Socialist Sonnet No. 170

Budget Event Horizon

 

The vast black hole into which the nation’s

Wealth is being irresistibly drawn

Is unstable capitalism, grown

Through ever expanding depredations

Until it has consumed the entire world.

The gravity of its profit hunger

Is such, well-meaning policies no longer

Escape oblivion. Intentions hurled

Into its maw are destined to never

Be seen again. The exchequer must yield,

For the red box proves a pathetic shield:

Fiscal escape is a doomed endeavour.

All promises the chancellor made are hushed,

Fond hopes for change relentlessly crushed.

 

D. A.

Slavery and wage slavery

 

The row about ‘reparatory justice’ for colonial slavery has rolled round again. Estimates of potential costs for using that expensive word ‘sorry’ vary from billions to tens of trillions. Up to 20% of UK wealth is slavery-related, but today’s rich beneficiaries certainly won’t be giving up their landed estates. Instead they insist that any reparations come out of ‘public money’.

Since ‘public money’ ultimately comes from capitalist profits, this amounts to a plan by the slaveholder descendants to spread the reparation cost across the entire owning class – like sharing a restaurant bill among 10 people, when only two of them ate.

Don’t feel sorry for the capitalists though. They all get rich through our wage slavery. Socialists don’t want reparations for that. We want revolution.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/

The Cuban Missile Crisis - over or postponed?

 

Sixty two years ago saw the end of the Cuban missile crisis which lasted from the 16^th to the 28^th October 1962 when the confrontation between the USA and Soviet Russia go to the brink of embarking on a nuclear war with all the devastating consequences for the world that implies.

The threat of a global nuclear conflagration has not receded. More states have access to nuclear weapons than in 1962.The competitive nature of Capitalism continues to drive constituencies toward armed conflict in pursuit of its inherent aims. The world is an even more dangerous place today than it was in 1962.

As the piece below from the Socialist Standard from December 1962 points out, the crisis is over for the time being. Whilst capitalism continues the crisis is not, and cannot, ever be over.

‘So the crisis is over—for the time being! The Soviets have climbed down over Cuba and have withdrawn their missiles from that unhappy island. Everyone is sighing with relief and no doubt President Kennedy is congratulating himself on the success of his tough line. The press generally acclaimed him as the saviour of the peace, although it has been suggested in one journal at least, that there was no real Russian intention to fight over Cuba because the U.S.S.R. was just not ready for a shooting war yet. Russia, it seems, has run away to fight again another day.

Just what day, when and where, none can say—least of all the various opposing governments themselves. It is one of the terrifying aspects of the whole ghastly business that at the most we can only guess where the next trouble spot will be, and whether that will then trigger an explosion which will blow the world sky-high. Look back over the years since 1945. Berlin, Korea, Suez, Hungary, Lebanon, Formosa—the monster of war can rear its ugly head any place at any time and this is not to mention the smaller in-between conflicts such as Indochina and Algeria.

Cuba has simmered down for a while and maybe will move out of the headlines altogether, as the major capitalist powers find their attention diverted elsewhere. Who amongst us anyway would have risked a wager even six months ago that Castro's Land would be the focal point in a crisis which edged the capitalist world perilously close to another horror?

And now there is India's fight with China. This again is in a part of the world which has only recently become big news, as Capitalist China pushes her borders outwards in pursuit of her expansionist aims. She has been squabbling for some time over certain slices of Indian border territory and negotiations have dragged wearily on, but force is the final arbiter in the clash of opposing interests, as we have pointed out on many occasions.

The Indian affair highlights perhaps the most tragic irony of all, that of poverty stricken workers literally running to join the Indian Army in defence of their masters' interests and in ignorance of their own. No need for conscription, said Mr. Nehru; his government could take its pick from millions of volunteers. But ignorance is not something peculiar to Indian or Chinese workers, or people in “backward" countries alone. It is a failing common to workers the world over, even though many of them may not join the army quite so enthusiastically as their Indian brothers.

Yet sooner or later ignorance will have to yield to the growth of Socialist knowledge and the realisation that war is not just a nasty accident but has its roots in the private property basis of modern society. It is an ever present menace so long as capitalism survives. The sordid squabbles over markets, trade routes and other considerations, give way eventually to armed conflict, but no working class interest is involved, and no social problem is solved by fighting. When each war is over, all that can be said is that countless workers have died to preserve the conditions for another holocaust later on. Someone once said that the next war really begins where the last one ends. We could not agree more.’

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-conflict-that-is-capitalism-1962.html

Fairer taxes on the one per cent? Only one permanent solution!

 

The solution is not ‘fairer taxes.’ The solution is socialism where quality goods and services will be produced for use (free access) not profit.

‘... the charity Oxfam says they are being undermined by what it calls a “global oligarchy” of the super-rich who exert considerable control over the global economy – and who it blames for exacerbating problems like extreme inequality and climate change. “Today, the world’s richest 1% own more wealth than 95% of humanity. The immense concentration of wealth, driven significantly by increased monopolistic corporate power, has allowed large corporations and the ultrarich who exercise control over them to use their vast resources to shape global rules in their favour, often at the expense of everyone else,” the Oxfam report says.

The charity says international cooperation on issues like climate change and poverty is failing due to extreme economic inequality.

“The wealth of the world's five richest men has doubled since the start of this decade. And nearly five billion people have got poorer,” said Nabil Ahmed, the director of economic and racial justice at Oxfam America, in an interview with VOA.

Fair taxes

The report urges fairer taxation of large corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

“We live in a world in which mega-corporations… are paying next to or little to no tax basically. Not like the small businesses, not like the rest of us,” Ahmed said.

“It's such a phenomenal lost opportunity because we know governments, rich and poor, across the world need to claw back these revenues to be able to invest in their people, to be able to meet their rights,” he added.

Oxfam praises a campaign led by Brazil, which currently holds the presidency of the G20, to impose a 2% minimum tax on the world’s richest billionaires. Brazil’s government claims it would raise up to $250 billion from about 3,000 individuals, to pay for healthcare, education and tackling climate change.

A report by the French economist Gabriel Zucman, commissioned by Brazil, suggests billionaires currently pay the equivalent of 0.3% of their wealth in taxes.

The plan is backed by other members including South Africa, Spain and France. However, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke against the move at a G20 meeting in July.

“Tax policy is very difficult to coordinate globally and we don't see a need or really think it's desirable to try to negotiate a global agreement on that. We think that all countries should make sure that their taxation systems are fair and progressive,” Yellen told reporters.

Oxfam says tax revenues in the global south meanwhile are increasingly spent on servicing debt to private creditors like banks and hedge funds.

“This shift has exacerbated the debt crisis, further entrenching “debtocracy.” Compared with official creditors, private entities issue debt with shorter maturities and higher, more volatile interest rates,” the Oxfam report says.’

https://www.voanews.com/a/oxfam-oligarchy-of-super-rich-undermining-cooperation-to-tackle-poverty-climate-change/7800166.html

Poverty Continues

 

'According to a recent World Bank report, global poverty reduction has more or less come to a standstill, with 2020–30 ‘set to be a lost decade’. One person in twelve in the world is in extreme poverty (living on less than $2.15 per day).

Two-thirds of the extreme poor live in sub-Saharan Africa, where in addition nearly everyone who is exposed to an extreme weather event will struggle to recover from it.

If current developments continue, it will take decades to eradicate extreme poverty. This in a world that wastes massive resources on wars and all the paraphernalia of the money system, where producing enough for all is achievable now.'

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/

Further attacks on Free Speech

Occasionally on social media there are comments from pro-capitalist shills along the lines of you call yourself a socialist but you’re using commodities that are provided by capitalism. A totally spurious argument obviously. One that ranks along with describing the former Soviet Union and others as ‘communist’. Socialists will continue to use whatever platforms are possible to propagate the socialist case. The organisation listed in the piece below is yet another example of those who wish to control free speech and censor beliefs that don’t correspond to their particular world view. ‘Hate’, like other labels, is an emotive term used to shut down differing opinions.

‘The Center for Countering Digital Hate, a UK-based non-profit tied to the Labour Party, aims to “kill” Elon Musk’s X platform with help from top Democrats in Washington, according to internal documents leaked by a whistleblower. Musk has declared “war” on the organization in response.

In several monthly planners distributed to staffers this year, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) lists “Kill Musk’s Twitter” as its top annual priority, according to files leaked to journalists Matt Taibbi and Paul Thacker a report claiming that advertisements could be seen alongside pro-Nazi posts on X. Musk called the report “manufactured,” and his lawsuit alleges that its sole purpose was to “drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp.”

Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, rebranding the platform as X and rolling back most of its censorship policies. Within days of Musk’s purchase, the White House announced the creation of the now-defunct ‘Disinformation Governance Board,’ ridiculed by conservatives and free speech advocates as an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.” A week later, the CCDH joined two dozen other liberal NGOs in calling for an advertiser boycott of X.

The CCDH was founded by Morgan McSweeney, chief of staff to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and former director of Labour Together, a think tank closely associated with Starmer’s Labour Party. Labour Together has been advising US Vice President Kamala Harris’ election campaign, and more than 100 Labour Party activists are currently campaigning for Harris in the US.

CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed, who worked with McSweeney at Labour Together, aided Starmer’s rise to power by leading advertiser boycotts against his left-wing opponents. Among these opponents was ‘The Canary’, a leftist news site driven out of business over accusations of anti-Semitism from the CCDH and its subsidiary, ‘Stop Funding Fake News’.

In the US, the CCDH has lobbied the White House to censor Covid-19-related “disinformation,” unsuccessfully tried to get similar content banned from Substack, and led multiple campaigns against Musk.

According to internal documents, Ahmed is aware that the CCDH’s activities risk crossing a line between advocacy and lobbying, which is illegal for non- profits. Before scheduling meetings with lawmakers earlier this year, someone in the organization advised staff to “understand our limitations” as a non-profit organization, but still to “inch towards our goal of regulatory action.”

In a series of posts on X Musk pronounced the CCDH “a criminal organization,” and declared that “this is war.”’

Socialist Sonnet No.169

Plato’s Cave Update

(Don’t Turn Off Your Device)

 

On the rear wall of Plato’s cave these days

Is mounted a LG OLED evo screen,

Best Quantum Matrix Technology seen

So far. And twenty-four-seven there plays

Corporate sport of all national flavours,

To fascinate those wearing the favours.

Wars and disasters, the various ways

People can be filmed dying, through a haze

Of smoke and dust. All too much? Flick between

Channels, no need to fret as the world’s been

Hermetically sealed behind glass, our gaze

Misdirected so our view never wavers.

Unless viewers wrest control of what occurs

They will remain simply passive voyeurs.

 

D. A.

Aberfan

 From the November 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the early winter of 1966 Hoover Limited sent a minor manager from their vacuum cleaner factory in West London to the massive plant in Merthyr Tydfil South Wales where they made washing machines. The manager took a train to Cardiff where he was picked up by one of the company cars and chauffer to take him to a hotel where he was to stay for a couple of nights. During the journey both men were silent, without the chatter which usually enlivened their journeys together. When they arrived at the hotel they got out of the car and looked across to some high land where floodlit earth machines were at work. Then the driver spoke. ‘Aberfan’ he said. It was November 1966 and they were looking at the site of the worst mining-related disaster in British history.   

Aberfan is a village in South Wales which was once heavily dependent on employment at the nearby Merthyr Vale colliery. It now has a community centre, flourishing with its swimming pool, fitness rooms and café. There are also two schools, which provoke unbearable memories of that tragedy fifty years ago. Coal mining began there in 1869, when a pit was sunk on the banks of the Afon Taff; in 1875 the first commercial coal was brought to the surface – the beginning of a history proud enough to accentuate the grief and misery which devastated the village in October 1966. On that occasion the deaths did not originate underground, in a coal mine; many of the people who died were buried and suffocated in lethal slurry from the open ground above. A total of 144 people were killed in minutes; 116 were children and no survivors were found after 11am. Many of those who did survive have since suffered from persistent psychological disorders – for example the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2003 recorded that half have suffered from PTSD, which for about a third of them will persist as a lifetime disorder. A typical comment was by the author Laurie Lee who, after visiting Aberfan a year afterwards, described the school children there as ‘…the unhealed scar tissue of Aberfan’.  The colliery was closed in 1989.

Slurry

The basic cause of the disaster was tipping – the deposit of spoil of varying content and consistency  which had been extracted from the colliery, onto the ground overlooking  Aberfan when more convenient lower sites had been filled to their limit. By 1966 there were, looming above the area so that they could be distantly viewed from that hotel, a number of mounds – or tips – which were known by numbers 1 to 7, the last of which was the most ominous. There was no proper regular inspection and maintenance of the tips to check on their stability although they were composed of loose rock and other extracted material within a massive layer of sandstone. This was a dangerously absorbent composition which through the addition of water from underground springs could develop into a slope steep enough to accelerate the descent of the heavier spoil and slurry which would wipe out whatever – and whoever – lay in its path. In fact some local councils had questioned, in 1963, whether it was safe to dispose of the colliery waste in that way, particularly when in the direct path of such a descending geological missile there were the village primary and senior schools as well as other inhabited buildings. But any such questions were effectively ignored by the local National Coal Board.

Schools

On that dreadful day – 21 October 1966 – South Wales had already suffered several spells of torrential rain, which in itself was enough of a problem for the pupils of the local Pantglas School as they scurried from home to the last school day before  breaking up for the half-term holiday. Soon after 9.15 am a mass of liquid containing material brought up from the mine broke free from the tips and began to smash down towards the village and the homes and the schools and the children below. A gang of workmen who were on Tip 7 to inspect a fault with the railway which carried the disposable material from the mine were resting with a cup of tea when they saw the rapidly approaching disaster but they were unable to warn the village about it because the cable of their telephone had been stolen (although the subsequent enquiry was clear that no warning could have improved the situation). The gang watched helplessly as a mass of over 150,000 cubic metres of saturated mining spoil broke free, moving down the slope in a series of surges. Some of it clung to the ground, leaving about 40,000 cubic metres to carry on into Aberfan.  ‘All I could see’ remembered one of them ‘… was waves of muck, slush and water… I couldn’t see - nobody could …’ The first victims were a farm and twenty houses which were swiftly obliterated with all the occupants. At Pantglas School the teachers were checking and recording attendance when the buildings were overwhelmed by a compound of muddy rubble up to ten metres deep. One eight-year-old recalled ‘… a tremendous rumbling sound and all the school went dead … Everyone just froze in their seats. I just managed to get up and I reached the end of my desk when the sound got louder and nearer, until I could see the black out of the window. I can’t remember any more’. The slurry eventually came to halt at about 9.15am; the damage had been done and by 11am the last living child had been brought out from the school; it was several more days before the last body could be found.

Nationalised

The reaction of their employers, in whatever context, and their political defenders was tediously predictable. One of the more prominent of these was the late Claude Granville Lancaster who went to school at Eton then trained at the Royal Military College Sandhurst and who eventually inherited the excessively stately Palladian Kelmarsh Hall in Leicestershire from his father along with the family investments in coal mining and farming. Like his father he was a Conservative MP, in his case for Fylde. When the Attlee government nationalised the coal industry Lancaster recognised the inevitable and ‘… gave all his support to the National Coal Board … to do his best to bring what he felt was much-needed drive and decisiveness to its cumbersome and slow-moving organisation’. He had an early opportunity to live up to these standards when the slurry came down on Aberfan but he was abroad, in what were then known as the Trucial States (since 1971 the United Arab Emirates). Soon after he returned another MP asked him to comment on the possible cause of the tragedy. To which this meticulous expert in coal mining replied ‘I fancy that you will find that it was a trickle of water’.

Another, rather different, example was a man who was raised, not into the ancient land-owning nobility but by Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to be chairman of a key nationalised industry. This was Alfred Robens who was Labour MP for Wansbeck and then Blyth until he took over Britain’s coal mines which also entailed him being ennobled, so that he became Baron Robens of Woldingham. He took to all of this with a determination which was expressed in his car being numbered NCB1 and his  access to a private jet plane and a posh flat in a most expensive part of London. These privileges he defended behind a style of management later described most moderately as demanding.

Chancellor

This style came under focus as the people of Aberfan were grappling with their demanding emergencies. To be specific on that day of 21st October Robens did not, as was expected of him as the overlord of the mines, attend that scene of suffering – although his staff falsely assured the Ministry of Power that he was there soothing the distress of the people. In fact he chose to attend a ceremony at the University of Surrey to be installed as Chancellor. The anger which this aroused locally was aggravated by his opinion that the original cause of the avalanche was ‘some … natural unknown springs’ which was particularly provocative to the grieving local people who had long-standing acquaintance with that very water source since they had played there as children. When the official enquiry was seriously critical of Robens’ behaviour throughout he offered to resign from the NCB but this was dismissed as unnecessary. At the same time the NCB refused to pay the full cost of removing the tips- an attitude which persisted until the first Blair government agreed to meet the bill – although without the interest which would have considerably raised the total. This evasion was pointedly described by another Labour MP Leo Abse as ‘… the graceless pavane danced by Lord Robens and the Minister, as the chairman of the National Coal Board’ and more recently by the Geoscientist –The Fellowship Magazine of the Geological Society of London:   ‘What happened in Aberfan was a mass betrayal of intergenerational equity … not only ripped the heart out of one small Welsh village - it sucked life out of an entire industry’. When Robens took over there were 698 pits; when he left there were 292. Which left the Thatcher government to carry on so that in the Merthyr area nearly 30 percent of the able-bodied were unemployed, apart from the other adults whose industrial diseases had led to them being registered as disabled.

Coal mining was always a dangerous occupation, to be taken up only because there was nothing less threatening on offer. This was the case in Aberfan. At the same time the miners had to struggle against a poverty as concentrated as the risks they endured in and around the pits. And the harsh reality of all this is that the employing class have an enduring priority that production – of coal or whatever – should be as cheap as possible. As they did in Aberfan with the over-looming tips and the workers’ homes. This was untouched by the continuing requirements of nationalisation with the substitution of management by an ex-left wing Labour MP for a traditionally aristocratic Tory. In commemorating that disaster it must not be ignored that Aberfan was an episode entirely typical of the demands of class ownership for human suffering and denial.

Ivan

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2017/01/aberfan-disaster-in-hillsides-2016.html

Southern Africa severe drought warning

‘Southern Africa is currently in the grip of its worst food crisis in decades, with more than 27 million people facing severe hunger due to the impact of a months-long drought, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) said.

The drought, which is attributable to the El Nino weather phenomenon, has ravaged crops, killed livestock, and left entire communities without sufficient food supplies, creating what WFP spokesperson Tomson Phiri described as a potential “full-scale human catastrophe.”

During a press briefing in Geneva, Phiri highlighted the urgency of the situation, stating “the need for action has never been clearer.”

“This is the worst food crisis in decades,” the WFP spokesperson said.

Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have declared national disasters because of the drought, while Angola and Mozambique are also severely affected. The WFP estimates that around 21 million children in the region are now malnourished, exacerbating an already dire situation as communities face soaring food prices and dwindling resources.

The WFP has outlined plans to provide food and cash assistance to more than 6.5 million people across the seven hardest-hit countries until the next harvest in March. However, the states have so far received only 20% of the $369 million they require.

The drought, which the US Agency for International Development described as the most severe in 100 years during the crucial January to March agricultural season, has wiped out vast swathes of crops. This crisis has caused food prices to skyrocket, which has exacerbated the challenges facing vulnerable communities.

In addition to the food crisis, the drought has had other far-reaching consequences. Zambia, which relies heavily on hydroelectric power from the Kariba Dam, has faced severe power blackouts as the dam’s water levels have dropped dramatically. In April, Zimbabwe, which shares the dam with Zambia, declared a national disaster in response to the crisis, which it described as the worst in 40 years.’

Neck and neck

 With less than 3 weeks to go, the American presidential election is neck and neck. Trump is favoured by workers from poorer backgrounds with lower levels of education and employment prospects. Harris is supported by workers whose social and educational background enables them to expect better paid wage slavery.

Trump is seen as an unspeakable, bigoted monster by Harris supporters. Harris is seen as a ‘soft touch’ for America’s ‘enemies’ by Trump supporters. Whichever wins will take over the running of the capitalist system that operates, in the US as elsewhere, in the profit-making interests of a tiny minority. The direct opposite of the no-profit, production-for-need society that socialists aim to see established on a world scale.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/

SPGB Meeting TONIGHT 18 October1930 (GMT + 1) ZOOM

 

REFLECTIONS ON GEORGES SOREL (ZOOM)

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Event Details

• Date: October 18, 2024 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

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Speaker: Joe White
Talk on Georges Sorel (1847-1922), the French revolutionary syndicalist thinker

To connect to a Zoom meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305

Over one billion people living in acute poverty

‘More than one billion people live in acute poverty, with nearly half of them in countries experiencing conflict, according to a new United Nations report.

Countries at war have higher levels of deprivation across all indicators of “multidimensional poverty”, according to an index published on Thursday by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), reporting “markedly more severe” disparities in nutrition, access to electricity, and access to water and sanitation.

Research across 112 countries and 6.3 billion people revealed that 1.1 billion people endure poverty, with 455 million of them living “in the shadow of conflict”, according to the Multidimensional Poverty Index.

“Conflicts have intensified and multiplied in recent years, reaching new highs in casualties, displacing record millions of people, and causing widespread disruption to lives and livelihoods,” said the UNDP’s Achim Steiner.

The index showed that some 584 million people under 18 were experiencing extreme poverty, accounting for 27.9 percent of children worldwide, compared with 13.5 percent of adults.

Child mortality in conflict settings was 8 percent, compared with 1.1 percent in peaceful countries.

It also said that 83.2 percent of the world’s poorest people live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

The index, compiled jointly with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), used indicators such as a lack of adequate housing, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel, nutrition and school attendance to assess levels of “multidimensional poverty”.

The index included an in-depth study on Afghanistan, where 5.3 million more people fell into poverty during 2015-16 and 2022-23. Last year, nearly two-thirds of Afghans were considered poor.

“For the poor in conflict-affected countries, the struggle for basic needs is a far harsher and more desperate battle,” said Yanchun Zhang, chief statistician at the UNDP.

India was the country with the largest number of people in extreme poverty, affecting 234 million of its 1.4 billion population.

It was followed by Pakistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The five countries combined accounted for nearly half of the 1.1 billion poor people.

OPHI Director Sabina Alkire said “poverty reduction is slower in conflict settings – so the poor in conflict settings are being left behind. These numbers compel a response: we cannot end poverty without investing in peace.”’

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/17/un-report-says-1-1-billion-people-living-in-acute-poverty

SPGB Meeting Friday 18 October 1930 (GMT +1) ZOOM

 

REFLECTIONS ON GEORGES SOREL (Zoom)

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Event Details

• Date: October 18, 2024 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

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Speaker: Joe White
Talk on Georges Sorel (1847-1922), the French revolutionary syndicalist thinker

To connect to a Zoom meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305

Socialist Sonnet No. 168

Proportionate?

 

Four children playing marbles is an act

Of terrorism? What of families

Forced to sleep in tents? The authorities,

Judge quite proportionate to the fact,

Launching a punitive conflagration

In order to maintain security,

The long-term future and the purity

Of a divinely appointed nation.

The irony of a pogromed-people

Driving others into ghettos, where they

Will survive and simmer, then find a way

Of striking back as soon as they’re able.

Observed in the breach, professed human rights

Spurned as rhetoric of anti-Semites.

 

D. A. 

Lose weight, get a job, or else!

Will the supporters, whose number must be falling daily, of the Labour government, be cheering the latest proposal from it as an example of how much more, in contrast to those other nasty capitalist supporting political parties, it cares for the welfare of the people? Pensioners excepted of course.

The MailOnline, 15 October, posits that, ‘ Labour wants to give millions of obese, unemployed Britons free fat-busting jabs used by celebrities in a desperate bid to get them off the couch and 'back to work'.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting is planning to offer jobless Brits free jabs of the controversial 'miracle' weight loss drug, Ozempic.

Sir Keir Starmer today backed the idea, insisting it could help ease demands on the NHS and boost the economy.

But the news comes despite dire warnings that some 3,000 Brits to fall ill so far this year after taking either Ozempic and Wegovy.

Defending the drugs, the PM told the BBC: 'I think these drugs could be very important for our economy and for health.'

He added: 'This drug will be very helpful to people who want to lose weight, need to lose weight, very important for the economy so people can get back into work.

'Very important for the NHS because, as I've said time and again, yes, we need more money for our NHS, but we've got to think differently.

'We've got to reduce the pressure on the NHS. So this will help in all of those areas.'’

‘Speaking in the Telegraph, the Mr Streeting claimed Ozempic or Mounjaro jabs could kickstart a major back-to-work drive and boost productivity, with weight-related illness costing the economy £74billion a year. ‘

The phrase originated by a Bill Clinton supporting American in 1992 still applies; It’s the economy stupid.’

The aim, as is that of whichever capitalist executive Committee is in power,

is to reduce the financial burden of the capitalist class as a whole.

The article also notes that, ‘It comes as the government last night confirmed that pharmaceutical giant Lilly will pump in £279million into developing new drugs and treatment in the UK.’ Shades of Covid. Can we soon expect a state propaganda drive designed to shame and demonise those who refuse to comply? Will those receiving state benefits be threatened with the loss of them if they don’t obey|?

The extracts below are from an article in the Socialist Standard, May 1915.

‘In one of his recent utterances the leader of the Tory Party said that political power was absolutely in the hands of ihe working class, a con­dition that lent itself as a field for the demagogue. If Mr. Lloyd George and his party could persuade the working class that they were the friends of the poor, they might remain in office indefinitely. The condition of the working class being the same under either administration, it matters nothing to them which party is in office; but the fact remains that the Chancellor has an enormous following of workers who fervently and devoutly believe him to be the embodiment of progress, the friend of the workers, who understands their troubles and devises schemes to bleed vested interests for their benefit.

When these reforms are examined, they are easily seen to be mere contrivances in collective economy on behalf of the class he represents. The Chancellor himself does not attempt to conceal this fact. The frequency and vehemence with which he advertises it reveals what is his estimate of working class intelligence. For in many a speech he quite openly reassures his class of his loyalty to them, and demonstrates, in their own every-day business language, the effectiveness of his deep laid schemes to wring yet more profit from the working class. What other construction is it possible to place on the following from his preface to “Dr. H. A. Walters’ Exposition of Recent British Social Legisla­tion”?

“No attitude could be more short-sighted, or more paralysing in its influence upon social policy, than that of the man who shrinks at the immediate cost of great social reforms which aim at increasing the vigour and efficiency of the millions by whom the country’s material wealth is produced.”

If the vigour and efficiency of the working class is increased, so too is unemployment and competition. It is sheer humbug, therefore, to say that such legislation benefits the working class as well as the employers. He claims to be giving something to the workers but assures his class that like “corn thrown upon the waters it will be returned to them a hundred-fold after many days.” That is the essence and meaning of all legislation on the lines of ninepence for fourpence.

This is the nature of all the reforms instituted by the executive of the capitalist class—”put­ting capital into health” is the Chancellor’s expression. Collective capital is expended through Government departments, with the object of placing at the disposal of individual capitalists an improved commodity on the labour market—workers whose labour will bear richer fruit, in the shape of surplus value. In other words, fuller and more complete exploitation. How do the exploited benefit ?

We are told the old methods of social reform, like the poor law, were merely palliative, while the new method, like the Insurance Act, is preventive as well as palliative. The lie should be apparent, for if the working class, after the reform, produce more wealth for less wages, or for the same sum total of wages, than before, then instead of being preventive of poverty, it is productive of more poverty.

The followers of the Chancellor who have been emphasising in the Press the “economy of higher wages for agriculture,” not only in the articles, but in the title itself, admit that such reforms operate against the working class; or they fail to understand the meaning of economy.

... The workers as commodities are weighed in capitalist scales, according to capitalist standards and ideals, on the labour market. Supply and demand always operate against them, and when their cost of production—or cost of living—falls likewise.

The workers of this country had practical experience of this truth when Free Trade was established. The Cobdenites, like their modern prototypes, were all for cheapening the food of the people—only, as Marx pointed out, that they might be supplied with cheaper labour power. The wages of the working class were reduced fourteen per cent. in commemoration of the establishment of that beneficent and progres­sive measure.

The frequency with which efficiency is being advocated in the Press and on the platform, makes its frequent exposure necessary. Neither by reducing the cost of living nor by increasing the national share of the world’s market can it assist the workers. In the latter case the working class of England, if insufficient to overstock the labour market, can be augmented from abroad. Labour power is carried by its owners to the place where it is in demand; and the ex­ecutive of the capitalist class in each country adopt measures to facilitate its passage, in the same way that they increase its productivity.

The old methods of social reform—so called—never touched the fringe of the poverty pro­blem (no problem at all, by the way, because it exists in the midst of plenty). Blankets, coals, and doles only served to prolong misery here and there. The new method, heralded with false sentiment and yet claiming to be essen­tially business-like and practical, increases the total sum of poverty. Old or new, Tory, Liberal, or Labour, all are designed solely to stem the tide of revolution. Lloyd George and all his satellites may warble their sentimental love song to the workers, wooing them for their votes, but all the crowd of political pimps and touts, philanthro­pists and social reformers of every method, though they pipe humanitarianism till they choke, have only one sentiment for the workers—contempt.

“Social reform is the antidote to revolution par excellence,” and no political sect ahouts louder for the antidote than does the fraudulent Labour Party.

“Every party is now committed to social re­form” said Mr. Philip Snowden, and for what purpose we have shown. Is it to be supposed that the class that lives by robbery will forego even a fraction of their wealth or privilege, un­less compelled to do so ? Can anyone imagine a class revelling in luxury and vice, and that has so lived for centuries, voluntarily conceding to the class they rob any reform that would dimi­nish their helplessness ?

There is no record in history of any ruling class, oligarchy, or monarchy, making any concession to a subject class, unless under compul­sion. The nature of the capitalist class is the same as all previous ruling classes, utterly selfish and desirous of conserving its position.

“A State without the means of some change is without the means of its own conservation,” wrote Burke. That is the reason why every party—with the exception of the S.P.G.B.—”is now committed to social reform.” Capitalist society has reached that stage in its develop­ment where the vast majority have no real interest in conserving it. Though the know­ledge they require is within their reach, they only partially realise the possibility of successful revolution.

There are no reforms possible or likely of application under Capitalism, that can improve the condition of the working class. Moreover, it is but adding insult to injury for the capitalist class or their representatives to promise even real reforms for the improvement of working-class conditions. When the working class wake up they will see that no class or section pos­sesses the power to experiment over their heads—either for or against them. They will use the political power which Mr. Bonar Law says they possess to control the forces that stand between them and the means of life. Knowing, they will cease to be the dupes of either sentimental or practical reformers.’

F. F.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1914/no-117-may-1914/social-reform-old-or-new/

The end of a snake oil salesman

'The capitalist media are featuring glowing comments about Alex Salmond who died over lunch at a conference abroad. What a ‘monumental figure’ (Starmer) who ‘inspired a generation’ (Swinney)!

Socialists have a different view. Salmond was the purveyor of a poisonous flag-waving nationalism which should have no place anywhere in the world, and helped to perpetuate the myth that workers have common cause with the owners of the country in which they happen to be born. His ‘legacy’ is as a contributor to the erection at Holyrood of yet one more greasy pole to test the climbing skill of the politicians who run things on behalf of those owners.'

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/

Suffering across the world under capitalism

It’s the rich what gets the pleasure, it’s the poor that suffer under capitalism.

‘France has imposed another curfew on the Caribbean island of Martinique, amid violent protests over the soaring cost of living that have raging there for more than a month.

At least one person has been killed and 26 police officers injured in riots since the start of the week, and multiple stores have been looted. Videos circulating on social media show demonstrators putting up burning barricades and throwing rocks and bottles at police, who responded with tear gas.

The local French administration has announced a ban on public gatherings across the territory until October 14. The sale of items that could potentially be used for arson has also been prohibited, according to Reuters.

The local government has issued a statement stressing that no police officers used their weapons during the riots, and that the death of a civilian is being investigated, according to ABC News.

French Overseas Minister Francois-Noel Buffet has condemned the violence and called for “responsibility and calm.”

Didier Laguerre, mayor of the island’s capital, Fort-de-France, has sought to ease tensions, saying the protesters’ demands are legitimate.

“I understand the suffering and anger,” Laguerre said in a written statement. “I know everyone’s impatience and the resignation of those who have lost hope for a long time.”

In September, local authorities enforced a similar curfew in several neighbourhoods of Fort-de-France and the nearby town of Le Lamentin over the unrest on the island of 350,000 residents. Back then, the protests were led by the Assembly for the Protection of Afro-Caribbean Peoples and Resources, which demanded that food prices be aligned with mainland France.

Martinique and other French overseas territories have been struggling with spiralling food and transport costs. According to France’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, average food prices are 40% higher than in mainland France.

Protesters have been calling for reforms, including a reduction in import taxes and better regulation of local markets, to tackle inequality.’

There's only one solution to the problems people face - socialism.

Whilst in Moldova: ‘Anti-government protesters in Moldova’s capital, Chisinau, took to the streets with banners and empty pots denouncing the country’s pro-Western president, Maia Sandu, and her policies. The demonstrators accused Sandu’s administration of driving the country to poverty. The protest was unofficially called the “march of the hungry” and “the march of the deceived pensioners.”

Videos show dozens of people marching through the streets of Chisinau with banners reading: “Thanks, Sandu, for poverty and hunger,” “Sandu, go away,” and “For Moldova without the EU.” People chanted slogans calling for the president to step down, and banged on pots with spoons, chanting, “empty pots are louder than words.”

The march was organized by the opposition movement ‘Victory of the Young’. Yuri Vitnyansky, the movement’s leader, told RIA Novosti that the protesters seek to draw attention to the low standard of living in the country in the run-up to the heating season.

“We are on the eve of the heating season, we are facing new challenges of high prices for energy and electricity. We understand that hard times are coming not only for socially vulnerable groups of the population, but also for literally every resident of the country,” he said, explaining that the choice of empty pots as a symbol of the protest was intentional, “because the times have come when people save on everything, since there’s not enough money even for food.”

Moldova, which lies between Romania and Ukraine, is a former Soviet republic that became independent in 1991. It has been actively pushing for EU and NATO membership since 2020, when Sandu, a critic of Russia and supporter of EU integration, came to power.

The country is among the poorest in Europe, and Sandu’s opposition has accused her administration of failing to resolve the crisis in the economy and energy sector and driving Moldova into deeper poverty. Earlier this month, MP Irina Lozovan told Izvestia that farmers are being ruined by Sandu’s EU accession plans, accusing her of allowing businesses from the bloc to buy up land and property at low prices. Earlier this year, another MP, Diana Caraman, said that during Sandu’s rule, the country has greatly deteriorated, with a record 31% of the people on the brink of poverty’

Never put your trust in 'leaders' who are only concerned with how they can benefit from being capitalism's minions.

SPGB Meeting TONIGHT 11 October 1930 (GMT +1) ZOOM

 

CAPITALISM AND THE GRENFELL TOWER FIRE (Zoom)

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Event Details

• Date: October 11, 2024 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

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Speaker: Anthony Thomas

To connect to a Zoom meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305

No-state solution

 

‘When people learned how to produce (and store) food surpluses, it was a huge advance for humanity. Yet it broke the bonds of communal society, paving the way for a minority to take control of others by grabbing the surpluses and developing a new institution, the state, to keep the majority down by force and/or ideology.

The forms the state takes may have shifted, but whenever and wherever it appears, its purpose remains the same – to protect the minority’s position against internal and external threats. Instead of support for one state or another, for one nationalism against another, we urge you to consider our no-state solution. It’s the only guarantee of peace for us all.

https://ww.worldsocialism.org/spgb/

Iran and American hegemony

 

Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei has been the Supreme Leader of Iran since 1989.

Sounds like the old boy has a good understanding of capitalism.

The extracts below are from a sermon made by him on 4 October.

‘The enemy of the Iranian nation is that same enemy of the Palestinian nation. It is the same enemy of the Lebanese nation. That same government is the enemy of the Iraqi nation. It is the enemy of the Egyptian nation. It is the enemy of the Syrian nation. It is the enemy of the Yemeni nation. The enemy is one and the same. The enemy’s methods vary in different countries. They use psychological warfare in some places and economic pressure in others. In some places, they use two-ton bombs and weapons. But in other places, our enemies pursue their policies with smiles. Nonetheless, the command Center is one place. They receive orders from one place. They receive the order to attack Muslim communities and nations. If this policy succeeds in one country, meaning if they manage to dominate one country, they proceed to target the next nation once they are assured of their control over the previous country. Nations mustn’t allow this to happen.

The insistence of the US and its allies on ensuring the safety of the usurping regime serves as a cover for their lethal policy of changing the [Zionist] regime into a tool for seizing all the resources of this region and using it [that regime] in major global conflicts.

Their policy is to turn the [Zionist] regime into a gateway for exporting energy from the region to the Western world while facilitating the import of goods and technology from the West to the region. This [approach] ensures the survival of the usurping regime and increases the entire region's dependency on it. The [Zionist] regime's brutal, reckless behaviour toward the [Resistance] fighters stems from its self-serving desire for such a situation.

This reality helps us to realize that every blow to the Zionist regime by any individual or group is not only a service to the entire region but to all of humanity.’

https://english.khamenei.ir/news/11146/Palestinian-and-Lebanese-Resistance-pushed-back-Zionist-regime

The below is from the Socialist Standard March 2006

‘We’ll be watching the news headlines, or maybe there’ll be a news flash, and we’ll be informed that the RAF, along with the USAF’s long-range B-52 bombers, and the Israeli Air Force have carried out overnight bombing raids across Iran, targeting nuclear facilities, radar stations, airfields and anti-aircraft bases.

As in the case of Iraq, there will be the prior attempt at the mass manufacture of consent. Bush and Blair, and indeed any other European leaders who think they will have something to gain, will peddle the line about newly elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They’ll say he is another Saddam Hussein who, if Iran’s nuclear programme is not halted, will be able to lob a nuclear missile at the West in a few minutes and that Iran is supporting international terrorism, financing terrorist cells all over the world, including Al Qaeda. The case will be made that Iran is still very much a part of the axis of evil, first referred to in George W Bush’s State of the Union Address in 2002, and its people, secretly harbouring thoughts of Western-style democracy, are crying out for regime change.

Indeed, it has already started. In his January 2005 State of the Union Address, Bush said: “Iran remains the world’s primary state sponsor of terror, pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve.” The White House has in fact been steadily creating an anti-Iran climate in the US for some time. The Wall Street Journal (3 February) reported that “in recent polls a surprisingly large number of Americans say they would support U.S. military strikes to stop Tehran from getting the bomb.”

Both Bush and Blair have already hinted at military intervention and Israel has previously threatened Iran. The New York Times (13 January) reported Meir Dagan, the chief of the Israeli Mossad, declaring that “Israeli policy makers all agree that a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities cannot be ruled out”. The Sunday Times (11 December) had already reported that Ariel Sharon had instructed Israel’s air force to get ready for a military attack against Iran by the end of March, when Israeli elections are scheduled. Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party, gave notice that if Sharon did not wipe out Iran’s nuclear installations, he would see the job was done if he became prime minister in March.

A year ago it was reported that Iran was anticipating an attack by the US and that it was ready for an impressionable response within 15 minutes. For over a year Iran has been mobilising recruits into citizens’ militia and has made plans to engage in the kind of “asymmetrical” warfare that has bogged down US troops in neighbouring Iraq.

Iran has sizeable oil reserves that look quite enticing and which other countries have been eyeing up for some time. The highly regarded Oil and Gas Journal reported last year that 125.8 billion barrels of oil were in Iran just waiting to be pumped out. Iran is also the number two producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Most of Iran’s crude oil is to be found in an area known as Khuzestan, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf and the location of Iran’s largest untapped oil fields – Yadavaran and Azadegan. There are serious profits to be had here but, tellingly, the Chinese state oil company China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation has a 50 percent stake in the vast Yadavaran field.

Russia too has a claim in Iranian oil. Three years ago Russia decided to expand its oil procuring and distribution methods by shipping Russian crude to Iran, to be refined for domestic consumption, with Iran delivering a corresponding amount of oil to Russia, thus decreasing the cost of exports via tankers loaded at Black Sea ports and making Russian oil accessible to buyers at competitive prices.

So it’s unlikely that Russia and China will agree to a UN Security Council Resolution against Iran which could justify military action if it is thought to have been breached; for they have strong vested interests in Iran which they are desperate not to jeopardise. Not that this will bother the US in the least, as both Russia and especially China are economic powers that threaten US global ambitions, so any attack on Iran, which consequently leads to the overthrow of the present regime in Tehran, upsets the long-term ambitions of China and Russia.

Iran would be no push-over. The US would not enjoy a hasty capitulation of the Tehran regime, as was the case with Baghdad, exhausted by over a decade of perpetual bombardment and sanctions. The Iranian army comprises about 350,000 active-duty soldiers and 220,000 conscripts and you can add to this 120,000 of the elite Revolutionary Guard. The country’s navy and air force total 70,000 men. Between them, the armed forces have about 2,000 tanks, 300 combat aircraft, and three submarines, hundreds of helicopters and at least a dozen Russian-made Scud missile launchers, the kind Saddam fired at Israel during the first Gulf War of 1991. Iran also has an unknown number of Shahab missiles with a range of more than 1,500 miles. With this in mind you can begin to appreciate the remarks of John Bolton, now the US ambassador to the UN, in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq: “Real men want to go to Iran”.

True, a lot of Iran’s military hardware is old, thirty years old in some cases, and no match for the state-of-the-art weaponry the US is wont to use. Nevertheless, it is still weaponry and more than capable of delivering untold damage to US forces or any other country within striking distance of its missiles perceived as being pro-US.

With Iran controlling the Strait of Hormutz, oil tankers could easily be bombed as well tankers and platforms elsewhere in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. And Tehran could escalate any conflict, giving the nod for Lebanese Hezbollah militant attacks on Israel, sanctioning also assaults on US interests throughout Central Asia

.Oil Bourse

This month Iran intends to launch its Oil Bourse which will facilitate the future trade of oil in the euro instead of the US dollar. According to John Pilger writing in the New Statesman (13 February) this could have far-reaching consequences:

“The effect on the value of the dollar will be significant, if not, in the long term, disastrous. At present the dollar is, on paper, a worthless currency bearing the burden of a national debt exceeding $8trn and a trade deficit of more than $600bn. The cost of the Iraq adventure alone, according to the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, could be $2trn. America’s military empire, with its wars and 700-plus bases and limitless intrigues, is funded by creditors in Asia, principally China. That oil is traded in dollars is critical in maintaining the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. What the Bush regime fears is not Iran’s nuclear ambitions but the effect of the world’s fourth-biggest oil producer and trader breaking the dollar monopoly. Will the world’s central banks then begin to shift their reserve holdings and, in effect, dump the dollar? Saddam Hussein was threatening to do the same when he was attacked.”

Likewise, Krassimir Petrov, Professor of Economics at the American University of Bulgaria, writing of the establishment of an Oil Bourse in the January edition of Energy Bulletin, said:

“In economic terms, this represents [a great threat] because it will allow anyone willing either to buy or to sell oil for euros to transact on the exchange, thus circumventing the US dollar altogether. Europeans will not have to buy and hold dollars in order to secure their payment for oil, but would instead pay with their own currencies. The adoption of the euro for oil transactions will provide the European currency with a reserve status that will benefit the European at the expense of the Americans … The Chinese and the Japanese will be especially eager to adopt the new exchange, because it will allow them to drastically lower their enormous dollar reserves and diversify with euros, thus protecting themselves against the depreciation of the dollar.”

Addicted to oil?

George Bush, in his January 2006 State of the Union Address made an interesting statement: “The US is addicted to oil”. That’s perhaps the truest statement Bush has ever said, but he’s mistaken if this is meant to signify that the US is going into detox and will be weaning itself off oil. At the moment there is just too much US corporate interest in the Middle East and Central Asia for the US to even think of cutting back on one barrel of oil.

Furthermore, there are dangerous competitors out there, who have an insatiable thirst for oil, so it’s important that the US has a say in who has access to the world’s oil resources. The US is not that dependent upon Middle East oil for its own domestic consumption, but is aware that one way to control its foremost economic rivals is to influence just how much oil they can have and at what price. With China a fastly growing economic, political and military power, naked aggression is a strategy the US has been and will continue to be prepared to pursue throughout the oil rich regions of the Middle East and central Asia, regardless of the cost of life and the dent to the US’s global image. The dollar needs defending, the world’s oil resources need to be controlled and military bases built. Dealing with Iran is just one move in the US game-plan to maintain its global hegemony – the real enemy is yet to be confronted.

But for now Washington will use its man at the UN, John “Real Man” Bolton, to help hype a global crisis which could consequently be used to justify attacks on Iran, with or without the blessing of the Security Council. No evidence exists as to Iranian desires to create an atomic bomb, but the country is enriching uranium – legally, as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which some pro-US nuclear states have refused to sign up to. This is the excuse that is being used to whip up support another war for oil.’

John Bissett

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2022/03/real-men-want-to-go-to-iran-2006.html