New Scientist: Revealed - the capitalist network that runs the world

[VILemon]

Thought that this article was interesting. Hope you agree.

Enjoy.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed%20-the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html

[Franz Fanonipants]

laffo well done New Scientist, you've finally "discovered" capital.

[GPDP]

Good god, you mean to tell me capitalism is a system wherein power is held primarily by *gasp* capitalists? Madness!

Seriously, what the fuck am I reading? It's like no one at New Scientist has ever even heard of Marx, acting as if this should come across as a surprise to anyone that's ever held a political belief.

I especially like how they claim the study is completely devoid of ideology. Yeah, because going on to say this analysis can help shape policy that would stabilize global capitalism isn't ideological at all!

I do like their jab at the conspiracy theorists, though.

[Franz Fanonipants]

the hard sciences have a major problem with things like this.

they aren't social sciences.

[GPDP]

I should say I'm not trying to shit on their methodology or their findings. Their actual results actually only lend more evidence to the theory of capitalist accumulation and how it concentrates into fewer and fewer hands, as well as point at the global nature of modern capitalism and show the connections between points of concentrated wealth. What I object to is the pretentious tone taken by the article, acting as if this is some huge discovery, and then trying to pass it off as objective and non-ideological.

[VILemon]

Yeah, my initial reaction was to wonder why anyone would be surprised by this, but upon further thinking (and reading some of the discussion under the article) I began to think that studies of this kind certainly couldn't hurt our cause and bring with them the possibility of at least further (and more ground-breaking) studies.

[Franz Fanonipants]

they can't, you're not wrong. what is at risk, though, is that this study completely abandons any sort of marxist critique of capital. this shit can lend itself real easily to charges of crony capitalism, corporatism, or whatever else liberals/capitalists are decrying in the name of reform.

again, this kind of research is important, but it needs to say "hey guys Marx wrote about this stuff. we didn't use a Marxist methodology or ideological basis for our stuff, but it has been written about extensively."

[Q]

I for one welcome the actual mapping of the powerstructures. This is certainly a gap in the left's knowledge base.

[NewLeft]

I like the capitalist apologetics posting.. But these protesters are going to ruin democracy! Oh lawrd!

[VILemon]

I like the capitalist apologetics posting.. But these protesters are going to ruin democracy! Oh lawrd!

Yeah, as if the very results of the research aren't a demonstration of how democracy is already ruined. So sad. :(

[Martin Blank]

I for one welcome the actual mapping of the powerstructures. This is certainly a gap in the left's knowledge base.

I agree with Q about the long-overdue mapping of the concentration of capital. But I also welcome the fact that it is coming from a non-leftist source -- indeed, from a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The old bourgeois and petty bourgeois cries about the role of concentrated capital being a "conspiracy theory" have been busted by this article.

[Martin Blank]

Had the Statistics Bureau of our Party look this study through. The numbers and method are solid, but the study only begins to scratch the surface. More to the point, the data from this study could very well initiate years of further, more in-depth research.

[Welshy]

I agree with Q about the long-overdue mapping of the concentration of capital. But I also welcome the fact that it is coming from a non-leftist source -- indeed, from a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The old bourgeois and petty bourgeois cries about the role of concentrated capital being a "conspiracy theory" have been busted by this article.

Sorry for the nitpicking but New Scientist is non-peer-reviewed.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Sorry for the nitpicking but New Scientist is non-peer-reviewed.

New Scientist is just a magazine. The study they are reporting on is to be published in PLoS One.

[Welshy]

New Scientist is just a magazine. The study they are reporting on is to be published in PLoS One.

I didn't notice that at the bottom. Thanks for the correction.

[Martin Blank]

New Scientist is just a magazine. The study they are reporting on is to be published in PLoS One.

It's already on PLoS One's website. We're going to have an article about this statistical analysis in an upcoming issue of Workers' Republic.

[Mr. Natural]

I identify myself as a red-green revolutionary. My "green" refers to the new sciences of the organization of life, whose culmination currently lies in the complex systems theory that informs the NewScience article. These new sciences of the organizational relations of life (thus society) include evolution (Marx and Engels radically appreciated Darwin), the new physics, cosmology, cybernetics, chaos theory, and what I think of as systems-complexity science (the article's complex systems theory).

Unfortunately, the article not only ignored the nature of capitalism and therefore lacked "red," but its "green" was shallow. My green is deeply radical, as is the new science when it searches for and reveals the "rules" and organizational relations of life.

Even more unfortunate is that the article's superficiality is typical of the "new scientists." They religiously avoid the subject of the capitalist system--despite being systems theorists--and almost universally occupy themselves with top-down, mathematical modeling. They take the life out of life.

Then the few Marxists around (I'm sure as hell a Marxist) ignore the new science that could bring them to life, and most reds even dismiss the organic, materialist dialectic with which Marx and Engels developed their comprehension of life and society.

Let's get this right. Life generates a sustainable surplus (ecological profit) through its processes of photosynthesis and natural selection. This natural "profit" provides the energy necessary for nature to maintain its communites and keep the life process going. Life is community, as is communism. Communism is natural, as the new sciences show. Red and green are a natural unity.

Capitalism, though, is an assault on all forms of life. Capitalism tears human and natural communities apart as it manufactures its runaway, relentless profit. Capitalism's organization acts as a cancer to life. Capitalism is an alien system that is the mortal enemy of life, and capitalism is about to cash us in.

But red ignores green and cannot "go," while green shuns red and cannot ripen into valid practice.

The article manifests these problems. Yes, it is worthwhile to scientifically demonstrate that capitalism develops ever greater concentrations of power. Reds, though, have long understood that capitalism's relations inevitably become monopolistic.

The universal refusal of complex systems theorists to engage capitalism then results in such stupefyingly stupid pronouncements as the article's "concentration of power is not good or bad in itself." This blather not only ignores capitalism; it also stands in opposition to the living natural relations complex systems theory is supposed to reveal.

Life does not concentrate power. Life is created by and composed of self-organizing, dynamically interdependent living systems. Life and communism are communities. The life process does not generate concentrations of power, for such concentrations kill life (and communism). The tiger that is misapprehended by humans to be lord of the jungle is itself predated by legions of fleas, ticks, etc.

Life and its communities--cells to Gaia--are self-organizing, bottom-up systems that must establish "higher" levels of organization as they grow in complexity, but these "higher levels" remain grassrooted. Life's local, bottom-up relations establish a global order, and the organization of living systems thus becomes a roundabout affair. Think of trees that must retain their roots.

My mission is to bring these new green organizational relations to the awareness of RevLefters. Then we can begin to organize.

Toward this end, I am going to recommend three clearly, popularly written books on the new sciences of organization. The theoretical physicist, Fritjof Capra, provides the masterwork. The Web of Life (1996) integrates the new scientific discoveries into a living systems theory that offers a "unified view of mind, matter, and life." Well, mind, matter, life, people, and the materialist dialectic are materially based, aren't they? So what is their organization? Their organization will be the pattern of organization of socialism-communism and revolutionary processes thereto.

The other two books are fun romps through the astonishing minds and characters at the Santa Fe Institute, which is the now-in-decline center of systems-complexity theory. The books are Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos (1999), by Roger Lewin, and Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (1992), by M. Mitchell Waldrop.

Dammit, let's get organized! My red-green best.

[piet11111]

It's already on PLoS One's website. We're going to have an article about this statistical analysis in an upcoming issue of Workers' Republic.

Will that be available for free on-line and if so could you link it ?

[Erratus]

The article was nothing new, though I do think it is usual information to map out the global economy. What I find interesting is the comments. Most of them agree something is wrong the the global economy. Smith's invisible hand seems to be failing. But most of them seem to want to reform capitalism. They still see hope in making it work, somehow turning it into something that benefits all of humanity.

"It is not capitalism per se that is wrong and that should be thrown out just like the baby with the bathwater, it is the way capitalism is EVOLVING."

"The solution is simple in concept. Decouple as much as possible. Break up the EU, eliminate multinational trade organizations. Return to the pre-1970 condition of sovereign nations making bilateral trade arrangements. Eliminate every incentive that favors cross-border flows of goods, capital and jobs; those should only happen when they give a real advantage to the PEOPLE of BOTH nations in the transaction."

Maybe these people will wake up and realize that you can't make capitalism humane. Maybe, but I am not holding my breath.

[El Louton]

Really? I thought Capitalism brought liberty, equality and freedom. I guess those CEO's are more equal. That makes sense.

[Coggeh]

New Scientist had an article in the Sept edition about the role of the tea party, republicans, and right wing democrats and the damage they are having on science within society. I see a trend developing here. Dec Issue: Just what is dialectic materialism?

[Martin Blank]

Will that be available for free on-line and if so could you link it ?

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0025995

PLoS One is an open-source scientific journal, so all the articles are free on their website.

[Black_Rose]

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0025995

PLoS One is an open-source scientific journal, so all the articles are free on their website.

Holy shit! Four thousand views! I remember reading this paper (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004567) recently on mice with the growth hormone receptor knocked out and calorie restriction. published in 2009, only 1749 hits.

[Revy]

Interesting point made by this commenter:


Money Launderers

Thu Oct 20 00:21:45 BST 2011 by Lesq1

It's interesting that only ONE of the top 50 appears to have any connection with real production - China Petrochem. All the rest are, as far as one can tell, just a bunch of money launderers.

There may be a few issues with this analysis but it tends to confirm what most of the world thinks is wrong with unfettered global capitalism - the vast majority of people are working their fingers to the bone to vastly increase the wealth of a tiny minority.

Global capitalism, as it currently stands, does not work for the benefit of humanity as a whole - indeed, if one were to look at the record of this top 50 on the environment and climate change, it would rapidly become obvious that it actually works contrary to the interests of humanity.

[Nosotros]

I like the capitalist apologetics posting.. But these protesters are going to ruin democracy! Oh lawrd!sggdghhjj