SPC newsletter for 1st May

The Socialist Party of Canada

Secretary’s Report for May 1

Email Report

• Enquiry re Left Communist groups and how we view them.

Good of the Movement

• The Spring Imagines are being sent out to all members. Please feel free tomake comments, suggestions, and contributions.

Finances

• Secretary’s expenses for April, $92.48 A donation of $20 received with thanks.

Karl’s Quotes

• Commercial capital is the precursor of production/industrial capital andwas the source of the primitive accumulation of capital necessary for the establishment of capitalist production. Marx writes, “ Within the capitalist mode of production – i.e. once capital takes command of production itself and gives it a completely altered and specific form – commercial capital appears simply as capital in a particular function. In all earlier modes of production, however, commercial capital rather appears as the function of capital par excellence, and the more so, the more production is directly the production of the producer’s means of subsistence. Thus there is no problem at all in understanding why commercial capital appears as the historic form of capital long before capital has subjected production itself to its sway. Its existence, and its development to a certain level, is itself a historical precondition for the development of the capitalist mode of production (1) as precondition for the concentration of money wealth, and (2) because the capitalist mode of production presupposes production for trade, wholesale outlet rather than supply to the individual client, so that a merchant does not buy simply to satisfy his own personal needs, but rather concentrates in his act of purchase the purchase acts of many. On the other hand, every development in commercial capital gives production a character oriented ever more to exchange-value.” (Page 444, Capital, Volume III) and , “ There can be no doubt – and this very fact has led to false conceptions – that the great revolutions that took place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, along with the geographical discoveries of that epoch, and which rapidly advanced the development of commercial capital, were a major moment in promoting the transition from the feudal to the capitalist mode of production. The sudden expansion of the world market, the multiplication of commodities in circulation, the competition among the European nations for the seizure of Asiatic products and American treasures, the colonial system, all made a fundamental contribution towards shattering the feudal barriers to production.” (Page 450, Capital, volume III)

Food For Thought

• In March, the federal government rejected appeals for a national enquiryinto murdered and missing aboriginal women that angered the opposition and Canadian native groups. Statistics Canada has shown that aboriginal women are twice as likely to suffer domestic violence than other Canadian women. They accounted for eight per cent of homicide victims in Canada between 2004 and 2010 despite representing only four per cent of the female population. Claudette Dumont-Smith, executive director of the Native Women’s Association, said, “ There’s no new action, just a continuation of what’s in place, so what’s going to change, really?” Under capitalism, we cannot expect any change from discrimination or oppression because they are part of the system.

• The UN International Panel on Climate Change has agreed to state in itsupcoming report that global warming has inflicted irreversible damage to corral reefs and arctic sea ice and warning of serious climatic effects if we stand still and do nothing. Unfortunately, ‘doing’ anything will take lots of money that can only come from profits and thus practically nothing will be done until the effects of warming impinge on profits. By then, it may well be too late, not to mention the death and damage done in the meantime.

• The Russian daily newspaper, Izvestia, published a letter written bythe late Mikhail Kalishnikov a few months before his death in which he pours out his anguish about his invention, the AK-47 rifle, “ The pain in my soul is unbearable. I keep asking myself the same unsolvable question – if my assault rifle took people’s lives, it means that I, Mikhail Kalishnikov, son of a farmer and Orthodox Christian, am responsible for people’s deaths. The longer I live, the more often that question gets into my brain, the deeper I go in my thoughts and guess about why The Almighty allowed humans to have devilish desires of envy, greed, and aggression.” Another example of someone who makes a fortune and isn’t happy, but it is humans and the system they are forced to operate in that creates such a situation. A cooperative socialist world would have no need of rifles, envy, greed, or aggression.

• The militarization of the police, border guards and other agencies in oursociety is highlighted in the figures published by the Toronto Star (March 29). In 1980, SWAT teams were deployed three thousand times in the US. Now the figure is 50,000. The Homeland Security disbursed $35 billion in 2002-2011 to police forces for heavy weaponry. And the result of all this force? In a Swat sweep in Florida, thirty-four people were arrested for ‘barbering without a licence’. In Keene, New Hampshire, $286,000 was spent for an armoured personal carrier to patrol the Pumpkin Festival and other ‘dangerous situations’. It would be hard to make this stuff up, but in capitalism, expect the unexpected, especially from the Great Pumpkin in the sky!

• At a recent meeting of a US government sub committee, General MotorsCEO, Mary Barra, was asked why it took the company ten years to fix a defective ignition switch that caused thirteen deaths and would have cost 57c to fix. A small spring inside the switch failed to provide enough force causing engines to turn off when they went over a bump. Since February, General Motors has recalled 2.6 million cars over the faulty switch. Mrs Barra hesitated to give a definitive answer but the truth is obvious – as long as capitalists are selling products for profit, making money is more important than safety. We need a society that puts safety first.

• “Among the casualties of a failed war on drugs that has spanned morethan three decades are bloated prisons that cost the nation nearly $90 billion a year. With only five per cent of the world’s population, the United States holds twenty-five per cent of its prisoners; more than two million people are locked up in this country” (Toronto Star, March 29). The proposed solution is to reduce sentences for non-violent crimes. The real answer, of course, is to take the money out of the equation and have a sensible policy for dealing with the drug problem – can’t happen in this system.

• On Monday, March 24, an Egyptian court sentenced 529 people to deathbecause of an attack on a police station that left one policeman dead. The court held two sessions. In the first, the judge shouted down requests for defence lawyers to review the prosecution’s case. In the second, security guards barred lawyers from the court on the orders of the judge. About 150 people were tried in absentia. The accused were said to be supporters of ousted president, Mohammed Morsi. Meanwhile, the Egyptian foreign ministry said, “ The country’s judiciary is entirely independent as it is not influenced in any way by the executive branch of the government. This shows that a change of government has changed nothing and human rights are still being trampled on. A fundamental change from the capitalist relations is the only change that is needed, not more of the same.

• We always said that one day there would be a charge for breathing in air,but would anyone actually pay? The answer is yes and to make it viable all you have to do is pollute the air so badly that people will line up for a breath of fresh air. Mountain air, in blue pillow-sized bags, has been available on the streets of Zhenzhou, China because the air there is so polluted. Recently, the city’s air quality index hit 158. (anything above 100 is considered “poor’ and compares with Toronto’s air the same week at 19 – Ok, so all of our industry has moved to China!). The Toronto Star article does not mention any payment but in this system, there are costs to trapping mountain air and bringing it to market!

• An article in the Spring Imagine showed how Canada’s government hassilenced environmental science to suit its own ideology. The Australian government is up to the same game. One day after Tony Abbot became Prime Minister, Tim Flannery, a world- renowned scientist and writer, lost his job on the country’s climate commission. Since then, the government has gutted the country’s carbon tax, put the Clean Energy Finance Corporation on its hit list, approved development on The Great Barrier Reef’s World Heritage Area, and killed the portfolio of science minister for the first time since it was created in 1931. Even the web site of the Climate Commission and its three years of useful information were taken down. It is obvious that little or nothing is being done or will be done to avert climate change disaster.

• In the last week of March, the Ministry of Labour ordered the magazines“Toronto Life” and “ The Walrus” to shut down their internship programs because, by not paying them, they were in violation of the Employment Standards Act relating to wages. Instead of paying them, the interns were let go, so the choice was work for free or get out!

Reading Notes

• In “1493”, author, Charles C. Mann examines the interchange of world cultures, resources, food, people, and more after Columbus. He writes, “Consider the seventeenth century English entrepreneurs who wanted to make money in North America… (They chose tobacco plantations). To do that, they would have to take down huge trees with hand tools; break up soil under the hot sun; hoe, water, and top the growing plants (and so on)… Where could the colonists acquire it (Labour)? Before answering this question, make the assumption, abundantly justified, that the colonists have few moral scruples (although devoutly religious!) about the answer and are only concerned with maximizing ease and profit.” (They chose African slaves, of course – bracket contents are mine). How little things have changed in the ensuing three hundred years – same system, same results!

May Day greetings to all comrades,

For socialism, John (a little late due to vacation (Myrtle Beach)

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