The Death of Co-ops

Co-operative Funeralcare, which organises more than 100,000 funerals a year from 900 funeral homes has begun an inquiry after staff were secretly filmed storing dead bodies like "stacking television sets" in a warehouse on an industrial estate off a busy motorway. While relatives believed their loved ones were at funeral homes,the bodies were being stored in a warehouse or "hub". The warehouse contained a garage with a fleet of limousines and hearses, storage for dozens of coffins, and a large refrigerated area – the mortuary – with rack upon rack of bodies, some of them uncovered. When families asked to see their loved ones, the body would be taken back to the funeral home, a journey of up to 30 miles. The documentary claims staff are under pressure to sell expensive funeral packages to mourners, to increase profits, which last year were £52 million. The former funeral ombudsman, Professor Geoffrey Woodroffe, described the practices alleged in the film as shocking. "I had no idea that they're treating people as if they're stacking television sets, really. I'd hate to think that a member of my family would have been treated in that way," he told the programme.

When people are exploited and oppressed they co-operate with each other to escape from poverty, to overcome exploitation and oppression. As do people wishing to improve working conditions and the quality of their lives.  Workers are not going to let themselves starve: if the means of production are there they'll go ahead and use them. They often get together and form co-operatives. So, although there are some benefits to co-ops, we still find them exploiting workers (like Funeralcare in their fight with the GMB, which they tried to derecognise), and they can go bust. They aren't a panacea, and they are not a step towards socialism - workers already co-operate at work even in capitalist firms, and we run capitalism from top to bottom. Workers co-operatives are seen by many as radical and anti-capitalist. The Socialist Party do not see co-ops, communes, mutual aid projects and the like as leading to socialism in themselves.

 Far from challenging capitalism, many workers’ co-operatives are actually an important sector of modern economies on the basis of promoting a more ‘ethical capitalism.’ Workers’ co-operatives may provide a catalyst for change and glimpse of what is possible but their gradual and reformist nature must be resisted as futile. Workers’ co-operatives depend on wider market forces to survive and grow and cannot exist outside of capitalist social relations due to the pressures of market forces and competition. Like private enterprises, co-operatives are also subject to the same pressures such as layoffs, price rises and reduction in wages in the process reducing any resemblance of ‘workers’ democracy.’ The more they are integrated into the capitalist economy and its profit- seeking, the more their members will have to discipline and pressurise themselves in the way the old bosses did - what used to be known as "self-managed exploitation". The aim of emancipating the labouring masses is so that the land and all forms of production and distribution is converted into collective property. As long as this is not accomplished, the cooperatives will be overwhelmed by the all-powerful competition of monopoly capital and vast landed property. Even in the unlikely event that a small group of cooperatives should somehow surmount the competition, their success would only beget a new class of prosperous co-operators in the midst of a poverty-stricken mass of proletarians.

Co-operatives lay rest to the lie workers cannot organise production without bosses. But we cannot self-manage capitalism in our own interests as it is weighted against workers. The only way we can really live without exploitation and bosses is by abolishing capitalism. The fact is that there is no way out for workers within the capitalist system. Not cooperatives, not reforms, not trade unions. At most these can only make their situation a little less unbearable. Co-operatives usually only flourish to the extent that they can be successfully accommodated within capitalism. Co-ops by their very nature as worker owned and operated enterprises are always going to be marginal to the capitalist economy because of the enormous concentration of capital in the hands of the capitalist class - which concentration has become more accentuated, not less , in recent years. Co-ops like many other small businesses are struggling to exist and to compete against the might of established capitalist corporations. They are going to need every bit of money they can lays their hands on just to keep afloat. A cooperative is after all a capitalist business unit and as such has the potential as much to divide as to unite workers. It is engaged in capitalist competition after all - and all that that entails

We dont want to embark on setting up coops simply because its nicer way of doing business in capitalism. No, the point has to be to ultimately break as far as is possible with the logic of capital. Otherwise co-ops will simply be coopted by capitalism (if you might excuse the pun). We've seen this happening with
Mondragon. It has moved steadily away from its original egalitarian ideals and it has been able to do this because it lacks any firm anchorage in a genuine socialist outlook. Co-ops in the absence of such an outlook will simply drift into becoming like conventional capitalist businesses, competing with each other and if necessary shedding labour and cutting wages in the process. With co-ops we still have capital, the requirement to turn over capital and restore it to it's initial form, which, no matter how the democratic structures attempt to put use values first, means that the essence of commodity exchange and labour exploitation continues to occur, merely without the person of the individual capitalist.

Being an employee of a co-op is much like being an employee of a joint-stock company, still a hierarchical relationship built on market forces. The co-operatives themselves are in competition for labour and finance. Why do you think the Tories here have discovered mutualisation of public services? It's a means to break unions, enforce market discipline and extend market relations. Mutuals/co-operatives are a worthwhile means to resist market relations, but they in no way supercede them.

The co-op system would not do away with capital, the need to turn it over in the circuit of money-commodity-money, which will mean:
a) Crises would still occur.
b) That income of a co-op will be proportional to its capital, not to the needs of its membership.

The co-operative group: are the fifth largest food retailer, the third largest retail pharmacy chain, the number one provider of funeral services and the largest independent travel business. The Co-operative Group also has strong market positions in banking and insurance. The Group employs 120,000 people, has 5.5 million members and around 4,800 retail outlets. Co-operatives across the UK have reported a combined turnover of £27.4 billion, with profit before tax reaching £539 million. According to Co-operatives UK there are over 4,735 jointly owned, democratically controlled co-operative businesses in the UK, owned by 10.8 million people and sustaining more than 237,000 jobs.

 Are we any closer to socialism for all of this?

THE REALITIES OF WAR

We are all aware of the Hollywood depiction of wartime bravery and noble sacrifice in battle, but one aspect of war is never dealt with by the cinema. "Suicides are surging among America's troops, averaging nearly one a day this year — the fastest pace in the nation's decade of war. The 154 suicides for active-duty troops in the first 155 days of the year far outdistance the U.S. forces killed in action in Afghanistan — about 50 per cent more — according to Pentagon statistics obtained by The Associated Press." (Associated Press, 8 June) More suicides than those killed by the enemy! No wonder those portraying war as something admirable keep quiet about the suicide rate. RD

who owns Scotland

Scotland 19,068,631acres 100%
Urban 585,627 acres 3%
Rural 18,483,004 acres 97%
Of the rural land, 2, 275,768 acres are in the ownership of public bodies and 16,207,236 are in the ownership of private bodies.
Of this privately-owned rural land:
One quarter is owned by 66 landowners in estates of 30,700 acres and larger
One third is owned by 120 landowners in estates of 21,000 acres and larger
One half is owned by 343 landowners in estates of 7,500 acres and larger
Two thirds is owned by 1252 landowners in estates of 1 ,200 acres and larger
Two thirds of Scotland is owned by one four thousandth (0.025%) of the people!

hat-tip Wojtek
 http://libcom.org/blog/some-quick-thoughts-scottish-independence-20062012

The Cliff-edge of Nationalism

Love of country, in the form of "patriotism," is a late creation. Under serfdom people were bound to the soil but they had no "country". Nor has capital any "country" even though capitalism is the precondition for building a "nation," and advocates "nationalism," and protects  "national market." The development of the capitalist and rise of nationalism has been symbiotic. However, as soon as it can, capital continues to expand and pursue the global market, using its own "nationalism" as a springboard. Simply put, nationalism is anything but natural; it is an ideology of capitalism, which serves to produce the conditions for capitalist accumulation and gives it a legitimacy. In other words, it is not some kind of natural human phenomena. It is a social, political and ideational construction. Once the nation state has been physically constructed as "political sovereign", nationalism provides the glue by which it rationalises and maintains itself, a political ideology,which takes on the role of a supposedly natural basis for social order. It is an ideology, which requires an identity with, and loyalty to, the nation, which, in turn, gives rise to the "national interest" and political duty. The highly statist and often authoritarian goals of these independence movements are seldom taken into consideration.

Many on the Left advance nationalism and the nation-state as a bulwark against imperialism. This is a dangerous fallacy. The role of nationalism has always been a source of conflict on the Left. For those on the Scottish Left the Socialist Party's consistent anti-nationalist position seems to support imperialism. But, imperialism functions quite independently of socialist attitudes toward nationalism and, furthermore, socialists are not required for the launching of struggles for national autonomy as the various independence movements have shown. Also contrary to some Leftist expectations, nationalism could not be utilised to further socialist aims, nor was it a successful strategy to weaken and hasten the demise of capitalism. On the contrary, nationalism frustrated socialism by using it for nationalist ends. It is not the function of socialism to support nationalism, even though the latter battles imperialism. To fight imperialism without simultaneously discouraging nationalism means to fight some imperialists and to support others. To support Palestinian nationalism is to oppose Jewish nationalism, and to support the latter is to fight the former.  It is not possible to support nationalism without also supporting national rivalries. With whom to side? With the Jews? With the Palestinians? With both? Where shall the Jews go to make room for the Palestinian people? What should the Palestinian refugees do to cease being a “threat” to the Jews? Such questions can be raised with reference to every part of the world, and will generally be answered by Jews siding with Jews, Arabs with Arabs, or  French with French, Poles with Poles and so forth. To be a good Indian nationalist is to disparage Pakistan; to be a true Pakistani is to despise India. And so it goes on.  The “liberation” of Cyprus from British rule only opened a new struggle for Cyprus between Greeks and Turks. There is no progressive nationalism. This is not about denying the right of a suppressed people to establish its independence; neither is it about dismissing the need to combat imperialist aggression and exploitation. Resisting one oppressor is not the same as supporting movements that seek to oppress its own people. To oppose an oppressor is not equivalent to calling for support for everything formerly colonized nation-states do. One cannot oppose a wrong when one country commits it, then support another country who commits the same wrong. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend is particularly applicable to oppressed people who may be manipulated by totalitarians and religious zealots. To oppose one evil with a lesser one must eventually lead to the support of the worst evil that emerges.

 Although socialists sympathies are with the oppressed, they relate not to emerging nationalism but to the particular plight of twice-oppressed people who face both a native and foreign ruling class. Their national aspirations are in part a sort of  “socialist” aspirations, as it includes an illusory hope of impoverished populations that they can improve their conditions through national independence. Yet national self-determination has not emancipated the labouring class in the advanced nations. It will not do so now in Asia and Africa. National revolutions promise little for the lower class. In a "free" Scotland social relations will not change and the conditions of the exploited class will not improve to any significant extent.

Cultural freedom and variety should not be confused with nationalism. That people should be free to fully develop their own culture is not merely a right but a desirable. Technological resources make it possible for people to choose their own lifestyles. The world will be a drab place indeed if the magnificent mosaic of different customs and traditions disappeared to be replaced by a homogenized world (which modern capitalism appears intent upon spreading with its MacDonaldisation). Similarly, a world completely divided and peoples at odds with one another, parochialising their seeming “cultural differences” to assert their ethinic or racial superiority would also be a backward step.

No matter how utopian the quest for world solidarity may appear in to-days world of conflicts, no other road seems open to escape fratricidal struggles and to attain a rational world society. Socialism will rise again as an global movement and on the basis of past experience, those interested in the rebirth of socialism must stress its internationalism most of all. While it is impossible for a socialists to become a nationalist, we are, nevertheless, anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist. However, the fight against colonialism does not imply adherence to the principle of national self-determination, but expresses our desire for a non-exploitative socialist society without borders. While socialists cannot identify themselves with national struggles, we can as socialists oppose both nationalism and imperialism. It is not the function of Scottish socialists to fight for independence from England but to make Scotland part of a socialist society. We seek to “de-nation” Scotland, "de-nation" England, and integrated them into a socialist one world. When capitalism is overthrown  the world will be on the way to the disappearance of all nation states. Nationalism, in its essence, is a poison. Nationalism has always been a disease that divided human from human. It produces artificial arbitary borders between human beings on trivial linguistic and cultural differences, and it conceals hierarchical and class- based conflicts. There is no “benevolent nationalism.” There is no place in a free society for nation-states. So let us create a truly libertarian form of collectivism. When free associations of producers and confederations of communities replace the nation-state, humanity will have rid itself of nationalism.

Food for thought

In a ruling in April, judges at a special court for Sierra Leone at The Hague found former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, guilty of eleven counts of war crimes by assisting rebels in Sierra Leone. The war ended in 2002 with 50 000 dead. The rebels atrocities included public executions, amputations, displaying decapitated heads at checkpoints, the killing and public disembowelment of a civilian whose intestines were stretched across a road to make a checkpoint, public rapes of women and girls, and people burned alive in their homes. Taylor said, "What I did...was done with honour. I was convinced that unless there was peace in Sierra Leone, Liberia would not be able to move forward. One must wonder to what depths humans can sink in this dog eat dog world. John Ayers

Rio Minus 20

It is against the background of repeated failures in almost every aspect of the environment that the Rio+20 conference took place. The messages of gloom and doom have never been clearer. The planet has never been under such massive pressure. Humanity faces its biggest threat with climate change. It is urgent to reduce global warming by cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, but since 1990 emissions have increased by almost 40 per cent. A report by the UN and over a thousand leading scientists showed that as much as two thirds of the world's ecosystems services - on which we are directly dependent for our survival - are threatened or in serious decline. In just 15 years global demand for natural resources has doubled. By 2030, the world will need at least 50 per cent more food, 45 per cent more energy, and 30 per cent more water. It may not be the end of the world but may well be the end of society as we know it. The soil is being degraded, the water supply depleted, the air polluted, the minerals and ores exhausted. We're not behaving sustainably. We're using our resources faster than the earth can provide them.

The lack of political will shown by the world’s governments to address environmental degradation is obvious to all. What governments do seem to agree on is the need for each country to interpret the concept of a green economy according to national priorities that leaves it up to each country to define what is meant by a green economy. Discussions have so far been focused on the pricing of eco-system services, the new financial markets to be developed and opened up. But the the destruction of ecosystems and the capitalist exchange economy are inseparable parts of the same problem. The capitalist system depends upon growth and accumulation to sustain itself.

 An ecological sound socialism is the necessary transformation to an environmentally sustainable economy. In order to avoid catastrophic and irreversible environmental destruction, world socialism will establish global sustainability strategies, based on science. The principles for sustainable development will be  translated into practice. The world has never needed socialism as much as today. When crises occcur, we come together very effectively and very quickly. During a war, during natural disasters, the best is often brought out in people. We survive and flourish because we look after each other. The bigger the crisis, the better we behave (although it is not always universal, of course.) It is surprisingly easy and fast how we could achieve real change. We could cut climate emissions 50 percent in the first five years and eliminate them on a net basis within 20 yrs, according to some studies. We can dramatically transform our production methods with existing proven technology. The only thing we really need to change is how we think. We need to recognise that spending more time helping each other, more time learning, more time involved in community are the behaviors that actually bring a better quality of life.

A CRAZY SOCIETY

Every day workers are confronted with the awful problems of capitalism. We can read about millions trying to survive on a pittance of an income, we can hear of the plight of millions of children facing an early death from a lack of clean water. The list of social disasters just goes on and on. At the same time we are informed of such obscenities as the following. "Not content with a vast collection of toys that spans luxury homes, private jets, lavish cars and cup-winning sailboats, the software mogul Larry Ellison is splashing out on his own paradise island, it has been revealed. The American founder of Oracle is buying Hawaii's sixth-largest island, Lanai, for a price estimated at around half a billion dollars – putting Britain's Richard Branson to shame, since his Caribbean idyll, Necker Island, is worth barely one-fifth of that." (Independent, 22 June) RD

THE RUSSIAN OWNING CLASS

Politicians the world over love to project the notion that they are just ordinary people doing a difficult job. Recent information from Russia shows that this is a complete sham. "With a collection of watches worth almost £500,000, many would assume they belonged to a Russian oligarch. But Russian president Vladimir Putin has a collection of timepieces worth almost six times his official annual salary of £72,000. One of the watches - made from platinum with a crocodile skin strap - sells for more than £300,000 alone." (Daily Mail, 9 June) Such staggering wealth is beyond the imagination of most members of the Russian working class.. RD

streets ahead

North Charlotte Street, where the average house price is £1,791,179, came top of a list of Scotland’s highest valued street.

 There are now 31 streets in Scotland with average prices of more than £1m, and almost half of them, 14, are in Edinburgh.

 Milltimber, a suburb near Aberdeen, topped the website’s list of highest valued towns and neighbourhoods in Scotland, with house prices averaging at £432,421. Following closely were Humbie and North Berwick, both in East Lothian, which came second and third with average property prices of £388,076 and £313,556. Bearsden in the East Dunbartonshire area took 20th place.

 http://news.stv.tv/scotland/107374-edinburghs-million-pound-streets-top-scotlands-property-rich-list/

TRIDENT BEFORE THE NHS

Two news items illustrate the priorities of capitalism. The UK Defense Secretary Phillip Hammond announced a £1 billion deal for reactors to power new Trident submarines. "Bruce Crawford, the Scottish government's Strategy Minister said: "It's estimated that the costs of the new Trident weapon system could be anything up to £25 billion and over the lifetime, £100 billion." (Times, 18 June) On the same day the government showed it thought little of the NHS compared to expenditure on nuclear weapons. "A panel of experts says the NHS is failing to provide even the most basic treatment for mental illness to millions of people, with children particularly poorly served, and gives a warning that services are being cut back even farther because of budgetary constraints in the health service." (Times, 18 June) RD

A NICE LITTLE EARNER

Controversy over the presence of 26 unelected bishops in the upper House will be exacerbated by revelations about how much some of them are being paid for the privilege. "Bishops are claiming up to £27,000 a year in fixed-rate allowances to attend sessions of the House of Lords on top of their travel costs. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Independent has found that some bishops are claiming up to the maximum fixed allowance for attending sessions in the second chamber while having full-time jobs in their dioceses." (Independent, 21 June) These claims can be quite significant for instance the Bishop of Chester attended the House on 97 days, claiming £27,600 in attendance allowances and £7,309 in travel expenses. The Bishop of Liverpool attended on 60 days, claiming £15,600 for attendance and £4,220 in expenses. These men of the cloth are used to preaching that "The Lord will provide", but in their case it would seem the House of Lords does a fair bit of providing. RD

On abundance and post-scarcity

How much is enough? Enough means enough for a good life. Enough means enough to meet our needs. However, capitalism channels our hopes and dreams into the acquisition of consumer goods. There are vast commonalities around the world. They reveal broad agreement on what we call the basic goods, food clothing and shelter,  and what constitutes living well good health, respect, security, loving, trusting relationships — these are recognized everywhere as part of a good human life, and their absence is recognized everywhere as a misfortune. Capitalism and conspicuous consumtion puts us under continual pressure to want more and more. The “scarcity” discerned by economists is due this pressure. Considered in relation to our vital needs, our world is one not of scarcity but rather of extreme abundance.

 In abstract terms it is impossible for us to carry on growing without end. Endless growth is an ecological impossibility. Sooner or later we'll exhaust the world's supply of oil, gas, coal, uranium, or its ability to absorb their waste products. Climate change scientists warn of the impending destruction of the planet unless we take drastic measures to restrict growth.  In a world in which we could have enough, collectively, to carry on striving for more is mindless. Capitalism is an inherently insecure form of economic organization, one in which "everything solid melts into air," as Karl Marx put it.

Technology has been seen as the means of lifting people out of poverty and relieving them from drudgery. We would produce more and work less.  The world would be dominated not by the problem of having to earn their living but the problems occupying our leisure. Everyone thought that robots would be doing all the work for us. That this has not come to pass is surely mankind’s biggest tragedy. Today it is still work and not leisure that defines our lives.

There was once a time when the United States was a population of  farmers. Due to technological advances, significantly more agricultural output and products could be produced by fewer people. As of 2008, only 2-3 percent of the population were directly employed in agriculture. That is 2% to 3% of the population now grows the food that feeds the other 97-98%. Scarcity, as most people understand it, has diminished greatly in most societies over the last 200 years. According to David Graeber "One reason we don’t have robot factories is because roughly 95 percent of robotics research funding has been channeled through the Pentagon, which is more interested in developing unmanned drones than in automating paper mills." and that new technologies have been focused upon work discipline and social control rather than being liberatory.

Technology has the ability to eliminate the need for most of us to spend most of our time enslaved by repetitive and unsatisfying toil. Upcoming advances in robotics can eliminate the need for actual human workers. We could live in a world where all our concerns are taken care of by robots and computers and we are free to pursue the things that truly matter to us. We are moving in a direction where machines and computers do all the work allowing humans to focus on their pastimes of choice. But this economy of the future is determined by the conflicting interests of the workers and the master class, the owners of capital. Rather than give goods away for free and have people work for nothing artificial scarcity is introduced. Goods go to waste and people go without.

Let’s prepare for the time in which jobs and employment become obsolete and demand the right to be lazy.

A Cold Reception to the Dalai Lama

The reknown spiritual leader of Tibetan buddhism arrived in Scotland to little official welcome. The Dalai Lama is on a two-day tour that will see him visit three cities delivering public talks in Edinburgh, Dundee and Inverness to promote his message of non-violence, compassion and universal responsibility. Dundee’s have failed to substitute an alternative speaker after Lord Provost Bob Duncan cancelled a speech during the appearance of the Tibetan spiritual leader at the Caird Hall due to personal bereavement. The council are accused of distancing themelves following a visit from the Chinese consul. Alex Salmond, the Scottish nationalist leader, has been  criticised for not arranging to meet the Dalai Lama during his visit, and faced claims he is failing to confront human rights issues of Tibet's claims for independence to protect his relationship with China. Changchub Mermesel, chairwoman of the Tibetan Community in Scotland, said she believed Scottish Government efforts to nurture relationships with China, including the deal to bring pandas to Edinburgh Zoo, were part of the reason behind Mr Salmond’s decision not to meet the Dalai Lama.

Shabnum Mustapha, Programme Director for Amnesty International in Scotland, said: “It is appalling and very worrying if Dundee City Council has ‘withdrawn’ its support for the Dalai Lama’s visit to its city due to pressure from the Chinese Government."

The statement goes on to explain that “Amnesty has again and again highlighted China’s questionable human rights record, including its continued restriction on freedom of expression – and it seems that this censorship has now reached our shores. To think that our own publicly-elected officials would bow to pressure of this kind is unthinkable, and we would urge Dundee City Council to reconsider their decision. It is also very disappointing that it appears no-one from the Scottish Government, including the First Minister, is able to welcome the Dalai Lama as he embarks on his visit to Scotland. His visit to our country should serve as yet another opportunity for our government to put the spotlight on human rights abuses in China. Instead it seems that economics trump human rights when it comes to Scotland's growing relationship with the world's second largest economy. The Scottish Government should be welcoming this opportunity to support the Dalai Lama, an important spiritual figure who symbolises the movement for non-violent self-determination for an oppressed people.Throughout China, freedom of expression continues to be restricted by the authorities and re-education through labour camps continue to operate. And the Chinese government has displayed increasingly repressive behaviour in ethnic minority areas such as Tibet.” (our emphasis)

It's beyond belief !

Thousands of American school students in Louisiana attend private religious schools that teach from a fundamentalist christian curriculum that suggests the Loch Ness Monster is real and disproves evolution.

 "Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence.

Have you heard of the `Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? `Nessie,' for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur." explains an Accelerated Christian Education science textbook

It goes on to declare that "True science will never contradict the Bible because God created both the universe and Scripture...If a scientific theory contradicts the Bible, then the theory is wrong and must be discarded."

Politically, the religious school curriculums denounce trade unions as "... plagued by socialists and anarchists who use laborers to destroy the free-enterprise system that hardworking Americans have created." and that the Great Depression was exaggerated by propagandists, including John Steinbeck, to advance a socialist agenda. 

 Whereas "...the Ku Klux Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross... In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."and that "South Africa's apartheid policy encouraged whites, Blacks, Coloureds, and Asians to develop their own independent ways of life. Separate living area and schools made it possible for each group to maintain and pass on their culture and heritage to their children."

OK for some

American International Group Inc. (AIG) Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche said Europe’s debt crisis shows governments worldwide must accept that people will have to work more years. “Retirement ages will have to move to 70, 80 years old,”  Benmosche, said during a interview at his luxury holiday villa in Dubrovnik, Croatia. “That would make pensions, medical services more affordable. They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off of the youth.” 

AIG, rescued from the brink of collapse with a bailout package worth up to $182.5 billion,  said this week that Benmosche will receive $3 million in cash and $4 million in stock under his annual compensation package.

Meantime, frail elderly people were routinely left without food after their care home ran out of supplies because of an apparent attempt to “cut down the shopping bill”, the health watchdog the Care Quality Commission said. The senior citizens home was so short-staffed that at times there were not even enough on hand to help frail people to the lavatory. Inspectors also reported seeing dirty toilets, broken furniture and found residents were not even dressed in clean clothes. There was no budget set aside to provide stimulating activities for the residents. Staff told inspectors they had resorted to buying snacks for residents out of their own pockets because of shortages. While morale among the staff was “very, very low” and complained of little support from managers, families of the residents said that the workers themselves “deserve a medal”

Food for thought

On May 5, an article in the Toronto Star focused on people at New Delhi's Ghazipur landfill who 'live' on a trash pile, "On Trash Mountain, families earn $1 to $2 a day slogging through waist-deep muck. But 'residents' also marry, have children, pray, and celebrate life's other milestones." Let's speed the day when we can put capitalism on the trash pile where it belongs.
The police were up to old tricks before the recent NATO summit in Washington. Three men were arrested ahead of the protest and charged
with possessing weapons, a charge denied by the three. Their lawyer said, "This is obviously an attempt to chill dissent ahead of the NATO
demonstrations." So much for democratic rights if the denials are true.
An article in the Daily Beast, an American news reporting site (www.dailybeast.com <http://www.dailybeast.com/>) bleated, "Why can't
Obama bring Wall Street to justice?" The reporters were enraged that the corporate kleptomaniacs who brought down the global economy are getting away with it. They answer their own question by adding that Wall Street contributed heavily to Obama's presidential campaign. Another good reason to abolish money -- real democracy. John Ayers

Why are you fat?

Nearly 14 percent of women in the world are considered obese, up from 7.9 percent in 1980. Among men, 10 percent are obese, up from 5 percent in 1980.

Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public policy at New York University, one of the leading nutritional experts who has written many books on the food industry, explains obesity rates started to rise in the 1980s, she says largely because of demands Wall Street placed on food makers.

Wall Street "forced food companies to try and sell food in an extremely competitive environment," she says. Food manufacturers "had to look for ways to get people to buy more food. And they were really good at it. I blame Wall Street for insisting that corporations have to grow their profits every 90 days."

 Large government subsidizes given to the corn, wheat, soybean and sugar industries allowed farmers to reap high returns on their crops. Farmers could grow these commodities cheaply and were encouraged by the food industry "to plant as much as they could. Food production increased, and so did calories in the food supply," Nestle writes. Inexpensive food encouraged more eating, and more eating led to bigger waistlines. "Today, in contrast to the early 1980s, it is socially acceptable to eat in more places, more frequently and in larger amounts, and for children to regularly consume fast foods, snacks and sodas" Since 1980 the index cost of fruits and vegetables has gone up by 40 percent. Whereas the index price of sodas and snack foods have gone down by 20 to 30 percent.

Socialist speech - from Upton Sinclair's Jungle

Part Two

Part One

Hat tip to Stefan at his website

Greenwashing Capitalism

Presidents, politicians, UN officials, local government leaders, and thousands of environmental activistts from across the world are meeting in Rio to arguer over what ‘green economics’ really means. Should economic forces be harnessed in service to the environment or the environment subjugated to economic interests? If 700 international environmental treaties hasn't saved the planet, will 701... 702 do it? Will harnessing people power have more success?

Our ability to generate more output with fewer people has lifted our lives out of drudgery and delivered us a potential cornucopia of material wealth. Yet a billion or more people  face a worsening of their conditions, and the very existence of hundreds of millions of them is threatened. The vast majority of these victims bear little or no responsibility. Pushing 1 billion persons down to extreme poverty, and enriching a very few is one of the major “accomplishments” of capitalism. If we allow businesses to measure our natural resources only by their profits we will have a system headed for ruin. Unless we stop envisioning humanity's raison d’être as the pursuit of accumulating capital, the environmental crisis cannot be broken.

No "green" capitalism! We champion a green socialism that focuses on production for need only and common ownership of the worlds wealth. “Green” capitalism will bring about natural resource grabbing, displacing humanity and nature from the essential elements needed for their survival. The drive for profit, instead of reestablishing harmony within the system, will provoke even greater imbalances, concentrations of wealth, and speculative processes. "Green" capitalism is illusory, simple wishful thinking. The destructive "grow or die" imperative of our market-driven system cannot be wished or regulated away. Capitalism is based on the premise of eternal growth. It is not a steady state, but a rapacious system that is never satiated. Under a capitalist system, not growing is not the same as standing still; it is moving backwards. This is the fundamental contradiction in a finite world. Countless studies have documented that limits to growth in such areas as energy, minerals, water and arable land (among others) are fast being reached. The energy corporations are desperately trying to crash through these limits with technological fixes such as fracking, tar sands exploitation and deep-water drilling, which are equally or more environmentally costly than traditional methods. Yet the trends continue. Capitalism has utterly failed us. It has destroyed our communities, our democracy and the planet we live on. As long as people believe that capitalism is sustainable,  they'll focus on reforming it -- smoothing around the edges, re-writing regulations and so on. Some of us though seek a revolution that overthrows the whole system, clearing the way for something entirely new. Maximizing accumulation is the force that drives capitalism. Appropriating nature and labour is the cheapest way for maximization of accumulation. Capitalism is always about the theft of the people's sustenance and the looting of the source of their sustenance – Nature. Capitalists hate any sort of cost. Corporations don’t care much for building environmental costs into their production and spend millions of dollars in political lobbying to thwart such policies. This system where the master class try their best to maximize profit by minimizing cost, by appropriating labour, robbing nature, grabbing everything within their reach, creating pollution and destruction of the ecology and causing the ruination of nature are acts of crime - crime against the planet, against posterity, against humanity. It is eco-murder! These are crimes that not only harm present generations but hurt future generations. Vulture environmentalism is vulture capitalism’s hungry and greedy twin. Capitalism is a system that must continually expand, a system that, by its very nature, will eventually come up against the reality of finite natural resources. By its very nature the capitalism system stands against ecology and environment as its only concern is profit, nothing else. Standing up for environment will inescapably lead to questioning this ever greedy hungry economic system. Nobody as yet ever talks about the CAUSE of all these "issues" and underlying reasons but they eventually will arrive at such questions.

 A world without workers is impossible. A world without capitalists is imperative. An end to the reign of capitalism is necessary to save the Earth and all its people so that we can begin a human society offering hope for all and not just some. There can be no fundamental alteration of the status quo without the abolition of private and state property. This may seem a scary proposition and the fear of change is encouraged by those who currently benefit from the existing social order. We have not only to conquer the fear, but also to embrace a radically different perspective and way of being in the world.

Productivity — the amount of output delivered per hour of work in the economy — is often viewed as the engine of progress. The quest for increased productivity haunts the waking hours of C.E.O.’s and finance ministers. But the gains in productivity are used to increase the profits of shareholders, and not to reduce working time. Just before the recession the elite held slightly less than $80 trillion. After the bailout, their combined investment wealth was estimated at a little over $83 trillion. To give some idea, this is four years of the gross output of all the human beings on earth.

The ideas of the ruling class have hoodwinked us! Carefully crafted propaganda convince us that a society based upon individual greed, exploitation and inequality is normal, natural and desirable.What kind of system is capitalism? This kind: If there are wars, that benefits the arms trade. If disease spreads that is good for the pharmaceutical industry. If hurricanes and earthuakes reaps destruction upon communities, that is good for the construction industry. Such are the realities of the cold blooded economics by which the people of the world have been organized for hundreds of years. Many of us starve for lack of food while others go on diets because they eat too much. Many of us sleep in doorways and on the streets, yet pampered pets have their own beds in warm homes. The idea of keeping people healthy, safe, secure and alive is reduced to doing so only if they are able to create profits for those selling health, safety, security and life itself to the highest bidder in the market. If we can’t afford to buy those things and charity does not exist for us, we can all just drop dead. None of this happens because of individuals who are thoughtless or cold hearted or murderous. But in a system which dictates that profit must be created in a market sale. As Marx explains "Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity."

BE A WELL BEHAVED WAGE SLAVE

There is a notion abroad that the government do not favour the owning class as opposed to the working class but what is their view on this? "Low-paid workers who take strike action will no longer have their wages topped up by the state, ministers say. Workers on up to £13,000 a year can currently claim working tax credits to top up their income even when they take part in industrial action. But from next year there will be no increase in benefits if a worker's income drops due to strike action." (Sunday Telegraph, 17 June) Don't strike, do are you as told, behaviour you bastards. RD

Food for thought

On Saturday, May 19, 20 000 activists jammed the business district in Frankfurt to protest the dominance of the banks. Let's hope they eventually get the message that we can easily get rid of the banks and the whole capitalist paraphernalia that goes with it by electing socialist reps.
An article in the Canadian Jewish News focused on the plight of Christians in Iraq and Egypt from where they are emigrating in droves to escape persecution, bombings, and rape. In Egypt, Christians, who had second class status under Mubarak, now are even worse off and 'face an uncertain future in what may become a theocratic state.' Socialists are appalled, not because they are Christians, but because they are human beings and members of the working class. Only an understanding of socialism can stop the nonsense.
More details continue to come to light in the Harper government's budget Bill. Employment insurance is paid by all workers yet only 40% of the unemployed are eligible (26% in Toronto). That was done by the previous Liberal government but a new attack ensures that those who are eligible must be prepared to take a 30% wage cut or lose eligibility. The attack on the worker is being stepped up.
Toronto City council's new garbage fees for charities and non-profit-groups will take food from the mouths of the homeless. It will bring $2.9 million to the city, deeply in debt, but, according to Angie Hocking, Outreach coordinator, the fees would take $5 000 out of her $14 000 food budget. Under capitalism, someone always loses. John Ayers

OLD? POOR? TOUGH!

The news that disabled and elderly are seeing their day centres and key services disappear as budget cuts bite should come as no great surprise. The elderly are bearing the brunt of the cutbacks according to new research. "A survey of frontline social care staff uncovered a picture of widespread closures of local authority day centres, and a drastic "hollowing out" of those left behind. It reflected the erosion of an important service for the elderly and disabled, who otherwise can be isolated at home, said Dr Catherine Needham, who led the research, which was commissioned by Unison from the University of Birmingham's health services management centre. The survey found 57% of workers in social care in England and Wales reporting day centre closures. More than half also said that they were aware of impending closures." (Observer, 17 June) When it comes to cutting costs and keeping up profit margins you can always rely on the owning class to cut social benefits. RD

Old and in the way?

160,000 pensioners in Scotland are living in relative poverty – with an income of less than 60 per cent of the national average. Prices for pensioners have risen 20 per cent since the beginning of the financial crisis. By contrast, inflation for UK households as a whole prices have risen 16 per cent. An older person living alone is said to have experienced a 26.5 per cent increase in the cost of the things they buy since 2007 when the current financial crisis began.

 Today’s pensioners are experiencing real hardship, with nearly half living on an income below £10,000 a year. Those with private pensions have experienced a worrying drop in the value of their pension because of low interest rates, which are being held down by the Bank of England’s policy of quantitive easing.
Age Concern Scotland said: “For older people who are living on a low, fixed income, life can be tough, with basic living costs such as food and energy still high and April’s pension increase barely keeping up with inflation. Fuel poverty remains Scotland’s national disgrace, with almost two thirds of single pensioner households ‘fuel poor.’ " 

 Ros Altmann, director-general of over-fifties experts SAGA, says: “It almost seems as though policy is designed to take money from older people and give money to younger people. The government needs to acknowledge the difficulties that exist today and to try to ensure that today’s older people have a better quality of life.”

Food for thought

On March 7, the UN envoy to Yemen warned of the growing food crisis in that country. 6.8 million people have been left without enough food during months of political turmoil that has allowed Al Qaeda to gain ground. Three million are in need of immediate assistance and 500 000 children are at risk from malnutrition. Contrast that with the Ford motor company rewarding their CEO with $58.3 million in stock as a reward for improved sales and you get some idea of the crazy imbalance in the capitalist system.
The Quebec government is facing some strong people power over their legislation to curtail protest rights. Now protesters from all walks of life are out on the streets, banging pots and pans, taking over intersections, and taking part in impromptu, leaderless marches in defiance of the law. An estimated 400 000 gathered last week at the one hundred day celebration of the students' strike. John Ayers

MADNESS DOWN UNDER

Capitalism is an insane society. How else can you describe a society that condemns millions to survive on less than $2 a day and yet has an Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart with an income of £1m every hour? "Last month, Australian business magazine BRW estimated her fortune at AUD$29.2 billion (£18.1 billion), making her the world's richest woman, and eighth richest individual. According to predictions by Citigroup, she has a good chance of overtaking Mexican telecoms giant, Carlos Slim Helu, and Microsoft's Bill Gates at the top of the list, once her projects reach capacity. .... In the past 12 months, Rinehart has almost tripled her wealth, earning more than £1m every hour." (Independent, 16 June) RD

He who pays the piper calls the tune

More than a quarter of Britain’s richest people are donors to the coalition government’s senior partners, the Conservative party, the GMB union says. 

 248 out of the top 1,000 richest have made financial contributions to the party in person, through their companies or family members between 2001 to May 2012. Donations by rich financiers to the party total £83, 659,167. 

Lord Ashcroft topped the donations list with £6.1 million followed by the Getty family (£5 million) and Michael Spencer, the chief executive of the world’s leading interdealer broker ICAP plc (£4.8 million). 

 GMB general secretary Paul Kenny said the list of Tory donors clearly shows where the real allegiance of the government lies. “It is clear that the wealthy look to the Tory Party to protect their interests and they have been repaid with policies like the change in Income Tax, down from 50p to 45p. This is not philanthropy. It is an investment by an elite in an elite to look after their interests,”

Who is Gina Rinehart?

She is an Australian and the world's richest woman, the eighth richest individual. Her income is £1 million every hour. AN Australian business magazine estimated her fortune at £18.1 billion.

Rinehart wants new laws to allow cheap labour to be imported from overseas, tax breaks for mining, and a special economic zone to encourage development in the country's north.

Rinehart is developing huge coal projects in Queensland's Galilee Basin, which will produce more greenhouse gases than the whole of the Queensland economy currently. Rinehart's response to these concerns was to fly out one of the world's most prominent climate-change sceptics, Lord Christopher Monckton, for a speaking tour. Rinehart has purchased 10 per cent of the Ten television network and nearly 13 per cent of Fairfax Media, publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne's The Age, making her the single largest shareholder in one of Australia's most powerful media groups.

 The Deputy Prime Minister, Wayne Swan, has labelled her a threat to Australia's success, democracy, press freedom and its egalitarianism.
Tasmanian Senator Bob Brown, the Australian Greens ex- leader, condemns her as a "selfish, anti-public multi-billionaire", who mounted her father's truck "not to defend the Australian ethos of a fair go, but to defend her dividends".

A GREEK TRAGEDY

As ordinary Greeks have been thrown into ever greater poverty by wage and pension cuts and a seemingly endless array of new and higher taxes, their wealthy compatriots have been busy either whisking their money out of Greece or snapping up prime real estate abroad. "Greek ship-owners, who have gained from their profits being tax-free and who control at least 15% of the world's merchant freight, have also remained low-key. With their wealth offshore and highly secretive, the estimated 900 families who run the sector have the largest fleet in the world. As Athens' biggest foreign currency earner after tourism, the industry remitted more than $175bn (£112bn) to the country in untaxed earnings over the past decade." (Guardian 13 June) The current economic crisis may be bad news for the Greek working class, but for the owning class it is business as usual. RD

PROGRESSING BACKWARDS

It suits the politicians and the media of today to spread the notion that somehow the present social system is improving. A look at the wages levels in the USA at present shows that this is just not the case."The federal minimum wage is now $7.25 cents an hour, about $15,080 for a full time, year round worker. At that level, it means poverty wages for a family of three, and weakened demand for the economy. As Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan and New York's bishops concluded, this leaves workers "on the brink of homelessness, with not enough in their paychecks to pay for the most basic of necessities, like food, medicine or clothing for their children." ...... If today's minimum wage were at its previous height in 1968, adjusted for inflation, it would be over $10.00 an hour." (Washington Post, 29 March) RD

Food for thought

While austerity measures and economic downturns may save money for the owning class, they are decidedly unhealthy for the working class. All over Europe suicides by economic circumstances are on the rise, especially in the fragile nations. In Greece, suicides increased 24% from 2007 to 2009, in Ireland by 16%, in Italy suicides rose from 123 in 2005 to 187 in 2010. Capitalism is a dangerous business. Time to make our lives safe!
The recent federal budget was presented as a reasonably benign affair but careful scrutiny reveals a massive move towards getting government out of all kinds of public services. Apart from the thousands of public service job cuts, the budget ended the National Council of Welfare that advises the government on poverty (ignore it and it will go away!); closed the National Aboriginal Health Centre; trimmed funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by $115 million; scrapped the National Roundtable on the environment; cut funding to Transport Canada that regulates airline safety; cut foreign aid and over 1 000 positions from the Canadian Border Services Agency; eliminated over 2 000 professionals and scientists who protect the safety of Canadians in the food, product testing, and environmental fields. It is a sly and cynical piece of underhand work, and the only way to deal with it is to eliminate capitalism altogether, and soon.
Recent headlines in the business sections of the newspapers have highlighted the doom and gloom of the current recession -- " European
Auto Manufacturers heading into a Fifth Straight Year of Falling Sales"; "Yahoo Looks to Right its Sinking Ship...thousands of Layoffs"; "Tortuous Recovery Spurs China to Lower Growth Expectations"; "Global Growth Fears Hammer TSX"; "Toronto Hydro Dropped by Insurer -- Power Provider Warns Decision to Curb Equipment Renewal Will Lead to Blackouts" This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course, but it's enough to show a system in deep trouble and should make everyone think about something better. Let's work to make that something socialism!
Recent figures released by Statistics Canada revealed that youth unemployment (15-24 year-olds) now stands at 14.7%. However, figures do lie. This does not count the youths who have returned to school because they couldn't get a job, or those who are underemployed in part-time jobs, or those who have used up their unemployment benefits. It is pointless to publish such figures unless the object is to hoodwink the public. One more thing is pointless -- the continuation of a system that creates unemployment. John Ayers

Rangers are staring into the abyss

One hundred and forty years of football history has been brought to an end. Rangers, who played their first games in 1872 and have been Scottish champions a record 54 times, will go into liquidation. This is a massive football club that has been ransacked by crooks and their underhanded dealings, clearly over years.

The European Court of Justice ruling in the case of Bosman is authority for the view that professional footballers are workers like anyone else.

PFA Scotland chief executive Fraser Wishart said that Rangers prospective owner Charles Green had a legal obligation to consult the union about his plans. Players will be free to walk away from the club if it goes into liquidation. Equally, they would also be free to accept offers to stay on at Ibrox under the new company which is set to take over Rangers but the choice would be theirs.

Green said that players would be in breach of contract if they opted not to move to his “newco”. Arguing that Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) legislation, known as Tupe, compelled the players to move from the old company to the new. But Mark Hamilton, a Tupe expert with law firm Maclay Murray & Spens, said the legislation made a specific exception in the event of insolvent liquidation. “The current Tupe Regulations, which became law in 2006, do say that, in general, employees’ contracts are automatically transferred when a company’s business is sold from administration. But the rules are different for liquidation. In that case, the key point is that employees do not transfer under the Regulations, though they are free to agree new contracts with the buyer of the business...Players and other employees can choose to move to the newco. But, if people do not want to go, they cannot be compelled...they are under no obligation to work for the liquidated company or any newco unless that is agreed.”

Fraser Wishart said  “The purpose of Tupe is to protect employees’ terms and conditions of employment in exactly this type of situation...The players are being asked to decide upon their future with so many uncertainties involved. Unanswered questions such as which division the new club will actually play in, whether there be any sporting sanctions against the club, whether the club be eligible to play in the Scottish Cup and whether there will be a registration embargo. One or more of these factors may have an influence on a professional footballer’s career – particularly since it a career that is relatively short lived."
 
This is the face of 21st century football – clubs bought and sold speculatively and loaded with debt whilst communities get little benefit. Only TV companies, who stage matches at times to suit themselves are considered important. European football is where the strong thrive and become ever-more powerful and the weak get left behind.

 Back in season 2009/10, Christian Aid released the report Blowing the Whistle, which includes a league table of financial secrecy in UK and Irish football. Rangers came in at number 6. Ample warning of things to come. Channel 4 reporter, Alex Thompson, explained  how“Because – like the bankers – everyone was having too much fun living the dream? Partly yes, but partly a crucial check and balance to all the Ibrox hype had all but gone. For years too much football ‘journalism’ in Glasgow had been too lazy, sycophantic and incapable of asking awkward questions...Something about asking questions about RFC clearly angers some in the Glasgow media in a way I’ve never seen in 25 years of global reporting...So it went on – year after year. On one side the directors at Scotland’s football ‘governing’ bodies didn’t ask much. On the other, large sections of Glasgow football journalism declined to delve...Legions of fans sold out again,”
Football clubs are social entities and should not be corporate assets. The story of these clubs is the story of communities and the stories of the generations of families who have supported them through thick and thin. Club owners and their sponsors make millions from fans. There should be righteous anger from supporters - at capitalism.

Food for thought

Roper, North Carolina has a population of 617, so there are few officials -- just four, in fact, including a mayor who works for free, and its annual budget is $360 311. Roper's average annual family income is $20 600 or $2 000 below the poverty level for a family of four. When they can't pay their water bills, neighbour Dorenda Gatling turns it off. Some haul buckets from their neighbour's house but to prevent that, homes are sealed with yellow police tape to prevent entry. So the homeowners are waterless and homeless. In capitalism it's 'can't pay, can't have' no matter what the consequences are.
An article in The Toronto Star, March 4, called attention to the plight of non-unionized workers. A hotel worker had her part-time hours cut back to nothing for ten months in 2009 after she spoke at a rally in support of forming a union at her workplace, Novotel, in Mississauga.
About a dozen other Novotel workers have been fired, disciplined, or had their working hours cut since 2008 when they began union organization. The fact that, legally, they had a right to unionize meant nothing to the management. It's like it was two hundred years ago when unionization began. This shows that nothing has changed in capitalism, which is an excellent reason to abolish it.
Thomas Walkom writes in the Toronto Star that there has always been a tacit agreement in Canada that Canadians would welcome new immigrants as long as the government didn't use them to drive down wages. This is very shaky reasoning considering that Marx showed 150 years ago that the reserve army, including immigrants, is there to do just that, drive down wages. Walkom reports that even that agreement has been abandoned by the Harper government. Ottawa will now allow employers to pay temporary foreign workers less. Just who qualifies as a temporary worker is cause for stretching a point. By 2011, there were over 300 000 temporary foreign workers in Canada. What the government is saying, according to Walkom, is that if Canadians don't want to see jobs going to foreign workers they should quit whining and accept lower wages. Right! John Ayers

Brief history of Glasgow branch

To say times were hard when Glasgow branch was formed in 1924 would be a serious understatement. The branch consisted of working men, only some of whom had jobs, and money was so scarce that in the early days branch meetings were sometimes held in the open because members couldn’t afford to rent a hall.

If funds were lacking then energy and commitment were not, so members threw themselves into making the party known in the city. John Higgins, the first branch secretary, was particularly effective at this and his meetings Glasgow Green gave many Glaswegians their first introduction to the party’s case.

To branch members knowledge meant everything and they were determined to have as much of it as they could, so classes on Marxist theory, logic, etc, were an essential feature, but the main activity was always indoor and, especially, outdoor meetings. Glasgow branch always had a reputation for having first-class speakers and even our opponents, whatever else they thought of us, conceded that.

Two outstanding examples of this were Alex Shaw* and Tony Mulheron. Shaw was an old-time street corner orator with an ability to have his audiences in stitches – his lampooning of some of Glasgow’s left-wing folk heroes, especially the “Red Clydesiders”, was hilarious. Mulheron, by contrast, was in his element on the indoor platform. Tony was extremely articulate and had a witty, flamboyant speaking style that could turn even the driest-sounding theoretical subject into an entertainment.

During the war activities were stepped up. Ever more meetings were held and new, younger speakers came forward. The wartime scene was brightened by visits from London speakers taking a break from the Blitz and, later on, doodlebugs and V2 rockets.

After “peace” was declared the momentum was maintained and the branch’s biggest ever audiences attended meetings at the St. Andrew’s Halls and the Cosmo cinema. Membership increased and the branch even acquired its own premises. In 1949 a second branch was formed in the city and this lasted until 1961.

In the late 1950s an influx of younger members revitalised activities, and in the 1960s candidates were fielded in three parliamentary and five municipal elections. More outdoor speaking stances were opened and there were public debates aplenty with Labourites, Leninists and others.

Added to all this was a winter programme of Sunday evening indoor meetings which ran from October to April and continued for many years. This meant that members had to wrack their brains to come up with titles for around 30 meetings every winter!

Today the old propaganda methods, which were the branch’s strength, are all but finished. People will no longer come to indoor meetings or stop and listen to those held outdoors, and this means that the branch has had to adapt to the new situation. Now we organize day schools, discussion groups, hand out leaflets at demos, provide speakers and other assistance for party activities elsewhere in the country etc.

Glasgow branch has for over eighty years played its part in the party’s activities. Its members have, in the past, given generously of their time, effort and abilities, and today’s members, despite very different and difficult conditions, strive to maintain this record.
 V.V.
2004
* see here for a report on Alex Shaw in a 1931 debate with the SLP

A CABINET OF MILLIONAIRES

Politicians love to strike the pose of "we're all in this together" and stress how much they have in common with the ordinary man in the street but the combined wealth of the Cabinet is estimated at nearly £70 million, with 18 out of 29 ministers worth more than a million, according to a new analysis. "Wealth-X, a consultancy specialising in analysing the financial affairs of US politicians estimated David Cameron's net worth at £3.8 million. The most wealthy cabinet minister is Lord Strathclyde, the Leader of the House of Lords, who is estimated to be worth £9.6 from his stake in his family's estate management company, Auchendrane Estates. Also in the top five are Defence Secretary Philip Hammond at £8.2 million, and Foreign Secretary William Hague and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt at £4.8 million each." (Daily Telegraph, 28 May) So much for the man in the street pose. RD

Food for thought

A recent study suggests retailers can increase yearly takings by almost $100 000 by employing people whose ethnicity reflects the local community. The study by Temple University, Rutgers, and Davidson College studied the theory at over seven hundred JC Penny stores. The extra take averages out to $630 per employee (wonder if they received any of it) and brought the company $69 million a year. Altruism is a wonderful thing, especially when it brings in millions.
A recent Toronto Star article divulged some interesting facts about the rise and fall of the 'Celtic Tiger', commonly known as Ireland, that spent the 1990s enjoying unprecedented economic growth. Housing prices quadrupled and unemployment fell from 17% to 4% and 'plasterers were making 2 000 Euros ($2 666 Canadian) a week and spending 200 Euros on a pair of pants'. In 2007, the housing bubble burst and the Bank of Ireland's stock plunged 75% in one year. Now Ireland has an official unemployment of 14%. No matter how well things go in the boom, the bust will follow and the bubble will burst. There is no security for the worker in capitalism. John Ayers

communalise the land

John Hancox, director of community food organisation The Commonwealth Orchard, wants the Scottish Government to encourage bodies such as the Forestry Commission, health boards or the Crown Estate, as well as private landowners, to make surplus land available for growing food. It is argue that bodies such as councils, health boards, power companies and conservation organisations all own large amounts of unused land, some of which is derelict or unused and measures can be introduced to provide people with space to grow fruit and vegetables or establish community gardens.

  While there may be a legal requirement to retain land in public ownership a presumption of a community right to use land assets and utilise unused land should be considered, Mr Hancox suggests "We believe that much land is needlessly unproductive, and would urge the Scottish Government to encourage ways to allow people to use land more intelligently," he said. "Making land available to poorer Scots offers them a way to grow healthy, accessible local food, and build skills and food security at a local level. In our urban areas such as Glasgow there is a lot of land which is largely passive and unused, while in rural areas, patterns of land ownership which concentrate land into relatively few hands also mean that availability of land for ordinary people is scarce."

Hospital bed-boarding

Patients are being put at risk in Scotland by a lack of consultants and a shortage of acute hospital beds the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) has highlighted. A growing number of patients are being forced to stay in wards not designed to cater for their illness in a practice known as “bed-boarding”. Doctors say this delays treatment and increases the time patients stay in hospital, making them more likely to contract a superbug, like MRSA, or suffer from blood clots.

Eight out of ten physicians questioned for the survey say bed-boarding takes place year-round, and every expert said the practice had a negative impact on the quality of care patients receive. Seven out of ten RCPE members say putting patients in inappropriate wards has a negative impact on death rates and that it increases the chances of a patient being readmitted to hospital due to them not getting the correct care during their initial stay.

Food for thought

The announcement in February that Target, the second largest US discount department store retailer, will be opening one hundred and thirty-five stores in Canada, starting in March 2013 brought a swift retort from the head of Wal-mart, Canada, Shelley Broader. She said,
"When people ask me what our target strategy is, I say we have a Wal-Mart strategy. That's about helping people save money so they can live better." That sounds a little strange from a company that pay their employees little enough to live on, let alone save. Even stranger considering how Wal-Mart force their suppliers to fire union employees lowering their standard of living; strange, too, considering the companies they have ruined in competition, hence more grief and unemployment. Socialists do not take sides in competitions between capitalists as they are all at the same game -- lowering labour costs for more profits -- and the only way to end this race to the bottom is to get rid of the profit system. John Ayers

OLD, POOR AND HUNGRY

Experts warn that many older people cannot afford a healthy diet, partly because rising energy bills force the worst off to choose between heating or eating. "The official figures show that 531 people were admitted to hospital with a primary diagnosis of malnutrition in 2011 – more than ten a week. This is up 14 per cent in the last year and 47 per cent on the 362 who were hospitalised in 2007. The Equality and Human Rights Commission warned last year that home care was often so poor it put the elderly at risk of malnutrition. .... The figures are the tip of the iceberg, because thousands more people admitted to hospital for other reasons turn out to be badly nourished. Michelle Mitchell, of charity Age UK, said: 'It is estimated that one million older people are malnourished. Every case is preventable." (Daily Mail, 28 May) It speaks volumes about capitalism that after a lifetime of producing surplus value for the owning class that many workers end their lives neglected and malnourished. RD

The Charity of Carnegie

Owner of the Carnegie Steel Works, Andrew Carnegie was called the "Richest Man in the World." Carnegie's hundreds of millions accounted for about 0.60% of America's GDP and when adjusted into to-days value, he was worth anywhere from $75 billion to $297.8 billion. All over Scotland towns possess libraries thanks to endowments and the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie. However,  he did not show the same charity to his workforce. Carnegie holding to the widely held theory of "Social Darwinism" declared that direct charitable 'handouts' would interfere with humans' competition for survival and impede the progress of the race.

Andrew Carnegies family were effectively exiled out of Scotland by the rich ruling classes because both his father and his uncle were active and strong leaders of the Chartist movement. The Chartists were demanding that the working class people were given the vote and the right to stand for election so they could take political power from the rich and lead to a far fairer society. His father was a weaver dependent on employment in the big textile factories was sacked by the rich owners for his political views and word got round that he was a “troublemaker” and effectively unemployable. With no social benefits to support the family they were had no choice but to sell up every stick of furniture they owned and move to the USA in 1848. Like many of his contemporaries, Carnegie hired someone less fortunate substitute and serve in his place in the Union army during the Civil War. Too much money was to be made from Army Department contracts to personally risk life and limb.

After the Civil War the industrial revolution in the United States really began to accelerate and led to dramatic changes in labour. Traditionally, Americans owned small proprietorships. With the introduction of automated machinery and the specialisation of tasks, workers found their economic position declining. Employers hired unskilled labourers for many of the positions and increasingly demanded longer and longer hours at a lower wage from their workers. The rise of labour unions led to an increase in demands on the part of the workers for shorter hours, better pay, and safer working conditions. Employers realised that any concessions to labour would ultimately reduce profits, so negotiations usually proved futile to the labour unions. By the 1880s strikes began to occur with some frequency, often resulting in violence and bloodshed.

Carnegie started by building iron bridges for the railroads, then cashed in with steel and by acquiring competitors grew and became, US Steel,  the largest steel company in the States. Carnegie bought up coalfields to feed his furnaces and expanded into railroads as large users of steel he could then ensure they only bought his steel for trucks and rolling stock etc. His power and greed to become even richer however created clashes with the growing union movement right across his industrial empire. He was ruthless enough to do anything to retain his financial empire no matter what the cost to others. Carnegie expressed support of the right to unionise such as when he wrote "The right of the working-men to combine and to form trades-unions is no less sacred than the right of the manufacturer to enter into associations and conferences with his fellows" , but something did not ring true about his words when it came to strikes in his own factories. His quest to make his steel cheap and affordable, thus the key to making profits, adversely affected Carnegie's workers. Cheaper steel invariably meant lower wages and more dangerous working conditions, as efficiency trumped safety in Carnegie's mills. Further, Andrew Carnegie's quest to reduce labour costs by investing in mechanization put people's jobs in jeopardy. Under Carnegie, workers within the steel company routinely worked seven days a week, twelve hours a day. Carnegie gave his laborers but one holiday off a year, July 4. Working conditions were dangerous and sometimes deadly, many workers laboured with no breaks, and the average pay in for the common unskilled laborer in the Carnegie Steel Company was just above $500 a year, averaging $10 a day, often just 14 cents an hour.  And because Carnegie was heavily anti-union, the job security of his labourers was always at great risk. He was an industrialist who was willing to employ both strike breakers from out of state and armed guards to defeat strikers using whatever means was necessary including bombing and shooting of strike leaders. Les Standiford’s account  of Carnegie and relationship with his iron-fisted business partner and trusted company manager, Henry Clay Frick reveals a hypocrite who prided himself on being a friend of the working man, while at the same time planning and executing what turned out to be one of the bloodiest labour lock-outs in U.S. history, the Homestead Strike.  Andrew Carnegie was to become not just a union basher but gave the orders which would lead to strikers at his Homestead steel factory in July 1892 being physically beaten up and shot dead.

At Carnegie’s Homestead Steel Mill, after an unsuccessful campaign to rid the Homestead mill of the militant Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, Andrew Carnegie went off to his Scottish Highland estate on vacation but  just before he left, Carnegie instructed the head of the  plant  Henry Clay Frick to  reduce wages by 25 percent and end union recognition. Frick  handed the committee representing the company union (to which only about 800 of the 3,800 workers belonged) the new contract "proposal," with no explanation. The union, of course, rejected the proposal. With negotiations between Frick and the unionised steelworkers now concluded without a contract, Frick locked out the workers, fenced off the mill and called in the Pinkertons, the private police force so vicious its activities were outlawed in 11 states. The Pinkerton Detective Agency had been started Allan Pinkerton, born in the Gorbals, an ex-Chartist and a slavery abolitionist activist yet by 1872, Pinkertons were being hired by the Spanish Government to help suppress a revolution in Cuba which intended to end slavery and give citizens the right to vote. The Pinkertons was becoming very active in smashing strikes. Some dozen or so Irish miners had been sent to gallows thanks to Pinkerton agents who infiltrated the Molly Maguires. The Pinkertons were a private army contracted to protect factories when strikes were looming. Pinkerton’s would send in hundreds of men all issued with Winchester rifles with instructions to use them if lives or property belonging to factory owners were threatened. Their people were involved in shootings of strike leaders and had even used a bomb to attack a union headquarters in Chicago a couple years earlier. That reputation was known to everyone involved including Carnegie!

Carnegie was not holding back from any confrontation with his strikers. Frick had a hard line reputation for ruthlessness against unions and strikers. Frick had previously employed Pinkerton’s Agency to break up strikes on several occasions for example, in 1884 to protect Hungarians and Slavs employed as strike-breakers to work in his coal fields, in 1891 to protect Italian strike-breakers, when the above Hungarians and Slavs went on strike.  Full scale violence erupted when Frick hired out of state workers to continue operating the factory during the strike. Pinkerton’s bought in 300 men fully armed and ready to use whatever force was necessary to win the fight against strikers. Local strike leaders were attacked and  shot by Pinkerton’s men as an example to other strikers. The strikers were then supplied with guns by local community members and retaliated. The Pinkerton men were surrounded and pinned down behind hastily erected barricades. People were dying from wounds and no help could be given by either side as they lay there caught in the cross fire. Pinkerton’s men tried to surrender three times waving a white flag on a stick but each time sharpshooters broke the stick in two with bullets. They were later allowed to leave the area but only after severe retribution was given leaving many agency men with broken bones and severe injuries. It was effectively a civil war with revenge being extracted by the winners. Over 8,000  state militia to occupied Homestead and protect the strikebreakers who would be put to work at the mill. The strike and sympathy strikes at other Carnegie plants continued until November, but practically speaking it was all over once the militia marched into town.

Pinkerton’s had a history of using violence to break up strikes. Their people were involved in shootings of strike leaders and had even used a bomb to attack a union headquarters in Chicago a couple years earlier. That reputation was known to everyone involved including Carnegie! Ten men were killed during the clashes at Homestead seven of them were strikers and three Pinkerton’s men. Previous strikes at his businesses also resulted in deaths of strikers. It was during the Homestead strike that the anarcho-communist Alexander Berkman to avenge the workers shot Frick in an attempted assassination and was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment.

 Although Carnegie was out of the country at the time and although he may not personally have pulled the trigger, cables he sent to Frick clearly show he supported the move to employ strike-breakers and gave instructions to Frick do whatever was necessary to win the battle against the strikers. Carnegie was fully complicit in how the Homestead incident was handled  and he himself wrote: "The handling of this case on the part of the company has my full approval and sanction."  Carnegie and Frick broke the strike. After the union surrendered and called off the strike the Carnegie owned steel mill slashed wages even further, imposed a longer work day and blacklisted over 500 men who would never again work in the mills again. The union lost virtually its entire treasury supporting strikers and successfully defending them against attempts by Carnegie to have them convicted of murder and other crimes.Trade unionism was effectively crushed at Homestead. As a result, unionism would die in steel plants throughout the country. By 1900, not a single steel plant in Pennsylvania remained union. By 1910, the union had no members at all. Unionism had been eradicated from the entire steel industry, and though the output of steel mills had doubled and the number of working hours had increased from 10hrs to 12hrs a day,  pay barely increased. In many mills, it actually decreased. Workers would have virtually no say in their conditions or wages, and while the company's profits soared, the common labourer was reduced to a state of semi-slavery.

Inevitably, Carnegie  and Frick fell out and nearly thirty years after the Homestead debacle, Carnegie dispatched a servant bearing a letter begging his old partner to let bygones be bygones “You can tell Carnegie I’ll meet him. Tell him I’ll see him in Hell, where we both are going.” Frick was obviously labouring under no illusions about the moral stands he and Carnegie had taken in clawing their way to the top. Perhaps by giving away his money it was an attempt by Carnegie  to justify what he had done to get that money - and paying penance and buying absolution for his sins. It was the poverty wages of the great majority of his workers, on whose backs that Carnegie had earned his fortune. The bloody struggles of 1892, the hired assassins, the hired thugs, demonstrated to working people the ruthlessness of the many-times-over  millionaire Andrew Carnegie. In Dunfermline, his birth-place, there is a museum in his honour but he is a man all Scottish workers should  villify rather than respect.


Sing ho, for we know you, Carnegie;
God help us and save us, we know you too well;
You're crushing our wives and you're starving our babies;
In our homes you have driven the shadow of hell.
Then bow, bow down to Carnegie,
Ye men who are slaves to his veriest whim;
If he lowers your wages cheer, vassals, then cheer.
Ye are nothing but chattels and slaves under him.
 "A Man Named Carnegie"
Anonymous

See more on the Homestead Strike here

DIAMONDS IN DEMAND

As an economic blizzard blows millions on to the unemployment queues and closes factories, it is worth noting that the super-rich are still managing to survive. "The market for diamonds is forecast for further soaring growth, outstripping even the buoyant wider luxury market, spurred by burgeoning demand from Asia. .. Bain & Company has forecast that spending will rise between 9 and 11 per cent this year because of a scarcity of large diamonds and continued demand among a cabal of billionaires." (Times, 9 June) RD

Royal secrets

An Amendment Bill to the original 2002 Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act proposes changing the “qualified” exemption to royal communications to an absolute exemption. Communications by the Royal Family are currently subject to a qualified Freedom of Information exemption. A qualified exemption means that a “balance of public interest” test is applied – and only where the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure can information be withheld. The qualified exemption relates to communications with the Queen, other members of the Royal Family or the royal household.

The Amendment Bill proposes to change this to create an absolute exemption for information relating to communications with Her Majesty, the heir or second in line of succession, with no requirement to consider the balance of public interest.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/secrecy-for-queen-s-finances-challenged-1-2347440

Food for thought

This is how the so-called socialists around the world act. In France, journalist Gwyn Dyer predicts a big victory for 'socialist' candidate,
Francois Hollande. Dyer writes, "What Hollande has actually promised is slightly less austerity than Sarkozy." (EMC , April 26, 2012). In Venezuela, that renowned 'socialist' Hugo Chavez has tried to manipulate the capitalist system to bring cheap food to the poor (yes, they are still there). According to The New York Times (April 29 2012) he has mandated the prices that the manufacturers can charge to keep prices low. The result, as expected, is that the manufacturers simply stopped production and there are shortages of even the basic food supplies in a very rich country. Lesson? What passes for socialism in the in the tiny minds of would-be leaders and the press has nothing to do with real socialism. You cannot divorce manufacturers from profit. If there is no profit, there is no production. Both are very elementary lessons for socialists. John Ayers

The class struggle

Members the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), Scotland's largest teachers union, yesterday voted in favour of fighting austerity measures in a renewed campaign which could lead to industrial action in the autumn. The union backed motions calling for action to protect the profession from public sector cuts and oppose changes to their pensions being made by the UK government. While pension reform is reserved to Westminster, the Scottish Government has said it must implement the changes or face losing £100 million a year it receives from the UK government. Last November, Scots teachers took part in a UK-wide strike over pension changes – the first nationwide walkout by the profession in Scotland since 1986.

In a scathing attack the newly-elected EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan said  “We understand that it is the UK government, the coalition, that has been the driving force behind the attempt to make teachers pay more, to work longer and to get less. We know who the guilty are in this great cash robbery. But we have a clear message also for the Scottish Government and for Mike Russell, the cabinet secretary for education, in particular. You cannot hide behind the coat-tails of some Eton toffs and say, ‘It wisnae me’. Scottish teachers expect the Scottish Government to stand up for Scotland on this issue and if they fail to do so, if they fail to deliver a fair settlement on pensions here in Scotland, we are prepared to fight them every bit as hard as we will fight the UK coalition government on this issue...There is a simple choice: fight the cuts or fight us, because we are not minded to pay the price for the greed of others.”

Mr Flanagan said Westminster’s austerity measures had been “firmly rejected” by voters. Local elections in May made it clear “not only in Scotland but across Britain, that the UK government’s austerity programme has been decisively rejected”. Mr Flanagan said: “It is clear that what the electorate wants is for elected politicians to fight back against austerity and not to simply administer a cuts programme." Teaching was a stressful profession, he said, adding: “The suggestion that teachers should stay in the classroom till they are 68 or even longer is not a credible notion and it is one we will resist: 68 is way too late.”

Charlotte Ahmed, a union member from Glasgow, said: “This is theft. It’s a smash-and-grab. They’re taking money out of our pockets and putting it where exactly? The autumn is the time to turn the screw and commit ourselves to action.”

NO GOLD MEDALS HERE

Sportswear producers love to project an image of clean-cut athleticism but behind the glossy image lies the sordid profit-making reality of the sweatshop. "Adidas, the sponsor of the London 2012 Olympics and the maker of Team GB kit, will be the focus of protests about sweatshops this summer. The sportswear brand, which is promoted by David Beckham, will be targeted with a 90-second video alleging exploitation of workers. Campaigners from War on Want will also attach tags to Adidas clothing as part of the protest to highlight the claims. The YouTube film released by the anti-poverty group features an English woman called Jeanette, who describes working at a factory for low wages and poor conditions. She claims workers are beaten by their boss for asking for time off to see their children. At the end of the clip, she reveals she is telling the story of Anisha, who works in a factory in Asia that allegedly supplies Adidas." (Daily Telegraph, 7 June) RD

DOLLARS AND DEMOCRACY

The American press is very fond of boasting about the political democracy in the USA compared to many other political set-ups throughout the world. An examination of the US political process reveals that it is far from democratic. "US Republican candidate Mitt Romney raised almost $17m (£11m) more than President Barack Obama's re-election effort in May, figures show. Mr Romney and the Republicans raised $76.8m, while the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party brought in $60m. Mr Romney now has $107m cash on hand, almost matching the $115m Mr Obama's campaign had by the end of April." (BBC News, 7 June) The role of the extremely rich and powerful in largely dictating the outcome of US elections shows that big bucks counts for far more than big ideas. RD