tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1043332942481206469.post3989832848075599536..comments2024-03-04T15:23:07.880+00:00Comments on Northern Voices: Review of Anarchist Voices by Les MayBlanco Posnethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288856212231100137noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1043332942481206469.post-50296411393313904782015-09-11T12:14:13.515+01:002015-09-11T12:14:13.515+01:00I have been an enthusiastic supporter of using win...I have been an enthusiastic supporter of using wind turbines to generate electricity for many years and shown I was ready to, 'put my money where my mouth is', by buying shares in the Baywind Energy Co-operative. I have a friend who tells me that anarchists support wind powered generators provided they are 'local'. We have never quite got round to talking about what this actually means.<br /><br />In the early 1960s I did come across one very local scheme in the Mendip hills. It used a windmill, as we called it then, to drive a car dynamo to charge a couple of car batteries. My recollection is that we spent a lot of time using candles.<br /><br />So what do you need to make a 'local' scheme viable?<br />Robin Hood Energy set up by Nottingham city council is the first local authority owned energy company run on a not-for-profit basis since the market was nationalised in 1948.<br />The minimum pre-requisites for a viable local scheme seem to be; standardisation of supply voltages and gas pressures etc, a single contact point for emergencies caused by gas leakage etc and a market economy to ensure continuity of supply.<br /><br />http://www.robinhoodenergy.co.uk/<br />http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/07/robin-hood-energy-nottingham-council-launches-not-for-profit-energy-company<br /><br />http://www.energylivenews.com/2015/09/07/robin-hood-takes-on-the-big-six-energy-firms/<br />http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-34171736<br />http://www.energylinx.co.uk/robin-hood-energy.html<br /><br />http://www.expressandstar.com/business/uk-money/2015/09/07/nottingham-city-council-sets-up-robin-hood-energy-to-tackle-big-six/ <br /><br /><br /> <br />Les Maynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1043332942481206469.post-42633859080561698092015-08-24T10:31:42.719+01:002015-08-24T10:31:42.719+01:00A few weeks ago someone I had known in the early s...A few weeks ago someone I had known in the early sixties died. I had read a recent article by him and smiled that he was still the unrepentant Marxist I had known fifty odd years ago. It was simply an article of faith to him that Marxism was the best political system yet devised. I don't think that any amount of empirical evidence to the contrary would ever have made him doubt it. <br /><br /><br />If we search for evidence that libertarian solutions are better than authoritarian solutions, can we find it? Or is it just an article of faith that they are simply 'better'? <br /><br /><br />My experience is mixed. They seem to work best when they are spontaneous, have a definite aim and a limited life span. They attract the 'do-ers' not the 'be-ers'. I have been involved with two of these, one in 1988 and the other in 1995. One succeeded in its aims, the other didn't. <br /><br /><br />The Tredegar Medical Aid Society was clearly not a small undertaking if it really did cater for the (then) medical needs of some 20,000 people. The present population is 15,000 so that figure might be an exaggeration. That is about the size of town I lived in during the 1960s. It had a cottage hospital at that time. <br /><br /><br />Other than the fact that it was not state run and the NHS is, what advantages did TMAS have for the users? In addition it was not inclusive in that the individual had to join. My mother was illiterate and poor. I ask myself would she have joined? <br /><br /><br />Will this solution 'scale'? I don't mean 'economies of scale' but does this solution still work when the problem gets larger? I live in a town of about 95,000. If I add in the two adjacent towns which are administratively included the total is about 200,000. What might it look like here? What would a network look like? Would it provide better health care than the NHS model? <br /><br /><br />Would an organisation like TMAS be able to adapt to our era of 'Big Medicine'? <br /><br />In the 1930s doctors had a very limited range of drugs at their disposal. Until the advent of sulphonamides, and later antibiotics, there were very few if any antibacterials available. The surgical procedures which were possible were limited. <br /><br /><br />My brother has had a number of PET scans (Positron Emission Tomography). My sister and two of my friends have had replacement hips, my brother in law has had a replacement knee... I'll stop there! Would a network of TMAS be able to provide this? <br /><br /><br />So far as I am concerned the 'anarchist' answer to health lies in the hands of each of us; don't smoke, don't drink too much, don't do drugs, don't eat too much and don't sit on your backside all day. <br /><br /><br />Tell people this and they will complain 'nanny state', but still expect 'nanny' to make them better when they get sick. <br /><br /><br />Can anyone suggest what a 'libertarian' waste disposal solution would look like for a town like Rochdale? If it got the unrecyclable waste bin emptied every two weeks not every three weeks it would make 'libertarian' solutions very popular in the town. <br />Les Maynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1043332942481206469.post-9512569754072009862015-08-19T13:52:26.852+01:002015-08-19T13:52:26.852+01:00At the end of his review, Les asks ‘What would a W...At the end of his review, Les asks ‘What would a Wardian NHS be like’? <br /><br />Colin discussed the NHS on pages 13 to 15 of his 1996 book ‘Social Policy’ published by Freedom Press. He returned to the subject on pages 27 to 29 in his 2004 book ‘Anarchism’. This book was his contribution to the ‘Very Short Introductions’ series published by Oxford University Press. In both books, Colin rejected the NHS. Colin did not write anything remotely similar to the assertion by Jeff Cloves, his obituarist, on page 9 of the 13th March 2010 issue of ‘Freedom’ (71 [4]) that ‘There can be no finer expression of mutuality than the NHS ….’ <br /><br />On page 15 of ‘Social Policy’, after discussing the Tredegar Medical Aid Society, Colin asked the question: ‘Why didn’t the whole country become, not one big Tredegar, but a network of Tredegars?’ On page 28 of ‘Anarchism’, again after discussing the Tredegar Medical Aid Society, Colin expanded upon his question by observing: ‘Anarchists cite this little, local example of an alternative approach to the provision of health care to indicate that a different style of social organization could have evolved.’ <br /><br />Paddy French echoed Colin’s observation in his little gem of an article ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ about the Tredegar Medical Aid Society on page 37 of the April/May 1999 (134: 35-39) issue of ‘Planet The Welsh Internationalist’: <br /><br />‘The society has … watched as local influence on the [NHS] withered away. In five decades more and more of Tredegar’s medical services are provided further and further away from the town while control becomes ever more remote.’ <br />John Desmondnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1043332942481206469.post-32314373035119009402015-08-16T12:46:30.160+01:002015-08-16T12:46:30.160+01:00When I first met Colin in the mid-1960s I asked hi...When I first met Colin in the mid-1960s I asked him what an 'ideal' anarchist society would look like, since I, like the general public, had little more than the mental picture of 'chaos' as a synonym for anarchy (though I had just about heard of historical figures such as Kropotkin who supposedly represented a more systematic version of it). Colin suggested I should think more in terms of anarchism as 'libertarianism': that in every social situation or problem to be solved, there is a choice between an authoritarian or a libertarian solution, and that an anarchist would always choose the latter. After living with Colin for 45 years and proof-reading most of his writings, I still find this a useful rule of thumb to describe political events and to apply to daily life.<br />Harriet WardHarriet Wardnoreply@blogger.com