Making It Easier For Landlords to Increase Profits.

On March 13, Steve Clark, Ontario Minister for Municipal affairs and Housing, proposed new rules for the Residential Tenancies Act, which would protect tenants from renovictions. This is when landlords remove tenants during renovations in order to replace them with those who will pay the higher rents after the renovations are completed. 

Mr. Clark frothed on about how beneficial it will be to tenants, but Cole Webber, a legal worker with Parkdale Community Legal Services in Toronto, ain't exactly buying it: ''The Provinces proposed rules make it easier for the landlord to evict the tenants. 


The legislation aims to speed up eviction in two ways - the first is by limiting the ability of the tenants to defend against eviction by repair and maintenance issues at an eviction hearing at the Landlord and Tenant Board. 

The second is that it empowers officers who are not adjudicators or Board members to issue eviction orders against tenants who they deem have violated the terms of the previous Foreign Buyers Own $45.25 Billion Worth of Vancouver Real Estate agreement with the landlord. 

No, I think it’s about making it easier for landlords to evict tenants - displacing working class renters in the interests of landlords increasing their profits.

S.P.C. Members.

Don't be a nationalist (1994)

Don't be a nationalist (1994)

Cartoon by Peter Rigg.

From the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

The human drama, whether played out in history books or headlines, is often not just a confusing spectacle but a spectacle about confusion. The big question these days is, which political force will prevail, those stitching nations together or those tearing them apart?

All countries are basically social arrangements, accommodations to circumstances. No matter how permanent and even sacred they may seem at any one time, they are all artificial and temporary. Through the ages there has been a trend toward larger units claiming sovereignty and, paradoxically, a gradual diminution of how much true sovereignty any one country actually has. Today fewer than 10 percent of the 186 countries on Earth are culturally or linguistically homogeneous. The rest are multinational states. The main goal driving the process of political expansion and consolidation was conquest. The big absorbed the small, the strong the weak. National might made international right. Such a world is in a more-or-less constant state of preparation for war.

From time to time many thinkers have questioned whether this was a sensible way to run a planet; perhaps national sovereignty was not such a great idea after all. In the 18th century, the Enlightenment gave rise to the idea that all human beings are born equal and should as citizens enjoy certain basic liberties and rights, including that of choosing their leaders. Once this had been achieved, the argument went, it was more reasonable to imagine a treaty regulating nations’ behaviour toward one another. In 1795 Kant was advocating a "peaceful league of democracies".

Warfare

With the advent of modern technology the world has become smaller than ever, its nations more interdependent and conflicts bloodier. The price of settling international disputes by force was rapidly becoming too high for the victors, not to mention the vanquished.

Once again, people like Gandhi, Toynbee and Camus all favoured giving primacy to interests higher than those of the nation. Each world war inspired the creation of an international organization, the League of Nations in the 1920s and the United Nations in the 1940s.

Despite this, during most of our century, large areas of the world have been in a continual state of warfare. Many of these conflicts had taken place since the end of the Second World War. Most of the nations directly or indirectly involved in all of these wars were members of the "United Nations" which was set up as an instrument to prevent wars, especially between its members.

The very designation "united", when applied to nations, is a contradiction in terms, because a union among rival states is not practical and only possible in the instance of the temporary alliance of one group to wage war on another, whether military or trade warfare.

Despite the globalization of capitalism there are still plenty of emergent nationalist forces which are busily inventing histories in order to justify their own petty territorial claims. The romance of an idealized national story of the past is the stuff which gets people to enter the killing fields. The bullets follow the flag-waving rituals and they in return follow the legendary histories which inspired a false consciousness of pride in their state.

In the powerful nations history becomes a means of winning popular emotions to the cause of stability. An influential and well-funded nostalgia industry has long been used in these nations to persuade workers that there is something great about being the Nation’s subjects.

Many of the 'national liberation" movements have been mere pawns in the hands of rival imperialisms even before they have won. Where they have won, independence has benefitted neither the colonial peoples nor the workers of the former colony-holding countries. For it is not the workers who are liberated but only a minority who impose their rule and take over from the foreign governments the role of exploiters. Once in power this minority finds sooner or later that its independence too is illusory; it is forced to compromise with one or other of the imperialist powers, even the one they fought against.

What is a nation anyway? Is it an area in which resides a population with a common so-called racial or ethnical background? Is it an area in which resides a population with a common language?

Common religion? Common economic interest? It is none of these.

The only valid definition of a modern nation is a geographical and political area in which goods and services are produced for the sale on the market with a view to profit and with a general class division of ruling and ruled. And the fact that the majority of the population owns little but its ability to work is evidence that the working class has no common interest with the minority capitalist or ruling class. Furthermore, the fact that nations are, in effect, businesses and engaged in the normal business transactions of buying and selling in competition with one another in the markets of the world, certainly prevents such a thing as a genuine "league of nations’. It has always been apparent with the member-states of the "United Nations" that sovereign national interests come first.

Modern warfare is inextricably bound up with the capitalist mode of production — the production of goods and services for sale on market with a view to profit. Regardless of artificially-created hostility among the varied ethnic and religious groupings, war breaks out only when governments representing rival ruling classes wish it to break out.

The causes of war are found not in animosities between different groups, or in so-called aggressive instincts of humans, but in the quest by ruling classes for markets, sources of raw materials and strategic military bases to protect trade.

Remove capitalism from the world and you remove the cause of the conflicts between nation states that lead to wars.

Illusion

In a socialist society there will be no attempt to impose uniformity, but so-called nationalist movements under capitalism are both a menace and an illusion. They are a menace because they enable an interested ruling class to use them to provoke antagonism towards other groups and thus provide fertile ground for capitalist interests to work up support for war.

Separatist nationalism is an illusion because, while capitalism lasts, the powers, great and small, dare not allow themselves to be weakened by giving real freedom of action to any group of citizens. Governments, in defending capitalist interests, are all opposed to the development of internationalism among the working class of the world, and equally opposed to so-called national minorities which resist conforming to centralized rule and conscription for the armed forces.

There are in fact no purely nationalist movements. Invariably the nationalist sentiment is mixed with economic factors and made use of by the class that has an interest to serve by achieving independence; and independence means not the emancipation of the exploited section of the population but a mere change of masters.

Michael Ghebre

The Learning Of A Wage Slave.

One doesn't usually associate homelessness with university students, but nevertheless it is increasing. 

In California some have asked the state government to open parking lots at colleges at night to help those who sleep in their cars, but were refused. A survey was taken by the New York Times about the problem in the golden state, during 2019. They found that 17% of college students experienced homelessness; 56% were, ''Housing Insecure'', missing part of their rent or sleeping on friends’ couches; 4% spent some nights sleeping in their cars and it would cost the state $69 million a year to open parking lots due to security and sanitation expenses. The report did not add that when they graduate they would be saddled with a massive student debt. 

All this just to learn how to be a wage slave, which is all, so called education is under capitalism.

S.P.C. Members

We still have choices.

An “ism” is a set of ideas. In fact, it’s a theory. 

Socialists are always criticised for promoting theories and not being practical and pragmatic. Begging the boss for a pay-rise that’s a practical fact, but dicuss the concept of class organization and class struggle is all nonsense.

We are told “Socialism is all right in theory but it just won’t work.” But there’s no such thing as an idea that’s “all right in theory but it won’t work.” Theories are NOT just dreamed up out of thin air. It’s a general truth which has been gained from many real experiences and facts. That’s where the idea of socialism come from.

History is full of tales of misery, exploitation, oppression, barbaric cruelty and repression and the horrors of war. These have not been the exception but the pattern. On the one hand, a tiny minoritylive in luxury and splendour. On the other the rest of us are in a life-long struggle simply to survive.

We are living under a system which is more and more clearly revealed as the enemy of humanity. It has vast productive potential, but only means poverty and oppression for most of us. It imposes draconian austerity cuts in living standards on the already suffering poor. It brings hunger and starvation to the working people in the undeveloped and developing nations of the world. Capitalism is responsible for the thoughtless destruction of the environment, looting and plundering human and natural resources. The profit motive is incompatible with safeguarding the world’s resources. So long as it is profitable, environmental destruction is perfectly ’logical’ under capitalism. Humanity’s problem is not limited resources but the waste of resources which is an essential part of the process of capital accumulation. There is the destruction of indigenous people and their sustainable ways of life; hijacking of fertile land for cash-crops and the clearance of forest for cattle ranching;

 Its armaments industry monopolises most of the world’s research and development and cynically profits from a series of local wars of unparalleled destructiveness. The root cause of all this is capitalism’s guiding principle, the quest for profit, which takes precedence over any human interest. Capitalism as a system threatens the future of humanity. Today more than ever capitalism brings nothing but misery and exploitation. Capitalism is already an obsolete system, and all the productive forces and technology it has created will be turned to the benefit of humanity as socialism, a new social system, is built. Capitalism cannot be reformed. Today the destructive threat of capitalism is so acute that humanity cannot afford the luxury of tinkering with pallaitives. It has undergone many changes in its history, but these have simply meant finding new ways to exploit people. The only solution is to build a new social system.

Worldwide, an upsurge of socialism is bound to come. It is more and more apparent that profit is an absurd principle by which to organise the world’s resources. Our vision of the socialist society of the future draws its strength from the new organisational forms thrown up by the mass movement of workers in struggle who lay the foundations for a new society. Workers strive to make life better, freer, more human.

We in the Socialist Party believe that capitalism is not part of an eternal “natural order” of things, not a consequence of “human nature”. It is a recent arrival in man’s history and its days are numbered. The problems we face – unemployment, poverty, economic crises, are not some abberant ill of capitalism, they are an essential part of how it works. All these evils are the direct result of the private ownership of wealth, and the consequent exploitation by a few of the mass of the population, the workers who produce all wealth – and whose reward is a tiny pittance.

What do we mean by socialism? Not the phoney nationalisation of the Labour Party and its attempts to organise the working class to make capitalism work. Nor the “socialism” of the former USSR which uses pseudo-socialist phrases but where in fact one huge state-capitalist monopoly that exploited the mass of Soviet workers  on behalf of a small ruling elite of Communist Party and government bureaucrat. We are fighting for a working class democracy in which the producers of wealth,  working people will own in common the factories, the land, the hospitals, the schools, etc. and will run them themselves according to the will of the majority,

Why should any worker have confidence in the future of the capitalist system? If he or she has, it shows more confidence than the capitalists themselves who build their luxury bunkers in remote and supposed untouchable parts of the world.

A Lesson in Capitalism

Most people are aware that something called “inequality” exists in society, but have only vague ideas about how great it is and about how it has been caused. Socialists know that enormous inequalities are unavoidable symptoms of capitalism which can only be eradicated in one way: that is by the abolition of capitalism and by replacing it with socialism, under which the wealth produced by industry and agriculture, as well as the means for producing that wealth, will belong to all the people.

No, capitalism cannot be reformed in the interests of the working class. It can never be made to benefit the working class. Just looking at the history of capitalism and at capitalism today proves this point over and over again. Given that capitalism cannot be reformed to suit the interests of the workers, who are the overwhelming majority of the population, and, remembering all the misery, poverty, destruction, wastage and violence which are an inevitable consequence of capitalism, there remains the urgent task for the workers to say that they have had enough and to abolish capitalism.

Capitalism must be ended by the conscious, democratic action not merely of workers in Britain, but of workers throughout the world. When this happens, it can be guaranteed that the full potential of mankind will be released for the first time in history. The forces of nature have endowed each individual human being with a brain capable of immense creativity in innumerable different forms. For the very first time, socialism will enable Man to use these faculties and energies to the full.

The working class is the wealth-producing class in society. Wealth today is represented by vast numbers of commodities and on average these are bought and sold at their values. When a capitalist employs workers, he pays a wage which is again, on average, the value of their particular commodity, i.e. Labour-Power. Their labour is something different, this is what they leave behind them at their places of work in the form of commodities belonging to their employers. The capitalist is able to sell his commodities at a profit by selling them at their value because of the unpaid labour contained in them.

In a given industry — whether privately or State owned — the owners must immediately meet any increase in wages at the expense of profits. But it is wrong to assume that a capitalist can automatically and immediately recover this reduction in profit by increasing his prices. In the first instance he is in competition with other capitalist concerns, and an arbitrary increase would give his competitors the edge in undercutting him. In fact, in normal market conditions, the seller of a commodity will always ask as much as he thinks the market will stand. Even in monopoly conditions, where prices can be kept artificially high, there comes a point when buyers seek alternatives, or will cut down. Look for example at the increase in oil prices after the 1973/4 shortage, followed by a reduction in consumption, and currently, a petrol price war. If, as you assume, an increase in wages can be covered simply by increasing prices, consider why the capitalist did not put up his prices before granting a wage increase. The fact is that capitalists keep a close watch on their markets and try to keep their prices in line with market conditions. Although you direct your comments to price-rises as they affect the “consumer”, it should be borne in mind that the capitalist class themselves are huge consumers of commodities, and the example you give of coal serves to underline this.

Similarly, when workers sell their commodity labour-power, they will seek the highest possible price and in general this will be equal to the value of the labour-power, corresponding to the amount required to feed, clothe, shelter and generally maintain the worker and his family in accordance with traditional standards. Whether individual groups of workers can enforce a rise in wages in order to maintain or improve these standards will depend on the circumstances at the time, but it must be noted that they cannot be depressed very far. In general the most favourable condition for achieving wage increases is when production is expanding and the capitalist is therefore unwilling to risk stoppages. The owners will view wage demands in the light of their increased profits.

Politicians are the mouthpieces and the lackeys of the capitalist system which needs to dupe the mass of the people in order to maintain itself in power. The contrast between the humbug of political pronouncements and the struggle for survival of the working class worldwide cries out for a solution. That solution can be achieved—Socialism, which will finally make politicians redundant when it replaces capitalism across the globe.

Workers of the world unite—you have nothing to lose but your leaders.

COVID-19 and an opportunity for change

Although not by a member of the Socialist Party and the author holds views that we would not entirely agree  with, this article deserves a wider audience.

The panicked response to the COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed social and economic chaos. A global economy that was teetering on the brink of recession is being pushed over the edge. Medical and social services are overwhelmed, entire populations are thrown into distress, and anxious hoarding is making basic necessities scarce.

Even before the virus hit, 59 percent of adult Americans were living paycheck to paycheck, 44 percent were carrying credit card debt, and only 38 percent had any kind of emergency fund. Any loss in pay or a loss of job would upend their lives. When you stand on shaky ground, it doesn’t take much to tip you over.

Is panic justified?

COVID-19 does not appear to be more lethal than seasonal influenza, with about 80 percent of infections being minor. In South Korea, a robust public health system, prior preparation, and early aggressive testing reduced the fatality rate to under 1 percent, similar to seasonal ‘flu. The CDC estimates that between 9 and 45 million people are infected with seasonal ‘flu, and between 12,000 and 61,000 die.

However, unlike seasonal ‘flu, COVID-19 can spread much more rapidly, with up to 40 percent of infected people becoming contagious before they feel ill. When very large numbers of people are infected, even a tiny fatality rate can translate into many more patients needing treatment than can be helped by unprepared, underfunded medical systems. The result is a dramatic increase in preventable deaths.

To make matters worse, the lack of national and international cooperation make it difficult to obtain and share accurate information, to coordinate disease-fighting measures, and to ensure that personnel and supplies are sent where they are most needed.

The contagious nature of the virus and the systemic failure to prevent its spread have led to the need for mass quarantine, travel restrictions, event cancellations, social isolation, job loss, and income loss. The human cost of tearing such giant holes in the social fabric has yet to be calculated.

Hidden truths

This crisis has exposed hidden truths about capitalism that raise the need for fundamental social change.

Diseases flow across political borders. Despite persistent efforts to divide humanity, the global spread of COVID-19 reminds us that we truly live in one world.

A global challenge demands international cooperation. The capitalist class have proved to be too distrustful, too ambitious, and too competitive to cooperate at the level required.

Science does not guide public policy. Epidemics emerge on a regular basis, most recently SARS in 2002-2004 and H1N1 in 2009. After each pandemic, authorities pledge to prepare for the next one. It’s just talk.

The current epidemic was predicted back in 2015, and detailed strategies to reduce its impact were developed. Nevertheless, the 2019 Global Health Security Index found that no country in the world is fully prepared to handle an epidemic or pandemic. Prevention costs money, and there is no profit in it. When epidemics emerge, both cash-strapped public medical systems and for-profit ones are reluctant to invest in widespread testing and treatment.

When COVID-19 first appeared, American officials did nothing for almost two months. They rejected an early test kit developed by the World Health Organization in order to privilege American providers who failed to produce an accurate test quickly enough and in sufficient numbers. The result is a colossal system failure and tremendous unnecessary suffering.

When epidemics escape containment, there are two options. One is to allow the infection to spread until herd immunity is achieved. This strategy can be effective when medical systems have the capacity to identify, track, and treat all cases and their contacts. When medical capacity is inadequate, failing to contain the epidemic in its early stages will drive up fatality rates, as increasing numbers of sick people overwhelm the medical system.

Modern medical systems are designed for maximum cost-efficiency (lean production) so they have no margin to manage periodic surges in demand. Under such conditions, the only option is to impose mass quarantine, or social distancing. Such measures do not reduce the total number of infections and may not reduce the number of deaths. However, they do slow the speed of transmission, easing the demand on medical systems, enabling more people to be treated, and buying time to develop a vaccine. However, when the number of seriously ill is exceeds the number of available ICU beds and ventilators, then people who could otherwise survive the illness will die for lack of treatment.

Social crises reveal the extent of social inequality and also deepen it. Travel bans target some nations and not others. While some industries are forced to close, others continue to operate. Some workers are protected, and many more are not. The public are ordered to maintain social distance, yet inmates trapped in overcrowded prisons do not have access to soap and hand sanitizers. Virtual classrooms benefit the few, leaving the rest even further behind. And where testing and treatment cost money, those who are most likely to get sick are least able to pay.

Worker safety is not prioritized. Epidemics place unbearable pressure on front-line workers, and a planned shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) puts them in danger. Yet these workers have no say in how public services are funded, equipped, staffed, or organized.

While sick workers should isolate themselves to protect others, 24 percent of all American workers and 69 percent of low-paid ones (making less than $10.80 an hour) have no paid sick leave, and recent US legislation will not help them. Without sick benefits, workers will stay on the job because being broke is worse than being sick.

The ruling class panic when disease threatens them or their bottom line. Nevertheless, they refuse to eliminate the environmental degradation and impoverished conditions that breed disease.

Globally, more than 2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, 4.5 billion lack basic sanitation services, and close to a billion people do not get enough food. Deadly yet treatable diseases such as TB and HIV/AIDs continue to spread. In 2017, 1.7 million people were newly infected with HIV and 770,000 died from AIDS-related illnesses. When the means exist for everyone to be well, the acceptance of poverty-bred disease can only be understood as a means for eugenically reducing the numbers of destitute people.

The capitalist class respond to every crisis as if it were a war they must fight with weapons of social control. Ordinary people are not treated as valued problem-solvers, but as victims needing saving or as potential troublemakers who must be isolated, kept fearful, and coerced into obedience.

Opportunities

Is it possible to prevent epidemics? What is the best way to contain them? What must we do differently?

COVID-19 has caused enough panic to put seemingly radical reforms on the agenda, including: universal access to medical care; fully funded social services; sick leave benefits for all workers; housing the homeless; and ensuring that everyone is well nourished. Such measures would require a massive transfer of wealth from the capitalist class to the working class. However, the purpose of capitalism is to transfer wealth in the opposite direction, from the many to the few. This is why billions of people are exposed to preventable distress, disease, disability, and premature death, why capitalists fail to act responsibly in response to crises, and why they exploit every crisis as an opportunity to increase their wealth and tighten their grip on society.

The only way that anyone can be truly safe is if everyone is safe. That can happen only when the majority step up and organize themselves to make it so.

Unions around the world are pushing for more effective measures to contain the epidemic and to protect front-line workers. However, the capitalist class resist implementing such measures. That leaves two options: mount enough public pressure to compel authorities to do the right thing (reform); or remove the capitalist class from power so the rest of us can do what needs to be done (revolution). What might that second, revolutionary, option look like?

Where the capitalists stoke fear of others as a source of contagion, we would mobilize the well to care for the unwell.

With the working class in power, we could open the banks and release enough money to massively expand medical and social services. People could organize themselves in every workplace, school, and neighborhood, forming democratic councils to share information, conduct free testing, and ensure free treatment for all who fall ill, financial support for the sick, social support for the quarantined, food for the hungry, and housing for the homeless.

We would give full amnesty to all undocumented persons so they can be tested and treated and join the collective effort to test and treat others.

Overcrowded, unsanitary conditions breed disease, so we would immediately release all immigrants in detention, along with all prisoners being held for non-violent offenses. Once their medical and social needs are met, they could join the social mobilization.

We would eliminate all political borders in order to coordinate local, regional, and global efforts and to enable personnel and equipment to travel where needed.

Wars breed disease and devastation. Ending them would enable us to vastly improve the health of the planet and everyone on it.

In short, we would completely transform our relationships with each other, from divided consumers to united producers. We would also change our relationship with the non-human world, nurturing it so that it can nurture us in return.

If you think such measures are impossible, pie in the sky, a pipe dream, consider this: When all ‘reasonable’ solutions have proved inadequate to the task, then the only road left, however improbable, is the one we must travel.

https://susanrosenthal.com/labor/a-socialist-response-to-covid-19/

The Ripple Effect?

Fiat Chrysler is cutting the third shift at its Windsor Assembly Plant on June 29 as it ends production on the Dodge Grand Caravan, owing to lack of demand. This will mean unemployment for 1,500 workers. 

The company said they will make every effort to place the laid off in any new positions that become available, though I'm sure they won’t hold their breaths on that promise. A union spokesman said, ''This decision will lead to a significant job loss in the parts supply chain and inflict damage to both the local and the national economy.''

 In other words the ripple effect -- but that's simply life  as usual for workers under capitalism.

 S. P. C Members.

A Great Place To Live If You Can Afford It.

On March 10, T.V. Ontario presented the documentary, ''Vancouver-No Fixed Address'', an expose of the housing crisis in that city, Canada's most expensive to live in. It should have been sub-titled, ''A great place to live if you can afford it.'' Real estate prices have and are continuing to outstrip wages by leaps and bounds, so that many can’t live there and consequently move out of town.

 One senior said, ''I live in my van, because my pension is $14,000 a year.” Another interviewee said he bought a rust-bucket of a boat and fixed it up, which is now his residence. A woman said she dreamed of living near Stanley Park which became a reality when she married and had two salaries coming in. Her husband died and now she struggles to make ends meet. Obviously some folks must be doing well. They fall into two categories: a) the real estate developers, who are the biggest donors to the local politicians campaign funds; and b) offshore investors. The latter are mostly wealthy Chinese, some of whom live in Vancouver and some who only use their property as an investment to be sold later for a big profit. Here we have one of capitalism's contradictions - people are homeless, like those who sleep on downtown streets, while houses are empty. Most people don't think of Vancouver as a manufacturing city, but as one real estate agent put it: ''Vancouver is a manufacturing centre, we manufacture and sell condo's, 90% are bought by investors who have no thought of living here permanently, but to rent or sell later.'' 

As Socialists, we have no resentment to the Chinese as immigrants, whether they be workers or capitalists, or offshore investors. Our argument is with the stupid economic system which makes the above situation possible.

S.P.C Members