Marx Re-examined

Paul Mason, the Economics Editor of Channel 4 News has come up with an interesting comparison between Karl Marx and William Shakespeare dealing with the change from Feudalism to Capitalism. Feudalism was an economic system based on obligation: peasants were obliged to hand part of their produce to the landowner and do military service for him; he in turn was obliged to provide the king with taxes, and supply an army on demand. 'But in the England of Shakespeare's history plays, the mainspring of the system has broken down. By the time Richard III was slaughtering his extended family in real life, the whole power network based on obligation had been polluted by money: rents paid in money, military service paid for with money, wars fought with the aid of a  cross-border banking network stretching to Florence and Amsterdam. (Guardian, 2 November) The  exposure of the crazy belief that Russia and China had anything to do with the ideas of Marx has led to a belated re-examination of some of his ideas. Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, although flawed was a best-seller. The whole concept of a re-examination of Marx's ideas is certainly a good sign and a necessary step in the overthrow of capitalism. RD     

Another Useless Protest

On the face of it the latest left-wing demo might appear to be worthwhile, but it reality it is just another useless illustration of the backwardness of many workers. On Guy Fawkes night  protesters alarmed the police and the press by staging a protest march in Central London purporting to be a demonstration of their opposition to capitalism and their support for revolution. 'Protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks marched from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square as part of the Million Masks March, organised by activist group Anonymous. Three people were held on suspicion of assaulting police officers. Anonymous said the protest was against austerity and infringement of rights.' (BBC News, 6 November)  The fact that it was attended by publicity-seeking "personalities" like Vivienne Westwood and Russell Brand shows how serious it all was. Wearing masks, letting off fireworks, carrying empty slogans and banners won't bring about a transformation. That calls for thoughtful action based on an understanding of how capitalism operates and how to bring about socialism. RD

Double Standards

Capitalist business's are extremely strict with their staff and come down hard on any of their employers who might try the dodge of claiming unworked overtime or phoney expenses, but their own behaviour is hardly shining white. Recent Luxembourg documents have uncovered the multi-billion dollar tax secrets of some of the world's largest multinational corporations. Major companies including drugs group - Shire, City trading firm Icap and vacuum cleaner firm Dyson, have used complex webs of internal loans and interest payments which have slashed the companies' tax bills. These arrangements, signed off by the Grand Duchy, are perfectly legal. 'The documents also show how some 340 companies from around the world arranged specially-designed corporate structures with the Luxembourg authorities. The businesses include corporations such as Pepsi, Ikea, Accenture, Burberry, Procter & Gamble, Heinz, JP Morgan and FedEx.' (Guardian, 6 November) That is how capitalism operates - it is reprehensible for workers to try and fiddle a few bob, but for the companies concerned millions of pounds is "perfectly legal". RD

Change Everything

Being a socialist is possessing the ability to look at the world as if it could be otherwise. It is the capacity to envision alternative possibilities for our communities and our world which  makes social change possible because an understanding of what might be gives us a perspective from which to challenge things as they are, as well as the hope and determination we need to build something different.

Socialism rejects one-size-fits-all economic blueprints and instead seeks to identify diverse instances of liberatory livelihood practice, linking them together in mutually supportive networks. Socialism implies the use of direct democracy, it does not necessitate the use of any one form of decision making. The goal is to be flexible and responsive, so that all voices are heard and empowering relationships are created. Participatory democracy is a system that facilitates the active involvement of individuals in all important decisions and institutions affecting their lives. Rather than being a static system, participatory democracy is a constant process of contention and transformation.

Usufruct is the right to use and enjoy the “fruits” of a given resource, as long as the resource itself is preserved. The term comes from Roman property law, but is also used to describe ancient and Indigenous land-use paradigms in which land is held in common while individuals retain the right to hunt, fish, garden, or otherwise use the land sustainably. Usufruct is a key tenet of commons economies, offering a more just and sustainable alternative to private ownership. It is a recognition that we do not own the land and its resources — we are stewards, maintaining and improving our world for future generations.

Any control we have over the assets of this planet may be a gift from nature and our ancestors, but one thing is for sure: our dominion is only temporary. Others bequeathed us these assets, and others will depend upon them after we are gone. Stewardship, as opposed to ownership, embraces this reality. Whereas ownership suggests a right to do as we please, stewardship emphasizes our responsibility to protect, cultivate, and serve that which nourishes us.

In pre-capitalist times, shared commons were the source of sustenance for most people. Capitalism have now privatized and depleted much of the commons and under capitalism, common wealth is appropriated for profit . To counter this, we need to reclaim and strengthen both the commons and the institutions that sustain them. A commonwealth means that ownership of the economic foundations of society is shared in common and democratized.

There is enough. Enough sunlight, wind, and water to nourish us and power our tools, enough roofs for everyone to sleep under one, enough work for everyone to have a livelihood, enough knowledge to keep teaching and learning forever. We start to believe there is not enough when we feel we need to own what could be shared, when we assign market value disconnected from use value, when those in power amass vast fortunes through stealing, hiding, and holding out of reach. A society that cultivates abundance does not treat human needs as something to be bought and sold, resists a culture that uses the perception of scarcity to obscure problems of distribution and discourage generosity, restores sovereignty, and operates on principles of solidarity and mutual aid.

Upper Class Arrogance

UPPER CLASS ARROGANCE                                           

Michael O'Leary, the CEO of the airline Ryanair was in the news lately announcing that the  company had made record profits and the share price had risen to an all-time high. O'Leary has become even more immensely rich, which gave the newspapers an excuse to run a short  article on him. It is a sort of received  wisdom of the press that rich people are also very clever, but  a couple of quotes from him should dispel that notion. 'The most influential person in Europe in the last 20 to 30 years has been Margaret Thatcher. Without her we'd all be living in some French bloody unemployment republic'. (Times, 4 November) Another proof of his genius in the same article? 'Do we carry rich people on our flights? Yes, I flew on one this morning and I'm very rich'. Perhaps not too clever but certainly very arrogant. RD      

Distorted Values

DISTORTED VALUES                                            

We live in a crazy world  with strange, indeed bizarre concept of "worth". Here for instance was the income last year of what the media calls "personalities" - whatever that means. 'Simon Cowell £59m, Howard Stein £59m, Glenn Beck £56m and Oprah Winfrey £51m.' (Independent, 5 November) You'd have to work an awful lot of hours on the governments "living wage" to clear that little lot. RD

More Chicanery

The government claims that the recession is over and we are all better off, but this is just another piece of political cheating. The number of people living in dire poverty in Britain is 300,000 more than previously thought due to poorer households facing a higher cost of living than the well off, according to a study released on Wednesday. A report produced by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that soaring prices for food and fuel over the past decade have had a bigger impact on struggling families who spend more of their budgets on staple goods. 'The study by the IFS for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said the government method for calculating absolute poverty "the number of people living below a breadline that rises each year in line with the cost of living" assumed that all households faced the same inflation rate.But in the six years from early 2008 to early 2014, the cost of energy had risen by 67% and the cost of food by 32%. Over the same period the retail prices index "a measure of the cost of a basket of goods and services" had gone up by 22%.' (Guardian, 5 November) RD

Change the system, not the climate!

Catastrophic climate change is coming to a town near you, and it’s coming sooner than you think. The threat is staggering: One half of all the species alive on earth today will probably be extinct by the end of the century; already we are losing them at the rate of hundreds a day. Millions of human beings will soon be refugees, as their homes are lost to the oceans or to the deserts. Already hundreds of thousands perish every year as a direct result of climate change. There is a climate crisis all around and no amount of free trade, investment or technology will eliminate the roots of this crisis. We forget that the crises has emanated from the way our society is structured – an edifice based on an unending desire for profit and a way of life that sees nature as an object of exploitation and extraction. It is now fundamental to ask ourselves who and what is causing the climate to change like this. We urgently need to unmask all the abstract answers, which attempt to blame all of humanity. These abstract answers disconnect the current situation from the historical dynamics which have emerged from fossil fuel (coal, oil gas)-based industrialization, which causes global warming, and the logic of capitalism, which is sustained by the private appropriation of wealth, and the conquest of profit. Profit at the cost of social exploitation and ecological devastation: these are two faces of the same system, which is the culprit of climate catastrophe.

There is an international scientific consensus: only by containing global warming at less than two degrees Celsius can we prevent the full onslaught of catastrophic climate change. Once this point is passed, earth system feedback loops (for example, the release of methane trapped in melting permafrost and the ocean floor) will overwhelm any human effort at mitigation. To prevent this, according to the same international scientific consensus, carbon emissions must peak by 2015, followed by a rapid and permanent decline. Such words, however, contradict the logic of our economic system, which is based on the imperative of infinite growth. This system has a name: it is capitalism, and it is the enemy of nature.

Capitalism is the reigning economic system built upon profitability. It is equipped with an elaborate class structure and a vast apparatus of institutions to establish its global reach and penetration into lives. In this sense capitalism is the “mode of production” characteristic of our epoch and we consider it to be the cause of most of our social problems and many of our personal woes. Its survival is based on the predatory exploitation of people and of the planet. Marx called attention to its tendency to grow without end, that central feature of capital, its ceaseless growth, as in: “Accumulate! Accumulate! That is Moses and the Prophets!” Marx’s conception of accumulation puts into a deep shade all efforts at reform of the capitalist system, for when reform becomes the goal it works to improve, even perfect, the functioning of the system along with remedying its damages—a contradiction in the case of capital. Under the regime of capital, the commodity rules, as fetish, or idol. We need to trans-form, not re-form, capitalism. Our obligation—to our children and grandchildren, to life, and the future itself—is to find a way of society whose productive logic does not impose accumulation on the world.

Decades of international conferences and decades of missed opportunities demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that neither governments nor corporations nor NGOs are willing or capable of bringing about what every doctor has ordered. The tireless work of activists, well-intentioned officials and enthusiastic school children have made one thing clear: rallies outside office buildings and conference centers will not turn the tide. The time for symbolic protest and for demands is over. It is too late to speak truth to those in power. Now we must speak to the power within ourselves. The clock is ticking. We have a duty to resist the exploitative, extractive, unequal and unjust economic system. We need to replace it. We must restore the rhythm of humanity living in harmony with ourselves and with the earth. There is an alternative. It is being imagined and created all over the world, and now is the time to realize it. But we cannot move beyond fossil fuel, war without a positive vision of the world we wish to create and care for.

Such is the core principle of socialism which does not settle for anything less than the extirpation of capitalism as a mode of production, refusing to turn away from the goal of social revolution. It follows that a prime task for socialism must be to produce eco-socialists capable of bringing nature into continuity with humankind’s rootedness. Capitalism is not just “an economic system” – it is a social system, which has created this thing we call “the economy”, and subordinated everything, from the soil to the sky, to its laws. The economy becomes the central organizing force of society, and also its limit, which cannot be transgressed. The goal of socialism is thus to emancipate ourselves from capitalism.

We set forth our ideas, not to impose them on anyone, but to encourage and inspire the opening of a vision of an alternative future we can all choose and work towards. We have a world to re-build. With this common vision we believe that a movement of billions, united, is only a hair’s breadth away. Even in the unlikely case that you may not care of our times, spare a thought for you coming generations, their inheritance. Do you wish to present to them a world of chaos and destruction? We need to unite, all the people of the world, to resolve the environmental crises, to restore our relationship with nature. We call for the solidarity and harmony of all world’s peoples, united in struggle against the structure of capitalism – of greed, thievery and profiteering. We must build unity through understanding. Socialist ideas is the way in which we understand this world. We understand the current world order as unacceptable. We know a new world is necessary. While others are afraid to understand that capitalism is the enemy of nature, we want to change the system and not the symptoms. Organizing around this is the key to building the socialist movement. We declare that a socialist revolution is necessary and possible.

Popular movements are sweeping the world. A truly global grassroots network has emerged. It is undeniable, feeling its way forward but unsure of itself. People everywhere are searching for a way to change things, for a way to get involved in the world. They are finding movements, and are going through cycles of euphoria and despair. There is a renewed awareness of the commons, and people are reclaiming them. Sometimes in our local struggles we feel like we’re just patching up the system; fighting for band-aids on gaping wounds. But theorizing about revolution without a social base of concrete activity and organization is no better. How can all this local struggle converge into something bigger and better? We understand that an anti-capitalist critique must be the lens and context for our daily lives. We are also searching for a vision to take us beyond protest, beyond mere resistance. Nor is socialism a utopia that we await with folded arms. The transformation of society will not be achieved by fragmented social activism or political action limited to the electoral arena alone. Only the convergence of social and political struggles in a comprehensive overall movement will enable us to build the necessary relationship of forces to be able to challenge the policies of the ruling class.

Socialism means a new mode of production. Socialism means a new understanding of human fulfillment, of human development. Socialism begins with freely associated labor in harmony with nature, without exploitation of humanity or nature. It is activated by life and not profit. It returns us to our most ancient roots as a species even as it carries us forward to the future. Shall civilization emerge into a new world, with the end of the rule of capital over our planet, or shall we plunge into a deep abyss of climate catastrophe, a hell only a few may survive? The world may become unlivable in 50 years. The cause of this is capitalism. The planetary effects of climate change, from droughts to super-storms, are proving this to the world.

Change the system, not the climate!

The Unpredictable Future

In his excellent TV programme HUMAN UNIVERSE Professor Brian Cox illustrated the immense development of humankind when he showed a hand-print outlined by sprayed paint on a Southern Spanish cave reckoned to have been done by a young girl some 35,000 years ago and contrasted this with an astronaut circulating the earth in a spaceship while he admired a similar illustration by his own kids in 2014. Unlike Professor Stephen Hawing who recently despaired of modern society with its global environmental destruction and proposed a massive effort to increase space research and settle somewhere else other that earth - Cox, like us, sounded a more optimistic note about the future. He wound up his programme by remarking along these lines that "Human intelligence is capable of dealing with social and environmental problems and can create more than just bigger and bigger bombs.'  (BBC 4, 4 November) Although the future is unpredictable we are organised with our fellow workers for a new society to get rid of the present awful one. It's up to you! RD

"Democracy" In Action

The USA always claims that they have the world's finest democracy but the recent mid-term elections, which was an all-time  expensive one, show what a sham this claim really is. 'There was $3.7 billion spent mostly on publicity and 55% of this was spent by "special groups", who do not  need to reveal who they are and certainly don't want to publicise it." (BBC News, 5 November) So while the US capitalist class lecture the rest of the world about the glories of US democracy they secretly fund their own special interests behind the backs of the electorate. A strange sort of democracy wherein the rich with their immense wealth manipulate the elections.

So Called Experts.

Capitalism is full of economic "experts" who claim they can forecast rises and falls in the world's markets but this is a complete falsehood as recent developments have shown. Take the case of the  European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union.  The commission slashed growth expectations in the 18-nation eurozone to 0.8 percent from a forecast in the spring of 1.2 percent. 'Italy appeared to stand out as a poor performer: Its economy was predicted to shrink 0.4 percent this year compared with a forecast in the spring for growth of 0.6 percent. The gloomier outlook, especially in the euro area, is a measure of how quickly optimism about a recovery has dissipated as France has failed to grow as hoped and as Italy struggles to make overhauls, and amid signs that the German economy has stalled. Germany is expected to post growth of 1.3 percent this year, down from an earlier forecast of 1.8 percent. The French economy is expected to grow 0.3 percent compared with a forecast in the spring of 1 percent.'  (New York Times, 4 November) As these apparently small percentage falls represent billions of pounds it illustrates how capitalism is a completely unpredictable society despite the expert's forecasts. RD

Only Socialists Can Save The World

The Socialist Party agree with the many environmentalists who have concluded that “business as usual” is the path to global disaster. The economic system that dominates nearly all corners of the world is capitalism. Unconsciously, we learn that greed, exploitation of workers, and competition  are not only acceptable but are actually good for society because they help to make our economy function “efficiently.” No-growth capitalism is an oxymoron: when growth ceases, the system is in a state of crisis. Capitalism’s basic driving force and its whole reason for existence is the amassing of profits and wealth through the accumulation.  It recognizes no limits to its own self-expansion—not in the economy as a whole; not in the profits desired by the wealthy; and not in the increasing consumption that people are cajoled into desiring in order to generate greater profits for corporations. The environment exists, not as a place with inherent boundaries within which human beings must live together with earth’s other species, but as a realm to be exploited in a process of growing economic expansion. Indeed, businesses must either grow or die—as must the system itself.

The capitalist no-growth utopia violates the basic motive force of capitalism. What capital strives for and is the purpose of its existence is its own expansion. Why would capitalists, who in every fiber of their beings believe that they have a personal right to business profits, and who are driven to accumulate wealth, simply spend the economic surplus at their disposal on their own consumption or (less likely still) give it to workers to spend on theirs—rather than seek to expand wealth? If profits are not generated, how could economic crises be avoided under capitalism? To the contrary, it is clear that owners of capital will, as long as such ownership relations remain, do whatever they can within their power to maximize the amount of profits they accrue. A stationary state, or steady-state, economy as a stable solution is only conceivable if separated from the social relations of capital itself. Today multinational corporations scour the world for resources and opportunities wherever they can find them, exploiting cheap labor in poor countries and reinforcing, rather than reducing divisions. The result is a more rapacious global exploitation of nature and increased differentials of wealth and power. Such corporations have no loyalty to anything but their own financial bottom lines.

Business owners and managers generally consider the short term in their operations—most take into account the coming three to five years, or, in some rare instances, up to ten years. This is the way they must function because of unpredictable business conditions (phases of the business cycle, competition from other corporations, prices of needed inputs, etc.) and demands from speculators looking for short-term returns. They therefore act in ways that are largely oblivious of the natural limits to their activities—as if there is an unlimited supply of natural resources for exploitation. Even if the reality of limitation enters their consciousness, it merely speeds up the exploitation of a given resource, which is extracted as rapidly as possible, with capital then moving on to new areas of resource exploitation. When each individual capitalist pursues the goal of making a profit and accumulating capital, decisions are made that collectively harm society as a whole. The irreversible exhaustion of finite natural resources will leave future generations without the possibility of having use of these resources.

How can we save the Earth? Capitalism is unique among social systems in its active, extreme cultivation of individual self-interest. Our global culture is held together and connected by our economic system of money, laws and enforcement. This economic system is structured in such a way that it automatically and unintentionally motivates and perpetuates behaviors that are damaging to Earth. Yet the reality is that non-capitalist human societies have thrived over a long period—for more than 99 percent of the time since the emergence of anatomically modern humans—while encouraging other traits such as sharing and responsibility to the group. There is no reason to doubt that this can happen again.

The need for revolution is now increasingly being widely realised. The revolutionary socialist calls for power to the people. Socialism is rule by the people. They will decide how socialism is to work. This was how Marx and Engels defined socialism.  A sound definition of socialism must necessarily exclude all the institutions that make capitalism what it is:  a system of exploitation. The highly complex machinery of exchange veils this exploitation because it includes human energy, or labour-power, among the things bought and sold. It makes labour-power a commodity with a price, or wage-scale, adjustable to the practice of capitalism. Exchange, working in conjunction with private or class ownership of the means of life, is in fact, based on that ownership, and becomes the method by which the producers are exploited. Exchange is an act that implies ownership by individuals, groups or states. Common ownership rules out all such forms of ownership, and by producing and distributing according to the needs of all, eliminates the necessity for exchange. It is possible to conceive of exchange under a system of private, class or state ownership, but not under common ownership.  Exploitation will be eliminated and production will serve the needs of the people.

Socialism is about forming a society which is radically different from any that has gone before, a society based on the elimination of private property. The latter is condemned as being the cause of all the ills afflicting mankind, from minor disputes over boundaries to the great wars that have turned the whole world upside down. It is also about setting up a regime based on common ownership. There was no attempt by the Bolsheviks to abolish private property. Even their promise of equal wages, which has nothing to do with socialism anyway, was quickly dropped and large differentials in income were encouraged instead, while the Bolsheviks made sure that all property came under their direct control and, in effect, ownership. To use the word “socialism” for anything but people’s power is to misuse the term. State ownership is not socialism, nor does nationalisation constitute the ‘socialist’ sector of a mixed economy. Nor is the ‘Welfare State socialist.  Certainly it is an improvement on capitalism with no welfare, just as a 40-hour week is an improvement on a 60-hour week. But it is not socialism. But “welfare” in a capitalist state, to improve the efficiency of that state as a profit-maker, is not socialism but a form of state capitalism.

Many people today across the globe are involved in issues and struggles to improve their situation or stop injustices that they face. In practically every country and community, there are political struggles, and, of course, the never-ending efforts by workers to obtain a living wage. These various struggles are important but what the Socialist Party keeps in mind and build towards is the goal of revolution. By revolution, we mean the overthrow of the capitalist ruling class and the basic economic system of society. We believe a revolution is necessary because the social problems and ills of this society are all the product of the capitalist system itself. The basic nature of capitalism is that while the vast majority of people work and produce the wealth of society, a handful control all the wealth – the factories, mines, railroads and fields, and all the profits that are produced. These capitalists prosper at the expense of the vast majority of the people, and their constant drive for profit and more profit results in only more problems and suffering for the people.

While reforms are important, we believe that no amount of reform of the present system can offer any lasting improvements, security or stability or fundamentally alter their position in society.And too often the reformist is a hypocrite prepared to exercise power on behalf of the exploiter, and who claims to do a little good on the side. The ruling class always tries to limit or even take back those concessions that workers have won. The capitalists will always do this so long as it holds the power of society; it will try to milk everything it can from the working people to enrich or protect its own interests. In any sane system of running the economy, industry would exist to satisfy human need. But under capitalism humans exist to satisfy the needs of industry. If anything positive comes about as a result - such as the production of useful things and the payment of wages with which to buy them - this is a by-product of the process, rather than its main aim.

The Charity Fallacy

There are many examples of the madness of capitalism but surely this stark statement by Oxfam featured in many newspaper ads pinpoints the brutal inequality of this brutal society. 'The world's 85 richest people own the same wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest. The wealth of the super rich grows greater whilst world poverty bites deeper.' (Times, 3 November) Oxfam concisely expose the madness of the production for profit system but unfortunately their proposed solution is completely useless. They believe that charity is a solution and claim that if they get enough donations they can solve the world hunger problem. In fact it is not charity that is the answer but the complete transformation to a society based on common ownership and production solely for use. RD

They Call It Living

With a great flourish the government announced recently that the new living wage rates will be raised from £8.80 per hour in London and £7.65 elsewhere, but what was less publicised was that more than a fifth of UK workers earn less than the living wage, with bar staff and shop assistants among the most likely to live "hand to mouth" because of low pay, according to a recent report.  'Published to mark living wage week, the research also finds that younger workers, women and part-timers are more likely to be paid less than the living wage, a voluntary threshold calculated to provide a basic but decent standard of living. The report by consultancy firm KPMG adds to evidence of low pay remaining prevalent in Britain, despite the economic recovery. The proportion of employees on less than the living wage is now 22%, up from 21% last year, the study found. In real terms, that was a rise of 147,000 people to 5.28 million.' (Guardian, 3 November) Whoopee the "living" wage has been raised from £7.65 to £7.85! RD

Another "Improvement"

Despite ministers saying they had increased spending to prevent homelessness the number of children living in temporary accommodation in Britain is at a three-year high, a charity's analysis of official figures suggests. 'More than 90,000 children in England, Scotland and Wales are without a permanent home, says Shelter. The charity's chief executive Campbell Robb said the "heart-breaking" figures suggest the equivalent of three children in every school are homeless. .........  The charity's calculations suggest that in the second quarter of 2014, ending in June, there were 90,569 children living in temporary accommodation in England, Scotland and Wales.' (BBC News, 3 November) The equivalent figure for 2011 was 76,650, suggesting a rise of 13,919 children without permanent homes in three years. RD

A Dangerous Society

If the conditions of treatment in NHS hospital leaves a lot to be desired the position of patients with learning difficulties is even more alarming. 'Research commissioned by Mencap last year estimated that 1,200 people with learning disabilities are dying "needlessly" in the NHS each year, largely due to delays or problems in investigating illnesses.' (Independent, 3 November) A shortage of specialist nurses trained to care for people with learning disabilities is putting the lives of thousands of vulnerable people at risk, the leading charity Mencap has warned. No NHS hospital in England has 24-hour learning disability (LD) nurse cover and more than 40 per cent of NHS trusts do not even employ a single LD nurse, according to Freedom of Information requests from the charity. NHS workforce figures show that there has been a 30 per cent cut in the number of LD nurses employed in the health service over the past five years. 1,200 needless death is just another example of the callous welfare cuts justified by capitalism's needs for economy.  RD

Fracking Scotland

“The IPCC [UN climate science panel] is quite clear about the need to leave the vast majority of already proven reserves in the ground, if we are to meet the 2C goal. The fact that despite this science, governments are spending billions of tax dollars each year to find more fossil fuels that we cannot ever afford to burn, reveals the extent of climate denial still ongoing within the G20,” said Oil Change International director Steve Kretzman.

The most detailed breakdown yet of global fossil fuel subsidies has found that the US government provided companies with $5.2bn for fossil fuel exploration in 2013, Australia spent $3.5bn, Russia $2.4bn and the UK $1.2bn. The government money went to major multinationals as well as smaller ones who specialise in exploratory work, according to British thinktank the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and Washington-based analysts Oil Change International. The report found that  four times as much money was spent on fossil fuel exploration as on renewable energy development.

It shows an extraordinary “merry-go-round” of countries supporting each others’ companies. The US spends $1.4bn a year for exploration in Columbia, Nigeria and Russia, while Russia is subsidising exploration in Venezuela and China, which in turn supports companies exploring Canada, Brazil and Mexico.

Britain, says their report, proved to be one of the most generous countries. In the five year period to 2014 it gave tax breaks totalling over $4.5bn to French, US, Middle Eastern and north American companies to explore the North Sea for fast-declining oil and gas reserves. A breakdown of that figure showed over $1.2bn of British money went to two French companies, GDF-Suez and Total, $450m went to five US companies including Chevron, and $992m to five British companies. Britain also spent public funds for foreign companies to explore in Azerbaijan, Brazil, Ghana, Guinea, India and Indonesia, as well as Russia, Uganda and Qatar, according to the report’s data, which is drawn from the OECD, government documents, company reports and institutions.

“The evidence points to a publicly financed bail-out for carbon-intensive companies, and support for uneconomic investments that could drive the planet far beyond the internationally agreed target of limiting global temperature increases to no more than 2C,” say the report’s authors.

“This is real money which could be put into schools or hospitals. It is simply not economic to invest like this. This is the insanity of the situation. They are diverting investment from economic low-carbon alternatives such as solar, wind and hydro-power and they are undermining the prospects for an ambitious UN climate deal in 2015,” said Kevin Watkins, director of the ODI.

The above should be noted regards to the latest development to frack beneath the Firth of Forth in the already well-polluted Grangemouth/Kincardine area. Cluff Natural Resources [what an environmentally sounding company name that is] said plans are being drawn up to extract coal from under the Firth of Forth following a large discovery.  The company is seeking permission to build the UK’s first deep offshore underground coal gasification (UCG) project to extract it. Cluff said two of the coal seams identified have 43mln tonnes of coal in place (CIP), or the equivalent of 1.4 billion cubic feet (BCF) of natural gas-in-place. For context, 1bn cubic feet of gas could serve 11,000 homes for one year. The process of gasification involves drilling horizontally into a seam and then injecting air and oxygen to produce syngas - a mixture of combustible gases which include hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and carbon dioxide.

WWF Scotland director Lang Banks said Scotland needs to rely more on electricity and renewables rather than coal and gas. “Plans to ‘burn’ coal under the Firth of Forth will not deliver that aim and should therefore be a complete non-starter,” he said. “In a worst-case scenario, proposals such as this one could even extend our use of fossil fuels, locking us into a high carbon world. Just over a week ago, scientists from the United Nations issued their latest predictions of the growing threat from global climate change and the need to be rapidly phasing out our use of fossil fuels. Since the developers themselves have admitted that carbon dioxide will be emitted by their plans, from a climate change perspective this scheme is nothing short of irresponsible.”

There is no peoples’ mandate for the fossil fuel industry to unleash and bring on runaway global warming that will bring humankind to its knees, sink whole island countries, and may eventually cause the death of half or more of the species on the planet and billions of human souls. Politicians  have ignored the damage to sustainable world resources, and have invited chaos. Instead of being acquiescent, we should all be angry.  Our children and their children's future depends on it.

Is ‘real’ capitalism the answer

In board-rooms the belief has taken root that the advance of capitalism is irreversible. The market-based system that developed in the West has spread to nearly every country in the world. Faced with the near-universal triumph of market forces, many have concluded that capitalism has won out in a process of evolution like that which occurs among species. Intensely innovative and enormously productive, capitalism seems to have driven every other type of economy to extinction.

The problem is the capitalist system, not the capitalists. Capitalists, big and small, are like everybody else. Much that they do is distinctively noxious, but the economic structure makes them do it. In an age when the very idea of class struggle is widely disparaged, a healthy animosity towards the few who own almost everything should not be dismissed out of hand. In one way or another, hatred of capitalism’s high-flyers, not just capitalism itself, played a positive role in every progressive social movement of the past two centuries. But class hatred is hard to maintain towards a few very conspicuous late model capitalists: the kind behind iPhones and Google searches and social media. They seem too hip to hate. Many in Occupy Wall St took part in the mourning Steve Jobs rather than celebrating the demise of another capitalist. Unlike the Koch brothers Gates and Buffet  hardly seem like the unprincipled, cutthroat bastards of capitalism’s dark past even if they are still part of corporate America. They are rich beyond measure and they are a leading force behind corporate domination of everything. They can’t help it; they are too damned smart. It doesn’t look like they are exploiting anybody or doing anyone (except their competitors) harm goes the story. Yet, they are the modern day counterparts of the tycoons workers used to hate, the same robber barons in jeans and open-necked shirts. They treat their workers in Silicon Valley very well it seems. This makes business sense: it would be counter-productive to super-exploit the creative types upon whose ingenuity tech corporations depend. The others, the ones who do the ‘manual work’, are another story. Many of them toil out of sight halfway around the world, and the miseries they endure hidden.

We need to restore perspective, therefore, remember Wall Street and its corporate boardrooms where sharks abound everywhere, buying political influence at local, state and national levels.  We must not forget the hordes of lesser, but still filthy rich wannabes who serve themselves and Mammon.

In capitalist economies, the way to acquire untold riches is to gain monopoly, or near monopoly, control over something for which there is a great demand. The “invisible hand” of the market then does the rest. The invisible hand of the market is seen to be benign. Warlords, nobles and kings relied on visible hands to establish and secure their riches. Their wealth was based on plunder and theft and the ex post facto justification than for securing wealth directly. For that, the use or threat of state force was essential. Nevertheless, the difference between the invisible hand of the market and the visible hand of the state is not as great as is commonly supposed. Market allocations are unintended consequences of multiple, uncoordinated exchange relations, each of which is entered into voluntarily – without express coercion. Pro-capitalists take this to mean that they are free. Their guiding idea being that individuals have private property rights to do what they want with the resources they own, provided only that they do not use them to harm identifiable others. Market-generated distributions of income and wealth in private property regimes are, in the libertarian view, beyond reproach. Therefore if, on this basis, the very few end up with everything or almost everything, while the vast majority have nothing or almost nothing, no one can justifiably complain on grounds of freedom or justice. The capitalist case is not to blame capitalists for any harm they do, provided they play by the accepted rules.

Socialists point out that, even were the pro-capitalist case sound, it would apply only to ideal capitalist markets and nothing like them has ever actually existed, except in highly artificial conditions, and nothing like them ever will. The capitalist downplay the importance of the difference between the ideal and the actual because they think that actual cases approximate the ideal closely enough. They do not.  Their assumption that force plays no determinative role, is profoundly unrealistic because real world capitalist markets do not, and probably cannot, exist outside a coercive infrastructure.  The old way of accumulating great fortunes is still with us. Force is no longer all there is, but it is as important as it ever was. This is especially evident in places where capitalist markets impinge on pre- or alternative capitalist economic structures.  They ruling class still  rely on the states they control to create and sustain their claims to the resources that markets then generously reward. State power underlies the legal framework within which markets operate; and is indispensable for securing the level of social order that is necessary for markets to function and flourish.  The forms and limits differ, but the reality is everywhere the same. The robber barons who made off like the bandits figured this out a long time ago. Their later-day counterparts know it too. The old time robber barons were inclined, when convenient, to pollute recklessly and to lay waste to the rivers and fields around their factories and mines. Their successors in the industries they pioneered are still at it.

Rand Paul, can be relied on to talk complete sense about the madness of war, right up until people get scared by beheading videos, and then he’s in favor of the madness of war. He has backed canceling all foreign aid, except for military foreign “aid” up to $5 billion, mostly in free weapons for Israel. He used to favor serious cuts to military spending, but hasn’t acted on that and now has John McCain’s support as a good “centrist.” He supports racist policies while hoping not to be seen doing so, and was against the Civil Rights Act before he was for it. He thinks kids should drive 10 miles to find a good school or get educated online.

John D. Rockefeller’s advisors had him make good public relations – for himself and for his class. The idea was to get people to stop hating capitalists and to love capitalism. He would pass out shiny new dimes to street urchins.  But the method was demeaning. It was charity, at best; at worst, it was a desperate effort to buy love. These are not winning strategies. Gates and Buffet now have their elaborate foundations to perform essentially the same purpose, pennies for Africans. The very existence of so-called well-meaning capitalists is indeed one of the evils of the capitalist system!

Adapted from this

Who owns the North Pole (part 77)

The Arctic has attracted an increasingly intense gaze from the powerful nations that border it in the past decade, not least because it is thought to contain up to 30 percent of the world’s oil and gas. As technologies have advanced, more and more of those hydrocarbons have become recoverable and viable. The stretch of sea can also provide new shipping lanes for goods traveling between Asia and America and Europe. Russia already has rights to any territories located within 370 km of its border, but has lodged claims on a much bigger part of the territory with the UN, due to the existence of an underwater shelf, which would make a sizeable portion of the Arctic an extension of Russian territory. Canada and other Arctic powers have followed suit, with the exact divisions of territories expected to be decided over the course of the next decade.

Russia will have military control of the entirety of its 6,200 km Arctic coastal zone by the end of 2014, just a year after Moscow announced its plan to build military presence in the region, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has announced. Many of the sites in the region have to be repaired. In fact, a lot of them, such as airfields, logistics facilities, water intakes, power stations will have to be built from scratch, which is what we are doing right now.”

Two Borey-class nuclear submarines, which will form the spine of the refurbished fleet, have been armed this year, and a third one has just completed trials. In total, eight Borey vessels are expected to be built by the end of the decade, though some of them may be re-deployed with the Pacific fleet. Russia is also in the process of unsealing at least seven airstrips that were shut down following the collapse of the Soviet Union, with Tiksi in Yakutia expected to house the bulk of the Arctic air force. Work also began in September on a permanent base located on the New Siberian Islands in the Laptev Sea. A military group consisting of two brigades will be stationed in the far North as part of the new military district.

Short Changed By The Banks

The London living wage, the pay level calculated by the Greater London Authority as being the minimum on which people in the city can have a decent life is currently £9.15 an hour. But the snag is that it's entirely voluntary. Anyone who lives and works in London will tell you that £9.15 an hour does not go far. 'Pressure is building for it to be mandatory. That demand would ease if the living wage had been embraced wholeheartedly, but it hasn't been. Among the worst offenders are the banks. Of the 240 members of the British Bankers' Association, only a small fraction have signed up to the wage.' (Independent, 9 November) This is typical of how capitalism works. High ranking banking executive enjoy bloated incomes, moan about caps on their bonuses yet won't even pay their cleaners and support staff the pittance of £9.15 an hour. RD