The Office for National Statistics (ONS) exposes that the most deprived areas of England are being hardest hit by the cost of living crisis as the consumer prices index inflation rate hit 11.1% in October.

Those in England’s most deprived districts more frequently reported spending less on food and essentials in the fortnight up to 20 November, 58% saying so compared with a third of those living in the least deprived areas.

The ONS used the index of multiple deprivation (IMD) to classify areas into five groups, ranging from the most deprived to least deprived fifth of areas. The IMD takes into account key factors such as income, education, health and crime to determine the deprivation of an area – with cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Hull and London being home to some of the most deprived neighbourhoods.

People living in the most deprived fifth of areas in England were more likely to be worried about the rising cost of living, at 84%, compared with 70% of those in the least deprived areas.

 More than three-fifths among those living in the most deprived fifth of areas of England said they found it difficult to pay energy bills in the latest period in November, and a tenth said they were behind on their bills.

While, just over a third of people living in the most affluent areas said they faced affordability difficulties, and only 2% said they were behind on their bills.

Earlier this month the governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, said higher inflation was hitting lower income households harder because a bigger proportion of their spending went on essentials such as food and energy. He said: “Inflation is bad for the least well-off generally and this inflation is particularly bad. The reason is that it’s concentrated on energy and food – these are the essentials of living.”

Cost of living crisis hitting England’s most deprived areas hardest, ONS says | UK cost of living crisis | The Guardian

Figures for 2020, just released by the European Environment Agency, show Fine particleair pollution led to 238,000 premature deaths in the European Union.

The same report says exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) above the WHO’s recommended threshold led to 49,000 premature deaths in the EU in 2020.

Acute exposure to ozone (O3) caused 24,000 people to die early.

In 2020, 96 percent of the EU’s urban population was breathing concentrations of fine particles above the WHO’s limit of 5 microgrammes per cubic metre of air. Fine particulate matter is the technical term for microscopic dust grains spewed into the atmosphere by car and aircraft engines, and by coal-fired power stations. The tiny size of the particles enables them to travel deep into the human respiratory tract, worsening the risk of bronchitis, asthma and lung disease.

Air pollution kills 238,000 Europeans prematurely (yahoo.com)

From the March 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

OUR OBJECT:

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

This is a clear definition of socialism. Nothing to do with rationing everything out so that we all get exactly the same. Nothing to do with sharing a coat, eating off the same plate, living in a commune or going back to primitive times. What will be commonly owned will be the means and instruments that produce the things all human beings need to live: land, factories, mines, energy resources, transport, machines, tools, raw materials. Social ownership is the only proposition entirely in line with the technological age: everything else is hopelessly inadequate and antiquated.

Socialism is a society where everyone will stand in equal relation to everything that is produced; where everyone will be able to contribute to running life according to their own willingness and aptitude and take freely from the available wealth. It has long been possible for this next stage in human evolution. A society with no leaders, no governments, just a totally democratic and harmonious administration for the good of all. No buying and selling, no exchange, no money. A society where goods are produced solely for use and not for sale and profit as today.

OUR PRINCIPLES:

1. That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e. land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.

This is a straight definition of the world system we live under: capitalism. There are basically only two classes. If you are dependent on an employer for a wage or salary in order to maintain your standard of Living, then you are working class (whether you wear a tie, overalls, uniform or whatever). The capitalist class, the owners of the means of production and distribution, have no need to work because they live off the profits they obtain from the wealth produced by workers. There is in reality no such thing as the middle class: it is a myth.

2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle, between those who possess but do not produce, and those who produce but do not possess.

One section of society, the vast majority, always have to struggle to maintain or improve their standard of living; the other small owning section, the capitalist class, is always doing its utmost to keep wages down so as to keep profits up. And there can be no doubt whatsoever that this difference of interests exists. Trade unions prove the point. Strikes, lock-outs, go slows, works to rule, overtime bans. All workers—brain labour-power and manual labour-power—are forced at some time or other to consider taking some kind of action to back up wage claims, claims which are always resisted by the employers. It is perpetual antagonism the world over.

3. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.

All efforts to try and make the capitalist system work in the interests of all people have failed. A glance at the history of the last 150 years bears this out. In fact, these principles—unaltered since their introduction in 1904—prove that nothing in the structure of society has fundamentally changed. Many varieties of the capitalist system have been tried and all have failed to serve the needs of the majority. Absolutely none of them works; not one of them provides a fulfilling and rewarding existence for even a sustained period of time. Labour, Liberal, Conservative, Communist . . . every single one is a disaster because very single one is trying to run an inhumane system. The only logical thing to do is to reject the whole useless and out-dated system, a system where most people in a world of potential abundance have to constantly worry about money, have to do without one necessity so as to afford another; where old people die of cold because they can’t afford fuel; where desperately ill patients suffer because they can’t afford treatment. A system where millions are malnourished and even starve to death because they can’t afford food, which is often deliberately burned or dumped as unprofitable; where thousands go homeless because they can’t afford the rent or can’t obtain a deposit and yet there are bricks, sand, cement, tools, machines and manpower in superabundance. A system where millions are bored sick unemployed and bored sick in employment. How can there honestly be anything said in the system’s favour?

4. That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.

Once the majority of the working class—which, remember, means everyone who works for a living—realises its own position and acts accordingly, then it will mean the freedom of everyone whether black, white, yellow, man, woman and child. Simply because it is the wage-slave class — the class you and we belong to — who make up the vast majority of the world’s population.

5. That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.

The capitalist class doesn’t need another system—it’s doing alright with this one. So it’s clear that the employers are not going to bring it about. And neither can some kind of enlightened elite or arrogant intellectual working-class-hero types masquerading as leaders bring it about for the rest of us either. It’s just not possible. That’s why socialists totally reject all concepts of leadership and why we are one hundred per cent a democratic organisation, where each has an equal right to contribute opinions. Only knowledge and understanding coupled with conscious, democratic political commitment by the large majority can possibly bring world socialism about. To believe otherwise is to delude yourself.

6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of a nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.

Once the majority understand and want socialism, have deliberately organised within the socialist movement, and have placed in Parliament—and its equivalent in other countries—democratically elected delegates, then there will be absolutely no problem. It will be as simple and straightforward as that. For how could a minority capitalist force stand the remotest chance against the socialist majority? Who would do their fighting for them? This is why we reject political violence, not on pacifist grounds but because it is completely unnecessary, damaging and futile. The act of voting is the only way, since this is how affairs in the new society will be conducted. Forget all about ends justifying means; power obtained by violence can only be maintained by violence and force. The truth is that the means condition the end.

7. That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

You cannot be on two sides at once. You either want, work and vote for socialism alone, or you want capitalism one form or another. Vote Labour, Liberal, Tory, Communist or any of the left-wing groups and you will get capitalism. So instead of wasting your time and energy tampering about with the system, go straight to the root cause of nearly every problem you can think of capitalism itself and concentrate solely on its global abolition and replacement with socialism.

8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain therefore enters the field of political action, determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality and slavery to freedom.

It is war—a class war—and we are the only socialist party in this country (there can only be one socialist party in any country), no matter what others may call themselves. We are in total opposition to all other parties because not a single one of them can ever abolish this system, no matter what they claim. Ours is not a war of bombs, bullets, street-fighting or any form of mindless violence, but a war in which our weapons are irrefutable facts. We expose all who deal in myth, illusion, ignorance and deceit. No problem is fully solved under capitalism by the time one is half-solved another presents itself, and by the time this one is half dealt with the original is festering again. Poverty, war, hunger, homelessness, hardship, monotony. So long as capitalism lasts so will these.

So there you have it—clear, straight and uncompromising. You agree that socialism is a highly desirable proposition. You agree that it is a straight choice. You agree that this new world can only come about when a majority understand and want it. Now make your choice. Join us and help to bring a sane and harmonious society all the closer. Don’t wait for others to do it—they may be waiting for you. 

Paul Breeze

History does matter, which is why people in power put so much energy into controlling it. Now is the time to embrace truth, dispel the mythical fairy-tale of Thanksgiving, and reveal the harsh reality of land-grab, betrayal, brutality, and genocide. The Thanksgiving holiday is meant to obscure the fact that the very existence of America is a result of the pillaging and plundering of an entire people for their resources.

In 1620 the Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod in Massachusetts with 102 men, women, and children. They are presented as religious dissenters seeking freedom to worship, but they had already enjoyed that liberty for almost a decade in the Dutch city of Leiden. What drove them to cross the ocean was the search for economic opportunity and they obtained permission and funding from the London Company of Virginia to establish a colony.

One of the commonly accepted stories of Thanksgiving Day has it that the early settlers at Plymouth first had a system of collective ownership of farmland, which led to famine. So they discarded this system in favor of private ownership, which made farming more productive. The harvest was bountiful and a feast was held in celebration of free enterprise.

In 1623 the system of collective ownership known as the ‘common course’ was indeed abandoned in favor of private property — not, however, because of a famine but because the settlers wanted to make more money.

William Bradford, the colony’s first governor, writes that the communal lifestyle was ‘found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment … for the Young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense.’ After every family was assigned their own parcel of land to farm, ‘this had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.’

Historian Nick Bunker explains in his book Making Haste From Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World that ‘all the land in the Plymouth Colony, its houses, its tools, and its trading profits (if they appeared) were to belong to a joint-stock company owned by the shareholders as a whole.’

He says: ‘Under the terms of the contract … for the first seven years no individual settler could own a plot of land. To ensure that each farmer received his fair share of good or bad land, the slices were rotated each year, but this was counterproductive. Nobody had any reason to put in extra hours and effort to improve a plot if next season another family received the benefit.’

While Bradford assigned plots of land for the use of individual families in 1623, actual private ownership of land in Plymouth had to wait until several years later when the colonists had paid off the mortgage held by their financial backers in London. Thus no private freehold property was owned by the colonists in Plymouth before 1627.

Plymouth’s private property began not in 1623 but in 1627–28. The rearrangement of land distribution in 1623 did not grant property; it assigned non-rotating usage rights for an unspecified period that ended four years later (when the grants were continued as private property). The Pilgrims’ trip to the New World was financed by the Merchant Adventurers, an English company that sought to profit off the colony.

But the plan was in the interest of realizing a profit sooner, and was only intended for the short term; historians say the Pilgrims were more like shareholders in an early corporation than members of a socialist society.

‘It was directed ultimately to private profit,’ says Richard Pickering, another historian of early America and deputy director of Plymouth Plantation, a museum devoted to the Pilgrims’ story.

It was the powerful English capitalists to whom the Pilgrims were indebted. Later settlements were funded by the Virginia Company of London and the Virginia Company of Plymouth. The Pilgrims, regardless of their deep-seated religious beliefs, would never have been able to travel across the ocean were it not for the blessing of business elites. As Marx pointed out, it was not the quest for religious freedom but the discovery of gold and silver in the Americas that led to their colonization, which began well over a century before the Pilgrims even arrived.

The settlers at Plymouth were rebelling against the conditions set by their sponsors, not against the strictures of some collective farm or religious commune.

Pickering, an expert on the Pilgrims, points out that the ‘common course’ was abolished not because it did not work — it actually worked just fine — but rather because the colonists simply did not like it.

Pickering attributes the colonists’ discontent mainly to ‘the fact that the Plymouth colony was bringing together settlers from all over England at a time when most people never moved more than 10 miles from home. They spoke different dialects, had different methods of farming, and looked upon each other with great wariness.’

Moreover, the Pilgrims later became more prosperous not because they became capitalists but rather because they had learned how to farm new crops on new land to which they had only just moved a few years before. They were not used to growing food in a different climate and in a different kind of soil. Were it not for the help of the local Wampanoag tribe, many Pilgrims would have succumbed to hunger. The newcomers learned how to survive from people who had no private property and worked collectively for the common good.

The Wampanoag, ‘people of the first light,’ paid a heavy price for providing help. They were an obstacle to the Virginia Company’s plan. Later Massachusetts Bay Colony founder John Winthrop had a solution: steal their land. Naturally, they did not like that idea and resisted. Winthrop then devised a simple policy: mass murder. English colonist John Mason oversaw the slaughter of entire villages.

Thanksgiving became an official public holiday during the Civil War, but none of the essential narratives of today’s celebration was mentioned in Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation: not the Mayflower, nor the Pilgrims, nor the Natives, nor any shared feast. 

Thanksgiving Myths – World Socialist Party US (wspus.org)

  Chinese police have been beatings workers protesting over working conditions and pay at the biggest factory for iPhones.

The protest in Zhengzhou began Tuesday and lasted through to Wednesday morning as thousands of workers gathered outside dormitories.

 Thousands of employees walked away from the factory last month after complaints about unsafe working conditions. Replacement workers who had travelled long distances to take jobs at the factory complained that the company changed the terms of their pay.

“Foxconn released very tempting recruiting offers, and workers from all parts of the country came, only to find they were being made fools of,” one protester said.

Foxconn said that a “technical error” was responsible for the confusion over pay.

Police beat protesting iPhone workers as Covid cases hit record high in China | Foxconn | The Guardian

 More than five women and girls were killed every hour by a family member in 2021, according to new UN figures on femicide.

A report, published on Wednesday, showed that 45,000 women and girls – more than half (56%) of the 81,100 murdered last year worldwide – were killed by their husband, partner or other relative.

The true number of femicides – where women are killed because of their gender – is likely to be much higher. Roughly four in 10 deaths in 2021 were not counted as femicides because there was insufficient data. 

The overwhelming majority (81%) of homicides worldwide are committed against men and boys, but they are most at risk of being killed by someone outside their family. Out of all male homicide victims in 2021, only about 11% were killed by a partner or relative.

Estimated 45,000 women and girls killed by family member in 2021, UN says | Women’s rights and gender equality | The Guardian

 Much of Argentina is currently caught up in “Messimania.”

A few people refuse to be part of this huge wave of euphoria such as Gabriel Salvia, a former journalist, who heads Argentina’s Cadal human rights agency.

“Argentines are only interested in sporting success, they see the World Cup as a welcome change from everyday life with its economic misery and high inflation…”

Cadal drew attention to the situation of migrant workers in Qatar ahead of the World Cup. Salvia approached soccer associations around the world in the name of his “La pelota no se mancha” (“Football will not be soiled”) initiative — including AFA, the Argentine Football Association. The outcome was disappointing.

“As a symbolic gesture,we proposed that all the players wear a black armband to commemorate the many people who died during the construction of the stadiums,” he says. “The European federations responded to us, the Netherlands even did so in great detail — while the AFA didn’t deign to write us a single line.”

At the World Cup 44 years ago, the Argentine junta tortured and disappeared members of the opposition. Some were thrown out of planes above the Atlantic.  The biggest torture center, the Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA), was just a stone’s throw from the River Plate stadium. Some prisoners heard every single goal cheer before being tortured with electric shocks by their tormentors.

“The junta used the World Cup as a tool of international propaganda, while state terrorism disappeared people,” Salvia says, arguing that Argentina should be much more aware of human rights violations.

 The situation of migrant workers, the LGBTQ+ community, and of women in Qatar are not a top priority in other Latin American World Cup countries, including Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Costa Rica. 

Gabriel Salvia is not supporting Argentine or Lionel Messi.

“I was born in Buenos Aires, but as a defender of human rights I feel that the world champion should be a team that is in some way committed to human rights and has addressed the situation in Qatar…” 

Argentina: More interested in Messi than human rights – DW – 11/22/2022

 Qatar directed $220 BILLION to stage a spectacle of young men running around a field, kicking a ball. In the meantime, children are starving to death in Somalia.

The UN has raised only half the funds it needs to help, with $1 billion (€971,345 million) more needed to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe

The worst drought in 40 years is devastating Somalia with the fear of a fifth failed rainy season. 

More than 7 million people are in need of food assistance.

“We have half a million children that are severely acutely malnourished, which means that if they don’t receive timely assistance they are just simply going to die,” says Wafaa Saeed, the UNICEF representative for Somalia.

Mayor Abdullahi Ali  Watiin of the Somali city of Baidoa, explains he’s tired of short-sighted solutions: 

“Somalia is one of the most affected areas by climate change. What will happen after this drought ends? Do we wait until another famine comes or will we come up with initiatives that we need to mitigate future shocks?”

Somalia’s food crisis claims young lives – DW – 11/22/2022

COP Out

Conference Of the Parties being fossil fuelled

Might be better known, to meet its function,

As COP, that’s Continue Oil Production.

Significant change will be overruled

To favour those whose intent is to foil

Advocates who would convince the meeting

Of perils of global over-heating

From continued use of coal, gas and oil.

Delegates jet in for a jamboree,

To be feted by lobbyists who insist

Temperature targets can be safely missed

A while yet; it’s all a matter of degree.

Certainly, emissions might be reduced,

Just as long as profits are still produced.

D. A.

Of all the people who leave for work on any given day, about 1000 do not return home—they die in workplace accidents. 

This is stated on the basis of the total number of occupational accident fatalities in a year, the WHO/ILO estimate for which is 360,000 in a year.

Deaths in a year from occupational diseases are over four times higher (1.54 million) than the fatalities caused by occupational accidents.

The ILO says over 600,000 workers die due to exposure to hazardous substances in a year. 

Long hours spent in unhealthy, stressful work conditions are another factor of serious concern, with excessive working time being a cause of as many as 750,000 or almost one-half of the total number of occupational disease fatalities in a year, WHO/ILO estimates.

Worldwide about 300 million occupational non-fatal accidents take place in a year while about 150 million contract work-related diseases. 

Levels of workplace violence are also very high in several countries.

 According to the European Working Conditions Survey, 6 million workers are exposed to workplace violence in a year in the European Union.

 If verbal violence is included, this number rises to 30 million.

 In the USA on average, about 670 workers die and 106,000 have to be taken for hospital emergency treatment due to workplace violence a year.

In the USA and Europe, various surveys reveal that in the course of their career, over 50% of women and over 15% of men are exposed to sexual harassment.

In the USA 76% of workers reported at least one symptom of a mental health condition (anxiety, depression), an increase of 17% in just 2 years, and 84% of respondents reported at least one workplace factor that had a negative impact on their mental health. 

Although an average employee spends 81,396 hours at work, adequate efforts do not appear to have gone into making working time healthy, friendly, involving and creative. 60 per cent per cent of the workers are emotionally detached while 19 per cent are miserable, while only the remaining 21 per cent can be stated to be engaged. 

 In Europe those engaged are only 14 per cent. 

If the survey asked did you feel worried at work yesterday, 56% are likely to say yes.

 If asked did you feel stressful at work yesterday, 59% are likely to say yes. 

When asked if the worker felt physical pain a lot of the day, 33% will say yes.

 31% would admit to have been angry. 

Few would venture to call this happy or creative working environment.

Jobs Without Joy| Countercurrents