A new BBC history series concludes that ‘Wealth inequality is the most common and crucial element in societal collapse.’
What to do? At a recent awards ceremony singer Billie Eilish, who is donating £8m to fight food poverty, asked the question ‘If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire?’ Her suggestion, to give it all away, reportedly annoyed Mark Zuckerberg.
Many, including even Reform UK voters, would support a wealth tax. But the tax proposed is usually modest – a mere ‘pantomime of pseudo-radicalism in which the villains are some wankers on yachts.’ We say it’s pointless decrying wealth inequality as an ‘injustice’ while accepting the capitalist logic that created it. If you want to abolish inequality, abolish capitalism.
On 18 November, the Financial Times told us that a Bank of America survey has found that a “majority of global fund managers think companies are overinvesting, as market anxiety grows about the sustainability of the artificial intelligence spending boom”.
The capitalist press is again revealing the accuracy of Marxian economic theory, which describes how capital will and must flow into industrial sectors with potential/actual relatively high profits. The end result will always be over-investment and an ensuing sectoral slump which, depending on circumstances, can turn into a world slump.
As the refrain goes, capitalism is “forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air”. Except for us, the working class, the bubbles aren’t pretty at all!
Over a billion people live in slums, an increase of more than a hundred million over twenty years.
This is mainly in Asia and Africa, with unplanned urban growth meaning that people often build their own poor-quality unsanitary homes. In south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, around half of city-dwellers live in slums.
The real reason, though, is the massive inequality that marks this capitalist world, with so many having their lives disrupted and being forced to move to cities. Whether this is a result of war, climate change, economic problems or other causes, it shows clearly that the present global system cannot satisfy even the basic demands of much of the population.
Given that the world seems riven with fighting and wars, is it surprising that many people see conflict between humans as the natural state of things? Yet the vast majority of interactions that take place between human beings on a daily basis are cooperative, peaceful and harmonious.
So why the contrast? It’s because the root cause of modern wars lies not in any natural human inclination towards fighting or violence but in the rivalries between governments acting on behalf of their national capitalist classes for control of raw materials, trade routes and markets. In a stateless, moneyless world of cooperative endeavour – socialism – such rivalries would not exist and the natural human ability to cooperate rather than compete would come into its own.
Remember him? Not the news broadcaster or the Game of Thrones character, the London doctor who in 1854 identified the source of a Soho cholera epidemic as the local water supply. Though his work was contested for years, it’s now regarded as the ‘founding event of the science of epidemiology‘. Vaccines soon followed, making cholera history.
Except they didn’t. Cholera is once again rocketing, in 34 countries, mostly because of ‘poverty, inequality, conflict and displacement,’ and also ‘because the disease afflicts almost exclusively the poorest countries and communities, [so] the vaccine does not attract investment from developers, for whom it offers little market opportunity.’
Can’t pay? Die of cholera. John Snow would be turning in his grave.
Ever since it became the dominant feature of economic life, capital has repeatedly proven to be a force for economic instability. The “financial crisis” of 2008 is a clear example. Another such crisis could be on its way soon. An IMF blog on 14 October says ‘nonbanks’ are issuing risky loans that banks can no longer provide under post-2008 restrictions. The banks are in on the act too – according to the Financial Times’ Unhedged podcast on 2 October, they have lent some $1.7 trillion to nonbanks. Their ‘imprudence’ has already led two large US companies to collapse.
Typical of capital – its unquenchable thirst for profit drives the economy to its limits, and beyond, causing chaos for many. Time to get rid.
Being homeless is devastating, whether a person is sofa-surfing, living in a hostel or sleeping on the street.
But it’s not just a matter of insecurity and misery. Last year 1611 homeless people died in the UK, a record high. Most deaths are linked to suicide or drugs, but some die after being assaulted. Roughly one in ten of those deaths were people who were rough sleeping, and rough sleeper numbers rose by 20% in the year to over 4600.
The Homelessness Minister claimed that the government was ‘accelerating efforts to tackle the root causes of homelessness’. But the root cause is the profit motive, and no capitalist government will tackle that.
The supporters of capitalism are forever going on about how wonderful the system is. Yet, oddly enough, life is still pretty much a nightmare for vast numbers of people. According to UNICEF and WHO, for example, one in 4 people over the planet lack access to clean drinking water.
Do we have the technical resources to solve this problem? Undoubtedly. Decent living standards for all are within immediate reach. But capitalism shackles current knowledge and technology to its own purpose, the pursuit of profit. It will continue to do so until the majority of the real wealth creators (those who have to work for a wage or salary) decide collectively to take control of that wealth and use it solely to satisfy human needs.
A new Guardian report shows how Facebook has become a hotbed of toxic far-right sludge, with just a few overlapping groups serving up racist and xenophobic misinformation to an unwary but ever-growing public audience. ‘Regular people interacting with this content often don’t know that they’re part of some playbook or agenda’ which uses ‘a narrative such as “the mainstream media is lying to you”, or “scientific institutions are looking to censor people”‘. Fearing state lies and manipulation, they fall prey instead to far-right lies and manipulation.
On the plus side, young people have largely stopped using Facebook, because their parents are on it. So maybe Farage-mania will age out, while a saner generation realises that the real problem is capitalism.
Do you embrace the ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ like Keats? Or does autumn fill you with dread as communications keep arriving announcing energy price rises? Darker and colder days mean using more expensive energy that you can’t afford.
According to the Resolution Foundation the number of customers falling behind on their electricity bills with no repayment plan in place has more than tripled between 2012 and 2024 to over one million. Gas customers falling behind on their gas bill shows a similar increase. The size of the debt has also considerably increased.
Eating or heating? When it gets chilly energy poverty can produce serious health issues. Capitalism doesn’t care. Capitalism cares only for profit and more profit. Make capitalism history.
