Environmental problems caused by capitalism’s production for profit are legion – resource depletion, destruction of nature, chemical toxification, epidemics, to name but a few. And then there is climate change. Attempts to remedy it by recycling, solar energy, wind turbines and the like all seem doomed to failure involving as they do significant use of resources.
Some have suggested that, for nature to recover, half the earth should be left free from human settlement and resource extraction. But any comprehensive attempt to change how humans interact with nature is impossible within a system whose existence demands profit-based growth. The only feasible way to heal injury to people and planet is a free access society – moneyless, wageless and stateless – based on production for collective need not profit.
The owner of the staff-owned John Lewis Partnership (JLP) has just halved redundancy payments and is proposing to slash 11,000 jobs.
Now read that sentence again. See anything odd about it?
Yes, it would seem to be saying that staff at JLP, who are called ‘partners’, are in effect sacking themselves for the good of the firm.
But of course, the ‘partners’ didn’t get consulted over any of this, and are justifiably furious. They have our sympathy.
This was always a bit of a charade, wasn’t it? In reality, capitalist companies make profits by extracting hard labour from their workers. Giving the workers fancy name badges, a few shares and ‘partnership council’ representation was never going to change that.
As the Ukraine war drags on, more attention is being paid to the real reason for Putin’s attack on his neighbour -the desire of Russia’s capitalist class, backed by its government, to control Ukraine’s mineral and agricultural wealth. That wealth was an inevitable temptation to a large power whose monopoly on trading such resources on the world market was increasingly at risk.
The course of the war suggests that Putin misjudged the readiness of the capitalist classes and governments in Ukraine and the West to allow this monopoly to be extended.
The whole scenario illustrates perfectly the Socialist Party’s argument that wars in capitalism are caused by competition for global domination of resources, markets and trade routes.
It has been confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year on record, a degree and a half warmer than the long-term average before industrialisation. Record levels of heat were taken up by oceans, which are a clear indicator of global warming, as they absorb 90% of the heat trapped by carbon emissions.
Capitalism and the profit motive are the reasons behind the mass consumption of fossil fuels, the burning of which releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
Socialism will not have a quick fix to global heating but, by increasing reliance on renewable energy, it will provide the best context in which to address the issues of climate change and its effect on the planet and its inhabitants.
Following the recent television series, few will not know about the hundreds of sub-postmasters prosecuted by the Post Office. They were wrongly accused of stealing money when their employer’s computer system was at fault. Some were sent to jail, others convicted and given criminal records, all lost their homes and livelihoods, leading to suicide in some cases.
Underlying all this is the bane of existence for the vast majority – money. In our society, it rules all our lives, dictates actions and priorities, causes hardship and suffering and, even to those who have it in abundance, rarely brings meaningful satisfaction. The only way to overcome this is to establish a moneyless society based on democratic organisation and free access to all goods and services.
This year Britons will be going to the polls in a General Election, the result of which, barring some unimaginable black-swan event, seems to be a foregone conclusion. Starmer’s Labour Party will be elected to office, and fingers will be crossed around the country as voters hope against hope that choosing capitalism’s B-team for a change will actually do something useful.
But realistically, Labour won’t make much difference to your life. They have to manage the day-to-day administration of capitalism, in which the 99% do all the work while the 1% reap most of the benefits, wars rage around the world and the planet heats up dangerously. If we really want a happy new year, we’d better get rid of capitalism.
According to the BBC, access to a ‘groundbreaking’ treatment for that horrible condition cystic fibrosis may be denied to NHS patients because of the cost, despite its proven benefits.
There is of course an outside chance of the treatment eventually being made available, but the wider question is why such a hurdle to life-changing medicines arises in the first place.
Our answer is that it offers confirmation, if any were needed, that the capitalist system is driven by the need for private profit, and that always takes priority
Another Christmas has come and gone. Even if for most people there’s nothing particularly religious about it any more, they and the media still pay lip service to a story of miracles from 2000 years ago to be remembered and celebrated by pious words and empty ceremony.
How entirely contradictory the cult of Christ – and all religion and superstition – are to the fact that humans make their own history with the material around them and to the socialist idea of a democratic majority using their political power to bring in a new wageless, moneyless world system of voluntary cooperation and free access to all goods and services. When we do that, we’ll truly have something to celebrate.
According to a recent report from the Centre for Social Justice, the most disadvantaged people in the UK are no better off than they were fifteen years ago.
Work is so badly paid and insecure that, for many, benefits offer a less miserly income, and this is not because welfare is extremely generous. Rather, ‘real average weekly pay growth in the UK has remained stagnant since the 2008 financial crisis’. Two-fifths of the most deprived have a mental health condition, and family breakdown and poor housing also feature prominently.
The Covid pandemic and lockdown no doubt contributed to this, but the real underlying cause is capitalism, and the inequality and poverty that it implies.
Poor Prince Harry. A court has awarded him £150,000 compensation for the ‘harassment and pain’ he suffered from press intrusion into his private life. Yet in many parts of the world children are sleeping on the streets and begging for food. Who is compensating them? Even in the UK, according to Barnardo’s, ‘more than a million children either sleep on the floor or share a bed with parents or siblings’. Is there compensation for them?
What does it take to make people question such nauseating inequality? It takes a consciousness that capitalism is the cause and must be replaced by a world society of free access to all goods and services organised cooperatively and democratically.
