frankPodmore
@frankPodmore@slrpnk.net
London-based writer. Often climbing.
- Comment on Is it possible to be a leftist, but still really enjoy capitalism? 6 days ago:
Aside from your odd definition of capitalism and its outcomes, which other people have addressed, the answer to the headline question is: yes.
Karl Marx, for example, is famously very critical of what he saw as the inherent exploitation in capitalism. He believed that you could not have capitalism without exploitation and that it was therefore an unethical system that should be defeated and superseded by a new economic system without exploitation. He also held that capitalism was inherently contradictory and that it therefore not only should be destroyed, but that it must be destroyed.
However: even Marx acknowledged that capitalism was an enormous improvement on the previously existing social system of feudalism, because it also produced far greater wealth through the development of new technology (this is a key difference between Marxism and the earlier ‘utopian socialism’, which saw technology itself as an evil, and which his theories largely replaced).
Marx also welcomed the fact that capitalism destroyed (as he saw it) some earlier forms of oppression (albeit while introducing new ones). Marx’s letter to Abraham Lincoln congratulating him on his re-election discusses the American Revolution and Civil War in precisely these terms.
So, you can enjoy the greater (obviously not ‘infinite’!) abundance of goods that capitalism has produced, you can acknowledge its positive impact on technological development and its material improvements of the lives of millions of people and be not only a leftist but a fully orthodox Marxist… just so long as you also acknowledge that capitalism is also an exploitative and self-destructive force that should, can and must be defeated.
- Comment on £6 million repaid to workers as Government cracks down on employers underpaying their staff 1 week ago:
This is very good, although I do think they should also jail some of the thieves!
- Comment on Trans adults waiting on average 25 years for NHS gender clinic appointments 1 week ago:
It’s okay, I’m not super-fussed about it happening as a one-off, more intended as a ‘for the future’ reminder. The rule’s mainly there to make sure people don’t spam about their hobby horses, and this obviously isn’t that!
Obviously there’s a grey area with ‘UK’ vs. ‘UK politics’. I’d say this is more ‘UK’, whereas an article about a parliamentary or governmental response to the same would be ‘UK politics’, if that makes sense.
Please do keep posting stuff!
- Comment on Trans adults waiting on average 25 years for NHS gender clinic appointments 1 week ago:
This is a very important topic, but please in future observe the rule as stated in the sidebar:
Please don’t post to both !uk_politics@feddit.uk and !unitedkingdom@feddit.uk. Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.
- Comment on Two dead after suspected terror attack on Manchester synagogue, police say, with suspect shot by officers – latest 3 weeks ago:
This is a developing story and one thing we don’t know yet is anything at all about the attacker. Any posts speculating about this or spreading rumours will be removed as will anything excusing, downplaying or minimising the attack.
- Comment on Kemi Badenoch pledges to scrap UK climate law 3 weeks ago:
While I wish Labour were further from the Conservatives and Reform on immigration and trans rights, this is one serious difference between the parties that really matters.
- Two dead after suspected terror attack on Manchester synagogue, police say, with suspect shot by officers – latestwww.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 3 weeks ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 2 comments
- Comment on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Drops Official First Look Teaser Trailer 2 months ago:
They wouldn’t put this tease in the trailer if they weren’t actually bringing Him back, right?
Right?
- Comment on [deleted] 5 months ago:
Heh. Yeah, I can’t really hold up a country backsliding on trans rights as an example of an effective constitutional monarchy.
- Comment on [deleted] 5 months ago:
I think taking a broad view, there are quite a lot of constitutional monarchies that are really great places to live (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, Canada, the Bahamas, Japan, to name a few). There are also quite a lot of republics that can claim the same. So, from a sort of human development POV, I don’t think it really matters very much.
Sure, monarchies are a bit daft but I think ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ is quite a good rule. Especially since spending time on fixing things that ain’t broke is time you could be spending on fixing things that are broke. I live in the UK and we have a lot of major problems that need our attention. It’s better to focus on those than have a big argument about the King when, as we can see from international comparisons, the King isn’t really the issue.
- Submitted 6 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 8 comments
- Comment on New forest to be created in west of England, with 20m trees planted by 2050 6 months ago:
The Newer Forest.
Always makes me laugh that the ‘New’ Forest is getting on for a thousand years old.
- Comment on Why do news articles and such call the governments of countries/groups of countries after the capital? 7 months ago:
Yes, very useful for subtle distinctions like this!
- Comment on Why do news articles and such call the governments of countries/groups of countries after the capital? 7 months ago:
Yes, it’s metonymy, as people have said. You also get it in similar contexts where people will name a building such as ‘the White House’ or ‘[10] Downing Street’ to refer to the governments of the US or the UK.
- Submitted 7 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 6 comments
- Comment on Luigi Mangione, accused of US CEO murder, depicted in London mural 7 months ago:
Me.
- Comment on Luigi Mangione, accused of US CEO murder, depicted in London mural 7 months ago:
By far the most coherent response, thank you. I still think the contexts are sufficiently different that I find it odd that anyone would feel the need to paint his face on a wall thousands of miles away.
- Comment on Luigi Mangione, accused of US CEO murder, depicted in London mural 7 months ago:
I think you probably understand why it’s ridiculous when right wingers say that socialised healthcare = Stalinism, and so on an identical basis you should see it’s ridiculous to describe the people of the UK as oppressed slaves.
- Comment on Luigi Mangione, accused of US CEO murder, depicted in London mural 7 months ago:
Touche.
- Comment on Luigi Mangione, accused of US CEO murder, depicted in London mural 7 months ago:
Ironically, your statement lacks nuance.
- Comment on Luigi Mangione, accused of US CEO murder, depicted in London mural 7 months ago:
There is quite a range of options between continuing as you say we are and shooting people in the street. Again, enacting arbitrary violence against perceived enemies is literally what Trump is doing. This is not the path to take. Like all people calling for this kind of violence, you are assuming it won’t be inflicted on you or anyone you like, but that is not what history suggests will happen.
Incidentally, another way the UK is not like the US is that carbon emissions are falling in the UK.
- Comment on Luigi Mangione, accused of US CEO murder, depicted in London mural 7 months ago:
Okay, this isn’t a court and it’s absolutely fine for people in casual conversation to say he did something when there’s strong evidence that he did.
Strictly speaking if he yelled ‘I did it and I’d do it again’ at the cameras on his way into court, he’d still be ‘innocent till proven guilty’ but no one would insist that actually meant he ‘hadn’t done it’.
In any case, as to our wider discussion, you’d then be disagreeing with many of the people here and arguing that people painted his face on a wall because he didn’t do anything.
- Comment on Luigi Mangione, accused of US CEO murder, depicted in London mural 7 months ago:
Fictional characters and real people are not actually the same kind of thing, and how people read them are not equivalent.
- Comment on Is there some school to learn how to be a sycophant? 7 months ago:
Any MBA?
- Comment on Luigi Mangione, accused of US CEO murder, depicted in London mural 7 months ago:
Brian Thompson was not a billionaire. As for the ‘unaccountable’ class our side of the pond, just yesterday a prominent political megadonor and former hedge fund manager was banned from working in financial services, so neither side of your analogy stands up to very much scrutiny.
- Comment on Luigi Mangione, accused of US CEO murder, depicted in London mural 7 months ago:
Honestly, aside from what Mangione did and whether it can be justified, I just think this shows how America-brained so much of the UK is. The guy lives and committed his crime on the other side of the ocean in a context which does not exist in this country. I would personally prefer for him not to be executed but I don’t understand what anyone’s thinking when they use him as an icon over here.
- Comment on Why there is no photos of earth from space? 8 months ago:
/s indeed, but you did remind me of a cool image: the Earth not from space, but from Mars!
- Comment on Lessons for Britain from Milton Keynes 8 months ago:
Build houses on the mountain peaks and treehouses in the forests, all linked together with a series of zip wires. I see no downsides to my plan.
- Comment on Lessons for Britain from Milton Keynes 8 months ago:
Yeah, it was very much built in the car is king era, which has left its scars. I’ve never lived there but I visit fairly regularly. It’s not perfect but it’s got a lot going for it. Cycle provision seems to be getting a lot better, for one thing!
- Submitted 8 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 16 comments
