While Bill der Berg SOYMB’s not on the spot biased reporter is waiting on events unfolding today he came across the below.

It is reported that, ‘Only three countries in the G20 saw real wages grow last year, a new report by a UN agency has revealed.

China, Russia and Mexico were the only leading economies that enjoyed positive real wage growth in 2023, the research found. Real wages is a term used to describe the amount of money an individual retains after accounting for the effect of inflation, or expressed in terms of purchasing power as opposed to the actual amount of income.

The paper, called ‘World Employment and Social Outlook. Trends 2024’, was prepared by the United Nations’ International Labour Organization. According to the document, China and Russia saw the strongest gains, as labor productivity growth in those two countries was among the highest in the G20 group.

However, other leading economies saw real wages fall, with the most pronounced declines recorded in Brazil, Italy, and Indonesia, the document says.

“The vast majority of G20 countries with available wage data saw real wages fall in 2023, meaning that wage increases were unable to keep pace with inflation,” reads the report.

April Fool story?

‘The Monnaie de Paris, France’s national mint, has had to remelt 27 million coins after failing to request approval of their design from the European Commission. The executive body rejected the new money after it had already been minted, French daily La Lettre reported.

The ten-, 20-, and 50-cent coins were produced with a new design in November. However, the bloc’s legislative arm decided that the way the stars of the EU flag had been depicted on them was not compliant with the European Commission’s strict and precise requirements.

According to the mint, the 27 million rejected coins account for less than 2% of the 1.4 billion coins it produced in 2023. The design was reportedly denied just six days before the presentation that had been scheduled for December 7, when French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire visited the Paris Mint headquarters. The reversal has reportedly saddled the facility with costs of up to $1.6 million to melt and remint the coins.

Under EU regulations, member states can change the design of the national face of euro coins every 15 years. However, the green light from the EC is required, as well as from other eurozone governments that have to be informed and have seven days to raise objections.

After proposing a draft design of new coins in September 2023, Monnaie de Paris asked for approval “in accordance with existing procedures,” the mint said in a statement.

“Given the incompressible production deadlines, the Paris Mint had initiated the production of the new coins to ensure the distribution of the new standard coins at the start of 2024, in accordance with what was initially announced,” the Monnaie said.

Meanwhile, the head of the mint, Marc Schwartz, said that “the French state” was responsible for the mishap.

The design of the new coins proposed by the French government and validated by the Commission is still a secret and will be unveiled before the spring, the French Economy Ministry said, commenting on the issue.’

Note to the French: Abolir le capitalisme! Abolir l’argent!

The ‘joke’ from the this week’s stand up comedy routine doesn’t come from Davos but from the UK and Ukraine. Given the implications though perhaps it’s not that funny.

It is reported that, ‘The security agreement recently concluded between Kiev and London will guarantee Ukraine’s military support to the UK, if Russia were to attack the country, [Ukrainian} Prime Minister Denis Shmygal has said.

Shmygal was referring to the security cooperation agreement that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak signed with Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky on Friday. The pact stipulates support for Ukraine’s future integration into NATO and guarantees “prevention and active deterrence of, and counter-measures against, any military escalation and/or a new aggression by the Russian Federation.”

Shmygal explained that the agreement is “bilateral” and guarantees mutual support, thus Ukraine will have to “react in one way or another to support the UK in case Russia wants to attack our friend, partner, and ally.”

“Not only Great Britain has to react within 24 hours if there is aggression against Ukraine, Ukraine will also defend its ally and partner within 24 hours,” Shmygal said as cited by Ukrainskaya Pravda.’

If Russians missiles should ever start raining down on the UK it will be of great comfort to know that Ukraine has got our back. Sarc.

Anyone with a bridge to sell in the Sahara desert should contact Rishi Sunak, 10 Downing Street, London, but be fast, because he seems a bit slow on the uptake. Shades of Poland 31 March 1939?

‘Shmygal also called the signing of the accord a “historic moment” and expressed hopes that other countries will follow suit.

Earlier this week, Rishi Sunak paid a visit to Kiev to reaffirm Britain’s support for Kiev in the wake of US military aid drying up.

The British prime minister pledged £2.5 billion ($3.2 billion) in military assistance to Ukraine over the next two years, London’s largest aid package since the beginning of the military conflict in February 2022.

The bilateral accord detailed by Sunak’s government – the UK-Ukraine Agreement on Security Cooperation – includes a range of measures on UK security guarantees for Ukraine. The agreement also formalizes Britain’s “swift and sustained” defensive assistance for Ukraine “in the event that it is ever attacked by Russia again.”’ [Our emphasis.]

‘The aid package confirmed by London is about £200 million ($254 million) larger than those provided in the previous two years, and will supply Ukraine with long-range missiles, air defence, and artillery ammunition. About £200 million of the military aid will be spent on drones – the largest such contribution of state-of-the-art military drone hardware since the onset of hostilities nearly two years ago.’

The capitalist class is just about to hold its holds its annual trades union conference in the Alpine resort of Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. Our not on the spot correspondent, Bill der Berg, sustained by crisps and a four pack of best bitter, best make that two four packs, hopes to bring SOYMB readers a completely biased report of the machinations of the minority ruling class gathered there.

 Despite capitalists competing amongst themselves to increase exploitation, increase profits and increase the political power they hold, collectively they are far more aware of where their class interest lies than is the majority of the global working class. Note for American readers, crisps are chips. Although if more sustenance becomes necessary then a bag of chips might be needed. NB chips are fries.

Part of the World Economic Forum’s mission statement reads:

‘The Forum strives in all its efforts to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest while upholding the highest standards of governance. Moral and intellectual integrity is at the heart of everything it does. ‘

https://www.weforum.org/

Capitalism in the global public interest? If the week ahead throws up more of this hugely funny stand up comedy routine we could all die laughing. That’s if the wars generated by, and on behalf of Capitalism, don’t kill us all first.

If one types too quickly and inserts a R into the internet search engine one gets this result:

‘Davros, often referred to by his creations as the Creator and also known as the Dark Lord of Skaro. was originally the head of the Kaled Scientific Elite on the planet Skaro, but he became better known as the creator of the Daleks. ‘

https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Davros

Perhaps the WEF will be referred to hereinafter as ‘the Dark Lords.’

From the March 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘At the annual World Economic Forum, global elites gather to dream about solving the problems of capitalism through cooperation.

Every capitalist knows this about his worker, that he does not relate to him as producer to consumer, and [he therefore] wishes to restrict his consumption, i.e. his ability to exchange, his wage, as much as possible. Of course he would like the workers of other capitalists to be the greatest consumers possible of his own commodity. But this is just how the illusion arises – true for the individual capitalist as distinct from all the others–that apart from his workers the whole remaining working class confronts him as consumer and participant in exchange, as money-spender, and not as worker. (Grundrisse; my emphasis)

Apologies for plunging straight into a quote from Marx to begin this article, but it seems related to the illusion that animates the World Economic Forum, an annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland of capitalist movers and shakers, movie-star wankers, professional do-gooders, and Bono.

One striking thing about this elite gathering is how its participants believe that capitalists (or at least other capitalists) might look beyond their own profit interests to solve some of the problems that their beloved profit system generates.

Professor Schwab has a dream

The first WEF was held in January 1971, under the impetus of Klaus Schwab, a German economist who remains the event’s executive chairman. At first the meeting only brought together European capitalists, and it was called the European Management Forum (renamed the World Economic Forum in 1987).

The official WEF website says that Professor Schwab’s ‘‘inspiration’’ for creating the Forum was the ‘stakeholder principle,’’ which states that ‘‘the management of an enterprise is not only accountable to its shareholders but must also serve the interests of all stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers and, more broadly, government, civil society and any others who may be affected or concerned by its operations.’’

You might say, then, that the Forum’s underlying concept is the idea – or the plea, really – that capitalists should broaden their vision beyond the narrow realm of their own profit chasing.

Today the WEF describes its mission as ‘‘improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.’’

‘‘We live in a fast-moving, highly interconnected world, and our existing systems, structures and formal institutions no longer suffice,’’ Schwab notes. ‘‘Pressing global problems can arise quickly and without warning. . . . Today, to address these issues, the world needs a level of global cooperation that is increasingly difficult to attain, precisely due to the growing complexities and interdependencies in the world.’’

The WEF is meant to serve as a mechanism for this global cooperation. And it would be hard to argue against the need for cooperation, or to disagree with the description of today’s world as increasingly interdependent and interconnected.

But it is also pretty clear that there are some serious limits to the degree of cooperation possible between business leaders (and their political lackeys), not only in different countries but within their own.

And the reason is again related, in some ways, to that quote from Marx. As he points out, although it might seem logical for capitalists to cooperatively raise the living standards of workers (as potential consumers), each capitalist firm must also extract from its own workers as much surplus value as it can to remain competitive – for the unprofitable capitalist will not remain a capitalist for long.

Genuine cooperation to solve fundamental problems is out of the question in a society where there are not only irreconcilable class differences, but conflicts between the capitalists themselves, who are competing against each other in domestic and global markets.

Lots of problems, few solutions

Yet the WEF remains upbeat about the potential for alleviating global problems through cooperation spearheaded by business leaders. Its website claims that the ‘‘Forum’s experience since its foundation in 1971 shows there are few issues that cannot be adequately progressed by convening the most relevant actors from all sectors – business, government and civil society – in a high-level, informal environment of trust.’’

But the experience of seeing the WEF, every year, address the same sorts of global problems – unemployment, environmental devastation, gender inequality, poverty, corruption, armed conflict, and so on – suggests that some issues have hardly been ‘progressed’ at all.

The gap between the awareness of the problems, and the inability to do much about them, is striking. In its numerous reports, the WEF list up issues that attest to the dismal reality of capitalism, but in most cases offers only the vaguest proposals or wishful thinking in response.

For instance, its Global Agenda Council on Fragile States and Conflict Prevention notes that, ‘‘Some 1.5 billion people in an estimated 40 countries live in an environment marked by persistent conflict and fragility . . . confronted by a myriad of simultaneous and often overwhelming challenges, including armed conflict or political violence, serious and persistent human rights violations, and threats from organized crime and terrorist networks.’’

And then, in the very next sentence, we are told that, ‘‘Viewed through a different lens, however, today’s fragile states are potentially tomorrow’s emerging markets. More than three-quarters of states classified as ‘fragile’ possess extensive mineral and energy resources and post impressive growth rates.’’

Similar examples can be found in the WEF report, ‘Outlook on the Global Agenda 2014,’ ‘which lists the ten ‘‘most pressing issues’’ of the coming year; these include widening income disparities, persistent unemployment, diminishing confidence in economic policies, and a lack of values in leadership.

After the report notes, for instance, how ‘‘growing income inequality is an issue of central importance’’ and lists various concrete manifestations of this inequality, it clings to the haziest of solutions:

In order to counteract income inequality, it’s essential to tackle poverty in an integrated way that has a long-term impact. We need to give people the capacity to be resilient, to take on challenges and to learn the skills they need to work toward more prosperous futures.

Similarly, the report recognizes that the world faces ‘‘persistent structural unemployment’’ (and is careful to warn that it will escalate social unrest if not addressed), but can only offer the vague hope that governments will ‘’create regulatory structures that encourage employment and economic stability.’’

The same contrast between a fairly clear recognition of the problems and a lack of solutions is on display in the WEF’s Global Risks Report, listing the ‘‘ten global risks of highest concern.’’

The top risk for 2014 is ‘‘financial crises in key economies,’’ followed by such problems as ‘‘structurally high unemployment/underemployment,’’ ‘‘severe income disparity,’’ and ‘‘global governance failure,’’ as well as problems related to the natural environment. The report reads like an indictment of capitalism, even though it tries to claim that the problems can be solved or alleviated, provided there is adequate global leadership.

Conspiracy or dunces?

The conspiracy theorist might like to imagine gatherings such as the Forum at Davos as rather sinister events, where corporate elites hatch their evil plans. But that is almost a comforting notion; as if the capitalist system could yield to plans or control, rather than simply being the composite of all the narrow-minded economic actors chasing after their own profits by whatever means necessary.

In fact, the business savvy of global corporate elites does not lend them the power to shape, or even foresee, the future direction of capitalism. They are along for the ride like the rest of us, although travelling first-class.

‘‘Cautiously optimistic’’ is the verdict most likely to be offered by one of these elites when asked to comment on where the global economy is headed in 2014 and beyond. In other words, ‘‘Fuck if I know.’’

But that is not to suggest that the problem comes down to a lack of intelligence on the part of those elites, as Leftists are prone to argue. None of us can predict, exactly, what the coming years will bring for the capitalist economy, just as Marx, in his day, was not able to predict the exact moment when a general crisis might break out. Certainly we can be ‘‘confidently pessimistic,’’ as Marx was, about what our life will generally be like under capitalism, knowing its fundamental contradictions, but that does not make us fortune tellers.

What we can feel safe to predict, though, is that the comforting talk at Davos about working together to improve the world for all ‘‘stakeholders’ ‘won’t do much if anything to change the actual behaviour of capitalists and capitalism.’

Michael Schauerte

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2019/04/davos-elites-think-globally-act.html

 Far-right mob hunts woman for defacing Stalin icon in Georgian church.   Georgia-born Stalin, who infamously suppressed religion in the Soviet Union, was featured on an icon in the country’s main cathedral.

The state uses religion or tries to replace it. Napoleon explained :

“How can one have order in the state without religion? Society cannot exist without inequality of fortunes and inequalities of fortunes cannot exist without religion. How can a man dying from hunger sit next to a man who is belching from overeating, unless there is an authority that says ‘God wills it so.’” And added: “It is necessary that there be rich and poor in this world. We need religion to say that in eternity it will be different. I see in religion not the mystery of the incarnation but the mystery of the social order. It relegates to the heavens the idea of inequality so that the rich are not massacred here on earth.”

In the 1930s Stalin outlawed abortion and homosexuality and  pursued state capitalist industrialisation, at the cost of millions of lives, and in 1936 announced that Russia was ‘socialist’.   That very year, Pravda (28 August) proclaimed him divine:

‘O Great Stalin, O Leader of the Peoples,

Thou who didst give birth to man,

Thou who didst make fertile the earth,

Thou who dost rejuvenate the Centuries,

Thou who givest blossom to the spring… ‘

Little wonder Bakunin: said “A jealous lover of human liberty, and deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.”

 Perhaps Capitalist States should take Polonius’s advice to heart: ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend.’

Capitalist entities don’t have friends to lose. It’s a dog eat dog social system’

French national debt over three trillion dollars and rising.

https://commodity.com/data/france/debt-clock/

It’s reported that ‘Restoring France’s financial system will require tough spending cuts, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Monday, as he warned the nation of hard times ahead.

Speaking in Paris, Le Maire said he is determined to straighten out the nation’s finances by reducing the country’s multi-trillion-euro debt and the budget deficit. The French government spent heavily to support households and businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the energy crisis which was triggered by EU sanctions on Russia.

“I remind you that we must find at least €12 billion in savings by 2025. So, let’s call a spade a spade: in terms of public finances, the hardest part is ahead of us,” said Le Maire.’

[Who is this ‘us’ of whom he speaks?]

‘The finance minister lamented “the difficult decisions” that the government has made and has yet to make. New proposals will be made in the coming weeks, he added, especially regarding revisions to public spending.’

[Ah, public spending. The negative effects of austerity affect who most?]

‘The country’s budget for 2024 has already been marked by spending cuts that mainly come from phasing out energy subsidies. The opposition criticized the document for austerity, although it provides for an increase in welfare payments and pensions.

In June, Le Maire said austerity “was not an option,” and that it would be “an economic and political mistake.”’

It is reported that meanwhile in Northern American, ‘United States national debt has exceeded $30 trillion for the first time spurred on by high borrowing during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to data from the US Treasury Department.

Japan and China remain the top foreign creditors, holding $1.3 trillion and $1.08 trillion in US Treasuries respectively, and are owed interest on all the money that has been borrowed. Nearly $8 trillion of the US’ debt is owed to foreign entities, which – aside from Japan and China – also include major creditors like the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Ireland, Brazil, Canada, France, India, and Belgium, as well as Taiwan and Hong Kong.

A further $6.5 trillion is owed by the US federal government to itself, mostly to Social Security trusts and the Military Retirement fund. Over the course of the pandemic, the Federal Reserve also doubled its balance sheet to $8.9 trillion by aggressively buying trillions of dollars in Treasury bonds and securities.

The shocking number was reached far sooner than anticipated, with US officials and economists failing to predict the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent response, which inflated government spending, and subsequently, national debt by as much as $7 trillion since the end of 2019.

The US budget deficit totalled $2.77 trillion for fiscal year 2021, falling just short of the previous year’s record-breaking numbers, but still in line with the massive Covid-era spending. For the fiscal year of 2020, the US posted an eye-watering deficit of $3.13 trillion.

David Kelly, the chief global strategist for JPMorgan Asset Management, told CNN that the debt means the US is “going to be poorer in the long term” and claimed “American taxpayers will be paying for the retirement of the people in China and Japan, who are our creditors.”

[Who is going to be poorer?]

https://www.usdebtclock.org/

Even Russian capitalists are concerned about the USA debt. Russian government agency says the deficit is biggest threat to world economy in 2024. ‘The $34 trillion owed by Washington is mathematically impossible to pay off, Roscongress has claimed in a report it published on Wednesday. The agency based its estimate on the current ratio between the size of the debt, the rate at which it is growing, and budget revenues.

“The excessive debt was accumulated at low rates but needs to be refinanced at high rates that limit economic activity and reduce cash flow. In the medium term, the servicing of US debt will cost $1 trillion a year,” reads the report, titled ‘Key Events – 2024. Geoeconomics. Forecasts. Major risks’.

The US government cannot solve the problem by restarting the printing press this year because that would lead to higher inflation, the report added.

The country saw consumer prices shoot up to the highest levels in decades in 2022, prompting the Federal Reserve to embark on a series of rate hikes to tame inflation.’

There’s an easy solution isn’t there?

From the Socialist Standard, November 2020

The National Debt: whose debt?

Marx had something to say on the origin and consequences of the ‘National Debt’:

‘The state’s creditors actually give nothing away, for the sum lent is transformed into public bonds, easily negotiable, which go on functioning in their hands just as so much hard cash would. But furthermore, and quite apart from the class of idle rentiers thus created, the improvised wealth of the financiers who play the role of middlemen between the government and the nation, and the tax-farmers, merchants and private manufacturers, for whom a good part of every national loan renders the service of a capital fallen from heaven, apart from all these people, the national debt has given rise to joint-stock companies, to dealings in negotiable effects of all kinds, and to speculation, in a word to stock-exchange gambling and the modern bankocracy.’ (Capital, Penguin edition, Volume I, Chapter 31).

This is a fair description which still applies today but, unfortunately, is a source of many currency crank theories. Marx was aware of this and warned:

‘The great part that the public debt and the fiscal system corresponding with it have played in the capitalization of wealth and the expropriation of the masses, has led many writers, like Cobbett, Doubleday and others, to seek here, incorrectly, the fundamental cause of the misery of the people in modern times.’

The fundamental cause of this misery is not the financial system but the class ownership of the means of life and production for profit. What is required to remove it is not monetary reform but common ownership and production directly to satisfy people’s need.’

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-national-debt-whose-debt-2020.html

It is reported that meanwhile in Cuba ‘The Cuban government will hike gasoline and diesel prices on the island by 500% effective February 1, as part of a set of measures aimed at reducing the country’s large budget deficit.

Fuel in Cuba has been subsidized by the nation’s government for decades and is among the cheapest in the world.

The price of a litre of regular gasoline will jump from 25 Cuban pesos (CUP) ($0.20) to 132 CUP ($1.10), an increase of 528%, while premium gasoline will go from 30 CUP ($0.25) to 156 CUP ($1.30), up 520%, the minister of finance and prices, Vladimir Regueiro, announced on state television.

Economy Minister Alejandro Gil admitted that, with the country short of foreign currency and under a punishing decades-long US embargo, the government could no longer afford subsidizing fuel.

The hike is also aimed at closing the gap in prices created by the subsidy. Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy said previously that the fuel is currently priced based on the official fixed exchange rate of 24 CUP to the dollar, whereas arriving tourists exchange dollars at the current rate of 120 CUP to the greenback, which was introduced by the government in August 2022. That gives them an unfair advantage, the official explained.

Authorities said a network of service stations will be created for tourists, who will be obliged to pay for fuel in foreign currency.’

[Another state capitalist entity used to make tourists pay in foreign currency too.]

‘The Cuban government, which subsidizes almost all essential goods and services in the country, announced a package of measures late last month aimed at addressing the economic crisis plaguing the country. Among the steps is an increase in the price of cigarettes, tobacco, and basic services such as liquefied gas, water, gas, transportation and energy.

According to official estimates, the island’s economy shrank by 2% in 2023, while inflation reached 30%.

The Cuban currency began a sharp decline in 2021 after the government dumped a complex dual-currency system. The government says the central bank is studying a potential new exchange rate against the US dollar.

Cuba has been under a US economic blockade since the early 1960s. Restrictions were eased during Barack Obama’s presidency, but later re-imposed under Donald Trump. In October, Havana accused the US of provoking an economic crisis in Cuba. Washington’s sanctions have led to critical shortages of food, fuel, and medicine on the island, leading to mass emigration, according to the Cuban government.’

Cuban Government Debt to GDP ratio 119 per cent.

 ‘Many experts compare apartheid Israel to apartheid South Africa. UN resolutions helped to bring down South Africa’s apartheid regime, but real change didn’t come until countries around the world embraced a global campaign to economically and politically isolate it.’

Foreign Minister Pandor made the call in 2022: ‘As South Africans, we find similarities in our past with the Palestinians, and now I remember the funeral of Shereen Abu Akleh and what happened to her coffin. It reminds me of the gravesites that we had to carry out under the persecution of the apartheid soldiers’ (South Africa calls for holding Israel accountable for ‘inhumane conditions’ Palestinians live under, Middle East Monitor, 17 June, 2022).

In May that year Nokuthula Mabaso, an Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) leader was buried following her assassination in front of her children. She was the third activist of the shack dwellers’ movement to be killed in less than two months.    To date, 24 Abahlali activists have been killed.   Members of AbM are thus well acquainted with the state as a coercive machine of class oppression and likely know the fairytale Freedom Charter adopted by the ANC in 1955 envisaged a post-Apartheid South Africa where ‘The police force and army… shall be the helpers and protectors of the people’, ‘the right to be decently housed’ enshrined and ‘Slums shall be demolished …‘.   AbM are credited with starting UnFreedom Day, which coincides with the official South African holiday called Freedom Day, the orthodox annual celebration of the country’s first non-racial democratic elections of 1994. On the 16 August 2012 17 workers were killed and 78 wounded by the police in the Marikana Miners’ Massacre, the most lethal use of force by South African security forces against other workers since 1976. Worse still, former President Mbeki’s support for alternative remedies such as vinegar rather than antiretroviral drugs saved the state’s funds at a cost of at least 300,000 lives. Winnie Mandela to her credit ‘… said to president Mbeki: ‘Why are ARVs not toxic for the members in Parliament who are taking them but toxic for the poor?’

And ‘More than two decades after South Africa ousted a racist apartheid system that trapped the vast majority of South Africans in poverty, more than half the country still lives below the national poverty line and most of the nation’s wealth remains in the hands of a small elite’ (NPR, 2 April, 2018) led by billionaire Ramaphosa.

Shenilla Mohamed, executive director of Amnesty International South Africa, told Deutsche Welle (26 April, 2019): ‘Mandela had a very romantic dream, to some extent, of having a nation where everyone is equal, where people are able to access their basic human rights, economic, social, cultural rights. But South Africa is a country where the quality of life has not improved for the majority of the population in 25 years. Issues such as racism are still in the foreground because people feel they have been disappointed by a system which began in 1994, when independence promised that everything was possible.’

Were any of  SA’s first three presidents put on trial for supporting the dictator, Mugabe of neighboring Zimbabwe?    As we have noted, Mbeki during his tenure was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousansds. Some members of the 99 percent called for him to be tried for crimes against humanity.   Was he?    Commissioner Phiyega. Ramaphosa and King Zuma share responsibility for the mass murder of miners.  Were there ever plans to put them on trial?   In June 2015, while in South Africa for an African Union meeting,  the former dictator of Sudan (and one of 15 on the ICC’s most wanted list), al-Bashir,  was prohibited from leaving while a court decided whether he should be handed over to the ICC for war crimes.  Was he? 

The answer to all the above is NO!   It is futile to punish such odious  individuals whilst ignoring the vicious conditions which made them possible. War criminals are not responsible for war, which is caused by the struggles between competing capitalist states  over markets and economic resources. War will only end with the abolition of capitalism. The dictators of yesterday, and the dictators and leaders of today, with their frightening military machines, only reflect the preparedness of their workers to ignore the bloodshed of all the conflicts before and after the war to end all wars and still to die for capitalism.

Counter Lies

Workers are all liars of course, and thieves;

Whereas computers are infallible

As popes, absolutely reliable.

It should be expected no one believes

Denials, when sums of money are not there

Who’s guilty is beyond doubt. Then the state

Visits predetermined judicial fate

On those the faultless accounting software

Has caught out. Profits must be protected

At all costs, even if that means there’ll be

An occasional legal travesty;

The system works as might be expected.

Compensation can always be deployed

As a mitigation for lives destroyed.

D. A.

Along with exploitation in the pursuit of profit, Capitalism is about competition, except where it colludes in cartels. However, to do down the opposition is always the aim and it seems that French Carrefour, the seventh largest retailer in the world, has hit on an interesting new marketing strategy where ‘virtue signalling’ is liable to have happy results for its shareholders.

Hard pressed consumers will always be looking to save pennies when buying life essentials. The real solution to more expensive commodities and ‘shrinkflation’ is Socialism where quality goods and services will be produced for use not profit, which means they will be free as money will have been abolished along with Capitalism.

It is reported that: ‘French supermarket Carrefour is telling shoppers that it will no longer sell PepsiCo products such as carbonated soda drinks Pepsi and 7up and Lay’s chips products because they’ve become too expensive, Reuters has reported.

According to the outlet, a spokesperson for France’s second biggest grocery has chain confirmed that it will place a note on shelves that have displayed PepsiCo goods which reads “We are no longer selling this brand due to unacceptable price increases.” It is unclear whether PepsiCo products already on Carrefour shelves will be withdrawn, the report added.

In October 2023, PepsiCo warned of “modest” price hikes in the new year amid steady demand. The US snacking and beverage giant has raised prices for seven consecutive quarters, hiking them by double digits in the July-September period last year. The company also reduced package sizes of some of its products claiming the aim was “to meet consumer demand for convenience and portion control.”

Last year, amid high consumer inflation, grocery retailers in several EU countries challenged global food giants over prices. Carrefour started a “shrinkflation” campaign in September, sticking warnings on goods that have shrunk in size but cost more.

Negotiations are underway in France between food manufacturers and retailers, with the latter demanding price cuts, as they say prices for raw materials and energy have recently come down. Food industry representatives argue that production costs remain high and that manufacturers have absorbed significant inflationary shocks.

French supermarket Carrefour launched an unusual campaign this week, putting stickers on products to warn customers of “shrinkflation”. The step, both in stores and on its website, names and shames suppliers that have reduced the weight or volume of their products, while keeping prices unchanged.

Shrinkflation – also known as package downsizing – refers to the practice of reducing the size or quantity of a product, as a means for the manufacturer to cut costs while maintaining sales volumes.

France’s second biggest grocery chain has marked 26 products in its stores with labels reading, “This product has seen its volume or weight fall and the effective price by the supplier rise.”

Lipton Ice Tea, Lindt chocolate and Viennetta ice cream are among the products now being flagged, to put pressure on major consumer goods suppliers such as Nestle, PepsiCo and Unilever.

Carrefour found that the volume of can of Guigoz baby formula manufactured by Nestle has gone from 900 grams to 830 grams, while the weight of the Unilever-made Viennetta ice-cream cake has dropped to 320 grams from 350 grams. A bottle of sugar-free peach-flavoured Lipton Ice Tea, made by PepsiCo, has shrunk to 1.25 litres from 1.5 litres.

“Obviously, the aim in stigmatising these products is to be able to tell manufacturers to rethink their pricing policy,” Stefen Bompais, director of client communications at Carrefour, told Reuters.

Carrefour’s move comes as brands are about to negotiate their arrangements with certain retailers.’

 The Labour Party seems to be relying a lot on being able to conjure up “growth” to honour its rash election promises.

Last week, Darren Jones who is the would-be chief secretary to the Treasury was reported as saying:

“If we are successful in growing the economy in the way that we think we will be, then that creates more investment” (Times, 4 January).

This is a strange argument as business investment is what brings about growth. So any growth that might take place would be as a result, not the cause, of business investment. He’s put the cart before the horse and expects it to pull the horse.

But it’s not only creating new business investment that they say the growth they think they can conjure up will bring about. A speech by their would-be Health Secretary, god-botherer Wes Street, was reported under the headline: “Labour says it would rely on growth to fund pay rises to the NHS” (i paper, 6 January). 

On the same page the same paper reported the clueless Labour Leader himself:

“Sir Keith reiterated his comments on Thursday that economic growth was key to creating wealth and improving living standards.”

But if a Labour government under Starmer is not as lucky as the Blair Labour government was in happening to be in office during a period of growth, and there is no growth at the rate Labour think they can bring about?

Back to Darren Jones:

“If we are not [successful in growing the economy], then the fiscal rules come first and are non-negotiable.”

So. fiscal conservatism, otherwise known as austerity. 

In any event, no government can control growth — that depends on business investment which in turn depends on the prospects for making a profit. Growth may or may not happen when a Labour government is in office but, if it does, it won’t be due to anything that government did. It would have happened anyway, even under a Tory government.

Governments don’t and can’t control capitalism. It’s rather the other way round — it is the operation of capitalism, as it passes through its cycles of boom and slump, that sets severe limits to what they can and cannot do.

Shocker! Not even two weeks into 2024 and SOYMB finds Nigel Farage is almost talking sense.

Now tell ‘em about Capitalism Nige.

You could start by reading SOYMB post ‘Rural Housing and Homelessness Issues.’https://soymb.com/2024/01/rural-housing-and-homelessness-issues.html

‘Nigel Farage has blasted NatWest boss Howard Davies after the £763,000-a-year banker claimed it is not difficult for Britons to get on the housing ladder.

Howard Davies is paid £750,000 a year.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme t Mr Davies told Amol Rajan:

“I don’t think it’s that difficult at the moment.”

The astonished BBC presenter had to ask whether Mr Davies was calling in from overseas, given the current housing crisis in the UK.

The rich NatWest chief patronisingly explained: “You have to save, and that’s the way it always used to be.”

He warned there are “dangers” in making mortgage credit too easy for youngsters to acquire.

The claim sparked instant outrage, with Mr Farage blasting Mr Davies as “a member of the entitled elite with no idea about NatWest’s customers or the real world”’.

Daily Express 5 January 2024

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1852327/Nigel-Farage-Natwest-house-mortgage

Or Nigel you could educate yourself by taking out a subscription to the Socialist Standard. Here’s one to begin with.

From the Socialist Standard, August 2020

What happens when there is no housing market?

‘Decent, functional and even beautiful living accommodation is unarguably one of humanity’s prime needs. It is the one prime need in fact that, more than any other, save food and water, is vitally conducive to harmonious and pleasant living at all. Conversely, the lack of it is almost always a cause of misery, meanness and domestic strife. The question of housing allocation in a socialist society is therefore by no means a novel one, and has been discussed and debated for a very long time. That old Fabian fraud George Bernard Shaw, for example, once said that he was often asked who would live in the big house on the hill in this socialist society of his, and Bernard Shaw’s ever-ready response was ‘The same as now, whoever can afford to live there will’.

We beg to differ. All of what we say below notwithstanding, if there is one certain fact concerning life in a future socialist society that we can predict, it’s that how much money you have will most definitely not be the deciding criterion that determines where you live. There won’t be any money for a start – bits of colourful paper, or, more so these days, numbers on a computer screen, that denote how deserving you are of living decently as a human being.

Shaw’s solution to capitalism’s housing problem, like that of the other 56 pseudo-brands of ‘socialism’, was simply an ill-thought out version of reformed capitalism, inexorably welded to and determined and dictated by the market for houses. In socialism, there won’t be any market for houses. Shaw’s ‘solution’ was, bizarrely, simply predicated on the continuing existence of the very cause of the housing problem in the first place.

But, to be fair to him as much as possible, Shaw’s non-solution of reforming capitalism in such a way as to solve the housing problem, has been practically everybody else’s non-solution too. Long before Shaw was preaching his illogical nonsense, one of the pioneers of socialist ideas, the co-author and life-long friend of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, wrote a short series of articles entitled The Housing Question. Engels was writing in the mid-Victorian period, a time when the ‘success‘ of British capitalism was at its height and yet, a time also, when the housing conditions of the working class were especially miserable, unspeakably wretched and degrading. Needless to say, then as now, all manner of reformist nostrums were proposed by a whole range of political activists; from followers of the French anarchist Proudhon, who advocated that every worker within existing capitalism should have their own little private property dwelling, bought on the ‘never, never’, to representatives of the capitalists themselves, with their ‘factory-provided houses’ abominations. These, needless-to-say, were not only factory-provided, but factory-owned and job dependent, with all of the horrors of job loss and consequent eviction that were entailed. Indeed, in criticising these proposed multi-various reforms, Engels’ work is almost entirely devoted to dealing with the ways and means of how not to solve the housing question.

Not a problem of housing

As a matter of fact, as Engels explained repeatedly, the real issue is not at all a ‘housing’ problem – that is, a shortage of labour power or a dearth of nature-given materials that are necessary to provide everyone in society with housing accommodation commensurate with their needs – but a capitalism problem. Deal with the real issue of capitalism’s general diktat of production for profit, and the housing question, like every other misnamed ‘problem’ in capitalism, will solve itself. It is the only concrete solution to the problem of lack of housing, the inferior quality of housing and the location of housing. If there is any other solution, apart from the common ownership of resources proposed by the Socialist Party, it has never been revealed. All we hear today, from Housing Associations, charities and political parties are mere echoes of the ideas and social quackery that Engels exposed and lambasted as absurd nonsense 150 years ago.

Having stated the general solution to the housing ‘problem’ we are invariably questioned as to how the solution of common ownership will work in practice. Socialist society will undoubtedly require administration at a local level, a regional level and even a world-wide level. How this administration is organised and functions will be a matter for the inhabitants of socialism. What decisions these socialist bodies take, and how they will be implemented and even enforced if necessary, will be entirely up to them. That goes without saying. Although we refrain from crystal ball-gazing, we can, of course, make some general points as to what might happen in regard to housing provision in socialism. There are two things, we would imagine, a socialist society will want to deal with immediately. The first is the homeless problem.

For the first time ever, a problem that has been grappled with constantly in all modern societies, that has been discussed ad nauseam, fought over, lied about, written about endlessly, and thousands of charities and other organisations have done to death for as long as capitalism has existed , will at last be capable of solution. The administrative bodies in a socialist society will know best at the time how to do this.

The second task will be to look at the existing occupied housing stock, its condition and the needs of its occupiers, with a view to rehousing those in the worst of circumstances immediately. Again, decisions will need to be taken by socialism’s representative bodies over how best to implement this aim.

As a party, we have never claimed to be in possession of ready-made solutions for each and every question that the future socialist society will need to take up. Nor would it be sensible or desirable for us to do so. In regard to housing alone, the actual considerations and requirements are seemingly inexhaustible. The production and transportation of bricks, copper piping, slates, sand, cement, glass, wooden batons, joists and fencing, to name but a few of the most obvious that spring to mind, are each a major operation in themselves. Plumbers, electricians, roofers, bricklayers, joiners, glaziers and gardeners, will all need to be coordinated. Further, surveying, land availability, planning, road traffic considerations, amenities provision, public transport, again to name only those that readily spring to mind, give an additional idea of the complexities involved. It is absurd to suggest that we living today should make concrete plans for all this.

Likewise, the number of people involved in existing professions that are tied economically (and are mostly useless, with little or no connection to the actual construction of buildings) to housing in capitalism, that will be unleashed by socialism’s construction for use economy, run into the tens of millions. Our pamphlet From Capitalism to Socialism, lists over 70 of these professions themselves. And that’s only in regard to housing. The number of people engaged in useless jobs in capitalism generally and not connected with housing but who would be available to be deployed in that area where required is astronomical.

We don’t know

How will socialist society allocate Shaw’s big house on the hill? Our answer is, and can only be, we have no blueprint. It will be up to the inhabitants of socialism to decide ‘who gets what’. More importantly, even if such a question is legitimate, it certainly has no significant bearing on the case for socialism that we argue in the present.

However, such questions can be useful in one sense, for they highlight the chief difficulty of prediction: why should we assume that the social norms of today will be exactly those of the future? Certainly, there is no reason to believe that the attitudes of those living in an entirely different type of society will be exactly the same as today. To expect the norms of life in capitalism as it exists now to remain exactly the same as when there are, for example, a billion socialists, is naive enough. To expect a socialist society to be, in the first place, established on the notions and ideas of capitalism, and even more unlikely, remain completely static, is patently absurd and flies in the face of all past human experience.

Is it likely that people in a future socialist society will have the same desires, concerns, views, needs, aspirations or requirements that we find so ‘natural’ and indispensable in capitalism today? No matter how rigid and seemingly set in stone they appear now, it is absolutely certain that our present concerns for property ownership, for big houses, for big cars, for the baubles and trinkets so beloved of capitalism’s apologists, and in a nutshell, a concern for ‘who gets what’, will be simply looked upon with astonishment and incredulity and, eventually, intense curiosity.

Is such a belief in the possibility of such a profound change taking place idealistic or utopian? The history of a mere couple of decades or so tells us no. Not even the imaginative genius of Oscar Wilde could have ever dreamed of such an utterly unimaginable event as two men getting married – to each other! Think about that and consider the extraordinary change in attitude that has taken place in such a short historical time span, so that, apart from a small minority of religious bigots, no one bats an eyelid at what once was, barely yesterday in historical terms, such an inconceivable proposition as to be simply dismissed out of hand by practically every human being on the planet. Yet now it is widespread and the ‘norm’.

But to speculate, perhaps, in the immediate aftermath of the transition from capitalism to socialism, as a start, the inhabitants of socialism will decide, after making adequate provision for the existing occupants, to agree a list of the 500 (1000? 2000? 5000?) biggest and most beautiful private dwelling buildings in a metropolis such as London. Perhaps they will then decide to convert 100 into havens for the mentally ill, 100 into centres for the care and healing of victims of sexual abuse, 100 into centres for the study and treatment of those suffering from seemingly uncontrollable and socially harmful sexual urges, and 100 into recuperation centres for those suffering the effects of being incarcerated under capitalism for crimes against property.

Perhaps also, in an advanced socialist society of 20 years standing, when most or all of these problems have been eradicated, the majority of the very same buildings will, one by one, be simply left to run themselves as examples of by-gone notions of desirable (or even undesirable) architecture, with accommodation upstairs for those who want to preserve and protect them. The point is, we simply cannot predict what will happen.

How will socialist society come into ‘possession’ of these buildings? Again, we don’t know. Is it possible that they will be simply requisitioned for the use of everyone? Absolutely. After all, to describe the matter bluntly, the capitalist revolutions of the past were to privatise the earth and everything in it and on it, to proclaim the rights of private property and to convert it into the ownership of a few.

A socialist revolution will be aimed at taking the property back we have created, taking it out of the hands of a parasitic few and to place it at the disposal of society. That is what a socialist revolution is.

How the inhabitants of a future socialist society will act, what their priorities will be, and what is important and desirable for them, can be safely left to them to decide.

What happens to an insignificant number of ‘more desirable than others’ buildings is only one aspect of the matter, and by far the least important. The question of housing provision in general, both now – as in the lack of it – and the potential that socialism will undoubtedly open up, is far more important.

To make glib, possibly well-intentioned – though usually ultimately utterly futile – proposals to deal with housing problems in capitalism’s restrictive profit-driven market for houses is one thing; to deal with the necessity to provide healthy, decent, and even – a purely subjective opinion, of course, beautiful – living accommodation in socialism’s production for use on the basis of a free access economic system, is quite another.

We would make it abundantly clear again, in any discussion of how a socialist society will deal with the general allocation of housing, that we cannot speak for a future society in regard to what decisions will be necessary in the construction or location or provision or allocation of housing – any more so than we can on the future prospects for harmonicas or hairnets.

Our only concern at present is to drive home the necessity for the one over-riding solution to the problems of capitalism and that is socialism. This will create the only possible basis for solving the so-called housing problem. And this, as we say repeatedly, for the simple reason that it isn’t a problem at all, but merely a consequence of the artificial scarcity in housing created by capitalism’s disgraceful and disgusting inherent drive for profit. Socialism will unleash the tremendous construction capability necessary so that we can begin practical steps towards not only solving issues like homelessness and slum-dwelling, but constructing beautiful housing accommodation – we are, after all, admirers of the ideas of the early Marxist William Morris – so as to meet the self-defined needs of every human being.’

Nigel McCullough

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2022/08/what-happens-when-there-is-no-housing.html

Indrajit Samarajiva says of Band Aid’s charity anthem “It’s not just that these lyrics haven’t aged well. They were never good at all.”   With which we can agree, unlike his superficial critique: “I mean, this is all wrong. It does snow in Africa, although not a lot.”

In a short article titled Band aids for poverty ( July 2003) we observed:

‘Almost 20 years ago Bob Geldorf organised “Band Aid” concerts in London and Philadelphia to help the starving millions in Ethiopia. So what is happening in that country today? Local musicians are organising similar concerts to aid the starving. “Aid agencies estimate 14 million Ethiopians are at risk of starvation after the worst drought in nearly two decades. The United Nations said Ethiopia needs 1.5 million tonnes of food aid this year.” Herald (26 May) In 1984 Ethiopia was devastated by a famine which killed one million people. In 2003 we have 14 million at risk of starvation. So much for charity, so much for well-intentioned reformers. What we need is a complete transformation of society not an elastoplast on a gaping wound.‘

And today it comes as no surprise to read:

‘Ethiopia’s Tigray region faces a devastating famine, with thousands in desperate need of aid. The aftermath of war and drought leaves residents, especially the elderly, struggling for survival.’

Plus ça change!