And finally... some cheesewash

The amusingly named British Cheese Board is claiming a new study has laid to rest the "age old myth that cheese gives you nightmares". Now experience tells me that's not true, and after reading the rest of their press release, I'm starting to think this is just the line that the Cheese Board's PR team are spinning on a study that shows nothing of the sort.

Firstly, the study got participants to eat 20 grams of cheese half an hour before bed. 20 grams? That's barely a morsel, let alone the kind of cheese-and-biscuits feast we normally associate with cheese dreams.

Even more damningly, the central finding of the report is that cheese affects your dreams, and differently depending on the cheese you eat. Cheddar makes you dream about celebrities, apparently, while stilton gives you unusual dreams. I can't say I've ever had a dream about celebrities after eating cheddar, but I have had unusual dreams after eating stilton or similarly mould-ridden cheeses. And surely you only need to be a bit stressed into the bargain, and 'unusual' stilton dreams (or indeed celebrity focused cheddar dreams) become disturbing ones?

The study records that 'highlights' of the Stilton dreams included "talking soft toys, ...a vegetarian crocodile upset because it could not eat children, dinner party guests being traded for camels". And these are supposed to be nice dreams? Pull the other one Cheese Board!

They end their press release by pondering the origins of the cheese causing nightmares 'myth'. Could it be Dicken's A Christmas Carol or a Fifties health scare, they wonder. How about it being down to the fact that eating cheese before bed does cause nightmares.

End the cheesewash now!

The visit to the museum

Yesterday I went to the Museum in Docklands. Its housed in a beautiful old wharf building in West India Quay which was originally built to house sugar brought back from the plantations in the West Indies. Ships sailed from here carrying manufactured produce which was traded for enslaved Africans in west Africa. These people were then shipped across the Atlantic in horrendous conditions (around a third died on the journey) where they were forced to work in sugar plantations. The same ships brought the sugar, molasses and rum back to London.

Its particularly appropriate, then, that a decent section of the permenent exhibition of the museum is about this trade. 'London, sugar and slavery' actually has some of the best exhibits in the museum and tells the tale in an engaging way. We often hear William Wilberforce eulogised as the father of abolition, so it was good to learn that it was only after there had been an influx of women into the movement that the Anti-Slavery Society changed its objectives to the immediate abolition of slavery. Wilberforce didn't think enslaved Africans were ready for freedom straight away, and in 1823 sabotaged an abolition bill presented to the House of Commons by the more radical Thomas Fowell Buxton.

Although I knew about Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Hatian revolution, a slave rebellion which defeated the French colonial forces and founded the free black state of Haiti, I didn't know that there were also armed rebellions against the British. The 'Maroons' formed a kind of guerilla army and fought British colonial forces in Jamaica. The museum also highlights, as CLR James did, that when slavery was abolished it was at least partly because some economists were starting to argue that free labour was a more efficient way of developing British capitalism.

The rest of the museum also contains some fascinating history focused on the Docklands area. Being a modern kind of museum, it is replete with reconstructions, interative screens and scale models, most of which work quite well. There's a moment near the beginning when its possible to hear three different recordings of Tony Robinson being annoyingly excited about the early history of London simultaneously, but thankfully this doesn't last past the first section. Further on you can investigate the 1889 London Dock strike or find out the origins of Lloyds insurance.

Unlike some London museums, this one isn't free, but your £5 will get you a year's entry. There's enough in the museum to make this worthwhile, and if you've never been to the Docklands its worth seeing this bizarre area of London. To get there we took a commuter catamaran from Embankment to Canary Wharf Pier which I can also recommend.

Unemployment up, smoothie consumption down

So innocent smoothies are the latest casualties of the almost-recession, along with high-end supermarkets and organic food. There has, apparently, been a demographic shift towards Morrissons  and Cadbury’s Roses (other brands of poor-quality chocolates are available, as the BBC might say).

But of course there’s something else that’s on the rise – unemployment. The more Keynesian-minded economists have been demanding that the Bank of England lowers interest rates, which will allow businesses to borrow, maintaining economic growth and tackling unemployment. The orthodox economists have been resisting this since, high interest rates have been seen as a good way to tackle inflation which is their over-riding concern.

So why am I recounting the arguments currently being had on the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee? I’ve never been much of an economist, but sometimes you have to make an effort, and a global financial crisis seems like a good time.

For 30 years, neoliberal economics have been the order of the day, a mantra of economic growth through deregulation, privatisation and low corporate taxes. Financial deregulation has been a big part of the recipe, the same financial deregulation that politicians are now rushing to condemn. Gordon Brown, though he said in his speech to Labour Party conference that “those who argue for the dogma of unbridled free market forces have been proved wrong again”, ensured during his 10 years as Chancellor that Britain remained second only to the US in the world in enthusiasm for neoliberalism.

He’s already rejected modest measures like a windfall tax on oil profits and nothing in his speech suggested he would do anything except slightly increase regulation of multinational banks (which didn’t stop the buffoon who jointly leads my union, Derek Simpson, from getting rather excited about him). Brown talks about an ‘interventionist state’, but only seems to apply the idea when it comes to the state intervening to lock people up for 42 days without charge. Unfortunately, both the Tories and Liberal Democrats are neoliberal parties too.

Thankfully, there are beginning to be alternatives on offer. The Green New Deal group, including Guardian economics editor Larry Elliot, the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas and the new economics foundation (who insist their name is spelt with lower case letters to prove how cool and progressive they are) have taken as their inspiration Roosevelt’s New Deal in 30s America to argue for government spending on climate friendly infrastructure, the break-up of big banks which need to be expensively bailed out because they are “too big to fail” and lower interest rates (hey! there’s my link back to the beginning of the post!).

This is a modest but important start to breaking the neoliberal monolith. It won’t get very far, however, if intellectuals are the only people who are mobilised. Some kind of wider social mobilisation is necessary to get opposition to neoliberalism off the ground (which is why the continued loyalty to Labour of the major trade unions is particularly disappointing).

Of course, with rocketing consumption a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions, one could argue that a recession is actually a useful first step to a sustainable society. The the poorest would be hardest hit, though, and the global elite’s consumption barely touched. Plus the call for recession isn’t much of a rallying cry either.

What’s needed, then, is a popular movement around the kind of concrete demands of the Green New Deal which can do two things. The government intervention achieved can help make our society more sustainable, decrease the power of big business and reduce the obsession with ‘the market’. The mobilisation itself, meanwhile, could create the kind of social solidarity that lays the basis to go beyond a society reliant on ever-increasing economic growth. In other words, another world starts to be possible.

Hmm, I can hope anyway...

Read this!

There's been some great lefty books written recently and I thought I would share three of them that I've read in the last year and enjoyed. 

The first of these is Live Working, Die Fighting by Newsnight economics editor Paul Mason. This is a fascinating book. Paul tells the history of the early labour movement through particular episodes such as the Peterloo massacre to the Jewish workers union (the Bund) in pre-war Poland. As a journalist he clearly understands how not to bore people to death, but unlike most journalists he actually sets out to educate rather than recapitulate old truisms. 

One of the ways he does this is to draw parallels with events in the early labour movement, and the struggles of workers in today's global South. These parallels serve to illustrate problems of organising for workers rights and social change that echo down the ages - like whether co-operatives are the basis of a different society or a diversion from more important aims.

Refreshingly, Paul comes at his subject with no obvious agenda, though I'd guess that if his book managed to educate today's global justice activists about the importance of workers' struggles whilst reminding trade unionists of their radical roots, he'd be satisfied.

My second book is The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Her central thesis is that since the Latin American dictatorships of the 1970s, extreme free market ideologues have sought to use a period of societal 'shock' to rapidly impose free market reforms which would have met massive opposition at other times. In the main I find this persuasive, and even if she's over-egged the pudding in places this is a fine exposition of just how nasty neoliberals (and their corresponding 'ism') are which old-hand lefties may know, but a new generation needs to learn.

And to give her her due, there are big bits of this book which she completely pioneered the examination of in newspaper articles during the last few years - the 'corporate invasion' of Iraq for instance, and what she calls 'disaster capitalism' in the wake of natural disasters. For this reason, the last chapters are some of the best (the book is organised chronologically) so even if you're finding the book a little too long, do persevere.

Finally, complete with a recommendation from Naomi Klein, is Raj Patel's Stuffed and Starved. The politics of food is a hot topic at the moment, what with the food crisis, the rise of organic agriculture and climate change. When better, then, to read a backgrounder to the world food system written for a popular audience? I was reminded of Fast Food Nation at points, though with more anti-capitalism. Plus its got bits about movements of resistance to the corporate capture of our food so its not all doom and gloom.

I'd be interested to hear what other people think of these (in other words 'hello, is anyone actually reading this?')

The physical impossibility of artistic talent in the mind of Damien Hirst

I've never liked Damien Hirst. His art always seemed a triumph of hype over artistic value. Cutting animals in half reveals no truths, conveys neither beauty nor horror, but simply creates a spectacle for consumption by the art market.

It was only when he encrusted a skull with diamonds that I really began to loathe him, though. Here was a work of art that was a celebration of the fact the artist could cover a skull with precious stones and some prick would buy it for £50 million. Hirst virtually said as much in the Newsnight Review special he appeared on, as Kirsty Wark fawned over him. Hirst claimed the diamonds were 'ethically sourced', though gave no details. Even if they were all certified through the Kimberly Process, that only excludes so-called 'blood diamonds' - they would still have been produced by notoriously exploitative mining industry.

£50 million isn't, of course, the most that anyone has ever paid for an art work, but by producing such a self-consciously expensive work, Hirst gave a metaphorical slap in the face to every person in the world who struggles to make enough money to eat - some of whom may well have dug the diamonds themselves from the ground.

Anyway, the auction of his latest work, a pickled calf with gold decoration, has prompted art historian Robert Hughes (author of 'The Shock of the New', a definitive account of modernism in art) into a public attack on his work, calling it absurd and tacky. Entertaining reading, and not before time.

Climate change and market madness

On Friday the Guardian reported that many of Britain's most polluting companies will reap hundreds if millions of pounds from a scheme which is supposed to cut carbon emissions. The European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is the only large scale carbon trading scheme currently in existence. For those who are a bit hazy about what carbon trading is, here's an explanation from WDM [pdf]:

"The idea is that reductions in carbon emissions are easier and cheaper for some businesses to make than others. By issuing emissions permits each year, which are gradually reduced over time, but which can also be bought and sold, governments can in theory achieve an overall reduction in carbon emissions at the lowest possible cost to the economy."

The ETS currently covers large industrial emitters like factories and power stations, and there are plans to include airlines in a few years time. One of the loopholes in the ETS brought about by corporate lobbying is the widespread over-allocation of emissions permits. According to the Guardian, one company, Castle Cement, stands to make £83.5m over five years thanks to over-allocation. 

The whole notion of carbon trading is based on the belief that the market is the best vehicle for delivering any goal. Thanks to the dominance of neoliberalism amongst global elites for the last 30 years, regulation is just not considered possible. It might, after all, effect the continued growth of the economy. 

This kow-towing to corporate interests has been too readily accepted by the environmental movement. While some groups simply have no critique of corporate power (let alone capitalism), others do, but believe that climate change is so urgent and so dangerous that we have to accept whatever is on offer. This latest revelation is yet more evidence that market mechanisms increase the wealth and power of corporations which have been largely responsible for the climate crisis in the first place. Add in the fact that in the first two years of the ETS' existence (2005-7), carbon emissions in the EU continued to increase, and the global elite's response to climate change starts to look similar to E.ON's response to high fuel prices and the prospect of a cold winter: "More money for us".

I was in a conference in Bangkok earlier this year which brought together people from social movements and radical NGOs to talk about 'climate justice', an approach which entails a direct challenge to the corporate capture of the climate change issue. With a coming global recession, high fuel prices and the reality (not just the threat) of climate change now facing us, it ought to be possible to put rolling back neoliberalism back on the agenda. The first step is for more organisations to have the guts to talk about.

Fashionably late

So I'm coming a little late to the whole blogging thing. I have friends who have already started, maintained and eventually abandoned their blogs. This was one good reason not to start one, I thought. I was also concerned that having a blog would result in my spending too much time on the internet and not enough doing things I enjoy (or things I ought to be doing) in the real world.

Now Facebook has revealed to me the fact that I already spend too much time on the internet, so I figured, what the hell. Especially as lots of other people evidently do too, and some of them might read my blog. This deals nicely with another concern: that no-one would read my blog anyway, thus rendering it a waste of time. It could still be a waste of time even if people read it of course, but I'd never do anything with that kind of thinking...

I think Facebook has had another effect too - its now quite normal for us to share things with a smallish group of people we count in some way as our friends. Seen in that light, a blog need not seem like such a grandiose undertaking. I'll give it a try, anyway, and if it turns out to be a bit shit, I'll just delete it.