Voice From The Back: Californian Nightmare (2007)

The Voice From The Back Column from the December 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Californian Nightmare

The dreadful fires in California that led to death and destruction were well reported in the British press, but what was hardly covered was the plight of the immigrant workers. “Out of the burning brush, from behind canyon rocks, several immigrants bolted toward a group of firefighters, chased not by the border police but by the onrush of flames from one of the biggest wildfires this week. … Immigrants from south of the border, many illegal, provide the backbone of menial labor in San Diego, picking fruit, cleaning hotel rooms, sweeping walks and mowing lawns. The wildfires, one of the biggest disasters to strike the county, exposed their often-invisible existence in ways that were sometimes deadly. The four bodies were found in a burned area in southeastern San Diego County, a region known for intense illegal immigration. …Terri Trujillo, who helps the immigrants, checked on those in the canyons, urging them to leave, too, when she left her house in Rancho Peñasquitos ahead of the fires. Ms. Trujillo and others who help the immigrants said they saw several out in the fields as the fires approached and ash fell on them. She said many were afraid to lose their jobs. ‘There were Mercedeses and Jaguars pulling out, people evacuating, and the migrants were still working,’ said Enrique Morones, who takes food and blankets to the immigrants’ camps. ‘It’s outrageous.’ Some of the illegal workers who sought help from the authorities were arrested and deported.” (New York Times, 27 October) What a comment on capitalism, some workers live in such poverty and insecurity they give up their lives in an attempt to keep a menial weekly wage.

Wall Street Shuffle

We are always being told that capitalism is a competitive system that rewards success and punishes failure, but what are we to make of the following? “Merrill Lynch’s directors may be weighing E. Stanley O’Neal’s future, but one thing is already guaranteed: a payday of at least $159 million if he steps down. Mr. O’Neal, the company’s chairman and chief executive, is entitled to $30 million in retirement benefits as well as $129 million in stock and option holdings, according to an analysis by James F. Reda & Associates using yesterday’s share price of $66.09. That would be on top of the roughly $160 million he took home in his nearly five years on the job. Under Mr. O’Neal, Merrill moved aggressively into lucrative businesses like the packaging of subprime mortgages and other complex debt securities. …But those big bets appeared to go bust this week. Merrill announced an $8.4 billion write-down, raising questions about whether Mr. O’Neal will keep his job. One thing that he surely will hold onto, though, are the giant paychecks he has collected. ‘I lay the blame at the foot of the board,” Frederick E. Rowe Jr., a money manager and president of Investors for Director Accountability. “He was paid a tremendous amount of money to create a loss that is mind-boggling, and he obviously took risks that should never have been taken.’” (New York Times, 27 October) He managed to lose $8.4 billion for the company and can claim $159 million for his efforts. Who says capitalism isn’t crazy?

This Is Communism?

“The United States has more billionaires than any other country: 415 by the last count of Forbes magazine. No. 2, and closing fast? China. A year ago, there were 15 billionaires in China. Now, there are more than 100, according to the widely watched Hurun Report. Forbes has documented 66. ..As much as the bounty of billionaires is a source of pride, it is also a potential cause for concern in a nominally Communist country. Per capita income in China is less than $1,000 a year.” (New York Times, 7 November) China is a fast developing capitalist country and just like any other capitalist economy the gap between the rich and the poor is immense.

Chinese Statistics

One of the effects of the rapid expansion of Chinese capitalism is the pollution of the atmosphere and drinking water. This has led to these horrendous statistics. “40% – Percentage by which birth defects among Chinese infants have risen since 2001, according to a government report, which linked the rise to environmental pollution. 460,000 – Number of Chinese who die prematurely every year from exposure to pollution and dirty water.” (Time, 12 November) This expansion may be leading to the creation of more billionaires, but it is also producing more corpses.

Voice From The Back: Cold and skint (2010)

The Voice From The Back Column from the December 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cold and skint 

One of the illusions that seems to persist about capitalism is that in Britain it is gradually getting a little bit better, but the facts contradict that notion. “The number of households struggling to afford to stay warm has more than doubled in the past six years according to official figures. An extra 2.5 million homes have gone into fuel poverty since 2004, a report by the Department of Energy and Climate Change said. Homes are defined as living in fuel poverty if they have to spend more than 10 per cent of their income to maintain a minimum temperature of 21C in their main living area.” (Times, 15 October) “Almost two-thirds of older people in Northern Ireland cannot afford to heat their home through the winter, it has been revealed. The fuel poverty rate among people aged over 60 is up 15% on four years ago and now stands at 60.5%, according to the latest House Conditions Survey. The study conducted by the Housing Executive shows that the situation is even worse for older people living on their own – with almost four-fifths officially designated as living in fuel poverty.  (Independent, 28 October) Amidst all these bureaucratic figures one thing is obvious, during the last six years more working class kids and old folk have had to go to bed shivering. This is progress?.

Big bucks ballot

Defenders of American capitalism are fond of claiming that it is a model of  democracy in action. It is however a strange sort of democracy wherein money is the real dictator. Take the election campaign of Meg Whitman for the California Governorship. “With nearly two weeks to go before the election the eBay billionaire’s campaign to become chief executive of California has already smashed all records. At $140 million (£89 million) it is the most expensive non-presidential campaign in American history and the deepest any candidate has ever delved to fund their campaign.” (Times, 25 October). There is nothing unique in large corporations pouring millions of dollars into election campaigns, but in this case we have an individual spending a grotesque amount that represents about $8.24 for every one of California’s 17 million registered voters. Her opponent has spent a “mere” $20 million, that is just over a $1 a voter. Surely this is a weird sort of democracy.

 

Profits before safety

In their ruthless pursuit of bigger and bigger profits the owning class care little for human life or the pollution of the planet, but even by their standards the oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico illustrated a complete contempt for humanity in capitalism’s efforts to cheapen production costs. “The companies involved in drilling the BP Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico were aware that the cement they used to seal the well before it blew out was unstable. That is the conclusion of a US presidential panel investigating the reasons behind the April 20 explosion and ensuing oil leak. Both BP and the US company Halliburton had received test results on the cement showing it to be unstable – but neither acted on the data.” (The Week, 29 October) All the companies involved are trying to shift the blame for the explosion  on to each other, but the truth is that capitalism by its very nature causes such disasters. Capitalism, lets face it  – is a disaster!

Another illusion goes

One of the illusions about capitalism that its supporters are always proclaiming is that it is a ruthlessly efficient society that rewards honesty and punishes double-dealing. It is not a view shared by the capitalist class themselves as illustrated by this recent European Commission report.. “The European Commission has fined 11 of the world’s largest airlines £799 million for their part in a conspiracy to fix the price of cargo shipments. British Airways is among the carriers to be fined and has been ordered to pay a 104 million euro (£90 million) penalty.” (Times, 10 November) The capitalist class are fond of lecturing workers about honesty, but when extra profits can be realised they are not adverse to a bit of sharp practice.

Material World: Signs of things to come (2022)

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

Much of our planet is suffering from heatwaves and droughts with record-breaking temperatures and the experts say it is not isolated incidents but a harbinger of weather events that will become increasingly common in the future as global warming increases.

Namrata Chowdhary of the environment activist group, 350.org, stressed that ‘the truth behind these heatwaves is searingly clear: fossil fuels did this. While these temperatures are quite literally shocking, they come as no real surprise to communities that have long since lived on the frontlines of the climate crisis.’ Chowdhary continued, ‘This is the latest spike in a rapidly worsening disaster, one that was foretold by climate activists the world over.’

Nushrat Rahman Chowdhury, co-author of a Christian Aid report, said: ‘Drought is not new, but its intensity and frequency have increased over the last 30 years due to global warming. It is a real danger; it threatens lives and livelihoods of some of the poorest people in the world, who have done the least to cause the climate crisis’.

Over 1.2bn poor people across the globe are highly vulnerable to extreme heat, which is 28 million people more than in 2021, according to Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL).

The western states of the United States are suffering one of the worst droughts in a thousand years. California is in its third year of drought and virtually all areas of the state are classified as either in severe or extreme drought. However, US farmers will get insurance payouts, although this means rising premiums, and also are entitled to government tax subsidies.

European countries such as France and Spain are also being subject to punishing drought conditions. However, in Africa it leads to hunger and migration, since it is the poor who are the most vulnerable victims.

One Karachi-based urban planning advisor said the urban poor would suffer most from extreme heat, probably due to the ‘urban heat island effect’, where concrete-built landscapes push up temperatures: ‘Unplanned densification, automobile intensive mobility choices and rapidly reducing green cover are worrying urban trends.’

The poor do not have access to indoor cooling and the infrastructure in the slums makes life even harder, plus they often do outdoor construction and agricultural work with no shelter during the worst of the day’s heat. Heat is a silent killer, often responsible for more deaths than higher-profile disasters like floods, hurricanes or tornadoes, and the rising toll is expected to worsen as the world warms. In 2010, a heat wave in India killed 1,344 people in the western Pakistan city of Ahmedabad alone. In 2015, a heat wave killed more than 1,000 in the capital, Islamabad. However, due to inadequate death registration procedures this is likely to represent an undercount for the whole region.

According to the Lancet, 356,000 people died of extreme heat in 2019 alone.

The World Weather Attribution group analysed historical weather data and suggested that early, long heatwaves that impact a massive geographical area are rare, once-a-century events. But anthropogenic climate change has made these 30 times more likely. That may be a conservative estimate as another study by the UK Met Office said climate change makes heatwaves in north-west India and Pakistan 100 times more likely. That means the region may now see such events in excess of record 2010 temperatures every three years. If it were not for climate change, these events would happen just once every 312 years.

In 2018 Cape Town, in South Africa, was the world’s first big city to almost run completely out of water. That problem hasn’t gone away. The charity Christian Aid warned that in addition to Cape Town, London, Sydney, Beijing, Cairo and Phoenix are all in danger of running out of water as the climate crisis takes hold, according to its report, ‘Scorched Earth: the impact of drought on 10 world cities.’

Two-thirds of Africa is desert and dry savannah with 45 percent of Africa’s land area affected by desertification, more than half of which is at very high risk of further desertification. Africa has suffered from drought more frequently than any other continent with 134 droughts between 2000 and 2019, of which 70 occurred in East Africa, 14 extreme cases in the past two years alone. A fourth season of failed rains is causing one of the worst droughts East Africa has seen in decades and the UN’s World Food Programme says up to 20 million people are at risk of severe hunger. In Somalia, 40 percent are facing starvation as the food and water supply becomes desperate. Millions of children are malnourished, while the domestic animals that families depend on have died. While in southern Africa Angola is facing the worst recorded drought in 40 years, with southern provinces where 1.58 million people are suffering high levels of acute food insecurity having experienced the fifth consecutive year of drought conditions.

Droughts are being fuelled by climate change, and so only global action can make a difference. Our urgent need is building a world of coordinated mutual aid which is integral to our case for a cooperative commonwealth for the future – world socialism. As explained in last month’s Material World, socialism may be Africans’ last hope to change their dire situation and conditions.

ALJO

Voice From The Back: The Terminator Terminated? (2010)

The Voice From The Back Column from the April 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Terminator Terminated?

In the big budget movies of some years ago Arnold Schwarzenegger often played the all-action hero. Today he is the governor of California and is finding that in an economic downturn capitalism isn’t so easy to manage. One of the causes of that state’s economic deficit is the growing number of prisoners and the consequent growth of economic deficit in the state’s budget. “The fact that 9.5% of spending now goes to prisoners while only 5.7% goes to universities – 25 years ago, prisons got 4% and universities 11% – is indeed a harsh indication of California’s fall from grace.” (Time, 13 February) Schwarzenegger has proposed three different ideas lately to deal with the problem. One is to pay Mexico to build prisons and have US prisoners in them, another is to spend more of the state’s budget on prisons and finally he proposes to privatise prisons as a cheaper way of running things. Twist and turn as they may capitalism’s politicians are finding that capitalism throws up problems that are incapable of easy Hollywood solutions. Here is one though – Capitalism? Exterminate!

US Labour Pains

Barrack Obama’s election to the US presidency was supported by many American trade unionists, but as unemployment rises much of that support is evaporating. “Richard Trumka does not mince his words. The former miner now leads America’s largest union body, the AFL-CIO, describes George Bush’s language as: ‘stolen elections, ruinous tax cuts for the rich, dishonest wars, financial scandal, government sponsored torture, flooded cities and finally economic collapse.” Barrack Obama is a huge improvement, of course, but unemployment is close to 10% and the government must do something, reckons Mr Trumka.” (Time, 13 February)  Trumka like many supporters of capitalism thinks by government intervention of $400 billion of what he calls “immediate job-creating investment” the problem of rising unemployment can be solved. He is living in cloud cuckoo land. Capitalism has periodic slumps and booms and governments know that getting the capitalist class to invest during a slump is near impossible.

£23 Million and £1 a Day

We live in society full of inequalities. We see people starving and kids dying from lack of clean water, but surely the most hardhearted of us must scream at this news item when we realise that many members of the human race must survive on less than a £1 a day. “This is a bauble that even a banker with an intact bonus would struggle to buy – the 507.5 carat, flawless white-coloured Cullinan Heritage Diamond which was sold to a Chinese buyer yesterday for $35.3 million (£23 million)… The sale to Chow Tai Fok Jewellery in Hong Kong highlights the growing importance of China in the global diamond market.” (Times, 27 February) It also highlights the madness of a society that allows some useless bastard in China to consume the equivalent in wealth of millions of kids staying alive. Capitalism sucks.

Demonic Drivel

In order to keep those collection plates full religious groups have to appear modern and “with it”. The Roman Catholic Church is no exception to this rule and compared with some American fundamentalist Protestant churches with their opposition to evolution they may appear almost scientific. It is doubtful though if even those American bastions of superstitious nonsense could outdo the Vatican’s chief exorcist. “The growing clerical sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that the Devil is at work inside the Vatican according to the Holy See’s chief exorcist. Father Gabriele Amorth said that the Pope “fully believes in liberation from evil, because the Devil lodges in the Vatican.” (Times, 11 March) In case you imagine that this is just some crazy old priest who has been indulging in too much communion wine it should be pointed out that he has been the Vatican’s chief exorcist for 25 years. One of his claims is that he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession. Like all supporters of private property society the religious zealots will go to any lengths to support the status quo even calling up demonic myths to explain social problems.

Voice From The Back: Homeless and Clueless (2009)

The Voice From The Back Column from the April 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Homeless and Clueless

Politicians of all the major political parties have “solutions” for what they call the “homeless problem”. In fact there is no homeless problem, what we have is a poverty problem. Here is a recent press story that shows that there are plenty of empty houses available if you have the money. “The number of properties in Britain lying empty is set to pass 1 million. New figures will show that Britain is on course for a record number of houses and flats lying empty. Some of the rise has been caused by home owners facing repossession. Other empty homes were bought by property developers who have since struggled to raise the money to renovate and furbish them for occupation.” (Daily Telegraph, 10 February) Inside this crazy social system fish are dumped back in to the sea, fruit is allowed to rot on the trees while millions of people starve, so it comes as no surprise to learn that people in Britain go homeless while 1 million homes lie empty.

The Terminator

In the movies Arnold Schwarzenegger often played the hero, but in real life he has had to bow to the realities of the capitalist system that has slumps and booms undreamed of in the Hollywood fantasy land. “Cash-strapped California is to start notifying 20,000 state workers that they may lose their jobs. A spokesman for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made the announcement after California lawmakers failed to approve a $40bn (£28.2bn) budget. California, the world’s eighth biggest economy, has been hit by the housing crisis, unemployment and falling consumer spending. ..California has already laid off state workers for two days a month, put 2,000 public projects on hold and delayed tax refunds.” (BBC News, 17 February) Inside the real world of capitalism Schwartzenegger has had to play the villain by terminating many workers means of earning a living.

Labour in Action

The World Bank recently estimated that 2.8 million children could die by 2015 if the global financial crisis is not checked. Commenting on this the Prime Minister Gordon Brown commented: “It is as if the entire population of Rome were to die in the next five years.” (Times, 21 February) This from the leader of the Labour Party who vigorously defend the killer society that is the buying and selling of capitalism. Hypocrisy cannot go further surely when Gordon Brown suspends parliament debate because of the death of the child of one of his opponents in a vote catching move. He will not of course suspend the running of capitalism or its parliament about the possible death of 2.8 million kids.

Capitalist priorities

Despite the economic crisis in the US the government recently announced an increase in its military budget. “The collision of modern American life with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression has had some strange and unintended consequences. In Alpine, Utah, for example, a school has cancelled the entire 6th grade, with the teachers at Mountainville Academy dismissed just before Christmas and the 12-year-olds merged with the 7th grade.” (Times, 21 February) That is the priorities of capitalism – keep up military expenditure to protect the owning class’s markets and sources of raw materials, but sack teachers and worsen the education of workers children.

The Wasteful Society

In the most developed capitalist society on Earth we learn of this horror story. “The US jobless rate jumped in February to 8.1%, according to official figures from the Labor Department. The number of people out of work rose by 651,000 during the month. Both figures were bigger than expected. …President Obama said that the number of jobs lost so far in the recession was “astounding”. Speaking in Ohio, he added: “I don’t need to tell the people of this state what statistics like this mean,” saying that he had signed his economic stimulus package in order to save jobs. The extra 161,000 jobs added to December and January’s figures mean that almost two million jobs have been lost in the past three months.” (BBC News, 6 March) Think what this means, two million workers are being debarred from producing things that are necessary for human existence. Why? Because it isn’t profitable enough. Two million workers and their kids are being impoverished not because of some failing on their part but because of this awful society we all live in. Don’t you think it is time that those 2 million workers in the US thought of an alternative society? Shouldn’t you?  

Nurses refuse to work unprotected (2020)

From the WSPUS website

The pandemic is over and that’s official. Everyone back to work, folks! Enough loafing around already!

According to a document leaked from the Centers for Disease Control, the daily number of new cases, currently 30,000, is projected to rise to 200,000 by the end of the month. 

Fake news, I guess. 

Meanwhile it is reported that ten nurses have been suspended at Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California for refusing to work without the protection of tight-fitting N95 respirator masks. A co-worker had tested positive for Covid-19 and several doctors had advised them not to care for severely affected patients without wearing a respirator. However, the hospital administration ordered them to do exactly that. They were warned that failure to comply would be reported to the state licensing board as patient abandonment and negligence.   

The nurses suspect that the respirators are not really in short supply, as the administration claims. ‘The hospital group is a multi-billion-dollar corporation,’ noted one nurse. ‘It can definitely afford to buy them.’ 

The nurses are scared not only of catching Covid-19 but also of contaminating their families. Over 9,000 healthcare workers have tested positive so far.

In public rhetoric nurses are celebrated as ‘frontline’ heroes and heroines in the fight against the pandemic. But inside the hospitals their fate depends on administrators who totally lack respect for such lowly creatures and ignore their complaints. Administrative personnel may even outnumber healthcare workers. It is their duty to ensure that paperwork is completed correctly. The main concern of high-level administrators is to earn their annual bonus. According to Healthcare Finance News, the bonus of a hospital CEO is on average about a third of base salary and is determined by revenue size and other ‘standard performance metrics.’ 

That is why the administrators do not want to buy ‘too much’ protective equipment. That is why they are always on the lookout for ways to cut personnel and other costs. 

‘There is no shortage of nurses,’ explains one inside observer. ‘There is a shortage of properly paid nursing positions.’ So nurses are forced to put in long hours of overtime. After a time they can no longer take the pressure and ‘burn out’ (here). Many quit. An increasing number commit suicide. 

Such are a few of the delights of healthcare for profit. 

Stefan

Editorial: Total recall and true lies (2003)

Editorial from the November 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

So second-rate film actor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been elected Governor of California. A sad reflection of the abysmally low level of political understanding of that section of the California electorate who voted for someone, apparently on the basis of his screen image as an “action man”, in the belief that he would be able to solve the problems generated by capitalism in the same way that he always triumphs in his films. It might be thought that they would have learned their lesson after the failure of Hollywood screen cowboy, Ronald Reagan, to live up to his movie image. Apparently not.

But it is not so much this that we want to comment on as the right of recall. This – where voters have the right to recall from office someone they have elected, for not carrying out their wishes – is a key democratic principle. We don’t suppose there will be State Governors in Socialism but there will certainly be elected assemblies and perhaps some elected officials; in the socialist conception of democracy, such elected people should be subject to recall if, in the opinion of a majority of those who elected them, they have failed to carry out the mandate conferred on them. For, in socialism, all elected persons will be delegates chosen by the community to carry out some task on their behalf. It is therefore only normal that, if they fail to carry out this task properly, the people who elected them should have the power to revoke their mandate, i. e. to recall them and mandate someone else in their place.

Such a conception of democracy is alien to what has come to pass as “democracy” under capitalism. The right of recall exists in the constitution of the State of California and of a number of other US States only because at one time bourgeois democrats in America were more radical than they are today. But capitalism corrupts everything it touches and has been able to distort this basic democratic principle to fit into its conception of politics, where democracy is not a question of the community mandating delegates to carry out some task on its behalf – if only because as a class-divided society there is no community under capitalism – but that of choosing between two or more rival elites, a competition between rival gangs of professional politicians.

This reduces politics to choosing every few years which leader or leadership team is going to administer the political side of capitalism. Voters are not citizens participating in the self-administration of their common affairs, but are essentially only an audience whose role is limited – like that of the crowds in the Coliseum in Ancient Rome – to giving the thumbs up or the thumbs down to some outgoing leadership team seeking re-election.

This is not democracy, and it doesn’t work either in that the leaders never live up to their promises. Not necessarily because they are liars or tricksters or self-seekers (though many of them are of course) but because capitalism, despite their promises, just cannot be made to run without causing insoluble problems for the great majority of people, i.e for those who, with their dependants, rely to live on the wage or salary they are paid for the sale of their mental and physical energies.

They – we – make up the vast majority of the electorate but have not yet learned to use the vote in an intelligent way – not to elect capitalist politicians to govern capitalism in the only way it can be, as a system that has to put profits before people, but to send delegates into all elected assemblies mandated to put an end to capitalism. Of course, in keeping with the socialist conception of democracy as a participatory democracy, this assumes that people outside the elected bodies have also mobilised themselves and are ready to play their part in establishing socialism.

Last month’s recall election in California was not really an exercise in democracy, but rather a variation on the futile exercise of kicking out one leader and replacing them with another. But leaders can’t do anything for us. Changing leaders changes nothing. Only we can change things, by taking matters into our own hands and, as just stated, organising to send mandated socialist delegates to elected bodies instead of falling for the empty promises of capitalist politicians.

Arnold Schwarzenegger will fail to solve the problems wage and salary workers in California face just as much as the less charismatic ex-Governor Gray Davis did and all other politicians everywhere always do and always will. What is required is not a change of leaders but a change of society. Let’s terminate capitalism.

Material World: Water Scarcity is Becoming a Reality (2015)

The Material World Column from the May 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

California’s economy surpasses Russia’s. This year California has implemented mandatory water restrictions to reduce water usage by 25 percent. Governor Jerry Brown explained, ‘People should realise we’re in a new era. The idea of your nice little green grass getting lots of water every day – that’s going to be a thing of the past… This historic drought demands unprecedented action… It’s a different world. We have to act differently.’ This comes as the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which is critical to the state’s water system, is providing less. Water that falls during the wet season is stored and released during the summer. 11 trilliongallons of water are needed for California to recover from the emergency.

Water has long been a precious resource in California and is central to the state’s economy. It is a symbol of how capitalism tries to tame nature. There are golf courses in the deserts of Palm Springs, lush gardens and lawns in Los Angeles. Swimming pools have been part of California’s lifestyle for decades. There are approximately 1.18 million residential swimming pools in California, according to a study. The typical residential pool requires from 10,000 to 30,000 gallons of water to fill.

But it is agriculture which is at the heart of California’s worsening water crisis, consuming 80 percent of California’s water. Agriculture thrives while everyone else is parched. California produces roughly half of all the fruits, nuts, and vegetables consumed in the United States—and more than 90 percent of the almonds, tomatoes, strawberries, broccoli and other specialty crops—while also exporting vast amounts. Most crops and livestock are produced in the Central Valley, which is technically a desert. The soil is very fertile but crops there can thrive only if massive amounts of irrigation water are applied. Agriculture’s share of state water use is seldom mentioned. Instead, news concentrates on the drought’s implications for people in cities and suburbs. Last year, the legislature passed and Governor Brown signed a bill to regulate groundwater extraction. But agricultural interests lobbied hard against it resulting in a leisurely implementation timetable. Although communities must complete plans for sustainable water management by 2020, not until 2040 must sustainability actually be achieved. The Central Valley could be a dust bowl by then.

To plant increasing amounts of water-intensive crops in a desert would be questionable in the best of times. To continue doing so in the middle of a historic drought, even as scientists warn that climate change will increase the frequency and severity of future droughts, seems ludicrous. But pistachios generated an average net return of $3,519 per acre in 2014. Almonds, an even thirstier crop, averaged $1,431 per acre. ‘I’ve been smiling all the way to the bank’ said pistachio farmer John Dean. All across the world drought is increasingly prevalent, deserts are expanding and ground-water drying up.

In Arabia ground water levels are falling dangerously. The United Arab Emirates crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan admitted: ‘For us, water is [now] more important than oil.’ At their current rate, the UAE will deplete its natural freshwater resources in about fifty years.

In the Brazilian city of São Paulo, home to 20 million people, and once known as the City of Drizzle, the Alto Tietê reservoir network, which supplies three million people in greater Sao Paulo, has water levels at below 15 percent. The Cantareira reservoir system, which serves more than nine million people in the state, is only 5 percent full. Calculations indicate that given the current level of consumption versus the predicted raining patterns there is only enough water in the system to last four to six months. That means the water could run out before the next rainy season starts in November. State officials recently announced a potential rationing program of five days without water and two days with, in case the February and March rains do not refill the reservoirs.

Since the mid-1990s, south-east Australia has experienced a 15 percent drop in rainfall during late autumn and early winter, with a 25 percent slump in average rainfall in April and May. A drought has gripped western Queensland and northern New South Wales since 2012.

The total amount of fresh water on Earth comes to about 10.6m cubic km. Combined into a single droplet, this would produce a sphere with a diameter of about 272 km. However, 99 percent of that sphere would be made up of groundwater, much of which is not accessible. By contrast, the total volume from lakes and rivers, humanity’s main source of fresh water, produces a sphere that is a mere 56 km in diameter. That little droplet sustains most of the people on Earth.

Capitalism encourages over-consumption and wasteful production for ‘endless’ growth and greater profit. People have changed economic systems before when they no longer suited new conditions. Things are only impossible until they’re not. We can’t stay stuck in the past, unable to imagine a better future that holds us back from creating a better world.

ALJO

Material World: All Migrants are Workers (2017)

The Material World Column from the May 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anti-migrant feeling is running high in many countries. The anti-foreigner nationalists are having a feeding frenzy of xenophobia. The right-wing media publish headlines provoking panic. It is all too easy to blame immigrants for causing problems such as unemployment, bad housing or crime. An accusing finger can always be pointed at ‘them’ for making things worse for ‘us’. It is often alleged that ‘newcomers’ live off the backs of ‘locals’. If migration has led to the rise of the far-right ― it is only through the racist tactic of blaming economic woes on the new arrivals. Many ‘natives’ cannot contain their indignation that their ‘indigenous’ culture is being undermined. But what happens when those migrants are your ‘own folk’ from another part of the nation? Californians in the ’30s would have been amenable to a wall along the state’s eastern border, not its southern one.

During the 1930s the mid-west of the United States suffered a series of droughts that drove hundreds of thousands off their land. Many from Arkansas and Oklahoma headed westwards to California. They were the Dust Bowl refugees and 86,000 arrived in California from the drought states between June 1935 and September 1936 alone.

When they reached the Californian state line, they did not receive a warm reception. The Los Angeles police chief, James ‘Two-Gun’ Davis, deployed police at entry points into California with orders to turn back any with ‘no visible means of support’ (or, as Woody Guthrie, sang it, ‘if you ain’t got the Do Re Mi’. They were called ‘The Bum Brigade’ and were given specific orders to search all incoming cars, wagons, and trains.

When migrants reached California they found that most of the farmland was owned by large corporations run by managers so many gave up farming. 40 percent of the Dust Bowl refugees who became migrant workers ended up picking grapes and cotton in the San Joaquin Valley where they replaced the Mexicans who were deported. Even though tons of surplus food were produced, the Okies who worked on those farms suffered the very real threat of starvation. Author John Steinbeck witnessed the burning of extra produce by a California company – a result of the New Deal concept of limiting production of goods so that the demand, and thereby the price, would increase. Companies wanted to keep prices high, and so they destroyed excess food, crops, and livestock.

Other migrants settled near larger cities in shantytowns called Okievilles, on open lots local landowners divided into tiny subplots and sold cheaply in monthly instalments. They built their houses from scavenged scraps, and they lived without plumbing and electricity. Polluted water and a lack of trash and waste facilities led to outbreaks of typhoid, malaria, smallpox and tuberculosis.

The California Citizens Association formed in 1938 and its secretary, Thomas W McManus made clear its attitude towards the newcomers:

  ‘No greater invasion by the destitute has ever been recorded in the history of mankind… Californian jobs go to Californians and not to the horde of empty bellies from the Southwest’.

It succeeded in extending the waiting period for California relief from one to three years, vigorously supported by the agricultural corporations who were resorting to their usual knavish tricks in order to guarantee a cheap, surplus supply of labour. The purpose of the California Citizens’ Association was to offer wages below the minimum decency standard of relief, and to enforce this wage rate by giving workers no alternative – the usual ‘work or starve’. At this point, the California Citizens’ Association dropped its disguise and became the Associated Farmers, Inc. The powerful Associated Farmers (the growers) feared the ‘Okies’ might unionise and demand better wages. They feared that white migrants would not prove to be as docile as the Mexican workers.

A Californian called Fred Edwards drove his destitute brother-in-law from Texas into California in 1939, and was found guilty of violating a California statute criminalizing transportation of indigents into California. In 1941, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down the California statute as unconstitutional and no longer did individual states possess the authority to interfere in the free movement of peoples. Once war approached and the West Coast industries boomed, many migrants abandoned the fields and orchards for the shipyards and armament factories. In fact, during the 1940s the number of people coming to California from the Prairies actually increased.

Donald Trump’s incitement of the anti-immigration sentiment is not new. Immigrants to America have always been feared and hated.

What people were saying about the Irish or the Chinese or the Okies in the past, they now say about Hispanics. There is always another group to look upon as a threat, and demagogues like Trump use that to gather support and garner power.

ALJO

Can the welfare state survive? (1992)

From the September 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the deepening of the world economic crisis and the inevitable increase in unemployment, homelessness and poverty, pressures on welfare agencies world-wide are increasing. Governments are being compelled to review their public spending budgets in an attempt to meet these problems.

Here in Britain the Chancellor, Norman Lamont, has emphasised the Conservatives' commitment:

to reduce the proportion of the nation's wealth pre-empted by the public sector . . . Recession inevitably makes that difficult for a while, as output shrinks while rising unemployment pushes up spending. So public spending as a proportion of GDP will rise for a couple of years. But as the economy recovers we need to get it back on a steady downward trend (Daily Telegraph. 24 July).

He went on to say that the "total level of public expenditure must be fixed on the basis of what is affordable".

This statement implies that, for the government’s plan to succeed, recovery must occur within two years. If the Chancellor's previous forecasts arc anything to go by— he announced in June last year that recovery had begun—then his pronouncement lacks credibility.

Same the whole world over

The strains on welfare budgets are not confined to Britain. In America the State of California is broke. For the first time since 1930 welfare cheques have been issued as lOUs and some banks have bounced them. In New Zealand, the National Party government of Jim Bolger has made a determined attempt to drastically modify the welfare state which has existed ten years longer than in Britain. Against a background of net debt ratio to public spending of 46.5 percent, compared to an OECD average of 33 percent, cutbacks have begun in earnest. Hospital charges for those on higher incomes have increased and are effectively means-tested. Retirement age will be increased from 60 to 65 over a ten-year period. There will be a surcharge for all tax-paying pensioners. Unemployment benefit for a single person has been cut by 10 percent in cash terms. It is now no longer paid to those below 18 and only at a reduced rate to those up to age 25 (Financial Times, 24 July).

Sweden, that shining example of a social welfare state according to many reformist Social Democrats, where prior to last year’s election public spending totalled 61 percent of GNP. has been forced to make reductions in social security spending. After nearly 60 years so-called “caring economics” has ended “in uncontrollable public spending and the highest tax rates in the world along with chronic wage inflation as workers tried to claw back tax increases through their wage packets" (Daily Telegraph, 26 March).

In Italy the public debt at a level of 105 percent of National Income is clearly out of control. The ratio of debt to GNP is growing faster than the economy. Endemic political scandals linking prominent government Ministers to corruption involving public works contracts and the Mafia have undermined confidence in the country’s finances. Privatisation plans, intended to reshuffle the states insurance, oil and electricity into two main groups in preparation for sale to the public, had to be modified as a result of the disclosure of huge debts owed by these institutions to foreign banks totalling £5.2 billion (Financial Times, 24 July).

Governments have no money other than that which they raise from taxation, direct and indirect, borrowing by issuing government stock, increasing the money supply and, in recent years, privatisation of formerly state-run industries. Ultimately this revenue must come out of the profit-making sector of the capitalist economy.

It follows that increases in public spending must involve a reduction of profit in the non-state profit-making sector unless the latter can increase its profits to a level that compensates for the increased public sector spending. This, however, is not possible when the capitalist mode of production. whose sole function is the accumulation of capital in order to realise a greater mass of profit, enters into deep economic crisis, as it has at present. Personal and business bankruptcies increase, unemployment soars along with homelessness resulting from repossessions, all increasing demands on the public sector. This in turn results in increased government borrowing.

In spite of their alleged differences, all the major parties at the last election attempted to outbid each other in their promises of increased public spending. The Conservatives claimed that better management and accountability would produce better value for money. Labour called for a more "caring society”, but the call from their deputy leader, Margaret Beckett, for the lowering of interest rates to revive the economy fails to account for the fact that the US has its lowest interest rates since the 1930s and yet still has no recovery.

More cuts to come

None of the catch slogans of either party address the fundamental contradictions contained within capitalism which are manifesting themselves in greater problems in the public sector. Having allowed public spending to increase, with the elections over, the Chancellor now has the task with Michael Portillo, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, of keeping public spending within the projected limits of £245 billion for 1993/ 94. While details of cutbacks have yet to be revealed, unemployment benefit is a likely target.

Some idea of the magnitude of the problems involved can be seen from the estimated costs of unemployment, income support and housing benefits which rise by about £350 million for every 100,000 unemployed above the governments projected forecast (Daily Telegraph, 24 July). The costs of long-term unemployment of 600,000 have been put at £4 billion by R. Layard (Employment Institute pamphlet, September 1991). The charity Relate has put the cost of single parent families to the public sector as £600 million (Daily Telegraph, 1 August).

And what if the long-promised economic recovery fails to materialise on time? Then the problems outlined above will increase to a degree that at worst could cause a collapse of the welfare state both here and abroad or at best result in a drastic cut back in welfare provisions as in the 1930s with its consequent suffering and hardship for members of the working class. The solution lies with those who are always on the receiving end. The class that produces the wealth—the working class. They and they alone can end this nightmare by establishing a society of production for use and the welfare of all humanity.

Terry Lawlor

From America: California's "Boston Tea-Party" (1978)

Letter From America from the August 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

The state of California has long been known as a hatchery of unusual religious and political movements. The list is a long one even in the lifetime of the average senior citizen today. Now, lightning strikes at the California ballot boxes in the form of a tax revolt, dubbed by its instigators a modern version of the Boston Tea Party, directed against property tax rates and Government spending, and ordaining limits on such rates so low as to shake the political structure of the State to its roots and put fear into public employees from coast to coast. The thunder from that first bolt, and others to come, will reverberate long before subsiding. It represents a cry from the hearts of masses of workers who have not yet learned the real cause of their misery and who are bringing joy to a section of the capitalist class — big property owners — providing them with windfall profits such as they have not seen in many a moon.

The effect in California was quick: noticeable numbers of state, county and municipal workers received immediate “pink slips” (dismissal — Ed. Comm.) and most other public employees are on an unofficial “red alert”; summer classes in schools have been cancelled along with other, social, programmes; some localities have even lost their fire stations, which now sport posters advising: "If your house is on fire call Jarvis” (leader of the movement and co-sponsor of the so-called Jarvis-Gann Amendment). The extent of the cutbacks may have been exaggerated since the State politicians are sitting on a huge tax surplus which will be parcelled out in relief to the communities. But the message, nevertheless, seems clear. There is widespread disapproval among employed workers of the “fat” in State services, generally, and welfare programmes in particular. The crux of the problem, according to popular misconception, is Government mismanagement of the monies milked from long-suffering tax-payers with whom the working class strongly identifies. Does the working class really pay taxes, if not directly on a home then indirectly through higher rents, not to mention everything else they buy and through the withholding on their pay? Before discussing this question a brief explanation of the American elections system may be in order.

Presidential elections are four years apart but one-third of the US Senate, 100 per cent, of the House of Representatives, a percentage of state Governors, and other political state officers are up for grabs every two years. Besides the regular elections in November, however, many of the states have primary elections earlier in the year in which the voters have an opportunity to determine the candidates the contesting parties will field in November. Along with the political hopefuls there is usually a list of propositions (proposed amendments to the state constitution) that appear on the ballot. In the case of California, the ballot in June, 1978, carried the proposition that now limits the property tax to 1 per cent, of assessment and confronts the State apparatus with a loss of about 50 percent. of its annual revenue (some $7 billion, it is claimed). Mr. Jarvis, incidentally, is director of the California Apartment Association. He and Paul Gann, another big real estate operator, lobbied unsuccessfully in Sacramento for years for legislative action to reduce the property tax. They finally must have realised that it is easier to bamboozle the working class — a majority of the voters — than the politicians and so crusaded for the petitions needed to put the proposition on the ballot. If the politicians won’t curb their outrageous spending let us, the taxpayers, cut the spendable monies — show them who is the boss. This was the message sold to the working class of California. They bought it with gusto.

Now what about the obsession the working class has with taxes? A large number of wage and salaried workers do “own” some real estate in the form of generally heavily mortgaged homes. By far the majority of city dwellers, however, are rent-paying tenants. Do landlords really charge off their property taxes, or even most of them, in the rents? If this were true they would have little, indeed, to complain about. The fact is that landlords confront tenants in the same relationship as merchant to customer. They have a commodity for sale (the use of an apartment for a limited period) which the tenant buys. They will then get as much for their commodity as the market will bear, regardless of the bite of the tax assessors. What the market will bear is determined by the demand and the supply in the particular area. There are areas, even in California .where rents are relatively cheap because those who can afford better prefer not to live in them.

As for working-class home owners who do have to send revenues to City Hall: in the final analysis their income derives entirely, or almost so, from wages or salaries — just as is the case with tenants. As Engels puts it, concisely, in The Housing Question: “‘Taxes’! A matter that interests the bourgeoisie very much but the worker only very little. What the worker pays in taxes goes in the long run into the cost of production of labour power and must therefore be compensated for by the capitalist”. This terse statement sums it all up. Property taxes, gasoline taxes, withholding taxes? The assumption is that without them real wages would be greater.

Is the so-called modern Tea Party a harbinger of a return, nation-wide, to conditions of the Thirties? We are not prophets, or gamblers, but a safe bet would be that the monies needed to maintain some sort of adequate social services, including Welfare, will continue to be raised in one way or another for the foreseeable future. But whether more of the tax burden will be levied by the Federal Government or not, the various sections of the capitalist class will go on trying to shift the burden from one set of shoulders to another. And the workers will go on allowing themselves to be kidded into supporting one group or other of their exploiters — until they get the message that the enemy is not taxes but the wages system itself.

Harry Morrison

WSP (Boston)

Pieces Together: Only Inside Socialism? (2008

The Pieces Together column from the September 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Only inside Socialism?

"As we face $4.50 a gallon gas, we also know that alternative energy sources — coal, oil shale, ethanol, wind and ground-based solar — are either of limited potential, very expensive, require huge energy storage systems or harm the environment. There is, however, one potential future energy source that is environmentally friendly, has essentially unlimited potential and can be cost competitive with any renewable source: space solar power. Science fiction? Actually, no — the technology already exists. A space solar power system would involve building large solar energy collectors in orbit around the Earth. These panels would collect far more energy than land-based units, which are hampered by weather, low angles of the sun in northern climes and, of course, the darkness of night. Once collected, the solar energy would be safely beamed to Earth via wireless radio transmission, where it would be received by antennas near cities and other places where large amounts of power are used. The received energy would then be converted to electric power for distribution over the existing grid." (New York Times, 23 July)

Behind the bravado

"Washington - More than 22,000 veterans have sought help from a special suicide hot line in its first year, and 1,221 suicides have been averted, the government says. According to a recent RAND Corp. study, roughly one in five soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan displays symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, putting them at a higher risk for suicide. Researchers at Portland State University found that male veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide than men who are not veterans. ...The VA (Veterans Affairs) estimates that every year 6,500 veterans take their own lives. The mental health director for the VA, Ira Katz, said in an e-mail last December that of the 18 veterans who commit suicide each day, four to five of them are under VA care, and 12,000 veterans under VA care are attempting suicide each year." (Yahoo News, 28 July)

What credit crunch?

"A mysterious Russian billionaire has trumped his big-spending rivals and broken a world record by splashing out 500 million euros (£392 million) on one of the most sumptuous villas on the French Riveria." (London Times, 11 August)

Californian nightmare

"Stockton has become known as Foreclosure Town, USA. With 1 in 25 houses in foreclosure, there are more properties with mortgages in default here than anywhere in the country. And it is not as if there isn't some stiff competition for Stockton's dubious accolade in other corners of California, and indeed in the rest of America." (Observer, 10 August)