Are universities really places of higher learning? 

The University of Florida has changed the names of one of its library study rooms that was called the “Karl Marx Group Study Room.”

“Given current events in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world, we determined it was appropriate to remove the name of Karl Marx that was placed on a group study room at the University of Florida in 2014,” Hessy Fernandez, the school’s director of strategic communications.

Are these academics even aware that Marx was born in Trier which was in the Rhineland that later became part of Germany and not Russia. Did this education establishment know Marx wanted a class-free state-free society with no top-down control, or that Russia has a capitalist economy? Didn’t their politics or history department explain that Marx was virulently anti-Russian and supported the independence of Poland as a buffer against the autocratic Tsar?

University of Florida strips study room of ‘Karl Marx’ nameplate | Washington Examiner

Inequality contributes to the deaths of at least 21,300 people each day—or one person every four seconds. 

This is a “highly conservative estimate” for deaths resulting from hunger, lack of access to healthcare and climate breakdown in poor countries.

Oxfam outlines the fact that the climate crisis is one of the most harmful drivers of inequality.

Since the covid pandemic began, a new billionaire has been created every 26 hours. The world’s small elite of 2,755 billionaires has seen its fortunes grow more during Covid-19 than they have in the whole of the last fourteen years combined, says Oxfam in its report about inequality.

“This is the biggest annual increase since records began. It is taking place on every continent.”

It is enabled by skyrocketing stock market prices, a boom in unregulated entities, a surge in monopoly power and privatisation, alongside the erosion of individual corporate tax rates and workers’ rights and wages.

“Over the past two years, people have died when they contracted an infectious disease because they did not get vaccines in time. They have died of other illnesses because they could not afford private care. They have died of hunger because they could not afford to buy food…And while they died, the richest people in the world got richer than ever and some of the largest companies made unprecedented profits.”

“The climate crisis affects us all, but it doesn’t affect us equally. The richest 1% of people in the world, about 63 million people, are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the 3.1 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity.”

Since 2000, the UN estimates that 1.23 million people have died and 4.2 billion have been affected by droughts, floods and wildfires. We all suffer from a heating planet when rich countries fail to address the effects of their responsibility for an estimated 92% of all excess historic emissions.”

The number of climate-related disasters has tripled in 30 years, with currently one extreme weather event recorded per week.

Last year, Oxfam reports, the world saw a record 50 billion US dollars worth of damages from extreme weather disasters exacerbated by climate change, pushing nearly 16 million people in 15 countries to crisis levels of hunger.

“People in low-and lower-middle-income countries are around five times more likely than people in high-income countries to be displaced by sudden extreme weather disasters.”

Destructive weather, rising seas, unprecedented fires and historic famines. “Climate change is happening now. It is one of the most harmful drivers of worsening hunger, migration, poverty and inequality all over the world.”

“In recent years, already with 1°C of global heating, there have been deadly cyclones in Asia and Central America, huge locust swarms across Africa.”

Inequality is not an abstract issue, affirms Oxfam  “It has devastating, real-world consequences… It is rigged into our economic systems and is tearing our societies apart.”

According to a World Bank’s report, four out of five people below the international poverty line still live in rural areas, and half of the poor are children. Women also represent a majority of the poor in most regions and among some age groups.

Of the global poor aged 15 and older, about 70% have no schooling or only some basic education.

And more than 40% of the global poor live in economies affected by conflict and violence, and, in some economies, most of the poor are concentrated in specific subnational areas. About 132 million of the global poor live in areas with high flood risk.

Inequality Kills One Person Every Four Seconds | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)

 One in five pensioners – more than 2 million people – are living in relative poverty in the UK, an increase of more than 200,000 in the past year alone.

 Inequalities within older generations are some of the most extreme in society today: the wealth of the richest 20% doubled between 2002 and 2018, while that of the poorest 20% fell by 30%.

There are differences of up to 10 years in the lifespan of rich and poor pensioners and more than 17 years’ difference in the time that pensioners get in good health without a disabling illness.

Experts are concerned that people who have not yet reached pension age will fare even worse in retirement. The proportion of older people aged 55 to 64 who rent rather than own their home has reached an all-time high of 11%, compared with 6% a decade ago.

There are almost 11 million people aged 65 and over in England today, 19% of the total population. In 10 years’ time this will have increased to more than 13 million people, 22% of the population.

The state pension age has risen to 66 but employment rates among people approaching retirement age have fallen to their lowest levels since 2016.  The employment rate gap between older and younger workers is now wider than two years ago. The number of people aged 50 to 64 who are not working or looking for work has increased by 228,000 since the start of the pandemic. The employment rate in this group has fallen by 1.8 percentage points.

Caroline Abrahams, the charity director at Age UK, said: “The numbers of older people living below the poverty line seem to be inexorably rising. It’s these older people, and others whose incomes take them just above the poverty line, who are being badly hurt by the surge in energy prices.

“There is no obvious way out for them if they can’t afford their bills, except to economise on other essentials, but that’s the recipe for a miserable existence and one that can even put their health at risk.”

Number of pensioners in relative poverty in UK up 200,000 in a year | Older people | The Guardian

 P&O Ferries has sacked 800 seafaring staff with immediate effect, but some crew are defying orders and refusing to leave their ships in protest. Workers are understood to have been told the news on zoom.

 Union RMT said crewmembers were being replaced with foreign labour.

 Ukrainian Plot

Born of revolt, misnamed revolution,

With hammer and sickle gilding the red

Since furled, yet workers still being bled

In cause of nation set against nation.

History’s managers draw, redraw borders,

Lines of convenience too easily crossed;

Capital gains, but then reckon the cost

In lives of those just following orders.

War is grim work and soldiers are workers

Trained and skilled in the old craft of killing

Each other. Whether willing or unwilling

It’d be better by far they were shirkers.

Of all, such is the very worst of toil

For each laid beneath a mean patch of soil.

D. A.

Ever since the Socialist Party was formed in 1904 it has opposed all wars. Our members have suffered imprisonment and persecution rather than fight—and the members of our companion socialist parties have done the same in other parts of the world. It is because we recognise that under capitalism wars arise when rival powers fall out over the control of markets and supplies of raw materials or over the domination of trade routes and spheres of influence. It is this struggle between rival capitalist states which compels countries to maintain armed forces wherever they have interests. But in these struggles, the working class have no interests at stake. We do not appeal to you merely as people who think that war is senseless and want to see an end to it. We appeal to you as working men and women whose interest lies in establishing a world socialist community. The workers are asked to make the supreme sacrifice in the name of patriotism.

The slaughter continues. It is now clear that this was always the intention of Putin. He cynically allowed the diplomatic wrangling to go on so as to buy time to get his forces massing on the borders of Ukraine up to full fighting strength. This done, diplomacy was discarded and the military was given the go-ahead. This war is no different from any of the wars that have taken place in modern times. It’s a business war. Capitalism is driven by the competitive struggle for profits between corporations and states. Conflict, economic, political and, as a last resort, the military is built-in to capitalism over sources of raw materials, investment outlets, markets, trade routes, and strategic points to control and protect these. When a state judges that its “vital interest” is threatened—e.g. needing to secure access to a key raw material, trade route or military outpost – it goes to war. 

Most people would prefer to live in peace. Consequently, massive propaganda exercises are employed by the state to stoke their fears and anxieties. Invariably, they also endeavour to present it as being in some way humanitarian. This is because people have a healthy horror of war. They know war means death and destruction. Death not only of the soldiers on both sides, but also of women, children, the infirm and elderly as “collateral damage” and destruction not only of military installations and hardware but also of bridges, roads, power stations, ports, hospitals and other socially-necessary infrastructure.

Many people’s gut reaction is simply that war is crazy. Socialists share this anti-war sentiment. It is one of the reasons why we are Socialists-real Socialists that is, not supporters of the sort of state capitalist dictatorships that failed in Russia and Eastern Europe, but advocates of a united world community without frontiers based on all the Earth’s resources, natural and industrial, becoming the common heritage of all humanity and being used to satisfy people’s needs instead of for profit. We have concluded that capitalism means war and that therefore to get rid of wars and the threat of wars-and the constant preparation for war represented by maintaining armed forces-you have got to get rid of capitalism.

That voices are raised against the war, millions of voices show that there is hope. Those workers—whose experience of life stems from using their energies and talents to cooperatively solve problems and achieve goals; who realise the potential for mutual dependence and support; who enjoy some security of life won through the class struggle—are determined to oppose the war shows that opposition to war has its basis in material reality rather than mere moral condemnation.

War is completely unnecessary. We are living in a world that has enough resources to provide plenty for all, to eliminate world poverty, ignorance and disease, to provide adequate and comfortable life for everyone on the planet. Yet under capitalism resources are squandered on armaments, of individual as well as of mass destruction, and, as now, in actual war. Even in times of peace -as the armed truce between wars is called – capitalism’s pursuit of profit pollutes and plunders the planet and upsets the balance of nature with potentially devastating consequences. The economic law “no profit, no production” applies implacably, resulting in millions dying of hunger and related diseases every year simply because it is not profitable to produce the food to feed them and, in fact, often while the food that could feed them is destroyed so as to maintain prices and profits.

As world socialists, who are opposed to war and to capitalism which creates it:

· We place on record our horror that capitalism has once again provoked the orgy of death and destruction known as war.

· We extend the hand of friendship to our fellow workers in Ukraine who the political masters in Moscow have designated as targets for destruction.

· We pledge to do all within our means to bring the slaughter to an immediate end.

· We pledge ourselves to continue to work for the establishment of a world socialist society of peace and cooperation.

· We call upon fellow workers everywhere to join in the struggle for One World, One People! Unite for World Socialism!

Moderna’s covid vaccine is one of the most lucrative medicines of all time, bringing in nearly $18bn in revenue for the company in a single year. It’s still some way behind the truly astonishing $37bn which Pfizer’s vaccine made.

Even more astonishing than the sales figures is the profit Moderna made.  According to company accounts, they brought in $13bn in pre-tax profits. That comes to $36m a day throughout 2021, giving Moderna a profit margin of around 70 percent. It’s the kind of margin which you should find on luxury consumer goods, not essential medicines.

And no wonder, when experts have calculated that Moderna’s vaccine could be produced for as little as $2.85 a dose, yet is the most expensive vaccine on the market, averaging between $19 and $24, but costing up to $37 a dose to some countries. In other words, the company could be charging up to 13 times the estimated cost price of its vaccine.

These profits have turned some of Moderna’s investors into multi-billionaires. At one point during the pandemic, Moderna’s CEO Stephane Bancel, also a major shareholder, was worth over $12bn, and while Moderna’s stock has been volatile, he is still worth $5bn today.

 In Spring 2021, the People’s Vaccine Alliance calculated that the COVID-19 vaccines had actually created nine new billionaires, with Bancel topping the nine, and two of Moderna’s founders and Moderna’s chair also appearing on the list.

 The pharmaceutical sector is built on perverse incentives which encourage secrecy and competition in place of collaboration and which, worst of all, created a terrible inequality in vaccine access which has actually damaged our ability to end this pandemic.

Moderna sold most of its vaccines to the rich world. Back in November 2020, before a single vaccine had been authorised, Moderna had already sold 78 percent of the doses it expected to produce by the end of 2021 to rich countries, home to just 12 percent of the global population. Nearly a year later, in September 2021, the situation had become even worse, with 85 percent of Moderna’s total supply delivered to the richest countries, and almost no doses at all going to low-income countries. While the company has sold a tiny three percent to international distribution mechanism Covax, it still hadn’t actually delivered any as of last autumn.

Even if you were lucky enough to get an adequate supply of Moderna’s vaccine, your government was probably paying twice for them. Moderna’s vaccine was backed to the hilt by public money, with US group Public Citizen saying it should be referred to as the “National Institutes of Health (NIH) vaccine” after the United States public research institution that made its development possible. Nearly $1bn of US taxpayer money was poured into research for this vaccine, while the US government put another $1.5bn on the table as an advance purchase agreement through Operation Warp Speed. They also received support from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a body set up to correct the failure of the market to deliver the vaccines the world needs. The United Kingdom is a major contributor to CEPI.

 Moderna has refused to share its recipe, patents or knowhow with the World Health Organization. South Africa is currently host to an exciting new body – a so-called mRNA hub which is attempting to recreate mRNA vaccines with the express purpose of sharing this technology freely with the world. Moderna was asked to collaborate, but despite their massive profits, and the public backing that made these profits possible, they refused. Scientists will crack this technology, but it will take them much longer and many more people will die as result.

 Moderna claims it has already agreed not to enforce its patents during the pandemic, and has recently confirmed this will continue in lower-income countries long term. But it doesn’t include all countries, and in particular, South Africa is not covered. Even more worryingly, Moderna has applied for a broad set of patents in South Africa, even while it dropped such applications in richer countries.

 The head of the mRNA hub in South Africa has been clear that these patents “will impact on our freedom to operate”.

The reason for Moderna’s behaviour is, ultimately, that the company needs to maintain control of the knowledge behind the vaccine, whether it invented that technology or not, because in today’s pharmaceutical industry a corporation’s main assets are not its factories or its staff, but its “intellectual property”. In essence, they have turned knowledge into a commodity which can be traded on markets. But developing that knowledge in the first place is considered too risky for these corporate giants and so they either take public money to remove any risk, like Moderna, or they simply buy the knowledge from someone else, like Pfizer.

They aren’t the firms that do the risky but vital research we need to produce the medicines of tomorrow. Some are more or less government contractors, but paid in monopolies rather than cash, preventing the public from properly enjoying the fruits of their tax money. Others are more like hedge funds, buying up and sitting on intellectual property until they’ve squeezed as much value as they can from it, regardless of the cost in human lives and suffering.

Moderna’s profits show why Big Pharma can’t meet our health needs | Health | Al Jazeera

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of a “hurricane of hunger and a meltdown of the global food system” in the wake of the crisis in Ukraine.

Guterres said:

“Food, fuel and fertilizer prices are skyrocketing. Supply chains are being disrupted. And the costs and delays of transportation of imported goods – when available – are at record levels.”

He added that this is hitting the poorest the hardest and planting the seeds for political instability and unrest around the globe.

Poorer countries had already been struggling to recover from the lockdowns and the closing down of much of the global economy. There is now rising inflation and interest rates and increased debt burdens.

It all indicates that regional and local community-owned food systems based on shorter food supply chains that can cope with future shocks are required. How we cultivate food also needs to change. The agri-food and global trade system is heavily reliant on synthetic fertilizers and fossil fuels. However, agroecological and regionally resilient approaches would result in less dependency on such commodities.

This involves a policy paradigm shift that prioritises the local over the global: small farms, local markets, renewable on-farm resources, diverse agroecological cropping and food sovereignty. An approach based on local and regional food self-sufficiency rather than dependency on costly far away imported supplies and off-farm (proprietary) inputs.

During times of war, sanctions or environmental disaster, systems of production and consumption often undergo radical transformation. If the past two years have told us anything, it is that transforming food systems is required now more than ever.

Taken from here

The war in Ukraine is a bonanza for arms manufacturers, which are lined up to profit as the United States and its allies increase military spending.

Less than three full months into 2022, Lockheed Martin’s stock has surged by more than 25%, while the share prices of Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman have also risen by roughly 12%, 14%, and 16%, respectively.

 Historian Jonathan Ng, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tulsa, explained how “the spiraling conflict over Ukraine dramatizes the power of militarism and the influence of defense contractors. A ruthless drive for markets—intertwined with imperialism—has propelled NATO expansion, while inflaming wars from Eastern Europe to Yemen.” 

William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told The Hill that “there’s a lot of possibilities for ways that the contractors will benefit, and in the short term we could be talking about tens of billions of dollars, which is no small thing, even for these big companies.”

The U.S. Congress approved a record-setting Pentagon budget, and their counterparts in several European countries also vowed to significantly boost military spending to counteract Moscow.

The government funding bill that U.S. President Joe Biden signed provides $6.5 billion in military aid to Eastern European nations, including $3.5 billion worth of additional weapons for Ukraine. As The Hill reported, the extra support for Ukraine “comes on top of more than $1 billion the U.S. has already spent in the past year to arm Ukrainian soldiers with modern weapons, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, manufactured by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies, and Raytheon’s anti-aircraft Stinger missiles.”

The U.S. is not the only country where military contractors are anticipating a bump in sales. Over the past few weeks, European countries including Germany, Italy, Poland, and Sweden have announced that they will boost military spending.

 Germany said that it would purchase up to 35 American Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets, a major reversal from its previous plan to revamp its aging fleet with a combination of older, less expensive American- and European-made jets. That comes after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced late last month that the nation would invest $111 billion in a new military investment fund and increase defense spending above 2% of its gross domestic product.

U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee, said next year’s Pentagon budget is “going to have to be bigger than we thought,” he added—suggesting that far from being temporary, the recent spike in military spending may be a harbinger of what’s to come in the years ahead.

War in Ukraine a Windfall for Weapons Industry (commondreams.org)

Oil and gas companies are facing a potential bonanza from the Ukraine war, though few in the industry want to admit it.

 “There is going to be a very high price for oil for a very long time, and even the prospect of physical shortages.”  said Robert Buckley, head of relationship development at Cornwall Insight, an energy analysis company.

Oil prices have leapt dramatically, to more than $130 a barrel, sending petrol prices in the UK to more than 155p a litre, while gas prices have also surged.

Luke Sussams, of Jefferies investment bank, said: “The high-price environment is likely to last a long time…”

Big oil and gas companies are now awash with cash.

Green campaigners warned that oil and gas companies were using the Ukraine emergency to further their own interests, by encouraging governments to prioritise oil and gas production and make decisions now on investments that would have little impact on the current crisis but would vastly increase fossil fuel use for years to come.

Marc van Baal, of Follow This, a group of 8,000 green shareholders in oil and gas companies, said: “The leaders of oil and gas companies really have shown in the last years that they want to hold on to their old business model. This is what they understand – turning hydrocarbons into petro-dollars. So I am afraid this is what they are telling governments they should do.”

Tessa Khan, director of Uplift, which campaigns to end North Sea fossil fuels, said: “It’s shameful that oil and gas companies, some of whom have profited from their Russian partnerships for years, now seek to use this humanitarian crisis to further their interests. The fact that they are still being listened to by governments, the UK’s included, is beyond belief.”

Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power, a campaigning group in the US, said: “More drilling in more places isn’t a short-term fix, it’s a long-term problem that only makes oil and gas CEOs richer and locks us into more dependence on dirty, unreliable, expensive and volatile fossil fuels.”

Oil and gas companies are looking at a bonanza from the Ukraine war | Environment | The Guardian