The essential features of capitalism are:

1. the ownership of the means of wealth production by a propertied class which lives by owning;

2. the sale of their labour-power by the property-less majority for salaries or wages;

3. the production of goods for sale.

The Labour Party does not propose abolishing these essential features of the capitalist economic system. We say that only with socialism will the poverty and insecurity of the workers be brought to an end. The risk of war will be removed only with the removal of the commercial rivalries of capitalism. The Labour Party programme will fail, not because of the personal merits or demerits of its leaders, but because it is wholly a programme of reforms of capitalism.

The Socialist Party has been telling fellow workers for years, not merely that the Labour Party does not believe in socialism, but that they are an organisation which hopes and attempts to reform capitalist society. It neither understands the basic structure of capitalism which it wants to modify, nor socialism which it claims as its objective.

The Labour Party can govern and can administer capitalism— only in the interests of the capitalist class. Past Labour governments are ample demonstration of this. The Labour Party can govern; it can and must make promises which induce the electorate to give it support—but can it keep them?

The Socialist Party is not organised for the purpose of relieving the more or less obvious results of poverty. Our object is to abolish the cause of poverty, not to waste our time and energies in futile attempts to mitigate some of the more glaring effects. 

 The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Tuesday published Trends in the Distribution of Family Wealth, 1989 to 2019, a report revealing that while the total real wealth of U.S. families tripled over those 30 years, the growth was dramatically unequal.

Families in the top 10% and in the top 1% of the distribution, in particular, saw their share of total wealth rise over the period,” the report notes.

In 2019, families in the top 10% of the distribution held 72% of total wealth.

Families in the top 1% of the distribution held more than one-third.

Families in the bottom half of the distribution held only 2% of total wealth.

In 2019, white families’ median wealth was 6.5 times that of Black families, 5.5 times that of Hispanic families, and 2.7 times that of Asian and other families.

By 2019, student loan debt was the largest component of total debt for families in the bottom 25%—more than their mortgage and credit card debt combined. Among Americans age 35 or younger, 60% of their debt burden was due to student loans.

An analysis,  End Austerity: A Global Report on Budget Cuts and Harmful Social Reforms, estimates that 85% of the world population will be living under austerity measures by next year as tens of millions face hunger, homelessness, and health crises. Around 6.7 billion people are expected to feel austerity’s impacts in 2023, with the impacts falling disproportionately on the poor and other vulnerable populations

The report finds that “a long list of austerity measures is being considered or already implemented by governments worldwide,” including budget cuts targeting key social programs, privatization of public services, and wage caps for teachers, healthcare workers, and others. The report shows that 143 countries—94 of which are developing nations—are pursuing austerity, often at the urging of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has imposed punishing loan terms on low-income countries throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The IMF and other global financial institutions often recommend targeting social programs only to the extreme poor in an attempt to justify budget cuts, “a typical neoliberal policy” with damaging impacts that have frequently spurred mass uprisings.

“Despite the cost-of-living crisis, governments in developing countries, often with their hands tied by international financial institutions, are putting big corporations ahead of the people,” said Matti Kohonen, director of the Financial Transparency Coalition. “Nearly 40% of Covid-19 recovery funds went to big companies, meaning that those most impacted by the pandemic have been left behind.”

Aggressive means-testing “is often justified as an ‘improvement,’ including in many low- and lower-middle-income countries such as Central African Republic, Eswatini, Gambia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Togo, and Uganda, where the majority of the population lives below the poverty line,” the report continues. 

“In the worst of times, austerity is the worst possible choice. It should not even be on the agenda,” argued Nabil Abdo, Oxfam International’s senior policy adviser. “Austerity is designed to dismantle public healthcare and education and labor regulations. It enriches the wealthy and big corporations at the expense of the rest of us. Choosing austerity over many other ways to reduce deficits or even boost budget revenues, like taxing wealth and windfall profits, is not only economically disastrous—it’s deadly.”

 The End Austerity campaign, said, “This austerity recipe has been tried and failed many times, and only inflicted hardship and pain on populations all over the world, supercharging the inequality crisis,” the campaign’s website declares. “The system is broken, people are worse-off while corporations and the wealthy are getting richer every day.”

 “The price of food and necessities is increasing. Only our wage rate is decreasing,”

Selim Raihan, an economics professor at the Bangladesh University of Dhaka and executive director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling, said, “Poor people are already in danger. A large population is now at risk of becoming extremely poor,” he said.

 With the government increasing fuel prices 50% in August, inflation on the rise and the economy slowing, for Bangladeshis just getting by is now much harder. The rising cost of living is taking a heavy toll on the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, including many already struggling to survive after climate change-fuelled disasters have claimed their homes and land. Bangladesh’s inflation rate is now about 7.5%, according to the country’s central bank, after the government dramatically boosted fuel prices in the face of rising global fossil fuel costs, in part as a result of the Ukraine conflict. It has sent prices of food and other commodities surging even as daily electricity outages slowed productivity.

Workers are particularly feeling the pinch.

Arzina Begum, 50, who works in a garment factory in Hemayetpur, west of Dhaka, and lives in a damp little rented room, said her salary of 15,000 taka a month no longer is enough to support herself and her son.

Taslima Akhtar Beauty, a leader of Garment Workers Rights Movement, said salaries need to rise to 20,000 or 25,000 taka a month for families to make ends meet – something there is so far little sign will happen.

In some parts of Bangladesh, rising and increasingly unaffordable prices are leading to protests.

The minimum wage for tea workers was set by the government in 2021 at 120 taka ($1.20) a day, leaving them among the lowest-paid workers in the country. In the second week of August, with fuel and food prices soaring, around 150,000 tea workers launched an indefinite strike, demanding a new daily wage of 300 taka.

“We live in less-than-human conditions without proper medical care, housing and education,” worker Prakash Bauri said in an interview, as he choked back tears.

In response to the protests, Bangladesh’s prime minister announced a new 170 taka daily wage for tea workers – less than what was demanded but enough to at least temporarily suspend the strikes. Workers hope for another wage boost by the end of the year. Other workers have little expectation for improvements.

Rising inflation traps Bangladesh climate migrants (trust.org)

 In 33 US states, clergy are exempt from any laws requiring professionals such as teachers, physicians and psychotherapists to report information about alleged child sexual abuse to police or child welfare officials if the church deems the information privileged. Efforts to rid state laws of the privilege have been successful in only a handful of states, including North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas and West Virginia.

This loophole has resulted in an unknown number of predators being allowed to continue abusing children for years despite having confessed the behavior to religious officials. In many of these cases, the privilege has been invoked to shield religious groups from civil and criminal liability after the abuse became known to civil authorities.

The Roman Catholic Church has used its well-funded lobbying infrastructure and deep influence among lawmakers in some states to protect the privilege, and influential members of the Mormon church and Jehovah’s Witnesses have also worked in statehouses and courts to preserve it in areas where their membership is high.

“They believe they’re on a divine mission that justifies keeping the name and the reputation of their institution pristine,” said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, speaking of several religious groups. “So the leadership has a strong disincentive to involve the authorities, police or child protection people.”

Sen. Victoria Steele, a Democrat from Tucson, on three occasions, proposed legislation to close the clergy reporting loophole in Arizona. Steele said that key Mormon lawmakers including a former Republican state senator and judiciary committee chairmen thwarted her efforts before her proposals could be presented to the full Legislature. 

“It’s difficult for me to tell this story without talking about the Mormons and their power in the Legislature,” Steele said. “What this boils down to is that the church is being given permission to protect the predators and the children be damned. … They are trying with all of their might to make sure this bill does not see the light of day.”

 In Montana in 2020 the state Supreme Court ruled that church leaders were under no obligation to report, citing the state’s clergy-penitent privilege.

A bill seeking to rid Maryland of the privilege in child abuse cases evoked a strong rebuke from Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, then the powerful archbishop of the Diocese of Washington, D.C.

“If this bill were to pass, I shall instruct all priests in the Archdiocese of Washington who serve in Maryland to ignore it,” McCarrick wrote in a Catholic Standard column. “On this issue, I will gladly plead civil disobedience and willingly — if not gladly — go to jail.”

The bill never emerged from committee. Similar legislation proposed in 2004 suffered the same fate. Today, the clergy-penitent privilege in Maryland remains intact, even though McCarrick has been defrocked for sex crimes.

Churches defend clergy loophole in child sex abuse reporting | AP News

 According to the Global Energy Monitor (GEM), more than 24,000km of new oil pipelines are under development around the world, a distance equivalent to almost twice the Earth’s diameter. The oil pumped through the pipelines would produce at least 5bn tonnes of CO2 a year if completed, equivalent to the emissions of the US, the world’s second-largest polluter. The oil industry enjoyed record profits in the last year, the report said, and “is using this moment of chaos and crisis to push ahead with massive expansions of oil pipeline networks”.

“For governments endorsing these new pipelines, the report shows an almost deliberate failure to meet climate goals,” said Baird Langenbrunner at GEM. “Despite climate targets threatening to render fossil fuel infrastructure as stranded assets, the world’s biggest consumers of fossil fuels, led by the US and China, are doubling down on oil pipeline expansion.”

The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, said on Wednesday: “The fossil fuel industry is killing us, and leaders are out of step with their people, who are crying out for urgent climate action.”

Huge expansion of oil pipelines endangering climate, says report | Oil | The Guardian

Italy never underwent a process equivalent to Germany’s de-Nazification after World War II. At the start of the Cold War, the Allies wanted to block Western Europe’s largest Communist party from power. They took a minimalist approach to purges of fascists and other punitive measures that could cause social unrest in Italy. They also looked the other way when Giorgio Almirante and other fascists who had served Mussolini founded the Italian Social Movement (MSI),  in 1946. 

Brothers of Italy was formed a decade ago to carry forth the spirit and legacy of the extreme right in Italy. Meloni’s predecessor as the head of the Brothers of Italy declared, “We are all heirs of Il Duce.” The tricolor flame in the Brothers of Italy logo celebrates the party’s connection with its fascist past by reviving the MSI’s emblem. Meloni’s party slogan—“God, Fatherland, Family” came from Mussolini’s dictatorship.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, wrote for The Atlantic last week that “Meloni’s enemies list is familiar: ‘LGBT lobbies’ that are out to harm women and the family by destroying ‘gender identity’; George Soros, an ‘international speculator,’ she has said, who finances global ‘mass immigration’ that threatens a Great Replacement of white, native-born Italians.”

 A chronic gang, economic and political crisis has led to a humanitarian catastrophe in Haiti, Helen La Lime, the country’s UN envoy has said.

World Food Program’s (WFP) executive director Valerie Guarnieri, said: “The situation in Haiti has sadly reached new levels of desperation”.

An analysis by academic economists found that 26,000 people granted non-dom tax status by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) collect an average of £420,000 a year in unreported overseas income and capital gains.

Super-rich overseas people in the UK registered as having non-domicile status are being legally allowed to avoid paying more than £3.2bn of tax on at least £10.9bn of offshore income a year, according to a report. 

Andy Summers, associate professor at LSE Law School, said: “Non-doms receive ten times as much investment income offshore as they report in the UK. By rewarding non-doms for keeping their investments abroad, the current tax rules harm our economy as well as being unfair on ordinary taxpayers who must pay tax on their worldwide income.”

The Warwick and LSE research, which is based on HMRC filings, claims that “only 0.3% of those affected would leave the country (fewer than 100 people), most of whom are paying hardly any tax under the current regime”.

The vast majority of non-doms are foreigners living in the UK who use the status so they are only taxed on income and capital gains arising in the country, but not on those generated overseas. Most ordinary people living and working in the UK pay tax on income and capital gains arising here and abroad.

Super-rich UK non-doms avoiding £3.2bn in tax each year, report finds | The super-rich | The Guardian

Meanwhile, another investigation has found that two companies – Anglo Beef Processors UK and Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation (owned by Brazilian beef giant JBS) – appear to have reduced their tax bill by structuring their companies and loans in a way that allows them to take advantage of different tax systems, in what one expert has described as “aggressive tax avoidance”.

The meat companies concerned have branches both in the UK and in the Netherlands and Luxembourg, which have different tax regimes. By lending money from a company in one country to a related company in the other, and then borrowing it back at a different interest rate, the companies can significantly and legally cut their tax bills.

“These companies get financed by 0% loans and they pay very little tax because they’re holding companies and Luxembourg and the Netherlands apply special taxing rules to holding companies in order to attract business,” said Avi-Yonah, who is also a former consultant to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).



Alex Cobham, CEO of the Tax Justice Network, suggested that “this gives all the appearance of tax avoidance, designed to prevent the declaration and taxation of profits in the location of the underlying real activity – ie, the place where the profits actually arise. What I may consider abusive is not necessarily unlawful, however, such are the failings of the international tax rules.”

Revealed: world’s biggest meat firm appears to have avoided millions in UK tax | Meat industry | The Guardian

Lack of money means there is still a dearth of research into both the short- and long-term impacts of malnutrition. 

“This is not a subject that people put a lot of medical research into. The money is in obesity and overnutrition, and research follows money.”  Dr Neal Russell, a paediatric adviser with Médecins Sans Frontières, explains. Though malnutrition affects millions of people, especially children, there is still much that is unknown about it. “Much of what we thought we knew 20 years ago has since been questioned,” Russell says.

If it [the human body] doesn’t have enough food to convert into energy it will burn through its own fat reserves, breaking down fat cells into fatty acids to be used for energy or converted into glucose by the liver.

How long it takes for the body to use up all its fat deposits depends on multiple factors: the amount and nutritional value of food being eaten; the individual’s metabolism; their activity levels; their body mass index; and their age and overall health.

It could take a month, six months, a year. People don’t go from some food to zero food. They start to reduce the number of meals. In places like the Horn of Africa, people may go entire days without a meal.

After a sustained period of severe lack of food, the only fat left in the body will be between muscles, in joints and organ cells. In women, in the worst-case scenario, you will notice they have no more breast tissue because every single ounce of fat is converted in places that are usually spared.

While this is happening, low glucose levels in the blood make the person feel weak and dizzy. It is at this point – feeling woozy, irritable and struggling to concentrate – that many people are forced to make difficult decisions.

 If food deprivation continues once the fat is gone, the body will start to break down muscle cells to access the fatty acids and proteins contained within them. The result of this is muscle atrophy – the medical term for loss of muscle mass – as the muscle cells lose their structural integrity. Within a few weeks, there’s no longer enough muscle to support the body, even in a seated position. Lying down is the only option.

As muscle cells break down they release chemicals, including potassium, chloride and sodium, and cellular debris into the bloodstream. These chemicals, combined with a lack of vital minerals and vitamins from malnutrition, cause an imbalance that affects multiple parts of the body, from individual cells to organ function. Lack of zinc can cause diarrhoea and cracked skin, and reduces the ability to fight infections. Salt imbalance may be associated with oedema or swelling, which can also lead to kwashiorkor, or severe malnutrition in young children, causing swollen bellies and faces.

 Until they are at a late stage, deficiencies can be corrected by giving food, but beyond a certain point the body cannot regulate itself, even with treatment.

The last thing to stop is the heart – in some cases, because the weakened heart is simply not powerful enough to pump blood around the body; in others, chemical imbalance in the bloodstream stops the heart. A person may not be conscious at this point: unable to function without energy, the brain begins to shut down. In the last hours before falling into a coma, a person may lose their vision as the brain zones in and out.

Globally, malnutrition underlies almost half of child deaths in under-fives. The majority will die of infection because their immune systems suffer by lack of nutrients. Your general defences against infection are reduced, your skin becomes thinner, your gut wall is thinner, the defences in your respiratory tract are weaker [and] less likely to cough things up.

What is known is that most people suffering from malnutrition die from disease or infection rather than starvation itself. Lack of food affects the immune system, shrinking the lymph nodes so they produce fewer white blood cells. The existing white blood cells don’t have sufficient energy to do their job in fighting off bacteria or healing a wound. A person is much more vulnerable to diseases such as malaria or conditions such as pneumonia and sepsis.  

Measles, malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea are all common killers among children suffering from malnourishment; in many cases these children are moderately, as opposed to severely, malnourished. The malnutrition can be just enough to tip the balance in children, causing them to contract an infection that will kill them.

For every 10 children admitted to an intensive therapeutic feeding centre, one will probably die. Research published in the Lancet in May 2022 suggests that for every one that dies in hospital another will die after they are discharged.

Children who survive can suffer long-lasting effects. Impaired cognitive and physical and behavioural development can affect their education. The condition is also intergenerational – an adolescent girl or young woman who is undernourished may give birth to an undernourished baby.

Russell describes watching this crisis unfold before his eyes as “dystopian”. He struggles to find the right words. “… I have never found the language to describe the horror and injustice of seeing a child dying from malnutrition…One of the most haunting things about a children’s malnutrition centre is the deadly quiet of some children,” Russell says. “Their childhood has evaporated away. Young children regress, and stop walking or become incontinent – and they stop doing normal things like playing.” He continued, “Hunger takes something away from you. You can see how that breaks down a society and leads to more insecurity, conflict and anger.”

A letter to UN member states, “In a world of plenty, leaving people to starve is a policy choice.” The letter signed by 238 NGOs says, “The lack of political will and institutional failure to act quickly before the worst case hits means people are being left to lurch from crisis to crisis. People are not starving; they are being starved.”

These are needless deaths that will be largely ignored by a world distracted by extreme weather, the cost of living crisis and political upheavals says Alexandra Rutishauser-Perera, head of nutrition at Action Against Hunger UK. 

A study published by BMC Pediatrics found the prevalence of moderate to severe depression among mothers of malnourished children was significantly higher (64.1%) compared with mothers of normal weight children (5.1%).

“When you don’t have the money to have psychologists onboard, agencies don’t have the means to identify and measure the extent of the problem, and offer appropriate support,” Alexandra Rutishauser-Perera points out.

‘There’s a path towards death that people travel’: how hunger destroys lives and communities | Global development | The Guardian