Mike Norman Economics

The story of Russian Prince Peter Kropotkin, evolutionary biologist and revolutionary anarcho-socialist.Kropotkin was a forerunner of the theory of group selection based on group fitness as a necessary addition to individual selection based on individual selection in natural selection as the driver of biological evolution. A basis of this theory is synergy, that is, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, so groups that are capable of cooperating and organizing are more successful in...

Another conspiracist.  Vandana Shiva has made a lucrative business out of spreading conspiracy theories about agricultural technologies, sustainable farming, capitalism and industry. Her popularity has grown as she positions herself as a modern-day Gandhi, a social justice warrior, an ecological feminist and an agroecologist. The problem is that most everything that comes out of her much amplified mouth is complete nonsense: pure fabrications easily and often refuted.Which leads to the...

 Craig Murray is in the at-risk group as he is over 60, obese, and has chronic illnesses, but he thinks society needs to return to normal because the risk to most people is small and the economy cannot cope with more restrictions. He doesn't mention long-covid. He says the oligarchs are making a fortune out of the crisis. At the moment China’s spectacular economic recovery and its very low official coronavirus fatality rates is being questioned by the West. I am not a covid sceptic. But...

The Guardian casts doubts over the extent of China's economic recovery from covid, but the Chinese people don't. Over the weekend, crowds packed a former industrial warehouse in Beijing as the China Fashion Week got underway, with models strutting mask-less on a square runway and guests oblivious to social distancing norms.Similarly vibrant scenes are being seen elsewhere in China as consumers return to cinemas, live performances and restaurants.To many, they indicate a late-summer recovery...

 Alongside the Mate 40, Huawei also announced its enhanced “Petal Search,” part of a new app family that includes the company’s long-awaited Google Maps replacement. This is a stunning strike at Google’s search dominance on Huawei devices—at least those that sell outside China. With Google now under scrutiny given its dominance of web search, it is unsurprising that Huawei—driven by the loss of Google—is getting in on the act. With hundreds of millions on its ecosystem, it’s a compelling...

 On the world stage, profound changes are under way. Obviously, China and Russia have lost the confidence that the West will contribute to the solution of the world’s problems in some constructive manner. China and Russia have now accepted their role as the leading forces with the responsibility of holding the world together. The West held this role for centuries, but this time is over. The West has essentially become destructive. The West has lost the power of solving problems and now use...

Longish and detailed. Not mostly about the Uyghurs.What's LeftThe Chinese Uyghur Dark Legend and Washington’s Campaign to Counter Chinese Economic Rivalry Stephen Gowans

According to Challenges, France’s 500 largest fortunes have thus risen from €210 to €730 billion between 2010 and 2020 (from 10% to 30% of GDP). Such a development is socially and politically unsustainable....The whole history of public debt shows this: money alone cannot offer a peaceful solution to a problem of this magnitude, because it leads in one way or another to uncontrolled distributive consequences. It was by resorting to exceptional levies on the better-off that the large public...

 I'm going to have watch this one a few times, I think. [embedded content]

In the West changing the government only makes a minor difference to policy. We have freedom of speech although it does not make a lot of difference. In China people like their government and are fairly happy with their freedoms. The Chinese people being interviewed in the video below seem to be very happy and relaxed. Despite a recent report that China is poised to overtake the U.S. economy by 2020, China still remains very much a mystery in the eyes of the Western world and is often...