Author: ajohnstone

White Power on Display

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On Martin Luther King Day could you imagine if thousands of African-Americans paraded in the streets with rifles, many masked and in combat gear.



 Today white pro-gun advocates including some white nationalists, far-right militia members, anti-government extremists, and neo-Nazis are protesting in Richmond, Virginia against proposed gun-control law. Governor Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency and banned guns from the capital. The ban does not appear to being enforced.



 What would the reports on Fox News be if thousands of blacks were openly carrying weapons. History recalls the  reaction of the State when a few decades ago, the Black Panthers armed themselves for self-defence. Ronald Reagan then governor of California passed gun control laws with the support of the NRA. 



 White fear of armed black people overcame the NRA’s defence of the 2nd Amendment. 



 And the media made little protest as members of the Black Panthers were murdered by police.



World Unemployment

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Nearly half a billion people around the world are struggling to find adequate paid work, trapping individuals in poverty and fuelling heightened levels of inequality, according to a UN report.



473 million people around the world lacked the employment opportunities to meet their needs. In addition, the UN agency said global unemployment was due to rise for the first time in almost a decade in 2020, as weaker levels of economic growth around the world lead to the number of people out of work rising by about 2.5 million to stand at more than 190 million.
Out of a working-age population of 5.7 billion people around the world, the ILO found as many as 165 million people were employed but unable to find work with an adequate amount of paid hours to meet their needs. It also found a further 119 million had either given up actively searching for work or lacked access to the jobs market because of their personal situations. Alongside those officially classified as unemployed, about 473 million people across the planet are affected.
In a stark assessment of the risks from underemployment, it said the lack of productive, well-paid jobs meant more than 630 million workers worldwide lived in extreme or moderate poverty on incomes of less than $3.20 (£2.46) a day. Despite a gradual trend to reduce global poverty levels, it said that these people lacked adequate income to escape destitution.
Guy Ryder, the director general of the ILO, said: “For millions of ordinary people, it’s increasingly difficult to build better lives through work. Persisting and substantial work-related inequalities and exclusion are preventing them from finding decent work and better futures. That’s an extremely serious finding that has profound and worrying implications for social cohesion.”

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2020/jan/20/un-report-half-a-billion-people-struggle-to-find-adequate-paid-work

Feeding the People

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The world already produces enough to feed 10 billion people but over two billion are experiencing micronutrient deficiencies (of which 821 million were classed as chronically undernourished in 2018).



In the 2019 Global Hunger Index, India ranks 102nd out of 117 qualifying countries. With a score of 30.3, India suffers from a level of hunger that is serious. Yet there is enough food (in terms of calories) available to feed its entire population. It is the world’s largest producer of milk, pulses and millets and the second-largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnuts, fruit and vegetables.



Food security for many Indians remains a distant dream. Large sections of India’s population do not have enough food available to remain healthy nor do they have sufficiently diverse diets that provide adequate levels of micronutrients. The Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey 2016-18 is the first-ever nationally representative nutrition survey of children and adolescents in India. It found that 35 per cent of children under five were stunted, 22 per cent of school-age children were stunted while 24 per cent of adolescents were thin for their age.



People are not hungry in India because its farmers do not produce enough food. Punjab, the food bowl, has broken all previous records in wheat productivity. From 50.64 quintals per hectare achieved last year, the average wheat yield has risen to 51.71 quintals. With such high crop productivity and with 98 per cent cultivable area under assured irrigation. Even with bumper harvests, Indian farmers still find themselves in financial distress.





 Hunger and malnutrition result from various factors, including inadequate food distribution, (gender) inequality and poverty; in fact, the country continues to export food while millions remain hungry. It’s a case of ‘scarcity’ amid abundance.



Calls for agroecology and highlighting the benefits of traditional, small-scale agriculture are not based on a romantic yearning for the past or ‘the peasantry’. Available evidence suggests that smallholder farming using low-input methods is more productive in total output than large-scale industrial farms and can be more profitable and resilient to climate change. But policy makers tend to accept that profit-driven transnational corporations have a legitimate claim to be owners and custodians of natural assets (the ‘commons’). These corporations, their lobbyists and their political representatives have succeeded in cementing a ‘thick legitimacy’ among policy makers for their vision of agriculture.



We must acknowledge the destructive, predatory dynamics of capitalism and the need for agri-food giants to maintain profits by seeking out new (foreign) markets and displacing existing systems of production with ones that serve their bottom line.



 abridged and adapted from here

Sanctions for some, not for others

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The United States last year imposed sanctions that barred imports of Venezuelan oil and transactions made in U.S. dollars with Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA.



Chevron and oilfield service firms Baker Hughes Co , Halliburton Co , Schlumberger NV, and Weatherford International have regularly received permission to remain in the country.



Chevron has said it would lose about $2.7 billion in assets if required to leave the country. 



The Treasury also on Saturday issued a license allowing transactions related to PDVSA’s 2020 bond, which is backed by shares in U.S. refiner Citgo Petroleum Corp. That license begins on April 22, replacing a previous license that last year had authorized transactions from Jan 22.

Why stop at free travel?

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Interesting article in the Times of London a couple of days ago, which complements the book review in the December Socialist Standard.
Here’s an extract from the Times article:
“The city of Olympia was preparing to replace the elderly ticket machines on buses with electronic card readers when transport officials hit upon an alternative that would be cheaper, faster and more convenient: free travel.
This month the capital of Washing­ton state became the latest in the United States to experiment with free public transport. The idea, which once seemed far-fetched and rather Euro­pean in the land of the motorcar, is being considered across the country.
Councillors in Kansas City, Missouri, with half a million residents, voted unanimously last month to make the buses free. They plan to cancel fares this year. In Worcester, the second larg­est city in Massachusetts, the city council has indicated that it would support waiving bus fares, while in Lawrence, north of Boston, buses on three lines serving poorer neighbourhoods were made free in September, leading to an increase in passengers.( …)
In Olympia officials felt it was more efficient to stop charging fares than to upgrade payment systems. “It costs a lot of money to collect money,” Ann Freeman-Manzanares, head of the city’s transit agency, told the broadcaster OPB. Buses were regularly delayed by people trying to pay. Removing the fares removed a source of .”conflict”. “We can be speedier at what we do.””
And there are still people around who say that this sort of thing is against “human nature”. But if it will work under capitalism it surely will in socialism.


ALB



Bad times are a-comin

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The head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, said the inequality gap had increased within countries.



She singled out the UK for particular criticism, saying “In the UK, for example, the top 10% now control nearly as much wealth as the bottom 50%. This situation is mirrored across much of the OECD, where income and wealth inequality have reached, or are near, record highs.”





She added: “In some ways, this troubling trend is reminiscent of the early part of the 20th century – when the twin forces of technology and integration led to the first gilded age, the roaring 20s, and, ultimately, financial disaster.”

Eco-Farming

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Our current food system isn’t sustainable for growing nutritious crops, raising healthy livestock or feeding billions of people. Industrial livestock farming involves cramped, unclean quarters and stressful living conditions, and farmers inject animals with antibiotics mixtures. The need for new agricultural methods only increases with our growing population. Growers must be able to provide wholesome, plentiful food for expanding communities.


Agriculture causes most of the water pollution, overexploitation and biodiversity loss that wildlife environments experience. Monocrops have monopolised fields and forests, clearing away vegetation that once supported biodiversity. Other forms of plant life suffer from farmers prioritising one cash crop over the rest. Palm oil exists in everything from shampoo to potato chips, but palm plantations destroy forests and habitats. Land conversion turns woodland areas and rainforests into vast fields and uproots the native animals. Successful alternatives to commodity crops exist, but their effectiveness often depends on location and climate.


Natural resources provide raw materials and goods amounting to $125 trillion per year, and major industries will keep taking more until nothing remains. Many environmentalists are advocating for more renewable sources to avoid depleting finite materials.


The food system has to change in significant ways if it hopes to continue amidst changing climates and disappearing landscapes. Past farming methods are no longer as lucrative or effective as they once were due to droughts and unpredictable weather. Farmers in areas of southern Europe have already suffered losses from weather events related to climate change. Researchers expect the production of certain European crops to decline by 50 percent by 2050, which will eliminate a sizable proportion of their agricultural income.




Westernised diets—featuring overprocessed and high-fat foods—have spread across numerous countries. Growers must introduce more varieties of foods into their harvests to resist this oversimplification of diets. Reducing meat consumption is a favorable option among many environmentalists, but this hinges on several factors.



Livestock farmland is typically not arable, meaning that even if farmers reduced their cattle, they wouldn’t be able to use this land for crops. Animals aren’t the only contributors to methane emissions, either. Everyday tasks like running machinery and laying down fertilizer involve greenhouse gases.


Integrative farming, along with regenerative techniques, is a workable solution for preserving farmland. Farmers raise crops and cattle by establishing a fair exchange between both groups. A portion of the vegetation turns into feed, while the manure goes to the fields to nourish the plants. Little agricultural waste remains, and the soil benefits from regular feeding. Industrial operations don’t often raise livestock and crops in the same area, which makes regenerative techniques rare on large farms. Kenyan farmers have embraced techniques common to the sustainable intensification approach to increase their food production while protecting local ecosystems. Regenerative agriculture characterizes plant life and livestock as parts of a living biome rather than commodities.


The fast and easy way isn’t always the healthiest, and Earth has paid the price for commercialised growing.






War is Hell

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“Yours not to reason why; Yours but to do and die.”


Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose—especially their lives. They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. it cannot be repeated too often—that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace. 


 If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace.


We offer solidarity and friendship to all the peoples of the world. What hope can we ever have of socialism, or even of the salvation of the human race, if we don’t resolutely oppose the endless wars which capitalism inflicts upon mankind? Under capitalism the chief causes of war are not religious or national differences but economic antagonisms, into which the exploiting classes of the various countries are driven by the system of production for profit. Just as this system sacrifices unceasingly the life and health of the working class on the battlefield of labour, so it has no scruple in shedding their blood in search of profit by protecting their existing markets or the opening up of new markets. Nation to-day is set against nation in the interests of the capitalist class. For the people, national and religious interests must disappear and the people must recognise what is for the common good of the people. The capitalist mode of production, with its war of all against all, its forcible oppression of the working class, is the real cause of war.


The working class alone have the serious desire, and they alone possess the power, to realise universal peace. In the name of those millions butchered in war; in the name of the mental and physical wrecks left to beg and starve on the streets of our villages and cities; in the name of the bereaved who mourn the vain sacrifice of their loved ones, we appeal to you to arouse yourselves before it is too late. 


Fellow-workers, you have nothing to do with the quarrels of your rulers. Your task is to wage war against the capitalism, to end it and the industrial slavery that is grinding us down into ever increasing poverty.


 Economic rivalries are extended from the home market to the world market. Economic rivalries on an international scale lead to economic wars, and economic wars lead to a clash of arms. This is a truth that cannot be denied. War is all about the re-division of the Earth. Capitalism is seeking to dominate the markets of the world. This cannot be done peaceful means. Capitalism breeds war. War is devastation. It destroys not only precious human lives, but large amounts of goods. It is an orgy of destruction. The brunt of a capitalist war, however, is borne by those who work. Wars are waged for the purpose of dominating other countries to be used as markets, sources of raw materials and investment grounds.


To quote scripture, Isaiah saw in prophetic vision a time when nations should war no more—when swords should be transformed into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. The fulfillment of the prophecy only awaits socialism and the solution of the economic problems we all face.


WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

Future Populations – Not an explosion but an implosion

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Laurence Siegel is the director of research at the CFA Institute Research Foundation. 

“High death rates are the cause of high birth rates,” explains Siegel. World population grew very slowly in the Malthusian past because, although people had lots of babies, more than half of them died before reaching adulthood. Modern sanitation and medicine and greater supplies of food meant falling death rates; that combined with still-high birth rates to produce a population explosion, with the number of people in the world rising from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.7 billion now.



The global total fertility rate—that is, the number of children each woman is likely to bear over her lifetime—has fallen from around 5 in 1960 to 2.42 now. The United Nations forecasts that world’s total fertility rate will eventually fall below the conventionally defined replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman; the U.N. says population will then stabilize around 11 billion, and Siegel basically agrees.



So humanity is demographically transitioning from its natural state of high birth and high death rates to a more recent stage of high birth and low death rates to the low birth and low death rates seen in much of the world now. About half of the world’s population currently lives in countries with below replacement fertility. The U.S.’s total fertility rate, for example, has dropped to a record low of 1.73 children per woman.



Siegel’s projections of future population growth may in fact be excessively high. In a 2018 study, demographer Wolfgang Lutz and his colleagues at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis offer an alternative scenario projecting rapid economic growth, rising levels of educational attainment for both sexes, and technological advancement—all factors that tend to lower fertility. They expect that world population could peak at about 8.9 billion by 2060 and then decline to 7.8 billion by the end of the century.



Why are more people around the world having fewer children? Incentives, explains Siegel. Rearing children in modern societies costs a lot, both in money and in foregone opportunities and pleasures. Given that about 99 percent of kids born in countries like the U.S. will make it to age 20, parents are choosing to spend more resources on fewer children, who will thereby be more likely to enjoy successful lives. “To put it just a little too crassly, in wealthy societies and increasingly in less wealthy ones, children have become a cost center (some would even say a luxury good), not a profit center,” Siegel observes.



These trends mean that there will be many more old people in the future.



https://reason.com/2019/12/24/apocalyptic-thinking-is-wrong/

Portugal wants more people

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Portugal’s government is celebrating rising immigration numbers after the number of foreign nationals living in the country hit half a million for the first time in its history.



The government said Portugal had “overcome” barriers to attracting more migrants, who it says are needed due to the country’s relatively low birth-date and ageing population. “in 2019, for the first time in our history, the barrier of half a million foreign citizens residing in Portugal has been overcome,” interior minister Eduardo Cabrita told the country’s parliament. There were 580,000 foreign nationals were living in Portugal at the end of 2019, up from 490,000 at the end of 2018.



Portugal is one of ten EU states where fewer than five per cent of residents are foreign-born; between 2011 and 2016 it also suffered strong emigration due to the fallout from the global financial crisis and austerity. In 2017 prime minister António Costa’s government passed new laws to boost immigration, with the legislation taking effect in the autumn of 2018. 

“We need more immigration and we won’t tolerate any xenophobic rhetoric,” Mr Costa said at the time.
The debate in Portugal over migration contrasts with that in other EU countries, notably the UK – where the government has been aiming to reduce immigration.  





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