One of the more memorable jokes in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was the one about the supercomputer which, on being asked the meaning of life, supplied the answer ‘42’. One of capitalism’s most profound illogicalities is its constant need to render unquantifiable things – like knowledge – in monetary terms so that its beancounters can do their sums properly. It’s the same joke, only accountants don’t get the laughs. NASA is pulling out of its agreement with the European Space Agency over the planned ExoMars Rover programme, citing lack of funds. It has already ceased supplying...
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Enthusiasm continues apace for the online movie-cum-movement phenomenon Zeitgeist, with its articulate, clean-cut and photogenic presenter Peter Joseph touring even harder than Bob Dylan, it seems, to bring word to the world about the ‘resource-based economy’ idea which sounds so new to everyone else and so uncannily like socialism to us. Socialists should applaud and encourage the efforts of Peter Joseph and Zeitgeist activists everywhere to popularise the ideas of non-market production for use, especially because anti-socialists everywhere will do their best to discredit them with any damn-fool argument they can think of. That’s not to say that there...
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A non-toxic spray invisible to the human eye that protects almost any surface against dirt and bacteria. The spray is a form of “liquid glass” and is harmless to living things and the wider environment. It is being touted as one of the most important, environmentally-friendly products to emerge from the field of nanotechnology, which deals in objects at the molecular end of the size scale.Tests have revealed an astonishing variety of potential uses for the liquid glass, from protecting vineyards against fungal attacks to coating medical implants with non-stick, antibacterial surfaces. The “easy-clean” properties of the liquid glass...
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Capitalism has been widely celebrated for its capacity for rapid technological advance. Thus Marx in the Communist Manifesto of 1848: “The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production.” A century later Joseph Schumpeter declared that “creative destruction” is “the essential fact about capitalism” (Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942). And surely this fact has never been truer than it is today, in the age of microelectronics and bioengineering? The technological dynamism of capitalism is undeniable, especially in comparison with earlier historical formations. This, however, is only half the story. The functioning of capitalism also entails the shelving...
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The law treats physical property and intellectual property (IP), much the same despite the fact that IP requires practically no labour to reproduce and does not spoil or wear out. The primary purpose of laws preventing people from copying music, software, literature, and other information, then, is to effect an artificial scarcity which helps secure profits for IP owners. Independent software developers, angry with the restrictions imposed by commercial IP owners, began to voluntarily license their software copyrights under terms which guaranteed that the software would always be free for others to use, study, copy, and modify. Since most...
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In signing the recent executive order creating a new National Space Policy, President Bush has announced that the US will reject future arms-control agreements that might limit US military manoeuvrability in space. The document further announces that the US “will preserve its rights, capabilities and freedom of action in space … and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to US national interests.” “Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power,” the policy declares and that to “increase knowledge, discovery, economic prosperity, and to enhance the...
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Last year, the Trotskyist online newspaper World Socialist Web Site, or WSWS (no relation to us and the World Socialist Movement), published a press release and an open letter to the Madrid based magazine Amanecer del Nuevo Siglo accusing them of translating and reprinting WSWS articles without their permission . The charge was compounded by the allegation that the Spanish magazine had deliberately misrepresented the source of the articles either by attributing them to their own editorial staff and writers or by removing the byline altogether. The WSWS staff was understandably surprised and upset at this unsanctioned reproduction, but...
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