Paul Cockshott

Economist and communist scientist.

[Andrew Feinstein @andrewfeinstein]

Dear @gidonsaar With all due respect, having lived in apartheid South Africa & then served under Nelson Mandela in our first democratic Parliament, both Mandela & Archbishop Desmond Tutu, not only described Israel as an apartheid state but suggested it is a more brutal form of apartheid than they experienced in SA. Having visited Israel & the OPTs numerous times, I share their view. Israel was apartheid SA’s closest ally. Just as apartheid was ended in SA so too will it end in Israel/Palestine

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@GovMikeHuckabee @yechielleiter It could avoid having it's soldiers killed on Lebanese soil by withdrawing as per the US Iran deal.
Are you not supposed to be representing US government policy?

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@zpaikin What a narrow view of Nazism.
It was not all about killing Jews. It was about territorial expansion and German settlement to the East. Killing Slavs, Jews and Roma were a means to that end.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

I disagree that we are in a "New Cold War".

Rather, we are in a continuation of what we might call the Long Cold War, or the Great Anti-Sovereignty War, which has been waged by the imperial core against liberation movements and sovereign-seeking states in the periphery that have sought to break from their subordination and exploitation within the imperialist world-system.

The Long Cold War encompasses Western attacks against the Russian revolution and the Chinese revolution, through the long series of invasions and regime-change operations that targeted Korea, Guatemala, the DRC, Brazil, Ghana, Indonesia, Vietnam, Chile, Burkina Faso, etc, continuing well beyond the fall of the USSR with the invasions of Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc., all the way to the strangulation of Cuba and the invasions of Venezuela and Iran in 2026.

As I see it, the usual claim that the Cold War runs from 1945-1991 doesn't work, the periodisation is wrong. The core states sought to destroy the USSR as soon as it was founded, long before 1945, and in any case their violence was never only just against the USSR, or just against USSR-aligned states, nor even just against socialism; it was fought against any sovereign-seeking state in the periphery - including non-aligned states - that threatened to escape the imperial arrangement.

The Long Cold War is, in other words, an imperialist backlash against the long struggle for liberation in the periphery. This aggression didn't end in 1991, it continues today, and it will continue well into the 21st century until it is defeated. And defeated it will be.

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@NWoodeSmith The maximal estimate of combatants killed in Gaza is about 18000 versus a minimum of around 60000 civilians killed. This very different from the Berlin figure. You could only arrive at your conclusion if you assumed all Gazan men who died were soldiers.

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@Gompers_Stomper @Zuasibel @MikeyJ79_Part3 @AidanSimardone @kavs86 Not clear that you are right there. The SA bombs were simple 'little boy' type U235 gun devices. Nothing particularly difficult about that.

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@ygzgzot @SwampCommunist Ask what the price of the labour power is sold at. If a person nominally sells labour power but their hourly wage is greater than the average value created by an hour of labour, they are, prima facie, in receipt of surplus value.

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@Bluewhite87 @NWoodeSmith Where is your evidence for that? There has been no census since the Israeli attack on Gaza.

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@MikeyJ79_Part3 @AidanSimardone @kavs86 It did have nukes. They got rid of them after apartheid ended.

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@JudietheP @AidanSimardone @RealBCThinkTank Israel certainly kills kids by the thousands, the Boers did not.

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@ClearReason Mussolini, Hirohito...

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@danielsusskind You can sing Waterloo too, a reference to the historical slaughter of French, or Flower of Scotland, a reference to the historical slaughter of English at Bannockburn.

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@haivri And if you are a theist you will have to attribute it's end to divine will as well.

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@betsvigi9 @annaturley It is the Crowns money. Only the Crown can issue money, if you try you will end in jail.

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@ygzgzot @SwampCommunist If you pointed to the USSR where none of them were private you would have a case, but their class position in mixed economies is determined by the private sector.

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@PhilWMagness Whoever made those rules was no Marxist and they are this irrelevant to Marx book

[Aidan Simardone @AidanSimardone]

In the final years of apartheid, South Africa launched multiple wars against its neighbors

The West did nothing, until it was clear its days were numbered. All the sudden relations were cut and investment was pulled

We are now seeing that with Israel

[Paul Cockshott @PaulCockshott]

@AmitSegal The violation was by the IDF, who under the ceasefire should have withdrawn from Lebanon.