SPC Report for 1st October 2015

The Socialist Party of Canada

Secretary's Report for October 1, 2015

Correspondence

– WSP India EC minutes for September received with thanks.

– WSPNZ meeting minutes for August received with thanks

Good of the Movement

– A booth was manned on September 27^{th at "Word on the Street", Toronto.}

^{– The Fall issue of Imagine was completed and printed. Mailing is underway.}

^Finances

^{– Secretarial expenses for September, $48.55}

^{Karl's Quotes}

^{– Under "The Dynamics of Capitalism" Marx writes, "What the worker exchanges with capital is his labour itself (the capacity of disposing over it); he divests himself of it. What he obtains as price is the value of this divestiture. He exchanges value-positing activity for a pre-determined value, regardless of the result of his activity. Now how is this value determined: By the objectified labour contained in his commodity. This commodity exists in his vitality. In order to maintain this from one day to the next – we are not yet dealing with the working class, i.e. the replacement for wear and tear so that it can maintain itself as a class, since the worker here confronts capital as a worker, i.e. as a presupposed perennial subject, and not yet as a mortal individual of the working species – he has to consume a certain quantity of food, to replace his used-up blood, etc. He receives no more than the equivalent. Thus tomorrow, after the completed exchange – and only after he has formally completed the exchange does he execute it in the process of production – his labouring capacity exists in the same mode as before: he has received an exact equivalent, because the price which he has obtained leaves him in possession of the same exchange value he has before. Capital has paid him the amount of objectified labour contained in his vital forces. Capital has consumed it, and because it did not exist as a thing, but as the capacity of a living being, the worker can, owing to the specific nature of his commodity – the specific nature of the life process – resume the exchange anew. Since we are dealing here not with any particularly qualified labour but with labour in general, simple labour, we are here not yet concerned with the fact that there is more labour objectified in his immediate existence than is contained in his mere vitality – i.e. the labour time necessary to pay for the products necessary to maintain his vitality – namely the values he has consumed in order to produce a specific labouring capacity, a special skill – and the value of these shows itself in the costs necessary to produce a simple labouring skill. ("The Grundisse" as reported in The Marx-Engels Reader, second edition, pages 247/248). Note the worker receives a pre-determined value regardless of the results of his activity. We know, of course that the results will produce a much greater value or there would be no buying of his labour-power. Also, the value he receives is based on his necessaries for maintaining his life force in order to sell his labour-power the next day, and so on.}

^{Food For Thought}

^{– The refugee crisis continues unabated. The Toronto Star reported, August 29, that 71 people died cooped up in the back of a truck while 200 people were feared drowned in the Mediterranean off Lybia. This brings the death toll to 2, 636 for this year to date. Hasten the socialist society of open borders and healthy and secure places the world over from which no one has to flee!}

^{An Environment Canada scientist has been placed on leave because his election contribution was to compose a song and sing it on You-Tube re the Prime Minister. Among other things, the lyrics of the song accuse the PM of muzzling scientists. He has been placed on suspension with pay. Having an opinion that differs with the establishment appears to be a dangerous thing. Exactly what would be his chances for promotion or even holding on to his job in the next round of scientific cuts?}

^{On a recent TV Ontario program about the spice trade, mention was made of the suicide of 200 pepper farmers in India. A disease that destroyed the pepper trees gave them the choice – starvation or suicide. Free access to all, a socialist tenet, would solve any such problem.}

^{Statistics recently released by the Associated press inform us that on any given night, 153,000 homeless people are on the streets in the US. There are 120 homeless people per 10,000 residents in the District of Columbia that includes the nation's capital. Thirty-four per cent of cities ban camping in public. According to The National Law Centre on homeless and poverty, fifty-three per cent of cities ban sitting or lying down in certain public places. To think, all this is in the world's number 1 industrial power. You cannot get rid of poverty by sweeping it under the carpet but you can with a change from capitalism to socialism.}

^{A recent TV program on the American Civil War mentioned the fact that two days after the Confederate victory at Bull Run, a bunch of real estate sharks bought the land and turned it into a museum of the battle to, obviously, cash in on the public interest. So much for capitalism's tawdry set of values.}

^{As we watch the refugee crisis in Europe unfold, we tend to forget the plight of others around the world. The Toronto Star, September 19 reminds us that Dadaab in Northern Kenya near Somalia's border, is the world's oldest and largest refugee camp, "More city than camp, more prison then city." The UN says there are 350,000 people living there but the count is likely closer to 500,000. The camp started twenty-four years ago as a temporary shelter and there are over 6,000 grandchildren of the original inhabitants. That such a place can exist in the twenty-first century is a disgrace to mankind. Time to stand up and be counted!}

^{Talking of the UN, it appears to be failing in reaching many of its stated goals such as ending poverty – the Democratic Republic of Congo has GDP per capita of US$394 per year; End hunger – six million Syrian refugees are totally dependent on food aid; ensure healthy lives – the world's highest infant mortality rate is in Afghanistan with 117 deaths per 1,000 live births; full and decent employment for all – Bosnia and Herzegovina's youth employment rate is a staggering 62.8 per cent, the highest of any country at peace. The list goes on and on showing the incredible failure of the capitalist mode of production.}

^{Although, as reported last month, the Pope has supposedly lost support for his stance on climate change, he is currently appearing to large cheering crowds in the US. Not all are happy, however. A University of Iowa professor, who should know better, criticised him by saying, "The church should be about making people holy, not about making the environment clean." Incredibly stupid.}

^{Thomas Walkom of the Toronto Star, discussing politics and the election, wrote, "Corporations still make profits (in spite of the recession). But because demand for goods and services they produce is so weak, many don't reinvest. Canadian companies are sitting on billions of dollars worth of what former Bank of Canada governor, Mark Carney, called dead money." Bingo! He got it right. All socialists know that when something is not profitable, money gets hoarded, production slows, and unemployment results. Nice to see it written in the press, though.}

^{As many as nine out of ten of the world's sea birds probably have pieces of plastic in their guts, a new study estimates. The birds mistake plastic for fish eggs so they think they are getting a meal. One researcher said, "I've seen birds eat everything from cigarette lighters to bottle caps, to model cars, even toys." It's obvious it's time to clean up the oceans, but can it be done in our present system? And, The New York Times reported recently that researchers have found a' stunning' amount of plastic in the world's greatest fresh water system, The Great Lakes. Studies show that there are about 7,000 plastic particles per square kilometre in Lakes Superior and Huron, 17,000 in Lake Michigan, 46,000 in Lake Erie and a whopping 248,000 in Lake Ontario. Another report published in "Global Change Biology" states that fifty-two per cent of turtles worldwide have eaten plastic debris. Not too surprising as, in this throw-away society, developed to increase profit, about thirteen million tons of plastic is dumped into the oceans each year}

^{On July 31, 2015, the temperature in Bandar Mahshahr, Iran reached 72 degrees on the humidity index that combines moisture and the temperature to state what it really feels like. Actual temperature was 'only' 46 degrees Celsius. In Iraq, a government was sacked over its inability to deliver air conditioning. The first decision by Iran's new government under president Hassan Rouhani was not about the nuclear power deal but to deal with the country's shrinking lakes. Lake Oroumieh, once home of the biggest salt water lake on earth has shrunk eighty per cent in the last decade. In Pakistan, more people have died from the heat this year than from terrorism. (All from The New York Times, Aug 30) Climate change and how to deal with it is appearing on the political agenda of those countries who are feeling the effects. It will be interesting to see how capitalism will deal with this, or not.}

^{More on the environment – an international group of scientists have calculated that if we burn all the coal, oil, and gas resources available, the Antarctic ice sheet will melt entirely triggering a global sea level rise of more than fifty metres. It would take thousands of years to unfold but would reshape the face of the earth. The scientists believe that any more than a two degree warming would set in motion a melting that would be unmanageable. Another reason, they say, for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.}

^{Thirty-five American cities have reported increases in murders, violent crimes, or both this year. In one city alone, St. Louis, there has been a sixty per cent increase in murders so far this year. Crime is so rampant in parts of the US (and not only there) that the police cannot cope. Though socialists do not condone crime, we understand its causes, the major ones being private property and poverty that forces people to commit crimes often to survive. In a system of free access to all, crime will be virtually eliminated.}

^{A recent issue of the Toronto Star focused on the discovery of combined oil and natural gas deposits In Guyana said to be worth $50 billion and at least ten times Guyana's Gross Domestic Product. Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, immediately said the area where the deposits have been found belong to his country. Tensions are now high between the two countries. If that doesn't prove that economics are the cause of conflict and war, what does?}

^{Apartheid ended in South Africa twenty-one years ago and since then the governments have been of the indigenous black population. Despite this, many are disappointed with the pace of change. One young black student graduated top of his class in high school but when he got to university he found that of the fifteen students who owned cars in his dorm, only one was black. When test results came in, black students ranked at the bottom. South Africa is eighty per cent black but they make up only one quarter of the university students and just five per cent of the faculty. The percentage of African university students has risen just six per cent to 24 per cent since 1994. This shows that no matter what government is in, if the system is capitalism, no real changes will be made.}

^{On the same topic, the Workers' Party of former president Lula da Silva and current president Dilma Roussef of Brazil promised prosperity for the people and delivered for a while. Lately, though, things have turned sour as a recession eats up the gains made – usual story for the worker. However, under the rule of the Workers' Party, the country's banks have had a wonderful time. The combined annual profits of the country's top four banks have grown 850% in the twelve years of the Workers' Party rule from just $2.1 billion to over $20 billion. Some recession! Same comment as the previous paragraph!}

^{In a tale of chasing the Arctic Riches (New York Times, Sept 13) we are told that the Kremlin has spent billions and come up empty. Shell has already spent $7 billion and seven years ago a conglomerate of Shell and other companies paid $2.7 billion for leases in Alaska. Apart from the ridiculous idea of buying parts of the earth, it shows that there is a tremendous amount of wealth available when the odour of profit wafts through the air, but not a lot for human needs.}

^{A report published in the Toronto Star (Sept. 5) on work place safety found that unionized workers reported twenty-three per cent less accidents than their non-unionized counterparts. This shows that unions certainly play an important part in counteracting capitalist tendencies such as neglecting safety of the worker in the interests of profit. However, in a socialist society they would not be necessary as ownership would be in the hands of all and common sense would prevail over profit madness.}

^{For socialism, John & Steve}