The free school meals campaign hopes it can “make a difference” by helping to reduce child hunger and ameliorating child poverty that the present pandemic has increased and worsened yet it is just one among a number of many noble causes that cries out to be tackled and solved. 

Free school meals…increased welfare benefits…halting climate change…more resources for the NHS…where does it all stop?

Alas, however well-meaning and seemingly urgent they are, it’s obvious that single-issue campaigns can only solve one problem at a time. That is, even, if they succeed. 

And for every one that is successful, money is usually diverted from some other area of need, meaning that the net result for working-class people as a whole is zero or worse. 

You can join 1,001 campaigns and when they’ve ended, another 1,001 problems will have sprung up, while the gap between the richest and the poorest continues to increase.

Instead of going cap in hand for a few crumbs from the table of our lords and masters, why don’t you insist on grabbing the whole cake?

We invite you to join the only campaign that is relevant to the entire working class – the campaign to end the capitalist system once and for all and establish world-wide common ownership. 

No political leaders, no class-based society, no national borders, no money to squabble about because in a truly democratic world where resources are held in common, money won’t be needed.

If you really want to make a permanent difference, join the World Socialist Movement!

RS

 Two more talks uploaded from the Discord online meetings –

Why socialism? – the power and limits of speculation pt.1 – Richard Field, 9th October 2020

Why socialism? – the power and limits of speculation pt.2 – Richard Field, 9th October 2020

George Orwell pt.1 – Richard Botterill, 16th October 2020

George Orwell pt.2 – Richard Botterill, 16th October 2020

  America once led the world in humanitarian policies by creating a sanctuary for the oppressed, admitting more refugees annually than all other countries combined. No longer.

 Trump cut the number of refugees allowed in by more than 80%, and Canada replaced the U.S. as No. 1 for resettling people fleeing war and persecution.

The administration also narrowed eligibility this year, restricting which refugees are selected for resettlement to certain categories.  For example, many Syrians may no longer qualify because no category is for those fleeing war.

The already extensive vetting measures have become more extreme. For instance, refugees now must provide addresses dating back 10 years, a near impossible task for people living in exile.

The Trump administration also has rolled back other humanitarian protections, like Temporary Protected Status for 400,000 immigrants fleeing natural disasters or violence. Those from countries like Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, Nepal and Syria now face deportation under a plan to end the program in January.

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-politics-virus-outbreak-immigration-immigration-policy-1f8c91e31fba158126f8e91c1453b13f

 Soaring global stock markets during the coronavirus pandemic are a worrying sign that corporations are going to boost their profits by crushing ordinary workers’ wages when the crisis is over, the Nobel economic prize winner and inequality expert Sir Angus Deaton has warned.

Many economists have attributed the surge in equities in recent months to a flood of new money printed by central banks, but Sir Angus, who won the economics prize in 2015, attributed it to expectations from investors that companies will be able to boost their profits in future by squeezing their wage bills.

“Every time we look at our retirement portfolio there’s another huge increase in the funds we have available,” he said, speaking to Econ Films’ CoronaNomics show. “And why is that huge increase happening? Because the stock market thinks we’re going to screw the workers even more in the future. Most people equate the stock market with the state of the economy and not as a measure of profits only.”

Total national income, or GDP, is always split between company profits and workers’ wages. Between 2001 and 2017 the share of GDP going to workers in the US fell from 62 per cent to 57 per cent according to the OECD. In Japan it declined from 61 per cent to 56 per cent. In Germany it went down from 62 per cent to 59 per cent. The labour share in Ireland, Portugal and Poland fell by 10 percentage points over that period.

America’s S&P 500 Index, made up of the 500 largest listed US companies, hit a record high in September, and is up by more than 50 per cent since the end of March. The recovery of the UK’s FTSE100 index and the STOXX 600, comprising the largest European companies, has not been as impressive and both are still below their February peaks. However, both stock indexes are still both up 16 per cent and 29 per cent respectively since March’s nadir.

 Sir Angus recalls that when he was studying economics in Cambridge in the 1960s there was a concern that the workers’ share was being squeezed down by the corporate profit share but that this concern ebbed in the following two decades as the labour share seemed to recover and stabilise. Yet Sir Angus thinks the problem has now returned. “I think the functional distribution of income is coming back again because it’s changing against labour,” he said. 

A popular (although not universally accepted) view is that it reflects the rising ability of corporations to boost their profits by holding down wages. This, in turn, has been linked to forces such as the decline in the power of trade unions, changes in technology, rising monopsony power among firms and globalisation. Median wages in the US are barely any higher than they were forty years ago after accounting for inflation. IBritain, unlike many other countries, has not seen a falling labour share in GDP. Between 2001 and 2017 it remained roughly level at 59 per cent. However, average real wages in the UK were still lower at the end of last year than they were in 2007, reflecting an unprecedented period of weakness.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/stock-market-workers-economy-wages-profits-angus-deaton-nobel-prize-b1252530.html

In 1904 Eugene Debs wrote that, ‘The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles’

Fifty years earlier, one former slave wrote:

‘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 him, by indirection, what the black slave had taken from him, directly, and without ceremony. Both are plundered and by the same plunderers’

(Frederick Douglas, My Bondage and My Freedom, 1855).

Let us make no mistake, when the election is over it will be business as usual for the masters of the wage-slaves.

Trump’s eager white supremacist supporters are keen to have four more years of his rule. Trump has proved himself a blundering buffoon and although the competition may be close, he might just be the most dim–witted president in US history. By all accounts, he is certainly dysfunctional, hailing from a traumatizing and traumatized family. Like his father before him Trump is a bully, a psychologically damaged man.

Judging by the mainstream media, most liberals reckon another Trump presidency to be a worse outcome than a new Joe Biden administration would be. We are not so sure. There is no reason to assume that he represented the lesser of two evils. As vice-president to Obama, Biden was complicit in normalization of extrajudicial killing by drones, deported more immigrants than Clinton and Bush combined, and accepted the destruction of Libya. Biden has expressed similar narcissistic delusions as Trump falsely claiming to have marched with the Civil Rights campaigners and been arrested for trying to meet South Africa’s Nelson Mandela. He has shown himself to be the friend of the bankers by chaperoning corporate-friendly legislation through congress.

Despite the hyperbole of some progressive commentators, America is not the Germany of the 1920s an 1930s and Trump is no Hitler. He is, however, reflective of a global rise of autocrats across the world such as Putin, Duterte, Orbán, and Erdoğan.

Trump is a xenophobic populist, playing to the crowds, offering salvation to the powerless poor who have lost their jobs to foreign free trade pacts along with their white privilege. 

To socialists seeking a world without exploitation, war, nationalism, racism and sexism, it matters little which butcher is currently wielding the cleaver when it comes to austerity cuts in public spending on social welfare. Whether Trump or Biden, both of these politicians speak and act in the interests of the ruling class.  When Trump stood  delivered his State of the Union Address, he said:

“Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence — not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.”

 Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, applauded in approval as Trump expressed this bipartisan consensus shared by most Democrats with the Republicans. 

Nor are we persuaded by Sanders and his Justice Democrat supporters who see socialism as a form of Scandinavian safety-net. The ‘socialism’ of these progressives does not entail the dispossession of the capitalists from their wealth and property and the transfer of their productive assets to common ownership and democratic control. They continue to accept capitalism, with its market as given.

Other than world socialism there is no deliverance of humanity from wars, from hunger, from the destruction of millions and millions of human beings. The World Socialist Party’s task is abolishing capitalism altogether and building socialism. The only way for the socialist revolution to  flourish is on a world scale. Revolution is total or it is nothing. Only two possibilities face the world – socialism or barbarism. We are left with nothing but the cataclysmic vision. Whilst capitalism dominates the world economy as a whole, inter-capitalist rivalry creates contradictions which aid the struggle for socialism. 

 Nations must work in a spirit of cooperation rather than selfishness in the fight against coronavirus, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier stressed. 

In Steinmeier’s message against “vaccine nationalism”, he explained, “No-one is safe from COVID-19; no-one is safe until we are all safe from it. Even those who conquer the virus within their own borders remain prisoners within these borders until it is conquered everywhere.” The president continued, “If we don’t want to live in a world after the pandemic in which the principle ‘Everyone against each other and everyone for themselves’ gains even more ground then we need the enlightened reason of our societies and our governments.” 

Steinmeier said the rapid spread of the virus had resulted in an enormous worldwide mobilization of resources and a growing spirit of ingenuity. However, he said the trend of nations reserving large quantities of vaccines for their populations could prove unhelpful.

“COVID-19 challenges us all. The virus knows no borders. It is indifferent to the nationality of its victims. It will continue to overcome every barrier in the future if we do not confront it together. In the face of the virus, we are undoubtedly a global community. But the crucial question is: are we able to act as such?”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated, “Developed countries must support health systems in countries that are short of resources.”

Head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghenreyesus said the only way to recover from the pandemic was by making sure poorer countries had fair access to a vaccine. He also tweeted his support for Steinmeier’s message.

“I hope the world hears President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s call for global solidarity to end the COVID-19 pandemic,” the WHO chief wrote.

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-germany-warns-against-vaccine-nationalism/a-55393690

 Data shows millionaires and billionaires own 79% of America’s wealth. Figures from the Federal Reserve show the poorest half of the country having almost no meaningful share of the national wealth.

The crisis of Democratic Party liberalism also means that there will be a growing polarization, with some Democrats moving to the right, but others being pushed more left–ward. Today the conservative trend has the upper hand, and this is likely to continue. But the lies and tricks of the Democratic Party leadership are no longer convincing to a growing number of workers. Large sections of the working class no longer believe in the so-called “government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

The Democratic Party promise the voters everything. The Republican Party offer a do-nothing reactionary incumbent President and a TV reality show buffoon turned politician who openly campaigns on an authoritarian neo- fascist program, a double-dealing Wall Street pawn or a narcissist aspiring monarch. no wonder that little enthusiasm is being displayed for the up-coming elections by many.

While the great mass of people may distrust and dislike the candidates, and hate and fear the government that rules over them, the fact remains that the majority of people do not know of any other way to solve their social problems other than by leaders. It is in order to educate the working class in its own strength, in the justice and decency of its struggle, in the necessity of socialism that the World Socialist Party of the United States exists.  Socialists must run for office and participate in election campaigns. It is through such efforts that the basic corruptness of capitalism is shown to the working class. Using the forum of elections and political activity provides the working class with a rallying point – the hatred for capitalism finds a voice in the revolutionary socialist party.  Every action of the ruling class must be held up for exposure.

Biden gets up and says, ’Trump is corrupt. He’s tainted with Russiagate, he doesn’t care about the people who are unemployed, he doesn’t care if people are dying from the pandemic. He’s just going to let things go that way if it’s needed to help big business.’ And Biden is right.

Trump then gets up and says, ’Joe Biden is a liar. He’s not going to create more jobs. All of his programs like the Green New Deal can’t even be paid for. Its’s fake news and he is a fraud.’ And Trump is right.

Because either one of their programs is only going to continue this system. That’s the nature of the whole set–up.

How can you represent capitalists and working-people at the same time?  How can you speak for the slave–master and the slaves at the same time?  Right there is how you know that they’re liars. Anybody that gets up and says that they represent the slave–master and the slave at the same time is deceiving us. The World Socialist Party doesn’t talk about representing the slave–owner class. We represent the slaves and that’s all there is to it. And we’re determined that we aren’t going to be slaves no more. We refuse to give our our slave–masters to the stamp of approval to keep us enslaved by voting for them. The liberal media come along and say, ’You’re going to have one of them anyway so you might as well vote for the kinder master because, even though neither one of them is any good, you’re going to have one of them anyway so pick the least awful.

What they’re really telling us is, ’You’re going to have exploitation anyway, have oppression anyway, you’re going to be robbed and attacked and cheated and see your kids go hungry, see health care cut back, you’re going to have all that anyway no matter who is elected.’

And they’re telling the truth even though they’re trying to tell a lie. We should learn from that truth. What they’re saying is that as long as we have capitalism we will have exploitation and oppression anyway so you might as well vote for it because the real candidate is not Trump or Biden, the real candidate is their actual system of wage slavery that we’re being asked to vote for.

Capitalism cannot provide the minimum needs of the people. Regardless of, whether its Biden’s New Dealism or Trumps right-wing conservatism, American capitalism presents to the working class and the people as a whole only the prospect of continual crises, precarious employment, insecurity, and declining living standards. Our fellow-workers, increasingly conscious of the depths of the crises, will strive instinctively for a way out. They have demonstrated, time and time again, their willingness to struggle, their desire for independent class action. We can say with some certainty that the working class will brush aside phoney mis–leaders and move to great independent class action. The workers are foolishly supporting the capitalist class in wielding political power against them, for the workers still follow the boss parties.

Both the Democrats and Republicans are cut from the same cloth. They are both political parties of the capitalist class, of the ruling class, of the boss class

 Google, Facebook and Microsoft should be paying more corporation tax in developing nations, says ActionAid. The aid charity estimates that poorer countries are missing out on up to $2.8bn (£2.2bn) in tax revenue.

The aid charity said its research showed that the developing nations with the highest “tax gaps” from Google, Facebook and Microsoft are India, Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria and Bangladesh.

 $2.8bn could pay for 729,010 nurses, 770,649 midwives or 879,899 primary school teachers annually in 20 countries across Africa, Asia and South America.

 Regardless of the rhetoric and personality clashes, the outstanding characteristics of the American two–party system is the fact, the two major parties are so organized as to make it virtually impossible for the electorate to choose between clear-cut alternatives in elections. Whichever candidate prevails the administration will be run by the big-business cabinet, thus insuring the defeat of any serious social program.

The complete bankruptcy of the policy of supporting so-called “friends of labor” has been repeatedly exposed and reveals the urgent necessity for the immediate formation of an independent socialist party. The sad truth is that in the most terrific economic crisis in American history, the workers will voted their belief in the efficacy of capitalism to solve the ills of unemployment, low wages, etc. It is true that they may reject the reactionary administration of Donald Trump and accept the platitudes of Biden, but that, of course, is still a case of Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dummer. The shift basically was not a change from their capitalist outlook, but only a change of administrators of the system of private property. Sadly, it will be the affirmation of faith of the vast mass of American people in the social system of capitalism. Yet, while on one hand the American workers will give their approval to American political system as such they are girding themselves for struggles which will bring them into sharp conflict with capitalist property rights and ideas. Our fellow-workers often devise their own strategies in the class struggle, finding it necessary in the past for need for independent political experience and actions. One need will be no doubt that unorganized labor will add its forces to organized labor in common struggle. Workers’ discontent is already evident and is bound to grow enormously as the standard of living falls, as other burdens are piled upon them and they are denied corresponding wage increases and even the denial of the right to resort to the strike weapon. The entire history of the American labor movement shows that the workers tend to resort to independent political action when they find themselves defeated or frustrated on the economic field. There is every reason to believe that this tradition will assert itself more powerfully than ever in the coming period. With mounting pressure and difficulties imposed upon them, and the fact that they are stymied on the political field – must push workers into the direction of more imaginative and innovative expression of struggle and resistance, with increasing indifference to the Republican and Democratic parties. The rank and file workers, through their own experience will understand the interests of the working class and will act accordingly.  People will be watching what happens, checking out what really changes and this will expose the lies and tricks of the ruling class whether represented by Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

The progressives and militants in the Democratic Party have one great task before them from now on. Two roads remain to choose from. They can take the road of independent political action, or they can continue the present policy of tying themselves to capitalist politics, which in essence means support to the political representatives of the ruling class. The purpose of the state apparatus is to maintain the capitalist system. Joe Biden is just a representative of this ruling class and won’t have the power to change it. What he can do is run the government better or worse for the ruling class. Even his political program shows his class loyalties. Any changes offered by Biden are not for the people, but to save U.S. capitalists. Biden’s  program amounts to is little more than sugar–coated reformism. He and his backers understand that the people of the U.S. will not continue to accept no jobs, poor housing, decaying schools, lack of adequate health care, political repression and police brutality. They also understand the need to devise new means of ruling other than the open repression of the Trump administration.

 The World Socialist Party does not speak about a reformism. We are advocating revolution, a call to our fellow-workers to take power and change the whole system. As socialists, we support no bourgeois side in this election. Voting for Democrats or Republicans means supporting both parties’ attacks against the working class. Capitalism offers no future for workers of any color, any gender, any age. There is no real choice for workers in this election. Unless we build a socialist party we are accepting the rule of the capitalist parties. Workers  do have a stake in the struggle for democratic rights, including the right to vote. The working class needs a political alternative that meets the needs of our class. Our strength is in collective struggle, dedicated to overthrowing both the capitalist economic system and the state that protects it.