"..soldiers with cell phones stopped the massacre."

Very interesting comment

"..This is yet another way that new technology has played a surprising role in this new wave of revolutions. A lot of armies, including the U.S. army, allow their people to carry cell phones. Now an army in the field has used cell phones to organize a mutiny. Will they be re-thinking that?"

found herehere on a Robert Fisk article relating to Egyptian revolution.

"The critical moment came on the evening of 30 January when, it is now clear, Mubarak ordered the Egyptian Third Army to crush the demonstrators in Tahrir Square with their tanks after flying F-16 fighter bombers at low level over the protesters.

Many of the senior tank commanders could be seen tearing off their headsets – over which they had received the fatal orders – to use their mobile phones. They were, it now transpires, calling their own military families for advice. Fathers who had spent their lives serving the Egyptian army told their sons to disobey, that they must never kill their own people."

Thank you for your interesting reply and the link to Michael Hudson.

My use of the term "Marxist elite" was at least clumsy and probably erroneous. I used the term to specify a group, like, for example, people who post on this blog, who are well versed in what is going on, and have radical ideas for change with the best of intentions for society as a whole and to specifically differentiate this type of elite from financial and political elites; my view of financial and political elites is that they simply aim to maximise their wealth and/or power, and while many show typical sociopathic and even psychopathic traits, they generally have nothing to offer in terms of ideas for the improvement of society and indeed are completely ambivalent about the future of society as a whole as long as they can maintain their status.

I suppose what I was indirectly stating was my uncertainty over the relative merits of positive vs negative freedom; perhaps when it appeared that there are no limits to the earth's resources and no climate change issues then negative freedom was harmless and positive freedom was dangerous; however, my fear is now that positive freedom seems the only way forward and negative freedom will have to be sacrificed. I am concerned however that positive freedom has failed in all previous attempts.

Listen to the Today Programme this morning it was mentioned that the BoE's future decision on inflation was in the balance, with the risk of inflation being weighed up against the risk of stalling the economy with higher rates. The real danger, the commentator noted, was that price inflation would lead to wage-inflation. For the moment, he claimed, that was not yet happening.

But surely, price inflation without wage inflation just equals falling purchasing power. In that scenarion price inflation leads indirectly to stalled econmic growth anyway as workers are able to buy fewer goods with their fixed revenues?

I appreciate your thoughtful response.

I agree it's far from clear whether people have the will to use the tools of communication we now have to bring about the radical changes we need – or at least with the urgency that many see is also needed.

A small step is perhaps right here where David & others have created a space to educate & share with each other. But what about Egypt (& Tunisia)? Looks like they've made great use of the internet & twitter to organise. There has been some violence, mostly provoked by Mubarak's henchmen, but the overwhelming tenor is toward a peaceful transition to a vastly improved democracy. Powerful stuff I think.

As regards people getting acustomed to a low growth/no growth scenario, effectively most people have been experiencing this for many years. Under neo-liberalism, nearly all the growth of the last few decades has actually accrued to the wealthiest few percent. Economist Michael Hudson talks about the US in this Real News piece:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6197
But I believe it's applicable to much of Europe too.

I'm not sure what you refer to exactly by 'Marxist elite' in your last paragraph? But, to be clear about my own views, the historical efforts at what we might call 'state planned' economies made the mistake of allowing the enrichment of beaurocrats & officials. This ultimately centralised corrupt power little differently to what prevails now in our own 'governing' classes. Control is much more subtle in our present 'Western' societies, but it's control (by the few over the many) just the same.
I think if we could actually achieve government by ordinary people, a new pragmatism could emerge fully capable of producing a reasonable 'mixed' economy. Again, our relatively new ability to collect & collate extensive & timely economic data offers the potential for management in a way not remotely available to our forebears. The profession of economics is one of the most heavily 'captured' modern institutions in private, public & academic sectors. But there are individuals (like Hudson & others) who are not, now getting their views out thru' the internet. Neo liberal, monetarist economics is now a proven failed system. All that's needed is for elected politicians, truly representing us, not themselves, to face down the economics & financial elites, demand the acceptance of this fact & insist on radical change.

excellent earlier post but I hope you don't mind the following thoughts:

“The challenge is to translate our species natural tendency to co-operation at the micro scale to the macro.
With all the informational & communication tools, ideas & ingenuity we already have, this is possible”

Therein, I think, lies the crux of the problem; in general, it has been necessary to invoke Plato's “Noble Lie”or create wars or generate a phantom external menace (e.g. communism/islamic fundamentalism) to trick us into converting our intrinsic micro scale cooperation into macro scale cooperation.

Unfortunately, despite all the information and communication available, I see no way that this will change; I think there is a population concentration above which, barring real or imagined external threats, cooperation is not possible at the level required to pull society out of the consumption abyss and above which greed & self-interest will always be the dominant motivation of power in society.

In any event, micro scale cooperation isn't necessarily always a benign feature in society, as it can easily be usurped to less desirable ends.

I think it will be necessary to invoke a hybrid of the “Noble Lie” and a phantom external threat to try to change the current obsession with “growth”. All people alive today, certainly in Western society, have lived through never-ending growth (barring a few temporary hiccups); this means you are asking people to accept a way of life which is a paradigm shift from what they have always known.

Is there also not a danger that, just because a certain, lets call them “Marxist elite” can see what's coming, and know better than anyone else, do they have the right to try and direct society in a certain direction? Perhaps most people don't give a damn about how much oil/rare earth metals/fish etc are left, so long as they, personally have enough. Personally, I hope not, but it is easy to fall into despair.

Yes, I believe you're right about Thatcher. I live in Ireland where it's treatment by Europe can only really be described as part of a neo-liberal coup. Two recent pieces of news illustrate just what a debt slavery trap the EU 'bailout' & 4yr plan is, barely after the ink on it all is dry. The 'plan' growth forecast (on which just debt interest payment depends, no repayment) for 2011 is now downgraded by nearly 2/3. Also, economists here, studying the latest known funds needed to bail the banks have identified a further shortfall of 16B euros. (Hardly a mention of this in the media naturally. Just the usual election BS.) So, hardly a month old, it's clear a lot more finance will be needed. In a stunning piece of cognitive dissonance, central bank economists recognise that the budget cuts are deflationary, killing the growth that such a debt burdened 'plan' depends on. At the same time they support both the plan & those austerity measures that will ensure it's failure!
The latest news from EU talks on provision of future euro 'stability' loans is a proposal to enshrine strict state budget limit conditions & control from central europe. A recipe for mass unemployment & poverty in perpetuity in the peripheral euro member states. Of course our self-serving politicians (with minor exceptions) & public servants, media, over paid 'professionals' etc., could care less. Mass unemployment is merely a social welfare budget 'control' issue – to cut funding as much as they can get away with. (As the UK is already doing under the ConDem new Thatcherites.)
It's crystal clear from this that Ireland should default right now & leave the euro, rather than become debt slaves to bail out Irish & EU (& some US) banks. (ie, the world's 'high net worth individuals')
Doubtless there'll need to be mass home foreclosures before we cop on & follow Tunisia & Egypt's lead & occupy central Dublin.

The important accompanying societal change to the growth of 'inequality' is that 'capture' by the interests of group 'B' has also increased considerably.

Unless the breaking of the link between wealth & power informs the restructuring of any & all institutions purporting to act in the (majority) public interest, such reforms will not succeed. There's only one way to do this. Any individual occupying a position in such an institution must accept a lifelong limit to the extent of their wealth, such that they remain in group 'A'.

Elected politicians must act as individuals, living with means broadly similar to their constituents. News & Current affairs media providers must be removed from private & corporate ownership & use only self-employed or common ownership structures – their staff similarly 'wealth' restricted. Civil servants must also have wealth restrictions. If people desire above average wealth – aspirations to join group 'B' – they must stay in the private sector.

These measures will then provide the appropriate means to make decisions that are actually in the interests of the majority. If we continue to let greed & self-interest be the dominant motivation of power in society, then for most people life is going to get a lot nastier as 'limits to growth' bite hard. The divisions in society, both between nations & within them, will become more extreme. The likelyhood of serious conflicts is very high.

The challenge is to translate our species natural tendency to co-operation at the micro scale to the macro. With all the informational & communication tools, ideas & ingenuity we already have, this is possible.

A final word with regard to economics. Can we all just kill the myth that nations' economies need be run like a household budget? The two are totally different. The actual size of nations' budget deficits with a fiat money system should +not+ be the primary, controlling metric. For the explanation of why this is so, google Professors Bill Mitchell & Randall Wray. 'Austerity' measures are a political choice, pure & simple, not a matter of economic need.