Groucho Marxism

Questions and answers on socialism, Marxism, and related topics

  • Formalizing dialectics

    Happy new year first of all, to anyone who happens to be reading this. One of my new years’ resolutions is to make an effort to finally understand some concepts that I’ve always struggled to get my head around. I am going to start with the concept of ‘dialectics’. The term ‘dialectic’ comes from the Ancient Greek word dialektikḗ, and referred originally to a dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. The word was given a more technical meaning by the German philosopher Georg Hegel in the early 1800s. In Hegel’s philosophy, the term takes on the specialized meaning of development by way of overcoming internal contradictions.

    In the later 1800s, Marx and Engels adapted the Hegelian dialectic method into a materialist philosophy which became known as ‘dialectical materialism’. This theory forms the basis of ‘historical materialism’, their materialist view of history. Although clearly based on Hegel’s approach, Marx claimed his own dialectic method to be the “direct opposite” of Hegel’s, which he considered too abstract and insufficiently rooted in material conditions. The class struggle between capital and labour is the primary contradiction considered as part of Marx’s dialectics because of its central role in the social and political lives of a society. Another key contradiction is that between the use value and exchange value of commodities, on which more below.

    In a recent (2023) paper, the British philosopher Graham Priest provided a formal definition of the dialectic method. Priest begins by pointing out that dialectics, in the sense of both Hegel and Marx, involves the study of dynamic processes in which contradictions arise and are ‘aufgehoben’ – an impossible word to translate into English as it means both removed and preserved. (This highlights a perennial problem that arises when translating philosophical texts from the language in which they were originally written.) The closest word we have in the English language is ‘sublation’. Priest aims to answer two questions with his approach: (1) how, exactly, do these contradictions arise? and (2) what exactly is meant by sublation?

    The dynamic processes Priest refers to are known as ‘dialectic progressions’. These be thought of as a sequence of stages, which we may label as stage 1, stage 2, stage 3, and so on. All of these stages concern a predicate: a function P() from a set X to the set {0,1}, with the interpretation that P(x) = 1 means that x has the property specified by P(), and P(x) = 1 means that it doesn’t. We start by fixing some element x in the set X. In stage 1, P(x) = 1, in stage 2, P(x) = 0, and in stage 3, P(x) = 1 and P(x) = 0; thus, stage 3 involves a contradiction. Stage 4 involves introducing a new predicate, P’(), with the property that for any x’ in the set X, P’(x’) = 1 if and only if P(x’) = 1 and P(x’) = 0. Thus, in particular, we have P’(x) = 1 and P’(x) ≠ 0.

    The predicate P’() has in a sense removed the contradiction we had in stage 3, as P’(x) no longer entails a contradiction; but it has also retained this contradiction, as it was baked into its very definition! Thus, the predicate P’() formalizes the concept of sublation (or aufgeheben). We can continue this process by fixing some element x’ in the set X (which may be equal to x). In stage 4, P’(x’) = 1, in stage 5, P’(x’) = 0, and in stage 6, P’(x’) = 1 and P’(x’) = 0; thus, stage 6 also involves a contradiction. This contradiction can be sublated again by defining a new predicate P’’(), with the property that for any x’’ in the set X, P’’(x’’) = 1 if and only if P’(x’’) = 1 and P’(x’’) = 0. The process can then be repeated again indefinitely, neatly capturing the logical relations involved a dialectic progression.

    The process is best illustrated with some examples. The first example involves the development of money. Let us take X to be the set of all commodities, and define the predicate P() by P(x) = ‘x is a use value’. Then at stage 1, P(gold) = 1, as gold is something that is used (as jewellery, etc.). At stage 2, P(gold) = 0, as gold becomes an exchange value (as people trade it). At stage 3, P(gold) = 1 and P(gold) = 0, as gold becomes both a use value and an exchange value. Now define the predicate P’() by P’(x) = ‘x is commodity money’. Then P’(gold) = 1, and at stage 4, P’(currency) = 1, as the value of currency is linked to the value of gold. At stage 5, P’(currency) = 0, as we move away from the gold standard; this is the stage we are currently at.

    The second example involves the development of capitalism. Let us take X to be the set of all labourers, and define the predicate P() by P(x) = ‘x is bound’. Fix some generic labourer x. Then at stage 1, P(x) = 1, as the labourer is bound by their feudal chains. At stage 2, P(x) = 0, as the labourer is feed from their bonds. At stage three, P(x) = 1 and P(x) = 0, as the freed labourer is forced to sell their labour-power. Now define the predicate P’() by P’(x) = ‘x is a wage labourer’. Then P’(x) = 1, which completes the first round of the progression. There is of course much more to be said about the development of capitalism, just as there is much more to be said about the example above. In particular, this model says nothing about why these progressions occur. However, I think it nicely summarizes the logical structure involved.

  • PIE velars in Albanian and Anatolian

    In a series of recent blog posts I have argued that Proto-Indo-European (PIE) had just two types of velar consonant: plain velars and labiovelars. It has been claimed that there is evidence for three distinct types of velar being preserved in Albanian and in the Luvian branch of Anatolian. The theory that three types of velar remained distinct in Albanian was first put forward by Holger Pedersen in 1900, according to whom labiovelars were palatalized before (PIE) front vowels, whereas plain velars were not. Specifically, Pedersen argued that before front vowels, there is a threefold reflex in Albanian of palatovelars, plain velars, and labiovelars, as follows: *k’ > Albanian th, *k > Albanian k/q, *kʷ > s; and *g’,*g’h > Albanian dh, *g,*gh > Albanian g/gj, *gʷ,gʷh > Albanian z.

    Pedersen’s most convincing examples of the labiovelar developments are: *penkʷe ‘five’ > pesë, *kʷiH₁ ‘how’ > si, *H₃okʷiH₁ ‘eyes’ > sy, *gʷherm- ‘heat’ > zjarm, and *kʷel- ‘turn’ > sjell. The main examples of words supposedly containing plain velars that were not palatalized by a following front vowel are: *ghedh- ‘find’ > gjej, *suerghe- ‘be ill’ > dergj, *Horghi ‘nit’ > ergjëz, *suolke- ‘pull’ > heq, *keH₁s- ‘time’ > kohë, *kel- ‘drive’ > qell, and *keid- ‘cut’ > qeth. The problem with Pedersen’s theory is that, as Lars Steensland demonstrated in 1973, plain velars do not occur before front vowels in PIE. Or, more accurately, plain velars were subsequently palatalized before front vowels in the satem languages. This suggests the unpalatalized velar must have been introduced analogically in at least some of these words.

    The unpalatalized velar in gjej ‘find’ may have been taken from the nasal variant *ghnedh- ~ *ghndh-, as palatalization was blocked before resonants in Albanian. Similarly, the unpalatalized velar in qell ‘drive’ may have been taken from the zero grade form *kl-. The unpalatalized velars in dergj ‘be ill’, heq ‘pull’ and kohë ‘time’ can be explained by noting that these words are derived from a root which originally contained an *s; as I noted in a previous blog post, there is evidence that palatalization was blocked in words containing  *s in Albanian. The supposed reflexes of *Horghi ‘nit’ cannot be regularly derived from it, so this root probably did not exist in PIE. Finally, the word qeth ‘cut’ is not probative as the underlying root is actually *kH₂eid-, so the velar never stood before a front vowel.

    The theory that the three PIE velar series remained distinct in Luvian was first put forward by Craig Melchert in 1987, who originally claimed that *k’ > Luvian z, *k > Luvian k, and *kʷ > Luvian ku. Melchert (2013) subsequently revised his claim with the assertion that *k’ > Luvian z only before front vowels, non-syllabic *u, and syllabic resonants, with *k’ > Luvian k elsewhere. To demonstrate that the three PIE velar series remained distinct in Luvian, it must therefore be shown that *k > Luvian k before front vowels, non-syllabic *u, and syllabic resonants. The main examples adduced by Melchert to support this claim are: *kes- ‘scrape’ > kišanda, *krs- ‘cut’ > karš-, and *tuke- ‘statue’ > tukedre. None of these examples holds water.

    The unpalatalized velar in kišanda ‘scrape’ may have been taken from the zero grade form of the root *ks- (contra Melchert). The unpalatalized velar in karš- ‘cut’ can be explained by noting that the underlying root was *(s)ker- with a mobile *s and positing that palatalization was blocked by the preceding *s, as it was in the satem languages. Alternatively we can note that Melchert only provides one example of *k’ > z before syllabic resonants, namely *k’rH₂- ‘horn’ > zurnid, where  the palatalization could easily have spread from the well-attested *e-grade form *k’erH₂-. Thus, the change *k’ > z before syllabic resonants is not well-established. The velar in the third word, tukedre ‘statue’, could represent an original labiovelar which was delabialized by the preceding *u.

    In conclusion, the claims that three distinct types of velar were preserved in Albanian and in the Luvian branch of Anatolian do not stand up to scrutiny. There is no evidence from these languages which disproves the hypothesis that PIE only had two types of velar constant: plain velars and labiovelars.

  • Do we really need to build more houses?

    The western world is currently facing what is commonly referred to as a ‘housing crisis’: a situation where many people can’t find safe, decent, and affordable homes. This crisis is particularly acute where I live in south-eastern England. The usual explanation for this is that there isn’t enough housing to go around. However, according to data from the Resolution Foundation, a British think tank, there is currently a total of 67 million bedrooms in England alone, easily enough for one per person and almost double the 38 million they estimate is actually required (assuming that couples can share a bedroom). This suggests that all we need to do to fix the housing crisis is to more optimally allocate existing houses among the population.

    Such a reallocation would of course be very difficult to do in practice, but not impossible. These figures clearly demonstrate that there isn’t a lack of housing in the UK; what there is a lack of is affordable housing. The reason for this is that house prices have ballooned in recent decades. Since the 1970s, UK house prices have dramatically outpaced wages, with the house price-to-income ratio more than doubling from around 3-4 in the 70s to around 8-9 currently. This increase cannot be explained by supply and demand alone. The UK population has increased since the 1970s, which has increased demand for housing; but the population has only increased by around 25% in that time, which is nowhere near the 200%-300% real terms increase in house prices.

    Moreover, the UK housing stock has also grown by approximately 40% during this period, easily outstripping the growth in population; so if anything, the real-terms price of housing should have gone down! This is one in the eye for those who wish to blame the housing crisis on immigration: the evidence for this simply doesn’t stack up. However, this also runs counter to what many people see as the obvious solution to the housing crisis – namely, building more homes. It is clear that simplistic supply and demand arguments cannot explain the surge in house prices we have seen over the past 50 years, and it follows that the problem will not be solved through solutions like building more homes or reducing immigration.

    In order to understand the true cause of the increase in house prices, we need to take a different approach. The Marxist approach to explaining prices is to invoke the labour theory of value, which says that the exchange value of commodities is proportional to the socially necessary labour time required to produce them. However that doesn’t seem to work in this case either, as there is no reason to think that the socially necessary labour time required to produce a house would have increased by 200%-300% in the past 50 years. On the contrary, it should have gone down during that period due to the introduction of labour-saving technology. A potential solution to this paradox lies in understanding that the value of a house is related not to the building itself, but to its location.

    Housing is unique in that its value appreciates rather than depreciates over time. For most other assets – machines, for example – it is the other way round. What makes housing special? Again, it is the fact that unlike other assets, the value of a house is primarily derived from its location. The reason that the value of houses tends to go up over time is that the infrastructure around them – roads, shops, schools, and so on – tends to improve. This improvement in infrastructure is of course a result of human labour. So when you buy a house, you are only in small part paying for the labour that went into building the house itself; what you are mainly paying for the labour that went into improving the surrounding area.

    Here is a famous quote that nicely sums up this idea: “Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains… Every one of those improvements is affected by the labour and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of these improvements does the land monopolist contribute, and yet, by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived… The unearned increment on the land is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion, not to the service, but to the disservice done.”

    The Marxist firebrand who said this was none other than one Winston Churchill, writing in 1909. This demonstrates just how far our political discourse has shifted to the right in the past 100 years. Imagine a Conservative politician saying something like that now! Or even a Labour politician for that matter. This quote points to the real reason house prices have risen so significantly: an increase in landlordism. We have seen that there is a plentiful supply of housing in the UK, but landlords artificially reduce this supply by purchasing more than their fair share of it. In this respect, landlords effectively act like ticket touts. However, whereas ticket touting is illegal in the UK, landlordism is seen as a perfectly acceptable way of making money.

    This is something that needs to change. Landlordism involves making passive income, and like any passive income, this is ultimately derived from other people’s labour. The usual rebuttal that landlords provide a service to their tenants is obviously nonsense. Landlords prevent other people from getting on the housing ladder by buying up property and making it unavailable for others to buy, and by raising the price of property to well above what most people are able to afford. The key to solving the housing crisis is getting rid of landlordism. Until we do that, the housing crisis will only get worse.

  • The true meaning of Christmas

    For billions of people around the world, the meaning of Christmas centres on the birth of Jesus. However, Jesus almost certainly wasn’t born on Christmas day. Jesus’ birthday is not stated in the gospels or in any historical sources and the evidence is too incomplete to allow for consistent dating; all that can be said with any confidence is that he was born around 6 to 4 BC. There are two main hypotheses as to why 25th December was chosen as Jesus’ ‘official’ birthday. The first is that 25th December was chosen because it was nine months after a date chosen as Jesus’ conception: 25th March. This is a clear example of circular reasoning, as 25th March was presumably chosen as the date of Jesus’ conception because it is nine months before Christmas!

    The alternative and much more sensible hypothesis is that Jesus’ birthday was chosen to coincide with the winter solstice, as 25th December was the date of the winter solstice in the Roman calendar. This highlights a truth about Christmas that many Christians don’t like to admit. Christmas has roots in pagan celebrations, particularly Roman festivals like Saturnalia and the worship of Sol Invictus (Unconquered Sun), both held in late December. It was originally a mid-winter festival designed to cheer everyone up at the time of year when the days are shortest and things seem most depressing. Christians subsequently appropriated this traditional festival by telling everyone it was a celebration of Jesus’ birthday.

    The uncertainty around Jesus’ birthday raises the question of what we actually do know about him. We know he was a real, first-century Jewish preacher from Nazareth in modern-day Palestine who gathered followers, was baptized by John the Baptist, and was executed by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate. These points have near-universal scholarly consensus and are widely understood. What is less widely acknowledged is that he was also a revolutionary! He challenged the power structures of his day – the Roman and Jewish establishment – by championing the poor and marginalized, and advocating radical love and forgiveness, subverting norms through non-violence and compassion. His teachings condemned wealth and advocated for the dispossessed, directly opposing economic injustice.

    If Jesus was alive today, we would call him a socialist. So it seems rather paradoxical that Christianity has become associated with the conservative right, particularly in the US. But perhaps this isn’t so surprising as conservative right-wing movements have a long history of appropriating socialism, in name at least. It is well-known, for example, that ‘Nazi’ is shorthand for ‘national socialist’. I would argue that many if not most self-designated ‘socialist’ states are really right-wing authoritarian regimes who claim to be socialist as a way to create legitimacy with the general population. Right-wing movements appropriate the term ‘socialism’ for the same reason that Christianity appropriated Christmas: because, just like Christmas, socialism is popular with the general public.

    This claim – that socialism is popular with the general public – runs counter to the mainstream mantra that ‘socialism is unpopular’. It also seems to be contradicted by the fact that socialist parties rarely do well in elections, at least not in western countries. But that is because these elections in these countries are organized, run, and effectively rigged by the ruling class, with the help of their media-political lackeys. Socialism is popular with ordinary people as it involves giving them democratic power and improving their material conditions. The problem is that many are unaware of what socialism is and equate it with totalitarianism. This is partly a result of propaganda and partly a result of self-designated ‘socialist’ states not really being socialist at all (as noted above).

    In more recent times, capitalism has appropriated Christmas through increased commercialization. Christmas has effectively become a tool for indoctrinating young people into the capitalist mindset, by creating a link between happiness and consumerism. As a socialist I completely agree with those who say we need to get back to the true meaning of Christmas; but I disagree with most on what that true meaning is. In my view, Christmas is not about Christianity any more than it is about consumerism. It is an ancient festival designed to bring people together and create a sense of community. If people do want to make Christmas about celebrating the birth of Jesus, they should bear in mind that Jesus was a socialist who would have been appalled by the right-wing views of many so-called ‘Christians’ today.

  • It’s time to ditch the royals

    Things are not going well for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the pedophile formerly known as ‘Prince’. Every time you think his reputation couldn’t possibly sink any lower, yet another revelation about his past comes to light. The latest batch of documents from the Epstein files includes emails that will damage his reputation even further – assuming that is even possible at this point. These latest documents highlight the need to investigate further Mountbatten-Windsor’s links to Jeffrey Epstein and his circle, and to force him to give evidence to the US Department of Justice. As a committed anti-royalist I can’t help but feel a certain amount of schadenfreude when contemplating Mountbatten-Windsor’s demise. Apart from anything else, it highlights just how incredibly stupid the man is.

    “Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?” someone called “A in Balmoral” asks in an email Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s friend and companion who is now serving a 20-year prison sentence in the US for sex trafficking. I wonder who “A in Balmoral” could possibly be?! He really covered his tracks brilliantly there didn’t he. Perhaps he was originally going to go with “Andrew in B” but thought it was too obvious. At other points he refers to himself as the “Invisible Man”. Yeah, that should really throw them off the scent Andrew. This isn’t just stupidity; it’s a toxic mix of stupidity and arrogance. Mountbatten-Windsor clearly thinks he is cleverer than everyone else and can easily fool people with these pathetic aliases.

    As enjoyable as it is to witness the downfall of this disgusting, pompous man, there is also a serious point to be made here which nobody seems to be making. It is only by an accident of history that Andrew is not our head of state. If his older siblings Charles and Anne had died before they were able to have any children, Andrew would have been next in line to the throne. This once again highlights the fundamental problem with a hereditary head of state: there is no way of ensuring that they are fit for office. As someone once said, a hereditary head of state makes about as much sense as a hereditary dentist. Nevertheless, there are many who try to justify the continued existence of the royal family on the basis that they don’t really have any power, arguing that their role is purely ceremonial. But is this really true?

    The short answer is: no. The royal family wields immense power in the UK; but this isn’t obvious as their power is exercised in a subtle, ‘soft’ way. There are several routes by which this is achieved. The most obvious is the private weekly meetings that the head of the royal family – currently ‘King’ Charles – has with the Prime Minister. We the public are assured that the monarch remains ‘politically neutral’ in this meetings, but this is obviously nonsense as nobody in the world is politically neutral. We all have natural political biases, and it is not hard to imagine in which direction the head of the royal family’s political biases would lean. In any case, there is no way for us to verify what goes on in these meetings as they are private, which in itself should ring alarm bells.

    Another method by which Charles wields power is through his infamous ‘black spider’ memos: letters and memorandums written by Charles to British government ministers and politicians over several years. Apologists for the royals claim that these memos are “harmless”, but that’s beside the point, which is that Charles clearly has the power to meddle in public affairs if he wants to. But the main way the royals exert their grip over the British people is through a subtle kind of propaganda. Wherever you go and whatever you do in the UK, you will see or hear the royal family being referenced: on money, stamps, the names of our armed services, the names of government departments, the names of tube lines, and so on. Not to mention the insipid ‘King’s Speech’, broadcast to every British home on Christmas day.

    All of this is done to create the illusion that the royals are an essential component of everyday British life. We scoff when we see images of North Korea with the ubiquitous pictures of Kim Jong-Il and Kim Il-Sung in the background, and wonder aloud how can the people who live there can possibly be so gullible as to give their unwavering support to these obvious mediocrities. The reason, we understand, is that the North Korean people have been brainwashed from an early age into believing that the Kim dynasty represents some sort of super-human family that is destined to rule over their country. Little do people realize that exactly the same dynamic is going on in the UK; the only difference is that here, the brainwashing is less overt.

    Ultimately, the royals have power over us ordinary people because they represent the ruling class, which has a monopoly on power. They are essentially the personification of this class. All the furore about Andrew’s appalling behaviour will not fundamentally change anything as long as existing power structures remain in place. Ask a royalist why we should retain the monarchy and the first thing they will probably say is that it creates stability and continuity. I think this is precisely the reason we need to get rid of it.

  • Is the universe superdeterministic?

    The American physicist Richard Feynman once famously remarked: “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.” The point Feynman was making is that quantum mechanics is strange, weird, counter-intuitive, and that some questions about it cannot or should not be asked. However, this strangeness disappears if we are willing to accept that one of the assumptions that is usually made about quantum mechanics is not realized in nature. This assumption is known as ‘statistical independence’. Loosely speaking, statistical independence means that spatially separated systems can be considered uncorrelated, so removing this assumption means that they will be correlated, even in absence of a common past cause.

    Statistical independence is an assumption that we make about nature which works well to describe our observations on the macroscopic ‘classical’ level; however, that doesn’t necessarily means it holds on the microscopic ‘quantum’ level. In quantum mechanics, statistical independence can be expressed as a lack of correlation between the ‘hidden variables’ of the theory and the detector settings of an experiment. The hidden variables represent all the information that is required to predict the outcome of an experiment for the detector settings. These variables are referred to as ‘hidden’ because they do not explicitly appear in the equations of quantum mechanics. Removing the statistical independence assumption means that the outcome of an experiment will depend on the detector settings.

    The theory that emerges on the removal of the statistical dependence assumption is known as ‘superdeterminism’, as it suggests the evolution of the entire universe, including our measurement choices, is completely predetermined and correlated. It implies that everything in the universe is connected with everything else. Superdeterminism is often considered a ‘conspiracy’ in which the detector settings of an experiment are influenced by hidden variables in just the right way to give the results of quantum mechanics. But this objection is based on the schoolboy error of confusing correlation with causation. All superdeterminism assumes is that the hidden variables and detector settings are correlated; it doesn’t assumes anything about the direction of causality.

    Another objection people make about superdeterminism is that it implies we have no free will, as it suggests that the choices experimenters make about what to measure are not truly independent but are predetermined and correlated with the particles being measured. But as I outlined in a previous blog post, free will is an illusion; and not only that, it is completely incoherent as a concept. I therefore take the lack of free will under superdeterminism as a reason to support rather than reject the theory. However, the main argument in support of superdeterminism is that it neatly sidesteps a well-known problem in the interpretation of quantum mechanics. This problem is encapsulated by what is known as ‘Bell’s theorem’, named after the Irish physicist John Stewart Bell.

    Bell’s theorem says that under the assumption of statistical independence, either realism or locality must be violated. Which is to say that either particles don’t have definite properties before measurement (realism is violated) or influences can travel faster than light (locality is violated), or both. The theorem has its roots in the famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen thought experiment proposed by physicists Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen in a 1935 paper. Their paper suggested that quantum mechanics is incomplete because it allows for ‘spooky action at a distance’: instantaneous correlation between entangled particles, seemingly violating locality. They argued that to avoid this violation of locality, there must be some hidden variables that aren’t accounted for by the theory.

    Bell showed in 1964 that under the assumption of statistical independence, introducing hidden variables will not solve the problem of non-locality. In the words of Bell: “If [a hidden-variable theory] is local it will not agree with quantum mechanics, and if it agrees with quantum mechanics it will not be local.” But Bell’s theorem is predicated on the assumption of statistical independence; remove that assumption and the theorem no longer holds. In other words, removing the statistical independence assumption means that there might be hidden-variable theories that do not violate locality and agree with quantum mechanics. These hidden variables encapsulate definite properties of a particle, so both realism and locality are saved.

    I am far from an expert in quantum mechanics so my opinion on this carries little weight. For what it’s worth, though, I think superdeterminism has a lot going for it. As already noted, it reinforces the truism that we lack free will. It also suggests that everything in the universe is connected, which nicely counters the bogus Western philosophical idea that human beings are atomic decision-making agents interacting with an external world. In this sense it has a lot more in common with Eastern philosophy. But the main reason I like superdeterminism is that it starts with what we know from experimental data must true (quantum mechanics, realism, and locality) and then asks which of our assumptions must be incorrect in order to allow these things to be true simultaneously.

    Unfortunately, all too often we human beings do things the other way around. There seems to be something inherent to human nature that when faced with evidence that contradicts our prior assumptions, rather than re-examine our assumptions, our first reaction is to reject the evidence! Even quantum physicists, arguably the most intelligent members of our species, are guilty of this it seems. Academics are perhaps even more guilty of this than the general population, having often staked their careers on their prior assumptions being correct. This explains why so many academic disciplines end up going down blind alleys (mainstream economics being the most egregious example). If we are to have any hope of understanding the world around us, we have to start by looking at the evidence.

  • Why are we being prepared for war?

    The UK and other European nations are currently being urged to prepare for potential conflict with Russia. In a recent speech, NATO chief Mark Rutte said that Russia could attack a NATO country in the next five years. According to Rutte, “Russia is already escalating its covert campaign against our societies,” and we “must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured.” The problem with these statements is that they are impossible for the layperson to verify, so Rutte is essentially asking for us to take his word for it. It is tempting to invoke Hitchens’ razor – ‘that which is asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence’ – and simply dismiss Rutte’s claims. But let’s be generous and examine whether there is anything behind them.

    Rutte would probably argue that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is evidence that it is willing to attack other nations. It is conceivable that once Putin is finished in Ukraine, he may turn his sights to other nations that have significant Russian minorities – particularly Latvia and Estonia, whose populations are over 20% ethnically Russian. These nations were of course once part of the USSR, the dissolution of which was famously described by Putin as a the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe.” And Putin is not alone; most Russians view the Soviet Union’s dissolution with regret. According to the Wilson centre, a US-based think tank dedicated to research and policy discussions on global issues, many Russians believe the Soviet era was Russia’s best historical period, offering prosperity and opportunity.

    This nostalgia for the Soviet Union amongst Russians flies in the face of the standard Western narrative that capitalism is a superior system to socialism. But what do people in other former Soviet republics think? Something that isn’t often talked about in the west is that a referendum on the future of the Soviet Union was held in 1991, in which people from different republics were asked to vote on whether they wanted to keep the union together. The vote was boycotted by the authorities of in Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Moldova, but turnout was over 80% across the rest of the Soviet Union. In every republic where people were allowed to vote – Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and the central Asian republics – they voted overwhelmingly in favour of preserving the union.

    All the republics that boycotted the vote organized their own referendums, and in each of these people voted overwhelmingly in favour of leaving the Soviet Union. So it seems pretty safe to say that the people of Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Moldova do not want to go back to being part of a union ruled by Moscow. This highlights a qualitative difference between these states on the one hand and Ukraine on the other. Whereas the former have long histories that are independent of Russian rule, the histories of Ukraine and Russia have always been intertwined. It is well-known that Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, used to be the capital of an East Slavic state named Kievan Rus’ which is considered the precursor of modern-day Russia.

    I am not in any way trying to justify Putin’s invasion of Ukraine here. The point is that just because Putin invaded Ukraine, it does not necessarily follow that he will seek to invade other former Soviet states – and it definitely doesn’t follow that he will seek to invade other European nations. So it seems there is little evidence to back up Rutte’s assertion. At this point we make invoke another principle popularized by the American physicist Carl Sagan: ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.’ Rutte’s claim that we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured is certainly extraordinary, but the evidence for it certainly isn’t, so it can be legitimately dismissed.

    Why, then, are we being prepared for war? I can think of a few reasons. The first reason is to create a distraction. Things are not going well in Europe at the moment; the cost of living crisis is really beginning to bite, and people are looking for explanations as to why their lives are getting worse. It is helpful for the ruling class in Europe to create bogeyman on which to blame all of the continent’s problems as it distracts from the real problem – namely, the neoliberal capitalist system we are all being forced to live under. The second reason is to do with Europe’s increasing irrelevance on the global stage. The ruling elite of Europe thinks that if it can convince people they under imminent threat of war, they will be more willing to allow their governments to rearm, which will in turn grant them more power.

    The third reason relates to the role and relevance of NATO. It seems pretty clear that the eastward expansion of NATO was the trigger that led to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Again, I am not in any way justifying the invasion, the responsibility for which clearly sits primarily with Russia. But NATO must be held responsible too, as if it hadn’t expanded eastwards the invasion would never have happened. If people realized that NATO had largely manufactured this situation itself, they would be a lot less likely to support the alliance. It is in NATO’s interest to exaggerate the Russian threat as that justifies both its eastward expansion and its continued existence. This is probably the key reason for Rutte’s bellicose outburst.

    Unfortunately, Rutte’s statement has been unquestioningly parroted across the mainstream media, to the extent that many people across Europe probably believe that war with Russia is imminent. I suspect NATO’s strategy is to keep making this prediction until it eventually becomes self-fulfilling. It is important therefore that we on the left counteract NATO’s narrative and call out this dangerous warmongering nonsense, before it’s too late.

  • The true source of our insecurity

    I recently went through a rather unpleasant experience at work. I had applied for a professional qualification and as part of the application process was invited to what was labelled a ‘career discussion’. The point of this, I was told, was to go through my career history with a member of the relevant professional body so that they could make an assessment of whether my skills and experience were sufficient for them to award me the qualification. Fine, I thought; might even be quite nice to talk a bit about my career. After all, everyone loves talking about themselves don’t they! It was made clear to me that this was definitely not an interview and that I therefore didn’t need to prepare anything prior to the meeting.

    So I was somewhat taken aback when instead of a nice, calm discussion about my career history, I was subjected to an interrogation which lasted well over an hour. The meeting started badly when I was a minute late due to the inevitable IT issues (the meeting was held virtually, as most meetings are now). My attempt to clear the air by making a jokey comment about this went down like a lead balloon, and things only went downhill from there. For the next 80 minutes I was subjected to a series of increasingly aggressive questions about what I had achieved in my career, with each answer I attempted being met with a derisory comment or put-down. I could feel my self-confidence ebbing away. Things got so awkward that I was tempted to terminate the ‘discussion’ halfway through.

    As you can imagine, I came out of the meeting feeling like a failure. A few days later the results came back; needless to say, I wasn’t awarded the qualification. Not only that, I had been marked at a graduate level for around half of the competencies, despite the fact that I have 20 years of professional experience. No further feedback was provided of course. By this point, however, the shock of the meeting had subsided and I had started to get things into perspective. One advantage of having 20 years professional experience is that you learn a few things. And one of the things I have learned is that if somebody unfairly criticizes you like this, it is almost always coming from a place of insecurity. Applying this principle to my current situation, I suddenly saw it in a much clearer light.

    The reason I was given such a hard time, I realized, was not because my assessor thought I was incompetent; it was because deep down they believe themselves to be incompetent, and were subconsciously projecting their perceived incompetency on to me. For example, at one point my assessor made a mistake about something then chided me for not making it clear in my application. But when I looked at it my application again after the discussion, I saw that I had made it perfectly clear. The mistake was a result of my assessor not reading my application properly. Of course they knew this really, and blaming me was their way of subconsciously deflecting the blame away from themselves. My discussion had been littered with examples such as this.

    I began to realize that my entire career has been littered with similar examples. There is a profound irony here: the more competent you are at your job, the more you make others feel incompetent, and the more likely they are to then try to undermine you and bring you down to their level. This undermining isn’t done consciously, at least not usually; it mostly happens subconsciously. It is important to recognize this dynamic, for two reasons. First, it provides an explanation for why you can often come in for criticism from others even when (or especially when) you are perfectly good at your job. And second, it highlights just how insecure some people can be. Once you understand that, you immediately flip from disliking the people who unfairly criticize you to feeling sorry for them.

    Why are we humans so insecure? Is it just a part of our genetic makeup? If it is then there must be an evolutionary explanation for it, but I struggle to think what that could be. If anything, I would have thought that being secure in yourself would confer an evolutionary advantage. One explanation is that this insecurity stems from our natural competitiveness: when coming into contact with others we naturally size ourselves up against them, and if we feel we are falling short then that makes us feel insecure. This explanation ties in with the right-wing view that human beings naturally compete with each other in a kind of evolutionary survival of the fittest. But I think this explanation gets things backwards.

    In my view, the idea that human beings naturally compete with each other stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of evolutionary biology. It is true that competition takes place on the micro-level of the gene, but it doesn’t follow that competition also takes place on the macro-level of the human being. This is an example of the so-called ‘fallacy of composition’: the logical error whereby people wrongly assume that what’s true for the individual parts of something must also be true for the whole. It has been demonstrated time and again that micro-level competition between genes often leads to cooperative behaviour at the macro-level of organisms. We all know this well enough from observing human interactions in our everyday lives, the vast majority of which are cooperative.

    I think our insecurities ultimately stem from the system we are all forced to live under – namely, capitalism. It is a system which creates insecurity by maintaining a constant threat of unemployment and poverty for the majority of the population. It is also a system which forces us all to compete with each other, usually against our subconscious will, which reinforces this feeling of insecurity. The only way for us to rid ourselves of our insecurities is to replace capitalism with a system which discourages competition and encourages cooperation.

  • Indo-European word-medial velars

    In a previous blog post I argued that Proto-Indo-European (PIE) had two types of velar in word-initial position: plain velars and labiovelars. In the satem languages, labiovelars were delabialized and plain velars were palatalized apart from after *s, and before *r, *s, and *H₂; palatalization was also blocked before *l in Albanian and *lo in Balto-Slavic. In the centum languages, labiovelars were delabialized before *u, and labiovelars were also delabialized before *o and before consonants in the western languages. This raises the question whether the two-velar hypothesis holds in word-medial position too. This is a more difficult question to answer, as there are more environments word-medially that need to be considered.

    In his 1973 PhD thesis, Lars Steensland showed that in word-medial position, palatovelars occur everywhere apart from after non-syllabic *n; plain velars occur everywhere apart from after *e and syllabic *n; and labiovelars only occur after *e, *i, *o, and *n. Steensland also showed that only plain velars occur in words beginning with *st, whereas only palatovelars and plain velars occur word occur in words beginning with *m. This includes all of his examples of words with a plain velar after *i, and most of his examples of words with a plain velar after *o. The obvious explanation is that PIE had just plain velars and labiovelars in word-medial position, and the latter were delabialized in the Centum languages apart from after *e, *i, *o, and *n, and in words beginning with *m.

    The problem with this explanation is that it implies that the labiovelar developments happened independently in all of the centum languages. However, a closer look at the data suggests we do not need to assume this. Let’s start with the position after *H₂. Steensland provides three examples of words with a plain velar in this position, two of which are derived from the root *bheH₂g- ‘share’. The plain velar in these words is reconstructed on the basis of Greek reflexes meaning ‘to eat’, with a semantic shift ‘I received a share’ > ‘I consumed’ > ‘I ate’, which seems rather tenuous. The third word, *knH₂kos ‘safflower’, is clearly related in some way to the word reconstructed as *knH₂onks ‘honey’, where the plain velar would have been blocked from palatalizing after the non-syllabic *n.

    Steensland demonstrated that labiovelars do not occur after *u in PIE, but both palatovelars and plain velars do occur in this position. This is consistent with the two-velar hypothesis if we assume that plain velars were palatalized in this position in the satem languages and labiovelars delabialized in this position in the centum languages, which is plausible. There are two examples of words with a plain velar after *r: *H₂uergeti ‘turn’, and *(s)morkos ‘decayed’. The plain velar in the former may have been blocked from palatalizing in the nasal variant *(H₂)urengeti, whereas latter word is highly doubtful and may therefore be disregarded. Thus, we need not assume that labiovelars were delabialized after *r in the centum languages either.

    There is one example of a word with a plain velar occurring after *l: *uolkos ‘wet’. As this word only has reflexes in the western languages, it may have originally contained a labiovelar which was subsequently delabialized before the *o. There are five examples of words with a plain velar which begin with *m: *moghtis ‘might’, *muktis ‘freedom’, *(s)morkos ‘decayed’, and *H₃mighleH₂ ‘mist’. As the first word only has reflexes in the western languages, it may have originally contained a labiovelar which was subsequently delabialized before the consonant. Similarly, the second word may have originally contained a labiovelar which was subsequently delabialized after the *u. The third word may be disregarded, as noted above.

    The plain velar in the fourth word, *H₃mighleH₂ ‘mist’, is more difficult to explain. The word is derived from the root *H₃meigh- ‘drizzle’, which must surely be related to the root *H₃meig’h- ‘urinate’. We may hypothesise that they are in fact the same root, and that palatalization was blocked in descendents of the former but not the latter. As *H₃mighleH₂ is the only reconstructable word derived from the first root, we can posit that palatalization was blocked before the following *l. This works fine for the Albanian reflex, as palatalization was blocked before *l in Albanian. To explain the Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic reflexes, we must assume that palatalization was blocked before *leH₂ (> *laH₂) in these languages; this is rather ad-hoc, but aligns with palatalization being blocked before *lo in Balto-Slavic.

    Thus, except for the position after *u, there is no evidence that labiovelars were delabialized word-medially in the centum languages, other than in the positions in which they were delabialized word-initially. We are not quite finished yet though, as there are still a few words with plain velars occurring in word-medial position that require an explanation. The first is *tuekos ‘body’, which is reconstructed as *tuakos by Steensland, but the *a is based on a Greek reflex which is probably unrelated. We may posit that this word originally contained a labiovelar which was subsequently delabialized in the zero grade; this zero grade is attested in Anatolian, the only centum branch in which this root is found.

    The plain velar in *H₂uogseieti ‘enlarge’ probably represents an original labiovelar which was delabialized by the following *s, as the word only has reflexes in Germanic among the centum languages; alternatively, it may have been delabialized in derivatives of the root variant *H₂eugʷ-. On the other hand, the plain velar in *uogsos ‘wax’ probably represents an original plain velar which was blocked from palatalizing after *s in the metathesized form *uosgos from which the Balto-Slavic reflexes are derived. That just leaves one word with an unexplained plain velar: *loghos ‘lair’. The Greek reflex of this word precludes an original labiovelar, which makes accounting for the lack of palatalization in the Slavic and Albanian reflexes difficult.

    The absence of a palatalized reflex in the Slavic can be explained by a rule set out by Antoine Meillet in 1924 which states that in Slavic, palatalization was blocked in words containing *s. Two of the words used by Meillet to reach this conclusion – *g’heH₂ns ‘goose’ and *k’oseH₂ ‘hair’ – also have unpalatalized velar reflexes in Albanian, suggesting that the same rule operated in that language as well. If so then we have accounted for all the data, which demonstrates that the two-velar hypothesis holds in word-medial position too.

  • Stepping off the career ladder

    It’s end-of-year review time at the company where I work. This is always a stressful time and one which inevitably leads to disappointment for many people, particularly those who don’t get the rating / pay rise / promotion they were hoping for. Thankfully I am not one of them, having long ago given up any desire to climb the corporate ladder. I now take the view that as long as my managers are broadly happy with the work I am doing and my job isn’t under imminent threat, then all is good. However seeing the disappointment others go through pains me as I remember going through the same thing myself in my younger years. I therefore thought it might be helpful to explain what led me to stop worrying about progressing my career.

    I can still remember the bemusement I felt in my early career when I was unsuccessful in going for promotions and pay rises I believed I deserved and was ready for. Then one day someone gave me some life advice which completely changed the way I viewed the situation. The advice was this: If something bad keeps happening to you, instead of asking ‘why does this keep happening to me?’, ask instead ‘what is this telling me?’ So I decided to ask myself what my failed attempts at career progression were telling me. Quite a lot, as it turns out. The first and most obvious lesson is that hard work does not translate into promotions and pay rises. This is an idea we have drilled into us from an early age, but it’s just not true in the real world.

    The bemusement I felt stemmed from me not understanding that the ‘hard work leads to career progression’ idea is a fallacy. Once I realized that, my lack of progression started to make a lot more sense. But this raised another question: If hard work doesn’t get you promoted, then what does? The stock answer is that you need to work smarter not harder. Which is to say, you need to focus your efforts on things that really matter and not on things that don’t. But who decides what really matters and what doesn’t? It took me a while to figure it out, but eventually the answer dawned on me. In a capitalist society, it is the capitalists who determine what work counts as worthwhile and what doesn’t, and those who get rewarded are the ones who do work that capitalists deem to be useful.

    Under capitalism, ‘work’ is shorthand for ‘selling your labour power to a capitalist’, and the more valuable the labour power is to them, the more they will pay you for it. But what is valuable to the capitalist class is not necessarily valuable to society as a whole, contrary to what neoclassical economic theory would have you believe. Marx’s distinction between use value and exchange value is helpful here. The capitalist class is primarily interested in maximizing exchange value, as this is what increases their profits; whereas what would be beneficial for society as a whole would be maximizing use value. This highlights perhaps the key problem with capitalism as a system: namely, it maximizes the wrong thing.

    Those who are succussful in climbing the career ladder – that is, those who get rewarded by the capitalist class – are those who do work which maximizes exchange value rather than use value. It is the people who bring in the most money that get rewarded, not the people who produce the most useful output. A critic might counter that those who produce the most useful output will automatically bring in the most money; but this is just another fallacy. Marx took pains to point out that use value and exchange value are unrelated, and in this he was absolutely correct. The easiest way to make money under capitalism is to make something people don’t really need then convince them to buy it, rather than to make something people do actually need.

    On realizing all this, I immediately saw the career ladder for what it really is. The race for career progression is just a competition between workers to see who can be the most subservient to the capitalist class. Viewed in this light, the whole thing starts to seem rather pathetic. When people boast about how well they are doing in their careers – and sadly, people do this a lot (just have a look on LinkedIn) – they are really just broadcasting to everyone that they are a lickspittle. Rather than a high salary being a badge of honour, it should really be a seen as a badge of shame. Conversely, a low salary should not be taken as a sign that you are failing; on the contrary, it is a sign that you are probably doing something useful.

    This provides an explanation for the otherwise inexplicable fact that under capitalism, the people who actually keep society running – bin-men, cleaners, nurses, teachers, etc. – are treated so poorly, whereas people who add little to society – management consultants, investment bankers, corporate lawyers, actuaries, etc. – are rewarded so handsomely. The explanation is simply that the former don’t create any value for the capitalist class, whereas the latter do. As the late, great American anthroplogist David Graeber pointed out, in our society there is an inverse correlation between the value of someone’s work to society as a whole and the amount they get paid to do it. So the next time you are passed over for a pay rise or promotion at work, maybe take it as a compliment.