“Current nuclear arms control and nonproliferation efforts are inadequate to protect the world’s population against the threat of nuclear war by design, error, or miscalculation,” the editorial reads.

‘To oppose nuclear weapons requires a fundamental change in our attitude to life. Clarity of purpose and utter opposition is the only chance to reverse the threat that hangs over all our lives. What we want to change is immense. It’s not just getting rid of nuclear weapons, it’s getting rid of the whole structure that created the possibility of nuclear weapons in the first place. If we don’t use imagination nothing will change. Without change we will destroy the planet. It’s as simple as that’ (Boon, C., Social Movements and Political Power Emerging Forms of Radicalism in the West, Temple University Press, 1986, bit.ly/3a2S6Up).

The President of the American United Auto Workers (UAW) has been ‘”talking about capitalism and the nature of capitalism and how it’s really hurt workers.”’

Recently elected Fain, made a speech highlighting members’ demands for ‘a significant pay raise to make up for years of concessions by the union following the Great Recession, the rising cost of living and inflation, and to match pay increases enjoyed by the CEOs of the Big Three’.

He’s quoted as saying ,’”Big Three CEOS saw their pay spike 40% on average over the last four years,” said Fain. “We know our members are worth the same and more”.

‘Ahead of a September 14 deadline, after which the UAW could go on strike, the union is demanding an immediate 20% pay raise followed by an additional 5% raise in each year of the four-year contract’.

‘According to the union, most new workers start out making $16 per hour, but if cost-of-living increases had been maintained since the Great Recession, the starting wage would be $28.68—about $21,000 more per year’.

The union also wants ‘a return of the defined benefit pension, which would give retired workers a set amount of money each month; the right to strike if a company threatens to close a plant; more paid time off; restored cost-of-living allowance increases; and other provisions’.

The Union President ‘spoke about the potential to shift to a 32-hour work-week to allow workers to spend more time with their families’.

‘”Our members are working 60, 70, even 80 hours a week just to make ends meet—that’s not a living. We have to work longer and harder to maintain the same standard of living… That means missing Little League games and family reunions. That’s barely surviving, and it needs to stop,” he said.

Shawn Fain would seem to very well know that capitalism’s profits come from the surplus value extracted from workers: The car companies can ‘ “easily” afford to substantially increase workers’ wages. The companies have made a quarter of a trillion dollars in North American profits over the past 10 years, and reported a combined $21 billion in profits in the first half of this year. Record profits mean record contracts. They’ve been competitive on our backs and it’s time they pay up”.’

An apologist for capitalism, a former hedge fund manager, hosting a CNBC programme is apparently shocked at workers demanding even a slighter bigger slice of the cake. He has called the demands ‘“frightening” for advocating for a wage increase to reflect the record profits the companies have reported in recent years’.

The anchor has refuted ‘Fain’s suggestion that Big Three shareholders and CEOs have been “overly rewarded” and scoffed at the notion that shareholders are “fat cats.” ‘

‘”That’s class warfare and it’s very shocking to hear class warfare,” said Cramer’.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/uaw-contract

Sounds like someone should have a conversation with the World Socialist Party of the United States (WSPUS). And that includes the President and the members of the UAW too.

It’s commendable that workers should use their collective strength to improve their living standards under capitalism but it is, as best, a short term solution to the exploitation of the working class.

The real, and only, solution is the collective working toward the abolition of capitalism and its replacement with socialism.

Monotonous, manual work can be done by machines, freeing humans up to do creative, activities. So we’re told. The truth is there has been an explosion in what anthropologist David Graeber calls “bullshit jobs”. 



And, as individuals come under pressure to stand out from the crowd, there emerges what sociologist David Frayne calls a “culture of gratitude” where labour is given without charge in return for “profile” or imagined networking benefits. “In this hyper-competitive context,” he writes, “it has almost become a matter of bad taste to fuss about issues like contracts, payment, and working conditions. You should just be grateful to have an opportunity in the first place.”



He says, “Society is presently organised so that work is people’s main source of income, social contact, and recognition. Living without work means somehow reinventing the ways to access these things, and that is no easy task. Depending on how far people want to go, resisting work means overcoming some significant barriers. The most obvious one is our reliance on work as a source of income. If you do not have the luxury of inherited wealth or a contingent source of money, this might be overcome to some degree by consuming less. A person can spend more carefully, repair and self-produce things, privilege more inexpensive pleasures, and perhaps even discover new and alternative forms of enjoyment in the process. All of these things are also easier to do when you work less and have more free-time, but spending less is still no easy feat in a society where so many of our needs are conventionally met via commercial transactions.”



He continues,  “We must refashion society so that people can remain connected, active, and valued, even when their labour is not required by the formal economy. As automated technologies continue to replace the need for human workers, the need to do this refashioning will become increasingly urgent.”



The issue of work is one that socialists have addressed for well over a century. Karl Marx’s son-in-law wrote a pamphlet called the “Right to be Lazy.”



The majority of the population is not engaged in productive work. The greater part of the non-producers is employed in the buying and selling plus all the related occupations. Any system by which the buying and selling system is retained means the employment of vast sections of the population in unproductive work. It leaves the productive work to be done by one portion of the people whilst the other portion is spending its energies in keeping shop, banking, and all the other various developments of commerce which employ probably more than two-thirds of the people today. It is the elimination of such activities and institutions, essential though they may be to a functioning market economy but unproductive in themselves from the standpoint of producing use values or meeting human needs, that constitutes perhaps the most important productive advantage that a socialist economy would have over a capitalist economy. The elimination of this structural waste intrinsic to capitalism will free up a vast amount of labour and materials for socially useful production in socialism.

 In socialist society, productive activity would take the form of freely chosen activity undertaken by human beings with a view to producing the things they needed to live and enjoy life. The necessary productive work of society would not be done by a class of hired wage workers but by all members of society, each according to their particular skills and abilities, cooperating to produce the things required to satisfy their needs both as individuals and as communities. Work i a socialist society could only be voluntary since there would be no group or organ in a position to force people to work against their will.



“… in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.” – Karl Marx 

Snap Judgements

Skin can confer innocence or guilt,

Scrutinized by the ever watchful eye

Of the camera, and cameras do not lie,

Even if discrimination is in-built.

Innocence can’t be presumed any longer,

Human nature, it seems, is thought so flawed

It’s far better that people are outlawed

Than rely on honesty being stronger.

After all, the profit motive requires

The committing of a legalised crime,

In the stealing of unpaid for labour time,

The difference between sellers and buyers.

However depressed, at least smile a bit,

Snap judgements need you to be photo fit.

D. A.

1000 Nigerian Naira equals £1.03

‘Nigerian President Bola Tinubu addressed the nation in an evening broadcast on Monday, acknowledging the economic hardship caused by the removal of a subsidy on petrol.

He however said the country would save “trillions of naira” yearly by scrapping the subsidy and that the money would be used to implement reforms that would help boost the economy.

Ending the decades-long subsidy has more than doubled the price of petrol and raised prices for food and other essentials.

But Tinubu said the government had created a fund to use the savings to build much-needed infrastructure and supply cheap loans to farmers, small businesses and students.

He said the government would monitor petrol prices and intervene if and when it was necessary to do so.

“I assure you, my fellow countrymen and women, that we are exiting the darkness to enter a new and glorious dawn,” he said at the end of his address.’

https://www.africanews.com/2023/08/01/nigerian-president-justifies-removal-of-fuel-subsidy/

Related?

‘A total curfew was imposed on Sunday in a state in northeastern Nigeria where hundreds of residents engaged in massive looting of shops and public warehouses where food was stored, authorities said. 

Teenagers living on the street started the looting , but were soon joined by hundreds of residents who entered these places where food, especially cereals, was stored before taking them away.

“Adamawa State Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri has issued a 24-hour curfew…with immediate effect ,” his spokesman, Humwashi Wonosikou , said on Sunday . “With the curfew imposed, there will be no movement statewide” .

Local police also said security personnel had been deployed to enforce the curfew and prevent future looting.

Nigeria , the most populous country in Africa and the continent’s largest economy, has been facing a serious economic crisis since 2016, aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic , then the Russian offensive in Ukraine.

Nearly half of its 215 million people live in extreme poverty (on less than $2 a day) despite its huge oil reserves .

For the past two months, poverty has worsened in the country as the new president Bola Tinubu has taken a series of economic measures aimed at reviving long-term investments, but with serious effects on household wallets.

Last month, the president notably ended fuel subsidies , causing gas prices to quadruple, and indirectly skyrocketing food prices.

In mid-July, he announced a “State of emergency on food security” , promising massive investments in agriculture, and money transfers to the poorest.

Earlier this year, the UN already predicted that more than 25 million Nigerians would be at “high risk” of food insecurity in 2023, not counting recent inflation .

Northeast Nigeria is particularly affected by food insecurity, as a 14-year-old conflict between the army and jihadist groups has displaced millions of people there and driven farmers away from their land’.

https://www.africanews.com/2023/07/31/nigeria-curfew-in-adamawa-state-after-massive-looting/

An Observer article, 30 July, quotes the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which has data that shows that 2.3 million low-income families have reported taking out loans or using credit to pay essential bills during the ongoing capitalist cost of living crisis. With another expected interest rate rise possibly in the offing there are concerns about ‘a “time bomb of debt” among poorer households’.

Are we about to see another plethora of advertisements through various outlets for the loan companies whose interest rates run into three or four figures?

The article says that, ‘Nearly 6 million low-income families have unsecured debt, such as credit cards, overdrafts and personal loans from banks, credit unions and payday lenders. In May this year, they owed £14.2bn in total. Interest on this debt was £3.9bn, equivalent to about £675 a year per family’.

Further, ‘Using credit to pay bills is not preventing households from falling behind with payments. Three-quarters report arrears with at least one household bill or lending commitment, with 44% in arrears with three or more bills. Meanwhile 2.8 million low-income households said they had been refused a loan between May 2021 and May 2023’.

Those running charities aiming to help, one way or another, those burdened down with overwhelming debt problems ought to get themselves off to SpecSavers because the same myopic ‘solutions,’ which are not long term solutions, are being trotted out.

StepChange, a debt charity says, ‘ “It is crucial the government continues to uprate benefits with inflation and looks for ways to increase income for the most vulnerable households, for example by stopping unaffordable deductions from universal credit to repay government debts.” ‘

The government said, ‘ “We know people are struggling with rising prices, which is why we are delivering support worth on average £3,300 per household, (citation needed) uprating benefits in line with inflation and have increased the national living wage.

“We have invested a record £90m to support free debt advice in England and our Breathing Space scheme gives those facing financial difficulties space to receive debt advice, without pressure from creditors or mounting debts.

“Deductions help to protect claimants from enforcement actions such as eviction, make sure priority debts like child maintenance are addressed and recover money when overpayments are made.”’

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/30/millions-of-uk-families-using-credit-cards-and-loans-to-pay-basic-bills

For those whose lives are desolated by the nature of capitalism there are other costs which add to the existing pressures: mental health issues, damaged relationships, and removal of the ability to live life to its fullest.

As the blessed Margaret Thatcher once incorrectly remark, there is no alternative. But there is. It’s Socialism, a money-free, class-free society free access to goods and services will consign this blight to the dustbin of history forever.

A report from Eurostat.( EU statistical office) says that according to its data, there was an increase in the number of Germans who did not have enough money for meals comprising of meat, fish, poultry or a vegetarian equivalent every day in 2022,

The new figures, released by German corporate newsroom Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland demonstrated a year-on-year increase of 0.9% to 11.4%, meaning that nearly 10 million people in the most populous EU nation often lacked proper meals.

That number rises to 19.3%, when it comes to single parents, marking a rise of 2.6% compared to the previous year.

The statistics were requested by the opposition Die Linke party.

And, as noted in many pieces on SOYMB, the myopic sticking plaster solution is the one advocated, not the only real solution to this problem and many others, the abolition of capitalism and the introduction of Socialism

.Commenting on the figures, the faction’s leader in the Bundestag (parliament), Dietmar Bartsch, called for a temporary suspension of sales tax on essential food items and for the state to control supermarket pricing.

“The supermarket has become a rip-off stronghold,” Bartsch said as cited by state media outlet Deutsche Welle, “The higher the prices, the more people resort to eating noodles with ketchup.”

He added that children were among the particularly vulnerable groups exposed to the problem, and demanded the introduction of a guaranteed basic child allowance.

Germany, along with a number of EU member states, has been struggling with soaring consumer prices, causing people to cut back on expenses. In June, inflation in the Eurozone’s leading economy hit 6.4% in annual terms.

British capitalism wants to do its bit in the fight against the rising, and more rising cost of living. It wants to do its bit to protect profits! Wait for the, if you’ve done nothing wrong you’ve nothing to fear, argument to appear.

The Observer, 29th July, carried a story about the Home Office secretly planning ‘to lobby the independent privacy regulator in an attempt to push the rollout of controversial facial recognition technology into high street shops and supermarkets’.

The covert strategy was agreed during a closed-door meeting on 8 March between policing minister Chris Philp, senior Home Office officials and the private firm Facewatch, whose facial recognition cameras have provoked fierce opposition after being installed in shops.

In a development that ignores critics who claim the technology breaches human rights and is biased, particularly against darker-skinned people, minutes of the meeting appear to show Home Office officials agreeing to write to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) advocating the merits of facial recognition technology in tackling “retail crime”.

Mark Johnson, advocacy manager of the campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: “The Home Office must urgently answer questions about this meeting, which appears to have led officials to lean on the ICO in order to favour a firm that sells highly invasive facial recognition technology.

“Government ministers should strive to protect human rights, not cosy up to private companies whose products pose serious threats to civil liberties in the UK.”

The minutes of the previously undisclosed meeting reveal that Philp – appointed policing minister by Rishi Sunak last October – and Simon Gordon, the founder of Facewatch, discussed “retail crime and the benefits of privately owned facial recognition technology”’.

Big Brother Watch have also said, ‘ Home Office Minister Chris Philp is pushing police forces and shops to start rolling out Orwellian live facial recognition technology.

Just last month Northamptonshire Police announced they were deploying live facial recognition against protesters. This came days after the European Court of Human Rights found Russia’s use of the same technology to arrest a protester was unlawful.

Live facial recognition uses cameras to scan the facial features of members of the public in open spaces, comparing their faces to a hidden watchlist database of images in real time. This suspicionless mass surveillance tool treats everyone like a potential criminal, and has no place in the UK.

Live facial recognition is not an efficient crime fighting tool, with the police’s own statistics revealing that more than 8 out of 10 facial recognition matches have been inaccurate since its introduction.

Walking down the street anonymously could soon be a thing of the past if the spread of live facial recognition is not resisted.

While lawmakers in the EU are edging closer to passing an all out ban on the use of live facial recognition in public spaces through the Artificial Intelligence Act, the UK is aligning itself with autocracies like Russia and China.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/29/home-office-secretly-backs-facial-recognition-technology-to-curb-shoplifting

https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campaigns/stop-facial-recognition/