Author: ajohnstone

Pensions Back-lash

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Were you born after April 1978? Then you will be the first generation of both males and females who won’t receive a penny in state pension until you reach the age of 68 – and there is even talk of raising that to 70. Why have we so meekly accepted this when in Ireland and France it has reached the point of bringing down governments?



It played no small part in Sinn Fein’s victory. Sinn Fein’s extraordinary election victory in Ireland is widely seen as a protest vote against the disarray in public hospitals and soaring rents in urban areas. Yet the exit polls also revealed that plans to raise the state pension age in Ireland to 67 in 2021, and 68 in 2028 was the third most important issue among voters after health and housing. It seems almost every political party was taken aback by how frequently the pension age was raised on doorsteps during the election. Sinn Fein pledged to roll back the state pension age to 65.



  Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said during the election campaign: “For us the idea that somebody would be forced to continue working until they’re almost 70, or that people of 65 or 66 will be sent down to the dole queues, it’s absolutely disgraceful.”



In France, the protests have gone on to the streets. The rail network has been paralysed, electricity supplies cut, and violent demonstrations met with police teargas. All this because Macron’s government is proposing that those born after 1974 won’t get a full pension (more generous than in the UK) until they are 64, at present 62.



  In Britain, we have been browbeaten by endless talk of the demographic time bomb; the idea that they’ll be trillions of elderly people and hardly any young workers coming up behind them to support pensions as before. There is no alternative, we’re told.



Yes, the population is ageing, and state pensions take up a vast proportion of public spending. But recent projections show that the population is ageing rather less fast than predicted. Even in 2017, before the slowdown in longevity growth was part of the picture, the Office for Budget Responsibility and the EU were projecting that Britain’s demographic time bomb was much less explosive than elsewhere in Europe.

It projected that age-related expenditure on pensions would rise from 7.7% of UK GDP in 2010 to 9.2% in 2060. That’s an increase of 1.5% of GDP over a half century although that will, of course, be in part because of the measures we have already put in place. Other countries face much bigger forecast burdens; the Netherlands and Belgium are in the 8-10% range.

Yet Britain is fast-tracking to a pension age of 68 ahead of every other Western European country apart from Ireland.

Slavery

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“Slavery is illegal everywhere.” The truth of this statement has been taken for granted for decades. Yet our new research reveals that almost half of all countries in the world have yet to actually make it a crime to enslave another human being.



Legal ownership of people was indeed abolished in all countries over the course of the last two centuries. But in many countries it has not been criminalised. In almost half of the world’s countries, there is no criminal law penalising either slavery or the slave trade. In 94 countries, you cannot be prosecuted and punished in a criminal court for enslaving another human being.



94 states (49%) appear not to have criminal legislation prohibiting slavery 112 states (58%) appear not to have put in place penal provisions punishing forced labour 180 states (93%) appear not to have enacted legislative provisions criminalising servitude 170 states (88%) appear to have failed to criminalise the four institutions and practices similar to slavery. In all these countries, there is no criminal law in place to punish people for subjecting people to these extreme forms of human exploitation. Abuses in these cases can only be prosecuted indirectly through other offences – such as human trafficking – if they are prosecuted at all. In short, slavery is far from being illegal everywhere.



Human trafficking is defined in international law, while other catch-all terms, such as “modern slavery”, are not. In international law, human trafficking consists of three elements: the act (recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring, or receiving the person); the use of coercion to facilitate this act; and an intention to exploit that person. The crime of trafficking requires all three of its elements to be present. Prosecuting the exploitation itself — be it, for instance, forced labour or slavery — would require specific domestic legislation beyond provisions addressing trafficking.



So having domestic human trafficking legislation in place does not enable prosecution of forced labour, servitude or slavery as offences in domestic law. And while the vast majority of states have domestic criminal provisions prohibiting trafficking, most have not yet looked beyond this to legislate against the full range of exploitation practices they have committed to prohibit.
less than 5% of the 175 states that have undertaken legally-binding obligations to criminalise human trafficking have fully aligned their national law with the international definition of trafficking. This is because they have narrowly interpreted what constitutes human trafficking, creating only partial criminalisation of slavery. The scale of this failing is clear:



a handful of states criminalise trafficking in children, but not in adults some states criminalise trafficking in women or children, specifically excluding victims who are men from protection 121 states have not recognised that trafficking in children should not require coercive means (as required by the Palermo Protocol) 31 states do not criminalise all relevant acts associated with trafficking, and 86 do not capture the full range of coercive means several states have focused exclusively on suppressing trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation, and thereby failed to outlaw trafficking for the purposes of slavery, servitude, forced labour, institutions and practices similar to slavery, or organ harvesting. https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/slavery-is-not-a-crime-in-almost-half-the-countries-of-the-world-new-research/



Worth a read from the website of the World Socialist Party of the United States.

Sleeping pods

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San Francisco! The Golden Gate City! Birthplace of food staples like Mission Burritos, It’s-Its, and Ghirardelli Chocolate! Founded in 1776, five days before America’s Declaration of Independence, it was the Viceroyalty of New Spain’s northernmost military outpost prior to the Mexican War of Independence in 1821, becoming part of the Mexican territory of Alta California in 1824, before finally being admitted into the union as part of the 31st state of California in 1850. With the California Gold Rush starting in 1848, droves of prospectors flooded into the area the following year, leading to the moniker “forty-niners.” Brimming with history, Frisco’s arguably best known for being the center of the counterculture movement in the ’60s and, more recently, for being a major hub of the dotcom and social media booms of the ’90s and 2000s. These booms led to a rapid influx of well-paid tech professionals, choking the housing market and, thus, drastically increasing housing prices.



In December 2019, the average rental price of an apartment in SF was $3,688,[1] and the average home sold for $1.58 million,[2] which is 2.5 and 5.64 times higher than the national average, respectively. These outlandish prices beg the question: how do low and even middle-income workers afford to live in such an expensive city? The answer’s usually: roommates. 38.5% of adults in Frisco have roommates,[3] which is equivalent to more than 60.9% of its total renters. It’s worth noting that, even though not everyone with roommates has them due to economic necessity, a steady increase along with housing prices hints that financial constraints may be the cause, especially when taking the rapid rise in homelessness into account.



San Francisco’s biennial point-in-time homeless count conducted in January 2019 reported a homeless population of 8,011 by the federal government’s definition.[4] However, it could be more than double that based on a city database of people who receive health care and other services for the homeless.[5] Using the federal government’s definition, 63% of those polled said they were homeless because they couldn’t afford rent in the city. It’s mostly not new residents either; 55% had been living there for ten or more years, and only 6% had lived there less than a year. Of those counted, 1,794 were living out of their vehicles, which was a 45% increase from 2017.[6] However, it’s also worth noting that another survey found that 25% of people living out of their vehicles were “super-commuters” – people who drive long distances into the city for the workweek, returning to their homes on the weekends where housing’s more affordable.



But even after you account for that, the circumstances are still bleak once you consider the fact that San Francisco had 38,651 empty homes in 2018,[7] almost five times higher than 2019’s homeless count. Some types of reforms are needed pronto, or people might start grabbing the guillotines. Possibly the fairest legislation would be to enact some form of rent control, whether capped at a certain yearly increase percentage or a certain percentage of someone’s income. Another way to ease the pressure could be to increase the minimum wage, or maybe a combination of the two. They could even consider – I don’t know – giving people housing for free?



But Chris Elsey of Elsey Partners in Manhattan, KS isn’t suggesting either of those things. His plans have been in the works for more than four years to turn two parking lots in the city’s Mission District that are catty-corner from each other at 401 S Van Ness Ave and 1500 15th St into new apartment buildings that would each have eight floors with 161 units that would be 200 square feet, including a bathroom and kitchen. But what’s the game-changer? Each building will also have two basement-level floors – space traditionally used for storing bikes – that’ll include 88 “sleeping pods” renting for $1,000 to $1,375 each that would be about 50 square feet, which is just roomier than a king-size bed.[8] The pods would stack on top of each other like bunk beds, with one side opening to a shared living space. A curtain could provide privacy for them, but city building codes won’t allow them to be closed in by a wall and door that shuts. They also wouldn’t have windows but would receive natural light as they circle common living spaces facing an outdoor courtyard in the center of the building. And, to add insult to injury, you also wouldn’t be allowed to come home drunk or have sex in the pods either. They notably made no mention of bathrooms, refrigerators, cabinets, laundry facilities, or other residential amenities.



Now, let’s think about this for a second. Most definitions recommend 100 – 400 square feet per person in an apartment.[9] Laws vary in each state, but 70 – 80 square feet is generally considered the acceptable minimum for a bedroom.[10] These sleeping pods would be just over half that or the size of a standard jail cell[11] or double grave.[12] It’s a genuine possibility that these pods could mostly shelter people working 40 or more hours per week to come home and sleep in an oversized closet they can’t even stand up in, let alone drink or fornicate.



No matter how you cut it, the entire concept of a sleeping pod is wholesale encroachment on basic needs. It’s not radical to want anyone working a full-time job to have an actual home to sleep in and not just a spruced-up box. When I was a kid, I believed that if you graduated college with a decent degree, you’d practically be guaranteed to own a home, but that’s hardly even the case anymore in most cities due to crippling student loan debt.[13] No one should have to forego the right to drink a beer to unwind after work so they can live within a reasonable commuting distance from their job. The proposal itself begs the question: what if those become too expensive, too? If sleeping pods are even remotely normalized and eventually become unaffordable, will the landlords try to sell us bunks? Mats? Tents? How much space will they be willing to deprive us of before they give any leeway if only to keep low-wage workers in the city to hand them coffee in the morning?



This proposal ties back into the power imbalance inherent in the landlord-tenant relationship I mentioned in my last article.[14] If Chris were genuinely interested in providing more housing to combat the crisis, he’d open a rent or income-controlled apartment with adequately sized units that could accommodate bachelor’s and families. But he’s not proposing that, because it wouldn’t be in his financial interest, and that’ll always come first. Chris isn’t planning this to help San Franciscans; they’re proposing it so they can capitalize on the extra space that otherwise wouldn’t amass any profit. If someone can’t afford a pod, he couldn’t care less where they sleep. Capitalists don’t build homes out of the kindness of their hearts; they do it to accumulate more capital. Capital will always tend to lower the lot of the worker for its benefit if given the opportunity. The only way we can guarantee everyone a decent-sized home is by getting rid of capitalism and its incentive for profit over people by building a socialist economy that would finally put people and our environment as our main priority. With our economic system based on common ownership of the means of production and production for use, we could solve every problem caused by capitalism. There wouldn’t be any more empty homes while people sleep in their cars or empty stomachs while grocery stores and restaurants waste food, because there’d be universal free access to everything we need. We could logically utilize our resources via a direct democracy with a conscious plan rather than the fragmented chaos of a market.





























Jordan Levi

https://www.wspus.org/2020/02/sleeping-pods/

We need is a red revolution, not a green new deal

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There can be no peace, no security, no freedom under capitalism. So long as capitalism continue to exist, hunger and war are inevitable. They are unavoidable in our society. Continue capitalism and we face the certain prospect of new wars and more food insecurity. World hunger is not due to the lack of technology to produce more food, but due to the capitalist system and multinational companies that control food supplies. The causes of hunger have little to do with a shortage of food. the real question is not whether starvation can be prevented, but whether it will be.



 Build socialism to give us undreamed of wonders to enrich our life. Socialism, and only socialism, will create a world without national barriers, without international rivalries, without master and servile nations and, hence, a world without war and commercial competition. A world administration will not be a government of a dominant economic class but democratic decision making bodies with the primary duty to conduct the affairs of the world with the aim of eliminating poverty, joblessness, hunger and general insecurity. Its sole criterion would be the needs of the people. Its preoccupation in socialism will be to assist and improve continually the living standards of the people, to extend their leisure time and thus make it possible to heighten the cultural level of the whole world. That is why socialism will guarantee peace, security and freedom and prevent the destruction of mankind. Socialism will end the root evil of modern society, i.e., the private ownership of the means of production, the factories, mines, mills, machinery and land, which produce the necessities of life.



With socialism, these instruments of production will become the property of society, owned in common, producing for use, for the general welfare of the people as a whole. With the abolition of the private ownership of the means of life and with it the factor of profit as the prime mover of production, the sharp divisions of society between nations and classes will disappear. Then, and only then, will society be in a position to become a social order of abundance and plenty for all, for socialism will create a new world of genuine cooperation and collaboration between the peoples of the earth.



In abolishing classes in society, socialism will replace the form and type of governments which exist today. Governments will become administrative bodies regulating production and consumption. They will not be the instruments of the capitalist class, i.e., capitalist governments whose main reason for existence is to guarantee the political as well as the economic rule of big business, their profits, their private ownership of the instruments of production, and the conduct of war in the economic and political interests of this class. In abolishing classes, elite government and war, socialism will at the same time destroy all forms of dictatorship, political as well as economic. World socialism will be the freest, most democratic society ever known, truly representing the majority of the population and subject to its recall. Socialism will assess the industrial potential of the world, determine its resources, the needs of the people and plan production with the aim of increasing the standards of living of a free people, creating abundance, increasing leisure and opportunity for cultural enjoyment.



Socialism will not concern itself with profits and war, but with providing decent housing for all the people. Socialism will provide education for all the people. Socialism will eliminate illiteracy, which is one of the hallmarks of capitalism, and cease to regard schools and colleges primarily as institutions to produce skilled labour to help operate the profit economy.



Socialism will create a system of health preservation and insurance in which the needs of the people and the improvement of the human race would be the paramount consideration. Above all, socialism will provide jobs for all. But this will be work without exploitation. For the aim of socialism is not the increased exploitation and intensification of labour, but the utilisation of machinery, technology, science and invention to diminish toil, to create time in which to permit all the people to enjoy the benefits of social progress.



The modern world contains all the pre-conditions necessary for socialism. All about us we observe enormous industrial complexes containing machinery which could produce the goods of life in abundance. Mankind has developed a marvellous technology which has not only made it more possible for humanity to control his natural and social environment to create a fruitful life of abundance, but has made it imperative. Socialism will place at the disposal of science and the scientists all the material means to help better mankind. Only socialism can place science where it properly belongs: in the service of the people. We are at a crossroads and can travel the road of capitalism, towards more chaos, war, poverty and barbarism, or we can take the socialist path toward true freedom, peace and security, the road toward a society of plenty for all which would end the exploitation of man by man for all time.



What Health Benefits?

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Poor adults in Britain today are in worse health than those born in 1920, according to a study which warns of widening inequalities and a looming crisis for the NHS.

Research carried out at University College London compared the health in adulthood of 16 birth cohorts, ranging from those born between 1920-1922 up to those born between 1968-1970. It found a wider gap between rich and poor among later generations despite the arrival of free healthcare. Lifestyle factors such as higher smoking rates among poorer people born later in the century, alongside a decline in social housing provision, were also blamed. 

Dr Stephen Jivraj, who led the study, said it was also likely that the difference was down to working-class Brits who were born in 1920 having benefitted from their working lives coinciding with an era of high employment in traditional industrial occupations compared to later generations entering the workforce in the 1980s. He added that the growth in health inequalities also runs parallel to rising income inequality in Britain during the 20th century.
Dr Jivraj, an associate professor in UCL’s department of public health and epidemiology, said: “If you look at the period and what happened to people during their working lives for people born in these cohorts, income inequality is one of the major things that has changed over the period.
“It is much greater for these people born in the later 20th century than for those in the earlier part of the century. That has really driven poorer health among the poorest in society for many reasons including support for public services. I think it’s tied to de-industrialisation – people who would have been the poorest in society who were born in the 1920s would generally have found it easier to find good quality work than they would have done if they had been born in the late 1960s. They are two things that I can’t directly attribute to this difference in rich and poor, but they certainly tally. So on the one hand, you have something that doesn’t seem to tally – why hasn’t the creation of the NHS meant narrowing of health inequalities because it means free healthcare for everybody? But there’s a lot of other factors at play that increase inequalities in health.”

Prof Jivraj found evidence of deteriorating health in the poorest third of the population, while wealthiest third had improved. One in four (26%) men born in 1920-22 who were living in the poorest third of British households when they responded to the survey as adults said they had a life-limiting illness. That compared to 16% in the richest households.
For men born in 1968-70, more than a third (35%) of those living in the poorest households reported a life-limiting illness compared with only around one in 10 (11%) of those living in the richest households. 
For women, in the poorest third, 23% of those born between 1920-22 reported a life-limiting illness as adults compared to 32% of those born between 1968-1970.
For women in the richest third, however, there was little change in adulthood illness – from 13% to 12% – for those born in the early ’20s compared to those born at the end of 1960s.
The paper states: “There is a suggestion that increased income inequality is responsible for increases in poor health in Britain in the latter quarter of of the 20th Century. This could be due to the increased marginalisation of the poorest in society who have not shared equally in postwar economic growth.”
It added that lifestyle may also be at play.
“Other factors strongly related to income might explain differences in the health of people born after 1945 compared with those born before, including smoking which has increased in the poorest in society, and housing tenure, which has become increasingly polarised by social class and likely to become even more so in future through housing inheritance.”
The findings come amid concern over impact of austerity on life expectancy in the UK, which has stalled and even fallen in some parts of Scotland for the first time in decades. However, Prof Jivraj said the research comparing health outcomes for those born in 1920 to those born in 1970 points to a longer term decline in health for the poorest Brits.
“It would appear that we were looking after people better in those generations than we are today,” he said. “I think poorer people in society today are getting a much rawer deal that in the past in terms of housing provision, social security payments – I think things are tighter for those people than they were in the past.”



He said: “What this is saying is that someone who was born in 1970, who is in the poorest section of society now, the probability of them being ill at a given age is greater compared to previous generations. The consequence of that is greater demands placed on health and social care in the future, at earlier ages, which is really problematic for health ans social care sectors across the UK. We already have an ageing population, which means more older people as a share of the overall population, who will require health and social care. But if poorer people are also getting ill earlier in life – people who won’t have private health cover, or resources to pay for it themselves – it makes an even more pressing case for us to tackle this.” 

20/20 Vision for 2020

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Capitalism is a disaster for humanity. It promises poverty, hunger, disease and war. Our environment is fated to be destroyed by climate change and harming our food supplies which is already leading to mass migrations from rural areas. All this results directly capitalism itself. It comes from the system of wage labour, the need to produce for profit and the necessary accumulation of capital which demands continual market expansion and growth. It is the system of production for profit which is creating this catastrophe. The only way out for mankind is changing to a system of production for use and needs, ending the exchange economy, no more buying and selling. Money will cease to have a function. Borders and frontiers will be abolished as nations and the State itself disappear. Socialism is the total transformation in economic, social and political relations where working people take control of  their own lives and begin running their own communities. Only a social revolution can create society anew to replace capitalism with a system that aims to satisfy human needs.



We must be free of the ideology of the ruling class and must have a strategy which will end exploitation and oppression. We are revolutionary socialists who believe that capitalism — as a system based on capital accumulation and profit — is inherently a system of inequality, injustice, and war. Our enemy is capitalism.  Capitalism dominates our economic system. Under capitalism, a handful who own the factories, the mines, the farms, and the banks control the wealth that the majority of the people produce. Capitalism organises globally for growth and profits. Under capitalism you either eliminate the competition, or are destroyed yourself. This drive sends the corporations around the world, seeking out cheaper raw materials and corrupting local governments to insure a “friendly investment climate.” Capitalism continuously seeks cheaper labour costs. This is why we see so many factories out-sourced and moving “off-shore.” Capitalism is a system of violence. Poverty is built into its operation. The capitalist class needs to maintain its grip on the levers of power. A socialist revolution will require the unity of the working class. The capitalist class has kept the working class of divided.



The struggle for a liveable planet is now a life-and-death issue. Corporate greed has polluted our air and poisoned our water. Capitalism’s blind consumerism causes us to squander so many of the world’s resources needlessly. The environmental movement has powerful support from youth, determined not to pass on to their children a poisoned earth. This movement offers a great potential for a receptive audience to socialist ideas..



 It is this system that we are fighting. We want a social system where the wealth of the World is not in the hands of a few billionaires, but is collectively controlled by the people. We seek both economic and political democracy. Human needs cannot replace profit as the motivation of society unless the people control their communities, their neighbourhoods, their workplaces. We believe that everything possible must be done to move in the direction of building a cooperative commonwealth. Socialism is not and cannot be anything other than the self-management of production, the economy, and society by the working people. For us, socialism is impossible without democracy. Both in how we organise and in what we organise for.



Campaigns that mobilise activists like foot-soldiers with generals giving them their marching orders may appear efficient in some ways. But they also duplicate the hierarchies of a capitalist, society, hierarchies that undermine people’s belief in their own abilities and their trust in others. The job of the Socialist Party is to find ways to propose social change and democratic practices, even though we may risk being marginalised. Our own movement must be infused with democratic decision and solidarity.



In order for the society working people will create to be just equitable, it must embody socialist ideals. The fundamental change is not to preserve capitalism. Do we have a blueprint for a socialist society? Can we envision what such a society looks like? If we rely on the people, if we pool our own collective experiences we can broadly outline a socialist future. Our political compass for where we are headed should always have socialism as its destination – a world free from destitution.



Huge Change is Possible

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Striking school students have joined Valentine’s Day rallies across the world as the protest movement attempts to ratchet up pressure on governments and companies before crunch UN climate talks in Glasgow later this year.  Climate strikes were planned in 2,000 cities across the world on Friday, and that bigger actions were planned for the coming months. Friday’s action was not intended as a mega-strike like those in September, when more than 6 million people took part, but it showed how the campaign has evolved.



In London, the young demonstrators held banners proclaiming “Roses are red, violets are blue, our Earth is burning and soon we will too” and “Climate change is worse than homework” as they marched through Parliament Square on Friday to mark the first anniversary of nationwide climate strikes in the UK.



Students in Durham, Glasgow, Brighton and dozens of other cities also braved often wet and cold condition to march through the streets chanting, “What do we want? Climate justice. When do we want it? Now.”

In India on Friday, strikers turned their focus on government plans to deforest swathes of the Aravallis mountain range, which is a conservation area that provides freshwater and oxygen for Delhi and other cities. Some carried banners in English reading: “I love Aravallis”, “Our green lungs” and “Protectors are turning destroyers”.



In Sydney, climate strikers demonstrated with banners that depicted the devastating bushfires and blamed the government of Scott Morrison for the “climate chaos” that has hit Australia. In the Philippines, climate strikers organised an educational storytelling campaign to raise public awareness.



In Scotland, Holly Gillibrand, who was one of the first strikers in the UK when she started a vigil outside Lochaber high school in Fort William in the Highlands, said the growth of the movement had been incredible.



“When I began striking over a year ago, Greta Thunberg and Fridays for Future  were not well known at all and I was one of very few strikers in the UK, but since then, everything has changed. The movement has gone from one person to 7.5 million. Even if we still aren’t getting the radical action we need from governments, politicians are feeling the pressure to act and we just need to keep pushing, keep shouting, keep rebelling until they do.” Holly continued her strike on Friday, with a hot chocolate to help get her through the wet weather.



Among those striking for the first time on Friday was a group in Rwanda, where protesters tweeted images of themselves holding signs that said: “Rwanda stand for climate.”
A year ago, the size of the protests in the UK took police by surprise, as thousands defied their teachers to skip school and join the still nascent movement. The students are now backed by longer established environmental organisations, including Global Justice Now, Greenpeace and the Green party. Among those at Friday’s march in London was a trade union climate bloc.



Friends of the Earth are backing the school climate strikers, who it credits for shifting public opinion. There is still a long way to go, but with technology developments and strong policies, the group said there was cause for hope. “Huge change is possible…”

Indeed the change the Socialist Party seeks is huge.



Does it make sense to risk destroying civilisation for the sake of profit? Capitalism imposes ecological devastation on the planet. Capitalism is the problem that socialism can solve. Socialists aims to produce and distribute resources by and in the interests of the whole community. In a money-free society production can be planned properly and the world’s resources conserved instead of being wasted or damaged for the sake of making a quick profit. The risk to the world posed by the threat of dangerous industrial processes and indiscriminate waste of resources has never been greater in spite of all the efforts of reformists and ecological pressure groups. Only the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by socialism can halt the destruction. We must replace capitalism before it destroys the earth.



Against continued capitalist chaos, the Socialist Party fights for a new social system based upon the overthrow of the exploiters. Against nationalist hatreds and hostilities, the Socialist Party proclaims and practices proletarian solidarity, the unity of the workers of all lands against their capitalist exploiters. Against endless wars of conquest, the Socialist Party strives to eliminate war through a socialism.



The capitalist are trying to throw the burden of this world crisis on the working people. When capitalist production does not bring sufficient profit, the capitalist uses every means to guard himself against loss. He throws the workers pitilessly out into the street. He raises the cost of living. He beats down salaries, and for this purpose he creates lock outs and mobilises strike-breakers.



The capitalist seeks to increase the hours of work or the efficiency of labour, in case wages remain the same. Protection for the workers is made impossible. The most indispensable articles are raised in price, the production of goods which do not bring big profits is stopped. We see this best in the failure to relieve the shortage in dwellings. Housing accommodations for the lower classes are neglected. Hospitals and nurseries are closed. Invalids, pensioners, and cripples are abandoned. Through the most subtle systems of taxation a considerable part of the workman’s income is stolen. In order to carry this out more easily the capitalist buys the periodicals, the newspapers, controls literary production and employs thousands of agitators to influence the workers in a manner favourable to his own interests. The capitalist strives to demoralize and to destroy the workers’ organisations, especially the labour unions. With a subtle system of swindle and lies capitalism tries to eliminate these organisations from the struggle against it. When it does not succeed in this, it tries to destroy them by means of force.



Global warming and the environmental crisis is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. The uncontrolled exploitation and gross waste of resources typical of capitalism, is the source of this disaster. Short-sighted hunt for profit, neglects and abuse of science under capitalism destroy the world’s environment at an accelerating speed. Science, technology and industry can be positive and beneficial to society, but private property and the priorities of the elite and the ruling class create great problems. Our answer is that the working people must organise to overthrow those who threaten the existence of the people of the world. Only a planned socialist economy has strength to remedy a future climate catastrophe. Planned economy makes social and sensible use of the resources. Production will be planned on the basis of what serves society, not what yields the most profit. The producers themselves, the workers, will decide what to produce and how – not “the market”.



Money Towards Meat Lovers

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The livestock sector is responsible for about 14.5% of total human-derived greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists have provided evidence of a link between cancer and diets involving pork, beef and lamb products.



 The EU has been accused of an “indefensible” approach to human health and the climate crisis in spending tens of millions of euros each year on campaigns to reverse the decline in meat eating and trying to rebut so-called “fake news” on the mistreatment of animals bred for food.  €60m has been spent in the last three years on 21 meat marketing campaigns, including in the UK.



 Sjoerd van de Wouw, a researcher at Wakker Dier foundation, said the funding policy was outdated indefensible. “We understand that you need to consider the interests of producers but not by completing ignoring the interests of consumers and the climate,” he said.



A €2.5m subsidy for an initiative aimed at Danes and Swedes. “Pork is no longer a natural part of the diet of young Scandinavians,” the commission website says. “They tend to eat less meat in general and to avoid pork in particular. The aim is to increase consumer demand and thus halt any otherwise expected fall.”



A campaign in favour of the Dutch veal sector to promote the meat of calves in the Belgian, Italian and French markets received a €6m subsidy.



“The veal market has been declining since the 2000s,” says a description of the project on the commission website. “There are various reasons for this: the economic crisis, changes in consumption behaviour and above all a lack of top-of-mind awareness. France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy are minded to fight this fall in consumption by boosting the image consumers have of European veal.”

One recent campaign entitled Pork Lovers Europe, which secured €1.4m for marketing, including a “road-show” with a pink bus painted to look like a pig, noted “that the consumption of pork meat in Europe has decreased in recent years”. 



It continued: “Therefore, it is very important to promote pork meat to restore the confidence of the consumer, which was shaken by news such as the last IARC [International Agency for Research on Cancer] report.”

Scientists at the IARC, a UN agency, reported in 2015 that the consumption of bacon, red meat and glyphosate weedkiller increased the risk of developing cancer. The Pork Lovers Europe adverts targeted consumers in the UK, Spain, Germany, France and Portugal.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/14/eu-spending-tens-of-millions-of-euros-a-year-to-promote-meat-eating

Wasted Food

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Reducing food waste is a key challenge in fighting climate change. Wasted and lost food accounts for almost 10% of all our greenhouse gas emissions.
Common estimates for global food waste are too low, according to Dutch researchers, who suggest every person in the world is wasting about 500 calories of food a day. Previous estimates have put global food waste at 214 calories per day per person (214 kilocalories/day/capita – a kilocalorie is another word for what’s commonly called a calorie). Without waste, we could feed five people instead of four, they said. The research did not include food lost in the production process before it gets to the consumer. The widely quoted figure of one third of all food available for human consumption lost or wasted is made up of both food lost before it reaches the consumer, which the study did not look at, and food wasted once it arrives in the kitchen.
They say behavioural change is important, such as encouraging shoppers to switch from buying in excess or hoarding to shopping for “enough”, with the thought that you can always acquire more.




75th Anniversary of the Dresden Bombing

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In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 722 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city.



Kurt Vonnegut’s in Slaughterhouse-Five, who was one of some 25,000 Allied prisoners of war held in and around the city and who survived the bombing, called it “carnage unfathomable.” Some 200,000 incendiary bombs along with 500 tons of high-explosive munitions including two-ton “blockbuster” bombs were dropped during the initial raids, sparking thousands of fires that could be seen from 500 miles (800 km) away in the air. The heat generated by the inferno melted human flesh, turning many victims into piles of goop. Men, women, children, the sick, the elderly, refugees and Allied POWs and even the animals in the city zoo — all were incinerated together. The 2700º Fahrenheit (1480° C) fire-storm sucked all the oxygen from the air; many thousands suffocated to death. The following morning, a wave of more than 300 United States Army Air Force Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers pounded the survivors with over 700 tons of explosives. On February 15, US warplanes bombed the city’s south-eastern suburbs.



Dresden, Germany’s seventh-largest city, was the largest urban area in the Third Reich that hadn’t yet been bombed. It had been spared from Allied attack because it was an important cultural city — known as the Jewel Box for its celebrated architecture — with relatively few significant military targets. It was a city of refuge, with 19 hospitals and more than a million refugees fleeing the horrors of the Red Army advance encamped there. But by the time it was all over, some 25,000 men, women and children were dead and nearly 90 percent of the homes in central Dresden were obliterated. 



An RAF memo to airmen the night of the attack explained that “the intentions of the attack are to hit the enemy where he will feel it most” and “to show the Russians when they arrive what Bomber Command can do.” 



Churchill, not known for his compassion, was appalled by the savagery of the attack, calling it “an act of terror and wanton destruction.” After seeing photographs of the devastated city, the prime minister asked, “Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?” In a top secret memo dated March 28, 1945, he wrote:



“It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land.”


As many as 600,000 German civilians were killed by Allied bombing over the course of the war. Many of these victims died during the war’s final months, when Germany’s defeat was certain and such slaughter served no valid military purpose.  At Dresden trains were running again within three days of the bombing. And while the Nazis may have started the air war by bombing British cities, killing 14,000 civilians during the Blitz, the destruction of Dresden was disproportionate.


From here

Promoted by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN.

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