As world leaders meet at COP26 to make commitments for climate action, displacement associated with disasters and the impacts of climate change continue.  They threaten homes, livelihoods and lives warns the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

Floods and storms forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes across all regions of the world in October. Despite an end to monsoon and rainy seasons in Asia, intense rainfall triggered severe flooding and landslides. Storms hit parts of the United States and Europe still recovering from summer wildfires, which destroyed vegetation — a natural flood defence.

Following a summer of heatwaves, drought and wildfires across parts of the United States and Europe, flooding brought about by storms in October led to evacuations in Evia, Greece and California. The same phenomenon occurred in Australia at the beginning of 2021, as widespread flooding followed an unprecedented bushfire season, forcing tens of thousands into displacement.

Extreme weather also continued across south-east Asia. In China, floods uprooted more than 330,000 people in the provinces of Sichuan, Shanxi and Shaanxi in the first week of October alone. Shanxi experienced its worst flooding since records began, with average rainfall 13-times higher than normal. Heavy rainfall driven by a late monsoon caused severe flooding and landslides in India and Nepal. An estimated half a million people were displaced to relief camps in India’s West Bengal state.

A high-intensity storm in the Mediterranean wrought destruction in Algeria, Italy and Tunisia, while tropical cyclone Kompasu left a trail of destruction across China, Hong Kong, Macau, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Viet Nam. Cyclone Shaheen uprooted around 5,000 people in Oman in early October, and Mexico was struck by hurricanes Pamela and Rick. More severe weather and further displacement is expected in the coming months as the typhoon and cyclone season has only just begun in south-east Asia and the Pacific.

“Displacement in the context of disasters and climate change is one of the defining global challenges of our generation, affecting high and low-income countries alike,” said Alexandra Bilak, Director of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). “In 2020, disasters, primarily triggered by weather-related hazards, resulted in 30.7 million forced movements. This is more than three times the number prompted by conflict and violence.”

 Bilak explained, “The scale of this type of displacement worldwide is certainly a cause for concern, as is the very real risk that global warming will lead to more frequent and intense weather events that can upend people’s lives.” 

Another month of extreme weather uproots hundreds of thousands across the globe – World | ReliefWeb

 So far, only a very few activists at COP26 here in Glasgow fully understand the need for socialism, as an alternative society where there will be no private property, no classes, and no state. Despite the indignation and anger evident at all the gatherings, the real opposition to capitalism has yet to be born. It will take shape in the workplace and in the street, in colleges and in communities. Capitalism has outlived its usefulness, but it won’t just fade away of its own accord. It needs to be abolished. We are the majority of the population and we are endowed with eloquent spokespersons and capable organisers, but we don’t exercise any real power – so we are ignored. Yet every day brings a clash between most people’s interests and those of the few who possess the power.

Today, we produce more food than ever before, yet many people around the world go without it. The rot at the core of the modern food system is capitalism where food and land are regarded purely as commodities in a global system of profit. But we have the potential within our lifetime to put an end to food, water and energy shortages; to bring healthcare, access to education to all and where we can create a world of abundance that can meet the basic needs of every man, woman and child on this planet.

Millions are turning away in disgust from the social and political status quo but, so far, only a tiny fraction of the discontented understand the need for socialism. Unrest is mounting. Every day people are more repelled by the present political, economic, and social order, however, many fall into a cynical disillusionment and see no point joining a party, no point in voting, no point in protesting.

It would be quite wrong, however, to believe that most people are apathetic about politics but when they look for solutions they see them in religion, in nationalist myths and the myriad of single-issue and identity politics. Their protest demands amount to mere appeals, petitioning the ruling class for more sops. Is it no wonder people quickly realise that the demands for reforms make little difference even if achieved and even desert those? All the time they are campaigning for palliatives, they never hear the socialist case, never discuss socialist ideas. The time spent making reformist demands is time not heeding the need for revolutionary change. We need to be positively advocating socialism as a practical possibility and an achievable one. The primary purpose of being a socialist is to raise people’s consciousness and to further social democracy. The organisational structures we are creating today and the means we opt to engage in will reflect the type of society the future will inherit so it is important that we should work out forms of organisation and strategies of mass action that are genuinely participatory and empowering. The question of class/party organisation and the question of class consciousness are inseparable, they are two aspects of the same development.



The 19th century Chartists organised enormous petitions, with millions of signatures. These were ignored. And still, petitions circulate in political campaigns. Huge demonstrations have taken place but they too are ignored. But yet we still march. Protest movements have shown a way of transforming parks into public forums and general assemblies but they too failed when faced with the coercive machinery of the state. This is unpalatable but true.

The World Socialist Movement does not present policies for capitalism’s salvation nor offer better capitalism. It isn’t just this form of capitalism or that version we oppose, but capitalism itself. It isn’t just who profits and by how much they plunder that we oppose, but it is the entire concept of profit, which by the way is always generated from the appropriation of surplus labour extracted from the working class by wage slavery.

 William Morris, who was more than just a wallpaper designer and furniture maker, called upon the working class to acquire the “intelligence enough to conceive, courage enough to will, power enough to compel.”  In Marxist terms, a class ‘for itself’ – a class that is not just passively united in its unions because of its position in production, but that is also politically organised to assert its interests against the ruling class. Socialism is in the interests of, and to be fought for by, the whole proletariat; and will transform the whole of social and economic and political life. Forms of collective actions and organisation must include and involve all sections of the class, and not simply those who happen to be employed and organised at their factory floor or office or store. That is why a political party is required, to encompass the working people as a whole and not just particular parts of them.



The society we of the World Socialist Movement seek is one where everybody would be free to contribute ‘according to ability’ and to take ‘according to need’. Production would be for use, not for profit, and would be rationally planned by mutual agreement. Technology would be employed to reduce and eliminate mindless drudgery, allowing people to develop their creative potential to the full. With no class privilege to defend, the state would no longer be required. Socialism would be a free society.



 Capitalism itself surprising has created a supply chain structure from which we can build and integrate. In Britain, most people obtain their food supplies from four or five big firms. The supermarkets are already a model of efficient planning and logistics. However, they have no democratic control and the whole operation is aimed at making maximum profits for shareholders rather than fulfilling the needs of the general welfare; But the mechanism is there, from field to fork, to be adopted and adapted. Socialist society would only need to turn the task of administration and decision-making over to those who participate in the production and distribution process.

Socialist administration is a federation of self-governing collectives largely concerned with their own internal affairs yet collaborating for the purposes that concern all. Marx described it as an “association of free producers”, not any centrally–planned command economy whose roots go back to Prussia’s Otto von Bismarck readily endorsed by Lenin and his Bolsheviks as “state-capitalism”.

 “There’s no sympathy for billionaires,” – Leon Cooperman, who is worth an estimated $2.5bn

 Workers at two Weetabix factories will launch four-day strikes from Monday in a dispute over pay and conditions.

Members of Unite at the company’s Kettering and Corby factories have been on strike every Tuesday and Wednesday since September over proposed changes to working practices that they claim could leave them up to £5,000 a year worse off.

The union claims engineers face cuts to their pay, terms and conditions, describing it as an example of a “fire and rehire” policy and Weetbix’s “corporate greed”, which the company denies.

Strikes are to take place every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Weetabix workers to hold four-day strikes over pay and conditions | Food & drink industry | The Guardian

 One major obstacle to global sustainability is the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system.

This gives transnational corporations the power to sue governments over actions—including policies to address climate change—that reduce the value of their foreign investments. Allowing corporations to continue to wield this power could undermine whatever agreements might be reached at Glasgow’s COP26.

Clauses in more than 2,600 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) allow foreign investors to bypass domestic courts and sue sovereign states in international tribunals for millions—and even billions—of dollars.

The World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) is the most commonly used of these arbitration tribunals, followed by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Made up of highly paid, three-person panels of corporate lawyers, these tribunals should not be mistaken for courts of law. This privatized system has little regard for precedent, truth, or justice.

In their lawsuits, corporations most often cite protections in FTAs and BITs against “indirect expropriation.” This is interpreted to mean regulations and other government actions that reduce the value of an investment. Hence, corporations can sue governments over the enforcement of environmental, health, and other public interest laws or measures arising from democratic or judicial processes. While investment tribunals cannot force a government to repeal laws and regulations, time-consuming, costly litigation and the threat of massive awards for damages often put a “chilling effect” on responsible policy-making.

The growth of legal actions brought by extractive industries has been exponential. Since 1995, when an extractive industry brought their first case under an international agreement, they have brought claims demanding at least $195 billion and won awards totaling at least $73.2 billion. Extractives corporations not only use the ISDS system the most, they also receive the largest monetary awards. Out of the 14 known awards for more than $1 billion, 11 pertain to oil, gas and mining.

There are at least 82 known pending ISDS cases brought by extractive industries. Of the 42 where information is available, the companies are demanding a total of $99.1 billion ($71.1 billion by mining companies and $28.1 billion by oil and gas companies).

Notably, there are 40 pending cases where the amounts being claimed are not available, so the figures above are only partial. But from the information available there are at least 14 pending cases for more than $1 billion, with ludicrous suits against Congo for $27 billion and Colombia for $16.5 billion topping the list. Another case in which a corporation is demanding $16 billion, TC v. USA, for the cancellation of the controversial Keystone pipeline by the Biden´s administration, is not included in the table below because it has not yet been registered at ICSID. 

The Institute for Policy Studies report Extraction Casino notes that for transnational extractive industries that pollute the planet and contribute to climate change, ISDS is “yet another opportunity to strike it rich through reckless, casino-style gambling, given the recourse they have to bring suits within a system in which the deck is heavily stacked in their favor, and produce a chilling effect on regulations and policies that address climate change.”

Opinion | Missing From the Climate Talks: Corporate Powers to Sue Governments That Limit Pollution | Manuel Pérez Rocha (commondreams.org)

There are more delegates at COP26 associated with the fossil fuel industry than from any single country. Lobbyists are pushing the climate to dangerous extremes by blocking or diluting policies that would reduce the burning of fossil fuels.  Lobbying has come into the spotlight as world leaders  seek compromise on the fate of the planet. 

THE HYPOCRISY OF PHILANTHROPY

Elon Musk’s wealth has surpassed $200 billion. It would take the median U.S. worker over 4 million years to make that much.

During the first 19 months of the pandemic, U.S. billionaires added $2.1 trillion dollars to their collective wealth and that number continues to rise. 

Jeff Bezos paid no federal income taxes in 2007 or in 2011.

 By 2018, the 400 richest Americans paid a lower overall tax rate than almost anyone else. 

The Trump tax cut enabled individuals to exclude $11.18 million from their estate taxes. That means one couple can pass on more than $22 million to their kids tax-free. Not to mention the very rich often find ways around this tax entirely. As Trump’s former White House National Economic Council director Gary Cohn put it, “only morons pay the estate tax.”

What about capital gains on the soaring values of wealthy people’s stocks, bonds, mansions, and works of art? Here, the biggest loophole is something called the “stepped-up basis.” If the wealthy hold on to these assets until they die, their heirs inherit them without paying any capital gains taxes whatsoever. All the increased value of those assets is simply erased, for tax purposes. This loophole saves heirs an estimated $40 billion a year.

This means that huge accumulations of wealth in the hands of a relatively few households can be passed from generation to generation untaxed—growing along the way—generating comfortable incomes for rich descendants who will never have to work a day of their lives. That’s the dynastic class we’re creating right now.

Wealth inequality in America is far larger than income inequality. 

Income is what you earn each week or month or year. Wealth refers to the sum total of your assets—your car, your stocks and bonds, your home, art—anything else you own that’s valuable. Valuable not only because there’s a market for it—a price other people are willing to pay to buy it—but because wealth itself grows. Wealth compounds over time.

 Personal wealth comes from two sources. The first source is the income you earn but don’t spend. That’s your savings. When you invest those savings in stocks, bonds, or real property or other assets, you create your personal wealth— which, as we’ve seen, grows over time. 

The second source of personal wealth is whatever is handed down to you from your parents, grandparents, and maybe even generations before them—in other words, what you inherit. The Waltons—the family behind the Walmart empire— has seven heirs on the Forbes billionaires list. Their children, and other rich millennials, will soon consolidate even more of the nation’s wealth. America is now on the cusp of the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history.

As wealthy boomers pass on, somewhere between $30 to $70 trillion will go to their children over the next three decades. These children will be able to live off of this wealth, and then leave the bulk of it—which will continue growing—to their own children – tax-free. After a few generations of this, almost all of America’s wealth could be in the hands of a few thousand families.  Dynastic wealth continues to grow. Dynastic wealth creates a self-perpetuating aristocracy.

In the 1970s, the wealthiest 1 percent owned about 20 percent of the nation’s total household wealth.

 Now, they own over 35 percent. 

Much of their gains over the last 40 years have come from a dramatic increase in the value of shares of stock. 

For example, if someone invested $1,000 in 1978 in a broad index of stocks—say, the S&P 500 — they would have $31,823 today, adjusted for inflation. 

Who has benefited from this surge? The richest 1 percent, who now own half of the entire stock market. 

But the typical worker’s wages have barely grown. 

Most Americans haven’t earned enough to save anything. 

Before the pandemic, when the economy appeared to be doing well, almost 80 percent were living paycheck to paycheck

Most Americans don’t make enough to save money and build wealth.

 Wealth concentration magnifies gender and race disparities because women and people of color tend to make less, save less, and inherit less.

The typical single woman owns only 32 cents of wealth for every dollar of wealth owned by a man. The pandemic likely increased this gap. 

The racial wealth gap is even starker. The typical Black household owns just 13 cents of wealth for every dollar of wealth owned by the typical white household. The pandemic likely increased this gap, too. 

Opinion | The Cruelest Form of Capitalism in the World | Robert Reich (commondreams.org)

 Governments can’t overcome the exploitative cost-cutting logic of capitalism and it is that which lies at the heart of the environmental crises. Capitalism is only concerned with short term profits; and the collateral damage costs to the environment are simply “externalities”, as the economists call them, a price to be passed on to society as a whole and not the responsibility of the culpable company.

 There is no future if we cover up climate change remedies. Capitalism has inflicted incalculable harm on those that live on this planet. Tragically, capitalism’s destructive power, driven by its inner logic to expand, is doing irreversible damage to life in all its forms all around the globe. Rosa Luxemburg famously said that humanity had a choice, “socialism or barbarism.” These days, her warning has even more meaning as we almost daily hear of species extinction, deforestation, desertification, and extreme weather events, to the point where many are almost in acceptance of an impending catastrophe.  Our planet cannot indefinitely absorb the consequences of profit-driven, growth-without-limits capitalism. Unless we radically change our methods of production and pattern of consumption, we will reach the point where the harmful effects to the environment will become irreversible. Only the most modest and mild measures of environmental reform are agreed by all sections of the capitalist class. This makes the establishment of a socialist society all the more imperative.

Pledges at this year’s climate summit to cut carbon emissions are likely to fall far short of the targets needed to avoid heating the planet by more than 1.5C or 2C. 

So much information about climate change now abounds that it is hard to determine the accuracy of all the statistics and figures. So many scientific reports appear alongside unverified claims with academic appearances. What we do know is limited progress has been achieved to curb carbon emissions and curtail global warming while the scale of climate connected natural disasters continue to unfold at an unprecedented rate.

The situation is particularly bleak for those nations least able to cope with floods and droughts. How could it be that a species so intelligent, flexible and well-able to adapt could potentially destroy itself? 

What happens next is somewhat speculative. Humanity isn’t so much sleep-walking to disaster as racing headlong to meet it.

Our ultimate survival will be predicated entirely on our choices – will we stay committed to the capitalist system or shall we embrace socialism. If there is to be a future for the human family, it can only be a socialist one. We must oppose an economic system that magnifies greed and encourages short-term thinking while pretending there are no physical limits to capitalist expansion and growth. To continue capitalism is to make a suicide pact. 

Bandying words around without fully comprehending their meanings isn’t fruitful. Capitalism is the social system under which we live. Capitalism is primarily an economic system of competitive capital accumulation out of the surplus-value produced by wage labour. As a system, it must continually accumulate or go into crisis. Consequently, human needs and the needs of our natural environment take second place in this imperative. Capitalist investors want to end up with more money than they started out with. Capitalism is an ever-expanding economy of capital accumulation. In other words, most of the profits are capitalised, i.e. reinvested in production, so that production, the stock of means of production, and the amount of capital, all tend to increase over time. The economic circuit is thus money – commodities – more money – more commodities, even more money. This is not the conscious choice of the business owners or CEOs. It is something that is imposed on them as a condition for not losing their original investment. Competition with other capitalists forces them to reinvest as much of their profits as they can afford to in keeping their means and methods of production up to date. As a result, there is continuous technological innovation. Defenders of capitalism see this as one of its merits and in the past, it was insofar as this has led to the creation of the basis for a non-capitalist society in which the technologically-developed means of production can be now—and could have been any time in the last 100 years—consciously used to satisfy people’s wants and needs. Under capitalism, this whole process of capital accumulation and technical innovation is a disorganised, impersonal process that causes all sorts of problems—particularly on a world–scale where it is leading to the destruction of the environment.

The World Socialist Movement does not pretend that we are in possession of an elaborated plan for all the problems that we shall inherit and which we can implement immediately. But lacking a fully worked-out blueprint doesn’t justify accepting the current economic system that assaults the living world. Capitalism is not the system through which we will shape a sustainable future. It is only fantasies found in economics textbooks that it can and deal with the real world. Capitalism concentrates wealth, it centralises power that allows a small number of people to dominate and determine not only economic but also political decision-making. Socialism is committed to principles rooted in solidarity and democracy.

 If the future is not environmentally in balance, there will be no future. If the future is not socialist, it cannot be sustainable. We can restructure our world along with new understandings of ecology and economics and we can salvage something worthy from today’s society. But it will not be achieved if we continue business as usual.

When a green campaigner says, “All that matters now is a focus on sustainability and renewables“, we must make it clear that such an aspiration is impossible under capitalism. We require economics based on cooperation and solidarity, not capital accumulation and growth.

 Despite all the promises and pledges by politicians and the media, COP26 will be nothing short of a disappointing failure. The proposals responding to the climate emergency will be a hoax, the solutions sabotaged by vested interests and government policies paralysed by procrastination and postponements, with actual progress accomplished only on paper and not in practice. The tragedy of Glasgow’s conference is that it was no surprise for its informed participants who fully expected a failure but forlornly hope for a better outcome.

Despite many well-crafted speeches COP26 will make no substantive difference to the world’s worsening environmental situation and will once more prove itself to be another ineffectual climate conference. The reason is found in the economic system.

It is not going to be automatic that every environmentalist will end up demoralised or disillusioned by the pronouncements of COP26. Socialists, though, are not so easily duped by illusory assurances from the capitalist class. We are not unique in this scepticism. It is clear others share our cynicism in capitalist solutions and understand that a system geared towards profits can only lead to further environmental disaster. We have noted the banners and placards that say “System Change, not Climate Change”, the rejection of the false solutions offered by “green capitalism”. But socialists present a clear alternative, the vision of a society, based on shared ownership and democratic control. 

At this summit, the environment and social justice are the main themes brought forward by the numerous grass-roots groups, pressuring the governmental bodies. They are vocally and vociferously questioning all the official delegates commitment to take action to stop climate change.

But there is a completely different question to ask and a totally separate demand to make. The question has now become: Is capitalism sustainable? 

Today is time for building a cooperative commonwealth. The World Socialist Movement (WSM) understands the stark reality that capitalist production and “the market” cannot and will not halt climate catastrophe. Whatever new “green” technologies may arrive, they won’t end the system’s need for growth and expansion to create profit. A socialist transformation will be absolutely necessary for the survival of some sort of recognisable civilisation. The task ahead is to build a vision across national borders, not only to relatively comfortably well-off people in rich countries but to the vast global populations living at or near poverty levels and for them to see a common future that will be in their own interests and those of their children. We’re talking about universal access to quality food, decent housing and adequate healthcare. The answer cannot be based on cutting and curtailing the living standards of the already poor in a sacrifice to save the planet. Austerity is not desirable, although we can be sure what “standards of living” mean will be re-thought and not reflect the current consumerist lifestyles of America or Europe.

The present system’s imperative is growth, meaning the growth of production for profit, whether or not such growth enhances or degrades human lives or promotes or not the health of the environment. In a capitalist market economy, each enterprise must profit at whatever expense, or go out of business. Sustainable development is unachievable under capitalism because it means obstructing the profit motive which drives production.

The WSM trusts in our fellow workers and their bonds of solidarity with others near and far to understand that reality and act on it. What is needed is broadening our socialist vision rather than any rejection of it by substituting and incorporating reforms and amalgamating legislation and regulation as palliatives from the capitalists’ board of directors, the State. Sustainable development to improve human welfare and protect the environment is only possible without the capitalist profit motive. It is a lesson we must learn urgently.