Max Tschol

🇨🇭&🇦🇹🇪🇺 Biologist, he/him

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

What the present moment reveals, once again, is that Western aggression during the "Cold War" was never about destroying socialism, as such. It was about destroying movements and governments in the periphery that sought economic sovereignty. Why? Because economic sovereignty in the periphery threatens capital accumulation in the core.

This remains the primary objective of Western aggression today. And it is the single greatest source of violence, war and instability in the world system.

The reason Western powers went after socialist movements across the global South during the "Cold War" (Cuba, China, the incineration of Vietnam and North Korea, etc) was because they knew socialism would enable the South to regain control over their own productive capacities - their labour and resources and factories - and organize them around local needs and national development.

When this happens - when people in the global South start producing and consuming for themselves - it means that those resources are no longer cheaply available to service consumption and accumulation in the core, thus disrupting the imperial arrangement on which Western capitalism has always relied (cheap labour, cheap resources, control over productive capacities, markets on tap). Remember, roughly 50% of all material consumption in the core is net-appropriated from the global South. This is what they are trying to defend.

But it wasn't only socialist governments that pursued economic sovereignty. After political decolonization, a wide range of movements and states across the South also sought economic liberation and sovereign industrial development. And Western powers attacked them with equal brutality (Indonesia, Brazil, Guatemala, the DRC...).

This is the key reason that Western powers supported the apartheid regime in South Africa, and it is why they support the Israeli regime today... as Western settler-colonial outposts that can be used to attack and destabilize regional movements seeking socialism or any form of real economic sovereignty, whether in Angola or Mozambique or Zimbabwe or any of the Arab nationalist or socialist movements in North Africa and the Middle East.

Iran has always been central to this story. Western states orchestrated a coup against the extremely popular prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. He was a left-leaning nationalist, not a socialist. But he wanted Iran to have control over its own resources (notably, oil), and for the US and Britain this was unacceptable. Mossadegh was replaced by a brutal Western-backed dictatorship. The revolution that finally overthrew the dictatorship in 1979 - and constituted the current government - wasn't even left-leaning, much less socialist. But they want national economic self-determination and that is sin enough. They are a target for the exact same reasons that Iraq and Libya were targets.

The same goes for China. China's path toward sovereign industrialization - whether socialist or not - means that it is no longer an easy source of cheap labour for Western capital. And as the supply price increases so too does the sabre-rattling from Western states and media.

So this is the situation we are in. The Western ruling classes are backing obscene violence and plausible genocide in Gaza, against overwhelming international condemnation, because they must shore up their regional outpost at virtually any cost. The vast majority of the world supports Palestinian liberation, but Palestinian liberation would constrain Israeli power and open the way to regional liberation movements, and this is strongly antithetical to the interests of Western capital. And now they are provoking war with Iran, risking regional conflagration, while at the same time encircling China with military bases, ramping up sanctions on Cuba, trying to contain progressive governments in Latin America, threatening invasion of the Sahel states...

It is intolerable and it cannot continue. The violence they perpetrate, the instability, the constant wars against a long historical procession of peoples and movements in the global South who yearn for freedom and self-determination... the whole world is dragged into this horrifying nightmare. They are willing to inflict enormous suffering and misery on hundreds of millions of people in order to preserve existing dynamics of capital accumulation. We will not have peace until this arrangement is overcome and post-capitalist transformations are achieved.

[DUNAN Lana @DunanLana]

Really enjoyed the opportunity to present at Evolution 2023 in Albuquerque today, where I talked about my beetle study in @BocediGreta’s lab🪲#Evol2023

[Sociedad Mesoamericana de Ecología y Evolución @smecoevo]

¡Hola mundo! Somos un grupo de estudiantes mesoamericanxs que decidimos organizarnos para tejer una red científica que nos permita construir espacios de investigación y colaboración en el área de la biología evolutiva en una región tan excepcional como es Mesoamérica 🥰💚✨

[Maxime Borg @MaximeBorg]

I am a French PhD in social sciences at a foreign university. I have too often heard my colleagues expressing a misrepresentation of Emmanuel Macron as a champion of liberal democracy. I would like to share my experience of yesterday's demonstration to deconstruct this image

[Max Tschol @MTschol]

I think it is past time that it becomes common knowledge that tax revenue does not pay for government (national) expenditure... listen to economists like Mariana Mazzucato, Stephanie Kelton,Randall Wray...

[BBC Newsnight @BBCNewsnight]

“This whole notion that you run government like you run a household…is a complete myth”

Economist Prof Mariana Mazzucato tells #Newsnight Government’s should address social issues through tax

https://t.co/P0zxS1DNGF

[Max Tschol @MTschol]

@Wikipedia @DEhnts @MauriceHoefgen Wer sagt Wikipedia eigentlich wie das so ist mit den Steuern und dem Staat und so?

[Dr. Aaron Thierry @ThierryAaron]

The KEY question, I'm asked by students when I guest lecture about the #ClimateCrisis is 'but what can we do?'

So I recently rewrote my materials to try & tackle that question head on. Feel free to adapt them.

Buckle up - here's a LONG thread🧵about how we can fight back!

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

چه شوری، چه خشمی.

دانشجویان امیر‌کبیر:
نیکای‌ما را بردید، جنازشو آوردید

این همه نوجوان را کشتید، به آنها انگ و برچسب زدید، خامنه‌ای برای‌شان خط و نشان کشید. نتیجه چه شد؟

خشم و شجاعت این مردم بیشتر و بیشتر شد
#مهسا_امینی

[Max Tschol @MTschol]

Protecting wildlife requires an understanding of what we are protecting it from -Colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacy
https://t.co/GkT7S0sQ9U

[Juan Pablo Iñamagua 🇵🇸 @JuanInhamagua]

Si esto no les conmueve e indigna, no podemos ser amigos.
Nos vemos en las calles.
#ParoNacionalEc2022

[Pablo A. Rodríguez @pablocentralino]

Hoy en @lacentralec abrimos nuestras puertas... son las 2am y seguimos organizando para recibir a nuestrxs hermanxs de Cotopaxi, Bolivar, Pastaza!

Tomé esta foto y en verdad es hermoso! Que viva la universidad pública! #ParoNacionalEc2022

[The Animal Behavior Podcast @AnimalBehavPod]

New episode! ✨ This week we spoke with
@swannegordon about #diversity in both nature and the biological sciences!

We hear about Swanne's research on wood tiger moths, and discuss the lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the field

Don't miss it, wherever you find #podcasts!

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

People often assume that capitalism is defined by "markets and trade". But markets and trade existed for thousands of years before capitalism. Capitalism is only 500 years old. So what is distinctive about this economic system? Three things (well, more, but three for now):

[Matthias Schmelzer @MGSchmelzer]

Everyone involved in climate politics, and indeed everyone interested in the future, should take 15 minutes to watch this presentation by @ProfSteveKeen to understand, why the models of neoclassical economists are threatening life on earth. #DontLookUp
https://t.co/3rVN1kPxTS

[Andy Burnham @andyburnham]

#IsThisOK?

[Climate Justice Coalition @CJ_Coalition]

"The most important thing about coming to COP was meeting other people and sharing the wisdom and struggles of this earth."

Indigenous People have been at the frontline of climate change for centuries - we should listen to those who are experiencing the climate crisis today 👇

[Max Tschol @MTschol]

4th day as part of @aberdeenuni delegation at #COP26 . In short- current plegedes amount to 1.8C warming. This is not enough, we need more action on climate.

[🌍⚖️ Seb Duyck | @duycks.bsky.social @duycks]

#COP26 is turning into most exclusive COP over the past decade.
Observers are barred for now from any access to entire negotiating area despite so many reassurances from @COP26 and @UNFCCC Sec.
Even first days of Copenhagen compare better.
Here comes a short thread with context

[Max Tschol @MTschol]

@MaxCRoser @hausfath great thread, thanks for sharing. Just feel that your messaging in the retweet could be more subtle, as they main reduction in CO2 comes from revised estimates in LUC (immense uncertainty remains), while the big elephant in the room , fossil fuels, still could see a record high