A Future That Works

A Future That Works
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Saturday 20 August 2011

The natural, feral enemies of equality

The natural, feral enemies of equality

‘‘We live in a society where capitalism itself has become rampantly feral’’

‘‘Feral politicians cheat on their expenses, feral bankers plunder the public purse for all its worth, CEOs, hedge fund operators and private equity geniuses loot the world of wealth, telephone and credit card companies load mysterious charges on everyone's bills.’’

‘‘A political economy of mass dispossession, of predatory practices to the point of daylight robbery, particularly of the poor and the vulnerable, the unsophisticated and the legally unprotected, has become the order of the day.’’

‘‘Does anyone believe it is possible to find an honest capitalist, an honest banker, an honest politician, an honest shopkeeper or an honest police commissioner any more? Yes, they do exist. But only as a minority that everyone else regards as stupid.’’

(David Harvey Economist and Geographer 2011)

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/108465

15 comments:

  1. As David Harvey says ‘‘Thatcherism unchained the feral instincts of capitalism’’ as ‘‘Slash and burn is now openly the motto of the ruling classes’’, capitalism should be put on trial for crimes against humanity as well as for crimes against nature. So why are we so surprised if the disaffected and alienated youth of Britain from its poorest areas have turned feral as the Daily Mail puts it.

    They are following the example set by the elite in capitalist society; take what you can and ‘‘sod everyone else’’ this is what Darwinian conservatives would call the natural ‘‘no such thing as society just the individual’’ to quote Maggie Thatcher. Maybe if I can use another Thatcher term, I guess the elite of society are ‘‘Frit’’ at what the underclass response to thirty years of neo-liberal economics has been.

    Tessa May Secretary of State for the Tory/Liberal coalition government’s answer is to turn on the water cannons, call in the tear gas and use the rubber bullets when the problem is that we live in a society where capitalism itself has become rampantly feral and when the poor turn feral the response is a neo-conservative authoritarian state.

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  2. Order prevails in London, Manchester and Birmingham - even in Gloucester.

    A mother of two is sentenced to five months' imprisonment for receiving a stolen pair of shorts.

    An 18-year-old in Warrington gets four years for putting up a foolish Facebook page before taking it down with an apology when he sobered up.

    Six months for stealing a £3.50 bottle of water in Brixton. No bail, even for those of "previous good character."

    A mother faces eviction from her home, with her two young children, because she could not control her 17-year-old son. If only she could have afforded a nanny!

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  3. As Andrew Murray says in the Morning Star ‘‘natural enemies of equality “are still in charge.

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  4. The statistical average wage in Britain is about £19,600 a year (£376.92 a week) but of course most people are on a lot less than the average because of the few on huge salaries pushing up the median. If you take a person at random and ask their income will be between £200 and £300 a week or between 53% and 79% the average salary. This is the real wage of an average worker in Britain, even before we start to talk about the unemployed, sick and disabled on benefits.

    What’s the average salary of a CEO? The Royal Bank of Scotland top executive gets £1.8 million basic salary plus £4.2 million equals £6 million (£115384.61 a week), the chief executive of the NHS has a basic salary of £211,149 (4060.55 a week) plus about £55,000 (£1057.69 a week) towards rent on a flat in London and the cabinet secretary gets about £240,000 (£4615.38 a week), the director general of IT at the Department for Work and Pensions gets about £245,000 (£4711.54 a week)

    Chief executives of the top 100 companies in Britain have an average annual income of £3.7million (£71153.85 a week) 189 that of someone on the statistical average of £19,600 a year (£376.92 a week) and 356 times that of someone on £10,400 (£200 a week) and 1054 times the JSA for the unemployed which is £67.50 a week for the over 25’s, 1331 times the £53.45 for the 16 to 24 year old and 755 to 713 times the ESA which is from £94.25 to £99.85 for the sick and disabled.

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  5. Add to this the fact that globally over a 1 billion people live on less than $1 a day and more than 2 billion live on less than $2 a day, 9.2 million children under the age of 5 die each year, mostly from preventable diseases, 925 million people do not have enough to eat. Yet the world produces enough food to feed everyone. Agriculture produces enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day.

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  6. Is there still the need for socialism that there was a hundred years ago?

    The World Bank has estimated that there were an estimated 1,345 million poor people in developing countries who live on $1.25 a day or less. The principal cause of poverty and hunger is the capitalist economic and political systems. Control of global resources and income is based on military, political and economic power in the hands of capitalist elite who enjoy obscene wealth whilst the majority of the world’s population can barely survive.

    the answer is definitely a YES so the question should be how?

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  7. which brings us back to What Is To Be Done? and It’s time for the Marxist Left to show both theoretical and concrete leadership.

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  8. Socialism or Barbarism?

    Capitalism is economically, socially and politically bankrupt, as a system, it’s no longer a progressive force in human development. Its purpose is purely to maximize profits for the capitalist elite that owns and controls industry and commerce.

    Billions of people around the world live in poverty, without access to education, medical services or sanitation. Whole populations starve while in other parts of the world food is destroyed. Environmental destruction goes unchecked and business fails to cut carbon emissions, depletes finite resources and refuses to invest in safe, renewable energy.

    Production is privately owned by capitalists and run for the maximum possible profit. But the interests of working people to maximise wages and improve living standards are diametrically opposed to this. This means that capitalist society is always divided between the capitalist class and the working class.

    Capitalism's drive to produce more and more commodities is the source of its cyclical crises as workers must who buy most of the goods and services have the real value of their wages cut to maximise profit and therefore cannot afford to buy those goods and services at prices that sustain profit for the capitalist classes and productions cut. Workers are laid off, demand falls and the economy goes into recession.

    The deepening crisis of global finance capital has made working people aware of the inhuman nature of capitalism. People are realising that the economy can and must be run for the benefit of all, not for the few and a realization that the liberating potential of new technology can enhance life rather than being used for war and oppression.

    What Is To Be Done?

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  9. The Communist Party of Britain will soon be launching the latest version of Britain’s Road to Socialism, which hopefully will address the current crisis of capitalism and a viable strategy for not just resisting the neo-liberal economic and neo-conservative political agenda of the capitalist elite. But will also a program of how to put progressive theories and practice back on the economic and political agenda for the people of Britain, Europe and globally.

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  10. What Is To Be Done? First we need to unite the broad left against the Tory/Liberal coalition government in Britain, but if we are to succeed in the fightback there will need to be a united front with the European Left as well as the left in Britain. For this reason anyone on the left Marxist or non-Marxist cannot afford to ignore the Fightback against Austerity – Organise across Europe conference being held on the first of October 2011.

    Britain's Road to Socialism calls for the withdrawal from the European Union as part of its program for socialism in Britain. Whilst this may be its long term objective the fact that Britain is unlikely to withdraw from the EU under a Tory, Liberal-Democrat or a centre-right Labour government lead by the current party elites its necessary for the broad left in Britain to be a part of the Europe fightback against the neo-liberal economic system that has been adopted by the EU over the last decade particularly since the Lisbon Treaty of 2008.

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  11. The model of welfare capitalism that has existed across Europe since 1945 has been abandoned not just by the conservative parties but also the social-democratic parties of the EU. The British Labour Party was the first of the social-democratic parties to break with the Keynesian model of welfare capitalism but has since been followed by most of the centre-left parties over the last decade. This means that we can no longer rely on parties such as the Labour Party or its counterparts across Europe to defend the principles behind welfare capitalism.

    Since the mid-1970’s the capitalist elite of Britain and the USA mounted an ideological offensive against the social-democratic compromise between capital and labour which culminating with the election of Margaret Thatcher and Ronal Reagan at the end of the 1970’s. We now see Europe dominated by centre-right governments with the same neo-liberal economic and neo-conservative political objectives.

    For this reason the Communist Party of Britain’s latest version of Britain’s Road to Socialism will need to acknowledge the current political reality and that whilst withdrawal from the EU may be its long term objective, the immediate fightback requires the party to work with other communist parties and left-wing organizations in other EU member countries as a part of international resistance as a part of an international resistance to anti-working class actions by the EU and to consider participation in EU elections in this light and to promote trade union solidarity at the European and international level.

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  12. Britain and the Europe Left in London on Saturday 1st of October 2011

    http://www.europeagainstausterity.org/

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  13. there is an alternative to feral capitalism, the fight back starts here

    http://www.europeagainstausterity.org/

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  14. As John Foster international secretary of the Communist Party of Britain argues in a Morning Star newspaper article

    ‘‘change is possible and that the first step is to recognise the role of the capitalist state and analyse how it works concretely in present conditions’’

    Britain’s Road to Socialism

    ‘‘argues that socialist change can only be permanently secured by dismantling the capitalist state apparatus and replacing it through the collective power of the working class. In the meantime, however, it insists that more limited advances can be secured in face of capitalist state power’’

    The first step is that an elected left-wing government drawing on the extra-parliamentary force of a mobilised working class to carry forward its democratic mandate

    The second being the combined economic and political power of the working class exercised strategically against the capitalist state. The capitalist state operates on behalf of a small segment of the capitalist class and against the interests of the rest.

    Super-profits are increasingly extracted directly through the financial sector by diverting resources towards international speculation, the global capitalist system is imperialist and increasingly anti-democratic in character.

    This is why I argue that the British Left has no viable choice but to be a part of the European Left if it’s to have any prospect of succeeding in the fightback against monopoly capital and the forces of global capitalism.

    Marxists have always been internationalist and today it’s even more true than in Lenin’s day that socialism will only succeed against capitalism in its imperialist phase if we act as internationalists rather than as socialists acting purely within the nation state.

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  15. For the British Left this will mean communists and socialist Marxists working together with left-leaning non-Marxist social-democrats to secure a left-wing Labour government combining the economic and political power of the labour movement strategically to exploit the weakness of the capitalist state and the crisis of global finance capital.

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