End of year quizzes are popular. You decide which, if any, of these ten war propaganda “justifications” are relevant to any of the current conflicts taking place at the present time. Or put them on your ‘bingo’ card for future use. Conflicts under capitalism will never end until the end of capitalism itself.

From the Socialist Standard October 2002

1. “We don’t want war”

Arthur Ponsonby had already pointed out that, before declaring war or when they are making the declaration of war, the statesmen of all countries, at least in modern history, always solemnly proclaim that they did not want the war. War and its train of horrors are rarely popular a priori and it is thus good taste to present yourself as a lover of peace.

2. “The opposing side is solely responsible for the war”

Arthur Ponsonby had already noted the paradox in the First World War, which could also no doubt be found in many previous wars: each side proclaims that it was forced, to declare war to prevent the other side from putting the planet to fire and sword.

3. “The enemy has the face of the devil”

You can’t hate the whole of a human group, even when it is presented as the enemy. It is thus more effective to concentrate hatred of the enemy onto the opposing leader. The enemy thus has a face and this face is evidently odious. War is not carried on against the “Boshes” or the “Japs” but more precisely against Napoleon, the Kaiser, Mussolini, Hitler, Nasser, Gaddafi, Khomeiny, Saddam Hussein or Milosevic. This odious bogeyman disguises the diversity of the population they lead, amongst the ordinary citizen might find a counterpart to identify with.

4. “We are defending a noble cause not particular interests”

Wars generally have as their motive a desire for geopolitical domination, accompanied by economic reasons. But such motives for war cannot be admitted to public opinion. Modern wars, however, are only possible with the consent of the population, if only because parliaments have in principle to give their agreement to war being declared. This consent is easily obtained if the population thinks that their independence, their honour, their freedom, or their lives, depend on the outcome of the war and that the war is the bearer of indisputably moral values. Propaganda has therefore to disguise certain aims and get other aims believed in.

5. “The enemy knowingly commits atrocities; if we blot our copybook it’s involuntarily”

Stories about atrocities committed by the enemy are an essential element of war propaganda. Obviously this doesn’t mean that atrocities don’t take place in wars. On the contrary, assassinations, armed robberies, burnings, looting and rape seem rather to be — unfortunately — current in all war situations and the practise of all armies, from ancient times to the wars of the 21st century. What is specific to war propaganda is getting people to believe that only the enemy is in the habit of doing these things, while our own army is at the service of the population, even the enemy’s, and is loved by them. Deviant criminality becomes the very symbol of the enemy army alone, composed essentially of bandits without law or faith.

6. “The enemy is using unauthorised arms”

This principle is a corollary of the previous one. Not only do we not commit atrocities but we make war in a chivalrous way, respecting the rules — as if war was a game, certainly tough but manly. Obviously this is not the case of our enemies, who refuse to abide by the rules. In reality, the outcome of wars can depend on the strategic skills of the generals or on the motivation and courage of the participants but also — mainly? — on the clear superiority of the arms of one of the sides.

7. “We suffer very few losses, the enemy’s losses are enormous”

With only rare exceptions, humans generally prefer to be on the winning side. In the case of war the support of public opinion depends on the perceived results of the conflict. If the results are not good, propaganda must hide our losses and exaggerate those of the enemy.

8. “Artists and intellectuals support our cause”

Propaganda, like all forms of advertising, is based on emotion. It is the lever used permanently to mobilise public opinion; it can even be said that propaganda and emotion have always been of the same nature. However, to arouse emotion you can’t rely on civil servants. You have to call in either advertising professionals — which the Kuwait lobby did in calling in Hill and Knowtown who concocted for them the touching story of babies torn from their incubators by Iraqi soldiers—or to artists and intellectuals, who are professionally trained to arouse emotions.

9. “Our cause has a sacred character”

If our cause is sacred we are obliged to defend it, if necessary with arms. But this sacred character can be taken either in a literal or a broader sense. Taken literally, this would mean that, if the cause is religious, the war is a crusade from which nobody can opt out. And in fact the religious argument has been used in war propaganda. Pithy formulations such as Gott mit Uns, In God we trust, or God save the King will be recalled which often accompanied the combatants and still do.

10. “Those who question the propaganda are traitors”

Lord Ponsonby had already noted that any attempt to cast doubt on the stories of the propaganda services is immediately considered as a lack of patriotism or rather as treason.

(Translated from Principes élémentaires de propagande de guerre by Anne Morelli, Editions Labor, Brussels, 2001)

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2002/no-1178-october-2002/beware-war-propaganda/

The Guardian reports that:’ Illegal evictions in England hit record high, but less than 1% of landlords convicted.’ The piece documents the abuse suffered by tenants who have been illegally evicted by private landlords.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/dec/24/evictions-in-uk-hit-record-high-but-less-than-1-of-landlords-convicted

A Marxist-Leninist-Maoist comments: ‘The landlord is one of the last vestiges of feudalism still holding power in (now, even late) capitalist society. But because financial capitalism has overrun and conquered industrial capitalism, in this the era of late imperialism, the problematic and fully parasitic existence of the landlord is just another welcome tool of wealth extraction in the capitalist arsenal. It’s a particularly nasty method of wealth extraction, to boot, as evictions will frequently leave former tenants homeless and on the street ,or worse. Just as the serfs in the times of feudalism had to give some fraction of their grain (or other labours) to their lords, so too do renters have to give some fraction of their income — the wealth that they produced at work during the month to their landlords, or be removed from the premises. Yes, modern landlords are literally that, lords of the land, and we still haven’t abolished this wretched vestigial feudal appendage. ‘

https://dashthered.medium.com/marxism-for-newbies-landlords-b24f4f0cdb89

A Trotskyist comments: ‘Along with bankers and capitalists, the landlord class is especially despised. They are regarded very much as greedy speculators, rack-renting owners, who force up rents at the earliest opportunity and cream off a section of the surplus-value created by the working class. It is clear why disdain for them is rising. In Britain alone, rents and housing costs account for up to a half – sometimes more – of the disposable income of working people, which has become an intolerable burden, especially for those who live in the capital.’

https://www.marxist.com/parasitical-landlordism-and-the-marxist-theory-of-rent.htm

Both the Maoist and the Trotskyist have got the wrong end of the stick. They have confused “ground rent” paid to the owner of the land with “house rent” paid to owner of a house as the price of something the house-owner is selling as a commodity, viz, house-room. Those letting out house-room are not members of a “landlord class” left over from feudalism, though the aristocrats and others who own the land in the centre of London might be described as such but even they have long since used the ground-rent they extract to turn themselves into capitalists and so are now part of the capitalist class in their own right. The landlord and capitalist classes of the 19th century have long since merged into a single capitalist owning class.

But why do so many people in this country have to pay rent for their homes? It is an ignominy that is taken for granted: a weekly fee for living in someone else’s house, with the assurance of being able to stay a matter of the temper of parliamentary Acts. The answer to the question is that under capitalism you get only what you can buy, and an increasing number of the population can buy only the use of a house week by week. Not that the alternative, owner-occupation, gives exemption from the problem. For most people it means crippling mortgage repayments for the greater part of their working lives, and the same shadow always there: if you can’t pay, you’re out.

In 1872 Engels wrote, in The Housing Question: “But one thing is certain: there are already in existence sufficient buildings for dwellings in the big towns to remedy immediately any real ‘housing shortage’, given rational utilization of them.” This is at least equally true today. Of course the implication— that the two could tidily be brought together, in society as it is— is fatuous. The more important implication, however, is that capitalism’s sovereign remedy of continually building more houses is no remedy at all.

Given houses built to the cheapest standard, whose maintenance is a matter of their profitability as investments, there is no end to the housing problem. As in Engels’ day, the clearance and replacement of run-down houses is their being “. . . not abolished; they are merely shifted elsewhere! The same economic necessity which produced them in the first place, produces them in the next place also.” Thus, legislation like that which the Guardian says is not been enforced is inescapable under capitalism, but it cannot answer the problem inherent in the way society is organised.

Bricks and mortar are of vital importance to human beings. Housing is involved in innumerable social and personal questions: health, sex, the facilities for both privacy and sociability, education, recreation. Nor is bad or good housing a matter simply of the building by itself. Underlying it all under capitalism are the coercions of the society which produces only for profit. One may compare the technical possibilities of our civilisation with the way people have to live, and see that in this regard as in all others Socialism offers what capitalism cannot.

‘Here’s a health to everyone of you who earns your weekly rent;

Bad luck to every landlord and the landlord’s government;

Good luck to everyone of you who wants to lend a hand,

To speed the time that’s coming when the people own the land.

Bye, bye, greedy landlord,

Bye, bye, greedy landlord, oh!’

That Greedy Landford    Karl Fred Dallas

A Short Story from the December 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Scrooge buttoned his overcoat and picked up his Chronicle, said goodnight to the office and left. This was not the Ebenezer Scrooge who said “ Humbug ” and disliked Christmas but later had a change of heart and died in the workhouse through giving all his money away: this was Stan Scrooge, who travelled on the Northern Line.

He walked home briskly from the station, pleasurably noting seasonable signs everywhere; the inviting tins of pudding and turkey in the grocers’ and the sprigs of mistletoe round the price-tickets, dear old Santa Claus in the Coop doorway, Frankie Laine singing “Silent Night ” in the radio shop in the next street. There was a fresh, crisp layer of snow, and at the corner by the loan-office it was patterned with innumerable converging footprints, as though a pageant of sainted Wenceslases had passed, full of optimism and inspiration. For it was Christmas Eve, the time when men the whole world over feel the warmth of peace and goodwill towards one another. Scrooge passed a paper-boy. The lad, with his glowing cheeks and bright eyes, was the incarnation of the Christmas spirit; his voice fairly rang with it as he shouted, “Thirty more terrorists killed! Read all about it!”

Yes, it was a season of enchantment, Scrooge thought as he let himself into his lodgings. Three Christmas cards, and toad-in-the-hole for dinner; then he put on his slippers and sat by the fire to read his paper. The fire made him drowsy. He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. In a few moments he was asleep.

When he awoke, the fire had burned down. Scrooge looked at his watch; it had stopped. At that very moment, the clock in the hall began to strike. He counted the chimes—twelve o’clock! Fancy sleeping all that time! Scrooge would have leaped from his chair in dismay, but another sound caught his attention. It was the sound of clanking chains.

Scrooge did not immediately think of ghosts. He had read books published by the Rationalist Press, and therefore despised superstition. In fact, he wondered why his landlady was up so late, and what she was doing. His emotions asserted themselves, however, when the noise ascended the stairs and entered his room. The chains were attached to a shrouded figure which pointed at Scrooge. He suddenly remembered something.

“This happened to someone in my family,” he said. “ Heard my grandfather talk about it. You’re the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

The ghost inclined it’s head.

Scrooge sniffed. “Well, I’m nothing like him, you know. Not much to unearth from my past. A girl or two and that’s all.”

As far he could judge, the ghost shrugged its shoulders before it beckoned him to the window. To Scrooge’s surprise, the window was open; to his greater surprise, the two of them floated out. Astonishment over, it seemed a quite natural way of travelling—certainly a satisfactory one, because in seconds they descended several miles away, at a place Scrooge recognised immediately. The biggest football ground in London; broad daylight, 60,000 people, and one team breaking away down the centre. The ghost pointed to a spot in the crowd and drew Scrooge towards it. Half a dozen young men, enjoying one another’s’ company as well as the game.

“Why,” said Scrooge, “ that’s me! And old Johnny Dunn! And—why it’s that match against the Germans: those are the German chaps we got talking to! My word, that’s a few Christmases ago! Before the war, that was.”

The ghost put a finger to its lips. The game was nearly over. They watched the lively conversation, listened to the warm farewells at the end and the two young Englishmen talking as they went off together. They heard Johnny Dunn praise the Germans as decent fellows, and Scrooge saying well, they were human beings just the same, weren’t they? Johnny said that if you thought about it you could see the ordinary people of the world wanted to live in peace. And Scrooge said that was it; the politicians began wars and the common people had to fight them.

It was pretty to hear them. The older Scrooge, slightly puzzled, was led away by the ghost, over rooftops again until they came to a red brick building in a main road. A lot of young men were walking in and out of the building, or talking on the pavement. Among them, Scrooge saw himself.

“I know that,” he said. “ It’s the first Christmas of the war. Just before Christmas, really—when I went to register for the army. And look—that’s just what happened! That fellow talking to me outside the Labour Exchange—I remember him well. Wouldn’t go in the army—just said he wouldn’t kill other working men. Bit queer, he was.”

They drew near. Scrooge saw that he was talking excitedly. “Ordinary people like us? Don’t talk rubbish!” he was saying. “Nothing like us, the Germans aren’t. Arrogant and domineering, that’s their national character. Didn’t you hear on the wireless last night . . .” The other man looked sad rather than angry, and Scrooge felt rather uncomfortable. He felt the ghost was looking at him oddly too, and was glad when they passed on.

A recent Christmas, and Scrooge again condemning a nation—quoting books as well, sitting in his penultimate fiancee’s parlour. This time the Russians, and Joan was full of admiration as he explained about Pan-Slavism, the Russian character, and the menace of Marxism. The spectator Scrooge felt rather proud of himself.

“There,” he said to the ghost, “nothing unreasonable about that, anyway. And you can’t see me fraternizing with any ruddy Russians!”

The ghost took his arm. A few moments, and they were in a theatre. Christmas 1943: Scrooge, on leave, was in the stalls. A fat comedian in lounge suit and panama was speaking solemnly from the footlights. Our gallant allies; their courage, the bond between our two nations; in their honour, and by special request, he would sing “My Lovely Russian Rose.” Scrooge watched himself applauding enthusiastically. As the scene faded, he turned to the ghost.

“You’re too clever,” he said indignantly. “ I’ve a good mind . . . ” 

The ghost held up its hand, and again took him by the sleeve. He did not know the time of the scene he was now shown. It was a street of houses, almost totally enclosed from the light, the sky like a strip of faded bunting. The people were ill-clothed and wretched, their children underfed and joyless; dankness and grime so pervaded the whole surrounding as to form a grey texture on the hopeless faces. Scrooge had never known hunger, and he was horrified. He turned to speak to the ghost. It had gone. He turned again, and the narrow street, too, had gone. He was in his own room, standing near his chair. Bewildered, he sat down and, without intending, fell asleep almost at once.

He was awakened again by the clock. As he opened his eyes, he saw that someone was standing there, huge and jolly, holding a flaming torch.

“ Ah! Awake at last!” said the ghost paternally.

“ Christmas present?” asked Scrooge.

“The very same.”

“ More levitation?” said Scrooge.

It shook its head. “A view from the window, that’s all: a mere glimpse of the world around us.”

The window was open again. With the ghost at his elbow, Scrooge looked out. He saw a church hall, drab and bare as those places are. It was snowing slightly, powdering the people who stood in a shuffling, shabby line at the door. Most—not all—of them were elderly. Inside the hall, they advanced one by one to a desk where a man was giving money away. A card said: “ Welfare Officer.”

“What’s this?” said Scrooge.

“ Ah,” murmured the ghost, “you don’t recognize the name. The Welfare Officer—otherwise known as public assistance, the R.O., and even—disrespectfully, of course —the bunhouse.”

“I thought you were showing me Christmas Presents?” said Scrooge.

“Indeed I am.”

“Get away” said Scrooge. “This is what your silent partner was showing me last night. Years ago, this. You don’t hear of people being on the R.O. nowadays.”

“My word,” said the ghost heartily, “ you don’t know much, do you? Thousands of ’em—thousands.” ’“Really?” asked Scrooge. “ But I thought things had improved.”

“You’d be surprised” said the ghost “ A good hundred thousand still call at the R.O. You’d better see this, too.”

It flashed its torch. For a moment Scrooge was dazzled. When he recovered, he saw a bleak, sombre group outside a bleak, sombre building. He asked the ghost if it were a workhouse.

“Dear me, no,’ said the ghost. “ These are free men with money—a little, at any rate—in their pockets.

“ I don’t know it,” said Scrooge.

“ Of course you do,” said the ghost. “ Ever hear of good beds for working men? This place is full of ’em.” 

Scrooge stared. “ Do you mean . . . ” he began to ask. 

“Sure,” said the ghost. “ And the firm which owns this lot pays very handsome dividends, especially .nowadays. . . . We’ve hardly started yet, though. ’ I’ll show you something else.”

He did. He showed Scrooge poverty he never knew to exist, housing he never knew to stand. Sordidness, wretchedness, degradation—Christmas Present could show them all. Scrooge felt in turn horror, incredulity and anger. Finally he forgot the ghost’s presence, and was scarcely aware when the window closed and he was led back to his chair. Before he fell asleep, he saw the ghost beaming at him and heard it saying: “If it gets you like that, you ought to find the cause, you know . . .” But Scrooge was too tired to hear. He fell asleep.

He dreamed that he talked with the Ghost of Christmas Present What was the point of this harrowing panorama? Scrooge demanded. Because you’re going to change it, said the ghost. By myself? said Scrooge. You and millions more, replied the ghost. But what causes all this? Scrooge asked. You tell me, said the ghost. A lot of it’s’ human nature, said Scrooge. Human nature changes, the ghost replied. I suppose part of it’s the system, Scrooge said. What do you know about the system? asked the ghost. Not much, said Scrooge; was me and the Germans a part of the system? Your nationalism, yes, said the ghost And the bunhouse, the squalor and the wars; you don’t know it yet, and things won’t change much till you do know it. All right, said Scrooge, maybe you’re right: what can I do about it? You must first understand, said the ghost. Scrooge repeated himself: What can I do? Understand, said the ghost Understand, understand, understand . . . 

The clock struck twelve, and Scrooge awoke from his dream. Before him stood the Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come. It moved aside, and Scrooge was alarmed. His room had gone, and he, his chair and the ghost seemed suspended above a crowd of people. The ghost’s touch reassured him, and he looked down.

The people looked different, strikingly yet in a way that Scrooge could not identify for a time. His final realization came so suddenly that he burst out: “ Why, don’t they look happy!”

“They do, don’t they?” smiled the ghost.

“ Look as if they’ve all become millionaires,” Scrooge went on.

“ Strangely enough, they have no money,” said the ghost.

“No money?” Scrooge was disbelieving. “Get away—they’re not poor.”

“Indeed they are not. But they have no money.”

“Go on with you,” said Scrooge impatiently.

The ghost pointed, singling out a man. Scrooge watched him. “Why,” he said indignantly, “he’s pinching a pair of shoes. He walked into that shop-place and took them—bold as brass, too!”

“They are his,” said the ghost calmly.

Scrooge sat open-mouthed with bewilderment. The ghost pointed to a place where a few men and women were working. “ Ah,’” said Scrooge, “ that’s good stuff they’re making. Taking their time, though. Which one’s the foreman?”

“Everyone makes good stuff,” said the ghost firmly. “ And there’s no foremen.”

“No foremen? But they’d do what they liked!” cried Scrooge.

“They are doing what they like. They are making good things.”

Incredible, Scrooge thought. He wondered if everyone had sufficient, but the evidence was before him. Nobody was opulent, but everyone was prosperous; nobody superior, but everyone satisfied. He asked question after question of the ghost; the answers were shown, not told him. The language itself had changed through the disuse of innumerable words. Worship, sell, steal, envy, profit—hundreds of words that Scrooge heard every day were archaisms to the people he watched now. Others, like war and business, were preserved only for the convenience of historians and word-spinners, as are chariot-racing and alchemy in Scrooge’s day.

He realized suddenly that the scene began to fade. Clutching the ghost’s sleeve, he begged an answer to only one more question. They began to descend through space, and the uprush of air made speech difficult. Shouting, leaning on the ghost, Scrooge demanded: “What Christmas Present said—something I can do to bring it nearer?”

The ghost’s voice was becoming distant, but still was clear. “Understand—first you must understand,” it said. Scrooge pressed closer. “What can I do—do?” he bawled. The voice floated back, as the floor of Scrooge’s room rushed towards him.

“Understand . . .  understand . . .  understand!”

Robert Barltrop

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2017/12/a-slight-christmas-carol-1954.html

 What’s your 25th December lunch/ dinner going to be? Vegetarian? Vegan? Beans on toast whist huddled around a one bar fire? Food at the local ethnic restaurant? Ten courses served in the baronial hall? Eight around the table with children and aged relatives for a traditional ‘festive’ blowout? If the latter The Guardian reported, 14 December, that the cost of a traditional Christmas dinner could cost the provider thirteen per cent more in 2023 than it cost in 2022.

‘Christmas dinner could cost 13% more than last year, with everything from turkey to sprouts rising sharply in price, reflecting high energy bills and poor growing conditions for vegetables.’

But the “good new” (sic) is that, ‘The rise in cost is almost triple the overall rate of inflation, which stands at 4.7%. However, the increase is significantly less than the 35% jump in the cost of Christmas dinner recorded last year. ‘

The ‘basket’ of food is based on ingredients for the feeding of eight persons.

‘The cost of turkey is up 11% to £1.50 a person. Those with a sweet tooth may be saddened to see that mince pies are 15% more expensive but relieved that Christmas pudding prices are 1% lower. There is no change in the cost of brandy butter or cranberry sauce.’

Lovers of Christmas puds rejoice and remember yo give thanks to capitalism for providing that item at an amazing one per cent cheaper. (sarc).

Not known what the increase, if any, is on Christmas crackers. But we, the vast majority, must be crackers to continue to allow this iniquitous system, capitalism, to continue.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/dec/14/christmas-dinner-could-cost-13-percent-more-good-housekeeping

Further ‘good’ news comes from the national energy regulator Ofgem British households have piled up record debts of almost £3 billion ($3.8 billion) with electricity and gas suppliers,

The total amount owed to energy suppliers has soared by £400 million since mid-October, according to a report released on Friday. It is now at its highest ever level due to a combination of sustained high wholesale energy prices and wider cost of living pressures, which have led to unpaid energy bills, the regulator said.

As part of a plan to protect the energy market and consumers from the growing risk of ‘bad debt’, Ofgem announced a one-off price cap adjustment of £16 (equivalent to around £1.33 a month) to be paid between April 2024 and March 2025. The regulator defended the move as necessary to ensure suppliers were “resilient” and able to help customers who needed support.

“We know that cost of living pressure is hitting people hard and this is evident in the increase in energy debt reaching record levels,” said Tim Jarvis, the director general for markets at Ofgem.

‘The scale of this debt means that it is crucial that suppliers have sufficient funding to ensure they can meet the strict regulations Ofgem has in place around how they treat customers facing payment difficulties. This adjustment to the price cap will ensure suppliers have the resources to support customers struggling with debt…’

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/energy-regulator-sets-out-proposals-help-ensure-customers-risk-getting-debt-are-better-supported

This succinct précis, from a 38 Degrees email, contains the outrage that many are probably feeling but the solution lies not in petitions but in a class conscious population that understands socialism and how to achieve it.

‘This is outrageous. Ofgem are raising our energy bills AGAIN – to “help energy suppliers.” That’s the same energy suppliers that are raking in billions in profits, by the way.



The increase of £16 might not seem like a lot, but for the millions of people counting the pennies, this is simply unaffordable. And honestly, it’s just ridiculous that Ofgem is making sure energy companies with massive profits get a bailout, while millions of people are facing difficult choices between heating and eating.



This is about principles. We can’t let Ofgem think they can increase our bills, whenever the energy companies pressure them to do so. The Government is already feeling the heat with their poll ratings slumping after the announcement. It’s time for a huge petition saying enough is enough.’

The French state-owned EDF (Électricité de France) energy company is featured in the MailOnline where it’s reported that EDF UK customers have been receiving notifications of their energy payments increasing by thousands of pounds.

‘MailOnline has heard from some customers claiming they were told by EDF that their overcharging issues were related to a switchover onto a new system called Kraken –

Sources at the company also insisted to MailOnline that there was no problem with the migration to the Kraken platform and there was also no issue with smart meters.

But many of the issues appear to be linked to smart meters – with 2.7million out out of 33million meters in the UK not working properly according to Government figures.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12878671/Terrified-EDF-customers-claim-sudden-increases-monthly-bills-ruined-holidays-left-unable-remortgage-homes-scared-heating-on.html

A Kraken is a fabled huge sea monster thought to be a huge danger to sailors. Capitalism is real.

The Guardian, 21 December, carries a story quoting a Norfolk Primary School Headteacher describing malnutrition in children.

A free breakfast provider said, “Children with teeth falling out, children with bowed legs, in current society – this isn’t the Victorian era. Parents are doing their absolute best, but they’re being marketed deliberately cheap, unhealthy food.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/21/children-have-bowed-legs-hunger-worse-than-ever-says-norwich-school

Santa don’t have the solution. Socialism does.

It’s reported that, ‘Danish shipping group Maersk announced on 18 December that its vessels due to transit the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden will be rerouted around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope due to the risk of attacks by Houthi militants from Yemen.

Maersk, along with other major freight companies, had previously paused travel via the southern entrance to the Red Sea – the Bab el-Mandeb Strait – because of security concerns.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, and then on to the Indian Ocean on one side and the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal on the other. The waterway is a key route linking Asia and Europe, and facilitates roughly 12% of global trade, including 30% of all global container shipments.

The travel suspensions followed reports of at least two ships having been targeted with projectiles on Monday. Houthi leaders said they were pursuing Israel and all Israel-bound vessels due to hostilities in Gaza.

“The attacks we have seen on commercial vessels in the area are alarming and pose a significant threat to the safety and security of seafarers,” Maersk said in a statement, as quoted by CNBC.

The company added that it was monitoring the situation and had decided that all vessels currently on hold and previously scheduled to travel via the Red Sea would take the much-longer Cape of Good Hope route. The route reduces an Asia-Europe trip’s effective capacity by 25%, according to analysts at UBS.

Maersk said its vessels would continue on diverted routes “as soon as operationally feasible,” adding that decisions on future journeys would be made on a case-by-case basis.

Meanwhile, industry experts have been raising concerns that the situation could further disrupt supply chains, driving up crude prices in Europe and the Mediterranean.’

The Guardian, 6 December, highlights research from National Debtline on the impact the capitalism responsible cost of living crisis will have on very many people during the consume, consume, consume period of Christmas.

‘Millions of people will have to make stark financial choices this Christmas including choosing between buying food or presents and be unable to afford to keep their homes warm through the festive season, according to new research by National Debtline.

About 6.5 million people will struggle to heat their homes sufficiently this festive season, while 2.7 million will have to choose between buying food or presents, highlighting the drastic impact the continues to have on household budgets.

More than 14 million consumers are planning to cut back on the number of presents they intend to buy, while 6 million have decided that they can only afford to buy gifts for children this year.’

A figure quoted in the report, if correct, has even more negative implications for those who are turning to credit to pay for the festivities (sic).

It posits that ‘More than 24 million UK adults – 40% of the UK population – plan to use credit to pay for Christmas presents this year.

Of these, 12 million plan to use credit cards, while 4.7 million will turn to buy now, pay later plans to stretch the repayment timeline for Christmas presents over several months.’

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/dec/06/heat-homes-christmas-uk-national-debtline-food-presents

Capitalism imposes pressures on the vast majority all year round not just at times of the year when people feel coerced into buying commodities, with money they haven’t got – commodities which have been produced for the purpose of making profits. Greg Lake sang, ‘Hallelujah, Noel be it heaven or hell, The Christmas we get we deserve.’ What no one deserves is the continuation of an exploitative, mass misery causing social system when there is a positive alternative to be had.

Press Release from the Centre for Social Justice

‘The UK is in danger of sliding back into the “Two Nations” of the Victorian era marked by a widening gulf between mainstream society and a depressed and poverty-stricken underclass, according to a far-reaching inquiry by a leading think-tank into the state of the nation.

The Centre for Social Justice’s (CSJ) Social Justice Commission’s report, Two Nations: The State of Poverty in the UK, argues that the most disadvantaged in Britain are no better off than 15 years ago – the time of the financial crash – and cites evidence that for them the jump from welfare into work is not worth it.

The CSJ study also finds that the pandemic lockdowns had a catastrophic effect on the nation’s social fabric, especially for the least well off, where the gap between the so-called “haves” and “have nots” was blown wide open.

The report says;

“During lockdown calls to a domestic abuse helpline rose 700 per cent; mental ill health in young people went from 1 in 9 to 1 in 6 and nearly a quarter amongst the oldest children; severe absence from school jumped 134 per cent; 1.2 million more people went on working-age benefits, 86 per cent more people sought help for addictions; prisoners were locked up for 22.5 hours per day.”

“There is a growing gap between those who can get by and those stuck at the bottom,” the report warns.

Six in ten of the general public say that their area has a good quality of life – this plummets to less than 2 in 5 of the most deprived.

Children, scarred by the pandemic lockdown, are having a particularly hard time. Twenty years ago, just one in nine children were assessed as having a clinically recognisable mental health problem. That figure is now one in five, rising to nearly one in four for those aged 17-19.

If trends continue, the report argues that by 2030 over one in four 5 – 15-year-olds – which may be as many as 2.3 million children – could have a mental disorder. There are likely to be 108 per cent more boys with mental health disorders by 2030 than there would have been if the lockdown had not happened. We should worry about the problems of the next generation.

Mental health looms large in the minds of the most deprived. After higher benefits, they cite improved mental and physical health as pivotal to a better life. The report has found that 40 per cent of the most disadvantaged report having a mental health condition compared to just 13 per cent of the general population.

The report says:

“Britain is sick but being sick pays. The total UC caseload has risen by 106 per cent since March 2020 and the number of claimants with No Work Requirements has increased by 186 per cent. There are over 2.6 million people economically inactive because of long term sickness, an increase of nearly 500,000 since the COVID-19 pandemic. “Over half of those signed off (53 per cent) reported depression, bad nerves or anxiety. The most disadvantaged view mental ill health as the biggest factor holding them back, which only comes fifth for the general public.”

The findings come from the Centre for Social Justice, which nearly 20 years ago published Breakdown Britain, a seminal work that ultimately led to a wholescale reform of the welfare system and the introduction of Universal Credit.

Two Nations: The State of Poverty in the UK has been produced by a high-powered team of Commissioners chaired by former Sunday Times editor Martin Ivens and includes Lord King, the former Governor of the Bank of England, Andy Burnham, the Labour Mayor of Manchester, Tim Farron, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Labour’s Sir Stephen Timms MP, Conservative MP Miriam Cates, and businesswoman Liz Earle.

Lord King said:

“Money is not the only solution to the problem of deprivation. One glimmer of light is the institution of the family – rather than government – as a place of nurture, support, and fulfilment. No family is perfect, and families come in all different shapes and sizes. But if we are able to do more to support the family, then we can prevent the creation of an “unhappy generation”.”

Andy Cook, Chief Executive of the Centre for Social Justice, said:

“This report makes for deeply uncomfortable reading. Lockdown policy poured petrol on the fire that had already been there is the most disadvantaged people’s lives, and so far no one has offered a plan to match the scale of the issues. “What this report shows is that we need far more than discussions on finance redistribution, but a strategy to go after the root causes of poverty – education, work, debt, addiction and family.”

At the heart of the 350-page report is a landmark poll of 6,000 people conducted by J.L. Partners – 3,000 drawn from the general public and 3,000 on the lowest income. The report also heard from over 350 small charities, social enterprises and policy experts, and the Commission travelled to 3 nations of the UK and to over 20 towns and cities.

Crime and an erosion in faith in the justice system, shabby housing and drug addiction and are major obstacles. Both the general public and the deprived cite crime as the worst thing about living in their area.

The most disadvantaged worry twice as much as the mainstream about the quality of their housing and communities being “torn apart” by addiction.

The report declares:

“Although overall crime rates are down, violent crime remains high, and still six per cent of families account for half of all convictions. “Outstanding cases for the Crown courts continue to rise eroding the public’s trust that justice will be done and emboldening criminals. Only 8 per cent of victims are confident they would receive justice as a result of reporting a crime. “Only 17 per cent of the most disadvantaged who rent in social housing rate their quality of life at least 8 out of 10, compared with 52 per cent of those who own a property. “There has been a 63 per cent increase in deaths of people on methadone than before the COVID-19 pandemic. 11.5 per cent of those who have consumed cannabis in the last year take it every day. Before the COVID-19 pandemic deaths from alcohol poisoning had been dropping have now risen 15.4 per cent. Over one in seven children – which could be as many as 1.3 million children – have been classed as Children in Need at least once in the past eight years.

ENDS’

https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/britain-slipping-back-to-social-divide-of-victorian-era

The mission statement of the CSJ: ‘The CSJ’s vision is for those living in the poorest and most disadvantaged communities across Britain to be given every opportunity to flourish and reach their full potential.

We bring this vision to life by seeking to influence the policies the Government creates and the laws it makes, such that it does all it can to address the root causes of poverty.’

Response to the CSJ. The root cause of poverty, disadvantage and a poor quality of life is capitalism. The solution is a straightforward one – the realisation and understanding that capitalism must, has to be, replaced with a system of society based upon free access to quality goods and services which are produced for use not profit. Don’t put your trust in governments or leaders, put your trust in yourself and the majority working class.

Nothing would delight us more than a guarantee that in 2024 a global understanding of socialism and the need to replace capitalism before it does even further to the world and everyone who lives in it.

But the eyebrow raising headline ‘the end of U.S. capitalism’ posed more questions than it answered. A seconds reflection caused the immediate question to spring to mind, welcome as that would be what was envisaged to take it’s place? Was the replacement likely to be a form of state capitalism or the imposition of a Orwellian regime? A little further reading provided the elucidation.

Saxo is a Danish investment bank. Apparently they like to make ‘outrageous’ predictions as to what events might occur in the coming twelve months.

American news outlet, CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) reports on their results for 2024 from gazing into the crystal ball.

One of their predictions was that the European Union, apparently strapped for cash – when are governments whose main concern is in looking after the interests of capitalists in its particular domain not strapped for cash? – wars are expensive things- might implement a two per cent wealth tax on billionaires. Saxo sagely notes that,’ this would be rendered more likely if the population “realises how little in tax billionaires are actually paying’.

The item in question read: ‘In order to avoid social unrest, Congress may be forced to increase fiscal spending, sending the budget deficit above 10% of GDP and meaning the government must foster demand for U.S. Treasurys urgently.

‘The attention goes to the stock market, where the ‘Magnificent Seven’ have now become twelve, thanks to a missed downturn and government support programs directed to lenders and homeowners,’ Saxo said. ‘The group currently comprises Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla.’

‘To join the club are Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, JPMorgan Chase, LVMH and ASML. As the ‘Twelve Titans’ multiplies their valuations within a few months, inequality increases between investors and non-investors.” “This dramatic move marks the end of capitalism, as money rotates from private corporations to the public, and holding riskier assets becomes more expensive. Counterintuitively, the ‘Twelve Titans’ consolidate their market dominance, as they benefit from long-term lower cost of funding, while the rest of the stock market collapses.”’

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/05/eu-wealth-tax-and-end-of-us-capitalism-saxos-outrageous-predictions.html

So big business benefits at the expense of everyone else. The more things change etc.

What’s outrageous is the continuing existence of a social system which exploits the vast majority for the benefit of a small minority.

What’s your New Year’s resolution going to be?

From the May 1989 Socialist Standard.

‘It is now ten years since Margaret Thatcher, the grocer’s daughter from Grantham, became Prime Minister. Since then she has earned her place in the Guinness Book of Records. First woman Prime Minister, longest-serving Prime Minister, only Prime Minister to win three successive general elections. She has also earned a reputation for being heartless and indifferent to the lot of ordinary people and concerned only about helping the rich. No wonder she is so intensely disliked by so many people.

She has indeed been the head of an openly pro-capitalist government that has deliberately set out to attack the working class. Her government has legislated against the unions — the only effective weapon workers have to defend themselves under capitalism — and reduced the payments the State pays to workers not in employment. It has ended subsidised housing and made workers pay for a whole range of services which in the past were available on a free basis (the latest being eye tests). It has reintroduced the Victorian distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor and again made submission to a Means Test a condition for access to most State benefits.

It would, however, be a mistake to attribute the sufferings workers have had to endure over the past ten years to the actions of one particular capitalist politician, however ill-intentioned, class-prejudiced and domineering she might be. There is no such thing as Thatcherism as something different and

worse than ordinary capitalism. What Thatcher has done is to have presided over the operation of capitalism during the worst part of the slump phase of its economic cycle. During such a period redundancies and unemployment reach a maximum and governments are forced to slash social benefits as a way of lowering the tax burden on the reduced profits of capitalist enterprises.

When Thatcher endlessly repeated “There Is No Alternative” she was in fact displaying a clearer understanding of how capitalism works than did the Labour and other opposition politicians. There really was no alternative (apart from socialism, of course). Any government of capitalism during the worst part of a slump would have had to behave in essentially the same way. In short, it was capitalism not Thatcher that has been responsible.

What has distinguished Thatcher has been style rather than content. Whereas other politicians, even Tory ones, would have apologised for having to take the measures capitalism was imposing on them, not Mrs Thatcher. She applied them enthusiastically, seeing them as steps in the cultural revolution from “dependency culture” to “enterprise culture” she believes it her mission to carry out. She has openly proclaimed her aim to be the complete eradication of “State Socialism”, by which she means the theory and practice of the Labour Party — nationalisation, government intervention, redistribution of wealth from rich to poor by means of improved State benefits, subsidised housing, transport and other services — what should more properly be called state capitalism. What she wants is “to roll back the frontiers of the State” and allow the freest possible operation of the forces of the market. In this respect she is more of a Free Trade Liberal than a Tory.

The Labour Party in power has indeed been a failure — the Labour governments of the sixties and seventies not only failed to improve working class living standards as promised, but worsened them for many workers while at the same time mismanaging the finances of the capitalist State by massively inflating the currency — but this has not been the failure of Socialism. It has been the failure of reformism and state capitalism to which we in the Socialist Party have always been opposed.

Unfortunately, this has been seen as the failure of Socialism and has allowed the intellectual defenders of capitalism to seize the initiative. The Free Marketeers re-emerged from the dustbins of history to preach laissez-faire, the survival of the fittest (the profitable) and death to lame ducks and other weaklings and to proclaim that capitalism, profits, inequality, the market were no longer dirty words. Indeed their views can almost be said to have become the official State ideology under Thatcher. Faced with this intellectual offensive, the leaders of the Labour Party have conceded defeat and now promise to run the market economy better than the Tories. Few believe them and most of their activists remain nostalgic for state capitalism, but in any event capitalism whether private or state can only run in one way: as a profit-making system in the interest of a profit-taking class.

So workers should not be taken in by the so-called Thatcherite Revolution which is essentially only window-dressing, one of a number of possible ideological justifications for what any government of capitalism would have been forced to do under the same circumstances. Indeed, the Labour governments in Australia and New Zealand have pursued the same policies, not excluding the denationalisation measures particularly associated with Thatcher.

It is for this reason that we say that Thatcherism is a myth and refuse to fall for calls for the return of a Labour government or some anti-Thatcher coalition. Capitalism without Thatcher would remain capitalism, and it is capitalism and not Mrs Thatcher that is the cause of the problems facing wage and salary workers.’

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2018/11/thatcheritis-1989.html

From the Resolution Foundation comes a report on stagflation Britain.

This they say has resulted in:

Real wages grew by 33 per cent a decade from 1970 to 2007, but have flatlined since, costing the average worker £10,700 per year in lost wage growth.

Income inequality in the UK is higher than any other large European country.

Low growth and high inequality means typical households in Britain are 9 per cent poorer than their French counterparts, while our low-income families are 27 per cent poorer.

9 million young workers have never worked in an economy with sustained average wage rises, and millennials are half as likely to own a home, and twice as likely to rent privately, as their parents’ generation.

Half of shift workers in Britain receive less than a week’s notice of their working hours or schedules.

UK companies have invested 20 per cent less than those in the US, France and Germany since 2005, placing Britain in the bottom 10 per cent of OECD countries, and costing the economy 4 per cent of GDP.

Having averaged 33 per cent of GDP in the first two decades of this century, the tax take is now on course to rise over 4 percentage points by 2027-28: equivalent to £4,200 per household.

The Resolution Foundation offers this Fabian solution:

Britain must build on its strengths as the second biggest services exporter in the world, behind only the US, while protecting the place of its high value manufacturing in European supply chains.

Our cities should be centres for Britain’s thriving high-value service industries. But instead, all England’s biggest cities outside London have productivity levels below the national average.

Public investment in the average OECD country is nearly 50 per cent higher than in the UK. Tackling this legacy, alongside the net zero transition, requires public investment to rise to 3 per cent of GDP.

British managers too rarely invest for the long-term. Pressure for change should come from more engaged owners – a smaller number of far larger pensions funds – and from workers on boards.

Hospitality represents a higher share of consumption in the UK than anywhere else in Europe, because it is relatively cheap. Better pay for low earners in hospitality, paid for by higher prices that most affect better off households, will create a more equal UK.

Benefit levels have not kept pace with prices: cuts since 2010 have reduced the incomes of the poor by almost £3,000 a year. Shared prosperity means benefits rising with wages.

A rising tax burden should not just fall on earnings, but should be shouldered by other sources of income and wealth. Wealth has risen from three to over seven times national income since the 1980s.

Higher growth and higher taxes are needed to raise investment, rescue public services, and repair public finances. Higher investment should be funded by higher savings at home, not borrowing from abroad.

https://economy2030.resolutionfoundation.org/reports/ending-stagnation/

There’s no reason to doubt that the people at Resolution Foundation are well-meaning intelligent folk. However, how have they not realised that sticking plaster solutions on the open wounds of capitalism are not the answer to the ills of the British, and global, working class? It’s simple. It’s Socialism.