Letter
The researchers seem to feel that this is some kind of law of nature. In
fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The observations apply solely to
fully marketised systems鈥攚hat Karl Marx termed “generalised commodity
production”, where labour in particular is bought and sold as a commodity. Such
systems evolved only about 400 years ago in Europe and were forced on the
majority of the world’s people.
This is tacitly admitted in the article, where a major assumption about the
economic model is buried: “Each individual has a certain amount of money he or
she can invest or use to buy the services or goods of others.” For most of
history, over most of the world, this model did not exist. It could also not
apply to a socialist economy, where private investment in labour and capital
goods are severely constrained.
What is suggested by this study is that capitalism is inherently
inegalitarian. As a socialist, I am pleased, but not surprised, at this
observation. But it would have been good if this had been stated explicitly in
the article.
Goodbye, scourge
Fred Pearce’s article is a most interesting account of the role that
rinderpest played in shaping 20th-century Africa,
(12 August, p30).
Allow me to bring the story up to date.
Thanks to a Pan-African rinderpest campaign launched in the 1980s by the
Organization of African Unity, with financial support mainly from the European
Union, rinderpest is now limited to two reservoirs focused on small areas of
southern Sudan and southern Somalia.
Rinderpest was eradicated from India in 1995, conceivably the most
significant achievement in the history of the veterinary profession. The last
known reservoirs of rinderpest in Asia are in Pakistan and the Yemen. And even
there the virus may soon be extinguished. Studies have failed to find any
conclusive evidence of rinderpest infection there in the past two years.
In 1992, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization launched a global
rinderpest eradication programme (GREP) which seeks to annihilate rinderpest by
the target year 2010. For the first time, there is a real prospect of
eradicating a livestock disease worldwide. More information on GREP can be found
at www.fao.org/EMPRES/GREP.
Mobile menace
I’m tempted to think your article about mobile phones on aeroplanes was
itself a flight from reality
(19 August, p 18).
The problem with cellphones is that they radiate at moderate powers which are
capable of upsetting the operation of any of the semiconductors in any of the
electronic systems in the aircraft.
Try this little experiment: phone a friend using your POT (plain old
telephone landline) and then phone someone else using your cellphone. Hold the
cellphone at various distances from the POT handset and its cables and see how
far away it has to be before you can’t hear the “blippety-blip” noises on the
POT.
According to the reported statements in the article, the possibility of
interference in these little experiments would be “very low”, when in fact they
almost always occur.
Letter
As a captain of a brand new Boeing 737 aircraft, I can assure readers that
the effects of mobile phones are very noticeable on the flightdeck. The chief
problem is a series of rapid beeps from the handset when it “checks in” with a
base station. The handset does not need to be making or finishing a call to
perform this function, it only needs to be switched on. The interference only
manifests itself as a loud and annoying interference, but since some of our
navigation equipment works on the same frequencies, interference with
navigational capabilities cannot be ruled out.
Another more worrying source of cellphone interference was not even mentioned
in your report鈥攎obile phones in air-traffic control centres. We had a case
the other week on a Spanish sector where a mobile phone in the air-traffic
control centre was continuously trying to check in with its base station and the
interference was totally blocking the frequency.
Mobile telephones are an airborne menace, but you have to ask why aircraft
systems are not better protected against interference in the first place.
Thunderstorms can saturate our old-fashioned (but new) AM radios with static,
and the ADF navigation equipment will direct the aircraft straight towards the
nearest thunderstorm instead of the airfield. Is this really the high-tech
field of aviation?
Uncool conduct
I read with great interest the interview with the Cult of the Dead Cow (CDC)
member Oxblood Ruffin
(12 August, p 42).
I found many of his comments both risible and hypocritical.
So, we are to believe that CDC members are just misunderstood?
That they are not really the caricatures
the media present them to be? And yet the only requirement mentioned throughout
the interview for joining their organisation was “if you are cool enough”.
It is cool to be a CDC member. Hacking is becoming trendy and sexy. No
mention of working to professional codes of conduct and standards. No mention of
their duties to the public and their profession.
Oxblood Ruffin rejected all responsibility for releasing “Back Orifice”, a
networking tool which allows even the most backward computer user access to
other people’s computers. While the initial premise for its release may have
been worthy (highlighting security holes in Windows), the CDC has clearly not
had the foresight to see the potential consequences of its actions.
And the poor, misunderstood little chaps did all this out of the kindness of
their hearts?
When they are supposedly testing a system, do they do this with a properly
constructed test schedule: testing boundaries, maximum and minimum values,
unexpected and expected results?
Is all their hard work then documented so they can justify their claims to be
working in everyone’s interests? Or are they just a bunch of hackers who
love tinkering about with computers and enjoy the challenge of breaking
someone else’s security?
They can obviously get away with doing anything they please. After all, who
are they answerable to?
Dino damage
I’m interested in Feedback’s account of the Chinese report on dinosaur
methane causing ozone layer damage and thus vegetation loss
(12 August).
Methane is not normally regarded as a culprit in ozone layer damage.
Chlorinated compounds are the main “bad guys” in this scenario, and the problem
with methane is its massive greenhouse effect.
Ozone layer damage and global warming are two totally unrelated but
frequently confused effects, so I’d be interested to know at what point this
error has crept in. No doubt if global warming “ran riot” this could also cause
a food shortage, but that’s not what the Chinese report appears to say.
Anec vs anti
Regarding the note about antidotes and anecdotes in Feedback
(19 August):
the college handbook of Lakeside High School in Seattle, US (where a friend of mine
is studying), wants you to “list five adjectives that describe you and explain
each by using a personal antidote”. I am truly looking forward to the students’
essays on this.
Correction
In our news item on insecticides linked to lobster deaths
(12 August, p 11),
it was stated that pyrethroid pesticides are banned in Britain.
We now learn that this is not the case, though strict guidelines are in place to
prevent them being sprayed near water sources.
Ironic link
Your 12 August issue contains two articles with a strange, ironic connection,
but the relationship between them may not be recognised by many of your
readers.
The first is the article
(p 30)
which recounts the devastating effects of the
1880s rinderpest epidemic and the resultant catastrophic impact on the
cattle-herding societies, the encroachment of bush on the former savannah areas
and the spread of tsetse flies, which carry sleeping sickness.
The second is the brief news item
(p 23)
which describes the use of the drug
eflornithine for slowing the growth of facial hair. Ironically, eflornithine has
a previous existence as the only new drug for treating the late stages of
sleeping sickness developed in the past 50 years. Its manufacturer, however,
withdrew the drug because it was not economically viable, and although the
rights were granted to the World Health Organization, they have so far been
unable to find another company to manufacture it as the synthesis is
difficult.
Should it receive approval for slowing down facial hair growth, I feel sure
that it will not be dropped as uneconomic.
No universal law
The economic analysis of Jean-Philippe Bouchaud and Marc M茅zard
(19 August, p 22)
is seriously flawed.
They start from the analysis of the investment and exchange of money, rather
than the material basis of production and trade. Even if their analysis extends
to other, non-monetary forms of trade, it would only apply to a minority of
societies throughout human history. It is only from the 16th century (in Europe)
that the economy has been based on production for trade, rather than production
for use.
Such an analysis also does not apply to most people in modern society. They
sell their labour to meet their immediate material needs, lacking the surplus
which would allow them to participate in the sort of economy that Bouchaud and
M茅zard describe.
The argument that “a more equal society could come from encouraging fairer
and freer trade” is one used by neoliberal economists, who argue that
deregulating trade lets wealth trickle down. In reality, inequality has grown.
Where capitalist economies have reduced inequality (such as during the 1950s in
Europe), this has been because full employment has made labour a scarce
commodity which can be sold at a premium. Otherwise, inequality only diminishes
where collective popular power (organised in trade unions, for example) forces
redistribution of wealth.
The real explanation for the unequal distribution of wealth in capitalist
(and other class-based) societies is that the means of production are in the
hands of a small minority of the population. They employ others at a rate less
than the true value of their labour, and use the surplus to further expand their
control.