Letter: What about overpopulation? (2020)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

What about overpopulation?

A reader has asked us about overpopulation, commenting that socialism ‘might be easier with a reduced population’.

It is true that socialism would be a lot easier to implement and operate with less people to provide for. But if wishes were horses, all beggars would ride, as the old saying goes.

The reality is that globally the population is growing and the question is, can it be reduced? The stark answer is no – even if fertility rates were lowered. The number of people in a country continues to rise for years after people stop having children– a phenomenon known as population momentum.

Thus, the projection is that global population will go from approaching 8 billion today to about 11 billion in around year 2100 then plateauing and then finally begin to drop back to about what it is today.

So socialists fully expect and are required to plan for an increased number of people, something that we cannot avoid regardless of any family planning which is already being increasingly adopted without any compulsion by better educated and more empowered women, even in patriarchal dominated cultures.

Our argument is that with rational allocation of resources that should not be a problem and that free access can still be accomplished. We do have the capability of comfortably coping and still create a sustainable steady-state zero-growth economy eventually.

This is not to say that it will not be a critical crisis for capitalism and is in fact another reason why for the sake of humanity it must be done away with.

Along with a population rise we also have the related issues that will arise in the future.

Firstly, the demographic problem of higher numbers of elderly with less adults of working-age to support them. China’s one-child policy resulted in what was called the 1 – 2 – 4 paradox. One active worker supporting retired parents and because of better health prospects his or her grand-parents. Such family support is essential in countries lacking social safety-nets for the old and frail.

We also have the situation of urbanisation and over-crowding in slums and shanty towns of some major cities as the industrialised plantation-type cash-crop farming leads to the end of the small-farmers. (To be exacerbated by climate change in many areas of the world)

And thirdly, we have the nationalist prejudice against the movement and migration of people. We witness this right now. The youth of Africa thwarted by lack of prospects seek opportunities in Europe where there is already a declining work-force that requires an influx of newcomers. But rather than be welcomed, they are being excluded.

Socialists cannot deny these conditions result in suffering and misery for as long as we live under capitalism. But we challenge the view that solutions cannot be achieved with the establishment of a cooperative society. In fact, only socialism can overcome them.

ALJO

May Day Message repost (2025)

Cross-posted from the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

The following May Day message was originally posted on the Socialism or Your Money Back blog in 2016. It was originally posted by Alan Johnstone ('ALJO' in the Standard), and the article was probably written by Alan.  The SOYMB blog reposted it today. 

"Arise ye prisoners of starvation, Arise ye wretched of the earth."

May Day inspires fear in the hearts of the capitalists and hope in the workers the world over. Why do they fear the worker's holiday? What are they afraid of? May Days have come and gone yet each and every year they are a sign of what rulers’ fear: the fear of general strikes, of political revolt, of workers’ uprisings, of the militancy of workers. 

Eugene V. Debs wrote: "This is the first and only International Labor Day. It belongs to the working class and is dedicated to the Revolution."  

Our May Day is actually the only holiday celebrated internationally. It obliterates all differences of race, creed, colour, and nationality. It celebrates the brotherhood of all workers everywhere. It crosses all national boundaries, it transcends all language barriers, it ignores all religious differences. It makes clear the difference between all workers and all employers. It is the day when the class struggle is reaffirmed by every conscious worker. 

May Day is the portent of a new world, a classless world, a peaceful world, a world without poverty or misery. A world of abundance. It is the promise of socialism, the real brotherhood of mankind. May Day is a warning to the capitalist class, “Do your damnedest to us but your days are numbered!” May Day proclaims that there is but one race – the human race! 

May Day says the future is ours. More than any other group, the working class suffers from war; and only the working class, in all its strength, can win the struggle for peace. Workers march for freedom from deprivation on May Day. Workers march for equality on this May Day. 

On May Day, workers march shoulder to shoulder, in solidarity, black, brown and white — for democracy and social justice. Workers call for unity of all workers. 

May Day is a time for casting away illusions and preparing for the struggle. It is a time for the working class to heighten its vigilance against its enemies. It is a time to unite real friends to defeat our real enemies.

May Day is not simply a time of celebration of our class. World events serve to remind us that this is also a solemn occasion, a time when we bow our heads in respect for our fellow workers and brothers and sisters who have fallen. On May Day, we remember that the workers’ flag is red for a reason as our traditional labour song goes:

“The people's flag is deepest red,

It shrouded oft our martyred dead,

And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,

Their hearts' blood dyed its ev'ry fold.”

Not all those who wave the red flag or claim to speak for the working class actually do. Rather than overthrowing the capitalists, they argued that labor should try to win friends among the capitalist politicians and support one faction against another. For sure, over the past decades the ruling class has made a considerable number of concessions. But what are these gains, really? If you consider the wealth that the working people have produced, when you consider the power and potential for an abundance of the productive forces that the workers themselves have created, then these reforms are shown up for what they really are. They are nothing but crumbs, scraps left over from the table after the capitalists have had their feast.

Our May Day is the day of solidarity.

“Arise, ye prisoners of starvation.” 

May Day is the day of the working class, the class that has borne untold sufferings and has nothing, nothing to lose but its chains.

“Arise, ye wretched of the earth.”

May Day is the day of the exploited, here and around the globe. You have been despised and spat upon by capital, but now the road to your liberation is clear.

“The earth shall rise on new foundations, we have been naught, we shall be all.” 

May Day, is when we pledge to break the power of capital and declare war against these bloodsucking leeches. Their time is over, their days are numbered.

“Tis the final conflict, let each stand in his place. The Internationale shall be the human race.”

The Socialist Party cannot be bribed or bought, nor can we be diverted from our struggle in the defence of workers and oppressed people of the world. The Socialist Party advocates a class war that will only end with the complete emancipation of the working class and the total defeat of the capitalist class. In the revolutionary class war to rid the world of the evils of capitalism you will find us ready to volunteer to fight with all our hearts and souls. 

Alan Johnstone (2024)

From the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Readers will have noticed that there have been no articles for a while from ALJO who wrote the Material World column and was a prolific contributor to our blog. We ourselves have not heard from him in Thailand for well over a year.

Alan joined the Edinburgh Branch in 1970 while a teenager and rejoined in 2003. Before his retirement he worked for Royal Mail and was an active member of the Communication Workers Union.

If anyone has any information about him or his whereabouts could they please get in touch with us.

Material World: Pillaged and plundered for green capitalism (2022)

The Material World column from the December 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

COP27 in Egypt is done and dusted, promises doomed to be disappointments much to the dismay of the eternal optimists in the ecology movement. However, there are deeper problems for those who seek a new sustainable future of renewable energy.

Many have yet to come to understand that for new technologies to act as substitutes for fossil fuel, lithium, cobalt and other rare metals and minerals that you have never heard of are required. Transitioning to clean energy will lead to a huge expansion in mining for them. The World Bank estimates an additional 3 billion tons of minerals and metals will be needed for wind, solar and geothermal power generation and energy storage.

White Gold

‘Lithium and rare earths are already replacing gas and oil at the heart of our economy… So we have to avoid falling into the same dependency as with oil and gas’, explained European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen (bit.ly/3Ulz1i5).

On 14 September, she announced the European Critical Raw Materials Act, aimed at securing a sustainable supply of critical raw materials for Europe to lessen its dependency on other suppliers

With just five countries controlling 90 percent of world lithium production, the International Energy Agency calls it a ‘quasi-monopoly’ situation.

Since 2015, production volumes of lithium, known as ‘white gold’, have tripled worldwide, reaching 100,000 tonnes per year in 2021, and expected to increase sevenfold by 2030. At the European level, about 35 times more lithium will be needed in 2050 than today. A single electric vehicle battery requires 63 kilograms of lithium carbonate, so 16 vehicles need just over a metric ton.

Olivier Vidal, a geologist and director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said ‘This will certainly create tensions in the coming years, with expected increases in costs and, possibly, supply difficulties. So, there is a real strategic and sovereignty issue for states’ (bit.ly/3sSjGtI).

Mining projects often face public protest. Lithium extraction ‘produces considerable volumes of waste that must then be stored. The waste can also lead to water or air pollution,’ explained Vidal. Today, this pollution already exists, but in other countries, far from our eyes.

Dirty Cobalt

Cobalt’s use in electronic semiconductors, circuits and lithium-ion rechargeable batteries makes it critical to the global economy and ‘green’ technology. Besides renewable energy storage, cobalt is used in powerful magnets found in wind turbines and as an additive to improve biogas production.

Whereas a phone contains just thousandths of a gram of cobalt, an electric vehicle battery has pounds of the metal. Tesla’s ambition to produce 20 million electric vehicles a year in 2030 will require two times the present global annual supply.

The Congo is referred to as ‘the Saudi Arabia of cobalt’ as it supplies almost three quarters of the world’s cobalt from often hazardous, and exploitative working conditions akin to modern slavery, involving forced labour, debt bondage, human trafficking and child labour.

Those who promote renewable energy technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines and electric batteries risk damaging ecosystems and harming local communities in the extraction of raw materials. Hopes of a low-carbon economy may well replicate the destruction of the environment caused by the fossil-fuel industry. The threat of resource wars does not disappear. It has already been suggested that the 2019 coup overthrowing Bolivia’s former president, Evo Morales, was motivated by competition between countries for its lithium supplies.

Do these problems lead to the conclusion that socialism will fail to be sustainable? An alternative, described as ‘green lithium’ exists. Unlike extraction from rocks or salt deserts, which function like traditional mines, ‘green lithium is produced from geothermal sources, with an extraction method similar to that of a well. However, the technique presently remains too expensive to be considered at a commercial level(bbc.in/3SRSAND).

Also, since lithium batteries are a relatively new development, recycling is not keeping pace yet. But by 2035, electric vehicle batteries will be coming to the end of their life and therefore will be recycled. According to the studies, 40 to 75 percent of the EU’s lithium needs could be met through recycling by 2050 reducing environmental damage.

All this means that rivalry between capitalists and countries for control of the source and deposits of those elements will continue unabated. Mining corporations will carry on looting the land, with the customary civil strife and proxy wars taking place. Our message to those aspiring to a new green future is that nothing changes if the system doesn’t change, too.

ALJO

The postal workers’ strike (2007)

From the November 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

A postal worker reflects on the recent series of strikes.

The Royal Mail kept changing the goal posts. What originally started about a pay rise and impending redundancy plans, then involved the fight over pension entitlements and the right to retire at 60 years of age, became, for the Royal Mail mandarins, a campaign to end what they described as “Spanish practices”  – a racist epithet that is insulting to the many hundreds of Spanish who work in Royal Mail – and a demand for total flexibility at work.

What just was the “employers agenda”, to use a term from the last big postal dispute and eventual agreement of the mid-90s which was supposedly the “way forward” for the business? Was there a hidden motive behind the intransigence of  Leighton and Crozier that provoked the strike? It is not as if the CWU hasn’t a history of compromise or reached deals that often favour management over its own members interests to protect the industry’s viability. We have always got to try and look at the bigger picture, which only the bosses and government have the blueprint of, and see beyond the fragmentary glimpses of their real objectives through the fog of battle.

For the worker, it is the money they take home and the amount of work that they must do to earn it that is foremost in their mind, and – let’s not hide from the reality – it is to get the most for doing the least. However, for management, it is the entire opposite. They endeavour to extract the most work out of its workforce at the most minimum of cost. The inevitable class struggle, in other words.

This was the postal dispute, a conflict between worker and boss. And it was management who were the aggressor in the dispute, with:

• Executive action on their pension proposal cuts
• Executive action through the imposition of later starting times
• Executive action through the imposition of network changes
• Executive action through the ending of Sunday Collections
• Executive action against Engineers, the net effect of which will mean a reduction of 10% of posts.
• Executive action through the cessation of Employee Share of Savings Scheme (ESOS).

Postal workers. who had withdrawn their labour, offered to return to work for an increase in pay and more talks over working procedures, but the managers initially refused this offer. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Business told the workers to accept the management’s terms, while the High Court has  ruled one week’s planned strike unlawful.

The Union wanted the issue of pensions removed from the pay deal as it is a Group-wide issue, not just for the postal grades. Royal Mail wanted union support to roll out new technology programme. The CWU said they would agree on the basis that there is a share for workers of any savings made. On a later start, the union said they would accept the principle but that each office should be able to maintain earlier starts if arrival patterns justify it. Isn’t that flexibility? Certainly not the Luddite response against modernisation that Royal Mail’s PR message endeavour to convey to the general public. It was on this basis that a settlement was negotiated.

What about the question of whether Royal Mail and/or the government possess a secret plan? With a union keen to broker a deal, as they have always done before, but with a management that kept switching the issues it may not be too paranoid of postal workers to believe that such a plan exists. Nor are they the only ones.

“…the DTI, the department responsible for this huge national asset [Royal Mail] , has officials deployed full-time looking at alternative forms of ownership. Regular talks have been held with investment bankers, Royal Mail executives and Richard Gillingwater, head of the Shareholder Executive, which looks after the state’s business interests… officials from the DTI have also held deeply hush-hush meetings with Royal Mail executives that have reached the point of discussing the detail of potential changes in ownership, not just the theory…” (Mail on Sunday, 22 August 2004).

A partial flotation of Royal Mail would raise anything between £4 billion and £6 billion if a buyer could be found – a buyer who would like to inherit a low cost and compliant work force with a new more limited pension fund liability – a business with a defeated trade union and demoralised membership.

As socialists, we shed no tears that this state-owned company may become privatised. Only those like Lenin who believed socialism, as he put in State and Revolution, means to “To organize the whole economy on the lines of the postal service” after the example of Bismarck’s Germany, remain under the misconception that it matters.

Regardless of ownership, the necessity for postal workers to organise within their industry and resist the attacks of their employers will continue and to which socialists will offer their support and solidarity , whether it is against the likes of Leighton and Crozier, appointees of the State, or against some rival mail company take-over, or a possible future Private Equity buy-out baron. The class war will only cease when capitalism and the wages system ends.

ALJO

Material World: ‘Too old to work, too young to die’ (2020)

The Material World Column from the November 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

People are living a lot longer which should be good news but not so under capitalism. Ageing populations are viewed as a threat to prosperity, rather than a sign of human achievement and progress.

With a lower fertility rate (see last month’s article), the ageing of the population is inevitable. For the first time in history, the number of people aged 65 years and over will exceed the number of children under 5. With the ‘greying’ of the world’s population, governments are struggling to support the elderly.  As long as women are not willing to return to being baby-breeders to counter-act the trend, by 2030 there will be one billion more older people, accounting for 13 percent of the total population.

 While some of the developed nations are raising the age of retirement, making their old people work for longer, the increased longevity and the growing proportion of elderly are raising serious economic concerns. In particular, population ageing is resulting in growing financial stresses on retirement pensions, health systems and social care programmes. Reluctant to raise taxes on the capitalists, the state attempts to address the mounting costs by largely adjusting benefits, contribution rates, savings plans and raising the age of retirement. But socialists possess a greater vision: that we shouldn’t be aiming to extend the domain of work into old age, but to extend the domain of non-work into young age.

The current pension problems in the advanced capitalist countries will pale into insignificance compared with what is coming for the rest of the world  that has no welfare system, where the ratio of elderly people will rise faster than in the industrialised world, casting vastly more numbers of their old folk into poverty. An indication of the rate of this ‘population ageing’ is the time it takes for the proportion of people over a retirement age of 65 to double from 7 percent of the overall population to 14 percent. In France this process took more than a century. In China, it is projected to take less than a quarter of that time, perhaps just 25 years. In Vietnam ‘population ageing’ is set to rise even faster with the proportion of elderly projected to double over a mere 17-year period.

Centenarians represent a small fraction of the world’s current population of 7.3 billion, about one centenarian out of every 16,000 people. Over the coming decades, however, this rate is expected to increase rapidly and by the close of century is projected to reach one centenarian out of every 425 people. Other studies have been more optimistic about the chances of becoming a centenarian, estimating that more half of the babies in advanced industrialised nations can expect to live 100 years. Bringing more women into the workforce and lengthening the working years of older workers may well not be sufficient to solve the demographic problem. The other alternatives will be to increase productivity either by automation or with more immigration.

Many believe robotics can help a country overcome the handicap of a fast-ageing population and a declining workforce. The source of all unearned income is what Marx called the surplus value produced by workers over and above what they are paid. It is out of this unpaid labour that not only the rich but the whole non-productive superstructure of capitalist society (the armed forces, civil service, legal system, banking) has to be maintained. What allows capitalism to maintain an enormous non-productive sector is its high level of productivity in the productive sector. Pensioners too are maintained out of this surplus. Pensions are a transfer payment from the profits of the capitalists, even if ultimately these profits come from what workers produce. It is the increasing productivity that will determine how well society will be able to support the expected increased proportion of retired people in the population.

The data make the case that there requires a general increase in immigration. Migration can offset many of the adverse effects of an ageing population on the labour market, with the average age of migrants being lower than the host population. Immigration is a sensitive issue in numerous countries. Paradoxically, those countries facing dropping birth rates and increased ageing, are opposed to immigration. In addition to rising public opinion opposing immigration, many governments are tightening border controls, erecting fences and walls, adopting policies to significantly restrict immigration. And it’s not just about the numbers – migrants bring new ideas and a new dynamism to a society’s culture.

The Socialist Standard could fill its pages with articles about the appalling care given to the aged and infirm under capitalism today. Many charities strive to improve conditions for the elderly but ultimately they will fail because they try to reform capitalism instead of changing it. When workers decide to abolish the wages system and produce for human needs instead of profit, then hardship and insecurity in old age could become a memory of capitalism’s barbaric past. Join us and help to build a new system of society where young and old can live out their lives with respect and dignity in a world where the true meaning of community prevails. Socialism will abolish the concept of retirement and fulfil the promise of a world providing all the prerequisites of a good life, regardless of age or physical ability.

ALJO

US elections: The lesser-evil fallacy (2020)

From the October 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

As the American presidential election draws closer, progressives such as Noam Chomsky are making their message to vote Biden very much more vocal, declaring Trump is so demented and deranged that a president already displaying symptoms of senility and dementia is preferable and so working people must ignore Biden’s ignominious past record. Unlike 2016, there is now no debate whatsoever about who the lesser evil is. The claim is not that the Republican Party and the Democratic Party has actually converged into one on many issues (even if not identical) and that they share so many policies that the choice is between Tweedledum and Tweedledumber.

Our principle is to abstain from voting for either evil and offer neither a mandate to rule. Working people are required to register their rejection of capitalist candidates. Both Trump and Biden are staunch champions of the capitalist system and apologists for Wall Street and the Pentagon. November’s election is a contest about who will preside over the ‘executive committee of the ruling class’.

The lesser-evil argument is rampant these days. Biden is presented as an ally of African-Americans and other minorities. Trump is depicted as the authoritarian autocrat, suppressing liberties and repressing resistance. The working class should not support either of the presidential candidates this year, as neither represents the interests of the working people of the United States. Both would continue the assault on the living standards of working people, to boost corporate profits by cutting social services and take back reforms won through hard struggle over the past years. The working class should reject the ‘Big Business’ candidates and their shared programs of economic austerity and war preparations. There is no such thing as a meaningful choice when it is to pick between cholera and typhoid.

The lesser-evil fallacy serves only to keep the voter chained to the duopoly political system and its two parties. Voting in this election will only hold back the process of forging an independent workers’ movement. Workers have had the lesser-evil strategy for many decades and bitter experience indicates that it hasn’t worked, and even less chance than ever will it succeed today.

Biden is not opposed to capitalism but out to save capitalism from Trump. His campaign is not based in the working class or on any working-class struggle but upon an imaginary gentler, kinder capitalism. As a politician Biden adopted blatant anti-working-class policies that should shame and condemn any ‘socialist’ endorsing him. Biden may not be as openly racist as Trump yet he has a history of flirting with segregationists and he has shared with the right wing similar positions on immigration, law and order and foreign policy.

Not voting in the presidential election is not a matter of principle for socialists. The working class can use the electoral process as part of its struggle for socialism to assume political power and capture the institutional machinery of the state. The Socialist Party holds that there is nothing more dangerous for our fellow-workers than endorsing a class enemy. As genuine socialists we want the working class to become conscious of itself and realise its power to change society. It is the working class versus the capitalist class. Socialism cannot be achieved by electing capitalist candidates but rather by fighting capitalists collectively.

Socialism seeks to eradicate the basic causes for war, poverty and environmental damage which it knows are the products of capitalism. No matter the outcome of the election, no matter who wins, the continued existence of capitalism is assured, none of the consequences of the profit system will be abolished. The Socialist Party stands for socialism now and not later through any electoral bargaining with our class foe. The purpose of the Socialist Party is to promote socialist consciousness and organisation and that will not be accomplished by entering into alliances with any capitalist politician. Biden is not a lesser evil, despite the pronouncements of liberals such as Chomsky and others. Any person who does not tell this truth isn’t worthy of the name of socialist. There is only one party in the USA that expresses the interests of our American fellow-workers and that is the World Socialist Party of the United States.

ALJO

Blogger's Note:

Chomsky has replied to the criticism of him in this article:

“ Some truth to it, but wrongly put. I’ve never adopted the curious new concept of “lesser evil voting” and have argued strenuously that even raising the notion, as is done here, is a sellout to the establishment. For the left, politics is activism, daily. Every once in a while an event comes along called an “election.” A genuine leftist asks whether some candidate is so awful that it’s worth taking a few minutes to vote against them, and if it is, does so, and the goes back to work.” (10/01/2020)

Material World: Hair is big money (2020)

The Material World Column from the October 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Long luxuriant hair has long been associated with femininity and beauty in many cultures. It is described as a woman’s crowning glory. The rising demand for human hair means more and more suppliers and many from dubious sources. The lucrative extension industry is booming worth billions of dollars a year. Human hair is a commodity. Hair is big money. The global hair wigs and extension market is estimated to reach revenues of more than $10 billion by 2023. In 2016, imports to the US alone were a business of almost $700 million. Synthetic hair, although natural looking is not as versatile in that it cannot be heat-styled, curled or straightened. Perhaps the synthetic hair technology will eventually catch up and make fake hair indistinguishable from the real thing but for now a good quality wig made of human hair sells for thousands of dollars in the United States, and hair extensions made of real hair can sell for several hundred or thousand dollars.

It is not the intent of this article to shame anyone for wearing wigs and extensions; the ability to transform yourself through one’s hair can be positive and empowering. We all know a friend who suffers from alopecia or undergoing cancer treatment causing loss of hair and the psychological pain felt.

That being said, it is important to consider who is providing the product. Hair extensions and weaves have now become a must-have fashion accessory and stories of unethical practices abound in the developing and undeveloped countries. Much of the hair on sale comes from small agents who tour villages and small towns in Asia, South America, and eastern Europe, offering poverty-stricken women small payments to part with their hair. It’s an unregulated industry built on exploitation. There are reports of husbands or partners coercing women into selling their hair. But one source is from Hindu temples, and those in institutions like orphanages or prisons. The human hair imported is not classed as a body part so it is exempt from regulations. It’s nearly impossible to determine whether it’s been willingly donated or not. Those who market the hair insist it is a consensual commercial transaction between hair gatherers and the females who want to sell their hair.

Hair harvested is disinfected, steamed, boiled, dyed and sewn. Each step further erases any traces of its original owner. Salon clients care about the price; they don’t care about the origin, they don’t want to think about the women who grew their hair and had it shorn that led to it landing on their head. Few customers wish to question the supply chain and the dealers are reluctant to reveal how they acquired the hair. It is the price that counts. Hair is now just another luxury item like make–up or expensive clothes. The desire for long, thick hair is a lot stronger than any sense of guilt.

One well-known source of hair is Indian women. At Hindu temples they will have their heads shaved as part of a sacred ritual called tonsuring, a sign of religious devotion and humility. The temples then sell the shorn to traders who will then process and ship it all over the world. Indian temples are said to make more than several millions a year in hair sales.

However, US Customs and Border Protection have seized consignments of tons of hair suspected to have come from interned Uighurs in the Xinjiang province of China.

‘When companies are buying goods because they seem like they’re lower price, a really great deal, I would recommend that they really look into why the goods are such a great deal,’ said Ana Hinojosa with US Customs and Border Protection.

‘For a long time, the presumption about goods coming into the US, was that they weren’t made with forced labor,’ said Sophie Richardson with Human Rights Watch. Now the presumption about goods coming to us from Xinjiang is that they have been made with forced labor, and it’s up to the companies to prove that they weren’t’ (bit.ly/32eTYTB).

To Tim Hazledine, a professor of economics at Auckland University, the hair trade is effectively ‘farming humans.’ It may be a renewable resource, but it grows slowly and to keep up with increasing demand ‘there must be a lot of people whose hair is getting cut out there’.

Women in developed nations aren’t as desperate to sell their hair for cash as poorer women in developing countries where women and girls can be ‘sheared’, one after the other, like sheep.

ALJO

Letter: "Does the Socialist Party applaud the Scottish postal workers? . . . (2001)"

Letter to the Editors from the July 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

Considering myself a socialist postal worker, I wish to direct your readers’ attention to an aspect of a recent mail strike.

Re-acting to the Post Office’s “slap across the wrist” disciplining of a manager, guilty of sexually harassing a 16-year-old postwoman, the entire Glasgow mail ground to a halt as postal workers came out on wildcat strikes.

Now, what struck me, as a socialist, was the sense of solidarity that has developed, after many years’ experience of industrial action, amongst postal workers. As is the custom, regardless of whether official or unofficial, all mail from Glasgow was blacked, a tactic to foil any Royal Mail attempt to move mail around the country to isolate and defeat a strike-bound office. It is illegal secondary action under the statutes, but the Post Office rarely challenges the refusal to handle blacked mail. On this occasion, however, and no doubt, as a result of their success in forcing through the “way forward” productivity deal, Royal Mail tried to divert letters to Edinburgh who subsequently went out on strike too.

Once again, postal workers have demonstrated the strength of industrial solidarity and expressed a spirit, nobly cited by Anton Pannekoek in Workers’ Councils:

“Direct action means action of the workers themselves without the intermediary of trade union officers…The first and most important task is to propaganda to expand the strike…Capitalists know or feel this quite well and so the only inducement to concessions is the fear that the strike might spread universally…”

Also in his “Ethics And Socialism” article:

“The workers could not be made to understand what wrong they had committed by stopping work for a day in support of a group of workers at war with their employers. The bourgeois journalists argued along these lines:…to go on strike for others through solidarity! (sheer madness, indeed…).”

Does the Socialist Party applaud the Scottish postal workers, as I do?

Alan Johnstone, 

Livingston

Reply: 

Yes, even if we don’t share Pannekoek’s view that unofficial, wildcat strikes are always best. As far as we are concerned, any strike to improve conditions or stop them getting worse, official or unofficial, legal or illegal, is all right as long as it is democratically decided and run by those involved. Full-time trade union officials should be the servants of their members, not their bosses as is so often the case today – Editors.

Material World: Pacific but not peaceful (2014)

The Material World Column from the May 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last year the California-based Oakland Institute revealed the escalation of land grabs in Papua New Guinea (PNG) over the past decade, amounting to 5.5 million hectares, or 12 percent of the country, due to fraudulent manipulation of Special Agriculture and Business Leases (SABLs), government administered schemes whereby customary owners lease their land to the state for a title which can be used for leasing to a third party. SABLs have been exploited by international logging companies, aided by corrupt state offi cials, resulting in rising deforestation, and many customary owners losing control of their traditional lands. Offi cial catch-phrases of ‘freeing up land for development’, have masked ‘daylight robbery, the betrayal of people’s constitutional protections and the loss of heritage and land for millions of Papua New Guineans’ says the institute’s report, On Our Land.

Customary tenure applies to 80-90 percent of land in Pacific Island states. Unwritten customary law determines land and inheritance rights for members of clans or extended families. Traditional tenure plays a vital role in the Southwest Pacific countries where the formal sector provides as little as 15 percent of employment, and most people are reliant on subsistence and small-holder agriculture for livelihoods and income. Evidence suggests that, in PNG, small-holder fresh food producers can earn more substantial incomes than people in formal employment. A 2008 study of women roadside sellers in Madang province concluded that 50 percent earned more than three times the minimum wage.

Joel Simo of the Melanesian Indigenous Land Defence Alliance (MILDA) in Vanuatu claims that customary tenure is a ‘system of sharing’ that ‘caters for everyone’s needs.’ he said. ‘Land in most Pacific countries is for public access for survival and not fenced off by the legal system.’ MILDA’s commitment to protect Melanesian values, which promote long-term sustainable land use, includes opposition to customary land registration or leasing, perceived as serving the interests of foreign and local elite. ‘People can register their land and still remain poor,’ Simo said.

However, in the 21st Century land is subject to increasing global economic pressures, the greater dependence of islanders on the cash economy, rapid population growth and urbanisation. Many Pacific Island states are grappling with identifying effective land dispute resolution mechanisms. Reconciling tenure security under informal customary law and modern judicial legal systems presents ongoing challenges. Proliferating disputes between customary groups, and with external parties, over rightful land ownership, development benefits and environmental damage remain a factor in continued rural impoverishment.

Maria Linibi, president of the PNG Women in Agriculture Development Foundation, agrees that better land administration is required, but rejects easier options for foreign investors or the state to acquire customary land. ‘Customary land ownership to our livelihoods, income and food security is very important because without it we would not survive,’ Linibi declared.

Factors in landowner distrust of state land reform include state corruption and failure of large export oriented projects to raise human development or living standards for the majority of Pacific Islanders.

‘The prevalence of fraud and corruption within the land administration system [of PNG] means that titles can be easily issued, tampered with or destroyed,’ Aidwatch reported in 2010. Their report added that formal land titles were ‘a recipe for failure’ in countries where local landowners are not empowered with education and legal knowledge. Thus, in PNG, where rural illiteracy is as high as 85 percent, ‘top-down’ land leasing programmes have the potential to exacerbate inequality.

This problem of land-grabbing, of course, is not unique to the Pacific but is taking place in many parts of the world: in Africa, Asia and South America. It is a process that Marxists call primitive capital accumulation (the economist David Harvey opts to use the term ‘accumulation by dispossession’ because he finds it odd to call an ongoing process ‘primitive’) and which in English history is known as the Enclosures – common land being either privatised or nationalised. Primitive accumulation is a historical process whereby a separation is created between producers and their means of production or subsistence, i.e. their land. Subsequently, the producers without means of production are left with little choice but to join the industrial army working in urban factories while, freeing up the land and resources for commodity production and capital accumulation.

Land acquisition is increasingly occurring across the globe over the last few years as capitalism further integrates the peasant economy more fully into its world-system. Development banks have identified large sections of sub-Saharan African countries as unused and ‘reserved’ for investment. Yet, as investors acquired the land they met resistance from peasants that were already using such land for their livelihoods. Communal land is being turned into capital and indigenous peoples transformed into wage labour: 

‘In actual history, it is a notorious fact that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, in short force, play the greatest part … As a matter of fact, the methods of primitive accumulation are anything but idyllic’ (Marx, Capital Vol 1)

ALJO

Sourced from:

Pacific Islands At Sea Over Land Rights

Material World: Live to work or work to live? (2023)

The Material World column from the April 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the UK raised the age of retirement and heightened the national insurance contribution criteria to be eligible for a state pension, there were complaints from women who were particularly affected by the changes but very little wider protest.

It has not been as easy for the French government plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Trade unions have held nationwide strikes that have brought France to standstills, hoping that strikes and accompanying demonstrations will bring about a similar outcome as in 1995 when then-president Jacques Chirac abandoned his pension change proposals. Millions of workers have been involved to disrupt industry and transport across France. However, unlike the previous five strikes, trade unions declared the 7th March strike, ‘grèves reconductibles’, meaning workers will vote at the end of each strike day on whether to continue industrial action. With no fixed end date, unions hope to damage the economy so severely that it defeats the government.

Although the country’s current retirement age is one of the lowest in the European Union, the existing rules already require most people to work past the age of 64 in order to qualify for the full pension. By raising the retirement age by two years most workers would need to work 43 years, rather than 42, to be eligible for a full pension.

The government claims postponing the retirement age by two years and extending the pay-in period would yield an additional €17.7 billion in annual pension contributions, allowing the budget to break even by 2027 and safeguarding what they say would be a failing system. But not all economists agree.

In September 2022, a report by the French Pensions Advisory Council found the pensions system actually produced surpluses in 2021 (€900 million) and 2022 (€3.2 billion), although it did predict the system would run a deficit on average over the next quarter of a century. According to its calculations, ‘between 2023 and 2027, the pension system’s finances will deteriorate’, reaching a deficit of between 0.3 and 0.4 percent of GDP, or just over €10 billion a year, until 2032. But the Council predicted an eventual balance beginning in the mid-2030s.

A deficit of €10-12 billion per year is not necessarily excessive for a pension system whose total annual expenditure amounts to around €340 billion. ‘The results of this report do not support the claim that pensions spending is out of control,’ the Council wrote. Pension spending as a proportion of GDP is expected to remain stable, at around 14 percent of GDP, before rising to up to 14.7 percent by 2032.

Pensions expert Michaël Zemmour said, ‘It has become a form of political discourse to exaggerate and dramatise the deficit issue, to claim the system urgently needs to be reformed, when in fact the deficit is rather moderate’.

He explained, ‘It’s not about saving the pension system, it’s about financing tax cuts for businesses,’ highlighting France’s intention to finance tax cuts with structural reforms to bring the national deficit under 3 percent by 2027, a requirement of EU member states (bit.ly/3kUXHlx).

Government attempts to appeal to younger generations on the grounds that it is they who carry the burden of supporting the elderly have not been successful. Despite retirement being a distant prospect, France’s younger workers have been active in the protests.

One student said, ‘We live in a productivity-obsessed society that is preoccupied with economic growth and which has been destroying our planet for decades. Now we’re being asked to work for two more years so we can produce even more.’ Another explained, ‘We should be able to live longer and in better health without working ourselves to death. Besides, if they’re talking about retiring at 64 now, what will it be when I’m 60? Will I have to work until I’m 70 or 75? ’ (bit.ly/3JofydM).

In the United States, where the retirement age for Social Security is already transitioning to 67, a Republican Party committee has called for the retirement age to increase by three years so that people born on or after 1978 will have to wait until the age of 70 for a full pension (bit.ly/3mFHwcg).

In Germany, the Federation of German Employers’ Associations in the Metal and Electrical Engineering Industries has also suggested raising its retirement age to 70. However, Johannes Geyer of the German Institute for Economic Research believes ‘Raising the retirement age puts a lot of pressure on the working population. People with low life expectancy, and those with health problems, will suffer more; a relevant part of the population dies before reaching retirement age.’ He seeks an alternative solution. ‘We need migration. It’s essential that we have enough people coming from abroad to work in Germany’ (bit.ly/3mCFM3r).

Working people must reject this capitalist imposition – ‘live longer, work longer’. We should have a society where we can appreciate the added years of our lives and not be made to work until we drop.

ALJO

Material World: Disasters, natural and unnatural (2023)

The Material World column from the March 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again the world shudders at the news of another ‘natural’ disaster, as the death toll climbs from the Turkish-Syrian earthquake. It is again apparent that even a ‘natural’ disaster can be mitigated. Similar misfortunes are invariably presented in the media as unavoidable and to a certain degree, this is true. But it ignores the consequences of the pursuit of profit at the expense of prevention and it is not a coincidence that the number of victims of various disasters such as tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes is clearly related to the extent of their poverty. What all the casualties share is that they are mostly poor and it was their apartment blocks tumbling down and reduced to rubble.

It is necessary to understand why the poor suffer more even in natural calamities. Earthquakes are inevitable, but the accompanying casualty figures are not. It is falling buildings that take lives, not the tremors in the ground. No matter how severe an earthquake is on the Richter Scale, if buildings were correctly constructed many people would survive. This does not happen in the poorer countries of the earthquake-prone regions because precautionary guidelines to make them more resistant are seldom followed.

The world is structured in such a way that poor people are and will always be the most susceptible to disasters. They are unable to prevent disasters and lack the reserves to recover when they hit. Poorer communities take far longer to rebuild and are far more likely to be affected by subsequent disease outbreaks such as cholera. They grow further impoverished because they cannot afford to rebuild.

Many modern buildings have been equipped to withstand seismic shocks. In wealthy countries, architects have designed ’active’ buildings, some mounted on top of massive rubber shock absorbers or other systems to counteract seismic shaking. What’s the likelihood of such sophisticated technology being used for dwellings in poverty-stricken areas? Using elaborate building methods and materials, there is no reason why there should be any undue loss of life or major destruction after experiencing even the most powerful of earthquakes.

Having witnessed the tragedy unfolding in Turkey and Syria, we see how people are endowed with the ability to sympathise and empathise with others and even in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis contribute to charities to alleviate some of the suffering being experienced. People are at their best when things are at their worst. When a major catastrophe strikes, we can always rely on people responding with whatever they can give towards the relief of the survivors. Volunteers are never lacking nor slow in coming forward to offer whatever help they can.

If there is any good that comes from this catastrophe and other calamities it is that human beings show themselves as an inherently caring species. One reason capitalism persists is that it fosters a lack of confidence and conviction in working people’s deep compassion for others. It seems our society has been influenced to believe that nothing can be done. That big death tolls from quakes, volcanoes or floods are inevitable. Unlike the media, socialists strive to explain capitalism’s culpability and socialism’s solutions.

Being poor means having very little control over your own existence. While some disasters cannot be avoided, others are completely preventable. Is it controversial to argue that capitalism, with its emphasis on profit, means that any disasters which do happen are likely to be more serious and harmful than would otherwise be the case?

Most dangers from Nature are well known and there is no need to leave communities exposed to them. Earthquakes are natural phenomena. It is known where they are likely to happen but not when. So society could take action to minimise the impact and it makes no sense deliberately to court disaster.

One reason earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and floods kill so many people is that people live and work in known danger zones. Under capitalism, it is a question of necessity which stops people from moving to safer lands.

It must be clear that nobody would voluntarily live alongside a ticking time-bomb, and given the freedom of movement implied by the abolition of private property, we can surmise the largest contribution to protecting lives in a socialist world will come from populations changing locations away from high-risk areas. A massive mobilisation of people to other regions would be inconceivable today but not necessarily in socialism.

Contingency plans should exist throughout the world for the relief of any catastrophe. Saving lives could become a new ‘un-armed forces’ raison d’être. Bodies of fit, well-trained, well-resourced, motivated men and women available to deal with the effects of natural disasters and unexpected calamities would be one of a number of ways to deploy willing volunteers, for humanitarian intervention. Emergency stocks of food, clean water, and medical supplies would be maintained at strategic points whilst machinery, equipment and helpers would be moved quickly to the area of crisis. Appeals for money are an insufficient substitute for releasing real resources. Capitalism exacerbates supposedly ‘natural’ disasters. The best disaster relief is offered through solidarity.

The best disaster preparedness we can have is to build the kinds of communities we want and seek to live in anyway. What kept many alive after floods, hurricanes or earthquakes, and is keeping them alive today, is a culture of solidarity and mutual aid. Social solidarity is a strategy through which marginal communities survive, and through which relationships thrive. Volunteers, neighbours and strangers alike from the community come forward as first and second responders.

ALJO

The ballot strike in Tunisia (2023)

From the March 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 2011, discontent and unrest in Tunisia spread and ignited wider discontent in what became known as the Arab Spring. Now, more than a decade later, protests have returned so that Tunisians may once again put food on their tables.

Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, assumed almost total power in 2021, having sacked the prime minister, suspended parliament and enacted a constitution that gave him, as the head of state, supreme control and command of the military and granted him the ability to rule by decree.

In December’s election for the new, mostly powerless, legislature most of the opposition political parties announced an election boycott. It resulted in only 8.8 percent of the nine-million-strong electorate voting in the parliamentary elections. A required run-off election was held in January 2023 after only 21 candidates out of 161 Assembly seats were elected in the first round. Just 88,000, or 11 percent of the 7.8 million entitled to vote in the run-offs cast their ballots.

People, rather than feeling cheated of their right to vote, have understood that the election was not a sincere engagement in democracy.

A non-voter explained, ‘He promised serious reforms but we haven’t seen anything. People have had it with these promises and that’s why they boycotted the last two elections. They don’t believe this regime is going to find an answer to their problems, especially their economic problems’ (bit.ly/3ll6WuX).

Another said: ‘We don’t want elections. We want milk and sugar and cooking oil’ (bit.ly/3XipR6Q).

Despite losing legitimacy and credibility, Saied has remained in power, retains the loyalty of the army officers and continues to be recognised as the head of state by foreign governments and international institutions.

For example, he can still negotiate and secure from the International Monetary Fund a $1.9bn loan to finance his 2023 budget and accept the accompanying austerity conditions that will likely lead to ending food and fuel subsidies, cutting public spending on public health, education, social services and the privatisation of state enterprises (bit.ly/3llYbAV).

When in Hong Kong the people were deprived of a say in electing the Legislative Assembly, they saw that the district council elections, previously akin to neighbourhood council elections, offered them an opportunity to express their political preferences. Hong Kong’s pro-democracy candidates won close to 60 percent of the total vote, 347 of the 452 taking control of at least 17 of the city’s 18 district councils.

But once again, as we see with Tunisia, as long as political power is not in the hands of the people of Hong Kong, change will not happen. The election boycott strategy still preserves political power for the government and although its validity is questioned, it remains intact.

There are differences between boycotting elections, abstaining from voting and what is described as the Sinn Fein voting strategy of standing but, if elected, not taking the seat in Parliament.

What is important is capturing political power to exercise the will of the people. Simply abstaining from voting – or not taking the seat – is not sufficient

When there is no genuine socialist candidate, we favour going to the polling station to cast a write-in vote for socialism rather than merely abstaining as this shows that we attach some significance to the existence of the universal suffrage that our antecedents struggled to gain. In this country, where there is a stable political democracy, we favour using it to win political control. In other countries where this is not the case a socialist majority there would be obliged to adopt a different method. There will also be occasions, as in Tunisia, when a parliamentary process will be purposefully gerrymandered to deny the possibility of the people’s will.

We have never held that a merely formal majority at the polls will give the workers the power to achieve socialism. We have always emphasised that our fellow workers must be knowledgeable in the essentials of socialist ideas and be democratically organised.

A socialist party’s role is to strive to be educators, agitators and organisers, to act as catalysts and not to substitute the party for our class. Without an educated and organised working class as the motor for achieving socialism, we cannot have socialism.

William Morris put it well, ’It should be our special aim to make Socialists by putting before people, and especially the working classes, the elementary truths of socialism… before any definite socialist action can be attempted, it must be backed up by a great body of intelligent opinion — the opinion of a great mass of people who are already socialists…’ (bit.ly/3YDLIqs).

It is not just the quantity of the votes but the quality of the voters behind them that will be decisive.

ALJO

Material World: Too old to work, too young to die (2023)

The Material World column from the February 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are all getting older and we will be older for longer. People living longer sounds good. But not for capitalism.

Improvements in healthcare have brought extended longevity and longer lifespans mean there are more older people. The population aged 65 and older is growing faster than all other age groups, especially as the global birth and fertility rates have been dropping. Over the past 50 years, the median age of the world’s population has increased by 10 years, i.e, from 20 years in 1970 to 30 years in 2020. Many countries have attained median ages well above 35 years, such as France at 41 years, South Korea at 43 years, Italy at 46 years and Japan at 48 years. The median ages of the world’s populations are expected to continue to rise, reaching 40 years by 2070. In 1970 China’s population had a median age of 18 years, i.e, half of their population were children. By 2070 the median age of China’s population is projected to triple to 55 with the proportion of children declining to 12. By 2070 the world’s average life expectancy at age 65 will be 21 more years with many developed countries having life expectancies at age 65 of 25 years or more, i.e, people surviving on average to age 90. There is less need for paediatricians and gynaecologists and much more requirement for specialists in geriatrics and care-working. There are not enough nursing home beds to cater for elderly people who need long-stay residential care.

Governments have concerns about the prospect of their populations possessing more grandparents than grandchildren and the burden on pension and healthcare budgets of their ageing populations. An ageing society is viewed as damaging to a state’s economy since it decreases the workforce numbers and increases the costs on social services and health. The need for pensions arises from the fact that as workers get older, they become surplus to requirements for the capitalists. State pensions take up a vast proportion of public spending. The capitalist class has to pay to keep workers alive upon retirement and it is one of the non-productive activities that the State has to undertake.

Within the next few decades, working-age adults will need to support a higher number of elderly people than they do now, putting pressure on welfare systems and taking up much of the future economic growth and output unless offset by increased technology delivering gains in productivity. There is also a need for greater immigration to boost the labour supply to alleviate the adverse effects of an ageing population as new migrants lower the average age of the host nation’s population. The changes in the demographic structure of various societies and the need to replenish the workforce will not be addressed by more older workers (as the evidence is that chronic ill-health is higher with advancing years) and will require a rethink on immigration policies encouraging newcomers from other regions of the world such as Africa.

Government options are to reduce benefits, increase tax revenue or raise the retirement age. Pensions are essentially a tax on the profits of the capitalists, even if ultimately these profits come from what workers produce, and increasing taxes will not be welcomed by businesses. Meanwhile cutting state benefits would only worsen the already existing poverty of old age. So the preferred choice is to make people work for longer by postponing the official retirement age and the payment of state pensions. Similarly, due to mounting costs, employers are currently scaling back their own occupational pension schemes. Pensions and the retirement age are under assault. It has happened in the UK and is taking place nearly everywhere else, despite widespread opposition from working people

Under capitalism the elderly and frail are seen as superfluous, and of little use to employers. Possessing money as consumers in our capitalist society is the only way to maintain any status in one’s old age because money has power no matter what age you are. We are seeing an increasingly unequal society with the elderly among those bearing the brunt. Capitalism leaves its senior citizens unwanted, isolated and invisible.

Growing old is inevitable but the way we get old is not. Although we are living far longer, a significant and increasing proportion of people are managing multiple health conditions and mobility problems from mid-life onwards. Current rates of chronic illness, mental health conditions, disability and frailty could be greatly reduced. The extra golden years of longer life are a gift to enjoy. Socialism will bring forth more social and community networks to build creative relationships, enhancing the quality of life for everyone, both young and old. The contributions of older persons to society are invaluable and cannot be measured in mere material terms. They offer care-sharing and the passing on of knowledge to new generations. The progress of civilisation from our increased lifespan is being squandered by capitalism.

Gulliver’s Travels features the Struldbruggs, a people who appear normal in all respects except one – they don’t die. But their immortality, instead of being a blessing, is a curse because they continue to age:

‘At 90, they lose their teeth and hair; they have at that age no distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get, without relish or appetite. The diseases they were subject to still continue…’

Socialism will not bestow immortality nor eternal youth but it will permit us all to age with dignity.

ALJO

Material World: The pimps of war (2023)

The Material World Column from the January 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Come, you masters of war

You that build the big guns

You that build the death planes

You that build all the bombs

You that hide behind walls

You that hide behind desks

I just want you to know

I can see through your masks

                 (Masters of War, Bob Dylan)

For a capitalist, Winston Churchill’s saying ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ has never been so apt as in the case of the Russia-Ukraine war. Businesses are making profits from the conflict in Ukraine from the increase demand for liquefied natural gas. Cheniere Energy, America’s largest LNG exporter, says about 70 percent of shipments from its facilities in Texas and Louisiana have gone to Europe, compared with roughly 30 percent last year.

‘The country that is most profiting from this war is the US because they are selling more gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons,’ observed a senior European Union official (politi.co/3OYBXj8).

As Europe attempted to reduce its reliance on Russian energy, the reduction in gas from Russia meant acquiring new suppliers. In stepped the United States but the price the Europeans have to pay is almost four times higher than the price for American customers.

Beatrice Mathieu, head of the economy department of the French magazine L’Express, explains:

‘Washington’s unwavering support for Ukraine makes the United States the big winner in the global stage without a single soldier needing to set foot onto Ukrainian soil,’ with undeniable geo-strategic, economic, military and political gains, she said (bit.ly/3gWhLBT).

This view coincides with the Russian Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, who accuses the United States of prolonging the conflict because of economic reasons:

‘The desire to skim the cream through the mass sale of military equipment and LNG supplies: nothing personal, just business’ (bit.ly/3H5D1Qa).

Mere Moscow propaganda, one could easily suspect, if it was not for the fact that President Biden has also rebuked oil companies for ‘profiteering’ from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine:

‘It’s time for these companies to stop war profiteering… At a time of war, any company receiving historic windfall profits like this has a responsibility to act beyond the narrow self-interest of its executives and shareholders’ (on.ft.com/3H5DbqK).

It’s all got too much for the EU. Germany’s economy minister has called on Washington to show more ‘solidarity’ and help reduce energy costs. French president Macron said high US gas prices were not ‘friendly’ and has talked of a ‘double standard’ being created by the ‘super-profits’ of energy producers (on.ft.com/3UuA8M3).

The war in Ukraine has reinforced America’s role as the arsenal of the world. American arms manufacturers and many other armament corporations expect a big-time bonanza by providing weaponry to countries eager to boost their defences against Russia. There is likely to be a rise in orders to replenish military stocks, from various European countries, in particular for rockets and artillery.

Germany, for example, has announced an extra €100bn to modernise its military capability. Finland, an aspiring new candidate member of NATO, decided to grant an additional €1.7bn to arms and other defence material purchases this year alone:

‘A very significant share of it will go to purchases from the US’ Governmental Counsellor Iikka Marttila from Finland’s Defence Ministry said (yhoo.it/3uigdoW).

American isolationists such as Marjorie Taylor Greene have claimed too much money is being spent on Ukraine: ‘Under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine’ and ‘Our country comes first’. But that is just exactly it. War is proving very profitable for the USA and its business leaders know it.

Russia’s war on Ukraine, both of them major food exporters, the effect of less abundant harvests in Ukraine, and the financial complications imposed by sanctions upon Russia have resulted in American producers increasing their exports of maize to Europe.

This calls into question whether food price inflation can be attributed solely to a shortage. The world is experiencing a food price crisis rather than a food supply crisis. Huge multinational food corporations are reporting record profits (bit.ly/3H3taup).

War tends to establish hegemony rivalries among nations in a certain geographic area. Russia paints the US and EU as its main adversaries with Ukraine portrayed as a pawn in a proxy war. In response Russia, as an imperialist superpower, used its military might to impose its will upon Ukraine to defend its ‘privilege’ to dominate the region. Western interests proclaim their ‘right’ to expand their influence where they deem fit, bringing nation-states into conflict. And while politicians prattle on about the morality and ethics of a ‘just’ war, corporate investors view the cost and pain through the prism of profits and dividends.

ALJO

Urban Mining – E-Waste Recycling (2022)

From the November 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The more modern neo-Malthusians disparage the idea that a post-scarcity society of bountiful abundance is possible by insisting that the world’s resources are finite and such a vision is unsustainable. Economic growth and calculating the planet’s ‘carrying capacity’ are conceived in their capitalist context. One of socialism’s aims will be to reduce waste of all kinds where the goal will be conservation. Quality goods will replace built-in obsolescence. Cleaning up their mess robs corporations of their profits, the costs in human health and environmental problems are not their worry. With socialism, resources will no longer be frittered away and instead people will devote their energy and skills to healing a sickened poisoned planet.

Mining is a dangerous, dirty, destructive and damaging method of extracting metals and minerals. It is harmful to the environment and to the local communities. Yet it is viewed as the inevitable price to be paid to supply the world’s industry and technology.

Could it be different?

Some of the richest deposits of valuable elements necessary for manufacturing are found in refuse dumps and landfill, ranging from gold in smartphones to cobalt in electric car batteries.

Tons of disused electronic equipment are wastefully dumped every year. According to UN research, 50 million tons of e-waste were produced in 2018. Discarded mobile phones, televisions, computers, car parts and countless other items contain varying amounts of gold and silver, lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper and zinc. They can be reused if processed properly.

The annual production of electronic goods worldwide requires 320 tons of gold and 7,500 tons of silver. Yet only 15-20% of the world’s electronics are recycled annually.

The US generated an estimated 6.92 million tons of e-waste in 2019. To put that into monetary terms, the value of the materials contained in those electronics is estimated to be around $7.49 billion. But in terms of labour, it is millions of hours of toil.

If we look at cell phones alone, one ton of cell phones produces 150g of gold. Not a lot but consider that one ton of ore excavated from a gold mine produces only 5g of gold. The Environmental Protection Agency estimated that for every million units recycled, one could extract: 75 pounds of gold, 772 pounds of silver, 33 pounds of palladium and 35 thousand pounds of copper.

‘…we need a circular economy for these materials. At the moment, we’re just mining them out of the ground constantly,’ Elizabeth Ratcliffe from the Royal Society of Chemistry has explained (bbc.in/3SMz2KV).

Prof Richard Herrington, the head of Earth sciences at London’s Natural History Museum, has suggested that ‘…by 2035, we’ll have sorted out a good source of recycled metal; we’ll need to continue some mining. But hopefully, by 2050, we would have built a truly circular economy so that most if not all of what we need can come from metals that we’ve already mined and are already being used in products and technologies’ (bbc.in/3y7QDFc).

However, the Socialist Party doubts such optimism. Costs of recycling deter investments in urban mining. Currently, companies choosing to skirt the regulations around how e-waste is processed means more money for them in the short term.

In the name of profit production, capitalism depletes an enormous amount of the world’s resources and its people’s abilities. We’ve got the technology to reduce, repair, reuse, and recycle much of what we throw away, but its use isn’t encouraged enough by our current system. Before we can apply more sensible and practical approaches to using our resources, capitalism itself needs to get thrown onto the rubbish dump. Production can be geared to meeting needs in an ecologically acceptable way, instead of making profits without consideration for the environment.

The Socialist Party is not appealing to individuals or governments to launch lifestyle campaigns to recycle more. We want systemic change to make a real difference.

“Not enough is being produced, that is the root of the whole matter. But why is not enough being produced? Not because the limits of production have been reached — even for today ndand by present-day means. No, but because the limits of production are determined not by the number of hungry bellies, but rather by the number of purchasers with full purses. Bourgeois society has no desire, and can have no desire, to produce more. Those impecunious bellies, the labour which cannot be utilised with profit and is thus incapable of purchasing, fall prey to the mortality figures. Let us assume that there is a sudden boom in industry, such as is constantly occurring, to enable this labour to be employed with profit, then the labour will acquire the money with which to purchase, and the means of subsistence have as yet always been found. It is the endless circulus vitiosus [vicious circle] in which the whole political economy revolves. One takes bourgeois conditions in their entirety as one’s premise, and then proves that each separate part is a necessary part thereof — ergo, an ‘eternal law’ (Marx, letter to F.A. Lange, 29 March 1865).

ALJO