subroutines to arrays in this way.</p>
<p>More advanced results can be achieved using array-slice notation. This allows
you to work with only a portion of an array. The syntax is
<code>array([lower]:[upper][:stride])</code>. This returns an array containing every
<code>stride</code><sup>th</sup> element of <code>array</code> starting at <code>lower</code> and ending at <code>upper</code>.
By default <code>increment</code> is 1,
<code>lower</code> is index at which <code>array</code> starts, and <code>upper</code> is the index at
which <code>array</code> ends. Thus, <code>array(:)</code>
corresponds to the whole array.
The slice syntax can be used in multidimensional arrays too,
with any mix you please of array-slices and specific indices in the different
directions. For example, if we had a 3D array with 100 elements in each
dimension we could specify <code>array3d(:,1:25,50)</code> would give you the a 2D array
with dimensions 100 by 25.</p>
<p>I used array slices a few times in our program. One example is when the program
calculates the electric field:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">field</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="n">data_size</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">differentiate</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">postn</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="n">data_size</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">potntl</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="n">data_size</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">field</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="n">data_size</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="o">-</span><span class="mf">1.0</span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="n">field</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="n">data_size</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The first line here calculates the derivative of the data in the arrays
<code>postn</code> and <code>potntl</code> up to the <code>data_size</code><sup>th</sup> element, storing
the results in <code>field</code>. The second line multiplies the elements of <code>field</code>
containing useful data by -1. These were very simple uses of array-slices and
shows only some of their power.</p>
<p><a name="compiling"></a></p>
<h3>Compiling and Running Your Program</h3>
<p>We now have a working program. As a reminder, you can
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/attachments/fortran/potential_field.f90">download it here</a>.
It’s time to compile it and see if it works! The Fortran compiler which you
will use most often is <code>gfortran</code>. This is a decent compiler<sup id="fnref:4"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:4" rel="footnote">4</a></sup> and has the
advantage of being free software.<sup id="fnref:5"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:5" rel="footnote">5</a></sup> If you are running Linux then you can
install it using <code>sudo apt-get install gfortran</code> (assuming it’s
Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, or one of their derivatives—I don’t know how to use other
distro’s package managers). Otherwise you can
<a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GFortranBinaries">download it here</a>.</p>
<p>Compiling and running a simple program like this is very easy; just type
<code>gfortran ./potential_field.f90</code> at the command line in the directory where
you’ve kept your source code. This will produce the executable file called
<code>a.out</code>. To run the program, type <code>./a.out</code>. Before running it, make
sure that you have a file containing your data on the electrical potential
called “in.dat”. If you use the <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/attachments/fortran/in.dat">in.dat</a>
file provided here then you should get the following output:</p>
<p><img alt="What you should see in your terminal when you run with the input data provided here." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/fortran/output.png" style="float:none;display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto"/></p>
<p>The output file <code>out.dat</code> should match <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/attachments/fortran/out.dat">this one</a>.
You should see an
electric field that rounds to 20 <span class="caps">NC</span><sup>-1</sup> everywhere. Don’t worry if
your numbers vary from mine in the last few decimal places.
The last decimal places of floating point values often vary from computer to
computer and from compiler to compiler because of the finite levels of
precision with which floating point numbers can be stored.</p>
<p>If your input data is contained in some file other than <code>in.dat</code> then you
can run the
program using the command <code>./a.out infile</code>. If you want your output
data to go to a file other than <code>out.dat</code> then run the program with the
command <code>./a.out infile outfile</code>.</p>
<p>You could also compile your program with the command
<code>gfortran -o potential_field potential_field.f90</code>. This will produce an
executable called <code>potential_field</code>. Had a different argument been placed
after the <code>-o</code> flag then that would have been the name of the executable.
The program would now be run using the command <code>./potential_field</code>. Once
again, you can optionally extra arguments specifying the input and output files.</p>
<p><a name="packaging"></a></p>
<h3>Packaging Your Procedures</h3>
<p>For a small, simple program like this it is easiest to keep everything in one
file. However, as your program becomes larger, it will become desirable to
put certain things into separate files. This prevents files from becoming
overwhelmingly huge.<sup id="fnref:6"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:6" rel="footnote">6</a></sup> It also means that if you want to reuse some of your
procedures in other programs, it will be a lot easier to transfer them over.
If you compile them correctly (not something we’ll get into here) then you
won’t even need to transfer them—you can use the same “library” file for
multiple programs.</p>
<p>In order to retain the compiler’s ability to know whether we are passing the
correct arguments to a procedure we need to place that procedures in a “module”.
Modules are a bit like programs, containing both variables and
procedures (also “derived types,” in case you ever want to use them). However,
unlike programs, they can not be run on their own; they just contain code to
be used by other modules and programs. The basic syntax for our module is</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">MODULE </span><span class="n">tools</span>
<span class="k">IMPLICIT NONE</span>
<span class="c">!Variable declarations</span>
<span class="c">! ...</span>
<span class="k">CONTAINS</span>
<span class="c">! Procedures</span>
<span class="c">! ...</span>
<span class="k">END MODULE </span><span class="n">tools</span>
</pre></div>
<p>If your module does not contain any procedures then omit the <code>CONTAINS</code>
statement.</p>
<p>To make a module’s contents available to a program (or another module) you
place a <code>USE</code> statement followed by the module name at the very start of your
program—before even the
<code>IMPLICIT NONE</code> statement. In our case this means that our program starts with</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">PROGRAM </span><span class="n">potential_field</span>
<span class="k">USE </span><span class="n">tools</span>
<span class="k">IMPLICIT NONE</span>
<span class="c">! ...</span>
</pre></div>
<p>If you need to load multiple modules then you place additional <code>USE</code>
statements at the start of the program, each on its own line. Take a look at
the <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/attachments/fortran/tools_mod.f90">module</a> and
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/attachments/fortran/potential_field2.f90">modified program</a> to
see what changes were made.</p>
<p>The main disadvantage of using modules (although it’s one that can be
overcome with sufficient
organization and/or appropriate software tools) is that it
makes the compile process more
complicated. It is important that module files are compiled <em>before</em> any
files which use them. This is because, upon compiling the module into an
“object file,” the compiler will produce a file ending in the extension
<code>.mod</code>. This file contains information for the compiler about the contents of
the module and which will need to read as it compiles anything that
uses the module. Needless to say, if you have modules using other modules then
things can get complicated.</p>
<p>In this case we can compile like so:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>gfortran -c tools_mod.f90
gfortran -c potential_field2.f90
gfortran -o potential_field2 tools_mod.o potential_field2.o
</pre></div>
<p>Aside from the change in the name of the executable, the program can be run
just as before.</p>
<p><img alt="What you should see in your terminal when you compile and run our rewritten version of the program." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/fortran/output2.png" style="float:none;display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto"/></p>
<p><a name="summing"></a></p>
<h3>Summing Up</h3>
<p>There you have it. You’ve now seen how various features in Fortran work and
seen an example of a working program. Although this was a lot of information
all at once, Fortran really isn’t a hard language to learn. The syntax is
intuitive and the modern version comes with enough features to be useful but
not so many as be overwhelming. Don’t feel bad if you’ve forgotten some of the
syntax that I’ve gone over—even experienced programmers will occasionally have
to look something up. Hopefully now you’ll feel ready to try writing a program
of your own in Fortran and begin learning the language’s capabilities and
limitations in the best way possible: through experience.</p>
<p><a name="resources"></a></p>
<h3>Useful Resources</h3>
<p>There are plenty of features in Fortran which I have not mentioned. If you want
to learn more about them, some useful links are given below:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran_95_language_features">Fortran 95 language features</a>:</strong>
A Wikipedia article which gives a good overview of the various capabilities of
Fortran 95. I regularly use this as a reference when I forget some syntax.</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~szymansk/OOF90/bugs.html">Mistakes in Fortran 90 Programs that Might Surprise You</a>:</strong>
A webpage describing some of the more obscure behaviour of Fortran. It’s good to be familiar with what these are. If your program
is behaving strangely, these are all good things to check for.</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/COURSES/cs201/NOTES/chap05/format.html">Fortran Formats</a>:</strong>
Some information on how format strings can be used to specify output (and,
in principle, input) in Fortran.</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gfortran/">The <span class="caps">GNU</span> Fortran Compiler</a>:</strong>
The manual for gfortran, the main free compiler. In my opinion it is the best
documented compiler out there. Particularly useful is its list of intrinsic
functions and subroutines, which comes with information and, usually, an example
for each one.</li>
<li><strong><a href="ftp://ftp.nag.co.uk/sc22wg5/n1551-n1600/n1579.pdf">The New Features of Fortran 2003</a>:</strong>
A <span class="caps">PDF</span> providing an introduction to what’s new in the Fortran 2003 standard.
Note that not all features are yet supported by all compilers.</li>
<li><strong><a href="ftp://ftp.nag.co.uk/sc22wg5/n1801-n1850/n1828.pdf">The New Features of Fortran 2008</a>:</strong>
A <span class="caps">PDF</span> providing an introduction to what’s new in the Fortran 2008 standard.
Note that not all features are yet supported by all compilers.</li>
</ul>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>Others including C and C++, when high efficiency is desired, and <span class="caps">MATLAB</span> and Python for data processing. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2">
<p>For the most part we’ll be sticking to the 1995 standard. The 2003 and 2008 standards, which contain many powerful new features such as object-oriented programming, are still not entirely supported by compilers. You can see their current statuses <a href="http://fortranwiki.org/fortran/show/Fortran+2003+status">here</a> and <a href="http://fortranwiki.org/fortran/show/Fortran+2008+status">here</a>. That said, enough has been implemented that you can now write object-oriented code in Fortran if you are using a relatively up-to-date compiler. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:2" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:3">
<p>Even when working with legacy code, you can often use what’s called an interface to manually tell the compiler what arguments are required. While these are a bit tedious to write, and thus shouldn’t be used with new code, they are worth your while if you can’t package your procedures in a more modern way. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:3" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:4">
<p>However, for actual computational physics, you will likely end up using <code>ifort</code> or <code>pgfortran</code>, which produce faster programs. Their major disadvantage is that the licenses are extremely expensive. They are also proprietary software. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:4" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:5">
<p>That’s free as in “free beer” and free as in “free speech”. Another way to say this is that GFortran is open source. However, some—including the <span class="caps">GNU</span> Project, which makes GFortran—object to that term and think “free software” is better. It’s one of those <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9foi342LXQE">People’s Front of Judea vs. Judean People’s Front</a> sort of things. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:5" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 5 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:6">
<p>I know of one case where the developer refuses to split up the code, resulting in a file that is about 130 thousand lines long. It is not my favourite file to have to deal with. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:6" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 6 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
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</script>I Designed a Website2014-09-26T11:20:00+01:002014-09-26T11:20:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2014-09-26:i-designed-a-website.html<p>I have recently finished designing a new website for the Saint Mary’s University
Astronomy and Physics Society (<span class="caps">SMUAPS</span>). I decided to build this website using
Pelican (the same software that I use for this blog) because of my familiarity
with it and because of the versatility of the software. The website can be found
<a href="http://ap.smu.ca/~smuaps">here</a>. If you would like to find
out about the technical details of how the site is designed, see these two
posts:
<a href="http://ap.smu.ca/~smuaps/readme-website-documentation.html"><span class="caps">README</span> (Website Documentation)</a> and
<a href="http://ap.smu.ca/~smuaps/new-website-design.html">New Website Design</a>.</p>
<figure><img alt="Screenshot of the new website's home page." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/smuapsWeb.png"/><figcaption>Screenshot of the new website’s home page.</figcaption>
</figure>Fixing Pharmaceuticals2014-06-28T22:00:00+01:002014-06-28T22:00:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2014-06-28:fixing-pharmaceuticals.html<p><img alt="Mortar and pestle--the symbol for pharmacies in Canada." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/mortarPestle.jpg"/>
Several weeks ago, now, I read a news story on <span class="caps">CBC</span> about the
<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/drug-shortages-worsening-as-health-canada-starts-study-to-address-it-1.2652581">problem of drug shortages</a>.
It appears that it is not uncommon for pharmaceutical companies (I’m going to
avoid the term “Big Pharma” here, as to me it always sound like a juvenile
attempt at fear-mongering) to suddenly stop, or at least drastically scale down,
production of frequently used drugs. Unfortunately, no real solutions were
being offered to this. At most, Health Canada was trying to make it mandatory
for the manufacturers to report shortages.</p>
<p>This is by no means the only problem that exists with pharmaceutical companies.
I vaguely remember hearing several years ago on an American news channel that
many companies were no longer producing generics, as they are not very
profitable. Of course, generics are a lot cheaper for consumers, as they are
not subject to the legal monopoly of patent law. Patents themselves are
problematic as they increase prices, but some form of patent protection seems
to be needed in order to encourage innovation and the development of new
drugs by the private sector.</p>
<p>But even patents aren’t always enough to encourage the research we need. This
became clear in a recent report by <span class="caps">CBC</span> that pharmaceutical companies
<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/antibiotic-scientist-must-push-discovery-to-market-1.2686347?cmp=rss">do not seem to be interested in developing new antibiotics</a>.
The reason for this is that this is quite a research-intensive process with
relatively low returns, as antibiotics aren’t used that much compared to
medication for chronic conditions. However, it is absolutely vital that new
antibiotics are developed as old ones are becoming ineffective against
antibiotic-resistant bacteria.</p>
<p>The problem is becoming so acute that even
<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/">New Scientist</a>, a liberal but hardly a socialist
publication, published an editorial calling for all pharmaceutical companies
to be converted non-profit bodies charged with pursuing the public interest.<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup>
Whether this meant nationalization or simply conversion to independent
non-profit organizations (or some mixture of the two) I am not sure.
In any case,
I strongly support such a demand and think that it would be enormously
beneficial. Those who know me well won’t be surprised by this, as it seems that
my response to just about any problem that I see in the economy is to
nationalize the relevant sector.<sup id="fnref:2"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:2" rel="footnote">2</a></sup></p>
<p>However, in this case I am perfectly willing to call for a more pragmatic
solution—at least for the time being. Given how important a steady supply of
drugs is to the healthcare system, you don’t want to do anything that could
seriously disrupt their production. Also, this is a problem which really does
need to be fixed as soon as possible and, while the nationalization of a whole
sector would never win broad support in the near future,<sup id="fnref:3"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:3" rel="footnote">3</a></sup> a more
moderate idea might. Not to say that this idea isn’t radical given the current
political climate, but it is something which could be justified based on
pragmatism and could still seem at least vaguely conceivable to the general public.</p>
<p>My proposal is fairly simple: the creation of a new Crown Corporation.<sup id="fnref:4"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:4" rel="footnote">4</a></sup> Since
most people my age won’t know what this is (it having been so
long since any new ones have been created) I’ll explain: a Crown Corporation is
a companies which, rather than being owned by private individuals or listed
on the stock market, is owned by the government. The only significant example
in Nova Scotia is <span class="caps">NSLC</span> (the liquor stores). In most of Canada (although not Nova
Scotia) the power companies are owned by the provincial government.
Federal Crown Corporations include Canada Post, <span class="caps">CBC</span>, and Via Rail.
We used to own a lot more too: <span class="caps">NS</span> Power, Air Canada, the Uranium mines,
Canadian National Railway, and Petro-Canada, among others. However,
these were sold
off in the ‘80s and ‘90s, purportedly to improve the efficiency of these
companies although I’m inclined to think that it was primarily for ideological reasons.</p>
<p>Anyway, back to my point. I think that the government should create a new Crown
Corporation which, for the sake of argument, I shall call Pharmacy Canada.
Pharmacy Canada would be charged with the development of new drugs which would
tend to have a low rate of return on investment (such as antibiotics) as well
as producing generic drugs. These would be sold at cost to the provincial health
authorities. They could also be sold slightly above cost to other developed
countries and, perhaps, at a subsidized rate to developing countries. An
additional role that could be played by Pharmacy Canada would be to act as a
bulk-purchaser of those drugs which still needed to be obtained from the
private sector. These would then be sold on, at cost, to the provinces as well.
The advantage of such centralized purchasing that it would place
Pharmacy Canada in a position to negotiate lower prices. This is a system
which has been used successfully by charities to deliver cheaper drugs to
developing countries and is, in fact, called for by the Green Party (although
no doubt they would balk at the idea of actually <em>producing</em> drugs in the public
sector). All of these policies would help to reduce the price of drugs,
stabilizing the
fastest growing component of healthcare costs and making our public healthcare
system more sustainable.</p>
<p>This is all eminently achievable even within the current political situation.
While it would, no doubt, be heavily lobbied against by the pharmaceutical
companies, I don’t see what they could actually do to prevent it. I suppose they
could retaliate through capital flight, although I don’t see how this would be
in their interest. If they were to try then their old factories could be bought
up by Pharmacy Canada, thus protecting jobs. While setting up a new Crown
Corporation would require some capital, interest rates remain low and the
federal government has a high credit rating, allowing it to borrow cheaply.
The federal deficit is almost gone and we could be running a substantial
surplus if we were to return taxes to their 2000 levels. Thus I don’t think that
there is any real financial argument against establishing Pharmacy Canada.</p>
<p>The primary objection to this would be ideological: the belief that the
government is not capable of running a successful, productive, company. Such
attitudes are wide-spread, even among liberals and social democrats (e.g. the
<span class="caps">NDP</span>). While there have been some issues with Crown Corporations in the past, I
still think that they were much better run than people give them credit for.
They may not have had the profit margins of private enterprise, but this is
because they were meant to be meeting social, not just purely economic
objectives. Objecting to this (as is done by my father) is to miss the entire
purpose of a Crown Corporation; if you wanted it to be run just like a private
company then you’d have left it in the private sector in the first place.
Although Pharmacy Canada wouldn’t deliver the same profit margins as the
existing private pharmaceutical companies, it would be able to perform
functions which they are
failing to do. This sort of value can not be reflected in simple calculations
of efficiency.</p>
<p>While I suspect that the traditional means of running Crown Corporations<sup id="fnref:5"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:5" rel="footnote">5</a></sup> would be able to achieve much of what I describe, I believe that
even greater accomplishments could be made if Pharmacy Canada were to be run
along socialist lines. This would mean that the board would consist of
representatives of researchers, doctors, employees, patients, and government.
The advantages to this are twofold. First,
and more abstractly, it would ensure that the company was run democratically,
something which I think has value in its own right. But second, the
representation of researchers and doctors would ensure that fruitful avenues of
research were being pursued. My strong suspicion is that this would prove a
mores successful (as measured in health outcomes, rather than profit) way of
directing research than what is currently provided by the private sector.</p>
<p>Now, being the realist/cynic that I am, I realize that the creation of Pharmacy
Canada stands absolutely no chance of happening even if the <span class="caps">NDP</span> were elected
in 2015. The idea of public enterprise has simply crept too far outside of the
political mainstream. But this is no reason to stop talking about it; if it is
ever to get back into the political mainstream then it is something which must
become broadly popular and also seriously discussed in progressive political
circles. We need organizations like <a href="https://www.broadbentinstitute.ca/en">The Broadbent Institute</a>,
the <a href="http://www.canadians.org/">Council of Canadians</a>, and the
<a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/">Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives</a>
not only to call for such a policy but to perform studies detailing how to do
it. Nor should we be afraid to suggest it as individuals. Because, at least in
this case, the radical is becoming the pragmatic.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>Unfortunately, this article would now be archived and only accessible to those with a subscription, so I can’t post a link. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2">
<p>I do realize that this alone won’t fix all of the problems, as democratic control is needed over public enterprise if it is to truly behave differently than private enterprise (other than just behaving slightly more bureaucratically). Nonetheless, nationalization is usually a good start in my view, as it begins to address the questions of ownership, control, and power. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:2" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:3">
<p>In a few countries, there are a few sectors which may prove an exception to this. For example, the rail and energy sectors in Britain or the financial sector in Greece. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:3" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:4">
<p>For those who are unaware, in Canada “the Crown” tends to refer to “the state”. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:4" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:5">
<p>Boards of directors were appointed by Parliament, consisting mainly of businessmen (and I use the gendered term deliberately) and former politicians. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:5" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 5 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>10 Reasons I Sometimes Hate Being a Socialist2014-06-15T09:40:00+01:002014-06-15T09:40:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2014-06-15:10-reasons-i-sometimes-hate-being-a-socialist.html<p><em>This was slightly edited in December 2017 to reflect a slightly more
sophisticated approach to politics and, well, changes in my facial hair.</em></p>
<p>As you might have gathered from my blog posts here, I am pretty left wing.
You know you’re pretty radical when you have to preface any explanation of
your beliefs with “Well, I would <em>not</em> consider myself a communist.”
And, while I am quite confidant in the validity of my beliefs, there are days
when I really wish that I didn’t have them. So, without further ado, here
are the top 10 reasons I wish I wasn’t a socialist.</p>
<h3>1. The exhaustion of trying to stick to the moral high-ground.</h3>
<p>No one would ever be a socialist in the West if they didn’t believe
that there was a moral force behind it, backed up by a material
analysis of society. Not only does socialism mean that you end up
fighting a thankless, apparently losing battle, but also that you’re
trying to live by a set of principles that can seem impossible under
our current system. For example, how am I supposed to find clothes
that I know weren’t made in sweatshops? How do you live an
environmentally-friendly lifestyle in cities designed around the car?
How do you fight patriarchy when even your friends sometimes say
derogatory things about women?</p>
<p>On the more abstract level, it’s exhausting trying to explain all of this to
friends. And what do you do about that slight feeling of disapproval when they
don’t live up to your moral standards? Judging people is not only unpleasant,
but also quite tiresome as well.</p>
<h3>2. I am perpetually angry.</h3>
<p>Sticking to your moral principles also tends to make you distinctly unhappy
about the state of the world around you.
Seeing as socialism has been suffering almost nothing but defeats for the
past 30 years, just about anything that happens in politics will be bad news
for me. I swear, government policy seems almost specifically tailored to piss
me off, whether it’s cuts in services, cuts in taxes, support for foreign
interventions, failure to tackle climate change, rolling back of labour rights,
privatization, or what. The wonderfully pessimistic left-wing British
comedian Jeremy Hardy sums it up well:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All socialists have bad backs because we slouch—except when we’re watching
the news when we sit on the edge of our seats, shout, and wave our arms.
Generally we sit hunched, arms crossed in a judgemental way, the whole of
our bodies pulled into a frown.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3>3. I get to listen to people’s ignorant statements about socialism.</h3>
<p>Because of the horrors inflicted in Eastern Europe in the name of socialism,
various people will insist that socialism is an inherently bloody and evil
philosophy or that when I advocate something like redistributive taxes (let
alone start talking about the long list of industries that I’d like to
see nationalized) I am advocating
gulags.<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> No less irritating are people who say that socialism inevitably
leads to a situation like the one in Greece. Don’t these people realize that
Greece is an example of a welfare state (albeit a highly dysfunctional one),
not a socialist economy in which the means of production are held in common?</p>
<h3>4. Having to hold back when discussing politics.</h3>
<p>Well, as those who know me well can attest, I’m not actually very good at this.
But there are many situations in which I do try because, if I were to say what
I actually thought, people would think that I was crazy. When I do fully speak
my mind, at least to someone who is also political, I will often end up in
arguments. Which is never a fun thing and tends to leave me feeling perturbed
for a day or two.</p>
<h3>5. Looking at the world in a fundamentally different way than others.</h3>
<p>One of the things which makes political discussions so difficult for me is that
the set of assumptions I go in with are different from those of just about
everyone else. Of course, the main one is that I don’t assume that capitalism
is the only option out there. This means that the range of policies I consider
are not as constrained as for most people. For example, if someone argues
that we can’t pursue some regulation because it would cause investment to dry
up, then I’d suggest nationalizing the banks so that there is public control
over investment. If a policy has the risk of causing a business to leave the
country, then place the business under worker’s control.</p>
<p>But there are also more subtle things at play here. Socialists often have a
different interpretation of history than the conventional one. While I think
that this is a more accurate interpretation and provides a much better
explanation of the world, it does make discussing history with other people
more difficult because there is less common ground between us.</p>
<h3>6. The difficulty introduced when trying to date.</h3>
<p>Of course, none of this makes meeting people any easier. It can make things
awkward enough among friends. But when you’re trying to date it makes things
harder still. Politics, after all, are not make a great thing to discuss on
a date, especially when your politics are rather unusual. But there’s also the
fact that if I’m in a relationship I’d like it to be with someone who broadly
shares the same values that I do. I don’t think this is unreasonable, surely?
The problem is, most people are either apolitical (in which case one of my
major interests is off the table to talk about) or have considerably more
moderate views than mine. Oh well, probably someday I’ll meet a nice liberal
or social democrat who can put up with my radicalism. Because that seems
considerably more likely than my finding another socialist that I’d get along
with well enough to want to date.<sup id="fnref:2"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:2" rel="footnote">2</a></sup> Which leads on to my next point…</p>
<h3>7. Having to put up with other socialists.</h3>
<p>Well, there’s a whole article’s worth of stuff I could say about this
one. There’s the fact that most socialists seem to end up taking
irrational views on things like nuclear energy, genetically modified
foods, and any number of other topics. Similarly, there’s the general
lack of knowledge about science and critical thinking, the consequent
inability to come to informed conclusions, and the stupidity that
results when dealing with many contemporary issues (although, in
fairness, I think that most ideological groups are guilty of
this). There’s the sectarianism which means that, in many countries,
you have nearly as many socialist parties as there are socialists. And
finally there is the bohemian weirdness and alternative lifestyle <span class="caps">BS</span>
that seems so pervasive. You know what? I don’t particularly want to
live in a commune! I admit that I’m sexually repressed and I don’t
have a problem with that! I’m happy being constrained to a
monogamistic paradigm within relationships! I don’t think that
marriage is has to be inherently patriarchal and, yes, I would even
like to get married myself some day! I don’t feel the need to take
mind-altering drugs, smoke pot, dye my hair a funny colour, grow a
scraggly beard, eschew going to the barber’s shop, get piercings, or
have sex with anyone I find remotely attractive! I know that not all
socialists correspond to the straw-man that I’ve constructed, but
enough of them do for me to find it off-putting.</p>
<p>I guess my feelings can be summed up quite well by something that
Orwell<sup id="fnref:3"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:3" rel="footnote">3</a></sup> wrote in <em>The Road to Wigan Pier</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In addition to this there is the horrible—the really
disquieting—prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together.
One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words “Socialism” and
“Communism” draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker,
nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, … [and] “Nature Cure” quack
… in England.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3>8. Feeling faintly embarrassed of my beliefs.</h3>
<p>Because there are so many socialists that display the (in my mind)
disreputable qualities listed above, I find myself feeling embarrassed
to be associated with them. How can socialism ever be taken seriously
if these are the sorts of people representing it? Once again, I think
Orwell says it best when he wrote that “As with the Christian
religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.”</p>
<h3>9. Not being politically “out” to my family.</h3>
<p>Nowhere is this embarrassment more apparent than when it comes to my family.
I’d never feel comfortable showing them the sort of people and writings
produced by many in the socialist movement. And this certainly isn’t helped
by the fact that my family is a good deal more conservative than me.<sup id="fnref:4"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:4" rel="footnote">4</a></sup>
My parents are essentially small-l liberals. On the one hand they support
regulation and things like universal health care, but on the other they
certainly wouldn’t be in favour of the sorts of nationalizations that I call
for and they are vehemently anti-union. What’s more, my dad is a business
owner. These are hardly people that I can talk to about the ills of capitalism.
So I’m never entirely honest with them when it comes to politics and I end
up hiding this part of myself from them.</p>
<h3>10. Always being on the losing side.</h3>
<p>As I’ve stated above, the last thirty years have seen little but defeat for
socialist ideas. One only needs to look at the recent Ontario election to see
how far to the right things have shifted: the Conservatives were advocating
massive tax cuts and the laying-off of 100 thousand public-sector workers,
yet they were taken seriously! Meanwhile, the <span class="caps">NDP</span> was essentially campaigning on
anti-tax policies! How does the Left even begin to fight when even our more
moderate ideas, like tax-and-spend policies, seem so alien to the electorate?
How do we keep going when
we are shunned by the <span class="caps">NDP</span>, ignored by the Liberals, and taunted by the
Conservatives? How do you keep fighting when every left-wing government
seems to end up giving in, at least partially, to capitalism? How do you
retain hope as things seem to get inexorably worse?<sup id="fnref:5"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:5" rel="footnote">5</a></sup></p>
<p>I don’t have the answers to all of that. But I still feel that humanity <em>must</em>
be capable of something better than what we have right now. If no one fights
for that then it definitely won’t happen. If we do fight, then at least we
stand a chance.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>For my rebuttal to this, see my earlier post, <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/on-socialists-and-scotsmen.html">On Socialists and Scotsmen</a>. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2">
<p>Not to say it’s impossible. I can think of one socialist with whom I get along well. It’s a pity that she’s female. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:2" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:3">
<p>Who was a socialist, just one firmly opposed to Stalinism. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:3" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:4">
<p>Not that that’s hard. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:4" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:5">
<p>I realize that this is quite a different tone than I ended on a few weeks back in <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/on-europe-the-left-and-the-future.html">On Europe, the Left, and the Future</a>. Basically, I was just in a better mood that day. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:5" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 5 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>On Europe, the Left, and the Future2014-05-23T23:00:00+01:002014-05-23T23:00:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2014-05-23:on-europe-the-left-and-the-future.html<p>For those of you who weren’t aware (and, frankly, I suspect that will be all of
you), there are currently elections going on for the European Parliament. This
is, in principle, the legislative body of the European Union, although in
practice it is debatable how much power it actually holds. For this reason,
European elections don’t usually attract too much attention, even in Europe,
and tend to have turnouts similar to those in municipal elections.</p>
<figure><img alt="Alex Tsipras campaigning for the Party of the European Left." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/euroLeft.jpg"/><figcaption>Alex Tsipras campaigning for the Party of the European Left.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, as an international observer, what <em>is</em> quite interesting about
the European Parliament (<span class="caps">EP</span>) is the shear diversity of parties represented in
it. Compared to the recent Nova Scotian election, where there was so much
homogeneity that you would be
hard-pressed to tell which party anyone belonged to, the <span class="caps">EP</span> elections overwhelm
you with choice. But, before I go into what the various choices are, I’ll just
provide a bit of background on how the <span class="caps">EP</span> works.</p>
<p>Every country is given a certain number of seats in the <span class="caps">EP</span>, distributed
according to population.<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> Exactly how Members of the European Parliament
(MEPs) are elected is left up to the individual countries, the only
requirement being that some form of
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation">proportional representation</a>
is used. In each country, the various national parties will put forward
candidates, some of whom will be elected. Most of the national parties will
also hold an affiliation to a European party. Elected MEPs sit in groups with
their national party, which in turn sits in a group with similar parties from
other countries, roughly along the lines of the various European parties.
Because these groups consist of a collection of national parties, they won’t
necessarily have a single, coherent position—a national party will often vote
differently from its group. Additionally, the Europarties play little roll
outside of the <span class="caps">EP</span>; national parties campaign individually on their own set
of policies. Of
course, this all seems unnecessarily complicated and confusing, but there you
are. As best as I can tell, the reason for this complexity is that the <span class="caps">EU</span>
never really arose out of a plan but was more stitched together bit by bit.</p>
<p>The groups within the <span class="caps">EP</span> are (with the main Europarty composing them given
in parentheses, if more than one):</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>European People’s Party</strong>: Pro-<span class="caps">EU</span> (support tighter integration),
conservative. Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats are notable members.</li>
<li><strong>Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats</strong>: Pro-Europe, social
democracy (centre-left). While consisting of the Party of European Socialists,
in reality
they are not that different from the European People’s Party when it comes to economics.</li>
<li><strong>Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group</strong>: Pro-<span class="caps">EU</span>, centrist,
socially liberal, free-market economics.</li>
<li><strong>The Greens—European Free Alliance</strong> (European Green Party): Green politics,
and representatives of nations without states (ex: Scotland, Wales, Catalonia).
Economically progressive in principle, but been known to give in to conservatism.</li>
<li><strong>European Conservatives and Reformists</strong> (Movement for European Reform):
Conservative, anti-<span class="caps">EU</span>. The British Conservatives are part of this party, but not
many other members.</li>
<li><strong>European United Left—Nordic Green Left</strong> (Party of the European Left):
Socialists and communists. Supportive of European integration but don’t like
the current setup of the <span class="caps">EU</span>. </li>
<li><strong>Europe of Freedom and Democracy</strong> (Movement for a Europe of Liberties and
Democracy): Anti-<span class="caps">EU</span>, highly conservative, right-wing populist. Tend to be very
anti-immigrant and, in particular, anti-Muslim. Similarities to the Tea Party.</li>
<li><strong>Independents</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>This list is given in descending order of the size of the <span class="caps">EP</span> groups. What is
interesting about this election, in particular, is that the more radical parties
are expected to do well; the European Left and Europe of Freedom
and Democracy are both hoping to make gains.
The latter has proven especially good at
tapping into discontent and anti-politics sentiment, often presenting themselves
as a real alternative to the now indistinguishable main-stream parties. I
suppose this is, strictly speaking, true as the main-stream parties tend to be
pro-<span class="caps">EU</span> and in agreement over centre-right economics. However, it is disingenuous
in the extreme for them to portray themselves as representing ordinary people;
for example, one of the most notable constituent national parties, the United
Kingdom Independence Party (<span class="caps">UKIP</span>), is led by wealthy financier and
arch-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage">Thatcherite</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage">Nigel Farage</a>. Yet, since he drinks,
smokes, and is more plain-speaking than leaders of the larger parties, he
somehow comes off as a man of the people. This has, at times, bizarre results.
For example, a
<a href="http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/11/04/nationalise-energy-and-rail-companies-say-public/">poll showed</a>
that an overwhelming majority of <span class="caps">UKIP</span> voters support
renationalization of rail and energy companies. The only party whose voters
supported these policies in higher numbers was Labour (unsurprising, given its
socialist origins). Yet <span class="caps">UKIP</span> has a radical “small government” policy, more
extreme even than the Conservatives’.<sup id="fnref:1.5"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1.5" rel="footnote">2</a></sup> All in all, it seems
that it is social policy that <span class="caps">UKIP</span> and Europe of Freedom and Democracy attract
people with. Sad to say, many working class people with progressive economics
are distinctly xenophobic.</p>
<p>Far more encouraging is the growth of the European United Left—Nordic Green
Left (<span class="caps">EUL</span>/<span class="caps">NGL</span>). The national parties in this group are, to a greater or lesser
degree,
socialists. They are all vehemently opposed to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism">neoliberalism</a>,<sup id="fnref:2"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:2" rel="footnote">3</a></sup> and most are (at least officially) opposed to
capitalism itself. Policies vary from stronger regulation and increased public
spending, to (re)nationalisation of banks and energy companies
(which seems to be
the standard position of group members), to outright revolutionary (although not
necessarily insurrectionary<sup id="fnref:3"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:3" rel="footnote">4</a></sup>) socialism. Additionally, they call for making
the structures of the <span class="caps">EU</span> much more democratic. As you might have gathered, the
<span class="caps">EU</span> is a rather ungainly institution. There are three governing bodies, only one
of which (the <span class="caps">EP</span>) is directly elected. <span class="caps">EUL</span>/<span class="caps">NGL</span> supports giving more power to the
<span class="caps">EP</span> in order to help remedy this. In addition, the European Central Bank (<span class="caps">ECB</span>, in
charge of the Euro’s monetary policy) is not under any sort of democratic
control. This, in particular, is something that <span class="caps">EUL</span>/<span class="caps">NGL</span> wishes to change, with
the <span class="caps">EP</span> appointing the Banks governors and setting its mandate (as is done with
most central banks, including the Bank of Canada). They have good reason for
this, as the <span class="caps">ECB</span>’s current policies have exacerbated the crises in Italy,
Greece, <em>et al.</em> (“the periphery”). It is resolving these crises that
makes up the centrepiece of
<span class="caps">EUL</span>/<span class="caps">NGL</span> policies. The intention is to implement an industrial and redistributive
policy which will eliminate the imbalances between “the centre” (Germany,
France, etc.) and the periphery. While these proposals are really social
democratic, rather than anti-capitalist, they would nonetheless be of great
help and would likely make it easier for national governments to implement more radical policy.</p>
<p>However, there is some debate over how committed to European integration the
Left should be. Some feel that, because neoliberalism has more or less been
written into the very structure of the <span class="caps">EU</span>, the Left should be Eurosceptical.
However, as described above, the general position is that the Left should
reform the <span class="caps">EU</span>. There appear to be two main reasons to pursue this policy. One
is an objection to nationalism, which caused so much carnage in the first half
of the 20<sup>th</sup> century. It was to prevent something like this from ever
happening again that European integration was originally begun. The second
reason is that it is felt you would need to be coming to power on a continental
scale if you seriously want to confront, let alone do away with, capitalism.
Otherwise any country attempting the transition to socialism would end up
isolated as capitalist nations began committing economic warfare (as happened
to Chile in the late ‘60s).</p>
<p>Both of the above arguments are strong. However, the issues arises of what will
happen if a Left government comes to power in one country much sooner than the
others. This is not just idle speculation, as there is a very good chance that
<span class="caps">EUL</span>/<span class="caps">NGL</span> member <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syriza"><span class="caps">SYRIZA</span></a> will come to
power in Greece in their next election.<sup id="fnref:4"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:4" rel="footnote">5</a></sup> <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> has campaigned around ending
the austerity in Greece, which is causing massive damage to their economy and
creating a humanitarian crisis. However, doing so would involve renegotiating
bailout terms with the <span class="caps">EU</span>. But, <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> is also determined to stay in the <span class="caps">EU</span>
and to keep Greece on the Euro. It is unclear that the <span class="caps">EU</span> would allow them to
do both of these things. Undoubtedly, it would be difficult for Greece to leave
the Euro and it would also be extremely unpopular for them to pull out of the
<span class="caps">EU</span>. From my knowledge, it appears that <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> will only go as far as the <span class="caps">EU</span>
lets them. Hopefully, this will be far enough to resolve the Greek crisis
(kicking out Greece would likely be damaging to Europe as well), but that might
not be the case. For what it’s worth, my personal view is that Greece
shouldn’t pull out on its own but if, in the course of implementing <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span>’s
policies, they get kicked out then so be it.</p>
<p>Another interesting case study (if only because all of the debates here are in
English) is the formation of the new <a href="http://leftunity.org/">Left Unity</a> party
in the <span class="caps">UK</span>. This party is actually fairly radical compared to some of its
Continental counterparts, calling for a much greater degree of nationalization
(although I suppose that Britain has a history of more extensive public
ownership than most countries, so perhaps that isn’t surprising). The issue here
is that <span class="caps">EU</span> regulations would make it vary difficult for Left Unity to implement
many of its policies if elected. However, the reasons for staying in the <span class="caps">EU</span>
that I mentioned above are just as true for Britain as anywhere else and, as
a result, Left Unity has much the same set of policies regarding the <span class="caps">EU</span>. In this
case, I think the answer is much more clean-cut. The radical left in
Britain is lagging far behind the rest of Europe,<sup id="fnref:5"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:5" rel="footnote">6</a></sup> so it is unlikely that
the <span class="caps">UK</span> would have a Left government before the <span class="caps">EU</span> as a whole. Therefore, they
might as well advocate staying in the <span class="caps">EU</span> and take the same position as the rest of the
European Left.</p>
<p>Yes, I think that, with the possible exception of countries like Greece, the
Left should be trying the achieve socialism at the European level. Various
think-tanks, such the <a href="http://www.rosalux.de/english/foundation.html">Rosa-Luxemburg Siftung</a> (associated with the German party <a href="http://en.die-linke.de/die-linke/welcome/">Die Linke</a>) and <a href="http://transform-network.net/home.html">transform!</a>
(loosely associated with the <a href="http://www.european-left.org/">Party of the European Left</a>) have called for the ultimate establishment of the United Socialist
States of Europe. This, I think, is an admirable goal. However, I am not
convinced that this goal can be achieved with the current European leftist
institutions. <span class="caps">UEL</span>/<span class="caps">NGL</span> and the Party of the European Left are both much too
loose as associations. To the extent that they coordinate trans-European
campaigns
at all, they tend to be centred around policies making up the least radical
common denominator of their members. For the most part, as with all of the
Europarties, active campaigning is left to the individual national members.
However, as is generally acknowledged, building socialism requires a Europe-wide
movement. That means a truly Europe-wide party.</p>
<p>Ultimately, I feel, to be successful, the members of the Party of the European
Left will have to give up their individual identities. They’ll have to become
national chapters of a continent-wide party. And, do you know what? I’m actually
somewhat hopeful. For all the mess that the world is in and all the ways that
mess is likely to get worse, I can’t help but feel that we’ll pull through it.
It won’t be easy, but the worthwhile things seldom are. To the extent that I
have faith in anything, I have faith that humanity is capable of being better
than it is today. I think Europe can do it—it can overcome the more
unpleasant parts of human nature and build a society based on cooperation and
solidarity. And if Europe can do it, then so can others. Maybe one day, before
I die, I’ll wake up in a socialist <a href="http://www.socialisthistory.ca/Docs/CCF/ReginaManifesto.htm">Cooperative Commonwealth of Canada</a>.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>However, much like the distribution of MPs between provinces in Canada, smaller countries are favoured, possessing more seats per capita than larger countries. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:1.5">
<p>For example, <span class="caps">UKIP</span> wants to replace the public health-care system with vouchers for private hospitals. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1.5" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2">
<p>Policies of privatization, deregulation, budget cuts, decreased taxes (especially in the upper tax brackets), free trade, etc. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:2" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:3">
<p>Many left-wing thinkers nowadays argue that revolution doesn’t necessarily mean insurrection—it might simply refer to a period of rapid, fundamental change in society. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:3" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:4">
<p>While the Right tends to become hysterical at this prospect, on the Left it is currently very fashionable to criticize <span class="caps">SYRIZA</span> for moving to the right. Personally, I’m not convinced that they’ve actually moved anywhere and think that any perception that they have is simply revealing what was always present in their ideology. For a good discussion of these issues, I recommend this lecture: <a href="http://socialistproject.ca/leftstreamed/ls215.php">Syriza and the European Elections</a>. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:4" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 5 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:5">
<p>The reasons for this are complicated, but they seem to include the fact that Britain lacks proportional representation and that the British Left is so notoriously fractious. It’s pretty bad when the Wikipedia’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_political_parties#Minor_far-left_parties">list of British political parties</a> needs a whole section just for the Far-Left. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:5" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 6 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Gnuplotting, LaTeXing, and Other Made Up Verbs2014-04-15T11:30:00+01:002014-04-15T11:30:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2014-04-15:gnuplotting-latexing-and-other-made-up-verbs.html<p>Anyone who knows me in person and has seen me do any amount of work in
physics knows that my preferred graphing software is Gnuplot.<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup>
This is a piece
of command-line plotting software capable of producing nearly every sort of graph
imaginable. In fact, it’s results have appeared on this blog before, and can
be found in my <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/on-the-abuse-of-exponentiation-in-colloquial-communication.html">perfectly reasonable and not at all neurotic rant about exponential growth.</a>
It is capable of plotting data and
functions in any number of ways. Most importantly, in my mind, Gnuplot scripts can
be written which make it easy to produce many similar plots (batch processing).</p>
<p>The only place where I’ve every really had a problem with Gnuplot is when it
comes to including special characters and math in axis labels. Most frustrating of
all, if you are an astronomer, is the near impossibility of getting Gnuplot to
produce the little symbol used for the sun (<span class="math">\(\odot\)</span>). All of this forces
scientists to go to great length in order to make the labels on their plots look
vaguely decent. This is opposed to some other graphing programs, such as
<a href="http://home.gna.org/veusz/">Veusz</a>, which are capable of using parts of the
well-known <span class="math">\(\LaTeX\)</span> markup language to produce this sort of output. Thus,
a label such as <span class="math">\(4\pi r^{2}~\[R_{\odot}\]\)</span> can be produced with syntax as simple
as <code>4\pi r^{2}~[M_{\odot}]</code>. While one of the formats that Gnuplot can output
is LaTeX, the quality of the resulting plot is terrible. Just look at the
figure below (a plot of some data and curves fit to that data from a recent
lab report).</p>
<figure><img alt="LaTeX Gnuplot terminal in all of its ugly glory." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/gnuplotLatexBad.png"/><figcaption>LaTeX Gnuplot terminal in all of its ugly glory.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, there is another choice of output: the cairolatex terminal. This
terminal, which is related to the pdfcairo terminal, actually produces two files.
One of these is a <span class="caps">PDF</span> or <span class="caps">EPS</span> file with the axes, data, and functions of the plot.
The other is a LaTeX
file which contains the information necessary to place labels on said plot.
The actual plot in this case is of far better quality, while labels are still
in LaTeX and can thus contain math, special characters, etc. Producing the
same plot as above using this terminal, we get a much better result.</p>
<figure><img alt="cairolatex Gnuplot terminal." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/gnuplotLatex.png"/><figcaption>cairolatex Gnuplot terminal.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The main disadvantage of this approach is that the LaTeX file must be compiled
before you can see the actual result. However, with the right settings and
a call to a LaTeX compiler at the end of your script, this problem is easily
surmountable. In order to make this easy, I’ve written myself a
<a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/attachments/Plot.gp">little template</a>
Gnuplot script, with these features built in. Simply change the name of the output
file (without including any extension) on line nine and add the various setting
and plot commands that you need.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>Interestingly (or not), despite it’s name, Gnuplot has no affiliation with the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/"><span class="caps">GNU</span></a> project whatsoever. It is actually released under a more restrictive license than the <span class="caps">GNU</span> <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html"><span class="caps">GPL</span></a>. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
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</script>A Bit of News2014-01-02T14:30:00+00:002014-01-02T14:30:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2014-01-02:a-bit-of-news.html<p>As you may have noticed, there have been several blog articles released at the same time,
today. If you looked carefully, you may have noticed that these have actually been written
an various days over the past couple of weeks, but have only now become available online.
I feel an explaination for this erratic behaviour is needed.</p>
<p>The day before I went home for Christmas, the <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>
on which I host this blog decided
that it wanted to be difficult. For whatever reason, it refused to start and I couldn’t figure
out how to fix it before it was time to leave. However, Christmas break also gave me a chance
to actually write some thoughtful blog entries, which I haven’t had time to do for awhile. So
I wrote away, unable to post them. Upon getting back to Halifax, the Raspberry Pi decided
that it was willing to work again, for some reason known only to itself. And thus I have been
able to post my blog entries. I apologize for the glut of writing after so long without any.</p>
<p>Also, while I’m writing this, I might as well draw your attention to a new link at the top
of this page entitled <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/pages/software.html">Software</a>. This takes you to a page
containing useful pieces of software which I have modified or built for myself, which you
are welcome to download. Please note, however, that some of these are only set up to work
on Linux.</p>On Socialists and Scotsmen2013-12-28T01:30:00+00:002013-12-28T01:30:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2013-12-28:on-socialists-and-scotsmen.html<p>Us socialists are often accused of preaching a failed ideology; one which has
been shown to inevitably result in totalitarianism and impoverishment. To this
most socialists will respond in one of two ways. Some (mostly those from the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comintern">Third International</a>,
but also a few radical elements of the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_International">Second International</a>)
act as apologists for the old Eastern European regimes (and possibly those in
Asia as well, although the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_split">Sino-Soviet</a> split complicates
matters there). Others, such as myself, respond by saying that we don’t see how
socialism can have failed when the world has yet to see a socialist society. This
tends to be the view of Trotskyist (such as those in one the various iterations
of the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_International_(disambiguation)">Fourth International</a>),
libertarian socialists, and the more ideologically self-consistent democratic
socialists. An example of such an argument is provided in the video below:</p>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/K4Tq4VE8eHQ" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto" width="420"></iframe>
<p>The inevitable objection that is given, not only by the right but also by the
centre-left, is that this is an example of the “No True Scotsman Fallacy.”
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman">Wikipedia describes this</a> like so:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an
unreasoned assertion. When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim
(“no Scotsman would do such a thing”), rather than denying the counterexample
or rejecting the original universal claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of
the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric,
without reference to any specific objective rule (“no true Scotsman would do
such a thing”).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thus, supposedly, it is logically invalid to explain away any unpleasantness
by dismissing the regime responsible as not really socialist. Doing so is to
dismiss counterarguments without actually addressing it. However, here I feel
that there is a misunderstanding of my point. These people misunderstand my
argument to be “socialist societies will
inevitably be democratic ones.” However, for me, such a statement would be a
tautology: what I mean when I speak of socialism is “collective ownership of and
<em>democratic control</em> over the economy.” For me
(<a href="http://socialistparty-usa.net/principles.html">and others</a>), democracy is part
of the definition of socialism. Any regime that claims to be socialistic but is a
dictatorship (I’m looking at you, Cuba) is lying, at least by my definition
of socialism. True, such a regime might claim to be socialism, but that doesn’t
make it so; just because East Germany was called the German Democratic Republic
didn’t make it a democracy, after all. </p>
<p>Now, some will claim that socialism will never be implemented democratically
because people won’t want it. Thus, socialism will inevitably have to be
imposed using violence and oppression. The first part of this argument is a
perfectly valid position to take, although not one that I think is true
(actually, there is some historical evidence to the contrary, so anyone making
this argument will have to be very careful not to end up using the “No True
Scotsman Fallacy” themselves). However, in my view, the second part of this
argument is meaninglessness. If it is being imposed by a dictatorship then
it can not be socialism. Effectively what is being said, then, is that
socialism is impossible. This is also a perfectly valid position, but I
don’t think that there is clear evidence one way or the other with regards
to this question.</p>
<p>To be sure, horrible things have been done <em>in the name of</em>
socialism, and even quite recently the likes of Hugo Chavez have done some rather
slimy things in the name of socialism. This potential is something which socialists
must constantly be vigilant of. We must accept the ugly parts of our movement’s
history (and, for that matter, its present). Failure to do so is not only
dishonest, but dangerous. However, these dangers do not discredit socialism
itself, but rather some (and, thankfully, an ever decreasing number) of the
social<em>ists</em>. What’s more, I honestly believe that any risk of totalitarianism
posed by campaigning for democratic socialism is far smaller than the risks
that humanity face under capitalism.</p>
<p>As for claims that socialism results in poverty: we have no data, seeing
as there have been no socialist economies (at least, not that have lasted
for any significant amount of time before being crushed by external forces).
I don’t think that this will necessarily be the case, but that’s only a guess.
There’s no doubt that there were serious problems with the Warsaw Pact
economies. We have to seriously consider whether centralized planning can
ever be made to work (personally, I think that it would be undesirable even
if it could be done). Certainly, the planning techniques used by the Soviet Union
have been discredited. But I hope, and honestly believe, that in a technological,
democratic society some form of
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_planning_(economics)">decentralized economic planning</a>
will be possible. Even if not, there are ideas such as cooperative ownership
in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism">market socialist</a> economy,
which seem to me to be eminently feasible, if unambitious.</p>
<p>So, no, I am not committing the “No True Scotsman Fallacy” when I say that the
so-called communist countries were not, in fact, socialist. It is not a
contradiction for me to
be a socialist and yet to oppose Soviet-style communism. It just so happens that
there are multiple definitions of socialism and the definition which applies to
me (and many others) is directly opposed to that used by the Soviet Union and
its supporters.</p>Denouncing the Dumb Diatribe on the Discontinuation of Door-to-Door Delivery2013-12-23T12:00:00+00:002013-12-23T12:00:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2013-12-23:denouncing-the-dumb-diatribe-on-the-discontinuation-of-door-to-door-delivery.html<p>As you may know, Canada Post <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/canada-post-to-phase-out-urban-home-mail-delivery-1.2459618">recently announced</a>
that they will be making some changes. Two in particular are of note: a price
increase on stamps and the phasing out of door-to-door delivery in urban
areas. The latter measure will allow the elimination of about 8000 jobs.
However, thanks to the strength of the postal workers’ union, no one will
actually be fired; rather, the workforce reductions will be achieved by attrition.</p>
<figure><img alt="Community mailboxes, of the sort I've grown up with." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/mailboxes.jpg"/><figcaption>Community mailboxes, of the sort I’ve grown up with.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Predictably, the left has had a conniption over all of this. A typical example
can be <a href="http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2013/12/canada-post-not-on-life-support-it-being-murdered">found here</a>.
In particular, they have denounced the elimination of door-to-door delivery.
Given my politics, you may be expecting a similar reaction here. But there
you would be
wrong. Many parts of Canada already use the community mailboxes which will
become the norm over the next few years. It so happens that I grew up in one
such area. It was a daily routine to either walk and get the mail or to swing
by the mailbox when we were driving somewhere. In the case of the latter, the
community mailbox arrangement took at most an extra two minutes out of our
day. In the case of the former, it forced us to get a bit of fresh air and
exercise. Contrary to what many claim, the scheme is not particularly
inconvenient* and certainly is not going to cause the destruction of Canada Post.</p>
<p>Actually, if anything the opposite is true. Sometimes people will talk about
ending Canada Post’s monopoly and introducing competition into mail
delivery. I
tend to be suspicious of such proposals, but if the proper regulations
were in place then I find it hard to actually justify the government monopoly
on door-to-door daily mail delivery. Community mail boxes, however, make this
much more difficult in my opinion. Do we really want to allow every upstart
mail-delivery company to have the keys to everyone’s mailboxes? I think that
would be rather hard to justify (especially given that the mailboxes are
government property) and could thus potentially reinforce Canada
Post’s monopoly status. It obviously would be no protection against
privatization, but in the current political climate I don’t know what can be.</p>
<p>To me, the far more concerning element of the reforms is the increase in the
price of postage. Again, I doubt that this will spell the end of a public post
office, but it is nonetheless a significant increase. Prices will be going up
by 22 cents when buying stamps in packs and by 37 cents when buying
individually (although most people protesting the changes are only
bothering to
mention the higher of these two figures). Given that Canada Post’s delivery
times are, let’s face it, less than impressive, cheapness is one of the few
things it has going for it. It perplexes me that the prices increases seem to
be of secondary concern to those on the left.</p>
<p>Mind you, this whole thing perplexes me to some extent. As I mentioned
earlier, community mailboxes are not exactly new; large parts of Canada have
been using them for years. If they are such a terrible idea, why the hell are
we only hearing it now? Are the people who intend to protest the post office
changes going to push for the elimination of <em>all</em> community mailboxes and the
restoration of universal door-to-door delivery? Somehow I doubt it. And which
of the other cost-saving proposals would they endorse? Reducing delivery to
three days a week seems like a much worse option to me. As does closing post
offices, which are a fantastically valuable piece of
infrastructure which have
the potential to perform many useful functions. I don’t much like the idea
of wage reductions or restraint and, in any case, that would be difficult
given the strength of the postal union (although knowing Harper he might just
legislate it through). Prices increases certainly aren’t ideal,
as I’ve already
said. Community mailboxes seem like a pretty reasonable solution, given that.</p>
<p>Is it ideal? Not really. There’s no denying that door-to-door delivery
is more
convenient. And, even if the job reductions are done by attrition, I’m not
thrilled with a reduction in the size of the public sector. It’s yet another
reduction in the role played in the economy by Crown corporations, further
removing from people’s consciousness the idea of public enterprise performing
a useful function. (Particularly disturbing is that the government has
appointed a <span class="caps">CEO</span> of Canada Post who came from a company that operates
privatized post offices.) What’s more,
there are alternatives to the reduction in
service, other sources of revenue which Canada Post could pursue. Post offices
could take over some of the functions of Service Canada, for example. It would
be far more convenient for people, considering there are many more
post offices than Service Canada bureaus.</p>
<p>But far more interesting is the potential for
Canada Post to offer banking services, as described in
<a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/20/postal_savings_bank_could_save_mail_delivery_walkom.html">this Toronto Star article</a>.
This isn’t nearly as strange an idea as it seems, as postal banks are
common in Europe and other parts of the world.
In fact, Britain’s old Gyro Bank—the name of their postal bank—
was (prior to its privatization in the ‘80s) possibly the single most
successful example of public enterprise, introducing many innovations and
scaring the private banking sector into shaping up its act.
A similar scheme in
Canada would be an excellent idea even on its own merit. It could likely
offer Canadians superior levels of service (certainly many more branches) than
existing banks currently provide and could be used to invest in
socially useful projects.
What’s more, it would almost certainly provide Canada Post with
enough revenue
to make the current service reductions unnecessary. Perhaps it would be enough
to pay for universal door-to-door delivery (although I honestly have no idea
about that).</p>
<p>So there’s no doubt that there are alternatives to the service reductions at
Canada Post. Ones that would promote socialist ideals such as
public ownership. But I honestly don’t see these service reductions as
leading to the destruction or privatization of Canada Post. They will, at
worst, be a minor inconvenience for Canadians. Let’s try to keep things in perspective.</p>
<p>*I should note here that the changes will more troublesome for seniors.
Perhaps there could be a compromise made where you get door-to-door delivery
if you are over a certain age? But in any case, most seniors who live in
their own houses are fairly spry.</p>What I Did Over Christmas Break2013-12-21T02:00:00+00:002013-12-21T02:00:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2013-12-21:what-i-did-over-christmas-break.html<p><em>If you are impatient and don’t want to read my no doubt fascinating
account of the inspiration for and development process of the
software I’ve designed, you can skip down to <a href="#software">here</a> to read what
it does and how to install it.</em></p>
<figure><img alt="Conetroller icon" src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/conetroller-icon.svg"/><figcaption>Conetroller icon</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the many great things about Christmas time is the lack of homework.
It means that I finally have the chance to work on some of the little
personal projects that I’ve been wanting to do. One such project, of course,
is writing some blog posts. The other major project is the subject of this post.</p>
<p>Thanks to the wonders of the Internet I now watch almost all movies and <span class="caps">TV</span>
shows on my computer. (And no, I am not downloading them illegally.) Well,
I say on my computer: actually <em>via</em> my computer would be more accurate, as
I use an <span class="caps">HDMI</span> cable to play them on my television set. The problem with this arrangement is that it prevents me from using my computer for anything
else while the video is playing because:</p>
<ol>
<li>The two monitor display features on my computer leave something to be desired.</li>
<li>My computer has to stay on my desk, connected to the <span class="caps">HDMI</span> cable, which
is a terribly angle to actually see the <span class="caps">TV</span> from.</li>
</ol>
<p>However, it so happens that I have a spare <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>
(a cheap mini-computer, one of which hosts this blog) and a spare <span class="caps">HDMI</span>
cable. It struck me that surely there was some way I could set up the
Raspberry Pi to play my videos for me. After some reading I discovered
that the <a href="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html"><span class="caps">VLC</span> Media Player</a> can
be controlled via a Telnet interface. For those of you who are not as
tech-savvy, Telnet is an old piece of software that can be used to
remotely log onto computers in the command line. It long ago fell out of
favour due to security issues and has been replaced by software called
<span class="caps">SSH</span>. However, as
I will only be accessing the Pi over my local network, security isn’t much
of an issue and Telnet will be fine.</p>
<p>Now, I could simply log into <span class="caps">VLC</span> over Telnet and control it via the
command line. This actually wouldn’t be so bad, but I felt like there were
nicer, tidier alternatives. So instead I set to work writing a program
in <a href="http://www.python.org/">Python</a> which could provide a graphical user
interface (<span class="caps">GUI</span>) for the Telnet controls. This was actually quite a new
experience for me, as almost all of my previous programming experience
has been in writing little scripts to process data and which have, at
most, a command line interface (although more often than not I just
program my specifications directly into the code itself—so-called
“hard-coding”). What little experience I have with GUIs has all been
for Windows, using a framework not available on Linux. So I had to
learn how to work with a set of software libraries called <span class="caps">GTK</span>+ 3.
<a href="http://www.gtk.org/"><span class="caps">GTK</span>+</a> is
one of the two major frameworks used to design GUIs on Linux, the other
being <a href="http://qt-project.org/"><span class="caps">QT</span></a>.</p>
<p>One thing that was nice is that there is a piece of software out there
called <a href="https://glade.gnome.org/">Glade</a> which allows you to design <span class="caps">GTK</span>
interfaces visually and
then import them into your code (rather than have to create the whole
interface using code only). It’s a bit rough around the edges, but
certainly better than having to create the interface manually.</p>
<p><a name="software"></a></p>
<figure><img alt="Conetroller interface" src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/ConetrollerInterface.png"/><figcaption>Conetroller interface</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And so, I now have a working piece of software that will allow you to
control a remote instance of <span class="caps">VLC</span>. So far I have only been able to test
it on an instance running on my own computer, but I see no reason why it
would work any differently if <span class="caps">VLC</span> is on a different machine. And thus,
I present to you: Conetroller v0.2.*</p>
<p>I am posting the code <a href="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/attachments/conetroller-0-2.tar.gz">for download here</a>
, if anyone is interested.
Currently it is only able to run on Linux (there’s a good chance it
would work on Mac <span class="caps">OSX</span> too), although it shouldn’t be too difficult to
port it to Windows, if you want to. It can be installed by executing
the following in a terminal:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="go">wget redshadesofgreen.raspctl.com/attachments/conetroller-0-2.tar.gz</span>
<span class="go">tar -zxvf conetroller-0-2.tar.gz</span>
<span class="go">cd v0.2/</span>
<span class="go">sudo ./install.sh</span>
</pre></div>
<p>This installation technique is known to work in Linux Mint Debian
Edition, and has not been tested anywhere else. However, I didn’t do anything too exotic
in terms of directory layout, so it should work with most Linux distributions,
and certainly most Debian-based distros (eg: Ubuntu). Make sure to take
a look at the <span class="caps">README</span> file. No other documentation is
provided, but the interface is pretty simple and you should be able to
figure it out. If you have any question or problems, post them in the
comments section below.</p>
<p>Current features include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Adding items to the playlist (using a <span class="caps">URL</span> or filepath)</li>
<li>Clearing the playlist of items</li>
<li>Play, pause, stop, skip forwards, and skip backwards buttons</li>
<li>Displaying items currently on playlist</li>
<li>Ability to scroll through video</li>
<li>Recalling the most recent <span class="caps">VLC</span> instance logged into at the beginning of
each session</li>
</ul>
<p>Bugs, missing features, and other short-comings:</p>
<ul>
<li>No indication is given as to which playlist item is currently being
played (it is unclear if this can be added while using the Telnet interface)</li>
<li>No ability to select an item from the playlist (likely will be added
in future versions)</li>
<li>No ability to remember passwords (it would be insecure to store these
unencrypted in a plain text file, as was done with other login
information). Future versions may include integration with Gnome Keyring
to overcome this.</li>
<li>No comments included in the source code—I’ll fix this sooner or later,
although I think it should be fairly easy to follow even without them</li>
<li>Possible overuse of global variables in the code, rather than passing
them to the relevant functions—this may be fixed in future, although
I blame some of the peculiarities of Glade for this</li>
</ul>
<p>Flaws aside, I am confident that Conetroller will prove useful to me,
and hope it can be useful to others as well.</p>
<p>*For those that are unaware, the logo for <span class="caps">VLC</span> is a traffic cone. Since my
program controls <span class="caps">VLC</span>, Conetroller seemed like the only reasonable name for it.</p>Insomnia Sucks2013-11-14T02:00:00+00:002013-11-14T02:00:00+00:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2013-11-14:insomnia-sucks.html<p>Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve written one of these. It’s not that I haven’t had
things to write about: the stress of school, post office privatization, derailments
and scandal at <span class="caps">CN</span>, my ambivalence towards Remembrance Day,
my dismay at discovering that some of the political figures I liked (emphasis on the
past tense) were rather
chummy with certain dictators, an exposition on why I hold the political views I do
when it seems more and more as though I don’t actually like anyone else who shares
them… But, alas, I’ve been busy with assignments, classes, labs, making sure that
I am fed, and preventing my apartment from becoming a complete shambles. After all
that, all I really want to do is turn my brain off for awhile—not write a few
thousand words of polemic. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, I’m writing something now, at last. Nothing from the topics
listed above.
The reasons are, respectively: no one else is interested in me grumbling,
I’ll write about that if and when the government tries it here,
it turns out that the story didn’t have as
interesting ramifications as I expected, it will come around again next year, I
can’t be bothered to write something requiring that many brain cells at the moment,
and I’m probably being too hard on my comrades.
The only reason that I’m writing right now, really, is because I can’t sleep. It’s
becoming something of a problem for me.</p>
<p>For a number of years now (it first started when I was still in elementary school, I
think) I’ve had some problems getting to sleep at night. But occasionally I go
through spells when it is especially bad. This time it started three weeks ago,
during the week when I had four midterms. Presumably it was the stress that started
it. But it’s more or less continued since then. So now I find myself in this
situation: I lie awake at night, totally incapable of getting to sleep. Then, in
the morning, I sleep through my alarm(s), wake up at 10 o’clock (which presumably
doesn’t make it any easier to get to sleep at a reasonable hour the next night),
have to rush
to class and skip the gym (and possibly breakfast). Then, just to add insult to
injury, there’s a good chance
that I’ll find myself nearly falling asleep during class and I’ll definitely be
falling asleep when I try to do assigned readings. All in all, my situation feels
a lot like this:</p>
<div align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/OrYGSlEmt_I" width="560"></iframe></div>
<p>(John Finnemore, the guy who wrote that little song, is an incredibly funny guy
whose radio sitcom <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ptq9jqwAoY">Cabin Pressure</a>
I would most definitely recommend.)</p>
<p>So, I sit up late at night, writing inanely about my inability to sleep. Will this be of any interest to you, dear reader? God knows. Probably not, actually, but
insomnia or not I’m not feeling quite alert or clever enough at this time in the
evening to write about anything more intellectual. In any case, good night.</p>On the Abuse of Exponentiation in Colloquial Communication2013-09-29T02:00:00+01:002013-09-29T02:00:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2013-09-29:on-the-abuse-of-exponentiation-in-colloquial-communication.html<p>Or, to put it another way, “Why I Hate it When People Say Things ‘Grow Exponentially.’”
But hey, why say something simply when you can say it in polysyllables? In any case,
something which I have been finding increasingly irksome is when people talk about
something “growing exponentially,” when all that they really mean is that it is
growing <em>really</em> quickly. I guess I shouldn’t really blame them for this, seeing
as it’s more the lousy math education standards which are to blame. But still, I do
wish that they could get this in their heads: <strong>just because it’s growing quickly
doesn’t mean that it’s growing exponentially!</strong></p>
<p><img alt="Plot of exponential growth as compared to other forms of growth" src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/exponential.png"/>Let
me back up a bit. For those of you with a bit of mathematical or scientific
background this will be review, but I’ll include it in case of the unlikely even
that there is anyone here without a second year university calculus class under
their belt. And, given how nerdy/awesome my friends are, that <em>is</em> rather unlikely.
Exponential
growth refers to something that, over some fixed interval, will increase in size by
some constant factor. For example, if the water in my sink is getting higher
exponentially, that means it starts off at, say, 1cm deep. After a minute it is
2cm deep. After another minute it is 4cm deep. After another minute it is 8cm deep.
Pretty soon my whole apartment will be full of water, the landlord will be
asking some difficult questions, and I’ll be wishing that I’d chosen a drier example
with which to make my point.</p>
<p>A related concept is exponential decay. This is essentially the same thing, except
here the quantity <em>decreases</em> by some constant factor. For example,
say I have a chocolate bar with eight segments and in the first minute I eat half
of it (four pieces). Wanting to savour
it, over the next minute I eat half of the remaining chocolate, or two pieces.
Wanting to stretch out my chocolate still longer, the next minute I eat only 1 piece.
The next minute I eat only half a piece. This process continues and I never actually
finish the chocolate bar. Of course, this example is totally unrealistic:
in reality I would have eaten the whole chocolate bar within the first minute.</p>
<p>The thing is, the never-quite-vanishing chocolate bar exhibits exponential behaviour,
while most things that people <em>call</em> exponential do not. The thing about exponential
growth is that
it tends to explode; it will eventually start growing so quickly that it just can’t
continue. Take population growth, for example. Populations are often thought of as growing
exponentially. But this can not last forever. Eventually there won’t be enough food and
the population will level off.</p>
<p>Whenever I see something referred to as “increasing exponentially,” my immediate reaction
is to ask for a plot of the data or the chi-squared value for an exponential fit. For
reasons that I explained above, it is almost certainly <em>not</em> growing exponentially. It
might be growing quickly, but that is not at all the same thing. So please, spare us
neurotic math-geeks a bit of unnecessary squirming and describe the trend properly.</p>Back for Another Year of Physics and Phun2013-09-03T18:00:00+01:002013-09-03T18:00:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2013-09-03:back-for-another-year-of-physics-and-phun.html<p>Well, it’s that time of year again. The air is turning cold (or, in today’s
case, rainy), the last pay-cheque from my summer job went into my back account,
I’ve made sure I’m stocked up on all of the supplies I’ll need, and another
semester is about to start. I’ll be entering the third and penultimate year of
my astrophysics degree (my god, it’s scary how quickly the time passes). I guess
I’m supposed to be dreading this time of year, but I’m really not.</p>
<p>I’ve had a 4+ month break and now I’m sufficiently recharged to be ready to
start school again. Quite honestly, classes will be a nice change of pace, after
spending four months of writing data analysis scripts for one of my profs. Not
that there is anything wrong with doing that for a summer job—it was
a nice change from classes at the start. But, as they say, variety is the spice
of life. So learning some actual physics again, rather than just crunching
numbers, sounds good to me.</p>
<p>The other reason I’m not sad that school is starting again is because my social
life actually improves during the
semester. All of my friends in Halifax are classmates and only a few of them
were around campus over the summer. And none of them were other people from my
year. So outside of office hours (when we shouldn’t really be talking much
anyway) I had virtually no social life. Now, though, there will be plenty of
people in the physics major’s work-room (well, we get <em>some</em> work done there,
anyway) to talk to and plenty of time spent together doing homework. Honestly,
hours spent collaborating on homework sounds altogether more enjoyable than
hours spent in isolation killing time.</p>
<p>So, all things considered, I’m kind of glad that school is starting again. Just not quite as glad as I will be when it’s over come May.</p>New Computer, New Linux Distribution2013-07-30T15:00:00+01:002013-07-30T15:00:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2013-07-30:new-computer-new-linux-distribution.html<p>Well, my old laptop was dying. At least I think it was. In any case,
I wasn’t waiting around until the semester started to find out—better
to get a new computer now when I had time to get it configured properly.
And so, a week and a half ago I found myself with a brand new <span class="caps">ASUS</span> laptop.
It’s not actually an ultrabook but it is still pretty thin. It has a <span class="caps">24GB</span>
solid-state drive (more than enough to hold my operating system), a <span class="caps">750GB</span>
mechanical hard drive, an Intel i5 processor, an optical disc drive,
and a 14" screen. Overall I’m quite happy with my choice.</p>
<p>The laptop came with Windows 8 installed. I was not having that. The
choice now became what version of Linux to use. The obvious choice
would have been <a href="http://www.linuxmint.com/">Linux Mint</a>, which I have
used ever since moving to Linux. This distribution has the advantage of
being ready to use immediately after installation. I’m also very
impressed by their <a href="cinnamon.linuxmint.com">Cinnamon Desktop Environment</a>.
However, the trade-off in a distribution being easy to use is that it
also somewhat inefficient when it comes to hardware usage.
Additionally, in order to upgrade Linux Mint you must totally re-install
the operating system. To put it lightly, this is a frig.</p>
<p>Another Linux distribution which I’d heard interesting things about is
called <a href="https://www.archlinux.org/">Arch Linux</a>. In a sense, Arch is the
polar opposite of Linux Mint. Once you’ve installed it, you have a
command-line interface with a basic software set installed. And that’s
it. Everything else, including device drivers and a graphical interface,
you must install yourself. However, this ensures that there will be
absolutely no bloat on your computer. Arch Linux also has the advantage
that you never have to install a new version of the operating system: all
of the components can be upgraded in exactly the same way that you’d upgrade
any other software. (For those who are familiar with Linux, this means
that you just keep the <span class="caps">OS</span> up-to-date by applying the upgrade command
with the package-manager.) </p>
<p>For some reason I decided that I wanted to give Arch a try. A big part
of the appeal is not having to re-install the <span class="caps">OS</span> for upgrades. I was also
enticed by the amount of control I’d be able to have over my system. And
I guess at the end of the day I wanted the challenge—I enjoy tinkering
with my computer, and I’d reached the limits of what I could do with Mint.
In other words, I chose it out of masochism. </p>
<p>The installation process is considerably more complicated than that for
Linux Mint. However, in principle it isn’t too difficult, thanks to the
wonderful documentation provided. Unfortunately, my computer has one of
those awful new <span class="caps">UEFI</span> motherboards. This, combined with some feature
called “secure boot” meant that even getting my computer to detect the
installation disc was a struggle. Then, once I finally got Arch installed,
the <span class="caps">UEFI</span> boot-loader was convinced that there was no operating system
present. To be fair, I tried installing Linux Mint and encountered the
same problem. Several attempts later, I finally found a work-around that
got the boot-loader to see the operating systems.</p>
<p><img alt="Bow to me, for I am root" src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/iamroot.jpg"/> At this point I
was past the worst. The next step was to create a new
account for myself. Initially when you install Linux (well, in more
traditional setups like Arch, anyway) there will only be one user, called
“root.” Root is capable of doing anything on the computer—it can delete
or edit any file. This is actually quite dangerous (giving rise to the
expressions “He who plays with root kills [file-]tree”) as you can
potentially delete something vital for the operation of your computer.
Thus it is best to create a separate account for every-day work
on the computer and only to use root when necessary (such as when installing
new software). Speaking of installing software, that was the next step.
First were the drivers for things like sound, video,
and my laptop’s trackpad. Next came a graphical user interface (<span class="caps">GUI</span>).
Linux uses the X Window System for this. However, all that X gives is the
ability for the computer to render graphical windows—you can’t do very
much with them by default, and you certainly won’t have a desktop with icons.
For that I needed to install a Desktop Environment.</p>
<p>My first choice for a desktop environment was Cinnamon. It has a fairly
traditional layout (which I like—I don’t know why so many projects are
trying to force totally new interfaces on people) but modern looking
visual features. Unfortunately, Cinnamon’s behaviour with Arch was
distinctly underwhelming. There were numerous problems, but probably
the most frustrating was that I couldn’t get any of the applets (such as
the one which shows the weather) to work. Additionally, I realized how
tricky it can be to configure some of the visual elements of Cinnamon. On
Linux Mint this isn’t really a problem because most of the work is done
for you in advance, but I couldn’t seem to get it looking quite the way I wanted on
Arch. So I gave up on Cinnamon.</p>
<p>My second choice was <a href="http://mate-desktop.org/"><span class="caps">MATE</span></a>.
<span class="caps">MATE</span> is a fork of an older desktop environment (now discontinued) called
<span class="caps">GNOME</span> 2. <span class="caps">MATE</span> was created when <span class="caps">GNOME</span> 2 was replaced by the horrendous
<span class="caps">GNOME</span> 3. <span class="caps">MATE</span> doesn’t (by default) have quite the same level of prettiness
as Cinnamon, but on the other hand it is far easier to configure. So I
installed <span class="caps">MATE</span> and almost immediately realized that I could get rid of
Cinnamon: all of <span class="caps">MATE</span>’s features worked immediately. So goodbye Cinnamon.
After installing a few more themes, <span class="caps">MATE</span> looked almost as good as
Cinnamon, too!</p>
<p>Finally I needed to install my preferred applications. It was the usual
sort of list: <a href="http://www.libreoffice.org/">LibreOffice</a>,
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">emacs</a>, <a href="http://banshee.fm/">Banshee</a>,
<a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a>, and <a href="http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/">Texmaker</a>.
Perhaps my favourite feature of Arch Linux is the Arch User Repository.
This is a collection of source-code for software which would not be
popular enough (or is still too experimental) to warrant being maintained
in the official software repositories. However, Arch users can prepare
the source code themselves so that it can easily be compiled into a package
and then installed using the normal package manager. This means that there
are some obscure, but great, pieces of software which can be installed
with ease, such as a client for my <a href="http://www.seafile.com/en/home/">Seafile</a>
Cloud Server (an open source replacement for Dropbox) and
<a href="http://docs.getpelican.com/en/3.2/">Pelican</a>, which I use to produce
this blog. </p>
<p><img alt="A screenshot of my desktop." src="http://redshadesofgreen.raspctl.com/static/images/ArchScreenshot.png" style="float:none;display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto"/></p>
<p>And this brings me more-or-less to where I am now. While there are still
a few things I have left to do, at this point I have a fully functional
computer running Arch Linux.</p>Why Social Democracy Was Great and Why It Isn’t the Answer2013-07-13T23:40:00+01:002013-07-13T23:40:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2013-07-13:why-social-democracy-was-great-and-why-it-isnt-the-answer.html<p>Yesterday I happened to read two very interesting articles, which at first
glance would appear to be entirely unrelated. One was in <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929254.600-the-wonder-year-why-1978-was-the-best-year-ever.html#.UeCPGt9hLCc"><em>New Scientist</em></a>
magazine and explained that, although <span class="caps">GDP</span> has risen fairly steadily in the west for the past several decades, the Genuine Progress Indicator (<span class="caps">GPI</span>) has slowly
been declining since 1978. The <span class="caps">GPI</span> essentially tries to
adjust the value of <span class="caps">GDP</span> to account for social and environmental problems (such
as inequality and pollution). The other article was an opinion
piece in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/25/europe-leaders-not-turning-austerity"><em>The Guardian</em></a> by two Canadian academics and activists
that I am rather fond of: Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin. Here they explained why
we can’t expect any attempt at a second New Deal in Europe as a way of
combating the economic crisis: in short, without a
threat of something more radical (ie: all-out socialism), the ruling classes see
no need to engage in progressive economic policies.</p>
<p><img alt="Graphs show that GDP has been consistently rising since 1950, while GPI has
been in decline since the late 1970s." src="https://politicalphysicist.github.io/images/gpiPlots.jpg"/>
This set of graphs, taken from <em>New Scientist</em>‘s website, shows that global <span class="caps">GDP</span>
and <span class="caps">GPI</span> rose fairly steadily from 1950 to the late 1970s.
This corresponds with the period in which Keynesianism ruled. This usually
took the form of social democracy: public ownership of key industries, strong
trade unions, lots of regulation, a large welfare state, etc. As Panitch and
Gindin explain, the reason that this could be implemented was because there
were powerful working-class forces at work which could have led to the outright
abolition of capitalism. Faced with the prospect of losing everything, the upper
classes were willing to sacrifice a little wealth and power in order to pacify
the lower classes. This also was reflected in American foreign policy: the <span class="caps">US</span>
established the Marshall Plan in Europe to ensure that capitalism survived
there, thus helping to ensure its survival in the <span class="caps">USA</span> as well.</p>
<p>As you can see from the above plot, these policies were quite successful at
ensuring increased quality of life for all. However, the welfare state was
always dependent on the success in the private sector for revenue (with a few
exceptions, nationalised industries were not used as major revenue sources).
Thus social democracy has always been dependent on continued capital
accumulation. And this was its fundamental weakness. When the global slump
came in the 1970s (in Britain it was so severe that you see a large decrease
in <span class="caps">GPI</span> around 1975) it began to put the welfare state in jeopardy. In some
countries there were attempts to break away from the dependence on private
capital accumulation (the Meidner Plan in Sweden and Mitterrand’s
nationalisation of banks in France) but the working class was not strong enough
to bring these attempts to a successful conclusion. In all countries it
eventually proved necessary
to start scaling back the welfare state and, to one degree or another, abandon
Keynesian policies in favour of Monetarist ones. This new economic orthodoxy is
usually referred to as neoliberalism.</p>
<p>In Britain this took the form of Margaret Thatcher. In the <span class="caps">US</span> it was Ronald
Reagan. In Canada it was Brian Mulroney. All of them implemented policies which
were harmful to the average citizen. Trade unions were weakened and could no
longer act as a force against income inequality. Industries previously devoted
to the public good were privatised and used to enrich a select few. Cuts to
social spending hurt the poor by making once universal services available only
to those that could pay. Deregulation made it easier for companies to pollute
the environment and the emphasis on private profit meant that environmental
costs were ignored. The reasons for declining <span class="caps">GPI</span> are clear. What is less clear
is what to do about it.</p>
<p>Panitch and Gindin show that today we lack the popular forces which made
social democracy viable in the post-war period. There are no significant
examples of non-capitalist states and few radical trade unions. In the minds of
most people there is no alternative to capitalism. Anti-capitalist parties are
small and marginal (with a few exceptions, such as in Greece and, to a lesser
extent, Spain and Portugal). The business class need not
fear the imposition of socialism; they know that the working class is currently
too disorganized to be a serious threat and thus see no need to pursue a policy
of appeasement. </p>
<p>Now, this situation will very likely change in the coming years and
decades, but there are a few questions we should address as we work to create
new working-class institutions. One is what these movements should demand.
Many progressive economists talk about things like reregulating the banks and
implementing a Tobin tax. However, as
explained above, we are unlikely to be able to impose these reformist measures
without the threat of something far more radical. And, knowing what happened the
last time the left settled for reforming capitalism rather than abolishing it,
we should not be content merely to use socialism as a threat. This time we must
<em>implement</em> it.
Social democracy died in the 1980s and there is no point in trying to bring back
the dead. Rosa Luxemburg’s sentiments are more true now than ever:
“Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to Socialism or regression into Barbarism.”</p>Take a Listen2013-07-10T13:40:00+01:002013-07-10T13:40:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2013-07-10:take-a-listen.html<p>I was delighted to discover, several months ago now, that <span class="caps">BBC</span> had produced radio
adaptations of some of the books by my favourite author, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett">Terry Pratchett</a>. Below is the first part of their
adaptation of <em>Guards! Guards!</em> Take a listen!</p>
<iframe align="middle" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/kKhirak0QEw" width="420"></iframe>Was There No Alternative?2013-07-09T10:30:00+01:002013-07-09T10:30:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2013-07-09:was-there-no-alternative.html<p>I made the mistake today of voicing my distinctly anti-Thatcher views. For those
of you who don’t know, Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister in the <span class="caps">UK</span> during
the ‘80s and oversaw the implementation of neoliberalism. She succeeded in
crushing the trade unions, scaling back the welfare state, deregulating the
financial sector, deindustrialising Britain, and privatising a substantial
portion of public assets (including utilities, airlines, buses, coal mines,
steel manufacturing, and aerospace, among other things). These policies saw a
massive increase in income inequality and unemployment and are often referred
to as “class warfare from above.” Anyway, I received a
(fairly typical) response that Thatcher saved Britain for anarchy and bankruptcy
and that while her policies were unpleasant at the time, they were
necessary. There are even plenty of people
on the centre-left who say things like this. It irritates me to no end, but I
figured that it was best to avoid getting dragged into a political debate in
public. Of course, this being me, it continued to bother me through the day, so
I’ve written some of my thoughts on the matter here.</p>
<p>Now, to be fair, Britain’s economy was a mess before she came in. It was also a
mess for quite awhile after she came in. In fact, initially she made things
worse. When the recovery did come it was on the back of the finance “industry,”
and we all know how that turned out… However, there is no denying that the
British economy was in need of major restructuring. Maggie famously justified
her policies by saying that “There is no alternative.” This is often referred to
as <span class="caps">TINA</span> and this is what the Thatcher-apologists have unwittingly bought into.
And, in a sense, they aren’t wrong. There was no alternative—if we insisted on
maintaining capitalism. </p>
<p>However, at about the same time that the Thatcherites came to
power we also saw the rise of the Bennites. They were a left-wing movement
within the Labour Party, centred around the <span class="caps">MP</span> Tony Benn. They advocated
nationalising the financial institutions
and much of large industry. These new public enterprises were to be administered
by the workers. They felt that these measures, combined with a degree of
industrial planning (which would, if I recall, have seen a substantial retooling
of factories) and import substitution would help to restart Britain’s
economy. Actually, the Labour Party was elected in the 1970s on a watered-down
version of this platform. However, they did not have the guts to pursue it and
instead implemented an early, watered-down version of Thatcherism. This prompted
a massive strike-wave, referred to as The Winter of Discontent (the
anarchy to which Thatcher apologists refer). The irony is that the Labour
Party brought it upon themselves. There were alternatives proposed. At least one
was even put forward the Cabinet by Tony Benn, but was viewed as too radical.</p>
<p>So, you can not justify what Margaret Thatcher did by saying that it was what
was necessary in order to get Britain back on track. There were other options
available which were never tried. What was true, however, was that the post-War
class-compromise (the Keynesian mixed-economy) had outlive its usefulness. As
the ‘80s dawned, class struggle was destined to begin anew.
The likes of Tony Benn tried,
and very nearly succeeded, at leading the working class to victory.
However, Mrs. Thatcher was more successful with her ruling-class offensive.
When you apologise for Thatcher, this class warfare from above is what you are
justifying. I suspect, or at least hope, that
fewer people would be willing to defend her if they thought of it that way.</p>
<p><span class="caps">PS</span>: I have a certain fondness for all of the protests songs written about
Margaret Thatcher. Here are a few of my favourites:</p>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9t4-zDem1Sk" width="420"></iframe>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/IlkXQm7tSCY" width="420"></iframe>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/B1NyWbhCxZE" width="420"></iframe>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/OeuLTEXazJs" width="420"></iframe>Hello Facebookers!2013-07-05T22:00:00+01:002013-07-05T22:00:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2013-07-05:hello-facebookers.html<p>Well, I’ve decided to announce this blog on Facebook. Having written two serious
posts, one of which was quite work-intensive, I figured that there wasn’t much
point in continuing if no one was going to read it. So it’s time to tell the world!</p>
<p>I admit that I’m still a little bit hesitant. This blog will contain some
rather personal information. I’ve already made my sexual
orientation quite clear on Facebook, but people wouldn’t find out unless they
actually went looking. However, now that I’ve posted a link to this blog I
will essentially have come out to the world. Not that I really mind—I’m not
at all ashamed of who I am. It’s just a bit of a big step. What’s more, this
will essentially be me officially “coming out” as a socialist. Ironically, if
anything I find that scarier. Certainly I’m not quite ready to tell my
parents <em>that</em> yet. They were fine with my being gay, but their love and support
might only go so far… I jest. Mostly.</p>
<p>When I’ve written my previous articles it felt very much like they were going in
a diary—they were only to help organize my thoughts and no one else would ever
read them. Now, for better or for worse, that is about to change. Or perhaps it
won’t; I guess it all depends on how interesting people find me. I hope that
everyone out there <em>will</em> find me interesting enough to at least read some of
what I have to say. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this far!
Happy Friday!</p>The Mathematics of Protest2013-06-30T18:16:00+01:002013-06-30T18:16:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2013-06-30:the-mathematics-of-protest.html<p>I always enjoy reading about how math can be applied to predicting societal
actions. I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps it just makes me think of Isaac
Asimov’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)">psychohistory</a>. In any case, I read a very interesting <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829234.300-brazil-uprising-points-to-rise-of-leaderless-networks.html?cmpid=RSS|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL|online-news#.UdCUB6BhLCe">article</a>
in <em>New Scientist</em> magazine the other day
which gave a mathematical and statistical examination of protest, in particular
the recent protests in Brazil. It discussed how this sort of unrest spreads
in much the same way as diseases and forest fires. Once something starts off
the unrest (in the Brazilian case, an increase in bus fairs),
unrelated long-time grievances can come to the fore and cause
surprising amounts of civil disobedience that can persist even after the
original issue is dealt with. Frankly, I’m surprised that you’d
need a mathematical model to know that; to anyone who’s studied history
it should be common sense. </p>
<p>Another interesting statement that was made is that
it is the “newly prosperous,” afraid of losing their new found success, who tend to be protesting. It reminds me of what
one of my high school history teachers used to say about revolutions: you
don’t get revolutions when people have <em>no</em> hope but when you <em>give</em> them hope and
then try to take it away. Rabble-raisers everywhere take note.</p>
<p>Other factors which were noted to facilitate the spread of protest include high food prices, high
numbers of unemployed young people, and access to social media. The latter-most
is said to “boost a protest’s transmission rate through susceptible societies.”
I wonder if, perhaps, part of the reason why youth are more likely to spread
civil unrest is because they are more adept at using social media? It is also
speculated that recent protests relate to a societal trend away from hierarchy
and towards more horizontalist means of organization.</p>
<p>One thing which irked me about the article was that it had a somewhat
condescending tone towards protesters. Notice how it compared the spread of
protests to the spread of diseases. While perhaps mathematically accurate, that is not a pleasant comparison, is it? Of course,
as a socialist with a somewhat revolutionary bend, I suppose I hold an
unusually positive view on protest. </p>
<p>Something which worries me a little bit is
whether this sort of knowledge could be used to suppress protest and dissent.
I can certainly imagine governments <em>wanting</em> to do that.
For those of us wanting to change the world, it would be a very large
impediment if the ruling classes used mathematics and sociology to try to
enforce the status quo. Of course, a different approach would be for them to
attempt to understand the root cause of unrest and to fix it. Would this be a
good thing? It would certainly improve the lives of people in the short term.
But would it be demobilizing? Would we not just end up with a
friendlier, reformed version of the world we live in today, with all of the old
class structures still intact? In effect, would it simply lead to a redoing of
Keynesian social democracy? I’ll leave that debate aside for now. In any case,
I suspect that it is irrelevant: the response of the ruling class to Occupy Wall
Street seems to show a complete disinterest in appeasement. And, in any case,
Keynesian policies failed once and would almost certainly fail if tried again.</p>
<p>So now we must ask ourselves, how is this information useful to activists and
to the people who organize these protests? Can it inform our strategies and
tactics? Can we use it to our advantage? Is
it ethical to do so? After all, you’d essentially be manipulating people. I
suppose my view is that this sort of research will allow activists to anticipate
if a protests will become widespread. This will allow us radicals to be prepared
somewhat in advance. For those who work on theoretical analysis, research such
as this may lend a mathematical or even an empirical basis for what at present
feels at times like nothing more that intuition and vague guess. That is when
I’ll be convinced that we have truly “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_socialism">Scientific Socialism</a>.”</p>Hello World!2013-06-29T23:50:00+01:002013-06-29T23:50:00+01:00C. MacMackintag:politicalphysicist.github.io,2013-06-29:hello-world.html<p>Well, I’ve decided to start a blog. Having set up a
<a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a> as a webserver, I thought I’d try
setting up a blog on it. We’ll see how good I am at keeping it up to date.</p>
<p>Originally I intended to write primarily about politics (the name of the
blog describing where I fall politically). However, I’ve been going through
a bit of a slump lately, when it comes to politics. Eventually my passion
will come back, hopefully. But because of this, I’ll be talking about many
things. Among them:</p>
<ul>
<li>Science</li>
<li>Astronomy/Physics</li>
<li>Socialism</li>
<li>Politics</li>
<li>Environmentalism</li>
<li>Linux</li>
<li>Computer Programming</li>
<li>Being Gay</li>
<li>Asperger’s Syndrome</li>
<li>Musical Theatre</li>
<li>My Life</li>
<li>My Thoughts</li>
<li>My Grumbling (which may be related to any or all of the above)</li>
</ul>
<p>I hope that my writings will interest, challenge, amuse, educate,
entertain, stimulate, and/or otherwise engage you. Enjoy reading!</p>