Two more recent talks have been uploaded –
Has the era of social revolution arrived? – This discussion follows a video presentation by Mike Schauerte, 18th June 2021. (Part 2 of the discussion was on 20th June 2021)
Post-pandemic future Party activity
Fredi Edwards, 25th June 2021
Up to 410 million people will be living in areas less than 2 metres above sea level, and at risk from sea level rises, unless global emissions are reduced, according to a new study published in Nature Communications.
Currently, 267 million people worldwide live on land less than 2 metres above sea level. Using a remote sensing method called Lidar, which pulsates laser light across coastal areas to measure elevation on the Earth’s surface, the researchers predicted that by 2100, with a 1 metre sea level rise and zero population growth, that number could increase to 410 million people.
Their maps showed that 62% of the most at-risk land is concentrated in the tropics, with Indonesia having the largest extent of land at risk worldwide. These projections showed even more risk in the future, with 72% of the at-risk population in the tropics, and 59% in tropical Asia alone.
Dr Aljosja Hooijer, specialist water resources expert for Deltares, an independent institute for applied research in water and subsurface, and the lead author of the study, said while the research was inherently uncertain, more focus was needed on tropical regions for long-term flood preventions.
He said: “There’s a lot of scientists looking at long-term scenarios. But it’s happening now in parts of the world, and in these parts of the world, mostly in the tropics. And not just in south-east Asia, it’s also for instance in the Niger delta and Lagos.
“If you look at sea level rise, the impact research to date is mostly focused on defining sea level rise scenarios. There has been relatively little attention to elevation data, and that is simply because people didn’t feel much could be done about it, including ourselves for a long time.”
Maarten van Aalst, professor in climate and disaster resilience, and a contributing lead author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said: “These numbers are another wake-up call about the immense number of people at risk in low-lying areas, particularly in vulnerable countries in the global South…”
Dr Sally Brown, deputy head of life and environmental sciences at Bournemouth University, said: “This research shows once again that many millions of people around the world are living in areas of flood risk. Sea-level rise increases the threat of flooding, which could have particularly severe impacts for communities and people’s livelihoods in developing nations.”
Up to 410 million people at risk from sea level rises – study | Sea level | The Guardian
One of the sessions at the ‘After the Revolution: Life in a Socialist World’ Summer School, being held on 6th – 8th August at Fircroft College in Birmingham will be Paddy Shannon speaking on ‘Socialist Decision Making And The Rule Of 3’:
For a hundred years and for a dozen practical reasons, the World Socialist Movement has favoured delegate democracy as the decision-making model most likely to be adopted in a future socialist society. But that was before modern online communications made direct democracy a real possibility.
But though attractive in theory, it sounds like chaos in practice. Who would get to vote on what, and on whose say-so? Would people end up in so many meetings and votes every day that nothing ever got done in reality, the ‘death-by-democracy’ scenario predicted by some opponents of socialism?
One can envisage a mountain of rules and exceptions the size of Everest in order to make such a system workable, especially if practised across the globe. But actually, the entire thing might be managed by the application of just three rules a small child could understand, backed by the same ethical principle that applies across every other sphere of socialist life: from each according to ability, to each according to need.
Further sessions will be announced soon!
The event will also include an exhibition, exclusive publication and bookstall. Hopefully, the weekend will be able to run without any restrictions due to the pandemic, but this will depend on the situation at the time.
Details of how to make a booking can be found here: www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2021/
Please note that the closing date for bookings will be 20th July, or earlier if all places are filled.
If you have any questions, please email spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk
The world’s population was about 7.8 billion people in 2020.
About 2.2 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water.
4 billion do not have safe sanitation.
About 800 million suffer from chronic undernourishment.
A fifth of all children under 5 suffers from stunted growth.
Each year approximately 6 million children and many millions of adults die of easily preventable diseases.
9 million people die of hunger.
There are at least 40 million slaves in the world.
There are still 150 million children involved in child labour.
The definition of extreme poverty refers to people earning under $1.90 per day. This figure is so absurdly low that it is meaningless. Many people earning more than this are unable to meet their basic needs, such as eating enough food. One of the leading researchers on the subject, Jason Hickel, has suggested that a figure of $7.40 per day is a better benchmark for measuring poverty, and other researchers have come up with a similar figure. His data shows that more than 4 billion people – that is over half the world’s population – are below this line, and therefore unable to meet their basic needs.
Over half of the population of India still earn below $3 per day.
Between 2011-2020 two-thirds of countries classified as “not free” because of their dire record on human rights and civil liberties have received weapons licensed by the UK government.
The UK licensed £16.8bn of arms to countries criticised by Freedom House, a US government-funded human rights group, new analysis by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) reveals. Of the 53 countries castigated for a poor record on political and human rights on the group’s list, the UK sold arms and military equipment to 39. £11.8bn of arms had been authorised by the UK government during the same period to the Foreign Office’s own list of “human rights priority countries”. Two-thirds of the countries – 21 out of 30 – on the UK government list of repressive regimes had received UK military equipment. Further arms deals are expected in the near future with many of the countries on the Freedom House list expected to send representatives to September’s international arms fair in east London.
One recipient included Libya, which received £9.3m of assault rifles, military vehicle components and ammunition. It is the focus of international peace talks to stabilise a country where armed groups and foreign powers compete for influence.
“Right now, UK-made weapons are playing a devastating role in Yemen and around the world. The arms sales that are being pushed today could be used in atrocities and abuses for years to come,” said Andrew Smith of the CAAT. “Wherever there is oppression and conflict there will always be arms companies trying to profit from it, and complicit governments helping them to do so.” Smith continued, “Many of these sales are going to despots, dictatorships and human rights abusing regimes. They haven’t happened by accident. None of these arms sales would have been possible without the direct support of Boris Johnson and his colleagues.”
Despite rising tensions and military confrontations, Russia was also among the beneficiaries of UK arms sales – in the last decade, it received £44m of UK arms including ammunition, sniper rifle components and gun silencers.
£17bn of UK arms sold to rights’ abusers | Arms trade | The Guardian
Open to members and non-members.
Capital Volumes 1 and 2 – groups can be organised on-demand – contact spgb.ed@worldsocialism.org to register interest.
Capital Volume 3 – starts Thursday 15 July 7.30pm
To join this group, you will need to be reasonably familiar with Capital Vol 1. Familiarity with Volume 2 is NOT necessary – there will be a pre-meeting on Thursday 8 July 7.30pm to present Vol. 2 information that is essential to an understanding of Vol 3.
Already read Vol. 3?
You might still benefit by attending. There’s always something new and relevant that we didn’t spot last time around!
If you wish to attend or have a query – contact spgb.ed@worldsocialism.org
Australia’s population is forecast to grow slower and age faster than anticipated.
Many baby boomers are reaching retirement right now. This is contributing to a rapid change in the ratio of working-age people to those over 65.
In 1981-82, for each person aged over 65, there were 6.6 people of working age.
Today, there are four working-age people.
By 2060-61, there will only be 2.7.
Because as the population ages, more pressure is put on the health and pension system. Less working-age people means fewer tax dollars to spread around for those services.
A Mural of Frederick Douglass is Edinburgh
During the recent G-7 summit, Boris Johnson, the UK’s prime minister presented the US president, Joe Biden, with a photograph of a mural of Frederick Douglass in Edinburgh, Scotland. Both politicians deserve to be reminded of a genuine advocate of freedom but it is doubtful if either capable of emulating the courage of Frederick Douglass.
“The general sentiment of mankind is that a man who will not fight for himself, when he has the means of doing so, is not worth being fought for by others, and this sentiment is just.” said Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass arrived in Scotland on a speaking tour in 1846 from the United States, 13 years had passed since Britain enacted the Slavery Abolition Act.
Colonial slaves had gradually been freed and Britain’s slaveowners were financially compensated for their loss of “property”.
Douglass’s 19-month visit to Britain and Ireland began in 1845; seven years earlier he had fled slavery himself from the US’ slave-owning South for the free North.
“One of the things about his travels in Scotland was his Scottish surname,” said Alasdair Pettinger, author of the forthcoming book, Frederick Douglass and Scotland, 1846: Living an Antislavery Life. “He picked up the fact that Douglas [or Douglass] was a name that resonates in Scottish history.”
Douglass often connected with Scottish audiences by referring to the “Black Douglas”.
“When he addressed audiences, he quite enjoyed the fact that he could make a connection to the ‘Black Douglas’, which, being black himself, was quite an opportune connection,” said Pettinger.
He was born around 1818 as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. By the time he arrived in Massachusetts as a fugitive, he needed a new name. Nathan Johnson, a free person of colour who gave him shelter, had been reading a narrative poem by the Scottish author Walter Scott – The Lady of the Lake, which had a character named James Douglas.
Douglass impressed Scottish audiences with powerful speeches opposing slavery in the US, which had yet to end the practice. He worked as Scotland’s anti-slavery agent from an address in Edinburgh, where there is now a commemorative plaque in his honour, and toured the country’s cities and towns – including Glasgow, Paisley, Dundee and Perth – between January and October 1846. Delighting in the warm Scottish welcome, he described a “conglomeration of architectural beauties” in Edinburgh, and even contemplated settling in the capital with his family.
He demonstrated his literary knowledge of Scotland by visiting the birthplace of Robert Burns. According to Pettinger, the first book Douglass bought after escaping from slavery was an edition of Burns, and he was known to quote the 18th-century Romantic poet as another way of engaging with Scottish audiences.
Douglass arrived amid controversy over the separation of the Free Church from the Church of Scotland. The Free Church required funds, which saw it accept donations from pro-slavery churches in the US. Douglass latched on to the issue and denounced the Free Church by repeatedly calling to “send back the money” on his tour. At Edinburgh’s Music Hall, 2,000 people attended his talk.
The Scottish capitalists’ appetite for making money fed off the back of human misery. Scottish merchants and doctors often staffed Africa-bound British slave ships that took enslaved African people and transported them to colonies in the Caribbean. By around 1800, a staggering 30 percent of slave plantations in Jamaica, where there are still Scottish surnames and place names, were owned by Scots. As Scotland’s Tobacco Lords reaped great wealth from their investments, Glasgow boomed. Glasgow, street names mark the city’s merchants who amassed extraordinary wealth from the transatlantic slave trade, like Glassford Street, named after Scottish Tobacco Lord, John Glassford. Other connections include Jamaica Street, named after the island where slave plantations saw the city’s industrialists grow fat on the proceeds of sugar and rum. In Edinburgh, Henry Dundas, a prominent Scottish politician who infamously delayed Britain’s abolition of slavery by 15 years, is immortalised by a statue in the capital.
As for Douglass, he visited Scotland again between 1859 and 1860. After his first tour, he arrived back in the US in 1847 a free man, after supporters in England made provisions to buy his liberty.
“I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.” he explained in Narrative of the “Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave” (1845)
Most honest observers would concur with Frederick Douglass when he said:
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”
Three extracts from ”My Bondage and My Freedom” by Frederick Douglass:
“When Col. Lloyd’s slaves met those of Jacob Jepson, they seldom parted without a quarrel about their masters, Col. Lloyd’s slaves contending that he was the richest, and Mr Jepson’s slaves that he was the smartest, man of the two. Col. Lloyd’s slaves would boast his ability to buy and sell Jacob Jepson, Mr Jepson’s slaves would boast his ability to whip Col. Lloyd. These quarrels would always end in a fight between the parties, those that beat were supposed to have gained the point at issue. They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves. To be a SLAVE , was thought to be bad enough; but to be a poor man’s slave, was deemed a disgrace, indeed” .
“Were I again to be reduced to the condition of a slave, next to that calamity, I should regard the fact of being the slave of a religious slave-holder, the greatest that could befall me. For of all slave-holders with whom I have ever met, religious slave-holders are the worst. I have found them, almost invariably, the vilest, the meanest and the basest of their class. Exceptions there may be, but this is true of religious slave-holders as a class”
When Douglas goes to work as a caulker in a shipyard in Baltimore and works besides white wage workers, he writes about the resentment of white workers towards the black slaves:
“In the country, this conflict is not so apparent; but, in cities, such as Baltimore, Richmond, New Orleans, Mobile etc; it is seen pretty clearly. The slave-holder with a craftiness peculiar to themselves, by encouraging the enmity of the poor, labouring white men against the blacks, succeeds in making the said white men almost as much a slave as the black slave himself. The difference between the white slave, and the black slave, is this: the latter belongs to ONE slave-holder, and the former belongs to ALL the slave-holders, collectively. The white slave has taken from his, by indirection, what the black slave had taken from him, directly, and without ceremony. Both are plundered, and by the same plunderers.”
Once again Frederick Douglass makes an insightful observation of society:
“The old master class was not deprived of the power of life and death, which was the soul of the relation of master and slave. They could not, of course, sell their former slaves, but they retained the power to starve them to death, and wherever this power is held there is the power of slavery. He who can say to his fellow man, “You shall serve me or starve,” is a master and his subject is a slave.”
More than a century and a half ago Douglass said: “If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.”
Our journal, ‘The Socialist Standard’ could write admiringly of Frederick Douglass in “The Great(er) Emancipator”.
We end this article with Frederick Douglass advising us:
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
