Lecture 10: world-revolutionary situations

 

The global relationships brought about by capitalism over the past half-millennium have produced equally globalised "moments of resistance" - arguably we are living in one right now (see lecture 14). These involve both local processes of resistance and imagining alternative worlds, and international processes of forging links and tackling global systems. This lecture takes the example of 1968 to examine some of the mechanisms involved.

 

 

· Giovanni Arrighi, Terence Hopkins, Immanuel Wallerstein, Anti-systemic movements. London: Verso, 1989

· Laurence Cox, "Structure, routine and transformation: movements from below at the end of the 20th century." In Colin Barker and Mike Tyldesley (eds.), Fifth international conference on Alternative futures and popular protest. Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University, 1999

· Also available online on these pages Carole Fink, Philipp Gassert and Detlef Junker (eds.), 1968: the world transformed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998

· Ronald Fraser, 1968: a student generation in revolt. London: Chatto and Windus, 1988

· Annie Gottlieb, Do you believe in magic? Bringing the Sixties back home. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988

· Chris Harman, The fire last time: 1968 and after. London: Bookmarks, 1998 (2nd edition)

· George Katsiaficas, The imagination of the New Left: a global analysis of 1968. Boston: South End, 1987

· Peter Linebaugh, The many-headed hydra: sailors, slaves, commoners and the hidden history of the revolutionary Atlantic. Boston: Beacon, 2000

· Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The communist manifesto. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967 [other collections may also contain this]

· George Rudé, Revolutionary Europe, 1783 - 1815. Malden: Blackwell, 2000

 

Lecture 11: the world we live in is created by revolutions, for good and bad

 

Revolutions are a normal and fundamental part of contemporary European history. More than this, most European states draw their claim to existence from revolutionary moments. This lecture examines this with particular reference to the European Resistance movements of the mid-1940s and the use made of them by subsequent states.

 

 

· Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Social movements: a cognitive approach. Cambridge: Polity, 1991

· Michael Foot, Resistance. London: Eyre Methuen, 1976

· Steven Hawes (ed.), Resistance in Europe, 1939 - 1945. (1976)

· HR Kedward, Occupied France: collaboration and resistance (1985)

· György Lukács, History and class consciousness. London: Merlin, 1971

· Rosa Luxemburg, "Social reform or revolution?" in Selected Political Writings. New York: Monthly Review, 1971 [other collections may also contain this]

· Barrington Moore, Social origins of dictatorship and democracy: lord and peasant in the making of the modern world. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967

· George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia. London: Penguin, 1971

· Kim Robinson, Red Mars. London: HarperCollins, 1993 (novel)

· EP Thompson, Beyond the cold war. London: END, 1982

· Hilary Wainwright, Arguments for a new left. London: Verso, 1994

 

Lecture 12: "Down with capitalism": is the anti-globalisation movement revolutionary?

 

Something that looks very like a revolutionary situation is going on at the moment around the world, as the most powerful institutions in the world resort to violence or abandon their meetings in the face of mass protests against their rule. How can we assess the importance of this movement, and what is its meaning for social change in Ireland?

 

 

· Peter Alexander, "Globalisation, inequality and labour's response". In Colin Barker and Mike Tyldesley (eds.), Seventh international conference on Alternative futures and popular protest. Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University, 2001

· Emma Bircham and John Charlton (eds.), Anti-capitalism: a guide to the movement. London: Bookmarks, 2001

· Eugene Byrne, ThiGMOO. London: Earthlight, 1999

· John Charlton, "Talking Seattle". International Socialism 86 (April 2000). Can be downloaded from this site

· Laurence Cox, "Globalisation from below? Ordinary people, movements and intellectuals". Paper to 2nd William Thompson Summer School (Cork, 2001). Available online at http://www.iol.ie/~mazzoldi/toolsforchange/rev/firkin.html

· Barbara Epstein, Political protest and cultural revolution: non-violent direct action in the 1970s and 1980s. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991

· Naomi Klein, No logo: taking aim at the brand bullies. London: Flamingo, 2000

· Amory Starr, Naming the enemy: anti-corporate movements confront globalisation. London: Zed, 2000

· David Wood, "Resisting globalisation". In Colin Barker and Mike Tyldesley (eds.), Fifth international conference on Alternative futures and popular protest. Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University, 1999

· Workers' Solidarity Movement, Fighting global capitalism. Dublin: WSM, 2001. Can be downloaded and printed from http://www.struggle.ws/wsm/pdf/pamphlet/globalcap.html

 

 

A short introduction to agriculture and surface mining – creating the cover

A short introduction to small scale farming

 

The following short introduction is presented in order to prepare the Justiciar Knight for the fertiliser acquisition phase of his operation. Justiciar Knights will establish a cover and must therefore learn the very minimum about agricultural practices. You must learn enough about agriculture in order to pass any scrutiny checks the fertiliser clerk may present in the form of questions. You must learn to think, dress and act like a farmer and become confident through study of agricultural practises and your agricultural cover. Before you move forward with the acquisition phase you must determine several factors when establishing the cover.

 

You should rent a small isolated farm which has indoor/shed storage capabilities. It is optimal to place your “acquirement/storage base” in a rural area in a neighbouring country if possible, as fewer red flags will be raised by the store clerks towards foreign nationals as they will assume you will bring the goods to your country immediately. Just keep in mind; not all nitrogen based fertilisers are suitable as a component to a WMD – fertiliser bomb.

 

 

“What type of crop will you grow, how large is your field, how much nitrogen based fertiliser do you need per hectare?”

 

 

You want to choose a fertiliser intensive crop for your cover which, in regards to a climatic context, can grow in your country. A property with 10 hectare (100 000 square metres), planting the crop; sugar beets, will have a fertiliser requirement of 1060-1360 kilograms during a one rotation (100-130 days).

 

 

Common crops vs. fertiliser intensity

 

The overview is American so it does not necessarily reflect European crops

 

 

Crop	Euro per planted hectare	Percent of operating costs
Maize/corn
Sugar beets
Rice
Peanuts
Cotton
Barley
Wheat
Grain sorghum
Oats
Soyabeans
Potatoes	N/A	N/A

 

 

Source: USDA, Economic Research Service

 

 

Top agricultural products

 

 

Top agricultural products, by crop types (million metric tons) 2004 data	Top agricultural products by individual crops (million metric tons) 2004 data
Cereals	2 263	Sugar Cane	1 324
Vegetables		Maize/corn
Roots and Tubers		Wheat
Milk		Rice
Fruit		Potatoes
Meat		Sugar Beet
Oilcrops		Soybean
Fish (2001 est)		Oil Palm Fruit
Eggs		Barley
Pulses		Tomato
Vegetable Fiber

 

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization

 

Different fertilisers

 

There are three types of different fertiliser nutrients which prices fluctuate considerably; nitrogen-, phosphate- and potash-fertiliser. Obviously, you will want certain nitrogen fertilisers. The prices of nitrogen fertilisers depend on the gas market so considering the fact that gas prises are crashing at the moment (2010) due to new technologies being introduced in the acquirement of natural gas from below ground, prices on nitrogen based fertilisers are plummeting.

 

 

Fertiliser prices

 

 

Year	Nitrogen Euro/10 kg of nutrient	Phosphate Euro/10 kg of nutrient	Potash Euro/10 kg of nutrient
	0,75	0,75	0,38
	0,75	0,94	0,56
	0,75	0,94	0,64
	1,3	1,3	0,75
	2,07	3,38	1,69

 

1000kg of nitrogen fertiliser costs approximately 620 Euros when buying in bulk.

 

Price is the average for April of each year when buying in bulk. Nitrogen prices are average prices of nitrogen nutrient in anhydrous ammonia, nitrogen solution, and urea. Phosphate prices are the P2O5 prices of superphosphate. Potash prices are the K2O prices of muriate of potash.

 

Source: USDA, Economic Research Service