The Plight of the Poor

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India  has a population of 1.3 billion and been put into lockdown to halt the spread of the coronavirus outbreak. “There will be a total ban on venturing out of your homes,” Modi said. 



  People have been told to stay indoors, but for many daily-wage earners this is not an option.

Ramesh Kumar, explains, “I earn 600 rupees ($8; £6.50) every day and I have five people to feed. We will run out of food in a few days. I know the risk of coronavirus, but I can’t see my children hungry,” he said.



Millions of other daily-wage earners are in a similar situation. Millions of other Indians also earn money as street traders – people who own small businesses and employ people like themselves.





Mohammed Sabir, who runs a tiny stall selling yogurt-based drinks in Delhi, says he had hired two people recently, anticipating more business during the summers.

“Now I can’t pay them. I don’t have any money. My family earns some money from farming in my village. But their crops were damaged this year due to hailstorms, so they were looking at me for support. I feel so helpless. I fear that hunger may kill many like us before coronavirus,” he said.
All monuments are also shut in the country and that has had an impact on many who make money from tourism. Tejpal Kashyap, who works as a photographer at the iconic India Gate in Delhi, said he had never seen such a sharp drop in business.
“Last two weeks were bad – even when there was no lockdown. There were hardly any tourists. Now I can’t even go back to my village and I can’t even work. I am stuck here in Delhi and constantly worried about my family in my village in Uttar Pradesh,” he said.
Drivers of ride-hailing services like Uber and Ola are also suffering.
Joginder Chaudhary, who drives a taxi for the employees of an airline in Delhi, says the government needs to give “some relief to people like me”.
“I understand the importance of the lockdown. Coronavirus is dangerous and we need to protect ourselves. But I can’t help but think how I will support my family if the lockdown continues for weeks,” he said.



Several state governments, from Uttar Pradesh in the north to Kerala in the south have promised direct cash transfers into the accounts of workers like  Kumar. Modi’s government has also promised to help daily-wage earners affected by the lockdown. But there are logistical challenges.

90% of India’s workforce is employed in the informal sector, according to the International Labour Organization, working in roles like security guards, cleaners, rickshaw pullers, streets vendors, garbage collectors and domestic helps. Most do not have access to pensions, sick leave, paid leave or any kind of insurance. Many do not have bank accounts, relying on cash to meet their daily needs.
Kishan Lal, who works as rickshaw puller in the northern city of Allahabad, said he had not made any money in the past four days. “I need to earn to feed my family. I have heard that the government is going to give us money – though I have no idea when and how,” he said.



His friend Ali Hasan, who works as a cleaner in a shop, said he had run out of money to buy food.
“The shop shut down two days ago and I haven’t been paid. I don’t know when it will open. I am very scared. I have a family, how am I going to feed them?” he asked.
Lots are migrant workers, which means that they are technically residents of a different state to the one where they work, people who do not live in any state for a long period as they move around to find work. 



Akhilesh Yadav, the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, admits these challenges are huge, acknowledging that “nobody in any government has faced them before”.
“All governments need to act lightning fast because the situation is changing every day. We need to activate big community kitchens and deliver food to people who need it. We need to hand out cash or rice and wheat – irrespective of who comes from which state,” he said. “We have got to stop people from travelling to one city from another to avoid community transmission. And one way of doing is to ensure food security. People rush to their villages in times of crisis,” he added.



And some haven’t even heard about coronavirus.  A cobbler said he had been “polishing people’s shoes at the railway station in Allahabad for years, but nobody is showing up now”. He said he doesn’t even know why people have stopped travelling.

“I don’t know what is happening. Not many people are coming to the station these days. I know that some curfew is going on, but I don’t know why,” he said.



Vinod Prajapati, who sells water, summed it all up.
“I know everything about coronavirus. It’s very dangerous, the whole world is struggling. Most people who can afford and have a place to stay are indoors. But for people like us, the choice is between safety and hunger. What should we pick?” he asks.



Socialism – Living Well

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‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin’ –. Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida



We are in strange and unsettling days. COVID-19 has upset normal life and no-one knows exactly how long the outbreak or its ramifications will last. Isn’t there a message of hope for the world? Of course, there is, especially for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. What matters most of all is to stay safe. This cannot be done unless we cooperate with one another. That is the lesson everyone has to learn.



Crises such as the current COVID-19 pandemic opens up opportunities for change by making it more and more obvious the need for mutual aid and cooperation. Each day we witness signs of solidarity. For sure, emergencies may trigger selfish actions, where the right has staked out their nationalist vision, turning others into the enemy but such responses are thankfully rare. Capitalism is a great promoter of individual rights: the right to own, to sell, to keep, to have. Yet it cannot meet the needs of the people. capitalism is also a virus, and it has infected every aspect of our daily lives.



“Germany is home to one of the most modern, richest and most powerful health-care systems in the world,” reports Der Spiegel. “The coronavirus is mercilessly exposing the problems that have been burdening the German health-care system for years: the pitfalls of profit-driven hospital financing. The pressure to cut spending. The chronic shortage of nursing staff. The often poor equipping of public health departments.”



As the media headline those individuals who are hoarding toilet paper and hand sanitiser, the real hoarders are the pharmaceutical corporations who view this pandemic as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make massive profits from the desperate. Over the past few weeks, investment bankers have been candid on investor calls and during health care conferences about the opportunity to raise drug prices.



 Steve Collis, president and chief executive of AmerisourceBergen, noted that his company has been actively involved in efforts to push back against political demands to limit the price of pharmaceutical products.

Johanna Mercier, executive vice president of Gilead, explains, “Commercial opportunity might come if this becomes a seasonal disease or stockpiling comes into play…”



Worldwide corporate cash reserves topped $12 trillion in 2017, more than the foreign exchange reserves of the world’s central governments, yet transnational corporations cannot find enough opportunities to profitably reinvest their profits.



We need to re–imagine everything. After all, we have just re-learned that we coexists communities, not as isolated individuals. We hope that this pandemic develops into a popular global movement for a total reconstruction of the system. Surely, it is easier to imagine socialism in the midst of the effects of COVID-19, than it is to continue to live under the heartless regime of capitalism. It is easy enough to fall into a state of doom and gloom about the future of the world as the COVID-19 spreads, but we witness strong social solidarity making sure that society goes on functioning. If humanity held the illusion that it was in control of its destiny, COVID-19 has now taught us differently. What we can’t control shouldn’t stop us from believing we are helpless when it comes to those things we can. This may be the eureka moment for everyone out there.



‘Nature is sending us a message’,

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 UN’s environment chief, Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said nature is sending us a message with the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing climate crisis and that humanity was placing too many pressures on the natural world with damaging consequences, and warned that failing to take care of the planet meant not taking care of ourselves.



She explained that the immediate priority was to protect people from the coronavirus and prevent its spread. “But our long-term response must tackle habitat and biodiversity loss,” she added. “Never before have so many opportunities existed for pathogens to pass from wild and domestic animals to people,” she told the Guardian, explaining that 75% of all emerging infectious diseases come from wildlife. “Our continued erosion of wild spaces has brought us uncomfortably close to animals and plants that harbour diseases that can jump to humans.”
She also noted other environmental impacts, such as the Australian bushfires, broken heat records and the worst locust invasion in Kenya for 70 years. “At the end of the day, [with] all of these events, nature is sending us a message,” Anderson said. “There are too many pressures at the same time on our natural systems and something has to give,” she added. “We are intimately interconnected with nature, whether we like it or not. If we don’t take care of nature, we can’t take care of ourselves. And as we hurtle towards a population of 10 billion people on this planet, we need to go into this future armed with nature as our strongest ally.”



“The emergence and spread of Covid-19 was not only predictable, it was predicted [in the sense that] there would be another viral emergence from wildlife that would be a public health threat,” said Prof Andrew Cunningham, of the Zoological Society of London. A 2007 study of the 2002-03 Sars outbreak concluded: “The presence of a large reservoir of Sars-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic mammals in southern China, is a timebomb.” Cunningham said other diseases from wildlife had much higher fatality rates in people, such as 50% for Ebola and 60%-75% for Nipah virus, transmitted from bats in south Asia. “Although, you might not think it at the moment, we’ve probably got a bit lucky with [Covid-19],” he said. “So I think we should be taking this as a clear warning shot. It’s a throw of the dice.”

“It’s almost always a human behaviour that causes it and there will be more in the future unless we change,” said Cunningham. Markets butchering live wild animals from far and wide are the most obvious example, he said. A market in China is believed to have been the source of Covid-19. “The animals have been transported over large distances and are crammed together into cages. They are stressed and immunosuppressed and excreting whatever pathogens they have in them,” he said. “With people in large numbers in the market and in intimate contact with the body fluids of these animals, you have an ideal mixing bowl for [disease] emergence. If you wanted a scenario to maximise the chances of [transmission], I couldn’t think of a much better way of doing it.”



Aaron Bernstein, at the Harvard School of Public Health in the US, said the destruction of natural places drives wildlife to live close to people and that climate change was also forcing animals to move: “That creates an opportunity for pathogens to get into new hosts.  We’ve had Sars, Mers, Covid-19, HIV. We need to see what nature is trying to tell us here. We need to recognise that we’re playing with fire,” he said. “The separation of health and environmental policy is a ​dangerous delusion. Our health entirely depends on the climate and the other organisms we share the planet with.”https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/coronavirus-nature-is-sending-us-a-message-says-un-environment-chief

An Outbreak of Altruism and it is Spreading

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250,000 people have signed up in a single day to volunteer with the NHS after a recruitment drive to help the vulnerable amid the coronavirus crisis. The helpers are needed for delivering food and medicines, driving patients to appointments and phoning the isolated. The help is being targeted at the 1.5 million people with underlying health conditions who have been asked to shield themselves from the virus by staying at home for 12 weeks.



About 11,000 former medics have also agreed to return to the health service and more than 24,000 final year student nurses and medics will join them.



Stephen Powis, NHS England medical director, said there had been “outbreaks of altruism” and he was “bowled over” by the medics returning to the front line and the response from volunteers.

The government scheme to recruit 250,000 helpers went live on Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, they had exceeded their target.



Justice Secretary Robert Buckland said the virus posed an “acute” risk in prisons, many of which were overcrowded and faced staff shortages as officers self-isolated. So  the government is considering the early release of some prisoners to relieve pressure caused by the outbreak.



https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52029877

A considered socialist slant on our current predicament

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Originally posted on Facebook



 If you were to compile a list of essential workers that your community is currently reliant on you’d very likely not include billionaires, CEOs, businessmen, bankers, economists or the royals or that class of people who live off rent, interest and profit. Your list would include workers we pass every day on the streets, whether medical workers, shop staff, bin men, delivery drivers, those working in power plants or working in front line maintenance of the technology society needs etc. — the class that sells its physical and mental abilities for a wage or salary in order to live — the working class.
This class, the working class, runs the world and it is important to grasp this fact. It is we who build the cities and railroads, the bridges and roads, the docks and airports. It is we who staff the hospitals and schools, who empty the bins and go down the sewers. It is we who fish the oceans and tend the forests and till the land and plantations. It is we, the working class, who produce everything society needs from a pin to an oil-rig, who provide all of its services. If we can do all of this off our own bats, then surely we can continue to do so without a profit-greedy minority watching over us and, more, in our own interests.
The ruling class of capitalists and their executive, the governments of the world, have no monopoly on our skills and abilities. These belong to us. Moreover, it is we who are responsible for the inventions that have benefited humanity and the improvements in productive techniques. Most inventions and improvements are the result of those who do the actual work thinking up easier and faster ways of completing a task, the result of ideas being passed down from generation to generation, each one improving the techniques of the previous. If those who work have given the world so much, in the past say 2000 years, then how much more are we capable of providing in a world devoid of the artificial constraints of profit? Needless to say, any vaccine for the Coronavirus will be the result of the hard work of salary earning scientists, not some fat arsed apologist for the profit system in the White House or Downing St or the class they’re really there to pander to.
It is easy to cite the advantages of capitalism over previous economic systems. Many people believe that capitalism, though not perfect, is the only system possible. One thing is certain, though – if we follow the capitalist trajectory, we’re in for some pretty troublesome times. Capitalism has undoubtedly raised the productive potential of humanity. It is now quite possible to provide a comfortable standard of living for every human on the planet. But, to reiterate, capitalism now stands as a barrier to the full and improved use of the world’s productive and distributive forces. In a world of potential abundance, the unceasing quest for profit imposes on our global society widespread artificial scarcity. Hundreds of millions of humans are consigned to a life of abject poverty, whilst the majority live lives filled with uncertainty.
Our ability to imagine has brought us so very far, from the days when our ancestors chipped away at flint to produce the first tools, to the landing of someone on the moon, the setting up of the world wide web, and the mapping out of the human genome. Is it really such a huge leap of the imagination to now envisage a social system that can take over from the present capitalist order of things? Is it just too daring to imagine humans consigning poverty, disease, hunger and war to some pre-historic age?
Do we really need leaders deciding our lives for us? Do we really need governments administering our lives when what is really needed is the administration of the things we need to live in peace and security? Must every decision made by our elites be first of all weighed on the scales of profit, tilted always in their favour? A growing number think not and have mobilised to confront what they perceive to be the major problems of contemporary capitalism.
In recent years there has been a world-wide backlash against neoliberal globalisation, corporate power and the iniquities of modern-day capitalism. Everywhere where the world’s ruling elite have assembled to decide their next step they have been met with protests and demonstrations that have attracted hundreds of thousands. Demonstrations at Seattle, Gothenburg, Prague, Genoa and Gleneagles, for instance, have fuelled the ongoing debate on the nature of modern day capitalism. Thousands of articles have been written on the subject and hundreds of books have been published that explore the alternatives offered by the anti-globalisation movement.
What is now clear is that the anti-globalisation movement, however well-meaning, does not seek to replace capitalism with any real alternative social system. At best it attracts a myriad of groups, all pursuing their own agenda. Some call for greater corporate responsibility. Some demand the reform of international institutions. Others call for the expansion of democracy and fairer trading conditions. All, however, fail to address the root cause of the problems of capitalism.
One thing is certain: capitalism cannot be reformed in the interests of the world’s suffering billions, because reform does not address the basic contradiction between profit and need. The world’s leaders cannot be depended upon because they can only ever act as the executive of corporate capitalism. The expansion of democracy, while welcome, serves little function if all candidates at election time can only offer variations on the same basic set of policies that keep capitalism in the ascendancy.
Capitalism must be abolished if we as a species are to thrive, if the planet is to survive. No amount of reform, however great, will work. Change must be global and irreversible. It must involve all of us. We need to erase borders and frontiers; to abolish states and governments and false concepts of nationalism. We need to abolish our money systems, and with it buying, selling and exchange. And in place of this we need to establish a different global social system — a society in which there is common ownership and true democratic control of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources. A society where the everyday things we need to live in comfort are produced and distributed freely and for no other reason than that they are needed – Socialism.
It is now no utopian fantasy to suggest we can live in a world without waste or want or war, in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation. That much is assured. We certainly have the science, the technology and the know-how. All that is missing is the will — the global desire for change that can make that next great historical advance possible; a belief in ourselves as masters of our own destiny; a belief that it is possible to free production from the artificial constraints of profit and to fashion a world in our own interests. And how soon this happens depends upon us all — each and every one of us.


John Bissett



Wishful Thinking

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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on the countries of Earth to declare an immediate ceasefire and join together to battle the coronavirus pandemic that is ravaging people and communities across the planet.




“The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war,” said Guterres. “That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world.  It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.”


Guterres said he hoped action taken to stop conflict could help refugees, women, children, and other marginalized communities in warzones get the help they need to survive—including better delivery of humanitarian and medical aid.


“End the sickness of war and fight the disease that is ravaging our world,” said Guterres.  “It starts by stopping the fighting everywhere. Now. That is what our human family needs, now more than ever.”


The Plague of Locusts

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In these days of COVID-19 crisis it is easy to forget that many other threats are happening to the welfare and well-being of people.



The FAO has warned that the food security of 25 million people could be endangered by the locusts, which according to the agency’s locust monitoring service have been spotted in at least 10 countries over recent months. One swarm recently reported in Kenya covered an area the size of Luxembourg. The current crisis is considered the worst in decades, and there are fears it could last longer than previous locust outbreaks.



Climate change created unprecedented conditions for the locusts to breed in the usually barren desert of the Arabian gulf, according to experts, and the insects were then able to spread through Yemen, where civil war has devastated the ability to control locust populations.

It was Cyclone Mekunu, which struck in 2018, that allowed several generations of desert locusts the moist sand and vegetation to thrive in the desert between Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Oman known as the Empty Quarter, breeding and forming into crop-devouring swarms, said Keith Cressman, locust forecasting expert for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 



 “That’s fine, that’s quite good in itself, but just about when those conditions are drying out and the breeding is coming to an end, a second cyclone came to the area,” he said. 



“That allowed the conditions to continue to be favourable and another generation of breeding, so instead of increasing 400-fold, they increased 8,000-fold. Usually a cyclone brings favourable conditions for about six months and then the habitat dries out, and so it’s not favourable for reproduction and they die and migrate.”

The amount of cyclones in the area seem to be increasing, said Cressman, making it likely that locust swarms will also become more common.



https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/20/locust-crisis-poses-a-danger-to-millions-forecasters-warn

The Gig Economy Workers Forgotten

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According to the Office for National Statistics, there are 5 million self-employed people in the UK, who make up 15% of the labour market. They feel they have been forgotten, after hearing about the latest financial measures announced by the UK government.

The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which represents gig economy workers, has announced that it is suing the government over its failure to protect the wages and jobs of millions of workers during the pandemic, as well as its failure to ensure the health and safety of those still employed through proper sick pay.
IWGB General Secretary Dr Jason Moyer-Lee said: “No one wants to be litigating right now. We all have extremely pressing things to be getting on with, but we also can’t stand by and watch our members being driven into financial destitution because the government has simply forgotten about them. The low paid precarious workers must have the means to follow public health advice and continue to pay their bills and put food on the table. Right now, they don’t.”



https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52005581

The Digital Divide in Education

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More than half of the country’s students have been sent home to prevent the spread of disease and instructed to continue their education via video chats and message boards.



But nationwide, more than 4m households with school-age children don’t have home internet. Study after study shows that people don’t have internet because they can’t afford it, and because systemic racial discrimination blocks them from subscribing.



 Poor families and people of color are particularly affected – only 56% of households making less than $20,000 have home broadband, and black and Hispanic households lag behind their white counterparts even when we control for income differences.



Even among students who theoretically have access, not all access is equal. According to census research, 8% of households who have internet rely exclusively on mobile broadband. Once again, low-income people and communities of color are disproportionately more likely to be mobile-only broadband adopters.



This also has particular impacts on students – only about half of school-age children who live in mobile-only households personally use the internet at home, perhaps because of the difficulty of sharing mobile devices. Mobile services are often limited by data caps, and mobile devices can make certain tasks incredibly challenging. Imagine studying for your calculus exam or writing a world-history paper on a cellphone. This is a reality for a lot of students who don’t have home broadband.



When schools move education online, poor students and kids of color fall behind. This compounds generations of systemic racial and economic inequities.



 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/23/us-students-are-being-asked-to-work-remotely-but-22-of-homes-dont-have-internet

COVID-19 and the Sweat-Shops

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Malaysia’s medical glove factories, which make most of the world’s critical hand protection, are operating at half capacity just when they’re most needed.

Health care workers snap gloves on as the first line of protection against catching COVID-19 from patients, and they’re crucial to protecting patients as well. But medical-grade glove supplies are running low globally, even as more feverish, sweating and coughing patients arrive in hospitals by the day.
Malaysia is by far the world’s largest medical glove supplier, producing as many as three out of four gloves on market.

The Malaysian government ordered factories to halt all manufacturing starting March 18. Then, one by one, those that make products deemed essential, including medical gloves, have been required to seek exemptions to reopen, but only with half of their workforce to reduce the risk of transmitting the new virus, according to industry reports and insider sources. The government says companies must meet domestic demand before exporting anything. 



Other countries making gloves including Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey and especially China are also seeing their manufacturing disrupted due to the virus.



Other countries making gloves including Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey and especially China are also seeing their manufacturing disrupted due to the virus. U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Tuesday it was lifting a block on imports from one leading Malaysian medical glove manufacturer, WRP Asia Pacific, where workers had allegedly been forced to pay recruitment fees as high as $5,000 in their home countries, including Bangladesh and Nepal. 



  The industry has a history of mistreating migrant workers who toil over hand-sized molds as they’re dipped in melted latex or rubber, hot and exhausting work. 



“Most of the workers who are producing the gloves that are essential in the global COVID-19 endemic are still at high risk of forced labor, often in debt bondage,” said Andy Hall, a migrant workers rights specialist. “These workers, some of the invisible heroes of modern times in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, deserve much more respect for the essential work they do,” said Hall. 

Most of the workers in the Malaysian factories are migrants, and live in crowded hostels at the factories where they work. Like everyone in Malaysia, they’re now locked down because of the virus.

Promoted by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN.

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