06.04.1995

Fish wars

The dispute between the Canadian government and the EU over fishing in the North Atlantic rages on. The problem lies not in the legality or otherwise of the action of the various parties, for - whoever is judged to be in the right according to bourgeois law - the fish stocks are still being depleted.

A difficulty of capitalist exploitation of resources is that if there is no legal ownership then neither is there regard for future reproduction. While ‘owners’ have to pay at least some attention to the long term, there is no way that capitalist ownership of the oceans’ fish can be determined.

There is good scientific reason to believe that the sea could provide a bigger food supply than the land, but this would require large scale investment and a global approach - an approach which only socialism could provide.

John Walsh