Poor and ill - the sickness of capitalism

More than half of people who suffered from a long-term illness or disability in 2016 suffered food insecurity, according research which has prompted renewed concerns about a "hunger crisis" in the UK. The observed increase in food insecurity among those on low incomes was likely to be an underestimate.

The problem, which arises when people cannot afford to buy enough to eat, has almost doubled among the least well off in the last five years, according to the study, published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

An analysis of survey data, originally published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, showed the rise was even steeper among those living with a longstanding illness or disability – with 53.5 per cent of this group experiencing food insecurity in 2016.

The report states that the “rising vulnerability to food insecurity” observed in the survey suggests the “poorest in the UK are worse off today”.

“While the Great Recession also occurred between 2004 and 2016 and may have contributed to a rise in food insecurity at that time, by 2016 the UK was no longer in recession. By contrast, welfare reform continued, the effects of which were keenly felt by those with longstanding illnesses," it adds. “Food insecurity has certainly always existed in the UK, but in light of the welfare changes that occurred over this period, it is possible the current social security system is providing increasingly inadequate protection from food insecurity for more and more people.”

Genevieve Edwards, director of external affairs at the MS Society, said the charity was increasingly hearing from people with MS that they’ve had to cut back on food and other essentials because of problems with disability benefits.

She added: “More than 100,000 people live with MS in the UK and our research shows 39 per cent of those who lost PIP support spent less on food as a result. We've also heard from people who turned to foodbanks after struggling with universal credit. It’s simply unacceptable that disabled people in the UK today can’t rely on our welfare system to provide the most basic level of financial security.”

Jess Leigh, Policy and Campaigns Manager at disability equality charity, Scope, said the findings were "further shocking indications of the dire impact extra costs can have on disabled people". She added: “Life costs more in you are disabled. Disabled people often have no choice but to spend more on essential goods and services like heating, therapies and equipment.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/disabled-food-insecurity-hungry-hunger-crisis-sick-study-british-medical-jounal-a8893206.html

The problem is capitalism. The solution is socialism

To change society and end oppression, we need a plan to get from where we are now to a socialist world. The capitalists have accumulated untold wealth based on the exploitation of the multinational working class and the systematic discrimination and robbery that is visited upon the oppressed. This class has shown time and time again that it will stop at nothing to maintain its power and privilege. We need to turn things around. This means radical revolution that advances the cause of the exploited. The growing radicalisation of the workers has its foundations in the structure of capitalism itself.The capitalists are a powerful enemy and it will require protracted efforts to overthrow them. But there is a potentially much more powerful force opposing them. The working class constitutes the majority. It is composed of women and men of all lands who labour to create goods and services, be it in factories, offices or the fields. It encompasses the employed and the unemployed, those who do manual labour or mental labour, people working in the service sector or manufacturing and transportation. It includes the organised and the unorganised. The working class makes its living by selling its ability to work. The capitalists own the places and things that are used to create goods and services. They appropriate for themselves all that is produced by the collective labour of the working class. This gives rise to an irrepressible conflict, a clash of basic interests that can be solved by the working class taking all power into its own hands. Socialism will only be gained by waging the working-class struggle. Socialism is not inevitable. What has been termed its ‘inevitability’ consists in this, that only through socialism can human progress continue. But there is not and cannot be any absolute deterministic inevitability in human affairs, since mankind makes its own history and chooses what to do. What is determined is not its choice, but the conditions under which it is made, and the consequences when it is made. The meaning of socialism is not that it tells us that socialism will come regardless, but that it explains to us where we stand, what course lies open to us, what is the road to life.

What is socialism? It is no accident that socialists failed to sketch out in any detail the new socialist society. Instead of blueprinting the new society, we have analysed the society in which we now live — capitalist society — the society out of which the new is destined to come. Socialists do not put forward their goal as a utopia, as a mere vision of what would ideally satisfy people’s needs and make them all happy, but as a goal the practical attainment of which is made necessary by the actual conditions of modern society. We can play no part in the building of the new society – that privilege must be left to those who come after us. Not only will the revolution itself be profoundly democratic, but thanks to the tremendous productive capacity we have created, we will be quickly able to satisfy all the basic needs of everyone. There will be no real shortages that would require some kind of bureaucrat to ration out who gets what. We would see our wealth as part of mankind’s common heritage. Socialism is more than the name merely for a new system of economic relationships. Socialism means the ending of exploitation of man by man, a society without class antagonisms, in which the people themselves control their means of life and use them for their own happiness.

Socialism will change our way of life. That is what makes the struggle worthwhile. Socialism will be possible only when the workers, those who meet the needs of society, decide that they are determined to lay the living conditions of mankind on a new foundation. The whole future of humanity rests on the emergence of the working class as the creative force in society. Socialism meets the desire for freedom innate in every human being. Solidarity in the working class as a whole is an urgent necessity if we are to further the cause of socialism. We trust in our fellow-workers will see that the solution of mankind’s economic and social problems lies not within the capitalist system at all but beyond it, in a socialist order.

Local Election Statement

People not Profits

Things are not produced today to meet people’s needs. They are produced to make a profit. And that’s the cause of the problems people face.

Under the profit system profits always come first. Before providing basic services like health care and transport, before improving conditions at work, and before providing decent housing.

It’s profits first, people second.

Under the profit system production is in the hands of profit-seeking business enterprises, all competing to maximise the rate of return on the money invested in them. Decisions as to what to produce and how much, and how and where to produce it, are not made in response to people’s needs but in response to market forces.

As a result, the health and welfare of the workforce and the effects on the environment take second place. The profit system can’t help doing this. It’s the only way it can work. Which is why it must go.

We know this is only elections for local councils but we make no apology for raising this issue. The reduced incomes and cuts to services that people are having to put up with are a direct result of the profit system being in an economic crisis.

When this happens governments, whatever their political hue, have to cut their spending so as to give profits a chance to recover. As local councils are largely financed by central government this trickles down to the local level too.

So, what’s the alternative?

One thing is certain. The Tories, Lib-Dems, Labour, UKIP—have nothing to offer. They all support the profit system and are only squabbling over which of them should have a go at running it. If we are going to improve things we are going to have to act for ourselves, without professional  politicians or leaders of any kind. We are going to have to organise ourselves democratically to bring about a society geared to serving human needs not profits.

Production to satisfy people’s needs. That’s the alternative. But this can only be done if we control production and the only basis for this is common ownership and democratic control.  We need a system that works for us all, of which we're all an integral part, a system we're prepared to work to attain. What we need is socialism.

Where there is no Socialist Party candidate running, write the word "World Socialism" across your ballot paper, your vote is spoiled. True, but at any rate you have not signified that you are a willing supporter of capitalism

Workers are Commodities

The number of migrants is estimated at over 240 million worldwide. And an increasingly large number of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), are home to most migrant workers from Asia. migrant workers continued to face exploitation in these and other countries, including Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman and Saudi Arabia, in large part due to kafala (sponsorship) systems, which limited their ability to escape abusive working conditions.

 The current sponsorship regimes in the Middle East have been criticized for creating an asymmetrical power relationship between employers and migrant workers – which can make workers vulnerable to forced labour. Essential to the vulnerability of migrant workers in the Middle East is that their sponsor controls a number of aspects related to their internal labour market mobility – including their entry, renewal of stay, termination of employment, transfer of employment, and, in some cases, exit from the country, the report noted.

The United Nations has estimated a hefty $466 billion as remittances from migrant workers worldwide in 2017—and perhaps even higher last year.

These remittances, primarily from the US, Western Europe and Gulf nations, go largely to low and middle-income countries, “helping to lift millions of families out of poverty,” says UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

But most of these migrant workers are known to pay a heavy price, toiling mostly under conditions of slave labour: earning low wages, with no pensions or social security, and minimum health care.

The plight of migrant workers is one of the issues being pursued by the Geneva-based International Labour Organization (ILO), a UN agency which celebrates its centenary this year promoting social justice worldwide.

Ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam, a member of the UN Committee on Migrant Workers, told IPS rising populist nationalism world over is giving rise to rhetoric with unfounded allegations and irrational assessments of the worth of migrant workers to economies of many migrant receiving countries in the world.

Since migrant workers remain voiceless without voting or political rights in many such receiving countries, they are unable to mobilize political opinion to counter assertions against them, he said.

“And migrant workers are now being treated in some countries as commodities for import and export at will, not as humans with rights and responsibilities,” said Ambassador Kariyawasam, a former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations. He warned, not only human worth as a whole will diminish, but it can also lead to unexpected social upheavals affecting economic and social well-being of some communities in both sending and receiving countries of migrant workers.

ILO Director-General Guy Ryder called for a future where labour is not a commodity, where decent work and the contribution of each person are valued, where all benefit from fair, safe and respectful workplaces free from violence and harassment, and in which wealth and prosperity benefit all.

300 million working poor – outside of migrant labour — who live on $1.90 a day.

Millions of men, women and children are victims of modern slavery. Too many still work excessively long hours and millions still die of work-related accidents every year.

“Wage growth has not kept pace with productivity growth and the share of national income going to workers has declined. Inequalities remain persistent around the world. Women continue to earn around 20 per cent less than men.”

“Even as growth has lessened inequality between countries, many of our societies are becoming more unequal. Millions of workers remain disenfranchised, deprived of fundamental rights and unable to make their voices heard”, according to the background briefing.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/05/migrant-workers-humans-commodities/

Lancaster weekend - ‘Putting the social back into socialism’

Fri June 21 to Sun 23 
Quaker Old School, 
Yealand Conyers, 
Carnforth, Lancaster

Following informal and unofficial discussions in and around Fircroft and London in recent years along the lines of ‘putting the social back into socialism’, Lancaster branch is organising an experimental ‘social weekend’ for members, in which we arrange a cheap residential self-catering venue in an attractive rural location near a good pub and invite Party members simply to come along and enjoy some quality time without resorting to the respectable intellectual pretext of Party talks or business agendas etc.

 The weekend will involve practical activity by arrangement, organising cooking and shopping together, perhaps some country or hill walks or a tour of Lancaster, definitely some going-down-the-pub-time, and perhaps also some conversation about future Party meetings or workshops or other creative ideas for stuff to do.

Accommodation will be basic, no more than a sofa or a mattress on the floor, similar to dossing at head office, so you'll need a sleeping bag, but there will be washing facilities (so bring a towel). There’s a bus stop right outside for buses into Carnforth and Lancaster.

There’s space for up to twenty people (non-members are also welcome) which would make the cost 20 pounds (?)per person, but the branch will pay if you can’t afford it. The branch is also willing to contribute to travel expenses if you need that. This is partly being financed by a legacy from our late comrade Bob Beckett so this weekend is also kind of in memoriam.

The Old School is in the rural village of Yealand Conyers, just outside Carnforth and about six miles from Lancaster. It’s a very pretty area with lots of walks and there’s a country pub about half a mile down the road. 

You can see the Old School on Google street view at https://tinyurl.com/yxrhzw8b and if you follow the road downhill you'll find the pub too (the pizzas are very good!). We are allowed to take drinks into the Quaker place but obviously we don't want to make a mess and, even more obviously, annoy the neighbours by making too much noise.

Anybody arriving by train, we can pick you up from Carnforth if we know when you are arriving, and there is also a bus. If a lot of people are driving we'll need to scope out some parking places as the roads are quite narrow.

We would d like to get an idea of who's going to come so we know how much dinner to make on Friday night (for late arrivals, we can put out some cold food.), so please get in touch using our branch email:

 spgb.lancaster@worldsocialism.org

  My mobile is 07510 412 261 (if you get lost in the Lakes or drive to Lanchester by mistake.)

Hope you can make it!

Paddy

Lancaster Br.

Que se vayan todos. Throw them all out.

"Mejor el diablo que conoces que el angelito desconocido” (better the devil you know than the angel you don’t). At one time, the majority of people felt it was safer to stick with Maduro. They were not confident that the opposition would reflect their interest and the opposition's demands did not resonate with them. They kept their distance from the protests at that time. Now the prevailing attitude has become “Que venga cualquier persona, queno sea él [Maduro]” (Anyone who isn’t Maduro).

When it comes to Venezuela, the Socialist Party often adopts a plague on both houses, denying the need to take one side or the other in its polarised political situation. Venezuela’s crisis shows no signs of abating, and will likely get worse. Everything points to a scenario of more confrontation.

The Right opposition and its American sponsors has shown its willingness to sacrifice economic stability to achieve its goal of removing Maduro from office. Its future policies are intent upon once more reinforcing existing class and other inequalities of the pre-Chávez, elite-led Venezuela of old. At least some support for Guaidó comes from exhaustion, not enthusiasm. “No me causa emoción, ” (I’m not excited about him.) He has elicited support, most likely due to Maduro’s unpopularity. But no-one is convinced that Guaidó has the interests of the people at heart. Waning support of the poor and working-class for Maduro does not necessarily translate into acceptance of Guaidó. Many remain skeptical of the opposition, with good reason.

Protests in past years against the government have tended to be centered in wealthier neighborhoods, in January of this year, protests against Maduro began to break out across a number of poor and working-class neighborhoods, in places like Catia, La Vega, El Valle, and Petare.

The first mainstream media, portrays the government as a dictatorial regime engaged in ruthless repression of a heroic opposition peacefully seeking a return to democratic rule. The Venezuelan government portrays a democratically elected government besieged by a violent, unhinged opposition that represents the wealthy elite and is the tool of the US empire which will stop at nothing to achieve regime change, regardless of the legality.

The proposition that Venezuela is authoritarian has been repeated ad nauseam and purposefully ignores the repeated times the country has gone to the polls under Chavez and Maduro. Charges of electoral fraud are baseless. While earlier claims of Venezuela’s authoritarianism had little merit, Venezuela has been moving in an authoritarian direction. There are many criticisms of the Maduro government’s shortcomings and errors and they should not be off-limits nor should their seriousness be played down, simply because Maduro is the target of Washington's regime-change.There is also ample evidence the opposition’s willingness to use violent and unconstitutional means against the government

It is not clear when Venezuela’s downward spiral will end. Socialists cannot turn a blind eye to the slide into authoritarianism, not because of a belief in representative democracy, but that authoritarian rule is incompatible with building a socialist movement. A general sentiment that has been growing is that neither side can be trusted. Yoana, a teacher, echoed that disillusionment. “There is no one to believe in now... we want a change, but we don't know with whom.” Many Venezuelans see little difference between Maduro and Guaidó. While one is fighting to maintain his position of power, the other is fighting to gain it. While there was very much to critique about Chavez, for a number of years he accomplished something of a miracle by giving the poor a central place in the public and political discourse. The constitutionality or legality of either Guiadó’s or Maduro’s claims will matter little if people view politics as an elite arena where politicians fight for a small group of cronies.

The Socialist Party stands in solidarity with the majority of Venezuelans who are suffering under an incompetent, unaccountable government, opposed by a vengeful, violent right-wing opposition. If anyone is paying the price of this proxy-war, it is the people with their access to health services, food, and transportation restricted and limited

Adapted from here

https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/26/venezuela’s-popular-sectors-and-future-country

Read all about it

The media is the vehicle of propaganda and is the most corrupt and biased reporting in the world. It pretends to be impartial in a society of classes, of bosses and workers, of rich and poor, of the well-fed, well-housed and well-clothed and the hungry, ill-housed and ill-clad. It pretends to be impartial in attitude toward the great problems produced by capitalism: war, unemployment, starvation, the class struggle. Yet, the media are big business enterprises closely allied to finance and industry. It lives on insinuation and outright lying. It is pro-big business and unmistakably anti-labour. It is capable of big lies, as well as small ones. It never ceases in its venomous outpourings against the interests of the working class. 

The Socialist Standard openly takes the side of the wage-workers against their exploiters. It never pretends that in a strike one must see the bosses’ side of it, for the Socialist Standard is always on the side of the workers. In a profit society, in which one class lives by exploiting another, the Socialist Standard frankly and boldly takes the side of the workers. It is a journal that represents the interests of the working class. But it is more than that: it is a socialist journal because it seeks not an improvement of the conditions of the workers under capitalism, but the abolition of this system of scarcity and insecurity and its replacement by a social order of security and plenty for all.

 The Socialist Standard fights for socialism in order to end the exploitation of man by man for all time; to eliminate wars and unemployment and hunger. Its handicap is the complex world in which we live where there are far too many occurrences of importance to the working class to compress into its pages.

The Socialist Standard cannot rely on the men of wealth to place their advertisements. It has no secret funds. It gets no assistance from any great power – it depends for its existence on the support and aid given it by its readers - You.

Local Election Leaflet - Folkestone

Tax cuts went to the rich

A new analysis ofTrump's 2017 tax cuts details how workers received little benefit from the plan, despite the savings many of their powerful corporate employers received. The largest corporate tax cut in U.S. history—from 35 to 21 percent—resulted in companies saving about $150 billion in the first year after the passage in December 2017.

Trump and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan had spent months telling Americans they stood to save hundreds or even thousands of dollars in taxes, with Trump telling one crowd that the average family would see a pay raise of about $4,000, a benefit that would "trickle down" from employers' corporate tax cuts. Far from the $4,000 raises Trump alluded to, the average paycheck went up about $6, or $233 per year.

The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) reporters Peter Cary and Allan Holmes wrote in The Guardian, companies instead distributed their savings amongst the few Americans who hold stock in their corporations:
"The bulk of the $150 billion the tax cut put into the hands of corporations in 2018 went into shareholder dividends and stock buy-backs, both of which line the pockets of the 10 percent of Americans who own 84 percent of the stocks. Just 6 percent of the tax savings was spent on workers, according to Just Capital, a not-for-profit that tracks the Russell 1000 index."

CPI drew three main conclusions from their extensive research into the effects of the tax cuts: that the law "was first and foremost a gift to multinationals;" that Republicans' claims that they aimed to "reform" the tax code without adding to the deficit were "meaningless;" and that it left the tax system vulnerable to abuse by corporations committed to tax avoidance.

The law "contained egregious mistakes, created massive new loopholes, and opened the door to new forms of tax avoidance," write Cary and Holmes.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/30/while-corporate-profits-and-tax-dodging-soared-analysis-shows-just-6-gop-tax-scam

The trade unionist view on Venezuela

Maduro or Guaidó? Neither, according to José Bodas, former General Secretary of the FUTPV, Venezuela’s main oil workers trade union, and according to him, neither the president nor the challenger from the opposition has the people’s best interests in mind. 

“The fact that the United States is trying to decide the presidency of Venezuela is an unacceptable intrusion on our national sovereignty. Donald Trump has referred to Latin American countries as “shithole countries” and called Mexican people “criminals”, he violates the human rights of refugees in the United States. I don’t believe that the United States, Bolsonaro in Brazil, the Lima Group, or Duque in Colombia will be there to protect human rights or workers’ rights in Venezuela. They will protect the interests of multinational companies.”

“Nicolás Maduro’s government isn’t progressive or left wing. It doesn’t defend workers’ rights. It’s a government that oppresses, with a financial policy that is destroying collective interests in order to pay off foreign debt. The government has cut off all import of food and medicine. It is suffocating the democratic freedom of young people and workers...The government has imposed laws to protect the oil industry and to outlaw trade union activity and limit the right to strike, both for private and public employees. Those of us who are still fighting have been labelled counter-revolutionaries or agents from foreign organisations, such as NATO. Even workers who sympathise with the government but who are standing up for union rights are being called counter-revolutionaries. Therefor, in Venezuela, trade union organisation is a criminal activity.”

Our salaries are at five dollars per month. It is close to slave wages, and it is destroying any chance of decent working conditions and collective agreements. If we get organised, we can beat the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro. We believe in trade union organising, independent trade unions, independent parties, and independent businesses, both private and public...We believe in an alternative programme for our country and we are certain that Nicolás Maduro’s government would never support that. It’s said that the flight of capital from the country through the oil industry exceeds 25 billion dollars per year. We believe in an oil industry controlled entirely by Venezuelans. With the interest from the oil money, we could invest in decent wages, in pensions, in an agricultural reform that would ensure we can produce the food we eat, in education, in health care. We believe in a strong Venezuelan oil industry, free from foreign interests. But to accomplish that we need to beat Nicolás Maduro, and we don’t have any faith in Juan Guaidó either.”

“We need democracy in order to beat the financial policies that this government is running, the suffering caused by these extremely low wages. And that is something that us Venezuelans need to do together; young, old, the indigenous population, farmers, and women. But not through a military coup and not through foreign actions.”

http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/04/venezuela-union-organising-illegal/

Another interview by Bodas who is a member of Socialism and Freedom Party (PSL, Partido por el Socialismo y la Libertad)

https://venezuelanvoices.home.blog/2019/04/05/this-government-is-rightwing-says-venezuelan-union-leader-jose-bodas/

May Day is the day of solidarity

On May Day, the day of international working class solidarity and struggle, the Socialist Party of Great Britain sends its greetings to the working class of all countries. 

Solidarity is the watchword of the workers against the master class.

 Let the slogan resound — "Workers of all countries, unite!" This May Day when fraternity among working people is forged. It is a time for casting away illusions.

“Arise, ye prisoners of starvation.” May Day is the day of the working class.

"Arise, ye wretched of the earth.” May Day is our day

May Day is when the working class affirms the unity of the workers of the whole world in common struggle for the realisation of the common goal. May Day expresses the refusal of the working class to accept the status quo of exploitation and oppression. May Day is the day the workers of the world challenge to the masters and tell them that the system will be changed. 

We demand REVOLUTION! That is the only way — there is no other.

May Day is the workers day. No bosses, no exploiters, no bosses' politicians allowed. We say here today what workers say all over the world, on our day - The working class and the exploiting class have nothing in common. 

There is urgent need for a change of our society. The great threat of climate change hangs over humanity. Socialism is a necessity. It would end the capitalist system wherein one class is enriched by exploiting the majority.

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE