“This is not ‘the new normal. The climate crisis will continue to escalate and get worse as long as we stick our heads in the sand and prioritize profit and greed over people and planet. We are still sleepwalking towards the edge.” Greta Thunberg

Crises are not caused by the evil machinations of individuals; they have their root cause in the way a society is organised. Surely, it is not now doubted that wars are born of the fight for spoils between capitalists. Throughout the last hundred years, the economic objects of the various wars have stood out so clearly 

The only way in which mankind can bring about a social change and build a fraternal society, free of war, is to establish socialism. This will come about as the conscious act of a socialist working-class. Modern war arises from the conflicting economic interests of the various national capitalist groups. The competitive nature of capitalist society sets one corporation against another and which, in the world at large, sets one government against another over the capture of markets for exports, over access to raw materials, the control of trade routes and over the occupation of strategic points. These disputes take the form of intricate manoeuvres in the political, diplomatic and military fields over the control of spheres of influence. he important fact is that these disputes are inseparable from capitalism and that they go on all the time. That is why governments maintain armed forces. That is why the long history of international organisations and conferences for disarmament and peace is a history of failure. This is the basic explanation of the global wars of capitalism which have been going on all the time and of the continual state of tension in which capitalism lives. The inevitable result of all this is that military conflict is part of our lives as long as we live under capitalism.

Under such situations, it is futile to take a moral stand against violence in itself. Many peace campaigners have proved their sincerity and courage, but this does not alter the fact that their views are out of touch with reality. The only way in which war can be removed from our lives is to remove capitalism and replace it with socialism. It requires that a socialist working-class democratically gain control of the machinery of government for the purpose of abolishing capitalism and establishing socialism. Wealth will be produced solely for use and not for the profit of a minority.

This will remove the basic cause of war and will therefore remove the apparatus of war—the armed forces and their weapons. The working-class of the world must first understand and want a new socialist society. They must, in other words, free themselves from ideas which at present keep capitalism in being and consciously choose the new world in which men and women can truly live in harmony and build a world fit for human beings.

The Socialist Party advocates for the removal of a system of society which works out to the detriment of the many. The peace campaigners are out for an alteration of government whereby the wars between capitalist countries can be reduced or abolished. Peace propagandists by no means are united in condemning capitalist society, and they are mostly opposed to a real change in the system altogether. The Socialist Party denounces capitalism and  declares in favour of a new system wherein capital and capitalist governments cease to exist.

To reiterate, the Socialist Part’s attitude to war is that war as we know it is produced in the main by the conflict between the interests of capitalists of various nations. It is born of the rivalry between sellers of goods for profit, and it can only die when selling for profit is abolished. In other words, the socialist theory holds and capitalist practice proves that only by ending the entire capitalist system can war with all its attendant horrors cease. 

All sorts of appeals are made to the Socialist Party to join forces with “anti-war” groups, but it is deaf to all such cries. Not because we do not yearn for the cessation of the war. By no means so. The Socialist Party knows full well the horrors that are always following in the wake of war. We know and feel the wreckage of human ties, the break-up of family life, the sorrow and suffering arising from the brutal carnage. But there are two important reasons why we cannot associate with the various “Stop the War” organisations.

Firstly, because we abide by the dictates of the class struggle. Because we stand for socialism and they do not. Because we refuse to associate with those who support the capitalist class during “peace” time and who fight for the subjection of the working class. Therefore we cannot ally ourselves with these pro-capitalists. We refuse to lower the socialist red flag to march with the enemies of socialism. We know that, given the realisation of the whole of the peace programme, the terrors and misery of working-class slavery would be left untouched for the better. The very men who seek our help for “peace” now would be amongst the first to go to “war” against the working class.

The second reason for which we cannot unite with the stop the war movement is that it is impotent for its very object. Even if we held that it was policy to unite to stop the war it would be foolish to join in the programme of these societies. What machinery have they for stopping wars? None. Appeals to capitalists are their general methods. They propose to leave in power the makers of wars, the capitalist class. They intend to continue the profit-making system which itself produces commercial rivalry and inevitably international warfare. If you wish to stop all wars you must stop all commercial rivalry and to do this you must work for socialism.

The Socialist Party is not a specifically pacifist organisation. We are opposed to war on socialist grounds in that wars today are fought over rival capitalist interests concerning sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets and investment outlets and strategic points and areas to protect these. This is why we say that members of the majority class of those obliged to work for a wage for a living have no interests at stake in them and so should refuse to take part in the killing and maiming of their fellow workers from some other country. We also consider that a socialist majority that has won control of political power democratically should reserve the right to use armed force, if necessary, to deal with any armed resistance to the establishment of socialism by some recalcitrant pro-capitalist minority should this occur. 

 British workers’ living standards dropped in May at a record rate after pay rises failed to keep pace with inflation.

Earnings growth increased across the private and public sector by 4.3% in the three months to May excluding bonuses, the Office for National Statistics said, but that left pay down by 2.8% year on year – a record fall.

The TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, said that “UK workers are suffering the worst pay squeeze in modern history”.

Torsten Bell, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said it was “staggering” that the top 1% of earners – those with pay packets above £170,000 – had secured an 11% pay rise.

UK living standards fall at record rate as inflation soars | UK unemployment and employment statistics | The Guardian

 More than 37 million people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with diabetes. The disease can damage organs, eyesight, and limbs if left unmanaged and is the country’s seventh leading cause of death.

Just three pharmaceutical corporations control the nation’s lucrative insulin market, the century-old drug can cost a person without adequate health insurance more than $300 per vial. Insulin prices in the U.S.—seven times higher than those found in peer countries—are so steep that experts have accused the federal government and pharmaceutical industry of violating human rights. A quarter of people with diabetes have to ration insulin to survive in the U.S.A.

Legislation passed by the House and considered by the Senate last year included language that would have made all insulin products subject to Medicare price negotiation and that would have capped Medicare beneficiaries’ insulin copays at $35 per month.

Both provisions have been left out of the latest draft of the bill released by the Senate Finance Committee, however.

Excluding Insulin From Drug Price Reform a ‘Slap in the Face,’ Advocates Say (commondreams.org)

 Climate scientists are  increasingly concerned that extreme heatwaves in Europe are occurring more rapidly than models had suggested, indicating that the climate crisis on the European continent may be even worse than feared. Temperature records are usually broken by fractions of a degree, but the 40.2C recorded at Heathrow is 1.5C higher than the previous UK record of 38.7C recorded in 2019 in Cambridge. They say the latest record showed that slashing carbon emissions, and rapidly upgrading the UK’s overheating homes and buildings, was more urgent than ever.

The role of human-caused global heating appears clear, as the scientists estimated that chances of breaking 40C in the UK without it would be less than 0.1%. Dr Friederike Otto at Imperial College London said 40C “would have been extremely unlikely or virtually impossible without human-caused climate change”. Otto added: “While still rare, 40C is now a reality of British summers.”

“Climate change is driving this heatwave, just as it is driving every heatwave now,” she said. “Greenhouse gas emissions, from burning fossil fuels like coal, gas and oil, are making heatwaves hotter, longer-lasting and more frequent.” 

Prof Hannah Cloke, at the University of Reading, said: “The all-time temperature record for the UK has not just been broken, it has been absolutely obliterated. Even as a climate scientist who studies this stuff, this is scary.”

“I wasn’t expecting to see this [40C] in my career,” said Prof Stephen Belcher, at the Met Office.

Climate action remained vital, said Otto: “Heatwaves will keep getting worse until greenhouse gas emissions are halted. It is also in our hands whether every future heatwave will continue to be extremely deadly and disruptive,” she said. “We have the agency to make us less vulnerable and redesign our cities, homes, schools and hospitals and educate us on how to keep safe.”

Day of 40C shocks scientists as UK heat record ‘absolutely obliterated’ | Climate crisis | The Guardian

 Between March and May, pay excluding bonuses was down 2.8% from a year earlier when adjusted for inflation – the fastest drop since records began. Pay including bonuses was down 0.9% when adjusted for inflation.

One couldn’t have but noticed that in the build-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine peace talk was the harbinger of the war. The louder and more the politicians and statesmen talked, the nearer war approached. When governments are proclaiming their peaceful intentions one can be sure that a war is in the offing.

The prospect of war with its slaughter and suffering is, undoubtedly, vile and revolting. It is understandable that any human being should brand it as immoral and seek to oppose it. But an enemy is always portrayed as despicable and diabolical, while atrocity tales of barbarism are circulated and the enemy is proclaimed the enemy of all decency and of all civilisation in general. Russia’s leader, Putin, has been characterised as the violator of all that peace-loving people hold dear. 

Widespread opposition to war will not, and cannot arise from sentimentalism and emotionalism. It must have its roots in an understanding of what causes war, the purposes for which wars are fought and a recognition of worldwide class interests, irrespective of nationality, language, colour, sex or any other sectional division. Workers must understand that they have a common interest with those whom they are sent to kill and that the real enemy is the social class that sends them to do the killing, then there is a prospect of an end to war. Until then, peace activists will no more stop future wars than it has staved them off in the past.

For years the Socialist Party has had to put up with the apathy or wrongly directed zeal of the great majority and has been trying to get the workers of all countries to realise that, without a fundamentally different and better basis for the social system, there never would be or could be any safeguard against war. But we who were engaged in the campaign of showing the only way of escape were not listened to. We had to put up with the people who were “not interested in politics,” or who thought they knew of short cuts or easier ways.

There have been active peace movements in all parts of the world, organising petitions and protests. Never in all their previous history have these activities been so amply demonstrated to be absolutely futile and impotent as at the present day to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. Their efforts are misdirected and quite useless. The capitalist juggernaut lurches onwards, unheeding to the inevitable clashes, pitting worker against worker in ineffectual and ghastly conflict. The peace activists call attention to the evils of war (of, which we all are already painfully aware) but stop short of unearthing the cause, i.e., capitalist competition between the nations for trade routes, markets and sources of raw materials. The solution follows logically, i.e. a worldwide movement by the workers for the establishment of a worldwide socialist society.

Wars between nations is occasioned by the struggle for markets and for the possession of regions rich in mineral wealth, while the present competitive system remains inevitable. It cannot be attributed to human weakness, and cannot, therefore, be removed by appeals, however eloquent, to the “better nature” of the peoples of the world. 

Our attitude to war, the Socialist Party’s attitude, is one of uncompromising opposition because we contend that the workers have a common interest against the world capitalist class, and have nothing to gain by partaking in the quarrels of the latter, which are only possible with the continuance of exploitation.

The political leaders who served their masters by opposing any ceasefire to the war until the foe had been vanquished are right in one thing. Conflicts are not settled by equitable negotiation but only when one or the other is prepared to yield, or when the object of each has become unattainable. Those in the peace movement – unless seeking the overthrow of capitalism—are in the position of accepting the competitive social system which necessarily breeds bitter rivalries and of thinking at the same time that the rivalries can be settled by amicable discussion at the council table.

Modern war is fought to settle the squabbles of capitalism’s master class; it does not involve the interests of the ordinary people except that it brings them nothing but suffering. If the working class refuse to fight—as we say they should—it should be on these grounds—and this should apply to all war, not just to the Ukraine war. To the workers who understand their position in society, it is a matter of indifference which section of the international master class wins or loses, for it will be the workers of both sides who lose their lives or gain nothing if they survive.

The Socialist Party advocates the organisation of the working class for the capture of the political machinery in order that a new social order may be established in which the means of life will be owned in common by all and in which therefore there will be no need for the forcible protection of property and the slaughter of millions of producers in order to decide which bunch of parasites shall control the trade routes and markets of the world.

 President Volodymyr Zelenskyy banned men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving Ukraine albeit with various exemptions.

Men who seek to leave Ukraine choose the route via Crimea, which was annexed by Russia. Others enrol in a foreign university, find a job as a volunteer emergency aid driver or try to cross the so-called green border on foot.

Social networks offer various tips. The Instagram account “Departure for Everyone” has more than 14,000 followers. 

 “Legal Move Abroad,” a Telegram channel, has more than 53,000 followers.

 And its backup channel, “Help at the Border,” has more than 28,000. 

In May, Odesa lawyer Alexander Gumirov launched a petition demanding Kyiv lift the ban on men travelling abroad and calling instead for the recruitment of volunteers. In just a few days, the petition gathered 25,000 signatures. Gumirow considers the ban pointless. “If a person wants to defend his free, beloved native country, his home and his family, there is no need for a ban on leaving,” he said, adding that a ban is unnecessary, too, if people don’t want to defend their home.

How Ukrainian men try to get around the ban to leave the country | Europe | News and current affairs from around the continent | DW | 19.07.2022

The Rail Delivery Group, which represents the rail companies, said it had rejected a cost-of-living pay rise for RMT memberson the grounds that it would be ‘unfair to taxpayers’ given the emergency funding the government had provided to the industry during the pandemic.

 Yet just last week, the UK’s largest train operator, FirstGroup, boasted to investors that profits for this year were “ahead of expectation” and pledged to resume dividend payouts. The company handed its shareholders £500m in December 2021.

Abellio, which runs Greater Anglia, East Midlands Railway and West Midlands Railway, contributed €355m (£305m) to the profits of its sole shareholder – the Dutch state railway – according to latter’s 2021 annual report.

UK Treasury chief secretary Simon Clarke said private and public sector workers should exercise “pay discipline” and take real-terms pay cuts to curb inflation. However, rail bosses have largely seen their pay continue to rise, or faced only superficial cuts.

The CEOs of the six biggest train companies took home a combined salary of more than £5m in 2020.

In the last financial year, FirstGroup CEO Matthew Gregory was paid £840,000 – 6% more than he received in 2019-2020 and 30 times more than what the company’s lowest-paid workers earned, according to its latest annual accounts. 

By contrast, rail companies offered the RMT a 2% pay rise, with an additional 1% contingent on accepting changes to their terms and conditions, in their latest round of negotiations. 

Go-Ahead Group, which operates the Govia Thameslink Railway, paid its interim chief financial officer a salary of £100,000 a month from September 2021 to March 2022 while it recruited a permanent replacement. The company recently announced it would resume paying dividends in 2022, having last paid out £30m to shareholders in 2019.

Rail strikes: Top train firm paid shareholders £500m last year | openDemocracy

 While Europe swelters under an unprecedented heatwave, making daily life intolerable, in the Horn of Africa, a persistent prolonged drought is making life unliveable.

Four consecutive rainy seasons have failed. Water wells have dried up, crops have withered and millions of livestock have died, resulting in mass displacement.

“The impact of the drought on children is devastating,” said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Director for Emergency Operations. “In Somali region alone, over 900,000 people have been displaced. Drought not only means lack of water. It means that children are going hungry and thirsty every day. They are forced to walk miles in search of food and water and often they have to drink from contaminated water sources. This leads to malnutrition and other killer preventable diseases like diarrhea.”

“This climate-induced crisis is a malnutrition crisis for children and not just in Ethiopia but across Africa,” said Fontaine. 

Malnutrition rates are increasing at an alarming rate due to the drought. Across the four drought-impacted regions, an estimated 600,000 children will require treatment for severe acute malnutrition by the end of the year. 

In the Somali region, there has been a 43 per cent increase in severely acute malnutrition admissions for under 5 children in May 2022 compared to May 2021.

 The side-effect of the war in Ukraine is also set to tip more families in Africa over the edge and will exacerbate food insecurity with increasing fuel prices and reduced availability of wheat imports. Ethiopia imports 67 per cent of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

“This means prices of cooking oil, bread and wheat flour are reaching new records in local markets and even families not living in humanitarian crisis cannot meet their daily food needs.” said Fontaine.

UNICEF Emergency Director, Manuel Fontaine, visits drought stricken Somali region and calls for an immediate scaled up humanitarian response to save millions of children – Ethiopia | ReliefWeb