Preserve Capitalism Or Conserve the Planet

The growing global environmental crisis is in the opinion of many the greatest challenge mankind has faced. Species and entire habitats are disappearing at a pace unseen since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Natural resources are being consumed far faster than they can regenerate. It is already clear that climate change is leading toward catastrophic collapse of the natural systems that billions of people depend upon. These problems are not accidental, but are symptoms of the irrationality of our capitalist system of production and distribution. Greenhouse gases will increase as long as our economy depends on coal, oil and natural gas, controlled by some of the wealthiest corporations in history following the logic that accumulating profits over-rides all other concerns. Abandoning fossil fuel investments and converting the whole economy to the use renewable energy would impose huge costs on corporate bank balances. The UK government has provided well over a billion pounds in loans to fossil fuel projects around the world despite a pledge to withdraw financial support from such schemes, an analysis of loans made by the UK’s export credit agency has revealed.  Gazprom in Russia, Brazil’s state-owned oil company and petrochemical companies in Saudi Arabia are among the companies benefiting from around £1.7bn in government funding over the course of the parliament. Coal-mining, petrochemical complexes, and oil and gas exploration and infrastructure are among the industries benefiting from the loans and guarantees, which cover projects in countries including Slovakia, Russia, Brazil, India, Germany, Norway, Vietnam, the Phillipines and Saudi Arabia. MP Joan Walley, the chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, which has investigated the government’s fossil fuel subsidies, said: “At the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit [in 2012] the UK government agreed to phase out harmful and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, so I am disappointed to discover the government is still providing billions in loans to fossil energy projects around the world that are fuelling climate change. Taxpayer cash should not be used to subsidise the fossil fuel industry in the twenty first century.” 

Under capitalism, decisions on what and how to produce are made by CEOs seeking to maximise return by raising sales figures and cutting costs. Individual lifestyle changes and some new technology may buy a little more time but are grossly insufficient to save the planet while capitalist industries are given free rein to continue polluting. Achieving an environmentally sustainable social system will require fundamental political and economic change.  The entire production system must be transformed; we must change the way society allocates its resources. We call such a system socialism which has at its material roots the inability of capitalism to solve humanity's problems.

We are approaching tipping points that if reached will give global warming a momentum that human actions will have little or no control over  where human intervention will be unable to slow down and stop this process. Obviously civilization as we know it will change drastically. It is easy to make a case that global warming is the preeminent challenge for humanity to tackle. Every new scientific finding makes it imperative to immediately recognise the need to reduce carbon emissions. This degradation of nature is a compelling argument for the new urgency of socialism - a society that protects people and the environment. World socialism will put the preservation of the ecosystems of the entire planet above the self-interest of nation-states and prevent widespread ecological collapse. Freed from national rivalries this new society can share scientific knowledge and technology with unprecedented planet-wide cooperation of scientists and the involvement of local communities, learning from the experiences and insights of all people around the world. We depend for our survival on the natural world. We are linked with the natural world through complex evolutionary chains and through networks of ecosystems. There is now pressing time-line for our actions act. If we do not move quickly to stem climate change by protecting and preserving our fast-disappearing flora and fauna this planet could very well become uninhabitable for billions of people, and possibly all of humanity who may well also vanish from the face of the Earth.

Socialism makes it possible for us all to live lives worthy of human beings while at the same time living in harmony with our environment and heighten our determination to make the socialist revolution happen.  Socialism requires a conscious collective decision about the lives we want to live and the communities we want to live in–and it takes a collective effort in that goal – in order to create truly sustainable communities–socially, economically, and environmentally sound.  Even if you personally reduce, reuse and recycle the changes necessary are so large and profound that they are beyond the reach of individual action. Sadly, individual action does not work. It distracts us from the need for collective action, and it doesn’t add up to enough. Getting people excited about making individual environmental sacrifices is doomed to fail. The reality is that we cannot overcome the global threats posed by greenhouse gases without speaking the ultimate inconvenient truth: we need a socialist revolution.

It’s capitalism, a global system based on prioritising profits over people, which has brought us to the brink of a climate-induced catastrophe that can destroy humanity. In a world with billions of people living in poverty and exclusion, production is determined by the profit motive, not human needs. In a world with millions of unemployed or low-income workers, access (distribution) to wealth is conditioned to having a job. In a world of globalized market, there is no coordination to supply and what is produced. Instead there is a killer competition for profit between companies. There is no "sustainable capitalism". There is only "disaster capitalism". Green reformism – the default position of most environmental campaigners and thinkers, pursue change through existing structures and it does not seek to replace capitalism or challenge class structures. It isn’t revolutionary, but attempts to work with government and business interests to affect change. Ecological degradation is not halted; it is instead measured, monitored, and manipulated within capitalism, Marx and Engels showed that capitalism is driven to constantly “revolutionise” industry and commerce, continually transforming the globe. This is not to satisfy basic needs or to genuinely improve the quality of life of the population. Capitalism seeks to create new needs, destroying what it built only yesterday and governments will continue to bend to capitalist interests. In contrast socialists seek all people, co-operatively and together, to be in control of their lives and work would be for the long-lived benefit of all, caring for the whole global ecology and all its inhabitants. Only mutual aid, not self-sacrifice, is enough to motivate real changes. People can build their collective knowledge through the organisations they need to advance their interests and build the confidence needed to take on capitalism as they win a larger hearing from more and more people, and make the socialist revolution possible.

Brian Montague on Socialism

Forgetting About Planet Earth

 Once again, climate talks have produced little beyond minimal, voluntary actions to avert climate disaster. Once again, countries bickered over their own self- interests until the last minute when the weak agreement was cobbled together to save face. They could not agree to keep the warming to two degrees Celsius due to the long-running rift between developed and developing countries. The rich, developed countries can afford to call for sanctions because they have sent their dirty industry to the third world looking for cheaper labour and their capital now sits there collecting high profits. The developing countries see this as their chance to become rich and are therefore loath to consider the strong sanctions necessary. We are still in a primitive world when two hundred countries can forget about the planet as a whole and simply pursue their own petty interest.

 John Ayers.

The Rich Get Richer

Capitalism is becoming more and more inequitable as the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. 'The wealthiest 1% will soon own more than the rest of the world's population, according to a study by charity group Oxfam. The charity's research shows that the share of the world's wealth owned by the richest 1% increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% last year.' (BBC News, 19 January) , On current trends Oxfam says it expects the wealthiest 1% to own more than 50% of the world's wealth by 2016. RD

Legal Action

LEGAL ACTION                                               

Scottish health boards are fending off more than 1,500 legal actions from patients and staff who are seeking millions of pounds in compensation for negligence and and medical errors. Recent figures show that Grampian NHS is facing up to £24 million for alleged failures in treatment. 'NHS Dumfries and Galloway said that more than 50 claims had been made against the health board ....' (Sunday Times, 18 January) RD

Socialism cannot wait

The Socialist Party believes that socialism is the alternative to capitalism. Socialism requires the joint efforts of workers worldwide. Socialism is the only answer for the working class. And that we must organise as a class whose goal is that. The Socialist Party has never had as a policy that “socialism can wait.”

The Scottish National Party is the party of a certain segment of the Scottish capitalist class. Brian Souter, the owner of the Stagecoach transport network has given more than a million pounds to the SNP. Needless to say, he did so knowing full well that the party would not challenge his wealth or power. In particular, the SNP has made it clear that the bus system and the railroads will remain in the private sector. The SNP has gone out of the way to reassure the business community, including the transnational corporations, that they have nothing to fear because an independent Scotland would not threaten their interests. There can be no question that the SNP will act to protect the interests of the capitalist class, even though this means defending the interests of huge transnational corporations based outside of Scotland. The SNP has been skilful in presenting one face to the people and a very different one to the corporations. To the former the SNP claim to be social democrats who believed in greater equality and to the latter, the SNP stands for a strong economy and continued growth. The SNP leaders support a continuation of capitalist exploitation in an independent Scotland. This was summed up in their White Paper that proposed cuts to corporation tax for big business while seeking to bind the trade unions into ‘partnership’ and a ‘Team Scotland’ approach. In practice, this means accepting attacks on their wages and working conditions for the so-called “national interest”. The SNP has "tacked leftwards" in rhetoric, though not at all in policy implementation. Voting for nationalist parties simply helps to confuse and divide an already confused and divided British working class even more.

For too long, the left has accepted the orthodoxy that there exists a “right to national self-determination”, and that we should support any struggle to that end. The left is wrong, and that the damage caused by this mistaken idea is second only to that caused by the corruption to the socialist cause from the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

At first hearing, the very sound of a “struggle for national self-determination” suggests that it is democratic and progressive. To throw off the yoke of imperial government, to fight the occupiers and the foreign-appointed governors: it all sounds just. And yet what does it amount to? Having thrown off the yoke of foreign rule, the ex-colonies of the European empires have largely established their 'own' governments. Has this seen their peoples achieve freedom and plenty? In most, undemocratic foreign rule has been replaced by undemocratic home rule. Different face in different uniforms hold the same guns, and the people still stare down the barrels.

Worse, the old colonial rulers retain all their former power through overpowering military supremacy and economic dominance. What the UK once controlled through occupation, the US now controls through their manipulation of trade backed by the implicit threat posed by their sole superpower status. The EU and China desperately compete, and the 'great game' of rival empires continues. The new 'home' governments of ex-colonies are allowed to line their own pockets and bully their populations, but are otherwise kept it in line. The question remains, when the left have supported demands for 'national self-determination' - which can only mean the right to form nation states - have they expected it to bring freedom and plenty? The answer is no. Socialists are internationalists, and do not believe that socialism can exist within a single state: the results of Stalin's 'socialism in one country' proved that forever. It can be seen that when the left limit their demands to what they see as the 'limited’ perspective of the people they claim to 'lead', this patronising nonsense does enormous harm. As a result, our most famous slogan must always be: “Workers of the world, unite!” We demand open borders, and the abolition of states altogether. We believe that states exist to oppress!

If socialists oppose the state, how much more that we oppose the nation state. It is bad enough that people should be penned by the world's rulers like cattle owned by farmers. It is worse that such states should attempt to exclude those of the wrong 'nation' or 'people' or ‘race’. In attempting to harness the power of struggles for national self-determination to the socialist cause, the left have dragged the workers’ movement into the mud and mire of nationalism. The right of self-determination is not national, but the right of every individual, and of all humanity. It includes to right to determine where to live and work, regardless of states, or borders, or 'nationality'. Humanity's freedom will not be won by building new states, but by destroying them all. The problem with countries is if you love your country or only your ethnicity, you separate from others like you. We become divided as a human race. Countries divide us; governments divide us; when we truly are one global species, one people.

We know that the future belongs to us, the workers. We know socialism is possible. We know that only the working class can bring socialism about. We need to build a society where we own the factories, the land, the transport—a society where we are guaranteed housing, education, healthcare and jobs. A society where there will be no borders for people. Rosa Luxemburg’s once wrote “socialism or barbarism” but these days we may very well qualify it by adding “Barbarism… if we are lucky”. Our choice in these days of environmental cataclysm is one world or none.

Clifford Slapper on socialism

$95,000 For A White Truffle!

Recently released figures by Oxfam clearly show the inequalities in society. Eighty-five of the world's billionaires collectively have as much money as the 3.5 billion poorest people. Between March 2013 and march 2014, those eighty -five had their wealth increased by $668 million – that's $1.8 million a day just for the increase! Russian mining 'tycoon', Vladimir Potanin spent $95,000 on a 1.8 kg white truffle – he's worth $13.9 billion so can afford it. It would take Bill Gates two hundred and eighteen years to spend all of his money if he spent a million dollars a day, not taking into account interest on what would be left each day. It would take ninety three years for a South African platinum miner to earn the average CEO's annual average bonus. Sound crazy? You bet. We must get rid of such stupidity. John Ayers.

A Desperate Plight

Immigrants trying to reach Europe highlight the dangers of their would-be ocean crossings.  'Last year, at least, 3,419 migrants lost their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean,according to the UN refugee agency, making it the deadliest migrant route in the world. ...Spanish coastguards rescued 3,500 of them last year, a 55 per cent increase on the previous year.' (Times, 17 January)The desperation of these workers and their attempts to create a new life away from the dangers of North Africa can only be imagined. RD

Capitalism must go

Socialism has gone beyond the patchwork of anti-capitalist slogans, utopian proposals, and romantic hopes. One group of workers co-opting a factory in a capitalist society doth not a revolution maketh. Let's imagine a single factory closes down, and is occupied, taken over and self-managed by its workers. This may or may not be a good thing; Even those most critical of self-management would not begrudge workers trying to survive, although some may argue occupying to demand a higher severance package would be a better approach than assuming management of a failing firm. But a single act like this doesn't challenge the totality of capitalist relations, it would just swap a vertically managed firm for a horizontally managed one, leaving the 'totality' of the system unchanged.

 However, if factory takeovers were happening on a mass scale, such that they could start doing away with commercial/commodity relations between them; and at the same time there were mass refusals to pay rent/mortgages and militant defence of this resistance from the States subsequent coercion subsequent... And if this was happening across several countries then we might be looking at a social movement at the level of toppling state power, superseding commercial relations, making possible social reproduction (housing, food, health) without mediation by money, self-management of the activities necessary for this (rather than self-management of commodity production and wage labour). This would only be the case to the extent the movement grows and extends; if it was contained within a couple of countries say, then the movement could go into reverse and the acts may lose their revolutionary transformative character.

Self-management of production within capitalism can be seen as an integral part of the revolutionary process only if it becomes part of a greater social political movement where capitalism is challenged in other ways and only if there are as soon as possible moves made to abolish wages and markets. Self-managed industry operating under a market system by definition does not involve the undermining of exchange relations, value - workers are continuing to sell their labour-power on the market; their relationship to capital is little different to if they worked for a private capitalist.

Another argument which comes up when discussing struggles against the closure of workplaces due to unprofitability or capital flight is that the conditions that made the business unprofitable doesn't vanish, so long as the workplace still exists to sell stuff on the market (and workers continue to sell their labour-power on the market). The most that can be achieved by occupying and self-managing the workplace in such a context is to keep on working, competing with other producers on the market, subject to the same market conditions that made the workplace close in the first place only with workers enforcing pay cuts and job cuts on themselves, rather than a boss doing it.

Defenders of capitalism often say that socialists fail to recognise gains under capitalism that make socialism unnecessary. This sort of criticism is considered superficial, not because its claim to progress under capitalism is unfounded but because it fails to meet the major point of socialism that, whatever the record of economic progress under capitalism, the existence of private property and the profit motive inherently limit the potential of capitalism to serve human needs in an adequate way.

Socialism tends not to offer a blueprint of the future organisation of society and hold the belief that working people, once given the chance, are able to democratically choose their own path. Socialism remains an impossible dream only to those who denounce it as utopian even though every advance in technology and science turns the potential into more of a reality that is possible to realise. Today's production of goods in abundance and the accompanying knowledge, have transformed the utopias of an earlier time into practical alternatives to our everyday existence. The trouble with capitalism is that in this system production is for exchange not consumption. The merchants offer food to sell, not for people to eat. If you've got money to buy this food then you won't starve. If you have no money you will. This explains famine in Africa and the slow increase in malnutrition starting to show itself in Europe. It's a shortage of money not a shortage of food.

Inside a socialist society the major aim initially will be to produce enough food to feed everyone. That's all of us; the whole of humanity, all over the globe. Planned production worldwide will do away with malnourishment and starvation forever. Capitalism could never achieve this spectacular improvement in everyday life if they lasted another hundred years, because they only produce things to sell. That is the sad heart of this miserable life destroying system called capitalism. It's just production for exchange, so the ruling class can collect the profits contained in the commodities they sell. They have no interest in people's needs. Just their own greed for profit. We need is more and more planned production, so that all human needs can be satisfied and humanity grow, mentally and physically, so that its enormous and as yet untapped potential can begin to be realised. It's the same with health and education. With communism we will produce more hospitals and better schools so that everyone can have a proper chance to grow. We will produce better people and a better society!

Neither the Saltire or Union Jack but the Red Flag (video)

We may take issue with Maxton and Hardie being included in the ranks of Marxists but the anti-nationalist sentiments of the song, can be shared by many in the Socialist Party .

British Threat

After raids on a Jihadi cell which appears to have been planning to murder officers There are fears that  the British police may be the target of an attack similar to that which was narrowly averted in Belgium. 'Worryingly for authorities fears that, the suspects had police uniforms and radios in their possession. The elevation of the threat level brings the police service in line with the general threat level which has been at severe for some time.' (Daily Telegraph, 16 January) There are just as many crazy terrorists in Britain as in France or Belgium. RD

More Platitudes

In a new book edited by the Archbishop of York, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have called for an end to "income inequality" in the UK, warning that some people and communities are being left behind. 'In his essay collection, called On Rock or Sand? Firm Foundations for Britain's Future, the Most Rev John Sentamu says the country is facing "a new poverty". Dr Sentamu writes: "The poor in this 'age of austerity' experience what I call a 'new poverty', where many of the 'new poor' are in work. "Once upon a time, you couldn't really be living in poverty if you had regular wages. You could find yourself on a low income, but not living in poverty. That is no longer so." (BBC News, 15 January) Men of the cloth are forever uttering platitudes about poverty but of course they all support the system that produces poverty. RD

Whisleblowers Beware

A paramedic whistleblower has been banned from two hospitals after he reported overcrowding in A&E. Stuart Gardner, of West Midlands Ambulance Service, received the ban after  telling the BBC under-pressure emergency units were "not safe". 'He said the chief operating officer (COO) of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has told him he was "not welcome" on either of its sites. The trust said the ban was imposed as Mr Gardner's comments had upset staff.' (BBC News, 15 January) Things have come to a strange conclusion when whistleblowers are disciplined for doing what their job dictates they should be doing. RD

For a social revolution

One of the successes of the capitalists is convincing us to accept the status quo as normal - inevitable even - and forgetting just how absurd a system it is. Inequality is at grotesque levels. 1% owned 40% of all wealth and the top 10% owned 85%. Meanwhile, the poorest 50 percent--half the world's population--own barely 1% of all wealth. It is impossible to justify such vast wealth when 800 million people go to bed hungry every night. This is getting to the heart of what is so crazy about capitalism, the gap between what is possible and today’s reality. Take food production. There's enough food produced in the world to make everyone fat, yet millions of people starve. The logic of the system is that the food must be destroyed rather than given away at a loss, or otherwise profits would suffer. When they say socialism will never work, socialists simply ask: Exactly how is capitalism working? With capitalism this is as good as it gets. But it's not enough to just hate the capitalist system. We need to believe a better world is possible.  A socialist world, is possible, not to mention necessary if we want to survive as a species.

One way to see the potential of a future society is to look at the workers’ movements of the past that have shaken capitalism. Another kind of society is possible. And the reason we can say this with certainty is a series of historical experiences of struggles and movements that have shown--if only for a brief time--what amazing things are possible when the working class take control of society. Most of the time, as individuals, we're powerless to control most things in our lives. This is often described as apathy, but it's a pretty understandable response. Everything changes when people get a taste of their collective power. Suddenly, politics become relevant in a way they never were before. There are countless examples to show that workers are perfectly capable not only of shutting down production, but also of running things for themselves.

Socialism can only be established on a worldwide level. Capitalism is international; no country today is economically independent from the world market and thus no workers’ government would have on its own all the resources needed to produce an abundance of goods. Socialism is premised on abundance, and worldwide there is an abundance of resources to take care of everyone. In a socialist society, we would have time to focus on the things that really matter to us. We'd also have the time and energy to actively participate in making decisions about how society is run. The communications technology and corporate media that is now used primarily to sell things and perpetuate the ruling ideas of capitalism could be turned loose under public control to facilitate the most widespread and varied debate. All borders will be open and all individuals, regardless of their country of birth, will be free to live and travel wherever in the world they please. And, eventually, all our existing borders and nation-states will fade away. Human solidarity will encircle the globe and conquer it. The state will wither away because it will cease to have any role to play. Who would need to be repressed in a society without exploiters and exploited? The government over people (military, police, courts, prisons) will be replaced by the administration of things (coordination of services, distribution of goods.) A classless society is possible is that the economic and technological potential exists today to produce more than enough goods and services for everybody on this planet — an abundance. It is impossible to overstate the importance of this point. All the enormous cultural changes can only proceed from a dramatic rise in society’s economic productivity, through the use of technology to produce more quality goods, more efficiently and more sustainably. Socialism cannot be created from will alone. For millennia, people have dreamed and fought for an egalitarian social order, but all such past movements were faced with the insurmountable obstacle of the material poverty of their society. No matter who was in power there was still not enough wealth to go around. A democratically planned world economy, even with today’s level of economic development, could guarantee a decent standard of living for everybody on the planet.

Imagine growing up in a world in which you've never known exploitation or oppression, nor deprivation, a world in which the needs of people and the planet come first. Imagine living in a world where you don’t have to worry about how you will pay the bills or whether you will still have a job next month. Imagine a society freed from capitalism’s straightjacket on technology and production.

The potential for exponential progress is truly amazing — a small mobile phone today can process more data than the most powerful computer on the planet 40 years ago. A society of abundance is completely reachable — but we can’t get there until we get rid of capitalism. Imagine if you can simply walk into a well-stocked community “store” and take what you need for free (you could take more than you needed by hoarding but the only impact this would likely have is that the store would have to restock its supply.) Imagine if the principle, “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.”

Who owns Scotland

400 people own half the privately held rural land in Scotland.

Having to beg for a morsel

A record number of adults and children relied upon food banks in Scotland in December, according to new figures obtained by the BBC. Nearly 10,500 people visited the Trussell Trust's 48 food banks for the first time in the charity's history.

The data also reveals a third of users cited low income - and not welfare benefit delays - for their predicament. 3,005 people (28%) said they used a Scottish food bank due to low income in December, closely followed by 2,527 (24%) because of a benefit delay, and 1,555 (15%) due to a benefit change. The Clyde, Avon and Nethan food bank reported that 77% of people given a food package in December cited low income as the main contributing factor. Many users visiting the food banks at Airdrie and Lochaber also blamed low incomes (50% and 48% respectively.)

The figure is a 13% increase from the 9,263 people who used a Trussell Trust food bank in December 2013. In December 2014, 10,489 people visiting Scottish food banks were given a three day supply of nutritionally balanced food by the charity - a third of them children. The charity underlined that the final figure for December visits is likely to be even higher as food bank staff continue to input data into their system.

Ewan Gurr, the charity's network manager for Scotland, said he was concerned that many low income families were forced to face hunger in the run-up to Christmas due to financial difficulties. He said: "Every day we are hearing working people describe the devastating reality of sustaining their families with static incomes and unstable employment against consistently rising costs of essentials like food and rent. In the most harrowing accounts, we hear from the families choosing whether to prioritise heating their homes or feeding their families and parents losing weight because they overlook their own health and wellbeing to feed their children."

The Trust, which partners with churches and communities, currently operates more than 1,200 food distribution centres across the UK. The Trust's figures also reveal Dundee had the highest number of adults (3,750) using food banks in the last year, while south east Glasgow had the highest number of children (1,975).

A government document published last month suggested low income families may face increasing financial difficulties in the future. According to the report, approximately 820,000 people were living in relative poverty in 2013 - an increase of 110,000 from the previous year. This increase in relative poverty - where someone lives in a household that receives less than 60% of the UK average income - was attributed to a continued fall in incomes. The report concluded: "Low wage growth (particularly for those in less skilled employment), changes in the labour market, and tightening of eligibility and conditionality under welfare reform have resulted in lower median income."

Belgian Intervention

Belgian authorities have thwarted plans for massive attacks on police stations, one week after 17 people were killed by Islamist gunmen in France. Police have shot dead two members of armed group and arrested another in a shootout on Thursday in the eastern city of Verviers .  'Police said the three were Belgian citizens and some of them had returned from Syria. Prosecutors said the group was about to launch attacks on a grand scale, and that they raided about 10 locations including some in the capital, Brussels, to block the plan.' (NHK WORLD News, 16 January) RD

Money Money Money

Capitalism distorts everything in modern society. Fine arts are judged by the prices they can command, sport is  evaluated by transfer fees and salaries. Reading a football report today is like studying double-entry book-keeping. Speculation about the possible transfer of Lionel Messi of Barcelona is a case in point. 'Messi's buyout clause from Barcelona is £250 million. He has more than three years left on a contract that is worth £16.3 million a year. Taking the salary and transfer fee together, then, the overall cost of any deal could be well in excess of a quarter of a billion pounds.' (Times, 14 January) To show how crazy some of these deals have become it is reported that Manchester United have a ten-year kit deal with Addidas worth £750 million. RD

Mere Doggerel

MERE DOGGEREL?                                         

Although some may dismiss it as just a piece of doggerel I remember it as being quite memorable when I first heard of the case for socialism and somehow this old burlesque rhyme has stuck with me. 'The banker calls it interest and heaves a cheerful sigh. The merchant calls it profit and winks the other eye. The landlord calls it rent as he tucks it  in his bag, but the honest old burglar simply calls it swag!'   RD