SHORT TERM GAMBLERS

One of the illusions that is prevalent in financial circles is that the wheelers and dealers are studious investors who weigh up all the prospects for the long term. "Michael Hudson, a former Wall Street economist at Chase Manhattan Bank who also helped establish the world's first sovereign debt fund recently said: "Take any stock in the United States. The average time in which you hold a stock is -it's gone up from 20 seconds to 22 seconds in the last year. "Most trades are computerised. Most trades are short-term. The average foreign currency investment lasts - it's up now to 30 seconds, up from 28 seconds last month. The financial sector is short term, yet they talk as if they're long term." (Daily Telegraph, 18 January) The reality is that capitalism is a mad struggle that makes crazy gamblers look clever by comparison. RD

The Tartan Army

Alex Salmond has set out his vision for an independent Scottish defence force, saying it would consist of the same number of army, RAF and navy personnel as under plans being drawn up by UK ministers. The First Minister said the coalition government’s defence review plan of one naval base, one air base and one mobile armed brigade was “exactly the configuration” required for Scotland. The defence review set out by the coalition government last year proposed about 6,500 troops being stationed in Scotland, with a further 6,500 employed at the Trident submarine base in Faslane and 2,400 personnel at RAF Kinloss. The three Scottish regiments – the Scots Guards, the Royal Regiment of Scotland, and the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards – would make up the core of any Scottish army, the SNP added.

Such a set-up would total about 15,400 troops, an armed force of an equivalent size to that of Kuwait.

One consequence of the SNP being responsible for running capitalism is keeping its armed forces up to standard! Under capitalism resources are squandered on armaments. Even in so-called “peace-time” the preparation for war causes a massive waste of labour, materials and technology.

Capitalism means war and that therefore to get rid of wars and the threat of wars – and the constant preparation for war represented by maintaining armed forces – you have got to get rid of capitalism. Capitalism continues to be a war-prone society has been proved yet again. So has the urgent need for world socialism so that wars, the threat of war and preparation for war can become things of the past. It's the only way to lasting world peace.

A MAD, MAD WORLD

The insanities of capitalism are many but it is doubtful if you could find a nuttier example than this one. "A one-cent copper coin minted in 1793, the first year that the United States produced its own, has fetched $1 million at a Florida auction. The Orlando Sentinel reports that the final bid by an unknown buyer for the coin was one of the largest sales at the Florida United Numismatics coin show and annual convention." (Associated Press, 7 January) This is happening in the same society wherein millions are trying to survive from day to day on less than $1.25 a day. RD

A GRIM FUTURE

Having worked all their adult life many workers fondly imagine that after retirement they will be able to live out the rest of their life in comparative security, but capitalism doesn't work that way. "Millions more pensioners could be forced to sell their houses to pay for nursing homes in old age amid plans to almost double the cost of care The elderly may be required to pay up to £60,000 - £25,000 more than the current Government cap on fees - for a place, ministers said." (Daily Mail, 17 January) RD

poor education

15 year-old children at the bottom of the class are so far behind they are performing “as if they were 10 years old”, a report handed to MSPs has claimed. The paper, written by local government experts, concluded that Scotland has the highest gap between top and bottom in schools of anywhere in western Europe.

It confirms previous studies by international bodies which have also claimed that low achievers from poor families are “slipping through the net” in the classroom.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/education/brightest_pupils_5_years_ahead_of_poorest_1_2064261

Another union ready to fight

Doctors are threatening their first wave of industrial action in nearly 40 years, after they overwhelmingly rejected proposed changes to their pension plans. Under the final offer proposed by the UK government, some doctors will see their pension contributions rise from 8.5 per cent to 14.5 per cent of their salary. They will also have to work longer before they can retire. Existing methods of pension accrual will be replaced by a career average revalued earnings scheme for all doctors and there will be no automatic lump sum, currently enjoyed by some doctors upon retirement. According to the BMA, the proposed changes would see doctors working until 68, an age beyond which many feel “competent and safe”.

A UK-wide survey by the organisation of 130,000 doctors and medical students – including 6,638 in Scotland – found an overwhelming majority opposed to the pension reforms, with almost two-thirds prepared to take some form of industrial action. More than a third (36 per cent) of doctors aged 50 and over said they intended to retire if the changes went through. It is unlikely they will agree to an all-out strike. However, one option is for a form of work-to-rule, which could see the cancellation of some clinical procedures, particularly at weekends.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/health/gps_set_for_first_industrial_action_in_37_years_1_2064378

TELLING PORKIES

Politician are renowned for their fondness of "scientific inexactitudes", but the Republican candidate for office Newt Ginrich takes a bit of beating. "When Gingrich was campaigning in Laconia on Wednesday, a fellow came up to the former House speaker and asked, "Won't you buy a home in the Lakes Region if elected president?" This was a reference to Mitt Romney's house in New Hampshire. Gingrich replied, "No, I can't afford things like that. I'm not rich." (Mother Jones, 6 January) Gingrich had to file the financial-disclosure form required of presidential candidates. It revealed that he has a net worth of at least $6.7 million and that his income was at least $2.6 million in 2010. That's about 65 times the income of the average family of four in the United States. RD

THE FAILURE OF ANC

When the ANC triumphed over apartheid the celebrations were world wide, but what was the outcome? "The venerated party once banned for decades under apartheid has won every national election since racist white rule ended in 1994, and President Jacob Zuma vows the party "will rule until Jesus comes." Yet as the African National Congress marks its 100th anniversary this weekend with fanfare and dozens of visiting presidents, critics say the ANC has failed to unchain an impoverished majority still shackled by a white-dominated economy. Unemployment hovers around 36 percent and soars to 70 percent among young people. Half the country's population lives on just 8 percent of the national income, according to the Congress of South African Trade Unions." (Associated Press, 5 January) The sad truth is that an apartheid version of capitalism has been replaced by an ANC version, but it is still capitalism. RD

the cream

The founding family which owns 35 per cent of the shares of Scottish milk giant Robert Wiseman Dairies is set to pocket nearly £100 million after agreeing to sell the firm to German yoghurt maker Müller.

Wiseman produces about a third of the fresh milk consumed in the UK

THE SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE

It is difficult to imagine someone disputing Professor Hawking's views on cosmology or theorical physics but we certainly dispute his ideas on sociology and politics. "It is possible that the human race could become extinct but it is not inevitable. I think it is almost certain that a disaster, such as nuclear war or global warming, will befall the earth within a thousands years," Professor Hawking, the Cambridge University cosmologist and theoretical physicist said. "It is essential that we colonise space." (Daily Telegraph, 6 January) Rather than follow Hawking's fanciful notion of space colonisation we think a more realistic view is to change the basis of society from one of production for profit to one of production solely for use. RD

EMPTY HEADED NONSENSE

We live in a society wherein the majority of people work and produce wealth while a minority live in wealth and luxury without working. This is bad enough but when the useless parasite class that produce nothing also claim how wonderful they are it is hard to bear. "Make no mistake - Paris Hilton is more than a pretty face. The 30-year-old heiress has boasted about her entrepreneurial skills - while posing topless - in an new interview with FHM, claiming her empire has generated more than a billion dollars in six years." (Daily Mail, 4 January) Ms Hilton has produced nothing in her life. her immense wealth was inherited from her parasitical parents. Speed the day that we can rid the world of such boastful nonsense. RD

The national nonsense of we...we

Nation is the name given by their rulers or would-be rulers to a collection of people with a distinct culture usually but not always based on a common language. The geo-political entity of the state and its machinery of government are not necessarily the same as the nation; and this forms the ideological basis for nationalism - the belief that a nation should become a state. Nationalism emphasises the distinctiveness of a nation and usually points to its statehood. Nationalist movements arose with the development of capitalism and the state. In the nineteenth century, Karl Marx supported some nationalist movements because they were historically progressive in that they served the class interests of the rising bourgeoisie in its struggle against the traditional aristocracy. In the twentieth century, nationalism was, and still is, associated with movements for ‘self-determination’. Nationalism, whilst a powerful tool of oppression, was created in part as a defence against imperialism and colonialism, against dominance from outside and in fear of being denied the rights of self-determination. It manifests itself like a sophisticated tribalism, with pride, tradition, attitudes of superiority, enemies real and imagined, and flag-waving. The concept of the nation is very real force in the minds of people today. The outlook of “us and them” is a strong notion in the lives of many people. The idea that the world is naturally divided into nations is widespread.

Socialists do not support movements for national liberation. Certainly socialism will allow the fullest linguistic and cultural diversity, but this cannot be achieved through nationalism. Marxism explains how workers are exploited and unfree, not as particular nationalities, but as members of a class. To be in an ‘oppressed minority’ at all it is usually necessary to first belong to the working class. From this perspective, identifying with the working class provides a rational basis for political action. The objective is a stateless world community of free access. Given that nationalism does nothing to further this understanding, however, it is an obstruction to world socialism. Nationalism is a perversion of a shared identity in the interest of some local elite.

Nations have taken a great deal of building. It wasn't always easy. Historians such as Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm have demonstrated that a nation is not a natural community that existed before the state, but that it's the other way round: the state existed first and then proceeded to impose on those it ruled over the idea that they formed a “nation”. States pre-existed and in a very real sense created nations. Nations are groups of people ruled by a state or a would-be state. There is almost no nation-state that has not had its boundaries drawn in blood, its foundations dug out of human flesh. The effort, though, has to be ongoing. States have required the use of an education system, to standardise learning, spread a national history and a sense of shared culture. The capitalist class needed the state, and its legitimising idea of nationalism and the nation. Culture resides in sets of ideas, values and practises that set out a sense of precedent, self and future possibility. By imposing the idea of the nation upon a culture, complete with its inherent notions of territorial ownership and property, the ruling class impose their notions of property on the very self-image of the people within that culture. In school workers are taught the history of the kings and queens, and of the wars in which the ruling class has been involved in over the centuries. The media reinforce this by reporting news from an almost exclusively parochial angle and encourage identification with “the nation” via identification with “our” sports teams and performers.

The most important word in the political vocabulary is “we” since to get someone to use “we” in relation to some group of people is to get them to identify their interest as the interest of that group. Socialists are trying to get all those excluded from ownership and control of means of production to recognise the fact of their common interest as one class within capitalist society, to regard themselves as “we” and to use “our” and “us” only in relation to that class and its interests. Those who do own and control means of production and who derive a privileged income from this, they seek to convince the people they rule over that the “we” they should identify with is “the nation” as the nation part of what they call the “nation-state” they rule. The idea of “we” as collectively joined and looked after by our rulers is the most profound falsehood. The notions of nationality were irrelevant during the time of feudalism, just as they are today where the capitalist class, not the people of “Britain” or "Scotland", privately owns the means for producing wealth. To say “this is our country” implies that we all own it collectively, where we most certainly do not.

Class existed before the nation state. Throughout history one ruling class or another has attempted to impose its view on those they ruled over, manipulating their passions and pretending that its interests and their interests were the same. So, in another of life's ironies, the masses waste their energy fighting amongst themselves, believing their interests and the interests of their rulers are linked.

So long as people think in terms of the "common good" of the "national economy", in terms of the overall performance of one unit in the world-wide division of peoples, they are, whether consciously or not, serving the interests of the capitalist class. All evaluations, priorities and hierarchies of value within a "national culture" are made from the point of view, from the self-interest, and, indeed, the apprehended self-hood, of the members of the capitalist class. When the economy is "doing well" it is doing so for the capitalists, when the economy is ailing, it is ailing for the capitalists. Workers, of course, do not share a common interest with their masters. It does not follow that if the "national wealth" increases, or if trade increases, or even if profit increases, that higher wages will be gained by workers. In fact capitalists can only make a profit by appropriating the wealth produced by the workers to themselves; but in the topsy-turvy world of ideology, it seems that workers will only have good pay and wealth when the capitalists are doing well. So it appears that workers and capitalists share a common interest. In fact, the interest of workers is conditioned by the interest of the capitalist, in exactly the same manner as hostages held by a kidnapper: unless the kidnapper-capitalists's demands are met, they will not allow the hostage-workers to have what they need to live. There is a well-documented effect of hostage situations, called "The Stockholm Syndrome" in which hostages under duress began to identify with their kidnappers, and believe in their cause. Nationalism works in much the same way. It is the Stockholm Syndrome on a grand scale. The working class who are dependent (under the current system) on the capitalists, to whom they are bonded by state-boundaries across which they are not permitted to escape, begin to believe that they share an identity with them.

Without the ideology of nationalism, capitalist states would be unstable since, being based on minority class rule, they need a minimum allegiance from those they rule over. Nationalism serves to achieve this by teaching the ruled to be loyal to "their" so-called "nation-state".

Xenophobia becomes a useful ally in promoting nationalism. Jonathan Swift wrote “the first principle of patriotism is to resent foreigners,” setting one section of population against another, has been used ultra-successfully all around the world – so successfully that great swathes of people can now rouse themselves, with no apparent external cue, against the newest threat, the most recent immigrant group, asylum seekers, anyone who looks or sounds like they may be from a group that’s not their own. Enemies are required by the state elites. Enemies within and without, social, cultural, economic enemies to keep the population vigilant against all possible threats, to keep them fully occupied, suspicious of each other, divided, protecting the national interest against any wayward individual or group – including themselves.

Some socialists thought that nationalist beliefs would fall apart as capitalism covered the globe and the entire planet became based on capitalist values. As nations became dependent on each other and general education increased among the masses, surely people would see that the concept of the nation would be obsolete? The next clear step would be to end the tyranny of the privileged minority that controlled the vast amounts of wealth and property and move towards common ownership. World socialism would be the end result. However, today capitalism is still here, and so is the idea of nationality. Nationality is perhaps more potent then it has ever been. People something to sustain them. They feel lost in this vast meaningless world of capital, just another cog in the machine, and they would be right. Since the working class finds little meaning in its wage labour, a draining process, as the people alienate themselves from their own life activity, they search for meaning in other places. Often they find meaning in religion and/or the idea of the nation, as these notions are clear and often connected, already set out by the ruling class and don't require much thought or struggle.

Tying nationality to sports can also sustain this backward nationalist mindset. People can hate other peoples or nations simply because they compete with them in sports. This can lead to acts of incredibly insane violence, since people, having no meaning in their work life, put great passion and meaning into their enjoyment of sports. Since the sport and the collective meaning and support of the sport tends to become their life, supporters of opposing teams and nations may seem like a threat to all they hold dear. This seeming threat to the very meaning of their lives can cause them to explode into open fighting. With no meaning from work, the sport, and sense of identity that comes with it, becomes their lives, and they defend it accordingly. It is no coincidence that a person with a immensely draining, alienating job and repetitive work, will tend to cling desperately to this collective idea of nationality, as they find meaning and comfort in this idea, since they have no meaning in their work.

The illusions of nationality are yet another tool of the ruling class, intended to trick workers into thinking that this really is some kind of collective society, and to misplace their passions that could otherwise be directed into the class struggle.

ARE COPS RACIST?

There is this beautiful illusion, prompted no doubt by TV detective series, that policemen are wonderful people who are extremely clever and admirable human beings. "London School of Economics (LSE) and the Open Society Justice Initiative shows during the past 12 months a black person was 29.7 times more likely to be stopped and searched than a white person. .... Mounting disquiet over the policy's damaging effect on black communities prompted Scotland Yard last week to announce a scaling back of its use of section 60, which has become a central element of the Yard's anti-knife crime strategy. A separate analysis, based on Home Office data, reveals that less than 0.5% of section 60 searches led to an arrest for possession of a dangerous weapon, five times fewer than a decade ago." (Observer, 14 January) Sorry to spoil your illusions, but some policemen are religious, racist and sexist bigots. Let's face it they are just badly miss-informed workers. RD

False Hope

Will “independence” make the Scottish workers better off and happier? Is it “London rule” that is responsible for the problems faced by workers in Scotland, or is it capitalism?

Independence solves none of the problems resulting from exploitation. Poverty in the midst of a potential for plenty remains, and massive disparities of wealth continue to exist. It can be seen in retrospect that independence for the vast majority of the people has simply meant the exchange of one set of exploiters for another. The realisation of " political independence " by a country leaves the workers' conditions untouched (or actually worsens them in some cases). As socialists, we don't take sides in this inter-capitalist argument. We don't support one section of the capitalist class or the other, and we don't have any illusions about the "sovereign power" of Parliaments to pass reformist legislation that can make capitalism work in the interest of the exploited class of wage and salary earners. Capitalism just cannot be reformed to work in this way; so transferring some of the powers of the House of Commons to a Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh makes no difference.

Nationalist movements are not just movements to secure independence from the foreign governments that kept them in subjection, for even after achieving independence they continue to preach the same anti-foreign doctrines as before. Nationalism has been and is everywhere the form in which each capitalist group tries to carve out a place for itself in the world of warring capitalist states, where politicians who have used nationalism to gain independence from a colonial power need it just as much afterwards in order to persuade the workers to go on fighting capitalism's battles. It is an illusion to think that nations can be friendly in a capitalist world provided that they are all “independent” and it is equally an illusion to think that the Powers, great and small, could dispense with nationalism.

If the worker is to be won for socialism, it is by getting him to understand the principles of socialism. When other countries have achieved independence, little changed except the functionaries of the state machinery. National independence is good for local politicians, manufacturers and business men; it opens up careers and money-making opportunities for them, as also for local holders of government civilian posts who may have found their advancement hindered while a foreign or central administration had control. Workers have nothing to gain from the re-drawing of the border, but some regional entrepreneurs and bureaucrats certainly do have a chance of making good if only they can persuade the electorate to back them. Scotland like every other country in the world, is a class-divided country where the two classes - those who own and class and those who work and produce - have diametrically opposed interests. The bonds which bind worker with worker, irrespective of nationality, are those of class solidarity.

Yet capitalism knows no boundaries, money has no accent. Independence is just not possible within the context of globalized capitalism. Certainly, formal political independence, or sovereignty, is possible, where states have the full power to make decisions without reference to any supra-national rules or decision-making procedures. But there’s a difference between the mere legal power to do something and what can be done in practice. In practice all states, when exercising their sovereign power to make decisions, have to take into account the economic reality that there exists a single world market economy on which they are dependent. A state can exercise some degree of influence on how the world market operates in relation to it - it erect tariff walls, subsidise exports, devalue its currency - but this depends on its economic clout (such as the productivity and size of its industry and the extent of its internal market). Over the years capitalism has become more and more international, more and more globalised. This has tended to reduce the margin of manoeuvre open to states, i.e. has reduced their "sovereignty". The vital decisions affecting the local economy have little to do with Holyrood or Westminster. The inexorable process of globalisation has increasingly made redundant the question of "national sovereignty". Yet regional nationalists imagine they can buck the trend without even being against capitalism.

The nationalists emphasise a Scottish Parliament's "constitutional right" to control the economy, completely ignoring the fact that experience has shown this to be a purely paper right. The capitalist economy works according to certain economic laws which no government or legislative body can over-ride. So the argument about sovereignty is not really about what the constitution may or may not say. It's about the effective power that a capitalist state can exercise within the capitalist economy. Capitalism has always existed within a framework of competing states, none of which is strong enough to impose its will on all the others. States, as weapons in the hands of rival groups of capitalists, intervene to further the interests of the capitalists that control them. They do this by using state power to set up protected markets, raw materials sources, trade routes and investment outlets. In normal times their weapons are tariffs, taxes, quotas, export rebates and other economic measures. When they judge that their vital interest is at stake their weapons are . . . weapons. They go to war. The extent to which a capitalist state can distort the world market in favour of its capitalists depends both on its industrial strength and on the amount of armed force at its disposal. This is why all states are under pressure to acquire the most up-to-date and destructive armaments that they can afford. In the jungle world of capitalism might is right. "Sovereignty"—the margin of independent decision-making that a state has—also depends on might.

The interest of the wage and salary working class in all countries is to reject all nationalism, to reject in fact the very idea of “foreigner”, and to recognise that they have a common interest with people in other countries in the same economic situation of being obliged to sell their mental and physical energies in order to get a living. That interest lies in working together to establish a world-wide society of common ownership, democratic control and production for use not profit. Independence will not give the people of Scotland effective control over their own affairs. The only change that will do that is a change in the whole social system, replacing competitive production for profit and minority ownership by co-operative production. Neither devolution nor an independent Scotland (nor a United Kingdom, because we point out that no state today can be independent of the capitalist world market does not mean that we therefore favour the union) can achieve this. It is only feasible in a moneyless, frontierless society which, for those with vision, is the next stage in human social evolution. It is for the Scottish workers to see that their position demands that they should fight only for their class emancipation, and that nothing, constitutional reform or national independence, should draw them away from their determination to fight for the realisation of socialism. What is the “independence” some Scots yearn after, if it means being trapped inside of the bigger prison of capitalism?

“It’s a truism, but one that needs to be constantly stressed, that capitalism and democracy are ultimately quite incompatible.” - Noam Chomsky

JET AGE SHOPPING

Every day you can read of shops in the High Street closing down as the economic recession worsens, but it is not all doom and gloom in the retail business. "Finally, the shop we've all been waiting for. I'm talking about the first showroom for private jets, of course. The Jet Business is billing itself as the "one-stop shop for the private jet shopper" and will open in Grovenor Place, Belgravia - just a runway's length from Harrods - this week." (Sunday Times, 8 January) instead of having to shop around the various manufacturers or go through a broker you just pop in and tell them your requirements. In case you were thinking of paying a visit to this glitzy showroom with its full size cabin mock-up of an Airbus corporate jet it should be noted that visits are by appointment only. That should keep out you Ryanair customers. RD

Capitalism as usual

1. On Friday, December 2, Angela Merkel said,
" The German government has made it clear that the European crisis will not be solved in one fell swoop. It's a process and this process will take years." In other words, years of unemployment, under employment, poverty and misery for the workers.

2. Canadian blackberry producer, Research In Motion (RIM) is faced with the usual dilemma -- deliver a new family of highly-anticipated smart-phones on time, but with flaws, or invite the ire of the markets by delaying the release to get the product right. It's a no- brainer in capitalism -- get the crappy stuff out fast!

Strangely, The Toronto Star published an article with the title "Wage Hike the Key to Cutting Poverty" and then goes on to tell how supervision is needed to get employers to pay immigrants the minimum wage. Many pay cash only and at rates below the legal minimum.

The same newspaper reported on the slowness on Employment insurance claims. One claimant had to wait 46 days for his insurance, missed his mortgage, car insurance, and hydro payments and was slapped with a $400 non-sufficient funds penalty. It also reported the grim fact that a poll commissioned by the Canadian Payroll Association showed that 57% of respondents could not deal with a one-week delay in their pay -- astonishingly high in a rich country. John Ayers

CAPITALISM IN ACTION

Supporters of capitalism are fond of depicting the development of the profit system as a humanising, liberating advance over pre-capitalist society. Yet for thousands of years so-called primitive people have lived in the Amazon area without the benefits of production for profit until they were hit by the advance of capitalism. "Loggers in Brazil captured an eight-year-old girl from one of the Amazon's last uncontacted tribes and burned her alive as part of a campaign to force the indigenous population from its land, reports claimed on Tuesday night." (Daily Telegraph, 10 January) In its ruthless quest for profits capitalism is far from humanising or liberating. RD

The right to life

In the words of Nobel laureate and Dr Amartya Sen:
"Famines are very easy to publicise, people dying of hunger is one thing. But people being underweight, stunted, their lifestyle, their probability of survival being diminished, all that is not so visible..."

A survey conducted by the Naandi Foundation in India found that 42% of children under five are underweight and 59 per cent have stunted growth.

When asked why they did not give their children more non-cereal foods, 93.7 per cent mothers said they did not do so because non-cereal foods were expensive. Fifty per cent of Indian women are anaemic.

836 million people live under less than Rs20 (38 US cents) a day.

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by all United Nations member states in 1948, lists the right to food among a state's obligations. Article 21 of the Indian constitution, which provides a fundamental right to life and personal liberty, has been repeatedly interpreted by the Indian Supreme Court as enshrining within it the right to food. Article 47 of the Indian constitution obliges the Indian state to raise the standard of nutrition of its people.

But capitalism pays no heed to human rights when it comes to making profits!

BEHIND THE RHETORIC

Western governments are fond of posing as lovers of freedom and democracy and as enemies of dictatorship, but behind the laudable rhetoric lurks a sordid reality. "The Obama administration is moving ahead with the sale of nearly $11 billion worth of arms and training for the Iraqi military despite concerns that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is seeking to consolidate authority, create a one-party Shiite-dominated state and abandon the American-backed power-sharing government. The military aid, including advanced fighter jets and battle tanks, is meant to help the Iraqi government protect its borders and rebuild a military that before the 1991 Persian Gulf war was one of the largest in the world; it was disbanded in 2003 after the United States invasion." (New York Times, 29 December) Why is the US government taking this action? Well $11 billion arms sales are not to be ignored but the menace of neighbouring Iran's threat to US oil supplies in the area is probably more likely to be the reason. RD

AN INHUMAN SOCIETY

Capitalism is a society that constantly attempts to cheapen production so that it can boost profits. This drive is not confined to the factory it also applies to the hospital. "Hospitals have been accused by ministers of treating patients like parts on a production line after official figures suggested that hundreds of thousands of people every year are being sent home before they are well enough. More than 660,000 people were brought back to hospital last year within 28 days of leaving, statistics show, sparking allegations that patients are being hurried through the system so the NHS can meet waiting-list targets." (Daily Telegraph, 29 December) Needless to say that this heartless treatment only applies to members of the working class. The owning class enjoy the best possible medical treatment just as they enjoy the best of everything that society can provide. RD