15 Sep 2021

0 Comments

“Imagine socialism” | Ohio Wesleyan University

“Imagine socialism”

Ohio Wesleyan English Teacher’s First Book Explores Early Socialism Writings

By Ohio Wesleyan University

Ohio Wesleyan professor Mark A. Allison’s new book examines British socialist writing through the long 19th century – the century of socialism’s origin. (Cover image courtesy of Oxford University Press)

DELAWARE, Ohio – The title of the new book by Ohio Wesleyan University professor Mark A. Allison – “Imagining Socialism: Aesthetics, Anti-politics, and Literature in Britain, 1817-1918” – immediately raises two questions: Why an English professor would he write a book on socialism? And what is “anti-politics?” “

“These are good questions,” said Allison, Ph.D., English professor Ben T. Spencer of the OWU. “In Britain, writers and artists were very important supporters of socialism throughout the 19th century.

“For example, Nobel Prize-winning playwright George Bernard Shaw has given hundreds and hundreds of pro-socialist speeches, and HG Wells, remembered for his sci-fi classics like ‘War of the Worlds’ and “The Invisible Man,” wrote works of socialist propaganda that sold as well as his novels, ”Allison said.

“The more I searched for that connection, the more it made sense. Unlike other forms of social organization, such as, say, monarchy or democracy, there has never been a fully realized socialist society. Imagination, this key trait of artists, was needed to imagine what it could be. Hence my title, “Imagining Socialism”.

And “anti-political? “

“Most people think socialism means great government and state control,” said Allison, who joined Ohio Wesleyan faculty in 2007. “But all of the founders of socialism had a bad opinion. of politics, which they associated with partisanship, corruption, and unnecessary activity.wars.This was especially true in Britain, which, like America, has a long history of distrust of centralized authority. .

“Socialists were mainly interested in what they called ‘social’ rather than ‘political’ reform,” he continued. “They thought that if you wanted to make society fairer, you had to focus on places like the workplace, the school and the local community. By transforming the constituent elements of civil society, you could promote cooperation instead of competition, leading to social harmony. Over time, these reforms would reduce the scope of institutional policy, or even replace it altogether.

“As I investigated socialism’s ‘anti-political’ approach to reform, I discovered that there was a second reason writers and artists were so central to British socialism,” continued Allison, who is also co-director of the Ohio Wesleyan Honor Program. . “The arts themselves have resources that could help depoliticize collective life.

“For example,” he said, “William Morris, the great poet and great thinker of art, argued that while men and women were allowed to approach all work with equal pride and the same creativity that skilled artisans bring to their work, this would eventually allow citizens to relate to each other in mutual respect which would eliminate the need for a formal policy.

“Robert Owen, director of a cotton mill and founder of British socialism, believed that the way to achieve a form of non-governmental society was to educate young people to seek their own happiness through the good of the collective. “Allison continued. . “Owen called it ‘rational education.’ But when you look at his school’s program, you find that teaching song and dance was at the heart of it. These activities literally taught the children to “harmonize” with each other: to channel their natural desire to excel into some form of effort that would improve group performance.

“While nineteenth-century socialists approached social problems from different angles, they repeatedly turned to the arts in their efforts to tame ‘politics’ and imagine the world differently.”

Mark A. Allison, Ph.D.

Although Allison’s book deals with the British tradition of 19th-century socialism, it does address the concerns of the day: growing economic inequality, exasperation at political polarization and deadlock, and the surprising resurgence of interest in socialism among Millennials and Generation Z.

“When I started researching this book, socialism was not on the contemporary radar,” Allison said. “Then the Great Recession of 2007-2008 happened and things started to snowball.

“Bernie Sanders ran two unexpected presidential campaigns, and Jeremy Corbyn had his five-year term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Newspapers have started to publish opinion polls showing that young people have more favorable views on socialism than on capitalism. Suddenly, what I considered a very specialized subject no longer seemed to me specialized at all. “

What does Allison want readers to take away from her book?

“First of all, I believe in the intrinsic value of literature and literary analysis,” he said. “The backbone of this book is the close examination of the works of great 19th century writers, some famous, others unjustly forgotten.

“Beyond that, I will quote the last words of my introduction: ‘It would be foolish to believe that a literary study of 19th century British socialism could open the door to utopia. But it would be vanity to think that the struggles of so many intelligent, committed and well-meaning men and women have nothing to teach us today.

Learn more about Imagining Socialism and Allison and Ohio Wesleyan’s English Department at owu.edu/English.

Founded in 1842, Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts universities. Located in Delaware, Ohio, the private university offers more than 70 undergraduate specializations and participates in 24 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Through its signature program, The OWU Connection, Ohio Wesleyan teaches students to integrate knowledge across disciplines, build a diverse and holistic perspective, and apply knowledge in real-world contexts. Ohio Wesleyan is featured in the “Colleges That Change Lives” book and is on the US News & World Report and Princeton Review “Best Colleges” lists. Learn more at owu.edu.


Source link

By: Category: Socialism

13 Sep 2021

0 Comments

The rise of private equity reveals the reality of capitalism

Looting is experiencing an unprecedented rise. The global value of transactions by private equity firms is expected to reach $ 1 trillion (£ 723 billion) for the first time this year.

And private equity firms have around £ 2.5 trillion waiting to be deployed in buyouts.

The buyout barbarians are targeting Britain, where state-owned companies, those listed on the stock exchange, are trading at low valuations.

Private equity firms made more deals in Britain in the first half of the year than in the same period in any other year.

The number of buybacks is up 60% in 2021 compared to the same period in 2019.

Private equity firms have announced approaches to 13 UK listed companies since early 2021.

The European head of private equity at Blackstone explains that Britain’s “favorable business environment” explains why “there are plenty of opportunities”.

Private equity works that way. You and I decide to start a business.

We collect funds from our clients and put them in a fund in a tax haven.

We find a few companies that we want to buy, using a little of our own money (equity) but financing as much as possible with debt, or “leverage”.

What is the real value behind the fashion of NFT digital art of the rich?
What is the real value behind the fashion of NFT digital art of the rich?

We then sell or insert the companies on the stock exchange at a profit after cutting costs or selling assets. We return the money to our investors.

Before doing this, however, we take our share – known as “deferred interest” – 20% of profits above a certain amount.

Because we have invested some of our own money in the fund, we can view this as a capital gain rather than income. This means that it is taxed at 28 percent, not 45 percent.

Between 2006 and 2015, private equity bosses pocketed at least £ 165 billion in deferred interest.

There were three billion in private equity in 2005. There were 22 last year.

Charges associated with the redemption of private equity, such as transaction closing costs and annual management fees, are charged to the accounts of the acquiree, not the private equity fund.

Typically, a £ 10bn transaction generates an upfront fee of £ 50m (0.5% fee) for completing the sale and £ 30m per year in management fees.

This is on top of the huge fees that the accountants and lawyers overseeing the case are taking out of the process.

The shareholders of the Morrisons supermarket chain are voting on a private equity offer next month.

Morrisons freehold land and buildings are worth around £ 5.8bn.

It is more than the market value of the business as a whole.

So even without selling stores, new owners could increase their returns by borrowing against their value.

A 2019 study found that when companies buy listed companies, 13% of jobs are cut over two years and the wages of those who remain go down.

If a buyout goes well, private equity bosses receive huge returns.

If the business goes bankrupt, the private equity firm sells the assets to pay off the debts.

Private equity does the dirty work of capitalism in the dark. But it’s not much better in the light.

A public company, publicly traded, owes a little bit of debt to shareholders, but not to the rest of us.

So Debenhams was plundered by private equity in the early 2000s, but when it laid off all of its staff and closed all of its stores, it was a stock exchange company.

For the bosses, taking money off the backs of the workers is the most important thing.

Private equity is not the “unacceptable face of capitalism”, it rather shows the reality of how this system works.


Source link

By: Category: Capitalism

10 Sep 2021

0 Comments

Anarchy and socialism, Filipino style

Banaag at Sikat ”, the monumental novel that Lope K. Santos published in 1906, is the first great novel of the proletariat in Asia. Its two main characters, Delfin and Felipe, represent the twin poles of socialism and anarchy; the novel oscillated between these two poles. I translated this novel under the title “Radiance and Sunrise”, which will be published in December by Penguin Random House as part of their South East Asian Classics series.

In the chapter titled “Darkness and Light”, the characters come to bury the rich and greedy old man, Don Ramon, who is the father of Meni, the wife of Delfin. The two men are abandoned in the cemetery.

Felipe said, “Shouldn’t we commemorate all of Don Ramon’s evils, his greed, his carnal ways, his oppression of the poor? I have always hated the hypocrisy of our old ways. When a rich man dies, his life should be an open book where all his misdeeds are exposed, so that no one follows in his footsteps. “

“I don’t agree with you, Felipe. On the contrary, exposing a man’s wickedness would only awaken the evil that lies dormant in others. But I see the benefit of extracting socialist teachings from the life of Don Ramon, because our country can learn a lot from the death of a rich man.

“Yes. The death of a man like Don Ramon should mean freedom for the oppressed, not the death of his source of sustenance.”

“And even with the death of Don Ramon and your father, Captain Loloy, the cycle of oppression will remain unbroken as long as the legacy agency is in place. It’s just money and authority changing hands.

“But when will that day of change come?” Will it ever happen? “

“I’m just as tired of waiting. But we have to be patient and let things take their natural course. Nations and their peoples, like everything else, change over time.

“But we can act now, Delfin.” Felipe’s eyes sparkled. “We can certainly bring about change through revolution! “

“Yes, Felipe, but a revolution cannot take place before an evolution. A nation will only take up arms if it can no longer bear to be oppressed. A revolution must first gain momentum before it can explode.

“That’s why I say it’s high time we took up arms. The oppressed masses are already desperate.

“I don’t think this is the right time. Look at them, they are not yet part of an organized movement. They don’t go wild. They will not move without a leader or a martyr to rally them to action. The revolutionary movement must come from below if we are to bring down oppression. “

“Let’s not forget the government,” Felipe added. “We can succeed in bringing down capitalism, but it will be for nothing if there is no change in our local government. We must also prevent the transfer of wealth and power to the government oligarchs. “

“I assure you, Felipe, the rise of the revolutionary system will also lead to the rise to power of the socialist republic which will ensure the common well-being.”

“But what good is having an alternative system of government? We will always put the power to rule in the hands of a few. We should abolish all form of government altogether and allow an autonomous system to flourish instead. “

Delfin froze as he waited for Felipe to speak. “It is true that our lives are still dictated by religious beliefs, but that will change soon. We are taking our first steps into the era of revolutionary heroes. We have seen figures like José Rizal and Andres Bonifacio stir up the revolutionary sentiments of our masses, and we have come to shape our ideals after them. They have already changed the course of our history. But I believe we need more heroes to wake our masses from their slumber. Only then can we say that we have made good progress in the second phase. And then we can move on to the third phase, which is when a real social revolution can take place. “

“And then, what comes next, Delfin?” “

“Then we will achieve a true egalitarian state. The time will come when we no longer subscribe to the notion of a supreme being as the all and the end of all things, where we no longer worship individuals but instead consider each member of society as our equal.

“I believe what anarchist Grave said about socialist revolutions. He stressed the importance of disseminating socialist ideas beyond geographic borders. Respect for human rights must be universal, which means that the same socialist ideals must also be upheld in other countries. Western civilization in the twentieth century has already seen the dawn of socialist reform.

Felipe was elated. “Yes, thanks to the martyrs of anarchism, we now have the instrument to oppose the ruling class and dethrone false kings.”

– You speak of means which can only lead to bloodshed, Felipe. We cannot achieve peace and harmony by violent means.

“Not if it means liberating the oppressed masses.”

“However. We are talking about lives at stake …”

“Lives! What about the lives of the ruling class martyrs? What about the millions whose blood they shed?

“I understand where you come from. But that doesn’t mean we should be just as cruel.

“Yes. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Only death can put an end to the abuse of power.

Delfin pleaded his case. “But what you say is unlikely to happen in the future, especially in our country. What will become of humanity if you get rid of the government?

“At your first point, I say, why not? In the second, after having plowed the land, the harvest will be abundant, and the wealth can be evenly distributed among our people. “

“We have to start somewhere. The seeds were sown, thanks to the revolutionary movement of the Katipunan in 1896. We must establish our own ways of governing our affairs. Once these are in place, we can work towards establishing a socialist state. I am optimistic. The future of our society is in the hands of the heroes and of our country. But you can’t force the hand of fate. We have to be patient and let things take their course. The wheel of fate will inevitably turn. The old regime will die, and in its place will arise a new regime that will shine like the day.

The shine, the sunrise and a new day are recurring images in this redemptive novel of hope.


Source link

By: Category: Socialism

10 Sep 2021

0 Comments

Race, capitalism: posture will get South Africa nowhere

By Roger Southall

It IS likely that historians will conclude that there was no reason why the recent riots and looting of supermarkets, shops and warehouses in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, South Africa’s two largest provinces. more important economically, have caught up with so many generally law-abiding citizens in their wake. There were apparently many dynamics at play, from the absolute poverty of many black citizens to the social media manipulation by supporters of former President Jacob Zuma, angered by his arrest.

However, one explanation that has been touted in various quarters has been that the upheaval was the result of the “racial capitalism” to which South Africa has been subjected over the centuries.

Such an explanation goes back to the racialized politics of the past and how they paired the political ideologies of segregation and apartheid promoted by white governments in South Africa prior to the democratic transition in 1994.

This view argues that the inequalities of the present, which continue to have a strong racial dimension, as well as the brutal treatment inflicted on the black poor – for example, by the 2012 Marikana police in the North West Province, when the police shot dead 35 protesting minors – are a product of the history of racial capitalism in South Africa.

It is hard not to agree with the thrust of much of the analysis that is presented in this vein. It is widely believed that the democratic transition of 1994 was the result of an “elite pact” that transformed the country’s politics but did little to undermine the foundations of white economic power.

It is continuity as much as change that characterizes the post-apartheid political economy. Nonetheless, South Africans must be careful to attribute all current crises to “racial capitalism”. Blaming racial capitalism for all the ills of the country can easily become a way to deflect responsibility from the country’s current politicians – and South Africans themselves.

The past as present

The colonial conquest took place in tandem with the development of capitalism. Both projects demand that non-whites, especially Africans, become instruments of service to others. Africans have been stripped of their land and property and have become the tools of their oppressors. This process was not stopped by the arrival of democracy.

When Lonmin miners in Marikana, in the platinum-rich Northwest Province, demanded a reasonable increase in their wages, the state colluded with foreign capital to crush their dissent. Inequality feeds this objectification of the human being, leading to greater exploitation of the poor, who are predominantly black.

The problem with the solution that is often provided – that the whole system of “racial capitalism” should be overturned – is that it is so remarkably bland. So it’s worth trying to deconstruct it.

So what should be done?

Does this imply that racism and capitalism are inseparable? If so, should the additional implication that capitalism itself be overthrown? Which might be a great idea, but first, is it practical and likely? Who should do the reversal? At what human and other cost (because it is unlikely that capital and the state will give up without a fight)? And what would be put in the place of capitalism? Is this a new socialist order, and if so, will South Africa follow historical examples (which on the whole have not been very successful) or chart it its own way?

Or is it the implication that capitalism can be deracialized? This is exactly what, in theory, the African National Congress (ANC), which has governed the country since 1994, has pledged to do through employment equity legislation. and economic empowerment of blacks.

Although the profile of the company, in terms of ownership and management personnel, has seen significant changes, most would agree that the achievements of ANC policies have been remarkably modest.

However, there remains a subject of considerable debate as to whether this is due to corporate resistance, social factors (such as the insufficient supply of suitably trained black personnel) and / or the incompetence of the workforce. ‘State.

Leaving aside the whole question of whether a deracialized capitalism would be less exploitative than a racialized capitalism, and if it would be less patriarchal, the most fundamental question is how South Africa can achieve this if current strategies – which most would agree are well-intentioned – prove insufficient to achieve their goals.

Should black employment equity and economic empowerment be enhanced, when the dominant cry of the business establishment is that increased regulation is a major obstacle to the influx of much-needed foreign investment? ? Will this increase or discourage a much needed increase in employment? Or should current strategies be rethought?

Often left out in such an analysis is the question of what kind of state will be needed to bring about the transformation into the more humane society that South Africans seek. The current disillusionment with the post-1994 order highlights the limits of South African democracy and how ANC domination has eroded it. Lately, a lot of attention has been focused on the ANC’s deployment strategy, how this has led to the substitution of political loyalty to the party for the ability to do the job, how deployment has led to corruption, how he destroyed crown corporations, how he undermined the effectiveness of government, and how he brought down local government.

The answer that is generally given is that it is necessary to undo the merger of party and state and to consolidate the independence of the state to allow expertise to flourish and ensure the rise of meritocracy. But then we end up with the conundrum of whether the ANC is capable of bringing about such a transformation, or if the ANC itself should be removed from power.

This, in turn, requires not only that he loses an election, but that he graciously acknowledges his loss if he does. Perhaps the two dimensions of that last sentence are improbable.

No easy answers

So where does all this lead in South Africa? Frankly I do not know. But I know that the answers to South Africa’s many problems are far from easy.

This doesn’t mean South Africans can’t come up with solutions their own way, and unless they give up, they have to believe they can. But, this is going to be extremely hard work. South Africans will have to talk to each other, listen to each other and negotiate hard with each other to find their way.

But one thing South Africans must take away from such complexity is that no realistic and achievable response will be obtained by taking postures. Alas, there are no easy answers. – The conversation.

  • Southall is Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand


Source link

By: Category: Capitalism

7 Sep 2021

0 Comments

Chanie Rosenberg Obituary | Socialism

My friend Chanie Rosenberg, who died at the age of 99, was a remarkable and inspiring revolutionary socialist, active in Britain for more than seven decades after arriving in 1947 with her partner, Tony Cliff. She is one of the last survivors of the Revolutionary Communist Party (1944-49), then in 1950 participates in the foundation and construction of what has become the Socialist Workers Party.

Chanie was born into a middle-class Lithuanian Jewish family in Cape Town, South Africa (one relative was poet and artist Isaac Rosenberg). Anti-black racism disgusted her, as did anti-Semitism amid the rise of fascism in Europe.

First drawn to left-wing Zionism as an antidote, she studied Hebrew at the University of Cape Town, after graduating from Good Hope Seminary, and in 1944 moved to Palestine to live in a kibbutz, where she witnessed anti-Arab racism.

In Palestine, she met and married in 1945 Ygael Gluckstein, a Palestinian Jewish Trotskyist, better known by his pseudonym Tony Cliff. She herself joined the small Trotskyist movement and, after the couple moved to London, was a courageous and determined activist of the Socialist Review Group (where her brother Michael Kidron also played a leading role), later the SWP.

Chanie challenged right-wing stereotypes that Marxists were austere and humorless. She worked as a math teacher in Islington and Hackney elementary schools, then for 12 years at John Howard School (now Clapton Girls’ Academy) and was secretary of the Hackney National Union of Teachers. As the main breadwinner, Chanie combined family life, union activity, writing, art, sculpture, music, swimming and political activism, with a verve few could match.

She has remained politically active her entire life, from the Aldermaston marches against the bomb in the 1950s to the Stop the War coalition in the 2000s; from the confrontation with the fascists of Oswald Mosley in the Ridley Road market in the 1940s to the mass protests of the Anti-Nazi League against the National Front in the 1970s.

I remember traveling to Burnley with Chanie (80) in 2002 for an ANL protest against the BNP. While some of us were anxious, she was totally fearless. Tear gas, water cannons, fascists and riot police did not stand in the way of the tireless Chanie, who visited Prague in 2000 and Genoa in 2001 as part of the major anti-capitalist mobilizations.

Throughout, she was cheerful, warm and extremely optimistic about the struggles for a better society.

Tony passed away in 2000. Chanie is survived by her four children, Elana, Donny, Danny and Anna, six grandchildren and two great grandchildren.


Source link

By: Category: Socialism

1 Sep 2021

0 Comments

Solidarity forever: capitalism and work

Labor Day is here, and it’s about work in America. Our beloved workforce. Especially the middle-income American blue collar workers who have literally made this country a great country. They make our businesses work. They produce our goods and services.

They are also the brave soldiers who defend our nation and our freedom in all regions of the world. American workers built this country, and today, though often overlooked by the current administration, these workers of all colors are the heart and soul of America.

They built this country. They defend the country, and their values ​​remain the bulwark of our country. The first Labor Day in the United States was September 5, 1882. It was a beautiful day. In 1894, Congress passed a law making the first Monday in September in each year a federal holiday.

President Grover Cleveland enacted it. Cleveland, a free trader, staunch supporter of the gold standard and killer of government overspending, is one of my favorite presidents.

Here, in 2021, Labor Day should not be confused with unions. The peak unionization rate in the United States was 1954 at 28% of total employment. At the end of last year, it was only 9.6%. Private sector unions have fallen to just 6%. Government unions, which really are the lifeblood of the labor movement today, hold at around 35%.

I have always had a soft spot for private sector unions. today they are mostly construction workers with hard hats ?? energy, pipelines, telecommunications and more. Some of the first great leaders of private enterprise unions, people like Samuel Gompers and much later George Meaney, Lane Kirkland, James Hoffa, were great patriots.

Strongly anti-Communist in their day, they negotiated higher wages and benefits, but they didn’t hate business.

For the most part, union leaders after WWII were conservative Democrats, with strong family values, loyalists, and they knew that if companies failed their jobs would be lost.

Today it is the government unions that lead the Democratic Party, including the teachers’ union but also many others. They don’t like the private sector and free enterprise. Overall, they hate business. They have awakened and truly form the backbone of the progressive far left wing of the Democratic Party, which is the driving force behind the Democratic Party today.

It’s a shame it has to be like that. These government unions live off the watering hole of public taxpayers. They love more government spending to line their pockets and encourage higher and higher taxes on the very geese that lay their golden eggs, because without the successful taxpayers i.e. men and women businesswomen, that is, ordinary middle class American blue collar workers, these government unions do not get paid. Think about it.

I’ve got big oxen with this crowd, but none bigger than my ox with the teachers’ unions. Their behavior over the past few years has been appalling. They don’t want to teach. They just want to be paid. They don’t care about the cities, the school boards and the parent groups that are supposed to run our education system. They oppose school choice, charter schools, religious schools, homeschools, because they know they can’t compete with them.

They had tantrums during the pandemic whenever it seemed like the public was going to force them to teach in class. They always complain and follow unscientific ideas that are only about politics, not health. When they teach, they teach crazy things, like the critical race theory, based on crazy, anti-historical ideas, that our founders and all other white people are necessarily white supremacists.

They teach children the wrong history, the wrong values. They teach discrimination as a solution to what they perceive to be discrimination. They teach racism as the answer to all of our problems. It’s absurd. Guess they’re gonna have to be a part of Labor Day, but I wish they weren’t.

Meanwhile, the bigger picture for America’s 154 million workers is not good. I’m glad they are going back to work because the economy has opened up and the unemployment rate has fallen to 5.4%. That’s wonderful. Right now, however, the whole orientation of the Biden administration’s economic and social policies is anti-labor.

Their $ 6 trillion spending program, massive tax hikes at all levels, huge regulatory burdens on central planning, dependence on welfare from the Big Company-type government, the bankruptcy of Medicare tries to force unionization wherever the federal government touches the economy, which is virtually every nook and cranny, their disregard for the benefits of legal immigration and clear borders to protect us.

It is all a question of redistribution. There is not a single iota of job creation, growth or prosperity in these Biden plans. Groups like the Tax Foundation, the University of Pennsylvania / Wharton business model, and the NAM-Rice University models show the Biden go-woke, go-broke plan to lose millions of jobs while lowering GDP and reducing our capital stock.

If this happens, the stock market will suffer tremendously along with the economy. Ironically, government unions and teachers who hate free enterprise are among the biggest beneficiaries of the stock market boom and the corporate profits that flow from it.

About 70% of their pension funds are invested in equities. This crowd loves great government socialism. They hate free enterprise capitalism, but they live off the gains of this very free market capitalist system.

Here’s a basic wording that the Biden and their leftist allies don’t understand. Higher taxes on businesses and investments, foreign trade and inheritance will lead to lower profits. A fall in profits leads to a fall in wages. Falling profits also lead to lower expenses for the company’s equipment and technology. Less training of workers. and lower family incomes.

Profits are the breast milk of stocks and the lifeblood of the economy. Tax them, according to the awakened Bidens, and you devastate the economy and its workforce.

Here on Labor Day, I want to repeat that America is talking about our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit of happiness includes the virtue of work, not well-being. This pursuit of happiness is about rewarding success, not punishing it. This pursuit of happiness includes equality of opportunity at the starting line of life’s endeavors, but not equality at the finish line.

Until this finish line, we are guided by our God-given talents to work, prosper, protect our families, protect our country. I think former union leaders would agree with most of what I said. Not all, but most. Sadly, today’s government labor leaders and the Biden administration they support probably disagree with a single word I write.

So I’m going to invest my optimism in a good way or in our immensely practical workforce that is much smarter than you might think. They got us here, with a few issues here and there, but somehow they managed to get us out even though they never seem to deserve the credit. As a confirmed optimist, I will bet on them again. When it comes to thinking about Labor Day, they are the ones I think of first.

________

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox News. Image: Lane Kirkland of the AFL-CIO, detail of a photo by Richard Whitney, via Wikipedia.


Source link

By: Category: Capitalism

1 Sep 2021

0 Comments

Socialism at stake as Haitians respond to disaster – people’s world

Félix Pierre Genel, 36, whose arm was amputated after being injured in the earthquake, is treated in a hospital in Cayes, Haiti, on August 25, 2021, a week after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake. The disaster was only the latest in a series of disasters that hit the Haitian people. | Matias Delacroix / AP

Conspirators in Florida employing Colombian mercenary soldiers arranged to kill Haitian President Jovenel Moïse on July 7; rivalry between Haitian oligarchs may have played a role. A deadly earthquake followed, followed by flooding from a tropical storm. Amid the chaos, emergency services are lacking in rural areas. The US Marines intruded, as the US military had also done after the 2010 earthquake that killed some 230,000 people. The unwanted effects of all of these persist.

The marginalized descendants of the rebel slaves who founded independent Haiti in 1804 are resisting, however. The turmoil of socialist ideas and practice is evident.

The assassination of Moses marked the end of ten years of corrupt and despotic rule. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton propelled President Michel Martelly to the presidency of Haiti in 2011. Moïse, her protégé, became president in 2017 on the basis of 500,000 votes drawn from six million eligible voters. Haitian political parties and their candidates serve a corrupt oligarchy.

Moses had ruled by decree, having refused to allow legislative elections. His term was to end in February 2021, but supported by the US government and the Core Group, he remained in office, defying Haiti’s 1987 constitution. He called for a new constitution that would allow agricultural conglomerates to swallow up small land holdings. Although he’s gone, the proposal is still alive.

Composed of the ambassadors of the United States, Canada, France and Brazil and representatives of the United Nations, the OAS and the European Union, the Core Group met in 2004, immediately after the progressive government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was toppled in a US-designed coup . Aristide was elected in 2000 with a majority of 92%.

The Core Group oversees governance in Haiti and oversees political activities in general. With a United Nations military occupation force that remained until 2017, the entity aims to maintain a Haitian status quo satisfactory to foreign powers.

For three years, aggrieved Haitians periodically organized large demonstrations. As economist and socialist Camille Chalmers has described, they have called for: relief from shortages of fuel and other goods due to the withdrawal of neoliberal-inspired subsidies, more looting of billions of funds from the PetroCaribe program of Venezuela, the resignation of Moïse, an end of American interventionism and the end of the support of the Core Group to the autocratic regime of Moïse.

In August 2019, Haitian progressives from 62 organizations met to discuss constitutional change and aspects of a transitional government. The business at hand, according to participant Chalmers, was “to establish the revolutionary left as a united force” and to develop a transitional program to deal with current political problems. They deliberated for three days and established the Patriotic Forum.

The Patriotic Forum gave birth to the “People’s Political Front” (PPF), which is now a potential vehicle for an alliance of six parties ready to participate in the elections. The alliance includes the socialist party Rasin Kan Pèp La. (“Roots of the popular camp”) Functioning since 2015, this party has organized street mobilizations and published statements and analyzes remarkable for their anti-imperialism.

Interviewed in 2018, Guerchang Bastia, member of the party, described the role of his party as “to be present with the masses … to develop genuine popular education …. So that when the masses are in the streets they will recognize you as a leader [with] a proposal for a new company. The aim of the left-wing organization, Bastia said, “is to create a new relationship with the masses. [and] build the strength to fight against the capitalist system.

Examining the situation in Haiti ahead of a virtual meeting of international supporters in March 2021, Chalmers outlined the tasks ahead for the socialist cause and the PPF. Founding member of Rasin Kan Pèp La and frequent spokesperson, he declared that “the Haitian people must take their destiny in hand. [with] a redefinition of the patron-slave relationship maintained between the international community and Haiti, and particularly between Haiti and the United States.

A United States Marine Corps VM-22 Osprey, with a cargo of aid, lands at an airport August 28, 2021, in Jérémie, Haiti. The plane and its crew are based in Jacksonville, NC | Alex Brandon / AP

Chalmers sees international solidarity as a “pressing need [required] for the success of the Haitian people in their struggle for a radical change in the mafia system installed to guarantee … the political, economic and social interests of the imperialist powers, multinationals and corrupt local elites.

According to sociologist Lautaro Rivara, a member of the Dessalines Brigade in solidarity with Haiti: “The history of the class struggle in Haiti is predominantly a history of rural workers, as we can currently see in the protagonism of peasant organizations… in the convocation and organization of the Patriote Forum. Today, as the People’s Patriotic Front, it is the best defender of the popular classes in the country.

Rivara indicates that more than half of the Haitian population lives in rural areas and practices subsistence agriculture. Illiteracy rates remain high, and health care and education for them are rudimentary or lacking. Large numbers of needy and fearful Haitians have settled in cities or, more recently, in countries like Chile, Brazil and the Dominican Republic.

Following the example of the American military occupiers (1915-1934) in the fight against a guerrilla insurgency, the paramilitary forces allied with the Duvalier dictatorships (1957-1986), and later the American intelligence agencies, perpetrated massacres in the Haitian countryside. The now-terminated United Nations occupation force also led a counterinsurgency mission, according to Chalmers. Privatized paramilitaries were responsible for many murders during the Moses era.

Regarding international solidarity, Chalmers praised the contributions of the Cuban government and people; the Bolivarian revolution of Venezuela; Jubilee South, based in Latin America and the Caribbean; and the Dessalines Brigade formed by the Brazilian Landless Movement and Via Campesina.

Via Campesina recently published a report on the grim Haitian realities. Accessible here in English, it describes the factional fighting between the adherents of former Presidents Martelly and Moïse over the disposition of funds stolen from PetroCaribe and foreign reconstruction funds following the 2010 earthquake. , such politicians would work overtime to defeat any popular mobilization.

The US government is also inclined. The report accuses US agencies of complicity with corrupt sections of the Haitian government by turning a blind eye to the profits from drug trafficking. He asserts that “imperialism wants a new Haitian constitution to allow transnational corporations to buy land legally and openly in Haiti in order to squander and steal the state’s natural resources.”

DONOR

WT Whitney Jr.



Source link

By: Category: Socialism

28 Aug 2021

0 Comments

American socialism: not what you think

You may have heard Republicans in Congress complain that the Democrats’ agenda is filled with frightening “socialist” policies.

We have socialism in this country, but these are not the policies of the Democrats. True socialism is well-being of companies.

Thousands of large U.S. corporations rake in billions each year in government grants, bailouts, and tax loopholes – all taxpayer-funded, and all of them contribute to the rise in stock prices for the richest 1% who own half the money. stock market, as well as CEOs and other senior executives who are paid largely in stocks.

Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Pharma, defense contractors, and big banks are the biggest beneficiaries of corporate welfare.

How? ‘Or’ What? Follow the money. These companies and their business groups spend hundreds of millions each year on lobbying and campaign contributions. Their influence peddling is paying. The return on these political investments is enormous. It is institutionalized corruption.

Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Pharma, defense contractors, and big banks are the biggest beneficiaries of corporate welfare.

An even more insidious example is that of companies failing to pay their employees a living wage. As a result, their workers must rely on programs like Medicaid, social housing, food stamps and other safety nets. Which means you, me, and other taxpayers are indirectly subsidizing these companies, allowing them to enjoy even higher earnings and stock prices for their wealthy investors and executives.

companies

Not only does corporate welfare take money away from us as taxpayers. It also hurts small businesses, which have a harder time competing with the larger businesses that get these grants. Everyone loses except those at the top.

It’s more socialism for the rich, hard capitalism for others.

It should be finished.

Robert reich

Republished with permission from Robert Reich’s blog.


Source link

By: Category: Socialism

23 Aug 2021

0 Comments

Capitalism makes you lonely

Loneliness is a global crisis. According to the UK campaign to end loneliness, 45% of adults “occasionally, sometimes or often feel alone in England”. In a 2019 poll, 22% of millennials said they had “no friends.” The World Health Organization has found that loneliness affects 20-34% of older people in places ranging from Europe to India to Latin America. Former US surgeon general Vivek Murthy called the problem an “epidemic” in 2017, even before the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdowns, which made the situation worse.

The problem with loneliness is not just emotional. A longitudinal study of nearly eighty years at Harvard University found that family, friendship, and community are the most decisive factors in human health and happiness.

“Taking care of your body is important, but taking care of your relationships is also a form of personal care,” said Dr. Robert Waldinger, study director and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

In a 2015 study, psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad found that loneliness is a risk factor for high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke, and depression. An oft-repeated fact from the study is that loneliness is as bad for you as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.

In view of this information, the loneliness crisis is particularly alarming.

Some blame social networks. In the early 2010s, I began to see articles circulating asking if spending time on Facebook, YouTube, and other sites was preventing people from maintaining their real friendships. While excessive use of social media can be harmful, moderate use can help people stay connected, especially during unique times like COVID-19 lockdowns. And there’s a bigger barrier to privacy, anyway: capitalism.

In a capitalist system, many people do not have time to see their families and maintain existing friendships – let alone create and maintain new ones. It is difficult to take the time to see people when, for example, you have multiple jobs (often with irregular working hours), you move around, take care of children and family members, and complete chores. basics like cooking, going to the grocery store and doing laundry, sometimes all at once. Social time is often necessarily pushed to the bottom of the to-do list. Public spaces in which to spend free or cheap social time are also increasingly rare, and when money is tight, the necessities come first. These factors mean that busy social life is increasingly reserved for those who can afford it.

There are, of course, many often touted ways to increase the time you spend socializing. You can improve your time management skills, set concrete dates to see people, and always follow up to reschedule when plans fail. You can meet new people by getting involved in a sport, religious group, or political organization. Some variations of “joining a club” are standard on the lists of ways to feel less lonely.

But these are individualized solutions to what is often a collective problem. The reality is that there are only a limited number of hours in a day, and for most people, most of those hours are taken up by some form of work, leaving little time – and less energy – for friendship. Years of cuts to municipal budgets have seen spaces like youth centers close at an alarming rate, leaving space for “clubs” increasingly tight.

Another problem relates to how capital flows have disrupted long-standing community ties. In rural towns and post-industrial towns, capital has fled. Young people from these places find themselves drawn to capitals like London or New York to find good jobs.

Moving to the big city doesn’t have to mean alienation. In fact, for many LGBT people, large urban centers remain places where they can seek true community for the first time. But mass exits tend to be alienating, both for those who leave and for those who stay.

In other cases, the disintegration of the community occurs in reverse. People who grew up in city centers are driven out by rising rents and are dispersing to cheaper places. They may meet new people in their new communities, but the bonds forged over years, decades and generations can never be replaced.

Beyond the problems of time and space, the extreme inequality makes it difficult to have real relationships. In The interior level, epidemiologists Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson write that humans respond strongly to the “threat of social assessment,” also known as fear of what others think. The higher the level of economic inequality, the more we fight for social status and worry about our position in the hierarchy. But healthy relationships require mutual vulnerability and trust: the exact opposite of these things.

If we want to have a less lonely society, we must put human needs – and human relationships – at the center. In the current system, that will not happen.


Source link

By: Category: Capitalism

23 Aug 2021

0 Comments

Extreme weather conditions, climate change and the case for socialism

The flood disaster in Humphreys County, Tennessee, over the weekend has so far killed at least 21 people, including two toddlers, and 45 others are still missing. The flash floods were the result of a storm that dropped 17 inches of rain over the area on Saturday night, possibly a new state record.

Firefighters work at the scene of a forest fire near the village of Kyuyorelyakh in the Gorny Ulus region, west of Yakutsk, Russia, on Thursday, August 5, 2021 (AP Photo / Ivan Nikiforov)

The first images show entire communities devastated, with dozens of homes simply gone as if a hurricane, tornado or wildfire had blown. Rescue efforts are currently underway by several agencies, including the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, the State Department of Transportation, the Tennessee National Guard, the Tennessee Highway Patrol, and the Tennessee Department of Health. .

The deadly floods in Tennessee, as well as those in Michigan, are not just natural disasters, however. As with forest fires, hurricanes and polar vortices, floods are becoming more frequent and “extreme weather” events more severe due to human-induced climate change. This causal relationship was definitively established by the most recent report of the United Nations Panel on Climate Change, which stated that “human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land”, which in turn are linked to “observed changes.” in extreme conditions such as heat waves, heavy rainfall, droughts and tropical cyclones.

The same report also directly linked climate change to specific recent events, including flooding across Europe, wildfires in the western United States, droughts in various parts of the world, and more powerful hurricanes. , such as Hurricane Henri that hit Rhode Island on Sunday and caused power outages across New England.

Other recent extreme weather events related to climate change include:

• A record-breaking heat wave in Greece that reached 116.8 degrees Fahrenheit and sparked several wildfires across the country that have so far killed 2 people, injured 20 others, burned down several homes and around 482 square miles , and forced the evacuation of thousands of people. Similar to the UN, the World Meteorological Organization has linked forest fires to the impacts of climate change and global warming.

• The mountains of Algeria’s Tizi Ouzou region have been burned by more than 100 forest fires in the past two weeks, with heat from the fires apparently sweeping through mountain ranges. Hundreds of square kilometers burned and the towns of Larbaâ Nath Irathen, Beni Douala and Aït Mesbah were reduced to ashes, causing more damage than all the fires from 2008 to 2020 combined. So far, 90 people have died fighting the flames.

• Forest fires in Bolivia burned more than 580 square miles of land in the Amazon and Chaco regions. The areas include large populations of indigenous South American peoples as well as a variety of plants and animals. The region is also one of the most important areas on the planet for capturing and storing carbon from the atmosphere, one of many natural processes that reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in free circulation.

• The largest forest fires on Earth are currently occurring in Siberia, where hundreds of fires have burned more than 62,300 square miles of land since the start of the year, an amount comparable to the catastrophic bushfire season. Australians 2019-2020. The fires were partly exacerbated by record high temperatures reaching 118 degrees Fahrenheit over the summer. Smoke from the fires blanketed the sky for 2,000 miles from east to west and 2,500 miles from north to south, reaching as far as Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, and for the first time to the Pole. North.

• Heavy rains in Turkey’s Black Sea region have caused flash floods which have so far killed at least 82 people. The deaths follow the July floods in Europe, in which more than 230 people were killed in Germany, Belgium, Romania, Italy and Austria. Other severe and fatal floods have occurred in China, the United States, India, Pakistan, Japan, Afghanistan and New Zealand, which have claimed thousands of lives and affected the lives of hundreds of millions. of people.

Another indication of global climate change, rain fell on the summit of Greenland on Saturday for the first time since the records began. Temperatures exceeded freezing for the third time in less than a decade, allowing abnormal precipitation to occur. The rain follows a significant melt in July, when more than 8.5 billion tonnes of surface ice melted in a single day. This rate of melt is similar to what happened in 2019, when a hot spring and heat wave in July caused Greenland to lose 532 billion tonnes of ice in a single year, causing the level to rise permanently. from the sea of ​​1.5 millimeters.

Many other indicators of the dangers posed by climate change could be mentioned. As the geographic extent of the above examples indicates, there is no country that does not experience the deleterious effects of extreme weather events caused by climate change.

The scale of the disasters also exposes the bankruptcy of capitalism and its complete inability to face the ongoing climate crisis in any meaningful way.

In a 1982 internal memo that was “circulated widely to Exxon’s management,” it was made clear that global temperatures would rise sharply as more CO2 was released into the atmosphere. The memo at the time predicted an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases and global temperatures seen today and also predicted that global temperatures would exceed an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius by the middle of this century and 2 degrees. Celsius around 2060.

Similar reports had been presented to the administrations of Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican Ronald Reagan, who warned in the 1980s that the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to the burning of greenhouse gases and the resulting increase in global temperatures would eventually lead to catastrophic environmental consequences. for the world’s population, such as melting glaciers, rising sea levels and entire coastal regions submerged by tens of meters of water.

More recently, the 2017 Carbon Majors report showed that only 100 companies globally now produce around 90% of all global greenhouse gas emissions each year and are responsible for around half of all greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse effect caused by human activity since the industrial revolution. This same presentation also noted that if the trend towards the extraction and release of fossil fuels continued over the next quarter century, global average temperatures would be on track to reach an increase of 4 degrees Celsius by now. 2100.

Such a rise in global temperatures, for which the world is currently on the right track, would only be the precursors of much more devastating storms, longer heat waves, drier droughts and incessant forest fires. Along with rising sea levels and the drowning of every coastal city on the planet, coral reefs around the world would likely die, wiping out a cornerstone in the food chain and threatening survivors of massive famine floods. .

There is also the growing danger that Earth’s climate will enter a qualitatively different stage, one where the positive feedback effects of the current stage of global warming will ultimately decouple Earth’s climate from human industrial activity. Under these conditions, other geophysical processes such as the massive release of methane from melting permafrost threaten to warm the planet much more than even the burning of fossil fuels allows. Such a scenario would be exponentially more difficult to contain for modern scientific techniques.

For the capitalist class, however, stopping the cataclysms ending civilization is far less important than preserving their profits. As has been the case for decades, ExxonMobil, BP and other major fossil fuel companies, as well as the hedge funds and Wall Street banks that own their shares, are very concerned that coal, Oil and gas continue to be mined and sold to enriching others as well as their fellow oligarchs. If the Earth will be poisoned and burned in this pursuit, so be it.

A parallel must be drawn with the coronavirus pandemic. Just as politicians and media figures around the world have ignored or actively sought to stimulate deadly contagion to protect corporate profits, killing at least 4.4 million, they are actively behind the destruction of the world. ‘environment. The objective need to increase the rate of profit results in the acceleration of the exploitation of the world’s resources and has directly led to current (and future) ecological catastrophes.

Workers and young people must learn the lessons of the persistent inaction that is at the root of the current crisis. The fight to stop climate change, like the fight against the pandemic and the threat of war, must become political. It requires the revolutionary mobilization of the international working class against capitalism. It demands that workers understand that their social interests are objectively and diametrically opposed to those of the capitalists and private ownership of the means of production. It requires a fight for the socialist transformation of society.


Source link

By: Category: Socialism
1 2 3 4 5