So-called insecure work is supposed to be a means to progressing to a better-paid and more reliable job. But recent research from the Work Foundation has shown that that is not the case.
More than two in five of those in precarious work were in the same situation four years later, while fewer had moved on to a more secure job. Last year almost seven million people were doing insecure work, and earning an average of £3200 less than those in secure jobs.
But all employment under capitalism is in reality insecure. What needs to be done away with is not insecure jobs but the whole idea of employment and working for a capitalist.
Almost all ‘nations’ are ethnically hybrid. Yet some workers believe that the country they happen to have been born in has some unique supremacy over others. They riot over the existence of those who are recent additions to the ethnic mix and care little when groups of desperate people drown in attempts to cross to these shores.
This xenophobia suited the early development of national capitalism, but it is out of sync with the modern global variety, which exploits workers internationally regardless of their culture or skin colour. Yet the chauvinism lingers on, just one of capitalism’s contradictions that will be resolved by the establishment of a new borderless, stateless society where all are regarded as equal without distinction of ethnicity.
The current UK Covid inquiry is slowly revealing how, during the pandemic, the already overstretched NHS faced ‘catastrophic failures’ and ‘no support at all’ from a science-illiterate government led by a ‘shopping-trolley’ Prime Minister who allegedly would have rather ‘let the bodies pile high’ than impose another economy-crashing lockdown.
The UK inquiry is likely to condemn the spectacular incompetence shown by that scrum of talentless public school yobs whose only qualification for power was their posh backgrounds. But around the world, the short-termism and even denialism of governments was everywhere on display. This is capitalism working normally, always focusing on profits today, not consequences tomorrow. That’s why we’ve got a climate crisis. Don’t expect government solutions for society’s problems. Capitalism and its governments are the problem.
Grenfell Tower was turned into a deathtrap by the addition of dangerous cladding. The manufacturer of the cladding covered up the fact that it had failed safety tests and continued to market it for use in high-rise buildings.
That decision to hide the test results had only one motive – to protect the manufacturer’s profits. So whatever the institutional failures that occurred in the wake of that initial decision, we must never forget that all of those who died in that horrible fire were killed by the capitalist profit motive.
Those 72 people were by no means the first of capitalism’s victims, and sad to say, until the entire system is overthrown, they will surely not be the last.
Sir Keir Starmer says:
“Frankly, things will get worse before they get better.”
“I’ll have to turn to the country and make big asks of you as well. To accept short term pain for long term good. …. And I know that after all you’ve been through, that is a really big ask …”
Actually it’s a bloody cheek. How often have government asked workers to put up with pain on the promise that things will get better? It’s their standard line when the state of the economy forces them to prioritise profit-making over meeting people’s needs.
Just as of course it is standard for an incoming government to blame the outgoing one rather than capitalism.
Recent research in Canada has shown the dangers of much employment under capitalism. Not hard exhausting physical work in this case, but office work.
A stressful job, a demanding boss, tight deadlines and feeling undervalued can all greatly increase the risk of a serious heart problem, which may make having a stroke more likely. Even a relatively high wage does little to reduce the risks. More generally, work-related stress can increase the risk of high blood pressure.
Work is essential to human society, but employment under capitalism is about making a profit for the employer, not meeting the needs of consumers or those who do the work.
The uncontrolled, yet obviously organised, dumping of waste in places like Hoads Wood in Kent is the tip of a very nasty iceberg of fly-tipping in many parts of the countryside. In June, an NFU survey found that 30% of English and Welsh members had had the less than bucolic task of clearing up after large-scale tipping on their farms. And town-dwellers know that it goes on just as much in urban areas.
A few bad actors, for sure. But the fly-tippers’ attitude towards the environment is characteristic of the capitalist system which is concerned first, foremost and always with making money, so we can expect to be outraged by this issue until the motive for such appalling behaviour is removed.
The strong public reaction against the small minority of xenophobic, anti-immigrant rioters who thought they had free rein to spread hate and fear is very reassuring.
People have come together to support those who’ve suffered. A small shopkeeper in Southport whose store was looted and wrecked thought he’d lost everything, but next morning found his shop being cleaned and repaired by neighbours and local tradespeople, some of whom he’d never spoken to. Someone set up a crowdfunding campaign that quickly raised £11000 towards repairs and restocking. A few days later he reopened.
So much for those who say that the society of voluntary work and free access that socialists aim for couldn’t work because people are by nature greedy, selfish and self-centred.
The rich, who actually own the country, will not be the ones screaming ‘We want our country back’ and lobbing missiles in Rotherham, Hartlepool and Bolton, where angry young members of the working class, faced with a life of wage-drudgery, and groomed in nationalist xenophobia by capital’s ideology machinery, have fallen for the lies of a bunch of ruthless online manipulators who were gleefully quick to exploit a ghastly tragedy in Southport.
Members of the working class have every right to be angry, but being angry at each other is exactly what the wealthy elite want. Workers need to be smarter than that, if we’re ever going to get our world back.
Over three hundred thousand people in England alone are homeless. This is the worst part of the housing crisis, but the problem extends well beyond that.
There was a report recently about a woman who earns £50,000 a year and cannot buy a house; rent and bills take two-thirds of her income. It has been claimed that only one in eight renters can afford to buy where they live. Not even a half of those earning over £70,000 (twice the average wage) could afford to buy in their local area.
The house-building industry under capitalism exists to make a profit, not to meet human need, which would be the aim of housing in a Socialist society.
