Pilger vs. Lloyd in The New Statesman

Absolutely compelling war writing in this week’s New Statesman. John Pilger’s article is bitter, Messianic, despairing stuff. For him, the actual conduct of the war confirms everything he said and thought in advance: “…a glimpse of fascism”. John Lloyd – one time editor of the magazine – is a pro-war Blairite. His angry article is the last he’ll write for the anti-war Statesman.<(You can now buy a 24 hour pass to read New Statesman articles online for a quid. Very clever idea and a pioneering effort for a small, impoverished political zine. Admirable)

Resource wars

John Gray in the New Statesman says we’re entering the era of ‘resource wars’ and that our starry-eyed faith in technology or in central planning has blinded us to the huge risks:

The belief that resource scarcity can be transcended by industrialism unites many seemingly antagonistic political standpoints. When neoliberals announced that the collapse of communism meant the end of history, they showed how much they have in common with their Marxist opponents. They assumed that once the struggle of capitalism with central planning had ended, so would geopolitical conflict. In the global free market, as in Marx’s vision of world communism, there would be no shortage of the necessities of life.

It did not occur to these breathless missionaries of the free market that worldwide industrialisation might trigger a new and dangerous kind of conflict. Like Marx, they took it for granted that wars of scarcity are relics of the pre-industrial past.”