SPC Newsletter for 1st August 2015

The Socialist Party of Canada

Secretary's Report for August 1, 2015

Email Report

– WSP India EC meeting minutes for July received with thanks.

Good of the Movement

– Meeting held 16^{th July Toronto.}

^{– The Fall Imagine is in the planning stages. Any comments, suggestions, contributions are invited.}

^Finances

^{– Secretary's expenses for July, $5.20}

^{Karl's Quotes}

^{– On commodity value, Marx writes, "The value of any commodity, C, produced in the capitalist manner can be depicted by the formula : C= c + v + s (C= commodity, c=constant capital, v= variable capital, s= surplus value). If we subtract from the value of this product the surplus-value, s, there remains a mere equivalent or replacement value in commodities for the capital value c + v laid out on the elements of production…The portion of the commodity's value that consists of surplus-value cost the capitalist nothing, for the very reason that it costs the worker his unpaid labour…The capitalist cost of the commodity is measured by the expenditure of capital, whereas the actual cost is measured by the expenditure of labour. The capitalist cost price of the commodity is thus quantitatively distinct from its value or its actual cost price; it is smaller than the commodity's value, for since C=K + s (commodity value = cost price + s – v) then K = C – s . (Capital volume III, pages 117/118). Exploitation is obvious when put like this.}

^{Food For Thought}

^{– A newspaper article commented that it was fifty years ago that the famous investor and financier, Bernard Barugh, passed away. It included a few quotes of his, the most significant being, "There are no sure things in the market. There is no investment that doesn't involve risk." If the market is such a crapshoot, why not get rid of the market economy?}

^{– Statistics Canada reported in June that manufacturing sales in Canada were down about four times lower than economic experts had predicted for 2015 so far. Sales dropped in eight of the twenty-one industries that account for nearly two thirds of the country's overall manufacturing output. To quote Randall Bartlett, Toronto Dominion Bank senior economist, "…it's a bit of a surprise, no question there." This just proves we live under a crazy hodge-podge system in which even the so-called experts and the vulgar economists can't predict how it will go. It's time for it to go permanently.}

^{– In an article in the business section of The Toronto Star (July 11) the author points out that Greece can never pay back its colossal debt of $461 billion so maybe a large chunk should be forgiven. Greece is only the world's 44th. largest economy and ranks somewhere in the sixties for efficiency. What is this, a league of economic output? Can a nation with so few people and resources climb into the premier division? Why do Greek pensioners have to give up some of their income? Are they responsible for the debt? The author also points out that the toughest creditor, probably because it owns a larger chunk of the debt than anyone else, is Germany, and maybe they are forgetting that in 1953 fifty per cent of West Germany's external debt was forgiven by its creditors. If all this sounds like a schoolyard quarrel, you would be right, and like all such altercations, in the end, it doesn't matter a damn except to capitalists.}

^{– South America's largest body of fresh water, Lake Titicaca is so polluted that local fishermen are having a hard time catching anything, let alone making a living. Most pollution on the Bolivian side, such as toxic heavy metals like arsenic and lead originates in El Alto, a city of one million near La Paz. Seventy per cent of El Alto's factories operate illegally and are not monitored for pollution. One might wonder how a government can sit idly by while this goes on. It's more than probable that the factories are owned by global corporations who are there because of the lax regulations and failure to monitor and, if regulated, would move to another place where they could operate as they wished to maximize profit and leave El Alto and its workers high and dry. Having despoiled Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, capital is seeking new horizons to continue dirty production wherever it can. Such is the nature of capitalism.}

^{– Gap Inc. announced on June 15 that it will close about one hundred and seventy-five stores in North America over the next few years, including one hundred and forty this fiscal year. To heighten the insecurity of their employees, Gap's director of public relations in Canada said, "Since the stores are closing over the course of the year, we will be reviewing each store on a case-by-case basis as we prepare for closure or as leases expire." About 250 jobs will be lost from the company's North American headquarters in San Francisco as well as the loss of jobs for the employees at the closed stores. The reason, according to the founder of Level 5 Strategy group based in Toronto is that, "It's a brand that appears to have stalled. They haven't continued to refresh the brand and its value proposition." This means simply that a group of capitalists simply haven't kept up with the competition. That means nothing to the workers, is in no way their fault, but they are the ones who will lose livelihoods. Make no mistake, once capital does not bring in the required return, the workers will pay.}

^{– The Toronto Star of June 13 included an article about Dave Toycen who has spent most of his life travelling to the world's war zones doing all he can to rescue children. Toycen said that forty years ago children were dying at the rate of 40,000 to 50,000 a day, but now it's down to 17,000 a day. It may be an improvement but still a shocking figure that could be eliminated in a cooperative society of socialism.}

^{In the social spending league, France tops the list with 31.9% of GDP going on social programs. What is interesting is that Germany spends 25.8% of GDP while the much maligned and profligate Greece spends 24% of its GDP on social programs, a drop of 2% since austerity programs started in 2010. It doesn't seem that Greece's spending is out of line or that pensioners need to face a cut in necessaries.. Of course, free access for all humanity would make this 'league' obsolete. Canada' percentage has dropped to just 17%, 1.5% down since 2009 while the US leads us with 21.7%.}

^{– The costs of war are enormous. The US led war on Afghanistan, for example, still not over, recorded 149,000 deaths in that country and Pakistan, 26,270 of whom were civilians, including 298 aid workers. 73% of deaths by drone bombs were civilian. And 2014 was the worst year for civilian deaths with 3,669.}

^{– Staying on war, global military expenditures have reached $1.7 trillion (US). The Toronto Star asks 'what could you do with the money – pull every country out of poverty, cure infectious diseases? Not a thought in capitalism where everyone else is a potential enemy – you have to be prepared, as the Boy Scouts taught us. Last year the US spent $610 billion. It would cost about $5 billion to control malaria for one year, $9.1 billion to support those displaced by climate change for one year, and $32.76 trillion to convert the world's energy to solar, less than twenty years of military spending. Unfortunately the priority in this system will always be profit for the owning class.}

^{– In its issue of June 6, The Toronto Star focused on the plight of an eighty-five year-old who is being evicted from her apartment in New York's Little Italy. The bitter irony of it is that the woman, although a child of Italian immigrants, the building's new owners who want her out are the Italian-American museum. She can afford the current rent of $820 a month but not the five fold increase demanded by the new owners. This shows that under capitalism compassion and feeling for fellow compatriots count for nothing, beside war of course where you are expected to fight for king and country, only money does.}

^{– On June 12, Statistics Canada said that for every dollar Canadian householders earn, they owe $1.63 in consumer credit, mortgages, and other loans. This is among the highest of all time and shows the depth of the faltering economy and the desperation out there. It's high time we got rid of all debt and its attendant anxiety.}

^{Reading Notes}

^{– In one article in the book, "The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2009)" Michael Specter writes in his article "Big Foot",referring to one's carbon footprint, "Greenhouse gas emissions have risen rapidly in the past two centuries, and levels today are higher at any time in at least the past 650,000 years. In 199 each of the six billion people on earth was responsible, on average, for one ton of carbon emissions. Oceans and forests can absorb about half that amount. Although specific estimates vary, scientists and policy officials increasingly agree that allowing emissions to continue at the current rate would induce dramatic changes in the global climate system. To avoid the most catastrophic effects of those changes, we will have to hold emissions steady in the next decade, and then reduce them to at least 60 to 80% by the middle of the century… Members of Congress tried repeatedly to introduce legislation to reduce sulphur dioxide levels, but the Reagan administration (as well as many elected officials, both Democratic and Republican, from regions where sulphur- rich coal is mined,) opposed any controls, fearing that they would harm the economy. When the cost of polluting is negligible, so are the incentives to reducing emissions." In other words, as we continually point out, to pollute or not, is a matter of the impacts on profits, and that alone. Specter later writes that he believes the market will solve the problems of pollution and mitigate global warming through a carbon trading system on the market whereby levels of pollution are set and those who exceed them would be able to buy credits from those who pollute less (cap and trade). In baseball, each team has a salary cap that cannot be exceeded or a fine will be imposed. The richest team, the New York Yankees, continually ignore the cap and buy just whoever they want, fines be damned. So it would be with carbon emissions. Capital will win out in capitalism.}