SPC Newsletter May 1st

[Socialist Party Head Office]

 

 

                               THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF CANADA

 

Secretary’s Report for May 1, 2012

 

Email Report

–           The Bullet – Mulcair’s Victory : A New Direction for the NDP

–           The Bullet – After the Arab Spring in Palestine.

–           The Bullet – Economic Crisis and Austerity.

–           The Bullet – Electro-Motive (Caterpillar) Lockout and No-Occupation.

–           Left Streamed – Renewing Working Class Politics : Rebuilding Canadian Labour.

–           The Bullet – Can Labour Precipitate a ‘Useful Crisis’ at Air Canada.

–           The Bullet – The Student Movement : Radical Priorities.

–           Left Streamed – The ‘New Age’ of Austerity.

–           The Bullet – Massive Student Upsurge Fuels Major Debates in Quebec Society.

–           The Bullet – A ‘Fair’ Protest in New York City.

–           Note that these publications are not based on scientific socialism but are available to be sent to you for interest and information purposes.

 

Good of the Movement

–           The Spring edition of Imagine is now printed and in the process of distribution. If you haven’t already received it, you will very soon. If you require a few extras to distribute in your area, let me know. We are still paying too much for printing Imagine because of the set up costs. If you, or someone you know, can do this work, please let me know.

–           April meeting was held as a video and discussion night at the library in Toronto. Attendance was weak, but better than nothing.                           

–     Southern Ontario members wilol be notified of the May meeting.

 

Finances

–   Secretary’s expenses for April, $44.25. Donations of $20 and $50 received with thanks. Cost of printing Imagine, $400.

 

Karl’s Quotes

–           In the real world of selling and buying commodities on the market, it appears that surplus-value comes about from that activity. Marx writes, “Even though the excess value of the commodity over its cost price arises in the immediate process of production, it is only in the circulation process that it is realized, and it appears all the more readily to derive from the circulation process in as much as in the world as it actually is, the world of competition, i.e. on the market, it depends on market conditions whether or not this excess is realized and to what extent. It needs no further elaboration here that, if a commodity is sold above or below its value, there is simply a different distribution of the surplus-value, and that this distribution, the altered ratio in which various individuals partake of the surplus-value, in no way affects either the magnitude or the character of the surplus-value itself. Not only is the circulation process, for its part, the scene of those transformations that were considered in Volume 2, but these also coincide with actual competition, the purchase and sale of commodities above or below their value, so that, as far as the individual capitalist is concerned, the surplus-value that he realizes depends just as much on this mutual cheating as on the direct exploitation of labour.” (Capital, Volume 3, page 134). As Marx says elsewhere, the capitalist understands little of the actual process of creating surplus-value, and what he does know he tries to hide.

 

Food For Thought

–           This is how the so-called socialists around the world act. In France, journalist Gwyn Dyer predicts a big victory for ‘socialist’ candidate, Francois Hollande. Dyer writes, “What Hollande has actually promised is slightly less austerity than Sarkozy.” (EMC , April 26, 2012). In Venezuela, that renowned ‘socialist’ Hugo Chavez has tried to manipulate the capitalist system to bring cheap food to the poor (yes, they are still there). According to The New York Times (April 29 2012) he has mandated the prices that the manufacturers can charge to keep prices low. The result, as expected, is that the manufacturers simply stopped production and there are shortages of even the basic food supplies in a very rich country. Lesson? What passes for socialism in the in the tiny minds of would-be leaders and the press has nothing to do with real socialism. You cannot divorce manufacturers from profit. If there is no profit, there is no production. Both are very elementary lessons for socialists.

–           The announcement in February that Target, the second largest US discount department store retailer, will be opening one hundred and thirty-five stores in Canada, starting in March 2013 brought a swift retort from the head of Wal-mart, Canada, Shelley Broader. She said, “When people ask me what our target strategy is, I say we have a Wal-Mart strategy. That’s about helping people save money so they can live better.” That sounds a little strange from a company that pay their employees little enough to live on, let alone save. Even stranger considering how Wal-Mart force their suppliers to fire union employees lowering their standard of living; strange, too, considering the companies they have ruined in competition, hence more grief and unemployment. Socialists do not take sides in competitions between capitalists as they are all at the same game – lowering labour costs for more profits – and the only way to end this race to the bottom is to get rid of the profit system.

–           A recent study suggests retailers can increase yearly takings by almost $100 000 by employing people whose ethnicity reflects the local community. The study by Temple University, Rutgers, and Davidson College studied the theory at over seven hundred JC Penny stores. The extra take averages out to $630 per employee (wonder if they received any of it) and brought the company $69 million a year. Altruism is a wonderful thing, especially when it brings in millions.

–           A recent Toronto Star article divulged some interesting facts about the rise and fall of the ‘Celtic Tiger’, commonly known as Ireland, that spent the 1990s enjoying unprecedented economic growth. Housing prices quadrupled and unemployment fell from 17% to 4% and ‘plasterers were making 2 000 Euros ($2 666 Canadian) a week and spending 200 Euros on a pair of pants’. In 2007, the housing bubble burst and the Bank of Ireland’s stock plunged 75% in one year. Now Ireland has an official unemployment of 14%. No matter how well things go in the boom, the bust will follow and the bubble will burst. There is no security for the worker in capitalism.

–           Roper, North Carolina has a population of 617, so there are few officials – just four, in fact, including a mayor who works for free, and its annual budget is $360 311. Roper’s average annual family income is $20 600 or $2 000 below the poverty level for a family of four. When they can’t pay their water bills, neighbour Dorenda Gatling turns it off. Some haul buckets from their neighbour’s house but to prevent that, homes are sealed with yellow police tape to prevent entry. So the homeowners are waterless and homeless. In capitalism it’s ‘can’t pay, can’t have’ no matter what the consequences are.

–           An article in The Toronto Star, March 4, called attention to the plight of non-unionized workers. A hotel worker had her part-time hours cut back to nothing for ten months in 2009 after she spoke at a rally in support of forming a union at her workplace, Novotel, in Mississauga. About a dozen other Novotel workers have been fired, disciplined, or had their working hours cut since 2008 when they began union organization. The fact that, legally, they had a right to unionize meant nothing to the management. It’s like it was two hundred years ago when unionization began. This shows that nothing has changed in capitalism, which is an excellent reason to abolish it.

–           Thomas Walkom writes in the Toronto Star that there has always been a tacit agreement in Canada that Canadians would welcome new immigrants as long as the government didn’t use them to drive down wages. This is very shaky reasoning considering that Marx showed 150 years ago that the reserve army, including immigrants, is there to do just that, drive down wages. Walkom reports that even that agreement has been abandoned by the Harper government. Ottawa will now allow employers to pay temporary foreign workers less. Just who qualifies as a temporary worker is cause for stretching a point. By 2011, there were over 300 000 temporary foreign workers in Canada. What the government is saying, according to Walkom, is that if Canadians don’t want to see jobs going to foreign workers they should quit whining and accept lower wages. Right!

–           While austerity measures and economic downturns may save money for the owning class, they are decidedly unhealthy for the working class. All over Europe suicides by economic circumstances are on the rise, especially in the fragile nations. In Greece, suicides increased 24% from 2007 to 2009, in Ireland by 16%, in Italy suicides rose from 123 in 2005 to 187 in 2010. Capitalism is a dangerous business. Time to make our lives safe!

–           The recent federal budget was presented as a reasonably benign affair but careful scrutiny reveals a massive move towards getting government out of all kinds of public services. Apart from the thousands of public service job cuts, the budget ended the National Council of Welfare that advises the government on poverty (ignore it and it will go away!); closed the National Aboriginal Health Centre; trimmed funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by $115 million; scrapped the National Roundtable on the environment; cut funding to Transport Canada that regulates airline safety; cut foreign aid and over 1 000 positions from the Canadian Border Services Agency; eliminated over 2 000 professionals and scientists who protect the safety of Canadians in the food, product testing, and environmental fields. It is a sly and cynical piece of underhand work, and the only way to deal with it is to eliminate capitalism altogether, and soon.

–           Recent headlines in the business sections of the newspapers have highlighted the doom and gloom of the current recession – “ European Auto Manufacturers heading into a Fifth Straight Year of Falling Sales”; “Yahoo Looks to Right its Sinking Ship…thousands of Layoffs”; “Tortuous Recovery Spurs China to Lower Growth Expectations”; “Global Growth Fears Hammer TSX”; “Toronto Hydro Dropped by Insurer – Power Provider Warns Decision to Curb Equipment Renewal Will Lead to Blackouts” This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course, but it’s enough to show a system in deep trouble and should make everyone think about something better. Let’s work to make that something socialism!

–           Recent figures released by Statistics Canada revealed that youth unemployment (15-24 year-olds) now stands at 14.7%. However, figures do lie. This does not count the youths who have returned to school because they couldn’t get a job, or those who are underemployed in part-time jobs, or those who have used up their unemployment benefits. It is pointless to publish such figures unless the object is to hoodwink the public. One more thing is pointless – the continuation of a system that creates unemployment.

 

                   –     Have a great May Day, for socialism, John

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

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