A Cancerous System

The whole purpose of capitalist production and distribution is in order to make a profit as was recently highlighted by an imminent scientist. 'Professor Paul Workman, chief executive of the Institute of Cancer Research in London, accused "risk averse" pharmaceutical firms of only developing drugs they knew will turn a profit.' (Daily Mail, 24 October) He went on to claim that theoretical scientists have identified 500 cancer-related proteins which could be attacked by drugs - but only 5% per cent of these treatments have so far been developed. The major problem he said was a financial one. RD

Crime And Punishment

Every night on TV we sit and wonder at the the brilliance of our police force in solving perplexing crime riddles, but let's face it - it is only TV. An HM Inspectorate of Constabulary report looked at more than 8,000 reports of crime in England and Wales between November 2012 and October 2013, across all 43 forces in England and Wales, and came to some startling conclusions. 'More than 800,000 - or one in five - of all crimes reported to the police each year are not being recorded by officers, a report suggests. The problem is greatest for victims of violent crime, with a third going unrecorded. Of sexual offences, 26% are not recorded.'  (BBC News, 18 November) One in five not even recorded - let alone solved! RD

Eco-socialism, another grand concept with an adjective.

Marx summed up radical green politics when in Capital III he noted:

“From the standpoint of a higher socio-economic formation, the private property of individuals in the earth will appear just as absurd as the private property of one man in other men. Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth, they are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations, as boni patres familias” [good heads of the household]”

Marx took Feuerbach’s notion of fetishism to describe such radical humanism. Feuerbach famously argued that human beings invent gods and goddesses, forget they have invented them and bow down to worship their own creations. Marx reminds us that human beings, through social action, create the economic system; we then forget that the economy is a human construct and worship it as if it were a god. Ecological sanity can only come when we recognise that the present economic system of capitalism is a social construct that must be overthrown. In Chapter One of Capital is the idea of use value as opposed to exchange value. A capitalist economy is focused on exchange values - we could increase use value by making goods that last longer, by extending the library principle to all kinds of goods. Even in a market-based society, car pools exist. Real prosperity means that we have access to useful things; it is quite different from wasteful increases in Gross National Product (GNP). Under capitalism resources that are free - from land to ideas - are essentially stolen, fenced in and sold back to us. The enclosure and commodification of labour is the most important form of enclosure. This increases exchange value (GNP) but makes us poorer. Some of Marx’s earliest political writings examined the imposition of laws that prevented peasants from gathering fallen wood in German forests. The open source principle of free access and creativity is an example of how enclosure can and should be fought. A society controlled by the few must be replaced by one that works for all. We must overcome a society based on blind accumulation.

The Green Party and many of its supporters do not recognise that they require a struggle against the capitalist system. Signaling the challenge to the old politics the Green Party has been modestly successful contesting elections. It's true that the environment movement has brought a new vocabulary and "discourse" into political life. The Greens vote is the result of growing disillusion with Labour and a steady growth in concern about environmental issues. The Greens presented themselves as a party to the left of Labour (which is not too difficult). But ‘green socialism’ is all about taking a stand against ‘green capitalism.’ In the process, many of the traditional socialist themes – e.g., distribution, power and property, planning and democracy – are updated and linked up with the new issues. Those involved in the Green Party are clearly sincere in their opposition to various versions of capitalism and their desire for a better world, but they seem to have no real conception of what "socialism" might mean. The working class, exploitation, the labour movement, do not figure at all. Neither does collective ownership. Their "socialism" is more a catchphrase for good causes in general than a vision of the democratic transformation of society, by workers, from below. While the Green Party may hold some good socialist members, and present some reforms, it is not a party of socialism and in the end will degenerate into a party that offers bike-lanes and budget cuts. Socialists must challenge green politics showing how ecological issues are of top relevance to the quality of life of working people.

The “green economy” focuses on commodification and the market. Yet the market takes too long to resolve problems, and the big corporations behind fossil fuels want to get a foothold in “green energy” at the same time as keeping their fixed capital. Their idea of a “green economy” favours technological fixes based on private property, for example large-scale projects such as huge offshore wind parks, and transcontinental super-grids for long-distance energy exports from Sahara desert solar facilities. Yet it is impossible to meet the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and catapulting the entire economy from the 150-year old age of coal and oil into the future of solar and wind without provoking crises. It is necessary to transform the mode of production and living so it is predictable that when some of the old branches of industry and their capital come under attack, it will in turn trigger resistance. Conversion of polluting and resource-intensive capital stock to environmentally benign alternatives? Impose green taxes? Just how viable will they be to the likes of the Koch brothers? Dreams of a "steady state" capitalism beloved of an ecological economist like Herman Daly and environmentalists like Lester Brown and the authors of Sharing the World are simply that — dreams. They accept that the market system is untouchable and look for salvation in changing the behaviour of individual consumers and adoption of energy-saving technology. However, since capitalism is addicted to expansion, and devotes vast resources to this effort, there's no reason at all to expect that gains in resource efficiency will go into reduced usage of resources and not into increased throughput and growth rates. The principle that "the polluter pays" will be a principle more honoured in the breach than the observance. But modern corporations have corporate lawyers who find loopholes and who appeal the penalties.

The alternative to socialism is literally destruction. As socialists we are aware of how very far down the road to making the planet uninhabitable for humans capitalism is, and how many humans have already suffered and are already suffering from the damage the profit system has done to our planet. We possibly have one more generation before it is too late. There won’t be any socialists, there won’t be any socialism, when nobody can breathe. Climate change is real and it’s as urgent as it gets that we make radical changes if we want a future on this planet. The working class have to continue to see ourselves as revolutionary because we are the part of humanity most indispensable for our survival. The Socialist Party viewpoint simply means that, until the working majority sets the rules of the political and economic game, any gains in such battles are provisional and vulnerable to co-option and reversal.

The environmental crisis tends to manifest itself either in the form of local outrages (motorway proposals, polluted rivers) or vast global problems (hole in the ozone layer, global warming, fishery depletion, global deforestation), and it's not surprising that environmental activists overwhelmingly get tugged in one of two directions and away from any revolutionary perspective.

The first is towards case-by-case guerilla warfare against specific environmental outrages, which the crisis will supply to the movement as if on a conveyor belt running at ever greater speed. The second is toward the organisations "that have the power to do something" — government ministries, United Nations agencies or even and increasingly, the “greener” corporations, themselves. What is at stake in this discussion is not whether governments can't be induced to change their mind on this or that dam or their objection to the very idea of a carbon tax, but whether any capitalist government, representing the "common affairs of the bourgeoisie", can subordinate the overall interests of capital to those of the environment for any length of time. Once that impossibility is truly grasped then environmentalists have no choice but seriously to measure their present ideas against the basic concepts of socialist theory and politics. Membership of a Green party, sometimes involving serious commitment to campaigns, but almost always involving confusion about goals and vulnerable to drowning in parliamentary tomfoolery of reformism. The slogan "Think globally, act locally" has the direct implication that each and every local initiative in recycling, economising on water and energy use and cutting waste can, summed together, make a critical difference. Decades of thinking globally and acting locally, while yielding a host of small victories, has not been able to reverse any major trend in environmental degradation. That's because it offers no pathway from the local to the global, no feasible strategy for making local action begin to count globally. This is all the more true because the local is hardly ever purely local, but linked to national and international webs of production, trade and investment shaped by the national and international division of labour. The "local" is forged by an increasingly global capitalism, which protects its interests through national and international state and semi-state bodies.

The concerned environmentalist has a choice between an ecological version of socialism or capitalism. We can reform it or replace it with something more democratic. The central issue is that of working class political consciousness, of imparting the true picture of a capitalism whose insatiable hunger for profit is not only devouring the working and living conditions of hundreds of millions of working people but the underpinnings of life itself. The future of our planet depends on building a livable environment  and a socialist movement powerful enough to displace capitalism.

‘Nothing should be made by man’s labour which is not worth making; or which must be made by labour degrading to the makers…Worthy work carries with it the hope of pleasure in rest, the hope of the pleasure in our using what it makes, and the hope of pleasure in our daily creative skill. All other work but this is worthless; it is slaves’ work — mere toiling to live, that we may live to toil.’ William Morris

Modern Slavery

Nearly 36 million people worldwide, or 0.5% of the world's population, live as slaves, a survey by anti-slavery campaign group Walk Free says. 'The group's Global Slavery Index says India has the most slaves overall and Mauritania has the highest percentage. The total is 20% higher than for 2013 because of better methodology. The report defines slaves as people subject to forced labour, debt bondage, trafficking, sexual exploitation for money and forced or servile marriage.' (BBC News, 17 November) It uses slavery in a modern sense of the term, rather than as a reference to the broadly outlawed traditional practice where people were held in bondage and treated as another person's property. The Global Slavery Index's estimate is higher than other attempts to quantify modern slavery. In 2012, the International Labour Organisation estimated that almost 21 million people were victims of forced labour. RD

Trouble Ahead

Capitalism is full of surprises just when it appeared that there was a partial world economic recovery along comes another Asian shocker.  'Japan's economy unexpectedly shrank for the second consecutive quarter, leaving the world's third largest economy in technical recession. Gross domestic product (GDP) fell at an annualised 1.6% from July to September, compared with forecasts of a 2.1% rise. That followed a revised 7.3% contraction in the second quarter, which was the biggest fall since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.' (BBC News, 17 November) Now economists are saying the weak economic data could delay a sales tax rise. RD

A New Menace

China has unveiled its new stealth fighter at a recent air show as it increasingly exerts its influence in  the East China Sea and the South China Sea. 'China's newest stealth fighter jet debuted at air show here Tuesday, as the country put its military technologies on display. The J-31 which bears resemblance to the latest American F-35 stealth fighter, was showcased on the opening day of the biennial China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition, or Airshow China.' (Asian Review, 12 November) It is China's aim to have mass production of the J-31 within five years in a direct challenge to the USA. RD

More Double Dealing

Despite George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer's much repeated mantra about about "all being in this together" as far as economic difficulties are concerned, recent research by economists at the London School of Economic Research at the University of Essex exposes that as total nonsense. 'According to independent research to be published on Monday, and seen by the Observer George Osborne has been engaged in a significant transfer of income from the least well-off half of the population to the more affluent in the past four years. Those with the lowest wages have been hit hardest.' (Observer, 16 November) RD

Another NHS Crisis

Under-funding and under-staffing is a major problem at many NHS Hospitals, but there is a particularly nasty disorganisation at  Colchester Hospital where the Accident & Emergency is the last place you want to go if you have an accident. 'Colchester Hospital has declared "a major incident" following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The hospital trust said the major incident is likely to last a week, and asked patients to visit Accident & Emergency only if they have a "serious or life-threatening condition".' (Guardian, 14 November) This is not a new problem as there has been 18  months of problems at Colchester leading to the Chief Executive, the chairman and various other officials having to leave. RD

Oppose Nationalism

Socialists are internationalists. Whereas nationalists believe that the world is divided primarily into different nationalities, socialists consider social class to be the primary divide. For socialists, class struggle--not national identity--is the motor of history. And capitalism creates an international working class that must fight back against an international capitalist class. Capitalism is a world system and socialism can’t survive in one country, it has to be worldwide. For that reason the Socialist Party is implacably opposed to nationalism, which ties working people to our rulers and divides us from working people in other countries. The “national interest” propaganda binds workers hand and foot to their employers, blinding them to their true interest in working-class solidarity. Socialists argue that workers have no interest in the nationality of the factory owners or the land owners. We are working towards the working-class majority taking power and implementing common ownership. Once freed from market forces, the world’s resources will be used to meet human need.

Consistent international socialism as represented, for instance, by Rosa Luxemburg, opposed Bolshevik “national self-determination.” For her, the existence of independent national governments did not alter the fact of their control by the super-powers through the latter’s control of world economy. Capitalism could neither be fought nor weakened through the creation of new nations but only by opposing capitalist nationalism with proletarian internationalism. It is not the function of socialism to support nationalism. Contrary to earlier expectations, nationalism could not be utilized to further socialist aims, nor was it a successful strategy to hasten the demise of capitalism. On the contrary, nationalism emasculates socialism by using it for nationalist ends. It is not possible to support nationalism without also supporting national rivalries and war. No matter how utopian the quest for international solidarity may appear no other road seems open to escape fratricidal struggles and to attain a rational world society.

Although socialists’ sympathies are with the oppressed, they relate not to emerging nationalism but to the particular plight of twice-oppressed people who face both a native and foreign ruling class. Their national aspirations are in part “socialist” aspirations, as they include the illusory hope of impoverished populations that they can improve their conditions through national independence. Yet national self-determination has not emancipated the laboring classes.

Socialism will rise again as an international movement - or not at all. Those interested in the rebirth of socialism must stress its internationalism most of all. While it is impossible for a socialist to become a nationalist, the fight against colonialism does not imply adherence to the principle of national self-determination, but expresses the desire for a non-exploitative, world socialist society. While socialists cannot identify themselves with national struggles, they can as socialists oppose nationalism, colonialism and imperialism. It is not the function of socialists to fight for a nation’s independence but to strive for a socialist society. A struggle to this end would undoubtedly aid the liberation movements yet it would be a by-product of and not the reason for the socialist fight against neo-colonialism. The success of that struggle depends on achieving the greatest possible unity of the working class, it is utterly ridiculous to argue that the working class ought to divide itself into different countries in order to accomplish this unity. It is completely absurd to justify this with the false argument, disproven many times, that the battle for socialism would be easier if it were led by a more nationally “pure” and homogeneous working class.

Working class unity is a must right now if effective resistance is to be mounted to the crisis measures imposed by the capitalists. Unity is necessary to stand up against all the attacks on our democratic rights. Unity is the key in putting an end to the discrimination suffered by the oppressed. The working class faces a powerful and aggressive enemy which is solidly united despite the real contradictions within its ranks. The people are not going to win by dividing themselves. Those who dress up as socialists in order to push nationalism in the working class are the objective allies of the capitalists. The “left” nationalists would have us believe that the national demands of the people can only be met through independence. Thus, they claim, the task is to transform bourgeois independence into a socialist independence. In reality, they find themselves in the camp of those promoting division of the working class. The difference between nationalists and the other capitalist parties is not that they call for a different social system. What’s different is that they are looking for a new sharing of powers. The sharing will just be between groups of capitalists. Supporting nationalism in the name of the light for socialism is a monumental hoax. It flows from the same kind of logic that leads others to preach the nationalization as the cure for all our ills. It is up to the working class to show that it will not be duped by their political nonsense and deceitful rhetoric. Socialists have a responsibility to the working class to warn the workers as tactfully as possible of their mistaken course. At the present time, the capitalist class is launching a furious ideological counter-offensive against the ideas of socialism, it is our duty to stand firm in defence of the fundamental ideas and principles. We must reject the false road of shortcuts and panaceas, which leads to the quagmire of opportunism.

The Socialist Party cedes no concessions to the ideas nationalism and we continue to fight for the ideas of class unity and internationalism as the only way forward for the workers everywhere.

A Murderous Society

A MURDEROUS SOCIETY                                      

Politicians love to speak to the media about all their strenuous efforts to bring about peace in the world and to cut military expenditure. Despite these platitudes the facts are completely different though. 'The United States has announced  an urgent $10 billion upgrade of its nuclear weapons arsenal after two hard-hitting reviews found that decades of neglect have left its most significant line of defence in disrepair.' (Times, 15 November) All this is part of the US start on $1 trillion military upgrade. Such obscene expenditure shows wherein capitalism's priorities lie. RD

Modern Wage Slavery

In their quest for bigger and bigger profits there is no depth to which the capitalist class will not stoop. Take the awful exploitation of Asian children in the garment industry. 'Girls as young as 11 are being paid as little as £6 a month to produce the raw materials used to make garments for sale in Britain, an investigation by The Times has found.' (Times, 15 November) The report goes on to show that 200,,000 girls are employed at many of the 1,600 spinning mills across Tamil Nadu, in what amounts to a form of slavery. RD

More Madness

MORE MADNESS                                        

Capitalism is an insane society, but we doubt if you could get better proof of its craziness than the following news item. ''Bill Gross, the "Bond King" who stunned Wall Street when he left his job as chief executive of the world's biggest bond business, is understood to have taken home a $290 million bonus last year, even as Pimco was preparing  to give him the boot.' (Times, 15 November) The report goes on to mention that Mr Gross's bonus came in at 5,684 times the median US household income of $51,017 last year. RD

More Hypocrisy

MORE HYPOCRISY                                        

David Cameron has compared Russia to Nazi Germany because of its actions in  Ukraine on the eve of a tense meeting with Vladimir Putin.  'Mr Cameron will on Saturday night challenge Mr Putin about Russia's continued  acts of aggression in Ukraine as it supplies heavy weapons and tanks to the separatists.  In a reference to World War II, Mr Cameron said that the world must  "learn the   lessons of history" and intervene to stop a larger state bullying a smaller state".' (Daily Telegraph, 14 November) Cameron is really indulging himself in a piece of complete hypocrisy here. All large states bully smaller ones. The British Empire was build on just such a tactic. RD

Feeling Depressed?

FEELING DEPRESSED?                                         

It was a hallmark of USA capitalism, it was named as the Great Depression and gave rise to all those movies about the homeless and unemployed begging in the streets, but according to the latest research perhaps it is time to look out those old film scripts again. 'Not since the Great Depression has wealth inequality in the US been so acute a new in-depth study found. The research by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman (pdf) illustrates the evolution of wealth inequality over the last century.' (Guardian, 14 November) The figures are startling. Today the top 0.1% are worth the same as the bottom 90%. Time for "Buddy, can you spare a dime" to make it into the record charts again? RD

What will socialism be like?

The highest reward for a man’s toil, is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.

- John Ruskin

“Utopian” has almost become a common put-down suggesting that one is being unrealistic, if not naïve, in seeking a socialist world. But the Socialist Party would argue that socialists must be utopian in the sense of holding in their very being the deep desire for the realisation of a world completely unlike our own. It is that for which generations have fought and it is that ideal that has kept many a class warriors going despite tremendous adversities. Nevertheless, many are unaware of what a socialist society could look like.  

Marx, was scornful toward utopian “recipes” for the “cookshops of the future” arguing that a future society must emerge from the class struggle, not from the isolated imaginings of some writer or party, even though he himself proposed labour time vouchers, storehouses of goods, and an accounting system to determine how much workers would get paid. Genuine socialism is a socio-economic system in which all of the industries and services (stores, restaurants, hospitals, mines, farms, etc.) are socially owned, not privately owned, as in capitalism, or state owned, as in Leninism/Stalinism (i.e., often referred to as "state capitalism".) The industries would serve the needs and wants of everyone, not just the profit interests of the few. In fact, production is carried out exclusively for the needs of everyone, and not for private profit. People will work to improve society and to produce what we need. If there’s no buying and selling, there’s no trading, there’s no money. Yet people will have access to things that they need for survival and for pleasure — food, housing, medical care, computers. Every human being, just by virtue of being a human being, should have access to food, housing, healthcare and lifelong education. Every human being should have unconditional universal access to these necessities of life. So this will end poverty, which is actually the result of and a product of the existing monetary system. Monetary systems do not create wealth but exist solely to control it. The present is based on a self-fulfilling delusion that resources are scarce.

We may expect billions of current wage earners to quit drudgery jobs they hold just to make ends meet. With basic needs taken care of, they will be free to develop their natural talents and pursuits. Careers will be replaced by vocations. The evaporation of the financial and commercial sector will release vast numbers of constructive and creative workers. Emancipation from wage slavery will liberate humans to pursue lifelong learning, develop aptitudes and become more engaged in decision making and community building. Making a quick buck will be a thing of the past. Shoddy goods and inferior service will disappear. Business competition will vanish and s so there will be fewer brands, so less duplication and less waste as all goods produced will be of the highest quality based upon recyclability. The removal of the economic roots of armed conflict will no longer require standing armies or defense systems. Weapons manufactures will adapt and turn their advanced technology to peaceful purposes.

With no money or currency, there will be no interest, profits, markups, investments, loans, mortgages, derivatives, insurance or prices. This removes market manipulation, insider trading, hoarding and speculation. Banking will be obsolete, there being nothing to bank. The entire financial sector that has been built on the symbolic tokens of wealth will disappear. Without a medium of exchange, ransom, fraud, corruption, bribery, extortion and all money-based crimes will disappear. Crime based on money, such as armed robbery, extortion, blackmail, kidnapping will no longer have a convenient, easily convertible store of value to target.

There will be little need for charity as everyone will be provided for. In the event of natural disasters, relief agencies such as the Red Cross will have immediate and unlimited access to available resources without the necessity and constraints of fund-raising.

In agriculture building soil, maximising production and nutritional content with minimal environmental disruption will replace commoditization, restriction and pursuit of profit. Feeding people will be of the highest service. Food will be local, fresh, wholesome and healthy with minimal processing. There will be no reason or incentive to be otherwise. Freed from wage slavery, families will have more time to prepare meals from whole foods with care, balance and variety. The effect on public health will be markedly improved.

Imagine a world in which all conflicts of conscience, ethics, and personal interest were non-existent; a society in which the barriers to a decent and joyous life for all human beings had been removed; a society in which the resourcefulness of modern technology and industry was put to the task of decreasing labour and increasing leisure; a perfect picture of the world in which peace, equality, and harmony are universal. Socialists think it is achievable, that such a society is feasible and viable.

Who owns the North Pole part 79

Russia will address the UN on the expansion of its Arctic shelf next spring. If successful the move would see the country adding an area of 1.2 million sq. kilometers in the Arctic Ocean, holding 5 billion tons of standard fuel, to its territory. The Russians now say they possess all the necessary studies to put an application together and present it to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). For the UN to recognize Moscow’s ownership of those areas, it must be scientifically proven that they are a continuation of the continental crust with the same general geological structure.

The move would permit Russia to increase its potential hydrocarbon reserves by at least 5 billion tons of standard fuel, Sergey Donskoy, the country’s natural resources minister, said, adding that “those are just the most humble assessments, and I’m sure that the actual figure will be a lot larger.”

Over 60 large hydrocarbon fields have been discovered above the Arctic Circle, with 43 of them in the Russian sector.  The total recoverable resources of Russia’s part of the Arctic are estimated at 106 billion tons of oil and 69.5 trillion cubic meters of gas. The discovery of the deposits sparked international competition over the region’s resources, in which all the Arctic states – Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the US – are involved. Approximately 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 15 percent of its oil lie in the Arctic, with an estimated 84 percent of the Arctic’s 90 billion barrels of oil and 47.3 trillion cubic meters of gas remaining offshore.

http://rt.com/news/200555-ussia-arctic-shelf-un/

Hunger? What's the real problem?

CAPITALISM

Whereas progress was made in reducing chronic hunger in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, hunger has been slowly but steadily on the rise for the past decade, FAO said. The number of hungry people increased between 1995-97 and 2004-06 in all regions except Latin America and the Caribbean. But even in this region, gains in hunger reduction have been reversed as a result of high food prices and the global economic downturn that started in 2008.

Today, one in nine people do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life, making hunger and malnutrition the number one risk to health worldwide -- greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. The greatest scandal of our age is the fact that just under 1 billion people on the planet go to bed hungry every night. This is despite the fact that we produce more than enough to feed every single person in the world.

Why is there hunger? The obvious answer to this question is that there must be a lack of food. It’s nothing to do with a lack of food. Can the world feed itself? The answer is: “Yes”. The Great Bengal Famine of 1943 claimed 1.5 million lives. Yet food production was only marginally below the previous year, and in fact higher than other years which had not seen famine. The Ethiopian famines of 1972-74 also saw only single-digit declines in food production, too small to account for the 50-200,000 deaths. In the 1974 Bangladesh famine, food availability actually hit a four-year per capita high. In the Sahelian famine which peaked in 1973, drought did lead to significant declines in food availability. During the food crisis in 2008 there was enough food for everyone in the world to have 2,700 kilocalories. Yet a silent tsunami threw more than 115 million into abject hunger. Food being exported from famine-stricken areas may be a ‘natural’ characteristic of the market which respects the rights of private poverty and commerce rather than needs.

 The opening lines of  Amartya Sen’s hugely influential 1981 essay on poverty and famines:

“Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there not being enough food to eat.”

The fact there’s enough food to feed everyone has been acknowledged by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) which statedclearly that:

“There is sufficient capacity in the world to produce enough food to feed everyone adequately; nevertheless, in spite of progress made over the last two decades, 805 million people still suffer from chronic hunger.”

There is enough food in the world today for everyone to have the nourishment necessary for a healthy and productive life. By 2030, with population growth continuing to decline and agricultural output predicted to rise, the UN forecasts enough food will be grown worldwide, despite a global estimated population of 8.3 billion, to give everyone 3050 kilocalories per day. In the United States, enough food is produced for everyone to eat eight full plates of food per day—yet almost 40 million Americans struggle to put food on the table and are classified as “food insecure.”

Solving World Hunger is not rocket science. We have the tools, and the technology to put an end to hunger. There is enough food to go around. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day  according to the FAO in  2002.  The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food. So what needs to change? Discussions of world hunger almost invariably assume that food production is and will continue to be commodity production, whilst simultaneously assuming that food is produced for use. But whatever climate change has to throw at us, there is always a gap between what is possible and what is possible in capitalism. All other things held equal, declining crop yields and loss of arable land can be expected to increase world hunger. But all other things need not be held equal. The social relations through which our natural resources are organised are not themselves laws of nature: they are subject to change. Essentially control over resources and income is based on military, political and economic power that typically ends up in the hands of a minority, who live well, while those at the bottom barely survive, if they do.

Again a very basic question people ask is “Does population growth explain food shortages?” and again many will instinctively answer “Yes”. It seems commonsense that more people in the worls must mean more resource use, therefore fewer resources to go around for everyone. It is a false logic that has led to some highly unsavory arguments and policy decisions. By arguing that population growth is the main cause of mass starvation and environmental ruin we play into the hands of ruling elites who want to blame the victims. One such consequence is that helping the poor not only hurts them, but also threatens to drag the well-fed down to their subsistence level. Under this credo, no sharing is permitted, as it will only generalise starvation to the entire population because there is only so much to go around. The more sophisticated of the Malthusians talk of the carrying capacity of the planet. The number of humans a local or global environment can support depends not on numbers but on the level of economic development and the social relations of that society. Humans can both grow more food and, given the opportunity, consciously self-limit our reproduction based on rational economic and social considerations. The overpopulation argument obscures the more immediate causes of suffering under capitalism. How many people the Earth can support depends primarily on the level of productivity of the existing population and the social relations within which they are embedded. “Carrying-capacity” is as much socially as it is materially determined from the given level of productive development, not some arbitrary measure of what constitutes “too many” people. Poverty and hunger are the  products of social relations, not overpopulation. At no point in the last thirty years, as hunger has increased, has world population growth exceeded growth in food production.

The pioneer of the environmental movement, Rachel Carson, author of the ground-breaking Silent Spring in the 60s, was clear that the primary blame for destruction of the natural world lay with the “gods of profit and production” as the world lived “in an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at any cost is seldom challenged.” Capitalism is a system predicated on continual expansion with an ever-increasing throughput of energy and resources. For those corporations promoting their green credentials that do act to reduce their energy or resource use, the purpose is not to decrease their impact on the environment, however much money they spend touting their ecological awareness. Rather, the objective is to lower production costs so as to maximise profit in order to reinvest in expansion of production to corner market share, thereby negating the original reduction. Contrary to all claims of capitalist efficiency, the amount of senseless waste and pollution under capitalism is enormous. This includes not only the toxic byproducts of the production process that are routinely dumped into the surrounding environment, but also the production and distribution of useless products, the creation of mounting piles of garbage as a result of planned obsolescence and single-use products.the preponderance of inefficient transportation systems based on cars rather than effective public transportation, and, of course, all the wasted labour and materials spent on the military.

It should be clear from all of the above that it isn’t population growth that is causing food scarcity or is primarily responsible for the many accelerating global environmental crises. Even if population growth were to end today, worsening rates of starvation, the growth of slums, and ecosystem collapse would continue more or less unabated. Food production continues to outstrip population growth, and therefore cannot be considered the cause of hunger. There are very serious planetary problems of soil erosion, overfishing, deforestation, and waste disposal, to name only a few, which are putting pressure on the sustainability of food production over the long haul. However, these are all inextricably bound to questions of power and a system run in the interest of a small minority where profit continually outweighs issues of hunger, waste, energy use, or environmental destruction. Concentrating on population confuses symptoms with causes while simultaneously validating apologists for the system. Population growth arguments fit in with the ideological needs of the system rather than challenging them and is the primary reason that they receive so much publicity. It is completely acceptable to capitalism to place the blame for hunger and ecological crises on the number of people rather than on capitalism.

A central concept of capitalism is the idea that there isn’t enough to go around. There isn’t enough food, there aren’t enough jobs, there isn’t enough houses, or schools or hospitals.  “There isn’t enough…” really means “It isn’t profitable…”  The problem is capitalism. The motivation for big business to produce food is profit, not to provide for people. Despite the enormous advances in technology and knowledge, this system cannot provide the most basic necessities for the world’s population. It is not a question of there being too many people or not enough food available. Food production and distribution is not planned but is at the behest of the anarchy of the market, controlled by a handful of multi-national companies. Capitalism is unable to feed the world. The future under capitalism – one of increasing damage to the environment and austerity – will mean this terrible situation gets worse. Socialism is the only solution to stopping and reversing climate change. The world's population is larger than ever before - but so is world food production. Billions of people regularly struggle to get enough to eat but the problem isn't a lack of produce or a rising population. It is a system driven by profit. Despite all the pessimism of mainstream environmentalists, the problem we really face is that we have allowed a system to develop where there is hunger amidst plenty. What we need is to take control of the food system. This will enable us to deal with the wasteful system. Socialists look forward to a world of plenty built on the greatest gift of nature, that of human labour. Real change will only come when the power of those running the system for the purpose of profit is challenged.

Advances in nutrition and agricultural science could allow us to produce abundant, healthy, safe, and tasty food for everyone. Humanity could produce an enormous variety of foods, both to guarantee food security against pests, disease, and climate change through agricultural diversity, but also to keep meals interesting. The infrastructure exists to develop a vast network of public restaurants serving affordable, delicious and interesting food. Home cooking and eating could be transformed into relaxing social activities, not the compulsory drudgery it is for billions today. In short, the knowledge, technology, and collective potential to completely transform the way the world eats exists now. What doesn’t exist is a social structure that allows for a rational and balanced approach to food production, distribution, preparation, and consumption. But virtually all the proposals out there are limited to tinkering with the existing system or appealing to the good will and reason of the rich and powerful. This is utopian. In a system driven by and defined by commodity production and money, what matters to the capitalists is not food quality or human health, but maximising profits. The solution to this is not to be found in blaming individuals for their “individual choices,” or in changing this or that aspect of the status quo. The solution can only come from abolishing the dysfunctional system of capitalism itself.

At the Rome International Conference on Nutrition – organized by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) 90 ministers and hundreds of government officials agreed on recommendations for policies and programmes to address nutrition across multiple sectors which “enshrines the right of everyone to have access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food” while committing governments to preventing malnutrition and hunger. A utopian aspiration under capitalism. But FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva confirmed one truth, “We have the knowledge, expertise and resources needed to overcome all forms of malnutrition.”

Into the unknown

How to overcome local objections to the risk of unhealthy pollution? Promise to make them millionaires and that is exactly what tax-evading, union-busting INEOS has done.

Ineos has never drilled wells before, but believes it can be successful because it has hired three experienced executives from the US shale boom. Ineos said wells had successfully been bored next to schools, churches and even close to the centre of large cities such as Fort Worth, Texas. “It is possible to drill wells in densely populated areas, but we don’t think that is necessary,” said Gary Haywood, the chief executive of Ineos UK.

Scientists from the UK Energy Research Centre told the BBC that promises of lower prices and greater energy security from UK shale gas were lacking in evidence. “It is very frustrating to keep hearing that shale gas is going to solve our energy problems – there’s no evidence for that whatsoever, it’s hype,” said Prof Jim Watson, UKERC research director.

Simon Clydesdale, energy campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said investment was essential to transform the UK energy system, but not “giant speculative bets” on unproven and risky resources. He added: “Ineos have jumped on a spin-powered bandwagon which is going nowhere. Independent academics recently called out government ministers over the ludicrous levels of hype around shale gas, saying ‘shale gas has been completely oversold’. It seems that Ineos have based their business plan on breathless PR brochures rather than scientific reports.”

The British Geological Survey has estimated that the Lowland valley in Scotland could contain about 80tn cubic feet of gas and 6tn barrels of oil. But it said: “The relatively complex geology and limited amount of good-quality constraining data result in a higher degree of uncertainty to resource estimation than in England.” BGS said Scotland’s shale reserves were modest compared with England’s.

From the Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/20/ineos-founder-wants-shale-gas-revolution-in-uk

Jailhouse Blues

Capitalism is a social disaster not only for the millions that starve amidst plenty, those who are killed or wounded in its wars but also in its day to day personal tragedies. Take the case of Steven Davison a 21-year-old who killed himself whilst in a young offenders institution for having a knife and threatening to harm himself. 'The National Offender Management Service said reducing the number of prison suicides was a top priority. Labour peer Lord Harris was asked by the government in February to conduct a review on how to reduce self-inflicted deaths in custody, and is expected to present his findings next summer. He believes the unnecessary imprisonment of some individuals, including those with mental health problems, is preventing others from receiving the support they need.' (BBC News, 14 November) In its unceasing drive for more and more profits capitalism cannot afford to properly provide welfare care so unfortunates like Stephen suffer the consequence. RD

Another Winter Of Discontent

With the advent of winter the government has had to allocate an extra £ 700m extra for A&E, but the rest of the NHS system is under pressure as these recent figures show. '90,000 more patients waiting for an operation than a year ago . 62% day target for cancer treatment missed for last 6 months. 24% of patients say it's "not easy" to get through to GP by phone.' (Guardian, 14 November) Ever helpful the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt warned that there will be pressure to deal with an ageing population and suggested that a visit to the pharmacy rather than an hospital may be advisable! RD