Volunteers race to save Mexico's howler monkeys in heat wave

Comalcalco (Mexico) (AFP) – Volunteers are rushing to hoist food and water up into trees in sweltering southern Mexico, but help came too late for the howler monkeys whose lifeless bodies lay still on the ground.


Issued on: 22/05/2024 

A sick howler monkey recovers at a clinic in southern Mexico after being taken there by residents 

© Yuri CORTEZ / AFP

Dozens of the primates are reported to have dropped dead from trees in recent weeks, alarming conservationists trying to keep the monkeys hydrated during a heat wave.

Victor Morato and his team at a veterinary hospital in the town of Comalcalco in Tabasco state have treated eight howler monkeys brought in by residents.

"When they arrived here in agony, they extended their hand to us as if to say 'help me'. I had a lump in my throat," he told AFP.

Several monkeys arrived at the clinic with body temperatures of around 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit), Morato said.

A DEAD howler monkey's body is seen covered in lime in southern Mexico

 © Yuri CORTEZ / AFP

When they faint from the heat they sometimes fall 20 meters (65 feet), he added.

It is all the more worrying since the Mexican howler (Alouatta palliata mexicana) and the Yucatan black howler (Alouatta pigra) are considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The mantled howler (Alouatta palliata), which also lives in southern Mexico as well as Central and South America, is classified as vulnerable on the Red List of Threatened Species.

Authorities investigate

Leonardo Sanchez was among those putting out water and fruit to help the animals on a cocoa plantation in the southern state of Tabasco.

Food and water are hoisted up into a tree by volunteers for howler monkeys in Mexico

 © Yuri CORTEZ / AFP

The thermometer has reached almost 50 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in recent weeks, the 22-year-old biology student said.

"We've had a large number of deaths (of monkeys) due to the increased temperatures," he said.

Some volunteers carried lime to sprinkle on the bodies of dead primates.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who hails from Tabasco, said Monday the heat was the worst he had known.

"Since I've been visiting these states I've never felt it as much as I do now," he said at his regular news conference.

Mexico's environment ministry has said that it is investigating whether extreme heat was killing the monkeys, with studies under way to rule out a virus or disease.

A wild howler monkey is seen in a tree in Mexico's Tabasco State

 © Yuri CORTEZ / AFP

Causes under consideration included heat stroke, dehydration, malnutrition or fumigation of crops with pesticides, it said.

In Tabasco, a vulture lingered and flies swarmed near a grave that volunteer Bersabeth Ricardez said contained the bodies of around 30 monkeys.

"Today it's the monkeys. Tomorrow it will be us," she said.

© 2024 AFP

It’s so hot in Mexico that howler monkeys are falling dead from the trees


A veterinarian feeds a young howler monkey rescued amid extremely high temperatures in Tecolutilla, Tabasco state, Mexico, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. Dozens of howler monkeys were found dead in the Gulf coast state while others were rescued by residents who rushed them to a local veterinarian. (AP Photo/Luis Sanchez)


BY MARK STEVENSON
May 21, 2024


MEXICO CITY (AP) — It’s so hot in Mexico that howler monkeys are falling dead from the trees.

At least 138 of the midsize primates, who are known for their roaring vocal calls, were found dead in the Gulf Coast state of Tabasco since May 16, according to the Biodiversity Conservation of The Usumacinta group. Others were rescued by residents, including five that were rushed to a local veterinarian who battled to save them.

“They arrived in critical condition, with dehydration and fever,” said Dr. Sergio Valenzuela. “They were as limp as rags. It was heatstroke.”

While Mexico’s brutal heat wave has been linked to the deaths of at least 26 people since March, veterinarians and rescuers say it has killed dozens and perhaps hundreds of howler monkeys. Around a third of the country saw highs of 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday.

In the town of Tecolutilla, Tabasco, the dead monkeys started appearing Friday, when a local volunteer fire-and-rescue squad showed up with five of the creatures in the bed of a truck.

Howler monkeys sit in a cage at a veterinarian clinic after they were rescued amid extremely high temperatures in Tecolutilla, Tabasco state, Mexico, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Sanchez)

Normally quite intimidating, howler monkeys are muscular and some can be as tall as 90 centimeters (3 feet), with tails just as long. Some males weigh more than 13.5 kilograms (30 pounds) and can live up to 20 years. They are equipped with big jaws and a fearsome set of teeth and fangs. But mostly they’re know for their lion-like roars, which bely their size.

“They (the volunteers) asked for help, they asked if I could examine some of the animals they had in their truck,” Valenzuela said Monday. “They said they didn’t have any money, and asked if I could do it for free.”

The veterinarian put ice on their limp little hands and feet, and hooked them up to IV drips with electrolytes.

So far, the monkeys appear to be on the mend. Once listless and easily handled, they are now in cages at Valenzuela’s office. “They’re recovering. They’re aggressive … they’re biting again,” he said, noting that’s a healthy sign for the usually furtive creatures.

Most aren’t so lucky. Wildlife biologist Gilberto Pozo counted about 138 of the animals dead or dying on the ground under trees. The die-off started around May 5 and hit its peak over the weekend.

“They were falling out of the trees like apples,” Pozo said. “They were in a state of severe dehydration, and they died within a matter of minutes.” Already weakened, Pozo says, the falls from dozens of yards (meters) up inflict additional damage that often finishes the monkeys off.

Pozo attributes the deaths to a “synergy” of factors, including high heat, drought, forest fires and logging that deprives the monkeys of water, shade and the fruit they eat, while noting that a pathogen, disease or other factor can’t yet be ruled out.

For people in the steamy, swampy, jungle-covered state of Tabasco, the howler monkey is a cherished, emblematic species; local people say the monkeys tell them the time of day by howling at dawn and dusk.

Pozo said the local people — who he knows through his work with the Biodiversity Conservation of The Usumacinta group — have tried to help the monkeys they see around their farms. But he notes that could be a double-edged sword.

“They were falling out of the trees, and the people were moved, and they went to help the animals, they set out water and fruit for them,” Pozo said. “They want to care for them, mainly the baby monkeys, adopt them.”

“But no, the truth is that babies are very delicate, they can’t be in a house where there are dogs or cats, because they have pathogens that can potentially be fatal for howler monkeys,” he said, stressing they must be rehabilitated and released into the wild.

Pozo’s group has set up a special recovery stations for monkeys — it currently holds five monkeys, but birds and reptiles have also been affected — and is trying to organize a team of specialized veterinarians to give the primates the care they need.

Belatedly, the federal government acknowledged the problem Monday, with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador saying he had heard about it on social media. He congratulated Valenzuela on his efforts and said the government would seek to support the work.

A soldier removes the body of a howler monkey that died amid extremely high temperatures in Tecolutilla, Tabasco state, Mexico, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Sanchez)

López Obrador acknowledged the heat problem — “I have never felt it as bad as this” — but he has a lot of human problems to deal with as well.

By May 9, at least nine cities in Mexico had set temperature records, with Ciudad Victoria in the border state of Tamaulipas clocking a broiling 47 C (117 F).

With below-average rainfall throughout almost all the country so far this year, lakes and dams are drying up, and water supplies are running out. Authorities have had to truck in water for everything from hospitals to fire-fighting teams. Low levels at hydroelectric dams have contributed to power blackouts in some parts of the country.

Consumers are feeling the heat as well. On Monday, the nationwide chain of OXXO convenience stores — the nation’s largest — said it was limiting purchases of ice to just two or three bags per customer in some places.

“In a period of high temperatures, OXXO is taking measures to ensure supplies of products for our customers,” parent company FEMSA said in a statement. “Limits on the sale of bagged ice seek to ensure that a larger number of customers can buy this product.”


But for the monkeys, it’s not a question of comfort, but of life or death.

“This is a sentinel species,” Pozo said, referring to the canary-in-a-coal-mine effect where one species can say a lot about an ecosystem. “It is telling us something about what is happening with climate change.”

A howler monkey sits inside a cage with others at a veterinarian clinic after they were rescued amid extremely high temperatures in Tecolutilla, Tabasco state, Mexico, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Sanchez)

___

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Why the bad rep? A spunky group of raptors deserves a public relations makeover

RAPTOR RESEARCH FOUNDATION

 

IMAGE: 

AN ADULT RED-THROATED CARACARA (IBYCTER AMERICANUS) VOCALIZING AND PERCHING ON A BRANCH OF A TREE IN THE UPALA'S (ALAJUELA PROVINCE) RAIN FOREST OF COSTA RICA. 

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CREDIT: PABLO CAMACHO

Caracaras are an inquisitive, gregarious, highly intelligent group of predatory birds in the falcon family, whose quirks go largely unnoticed by the public. Caracara researchers, however, say it’s time for that to change. In a caracara-focused issue of the Journal of Raptor Research, long-time caracara researcher Joan Morrison and co-author Miguel D. Saggese, from Western University of Health Sciences, present salient reasons for expanding research efforts on the nine species of living caracaras. In their paper “Assessing Knowledge of the Caracaras: Compiling Information, Identifying Knowledge Gaps, and Recommendations for Future Research,” they present findings from a literature review that revealed alarmingly large knowledge gaps in the field of caracara research. Several species have hardly been studied at all. While caracaras are generally listed as species of Least Concern, this may be inaccurate given the lack of completed research on their population trends and basic life histories. Caracara researchers are calling all colleagues to rectify these gaps at a time when new technology is increasing research possibilities, and several caracara species are expanding their ranges into more urban centers.   

 

Caracaras live exclusively in the Americas. Of the nine living species, only the Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus) reaches the United States. The rest range throughout parts of Central and South America, where they fill the niche usually held by crows and ravens in North America. Caracaras are scrappy, plotting, and adaptable. They are scavengers, and therefore suffer from an arguably undeserved negative reputation, which results in human persecution and likely limits them from appearing in conservation discourse.

 

To establish an understanding of caracara research to date, Morrison and Saggese conducted a thorough literature review on all the research published on caracaras between 1900 and 2022. They categorized their findings by research topic and species, offering a revised picture of what we know (and don’t know), about these birds. The species most studied were those with broad ranges and significant overlap with humans, such as the Crested and Chimango (Milvago chimango) Caracaras. In fact, 82% of the sources identified focused on the Crested Caracara. The least studied species were the forest-dwelling Black Caracara (Daptrius ater) and Red-throated Caracara (Ibycter americanus). Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and the U.S. have conducted most of the studies on caracaras thus far. Overall, foundational gaps still exist on basic life history information for many species, even though the tools exist to conduct such projects. It is the interest and funding that are lacking.

 

These findings are important because caracaras face a disproportionately high number of threats compared with other birds due to their life history, ecology, and reputation. Dangers include entanglement, poisoning, leg-hold traps, and unfortunately, direct human persecution. As top predators and scavengers, caracaras are agents of prey regulation and biomass removal, which are important ecosystem services. Recent population crashes of Old World vultures made it undeniably clear that without vultures, rotting flesh and disease remain on the landscape for longer periods of time, which impacts both human and ecosystem health. Little was known about vultures at the time of these crashes. Few were interested in them. Sound familiar?  

 

The Old World vulture crashes demonstrate the importance of scavengers, and the unpredictable danger of knowledge gaps. Morrison and Saggese encourage collaboration between vulture and caracara biologists to bolster collective knowledge and prevent similar consequences from occurring in the Americas. Morrison says, “if we have a similar message, that these birds are interesting, we can work towards eliminating the persecution and negative reputation,” and she says now is the time for increased research efforts. “There are new advances in technology making research on rare and remote species more possible. There has simply not been enough attention given to this group and we argue there should be.”

 

Saggese points out that ignorance has already led to the disappearance of one caracara species, and as such, “we need to start looking at them as a group.” The Guadalupe Caracara (Caracara lutosa), endemic to Guadalupe Island, was intentionally eradicated by goat herders in the 1890s. Limited understanding and misperceptions often result in such undeserved hostility towards scavengers, something that more research can help prevent. Human-caracara conflicts (both real and perceived) are likely to increase given their expansion into areas inhabited by humans, so understanding the causal effects of these interactions is a timely priority.

 

Moving forward, Morrison and Saggese recommend additional research on basic natural history, foraging ecology, and evolutionary biology — specifically on the evolution of cognition in caracaras given their puzzle-solving abilities and use of play to investigate novel objects. Caracaras are ideal research subjects: brazen, social, easily intrigued, and big enough to fit with GPS transmitters. For up-and-coming conservation biologists, caracaras offer an untapped realm of research innovation, and an opportunity to aid in conserving a fascinating group of birds. As Saggese reminds us, “we cannot conserve what we don’t know.”  

 

For more information on how to get involved with the Caracara Working Group, contact either author.

A juvenile Chimango Caracara (Milvago chimango) perching on a roof top in Mar del Plata city, Buenos Aires province, Argentina.

CREDIT

Franco Bogel

An adult Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus) eating road kill (A European Hare hit by a car) along a highway near Calafate, Santa Cruz province, Argentina. 

  

 Nestling Crested Caracaras (Caracara plancus) in southern Patagonia, Santa Cruz province, Argentina. There this species nest in native shrubs, exotic trees and human-made structures. 

CREDIT

Miguel D. Saggese

Paper

Joan L. Morrison and Miguel D. Saggese "Assessing Knowledge of the Caracaras: Compiling Information, Identifying Knowledge Gaps, and Recommendations for Future Research," Journal of Raptor Research 58(2), 141-152, (6 May 2024). https://doi.org/10.3356/JRR-23-39 

 

Notes to Editor:

1. The Journal of Raptor Research (JRR) is an international scientific journal dedicated entirely

to the dissemination of information about birds of prey. Established in 1967, JRR has

published peer-reviewed research on raptor ecology, behavior, life history, conservation,

and techniques. JRR is available quarterly to members in electronic and paper format.

 

2. The Raptor Research Foundation (RRF) is the world’s largest professional society for raptor

researchers and conservationists. Founded in 1966 as a non-profit organization, our primary

goal is the accumulation and dissemination of scientific information about raptors. The

Foundation organizes annual scientific conferences and provides competitive grants & awards

for student researchers & conservationists. The Foundation also provides support &

networking opportunities for students & early career raptor researchers.

---

DOI

10.3356/JRR-23-39 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for VULTURE 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for VULTURES 

‘Our culture is dying’: vulture shortage threatens Zoroastrian burial rites


Inadvertent poisoning of scavengers across Indian subcontinent is forcing some communities to give up ancient custom


Sonia Gulzeb
Sat 4 May 2024 

THE GUARDIAN


Traditional Zoroastrian burial rites are becoming increasingly impossible to perform because of the precipitous decline of vultures in India, Iran and Pakistan.

For millennia, Parsi communities have traditionally disposed of their dead in structures called dakhma, or “towers of silence”. These circular, elevated edifices are designed to prevent the soil, and the sacred elements of earth, fire and water, from being contaminated by corpses.


Bodies are placed on top of the towers, where they decompose, while vultures and other scavengers eat the flesh on the bones. After being bleached by the sun and wind for up to a year, the bones are collected in an ossuary pit at the centre of the tower. Lime hastens their gradual disintegration, and the remaining material, along with rainwater runoff, filters through coal and sand before it is washed out to sea.

“We are no longer able to fulfil our traditions,” Hoshang Kapadia, a Karachi resident in his 80s, said. “We’ve lost a way of life, our culture.”

Kapadia explained that the purpose behind the Parsi burial customs was to “take less and give more” to the world. “The whole idea is not to pollute the earth,” he said

View image in fullscreen

Vultures gather on a Parsi ‘tower of silence’, circa 1880. Offering one’s deceased body to the birds is regarded as the devout Zoroastrian’s ultimate act of charity.

 Photograph: Sean Sexton/Getty Images

Karachi, which is built upon a river ecosystem on the western bank of the Indus River delta, is home to only 800 Parsis out of a population of 20 million people. The city has just two remaining towers of silence, both barely functional.

Another Karachi Parsi, Shirin, said: “The vulture’s mystical eye is believed to aid the soul’s cosmic transition, and offering one’s deceased body to the birds is regarded as the devout Zoroastrian’s ultimate act of charity.”

“The massive urbanisation and environmental changes in Karachi have led us to revisit our burial rites, as dakhmas were usually built on top of hills in locations distant from urban areas.


“Our tradition is dying. Our culture is dying in a time of increasing environmental change.”

Unlike many scavengers, vultures are classified as “obligate”. This means they do not opportunistically switch between predation and scavenging, as their mammalian counterparts do, but rely solely on locating and feeding on animal carcasses.

In recent decades, vultures have been dying in large numbers across the Indian subcontinent, primarily due to inadvertent poisoning with the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac, which is extensively administered to cattle in India and Pakistan.

When these cattle die, vultures feed on their carcasses and ingest the drug, which causes painful swelling, inflammation, and ultimately kidney failure and death in vultures. Research in 2007 estimated that about 97% of the three main vulture species in India and the surrounding region had disappeared.

View image in fullscreen

Bombay, the Parsee Repository for their Dead, an illustration from 1722. 

Photograph: CPA Media Pte Ltd/Alamy

The Parsi community in India is exploring captive vulture breeding and the use of “solar concentrators" to expedite the decomposition of bodies. As the solar concentrators only work in clear weather, some have been forced to opt for burial instead.

Kapadia said: “Parsis in Karachi [are forced to] opt for alternative methods of disposal, such as cremation or burial in designated Parsi cemeteries, as the two towers of silence in Karachi are barely functional”. He added that when vulture numbers declined at the towers of silence, some community members suggested creating a small captive group of vultures in an aviary to continue the traditional practice.

To prevent the extinction of vulture species, scientists have recommended banning the use of diclofenac in livestock, a move so far taken by India, Pakistan and Nepal. Captive-bred vultures have also been released into the wild in India in a bid to boost the threatened populations.

Can Responsible Journalism and Investor Capitalism Co-Exist?

The Answer Is No.

By Ken Bank

April 28, 2024

Source: Medium


Gannett Newspapers Severs Its Relationship With Associated Press To Please Its Shareholders

Credit: PeoplesWorld.org

Gannett Newspapers is the largest publisher of newspapers in the United States with millions of readers and subscribers in all parts of the country. It is also an investor-owned company that in recent years has prioritized profitability against the interests of its employees, readers and communities that they claim to serve.

In the most recent example of sacrificing quality journalism on the altar of maximizing profits, the Gannett Newspapers recently announced that they were severing their decades long relationship with the Associated Press, a not-for-profit news cooperative that has been serving news agencies in countries all over the world for nearly two centuries.

To compensate for the loss of comprehensive national and international news coverage, Gannett declared that it will “redeploy” assets in favor of its affiliated USA Today news network. Veteran reporters and analysts who write about issues affecting New Jersey’s news and information networks are skeptical that money saved by not using the AP will be used to further or enhance journalism.

Given Gannett’s poor track record in recent years of layoffs, firings and other cutbacks to services it is not likely that any savings will be used to continue providing the same level of coverage and information to Gannett readers. Whatever excess funds Gannett manages to accumulate by not using the AP will undoubtedly find its way into the dividends paid out to Gannett’s capitalist shareholders.

Even if Gannett was sincere about investing more capital in its own newsroom, the loss of news coverage from national and international sources of information provided by the AP would be devastating to those readers of Gannett newspapers who depend on articles published by AP members for accurate and relevant information about what is going on around the world.

In New Jersey alone Gannett owns nine newspapers with a combined circulation greater than that of all the other newspapers. Despite that, the company has spent little to replenish its already depleted staff who either retired or were laid off to maximize profitability. Given its poor track record of using profits to maintain and adequately compensate reporters and support staff, it is highly unlikely that Gannett will “redeploy” additional assets to provide adequate coverage of national and world events.

Over the years Gannett and other mass media for-profit corporations have been cutting staff including reporters, writers and editors in order to maximize profits and satisfy investor capitalists. It is a safe bet this trend will continue, and Gannett ending its relationship with AP will accelerate that trend.

As a not-for-profit news cooperative, the AP is free to use its journalistic resources to pursue stories of interest and relevance to readers all over the world, not just in the US. This means that the AP is dedicated to distributing information and analysis to its readers regardless of cost, instead of cutting costs to increase profits and put more money into the brokerage accounts of its capitalist shareholders.

With Gannett severing its relationship with the AP, this continues a trend at Gennett and other corporate news media to cut staff, reporters, editors and administrative support workers in favor of maximizing profitability. The result of fewer reporters means that there is significantly less coverage of news, especially at the local and community information outlets. What news there is to report focuses on those stories of most interest to readers and advertisers, especially readers who are wealthier and more likely to purchase advertiser goods and services.

Readers from disadvantaged backgrounds, low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, are less likely to be adequately served by corporate media giants like Gannett that are mostly interested in serving wealthier demographics. Readers buy advertising, and wealthier readers (predominantly white) buy lucrative advertising and more expensive (profitable) goods and services.

The result of class discrimination means that the needs of poor, disadvantaged and racial minorities are neglected in favor of addressing the desires of wealthier readers. This means that cutbacks and layoffs of reporters, editors and support staff are more likely to negatively impact minority reporters and support staff who regularly report on the needs of disadvantaged communities and people of color.

Reporters, writers and support staff at the largest corporate newspapers are not going away quietly without a fight. The last several years have seen a sudden increase in union organizing at the largest newspaper chains as journalists, to protect their jobs and professional integrity, are joining the News Guild unions to demand more effective collective bargaining opportunities, not only to protect their jobs but their professional integrity as well.

As the downsizing of corporate journalism continues to accelerate, journalists and related workers are exploring other options to pursue their profession without becoming answerable to investor capitalists and corporate executives.

In New Jersey Gannett Corporation has taken over most newspapers, closing some and cutting staff at others. The result was a serious decline in original news coverage, especially local and regional news as well as coverage of issues relevant to lower-income communities and disadvantaged minority groups.

With hundreds of reporters, writers, editors and support staff losing their jobs, combined with the need to maintain adequate coverage of relevant news to local communities, there is an opportunity to organize community resources and establish people-owned and people-managed news media.

One indicator of progress in providing news reporting and relevant information about local issues that is not controlled by big corporations is the recent acquisition by the newly formed, non-profit Corporation for New Jersey Local Media of 14 reputable weekly newspapers owned by the New Jersey Hills Media Group. With nearly 100,000 subscribers, they are the largest weekly newspaper group in New Jersey.

The plan of the Corporation for New Jersey Local Media is to transition their newspapers to non-profit status. When completed, the New Jersey Media Group will become the largest weekly newspaper group in the country owned and operated by a non-profit corporation.

In other parts of the US community and activist organizations are leading the fight against corporate journalism in favor of a new model for disseminating news especially relevant to local communities. The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) has been a leader in supporting independent, nonprofit news organizations as an alternative to the abuses and exploitation of vulture capitalism in journalism.

The INN has been coordinating independent, nonprofit news organizations in every state with research and investment opportunities that focus on the most viable means of disseminating relevant news and information to local communities. Until recently independent media has been overly concerned with brand recognition and featured stories that emphasized political and economic consequences of corporate media.

A new approach would emphasize useful news that supports greater awareness among readers of community resources and information that has a direct impact on their daily activities and knowledge. This is especially important to marginalized communities and groups whose concerns have been neglected by corporate media.

Low-income and minority readers are especially vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation from investor capitalism. There just isn’t enough profitability and revenue to be derived from advertising and appealing to the needs of low-income minority groups as opposed to wealthier demographics.

According to recent research studies advocates and supporters of independent, nonprofit local news will gain more influence by focusing their attention on local and state governments for support as opposed to obtaining subsidies and other means from the federal government.

The recent decline in availability of objective local news coverage can be compensated for by working with local and state officials who are more receptive to local media coverage of their activities and policies. Local journalists also have to do a better job at working with disadvantaged communities and minority groups to assess what kind of news coverage is relevant to their daily needs and interests.

Providing important information to readers about economic affairs and political involvement as well as educational and vocational opportunities available to residents of marginalized communities is essential to establish credibility and support for independent journalism which is accountable to community members rather than investor shareholders.

New Jersey is among those states where independent journalists, many of them formerly employed by corporate media who lost their jobs for the sake of increasing profits for capitalist investors like Gannett Newspapers, have joined together to collaborate and cooperate with each other for establishing independent, community-oriented and not-for-profit news services.

Leading and coordinating the movement in New Jersey for independent journalism and local news reporting is the Center for Cooperative Media, a unit within the School of Communication and Media for Montclair State University. The Center was founded in 2012 in response to the downsizing of New Jersey news organizations and the changes in the ownership of regional public media. These shifts in the news and information landscape hurt the volume of local news available especially in poor, disadvantaged and minority communities.

The Center coordinates statewide and regional reporting, connecting smaller, local and independent news providers with each other through its sponsorship and funding of the New Jersey News Commons. The Commons helps partners to share content and encourages them to collaborate and support one another. The Center also conducts and publishes research on emerging ideas and best practices, focusing on local journalism and business models.

New Jersey and several other states as well as municipalities have already demonstrated that there are opportunities and support for local, independent journalism that puts the interests of people and communities ahead of increasing profits for corporate media giants like Gannett Newspapers which only serve to fatten the bank accounts of investor capitalists.

Ken Bank is a semi-retired business executive, part-time playwright, and freelance writer with masters degrees in business and history. He lives in New Jersey and is active in the local Democratic Party organization in support of progressive policies.

VULTURE CAPITALI$M
Thai group buys iconic Berlin department store

Berlin (AFP) – Thailand's Central Group said Friday it has bought the iconic KaDeWe department store in Berlin from insolvent Austrian real-estate giant Signa.

Issued on: 12/04/2024 - 

Thailand's Central Group reportedly paid around one billion euros for the iconic KaDeWe department store © STEFANIE LOOS / AFP/File

The 650,000-square-foot (60,000-square-metre) store is located on one the German capital's main shopping streets, and has long been a major draw for tourists.

The Thai group, a multinational conglomerate with a sprawling retail and property portfolio, did not confirm the purchase price, but German daily Handelsblatt put the figure at around one billion euros ($1.1 billion).

The news came several months after the company that operates the store, KaDeWe group, filed for bankruptcy, reportedly blaming the turmoil engulfing Signa.

"We are pleased to add KaDeWe Berlin to Central Group's historic flagship luxury store real estate portfolio," said Central Group's chief executive, Tos Chirathivat.

Vittorio Radice, a board member of Central Group Europe, said the purchase was "the first important milestone for us in the attempt to restore and restructure the KaDeWe Group operating company towards a sustainable, financially viable business".

Central Group is already a majority shareholder in the KaDeWe Group, with a 50.1 percent stake.

Handelsblatt reported the Thai conglomerate was in advanced talks to take over the entire group, which also operates the department stores Alsterhaus in Hamburg and Oberpollinger in Munich.

KaDeWe, short for "Kaufhaus des Westens" or the "Department Store of the West", first opened its doors in 1907, and is one of Europe's biggest department stores.

When Berlin was divided during the Cold War, its well-stocked shelves symbolised the capitalism and consumerism of the West, a stark contrast to life in the communist East.

As well as problems caused by the crisis in Signa, it has suffered like other department stores as customers increasingly choose to shop online.

Signa -- which owns the Chrysler building in New York -- initiated insolvency proceedings in November, marking the spectacular downfall of its founder, self-made Austrian tycoon Rene Benko.

Central Group has been a long-standing business partner of Signa.

Late last year, it also ended another partnership with the Austrian group, becoming the majority shareholder in the group that runs historic British department store Selfridges.

© 2024 AFP

VULTURE CAPITALI$M

Saudi Arabia and Gucci owner circle Selfridges

Luke Barr
Sat, 16 March 2024 

Selfridges was bought by Signa and Central in a £4bn deal in 2021 

- OGULCAN AKSOY/OGULCAN AKSOY

Saudi Arabia and Gucci-owner Kering are said to be circling Selfridges as the insolvency of the department store’s co-owner triggers a battle for the business.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and luxury goods giant Kering, which is owned by French billionaire Francois Pinault, are both thought to be interested in a stake in Selfridges, according to City sources.

Interest has been triggered by the collapse of Signa, the Austrian company run by businessman Rene Benko that owns half of Selfridges’ property company.

The insolvency has led to its stake in the retailer becoming available. City sources have said Selfridges is in play but the sale process is complicated by proceedings in Austria.

Collapse of Austrian tycoon Rene Benko's company Signa could trigger a bidding war for Selfridges - GEORG HOCHMUTH/AFP

It is understood that Selfridges’ other co-owner, Thailand’s Central Group, is seeking a new partner as the future of fellow shareholder Signa looks increasingly uncertain.


Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is one of the parties understood to be interested in Signa’s stake, which covers Selfridges’ retail brand and its lucrative real estate on Oxford Street.

It comes after The Telegraph revealed last year that the kingdom was a private financial backer in the sale of Selfridges two years ago, which was conducted following an auction by the Weston family.

Saudi’s involvement stemmed from it providing the finance for Signa’s investment. It therefore could be in pole position should a bidding war for Selfridges emerge.

The Gulf kingdom has been on a dealmaking spree in recent years that has seen it invest heavily abroad, including in Britain where it has bought Newcastle United FC among others.

However, PIF could face competition from luxury goods giant Kering, City sources say.

Paris-listed Kering is worth €52bn and owns a suite of luxury brands including Gucci, Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen.

The company has recently been buying up luxury retail space. In January, it bought the 115,000 square foot Fifth Avenue building home to its New York Gucci store for $963m.

A banker familiar with the matter described Central Group as the “king-maker” in the sale process, which is still in its early stages as Signa unravels.

Interested parties are believed to be waiting for a full outcome from Signa’s collapse before they formally declare an interest in the stake, which would be worth around £2bn.

“What Central are doing is watching their partner’s problems play out,” the source said. “Sitting, watching to see how it breaks. Of course, they are naturally interested to see what happens because they are going to have a new partner.

“It’s between retailing dynasties and sovereign wealth funds.”

Selfridges was bought by Signa and Central in a £4bn deal in 2021, with the business split between an operating company and a property company.

Both had been jointly owned by Signa and Central.

However, Central moved to seize control of the operating business during the turmoil at Signa late last year, converting a €364m (£317m) loan into a majority stake in the business.

Despite this, Signa still owns 50pc of the property company and holds around 35pc in the operating company.

Signa’s downfall led to Mr Benko filing for personal insolvency earlier this month, four months after his company crumbled under the weight of high interest rates and dwindling valuations.

Amid questions around its ownership, Selfridges has maintained that it trades independently of any support from its shareholders.

However, the situation has cast a shadow over the retailer, which has also been racing to cut costs in a major efficiency drive.

Last August, it unveiled plans to slash roles in its head office.

Andrew Keith, Selfridges managing director, told workers at the time that the company needed to be “fit for the future, aligned and working in the most efficient way”.

He said: “Regrettably this is likely to mean some of our head office teams, including some small teams in retail who support our stores, will be resized and reshaped.”

The move followed a year in which Selfridges lost almost £40m after it recorded a jump in costs.

Accounts for Selfridges Retail, which covers the business’s four UK stores, its website and its mobile app, revealed the company was struck by higher debt interest costs during the year to January 2023.

Its interest expense on lease liabilities was close to £100m, around 20pc higher than the prior year.

Signa and Central loaded Selfridges up with more than £1.7bn of debt in autumn 2022 by booking loans through a number of new trading and property entities.

Central Group and Selfridges declined to comment.

Kering declined to comment. PIF was contacted for comment.

Controversial Everton bidder 777 Partners sees owning football club as way to snap up sportstech bargains


Daniel O'Boyle
Fri, 15 March 2024 

The controversial investment firm sees owning football clubs as a way to identify underpriced buyout targets in the sports tech sector, the Standard can reveal (Getty Images)

777 Partners, the controversial London and Miami investment firm that awaits approval for its deal to buy Everton, sees owning football clubs as a way to identify underpriced buyout targets in the sports tech sector, the Standard can reveal.

The companies in question could be a ‘salesforce for football’ or a statistical data provider, 777 head of Europe John Jeffery suggested.

777 - which runs its European operations from Mayfair and already owns clubs in five other countries, as well as basketball’s London Lions - agreed to buy the Premier League stalwarts in September, but final approval from the league has taken much longer than the average deal.

Jeffery told the Standard that the once-obscure firm, which mostly dealt in life insurance and annuities for lawsuit winners, saw four main benefits to being in football.

Three of those benefits are about owning multiple teams: lower revenue volatility, the ability to move players between clubs and a chance to attract directors best suited to a certain budget.

But with the fourth, Jeffery offered a reason why 777 decided to get into buying clubs in the first place. He said 777 could buy out a potential sportstech unicorn at a bargain price, because it would have a better view of the top products on the market.

The firm has already used this business model - buying the "strategic fulcrum" of a sector, and then the adjacent companies it sees as undervalued - in other sectors like insurance.

He said: “We feel like we have a better understanding of the market as a customer ourselves. We can say ‘forget all the Gartner [market research] reports, forget everything. We know what the best software in the market is for this particular problem because we have this problem and we use all the software... So we're going to go about buying it’.”

He insists the model is more effective than researching the sector without playing an active part in the sport, enough to justify the large costs involved in buying top teams and keeping them running.

The firm may also work on building its own products to fill spaces where there wasn’t an existing company to buy. It has already done that in the insurance space, making a product to hedge life insurance payouts using equity release deals, so that a surge in deaths would not mean a big hit to the firm’s profits.

But he added that - for every club the firm owns - 777 would have to work on shoring up the finances in the short-term before it can think about a buying spree. He also noted it would be “insulting” to fans to focus entirely on selling some recently acquired software at the expense of results.

777 has spent months awaiting Premier League approval for its deal to buy Everton, as football owners face greater scrutiny and the firm has been the subject of lawsuits, some from creditors that say they’re owed money. The unusually lengthy process has already led to a point deduction for the club, with a six-point penalty (reduced from 10) moving them from mid-table to a potential relegation fight.

According to reports today, the Premier League is likely to make a decision on the club next week. If the deal is not approved, the future of the debt-heavy club is unclear.

American newsletter Semafor last year raised questions over the source of 777’s funding for the deal, claiming that the company used money from insurance premiums - usually put into secure assets like high-rated bonds - to finance its sporting investments.

Jeffery admitted that those funds were used to invest in clubs, but added that the insurance investments are handled by an “independently run operating company with an independent board that is regulated”, Jeffery said.

He said that leadership does pitch investment opportunities to that board, but that “they can say no and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

But in the case of the football investments, he said “they took it away, they did their due diligence, and they made the decision that they wanted to invest.”

In the capital, the London Lions basketball team has faced its own difficulties since the acquisition. The club’s 2022 accounts are currently overdue. But Jeffery says that its troubles lie with those managing the club on a day-to-day basis.

He said: “It’s run day-to-day, there’s no input.

“We’re often as surprised as everyone else when there’s a negative headline. We know when you know.”

Tame vulture capitalists—or must we destroy them?

Vulture Capitalism makes a case for socialist planning but misses some vital arguments, writes Thomas Foster

Online retailers, such as Amazon, rely on planning (Picture: Chris Watt)

Monday 11 March 2024

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2896



A new book by Grace Blakeley shows up the myth of “free market” capitalism and argues for a democratically‑planned economy.

Vulture Capitalism demolishes the idea that capitalism is dominated by the “freedom” of the market.

Blakeley carefully goes over how businesses plan their own production and states coordinate society for profit.

She argues that planning has always been part of capitalist society. What matters is who makes the decisions— and, currently, those in charge are unaccountable politicians and bosses.

However, the book’s strategy for replacing them with truly democratic processes is flawed.

It rests on the idea that working through parliament and other institutions of the capitalist state can achieve a total transformation of how planning could work. Planning Blakeley uses Amazon as an example of corporate planning.

Amazon didn’t get to where it is now because of the “free market”, but because it operates through highly organised and efficient planning.

From what goods and how many goods distribution centres receive to its supply chains—most aspects are consciously planned, coordinated and designed on a massive scale.

There is no internal market at work. But corporations don’t plan on their own. They rely on the support of the capitalist state and financial institutions.

States frequently intervene to enable bosses’ pursuit of profit or to “shield their most powerful businesses from international competition”.

When a state bails out a corporation, it’s protecting it at the expense of others. When a state ignores anti‑competition practices, it is facilitating monopolisation—when one firm dominates a particular market.

Blakeley rightly argues that coordination shouldn’t be the prerogative of bosses or bureaucrats. Instead ordinary people should be in charge.

Here she draws of the example on the Lucas Plan, produced by workers at Lucas Aerospace Corporation in 1976.

They aimed to shift the firm away from producing weapons and towards producing socially-useful goods.

But bosses rejected their plan as they “preferred to see their organisation die than hand it over to the workers,” writes Blakeley.

She then turns to the example of Salvador Allende’s left wing government, elected in Chile in 1970.

His government set up an early computer system to connect workers’ control of industry to the planning processes of a national government.

The system exchanged information between state institutions and workers— showing planning is possible on a large scale.

But a US-backed coup violently overthrew Allende’s government, which had demobilised its supporters.

To reach socialism, Blakeley argues, we must “build a movement capable of resisting the vested interests that would seek to prevent us from reaching this point”.

Struggle Socialists, she writes, “must struggle within and outside all social institutions, including those of the state” to “take control over the (existing) state”.

This is an absurd conclusion to reach after examining Allende’s government, which exposed precisely the limits of working within parliament and the capitalist state.

Allende failed because he didn’t break the power of capital and the state.

Instead, he tried to subdue the workers’ movement, instructing it to “end their illegal seizures of land and property”.

Breaking capitalist power means relying on the social power of the working class, not manoeuvres at the top.

The capitalist state must be replaced with a new workers’ state, based on democratic bodies from below that ordinary people set up through the course of struggle.

And that sort of challenge can only come through a revolution. Blakeley’s vision of achieving a democratic society is deeply flawed.

SCI-FI, UTOPIAS, AND SOCIALISM

We have described a World-in-which-we’d-love-to-live… The way we see it, this is a world where creative labour is the ultimate satisfaction and the source of happiness for people. Everything else is built on the foundation of this principle. People are happy there when they manage to actualise this main principle. Friendship, love and work are the three main pillars that support the happiness of such humankind. We could not imagine anything better than that, and why would we want to?

Boris Strugatsky

01 September 2021

What kind of society would appeal to a socialist? What kind of life would we actually enjoy once the logic of capitalism driving the world of today releases its grip not only on the resources of Earth – material or human – but also on the minds of its inhabitants? I believe that in order to promote the socialist cause we need to have a clearer understanding of answers to these questions. There is a caveat there, of course: what is appealing to people today may not appeal to people in the future.

Dystopias

I have to confess, I am a sucker for sci-fi. And when it comes to sci-fi, I am omnivorous, reading and watching anything I can get my hands on. There is probably a hidden yearning for a better future in this passion, as I am particularly interested in the fiction about Earth-like worlds, especially those that are more developed than ours. But I have recently noticed an interesting feature of the vast majority of the sci-fi visions of the future: they are overwhelmingly dark, presenting rather a failed world than a successfully developed civilisation. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, George Orwell’s 1984, Evgeny Zamyatin’s We, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? or his post-World War II fascist America in The Man in the High Castle… Cyberpunk is a good example of a genre that produced enormous quantities of dark sci-fi works, and post-apocalyptic fiction writers have been prolific on this topic as well. Seems like the future people foresee in fiction as the most likely is not very bright at all. Beginnings like ‘after an ecological catastrophe wipes out most of humanity…’ or ‘It’s the future, and the planet is a dusty, radioactive wasteland…’ sound like a cliché in a film about the future. And technological breakthroughs gone horribly wrong are a really popular theme, with many examples brilliantly shown in the Black Mirror series.

Of course, there is a sub-genre that focuses specifically on the stories about ‘perfect’ worlds – Utopias. Ironically, when searching for utopias on Google, it is quite hard to find any – the search engine stubbornly shows ‘best dystopias’, and even articles on utopias often discuss mostly dystopian books and films. My first several ‘utopian books’ searches returned the Vulture’s 100 Great Works of Dystopian Fiction, Tales About A World Gone Wrong and a BBC article Science Fiction: How Not To Build A Future Society. Maybe a good drama needs suffering, and this is why tragedies have always enjoyed more popularity than comedies? Whatever the reason, the number of utopian worlds seems to be surprisingly small. Do any of them offer appealing visions of a socialist or a socialist-like world?

There are some notable examples, such as Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, B. F. Skinner’s Walden Two, and Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time. These and some other novels describe interesting social innovations, which are often very close to socialist ideals. For instance, the utopian world in Woman on the Edge of Time promotes such values as common ownership and (gender) equality; the inhabitants of the Walden Two community are free to choose their vocation and have no police force that could enforce their will through violence; and on the moon of Anarres in The Dispossessed, everyone is free to start their own productive enterprise, where there is no incentive to grow production or compete since there is no market, so all production is aimed solely to fulfil everyday needs.

While many ideas described in these and other books are worth discussing and thinking about, some details are questionable or even disturbing. For example, Skinner’s Walden community has a set of guardians who are somehow wiser than the ‘common people’. Skinner himself believed in the need for elitist rule: ‘We must delegate control of the population as a whole to specialists – to police, priests, teachers, therapies…’ (John Staddon, The New Behaviorism, 2014, p.125). The utopian agrarian community of Piercy’s Mattapoisett (Woman on the Edge of Time) shows a governmentally decentralised egalitarian society, mostly based on feminist and anarchist ideals. The world of Mattapoisett at times comes through as a fantasy, a feverish dream in the mind of a person in a mental institution under the influence of heavy tranquillisers, propelled by the feelings of powerlessness and grief. We are never told in the book if the visions the protagonist had are true or not. Would I want to live in Mattapoisett? Probably not. It seems quite focussed on offering the alternative to the patriarchal and exploitative capitalist ways of life, but more in the way of renouncing something negative rather than by offering something viable and attractive in its own right.

Importantly, it is still not clear on how this set of communities (or the one on Anarres in The Dispossessed) is supposed to work: both rely on self-governance and the structures of meeting and discussion, which might function well on the level of a town but certainly not a planet. Ursula Le Guin is perhaps more realistic in her novel, because Anarres in The Dispossessed is not shown as a Garden of Eden. It is a barren and dirty world, where life is decidedly hard for its inhabitants. Do any of them offer appealing visions of a socialist or a socialist-like world? They also have problems with their PDC (Production and Distribution Coordination), which exhibits some signs of government. In any case, it is probably not the best example to illustrate the advantages of a socialist society. But I guess my biggest problem with most utopias is that they simply don’t appeal to me; I wouldn’t want to live there myself.

I understand, writing utopias is hard. Unlike dystopias, it is not as simple as to show some horrors of destruction or societal decay (which could be easily borrowed from a daily tabloid). New ideas have to be created and, on top of this, put together in a coherent system that would look realistic. When thinking them up, authors would undoubtedly lean on their own life experiences, environment and cultural upbringing. For many of them, the best vision of a progressive society not corrupted by consumerism or greed would be inspired by communities in the countryside, or perhaps by stereotypes of preindustrial self-sufficient settlements. Many utopias share these elements of ‘environmental wisdom’ or even a pre-technological biblical paradise, for example, in Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia, citizens aim for a balance between themselves and nature. Callenbach himself said of his book, in relation to Americans: ‘It is so hard to imagine anything fundamentally different from what we have now… [But] we’d better get ready. We need to know where we’d like to go.’

‘Noon Universe’

There are a couple of authors – two brothers – who borrowed their ideas from a different cultural environment: that of the post-war Soviet Union, and about how their utopian world came out different as a result.

The Strugatsky brothers, Boris and Arkady, wrote their books collaboratively. They needed to pass Soviet censorship in order to get published, so they came up with an ‘approved’ setting for many of their books, called ‘Noon Universe’, in which communism has triumphed globally. Of course, they both loathed the constraints of state capitalism and totalitarianism on the lives of Soviet people, so their utopias went much further, painting a world free of money or coercion – a world where they would themselves want to live and work. Most of those books were written in the 60s and 70s, but to this day a more compelling, believable fictional world of the future where people are happy and lead dynamic lives has yet to be written – at least in the Russian science-fiction literature.

The Noon Universe, named after Noon: 22nd Century, chronologically the first novel from the series, also features in the following books: Hard to Be a God, The Inhabited Island, Space Mowgli, Beetle in the Anthill, and The Time Wanderers, among others. To give you an idea of some features of the future social organisation Arkady and Boris Strugatsky presented in their Noon Universe, without giving away any spoilers, here is a brief overview:unequivocal victory of socialism: no monetary system, all production for common goodabsence of institutionalised coercion, such as police or militaryadvanced technological progress, ubiquitous robotic assistanceeveryone is engaged in a profession that inspires them

This fairly common set of features then goes on, now with a somewhat different focus:the system of education is given utmost importance: students spend at least as much time or more at school than at home; they have very small class sizes and have personal Mentors that lead them on the path of learning about both the world and themselves; they must reach a high level of scientific knowledge, societal responsibility and creativity (arts and humanities)ethics/morality is given a very important role, on a par with technological competencea new kind of human (intellectually and ethically superior to most modern humans; importantly, much more socially responsible) is raised, who deeply cares about the planet and all its life forms, and is thus willing to both drive and accept societal progress

Finally, what makes this world both believable and appealing, is this combination of on the one hand a democratic and science-based social system without exploitation, and on the other, individuals raised to support such socialist society:this way of raising responsible individuals makes it possible to avoid coercion and resolve issues collaboratively, based on evidence and rationalitythis society does have some structure / governance where a number of meritocratic High Councils composed of the world’s leading scientists in each particular field of specialisation provide guidance and rules of functioning

Unfortunately, apart from The Gulag Archipelago, the legacy of Soviet literature is largely unknown in the Western cultural sphere, and the Noon Universe with its bright and highly optimistic vision of the future has not been popularised through films or comic books. I have tried to search for similar utopian universes in English or American books, or shown in films, but, as described in the beginning, found mostly dystopian sci-fi or stories of societies that went backwards ‘to the cradle of nature’ in their attempts to invent a fairer and wiser world. Perhaps the closest to the creation of the Strugatsky brothers comes the Earth in Star Trek: The Original Series, and even that is rife with militaristic and patriarchal themes.

From the vantage point of the 21st century, there are several issues that could also be improved in the Noon Universe, of course. For example, we might want to introduce some features of Marxist feminism and gender equality, and environmental considerations could have been described more convincingly. But the main features seem to all be there: technological progress comes hand in hand with societal progress, which is in turn driven by personal betterment of every member of that society. It might seem utopian, but I think it is fully socialist in spirit, more coherent and credible, and it really makes me want to step into that world and start living there right now.

SOURCE

This is the text of a talk given by Leon Rozanov at the SPGB Summer School in August 2021 and published in the September 2021 issue of The Socialist Standard.

THE SPACE-AGE COMMUNISM OF IVAN YEFREMOV

01 September 2021 

Ivan Yefremov (1907--1972) was by original profession a paleontologist. His first stories, on the life of explorers, were published in 1944. Andromeda -- in Russian-language editions The Andromeda Nebula -- is his best-known science fiction novel. Not coincidentally, it was written in 1956, the year of the first sputnik (Soviet artificial earth satellite).

This third English-language printing contains an introduction written shortly before the author's death. Here Yefremov explains how he came to write sci-fi and the purposes he thinks sci-fi should serve. For him sci-fi is not a light-hearted genre in which the fantasy is given free rein, but a serious medium for exploring new scientific ideas and their social implications. Its task is also to portray the communist future of mankind. (In this piece "communism" has the same meaning as in Soviet ideology: it refers to the future culmination of social development, NOT the historical forms of the Soviet system, which are called "socialism.")

Indeed, Andromeda is set in a society -- let's call it Yefremia for convenience -- in which communism is already a mature society, several centuries old. Poverty, greed, and heavy toil are things of the distant past; "knowledge and creative labor have freed Earth from hunger, overpopulation, infectious diseases, and harmful animals" (p. 181). A greatly reduced population is concentrated in a temperate zone, mainly around the Mediterranean Sea, between the intensely forested and cultivated (by automation) tropics and the newly wild prairie. An atmosphere is being created on Mars to prepare that planet too for human settlement. Space expeditions penetrate ever further into the galaxy, and the first contacts with extraterrestrial civilizations have been established. Yefremia fuses Marx' vision of earthly communism with Tsiolkovsky's vision of mankind's cosmic destiny. (1)

What of the people who inhabit this utopia? The Yefremians have a great deal of freedom: they travel at will, choose new professions, seek love relationships, initiate projects. At the same time, they are highly socially conscious and self-disciplined, even mildly ascetic. They derive satisfaction mainly from creative work in the arts and sciences and the full development of their intellectual and emotional capacities.

Coercion has not disappeared totally, as there is a small minority of egoistic throwbacks ("bulls"): they may be banished to the Island of Oblivion, or should they conspire to disrupt society eliminated by the "destroyer battalions." (I suppose something like the KGB is still needed to spot "bulls" and pre-empt their conspiracies, though this is nowhere spelt out.)

Yefremia was very much in tune with the spirit of the Khrushchev era, with its naive faith in rapid Soviet-led progress in two closely connected dimensions: scientific progress, symbolized by the new space program; and social progress -- "Our children will live under communism," promised Nikita Sergeyevich. Khrushchev's successors had no such faith and shifted the focus of official ideology from communism, relegated to an indefinitely distant future, to "actually existing socialism" (i.e. the Soviet status quo). In his 1972 introduction, Yefremov admits that many people no longer believe in a communist future. He still believes because the sole alternative is the self-destruction of mankind. The logic here goes as follows: Yes, A is highly implausible, but if not A then B, and B is simply too awful to contemplate, therefore A is inevitable.

How are decisions taken in Yefremia? One of the advantages of the fictional method of presenting utopias is that you never have to explain EXACTLY how they work. But we learn that leadership is shared among a number of councils: the Economic Council, the Astronautical Council, the Health Council, and so on. These councils are advised by an array of scientific institutions, my own favorites being the Academy of the Bounds of Knowledge and the Academy of Sorrow and Joy.

The various councils cooperate on an equal basis: none is supposed to be subordinate to another. Yet the Economic Council does occupy a crucial niche, if only because "nothing big can be undertaken" unless it allocates the necessary resources. It is indeed "the planet's central brain." And there is also the Control of Honor and Justice, "the guardian of every person on the planet," the ultimate judicial authority. (2) Parallels with really existing socialism readily come to mind. However distant the future ostensibly being portrayed, many of the author's assumptions reflect the society in which he really lives. Of course, the one is supposed to be the precursor of the other.

While I have nothing against communism as such, I wouldn't want to live in Yefremia. There is too much tension and heroism for my taste; life is too strenuous -- physically, intellectually, emotionally. I prefer the gentler utopian visions of William Morris' "News from Nowhere" and Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed (in which an anarcho-communist society has been set up on the moon Anarres). Surely, once mankind gets past the unavoidable turmoil of class struggle, war and revolution and reaches mature communism it is entitled at long last to a bit of relaxation? After all, it was Marx' son-in-law Paul Lafargue who published a pamphlet entitled The Right To Be Lazy. Those of us who prefer the simple life can, it is true, go fishing on the Island of Oblivion, but in so doing we expose ourselves to abuse at the hands of the "bulls." Why can't we have an island of our own?

But Yefremov's workaholic ("strugglaholic" -- how's that for a neologism?) heroes and heroines have a grand excuse for not letting themselves relax: that cosmic destiny of mankind! The abundance of high-tech low-population communism is drained away by the exorbitant resource demands of ambitious cosmic projects. "We are going to ask mankind to curtail consumption for the year 809 of the Great Circle Era," says the president of the Astronautical Council (p. 330). Now where have we heard this before? No more enemies on earth, at least not to speak of? Never mind, let's go and fight mysterious beings in outer space. The struggle continues! Without end in sight. Space plays the same socially and esthetically conservative role in Yefremov's communism as did the arms race in actually existing socialism.

NOTES

(1) Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857--1935). See pp. 258-281 in Russkii kosmizm [Russian Cosmism] (Moscow: Pedagogika-Press, 1993).

(2) Actually there are two Controls of Honor and Justice, one for the northern hemisphere and one for the southern. Each has 11 members. Cases concerning the whole planet are heard in joint session.

SOURCE

Ivan Yefremov, Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1980). Translated by George Hanna. The book can be read on-line here or with multicolored illustrations here.