Removing money from the current economic equation would strike most people as impossible, unthinkable, absolutely imponderable. Everything we do, every transaction we make, from posting a letter to sending a space probe to Mars, from birth to death and at every step in between, money has become a necessary part of getting what we require. It has become an accepted, entrenched method of acquiring anything and everything BUT it wasn’t always so and in a genuine socialist system money will be shown to have been an unnecessary, wasteful and divisive way of ordering world communities.

When initially being presented with the notion of a world without money the first imperative is the willingness to contemplate a huge paradigm shift, to put aside all familiar long-held views and preconceived notions and to enter into an adventure of discovery that there is a place for all at the table, that it doesn’t entail regression to the Dark Ages and that the welfare and progress of people doesn’t have to come at a cost to the environment.

Work is well recognised by experts in the health arena as being one of the most stressful areas of life for reasons such as long hours, extended travelling time to and from place of employment, risk of job loss, lack of security of tenure, inflexible working practices, difficulty getting release for major personal events such as bereavement, long-term illness of a spouse or partner, or even short-term care of a sick child. Loss of employment can put stress on the whole family, sinking it into debt, causing day to day difficulties with the household budget and in many cases leading to loss of the home.

Right now, worldwide, are millions of ‘would-be’ workers who are sidelined in one way or another, without employment or scratching on the edges of a black economy and in some of the more ‘developed’ countries we find many termed ‘scroungers’ in current day parlance.

Within the capitalist system there has to be a pool of workers unable to find work in order to keep the bargaining power in favour of the capitalist employers who strive to keep wage levels down, whereas if there is a shortage of suitable labour the bargaining power switches to the employees who try to force wage levels up. The fact that some ‘developed’ countries have systems which pay a percentage of workers to remain unemployed (and who receive welfare benefits) is a price the capitalists are prepared to pay to maintain the tensions in society. Encouraging the employed to think that they are the ones subsidising the benefits system maintains one fissure within the ‘working’ class whereas allowing a large number of unemployed to be without any welfare would cause too many problems for the capitalists with possibilities of mass looting, rioting and damage to their property.

There are also untold numbers of immigrants living temporarily or permanently away from home just to make a living which has become impossible in their own country especially since deregulation of the market and as a group they send billions of whatever currency back to their homelands. For every ten who make it there are hundreds who struggle endlessly seeing no progress or find they have moved into a life of indebtedness and semi-slavery.

The current situation worldwide with its high unemployment rates suits the capitalists very well, but is both punishing and divisive for the vast majority. However, w hen money is not required in exchange for work and when, instead, all contribute their skills, expertise and/or manpower in return for open access to the requirements of life then we can begin to see a different motivation enter the whole concept of the ‘work’ scenario. W hen all ‘work’ is seen as legitimate and deserving of recognition, from the humblest occupations – collecting and sorting waste, stacking shelves in our ‘stores’, keeping the utilities working even in the worst weather, repairing our shoes – to those which are perceived as more elite – heart surgeons, ground-breaking scientists or cutting-edge technicians; when all are respected or appreciated for their contribution simply by having the same right of access to our commonly produced goods humankind will have truly developed to a higher level.

In addition a moneyless world will free up millions of workers who are now tied to some very stressful occupations dealing only in (other people’s) money – banking, mortgage brokering, insurance; those occupied in the collection of rates, taxes and utility payments; those in security work such as guards and armoured truck staff engaged only in protecting and moving money and other ‘valuables’ – millions of workers who, when considered logically, currently fulfil no useful function and contribute nothing to society that improves that society. This is in no way to imply that those currently employed in such work are any less valuable than any other worker. Within the capitalist system we all have to work with what is available and what percentage of the working class can truly say that their work is exactly what they were looking for? However, in the new, socialist system, with so many extra hands on deck working hours will be considerably reduced which, with the knowledge that one’s ‘work’ is not tied to the ability to feed and clothe the family, to house them and provide all the other requirements of life, will be to remove the stress at a stroke.

With millions released from wage slavery in the now redundant financial sector and free to be a part of the production, distribution and service sectors, with the black economy, immigrants and illegals no longer a threat to paid workers (pay being redundant) there will be a huge reduction in individual necessary work time. When there is no profit incentive the emphasis will be on the production of quality goods from quality materials and no one need choose an inferior item based on cost. Providers of utilities such as electricity and gas, water and communications will be able to have sufficient workers to install, service, repair and develop their installations more efficiently and effectively. If there is work that no one is prepared to undertake then an alternative will need to be found democratically.

Without the constraints that we have today the workplace will become a different place, one of cooperation not competition where we work for the benefit of all not for the profit of a few. The lines between work and leisure may well be much more blurred than in today’s scenario. People will have time, time to be creative, to learn different and multiple skills and to enjoy the time they spend working. Leisure activities seen as hobbies now – vehicle maintenance, gardening, DIY home improvements, baking, the making of all kinds of hand-made items, giving educational and training courses – could well form part of one’s ‘work time’ in the community, bringing a greater satisfaction and contributing to individual development generally, one of the aims of socialism. With more leisure time available it is also highly likely that more ‘work’ would be created in the leisure area, whether sports complexes, theatrical and music productions and educational courses in the widest sense and with unlimited opportunities for the active participation of those who choose it.

Want to end wage slavery and unemployment? Abolish money.

Janet Surman. 

End Wage Slavery And Unemployment – Abolish Money By Janet Surman (countercurrents.org)

GLOBAL WARMING

Heatwaves have cost the global economy about $16tn since the 1990s, according to a study published in the journal Science Advances.

The research calculates the financial impact of extreme heat on infrastructure, agriculture, productivity, human health and other areas.

“We have been underestimating the true economic costs we’ve suffered because of global warming so far, and we are likely underestimating the costs going out into the future,” said Justin Mankin, an assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth College and senior author.  

Despite having the lowest carbon emissions, it is the tropics and the global south that bear almost the entirety of the economic brunt of extreme heat. This is because they are warmer and therefore hit harder by heatwaves, and also because they are more economically vulnerable and therefore more susceptible to economic depression and the costs of adapting to the climate crisis. The study found that the world’s wealthiest regions, such as areas of Europe and North America, experienced an average 1.5% loss of GDP per capita per year due to extreme heat. By comparison, low-income regions – such as India and Indonesia – recorded a 6.7% GDP per capita loss yearly.

Christopher Callahan, a researcher at Dartmouth College and lead author of the study explained, “We know that heatwaves kill crops and cause illnesses like heat stroke, but they also have other effects such as increased interpersonal aggression, increased rates of workplace injury, and reduced mental performance.”

According to Dr Leonie Wenz, the deputy head of the research department on complexity science at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who was not involved in the study, most studies on the subject were based on averages, but these can mask the effects of local and temporary events. “They do not fully reflect how we as humans experience temperature. What really matters for us, what affects our wellbeing, our productivity, and our decisions are the extremes and the fluctuations from one day, or week, to the next.”

The bill had been footed mainly by countries that had not benefited from industrialisation, said Mankin, creating a vicious cycle.

“Low-income countries have been asked to develop and industrialise in a global economy that strategically disadvantages them,” he said. “And they’re doing so while also being hammered by the impacts of global warming that has been generated by the global north. It’s kind of a double whammy.”

Climate crisis study finds heatwaves have cost global economy $16tn | Climate crisis | The Guardian

A famine in Somalia is almost inevitable. 

Martin Griffiths, the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator,  has questioned why billions of dollars pledged to tackle the climate crisis have not been used to fight famine in Somalia. Griffiths said he did not know where the promised $100bn (£87bn) a year to fight the impact of global heating in poorer countries had gone.

“The truth of the matter is that we are scrambling to try to understand where the climate money is that was promised a decade ago. Where is it? Who’s holding it and who is not delivering it to places like Somalia?” said Griffiths. “…We haven’t even managed to get to them the money that we pledged nobly some time ago for exactly this kind of purpose.”

Griffiths said he had “failed” to receive an answer when he asked governments how climate financing was decided and delivered. Griffiths said climate funding could have been used to dig wells and support livelihoods in the worst-affected areas of Somalia.

Somalia’s presidential envoy for drought response, Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, pointed out that the international community was failing Somalia. “Millions of children are malnourished, many will die, and we don’t have one penny of that climate fund,”

At the UN climate change conference in 2009, rich countries pledged to give low-income states $100bn a year by 2020 to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. The Green Climate Fund was created as a way to deliver the money but has had limited impact because rich countries often channel their financing through the World Bank or regional development banks. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which monitors donor contributions to climate financing, low-income countries received 8% of the money between 2016 and 2020.

Prof Lee White, Gabon’s environment and climate change minister, said the system was flawed. Donor countries self-report contributions and there is no clear way to trace how much money has been donated and where it has been spent, he said and explaining only a fraction of the money that rich countries say they have provided reaches the Green Climate Fund and even then applications for money come with overcomplicated criteria. He added, “…it often feels the system is designed to prevent you spending the funds on anything other than developed-nation consultants.”

Kevin Watkins, a former executive director of the Overseas Development Institute, said climate and development aid needed to be integrated, “We have a development finance system… which is somewhat competitive, with big agencies scrambling for the same pot of money, which is badly coordinated, and which, in all honesty, is failing to address the real climate risk challenges for countries at the sharp end of the crisis.” 

He said Somalia was an example of low-income countries being forced to rely on humanitarian aid when they had already entered a state of crisis instead of having earlier interventions that could have solved root problems.

Climate crisis funds not reaching countries in need, senior UN official says | Global development | The Guardian

 LNG ([liquefied natural gas) which is created by cooling fracked gas to create a clear, colorless liquid, has been promoted by the oil industry as “climate-friendly.”

However, an analysis by Food & Water Watch,  titled LNG: The U.S. and E.U.’s Deal for Disaster, warned, “One year of emissions from 50 billion cubic meters (BCM) of LNG would be equivalent to yearly emissions from 100 coal plants.”

The U.S. is already the world’s biggest exporter of LNG, with exports averaging 0.32 BCM per day in the first half of this year. More than 70% of U.S. exports went to Europe this year, and while the Biden administration’s plan has promised an extra 15 BCM of LNG to Europe this year, the current pace “will triple” that pledge. Exporting 50 BCM of LNG per year would cost between $10 billion and $19 billion annually, while providing the E.U. with just 12% of its demand for gas as it faces an energy crisis. 

The same level of investment in utility-scale solar power could provide Europe with more than 540 megawatt-hours (MWh)—11% more energy than would would be provided by LNG. Onshore wind power costs are similar, providing 515 million MWh,” reads the report. “Scaling up renewables to this level would avoid over 500 million metric tons of fossil fuels, no matter if it is replaced with solar or wind. The choice is clear.”

“The White House vision for delivering gas to Europe will serve to deliver climate chaos across the globe, at a moment when we simply cannot build new fossil fuel facilities at all,” said Food & Water Watch research director Amanda Starbuck.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/10/26/bidens-lng-export-goal-would-spell-climate-disaster-analysis-warns

 A UN environment report analysed the gap between the CO2 cuts pledged by countries and the cuts needed to limit any rise in global temperature to 1.5C, the internationally agreed target. Progress has been “woefully inadequate” it concluded. There is “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place”, the UN’s environment agency has said, and the failure to reduce carbon emissions means the only way to limit the worst impacts of the climate crisis is a “rapid transformation of societies”.

Current pledges for action by 2030, if delivered in full, would mean a rise in global heating of about 2.5C and catastrophic extreme weather around the world. A rise of 1C to date has caused climate disasters in countries from Pakistan to Puerto Rico.

If the long-term pledges by countries to hit net zero emissions by 2050 were delivered, global temperature would rise by 1.8C. But the glacial pace of action means meeting even this temperature limit was not credible, the UN report said.

The report found that existing carbon-cutting policies would cause 2.8C of warming, while pledged policies cut this to 2.6C. Further pledges, dependent on funding flowing from richer to poorer countries, cut this again to 2.4C.

Inger Andersen, the executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said: 

“This report tells us in cold scientific terms what nature has been telling us all year through deadly floods, storms and raging fires: we have to stop filling our atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and stop doing it fast. We had our chance to make incremental changes, but that time is over. Only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster. It is a tall, and some would say impossible, order to reform the global economy and almost halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, but we must try,” she said. “Every fraction of a degree matters: to vulnerable communities, to ecosystems, and to every one of us.”

Prof David King, a former UK chief scientific adviser, said: “The report is a dire warning to all countries – none of whom are doing anywhere near enough to manage the climate emergency.”

Climate crisis: UN finds ‘no credible pathway to 1.5C in place’ | Climate crisis | The Guardian

 Biodiversity expert John Mwangi Gicheha says the decline in species population abundance has now been validated by the newly-released Living Planet Report 2022.

“The health of planet earth is well and truly on a sharp decline, and we are not only seeing a decrease in the global population of species but a decline in their genetic diversity and a loss of species climatically determined habitats.”

This is the first ever most comprehensive report on the state of global vertebrate wildlife populations, and it makes a startling revelation: the world’s wildlife populations have declined by 69 percent since 1970.

As a measure of the state of the world’s biological diversity among population trends of vertebrate species from terrestrial, freshwater, and marine habitats, the 2022 Living Planet Index analyzed approximately 32,000 populations of 5,230 species across the world.

By tracking trends in the abundance of mammals, fish, reptiles, birds, and amphibians worldwide since 1970, a disturbing image emerged: one million plants and animals are threatened with extinction.

Worse still, 1-2.5 percent of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and fish have gone extinct.

Key findings include revelations that monitored freshwater populations are hardest hit as there is an alarming decline of 83 percent in the last 50 years, more than any other species groups.

The decline in freshwater population is mainly caused by habitat loss and barriers to migration routes which account for an estimated half the threat to these populations. Further, only 37 percent of rivers over 1,000 kilometres remain free-flowing in their natural state.

Against this backdrop, the report stresses that the global community is living the consequences of double crises and shows how “interlinked emergencies of human-induced climate change and the loss of biodiversity are threatening the well-being of current and future generations.”

The greatest regional decline in wildlife population is in Latin America and the Caribbean region, whose average population abundance decline is 94 percent.

Africa comes second with a 66 percent fall in its wildlife populations over the past 52 years, and across the board, the poor and marginalized remain highly vulnerable and most affected by the decline.

There was an 18 percent decline in Europe and Central Asia and a 55 percent decline in wildlife populations in the Asia Pacific.

More findings show despite mangroves being unique forests of the sea; they remain at great risk as they continue to be lost to aquaculture, agriculture and coastal development at current rates of 0.13 percent per year.

Mangrove loss is not only a loss of habitat for biodiversity, the report emphasizes, but the loss of ecosystem services for coastal communities.

Further, approximately 50 percent of warm water corals have already been lost. Even worse, a warming of 5 degrees Celsius will lead to a loss of 70 to 90 percent of warm water corals.

Overall, the global abundance of 18 of 31 oceanic sharks and rays declined by 71 percent since 1970. By 2020, three-quarters of sharks and rays were threatened with an elevated risk of extinction. 

Judy Ouya, a government official in Kenya’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry said that said consequences could no longer be ignored as they are too severe and frequent. They include loss of lives and economic assets from extreme weather conditions, deepening poverty and, severe food and water insecurity from droughts.

WWF: Global Vertebrate Wildlife Population Has Plummeted | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)

From schools to now the universities Iranians are expressing their discontent with theocratic government rule. 

Students protested on Tuesday at Beheshti University and the Khaje Nasir Toosi University of Technology, both in Tehran, as well as Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, in Khuzestan province.

Despite what rights group Amnesty International has called an “unrelenting brutal crackdown”, young women and men were again protesting. “Death to the dictator” and “Death to the Revolutionary Guards”, women chanted.

 The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) said the demonstrations so far had cost the lives of at least 141  protesters.

During the past five weeks, thousands of Iranians have protested against the theocracy in over 100 cities. 

“In challenging the mandatory hijab, they are questioning and rejecting the very essence of the rules and principles upon which the hijab is imposed,” Sanam Anderlini, native Iranian and member of the International Civil Society Action Network explained. “On one level it is about the question of choice about the hijab, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. The hijab is an integral symbol of the regime’s ‘Islamist’ identity, which embeds women’s second-class status, discrimination in the constitution and law.”

Socialists cannot make predictions about the future but we can voice our support and solidarity for fellow workers campaigning for more freedom.

Climate for Change

When, three hundred million years ago

Lepidodendra, solar sponges, fell,

They were pressed deep into the earth. A slow

Transmutation from toppled tree to coal,

Petrifying sunshine, eons before

The first human eye looked upon the world

And sought to abate the dark and the cold,

Beginning to dig into nature’s store:

But human industry will have its way.

While those who exploit power for their own ends

Have grown careless of the way profit tends

To determine the climate’s desperate trends.

A choice to be made, socialism’s sense

Or capital’s storm, famine and pestilence.

D. A.

“The world is finally waking up to the injustices of racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination, and putting laws in place to stop them from destroying people’s lives. Povertyism must be treated just as seriously,” said Olivier De Schutter, special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. 

Prejudice against poor people is “a stain on society” that needs to be made illegal, according to him. He calls for the term “povertyism” to be included in anti-discrimination law alongside sexism and racism “to stop destroying people’s lives”. De Schutter defines “povertyism” as the negative stereotyping of the poor, and “a major source of non-take-up of rights” in that it can discourage people from applying for jobs and benefits. He added that while povertyism was a global problem, there tended to be greater stigmatising of the poor in wealthier countries where inequalities are starkest.

“Poverty will never be eradicated while povertyism is allowed to fester, restricting access to education, housing, employment and social benefits to those who need them the most,” De Schutter said.

Examples cited include employers judging CVs more harshly when an applicant’s address is in a deprived area, landlords refusing to rent apartments to tenants on benefits, and poorer school pupils being given different advice from that given to their more privileged peers.

Such “humiliation and exclusion” will not disappear on their own, argues De Schutter. He is calling on governments to include “socio-economic disadvantage” in anti-discrimination laws as a protected characteristic similar to age, sex, disability and race. He also wants “pro-poor affirmative action”, which he considers essential to breaking the vicious poverty trap.

“We have many studies showing that the belief in meritocracy is highest in those more unequal societies and the UK is not faring very well in this regard for the moment, nor is the US in fact. And it is the elites in those countries that believe in meritocracy because, of course, that’s a way for them to confirm their sense of superiority,” he said.

Make poverty discrimination illegal like racism or sexism, official to tell UN | Global development | The Guardian

Methane is the second biggest contributor to global heating after carbon dioxide, with a greenhouse gas impact at least 27 times worse than CO2 over a 100-year time span. The gas is already responsible for about one-fifth of all global heating. Most of Europe’s methane emissions come from agriculture – particularly livestock – but the EU has avoided using policy levers such as its €387bn common agricultural policy to directly tackle the problem, according to the report by the Changing Markets Foundation. The EU won’t achieve a promise to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Methane emissions rose by their highest ever amount to a new record last year

Nusa Urbancic, the campaigns director for the Changing Markets Foundation, said: “We’re in a climate emergency and cutting methane is the best short-term measure to slow the temperature increase. That is why we need urgent policy action to transform our food production systems. Our leaders must start listening to scientists instead of lobbyists, otherwise the EU won’t be able to meet the global methane pledge.”

 The Institute for European Environmental Studies, finds that the bloc is still failing to set dedicated methane targets for the livestock sector, or channel subsidies for methane cuts, forcing a reliance on loophole-ridden regulations which may hide agricultural emissions. The new report says that “undue influence” from agri-industry lobbyists, who EU officials met three times more often than non-industry groups, watered down legislative initiatives that could have cut livestock emissions. Methane releases from animal farming in Europe now have the global heating power of 160 coal-fired power plants, measured over a 20-year period. 

Tim Searchinger, a senior research scholar at Princeton University and senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, explained, “Enteric methane emissions [from cow burps and farts] alone would add at least 25% more to agricultural emissions by 2050, compared to 2010.” Searchinger said the best ways to mitigate methane emissions would be to feed livestock more efficiently, use new feed additives which may reduce emissions, and cut down on beef consumption.

EU on track to break pledge to cut methane emissions by 30%, warns report | Greenhouse gas emissions | The Guardian