Further to recent rumblings on the subject, Ilya Somin ponders Star Trek and socialism: 

Star Trek is a cultural icon watched by tens of millions. Many more people will derive their vision of what the future should be at least partially from Star Trek than from reading serious scholarship. Law professor Benjamin Barton wrote that “no book released in 2005 will have more influence on what kids and adults around the world think about government than The Half-Blood Prince [of the hugely popular Harry Potter series].” Similarly, no nonfiction book of the last few decades is likely to have more influence on how people see the future than Star Trek. If Star Trek continues to portray a socialist future as basically unproblematic, and even implies that a transition to full-blown socialism can be achieved without any major trauma, that is a point worth noting.

With rare exceptions, the Star Trek franchise has been far too blasé in its portrayal of future socialism and its implications. After all, socialist regimes have been responsible for the death and impoverishment of millions. There has never been a society that combined full-blown socialism with prosperity or extensive “noneconomic” liberties for the population. And there has never been a transition to socialism without large-scale repression and mass murder. If Star Trek’s writers want to posit a new form of socialism that somehow avoids the shortcomings of all previous ones, they should at least give us some sense of how this new and improved socialism escaped the usual pitfalls. Had a similarly prominent pop culture icon been equally obtuse in its portrayal of fascism or even milder forms of right-wing oppression (e.g. – by portraying a rightist military dictatorship that seems to work well and benefits the people greatly without any noticeable loss of personal freedom), it would have been universally pilloried.

The whole thing.

Seumas Milne has written something peculiar again. (Yes, I know. The Guardian’s well-heeled class warrior writes lots of peculiar things – many of which are bafflingly wrong-headed.) Today Comrade Milne is miffed with the “Tory curmudgeon actor” Michael Caine and

the richest 2% of taxpayers who are going to have to part with 50% of earnings over £150,000.

Caine provoked the Ire of Milne with the following, not unreasonable, sentiment: 

Tax got to 82 per cent [in the 1970s] and I thought this was kind of unfair. I see… that the government has taken it up to 50 per cent and if it goes to 51 I will be back in America. I will not pay the Government more than I get.

Actually, National Insurance contributions and numerous indirect taxes most likely mean Mr Caine crossed that bridge some time ago, but that’s another matter. More importantly, it’s always heartening to see a successful man from a humble background being badmouthed by a Stalin groupie from a privileged background.

For newcomers, three more items from the archives:

The Guardian Position.

On cowardice in moral drag. Jakob Illeborg touches his toes and hopes no-one takes advantage.

The Voice of Conscience. 

Imperialism, brainwashing and the imminent invasion of China. The wild imaginings of Mr John Pilger.

Peddling Stupidity. 

Professor Carolyn Guertin “inserts bodily fluids and political consciousness into electronic spaces.” Mockery ensues.

Dip a toe in the greatest hits. 

Theodore Dalrymple ponders rape, punishment and an interesting selectivity:

It is curious how, when it comes to rape, the liberal press, and presumably liberals themselves, suddenly appreciate the value of punishment. They do not say of rape that we must understand the causes of rape before we punish it; that we must understand how men develop into rapists before we lock them away, preferably for a long time; that prison does not work. It is as if, when speaking of rape, it suddenly becomes time to put away childish things, and (to change the metaphor slightly) to talk the only kind of language that rapists understand.

They quiver with outrage when they learn that the clear-up rate for rape cases is only 6.5 per cent, though this in fact is very similar to the clear-up rate of all crimes. They are appalled at cases where rapists are left free to commit more of their crimes because of police and Crown Prosecution Service incompetence, which is itself the natural result of the policy of successive governments. But it is important for their self-respect as liberals that their outrage should not be generalised, that they should not let it spill over into consideration of other categories of crime, where the same bureaucratic levity and frivolity is likewise demonstrated. For, as every decent person knows, there are far too many prisoners in this country already, and prison does not work.

A claim aired repeatedly in the pages of a certain newspaper. Presumably, the Guardian’s Irwin James feels that imprisoned rapists should be allowed to vote along with the rest of the prison population. (Mr James does tentatively draw a line with Ian Huntley and Rose West, noted hate figures of the “popular press,” for whom he feels the franchise would be “pointless.” However, he maintains, “all others… should be allowed to cast their vote.”) And one might reasonably suppose that Mr James also frets over the “poor quality of the toothbrushes” available to rapists.

If anyone were to write that he thought that rapists should not be locked up because they have had a difficult childhood, have psychological problems and aberrant personalities, including a tendency to take drugs and too much alcohol, and because prison does not work as evidenced by the fact that they often commit the same sorts of crimes on release, he would be (rightly) regarded as a moral idiot. Yet the very same arguments are trotted out, with every appearance of convincing the people who trot them out of their own moral superiority over those who do not believe them, with regard to the kinds of crimes that make the lives of many old people in this country (to take only one example) a torment.

The whole thing. (h/t, Freeborn John)

Speaking of Communism and how it works out so well… 

In van Houtryve’s hotel room, propaganda played in an endless loop on the three TV channels. North Korean biographers, striving to make Kim his more revered father’s equal, insist a swallow foretold his birth and attribute a spate of superhuman characteristics to him – the ability to manipulate time among them. Defectors have described him as arthritic and illiterate.

Posing as a businessman looking to open a chocolate factory, documentary photographer Tomas van Houtryve visited North Korea. Despite 24-hour surveillance and the pointed reticence of North Koreans, he managed to take some photographs.

Lest we forget, North Korea still has concentration camps and gas chambers. Hence perhaps the reticence. Via Mick Hartley.