The latest critique of capitalism from Jason Hickel and Yanis Varoufakis:

What explains this paradox? Capitalism. By capitalism we do not mean markets, trade and entrepreneurship, which have been around for thousands of years before the rise of capitalism. By capitalism we mean something very odd and very specific: an economic system that boils down to a dictatorship run by the tiny minority who control capital – the big banks, the major corporations and the 1% who own the majority of investible assets. Even if we live in a democracy and have a choice in our political system, our choices never seem to change the economic system. Capitalists are the ones who determine what to produce, how to use our labour and who gets to benefit. The rest of us – the people who are actually doing the production – do not get a say.

This is simply factually wrong because markets. Capitalists might try to direct our labour into the production of things that we out here, we consumers, might not want. The Ford Edsel, say. But when we don’t want it then the capitalists stop so directing our labour into the production of what we do not want. For if they don’t they then go bust - as the death of four out of five new attempts at capitalism show. For that is roughly the death rate of new companies within their first five years.

We get our say as consumers, because markets. This is not a complicated logical proposition but it’s one that seems to entirely escape two university professors here. Even one who has also been a Finance Minister - but admittedly of Greece.

So we end up with irrational forms of production as a result: we get massive production of things such as SUVs, mansions and fast fashion, because these things are highly profitable to capital, but chronic underproduction of obviously necessary things like affordable housing and public transit, because these are much less profitable to capital, or not profitable at all.

Things are not profitable because we consumers are unwilling to pay above the cost of their production to gain access to those things. That’s what profit actually means - the excess value created over and above the costs of production. That is, we out here have decided that we don’t want those things very much.

The real claim here is therefore that of the authoritarian. Yes, yes, we realise, know, that you, you prole-lish little consumers you, want and desire these things that you’re getting but we think you shouldn’t and you should, in fact, put up with what we’re willing to allow you to have. For we are the elite who should decide, see? This is the way we all get to enjoy a nibble on our half-frozen turnips while shivering in our hovels in the middle of winter.

It does, of course, get worse:

Similarly with energy. Renewables are already much cheaper than fossil fuels. Alas, fossil fuels are up to three times as profitable.

That’s just insane. A common enough shriek these days but it’s still insane. If renewables are, were, cheaper than fossil fuels in producing what people actually desire - energy where and when they desire it - then they would be more profitable. By definition they’d be more profitable. We’d also not have a problem with climate change at all because the market competition of that cheaper source - the renewables - would completely replace the supply from the more expensive - fossils - as we consumers made that usual choice we do make of we’ll have the cheaper one, thanks.

We’re fine - although we obviously disagree with - those who desire a different picture of the world. Those, say, who desire more equality at the expense of the actual standard of living. We think they’re wrong but it’s a moral point being disagreed over. Those who disagree with reality need to be mocked and shamed, not disagreed with.

Tim Worstall

HHS GOES THE OPEN SOURCE, DIG UP PROBLEMS ROUTE:  HHS and DOGE Release Medicaid Dataset to Expose Fraud.

First came energy: “We will ditch the insane net zero agenda,” he thundered, “and we’ll get the North Sea operating again.” A pragmatic pitch for sovereignty through self-sufficiency, part Thatcherite nostalgia, part defiance of metropolitan eco-piety. Tying this to a blast for agricultural sufficiency, backing our farmers whilst condemning the vast solar deserts to the slop bins.

And whether you loathe him, love him, or wish he’d just go back to LBC, you have to admit: Nigel Farage is once again setting the weather. The Birmingham speech marked the moment he stopped being a political meteorologist, and started auditioning to be the storm itself.

– Gawain Towler

For me, Reform setting itself unequivocally against Net Zero is a defining moment that had me cheering the telly. And unlike the Tories, with the Conservative Environmental Network being one of largest party associations, Reform will actually do it without being sabotaged by a Blue Blairite party within a party.

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