Open Letter by Over 70 Scholars and Experts Condemns US-Backed Coup Attempt in Venezuela

"For the sake of the Venezuelan people, the region, and for the principle of national sovereignty, these international actors should instead support negotiations between the Venezuelan government and its opponents."

The United States government must cease interfering in Venezuela’s internal politics, especially for the purpose of overthrowing the country’s government.

Actions by the Trump administration and its allies in the hemisphere are almost certain to make the situation in Venezuela worse, leading to unnecessary human suffering, violence, and instability.

Venezuela’s political polarization is not new; the country has long been divided along racial and socioeconomic lines. But the polarization has deepened in recent years.

This is partly due to US support for an opposition strategy aimed at removing the government of Nicolás Maduro through extra-electoral means. While the opposition has been divided on this strategy, US support has backed hardline opposition sectors in their goal of ousting the Maduro government through often violent protests, a military coup d’etat, or other avenues that sidestep the ballot box.

Under the Trump administration, aggressive rhetoric against the Venezuelan government has ratcheted up to a more extreme and threatening level, with Trump administration officials talking of “military action” and condemning Venezuela, along with Cuba and Nicaragua, as part of a “troika of tyranny.” Problems resulting from Venezuelan government policy have been worsened by US economic sanctions, illegal under the Organization of American States and the United Nations ― as well as US law and other international treaties and conventions.

These sanctions have cut off the means by which the Venezuelan government could escape from its economic recession, while causing a dramatic falloff in oil production and worsening the economic crisis, and causing many people to die because they can’t get access to life-saving medicines. Meanwhile, the US and other governments continue to blame the Venezuelan government ― solely ― for the economic damage, even that caused by the US sanctions.

Now the US and its allies, including OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, have pushed Venezuela to the precipice.

By recognizing National Assembly President Juan Guaido as the new president of Venezuela ― something illegal under the OAS Charter ― the Trump administration has sharply accelerated Venezuela’s political crisis in the hopes of dividing the Venezuelan military and further polarizing the populace, forcing them to choose sides.

The obvious, and sometimes stated goal, is to force Maduro out via a coup d’etat.

The reality is that despite hyperinflation, shortages, and a deep depression, Venezuela remains a politically polarized country. The US and its allies must cease encouraging violence by pushing for violent, extralegal regime change.

If the Trump administration and its allies continue to pursue their reckless course in Venezuela, the most likely result will be bloodshed, chaos, and instability. The US should have learned something from its regime change ventures in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and its long, violent history of sponsoring regime change in Latin America.

Neither side in Venezuela can simply vanquish the other. The military, for example, has at least 235,000 frontline members, and there are at least 1.6 million in militias. Many of these people will fight, not only on the basis of a belief in national sovereignty that is widely held in Latin America ― in the face of what increasingly appears to be a US-led intervention ― but also to protect themselves from likely repression if the opposition topples the government by force.

In such situations, the only solution is a negotiated settlement, as has happened in the past in Latin American countries when politically polarized societies were unable to resolve their differences through elections.

There have been efforts, such as those led by the Vatican in the fall of 2016, that had potential, but they received no support from Washington and its allies who favored regime change. This strategy must change if there is to be any viable solution to the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.

For the sake of the Venezuelan people, the region, and for the principle of national sovereignty, these international actors should instead support negotiations between the Venezuelan government and its opponents that will allow the country to finally emerge from its political and economic crisis.

Signed:

Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus, MIT and Laureate Professor, University of Arizona

Laura Carlsen, Director, Americas Program, Center for International Policy

Greg Grandin, Professor of History, New York University

Miguel Tinker Salas, Professor of Latin American History and Chicano/a Latino/a Studies at Pomona College

Sujatha Fernandes, Professor of Political Economy and Sociology, University of Sydney

Steve Ellner, Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives

Alfred de Zayas, former UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order and only UN rapporteur to have visited Venezuela in 21 years

Boots Riley, Writer/Director of Sorry to Bother You, Musician

John Pilger, Journalist & Film-Maker

Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research

Jared Abbott, PhD Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University

Dr. Tim Anderson, Director, Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies

Elisabeth Armstrong, Professor of the Study of Women and Gender, Smith College

Alexander Aviña, PhD, Associate Professor of History, Arizona State University

Marc Becker, Professor of History, Truman State University

Medea Benjamin, Cofounder, CODEPINK

Phyllis Bennis, Program Director, New Internationalism, Institute for Policy Studies

Dr. Robert E. Birt, Professor of Philosophy, Bowie State University

Aviva Chomsky, Professor of History, Salem State University

James Cohen, University of Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle

Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Associate Professor, George Mason University

Benjamin Dangl, PhD, Editor of Toward Freedom

Dr. Francisco Dominguez, Faculty of Professional and Social Sciences, Middlesex University, UK

Alex Dupuy, John E. Andrus Professor of Sociology Emeritus, Wesleyan University

Jodie Evans, Cofounder, CODEPINK

Vanessa Freije, Assistant Professor of International Studies, University of Washington

Gavin Fridell, Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor in International Development Studies, St. Mary’s University

Evelyn Gonzalez, Counselor, Montgomery College

Jeffrey L. Gould, Rudy Professor of History, Indiana University

Bret Gustafson, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis

Peter Hallward, Professor of Philosophy, Kingston University

John L. Hammond, Professor of Sociology, CUNY

Mark Healey, Associate Professor of History, University of Connecticut

Gabriel Hetland, Assistant Professor of Latin American, Caribbean and U.S. Latino Studies, University of Albany

Forrest Hylton, Associate Professor of History, Universidad Nacional de Colombia-Medellín

Daniel James, Bernardo Mendel Chair of Latin American History

Chuck Kaufman, National Co-Coordinator, Alliance for Global Justice

Daniel Kovalik, Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh

Winnie Lem, Professor, International Development Studies, Trent University

Dr. Gilberto López y Rivas, Professor-Researcher, National University of Anthropology and History, Morelos, Mexico

Mary Ann Mahony, Professor of History, Central Connecticut State University

Jorge Mancini, Vice President, Foundation for Latin American Integration (FILA)

Luís Martin-Cabrera, Associate Professor of Literature and Latin American Studies, University of California San Diego

Teresa A. Meade, Florence B. Sherwood Professor of History and Culture, Union College

Frederick Mills, Professor of Philosophy, Bowie State University

Stephen Morris, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Middle Tennessee State University

Liisa L. North, Professor Emeritus, York University

Paul Ortiz, Associate Professor of History, University of Florida

Christian Parenti, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, John Jay College CUNY

Nicole Phillips, Law Professor at the Université de la Foundation Dr. Aristide Faculté des Sciences Juridiques et Politiques and Adjunct Law Professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law

Beatrice Pita, Lecturer, Department of Literature, University of California San Diego

Margaret Power, Professor of History, Illinois Institute of Technology

Vijay Prashad, Editor, The TriContinental

Eleanora Quijada Cervoni FHEA, Staff Education Facilitator & EFS Mentor, Centre for Higher Education, Learning & Teaching at The Australian National University

Walter Riley, Attorney and Activist

William I. Robinson, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara

Mary Roldan, Dorothy Epstein Professor of Latin American History, Hunter College/ CUNY Graduate Center

Karin Rosemblatt, Professor of History, University of Maryland

Emir Sader, Professor of Sociology, University of the State of Rio de Janeiro

Rosaura Sanchez, Professor of Latin American Literature and Chicano Literature, University of California, San Diego

T.M. Scruggs Jr., Professor Emeritus, University of Iowa

Victor Silverman, Professor of History, Pomona College

Brad Simpson, Associate Professor of History, University of Connecticut

Jeb Sprague, Lecturer, University of Virginia

Kent Spriggs, International human rights lawyer

Christy Thornton, Assistant Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University

Sinclair S. Thomson, Associate Professor of History, New York University

Steven Topik, Professor of History, University of California, Irvine

Stephen Volk, Professor of History Emeritus, Oberlin College

Kirsten Weld, John. L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, Department of History, Harvard University

Kevin Young, Assistant Professor of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Patricio Zamorano, Academic of Latin American Studies; Executive Director, InfoAmericas

Source: Open Democracy

Financial parasitism and looting are the “new normal”

The decision by the US Federal Reserve Board to provide indefinite support to financial markets under a third round of so-called quantitative easing (QE3), announced last week, coupled with the earlier decision by the European Central Bank (ECB) to intervene in the bond markets, marks a new stage in the breakdown of the global capitalist economy that began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

The moves by the world’s major central banks to pump more money into the global financial system signify that four years after financial markets stood on the brink of collapse in September 2008, there is no prospect of a return to what were once considered “normal” conditions.

Far from lessening its support to the banks and financial institutions, the Fed is increasing it. The earlier interventions were implemented with time limits. In its latest decision, the Fed has given an indefinite commitment. As the headline of one article in the Financial Times put it, “Fed Sets Its Sights on Infinity and Beyond.”

Moreover, the form of the commitment marks a major turn. Rather than buying up Treasury bonds, the Fed is going to intervene to the tune of $40 billion a month to buy up mortgage-backed securities from the banks and investment houses. It will thereby enable the banks to offload some of the “toxic assets” that provided the trigger for the breakdown.

It used to be said that the task of the Fed was to take away the punch bowl just as the party was about to get going. No longer. Now the Fed is committed to increasing the alcohol content, with a pledge that it will keep topping up the supply indefinitely.

In providing a rationale for the decision, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke cited the continuing high levels of US unemployment—job growth, even at the lower wage levels now prevailing in the US, is failing to keep pace with population growth—and the anaemic growth in the US economy. According to conventional theory, the Fed’s actions will lower interest rates across the board, making investment decisions more attractive to corporations and leading to economic growth and increased employment.

But as Bernanke well knows, as does everyone else in financial circles, those conditions do not apply. Corporations, above all financial institutions, are continuing to accumulate profits, but they are not being used to finance new productive investments. Rather, they are being funnelled into large cash reserves to be deployed in speculation.

Moreover, cuts in government spending both in Europe and the US are lowering wages and increasing unemployment, thereby reducing consumer demand. The ECB has made it a condition that governments whose bonds it buys must put in place austerity programs aimed at cutting spending and increasing unemployment. In the US, government spending is contracting and may decline even further at the end of the year with the arrival of the so-called “fiscal cliff,” when earlier decisions by Congress to automatically initiate cuts come into effect.

The Fed’s decision is not aimed at bringing about economic “recovery” in any meaningful sense of the term. Rather, its market intervention is intended to raise the price of stocks and asset-backed securities, lifting the profits of corporations, above all the banks and finance houses, not through investment in the real economy but via financial operations. In other words, the very financial parasitism that led to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the near-meltdown of the US and global financial system has become the official policy of the Fed.

The class interests served by this policy can be seen both in the manner of its implementation and its consequences.

Financial journalist Michael West accurately summed the circumstances of its introduction in an article published in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald.

“They demanded the Fed ‘deliver’,” he wrote. “The consequences of ‘failure’ were ‘dire’, they cried.” Bernanke then “obliged the denizens of Wall Street” with the “ultimate money-printing bonanza. And they then had the cheek to dress it up as a boon for the jobless. In reality, the banks get to shovel their lame mortgage debts plumb into the lap of the taxpayers at $40 billion a month.”

As he noted, the Fed is buying not just government bonds, but the “mortgage-backed securities which are clogging up Wall Street balance sheets.”

The Fed’s decision will have global consequences, all of which will impact adversely on the social and economic circumstances of workers as well as the world’s poorest people. Immediately the decision was announced, the prices of oil and gold jumped, signalling the start of a new round of commodity speculation.

This will impact the prices of fuels for transport as well as for cooking and heating, and set off inflation in basic foodstuffs. Already the prices of corn, wheat and soybeans, crucial for the well-being of billions of people, have started to increase.

By printing money, the Fed is also undermining the value of the US dollar in global currency markets, which will have a significant impact in Europe as the euro rises. This will lead to further cuts in exports and increased unemployment as firms find it increasingly difficult to compete.

Countries such as Brazil and Australia, where increases in currency values have already heavily impacted on manufacturing, will also be adversely affected. Further downward pressure on the dollar increases the prospect of “currency wars,” as national governments strive to maintain their export markets.

There is also a political aspect to the Fed’s decision. In 2008, the collapse of Lehman Brothers played a crucial role in swinging the support of key sections of the American ruling elite behind the election of Barack Obama over his Republican opponent John McCain.

The Fed’s latest action in the run-up to this year’s election will similarly provide a boost to the Obama re-election campaign.

But the most significant political conclusions are those that must be drawn by the working class. The decision to promote financial parasitism at the expense of the jobs, livelihoods and social position of the working class in the US and the world over is another powerful expression of the historic crisis and bankruptcy of the capitalist system. There is no economic “recovery” waiting around the corner.

The banks and financial interests represented by the US Federal Reserve and the ECB have a program: parasitism accompanied by the systematic looting and impoverishment of the population.

The working class in the US and internationally must adopt its own independent program, thought out and fought for to the end. It must initiate a struggle for workers’ governments committed to the expropriation of the banks and finance houses as the first, and indispensable, step in the establishment of a planned socialist economy, in which the resources created by the labour of billions are used to meet human needs instead of profit.

Source: World Socialist Web Site

South Africa after the Marikana massacre

The police massacre of striking miners at Marikana is a watershed for post-apartheid South Africa and for the international class struggle.

It demonstrates in the starkest form imaginable that the perspective of “black empowerment” and the “National Democratic Revolution” providing the basis for overcoming economic and social oppression has failed utterly. The central lesson of Marikana is that the fundamental division within society is class, not race.

The African National Congress, having come to power in 1994 as a result of immense sacrifice and revolutionary struggle by millions of workers, has revealed itself to be every bit as ruthless as its white predecessors in enforcing the most brutal exploitation on behalf of the major global corporations.

The ANC sent in the police to shoot, kill and maim striking workers whose sole crime was to fight for the right to live as human beings and not beasts of burden. Now, after the police have killed 36 and wounded another 78, some 270 imprisoned strikers are being charged with the murder and attempted murder of their colleagues under Apartheid-era “common purpose” laws designed to blame the victims for “provoking” police violence.

The Marikana miners are paid less than $500 a month for living in squalid communal huts and working in hazardous, back-breaking conditions for the UK-based Lonmin, extracting platinum that sells for over $1,400 an ounce. Their fate, worse still, is shared by millions in what has now become the most unequal country in the entire world.

Meanwhile the ANC has spawned a grasping layer of black bourgeois, with a reputation for unparalleled corruption and repression. It is synonymous with terms like Black Economically Empowered (BEE) companies and “tenderpreneurs”—those who have enriched themselves by acting as front-men for the transnational corporations or who have used their control of the state apparatus to secure a direct role in exploiting the working class.

Even as charges were being brought against the arrested miners, South African Minister of Mining Susan Shabangu was reassuring “our investors, incumbent and prospective” at a gathering of mining executives in Perth, Australia, that President Jacob Zuma is “determined to isolate bad elements in our society.”

The ANC in turn relies upon its partners in the Tripartite Alliance—the South African Communist Party and the COSATU trade union federation—to impose the dictatorship of global capital and the South African bourgeoisie upon an increasingly restive population.

The Stalinist SACP insisted throughout the struggle against apartheid that black majority rule of a capitalist South Africa was a necessary stage in an eventual transition to socialism. It has portrayed COSATU as a bastion of working class power within government that would guarantee this transformation.

Events have proceeded in an entirely opposite direction. For services rendered, SACP leaders were granted key roles in the post-apartheid regime and a share in the spoils of office. COSATU and its affiliated unions have functioned as an industrial police force and a mechanism for the self-enrichment of the bureaucracy.

Philip Hirschsohn, Professor School of Business and Finance at the University of the Western Cape, pointed out last year how the trade unions have taken on “oligarchic characteristics.”

The position of shop steward has become a mechanism for securing management positions, as part of the “emergence of entrepreneurial and career unionists,” with SACP membership a favoured “stepping stone” for “access opportunities in managerial ranks or in government.”

Former NUM leader and high-ranking ANC politician, Cyril Ramaphosa is now the 34th richest man in the whole of Africa, with a net worth of $275 million. One of his many companies has a contract to supply labour at Marikana in a form of indentured slavery. He is paid R12 000 ($1500) per worker per month by Lonmin, but only pays his workers R4000 ($500) per month.

Its role as an adjunct of management has meant that NUM membership has declined to less than 50 percent of employees in many mines; most of these are skilled white collar and surface workers. The strikers at Marikana are either members of the breakaway Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) or not unionized at all.

The NUM, COSATU and the SACP have all called for police to clamp down on the strikers, defending the massacre and urging the suppression of the AMCU. NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni said of the Marikana massacre that, “The police were patient, but these people were extremely armed with dangerous weapons.”

This has not prevented the pseudo-left groups internationally from opposing the necessary break from COSATU and its affiliated unions, without which any struggle against the ANC is impossible.

The South African affiliates of the Committee for a Workers International, the Democratic Socialist Movement, instead urge “workers in both unions to demand united solidarity action, beginning with a local general strike” and ending in a “national general strike”—all presumably led by the NUM and COSATU.

The Socialist Workers Party in the UK is more despicable still, writing on August 17, “Whatever its intentions, AMCU has sometimes been used to introduce disunity at a time when workers face big challenges. It would have been better for the workers who formed the rival union to fight among the NUM rank and file and shift its policies from below.”

Support for the NUM and COSATU is support for the ANC and the Tripartite Alliance government. It is support for the continuation of capitalism and imperialist oppression.

The theory of Permanent Revolution provides the political basis for the workers and youth of South Africa to conduct the life-and-death struggles that lie ahead. The evolution of the ANC is a graphic confirmation of Leon Trotsky’s insistence that bourgeois nationalist movements, tied as they are to capitalism and organically opposed to ending the brutal exploitation of the workers and poor farmers, are incapable of carrying through the struggle for democracy and liberation from imperialist domination.

The working class, mobilising all the oppressed rural and urban layers, must break with the ANC and its defenders in the SACP and the trade union apparatus and build their own socialist party.

A workers government must be established to take the entire economy into social ownership and utilise the vast natural wealth presently monopolised by the super-rich to meet the needs of all for decent jobs, housing, education and health provision. This revolutionary struggle must be extended throughout Africa and internationally through the construction of a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the world party of socialist revolution.

Chris Marsden

Source: World Wide Socialist Web Site

Poverty now a crisis in the first world: Motlanthe

The adverse impact of capitalism on social and economic growth requires a mind shift in socialism, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said today.

"The global crisis of capitalism and imperialism, which is negatively affecting growth, widening social inequality, increasing levels of poverty and worsening [un]employment figures, needs a sharpened, radical shift in the approach the Socialist International takes," he said in Cape Town.

Speaking at the opening of the 24th Congress of the Socialist International (SI), he said debates had to focus on the reform of the organisation. Poverty was no longer just a problem for developing nations, but also now becoming a crisis in the first world. "Therefore this leaves us with no choice but to review, analyse and rethink the impact of the global economic crisis on society and the toiling masses of the world." He said there were various concerns sociality parties needed to confront. These included a need to strive for conflict resolution, while securing conditions of development.

Motlanthe's sentiments were echoed by the SI's president and former Greek prime minister George Papandreou. Innovative and alternative solutions were needed in a changing world, he said. "This human ingenuity needs to be accompanied by political and democratic will to make these changes... That will, my friends, has been lacking in Europe and around the world."

Papandreou defended the SI's existence, saying leftist parties were important to achieve, among others, peace, justice, good governance, equality, growth and employment for all. He warned against attributing blame for the global economic crisis. "We point fingers at each other rather than reach out our hands and lift each other up."

Papandreou lamented the fact that immigrants were being held responsible for the economic troubles in several countries. He said international co-ordination was needed now more than ever. "We've seen this spectacular rise in nationalism over the years, and at the same time we've noticed a terrifying rise in racism, prejudice."

Source: Times Live

Knobkerries, sangoma as Lonmin workers vow to stay on hill

Striking miners vowed on Tuesday to stay at the top of a hill in Wonderkop, near Lonmin's Marikana mine, until their pay was pushed up to R12,500 a month. They claimed they were being paid R4000 per month, and those living outside the hostel R5000. "We want money. We have kids to take care of," said one worker, Alfred Makhaya, from the Eastern Cape.

He had been working for Lonmin for over eight years and was being paid R4000 a month. He was forced to leave the hostel to rent a room so he could have an extra R1000. "This money is too little, I am working hard and I'm being paid so little." He said if he was not going to be paid R12,500 per month, his children would end up being thieves, because he would be unable to pay for their education. Another worker, Lichaba Pafkalasi from Lesotho, said the R12,500 would enable him to support his family. He claimed the mine's staff shot at him at the weekend, killing two of his group.

They then decided to move to the mountain to discuss their next move. They claimed the mines sent the police to shoot them.

Earlier, about 500 men gathered on top of the mountain, armed with knobkerries and iron rods. Local residents said an inyanga (herbalist) or sangoma (traditional healer) would perform a ritual on the mountain top and sprinkle the men with muti (traditional medicine) to "make them brave". Nine people -- two police officers, two security guards, three protesters and two other men -- have been killed during protests at the mine, which began on Friday.

Source: Times Live

The death of co-operatives - and the birth of mass consumer debt

Last year's riots in London saw the burning down of 'Union Point', the symbolic heart of the English co-operative movement. One year on, Aaron Peters asks what the destruction of this building, provoked by the forces of mass consumption, reveals about the history of 'working class solidarity'.

Eighteenth-century dockers founded the first co-operative flour mills in Woolwich and Chatham, and the grain shortages of the Napoleonic wars helped to spread the idea. Forming a co-operative simply meant that the dockers each owned a share of the mill, and controlled it by an elected committee. The decisions, as well as the finances, were in the control of the consumers, and the middleman was left out.

Both as a method of undermining state power and of finding escape from the world of competition, the co-operative movement expanded from mills to shops. The surplus from such stores funded education and recreation. Women in particular pushed the co-operative movement forward. By 1914, the Women's Co-operative movement had 30,000 members. The English Co-operative Wholesale Society had sales amounting to £4.5 million in 1883.

By 1900, it was, taken as a whole, one of the larger companies in the world. The Socialist Co-operative Federation was running stores in Battersea, Chelsea and Tottenham; their supporters included William Morris who, at this time, as well as writing 'Socialism From The Root Up' and acting as treasurer of the Socialist League, penned 'The Dream of John Ball', his ode to the Peasant's Rising of 1381.

Alf Barnes MP thought the Great War had moved along co-operative societies everywhere, the war having, in his own words, 'burned down the painted transformation scenery of the pre-war political stage’. Economic and social relations had been thrown into the foreground of the political arena. Food prices were soaring in the post-war climate, with Co-operative Party members leading the way in taking the Conservative government head on. In the miners' strikes of the 1920s, co-operative societies up and down the country acted as the material and financial support for many strikers and their families, ultimately leading to over a million pounds of debt by the end of 1926 - debt owed by immiserated miners. A year before, the campaigning efforts of the Co-operative Party in politics had already fallen flat. Corporations holding the monopolies which were curbing co-operatively owned businesses' ability to thrive had been taken on - and soundly backed up in a Royal commission. Falling gold prices, the public were informed, were the reason for high bread prices, not monopolies.

However, as the Labour Representation Committee, building on the strike of '26, finally reached parliamentary victory in 1929, things were looking up for co-operative socialists and trade unionists alike. In celebration of the leaps and bounds the co-operative movement was taking, however crippled by debt, the head of the London Co-operative Society, Alf Barnes, oversaw the construction of a grand new headquarters for that organisation replete with a lavish co-operative department store in Tottenham, named 'Union Point'.

The construction of bravado was in vain. By 1933, the Labour Party, aware that the co-operative movement was weighing down its coat tails, introduced taxes on the bank's reserves. After the war, the Co-operative society slowly crumbled. While its newfound position as a bank gave it credibility to move into debt speculation, the retail arm dwindled. By the early 1960s, the London society faced an existential crisis. In the 1980s, the department stores closed down. By the early 1990s, the ground floor of the building was given over to the kind of monopolistic supply chains which the society had always railed against. Allied Carpets and Doors, and later Carpet Right, proudly blazoned their signage across Tottenham High Road.

In 2003, the upper floors of the building were bought out by the Metropolitan Housing Association, which had been founded in 1963 by the wife of the Governor of Jamaica to provide housing for the Windrush generation in Tottenham and Brixton. In 1988, it pioneered the new 'shared ownership’ schemes. The private finance schemes into which the housing associations had been thrust by Thatcher's administration were now put to the use of encouraging a further section of the working class into mortgage ownership. In 2009, the MHA became the National HomeBuy Agent, i.e. the overall manager of all shared ownership schemes - i.e. the national manager of 'social housing' debt.

On August 11th 2011, the Union Point building was burnt down. Thousands of residents of Tottenham and Edmonton charged through Tottenham High Street. Debt and deferred wages, combined with the lack of any state-resource to enforce austerity measures save for the single glorious mechanism of the police, were visited back upon the building which had for decades monitored the transformation of consumer co-operation into a mass consumer debt economy.

Did the Union Point building expect to be destroyed? The co-operative movement was a force of consumer ethics, running alongside the trade union movement, and running weakly. The co-operative movement proposed a mode of consumption based around working class identity and solidarity, counter-posed to a form of consumption which has come to be known simply as 'mass consumption', that is, consumption by the 'mass worker'. The conflict between different modes of consumption is tied up with methods of social reproduction in the destruction of this building. In 2011, this monument to working class consumption as a political act gave way to destructive technologies as old as - but no newer than - petroleum.

Source: Open Democracy

Spiking grain prices raise specter of global food crisis

Global food prices rose 6.2 percent in July, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization reported Thursday. The FAO said it released its Food Price Index ahead of its regular publication schedule as a warning against the impact of such price rises.

The index, which calculates the cost of a basket of food commodities, overall averaged 213 points in July, up 12 points from June. In February 2011, the height of the Arab Spring, the overall index peaked at 238. The index has remained above the average 2008 level for more than a year and is now trending toward an all-time high.

Grain prices have driven the overall rise. The US corn crop is in a state of disaster, with more than half of all US acreage listed in poor or very poor condition due to a record-breaking drought. Under a parallel drought, Russia downgraded its wheat crop by several million tons on Wednesday.

The FAO cereal index averaged 260 points in July, up 17 percent over the month. Most of the increase is attributable to a 23 percent rise in corn prices over the month and a similar, 19 percent surge in wheat prices. The cereal index is only 14 points below the all-time high of 274 points in April 2008.

The FAO registered a 12 percent rise in sugar prices in July, triggered by unseasonably wet weather in Brazil, the world’s largest exporter of cane sugar. Oils rose 2 percent, primarily on tighter supply outlooks and record prices for soybeans.

Price indexes for meats and dairy remained relatively unchanged for the month, although the protracted drought in the US rangeland has distressed many ranchers, who will be compelled to liquidate their herds. The US Department of Agriculture projects US consumer price inflation for meat, poultry, and dairy in the next few months as a result. Internationally, the higher cost of animal feed will ripple through livestock producers. This process may sharply affect Asia, where demand for meat is growing, but nations have smaller domestic stockpiles.

International food organization Oxfam warned in response to the FAO report that “millions of the world’s poorest will face devastation” from the increases. “This is not some gentle monthly wake-up call—it’s the same global alarm that’s been screaming at us since 2008,” Oxfam spokesman Colin Roche stated. “These figures prove that the world’s food system cannot cope on crumbling foundations. The combination of rising prices and expected low reserves means the world is facing a double danger.”

One billion people suffer from hunger worldwide. Hundreds of millions more who live in poverty are vulnerable to food inflation because they spend half or more of their incomes on staple goods. Food price shocks in 2008—driven by a confluence of weather disasters, protectionist measures, and speculators jumping ship from the financial market into commodities—produced food protests across more than 30 countries.

“There is a potential for a situation to develop like we had back in 2007-08,” FAO economist and grain analyst Abdolreza Abbassian told Reuters Thursday. “There is an expectation that this time around we will not pursue bad policies and intervene in the market by restrictions, and if that doesn’t happen we will not see such a serious situation as 2007/08. But if those policies get repeated, anything is possible.”

While economists and aid organizations have issued progressively dire warnings over the consequences of another food crisis, the underlying factors—extreme weather, a disjointed food distribution system, the possibility of export bans, and above all, rampant speculation—are more exacerbated than ever.

Indeed, commodities investors have rallied on the raft of bad news, making price shocks inevitable. Traders on the Chicago Board of Trade, banking on the USDA to issue a dire outlook on Friday, sent corn prices soaring Thursday morning to $8.265 per bushel, two cents below the all-time record set in July.

Major banks and hedge funds in particular have played a role in the rally. As Bloomberg News noted, “crops are the best-performing commodities this year, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Macquarie Group Ltd. and Credit Suisse Group AG say the trend will continue.”

One Chicago trader commented to Reuters that Goldman Sachs was leading the betting on a USDA corn yield downgrade and predicting $9 corn and $20 soybeans by November. “The Goldman roll started Tuesday, you have that going on and the report is tomorrow. Everyone is expecting the corn number to be pretty friendly.”

Jaime Miralles of investment firm Intl FC Stone Europe said that “a firm $9 corn sentiment remains as rationing is and will be required.” Other speculators anticipate $10 per bushel corn prices in the coming months.

“I think general price firmness is being seen in ahead of the USDA report because the market is increasingly realising how horrible conditions are for U.S. corn,” Rabobank analyst Erin FitzPatrick commented. “There is pre-positioning ahead of the report as people are expecting more cuts in US harvest forecasts. Despite recent rain in the US, a lot of the damage has already been done to corn.”

Farmers and agricultural economists estimate that corn yield in much of the Corn Belt will be far lower than the USDA’s already downgraded estimate of 146 bushels per acre. Some areas may yield 100 bushels per acre or less, knocking the national corn crop back to levels not seen in decades.

The US Drought Monitor reported that for the week ending August 7, fully 80 percent of the contiguous US is experiencing drought. “Every day we go without significant rain is tightening the noose,” said meteorologist Mark Svoboda, who authored the latest Monitor report. In Iowa, the largest corn producing state, the area suffering from extreme drought more than doubled in size. As of August 7, nearly 70 percent of the state was under the most severe category of drought. Over 81 percent of Illinois and fully 94 percent of Missouri is in “at least extreme drought.”

The USDA estimates that inventories of corn, wheat, soybeans, and rice will be reduced to 2008 levels next year. Wheat inventories are projected to contract 7.5 percent.

Wheat production in Russia, the fourth largest exporter, is set to fall by 20 percent this year. The Australian wheat crop, stunted by repeated frosts and poor weather, may yield 40 percent less than initial projections. India’s agricultural region suffered a monsoon season providing 22 percent less rainfall than average, resulting in a 7.8 million ton loss in the global rice crop. The FAO also reduced rice production forecasts for Cambodia, Taiwan, North and South Korea, and Nepal.

Source: World Socialist Web Site

The ANCYL's memorandum to Helen Zille

Memorandum of demands from ANCYL Dullah Omar Region & others to the Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille, July 27 2012:

Memorandum of Demands

To: Western Cape Premier - Helen Zille

From : ANCYL, ANC, ANCWL, Cosatu, Taxi Association (CATA and Codeta) including other progressive formations.

The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) together with the above mentioned organizations have decided to embark on this revolutionary peoples march to the Provincial Parliament led by the Democratic Alliance (DA). This revolutionary march is inspired by the sad and gross conditions which our people continue to find themselves in on a daily basis.

Our people have never fought and died for another special type of apartheid to be born under a democratic government since 1994. Our parents, brothers and sisters gave up their lives in pursuit of a democratic, non- racial and non-sexist society. In 1994, our parents never voted to be led by a government that will re-introduce apartheid of a special type.

Since 2006 and 2009 when the DA took over the province,it has been concentrating on a programme to bring back apartheid in our lifetime. We have seen deliberate and concerted efforts and plans to divide and run amongst our people who are Africans, Coloured, Muslims and Indians. "We have seen statements like "take back what belongs to you", "Refugees" and so on. Whilst we wait patiently for our government to deliver to us constitutional rights in service, we see the DA undermining the National Government of the ANC through unfounded accusations of corruptions and incompetency.

We see the DA running around the entire country pointing failures of the ANC National Government whilst in the Western Cape there are huge failures and people live in dire situations. Today Cde and fellow Cape Tonians, We are here to unmask what is the real DA. Who is the DA fighting for? Who is Helen Zille?

The DA is a group of few white people who are bitter, angry and adamant in bringing back Apartheid at all cost. White South Africans refuse to live along side by side with Africans, Coloureds, Indians, Muslims and Khoi people. The DA keeps on painting a glossy picture about how we can live as a rainbow nation whilst the majority of our people live in the gutter and shacks. Today, we are saying ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Ons is gatvol! Sanele!

We are gatvol because black people in the Western Cape continue to be tea girls and garden boys under the DA government which continues to perpetuate this by encouraging young people to work for labour brokers and other non-progressive and counter revolutionary businesses on a basis of getting experience which will make them employable in a capitalist state. We are saying to madam Zille, we do not want to make this province ungovernable and unworkable because we are quite capable of doing that and we are ready even now!!!

We demand the following from you and your collective government:

1. Land

We demand that land that is owned by private people and companies be made available for the building of decent houses and creation of better communities where black people and white live together. We demand the land in Rondebosch Square among many so that our people will live together as the constitution dictates so. This land must be made available for the poorest of the poor.

2. Service delivery

We demand that electricity is an essential service and it ought to be given to people without being made to suffer for it. We demand a speedy electrification of our poor and disadvantage areas. It is inhumane for people in 19 years of a democratic government to still live in darkness and only rely on candles and paraffin for energy.

We demand the DA administration to provide proper sanitation to our communities. 19 years into democracy our people still relieve themselves in Pota-loos. This violates our constitutional right, that of proper decent sanitation. It also perpetuates health hazards such as diarrhoea and ringworms. The bucket system is a mechanism to kill our people as the Premier referred to them "REFUGEES".

3. Human Settlement - 17 Billion - 1.7 spent?

We demand that the MEC to be dismissed including his department officials with immediate effect and be replaced by a more competent person who will not be remote controlled by Zille. The department is full of corruption till to date there is no one held accountable for this. Our people demand a speedy delivering of houses to people who have been on a waiting list for ever. We demand that all hostels in Mananberg, Elsie's River, Hanover Park etc built during the apartheid era to be demolished and that people get decent houses where they will live happily in their new democratic government.

We demand that people get houses closer to the CBD and not far from where they work. The view of locating our people as far as West Coast closer to the Malmesbury is ridiculous and absurd. We want houses in Rondebosch square and in Constantia. We know the department of human settlement in the City of Cape had a budget of R17billion and only R1.7 Billion was spent and none of our areas benefitted out of this. Zille must tell us where is the money?

We demand an end to TRA's because the government of Zille has clearly displayed that it does not understand what the meaning of temporary is. People in Mfuleni among other areas are dying in these fridges. A child died in Mfuleni Bosasa TRA's and nothing was done by government. How many more must die Zille???

We demand that all shacks within the City and Province to be eradicated by not later than 2014!!!

4. Safety and Security

We demand that Mr Dan Plato follow Mr Madikizela as he too proved to be a useless duck. Crime has escalated to its highest levels within the Western Cape and City of Cape Town under the rule of DA. Nyanga has not once but twice became the murder capital of the nation. Mananberg and Hanover Park children swim in drugs and guns yet the MEG and Zille smile, say that it is normal.

Why are police stations in the townships not given the necessary resources they need? Why are all security agencies deployed in Sea Point, Camps Bay and Constantia where there is little crime compared to our areas? The calling of SANDF proves that the government of Zille has failed our people. She is incompetent and a disaster. Madam Zille please do us a favour, JUST RESIGN!!!

5. Youth Wage Subsidy

We demand that this subsidy be discarded with immediate effect. This only just complements the labour broking system that is killing our people and youth in particular. We demand that decent employment and interventions to the levels of high employment be implemented. In the City of Cape Town alone, unemployment is at 33% - 40%. And worse there is no Youth policy that seeks to resolve this crisis.

The Youth of South Africa through a National Youth Parliament that was here in the Western Cape rejected this Policy. We are saying nothing about us without us. We demand a youth development policy and a program of job seekers grant to be researched and implemented.

6. Closure of 27 Schools

We demand that this attempt of closing six schools in our region must come to an end. Again, this proves that the DA government wants to reverse the gains made by our people in 1994.These schools have not only provided quality and meaningful contact time with learners, they are closer to their homes and do not have to travel long distances to reach school. We urge the provincial government to took into the matter and rather provide mechanisms to address the shortcomings faced by these schools. Do not close the schools!

7. Non delivery of Text books

The DA administration upholds the constitution of South Africa supreme. However it does not deliver to basic rights of our people, the right to education. The no delivery of textbooks to our schools is a disgrace and an indication that the DA administration undermines the rights of the people of South Africa, black in particular because the only schools that do not have textbooks are those found in black communities like Kraaifontein.

8. The IRT

The introduction of the IRT system in the transport industry has disabled the taxi industry. It has taken away jobs and businesses of taxi owners and drivers. 54 taxis had to stop operating due to this system that robbed families of their household income. We urge the provincial government to embark in a program that will revitalise the taxi industry and provide mechanical support to taxis that need service for the safety of passengers. The IRT costs taxpayers millions and we have seen in recent times that it is running at a loss!

Conclusion

We demand that the abovementioned demands be positively responded to within 7 working days. Failure to do so the young people and the abovementioned stakeholders will make this city and province ungovernable! Amandla!!!!

Issued by the ANCYL Dullah Omar Region on behalf of the People of the Western Cape.

July 27 2012

Source: Politics Web

World social inequality more pronounced than ever

The super-rich are currently hiding away wealth estimated between $21 trillion and $32 trillion in tax havens such as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. This is the conclusion published last weekend by the Tax Justice Network, an NGO based in London. The author of the study is James Henry, a former chief economist at the McKinsey consulting firm and an expert on tax havens.

Henry bases his projections on data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United Nations and various national central banks. His study was limited to financial assets, and excluded tangible assets such as real estate, gold, jewellery or other possessions.

The figures reveal that “high net worth individuals” (defined as those with assets of over $50 million) have stashed away much larger sums in tax havens than previously thought. The report also shows that the concentration of global wealth in ever fewer hands has rapidly accelerated.

In 2005, the estimated offshore assets of the super-rich amounted to $11.5 trillion. Since then this total has doubled or tripled. Today the top 10 percent of the world’s population control 84 percent of assets, while the bottom 50 percent have access to just 1 percent. According to the study, the top of the pile—92,000 people who constitute an infinitesimal fraction of the world’s population—have hidden financial assets amounting to more than 9 trillion dollars, an average of nearly $100 million apiece.

The rapid growth of these assets during the past seven years shows that the global crisis of capitalism has been by no means disadvantageous for the financial elite. On the contrary, while more and more people in advanced countries are suffering due to government austerity programs and millions in developing countries are condemned to dire poverty, the super-rich have used the financial and economic turmoil of recent years to massively increase their wealth and hide their money beyond the reach of tax authorities.

They are assisted by a tax code that permits them to move huge amounts of money to offshore tax havens utilising legal loopholes and professional help.

While those on low incomes are strictly monitored by the state and are badgered for their tax payments, the super-rich are able to rely on a globally operating group of highly paid asset and investment advisers employed by the major international banks, which charge considerable sums in return for their tax fiddles. The four largest UK banks alone—HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland—have over 1,200 branches in tax havens.

According to Henry, the world’s 10 largest private financial institutions, including Deutsche Bank, moved more than $6.25 trillion offshore in 2010. Prior to the crash of 2007 the equivalent sum amounted to $2.34 trillion.

Those hit hardest by tax avoidance and tax evasion are developing countries. In the past 40 years the wealthiest citizens from 139 developing countries hid away non-declared assets estimated at $7.3 trillion to $9.3 trillion in tax havens. Their offshore assets are often greater than the national debt of their respective countries and play a major role in the lack of money to finance urgently needed public health and education programs in their home countries.

The top three in the list of countries with the most super-rich individuals are the US, China and Germany. A study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) recently revised upward its estimate of the fortune of the country’s top 1 percent, from 23 percent to 34 percent of national wealth, conceding that the incomes of ultra-wealthy households had not been included in its previous investigations.

Based on the findings of the enormous scale of hidden assets, Henry argues in his study that the previously applied standards for inequality, which are generally related to household income, have “dramatically underestimated” the real divide between rich and poor.

The author of the study agrees with the British economist and journalist Stewart Lansley, who writes in his recently published book, The Cost of Inequality: “There is absolutely no doubt at all that the statistics on income and wealth at the top understate the problem.”

Global social inequality today is not only much more pronounced than all the official statistics show. It has, in global terms, reached levels unprecedented in human history.

Source: World Socialist Web Site

The communists have got this right

Here’s something important to read and understand. From a South African Communist Party Central Committee statement  released today – I just caught it on Politicsweb here.

You can disagree with the communists about a range of points of strategy and of principle, but they accurately and urgently identify populism as exemplified by the ANC Youth League ruling faction (and be clear, this is what they are talking about) as the greatest threat to the ruling alliance and, more importantly, to the South African democracy.

This is their call to arms:

We are dealing with an anti-worker, anti-left, anti-communist, pseudo-militant demagogy that betrays all of our long-held ANC-alliance traditions of internal organizational democracy, mutual respect for comrades, non-racialism, and service to our people. It has created substantial space for an anti-majoritarian, conservative reactive groundswell that seeks to tarnish the whole movement, portraying us all as anti-constitutionalist and as narrow nationalist chauvinists.

It was only a matter of time before a rescue attempt of the sliding democratic project was launched from within the alliance. It was always going to come either from Cosatu or the SACP – and despite its lack of a mass base, the SACP is more venerable and respected within the ANC

The communist leadership has dissipate into government and its voice has been softer and more defensive as a result. It remains to be seen if the party is still able to crack the whip loud enough to drive our domestic version of Zanu-PF back into its cage.

Source: Nic Borain

Right-wing demagogy the greatest threat - SACP

Central Committee warns against dangerous tendency within ANC alliance

SACP Central Committee Statement

The Central Committee of the SACP met in Johannesburg over the weekend of the 10-12th June. An analysis of the May 18th local government elections, an interaction on challenges within the youth sector (in which we were joined by the national executive committee of the Young Communist League), further consolidation of the SACP's perspectives on government's New Growth Path framework document, and preparations for the commemoration of the SACP's 90th anniversary were among the main items under discussion.

The CC suspended deliberations for most of Saturday to enable CC members to join thousands of other South Africans at the funeral of our beloved leader, cde Albertina Sisulu. Cde Albertina was the second recipient (after cde Madiba) of the SACP's Chris Hani Peace Award. Hamba kahle, Mama Sisulu! May we never forget your inspiring example of courageous, militant and unassuming service to the people of South Africa - you passed on with your dignity and integrity intact.

May 18th Local Government elections

The SACP was an active partner in the ANC's local government election campaign from the outset with the development of the election manifesto, through the candidate selection process, and into mass mobilization and door-to-door work. The CC saluted the role played by our tens of thousands of activists in the campaign.

The CC also congratulated the many communist militants who, in their capacity as ANC members and leaders, have been elected as councilors. In particular, the CC congratulated CC member, cde Zukiswa Ncitha who has been elected mayor of the new Buffalo City Metro, and KZN SACP chairperson, cde James Nxumalo, elected as mayor of the eThekwini metro.

These positive developments which bring added responsibilities to the Party and its members are in line with our medium term vision of seeking to build progressive influence and working class hegemony in all sites of struggle. The SACP calls on all ANC councilors not to take the electorate for granted and to ensure that with our support we rise to the expectations expressed in the campaign.

The CC agreed that with 63% of the vote the ANC together with its alliance partners had, once more, received an overwhelming electoral mandate. The CC further noted that this significant electoral victory was achieved in challenging circumstances - in the midst of the local aftershocks of the global economic crisis, and in the context of many challenges in the local government sphere. In many other countries, from the US to Spain, previously incumbent political parties have suffered massive electoral defeats in the midst of the economic crisis. The ANC-alliance's sustained performance and continued overwhelming majority support from our core constituencies is, therefore, particularly noteworthy.

However, the ANC-alliance would also be seriously mistaken if we did not take note of many warning lights from this election campaign. There was, for a local election, an exceptional voter turnout.

Some of this was attributable to the DA's ability to turn out a very high level of support in so-called "minority", and particularly white areas. But the high turnout was also a popular response from our mass base in provinces and municipalities where the working class and poor sensed that their organizations and their struggle were under threat from an axis of anti-majoritarian forces that included the major media houses, right-wing NGOs like Afriforum, and the DA.

But in other provinces and municipalities there was a noticeable decline in ANC voter turnout, which is in part an indication of frustration with corruption and ineffective ANC performance in some municipalities.

The SACP welcomed the innovative ANC candidate selection process that involved active community participation. Amongst other things, this approach to candidate selection sought to bring popular power to bear in the struggle against organizational gate-keeping, tenderpreneurship, and money-politics. In some cases, regional gate-keepers and money politics still managed to either side-step or hijack the community participation process provoking some of the current popular anger - but, overwhelmingly, community participation proved to be a very positive process. The SACP will be strongly supporting this approach for future elections, while learning lessons and adapting where needed.

The CC noted the many subjective and objective problems in the local government sphere. Much criticism of local government focuses, often correctly, on subjective weaknesses - inappropriate deployments, corruption, tenderpreneurship, etc. However, we need also to look at the objective challenges in the current model of local government and the impossible challenges with which many local governments are confronted. The SACP supports the overall thrust of the Municipal Systems Amendment Bill that has passed through both houses in parliament and now awaits presidential proclamation.

We also support turnaround proposals from the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs department . Amongst other things, we support the measure that office bearers (not members) of political parties should not occupy senior administrative posts in local government; and the need for a more clearly defined separation between the roles of elected councilors and administrators. The SACP strongly supports the critical need to strengthen popular participatory involvement in local government through, amongst other things, ward committees. These measures are not just legalistic and institutional responses to challenges.

They are aimed at professionalizing and greatly improving the efficiency and effectiveness of local government. They will also help to strike at the heart of areas in which corruption and tenderpreneurship have often proliferated. Other critical areas that require attention include the funding model for local government, and the key role of district municipalities in rural development.

Right-wing demagogy within the ranks of the broader movement - the greatest threat to the national democratic revolution

There are many lessons that need to be derived from the May 18th election campaign - but the greatest of all is that factionalism led by a dangerous right-wing demagogy within our broader movement is costing us dearly. This demagogy constitutes the greatest threat, not just to our electoral performance, but also to our hard-won democratic achievements as a country in general.

We are dealing with an anti-worker, anti-left, anti-communist, pseudo-militant demagogy that betrays all of our long-held ANC-alliance traditions of internal organizational democracy, mutual respect for comrades, non-racialism, and service to our people. It has created substantial space for an anti-majoritarian, conservative reactive groundswell that seeks to tarnish the whole movement, portraying us all as anti-constitutionalist and as narrow nationalist chauvinists.

The SACP calls on our Alliance partners to unite, to close ranks and to deal decisively with this grave threat. Closing ranks does not mean that various other debates and differences amongst us should be suppressed - but it does mean that within and across our Alliance we must not open up a dozen fronts of fractious public dispute, as if all differences and debates were of equal significance.

So how do we unite to confront the demagogic challenge? There is one fundamental response - across the Alliance we need to take up with renewed vigour the programme of action that we have agreed upon at the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference and in subsequent Alliance summits. The programme of action embraces five key pillars - jobs, education and training, health, rural development and the fight against crime and corruption. It is a programme of action that must combine the determined exercise of state power and active mobilization of popular forces.

In the midst of media-supported diversions we often lose sight of very important gains made in these key areas of transformation. Popular mobilization and a change in government policy have seen, for instance, a very significant reduction of mother-to-child HIV/Aids transmission - saving an estimated 67,000 children. There have been important gains in funding students through a reinvigorated mandate for NSFAS. National Treasury has announced very important corruption-busting measures that name and shame fronting and other tenderpreneuring activities and prevent those involved in doing business with government. All of these measures have been won as a result of popular struggles and a more determined and strategic use of state power.

But these advances must be replicated across the board, and particularly in areas of burning concern - notably the crisis of unemployment (especially youth unemployment) and rural development - including the critical questions of accelerated land reform and sustainable rural livelihoods. The CC supports the Department of Land Affairs and Rural Development's intention to bring to cabinet the proposal of reopening the land restitution program. The SACP has resolved to pursue our cooperatives campaign linking this much more actively to prescribed state procurement policies. The SACP will also be closely studying the important Indian rural work-guarantee programme, we believe it has important potential application to SA when addressing rural development and youth unemployment.

The crisis in Swaziland

The deepening economic and social crisis in Swaziland in the midst of a ruling elite's squandering of resources, underlines the importance of increased pressure to ensure that this backward feudal dispensation is finally democratized. The CC noted and welcomed the recent launch of a Swaziland Communist Party which is already making an important impact in strengthening the broader democratic movement.

Forward to the 90th anniversary of the SACP!

The end of July marks the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party in South Africa. In the course of nine decades, the Communist Party has made an indelible contribution to the South African struggle and to our new democratic dispensation. The Communist Party was the first, and for many decades the only, political party in SA that not only aspired to a non-racial future, but had an active membership of black and white comrades shoulder-to-shoulder in struggle. The Communist Party pioneered militant trade unionism, and progressive journalism in SA. As many generations of outstanding ANC leaders, among them cde Nelson Mandela, have acknowledged, the Party has also made an outstanding contribution to consolidating and defending a mass-based and campaigning ANC.

The 90th anniversary celebrations will be launched on the 3rd July in Bushbuckridge, in Mpumalanga, with many Red Forums and other activities in all provinces, culminating in a main rally on 31 July at Sugar Ray Xulu Stadium, Clermont in KZN.

Statement issued by the SACP, June 12 2011

Source: Politicsweb

US, NATO allies join scramble for Libya’s oil

A US delegation arrived in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Tuesday for talks with the Transitional National Council, the political arm of the so-called rebels fighting against the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

The visit follows the announcement Monday in Rome that the Italian government has recognized the council in Benghazi as the sole legitimate government of Libya. Italy is only the third nation to take this step, following recognition of the TNC by France and Qatar, the oil-rich Persian Gulf emirate.

In announcing the recognition, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini also stated that Paolo Scaroni, the chief executive of the Italian oil and gas company, ENI, had visited Benghazi two days earlier for talks with the TNC. The foreign ministry subsequently corrected his remarks, saying that he had held a telephone conference with the leadership of the Benghazi council.

The oil executive, Frattini said, “had contacts with the Libyan National Transitional Council to restart cooperation in the energy sector and get going again the collaboration with Italy in the oil sector.”

Last month, on the eve of the US, France and Britain launching their missile and bombing attacks on Libya, Scaroni had derided economic sanctions against the Gaddafi regime as “shooting ourselves in the foot” and stressed ENI’s desire to resume operations in the North African country “whatever political system there is in the future.” The company, which has been active in Libya since 1955, is the top foreign oil operator and the country’s largest foreign investor, having reached a $28 billion deal with the Libyan government in 2007 to extend its contracts for oil production until 2042.

ENI is extremely close to the Italian government. Its turn to the “rebels” may merely be a matter of the company hedging its bets. On the other hand, it could reflect insider knowledge as to US-NATO plans either to escalate the war or to effectively partition Libya, with eastern oil fields and facilities under the nominal control of the TNC.

The Italian recognition and ENI’s forging of ties to the Benghazi council came just a day before a Liberian-registered oil tanker, owned by a Greek shipping conglomerate, docked at the Libyan crude export terminal of Marsa el-Hariga, near Tobruk.

The tanker, the Equator, is capable of carrying 1 million barrels of crude, which would sell for over $100 million on the world market. Its shipment will represent the first export of oil from Libya since the country was plunged into civil war six weeks ago. The Greek shipping company carrying the oil has refused to say who is paying for it or where it is going.

There are reportedly three million barrels of crude stored at the terminal, which belongs to the Arab Gulf Oil Corporation (AGOCO), a subsidiary of Libya’s National Oil Corporation. The Transitional National Council has claimed that AGOCO’s fields in the east are producing up to 120,000 barrels a day, roughly one third of the output before the civil war broke out. Libya as a whole was producing 1.6 million barrels a day and exporting 1.3 million before the fighting.

Energy analysts are highly skeptical of these claims. As the business information company IHS noted, “the exodus of foreign skilled workers as well as most Libyan workers, who abandoned the country’s often remote desert oilfields in order not to either be caught out by fighting or left stranded as water and food supply chains broke down, this meant that production in AGOCO fields, as at all other fields in Libya, has fallen to almost zero.”

Nonetheless, the Benghazi council has announced its intention to sell what oil it has to fund its operations and to buy arms, with Qatar acting as a middleman in getting the oil onto the world market.

Asked about Qatar’s role, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Libya’s energy minister, Shukri Ghanem commented bitterly, “Rather than calling for unity and reconciliation, everyone would like to participate in the loot.”

Ghanem insisted that the priority should be a cease-fire and warned that continuation of the fighting could lead to the “strangling” of Libya’s oil industry.

Last week, the European Union’s foreign affairs representative, Catherine Ashton, stressed that “there is an oil embargo against the whole of Libya” which applied equally to areas held by the Gaddafi regime and those under control of the armed opposition.

Washington took the opposite position, insisting that so long as the money for the oil exports was not funneled into the state-owned National Oil Corporation, the exports from eastern Libya would be allowed.

The United Nations special envoy for Libya, Abdul Ilah al-Khatib, delivered a report to the Security Council April 4 in which he said that the council in Benghazi had “raised concerns about the lack of funds, as well as issues relating to the marketing and sale of oil and gas in Libya.” He also said that the council wanted to begin securing “loans guaranteed against oil and gas sales and [Libya’s] frozen overseas assets.”

By Tuesday, the EU reversed its position on the Libyan sanctions, with a foreign affairs spokesman insisting, “The oil and gas embargo is specifically targeted against the Gaddafi regime” and so long as revenues did not go to the government in Tripoli, “we have no issues with oil and gas commercial practices.”

The abrupt turnaround, combined with the discussions between the Italian oil giant ENI and the “rebels,” suggests that a scramble by the major Western powers and energy conglomerates for control of Libyan oil is well under way.

It is in this context that the visit to Benghazi by the US delegations—and by French and British ambassadors before it—is taking place. The US envoy, Chris Stevens, the former number-two official at the now-closed embassy in Tripoli, is to discuss, among other matters, “the financial needs of the council” and “how the international community can assist,” an administration official told the Associated Press. No doubt, such “assistance” will be tied to lucrative contracts for the American branch of Big Oil.

Washington, Paris and London had expected to secure unfettered control over Libyan oil by means of regime change, forcing the downfall of the Gaddafi regime. However, this task has proven more difficult and protracted than anticipated.

The “rebels” have been incapable of mobilizing forces able to defeat the military units loyal to Gaddafi. On Wednesday, they were once again driven out of Brega, site of an oil refinery and Mediterranean port, despite NATO air strikes early in the day that demolished vehicles used by the Gaddafi forces. The panicked retreat by the opposition forces took them at least 15 miles east toward Ajdabiya.

The new setbacks led to a protest by one of the commanders of the armed opposition that NATO was not supplying sufficient air cover. Abdel Fattah Younes, who was previously Gaddafi’s interior minister, condemned NATO for acting too slowly in delivering bombardments and warned, “Either NATO does its work properly or I will ask the national council to raise the matter with the Security Council.”

NATO rejected the complaint, insisting that it has maintained the same pace of operations since assuming nominal command of the Libyan intervention. “The pace of operations since NATO took over has not abated,” said a spokesman for the US-led alliance. “We have conducted 851 sorties in the past six days ... we are fulfilling our mandate.”

Meanwhile, Brigadier General Mark van Uhm, a senior NATO staff officer, said in Brussels, “The assessment is that we have taken out 30 percent of the military capacity of Gaddafi.”

Washington and NATO have claimed to be operating under the mandate of a UN Security Council resolution authorizing “all necessary measures” to protect civilians. But the obvious implication of van Uhm’s statement is that continuous bombardments have been carried out with the aim of obliterating Libya’s military and defending the so-called rebels.

This air war, however, has proven insufficient, given the US and NATO-backed opposition’s disorganization and lack of forces.

A report from Libya by Al Jazeera reveals that covert measures are being taken in an attempt to change this situation. Citing the testimony of a member of the armed opposition, the network reported that oppositionists are being trained at a secret facility in eastern Libya by both US and Egyptian special forces units.

The “rebel” also said that weapons are being funneled in across the Egyptian border, in violation of a UN arms embargo, including “state-of-the-art” heat-seeking missiles.

The report further exposes the lies told by the Obama administration. The US president has publicly assured the American people that there will be no “boots on the ground” in Libya, and that arming the “rebels” is something that has neither been ruled in or out. It is now evident that both have already taken place as Washington escalates the predatory war.

A poll released Tuesday pointed to rising popular opposition within the United States to the war launched by the Obama administration against Libya. Only 25 percent believed that the intervention is worth the nearly $600 million spent thus far on the US military action, according to the poll, conducted for The Hill. The same poll indicated only 19 percent support for arming the so-called rebels. A separate Quinnipiac University survey found that 47 percent of registered voters are against the war compared to 41 per cent who support it.

Source: World Socialist Web Site

South Africa: workers reject offer but trade union leaders suspend strike

South Africa was moving towards a general strike type situation as the public sector strike that started on August 18 was building up momentum. Now the strike has been suspended by union leaders because of some concessions on the part of the government. This has angered many workers who wanted to step up action, not take a step back.

In a joint press statement on Monday, September 6, public sector unions affiliated with COSATU and the ILC, announced their decision to “suspend the strike” while announcing that this did not mean “that we have accepted the state offer”. (Strike is Suspended, COSATU)

The strike by 1.3 million public sector workers started on Wednesday, August 18 and had paralysed schools, hospitals and other public services. The strike reflected the deep seated anger of South African workers at the two-faced policies of the ANC government led by Zuma, with ministers getting high wages and all sorts of perks during the World Cup, while workers are denied their demands for a living wage and access to housing.

From the beginning the attitude of the government was provocative, with strongly worded statements by ministers saying there was no more money to be offered and giving the trade unions an ultimatum. This was combined with the use of the tribunals, the police and the army against the strikers, as well as a high profile media campaign accusing the strikers of murder for paralysing hospitals. This further enraged the trade union activists, who played a key role in replacing former president Mbeki for Zuma and were expecting him to be on their side.

Despite the government provocations the strike remained solid for two weeks and the mood was building up for solidarity action, possibly leading to a general strike in support of the public sector workers. The municipal workers’ union SAMWU moved a motion at the COSATU executive, which decided that all affiliated unions should issue 7 day notices for strike action. A general strike would have started, effectively, on September 2.

It was only the threat of a general strike, which had the full backing of powerful unions like the mineworkers’ NUM, which forced the government back to the negotiating table. President Zuma returned from his state visit to China and ordered the ministers to reach a deal with the unions. Too much was at stake and Zuma could not risk alienating his labour allies completely (as some were threatening not to support the ANC in forthcoming elections). Under these conditions, the government backtracked from its earlier position of “there is no more money” and agreed to increase its pay increase offer from 7% to 7.5%, though this was still short of the workers’ demands for 8.6%. The unions are correct in considering this as a victory, or at least a partial one.

However, the deal had to be put to union members. At this point, on Wednesday, September 1, COSATU decided to cancel the general strike. This was clearly a mistake. If you are in a position of strength, you do not abandon it. The trade union leaders probably thought that the membership would accept the revised offer. For all their radical language, the trade union leaders did not seem prepared to go all the way in their confrontation with the government.

To their surprise, the union ranks decided to reject the new offer. This was the case particularly with the teachers’ union SADTU, but also with the health and government workers’ union NEHAWU. It seems that even the ILC affiliated unions also rejected the offer, though only narrowly.

However, despite this mandate from the members, the trade union leaders decided to suspend the strike and give themselves 21 days to “finalise consultations on the draft agreement”. It seems likely that at least some of the trade union leaders who participated in the negotiations with the government were confident that they could sell the agreement to their members.

The level of anger at local meetings was such that the union leaders had to acknowledge that the proposal had been rejected. Business Report wrote that, “Sizwe Pamla, the national spokesman for the National Education Health and Allied Workers' Union, said on Friday that after a flood of e-mails and text messages ‘we had to acknowledge the rejections’.” But as this NEHAWU leader was not happy with the decision he tried to turn it into its opposite by saying that, “it was difficult to say it was an official rejection as members had not been properly consulted”. In other words, the trade union leaders did not manage to convince their members, but this was only because they did not explain the agreement properly, or fully, and therefore, another 21 days are needed.

This is a scandalous position. Once the momentum of the strike has been lost, it will be very difficult to build it up again. The union leaders should not have called off the general strike before getting an agreement that was acceptable to its members; this should be the ABC of trade union tactics. Once the threat of a general strike is lifted and the workers go back to work, even if the deal is rejected, what leverage do the unions have to extract more concessions from the government? None.

Many workers were rightly angry when they found out about the decision to stop the strike. City Press reported that NEHAWU “union leaders were chased out of the meeting in Johannesburg this afternoon”. The report quoted NEHAWU member Ramarumo as saying: “Members are angry and they want to protest by going to the national office to burn their membership cards”. The same report quoted the general secretary of Gauteng Central branch of SADTU, Ronald Nyathi as saying: “Teachers are not happy but after we learnt that some unions belonging to COSATU and the Independent Labour Caucus (ILC) accepted the government’s offer, we realised we can’t carry on with the strike alone.”

This will certainly raise a lot of questions amongst the trade union activists about their own leaders, particularly since COSATU has a proud tradition of standing for workers’ control over the union structures and officials.

Whatever the outcome of this particular battle, the main questions that were raised during the strike, particularly in relation to the policies of the ANC government, the relationship of the trade union movement with the government and the ANC, and also regarding the role of the SACP leaders in government, will not go away.

The forthcoming meeting of the ANC National General Council will be the place where many of these issues will be discussed. The ANC Youth League will certainly raise the need to nationalise the mines, as part of their campaign for “economic freedom in our lifetime”. The so-called Black Economic Empowerment will also be discussed. BEE has basically allowed a small minority of blacks (some in the circle of family and friends of Zuma himself) to join the capitalist class, while the majority of working people and the poor who carried out the struggle against apartheid have seen their living conditions deteriorate and the gap between rich and poor increase.

On Sunday, September 5, the chairperson of the Young Communist League, David Masondo, published a sharply written article in the City Press, denouncing BEE as a policy through which “certain black millionaires associated with the liberation movement have been cherry-picked by white businesses.” (BEE has evolved into a family affair, Citypress)The article has already caused divisions within the YCL, with a statement signed by YCLSA National Office Bearers distancing themselves from Masondo’s public criticism of Zuma (Statement by the YCL National Office Bearers on the article by David Masondo, YCL).

What is needed is to focus the debate on the crucial issue: the need for a socialist alternative which can really achieve “economic liberation within our life time”. Only by challenging the logic of capitalism, through the expropriation of the mines and big monopolies, can the pressing problems of the majority of South Africans, the workers and the poor, begin to be addressed. Whilst the economic power remains in the hands of an unelected minority, genuine liberation will not be achieved. Housing, land reform, education and health care for all, jobs… none of these issues can be solved within the limits of capitalism, as has been amply demonstrated in the 16 years since the end of apartheid. The formal rule of the vile regime of racial discrimination was abolished through the heroic struggle of the masses. But the capitalist regime which it served remains in place.

Source: International Marxist Tendency

Southern Africa: The Liberation Struggle Continues

Fifty years on from the beginnings of liberation in Africa, John Saul finds there is still much work to be done, especially in southern Africa where the final triumph over colonial and racial domination occurred. In each of the the five sites of the overt struggle against domination – Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa – there are clear signs of recolonization. This time by capital. What we have seen is the virtual recolonization of southern Africa by capital. This is something new. It is not easy to disaggregate this "capital" into national capitals and see it as being the instrument of various nationally-based imperialisms and their several colonialisms. Now, it is an "Empire of Capital" that is currently recolonizing Africa. Of course, this has been complicated by the still independent role that national states play in the imperial equation. Moreover, it is the case that such a "recolonization" has been accomplished with the overt connivance of indigenous leaders/elites – those who have inherited power with the demise of "white rule" but who, in doing so, have manifested much greater commitment to the interests of their own privileged class-in-creation, as opposed to those of the mass of their own people. In short, it is not a happy world for the vast mass of ordinary southern African citizens – despite the freedom that they had seemed once to have won. Some facts for South Africa may provide an indication of such a reality, one that has also scarred each of the five countries of the region that once became key sites of overt liberation struggle: Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. Indeed, the several country case-studies that comprise the body of this edition of AfricaFiles' Ezine will, cumulatively, give a very clear sense of this reality. In Zimbabwe, in the brutal thrall of Mugabe and ZANU-PF has witnessed an even greater deterioration of national circumstances. ZANU-PF stewardship of the economy has been an unmitigated disaster, while its politics, through years of overt and enormously costly dictatorial practices, have produced a situation that is proving enormously difficult both to displace and to move beyond. In South Africa, the economic gap between black and white has indeed narrowed statistically – framed by the fact that some blacks have indeed got very much richer (from their own upward mobility as junior partners to recolonization and from the fresh spoils of victory that this has offered them). Yet the gap between rich and poor is actually wider than ever it was – and it is growing. A long-time and firmly loyal ANC cadre (Ben Turok) has himself published a book entitled The Evolution of ANC Economic Policy. In the book, Turok acknowledges both the contribution of ANC policies to growing inequality in South Africa, while reaching "the irresistible conclusion that the ANC government has lost a great deal of its earlier focus on the fundamental transformation of the inherited social system". Source: AfricaFiles

Feudalism

Feudalism is a decentralized sociopolitical structure in which a weak monarchy attempts to control the lands of the realm through reciprocal agreements with regional leaders. In its most classic sense, feudalism refers to the Medieval European political system composed of a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. Although derived from the Latin word feodum (fief), then in use, the term feudalism and the system it describes were not conceived of as a formal political system by the people living in the Medieval Period.

Outside a European context, the concept of feudalism is normally used only by analogy (called semi-feudal), most often in discussions of Japan under the shoguns, and sometimes medieval and Gondarine Ethiopia. However, some have taken the feudalism analogy further, seeing it in places as diverse as ancient Egypt, the Parthian empire, the Indian subcontinent, and the antebellum American South.

Source: Wikipedia

Why Socialism?

The following is an extract of an article written by Albert Einstein, first published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949).

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is. Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.

But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called "the predatory phase" of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.

Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.

For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.

Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: "Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?"

I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days. What is the cause? Is there a way out?

It is easy to raise such questions, but difficult to answer them with any degree of assurance. I must try, however, as best I can, although I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.

Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior. The abstract concept "society" means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is "society" which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society.”

It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished—just as in the case of ants and bees. However, while the whole life process of ants and bees is fixed down to the smallest detail by rigid, hereditary instincts, the social pattern and interrelationships of human beings are very variable and susceptible to change. Memory, the capacity to make new combinations, the gift of oral communication have made possible developments among human being which are not dictated by biological necessities. Such developments manifest themselves in traditions, institutions, and organizations; in literature; in scientific and engineering accomplishments; in works of art. This explains how it happens that, in a certain sense, man can influence his life through his own conduct, and that in this process conscious thinking and wanting can play a part.

Man acquires at birth, through heredity, a biological constitution which we must consider fixed and unalterable, including the natural urges which are characteristic of the human species. In addition, during his lifetime, he acquires a cultural constitution which he adopts from society through communication and through many other types of influences. It is this cultural constitution which, with the passage of time, is subject to change and which determines to a very large extent the relationship between the individual and society. Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organization which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.

If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify. As mentioned before, the biological nature of man is, for all practical purposes, not subject to change. Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly-centralized productive apparatus are absolutely necessary. The time—which, looking back, seems so idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.

I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.

For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists' requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.

Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the “free labor contract” for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from “pure” capitalism.

Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers' goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition. Since, under present circumstances, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come under a powerful taboo, I consider the foundation of this magazine (Monthly Review) to be an important public service.

Source: Monthly Review