The United States has long been unusual for the absence of socialist, or even social democratic, politics. There is debate as to why this is but, whatever the reasons, the US never developed a mass class-based social democratic party capable of seriously reforming capitalism. Then the 2016 Democratic primary happened, putting self-proclaimed socialist senator Bernie […]
Towards a National Pharmaceutical Service
Sep 10th, 2017 by Chris MacMackin.There are some problems which are too big for the private sector to handle. I’ve given extensive arguments explaining why this is the case for climate change and why solutions will require public ownership of energy. However, there is another set of less well known problems which are going to require similar state action: those […]
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NPF reports review: Environment, Energy, and Transport
Aug 22nd, 2017 by Chris MacMackin.For reasons best known to themselves, the National Policy Forum has decided to group culture with energy and environmental policy. Meanwhile transport, which is a significant energy consumer and pollution source, is placed with housing and local government. To provide some coherence, I will review transport alongside environment and energy, leaving culture to someone who […]
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On climate change, the NDP’s Niki Ashton beats Corbyn
Aug 13th, 2017 by Chris MacMackin.While Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party have brought many improvements to party policy, much remains to be done. In particular, Corbyn has been weak on energy and climate policy. Although Labour’s election manifesto was widely interpreted to include energy nationalisation, in fact it promised no such thing. It pledged to bring the electricity […]
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A Canadian Corbyn?
Aug 7th, 2017 by Chris MacMackin.With the ascendancy of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and Bernie Sanders in the US, the Canadian Left (to the extent it exists) has been wondering what the chances are of the same happening for them. Like the United Kingdom, Canada has a party—the New Democratic Party, or NDP—linked to the unions, so could a […]
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NPF Policy Responses: Environment, Energy and Transport
Apr 4th, 2017 by Chris MacMackin.The National Policy Forum has made the strange decision to group culture with the environment and energy. Meanwhile, transport is placed, not completely without justification, with local government and housing. However, as transport is a major consumer of energy and a transport policy will be essential to fighting climate change, I decided to address it […]
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A 21st Century Energy Policy, Part 3: The Institutions to Make it Happen
Feb 28th, 2017 by Chris MacMackin.As discussed in Part 2, the transition to a low-carbon economy is a massive task requiring extensive government intervention. In the recent leadership campaign, Jeremy Corbyn promised to “promote the growth of over 200 ‘local energy companies’” and to “support the development of 1,000 community energy co-operatives”. Presumably by “local energy companies” he is referring […]
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A 21st Century Energy Policy, Part 2: The Technology of the Future
Feb 20th, 2017 by Chris MacMackin.If humanity is to have any hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change, developed countries must take aggressive steps to decarbonise as quickly as possible. This will mean not only replacing existing fossil-fuel power plants, but greatly expanding electricity production to replace gas and petrol. Such a task demands not just an energy policy, but a […]
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Energy for the 21st century, part I: fossil-fuels, renewables and nuclear
Feb 13th, 2017 by Chris MacMackin.With the exception of Arthur Scargill, most on the Left agree that the days of fossil fuels must soon come to an end. We all know that it would be environmental catastrophe to revive the coal industry. We have to wean ourselves off coal and other fossil fuels but what will take their place? The […]
