Capitalism, Your Name is Misery

Inflation is officially falling

As unemployment rises in its place,

Each is misery, with a different face,

But both aspects are equally galling.

All pay increases will be quickly lost,

And are, at best, a temporary mask.

Yet, the most pertinent question to ask

Is surely, why should living have a cost?

After all, there’s wealth enough to go round,

Created by workers for such a small

Allowance as wages, instead of it all:

So, reasons for radical change abound.

Abolish money and inflation’s gone,

Once the battle for socialism’s won.

D. A.

Idling

A minister deplores the idle poor,

The government being moral guardians

Of the feckless many, whose only plans

Are pursuing leisure, pleasure and ignore

Any economic imperative

That invests capital with the powers

To rob them daily of valuable hours,

Until barely enough remain to live.

But don’t think these idlers idle. Once freed

From toil to cooperate with neighbours,

They then can pool their collective labours

And ensure everyone gets what they need.

It’s surely now apparent just how cash

Has become the modern slave owner’s lash.

D. A.

Snap Judgements

Skin can confer innocence or guilt,

Scrutinized by the ever watchful eye

Of the camera, and cameras do not lie,

Even if discrimination is in-built.

Innocence can’t be presumed any longer,

Human nature, it seems, is thought so flawed

It’s far better that people are outlawed

Than rely on honesty being stronger.

After all, the profit motive requires

The committing of a legalised crime,

In the stealing of unpaid for labour time,

The difference between sellers and buyers.

However depressed, at least smile a bit,

Snap judgements need you to be photo fit.

D. A.

Orange Protest

‘JUST TOP SOIL’ on orange T shirts; two fans

At the Ashes Test cocking a snook

At those match disrupters trying to look

Progressive, but ill-conceived, naïve plans

To be unsporting are easily foiled

And only provoke public annoyance

Rather than helping the cause to advance,

The wheels of reaction are too well oiled.

Protest brings headlines, but not policy,

Action leading to inaction, a schism

Obscuring how it’s capitalism

Frustrates reformers whoever they be.

Neither slogans nor satire can arrange

Circumstances to bring radical change.

D. A.

X Marks the Spot

Prices are rising, real wages falling,

The climate’s becoming overheated,

Public protests gradually deleted,

While the death toll of warfare’s appalling.

Politicians maintain the status quo

If possible, at least that’s their intent,

No matter which party they represent,

Just so long as capital’s profits flow.

‘Spurn the ballot box!’ some radicals say,

‘It only lets the government get in.’

But power is there for people to win

Through choosing real change come election day.

On the map to the future everyone’s got

Look carefully for where X marks the spot.

D. A.

Vision

Not twenty-twenty, hindsight’s myopic,

Vision clouded by misapprehension,

Seeing things, whatever the intention,

That are similar to a conjurer’s trick.

Political sleight of hand deceives the eye,

Bouquets of promises plucked from thin air,

Only for each of them to disappear

In a moment. And today the same sly

Misdirection is still there to be seen;

How it fascinates, bamboozling all who

Suspend their disbelief and continue

Mesmerised by blue, red, yellow or green,

Dressing up blatant legerdemain

To dazzle the spectators once again.

D. A.

Hands That Make the Arms

Benighted hands employed through industry

To manufacture such grim munitions

That make possible bellicose missions,

Whereby martialled workers deliberately

Seek to slaughter martialled workers they see

As holding enemy positions.

Such tragic results of these attritions

Doing naught to increase their liberty.

Most surely those hands are able to grasp

That the ever mounting loses of war

Mean mounting profits continue to soar

For those few with industry in their clasp.

Rather than following, fulfilling orders,

Hands can chose to reach out across borders.

D. A.

Socialist Stanza No. 10

Three Good Friends

Three good friends met amongst the stalls

Gathered round the market cross,

Where commerce and competition

Determine profit and loss.

The first said, ‘Here people can choose

From this copious display.

Whatever they want they can have,

Just so long as they can pay.’

‘While it’s not so,’ the second replied,

‘For those too poor, that glitch

Could be cured by taxes that don’t

Impinge too much on the rich.’

The third friend had a better thought,

A simpler way to proceed,

‘Get rid of cash, prices and stalls,

Then let folk take what they need.’

D. A.

The Landlord

 Inflation seems inexorable,

No prospect it might relent.

Where’s the cash for heat and food bills,

School uniforms and the rent?

The landlord’s not unreasonable,

His property well maintained,

But it’s not his fault or concern

If tenants’ incomes are drained.

It’s just a matter of business,

Not moral dereliction;

He is not unsympathetic,

But still pursues eviction.

For him, the house is not a home,

But an asset that must earn.

Yet, if rent’s unpaid, then it’s just

Capital without return.

D. A.

Socialist Stanza No. 4

The Socialist Way

Meandering and uneven

Appears the onward road,

And few the hopeful travellers

Who have set out abroad

Towards the shared destination,

Beyond those distant hills

That can seem too steep for climbing,

Which commonly instils

Reluctance to take the first steps,

Although most would advance

If they could be persuaded it’s

Not too great a distance.

Maybe tomorrow the journey

Might finally make sense,

Or will the road be untraveled

For generations hence?

D. A.