ACM: Welfare Reform Redux - the continual demonisation of the sick and disabled people

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Sunday April 21, 2024 · 3:06 PM PDT

2024/04/21 · 15:06

The Tory government will be out of power at the next election. However, until then, they still have a clear majority in Parliament and they are passing right-wing and divisive legislation while they still can. This legislation will be around long after the Tories are out of office and the Labour Party (LP) is in power. The question arises whether the LP will actually eliminate these pieces of legislation.

The Tories (and their legislation) have clear targets which reflect their political and ideological positions and these targets are marginalised groups in the society; these are not new targets, they have been under attack since the Tories came to power, so migrants and asylum seekers (racism), disabled people and women on benefits. Various pieces of legislation have been passed which have vilified these marginalised people. They are blamed for economic stagnation and economic crises, they are accused of living off of the generosity of taxpayers, and not contributing to society. Some of this legislation is in violation of International Human Rights law (which is British law) and that is also part of the right-wing Tory agenda – so the Rwanda Legislation declaring that Rwanda is a safe country to send asylum seekers (while their asylum applications are being processed) is a great example of this; moreover, if Rwanda is a “safe” country, why does Britain accept asylum seekers in the first place. The House of Lords has been attempting to water down this ridiculous and vicious piece of legislation (which creates an extremely expensive attempt to remove at the most 300 asylum seekers) and the Commons continues to oppose the amendments of the House of Lords. It would be absurd if it wasn’t such an appalling policy.

The Labour Party will probably overturn the Rwanda legislation when they get into power (only because it is such a ridiculous waste of money and its limited impact, rather than the policy being racist), they also hold a policy trying to limit migration so they have accepted the Tory argument about immigration being a problem. So, while they will overturn the Rwanda plan, they are doing it for the wrong reasons. The reason there is such a backlog on processing asylum claims and there is illegal migration is because there are only limited legal routes to enter the UK (you need to be from specific countries) and there have been cutbacks to public spending and replacement of retiring public sector workers. The problems arise from right-wing Tory ideology both on migration and spending on the public sector.

We also have an additional problem in that the Labour Party says it will do this and that when they are elected, but more recently as we get closer to the general election (which must be held this year) they have changed their tune. Rachel Reeves (the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer) has been pushing a supply side approach to economic stagnation. So essentially anything the Labour Party says they will do in terms of overturning legislation that was passed when the Tories were in office (anti-trade union laws, welfare reform laws, anti-protest bills, policing bills) may be abandoned if it requires additional spending as they refuse to commit to wealth taxes, adding additional income tax bands or financial transactions taxes.

Reeves has also essentially accepted the budget debt limits set by Jeremy Hunt (the current chancellor of the Exchequer) and would not overturn the cut to National Insurance taxes (which covers state pensions and benefits) put forward at the most recent budget by Hunt, who has also said he wants to eliminate National Insurance completely (and hence everything that it funds). Yes, this has gotten Hunt in trouble (even they are worried about their children and grandchildren receiving the pitifully low state pension) with older white Tories whose votes the Labour Party are hoping to pick up at the next election. But if the LP is determined to go after these votes, it means that the LP will be moving even further to the right than it already is. Given that this is already a right-wing neoliberal LP leadership, one cannot help wondering whether voting for them will gain us much. Yes, they are not as bad as the Tories (many of whom are on the far-right), but they have already placed significant limits on what they are willing to do following more than a decade of continuous austerity which has destroyed our NHS, social care, welfare safety net, public sector, and with those wages and working conditions. Moreover, many LP shadow ministers actually accept a lot of Tory ideology on benefits and the welfare state so the changes the country definitely needs probably will not happen; this includes the Shadow Secretary of Works and Pensions, Liz Kendall.

Attacks on Unemployed and Disabled People and Family Providers of Support and Assistance

I have written previously about the attacks on unemployed people, disabled people, and women doing care work for disabled family member and mothers with young children that are hallmarks of the Tory Party policy. What we need to understand is that these attacks have been continuous since the Tories came into power. These policies are part of the continuing austerity that the Tories have used as economic policy since coming into power first with the Lib Dems and then since they have been ruling the country on their own. Moreover, these policies moved away from the notion of entitlement that were the hallmark of the Keynesian welfare state. I will just provide some history of these attacks leading up to the most recent threats of forcing disabled people into work.

Austerity policies have been used to undermine subsistence wage incomes in Britain by attacking wages of public sector workers, privatisation and keeping the rate of profits and revenue of the wealthiest higher which has led to massive income and wealth inequality in Britain undermining not only those that are dependent on benefits but the wage incomes of the whole of the working class. The use of zero-hour contracts which have hit younger workers (and minimum wage rates are lower for aged 18-20 at £8.20/hour, those aged 21-24 are now paid the adult rate of £11.45 which was not the case until now) and which led to the precarity of workers especially those in “low-skilled” employment.

Working on a zero-hour contract means you do not know your work schedule in advance, you have no idea how many hours you will work in a week, you have no benefits and holidays; essentially those on zero-hour contracts are members of the reserve army of labour; brought into work when they are needed by employers with limited protection and work benefits – this is something that the LP have promised to eliminate as part of their New Deal for Working People, they have also pledged to eliminate fire and rehire (where workers are sacked from jobs with decent wages and working conditions and rehired as gig workers) and withholding benefits until a certain period of employment. We will see whether this will happen, it still remains part of LP pledges and it will not affect government spending (although fire and rehire has been done to former public sector workers).

In terms of those on benefits, the Tories created Universal Credit (UC) to replace Legacy Benefits and tied receipt of benefits to those looking for work; failure to be looking for work will lead to sanctions and the loss of benefits; turning down a job will lead to sanctions, being late for an interview at Job Centres will lead to sanctions and sanctions can mean benefits will be stopped for a period or even permanently. Conditionality is built into the UC system. They introduced a 6-week period (built into the benefits) from application to receipt of benefits during which they offered loans to people waiting for a decision on whether they were eligible for UC. So, UC means that you are eligible for benefits if you do specific things; rather than people being entitled to benefits to ensure their survival.

Short, but useful and important historical diversion

This discussion on eligibility rather than entitlement makes it first appearance in discussions on poverty back in the writings of Jeremy Bentham in 1796 in reference to the 1795-7 Poor Law Amendments which provided out-door relief for impoverished people (Speenhamland System) tied to the size of the family and the price of grain based upon the notion of entitlement; it was predominately geared towards agricultural labourers who were out of work during parts of the year. Bentham articulated several arguments that formed the basis of eligibility for relief which were utilised in the 1834 Poor Law Reform. On the one hand, Bentham argued that while some people who were unable to work were eligible for relief, others had to demonstrate that they were eligible for relief. Moreover (and this derives from Bentham’s recommendations, although it was an essential part of the 1834 Poor Law Reform, you could only get relief by entering a workhouse where families would be separated). Bentham argued for the principle of less eligibility so that the amount of relief had to be less than what people could earn through selling their ability to labour. Bentham is also the person that argued for the medicalisation of disability; that whether you were disabled and entitled to relief depended upon the impairment you have and its severity (he has a whole chart discussing the extent of eligibility for relief); this also was part and parcel of institutionalisation of disabled people as well. One important point (compared to earlier economists like Smith who recognised that the level of employment depended on the capital available to employ labour and the development of the domestic economy), Bentham had a full employment position as well; he believed that people that were out of work (who did not have impairments) did so because they were lazy and shirkers rather than the fault of an economic system unable to create full employment. So the cause of indigence was due to the individual’s lack of responsibility rather than the system. Bentham argued that we can never be rid of poverty; poverty is the lack of wealth and that is the condition of the majority of human beings. The contribution of those without wealth, the poor, was their ability to labour for the society.

In Bentham’s “Essay on the Poor Laws” (1796), Bentham writes the following addressing who must labour, that forced labour must be run by the government (rather than charities or churches) and how much they should earn. These unpublished ideas are later incorporated into his published text “Observations on the Poor Bill” which was an attack on the principles of the 1795-7 Poor Law amendments:

“Ability to Work: Position 22

“(1) To a person labouring under total and absolute want of ability with regard to work, relief must be administered without any condition in respect of work, since otherwise he must be left to perish.

Position 23(2) To a person possessed of adequate ability, no relief ought to be administered, but on condition of his performing work: to with such a measure of work, as, of employed to an ordinary degree of advantage, will yield a return in value, adequate to the expence of the relief.

Reasons

Regard to justice. – The administering relief to persons of that description on any other condition would be an unnecessary invasion of property. […] For the expense of the relief thus to be administered by Government there is no other source of supply but what is produced by taxes; i.e., by labour, or the produce of labour, extracted by force. The benefit of the relief would thus be enjoy’d by one set of men, while the burthen of it was cast upon another.

Regard to economy. — Such an arrangement would be prejudicial to the national stock of opulence. Scarce any man will work, if he can obtain the same subsistence without working as he can by working: and may there are, who so long a they can obtain any subsistence at all without working, will decline working, how much soever they might be able to increase their subsistence by it.

Regard to the welfare, the lasting welfare of the individual himself. – The habit of industry is a source of plenty and happiness. The habit of idleness in one who has property is a cause of uneasiness, and, in one who has no property, of indigence and wretchedness. (Bentham (2001), Writing on the Poor Law, Volume I, “Essays on the Poor Laws: Essay II”, pp. 44-45, 1796, Oxford University Press).”

But while Bentham did say that children and those with serious impairments should not be forced to work, he did argue the following further on in this text:

“A person deprived of all his limbs, or of the use of all his limbs, may still possess ability sufficient to the purpose of serving as inspector to most kinds of work, so long as mental facilities and sight for observing and voice for questioning are possessed by him with sufficient vigour (ibid, pp. 46-47).”

and also advocated that children should work so that they will be trained for future employment:

“From the labour of a Minor, brought up and educated at the public charge, the public may, without injustice, hardship or even deviation from established law or usage, reap the utmost profit that such labour can be made to yield, consistent with the regard due, as above, to the health and permanent welfare of the individual, and that, from the period, whatever it be of his being taken under public care, until the expiration of his minority” (ibid, p. 53).

Returning to Modernity (sort of)

The Tory government’s reform of welfare was devised by Iain Duncan Smith and it set out to unlink the level of benefits received from the level of need of benefit claimants. Limits to how much you could receive a year were set in place were introduced as part of Universal Credit (in terms of the total amount you can get); UC combined 6 different benefits available under Legacy Benefits (e.g., housing benefits, child tax credit, child benefit, employment support benefits, disability benefits, etc) into a single benefit called Universal Credit (UC). They also used Bentham’s idea of less eligibility, so that the amount received as benefits had to be lower than what people could earn through paid work; in the modern discussion, benefits had to be lower than the minimum wage.

If the adults in the family are out of work, the benefit cap introduced in 2013, puts a limit on how much you can receive in total as benefits. The level of benefits available under UC are lower than those under available under Legacy benefits if for no other reason than the limits to what you could get as Housing Benefit which was also capped (this was part of the policy of forcing the poor out of wealthier areas. The point of this is two-fold: 1) they believed that lower benefit levels will force people into work – this is a very old policy which had been revived; 2) a deliberate decrease in workers incomes (wages and benefits) below the subsistence wage level to undercut wage incomes in the society to prop up the rate of profits following the 2007-8 crisis which has been kept in place for over a decade.

As such, there was a deliberate policy to decrease overall incomes for unemployed working-class people through lowering the quantity of benefits they could receive; this was maintained artificially low until the cost-of-living crisis brought about by inflation of energy and heating as well as food prices made this impossible. This increase was lower than the rising inflation due to a 3 months lag between the level of inflation and the amount of benefit increases.

The second cap that was introduced is the two-child maximum benefit cap (which came into effect in 2017) which provides child support and child-tax credits only to 2 children in a family; the only exceptions to this cap is if the 3^rd child is part of a multiple birth or is a child born of rape. This Malthusian policy (again we are in the late 18th and 19^th century) was introduced to stop women from having more than 2 children and to break the ridiculous accusation that women were having children to get more benefits. Both the benefit cap and the two-child maximum benefit have led to a massive increase in absolute and relative poverty of children and their families.
According to the Resolution Foundation:

“The two-child limit results in low-income families losing around £3,200 a year for any third or subsequent child born after April 2017. And when 100,000s of families lose out on £1,000s of benefit income a year, poverty rates soar. In 2013-14, 34 per cent of children in larger families were in poverty, but this is projected to rise to 51 per cent in 2028-29. In contrast, the proportion of two-child families in poverty is projected to remain more or less constant over the same 15-year period, at around 25 per cent. Other outcomes are also worse for larger families: in the year 2021-22, three-quarters (75 per cent) of larger families were in material deprivation, compared to 3-in-10 families with fewer than three children (34 per cent); and 16 per cent of larger families were in food insecurity, compared to 7 per cent of families with fewer than three children.

Abolishing the two-child limit would cost the Government £2.5 billion in 2024-25, rising to £3.6 billion in 2024-25 prices if the policy were at full coverage. These costs are low compared to the harm that the policy causes, and scrapping the two-child limit would be one of the most efficient ways to drive down child poverty rates. If abolished today, 490,000 children would be lifted out of poverty.”

Labour Party members and economic foundations and anti-poverty campaigners have been fighting against the 2-child maximum benefit policy since it was put in place; Labour Party MPs have opposed the policy (and these include people in the current shadow cabinet) and had promised to overturn this pernicious policy when they came into power. Overturning the benefit cap as well to link the level of benefit with need would help tremendously to address both absolute and relative poverty caused by government policy. According to the Resolution Foundation, it actually will cost only £2.5 billion pounds and if the benefit cap was abolished along with it, the cost would be £3 billion in current prices. This is peanuts in the context of an advanced capitalist economy and can be easily be covered through the introduction of a wealth tax for example. The removal of these caps will have an immediate effect of removing families out of poverty and the LP now refuses to overturn these caps.

Closely tied to benefit sanctions, the introduction of workfare to force benefit claimants into “training” to get benefits was not a complete success; various versions of the programme began being introduced in 2012 (it did exist earlier but was rarely used), many corporations who took part in the programme abandoned it due to negative pressure from the Boycott Workfare Campaign. The Tory attempts to do a welfare to work programme have not been successful even in periods of high unemployment; which is not the situation now. But this has been part and parcel of the sanctions regime of people that were unable to find work after training.

To clarify, there are different types of benefits for people that are off work due to sickness (these are paid as part of National Insurance Contributions which are paid by both employers and employees). There are also benefits for long-term impairment for disabled people which you are “entitled to” irrespective of working “if you are sufficiently disabled enough and this is determined at work capability assessments” – understanding the social model was never a strength of the government. The types and amounts of benefits that were available of the second category were changed as was the determination of eligibility. Under Tony Blair, assessments of those newly applying for disability benefits were done to determine whether you were able to work and “deserving of disability benefits”. The Tories extended these assessments to cover those already on benefits due to long-term impairments which led to assessments (not done by medical professionals) to ascertain whether you were “lazy and slacking off” aka not contributing to society”. These terms are very important as they were used to vilify disabled people and those out of work — blaming the victims of capitalism rather than taking responsbility for the impact of their policies is a rather common practice of mainstream politicians.

They also changed disability benefits (disability benefits, then employment and support allowance) to jobseeker’s allowance and work-related activity groups (which was for those who could be removed from benefits once they had training as they were deemed “able to work”; this has been phased out) and lowered the amount available in total for disabled people. Moreover, there were changes introduced to benefits that were available as part of the available benefits to cover the additional costs of being disabled. They then eliminated the Independent Living Fund in 2015 (this has been declared illegal, but no replacement has been forthcoming, unsurprisingly) and new people cannot apply to receive it. So, the Disability Living Allowance that was part of Legacy Benefits (preceding Universal Credit) was eliminated and one of the categories relating to the extent of mobility was eliminated; the new system and assessment is called Personal Independence Payment. At the time, many disabled people did not transfer onto Universal Credit as the amount received was lower than on Legacy Benefits due to the elimination of certain categories that existed as part of Legacy Benefits. Moreover, those people still on Legacy Benefits (predominantly disabled people) during the pandemic were not entitled to the £20 uplift that was given during the pandemic to ensure that those that lost jobs due to the pandemic and were not eligible for furlough from companies could survive on benefits.

The government has again begun forcing disabled people onto Universal Credit (this was temporarily suspended during the pandemic). There have been 2 court cases already when disabled people had to fight to maintain £180/month of higher levels of support who had severe disability premium and enhanced disability premium under Legacy Benefits which did not exist on Universal Credit. There is now a 3^rd court case, where a disabled benefit claimant has lost nearly £400/month transitioning from Legacy Benefits to Universal Credit. This forced migration to UC will clearly impact disabled people who have been able to remain on legacy benefits.

Recently, as discussed in this previous piece, the UK government blamed disabled people and family providers of support and assistance (care) as well as mothers with young children for the current economic crisis and British economic stagnation. It must be said that this is nothing new, Theresa May’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Phillip Hammond, did the same in 2017. But Sunak went a bit further and threatened to force them into work either at home (of course without providing personal assistants or the technology that would be needed for them to work from home) or in a workplace with the employer will make reasonable adjustments.

On the 5^th of September 2023, the Government announced a consultation and new policies to get disabled people and those with long term health conditions into work.

“Earlier this year, Government confirmed investment worth £2 billion to support disabled people and those with long-term health conditions into work, while delivering on the Prime Minister’s priority to grow the economy. Today’s consultation will go further to facilitate appropriate work opportunities for people, by reviewing a range of categories in the assessment – representing its first significant update since 2011.

These categories are designed to determine what activity people can do and how that affects their ability to work. This then informs assessors’ decisions on what additional financial support people can receive through their benefits, and if claimants need to do anything to prepare themselves for work.

The consultation’s proposals include updating the categories associated with mobility and social interaction, reflecting improved employer support in recent years for flexible and home working – and minimising the risk of these issues causing problems for workers.”

Rishi Sunak’s statement about this consultation and proposals is wonderfully cynical and one cannot help wondering if somewhere in the Dept of Works and Pensions there exists a document that was used to justify the 1834 poor law reform just hanging around or perhaps something that long ago referred to Jeremy Bentham but has been lost in the annals of time that they are still quoting:

“Prime Minister Rishi Sunak MP said:

Work transforms lives – providing not just greater financial security, but also providing purpose that has the power to benefit individuals, their families, and their communities.

That’s why we’re doing everything we can to help more people thrive in work – by reflecting the complexity of people’s health needs, helping them take advantage of modern working environments, and connecting them to the best support available.

The steps we’re taking today will ensure no one is held back from reaching their full potential through work, which is key to ensuring our economy is growing and fit for the future.”

On 20^th November 2023, Sunak made a speech about the economy in which he again raises getting disabled people into work talking about this level of unemployed people being a “national scandal”. These changes appeared in the 2023 Autumn Statement (22^nd of November) under the “New Chance to Work” proposals alongside the Back to Work Plans for disabled people:

“Meanwhile, new flexibilities in the labour market mean that more people can undertake some form of tailored and personalised work-related activity, with the right support. For example, 40% of people reported working from home at some point in the previous week in Winter 2023, compared with just 12% throughout 2019. And of around 8 million jobs advertised online between April and October 2023, over 20% were either remote or flexible, compared to less than 4% over the same time period in 2016.

That’s why we are reforming the Work Capability Assessment to make it fit for the modern world of work. In the first major review of the Work Capability Assessment activities and descriptors since 2011, we will:

Remove the ‘Mobilising’ part of the assessment that currently places people into a group where no work preparation is required – this will reflect that many of the claimants with these issues in the modern world of work will be able to undertake some work or work preparation with the right support

Amend the regulations that determine whether mental health issues are assessed as putting claimants at ‘Substantial Risk’ if they are required to undertake any level of work preparation - these amendments will realign the regulations with the original intention of applying only in exceptional circumstances, whilst still protecting and safeguarding the most vulnerable.

Reduce the points awarded for some of the Limited Capability for Work (LCW) ‘getting about’ descriptors, reflecting the rise of flexible and home working opportunities in modern workplaces.

This will mean around 370,000 people by 2028/29 who under current assessment rules would receive no support from DWP as they would have been placed in the Limited Capability for work-related activity (LCWRA) group will now be offered personalised support to help them move closer towards work.”

The problem with all of this is that disabled people working from home will require personal assistants as well as computers to work on and broadband to run these computers; if they are working at a business itself, these reasonable adjustments mean that it costs employers more money to hire disabled people than those who do not have impairments. Given the low wages (even with the increase in minimum wages) the race to the bottom has meant that employers can hire workers on zero hours contracts and using agency workers whose wages are really low. Why would they spend more to hire disabled people that require support and assistance and hence cost them more money? This is basic economics, a really basic understanding of techniques of production in use and the fact that employers treat workers as a cost, not an asset. They are as usual inconsistent with their own ridiculous policies and propaganda. Do they really think that capitalists will pay more to hire disabled workers out of a sense of what … justice or fairness ... or something equally absurd?

The biggest problem for this policy is that it is probably illegal; forcing disabled people to work is a violation of international humanitarian law about forced labour (yes, that is British law): see ILO Convention number 29 on forced labour; see article 11 of the forced labour convention extracted below:

“Only adult able-bodied males who are of an apparent age of not less than 18 and not more than 45 years may be called upon for forced or compulsory labour. Except in respect of the kinds of labour provided for in article 10 of this Convention, the following limitations and conditions shall apply:”

If you do not think there are human rights lawyers examining this law in the UK, you are severely confused.

Furthermore, there are additional issues that are impacting disabled people even at the local levels where they live; most local councils have increased care charges that disabled people have to pay to get the support and assistance they are entitled to; this means that many disabled people are paying three times to get this care, first through national insurance contributions, then through local council tax and third through paying for care charges to their local councils.

Attacks on family carers

On the 7^th of April, The Guardian reported that family carers are being taken into court for overpayments of carers’ allowance and being forced to repay the money; these people earn £81.90/week for taking care of disabled family members for 35 hours/week while working part-time who are only allowed to earn £151/week in their part-time jobs. They are facing prosecution and imprisonment if they cannot pay the money back. In a follow-up article on the 19^th of April, many of these family carers, usually women (that may be disabled themselves) are being are being forced to repay the whole carers’ allowance they received to the Department of Works and Pensions, despite the huge amount of distress this is causing them and their families as this has happened over time, and that the discrepancies may be very small. Read this as punishing those that have dropped out of work to take care of family members with long-term impairments and illnesses. This happened during the covid pandemic and the existence of long-covid is keeping people out of work and the appalling quantity and quality of social support and assistance has meant that people have stayed out of work to care for disabled family members. This is because of Tory government economic policies which have destroyed social support and assistance and which refuse to recognise that care work is skilled labour (so we have a nice bit of labour market segmentation going on in traditional women’s labour like the care sector).

The latest rubbish

On April 19^th (yes, that was a banner day for those on benefits, disabled people and family carers). Rishi Sunak has given a speech on welfare reform which I will quote because it makes my point completely about Benthamite ideology.

According to The Independent, the £100 million Work and Health programme established by the Tories to get disabled people into work in England and Wales has been discontinued as of this autumn. At the same time, Sunak has launched a major attack against disabled people. His targets are the large increase in people being signed off from work (as well as partners leaving work to take care of them) due to the covid pandemic. Rishi Sunak (and the Tory party) is convinced that the problem is that General Practitioners are writing too many sick notes and we have a “sick-note culture” and that is the path to permanently leaving employment. Their solution is to remove that power from your doctors that actually know you and hand that responsibility to other specialist work and health professionals to determine whether you are fit for work or not. It is bad enough that routinely disabled people facing work capability assessment often have their doctors’ information disregarded, but now they will be ignored.

The other people that are clearly a problem according to Sunak (and for that matter LP’s Liz Kendall, the LP shadow secretary of works and pensions) are young people that are diagnosed with mental health problems like depression and anxiety that are not getting the benefits of work, despite the fact is that it is women over 50 that are those with long-covid that are out of work for the most part. So, what are they planning to do to help those with mental health impairments? The backlog of accessing talk-therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is ridiculous, they don’t have the professionals to do this. Where will they get them or do they think that if they wave a magic wand, doctor, psychologists and psychiatrists will mysteriously appear? That is what is also argued by the LP in terms of health care, they will get private doctors to pick up the slack … where are they going to get them? Will they try and woo doctors from overseas with better wages? That will be the final blow to the NHS … which again does nothing to alleviate the concerns about this Labour government.

So, they want to change work capability assessments whose determinations are routinely overturned anyhow with again non-qualified people that you do not know. Work capability assessments will be retained for those that have less severe impairments. From his speech, we have:

“To address this, the Prime Minister announced a review of the fit note system to stop people being written off as “not fit for work” by default and instead design a new system where each fit note conversation focuses on what people can do with the right support in place, rather than what they can’t do.

As part of this, the government will consider shifting the responsibility for issuing the fit note away from already stretched GPs, towards specialist work and health professionals who have the dedicated time and expertise to provide an objective assessment of someone’s ability to work and the tailored support they may need.”

But as Thorston Bell of the Resolution Foundation notes:

“Reforming sick notes is sensible BUT it’s got almost nothing to do with rise in people who are on disability benefits or out of the labour market entirely due to ill health. Remember a sick-note signs you off temporarily when you HAVE a job - it doesn’t sign you on to benefits”

Yes, sick notes are irrelevant for those on long-term disability benefits; sick notes only apply to those that are ill for a short time and they relate to those taking off from work temporarily not for long-term disabilities (in other words, these are covered by National Insurance Contributions). So, what is he attacking here? Evenmoreso, it is the fault of the Tories that the NHS is underfunded and it takes ages to visit a GP … how is this not the fault of the Tories? Add to this their economic policies that are responsible for the stagnant economy, somehow they (and for that matter Rachel Reeves) have not realised that supply side economics doesn’t create economic growth, just further income and wealth disparities. At least Reeves is still talking about eliminating fire and rehire and zero hours contracts, but will they continue this or will they abandon these policies to win over right-wing Tories to vote for them? stay tuned ...

From denying the existence of long-covid to blaming the victims of covid for economic stagnation as they do not understand that it is not only people out of work that are creating the economic stagnation. Economic stagnation in Britain is a result of their neoliberal economic policies (and Brexit has not helped the situation either), their government’s policies driving wages down so low that they are now forcing women into work who are caring for disabled family members and children and still cannot afford childcare (yes, they increased the entitlement to childcare but not the number of places available as they are privately provided) … they don’t get that working to pay for childcare is not a good use of time for women nor the economy as a whole.

The low wages mean that investment is not being undertaken by employers as it is so cheap to hire labour. Increases in productivity require capital investment; zero-hour contracts mean that skills do not grow over time which require long-term work to develop agility and cut down on time to produce things and then they will impact on productivity (guess what, just hiring more workers doesn’t necessarily lead to growth …) … a lot more is needed than this, like good working contracts, long-term employment and better wages … but Adam Smith knew this in 1776 …

ACM: The Culture Wars: Democracy and Ideology ... some thoughts on the MSM and its role

NY brit expat

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Sunday March 24, 2024 · 3:00 PM PDT

2024/03/24 · 15:00

I do not listen to BBC news anymore. It is almost impossible to listen Sky News as well, but periodically they let a tiny amount of criticism of this government and its policies to sneak in. So, when the government passes something which is in violation of the law and, for that matter, a Supreme Court decision (like declaring Rwanda is a “safe” country to send “illegal” migrants to when we accept asylum seekers from Rwanda), or yet another law which gives Police (and they are the representatives of the State on the ground) and the Home Office secretary more broad powers of policing free speech at protests or controlling demonstrations (there have been several acts passed recently trying to limit demonstrations or yet another attack on the rights of unions), they will bring on someone from Liberty to speak about Human Rights or the Trade Union Congress to speak about attacks on Employment Rights. A lot of this has to do with the Tory agenda of eliminating as much of European Human Rights law as possible; there are so many laws that exist due to our previous membership of the EU that even they gave up trying to eliminate the influence of the EU at this point.

If I want something without this strong level of bias in reporting, I often switch to online news like AP or Reuters who report the story; that does not mean it is unbiased, just that the slants of various political parties are a bit less apparent; they still have their own biases. If you look at articles and topics chosen out of everything that is going on in this world, the fact is that stories themselves reflect what the media thinks is important. It may not be, but reporting has a perspective and we cannot pretend it doesn’t exist (honestly, it becomes difficult to ignore).

News Stories over the past two days as examples

What impressed me this morning was there was Tory MP Alicia Kearns (chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee) who was speaking of a “grave threat” coming from China that was trying to undermine “our” democracy. It seems that the UK government will now bring in legislation against Chinese cyber-attacks that are supposedly threatening democratic elections and is bringing together well-known anti-Chinese Tory MPs to deal with this threat to democracy as 43 individuals including MPs and Lords were cyber attacked. Maybe it is my cynicism, but there are a lot of threats to British democracy; gerrymandering, an overarching executive, attacks on civil rights, etc. This is an interesting distraction, we know there are quite real attacks on the right to protest, constraints on our freedom of speech, virulent attacks on trans people and their threat to English civilisation, disabled people and single mothers and their “destruction” of our economy; let’s be real, the threat to British democracy is not overseas, but is instead running the country.

The primary news story yesterday was that the poor Princess of Wales has cancer which is awful, but it doubly awful that she felt obliged to announce this in public. Cancer is bad enough and the fact that she had to share this diagnosis with the world where her video was played over and over again on the news must have felt like a continuing violation. I normally ignore news about the royal family; but truly felt sympathy with her; she is a young woman with a young family and yes, she has access to better health care than the rest of us, but I feel sorry for her because she is a human being like all of us.

2024 new kit of the English Football Team … the horror!

The second biggest story which again was another call to the hard and far-right to get outraged and get lots of air time (yes, some of the news anchors weredisputing the inanity of some of their statements) was the fact that the uniform (kit) designed by Nike of the English football team does not have the correct colour of the Cross of St George (white with a red cross on it) … the rest of the day all we had was a bunch of right-wing politicians and members of right-wing organisations demanding the flag of St George was on it … this is not news, this is allowing the right-wing to hide beyond yet another threat to the great English civilisation by woke culture. Alas Keir Starmer (the leader of the Labour Party who hopes to become Prime Minister) who seems to think that this has something to do with patriotism (another one of his pronouncements that the left — like he is the left) needs to take up patriotism as we are insufficiently patriotic (perhaps he has misunderstood the difference between jingoism, patriotism and internationalism). Really you cannot make this crap up. It is no longer amazing that you can hear (if you listen closely) the hard-right and far-right clutching their pearls in horror about some perceived threat to English democracy as a “major” news story.

The reporting on the Israeli government and military attack on Gaza is also problematic. Rather than simply reporting the situation, invariably Israeli politicians are brought on to provide Israeli government hasbara; watching right-wing Israeli politicians blame the ongoing genocide and clear starvation on Hamas without proper questioning by news reporters is extremely dangerous and is spreading lies about an horrific situation. Worse, there is a constant linkage between Jews and the state of Israel; there is no recognition that British Jewish opinion on Israel and Zionism itself is contested. This insistence that Israel represents Jews is not only false, it is extremely dangerous as British Jews are not responsible for what the Israeli government and military are doing and many do not support it.

Two days ago, was literally a day of false reporting; it was reported that the US had introduced a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza which was then defeated by the Russians and Chinese. The problem is that was not what the motion said. The US resolution did not demand an immediate ceasefire, their resolution was far more ambiguous. In fact, according to Al Jazeera it said:

“The Security Council determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire to protect civilians on all sides, allow for the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance, and alleviate humanitarian suffering and towards that end unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to secure such a ceasefire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages.”

This wording was confirmed by Phyllis Bennis on Democracy Now. But this was not reported by the MSM in Britain; weirdly, only The Guardian talked about the ambiguity of the US Resolution and how what it said was not what Anthony Blinken said it did; and it also seems that the EU is trying to decide a policy as well. But over and over again, all the mainstream news outlets reported the US perspective despite it not being true.

The situation is degenerating for Palestinians in Gaza; we are watching a genocide and mass starvation. Once again, the US, which is the only country that actually could force the Israeli government and military into an immediate ceasefire refuses to do so and blocks any other attempts to do this. The US government could cut off all military and foreign aid to Israel tomorrow, but Biden will not do this, he is still hoping that the Israeli government and military will just do something that they have said they will not do, they still insist on attacking Rafah, they continue to attack hospitals and people are starving.

Quite honestly, the fact is that Israel is blocking humanitarian aid getting into Gaza has raised the fact that deliberate starvation and preventing access to water of a civilian population is a war crime; this has been raised by Human Rights Watch, the UN Commission for Human Rights, Volker Turk, and other humanitarian groups . Putting forward useless and unenforceable resolutions when there is an ongoing genocide and starvation in Gaza will not remove your complicity in genocide and deliberate starvation. Sweden and Germany have resumed their funding to UNRWA and other countries must do so. UNRWA is essential to ensuring the distribution of aid. Yet, the aid has not been restored. When the mainstream news reports are no longer dealing with facts, when they cannot be bothered to read a UN security council resolution. So, what are we to believe when the MSM essentially repeats nonsense and cannot even be bothered to get a copy of the US resolution that is sent to the Security Council of the UN?

This is a general problem

It is almost impossible to hear news that is not politically biased in Britain at this point. Everything is reported from a right-wing perspective specifically that of the government and even the far right (many of whom are members of the British government). So, there are Tory members of Parliament who have appeared regularly on GB News as news commentators (GB news has been accused by OFCOM – the British media regulator – of breaching impartiality rules for allowing right-wing British politicians MPs Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esther McVey and Philip Davies as news commentators; but faces no sanctions) which has been an important place where anti-woke politicians and speakers regularly appear. But it is also important that we understand that anti-woke speakers appear on the mainstream news regularly where they peddle this hate and division; one does not need to have your own show; it is who actually are the people being interviewed on news programmes.

What has happened is that the right and far right are brought on for interviews and their so-called opponents are not the centrists or heaven forfend anyone even on the soft left. This is partly because the government is on the hard-right because the hard-right and far-right joined the Conservative (Tory) party over Brexit and they vote for the Prime Minister when the previous ones have been thrown out. So, the Executive Branch is on the hard right, there are significant numbers of MPs that are on the hard right, and that is because the membership of the Conservative Party is much further to the right than it was before Boris Johnson (in fact, many of the so-called moderate One-nation Conservatives left government when Johnson was chosen as leader).

The problem goes beyond that, it is the refusal of the MSM to actually present real alternative perspectives to that advocated by the right-wing. Moreover, the impartiality policy literally means that the government’s opinion is reported, the Labour Party’s opinion is allowed to be reported, but no independent people analysis that goes beyond the manner in which the story is covered is reported and the issues that are chosen all have shall we say a right-wing tinge to them. With all that is happening, why was a whole news day devoted to a shift in the uniform of the English football team? If you say that is a light news story, you don’t understand the purpose of a story like that which focusses on what it means to be patriotic which is always something on the right and a whole day listening to fascists and other far-right speakers babbling about the football team’s kit and how it is an insult to the England …

Given how right-wing this government is, it is no longer surprising that our Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attends and speaks about “illegal migration” at the "Atreju" festival/conference in Italy organised by the fascist Fratelli d’Italia and their Prime Minister Georgia Meloni. It is unsurprising that the former Home Secretary Suella Braverman channelling Donald J Trump described a hurricane of migrants or an invasion or a swarm of migrants. The same Suella Braverman describes marches in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza as “hate marches”. It seems that the chant which includes from “the river to the sea” is “antisemitic”; unless, as Rashid Khalidi states in his article in The Nation, of course, right-wing Israeli politicians use it to describe Israel’s legitimate border and then, I guess it is ok … the phrase has meaning and expresses Palestinian hopes as well as Israeli claims ...

Unsurprisingly, the British right has taken several pages from the right of the US (which shouldn’t be surprising as the US right also organises and funds some of this) and there is a whole campaign by certain government members against “Woke Culture” being a threat to British (or English) civilisation, there are consistent and regular attacks against marginalised people (especially trans people, asylum seekers, migrants, benefit seekers, disabled people, single mothers). The problem is that it is not only right-wing politicians (e.g., Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch) that are fuelling the attack on “woke culture”, it is the mainstream media that has adopted these terms as well and have continued to use them.

While I am grateful that the ubiquitous American religious nonsense is absent from the far-right in Britain, this means that they need to come up with different ideological justifications than Jesus or the Bible say this or that and that is why it is a threat. Quite honestly given the supposed separation between church and state in the US, the fact that someone thinks that Jesus or the bible says something should not amount to a hill of beans, but as we know the fact that there is not a legal established church in the US does not mean that there is not a de facto established church which thinks that it has the mandate to demand obedience from everyone whether they are atheist, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs or Hindus.

In the absence of the ability to pretend that God has sent word to you that some things are good or evil, the British politicians have to find other excuses for further oppressing marginalised people or removing their civil rights (again, no formal constitution but the laws of the European human rights act as well as decades of precedent has given Britain a code of civil law and civil rights).

Racism, Misogyny, Disablism, Homophobia and Queerphobia

These politicians say they are speaking for British people; the problem is that they are not. According to the government, it seems that the British people think the biggest threat to Britain and British democracy are the small boats of “illegal migrants” – they are illegal because the British government won’t open up a legal route for them to enter the country. The problem is not the migrants, it is the British government refusing to provide a legal route for them to enter and enable them to live in this country. Unfortunately, some Labour Party politicians have decided that immigration is also a danger (rather than actually follow international treaties we have signed relating to refugees). So while they won’t continue the Tory Rwanda Policy, there is no guarantee that they will provide a legal path to come to Britain for the majority of asylum seekers and migrants.

Like many “crises”, the “small boat crisis” is a manufactured crisis caused by government policy. Their refusal to admit this as well as the consequences of their other policies leading to continual crises essentially has meant that neither the various governments nor their policies are responsible for whatever crises their policies have created. So, their policies are not responsibile for the cost-of-living crisis which still exists despite inflation slowing, it is not responsible for poor wages (I remember Iain Duncan Smith, Tory MP blaming the working poor for their appalling wages and not earning enough), appalling working conditions, insufficient levels and quality of benefits, insufficient housing that are part of the cost-of-living crisis. Nor are they responsible for the broken care system, the broken NHS, political repression, the fact that the police are institutionally racist, misogynist, homophobic and transphobic. For the Tories, these are not relevant problems for the British people as they are all relating to the government and the government cannot be responsible for the results of all its policies. (It is a weird variant on the ontological proof for the existence of god … ) The fact that racism, misogyny, disablism, homophobia and queerphobia are routinely used by politicians, various organs of the state, and the mainstream media has spread hate in our societies; it is convenient for this government to blame marginalised people rather than accept responsibility for the impact of their own policies (economic, environmental, social and political).

The government may be speaking for some of the British people, but they are not even speaking for the English people. The additional issue is that the Tories really do not have much support at this point in time; while Boris Johnson was elected with an 80-seat majority which gave them a lot of latitude to pass all sorts of awful legislation, but the current government’s legitimacy is debateable. While the party can formally stay in power for 5 years, we need to accept the fact that neither Liz Truss nor Rishi Sunak have been elected by the broad populace. (Even if they had been, would this reflect that they have support or that the Tories had sold themselves better?) Rather, they have been chosen by the Tory MPs and the members of the Tory party (which reflect the right-wing bias of Tory MPs and the hard and far-right membership of the Conservative Party) and as such, they are not speaking for anyone but the right and hard-right. Of course, the far-right thinks Sunak and his cronies are too weak; the far-right populist Reform Party represents an additional threat to the Tories at the next election. As if things are not horrible enough, there is always the Reform Party ...

This nonsense that you are speaking for “The British People” is just one more failing ideological perspective. If these elections polls saying the Labour Party are going to win are correct (at the least securing a minority government), then they surely are not speaking for the British (this is the English, Welsh and Scottish) people. The Tories do not run the governments in Wales and Scotland. Wales is run by Labour, Scotland by the Scottish National Party and the chances of the Tories winning in either of those countries is so low that they are not really viewed as serious contenders for winning upcoming elections to Westminster (which look like they are happening in the autumn of 2024). Elections have to be held this year, the Tories can put them off, but they cannot avoid them. The one thing that is obvious at this point, is that the Tories are trying to get as much damage as they can get done before they are tossed out by the voters at the upcoming elections.

The damage they are doing is serious further undermining the public sector (insufficient investment in public services), revenue coming in to the government (national insurance tax cuts), undermining anything like a sustainable environmental agenda (the Labour party bailed on its promised investment), and continued attacks on civil rights and the use of divide and rule politics. The very interesting thing that is happening is that the British people are aware that the anti-woke agenda by politicians is part of an attempt to both distract and divide them.

Kings College London has done some analysis on the war on woke by right-wing politicians and media and whether it will be effective in the upcoming elections and found:

“The public are most likely to say politicians’ focus on cultural divides has a negative impact on society – and that they do so for political benefits
A majority of 56% say politicians who talk about divisions over cultural issues are just trying to distract people from other important topics, compared with 11% who say politicians who talk about these divisions genuinely believe it’s an important topic.
51% say that when politicians focus on divisions over cultural issues it only divides society further – far greater than the 12% who say this focus helps highlight ways we can improve society.
48% say it’s in politicians’ interests to exaggerate divisions over cultural issues, compared with 28% who take the opposite view that there are no political benefits to exaggerating such divisions.”

But even though people here recognise that this is being done deliberately by politicians and the MSM, that does not stop it from being used. We will have to wait until the elections to see how many people have bought into this nonsense. Some of my favourite moments happen when the Tories blame “foreigners” for attacking democracy … of course, it is never them though they have been working very hard to undermine guaranteed basic civil rights.

What is happening in Britain is part of a shift away from Liberal Democracy towards the far right and it is part of an international problem. But it is not only that these hard- and far-right political organisations that are being elected, the fact is that even in countries where they are not in power, fascism itself is being normalised as the mainstream media collaborates with the far-right and gives them access to the mainstream media.

What we need to recognise is that this is part of a general political shift internationally, it is not happening in a vacuum and independently of our reality; it is deliberate and it creates further divisions in our societies and the MSM has played a role in it. The reality is that Liberal Democracies themselves are partially responsible for the rise and normalisation of the hard and far-right just as they are for the attacks on the hard and far left. But when the left is weak, and there is a strong right, this creates an extremely dangerous shift in our world.

ACM: In Honour of International Women’s Day: In the Words of Our Founding Mothers

NY brit expat

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday March 10, 2024 · 4:00 PM PDT

2024/03/10 · 16:00

NY Brit Expat and Geminijen (Peggy Rapp)

This article is a co-production of NY Brit Expat and Geminijen. What we decided we wanted to do was to allow women to speak for themselves, so we reproduced some quotes from the women that are the founders of the movement that led to the creation of International Women’s Day in the First Wave of Feminism. We wanted to discuss not only women that were known as leaders or that were heralded during their times; we also want to remind people of the voices of those who fought on the shop-floors, those that became “leaders” due to circumstance. Their actions and speeches inspired and moved others and they remain relevant due to the oppression of women in the capitalist economic system.

This piece is dedicated to the memory of Margaret Rapp (aka Geminijen) my sister and comrade. Although Peggy has died, she will continue to inspire those who were lucky enough to have worked with her; her knowledge and activism will survive her death. A campaigner against women’s and LGBTQ+ oppression, an anti-racist and anti-imperialist, Peggy believed that only socialism could free women of their oppression under capitalism and overthrow patriarchy. We always fight for reform, but it is only the end of capitalism that can create the conditions for the political, economic and social equality of marginalised people and even then we must continue the fight. The struggle for socialism continues and as Joe Hill said “Don’t Mourn, Organize!”

Since the inception of International Women’s Day in the early 1900s, it has inspired many other actions and women around the world from Africa to China to Latin America and Europe. In the United States it was repressed for much of the 20th century, except in small radical communities, due to the strong anti-socialist bias. It was revived under the second wave of feminism in the 1970s and is still celebrated among feminists and progressives today.

YouTube Video

The History of International Women’s Day

International Women's Day (8 March, IWD) was originally called International Working Women’s Day. It was a socialist holiday established in 1910 by the Socialist International and is celebrated by women's groups around the world. In many countries, it is a national holiday and has recently been officially recognized by the United Nations. However, up until the 1970's, with the advent of a new women's movement, the radical working class roots of IWD had been practically forgotten. Due to its socialist leanings, it was excised from United States memory, much as Labor Day replaced May Day, only being celebrated in small immigrant enclaves or radical union groups. In Europe and the rest of the world, it continued to be widely celebrated, but tended to honour women in name only, mostly with flowers or by simply putting a woman's face on a male agenda. IWD, in fact, was the culmination of a century of women working in the labour, feminist, socialist, and anti-slavery and anti-segregation (i.e., anti-racist) movements to bring together the common interests of the working class and women's rights advocates.

There were several major trends that led to the establishment of IWD:

The first was a revolutionary fervour in Europe and the United States toward socialism, democratization and the vote. In Europe it was exemplified by a movement for working class men without property seeking the vote to further a socialist government, paralleled by a movement for middle class women to get the vote. This situation was mirrored in the United States by the struggle to gain the vote for black men and white women. The contradictions between these two types of suffrage movements were evident (should we fight for the non-propertied or black men to get the vote, even if women were excluded?). The solution, of course, was to get the vote for both groups.

Clara Zetkin was among the early socialists to see working class women as the driving force towards universal suffrage (everyone gets the vote independent of property qualifications to which it had been historically tied) since they bridged the divide, yet retain the principle of a revolutionary socialist agenda. In 1907, Clara Zetkin founded the Socialist Women's International in Stuttgart, of which she became president. In 1910, it was Clara Zetkin and Luise Zietz who advocated for merging the working class socialist movement and the women's movement through the establishment of International Women's Day as a way to forward the goals of both labour and women.

Zetkin opposed the stagist approach by the mainstream Women’s Movement in Britain which advocated first getting women over a certain age with property the vote (i.e., the Representation of the People Act of 1918 which gave all British men over 21 the vote and women of property and over 30 getting the vote) and then later that women without property be granted suffrage. It took another decade; in 1928, women without property finally gained the franchise.

In 1906, Zetkin addressed why socialists should support Women’s suffrage and Universal suffrage:

“We must always press on the question of Woman Suffrage when we are agitating about the Suffrage. We have always argued in the Suffrage agitation that it was a question of equal rights for men and women, and we must continue to do so till we succeed. We must be united. We know that we shall not attain the victory of Woman Suffrage in a short time, but we know; too, that in our struggles for this measure we shall revolutionise hundreds of thousands of minds. We carry on our war, not as a fight between the sexes, but as a battle against the political might of the possessing classes; as a fight which we carry on with all our might and main, without hatred of the other sex; a fight whose final aim and whose glory will be that in the broadest masses of the proletariat the knowledge shall arise that when the day of the historical development shall have made sufficient progress then the proletariat, in its entirety, without distinction of sex, shall be able to call out to the capitalist order of society: “You rest on us, you oppress us, and, see, now the building which you have erected is tottering to the ground (Social Democracy and Women’s Suffrage, 1906) .”

Women’s strike, 1917 Russia, led to the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II

Under the leadership of working class women, the first clear victory following the establishment of IWD was won in the organization of the textile workers and fighting for women's suffrage in the United States. The second victory was the Russian Revolution in 1917 which began with a massive strike by women textile workers in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) on International Women's Day. This strike was called against the orders of the trade unions and left-wing political parties who viewed it as premature. The strikes by women textile workers lit the match of a country on the verge of revolution; strike numbers doubled in size to 200,000 workers and over the next few days, 66,000 men of the local army garrison joined forces with the strikers. The February Russian revolution began and Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate.

Uprisingofthe20000photooftwogirlssignsinYiddishandEnglish.jpg — Uprising of the 20,000: striking textile workers
Garment Centre, New York City

The second important factor was the increased numbers of women in the labour movement, particularly in the textile industry, as more and more women were pulled into factories and out of homes with the rise of industrial capitalism. Their struggle to free themselves from the patriarchal home and obtain decent work conditions in the marketplace instead of being viewed as cheap labour is exemplified in the call for both "bread and roses." The wave of textile strikes in the United States beginning in 1857 and the massive strikes between 1908 and 1915 were the activist expression of women's struggle for power. This was especially true after the horror of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory strike where mostly women workers, but also children and a few men were killed in a horrific sweatshop fire soon after a strike of textile workers (The Uprising of the 20,000) in New York City demanding trade union recognition, better wages, working conditions and health and safety measures.

While initially the feminist movement focused on human rights issues for women such as suffrage, many of the women felt allied to working class struggles for decent wages and rights and took up the call that freedom and equality for one group meant freedom and equality for all.

The third major trend was the anti-racist struggle in the US. While the anti-slavery movement seems distinct from this trend, it is not. The end of slavery pushed all workers, black and white into the same labour struggle as wage labourers. Once this occurred, it was up to anti-racist groups to fight for equality within the labour movement. This, of course, always raised the question of equality for the other major group excluded from equality in the labour force … women.

These movements, occurring in a short period between the end of the US civil war (including the Reconstruction and Post-Reconstruction Period) and the end of WWI, provided the activist and theoretical foundation to try to unite diverse groups into the revolutionary struggle. The formation of IWD was an explicit effort to unite the interests and theories of women and male labour (including workers of colour that was implied in the socialist agenda) under a revolutionary socialist agenda in support of universal suffrage and economic equality.

We need to go back to the rise of the post-Civil War labour movement and the first wave of feminism to see the inevitable class contradictions that arose between women of the bourgeoisie and women of the working class. The differences in approach are obvious when we look at the issues. Bourgeois women advocating women’s suffrage linked it to property qualifications and argued that women as a group should be enfranchised without looking at how this left blacks and many non-propertied workers without the vote. The birth control movement also wound up linking to eugenics groups that were aligned to repugnant issues targeting the poor, disabled people and people of colour.

To win equality for all people, women of the left argued that the economic and social exploitation endemic to the capitalist system be eliminated by the triumph of socialism. While suffrage and access to birth control were clearly important reform issues, they would not, in and of themselves, enable all women’s equality, or for that matter, the equality of all people. However, when reformist men chose to limit their call for the vote to blacks and non-propertied working men – conveniently forgetting that this still excluded women – the dynamics of the struggle shifted and the call for socialists to specifically include women in their demand for the vote was born.

The following excerpts (which we hope you will read, view, sing-along-with, explore and enjoy) are just a sampling of some of the actions and words of some prominent working women and movements.

The Words of Our Founding Mothers

“Sojourner Truth" (1797-1883)

Harriot Stanton Blatch recalled how as a 10-year-old, she once read the morning papers to visiting SOJOURNA TRUTH as she smoked her pipe. Young Blatch asked,"Sojourner, can't you read?" To which Truth answered,

“Oh no, honey, I can't read little things like letters. I read big things like men."

Born a slave named Isabella, Sojourner Truth bore at least 5 children, 2 girls sold from her, won her son back from an Alabama slaveholder, worked as a cook, maid and laundress in New York City. Although illiterate, she preached against prostitution (1830), worked as a mystic, and chose name her name in 1843. Sojourner Truth preached throughout Long Island and Connecticut at abolitionist meetings. She spoke at women's rights meetings in the 1850s, and is remembered for her dramatic "Ain't I a Woman?" speech delivered at the Women's convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851.

“Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about? That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman? Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full? Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them. Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say (www.fordham.edu/...).”

There has been some debate as to whether or not Sojourner Truth actually said the words "Ain't I A Woman" as the speech was reconstructed. For balance we are including the original 1851 report by Marcus Robinson (both versions of the speech are here), although the words "ain't I am woman" are not there, the content of the speech clearly says this without using the words. Alice Walker prefers the original speech above and we are keeping it. Essentially, the controversy is over a resource written by a man in a newspaper who knew Sojourner Truth that was published one month after the event vs. an informal report by a woman who was at the event. Which resource is more legitimate? Since sources from the side of the oppressed are always both "stronger" - less polite - and de-legitimatized, we are opting for the female on the spot source (but recognise that there is a controversy) as opposed to the male resource with a specific agenda in terms of tone. Read together this would enable us to understand the differences in emphasis in both accounts.

Labour and Organising: Early 20th century US labour history and its relation to International Women’s Day

MARY HARRIS “MOTHER” JONES (1837-1930)

"A lady is the last thing on earth I want to be. Capitalists side-track the women into clubs and make ladies of them.” “No matter what the fight, don’t be ladylike! God almighty made women and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies.”

Labour organizer Mother Jones worked tirelessly for economic justice. While her opponents called her the “most dangerous woman in America,” fellow organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn called Jones “the greatest woman agitator of our times.” Jones combined dynamic speaking skills and radical organizing methods to mobilize thousands of laborers and working-class families. She said of herself,

“I’m not a humanitarian; I’m a hell-raiser.”

Mother Jones' organizing methods were unique for her time. She welcomed African American workers into the struggle and involved women and children in strikes. She organized miners’ wives into teams armed with mops and brooms to guard the mines against scabs. She staged parades with children carrying signs that read, "We Want to Go to School and Not to the Mines."

Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was born in Cork, Ireland, moved to the United States in the 1840s, where her father worked in railroad construction. Mary became a teacher after trying her hand at dressmaking. In 1861 married a member of Iron Molders’ Union in Memphis. Six years later, she lost her husband and four young children to a yellow fever epidemic, and returned to Chicago to open a seamstress shop. After losing all her possessions in the great Chicago fire of 1871, Jones sought community in the Knights of Labor. She reconstructed herself as “Mother” Jones, radical organizer. Five-feet tall with snow-white hair, black dress and confrontational style, Jones was indeed a fierce maternal presence.

From the late 1870s through the early 1920s, Jones participated in hundreds of strikes across the country. Living by the philosophy, “wherever there is a fight,” she supported workers in the railroad, steel, copper, brewing, textile, and mining industries. In 1903 she organized children textile workers to march on President Theodore Roosevelt’s home. Mary, like many working class women of the time, saw the suffrage movement as an upper class women’s distraction, saying:

“the plutocrats have organized their women. They keep them busy with suffrage and prohibition and charity.”

Although she was suspicious of feminists and unconvinced that women’s suffrage would solve the oppression of women and the exploitation of workers (both men and women), her courage and organizing were part of the struggle that informed International Women's Day and deserves to be remembered on this day if for no other reason that the preceding cautionary quotes.

Lucy Parsons (born c. 1853 – March 7, 1942)

Lucy Parsons was a founding member of the IWW (International Workers of the World). She worked as an organizer for the IWW and as an anarchist activist was a major organizer of the Haymarket Affair of 1886 in Chicago that led to the massacre of eight workers. Her husband, Albert, was executed in 1887 on charges of conspiring with the Haymarket Riot.

Lucy Parsons, addressed the founding convention of the IWW on two occasions. She was described by Chicago Police Department in the 1920s as “more dangerous than a thousand rioters .” Her speeches touched on issues close to her heart: the oppression of women and how to develop radical new tactics to win strikes. Her ideas clearly were in advance of the time, presage the "sit-in" strikes of the 1930s, the anti-war movement of the 1960s, and her words resonate today. Delegate applause interrupted her speech several times and at the end.

From her (1905) speech to the IWW:

“We, the women of this country, have no ballot even if we wished to use it, and the only way that we can be represented is to take a man to represent us. You men have made such a mess of it in representing us that we have not much confidence in asking you [...] We [women] are the slaves of slaves. We are exploited more ruthlessly than men. Whenever wages are to be reduced the capitalist class use women to reduce them, and if there is anything that you men should do in the future it is to organize the women [...] Now, what do we mean when we say revolutionary Socialist? We mean that the land shall belong to the landless, the tools to the toiler, and the products to the producers. [. . .] I believe that if every man and every woman who works, or who toils in the mines, mills, the workshops, the fields, the factories and the farms of our broad America should decide in their minds that they shall have that which of right belongs to them, and that no idler shall live upon their toil . . . then there is no army that is large enough to overcome you, for you yourselves constitute the army [...]. My conception of the strike of the future is not to strike and go out and starve, but to strike and remain in and take possession of the necessary property of production […].” (Lucy Parsons, 1905).

The Uprising of the 20,000 (1909)

Interestingly enough while people may have heard the name of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, it is often mostly known due to the horrific fire in 1911. However, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory plays quite a role in the history of trade union struggles in NYC; it was in response to the horrific working conditions at the factory that workers staged a short-term strike which resulted in a lock-out by the company. This led to a strike lasting 14 weeks known as the "Uprising of the 20,000."

At that point a 19-year old girl named Clara Lemlich who was sitting in the crowd stood up and began walking towards the podium while shouting “I want to say a few words!” Once she got to the podium, she continued,

“I have no further patience for talk as I am one of those who feels and suffers from the things pictured. I move that we go on a general strike ... now!”

The audience rose to their feet and cheered, then voted for a strike.

"The news of the strike spread quickly to all the New York garment workers. At a series of mass meetings, after the leading figures of the American labor movement spoke in general terms about the need for solidarity and preparedness, Clara Lemlich rose to speak about the conditions she and other women worked under and demanded an end to talk and the calling of a strike of the entire industry. The crowd responded enthusiastically and, after taking a traditional Yiddish oath, "If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise," voted for a general strike. Approximately 20,000 out of the 32,000 workers in the shirtwaist trade walked out in the next two days."

Uprising of the 20,000 — New York City 1909

A song dedicated to the workers of the Uprising of the 20,000:

The Uprising of the Twenty Thousand Dedicated to the Waistmakers of 1909.

In the black of the winter of nineteen nine, when we froze and bled on the picket line,

We showed the world that women could fight

And we rose and won with women's might.

Chorus: Hail the waistmakers of nineteen nine, Making their stand on the picket line, Breaking the power of those who reign, Pointing the way, smashing the chain. And we gave new courage to the men Who carried on in nineteen ten And shoulder to shoulder we'll win through, Led by the I.L.G.W.U. (From: Let's Sing! Educational Department, International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, New York City, n.d.)."

The strike was not completely successful. While union recognition was not achieved, improved conditions on working hours, health and safety standards and wages were agreed but many employers in the industry (including the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory owners) refused to sign the agreement.

In 1910, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) led a strike of 60,000 cloak-makers called "The Great Revolt" that lasted several months and which led to higher wages, union recognition rudimentary health benefits, and an agreement of arbitration rather than strikes to settle disagreements between workers and employers.

Following the strike of the 20,000, waves of strikes spread through the garment trade starting with Cleveland and Philadelphia and in 1910 and 1911, they hit Chicago. Beginning at Hart, Schaffner, and Marx in September 1910 when 16 women struck. While wages, working conditions and working hours were bad, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the imposition of a bonus system that allowed supervisors to play favourites with some workers, as well as a cut in the piece rate of from 4 cents to 3 ¾ cents.

By the end of the week, the original 16 strikers were joined by 2,000 other women. When the United Garment Workers union (UGW) officially sanctioned the strike, 41,000 workers walked off the job. The UGW refused to call a general strike and only called out workers that were without contracts.

Hart, Schaffner and Marx shifted work to non-union sub-contractors. As the autumn progressed, the strike increasingly looked like a lost cause. In early November, the Chicago Federation of Labor and the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) urged the strikers to settle, and the UGW withdrew support in December. Workers under Sidney Hillman's leadership ratified a contract with HSM that went into effect on January 14. Other workers, the most radical of the strikers, held out until February, when the general strike was called off. As many workers as could returned to their shops, but many were refused re-employment.

Hannah Shapiro Glick

It wasn't because I wanted to work, but I could see that every little cent helped. [...] I went to work at Hart, Schaffner & Marx; I thought, "I have to better myself." [...] There's nothing like in a big place to work; 'cause they have a wonderful system to work. [...] We got along nicely with every language, let me tell you, but I always minded my own business, but when it came to this, [the strike] I couldn't stand this [...]. They were all afraid to say a word but I wasn't [...]. People who are older than I am would stay in the house and not to budge. So I was the first one [...] If not for me, it seems they couldn't move [...] I'm a strong girl; I never regretted it [...] I think if not for the strike, they would never have what they have now; we had to strike and I think we had the right to go [...]. They stayed like glue; they felt they had to show we have to be recognized as people and, really, we struggled; it wasn't easy [...]The workingman has to live too, that's what it had to show and it did too (Identifying A Lost Leader).” (Excerpted from research by Rebecca Sive).

In 1922, Hannah Shapiro was identified in the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Joint Board Report as the initiator of the 1910 Chicago strike. Although she never emerged as a political leader, Glick was one of the "girl strikers" that many Socialist thinkers admired.

On September 22, 1910, Hannah [a.k.a. "Annie"] Shapiro (later Glick), a seventeen-year-old Jewish immigrant born in Ukraine, initiated the workers' walkout in shop 5 of a major clothing manufacturer. Shapiro, complained to her foreman about a cut in the piecework rate from 4 cents to 3 & 3/4 cents for seaming a pair of trousers. He replied that nothing could be done.

Under Shapiro's leadership, workers from shop 5 of Hart, Schaffner and Marx walked out. By Wednesday, workers in other company shops refused to do the work of Shapiro's shop and, by the end of the week, workers in seven out of ten Hart, Schaffner & Marx shops were out.

A month later, 40,000 Chicago garment workers were on strike. By her own account, Glick was young, fearless, and responsive to the righteousness of the workers' struggle. Her convictions gave her strength; she was a tireless picketer and a good speaker, though not a trained organizer. Although she remembered meeting Jane Addams, dancing with Clarence Darrow [who represented the workers during arbitration], organizing with Agnes Nestor and Mary Dreier Robins, and watching Bessie Abramovitch (Hillman), she had no memory of Clara Masilotti, the Italian strike leader. Furthermore, Glick does not appear "conferring" in any photographs, nor did she write any articles about the strike, or teach English to strikers She did not speak at meetings of the workers, as Abramovitch did. However, she was always her own woman. She did not participate in the selling of the "Special Girl Strikers' Edition" of the Chicago Daily Socialist because she did not agree with Socialist organizing tactics. Of her own significance in the strike, Glick said

"The strike, I'll tell you the truth for me, it was a joke, but for the married people [...] But I was the spokes [sic] [...]. At first they said, 'A young girl, what does she know, good from bad, couldn't she make up 1/4 cent? [...] Women can't stick to anything.”

In retrospect, she saw her importance as having been a model of steadfast courage.

The Creation of International Women's Day

The declaration of a women's day was called by the Socialist Party of the US in 1909 and was celebrated across the US on February 28th. In fact, it was celebrated in the US on the last Sunday in February up until 1913. In 1910, at the Socialist (second) International in Copenhagen, Clara Zetkin suggested the creation of International Women's Day be established to honour women's rights and to support the struggle for women's suffrage. In 1911, the first international women's day was celebrated on March 19th by demonstrations in Austria (1918), Germany (1918), Denmark (1915) and Switzerland (1971) where over one million women and men attended the demonstrations. The dates in parentheses indicate when women achieved not only the right to vote, but the right to vote independently of property qualifications. This most basic right of bourgeois democracies was denied to women and is still denied in many countries.

US Labour History

Understanding the situation that led to the creation of International Working Women’s Day requires an exploration of labour history in the US and understanding the working conditions of women in sweatshops, with high levels of exploitations, low pay and unsafe working conditions.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

And this brings us back once again to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and the fire on March 25th 1911. The death of 146 people (129 women mostly young immigrants and 17 men; that is, 146 out of 500 people employed at the company) either burnt to death or who died after jumping from the building.

These deaths all happened in the space of 18 minutes when a rag caught on fire in the space housing the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory (they occupied the 8-10 floors of the Asch Building). In order to prevent workers from leaving early or stealing from the firm, workers going off shift had to pass through doors where their bags would be searched. The exits of the 9th floor were simply impassable, some doors were locked, the fire escapes buckled due to the heat of the flames.

The locked doors ensured that those trapped inside (those on the 10th floor were able to make it to the roof) had the choice of being burned to death or jumping out the windows to their deaths. The fireman's safety nets could not hold the weight of people from those heights, the fire ladders were too short to reach these floors and the water hoses could not reach a fire that height.

These unnecessary and horrific deaths became a unifying theme for international women's day and its link to working class struggles for justice. Cornell University's International Labour Relations Department has a 100 year tribute to the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory Fire. This is a fantastic resource and includes a history of the struggles for wages, better working conditions, the demand for limits to working hours of the early 20th century in the garment district, eyewitness accounts of survivors, photos of the fire, its aftermath and the funerals.

There are also transcripts of the trial against the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company (Max Blanck and Isaac Harris) that were found innocent of second-degree manslaughter as they denied knowledge that the doors were locked. In 1914, they finally settled a civil suit paying $75 per victim. 350,000 people participated in the funeral march a few days after the fire.

Funeral for victims of Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

At the memorial meeting, Rose Schneiderman gave a speech that still has meaning today.

“I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have found you wanting. The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know what these things are today; the iron teeth are our necessities, the thumbscrews are the high-powered and swift machinery close to which we must work, and the rack is here in the firetrap structures that will destroy us the minute they catch on fire. This is not the first time girls have been burned alive in the city. Every week I must learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers. Every year thousands of us are maimed. The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred. There are so many of us for one job it matters little if 146 of us are burned to death. We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers, brothers and sisters by way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us. Public officials have only words of warning to us – warning that we must be intensely peaceable, and they have the workhouse just back of all their warnings. The strong hand of the law beats us back, when we rise, into the conditions that make life unbearable. I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement (Rose Schneiderman).”

The Bread and Roses Strike (Lawrence, Massachusetts 1912)

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, along with Joseph Ettor was one of the major organisers for the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike, aka the “Bread and Roses Strike” derived from a sign carried by a woman worker.

Lawrence Massachusetts was a mill town; housing was “provided” for workers and was priced higher than elsewhere in New England. Other workers lived in cramped tenements. According to Jone Johnson Lewis, the average worker at Lawrence earned less than $9 per week; housing costs were $1 to $6 per week. Introduction of new machinery led to a speed-up leading to increased productivity, accompanied by lower wages and less hours available to work. The strike began on January 11th when a few Polish women workers went on strike as their pay was shorted. The next day, 10,000 workers went out; strike numbers rose to 25,000.

The IWW was the main organising force, after meeting with them, the workers demanded: • 15% pay increase • 54 hour work week • overtime pay at double the normal rate of pay • elimination of bonus pay, which rewarded only a few and encouraged all to work longer hours

Needless to say, the city responded rather badly to the strike.

“The city reacted with night time militia patrols, turning fire hoses on strikers, and sending some of the strikers to jail. Groups elsewhere, often Socialists, organized strike relief, including soup kitchens, medical care, and funds paid to the striking families.

The death of a woman striker, Anna LoPizzo who was killed as police broke up a picket line on January 29 increased tensions.

“Strikers accused the police of the shooting. Police arrested IWW organizer Joseph Ettor and Italian socialist, newspaper editor, and poet Arturo Giovannitti who were at a meeting three miles away at the time and charged them as accessories to murder in her death. After this arrest, martial law was enforced and all public meetings were declared illegal.”

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and “Big Bill” Haywood bring the children of Lawrence MA back home

Dynamite was planted around the town by people paid by the company owners to try and win public sympathy at the expense of the strikers and IWW. Children of the strikers were evacuated to NYC on trains where temporary foster care was provided for them (as an aside, Margaret Sanger was one of the nurses on the train).

When the next attempt to relocate children happened; the city reacted violently, mothers and children were clubbed and beaten and children were taken from their parents. This led to a Congressional investigation in which the workers actually testified; Helen Taft (the wife of President Taft) actually attended the congressional meetings in sympathy with the workers. This enabled the building of public sympathy as the IWW brought attention to the situation and held solidarity rallies in NY (led by Flynn) and Boston. The company gave in on March 12th to the original demands of the strikers and Ettor and Giovannitti were acquitted of murder on November 26th.

ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN (1890-1964)

Born in Concord, NH to a family of socialists and feminists that finally settled in the Bronx in 1900, Flynn attended public school in the Bronx in New York City. At the age of 16 she gave her first public address to the Harlem Socialist Club, where she spoke on "What Socialism Will Do for Women." Upon her arrest for blocking traffic during one of her soapbox speeches she was expelled from high school, and in 1907 she began full-time organizing for the International Workers of the World (IWW).

Flynn's efforts for the IWW took her all over the United States, where she led organizing campaigns among garment workers in Minersville, Pennsylvania; silk weavers in Patterson, New Jersey; hotel and restaurant workers in New York City; miners in Minnesota's Mesabi Iron Range; and textile workers in the famous Lawrence, Massachusetts, strike of 1912. Joe Hill wrote the song, Rebel Girl, in honour of Flynn and expresses her life well.

She spoke in meeting halls, at factory gates, and on street corners in cities and towns across the country. Many of the workers whom Flynn sought to organize were women and children, and Flynn combined her class-based politics with recognition of the particular oppression women experienced because of their sex. She criticized male chauvinism in the IWW and pressed the union to be more sensitive to the needs and interests of working class women.

With other Communist leaders, Flynn fell victim to the anti-Communist hysteria that suffused the United States after the World War II. After a nine-month trial in 1952, she was convicted under the Smith Act of conspiring to teach and advocate the overthrow of the United States government. During her prison term from January 1955 to May 1957 at the women's federal penitentiary at Alderson, West Virginia, she wrote, took notes on prison life, and participated in the integration of a cottage composed of African-American women.

Flynn published two books about her life: The Rebel Girl, An Autobiography: My First Life (1906-1926; revised edition, 1973) and The Alderson Story: My Life as a Political Prisoner (1955).

The following books provide discussions of Flynn in the context of women activists and labor radicals: Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World (1969).
Finally, if you want to read more about this period of labour history led by women, read: Meredith Tax, The Rising of the Women: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict, 1880-1917 (1980); a new edition has just been released.

Women’s Suffrage, Race and Class Struggle

The Women’s Suffrage movement split on the issues of both race and class early in its history.

Clara Zetkin (1857-1933)

In 1896, Zetkin wrote “Only in Conjunction With the Proletarian Woman Will Socialism Be Victorious.”

“As far as the proletarian woman is concerned, it is capitalism’s need to exploit and to search incessantly for a cheap labor force that has created the women’s question. It is for this reason, too, that the proletarian woman has become enmeshed in the mechanism of the economic life of our period and has been driven into the workshop and to the machines. She went out into the economic life in order to aid her husband in making a living, but the capitalist mode of production transformed her into on unfair competitor. She wanted to bring prosperity to her family, but instead misery descended upon it. The proletarian woman obtained her own employment because she wanted to create a more sunny and pleasant life for her children, but instead she became almost entirely separated from them. She became an equal of the man as a worker; the machine rendered muscular force superfluous and everywhere women’s work showed the same results in production as men’s work. And since women constitute a cheap labor force and above all a submissive one that only in the rarest of cases dares to kick against the thorns of capitalist exploitation, the capitalists multiply the possibilities of women’s work in industry. As a result of all this, the proletarian woman has achieved her independence. But verily, the price was very high and for the moment they have gained very little. If during the Age of the Family, a man had the right (just think of the law of Electoral Bavaria!) to tame his wife occasionally with a whip, capitalism is now taming her with scorpions. In former times, the rule of a man over his wife was ameliorated by their personal relationship. Between an employer and his worker, however, exists only a cash nexus. The proletarian woman has gained her economic independence, but neither as a human being nor as a woman or wife has she had the possibility to develop her individuality. For her task as a wife and a mother, there remain only the breadcrumbs which the capitalist production drops from the table.

Therefore the liberation struggle of the proletarian woman cannot be similar to the struggle that the bourgeois woman wages against the male of her class. On the contrary, it must be a joint struggle with the male of her class against the entire class of capitalists. She does not need to fight against the men of her class in order to tear down the barriers which have been raised against her participation in the free competition of the market place. Capitalism’s need to exploit and the development of the modern mode of production totally relieves her of having to fight such a struggle. On the contrary, new barriers need to be erected against the exploitation of the proletarian woman. Her rights as wife and mother need to be restored and permanently secured. Her final aim is not the free competition with the man, but the achievement of the political rule of the proletariat. The proletarian woman fights hand in hand with the man of her class against capitalist society. To be sure, she also agrees with the demands of the bourgeois women’s movement, but she regards the fulfilment of these demands simply as a means to enable that movement to enter the battle, equipped with the same weapons, alongside the proletariat (Zetkin).”

Revolutionary Socialist and feminist, Clara Zetkin joined the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany in 1875. Zetkin belonged to the Radical wing of the Party along with Rosa Luxemburg. She married a Russian revolutionary living in exile (Clara Zetkin bibliography).

Clara Zetkin was influenced by Bebel's position in Women and Socialism which argued that it was the goal of socialists "not only to achieve equality of men and women under the present social order, which constitutes the sole aim of the bourgeois women's movement, but to go far beyond this and to remove all barriers that make one human being [economically] dependent upon another, which includes the dependence of one sex upon another."

In 1889, Zetkin wrote:

"What made women's labour particularly attractive to the capitalists was not only its lower price but also the greater submissiveness of women. The capitalists speculate on the two following factors: the female worker must be paid as poorly as possible and the competition of female labour must be employed to lower the wages of male workers as much as possible. In the same manner the capitalists use child labour to depress women's wages and the work of machines to depress all human labour."

In 1891 Zetkin became editor of the SPD's journal, Die Gleichheit (Equality). An impressive journalist, Zetkin took the circulation from 11,000 in 1903 to 67,000 three years later. She was also active against militarism. Opposing entry into WWI, Zetkin wrote in November, 1914:

"When the men kill, it is up to us women to fight for the preservation of life. When the men are silent, it is our duty to raise our voices in behalf of our ideals."

A strong campaigner for women's suffrage, Zetkin was elected secretary of the International Socialist Women. In 1907, she became the leader of the women’s office at the SPD (German Social Democratic Party) and organized the first international women’s conference in Stuttgar. She wrote:

Kollantai and Zetkin (1910) Second International Women’s Conference Copenhagen

"The socialist parties of all countries are duty bound to fight energetically for the implementation of universal women's suffrage which is to be vigorously advocated both by agitation and by parliamentary means. When a battle for suffrage is conducted, it should only be conducted according to socialist principles, and therefore with the demand of universal suffrage for all men and women [irrespective of class and property ownership].”

In 1910 at the Second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, Zetkin advocated (along with Luise Zietz) for the formation of International Women's Day on March 8th).

IDA BELL WELLS-BARNETT (Holy Springs, Mississippi) July 16, 1862 - March 25, 1931)

The following story illustrates how Well's long history of fighting for black rights influenced the suffrage movement:

On March 3, 1913, as 5,000 women prepared to parade through President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration, demanding the right to vote, Ida B. Wells was standing to the side. A black journalist and civil-rights activist, she had taken time out from her anti-lynching campaign to lobby for woman suffrage in Chicago. But a few days earlier, leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) had insisted she not march with the Illinois delegation. Certain Southern women, they said, had threatened to pull out if a black woman marched alongside whites. A constitutional amendment for woman suffrage, the object of the parade, would have to be ratified by two-thirds of the state legislatures after garnering two-thirds votes in both the House and Senate.

In the Southern states, opposition to woman suffrage was intensified as legislators feared that granting women the vote would add even more black voters to the voting rolls. So, the parade organizers reasoned, a compromise had to be struck: African American women could march in the suffrage parade, but in order to prevent raising even more opposition in the South, they would have to march at the back of the march. The organizers of the march asked that the African American women march at the back of the parade. Mary Terrell accepted the decision. But Ida Wells-Barnett did not. She tried to get the white Illinois delegation to support her opposition of this segregation, but found few supporters. The Alpha Suffrage Club women either marched in the back, or, as did Ida Wells-Barnett herself, decided not to march in the parade at all. But, as the parade progressed, Wells-Barnett emerged from the crowd and joined the (white) Illinois delegation, marching between two white supporters. She refused to comply with the segregation. This was neither the first nor the last time that African American women found their support of women's rights received with less than enthusiasm. Didn't black women have as much right to vote as white women? Sixty-five years earlier, at the dawn of the woman's suffrage movement, most suffragists would have said yes. In fact, early feminists were often anti-slavery activists before they started arguing for women's rights. And the parallels between black slaves — who could not vote or hold property — and women — who could do neither in most states — couldn't be ignored (Sources: Civil Rights Activist and Women Marchers).

Born to slave parents, Ida B. Wells became a teacher. Decades before the existence of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, she refused to give up her seat to go to the “coloured section” and then sued the railroad in the 1880s. She led the national campaign against lynching, touring in Europe describing what can only be called a deliberate campaign of murder and terrorism against black people in the postbellum South; her articles reporting on lynching and dismantling the justifications for it, can be found In The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894 (1895). She was the founder of the Alpha Suffrage Club of Chicago with Black suffragists. A highly respected journalist and incredibly brave political activist, she was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

In the preface to The Red Record, Frederick Douglass wrote:

”Let me give you thanks for your faithful paper on the lynch abomination now generally practiced against coloured people in the South. There has been no word equal to it in convincing power. I have spoken but my word is feeble in comparison [...] Brave woman! you have done your people and mine a service that can neither be weighed nor measured. If the American conscience were only half alive, if the American church and clergy were only half-Christianized, if American moral sensibility were not hardened by persistent infliction of outrage and crime against colored people, a scream of horror, shame and indignation wherever your pamphlet shall be read.”

The political rights of blacks and women did not always go hand in hand in the US. In 1869, as America was about to give black men the right to vote, the woman's movement split in two. Half the activists felt that any expansion of voting rights was a step in the right direction; the other half were angry that women were being left behind. By 1900, most suffragists had lost their enthusiasm for civil rights, and actually used racism to push for the vote. Anna Howard Shaw, head of NAWSA, said it was "humiliating" that black men could vote while well-bred white women could not.

Other suffragists scrambled to reassure white Southerners that white women outnumbered male blacks in the South. If women got the vote, they argued, they would help preserve "white supremacy.

Not all white suffragists shunned blacks, but Wells was never really embraced by the white suffrage movement. And though both white and black women won the vote in 1920, they did not do it by marching together.

The discussions on the left addressed Women’s Suffrage differently and from a critical perspective compared to those of early bourgeois feminist movements. Questions were raised amongst the anarchists: Emma Goldman asked whether the ballot was a priority, that it distracted women from true emancipation and tied our emancipation towards participating in elections rather than elimination of oppression and the state; Mother Jones argued that it was not a priority, we should be fighting class oppression. Amongst the Socialists and Communists, support for Women’s Suffrage was strong. However, their argument was strongly differentiated from the bourgeois Women’s Suffrage movement and emphasised that while extension of bourgeois democracy was appropriate if nothing else on social and economic grounds; simply getting women into political movements was important. However, it was always emphasised that true liberation and emancipation would only come through the struggle and creation of socialism.

Emma Goldman (June 27 [O.S. June 15] 1869 – May 14, 1940)

Emma Goldman

“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.” “Needless to say, I am not opposed to woman suffrage on the conventional ground that she is not equal to it. I see neither physical, psychological, nor mental reasons why woman should not have the equal right to vote with man. But that can not possibly blind me to the absurd notion that woman will accomplish that wherein man has failed. If she would not make things worse, she certainly could not make them better. To assume, therefore, that she would succeed in purifying something which is not susceptible of purification, is to credit her with supernatural powers. Since woman's greatest misfortune has been that she was looked upon as either angel or devil, her true salvation lies in being placed on earth; namely, in being considered human, and therefore subject to all human follies and mistakes. Are we, then, to believe that two errors will make a right? Are we to assume that the poison already inherent in politics will be decreased, if women were to enter the political arena? The most ardent suffragists would hardly maintain such a folly. As a matter of fact, the most advanced students of universal suffrage have come to realize that all existing systems of political power are absurd, and are completely inadequate to meet the pressing issues of life (Women's Suffrage).”

Born in Kovno in the Russian Empire to an orthodox Jewish family, Goldman emigrated to the US in 1885 and moved first to Rochester, NY before she moved and settled to live in NYC. An anarchist writer, theoretician and activist, Goldman wrote and worked extensively on women’s issues on birth control, marriage (she was an ardent supporter of “free love”), and freedom of speech. She was a strong opponent of homophobia, militarism and conscription.

A believer in direct action and violence to support political ends, she was imprisoned several times for “incitement to riot.” In 1892 she was involved in the Homestead Steel Strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (against the Homestead PA steel plant owned by Andrew Carnegie and run by Henry Clay Frick a strong opponent of the union). Her lover, Alexander Birkman, tried unsuccessfully to kill Frick in an attempt to strike terror and raise political consciousness (he was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the attempt).

In 1901, Leon Czolgosz shot President McKinley (who died from his wounds). Czolgosz said that he was inspired after listening to one of Goldman’s speeches but said that she had no role in the assassination. He was executed for the crime, but she refused to condemn his actions and was vilified leading to a crackdown on anarchists under Teddy Roosevelt the President who succeeded McKinley. Goldman founded the journal “Mother Earth” in 1906 and when Beckman was released from prison he took over control of the journal while she toured the country advocating anarchism, birth control, free-love and freedom of speech for the next 10 years. Their relationship broke down and Goldman formed a relationship with Ben Reitman (her "hobo" doctor).

Following the passage of conscription for WWI, Goldman became active in the anti-conscription movement and formed the No Conscription League with Beckman leading to her arrest in June 1917 and imprisonment until 1919. Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer and J. Edgar Hoover, head of the U.S. Department of Justice's General Intelligence Division, were intent on using the Anarchist Exclusion Act of 1918 to deport any non-citizens they could identify as advocates of anarchy or revolution. "Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman," Hoover wrote while they were in prison, "are, beyond doubt, two of the most dangerous anarchists in this country and return to the community will result in undue harm." They (and 247 other people) were deported en masse to Russia.

Initially supportive of the Russian revolution, Goldman and Beckman became rapidly and strongly disenchanted and left the country in 1921. She then lived in the UK after marrying to get British citizenship to provide her with some safety; she started writing her biography in 1928 and then travelled to Canada. She was allowed to return to the US for a lecture tour in 1933, as long as she did not speak of politics or current events. She visited Spain (she strongly supported the anarcho-syndicalists during the Civil War and championed their cause) and her support for their struggle was formally recognised by the CNT-FAI. She died in 1940 in Toronto, Canada (Emma Goldman).

Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919)

Rosa Luxemburg was born in Russian-controlled Poland. She was the 5th child of a Jewish Timber Merchant. Rosa Luxemburg was a leading Marxist theoretician and organiser whose writings were pertinent to many debates of the period and are still relevant to contemporary debates especially on Reform versus Revolution, Tactics and Strategy, Political Organisation, Political Economy and discussions of the National Question.

In 1886, Luxemburg joined the Polish Proletariat Party which organised a general strike in 1887 which resulted in 4 party leaders being killed and the party disbanded. Rosa fled to Switzerland in 1889, studying at Zurich University. She co-founded the Social Democratic party of the Kingdom of Poland (and later Lithuania joined the group) with Leo Jogiches. She wrote extensively on the national question, political economy, politics and history. In 1896, she married Gustav Lübeck, got German citizenship and moved to Berlin. She was active in the left-wing of the SPD leading the fight against Bernstein’s revisionist policies (her response to Bernstein can be found in Social Reform or Revolution). A supporter of the use of direct action and the general strike, she ran into difficulties with the right of the SPD and also the government. She was imprisoned 3 times for her political activities between the periods of 1904-6.

From Women’s Suffrage and Class Struggle (1912):

“Economically and socially, the women of the exploiting classes do not make up an independent stratum of the population. They perform a social function merely as instruments of natural reproduction for the ruling classes. The women of the proletariat, on the contrary, are independent economically; they are engaged in productive work for society just as the men are. Not in the sense that they help the men by their housework, scraping out a daily living and raising children for meagre compensation. This work is not productive within the meaning of the present economic system of capitalism, even though it entails an immense expenditure of energy and self-sacrifice in a thousand little tasks. This is only the private concern of the proletarians, their blessing and felicity, and precisely for this reason nothing but empty air as far as modem society is concerned. Only that work is productive which produces surplus value and yields capitalist profit – as long as the rule of capital and the wage system still exists. From this standpoint the dancer in a cafe, who makes a profit for her employer with her legs, is a productive working-woman, while all the toil of the woman and mothers of the proletariat within the four walls of the home is considered unproductive work. This sounds crude and crazy but it is an accurate expression of the crudeness and craziness of today’s capitalist economic order; and to understand this crude reality clearly and sharply is the first necessity for the proletarian woman (Women's Suffrage and Class Struggle).”

She finally broke with the SPD in 1914 when they voted to support World War I and agreed to a truce with the Imperial Government. In 1914, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, and Franz Mehring, founded the Die Internationale group; it became the Spartacus League in January 1916. The Spartacist League vehemently rejected the SPD's support for the war, trying to lead Germany's proletariat to an anti-war general strike.

As a result, in June 1916 Luxemburg was imprisoned for two and a half years, as was Karl Liebknecht. During imprisonment, she was twice relocated, first to Posen (now Poznań), then to Breslau (now Wrocław). Freed from prison in Breslau in 1918, Luxemburg and Liebknecht reorganised the Spartacist League which along with the Independent Socialists and the International Communists of Germany (IKD) united to form the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) on 1st January 1919 under her and Liebknecht’s leadership. In January 1919 a second revolutionary wave took Berlin. The leader of the SPD (Friedrich Ebert, a former student of Luxemburg) ordered the destruction of the left-wing German revolution and its leadership and called in the Freikorps to put an end to the revolution. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were captured on the 15th of January in Berlin and were first questioned and then murdered by the Freikorps' Garde-Kavallerie-Schützendivision. While Leibknecht’s body was delivered anonymously to a morgue; Rosa Luxemburg's body was dumped in a river (see, Rosa Luxemburg).

Alexandra Kollantai (1872-1953)

For International Women's Day, we are including the words of Alexandra Kollantai, on the question of maternity insurance, motherhood and children from her introduction to Society and Motherhood (1915) . Many readers might ask why? Isn't the question surrounding reproductive rights the purview of bourgeois feminists? Shouldn't we be focused on articles that pertain to women's role in the workforce and IWD, especially when the writer is Alexandra Kollantai, a leading advocate of IWD during the Russian Revolution?

However, we chose the article on maternity insurance because: 1) if you watch the news today, we still see the same problem of maternity insurance, motherhood and children (albeit an updated version) being argued in the halls of the U.S. Congress in 2021 just as it was argued by Russian society in 1902; the struggle over maternity benefits and childcare continues and this was clear from the pandemic; and 2) as Kollantai, herself notes, it is the most vital and urgent problem created by the large-scale capitalist economic system. The article, although already significantly edited, is very long.

Alexandra Kollantai

“Among the numerous problems raised by contemporary reality there is probably none more important for mankind, none more vital and urgent than the problem of motherhood created by the large-scale capitalist economic system. The problem of protecting and providing for the mother and young child is one that faces social politicians, knocks relentlessly at the door of the statesman, engages the health and hygiene specialists, concerns the social statistician, haunts the representative of the working class and weighs down on the shoulders of tens of millions of mothers compelled to earn their own living.”

“Side by side with the problem of sex and marriage, enveloped in the poetical language of the psychological suffering, insoluble difficulties and unsatisfied needs of noble souls, there is always to be found the majestic and tragic figure of motherhood wearily carrying her heavy burden. Neo-malthusians, social-reformers and philanthropists have all hastened to provide their own particular solution to this thorny problem, and all sing the praises of their own method of restoring paradise lost to mothers and babies. The prosperity of national industry and the development of the national economy depend upon a constant supply of fresh labour… the principle of state maternity insurance [is] a principle in sharp contradiction with the present social structure as [it] undermines the basis of marriage and violates the fundamental concepts of private-family rights and relationships. However, if, in the name of 'higher' considerations of state and under the pressure of necessity, the state authorities have been compelled to advance and implement a measure so at odds with the prevailing spirit of the representatives of the bourgeois world, at the other end of the social scale, among the working class, the principle of providing for and protecting mother and child is welcomed with enthusiasm and sympathy. The demand that the social collective (the community) provide maternity insurance and child protection was born of the immediate and vital needs of the class of hired workers. Of all the strata of society, this class is the one which most requires that a solution be found to the painful conflict between compulsory professional labour by women and their duties as representatives of their sex, as mothers. Following a powerful class instinct rather than a clearly understood idea, the working class strove to find a way of resolving this conflict (Society and Motherhood 1915).”

Zetkin (3rd from the Left) and Kollantai (to her right) (1921) at the International Women’s Conference

An ardent supporter of working class women, Kollantai came from the bourgeois intelligentsia. Her father was a general and her mother came from a wealthy peasant family. Her mother's divorce from her first husband and the long and unhappy struggle of her parents to be together helped develop her ideas on love, sex and marriage which became a critical part of her feminist theory. Her own early marriage ended because she felt "trapped."

She became increasingly involved with the populist ideas of the Peasant Commune in the 1890s which led her to the budding Marxist movement in Saint Petersburg. In 1898 she left her child by her first marriage with her parents and went to study economics abroad in Europe. In 1899, she returned to Russia where she met Lenin who supported her feminist ideas. She was a witness of the popular uprising in 1905 (Bloody Sunday), at Saint Petersburg in front of the Winter Palace. She went into exile to Germany in 1908. She left Germany when the SPD supported WWI which she adamantly opposed. She settled in Norway where her anti-war views were accepted. She finally returned to Russia after the Tsar abdicated in 1917.

Kollantai became the most well-known advocate for women's equality in Russia and the most prominent woman in the Soviet administration. Along with Inessa Armand, she co-founded the Zhenotdel or "Women's Department" (1919). Following Armand’s death in 1920, Kollantai ran the Zhenotdel where she worked to improve the conditions of women's lives, fighting illiteracy and educating women about the new marriage, education, and working laws put in place by the Soviet Union.

In the 1920s, she joined a left-wing faction of the Communist Party, the Workers Opposition, that opposed Lenin and the Bolsheviks on the role of trade unions and the organisation of the economy. The Workers Opposition faction were marginalised after their defeat at the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (1921) when factions were banned and their dissolution was required. By the 11^th Congress, an attempt to expel them from the Russian Communist Party; while defeated, this spelled the end of the Workers Opposition. Many of their members were murdered by Stalin in the late 1930s. However, because of her previously close relationship with Lenin, Kollantai was allowed to live out her days in various diplomatic positions abroad.

Alexandra Kollontai raised eyebrows with her unflinching advocacy of free love. Kollontai's views on the role of marriage and the family under Communism were arguably more influential on today's society than her advocacy of "free love." Kollontai believed that, like the state, the family unit would wither away. She viewed marriage and traditional families as legacies of the oppressive, property-rights-based, egoist past. Under Communism, both men and women would work for, and be supported by, society, not their families. Similarly, their children would be wards of, and reared basically by society. Kollontai admonished men and women to discard their nostalgia for traditional family life. In “Communism and the Family” (1920) she argued:

"The worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between yours and mine; she must remember that there are only our children, the children of Russia’s communist workers." However, she also praised maternal attachment: "Communist society will take upon itself all the duties involved in the education of the child, but the joys of parenthood will not be taken away from those who are capable of appreciating them."

ACM: The UK economy is in Recession; quelle surprise!

NY brit expat

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday February 18, 2024 · 3:00 PM PST

2024/02/18 · 15:00

One of the biggest non-surprises is that the British economy fell into recession. It is not a surprise because all government and Bank of England policies worked very hard to get us there. In point of fact, it has been obvious for some time that they have been trying to create a recession. Perhaps they figured if the economy fell into recession that any growth following it would be seen as an economic success that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak could claim as demonstrable proof that his economic policies would restore growth to the British economy?! That’s the only explanation I can find for the economic policy prescriptions supposedly to restore growth to the British economy. Somehow the wonderful contradictions in his 5 Policy Pledges of both restoring economic growth to stagnant Britain and lowering inflation using rising interest rates and supply side economic stupidity was somehow missed by all the bank economists appearing on the mainstream media supporting the Tory economic agenda.

The problem for Rishi Sunak, Jeremy Hunt (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) and, for that matter, the Bank of England is that the tactics that they used to reduce inflation were geared towards slowing down an overheating economy rather than enabling growth. The Bank of England kept raising interest rates, in August 2023, they reached 5.25% (and have remained at that level to date); this policy is designed to cool down an economy that is overheating.

There was absolutely no sign of the British economy overheating; inflation was not demand-driven by either producers or consumers when this policy was employed, in fact it is the opposite. Some of the strangest interviews on the news were with economists working for banks who kept on arguing that the economy was overheating to justify the actions of the Bank of England raising interest rates; but there was no evidence of this. There was growth coming out of the pandemic (or we’d be in even worse shape), but nothing to indicate an overheating economy. The British economy has been stagnant for quite a while. The last thing you want to do when an economy is stagnant is to raise interest rates if you actually want to create economic growth.

I’ve been writing about the incompetence of British government economic policies several times; you can find my previous discussions on the dkos, the last one on December 17^th 2023; but you can find others over the years, it is a constant theme.

The Fall into Recession

If we look at the GDP data from the Office ofNational Statistics just released this week, we can see the quarterly estimates of real GDP of 2023, released this week:

A far more interesting picture emerges if you look at National Accounts, which examine GDP growth over time and also demand; these are from 2022, but the picture is clear: We can see how stagnant the British economy is since 2008. We can see the 2007-8 recession (made much worse by government economic policies) with a small recovery and then stagnation. The big fall is the pandemic, we can see the economy rising and then we can see it start to fall back into stagnation and then dip below stagnation into recession. It is small compared to the 2007-8 recession, but this is where we are at.

Let’s start with demand: this is measure of demand for produced output by consumers (Retails Sales Index) and Business Investment (for intermediate goods and services) from 2008-2024. We can see constrained demand for consumer goods for quite a while; then the pandemic and a rebound and then we can see it falling. The main element that has impacted the quarterly and monthly fall in GDP is consumer spending decreasing. So we have the 2007-8 “great recession”, the ConDem government begins in 2010 and 2015, the Tories under Cameron secure an outright majority. The Brexit referendum is 2016 and Cameron resigns when Brexit wins. Then Teresa May is elected leader of the Tories and takes over. Boris Johnson is elected in 2019 with a massive majority. Then we have the pandemic, Johnson is thrown out of power in 2022. Quite honestly, neoliberalism and supply side economics have quite a lot to answer for … imagine if they actually tried to stimulate demand to create economic growth through direct government job creation (but then they couldn’t destroy the public sector and services) and government investment … but that is far less fun than to create a stagnant economy based on ideological idiocy.

And here is GPD from 2008-2004 (it was just updated the 14th of February, 2024:

Why do rising interest rates counteract economic growth?

High interest rates impact on several things: 1) businesses borrowing for production have to pay more interest on money borrowed (this especially impacts small and medium size businesses that are dependent upon borrowing, including retail); 2) consumer borrowing costs rise; this especially impacts those that are reliant on credit cards as interest on borrowing has increased; they will cut back on spending; 3) mortgage costs rise due to the rising rate of interest; these mortgage costs (irrespective of whether or not your landlord has a mortgage) have been passed onto private renters. So, we see rising rents continuing as house prices fall.

“Housing: House prices fall while private rents continue to see record rises

Average UK house prices areestimated to have fallen 1.4% in the year to December 2023 (provisional estimate). This is up from a decrease of 2.3% in the 12 months to November 2023 (revised estimate).

Average UK house prices are estimated to have fallen 1.4% in the year to December 2023 (provisional estimate). This is up from a decrease of 2.3% in the 12 months to November 2023 (revised estimate).

Private rental prices continued to grow at a record high rate in the UK, rising by 6.2% (provisional estimate) in the year to January 2024, unchanged for the second consecutive month. This remains the highest annual percentage change since this UK data series began in January 2016.”

Given the cost-of-living crisis, if people have credit cards and they cannot pay immediately, this will cause them to cut spending. Also, if they actually have savings, and there is no indication of incomes rising, they will save money rather than spend it; while the interest rate increases were belatedly (compared to credit cost borrowing costs) passed onto consumers, you can earn interest. But this is irrelevant for those in low wage jobs and dependent on benefits as they are living paycheque to paycheque. High rates of interest also impact those getting mortgages (or renewing mortgages, or taking out a second mortgage), and buying expensive items like cars as borrowing is more expensive.

Simply looking at GDP per quarter often does not provide enough information as that doesn’t necessarily explain what factors existed over time that leads to where you are today. This problem of examining quarterly data (or for that matter, monthly data) is that it focusses on short-term data and the issues that are feeding into these results do not give an overall examination of why these occur. This focus on short-termism also obfuscates the structural problems in the economy and what actually maybe more appropriate solutions to the economic situation. This is why you get reporting from the BBC blaming the fall into recession on consumers’ spending less, children being out of school and junior doctors’ strikes – these are not the reason structurally for economic stagnation or the fall into recession. For that we need to look deeper into the economy itself

Inflation and the cost-of-living crisis

So, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) data on GDP discussing the recession talks about decreases in production of goods and services, it talks about consumer spending falling after deals from Black Friday, but doesn’t include the obvious cost of living crisis, this still exists despite inflation stabilising. Rents have continued to rise (despite housing prices falling), electricity and heating is still high as are food prices. Just because inflation has fallen, it doesn’t mean that we have returned to prices that existed before the massive increase in inflation nor has the economy recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Hell, according to the ONS, “Out of 13 consumer-facing service industries, 10 remain below their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic levels (February 2020) in December 2023.”

We can see that consumer spending has decreased, but why has that happened? We need to look at longer term trends in wage incomes (wages and benefits),employment contracts and the nature of work (so zero hours contracts (where you don’t know the dates and times that you are going into work) which have essentially put younger workers into the reserve army of unemployed with low pay and no benefits like sick days) certainly will impact upon consumer spending.

To get an idea about wages and salaries, here is a look at the growth in real, nominal and total weekly wages in Britain. This comes from November 2023 from the ONS Employment and Labour Market series covering the period of 2003 to 2023:

acm_recession_annualgrowthinrealnominalandtotalearning_ONS_november2023.jpg

Here we can see the cost-of-living crisis wrapped up around the CPI services increases,the goods prices, and the CPI excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco from the Office of National Statistics relating to consumer price inflation from January 2024. The only thing that is missing from this diagram is private rents which as was said above is continuing to rise.

We can see above, a graph from January 2024 from the Office of National Statistics, showing CPI inflation in the UK compared with other European countries, the US and the EU27.

We know what caused inflation in the period after the pandemic in Britain:

1) Blocked supply chains:

Broken and blocked supply chains arose due to the pandemic which meant that good production (supply) had adjusted to the demand during the pandemic and it was not that simple to increase production of good and services immediately; there is a time lag to increase production of goods, it is not just turning on a tap. Intermediate good production needs to be increased before you can increase final goods production, agricultural production is seasonal, (but production is world-wide and there were blocked supply chains and that is why prices rose so precipitously).

2) Rising prices of fossil fuels and energy (aka Inflation)

In Britain this was a three-fold problem:

a) private control over energy and fuel prices and the refusal of the government to regulate them; so, while all countries in Europe experienced rising prices of fossil fuels and energy, in countries where energy is owned by the state rather than private companies, energy and fuel prices rose far less (this graph is from 2022, but it is still useful).

Britain provided direct funds to assist consumers cover the rising prices of electricity and heating; but these were nowhere enough to ensure that consumers did not take a hit. A small additional amount was provided to disabled people whose energy costs are higher to run medical and mobility machinery, and extra laundry; again, not enough especially because many disabled people remained on Legacy Benefits (the benefits system that existed before Universal Credit (UC) was introduced as moving onto UC meant lower levels of income support. Additionally, the £20 weekly uplift to Universal Credit was not given to those remaining on Legacy benefits which left many disabled people unable to cope with the rising cost of living. There will be a government forced migration onto Universal Credit starting and there is no question it means lower incomes for disabled people who are still on Legacy benefits.

Moreover, the British government allowed the prices of electricity and energy to rise rather than regulating revenue earned initially, the amount the companies were allowed to charge the public was capped and then the money to the energy distributors was supplemented by the British government rather than not allowing price rises. In May 2022, the government finally introduced the 25% Energy Profits Levy (aka as a Windfall Tax, but the Tories refused to use that term). This was increased by Jeremy Hunt to 35% in January 2023 and it is supposed to run until 2028. The government then increased support for reinvestment (and investment) in production for the fossil fuel industry at £91.40 out of £100 invested in production in Britain (to say this was inconsistent with any stated aims towards green and sustainable energy is an understatement). Even with the wealth taxes, distributors were making massive profits following a period of lower profits and they had the gall to complain about the windfall tax.

b) Shift in demand for fuel following the pandemic: During the pandemic demand for fuel had decreased substantially as production slowed, transport (including car usage and aviation) had decreased. Once economies started moving again after there was a supply backlog.

c) The Russian invasion of the Ukraine impacted both natural gas and oil production and distributors took full advantage raising prices substantially; while production occurs across countries, the war not only impacted fossil fuel production as well as food production (this hit developing economies far harder this is due to lack of food self-sufficiency and production for export rather than domestic consumption in many cases) but impacted everywhere.

3) Rising Prices of Intermediate Goods and Workers’ Consumption Goods (aka Inflation)

There were rising prices of intermediate goods and food: some of this is due to rising transport costs due to the high price of oil which is used both in production as an intermediate good and distribution and transport of these good. Britain is not food self-sufficient; it gets a lot of food products from the EU and other countries. Global warming impacted output production in Spain and other Mediterranean countries which increased food prices and goods were prioritised to the EU. Britain had to get goods from further afar which increases costs (see transport above).

If inflation is considered as class struggle between capitalists over profits and the working class over wages; we can see that the capitalists have won this round and this is still impacting working class people tremendously.

Brexit and its impact on Britain’s economic crisis

Tempting as it is to just stick Brexit in with inflationary pressures above, the reality is that Brexit seriously impacted the British economy. There was no question that Brexit would reduce economic growth in Britain. Leaving the customs union, single market and Vat Area broke supply chains in trade of goods and services.

This impacted manufacturing (much industrial manufacturing is done across countries in Europe and Britain’s participation in manufacturing was now slower and more expensive than simply doing this in other countries in the EU). So, Britain lost access to joint European-wide manufacturing production (and for a time joint scientific research).

Britain is not food self-sufficient and imports large amounts of food from the EU; also, agricultural and fishing production are sold to Europe. So, Britain’s production of food is highly dependent on Europe and leaving the EU has meant increased costs due to paperwork, we still need to follow European rules on food export (that is why the US and Canada’s demands to accept their hormonal meats was the breakdown in agreements as that is forbidden to enter the EU). Full custom controls were introduced in 2021 by the EU; this means customs documents must be provided for all imports and exports between the EU and UK. So from the Commons Library: New Customs Rules for trade with the EU

“Customs controls ensure duties are paid on goods moving across the border, and goods comply with safety, security, health and environmental requirements.The EU introduced full customs controls from 1 January 2021.

The UK Government has been phasing in border controls for goods imports from the EU from 2021. Customs declarations are now required for all imported goods. Businesses must pre-notify imports of animals, plants, and high-risk food and feed. Certain high-risk animals and plants require health certificates and checks. The planned introduction of the remaining controls – health certification and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks on all agri-food products, physical SPS-checks on EU imports at designated Border Control Posts, and safety and security declarations – has been postponed several times, most recently in September 2023.”

The government of Britain has produced a new Border Operating Model for trade with the EU which explains the rules and processes of exporting and importing goods with the EU (a wonderfully soul-destroying document to slog through if you are not someone wanting to export goods to the EU or import them into Britain).

Neither has Britain opened up large new trade and export markets in other countries tremendously and despite being outside of the EU they are still constrained by EU laws relating to import and export of goods. So, despite the fact that the EU is Britain’s biggest trading partner, all Brexit has done is increased food costs and prices, undermined its financial and manufacturing sector and slowed down export and import of goods between the EU and UK. The right-wing fantasy of eliminating all laws between Britain and the EU (especially human rights law) has not been that easy and the Tories have realised that freeing themselves from the chains of the EU simply cannot be done.

Moreover, many financial companies were located in Britain as it has always had a strong financial sector (e.g., insurance and financial services). Leaving the EU meant that Britain no longer served as an entry into the EU, as such, insurance and other financial companies relocated to Ireland and the Netherland as the access point to the EU. This impacted on service production and contrary to the bizarre beliefs of a revival of the dominance of the British economy, it has slowed and fell into a recession.

This was not unexpected by anyone who bothered to do a basic level of investigation about the economic impact of Brexit (and you know the MSM cannot be bothered to do that) it was just ignored by the right-wing who supported Brexit; they babbled endlessly at how Britain freed from the chains of Europe would rise to its former glories. While the right-wing wished to be free of migration laws in the EU; they actually forgot that they needed European labour in Britain, hence the labour shortage hitting the NHS, care sector and tech sector and the loss of manufacturing, financial services, and pharmaceutical controls to members of the EU.

However, in 2016, there was a report from the Treasury to the Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne projecting that Britain would fall into recession if it left the EU with a loss of over 500,000 jobs; this was so over the top that no one took it seriously, but it makes for interesting reading. Warnings of the shock of a Brexit vote itself could cause a recession according to the Treasury. I have a memory, but it may just be a nightmare of a reporter asking Jacob Rees Mogg whether the economy would be negatively affected if we left the EU and he said it would a short blip, but everything would come back stronger. The actual situation has proven to be worse; but no one could have predicted the pandemic ... funny old world we live in …

To make it easier for Americans to understand, the British right-wing had fantasies of a Britain like Texas (free market stupidity, low taxes, limited migration, a limited social welfare state, a limited public sector and some economic growth), however, it’s reality far more resembles that of Alabama.

Mainstream Media Reporting on the Recession

The reporting on the recession was absurd; the BBC actually opened their article on the recession with the following:

“People spending less, doctors' strikes and a fall in school attendance dragged the UK into recession at the end of last year, official figures show.

The economy shrank by a larger than expected 0.3% between October and December, after it had already contracted between July and September.”

So according to the BBC, the recession is caused by consumers decreasing spending, Junior doctors’ being on strike and fewer children attending school; while this is possibly relevant if you want to look at monthly changes in GDP, that doesn’t tell you much. While these are mentioned in the ONS report on falling GDP, blaming the recession on these groups of people is absurd. As I said above, the problems of looking at short-term data means that you don’t get a general picture.

However, if they had bothered to look at the ONS Cost of Living -- Latest Insights which came out on February 14^th as well, that would have been useful as it provides information about housing, that housing prices have fallen (1.4% in the year to December 2023), but private rents are still increasing:

It also provides information about high prices in food and energy and their impact on the majority of the population. Food price inflation is falling, but it is still very high and thatreduces available income to purchase non-necessary goods and services. The ONS openly states this in several data sets.

“Food: Inflation falls to lowest level since April 2022

Prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by 7.0% in the year to January 2024 according to the latest Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH).

This was the tenth consecutive month of falls in food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation, down from 8.0% in December and a recent high of 19.2% in March 2023, which was the highest annual rate seen for over 45 years.”

Then there was information about energy prices and that 41% of people were still finding it very or somewhat difficult to afford them.

“The survey also revealed that 44% of adults in Great Britain are using less fuel, such as gas or electricity, in their homes because of the rising cost of living.”

This very important information could provide some insights into cutbacks in consumer spending on non-necessary purchases. But then again, if they actually did this research, they could not blame Junior Doctor’s strikes and children not going to school for the rising interest rates that have pushed the economy into a recession.

Blaming the victims

The one thing the Tories are really good at is pretending that everyone else is responsible for their economic disasters; everyone and everything is responsible for their failures except themselves and their policies. In fact, I believe that they have made an art of making ridiculous arguments blaming everyone and everything for their failures.

Alas, we have not seen the back of Liz Truss and her bizarre beliefs about a left-wing economic consensus scuppering her brilliant economic policies; this position appeared in her speech for the Institute for Government in September 2023. The fact that Liz Truss is still blaming the “left-wing” Economic consensus in an article written for the Daily Telegraph in early February 2024 for the response to her introduction of a new wave of trickle down economic policy and uncosted decreased taxation for the wealthy in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis and which crashed the British economy would be amusing except that she has a whole group of right-wing Tories still united behind her in her Popular Conservative Group; it seems that they feel they have not stolen enough from the majority and given it to the rich. They also love tax cuts, again on the dubious idea that these will be invested by the rich rather than stuck in their accounts (high interest rates, baby!!) or speculation in the housing markets or frittered away in speculation on the financial markets added to further instability in the economy.

When the Con-Dems came to power in 2010, cutting down the size of the public sector that was viewed as a threat to private sector growth (the old crowding out theory) was a fundamental part of Cameron and Osborne’s free market fantasies; we can find comments on the bloated debt and deficit ridden economy created by New Labour in Cameron’s speeches in 2008, 2009 and then in his maiden speech as Prime Minister in 2010. The same theme appears in George Osborne’s Emergency Budget speech in 2010:

“Our policy is to raise from the ruins of an economy built on debt a new, balanced economy where we save, invest and export. An economy where the state does not take almost half of all our national income, crowding out private endeavour. An economy not overly reliant on the success of one industry, financial services – important as they are – but where all industries grow. An economy where prosperity is shared among all sections of society and all parts of the country.”

According to the undynamic duo, the role of government was to facilitate the private sector to grow by cutting red-tape and regulations and shrinking the size of the public sector and the private sector supported by government policy ensuring easy investment would lead Britain to economic growth. Let’s say that it hasn’t worked that way.

Despite Cameron and Osborne arguing that we were all in it together, it was the British working class that bore the brunt of austerity; especially women and disabled people. But yes, they did put a cap on banker’s bonuses to show that they were tough on bankers too (yes, of course, that was removed initially by Kwarteng and Truss’s “mini-budget”, which was then put back on the shelf, but the cap was overturned in October 2023 by financial regulators despite Britain being in a cost-of-living crisis).

Under austerity, there was an attack on public sector wages, first freezing them and then only allowing a 1% increase per year until private sector pay surpassed that of the public sector (this only happened right before the pandemic), undermining wages and wage growth. Attacks on benefits undermined wage incomes. Zero hours contracts (which has thrown especially younger members of the working class into the reserve army of labour) and limited capital investment because wages are so low that it does not pay to introduce machinery has impacted productivity. The underfunding of our public sector undermined the NHS, social care, education, and the provision of all government services.

The latest pile of nonsense is that somehow it is the fault of workshy disabled people and women that the economy is not growing and that they must contribute to the society by working from home. If listening to their nonsense makes you feel as though you are reading the 1834 Poor Law Reform, it is because they are saying the same nonsense that was used to force the “undeserving poor” into work houses for being dissolute and work shy.

Rather than standing and criticising working-class people for insufficient productivity, they can take responsibility for driving wages so low that itmakes no sense to introduce technical change in production of goods andservices in the private sector and by refusing to invest in the public sector.#

Rather than take responsibility for their appalling economic policies of the “race to the bottom”, they have blamed economic stagnation (and now recession) on the lazy British working class, on disabled people and women who have dropped out of the labour market due to limited access to free child care and having to provide support and assistance for family members with impairments due to the appalling level of social care (and that is the fault of successive Tory governments).

Rather than provide childcare and a coherent system of social support and assistance, they want to force women into work and, of course, they will hold them responsible when this ends disastrously for children and disabled people.They also do not seem to realise that if they want disabled to work, they will need businesses to make reasonable adjustments (and why will they since wages are so low that it interferes with profit maximisation criteria), recognise disabled people need personal assistants and computers (even if they are forced to work from home). It is also rather debateable whetherthey can force people to work given that they have not gotten rid of that pesky European Human Rights law (which was incorporated in British Law) around forced labour which only allows forced prison labour (again a present to the US whose economy relies on forced prison labour) … hmmm …

taking a deep breath now ...

ACM: Day 100 of the Israeli Government and Military Attack on Gaza

NY brit expat

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday January 14, 2024 · 3:00 PM PST

2024/01/14 · 15:00

Protest in London calling for a ceasefire on 100 days of war — London protest on 13th of January 2024

It is day 100 of the Israeli Government and Military attack on Gaza. According to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, reported missing, or wounded since October 7^th, 2023.

This weekend, worldwide protests have been organised in solidarity with the Palestinian people as part of a Global Day of Justice. Protests have occurred around the world, e.g., in Washington DC, London, Rome, Paris, Milan, Jakarta, Dublin, Indonesia, Johannesburg, South Africa, Edinburgh, Karachi, Pakistan and Kuala Lumpur among many other places.

“A total of 31,497 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been killed as of today, 13 January 2024, Euro-Med Monitor estimated. Of those killed in the Israeli air and artillery attacks on the Strip, 28,951 (92%) were civilians, including 12,345 children, 6,471 women, 295 health personnel, 41 civil defense personnel, and 113 journalists. Meanwhile, 61,079 individuals have been injured, hundreds of them critically.”

According to the most recent OCHA report, those missing include those reported missing and trapped under rubble, and those arrested and then subsequently disappeared by the IDF. 1,955 million people (85% of the total population of the Gaza Strip) have been displaced (some several times as the IDF has penetrated the Gaza Strip and have continued bombing further south). 69,700 housing units have been completely destroyed, 187,300 housing units have been partially destroyed.

“Many have been forced to move multiple times as the focus of the IDF campaign shifts. About 1.4 million people are sheltering in UNRWA facilities, with most of the rest staying with friends, family, or strangers, or sleeping rough. About 1 million people – half of Gaza’s population – are now living in and around the southern border settlement of Rafah. About 280,000 lived there before the war began. The Council on Foreign Relations estimated that by early December, only about 1,100 people had been allowed to leave Gaza via the Rafah crossing to Egypt.”

The situation in the Gaza Strip prior to October 7^th 2023 was already dire due to 16 years of Israeli government and military blockades and 4 outbreaks of war with Israel. There was already 45% unemployment and high levels of poverty. Attacks on factories and industrial sites in Gaza will only increase the levels poverty and unemployment. In a 2022, UNCTAD (UN Commission for Trade and Development) report on the socio-economic situation of Palestinians noted:

“In addition, as detailed in this report, the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are confined in one of the most densely populated spaces in the world, in chronic conflict conditions, with inadequate access to clean water, without electricity for half the day and without a proper sewage system. Two thirds of the population live in poverty, with a 41 per cent probability of dropping out of the labour force and, for those who continue to seek work, there is a 45 per cent probability of being unemployed.”

According to B’tselem:

“Everyone in Gaza is going hungry. About 2.2 million people are surviving day by day on almost nothing, routinely going without meals. The desperate search for food is relentless, and usually unsuccessful, leaving the entire population – including babies, children, pregnant or nursing women and the elderly – hungry.

The Gaza Strip was already in the throes of a humanitarian crisis before the war, mainly due to Israel’s 17-year blockade. About 80% of the population relied on humanitarian aid. Some 44% of households were food insecure and another 16% were at risk of food insecurity. Given this starting point, it is clear why Gaza plummeted into a full-blown catastrophe so quickly.“

Displacement of north Gazans towards the south means that there is insufficient food and water, sewage treatment facilities, insufficient medical support (which means disease is spreading), insufficient housing and an ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza which despite some humanitarian aid getting through is insufficient to ward off the disaster. Meanwhile bombing is continuing and civilian casualties are continuing despite the Israeli government and military’s claims that they are trying to avoid civilian casualties.

Moreover, as most eyes are on Gaza, as of January 10^th, 2024 there have been over 347 Palestinians killed on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem and more than 4000 Palestinians have been injured there, according to the UN (an earlier report from the UN in November can be found here) . These deaths were carried out by both the IDF and Israeli settlers, there have been raids in Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin (as well as in its refugee camps). 16 isolated communities in the Occupied Territories have been forcibly transferred from their homes according to B’Tselem by armed right-wing Israeli settlers.

The Genocide Case at the International Court of Justice

As people know, South Africa has brought a case against Israel on charges of genocide and failure to prevent genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). While South Africa has brought the initial charges, other countries and groups have joined in support of the charges. These countries and groups include Bolivia, Jordan, The Maldives, Turkey, Moracco, Namibia, Pakistan, Colombia and Brazil. Other groups of countries have welcomed the charges including the Arab League and The Organisation of Islamic Countries.

Additionally, this is only the second time where a state not involved in a conflict has brought a case against a state that is involved in a conflict, the first being The Gambia against Myanmar concerning the genocide of the Rohingya in 2019. Other cases still being considered relate to Gambia-Myanmar and Russia-Ukraine. It took 14 years before the Bosnia-Serbia case was decided by the ICJ.

Unlike the International Criminal Court (ICC) which examines charges brought against individuals and is not linked to the UN, the ICJ relates to charges brought by a state against another state and, in this case, it is because both South Africa and Israel are both signatories to the International Convention on Genocide. It is also important to note that the ICC has opened a separate case against both Israel and Hamas relating to violations of International Humanitarian Law.

The definition of genocide as per the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948):

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group;

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

To prove genocide there are two elements that must be demonstrated:

“1. a mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and

2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:

Killing members of the group

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. In addition, case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy, even if the definition of genocide in international law does not include that element.

Importantly, the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted - not randomly – because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups protected under the Convention (which excludes political groups, for example). This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals. Genocide can also be committed against only a part of the group, as long as that part is identifiable (including within a geographically limited area) and “substantial.”

What is very important here is whether what is happening in Gaza is being deliberately done to inflict conditions of life designed to bring about the groups physical destruction in whole or in part. Given the bombings, then invasion and forced displacement with insufficient goods to ensure survival as well as continued bombing arguing that the target is Hamas, yet they are killing Palestinian civilians and destroying Gaza making it uninhabitable and inflicting starvation and disease on the civilian population; the majority of those killed have been women and children. While what is happening is a material fact, the question becomes one of establishing the intent of the Israeli government and military. Given their actions and statements of politicians whereby the Palestinians in Gaza are being held responsible for the actions of Hamas, the conclusion seems obvious; yet the decision whether to procede with a further examination of the situation and whether provisional measures (such as an enforced ceasefire) should be implemented lies in the hands of the ICJ.

Since the charges are of genocide and failure to prevent genocide, other war crimes changes are not included (and hence not considered) in this brief. As such, charges of war crimes against protected people (e.g., deaths and attacks against medical professionals, aid workers, journalists) and protected buildings (e.g., hospitals, schools, religious buildings), and accusation of collective punishment of the Palestinians for the actions of Hamas, are not covered under the ICJ brief which is only about charges of genocide and failure to prevent it. The other war crimes charges will probably be considered in a separate case which has been opened at the ICC. As part of the filing of charges of genocide and failure to prevent genocide, provisional measures are included by South Africa to prevent further acts of genocide. This case is being treated urgently to essentially determine if genocide is being committed and if so, a case will be formally opened. If it is accepted that the accusation of genocide is warranted, the ICJ may put forward provisional measures.

According to Human Rights Watch, the provisional measures are something that can be done immediately while examination of whether genocide has been committed can be ascertained.

“While the case may take several years to reach a final ruling, South Africa has asked the court to order provisional measures to protect the Palestinian people in Gaza from further harm, ensure Israel’s compliance with the Genocide Convention, and safeguard South Africa’s ability to have the case fairly adjudicated. South Africa has asked the ICJ to issue these measures “as a matter of extreme urgency,” saying that Palestinians in Gaza are in “urgent and severe need of the Court’s protection.” Arguments on the request for provisional measures are the subject of the January 11 and 12 hearings.

Among the provisional measures sought are for Israel to immediately suspend its military operations in Gaza and abide by its obligations under the Genocide Convention. South Africa also seeks measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of any evidence related to the underlying case – including by giving fact-finding missions, international mandates, and other bodies access to Gaza.”

The South Africa application begins with the following charges (here is the application in full):

“This Application concerns acts threatened, adopted, condoned, taken and being taken by the Government and military of the State of Israel against the Palestinian people, a distinct national, racial and ethnical group, in the wake of the attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023. South Africa unequivocally condemns all violations of international law by all parties, including the direct targeting of Israeli civilians and other nationals and hostage-taking by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups. No armed attack on a State’s territory no matter how serious — even an attack involving atrocity crimes — can, however, provide any possible justification for, or defence to, breaches of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (‘Genocide Convention’ or ‘Convention’), 1 whether as a matter of law or morality. The acts and omissions by Israel complained of by South Africa are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group, that being the part of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip (‘Palestinians in Gaza’). The acts in question include killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. The acts are all attributable to Israel, which has failed to prevent genocide and is committing genocide in manifest violation of the Genocide Convention, and which has also violated and is continuing to violate its other fundamental obligations under the Genocide Convention, including by failing to prevent or punish the direct and public incitement to genocide by senior Israeli officials and others.

The acts and omissions by Israel complained of by South Africa are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group, that being the part of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip (‘Palestinians in Gaza’). The acts in question include killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. The acts are all attributable to Israel, which has failed to prevent genocide and is committing genocide in manifest violation of the Genocide Convention, and which has also violated and is continuing to violate its other fundamental obligations under the Genocide Convention, including by failing to prevent or punish the direct and public incitement to genocide by senior Israeli officials and others.“

Essentially South Africa’s position is that despite what Hamas did on October 7^th, 2023, what is happening now is genocide and the failure to prevent genocide; moreover, nothing can justify the commission of genocide. The Israeli government is blaming Hamas for the current situation, denies genocide and claims that what is happening is self-defence of Israel. The Israeli government has claimed that South Africa’s case is a “profound distortion” of the situation which is barely distinguishable from that of Hamas; rejected the provisional measure calling for an immediate ceasefire as preventing Israel from defending itself and accused the South African government of antisemitism (as though somewhere in the tradition of Rabbinical Judaism the murder of innocent civilians, the majority being women and children is somehow ever considered acceptable; it’s not … arguing that the accusation of genocide is antisemitic is actually antisemitic implying that this is something that is consistent with Judaism rather than the actions of the government and military of Israel). Whether these charges succeed or not, this is important and could shift the discussion around how international humanitarian law as well as genocide are raised and prosecuted. Even if it fails, the Israeli military and government are forced to defend themselves. Moreover, this has implications for their supporters and allies, like the US.

ICJ Rulings have no enforcement power independent enforcement power

We can expect a decision within a couple of weeks from the ICJ, as to both whether what is happening is genocide and hence requires further investigation (which will take years) and whether the ICJ will impose provisional measures against the Israeli government and military.

What is important to note that even if the ICJ does impose provisional measures like ordering an immediate ceasefire, they have no powers of enforcement and it is up to the members of the UN Security Council to uphold its judgement with permanent members of the Security Council having veto power.

So, even if the ICJ does call for provisional measures, Israel may simply ignore them and the US (who has been vetoing demands for an immediate ceasefire at the Security Council and allowing the Israeli government to run roughshod over International Humanitarian Law for quite some time) may simply veto them. Considering how slowly the ICJ and ICC move on cases like these and it could take years for a full decision on genocide, the US government is already complicit with the actions of the Israeli government and the IDF in this genocidal war. Ignoring any provisional measures (if they happen) will further alienate the US even from its closest allies.

The US has not only been vetoing Security Council resolutions demanding an immediate ceasefire, but is also providing weaponry and funds for Israel to continue this aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza (they may claim it is against Hamas, but the largest number of victims are civilians). The US can repeat the nonsense of mitigating civilian losses, but at this point, one wonders who believes them or the Israeli government and military. At this point, even the UK government (and the leader of the opposition Labour Party) have called for a ceasefire. How long will the US allow Israel to continue its destruction of the Gaza Strip and its genocide of Gazans under the pretext of “defending itself” is anyone’s guess. But at least this puts further pressure on the US; defending the indefensible will not only weaken their credibility even further internationally as “defenders of human rights.” Allowing this war to continue only will allow the further commission of genocide.

Then, of course, there is “considerable concern” with avoiding a full-blown regional conflict. Yet, allowing the continuation of the Gaza war, bilateral attacks between Israel and Hezbollah across the Israel-Lebanon border (including the assassination of Saleh al-Arouri, the leader of Hamas in exile), and then the bombing of the Yemeni Houthi’s military following sea raids and attacks on transport ships makes you wonder about how much they want to prevent a further escalation. The rapidity with which the US (and UK) acted against the Yemeni Houthi’s attacks on ships compared to how they are opposing a ceasefire in Gaza has demonstrated quite clearly that so-called concern with civilian losses is nothing compared to a threat to international trade. Usually, the powers that be pretend to be a little subtle, but it seems that they just cannot even be bothered anymore.

Standing in solidarity with the Palestinians remains a priority; most importantly, Palestinians must have the right to determine their own future. It is the Palestinians that must make decisions on their futures; not their Israelis, not the US and it allies, the Palestinians must have the final say about their lives … having faced ethnic cleansing since 1948, it is way past time that they have this basic right of self determination. They have lost far too much and this is an endless cycle of violence. Solidarity is essential and we must stand with the oppressed, never the oppressors.

Ceasefire now! Palestine must be free!

ACM: Economic stagnation, Incompetent Economic Policies and Neoliberalism

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Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday December 17, 2023 · 3:00 PM PST

2023/12/17 · 15:00

This piece develops from a talk I gave at a meeting discussing the economic situation in Britain and how this issue will play out locally in London. It also provides some suggestions where we can develop grassroots local campaigns in local communities to fightback against continued attempts to pass the economic crisis and financial pressures at the local government levels onto the working class. Essentially, the British government is continuing austerity. While initially introduced in 2007-8 to pass on the crisis to the working class, austerity is continuing with the same goal, making the workers pay for supply-side economic policy decisions by successive Tory governments.

The British Economy: Incompetent Economic Policies and Economic Stagnation

The British Economy is essentially stagnant; growth is extremely low. The way in which this government (and, for that matter successive Tory governments) is to attempt to squeeze wages while trying to increase profitability which they believe will be then reinvested productively in the real economy to create growth.

The problem is that this is not happening; financialisation and speculation in financial markets are the places for investment by the majority of those with wealth, rather than investing in the real economy. So, the British government’s supply side approach has just not worked if they are hoping for increased economic growth.

The reason for this can be found in any first-year introductory macroeconomics textbook (one wonders what is actually taught in Philosophy, Politics and Economics courses in Oxbridge and other elite universities in which so many British politicians have their degrees). As one would have been taught in basic macroeconomics, it is effective demand (demand backed by ability to buy) that drives investment in the short long term; it is not savings which is argued by Say’s Law; the classical version is that production creates demand and the neoclassical version is that savings determine investment as that is concentrating on the capital markets). In the long term, theoretical debate still exists whether Say’s Law holds (Keynesians, New Classicals, New Keynesians and Neo-Keynesians) or whether it is as Post-Keynesian maintain, expected demand (and we can add expected profitability which Marxists argue) that drives investment (this would be taught in intermediate or advanced macroeconomics or even MA macro).

As such, even though everyone (except New Classicals and they say a lot of nonsense) agree investment is what leads to growth in the short-term; neither trickle-down economics, or its more general expression, supply side economics can be demonstrated to lead to economic growth either in the short or long term (the British economy is perfect example of why this doesn’t work) despite the work of many luminaries in Economics. Alas, economic theory and economic reality often have little to do with each other.

Even with some government investment in the public sector after years of underfunding, we are seeing limited growth as there is so much investment that needs to be done. The Public-Private partnerships set up under New Labour to create investment in the NHS, have not only created massive debt repayments that NHS trusts need to repay, they drain the funding coming into the NHS. Moreover, promises of government building new hospitals under Boris Johnson have not materialised, hospitals are in need of massive capital investment and money to hire new doctors and nurses where there are significant shortages of personnel.

The Tory government’s refusal to increase wage incomes of the majority beyond inflation (so the minimum wage has been increased by the Tories, but insufficiently to overcome inflation which means that money wages have not increased in real terms). This also has impacted growth and it also has led to insufficient workers in an economy dependent upon foreign workers for many jobs and the low wages on offer are not enough to tempt enough foreign workers to come to Britain to work in the care sector for example, (there are an estimated 152,000 vacancies in the care sector) and very high turnover rates with an estimated 390,000 leavers of the profession over 2022-23.

From Joseph Rowntree Foundation:

Joseph Rowntree Foundation (www.jrf.org.uk/...

To add to the problem, the British government has just passed a new law requiring you to earn at minimum £38,700 year (starting in Spring 2024) up from £18,600/year (for a family visa to work) – it is not yet clear how this will apply to visa renewals. The average UK care workers’ salary is £23,410 per year with a starting salary of £21,133 per year and experienced workers earning £38,874 per year (just clearing the threshold to bring your family.

As I said above, not understanding the obvious is something that successive British governments excel in (along with in-fighting among the various ideological groupings in the Tory party from so-called One Nation Tories to the far-right “5 families” – if that sounds like a group of mafioso, that is completely appropriate; literally they are fighting to see which group of right-wing creeps is actually further to the right.

Since it was all over the newspapers and in the MSM in Britain and the US, you may have noticed that Britain’s growth was negative in October and this was due to decreased production in services and construction and demand for these outputs due to the high level of interest rates. Britain predominantly produces services rather than goods and high interest rates have impacted the demand for services.

High interest rates exist due to the erroneous way in which International Banks have tried to address inflation which is raising the interest rates which would have worked if the inflation was driven by demand rather than breaks in supply chains; the point of increasing interest rates is they serve as a brake on economic growth which is possibly appropriate if demand is driving inflation. High interest rates mean that many businesses (especially smaller ones) will borrow less (as it is more expensive), the value of debt is higher if debt had to be renegotiated, and consumers are more reluctant to borrow as it is more expensive if you are using credit.

Privatisation has put access to services (e.g., childcare, early childhood education and social care) out of the reach of many working class people whose wages are stagnated despite the wage gains won by unions in the public sector (whose wages have been below the private sector since before the pandemic). This also means that more and more women have to drop out of work to provide care for family members with sickness and infirmities (this has increased due to long covid) and childcare and early childhood education for their children. The government’s refusal to provide for childcare and early childhood education and to provide basic guaranteed services rather than punish people for not working.

That is why the economy is stagnating in general, but there are also specific things in Britain relating to Brexit because Britain was part of supply chains in general production across Europe and that has become more expensive due to Brexit which has led to increased prices for food and imported consumer goods due to increased price of oil (which has stabilised) and the need to purchase food from farther away due to climate change and increased prices due to Brexit.

Blaming the Victims

The absurdity of blaming low productivity and economic growth on the working class predominantly those that are not in employment (without offering, e.g. childcare to get unemployed women into work or sufficient support for disabled people – in the form of personal assistants, etc they have continued a punitive regime against the poorest in the society. This has been the case since the introduction of Universal Credit during austerity. Privatisation of parts of the public sector which were deemed profitable has not lead to increased economic growth and qualitative and quantitative increases in the service sector which is the predominant economic sector in Britain; privatisation has led to both the destruction of wages and working conditions as well as insufficient quantities and qualities of service production that is needed. The privatisation of work and services in the NHS has undermined the NHS itself which is unable to function; the wage increase caps undermined wages and conditions of work (as parts of the work force especially at the lower levels has been privatised).

The Government’s Autumn Statement is based on an erroneous understanding of economic growth which should come as no surprise. They have chosen to decrease taxes (specifically National Insurance) and penalise disabled people, single mothers and the unemployed. Decreased National Insurance revenues means there is less money to spend on the the criminal justice system, the NHS, education, and services like early childhood education and social care. It also means less money going to local councils. Even more cynically, since the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt knows that they will not be in power, they are cutting tax revenue this year and putting in cuts to cuts in public spending which are due to come in force in 2025 when they will be out of power; hence dumping more misery onto the population when the Labour Party is in charge. This continues the cycle of destruction of the public sector and social welfare state and shifts the crisis onto the backs of the working class especially the poorest, the disabled and women (especially single mothers) in the country.

Rather than acknowledge their failures (including Brexit) for economic stagnation, they are blaming (of course) those that are out of work for both low productivity and economic stagnation which is nonsensical. Productivity is not based on how many people are actually in employment; this is nonsensical … there are several things responsible for low productivity stemming from the neoliberal economic model which has encouraged the destruction of wages and working contracts. The type of work available which is based on precarity (zero hours contracts) not only undermines wages, but it undermines productivity because the workers are not in jobs long enough to develop the skills and knowledge that actually would increase productivity as anyone who has read Adam Smith’s discussion on growth, productivity and wages (so the first 3 chapters on economic growth and the chapter on Wages in the Wealth of Nations would know (or who read mainstream efficiency wage arguments).

The other thing that the race to the bottom does is that it has made wages so low that the introduction of technology (and that combined with labour is what leads to increase productivity and growth on the micro level) does not make economic sense because labour is treated as a cost in this type of reasoning; so lowering costs has relied on cutting wages and undermining working conditions. So, the destruction of the public sector leading to far too few workers still employed in the public sector to do the actual work needed to be done has already had a massive impact on both the production of and access to services produced by the public sector. This, combined with privatisation of the service sector, has made access to essential services even more difficult to obtain, putting childcare out of the reach of many families; working to pay child care does not cover the rest of essential goods that you need. Increasing sanctions and demonising the working while making the Tories feel better increases the misery and immiserisation of the working class.

As Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows:

The cost-of-living crisis still exists in Britain. Despite the wage gains by public sector unions after a series of strikes, most of these gains did not go beyond the level of inflation and did not make up for losses in back pay due to caps on public sector wages. For non-unionised workers (which are the majority), wages are still insufficient to cover increased costs in goods and services. This means that despite being in work many workers are struggling to cover the basics; private rents have risen along with interest rates (greedy landlords using interest rate increases to hike rents; food prices are still rising, energy and electric costs are still high.

Moreover, disabled people are being threatened with literally forced labour as part of government policy. Those that are unable to labour at all are “covered” according to the government, but benefit increases are only at 6.7% compared to the 8.5% increase for pensioners due to the triple lock and that means that benefits still do not cover the increased cost of living even though the increased inflation has lessened.

We need to understand inflation as a battle between the capitalist class and the working class. Increased prices lead to increased profitability (note this doesn’t hold for small businesses who actually have increased debt and probably decreased production as a result due to lowered expectations of demand and profitability). What has happened is that this battle has been won by the capitalists at the expense of the working class; strikes have enabled a gain in some areas in wages (especially in the pubic sector) but the increased profitability has been incredible. Once again, the impact of crises is passed onto the working class; this was evident during austerity following the 2007-8 crisis and it is continuing again today. Do not be fooled, austerity is continuing and once again austerity is geared toward passing the crisis onto the working class which is barely surviving as it is. Food bank usage has becoming normalised in what is nominally one of the richest countries in the world.

How will all this play out locally in London

I would strongly suggest that comrades read the article in Tribune Magazine which discusses England’s collapsing local governments, bankruptcies, and the resulting spending cuts by local councils as it explains not only the background for the current situation but also what is going to happen. The bankruptcy of Birmingham City Council (the second largest city in Britain) may be one of the first, but it will not be the last.

“[…] local government in England has had its funding cut by £15 billion between 2010 and 2020. That’s a real-terms cut of 20 percent. And to make matters worse, cuts hit deprived urban authorities the hardest.

With England’s population increasingly ageing and unwell amid the NHS’ slow-motion fiscal catastrophe, the cost of those statutory services are ballooning just at the moment when funding has been slashed. All discretionary spending, whether on libraries, economic development, or local public services like bin collection, has been squeezed.

The costs of temporary accommodation, statutorily required for housing those declared homeless in the absence of sufficient social housing or Housing Benefit rates, are soaring, reaching at least £1.6 billion in 2021–22. This year, local authorities in England will spend nearly a third of their budgets on social care, but we are still far from meeting the cost of future demand, let alone improving service quality or covering its full cost.”

There are several things that will happen as local council’s finances become more and more strained. They will cut any services that are not statutory left (think of libraries, community centres, after-school activities for children, etc). If there are services that are still covered by in-house local councils (e.g., childcare, locally run and funded care services, libraries) the local councils will move towards private agency provision. This is a serious as the wages paid by agencies is far lower than what workers get paid in-house. As an example (and I know it is not perfect), Barts Hospital Trust runs Whipps Cross hospital (and several other hospitals). At Whipps Cross, half of their staff of cleaners and domestic workers, cooks, porters, security were removed from the NHS and were made agency workers (and these are not zero hours jobs), the workers made 17.5% less wages (also think of losses of NHS pensions and benefits) less than those still employed by the NHS. The workers, Unite Union and Unite Community members in various London areas fought back, it took over 3 years, but the workers won and got back pay and were brought back into the NHS. I mentioned Unite Community as not only did we build support locally for the strike, they were the people calling union members to tell them to vote for the strike. This has been done elsewhere where Unite Community has called members of the industrial union where strikes are pending asking them to vote. It is a way of bringing grassroots community and activists together with industrial workers. If we can replicate this we must do so; we need to build local community support for union strikes and workers. During the wave of strikes, many people were raising money for strike funds and to donate to local food banks.

Now let’s talk about local councils and the danger of bankruptcy of local councils. Since Birmingham local council has declared bankruptcy and 6 other councils have said they are in danger as well (and there are rumours other councils may follow), we are seeing serious concern about the impact of financial crises of local councils on service provision. If local councils go bankrupt, they still must cover their statutory responsibilities to the elderly and children with special needs. Privatisation of services has already impacted children with special needs in accessing support and assistance as well as spending on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). There have been fights over provision of SEND in Walthamstow, there is a high probability that is the case in other areas.

Who are not protected if local councils go bankrupt? Community centres, government childcare provision, after-school programmes, etc. Who else are also not protected? Those dependent on benefits, specifically disabled people, and mothers with children. They are already facing significant problems due to transformations in Universal Credit Access changes announced in the Autumn Statement where there is the danger of being forced into work.

“There are now a record 2.6 million people who are economically inactive due to long-term sickness and disability, almost half a million more than before the pandemic. The government is taking steps to reform the fit note process to support more people to resume work after a period of illness and expanding the Universal Support programme that matches those with health conditions and disabilities into vacancies. The government is also expanding the NHS Talking Therapies programme and Individual Placement and Support to help people with mental health conditions. The government will work with employers and business representatives to develop and promote best employment practices to support employees with health and disability issues. The government is reforming the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) so that more individuals, such as those with limited mobility and mental health conditions, receive the right support to find work where they can, rather than being automatically deemed unable to work or look for work. To better help the long-term unemployed into work, the government is expanding Additional Jobcentre Support, extending and expanding the Restart programme in England and Wales, and strengthening sanctions for those who choose not to engage with measures that help them find work. For those that cannot work for legitimate reasons there must always be a safety net. The government will uprate all working age benefits for 2024-25 in full, by September 2023 CPI inflation of 6.7%, and will continue to protect pensioner incomes by maintaining the Triple Lock and uprating the basic State Pension, new State Pension and Pension Credit standard minimum guarantee for 2024-25 in line with average earnings growth of 8.5% (Autumn Budget, p. 3).”

If you think this is a joke, it isn’t. I have a friend who was contacted by his local job centre in Birmingham to ask whether he can help providing care to others; to put this into context, this person has cerebral palsy and requires the use of a wheelchair for mobility and needs support and assistance to get dressed, shower and get breakfast in the morning and has a personal assistant throughout the day).

We can try to work at the grassroots local level addressing local council budgets, care charges, further privatisation and housing issues. Building local grassroots campaigns can build solidarity between people and can actually have an effect on local council decisions and actually help people materially. Council Tax is already unfair; many consider it a poor tax already in desperate need of reform. If local council budgets are going to charge council tax for those dependent upon benefits, we must fight this.

We need to keep an eye on council budgets, specifically on council taxes, changes in the amount that the poorest and those dependent on benefits are forced to pay towards council tax (pensioners are protected, but not those dependent on benefits generally). This attack is happening in Redbridge (the last time they tried to do this we were able to fight back) and this time the “consultation” does not allow you to reject the budget and increased charges for those with the lowest incomes (incomes being wages and benefits).

The second point of struggle that has been going on for a while is trying to combat care charges levied against disabled people by local councils, which literally is food being taken out of the mouths of disabled people. If they have paid national insurance, if they have paid even a portion of council tax, they are now being forced to pay a 3^rd time for care services that they are guaranteed following PIP assessment. In London, there are only two councils that are not forcing disabled people to pay care charges, Hammersmith and Fulham and Tower Hamlets (Lutfur Rahman raised council taxes on the highest bands to do this). This is a struggle being waged by disabled people’s groups, perhaps you can join with Inclusion London and other disabled people’s groups to fight together locally to stop care charges.

Third, there is the issue over housing, evictions, and homelessness. If we can build community support to support those facing evictions and homelessness together with London Renters Union, the Zaccheus Trust, Acorn and Unite Community to build grassroots support, that would be amazing. Temporary accommodation is extremely expensive for what often inappropriate and inadequate housing (whole families in one room, mixed accommodation with women with children and single men). What needs to be understood is that those facing eviction are often single mothers with children, especially racialised women (lower wages in “unskilled jobs” or those unable to work due to childcare and caring responsibilities). Theoretically councils have a duty to protect disabled people and young children from homelessness, unfortunately that is not the case; they often have to be forced to do this by courts and the intervention of social services.

Private landlords are able to use section 21 evictions (which even several Tory governments have promised to end; yes, we are still fighting for that) to throw people out with limited notice.

One victory we had was because the private landlord lied to the court (the family had been living there for a decade) saying that the evicted women was not disabled despite her having a stroke and having to use a wheelchair for mobility – she was essentially wriggling up the stairs to her bedroom. Eviction resistance protected the house from the landlords changing the locks and the local council was forced to find her new housing (what led to her eviction was that she had asked what responsibility the landlord had to make the house more accessible and she was given a section 21 eviction) – this type of revenge eviction is not uncommon. Local councils have an obligation to ensure that disabled people have appropriate housing; this holds for adults and their families if children are disabled.

Evicted people (who are homeless people as many councils will not act until they are homeless) are often sent far away from where they lived where they had family and community support; so, for example, Waltham Forest council has purchased housing in Stoke on Trent (135 miles away from Waltham Forest) where they have tried to dump people away from family, friends and community support. We can help homeless people being sent out of London by fighting together with other groups working on housing issues. The strongest campaigns are those with the victims of the policy (evictees, workers, trade unions, disabled people), local community members and organised local groups fighting on these issues.

ACM: Disability and Inclusion (some theory and praxis)

NY brit expat

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday December 10, 2023 · 3:00 PM PST

2023/12/10 · 15:00

The majority of this piece will consider the issue of inclusion of disabled people; however, in order to understand the problem of inclusion for disabled people we need to understand what disability is. It is not the opposite of being abled bodied, disability is the social oppression of people with impairments. In order to do that, we must distinguish between people’s individual impairments (e.g., congenital, age related, brought about by illness, and by the actions of the economic system in which we live, e.g., work related injuries, injuries brought about by war, mental health impairments, being on the autism spectrum, etc) and the fact that disability is the exclusion of those with impairments from the societies in which they live. So, impairment (relating to individual medical conditions and considerations) is not the same thing as disability. We, as disabled people, do not have disabilities, we have impairments and our oppression derives from our exclusion from society, economically and socially.

Disability is Social Oppression

YouTube Video

In the social model of disability, disability is social, individuals do not have disabilities. Individuals have impairments of many different kinds and these impairment realities will affect them on a regular basis. But disability is social and relates not to the individual medical conditions or “individual tragedy” as impairment is often treated in capitalism. Rather it relates to the society’s refusal to include people with impairments, their refusal to adapt society such that people with impairment can participate in society as fully as people without impairments. Instead, individuals with impairments are treated so as to adapt to the conditions of society rather than society adapting to include impaired people. The fact that people are living longer, means that it is inevitable that the number of impaired people will rise. Given the exclusion of disabled people from society, that means that more and more people no longer fit the needs of the system itself. We also need to understand that capitalism produces impairments as well; think of work-related injuries like back problems, arthritis, impairments caused by machinery, impairments caused by disasters at work, impairments caused by war, etc. My understanding of the interrelationship between impairment and capitalism developed out of discussions I have had with Bob Williams-Findlay; while capitalism produces impairments, it also creates disability and exclusion.

Disability is a social oppression based upon the exclusion of those with impairments from the society. It depends on several things, including the nature of production in the society (that is the mode of production of the society), the class background of people with impairments, gender, racialism, and whether they are LGBT+. We need to understand that social oppression is complex and those people that are racialised, women, LGBT+ live with additional oppressions because oppression is intersectional. What we need to understand is that disability relates to the fact that the most important role that workers play in the capitalist economic system is the provision of labour. In the case of those unable to work without assistance or reasonable adjustments on the part of the capitalist employer, disabled people remain excluded from the primary role of working-class people in the capitalist economic system. Those that are unable to “contribute” through provision of labour (and that is how workers are viewed in the system) create a problem for the system. That is what led to initial institutionalisation, the introduction of the workhouse, the exclusion of the poor and disabled people. What this means is that the capitalist economic system needs to adapt the conditions of production in order to enable disabled people to participate. Whether they are willing to do so depends on many things, for example, the level of unemployment, and distribution (that is the wage/rate of profit relationship; if wages are low, they are probably more reluctant to make adjustments to include disabled people).

Much of the history of the exclusion of disabled people and their entitlement to support and relief (welfare) or not relates to this basic role of working-class people in the capitalist economic system. On the one hand, whether we can participate as workers o r not depends on the willingness of the employers to provide or make reasonable adjustments in the production process to include disabled people. On the other hand, the refusal of capitalist employers to actually make reasonable adjustments or whether they can get non-disabled people to work for lower wages, thereby it makes it unprofitable for employers to hire disabled people. This contradiction arises very early in the history of the capitalist economic system. If we look at the writings of Jeremy Bentham on the 1795-7 Poor Law Amendment; we see several points that still permeate the discussions around benefits and the medicalised treatment of disability. Bentham argued that those without access to wealth contributed to society through their labour; if people are not doing so, he raises the discussion around eligibility for support rather than entitlement that was found in the 1795-7 Poor Law Amendment.

In The Politics of Disablement (which I strongly recommend), Mike Oliver discusses the relationship between capitalism and disability which I will do little justice to here unfortunately. In chapter 3 of The Politics of Disablement, Oliver discusses the transformation in capitalism to industrial production:

”The operation of the labour market in the Nineteenth Century effectively depress handicapped people of all kinds to the bottom of the market [...]

As a result of this, disabled people came to be regarded as a social and educational problem and more and more were segregated in institutions of all kinds including workhouses, asylums, colonies and special school and out of the mainstream of social life (Oliver, The Politics of Disablement, p. 28).”

But understanding the relationship between the needs of the capitalist economic system and its evolution is important to understand the history of disability which is created under capitalism. While during the earlier phases of the capitalist system, much work was agricultural and done as part of family and community production, the shift towards industrial production in urban areas meant that disabled people could not participate in the production process as before. The institutionalisation and removal of disabled people, people unable to work, was the initial manner in which the capitalist economic system addressed this contradiction. Discussions of whether disabled people, older people and unemployed people were entitled to support or whether they are eligible for assistance from the state or charities still remains the basic approach of the capitalist economic system towards social welfare policies towards the poor (those without wealth), disabled people and older people. The creation of pensions was a massive step forwards as workers actually managed to live longer due to healthcare and sanitation systems as well as workplace regulations, but it did not solve the contradiction within the system itself. Elderly and disabled people are still routinely warehoused in institutions rather than being treated with dignity and respect.

The social model of disability argues that the problems that impaired people face are not due to their impairments, but rather that the society itself it responsible for our being disabled; that is, we are excluded from society be the way in which society itself is structured not our individual impairments. These exclusions range from simple things that easily changed like the nature of lids on jars which are difficult to manage, ramps instead of stairs makes it easier for disabled people to actually get around in cities easier, public transport that has ramps instead of stairs, extra room on public transport to ensure that more disabled people can get on public transport, access to disabled toilets, these are obvious things. Removing barriers and exclusions against disabled people is necessary but not sufficient, disablism is part and parcel of the capitalist economic system. Reforms can ameliorate the exclusion of disabled people, but changing the system itself is essential for the inclusion of disabled people as equal parts of our communities and societies.

Likewise, we know that women’s oppression relates to their primary role in social reproduction both in and outside the workplace; that is women are not oppressed because they physically reproduce the next generation of workers. They are oppressed because they do unpaid labour in the home which is necessary to keep the capitalist economic system functioning (women’s unpaid labour at home is a fundamental part of the necessary production and reproduction of the working class, it is not just workers’ consumption commodities and services produced in the workplace. However, this labour is not paid for by the capitalist economic system. That labour is more than physically producing the next generation of workers, it is preparing these children for their future roles in the capitalist economic system, it is care, nursing and support for their extending family members, it is ensuring that the family and the family home is fed, cleaned, and cared for. This labour is treated as naturally the role of women even though there is no reason that it could not be done by men or an extended family unit comprised of men and women. As such, rather than being the natural role of women, it is social oppression that has tied women into doing this labour without pay. Moreover, women often enter the workplace doing forms of this work; when it has been socialised and brought into the production process itself, it is seen as low-skilled work and it is often low-paid (especially if not unionised).

While both disablism and women’s oppression can be ameliorated in the context of the capitalist economic system itself, these oppressions are part and parcel of how the capitalist system itself functions. An obvious example of how women’s oppression can be ameliorated is the provision of community-based childcare, thereby removing it from an individual private responsibility of women in the family and move towards a social solution. An additional example is the recognition of the importance of care in the society and its treatment as an essential part of the workers’ consumption bundle. But what often happens is this work is demeaned as unskilled rather than recognising the amount of skill and learning required to do the work. That is part and parcel of women’s oppression and as is often the case part of the oppression of older and disabled people. Rather than treating people as “vulnerable” because they need additional support and assistance, we must recognise that it is capitalist society and its needs that have made people vulnerable. Older and disabled people know what their oppression derives from and hearing their demands is the first step in addressing their oppression. For example, altering what is produced in our societies to fulfil the needs of the majority (which we often talk about when we talk about socialism and ecosocialism) rather than the needs of capitalism means that we are increasing the production of care and support for working class people as essential services that are needed in our societies. Privatisation of social support and assistance (and for that matter, childcare) has led to both insufficient quantity and quality of support and assistance.

Neoliberalism and Social Welfare

The Neoliberal version of capitalism which has enabled the destruction of public provision of social welfare benefits alongside of the destruction of working conditions and wages (wage stagnation in the advanced capitalist countries is well documented). While blaming the victim is an artform for the Tories, they have reached new heights. Disabled people are excluded from work as employers do not want to make reasonable adjustments as wages are so low and they can get cheap labour without laying out extra money to make reasonable adjustments to hire disabled people; while at the same time, somehow the unemployment of disabled people is responsible for the lack of growth in the British economy. The absurdity of this argument is irrelevant as it is has been embodied in the transformation of social welfare to Universal Credit and disabled people not working is officially stated as a cause for the economic crisis raised in the Tories Autumn budget.

Since the creation of Universal Credit following the 2007-8 economic crisis, disabled people are forced into work capability assessments to determine whether they are capable of working often adjudicated by non-medical professionals. The attacks on social welfare provision have led to attempts to force disabled people into employment due to being “insufficiently impaired” to warrant full support and assistance.

This nonsense of blaming disabled people for whatever economic crises that have occurred (heaven forfend that the capitalist system itself and the whole history of supply side economics should actually be responsible for the economic crisis) during austerity has been revived again; the Tory party is back to blaming disabled people for a stagnant economy; the demonisation of those “not contributing to society” (by not working; by the way disabled people do work) they argue (rather than a myriad of ridiculous ideological economic policies around supply side economics as well as Brexit) is the reason for British economic stagnation.

According to the Autumn Budget statement, British economic growth is not happening due to large numbers of people not in employment (yes, it is amazing how they deny that working class precarity has any impact on growth and productivity; imagine if they actually read Adam Smith whom they claim to revere), so the way to economic growth is of course to force working class people into employment, on p.14, we find the following:

“1.19 Growth depends on the number of workers in the economy, as well as productivity. Labour market participation has improved since the spring, but inactivity has continued to increase among some groups, including those who are inactive due to long-term sickness. Growing the labour supply by helping these people back into work will increase the potential output of the economy. The Autumn Statement builds on the landmark labour market package introduced in the Spring Budget by introducing the Back to Work Plan.

1.20 Alongside a welfare system that supports people to work, allowing people to keep as much of their hard-earned money as possible is a priority for this government. As part of the government’s long-term plan to grow the economy it will cut taxes for 29 million working people.

1.21 The OBR says these measures will bring 78,000 people into the labour market. Although it is not reflected in the forecast, due to uncertainty around the impacts, the OBR notes that ‘some measures could provide a further boost to labour supply’, such as proposed changes to fit notes.

1.22 The OBR confirms that policies announced at the Autumn Statement will increase economic growth. It estimates that the overall effect of these supply-side measures is to boost the size of the economy by 0.3% by the end of the forecast. The OBR’s forecast also reflects long-term demographic and technological changes. The OBR judges that as the population ages, individuals will work for fewer hours on average. Due to the higher proportion of intangible assets in the economy, it assumes capital is being retired at a faster rate than previously. These factors mean that, prior to the impact of policy measures, labour and capital are assumed to grow more slowly than before, which pulls down long-term growth. This further justifies the government’s continued focus on creating growth by boosting the supply side of the economy.”

Currently, the British government is blaming economic stagnation on the disabled for being work-shy and lazy, the government’s Autumn Budget says:

“There are now a record 2.6 million people who are economically inactive due to long-term sickness and disability, almost half a million more than before the pandemic. The government is taking steps to reform the fit note process to support more people to resume work after a period of illness and expanding the Universal Support programme that matches those with health conditions and disabilities into vacancies. The government is also expanding the NHS Talking Therapies programme and Individual Placement and Support to help people with mental health conditions. The government will work with employers and business representatives to develop and promote best employment practices to support employees with health and disability issues. The government is reforming the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) so that more individuals, such as those with limited mobility and mental health conditions, receive the right support to find work where they can, rather than being automatically deemed unable to work or look for work. To better help the long-term unemployed into work, the government is expanding Additional Jobcentre Support, extending and expanding the Restart programme in England and Wales, and strengthening sanctions for those who choose not to engage with measures that help them find work. For those that cannot work for legitimate reasons there must always be a safety net. The government will uprate all working age benefits for 2024-25 in full, by September 2023 CPI inflation of 6.7%, and will continue to protect pensioner incomes by maintaining the Triple Lock and uprating the basic State Pension, new State Pension and Pension Credit standard minimum guarantee for 2024-25 in line with average earnings growth of 8.5% (Autumn Budget, p. 3).”

It is important to note, that the increase in benefits is actually lower than the actual increase in inflation and the cost of living which is tied not only to higher oil prices, but the rising price of food. Benefits are already far too low (this is deliberate to force workers into work and to lower the social subsistence level of wages) and not representing the actual costs of living – this was the reason for the £20 weekly upgrade during the covid pandemic – by deliberately keeping benefits below the cost of living (even on the lower CPI of inflation), they think this will force people into work. Guess what, it doesn’t. Women who are not working because they have children at home are not going into paid employment because they cannot afford childcare. Realising that people can work from home, the Tories have decided to force people into work from home. Will they provide computers to enable disabled people to work from home, what about free broadband and personal assistants for disabled people, baby sitters and care support for women caring for children and family members with impairments, Sanctions laid against those not in work means that even if an appeal is successful against those denied disability benefits and support, those dependent on benefits will not have income to survive.

This brings us into the discussion of disability, social inclusion in the community produced to fulfil the needs of disabled people coproduced with those providing support and assistance can ameliorate social oppression of impaired people. Moving towards the inclusion of disabled people rather than blaming them for the problems of economic growth in Britain, ensuring the inclusion and recognition of the contributions of women in our societies, moves towards a more equitable society for people that are oppressed due to the requirements of the capitalist economic system itself.

Supporting Inclusion

Given the above, what can we on the left do to support the inclusion of left-wing disabled people? We are comrades, certainly we must include our comrades in political work. Certainly, we can stand in solidarity with disabled people fighting for inclusion and reforms in the system whether they are on the left or not. That seems obvious, acting as allies and comrades with oppressed people is what we always say we want to do. If there are disabled people’s movements supporting their actions and protests seems obvious; this means that we support their actions and events, not tell disabled people what you think their tactics should be.

But as is often the case, the left behaves as though it has the solutions for addressing oppression (or ignoring it as it dilutes the class struggle) rather than actually listening to what oppressed people know; they instead tell oppressed people what their problems are and how they want to solve it. This is almost classic behaviour, as an example, the left think that national care services should solve the problem, but they do not understand the historical failure of previous national care services and the institutionalisation of disabled people. Some members of the left do not hear that disabled people want to be included as equal members of communities they live in. Some members of the left do not hear the views of disabled people and support them in the struggle for inclusion; rather there is a tendency to tell oppressed people what we think will solve the problem. That is not being an ally; that is imposing our views on them.

This is often done to other oppressed people; I cannot tell you how many times, men tell me what my oppression is and have tried to impose their analyses for my own as though I am too stupid and incompetent to understand my oppression and how to fight against it.

What we can do is ensure that all events, meetings and protests are disabled inclusive; knowledge contained in an accessibility guide will help. This should not be too difficult if we make it a priority. We choose places for events that are disabled accessible, that have no stairs which will prevent disabled people from participating, where disabled toilets are easily accessible and available, we ensure that there are subtitles at zoom meetings, we ensure that there are sign language interpreters at events, etc. But this will require the left to deliberately ensure inclusion. Ensuring inclusion will not end disablism, as that is social, but it will enable inclusion of disabled people. While this may increase our costs for events because we live in a society which excludes people, it will actually ensure that our commitment to including disabled people actually means more than just words saying we stand in solidarity.

Recently, there have been a number of protests in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The marches have been getting larger and longer. Rather than ensure the inclusion of disabled people in these protests by ensuring that there was a shorter march towards the end where disabled people could join the march and to participate in the protests, rather than provide a list of tube and train stations that were completely accessible without using stairs, listing accessible toilets on the march so that disabled people could find them easily, we met with nothing but ignorance and resistance. It was deemed our problem rather than the organisers of the marches to ensure our ability to participate. If anyone thinks that is solidarity, guess again.

Ensuring that disabled people and organisations can participate in protests means that shorter marches need to be sign posted in advance and that space must be made during the march where disabled people can join the march … that is solidarity.

Interestingly, as a number of us were planning how to deal with this exclusion (and let’s be honest, disabling behaviour) by the organisers of the protests, a great piece came into our hands called CRIP Solidarity for Palestine. It is almost a template of what should be done before protests so that disabled comrades can be included in the protests. It seems quite honestly that exclusionary behaviour seems to be a problem of the older left rather than younger members of the left (Na’amod, a Jewish organisation made up of younger people, put out an accessibility guide for their protest as well); at yesterday’s protest, for the first time, the organising groups put out suggestions for a shorter march for those unable to participate in long marches.

I want to go through the CRIP Solidarity for Palestine piece as it is extremely useful and literally includes best practice to ensure accessibility for disabled protestors. There are some things whose wording I would alter, but what is there is what is needed. For example, the date and the route of the march (include post code/zip code so that people can find the locations easier) knowing your rights, suggestions for shorter marches, accessible public transport, where accessible toilets are found ...

“Contents:

The Route and Alternative Shorter Routes

Before the Protest - Things to Bring

Getting to the Protest - Accessible Train Stations

Parking

During the Protest - Stop off points, Toilets, Points for Rest, Inclusive Tactics.

Solidarity from Home and Supportive Resources”

This document includes, how to get to the march using public transport or accessible parking if you would rather drive; a reminder for people what they may need to bring on the march before it starts (remember weather conditions in Britain are extremely changeable), medication, water bottles, go with a friend, a bust card in case you get arrested, writing a lawyers’ name and contact number on your arm in case you need them), a list of accessible public transport and stopping places along the march if you need a break (that are also disabled accessible as not all places are step free and have disabled toilets), what you will need to access public disabled toilets.

I want to highlight some other points in the guide relating to the march itself which applies both to disabled comrades and those that are not disabled.

Inclusive Tactics*

Think about how fast you’re moving - some people need to go slower. Walking too fast puts these people at risk of being separated from the march and being more vulnerable to negative interactions with the police. If you can, try to match your walking speed to the needs of the person who has to go slowest.

Be fragrance-free. See Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s Fragrance Free Femme of Colour Genius: https://brownstargirl.org/fragrance-free-femme-of-colour-genius/

Be mindful of people with less visible conditions - not all disabilities are visible or obvious to non-disabled people. Some people wear sunflower lanyards. These help people communicate that they have a disability and may have differing needs. Some people also wear medical alert bracelets, which help healthcare workers identify key information about them in an emergency. Some may not show any visible indication that they are disabled.

Masks

Wear one if you can! Masks offer protection from airborne illnesses like covid and protection from surveillance. They also protect the people around you.

N95 and KN95 masks offer the most protection.

There are reports of police targeting face coverings like scarves more than masks.

If there is a Section 60AA issued for the protest, police can ask you to remove your mask. Carry spares. Here is further advice - It can get crowded, which makes it more difficult for those who will be at risk. However, we do there are some difficulties around face coverings at the moment, so Know Your Rights - https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/issue/if-you-are-planning-to-assemble-or-protest-this-weekend-know-your-rights-know-the-risks-and-keep-each-other-safe/

Filming and photos

Don’t take photos or film folks' faces at protests! This can be directly used by police post-protest to identify individuals. Consider using a filter such as Pixelator which pixelates faces, or actively avoiding faces or recognisable features or clothing. You can also put a sticker over faces.

Use a filter / blur / sticker to cover faces, take a screenshot of the final image and upload that to your social media if you need to (screenshotting reduces ability to “unscramble” covered faces).

Bear in mind that police have previously monitored disabled people getting out of their wheelchairs at protests and reported this info to DWP (see fracking protests in Lancashire 2018).”

* one thing that is missing in the discussion of inclusive tactics is the use of smoke cannisters. These are terrible for people with lung impairments like asthma and COPD causing choking and the inability to breathe; please consider that you are forcing people that cannot tolerate the smoke to leave the protest when you set off a smoke cannister.

Finally, the guide ends with how you can participate if you are unable to go to the protest, solidarity at home; this is important, not everyone can participate in marches but that does not mean that we cannot be in solidarity with people. This is important as participating in marches are not the only things we can do to express solidarity. Solidarity can be done in all sorts of ways and everyone needs to remember that … one form of solidarity is not more “pure” than another. Anyway that comrades can participate is important, we must stand together to recognise the importance of all forms of solidarity as well as fight for inclusion for disabled people in all events, rallies and marches.

ACM: Gaza Ceasefire Now!

NY brit expat

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday November 12, 2023 · 3:00 PM PST

2023/11/12 · 15:00

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce" (Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Lous Bonaparte, 1852).

We are witnessing a humanitarian disaster and war crimes unfolding in Gaza as the Israeli Defence Forces and Israeli government continue to bomb Gaza while conducting a ground offensive. Because communication is unavailable the following figures relating to deaths and injuries have not been updated since the 11^th of November, so expect the numbers to increase.

On November 10^th , the death toll from October 7^th,stands around 1200 Israelis and foreign nationals and 240 hostages taken by Hamas fighters. In Gaza, we know that the death toll of Palestinians has passed 11,100; According to Reliefweb, there are more than 2,200 persons reported missing in Gaza, including 1,270 children most are trapped under the rubble. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 70% of fatalities are children, women, and the elderly.

The Current Situation

40 journalists and media workers were confirmed dead: 35 Palestinian, 4 Israeli, and 1 Lebanese.

8 journalists were reported injured.

3 journalists were reported missing.

13 journalists were reported arrested.

Multiple assaults, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and killings of family members.

CPJ is also investigating numerous unconfirmed reports of other journalists being killed, missing, detained, hurt, or threatened, and of damage to media offices and journalists’ homes.”

According to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) posted on the 11^th of November, Al Shifa hospital where MSF personnel are working, released the following information:

“ Over the past 24 hours, hospitals in Gaza have been under relentless bombardment. Al-Shifa hospital complex, the biggest health facility where MSF staff are still working, has been hit several times, including the maternity and outpatient departments, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries. The hostilities around the hospital have not stopped. MSF teams and hundreds of patients are still inside Al-Shifa hospital. MSF urgently reiterates its calls to stop the attacks against hospitals, for an immediate ceasefire and for the protection of medical facilities, medical staff and patients.”

“Since the 7^th of October, WHO has verified more than 250 attacks on health care in Gaza and the West Bank, in addition to 25 attacks on health care in Israel – hospitals, clinics, patients, ambulances.

Last week, WHO documented 5 attacks on 5 hospitals in one day.

In the past 48 hours alone, four hospitals have been put out of action, representing some 430 beds.

[…] Half of the Gaza Strip’s 36 hospitals and two-thirds of its primary health care centres are not functioning at all. Those that are functioning are operating way beyond their capacities. The health system is on its knees, and yet somehow is continuing to deliver some lifesaving care.

The best way to support those health workers and the people they serve is by giving them the tools they need to deliver that care – medicines, medical equipment and fuel for hospital generators.

Field hospitals and emergency medical teams can complement and support existing hospitals and health workers in Gaza, but they cannot replace them.”

Jewish Voice for Peace Protest at the Statue of Liberty

The UN reports the death of 101 employees working for UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency). In a report released on the 9th of November, UNRWA reported the following:

Report from The Gaza Strip:

“In the last 24 hours, UNRWA received confirmation that seven additional colleagues were killed. 99 UNRWA colleagues have been killed and at least 26 injured since the start of hostilities. This is the highest number of United Nations aid workers killed in a conflict in the history of the United Nations.

Since 4 November, Israel has opened a humanitarian "corridor” along the main North–South Road in the Gaza Strip from 10 am to 2 pm. As a result, at least 70,000 people - mostly walking - have traveled from north to south. The UN and NGOs are supporting through monitoring and providing water and some food just south of Wadi Gaza.

Almost 1.6 million people have been displaced across the Gaza Strip since 7 October. Two additional shelters were opened in the Middle area. Nearly 742,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) are now sheltering in 151 UNRWA installations across all five governorates of the Gaza Strip, including in the north.

Over 582,000 IDPs are sheltering in 94 facilities in the Middle, Khan Younis and Rafah areas. Nearly 160,000 IDPs were sheltering in 57 UNRWA schools in the northern and Gaza areas as of 12 October 2023, before the evacuation order was issued by the Israeli Authorities. UNRWA is not able to access these shelters to assist or protect the IDPs and does not have information on their needs and conditions.”

The violence against Palestinians is not confined to Gaza; there have been increasing levels of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, especially in Jenin.

Report from The West Bank, including East Jerusalem:

A demolition by the Israeli Security Forces (ISF) took place in Shufat refugee camp, in the early morning of 8 November, which lasted five hours. The demolition, using explosives, targeted the home of a 13-year-old, who stabbed an ISF officer at the checkpoint in February.

Several ISF personnel forced their way into an UNRWA installation during the operation, under protest by Agency staff. All UNRWA operations in the camp were suspended, including education services, affecting over 630 students.

The ISF launched a large-scale operation in Qalqiliya city (north of the West Bank) in the morning of 8 November, which included exchanges of fire with armed Palestinians. Multiple arrests and live ammunition injuries were reported. UNRWA schools suspended in-person classes, and transitioned to online learning, impacting over 1,400 students.

An ISF operation took place in Bethlehem in the afternoon and evening. The Palestinian Red Crescent reported 61 injuries, including seven from live ammunition.”

According to B’tselem, 16 small and isolated communities on the West Bank have been forcibly transferred. According to ReliefWeb (Associated with OCHA) The death toll of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has now reached 165. In the city of Jenin alone, 30 people have been killed by Israeli Security Forces and Settlers and 162 have been injured according to Medecins Sans Frontieres. According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, some 2,150 Palestinians have been detained by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the start of the conflict. If they are political prisoners, they also must be released.

International Law is descending into farce

Hamas committed a war crime in attacking civilians in Israel and taking hostages back to Gaza. Recognising the grief of the victims and their families is the correct human and humanitarian response to the loss of innocent lives. But all human life is equally precious and I hear the cries of grief of Palestinians equally.

If it is not clear to people, there is no military solution to the situation; the only possible solution requires a democratic and diplomatic response.

Recognising that there is a context to what happened does not justify what happened. However, in the absence of context, there is no way forward to try to propose changes that end the situation. Contrary to what the Israeli government and military are saying, this war does not begin on the 7^th of October. Moreover, this war has nothing to do with religion; lots of people try to hide their actions behind religion. This is not a war between Jews, Muslims and Christians. This war has its roots in the actions of a colonial settler state which has set up an Apartheid regime against Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied territories and for those living within the 1948 boundaries of Israel as identified by B’tselem and Amnesty International.

This atrocity has not happened out of a context, but the context is not a justification, it is simply stating what has led to this situation, but does not justify the actions of an attack on civilians. Brutality does not justify brutality in response. The Palestinian people have lived with decades long oppression, living under Apartheid laws, a long-running blockade of the Gaza Strip formally instituted since 2007 following the election of Hamas, violations of human rights which has horrifically impacted the social and economic lives of people on the Gaza Strip and the murder of innocent Palestinians by the Israeli military, successive Israeli governments and by settlers against Palestinians. It provides a context to the attack but cannot justify what happened on October 7^th. This is a man-made situation which is in violation of International Humanitarian Law and only threatens to become worse due to relentless bombing, civilian deaths and the destruction of homes, hospitals, religious buildings and schools where people are sheltering from the bombing because they cannot flee the area. Those fleeing to South Gaza have no guarantee of shelter, safety and food and water.

What the Israeli government and military is doing to Gaza is also a war crime. Collective punishment of those that have not committed a crime is a war crime.

Collective punishment is prohibited by Article 33 of the 1949 Geneva conventions addresses this point which relates to Individual responsibility, collective penalties, pillage, reprisals:

“No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

Pillage is prohibited.

Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.”

We are witnessing war crimes of collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza along with violations on International Humanitarian Law against protected individuals (Civilian population, Humanitarian Relief Workers, Medical Personnel and Journalists) and protected buildings (Hospitals, Schools, Religious Buildings (Mosques and Churches), Humanitarian Relief Agencies). Sieges are a violation of International Humanitarian law as are anything that threaten the survival of civilians in any war; civilians caught in a war zone still have rights, among these are the right to food, electricity, and running water, their survival must not be threatened.

All governments (and that includes the one conducting the war) are responsible for ensuring that civilian life is protected and preserved. Instead of ensuring humanitarian relief to the people of Gaza, several governments are supporting Israeli attacks on Gaza. They bleat about humanitarian pauses to the conflict; that is nonsense. They are ignoring their responsibilities under treaties that they have signed — this includes the US, UK and several other countries (and Israel and Palestine are signatories to the Geneva Conventions) that refuse to provide support to Palestinians under siege. One cannot abstract from treaties you have signed and pretend that they do not apply to your allies. This is normalising collective punishment and a siege against civilians without providing for their general welfare. It is unacceptable and we must demand that our governments stop this and provide humanitarian aid and assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The UN has failed and are unable to stop what is happening; while a condemnation has been passed at the General Assembly, some countries opposed, others abstained. The UN Security Council resolution calling for “humanitarian pauses” failed due to the US veto. We must ask the obvious question, what is the purpose of International Law and International Humanitarian law if it cannot stop what is happening? This is a farce, either International Law holds for everyone or it holds for no one. It is looking like it is holding for no one these days …

The reality is that it is not only the Israeli military and government that have blood on their hands, it is also the government of the US and UK who refuse to demand a ceasefire.

While the UK has been mostly defanged at the international level (essentially serving the role of Poodles to the US), it has a special responsibility for the situation in Israel/Palestine historically. The government and the opposition in the UK have descended into a farce. Let’s say it is a good thing that no one takes the UK seriously these days.

Despite the government passing a series of Laws (see: The Public Order Act; the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill) preventing people from protesting and giving ridiculous powers to the police; they are unable to stop Protests in solidarity with Gaza which have been occurring regularly on Saturdays. Both the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak and Home Office Secretary, Suella Braverman, tried to get the Ceasefire Now march held yesterday (at least 500,000 participants) cancelled arguing it was a violation of Remembrance Weekend. This was refused by the Police as the situation did not warrant the cancellation of the protest. Somehow calling for an Armistice on Armistice Day is disrespectful to those killed in wars and that it would somehow disrupt a 2 minute silence at the Cenotaph (this is despite the march being held at least a mile away and starting after the 2 minute silence). Braverman calls these peace marches, Hate Marches and when the Metropolitan Police refused to cancel yesterday’s March calling for a Ceasefire Now, she wrote to a right-wing newspaper that the Police are favourably biased to the left (you can stop laughing now). In response, fascist groups decided to “protect” the Cenotaph. Yes, as expected, the violence against the police around the Cenotaph by fascists and in two other areas and where the fascists tried to attack the march, led to their arrests. Braverman is still the head of the Home Office and is still calling for action against “Hate Marches.”

In the Labour Party (LP), Keir Starmer’s refusal to call for a ceasefire has led to local Councillors resigning and signing statements in support of an immediate ceasefire, several Constituency Labour Parties have passed motions calling for an immediate ceasefire and there’s lots of disagreement among LP members. The fact that Starmer, a human rights lawyer, said there was no problem with a siege where water, electricity and food were withheld did not, shall we say, endear him to LP members and supporters. While the UK government will not call for a ceasefire, the Welsh Senedd (Assembly) has.

Despite protest after protest demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, the US government refuses to do so. The US is probably the only state which could force the Israeli government and military into declaring a ceasefire; yet it has refused to do so. So, think about it, when the US government talks about Human Rights and International Law in the future, why should anyone take them seriously?

We must demand an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages and political prisoners held by both Hamas and the Israeli military and government, and humanitarian aid and assistance (food, medicine, water, electricity and temporary housing) to be unconditionally provided for all residents of Gaza both internally displaced and those residents of Gaza that have not fled. We must demand a ceasefire; humanitarian pauses are insufficient. Bringing in humanitarian relief just to then let the bombings and military operations continue denies the reality of what is happening in Gaza against the civilian population and other protected people and buildings. The ceasefire is urgent as we must prevent genocide; the stakes are that high.

We march in solidarity with Palestinians!
We march to demand a cease fire!
We march to demand international action!
We march to stop war crimes!

ACM: The war against Gaza’s civilians must be stopped … revenge is not justice!

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Sunday October 15, 2023 · 3:00 PM PDT

2023/10/15 · 15:00

From Seattle artist and healer, Wendy Elisheva Somerson

One never likes to hear about human created atrocities. Yet sometimes we are forced to do so; human atrocities have happened, continue to happen and will continue to happen until human beings stop using violence against each other. Until we find ways of addressing conflict beyond the use of violence, these atrocities will continue. Unfortunately, humans face violence of all forms regularly; rather than societies which have transcended all forms of violence, we regularly witness it. Things that we do not even recognise as violence of an economic, political, and social nature are part and parcel of the world as we know it. Unfortunately, we also know that violence begets violence.

Judith Butler’s excellent article on the war raises some of my own thoughts during this time (I strongly encourage you to read the whole article):

“Personally, I defend a politics of non-violence, in the knowledge that it cannot possibly operate as an absolute principle to be applied on all occasions. I maintain that liberation struggles that practise non-violence help to create the non-violent world in which we all want to live. I deplore the violence unequivocally at the same time as I, like so many others, want to be part of imagining and struggling for true equality and justice in the region, the kind that would compel groups like Hamas to disappear, the occupation to end, and new forms of political freedom and justice to flourish. Without equality and justice, without an end to the state violence conducted by a state, Israel, that was itself founded in violence, no future can be imagined, no future of true peace – not, that is, ‘peace’ as a euphemism for normalisation, which means keeping structures of inequality, rightlessness and racism in place. But such a future cannot come about without remaining free to name, describe and oppose all the violence, including Israeli state violence in all its forms, and to do so without fear of censorship, criminalisation, or of being maliciously accused of antisemitism. The world I want is one that would oppose the normalisation of colonial rule and support Palestinian self-determination and freedom, a world that would, in fact, realise the deepest desires of all the inhabitants of those lands to live together in freedom, non-violence, equality and justice. This hope no doubt seems naive, even impossible, to many. Nevertheless, some of us must rather wildly hold to it, refusing to believe that the structures that now exist will exist for ever. For this, we need our poets and our dreamers, the untamed fools, the kind who know how to organise.”

We have witnessed an horrific attack by Hamas against Israeli civilians attending a concert and at a Kibbutz near the Gaza border; which everyone should unquestionably condemn. We must also call for the repatriation of hostages taken by Hamas and this must be organised between Israel and Hamas. There is no question that this was an atrocity; there is also no question that Hamas should not have done this for any reason. It cannot be justified. We must analyse why things came to this, which is something that is often ignored by the mainstream news media; but we should not condone Hamas’ actions as they are unjustifiable.

This atrocity has not happened out of a context, but the context is not a justification, it is simply stating what has led to this situation, but does not justify the actions of an attack on civilians. Brutality does not justify brutality in response. The Palestinian people have lived with decades long oppression, living under Apartheid laws, a long-running blockade of the Gaza Strip formally instituted since 2007 following the election of Hamas, violations of human rights which has horrifically impacted the social and economic lives of people on the Gaza Strip and the murder of innocent Palestinians by the Israeli military, successive Israeli governments and by settlers against Palestinians. It provides a context to the attack but cannot justify what happened last weekend. This is a man-made situation which is in violation of International Humanitarian Law and only threatens to become worse due to relentless bombing, civilian deaths and the destruction of homes, hospitals, religious buildings and schools where people are sheltering from the bombing because they cannot flee the area. Those fleeing to South Gaza have no guarantee of shelter, safety and food and water.

According to Al Jazeera, since Hamas’ attack:

An estimated one million Gazans have been displaced in the first seven days of conflict with Israel, according to the United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees, as aid groups said the situation in the besieged enclave is “catastrophic”.

Israel has deployed tanks and weapons on the border fence with Gaza as the military build-up continues amid relentless bombardment.

At least 2,329 Palestinians, including 724 children, have been killed in Israeli air raids. The number of Israelis killed in Hamas’s military operation stands at 1,300, including 286 soldiers.

The Israeli military says it is striking targets in Lebanon after a missile attack by Hezbollah fighters killed a person in its territory. This comes as Iran is warning Israel to cease its “war crimes” against Gaza.

We have been watching a response by the Israeli state and military that we all knew was coming when we heard of Hamas’ attack on civilians, and which we should also condemn. The lives of Palestinians and Israelis are all equally important; no life should be viewed as more important than another. B’Tselem argues that the abandonment of the moral principle that all humans are created equal is a loss of humanity, I agree. If you do think that one group of people has more value than another group of people, you need to ask yourself who is more important and why you think that is the case. This is the road to genocide; this is the road to hate, racism and eugenics – this is the road to continual violence against people you think are lesser or other: this is dehumanisation of those you consider inferior, but you are also dehumanising yourself as well. This justifies continued atrocities and humanity has trod this road for far too long.

Collective Punishment and the “rules of war”

In the “rules of war” (see the Geneva Conventions) the lives of civilians are protected, they are non-combatants, and that is why Hamas’ attack must be condemned. Those rules of war, also are supposed to protect everyone; that includes Palestinians who are not combatants which applies to Palestinians living in Gaza, the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Palestinians residing in the 1948 borders of Israel. Already, 51 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli Jewish settlers since last Saturday; this has been documented by B’Tselem.

One cannot blame the whole of the Palestinian people for the actions of a specific group; just as one cannot blame the Israeli population as a whole for the actions of settlers, the Israeli military and the Israeli government and institutions of power. Just as Americans and British people should not be held responsible for the actions of their militaries and governments. We cannot impute collective responsibility.

Moreover, there is a term for holding a group responsible for the actions of a few, it is called collective punishment and it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, specifically Article 33 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions:

“Article 33 - Individual responsibility, collective penalties, pillage, reprisals

No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

Pillage is prohibited.

Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.”

See also Rule 103 of Human Rights Law, which applies to both international and non-international conflicts:

“The prohibition of collective punishments is stated in the Hague Regulations and the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions.[2] The prohibition is recognized in Additional Protocols I and II as a fundamental guarantee for all civilians and persons hors de combat.[3]

The imposition of “collective penalties” was considered a war crime in the Report of the Commission on Responsibility set up after the First World War.[4] The customary nature of this rule, already applicable during the Second World War, was affirmed by the Military Tribunal of Rome in the Priebke case in 1997.[5] The specification that the imposition of collective punishments is a war crime is also to be found in the Statutes of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.[6]

The prohibition of collective punishments is contained in numerous military manuals.[7] This prohibition is also set forth in the legislation of many States.[8] It is further supported by official statements.[9]

[…] While human rights law does not explicitly prohibit “collective punishments” as such, such acts would constitute a violation of specific human rights, in particular the right to liberty and security of person and the right to a fair trial. In its General Comment on Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (concerning states of emergency), the UN Human Rights Committee stated that States parties may “in no circumstances” invoke a state of emergency “as justification for acting in violation of humanitarian law or peremptory norms of international law, for instance … by imposing collective punishments”.

When in response to an atrocity committed against Israeli civilians the Israeli government and military relentlessly bomb an area full of civilians, an area whose population contains large numbers of children (in different pieces, it has been estimated that children make up 42-50% of the population of the Gaza Strip), we move from a response against those directly committing the atrocity to the use of collective punishment against people not responsible for the atrocity. When bombs are indiscriminately fired, innocent civilians are killed, people also have their homes destroyed, electricity has been turned off, running water has been turned off, there are insufficient medical supplies, not enough food to survive, that is collective punishment, that is a violation of International Humanitarian Law.

Sieges that threaten the survival of civilians in any war, are a violation of international Humanitarian Law; civilians caught in a war zone still have rights, among these are the right to food, electricity, and running water, their survival must not be threatened. All governments (and that includes the one conducting the war) are responsible for ensuring that civilian life is protected and preserved. Instead of ensuring humanitarian relief to the people of Gaza, several governments are supporting Israeli attacks on Gaza. They are ignoring their responsibilities under treaties that they have signed — this includes the US, UK and several other countries (and Israel and Palestine are signatories to the Geneva Conventions) that refuse to provide support to Palestinians under siege. One cannot abstract from treaties you have signed and pretend that they do not apply to your allies. This is normalising collective punishment and a siege against civilians without providing for their general welfare. It is unacceptable and we must demand that our governments stop this and provide humanitarian aid and assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

From David Miliband, President & CEO of the International Rescue Committee:

5️⃣ Lift any actions that deprive civilians of goods essential for their survival, including the immediate restoration of water and electricity supply to Gaza. Sieges that deprive civilians of goods essential for their survival are prohibited under Intl Humanitarian Law. (6/8)
— David Miliband (@DMiliband) October 14, 2023

When the Israeli government tells millions of people to flee Northern Gaza to the south; when there is really no place to flee to, because they are going to destroy their homes, their schools, their hospitals, we are talking about a humanitarian catastrophe. Moreover, there are specific protections in International Humanitarian Law relating to Protected Objects Property which includes Hospitals, Schools, Homes, and Religious buildings, protected people include all civilians, and there are specific rules relating to Medical Personnel, those providing humanitarian assistance, journalists, Women and children and the manner in which the Israeli military and government are pounding the Gaza Strip violates those laws. Where are people to run to, where is there a safe place to evacuate the wounded and doctors, where can they go? What about those unwilling or unable to leave and who are essentially trapped in North Gaza being bombed with every shelling perhaps the last?

They cannot cross into Egypt as the borders are closed and that would once again force them out of what is left of Palestine which needless to say is something no Palestinian wants to do again. Southern Gaza cannot provide for the safety and care of an additional million people. The UN estimates that 1 million people have already been fled Northern Gaza in the first week of this war. Gaza’s hospitals are expected to run out of fuel in the next two days. The regional head of the World Health Organisation has said that it is impossible to evacuate Northern Gazan hospitals and reminded the world that evacuation of hospitals is a war crime. There is not enough housing, food and water is scarce, this is already a humanitarian crisis and it is growing and it will add further catastrophe onto an already existing disaster.

Some final thoughts

There have been protests around the world in solidarity with the Palestinians. Solidarity is essential, Palestinians need to know that they are not alone as they face another siege and threats to their lives due to the actions of Hamas; condemnation of attacks on all civilians is fundamental — we are all human beings and we are not all collectively responsible for the actions of our states, our governments, and our politicians and we are not individually responsible for our armies for that matter unless we ourselves do the action. But that means that we also have an obligation to oppose these various groups when they act in this manner; staying silent is complicity. This is why I was at two protests this week in solidarity with people in Gaza. As a Jew, healing the world is a fundamental obligation which I cannot and will not abrogate.

The bombing of Gaza must be stopped (it is collective punishment) and the Israeli military must not start a land war. Further bombings and a land war will only lead to more civilian casualties and more violations of International Law and International Humanitarian Law. We must call on Hamas to release any Israeli civilian hostages. We must call on our governments to demand an end to this war, we must stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and we must be arguing for an end to collective punishment and the end of Apartheid in Israel.

How do we move beyond the cycles of hate and violence to actually create a world based on mutual respect and equality between people? How are we to address these atrocities without giving succour to those committing them? How do we stop these atrocities in the future? How do we honour the grief, the horror, and loss of yet more innocent human beings to yet another cycle of violence of humans against humans? I agree with Judith Butler, that requires more than empathy, it requires human beings to commit to opposing the oppression that people live with, to end divide and rule, to fight for the whole of humanity for a better future. Without that hope, we are all condemned to continued violence against each other. This requires solidarity, mutual respect and humans collectively building a future where all are treated equally and where our needs are the priority.

Anti-Capitalist Meetup: Solidarity with Auto Workers!

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Sunday September 17, 2023 · 3:00 PM PDT

2023/09/17 · 15:00

UAW workers go out on Strike 15th of September

We are seeing a revival of trade union struggles in the US. Interestingly, there seems to be support for these among Americans if both Gallup (August) and the Morning Consult (September) Polls are accurate. We are witnessing a sea-change in support for trade unions, strikes and hopes that union struggles are successful and a recognition that trade unions themselves actually are good for the economy. This is a pivotal moment in recent US labour relations and it comes on the back of the previous set of teachers strikes! Solidarity Forever!

There is a long-running strike which began in May 2023 in which the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been out on strike against the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers; in July, they were joined on the picket lines by the Screen-Actors Guild– American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). UPS just averted a strike by 300,000 workers represented by the Teamsters Union reaching a tentative contract in July, which was ratified by workers in August which addresses increased wages and benefits for workers, the end of two-tier wage system, and ending forced overtime and a host of other issues.

During the Teacher’s Strikes, there was clear support for public sector workers and their trade unions and striking workers. These recent strikes against private companies still command a high level of support; this is a welcome change and is long overdue; we know that these changed perceptions and solidarity are a real boost to striking workers. As stated in The Nation, these changing perceptions by Americans for unions and strikers represent a significant shift in attitude and this is something that we have not seen in a while. Demands that would seem absurd only 8 years ago are winning support:

”Importantly, these numbers also tell us that when unions make big demands, and when they aggressively advance those demands in order to counter corporate spin (as the UAW has done with a savvy social media campaign and unity-building op-eds written by Fain with allies such as US Representative Ro Khanna), the American people will recognize organized labor’s “asks” as fair and necessary.

That’s a point Senator Bernie Sanders made when he argued in a statement ahead of the UAW strike: “Despite what you might hear in the corporate media, what the UAW is fighting for is not radical. It is the reasonable demand that autoworkers, who have made enormous sacrifices over the past 40 years, finally receive a fair share of the enormous profits their labor has generated.”

UAW strike

On September 15^th, the following appeared on the UAW Website:
UAW family and allies —

A few minutes ago, thousands of UAW members at Ford, GM, and Stellantis walked out, marking the beginning of the Stand Up Strike.

UAW members at GM Wentzville Assembly, Local 2250 in Region 4 are ON STRIKE.

UAW members at Stellantis Toledo Assembly Complex, Local 12in Region 2B are ON STRIKE.

UAW members at Ford Michigan Assembly Plant – Final Assembly and Paint, Local 900in Region 1A are ON STRIKE.

This fight is our generation’s defining moment. Not just at the Big Three, but across the entire working class.

We will stand up for ourselves. We will stand up for our families. We will stand up for our communities.

Join us.

On the 15^th of September following the collapse of talks between the United Auto Workers union (UAW) and the Big Three US car manufactures in the US, the UAW went on strike. This is the first time that all of the Big Three — Ford, GM and Stellantis (Fiat, Peugeot/Citroen, and Chrysler) have been struck simultaneously; historically, workers have struck at only one manufacturer.

This is a shift towards a more aggressive policy by the Union President Shawn Fein and the union membership. This is a fight against decades lost gains on wages, work contracts, benefits and pensions where in order to save jobs workers sacrificed their gains when US auto manufacturers were facing bankruptcies and threatening plant closures to shift production first to right-to-work states in the US South and then overseas to Mexico. These decisions by car manufacturers were done to both weaken the power of the UAW and to recoup higher levels of profits through moving to areas where there was lower wages and weaker unions. The destruction of the gains of US auto workers in the North of country was not only done by US auto manufacturers, but also international automobile producers in the US, first locating production in areas with weak unions and lower wages in the US and then moving overseas. Now the Big Three are making record profits (according to In These Times, those profits are over ¼ of a trillion dollars in this past decade and $21 billion dollars in the first 6 months of 2023 alone) and those have come on the backs of increased exploitation of workers while enabling massive redistribution of profits to shareholders and company executives.

In an article written for The Guardian, UAW President Shawn Fain and Congressman Ro Khanna say the following:

“UAW members who build cars for a living don’t do it out of a passion for combustion engines or electric vehicles. UAW members do it out of a passion for families and communities. Our priority is safe, family-wage jobs, not only building engines at legacy automakers, but also battery cells at EV startups. The electric vehicle future must be union made. We can have both economic and climate justice – and that starts by ensuring that the electric vehicle industry is entirely unionized and that EV jobs come with union standards.

This is a pivotal moment for the American economy and the workers that make it run. Corporations are pushing hard to use this moment to expand their power.

We’re mobilizing for a new model that puts working people, climate justice and human rights before profit. Generations before us, like Shawn’s grandparents and Ro’s parents, benefitted from a robust manufacturing economy with the kinds of high- wage jobs that having strong union contracts can bring. We are once again faced with a defining moment for a new generation of workers. Forcing workers to decide between good jobs and green jobs is a false choice. We can and must achieve both – and it can start with a fair contract for UAW autoworkers.”

The election of Shawn Fain as Union President in March 2023 on the UAW-United Members slate expressed the demand for a new level of militancy by UAW members and a change in the direction of the union. This vote overturned the control of the Administration Caucus which has run the union since 1946. Fain ran his campaign arguing against a top-down leadership which collapsed and capitulated in the face of the demands of auto manufacturers and calling for a rank-and-file approach to change the direction of the union itself. In an interview with Steven Greenhouse in In These Times following his election in March, Fain stated:

“This election was not just a race between two candidates, it was a referendum on the direction of the UAW. For too long, the UAW has been controlled by leadership with a top-down, company union philosophy who have been unwilling to confront management, and as a result we’ve seen nothing but concessions, corruption, and plant closures,” Fain said in a statement released March 25. “While the election was close, it is clear that our membership has long wanted to see a more aggressive approach with our employers. We now have a historic opportunity to get back to setting the standard across all sectors, and to transform the UAW into a member-led, fighting union once again, and we are going to take it. The future of the working class is at stake.”

Rather than using the all workers out strategy or sit-in strikes, the UAW is using the tactic of limited and targeted “stand up strikes” where workers strike at targets designated by their union, 13,000 UAW workers are out at 3 plants run by each of the Big Three in 3 states: Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant, Final Assembly and Paint in Wayne Michigan, Stellantis’ Toledo Complex in Toledo Ohio, and General Motor’s Wentzville Assembly Plant in Wentzville Missouri. These 3 plants were chosen to leverage the union’s power on plants that make high profits and probably to protect their strike funds as well. Other auto workers are prepared to strike if the strike is extended nationally (e.g., Chicago, Cleveland, and Kentucky).

The battle that we are seeing is not only about wages and cost of living adjustments that were lost, it is about the historical destruction of working contracts, the two-tied labour system using temporary workers doing the same jobs with lower wages and no benefits, it is about overtime, job security, it is about health care plans and pensions. It is important to stress that it is the workers that are pushing this change; not only in the election of Shawn Fain as UAW President, but in their understandings of why the union needs to change and how. A recent podcast from the Real News Network has a panel of autoworkers talking about why they are ready to strike (transcript).

Demands of the UAW

Decades of concessions by the UAW has led to the situation; these concessions must be put in context. Understanding the impact of globalisation and neoliberalism on the auto-industry (as in every other industrial and manufacturing sectors) enabled corporations to force concessions from workers and their unions under the threat of plant closures, moving manufacturing from the Rust Belt to areas where there were weaker trade unions and they could get away with poor wages and working conditions. If you have not seen Michael Moore’s “Roger and Me” (1989) watch it. Moore spends the movie trying to talk to Roger Smith (then Chairman of General Motors) while detailing the destruction of Flint, Michigan which was one of the centres of auto industry production and one of the main beneficiaries of the capital-labour accord in the post-war period. Understanding how the auto workers lives and communities were shattered to keep US auto manufacturing competitive during the period of the beginnings of neoliberalism and globalisation is important. Forced into major concessions to preserve jobs and prevent plant closures, workers again and again gave up gains that they had won. The elimination of the capital-labour accord by corporations (taking the linkage between wage-productivity with it) while forcing unions and workers into compliance to just survive is a direct result of globalisation and neoliberalism. People forget the destruction of the PATCO union by St Ronnie Reagan and the deliberate destruction of union power as manufacturing and industry were located to right-to-work states. Shifting industrial and manufacturing production out of states with strong unions cost power, money and weakened trade unions. The shift toward international production undermined all the gains of industrial and manufacturing workers and the corps could force workers into accepting conditions for remaining in the area and the country itself.

In These Times has a list of demands by the UAW and an explanation of why these demands are on the table. An excellent discussion and further explanations on the Tier System can be found in Chris Viola’s article in Jacobin; the use of the tier system has destroyed workers’ wages, working conditions and benefits and it has been introduced in many sectors.

The UAW’s proposals include:

Ending tiers. Before a major contract concession in 2007, newly hired auto workers could reach the maximum wage rate within three years and have guaranteed pensions and retiree healthcare. But “second-tier” workers — those hired since 2007 — must wait at least eight years before reaching top wage levels and get no pensions or post-retirement healthcare. The Big Three have also increasingly hired workers as low-paid temps, often extending the length of their supposedly “temporary” status before they can become permanent employees. The UAW wants to equalize pay and benefits so that all autoworkers, now and in the future, have pensions and retiree healthcare, and can reach maximum pay and permanent status within 90 days of being hired.

Double-digit raises. The multimillionaire CEOs of GM, Ford and Stellantis have gotten an average raise of 40% over the past four years, so the union is seeking similarly large raises of around 46% for autoworkers over the course of the four-year contract. The UAW is relatedly calling for significant increases to the pension benefit paid to retirees.

Restoring cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), which tie wages to inflation. Once a signature feature of autoworker contracts, the UAW’s former leadership agreed to suspend COLAs in 2009 as GM and Chrysler faced bankruptcy amid the Great Recession.

Work-life balance. Because their real hourly wages have fallen so dramatically amid years of concessions, many autoworkers put in 60 to 80-hour weeks to make ends meet, leaving less time to spend with their families. In addition to calling for more paid time off, the UAW is making the eye-catching demand for a 32-hour workweek at 40 hours’ pay. “If Covid did anything, it made people reflect on what’s important in life, and it sure as hell isn’t living in a factory,” Fain said last month.

Job security. With automakers shutting down factories and moving production to wherever in the world they can exploit workers the most — a process that has gone on for over 40 years and continues—the UAW is demanding the right to strike over plant closures and is calling for the creation of a Working Family Protection Program, which would make the companies keep employees at shuttered factories on payroll doing community service work.

Enhanced profit sharing. With the Big Three’s shareholders reaping the benefits of record profits, the union is proposing that workers get $2 for every $1 million spent on stock buybacks and special dividends.

A just transition to electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing. Aided by federal subsidies, the Big Three are building EV battery plants as “joint ventures” with South Korean tech firms. But these new factories fall outside the collective bargaining agreements covering other UAW autoworkers, so wages and working conditions are far worse than at plants making gas-powered cars. As part of its fight to eliminate all tiers, the UAW wants to extend the same union standards to new EV plants. Since EV workers are not currently covered by the Big Three contracts, this is a public demand rather than a bargaining proposal.”

In the midst of the negotiations, Stellantis has threatened to move production to Mexico. On the 15^th of September just as the strikes commenced, Ford has “temporarily” laid off 600 non-striking workers at its Wayne Michigan plant where workers are out are strike. If you think the Big Three are not playing hardball, you need to look again. Much of the discussion around Just Transition in the demands relates to protecting workers rights during the transition away from combustion engines as less workers are needed. We need the transition away from combustion engines, but we must protect workers’ wages, conditions of work, and benefits and pensions. Our transition must be just.

This strike is not only a strike about the auto industry; it is part of the battle to reverse the losses brought about by neoliberalism and globalisation. It is a strike about the future of the American working class and how the capitalist economic system treats its workers. It is a fight over the manner and nature of exploitation of workers, a fight over a just transition and a struggle to revive the power of trade unions and all of these are essential to any discussion of the future of the working class in the US and elsewhere.

I haven’t found a link to donate to the UAW strike funds or to their shop. But here is a link to a petition saying you stand with striking auto workers. If anyone finds a merch shop or donation to the strike fund page, please let me know and I will edit the blog

ACM: If “Modernisation” on Rail means job cuts and safety issues, is Privatisation the Problem?

NY brit expat

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday August 20, 2023 · 3:00 PM PDT

2023/08/20 · 15:00

We are once again in the midst of a campaign about the railways. Privatisation of train lines has not meant that there has been massive investment on trains, it has not meant that train services run efficiently and reliably on schedule, and it has not meant that costs for passengers have decreased. Essentially, the breakup of British Rail has placed the various parts of the train system under the control of various private franchises with a somewhat checkered history of management and provision of service; several lines have been bought into national control due to poor management and service and inability to earn sufficient profits to remain under private sector control.

In fact, travel by train is still expensive compared to Europe and this is especially the case for express trains and those running at times that commuting workers predominately use. Following privatisation, maintenance and replacement of the rails themselves was so poor that they had to be renationalised and Network Rail is now a public company answerable to the government with no stockholders. We can ask the obvious question how can a coherent public transport system be run to cut down on the use of private cars when it is so expensive to use the rail? Certainly, any attempt to pursue green transport policy requires a consistent and cheap (preferably free at the point of demand) rail system for passengers.

Privatisation and “Modernisation”

Privatisation changed the nature of work for railway and transport workers; rather than actually being an essential component part of a national service, you are instead working for a private company. The concentration on profitability (the raison d’etre of the private market) means that the management of trains services has to produce the results needed to meet profitability criterion; it is not merely the provision of a service, it is a service that is provided to ensure that profit is created.

Interestingly (and this is the case for many privatised former public sectors), this attempt to increase profitability is termed “modernisation.” While many people think of modernisation relating to introduction of technology or updating machinery using more recently developed technology. However, this is not always the case in these sectors and the use of the term modernisation deliberately is trying to portray workers opposing this so-called modernisation as Luddites; in other words, backward and reactionary people who are refusing the use of modern techniques of production and hence are responsible for the fact that these private sectors are not making enough in profits to keep running. The use of the term modernisation is an attempt to hide the failures of privatisation and shift the responsibility onto workers and it is used by the government, the private sector and of course the MSM (it is same old nonsense, blame the workers rather than the capitalist system is a classic sleight of hand).

Now if we think about it, one way to increase profits is by increasing productivity by introducing techniques of production (this does not have to be labour saving tech which you would never guess listening to the government and railway franchise operators), but generally the introduction of tech will increase productivity which can increase profits by decreasing the amount of time it takes to cover the wage bill. You can also attempt to change the conditions of production, either by intensification of labour or extension of the working day (this is a tactic that is in place in the freight train industry in the US where workers do not have working schedules and there are no holidays or sick days). Finally, what an employer in search of higher profits can also do is trying to cut the wage bill, this can be done in two ways (and both can happen at the same time): you can try to cut wages themselves and/or you can cut the number of people you employ working on trains.

RMT Strike February 2023 — RMT strike February 2023

The rail transport sector is highly unionised. There are 3 unions, Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers RMT, The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF, (the train drivers union) – and The Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) and these unions are strong, militant and they have used their power as a key sector to preserve wages, jobs and conditions of work through the use of strikes and the ability to leverage their power.

The latest wave of strikes in Britain have seen a series of combined strikes and rolling strikes by unions in the sector around working conditions, safety, job losses and insufficient wage increases given the rising cost of living following the end of the pandemic. Inflation has eroded the value of all wages of workers and refusal to raise wages consistent with rising costs of living has been one of the driving forces of the recent strike waves in Britain by public sector workers and unionised private sector wages.

Being a key sector with powerful unions means that rail franchise owners have been looking to find a way to cut the number of workers employed in the rail sector using the excuse of “modernisation.” The railway workers (and their successful use of strikes) have been blamed for any number of things over the years (e.g., deliberately sabotaging sports matches and concerts, economic stagnation, lost working hours, and of course there is the collateral damage to other services offered at train stations (food stores, fast-food restaurants, etc) and how strikes are creating massive damage to the “economic recovery” – at least they could not blame the pandemic and its impact on them). The Covid Pandemic and the resultant loss of business for train operators as the lockdown meant that many workers now worked from home and hence railway usage had not recovered to pre-Covid levels; so in 2020 the rail franchise system was brought to an end.

Unable to cut wages directly (that is lowering money wages) and with unions protecting workers’ conditions of work, the railway companies and the government have tried several times to reduce the number of workers employed in the sector by not replacing workers who retire or become impaired. Other tactics include several attempts over the years: e.g., Network rail proposing cutting the number of safety and maintenance workers, cutting the numbers of staff, freezing workers’ pay and job recruitment, cutting the number of station workers, the removal of conductors on the London Overground (rejected due to safety considerations) and on the railway.

Closing the Ticketing offices

The current attempt which is supported by the government is to cut the number of workers is to close the ticket offices at rail stations; it is estimated that nearly 1000 ticket offices will close in England. If they gave this idea more than two minutes thought or if they actually gave a damn about their passengers, they would realise that closing of ticket offices in train stations will impact 4 groups of people. The first and most obvious is the workers at the station who will lose their jobs. The closure of ticket offices will also affect passengers.

Train workers’ unions are clearly opposed to closure of ticket offices and there has been a campaign against it. They have been joined by the National Pensioners’ Convention and Disabled people’s organisations and right groups. There will be a protest called by the RMT and other trade unions and on the evening before the close of the public consultation in London (Thursday, 31^st of August) and it is being built by trade unions, disabled people’s organisations and support is expected from community based unions.

There has been an ongoing (far too short) consultation where train users can write to the various train companies operating in England to express their displeasure with the closure of train ticket offices. Weirdly, despite many trains coming to London and leaving London, there was no space to write in to the various trains companies as you had to send your comments to the company who runs the trains that you use, which has been rectified so you can click a link and a nice email is sent to all train companies.

There are two obvious groups of people who may not be comfortable or able to use ticketing machines and need assistance from workers in a train station. The first group is older people who may not have smart phones or are not comfortable using machines and feel more comfortable talking to a human being to assist them in their travels.

“NPC calls for immediate halt to rail operators’ plans

The National Pensioners’ Convention is calling for government and rail operators to urgently scrap plans to close virtually all rail station ticket offices.

The UK’s largest campaign group run for and by older people, says the proposal to shut hundreds of ticket offices discriminates against our oldest and most vulnerable people and breaches their human rights.

Mass closure of rail ticket offices a breach

of older & vulnerable people’s rights

NPC General Secretary said: “We have been afraid that these closures were coming, but the sheer scale of the proposal is not just scandalous, it is heartless.

“The train operators have taken scant notice of pleas by NPC and other concerned groups. The closures will have huge consequences for those who cannot get online to buy a rail ticket because they don’t have, or cannot use a computer or smartphone. It effectively discriminates against them by removing their access to travel, or their ability to get better priced ticket deals.”

The second group is disabled people whose accessibility and inclusion is under general attack in many policy decisions happening these days. To state the obvious, disabled people may not be able to reach machines, may not be able to use the machines or may not have the dexterity to operate them and rely on assistance from railway workers to get where they need to go. This was also the problem removing workers from stations, disabled people often rely on railway workers to get on the train: for example, some stations are not really accessible even though they say they are, much of the “new” Elizabeth line in London now has lifts (elevators) but the train and the platform are of different heights and you need a ramp to actually get on the train. There are places on the train platform that are accessible, but you may need assistance to get to those places. Finally, train station workers often guide disabled people to the train and platforms if they are visually impaired or don’t know the station well and need assistance in finding the accessible places on the platform. A legal bid has been launched against the closures of train ticket offices by Sarah Leadbetter and Doug Paulley who have applied for a judicial review on the short length of the consultation and the fact that the consultation was disabled inaccessible, and hence did not allow disabled people to participate. Transport for All a disabled people led rights-group fighting for access to transport and street space has also launched a campaign to fight ticket office closures and got 15 disabled peoples’ organisations to sign a letter to the Secretary of State Graham Shapps calling for a halt to ticket office closures.

Our new campaign: #NotJustTheTicket

Rail ticket offices are under threat. Plans to “modernise” the railway have led to widely-reported proposals to close over a thousand ticket offices across the country.

But for the 14.1 million disabled people in the UK, ticket offices play a crucial role in accessing the rail network.

It’s not just about tickets. Staff at ticket offices are the first point of contact for disabled people arriving at stations who require assistance. They provide information, unlock station facilities, and have a profound impact on safety and security.

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) also has an ongoing campaign against closures.

“DPAC is supporting RMT and TSSA in opposing plans by the Government and Train Companies to close nearly one thousand ticket offices across the rail network. We all know that ticket offices and station staffing must be protected in order to maintain passenger service, safety, security and very importantly accessibility for disabled and older people.”

According to research published in The Disability News Service, it is evident that the closures of ticket offices will have a strongly negative impact on disabled people undercutting their accessibility and independence.

Finally, there is an additional group of people who are just simply tourists or travelling on the trains and may need advice and assistance. I don’t know about you, but when I am in a new place where I don’t know the rail system, I always go to ask people working in the ticket office for assistance for the cheapest tickets, how to get to where I want to go and to navigate the confusing (especially if it is a country whose first language is not English) and myriad number of ways to get where I want to go. Eliminating the ticket offices means that people will not have that assistance; it would certainly provide assistance if people spoke more than 1 language as well. Somehow the geniuses behind the closures of ticket offices have not even thought about them.

Some Final Thoughts

To answer the question asked in the title, yes, privatisation and the needs of the market are responsible for so many of the problems we have experienced on railways as workers and commuters. The ideology that says that privatisation ensures efficiency, reliability, quality and good prices is a fantasy that all of us are paying for. We also need to address the reality of the importance of public transport when we are addressing the environmental crisis and we must recognise the importance of accessibility for older and disabled people. So, what we need is transport for all, possibly free at the point of demand so that everyone can use it irrespective of their levels of income. That will never happen if rail is controlled by the private sector. Moreover, we will need rail and public transport to replace private cars if we are going to even begin to address climate change seriously. So, this will require coherent and sustainable transport policy and this will not happen if rail and other public transport is not under national control or socialised.

ACM: On Reproductive Justice, the dangers of Malthusianism, Neo-Malthusianism and Social Policy

NY brit expat

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday August 06, 2023 · 3:00 PM PDT

2023/08/06 · 15:00

Sometimes you need to return to the past in order to understand some of the issues of the present. There have been several things that have come together recently in terms of social policy and discussions among environmentalists that have their roots in very old theories (despite their flaws, incoherence and lack of evidence). The influence of these theories has persisted for a very long time and has had repercussions since they were first advanced and are still utilised today and they continue to be used as a hammer against the working class, especially women, and especially disabled women and women of colour.

Several of these arguments have united together in a web of racism and misogyny that still plays a role in divide and conquer ideology advanced by mainstream politicians and economists. We can find its influence historically in discussions about birth control, sterilisation abuse, eligibility for welfare benefits and now recently in overpopulation arguments blaming the climate crisis on poor women that have too many children. What is a consistent thread in these arguments, is that it is not the exploitation and oppression of the capitalist economic system, nor its need for constant growth, capital accumulation and profitability (also known as the laws of motion of the capitalist system), but rather it is the fault of the exploited and most oppressed and marginalised populations.

Some Historical Theories (Classical theories of Poverty and wages and Malthus’s Principle of Population)

One of these theories has its roots way back at the end of the 18^th Century; an economist by the name of Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus put forward a doctrine which shifted the responsibility for poverty away from the capitalist economic system onto the backs of the poor themselves. The term poor referred to those people that do not own wealth meaning that they are dependent upon wage income earned through sale of their ability to labour. Called “An Essay on The Principle of Population” (it went through several editions which expanded the original argument), Malthus articulated several points all of which unfortunately have had a lasting (and pernicious) contribution to discussions on wages and poverty. When united with the theory of rent in the later editions of the Essay, Malthus was able to argue that poverty was not a social thing deriving from capitalism and the lack of ownership of property and means of production; rather it derived from nature itself and it could only be combatted by a change in the actions of the poor (who were of course responsible for their own poverty). Moreover, Malthus’s theory of wages was appended onto the Classical Economic theory of wages (adding inconsistencies to the theory itself) and was carried over into the later wages-fund doctrine of the post-Ricardians like J.R McCulloch and Nassau Senior who further developed this argument and which was easily appropriated and utilised by early Austrian marginalists.

Let’s start with Adam Smith who preceded Malthus and we can see how Malthus altered the discussion of wages and poverty.

In The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith puts forward the first coherent Bourgeois understanding of the nature of the capitalist economic system. The theory of wages articulated by Adam Smith recognised that unemployment was part and parcel of the capitalist system; specifically, the level of employment depended on both the level of accumulation of capital to set labour into motion and the techniques of production in use. Techniques of production in use by capitalists, depended upon the wages and rate of profits, the level of output needed given the demand for the commodities and knowledge of available techniques themselves which is taken as known by capitalists.

In terms of wages, Smith argued that there was an historically and socially determined level of subsistence wages which itself depended upon what were the recognised needs of the society that workers and their families needed to produce and reproduce their class. This is important, Smith argued that this subsistence level of wages was the floor to which wages could sink and that they were socially determined; this was not conceived of as a biological subsistence level. So, if there was a temporary crisis (e.g., short term harvest failures, drought, famine) the market of wages (wages earned in the labour market) could fall a bit to biological level, but could not be eroded further and that the historical subsistence level would be restored once the crisis ran its course. Smith also argued that with economic growth and the use of technology leading to the increased productivity of labour could mean that workers would actually be able to get higher wages above the subsistence level (this means that the natural level of wages – the average level of wages actually paid – would rise above the subsistence level of wages) and if it persisted, the subsistence level of wages and the commodities now consumed would rise as this would be recognised by society as the new subsistence wage bundle and level of commodities.

Essentially Malthus argued that rather than the insufficient accumulation of capital to employ workers and the lack of stability in the capitalist system, and the lack of wealth of the poor being responsible for the poverty of the poor, instead it was the actions of the poor themselves that created their own poverty. According to Malthus, subsistence wages (which are strictly biological subsistence wages in his theory or it doesn’t work even in the inanity of his argument) are determined by the supply (level of working population) and the demand (the capital available for the employment of labour) for labour.

So, Malthus argued two things fundamental points. The only way to impact the level of wages of workers either had to operate on these two things. Either the supply of labour had to be constrained or capital accumulation needed to be increased. Malthus does not believe in birth control (note the Reverend in front of his name and the fact that he is writing in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; unfortunately some things do not change over time). Positive constraints (excepting birth control) mean that workers are less dissolute and overwhelmed by their inherent sexuality (this is probably the early basis for sexual abstinence nonsense we see from the right-wing Christians for the past 30 years). This way population increases are more closely matching to increases in capital accumulation designed for the employment of labour.

This discussion on capital accumulation is further developed by James Mill in the last edition of Elements of Political Economy who actually argued that it was easier to increase population than capital and was the first to argue that capital derives from capitalists abstaining from consumption (this is the beginning of the abstinence theory of capital) and hence was difficult to increase – yes, it is nonsensical, but it became a major point to justify the right of capitalists to earn profits and still exists in modern economic theory with a beautiful mathematical model to sustain the ridiculous argument where capital is deferred consumption.

Returning to Malthus’s principle of population and labour supply again, according to Malthus, attempts to alleviate the poverty of the working class were doomed to failure because if you increased wages by redistribution for example or an exogenous increase in wages, workers would breed uncontrollably and that increase in population would force wages back to the biological subsistence level (never mind that it takes some time for children to grow up to be used as workers, figure 7 years at that time as children did work which would mean if the economy continued to grow there would be no problem with insufficient levels of capital). This is called Malthus’s “Iron law of Wages” – subsistence wages are biologically determined and we cannot change them. The addition of the theory of differential rent of which Malthus was a main exponent although not the inventor, allows Malthus to add another constraint. According to Malthus’s version of the theory of differential rent, the amount of fertile land that can be used for the production of agricultural production is limited by nature, as such, increasing the amount of agricultural production is limited to an arithmetic increase as we are forced to use lesser and lesser fertilities of land to produce agriculture production. Since humans cannot control their inherent need to breed, if there is increase production of food production for workers’ consumption, workers will continue to breed; Malthus argues that population increases rise geometrically.

This means (according to the “Dirty Reverend” as Marx calls him) that human population increase will outstrip the ability of agricultural production to satisfy these needs. This leads to the negative constraints on overpopulation, meaning wars, famines, diseases, etc will arise which will lower human population to bring the population (and remember this is the working class) back to consistency both with the biological subsistence level of wages and agricultural production (food). There is much wrong with Malthus’s argument, Godwin discusses methodological problems of Malthus generalising from what are specific examples in the book, there is also the obvious fact that all demographic evidence is contrary to his predictions; we can see historically that the more wage incomes people have, the less children they have and that we do not breed out of control and that wage incomes are at not biological subsistence level unless persistent droughts, famines, etc occur.

His analysis although inconsistent with limited or little analytical and historical evidence of course served an important role; it naturalised the poverty of the working class rather than putting responsibility on the capitalist economic system where it belongs and this also have had a lasting impact on discussions of overpopulation and the responsibility of the poor for their own poverty removing and obfuscating the truth that the capitalist economic system is responsible for poverty.

Once the obvious solution to Malthus’s overpopulation nonsense was appended to the theory by the liberal-reformer Francis Place to call for birth control for the “poor” to prevent both the “permanent and natural” poverty of the poor, this heralded the birth of neo-Malthusianism which still places the issue of overpopulation at its centre and the dangers of overpopulation for the planet. It should be noted that Place advocated using contraceptives despite fathering 15 children of his own; as such, the problem is the poor having children not those with wealth and power, despite their working-class origins.

On its own, arguing for access to birth control is excellent as it offers choice to women in terms of if, when and how many children they have. What is not good and is oppressive is linking birth control, sterilisation and abortion to coercion and that is the danger we have found ourselves in time and time again. Place’s argument was not advocating for all women to have access to birth control; this was specifically aimed at working class women to limit their reproduction and hence to prevent their poverty; but the reality is poverty is the cause of overpopulation, not vice versa.

Moreover, the historical linkage between the birth control movements in the US and UK and the eugenics movement in the early 20^th century reinforced the argument relating the misery of poverty with having too many children; we can see this discussion underlying the sterilisation abuse of poor women (initially poor white women and then women of colour through the social welfare state) and disabled women and also the linkage to benefits being tied to use of birth control. This is the reason that we must discuss reproductive justice rather than simply reproductive rights.

That has been the basis of eugenics policies used against oppressed and exploited minorities (from indigenous populations, to poor white women and disabled people to women of colour, and still in use against disabled women). Whenever eugenics raises its ugly head, disabled people take the first hits. This was clearly the case with benefit policy in Britain, with the Nazi genocides, and with the coronavirus pandemic where disabled people died in far higher numbers than those without impairments in all waves of the pandemic. Now, the Tories have decided to once again force disabled people back into employment to address “the labour shortage” – in their minds disabled people are “living off the generousness of society without contributing” – the same thing applies to women who cannot access childcare and cannot work.

Social policy trying to limit both the cost of welfare benefits to the state and access to benefits for poor women are essentially the same as social policies linking receipt of benefits to contraceptives and forced sterilisation. State and government eugenics policies already had impacted indigenous women in the US who were often sterilised after giving birth. The creation of a social welfare state gave the state further access and control over women’s reproductive choices and the possibility of linking this to release from prison, access to birth control and sterilisation abuse. Unfortunately, this is not just an historical discussion; the whole debate on overpopulation and climate change reeks of neo-Malthusianism and places the fault for the planetary climate crisis on the backs of poor women especially women of colour in the global south rather than on the capitalist economic system which is responsible for destruction of the planet and the climate. It is the capitalist economic system which needs to be eliminated, not the choices of people that can get pregnant.

The recognition of the right of bodily autonomy for those that can get pregnant, access to contraceptives, abortion and choice as well as health care (reproductive and regular health care), education, housing, drinking water and having more wage income will prevent poverty and give people more choices in life. We want and need choices and blaming the most marginalised and trying to coerce the most marginalised in the global capitalist economy is the last thing we should be arguing.

Austerity and Poverty

It is useful to explore the use of Malthusian arguments still existent in social policies today and to do this, I will discuss social and economic policies of the Tory-Liberal Democrat government and the Tory government.

During the introduction of Austerity following the 2007-2008 crisis, whose purpose was to push the costs of the Banking crisis onto the working class, the Tory-Liberal Democratic government put a freeze on public sector wages from 2010-2012 unless wages were below £21,000 (public sector wages were higher than in the private sector) and then put a cap of 1% on public sector wage increases which lasted from 2013-2017. It was only in 2021 that private sector wages passed the public sector and then came the pandemic … this impoverishment of the working class was a deliberate policy of the Tory party government.

The government also introduced a change in the benefits system which was pushed forward by Iain Duncan Smith. The creation of the Universal Credit was predicated upon the idea that those on benefits were lazy and dissolute and didn’t want to work and were taking advantage of the “generosity of the British people” and government and must be forced back to work. As part of the changes in the benefits system, a maximum benefit cap (introduced in 2013) was placed on how much you could receive if you were not employed and sanctions were used to punish those who refused to work in paid employment. They also introduced a system of workfare (thank you again to the US for this pile of crap) which was essentially treated as training to learn to work and for which you received benefits which are far lower than wages; this notion of less eligibility (which has survived the demise of the Poor Law in the early 20th Century) that those in paid work must receive more than those on benefits comes from Jeremy Bentham and is an essential component of Universal Credit.

The attack on disabled people was extremely strong; first eliminating the Independent Living Fund and then subjecting disabled people to a series of assessments to ascertain whether they were disabled enough to get benefits. These assessments were conducted by companies whose goal was to get as many off of benefits as possible, resulting in the impoverishment of many disabled people who were able to get benefits again following appeals, but in the meantime, until appeals come through they had little (if there were saving) or nothing to survive on.

In many senses, Universal Credit had a two-fold target: 1) reduce the spending on social welfare while forcing the “lazy” workers back into work; 2) undermine the social subsistence level of income as the amount received as benefits was below the social subsistence level of income itself. We can now argue (since it is obvious) given the impact of Universal Credit, that benefits now simply serve as a way to pay workers lower wages as wages are essentially supplemented by the benefits system. Given the destruction of working conditions due to privatisation and zero hours contracts used in the private sector, they have created a whole class of the working poor unable to survive on wages and with a limited social net to help when the inevitable economic crisis arrives; this is the race to the bottom justified by the “nature of competition” under capitalism.

Additionally, there were two special programmes that were part of the system which especially targeted women. In earlier forms of benefits, women were given the benefits (this was a victory) towards women’s financial independence and because women ensured that money would be spent on children’s necessities. Universal Credit changed this and the benefit money was given to the highest income earner in the household. Given the lack of access to childcare, the fact that women have to work around school hours (if their children are in school) in several part-time jobs; this means that women will not be the highest income earners in the family unless they are single parents. While you can ask that benefits be given to women, this is not necessarily easy or straightforward if you are from a more traditional culture in which men are more dominant, are in an abusive relationship, or are simply uncomfortable or unable to cope well with dealing with bureaucracy.

There is a second programme that is even more pernicious and that is the two-child maximum benefit cap introduced in 2017. Despite everyone at the time saying that this policy would lead to both an increased level of both relative and absolute child poverty, this policy installed a cap on how much child benefit you could receive (if you were not in work), specifically only two of your children would be eligible for benefits. This is the case unless your third child was conceived as a part of rape (sound familiar?) or was part of a multiple birth. This appalling programme has led to a massive increase in poverty especially for larger sized families and as expected, women themselves have decreased their food consumption to ensure that their children get enough food and necessities,so whole families have been impoverished due to this policy.

A study released in July 2023 on the impact of both the benefit cap and the two-child maximum policy discussing the impact of the two-child maximum on large size families, As discussed in the Guardian:

“The research, published on Monday morning by academics from the Universities of York, Oxford and LSE found both the two-child limit and the benefit cap had failed to meet their own stated aims, having had no positive incentive effect on employment, nor produced a reduction in fertility among poorer families.

The benefit cap, first implemented in 2013, places a cap on the amount a household can receive in benefits if they have no, or low, earnings, with the average household losing £50 a week. The two-child limit was introduced in 2017 – an estimated 32,000 households containing 110,000 children were affected by both policies at the same time in March 2022.

Ethnic minority and larger families were disproportionately likely to be hit by the two-child limit and benefit cap, typically leaving them unable to afford essential items for their children, such as food, clothes and heating, with a consequent negative effect on children’s emotional and physical development, the study found.”

Up until very recently, the Labour Party, women’s groups, groups working against poverty, etc (essentially anyone with a basic sense of morality) has condemned this appalling piece of legislation and called for its elimination; just removing it will relieve child poverty and the poverty of single parent homes immediately. According to the Guardian, the estimated costs of removing the policy will cost £1.3 billion. Now that the Tories are hopefully looking to be on their way out, it was expected that the Labour Party would eliminate this. It now turns out that this will not be the case; this was announced by both Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves (the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer) the excuse being that they don’t want to say they will eliminate it as they do not know if they have the money given the state of the British economy. Really, if the most impoverished actually have enough money to survive (it is shown that they end up £3000 in debt a year in the report) would that not be good for the economy? How does not decreasing child poverty benefit the British economy? There are some obvious ways to cover the cost of removing this appalling policy: a wealth tax targeting those with more than 1 home and significant amounts of financial assets; a financial transaction tax could also be a good suggestion; another obvious target is to switch subsidies for the fossil fuel industries to cover the costs of eliminating the two-child benefit maximum). It never ceases to amaze me that there is “no magic money tree” until it is needed for wars, covering emergencies, or payoffs to corps, etc.

The Cost-of Living Crisis in Britain and the “battle” against inflation

The cost-of-living crisis in Britain has further undermined wage incomes (i.e., wages + benefits); it is not only the price of fossil fuel and electricity which have risen (and these were the only things that were covered partially and inadequately by the Tories package to deal with rising inflation), it is the price of food, clothing and other necessities that have risen and continue to rise.

The rising prices in the cost of living derived from several things. The primary one is the breakage of supply chains during the pandemic. Additionally, there is the fact that rising fuel prices have led to increasing transport costs (used for distribution of commodities and services) and the fact that rising fuel and energy costs have also increased production costs as it is an intermediate product in the production of most goods. The third cause, which is specific to Britain and is the reason that inflation is continuing to be high is due to Brexit (which is a continuing problem for supply chains) and the obvious fact that somehow the Tories did not understand is that Britain is not food sovereign; we import large amounts of food consumed in Britain. Tariffs due to leaving the EU will add to costs, buying food goods from further afield will increase transportation costs. Finally, there is climate change which has impacted food production in Europe and elsewhere which has also led to a rise in price of food which is being passed onto the working class.

Moreover, the attempts by all Central Banks to address inflation was increases in the rate of interest. While this may be an appropriate response to a demand driven inflation; that is an overheating economy where increasing consumer and business demand is driving up prices and you want to cool off the economy by increasing interest rates to encourage savings; it does nothing for inflation that derives from breaks in supply chains.

That honestly requires that the breaks in supply chains that initially caused the crisis (and which is then continuing as the fossil fuel industry reaps record profits) are re-established. It will also require caps placed on price increases which are all going to profits (it is far easier to do that than to directly regulate profits, but profits can be capped or even better excess profits taxed at a very high marginal rate of taxation which will reduce incentives for capitalists to increase profitability so high that they fall into a high marginal tax rate). What we need to understand is that inflation is a direct class warfare between wages and profits; we need to protect workers not the ruling class — instead what is happening is the converse.

What increases in the rate of interests do is increase the cost of borrowing which is what most businesses (especially small and medium size businesses who don’t have capital on hand) run on; they borrow and then pay off when the goods are sold. However, with costs rising due to rising borrowing, that is then passed on to consumers if it is possible. If not possible to pass onto consumers, then they will borrow less as the costs of borrowing are too prohibitive and that means that there is a decrease in production. What else runs on borrowing? The housing and rental market. Increases in the rate of interest mean increases in mortgage payments unless you have a fixed term mortgage; if these are rental properties, the owners of property will increase rents. Even if the mortgages are paid off, they will still try to raise rents to cash in on the increase in prices. Borrowing to buy a home is more expensive meaning that people are less willing to take out a mortgage because they do not know how the rates will change and they do not want to get trapped in a fixed-term mortgage. Consumer costs of borrowing either loans or using credit cards also increase with rising rates of interest. It is interesting that while banks have quickly moved to increase the rates of interest on borrowing, they have yet to increase interest payments on money in interest-bearing accounts as quickly (please do not tell me you are surprised!).

What the purposes of increases in interest rates do, as said above, is to cool down a capitalist economy; they encourage savings, not investment. So, they actually present a far greater danger to an economy which is stagnant (like the British economy) and they will not address the causes of inflation; this is because they lead to a decrease in investment and economic growth, which can lead to a recession. While the British economy is not technically in recession, it’s stagnated. Moreover, the long-term wage income stagnation which was how the costs of austerity were forced onto the working class has led to the working class again bearing the brunt of another economic crisis.

You literally hear on every MSM about the danger of increased wages making inflation worse and workers were asked not to demand wage increases for the “good of the country” … in other words, for the good of British capitalism. But the reality is the working class have little or nothing to give up; their incomes were already too low relative to costs in this country. Now, prices of necessary consumption goods continue to remain high, the working class has nothing left to give up, food banks are in regular use for those in paid labour, and while the public sector trade unions continue to strike for better wages (and are still getting below inflation offers), those in private sector employment are mostly non-unionised, those dependent upon benefits are in serious crisis as they need to get both higher wages and benefits and once again it is the poorest and most marginalised that are paying for a capitalist economic crisis and being told to do so for their country. To add to the mess, it looks like the Labour Party is not going to help those in desperate need despite their saying they are the party of the working class. Alas, they are more concerned with winning over the right-wing to the LP for the election, not actually serving the interests of the working class. What else is new?!

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