An unhealthy economy (2012)

On December 19th. federal Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, dropped a bombshell by informing Canada’s provincial governments that the annual six per cent increases in health transfers will not be guaranteed by Ottawa after 2016. Instead of six per cent, the increase will be tied to the rate of economic growth and inflation that Flaherty predicts will be in the four per cent range. What genius! In this guy we have another economic expert who knows exactly where the economy will be years from now!

Reaction from provincial ministers was immediate and furious. Ontario Finance Minister, Dwight Duncan, said, “The anger among my colleagues was absolutely palpable. There is no agreement. It’s a unilateral federal offer. Our Christmas present this year is a lump of coal. This gives us certainty all right - certainty that health care is being undermined. This is an attack on public health care.” Manitoba’s Finance Minister, Stan Strothers, was incensed by the high-handed actions of the federal government, “I’m open to any discussion on any angle in terms of the whole ball of wax of transfers - equalization, health, social transfers. I’m open to speaking with the minister on any of that. We didn’t have that today. This was very unilateral.”

Ontario Premier, Dalton Mcguinty, was expecting to negotiate with Prime Minister Harper, “The federal Conservative Party did, during the election, make a commitment to six per cent and I expect them to honour that, but it’s going to take more than just new dollars. It’s going to take accountability, it’s going to take reforms, it’s going to take targets, and we’ll have to hold our-selves to account for bringing about improvement.”

During the last election the Conservatives ‘suggested’ that, if elected, they would continue with the annual six per cent in creases. Some would say it’s just another example of a party making vote-winning promises they had no intention of keeping. Others might argue that a broken promise doesn’t necessarily mean insincerity, but that, once elected, the hard, cold realities of administering capitalism force politicians to compromise with their good intentions. Either way, it means the same thing - the working class, who voted the government into power, will suffer.

Ottawa claims that with transfers at nearly $27 billion per year, it cannot continue with the increases. Since the Conservative Party stands for the continuation of capitalism, once elected, it becomes the executive committee of the capitalist class, grappling with capitalism’s multiplicity of problems while trying to manage the system in the interests of the owners of capital. At present, Ottawa has a $31 billion budget deficit which Harper, Flaherty and company have to reduce. As Flaherty said, “We all realize that public finances relate to revenues and we can’t pretend to spend money we don’t have.” Here we have a ridiculous situation where those who try to run capitalism at a provincial level are getting shafted by those who try to run it at the federal level. This would all be hilarious were the effects of their actions not so serious on the ordinary worker. Those who need health care will not always be able to access it. The absurdity of it all is emphasized by McGuinty’s coments about the need for reforms.

The most significant question of all is ‘can this problem be dealt with in capitalism?’ Can you have access to the health system when needed while leaving the fundamentals of the capitalist system in tact? Socialists do not oppose reforms, some of which, like medicare, are of benefit to the working class. What we do not do is advocate them because we have something better to advocate. What we do is point out the nature of the capitalist system and how their benefits are mostly temporary. Medicare is beneficial to the capitalist class also. In Britain, in 1939, when many thousands of young men were drafted for the war, it was found that an alarming percentage were not fit ‘to fight for king and country’ after a decade of depression era unemployment and poor nutrition. Hence the British Health Act of 1948. Many called it ‘The Back To Work Act’, implying, correctly, it was to repair an injured worker so he could return all the sooner to be exploited. As early as 1951, this great reform was in trouble with the addition of some prescription charges (initially free) being added. Now everyone agrees the system is in a mess with the government contracting out services and allowing a parallel private system. So much for the permanence of reforms!

Here in Canada, we are all aware how the quality of health care has declined and will do so even further with the reduction on transfers to the provinces. Emergency waiting times have increased with too few physicians on hand; patients wait longer for operations and are often sent home too soon because beds are needed; some of our best medical specialists go into the private sector or to another country for higher pay; many nurses are employed part-time on contract where they are paid less and have few benefits. It is about to get worse. It’s a case of starving the system of adequate funds to help usher in a private system and a decades-long policy of reducing taxes (and thereby increasing the portion of the surplus-value that goes to profits) leaving all governments to do nothing but cut programs, including health.

There is only one answer, the democratic ownership and management of the whole system of producing and distributing wealth. This would necessarily mean the abolition of money and the production of goods and services to meet the real needs of the whole community. In such a system, all will contribute according to their abilities and take from the common pool whatever they need. There will be no barrier for anyone seeking medical care or anything else of the necessities of life. That will no longer depend on the size of one’s bank account. That is socialism and it is ready to be implemented now. Are you ready to work for it?

What's the Difference! (2012)

Many who read this will have seen the Dragon’s Den/Shark Tank on TV, but for those who haven’t, it’s a program that harks back to medieval times. Supplicants come and apply to a group of millionaires for loans in return for a part ownership in their business. The premise is that since all these millionaires started from nothing, so can the supplicant, and therefore capitalism must be the best of all systems. As if being successful in business, and many fail, can justify a system that causes envi- ronmental destruction, war, alienation, racism, and many others.

Foremost among these millionaires, called sharks or dragons, is the ever-acerbic Kevin O’Leary. This businessman views everything from one angle only, ‘How much money can I make’. A classic O’Leary quote is, “The only warm, fuzzy feeling I get is at the end of the month when I count the money.” He once told a prospective business partner, “There’s something nasty about you and I like it.” When a loan applicant mentions that a product is environmentally friendly or ethically sound, he usually says something like, ‘I don’t care about that, I only care about how much money I will make. ’

Now O’Leary has his own show, “Redemption Inc.” where a group of would-be entrepreneurs are given a series of business- related tests in which they compete to sell the most products or assist those who do. This can be as varied as cleaning cars at an auto-dealers or stopping dog walkers to push grooming services. The show is run on similar lines to Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice”, but with the difference that the ‘apprentices’ are ex-convicts. When the idea was first pitched to him, O’Leary made his only - to a socialist anyway - hilarious comment, “Are you out of your mind? I’m running a financial services company, I can’t get involved with criminals!” One may well wonder about the difference, especially when one ex-con, commenting on life in the slammer, said, “To survive you’ve got to be a move ahead of the other guy. You have to figure where he’s coming from and going to”.

O’Leary, after being won over, expressed it best and with his usual subtlety, “If you are a drug dealer, for example, you’ve got logistics, you’ve got distribution issues, you’re dealing with marketing, finance, and sales. You’re a real businessman, you should be running Fed-Ex.” Perhaps, though he didn’t say it, they would have done just fine running the financial companies that caused the sub-prime mortgage disaster. In one respect there is nothing subtle about Redemption Inc. It’s basic premise is that anyone can make it in capitalism, even those who have sinned against it.

Capitalism’s legal system exists primarily to protect for the capitalist class the wealth they have stolen from the working class, their surplus-value, i.e. that value the workers have produced over and above what they get paid, in other words, legal theft. It is money the capitalist class takes without advancing anything. To this end, the whole legal apparatus of laws, courts, lawyers, police, and the armed services exists. It is well to remember that on some occasions these very armed services are used to break strikes and public demonstrations such as the G20 demonstrations in Toronto. As far as I know, they have never forced a company that has locked out its workers to reopen, or to continue to bargain in good faith. The fact that a policeman may catch the thief who stole a workingman’s wallet is purely incidental. It’s laughable to think that the capitalist class would devise such a set-up to protect the property of the working slob.

Those members of the working class who violate capitalism’s laws and get caught must pay the price that may include a stretch in jail. Most ‘crimes’ are those caused by poverty and need, perceived or otherwise. So it becomes clear that there are two kinds of theft. An employer may legally steal the products made by the worker, or, more accurately, the surplus-value those products contain, but if one of the employees walks out with a product he has made, or helped to make, he would be arrested and prosecuted. Most companies have security guards and surveillance systems for this purpose.

Some may argue that capitalists themselves are accused, tried, convicted, and imprisoned and certainly the likes of Garth Drabinsky, Conrad Black, and Bernie Madoff are prime examples. Though the legal system in every country exists to keep the working class in its place, it has a secondary purpose. The law has to ensure the smooth running of business as a whole and therefore regulates dealings between capitalists. Though the above-mentioned hurt a lot of little guys, they also hurt some big ones. Whether a thief is inside jail or outside, theft is theft. As socialists, we advocate a world where the tools of production and the world’s wealth are held in common and where all humankind may take from the common pool of goods and services, as needed, for a full and happy life. In such a world, theft would not exist, nor, obviously would a program like “Redemption Inc.”. In fact, a man like Kevin O’Leary would lead a constructive and useful life.

2011 - The Year of Revolution (2012)

By all standards, 2011 will go down as a remarkable year of unrest, uprising, demonstration, and change. The Arab Spring seemingly burst out of nowhere, catalyzed by a street vendor’s self- immolation in Tunisia. That led to mass demonstrations that unseated the country’s leader. That spark ignited strong and dogged demonstrations in Egypt in Tahrir Square, in Cairo, that continued until President Mubarek was forced to relinquish power. Then across the Middle East, oppressed peoples rose in their turn to rid themselves of their own dictators - in Yemen, in Bahrain, in Syria, in Libya. Some have not been successful but are ongoing. Rebels in Libya were fortunate to receive air and weapons support from NATO as civil war broke out. At the time of writing, the situation in Syria is dire for the protestors facing the tanks and guns of the army.

A few things have become clear. All these countries were suffering from world economic conditions that meant high unemployment, especially among the youth, and a sharp rise in food prices that made it difficult, even for those lucky enough to have work, to put food on the table. Parents don’t tolerate seeing their kids go hungry for long without acting. They had, of course, put up with brutal dictator- ships, secret police, torture, and absolutely no say in the way their countries are run for decades. It was a recipe for disaster, an uprising waiting to happen, and we salute the courage shown by the men and women of those countries.

What were the results? In Tunisia and Egypt, the people have been forced to take to the streets again to force interim leadership to get on with the job of establishing democracy. In Egypt, the army is in firm control. It could easily have crushed the uprising but the generals chose to get Mubarek out of the way. In Libya, the NATO assistance ensured the fall and death of the Khadafi regime. The presence of oil in that country may have had something to do with NATO’s involvement. Khadafi was a loose canon and oil supplies, dwindling as they are, need a steady and reliable supply. It’s even better if those supplies can be controlled by Western capitalists. The struggles in Yemen and Syria continue without result so far. Probably the best result that can be hoped for, under the circumstances, is for the establishment of some kind of limited democracy. Socialism - common ownership, free access etc - has never been brought forward, although, presumably, socialist parties will be able to organize where the knowledge and will arise.

Lessons that come out of the Arab Spring so far are 1) that uprisings, no matter how popular, have little chance against the guns and tanks of the state without outside help or the mass defection of state troops. In countries with universal suffrage, it is better to use the legal parliamentary system, which, by the way, ensures a majority with legitimacy to establish socialism 2) the domino effect that created uprisings in several countries proves the power of social networking and modem tech- nology which can grease the wheels of capitalism’s slide into oblivion once the people want socialism3) socialism cannot be established unless there is class consciousness among the masses and it is an articulated goal.

The second event of note was, and is, the Occupy Movement. Although most of the Occupy sites have been cleared, the movement continues. Like the Arab uprisings, Occupy appears to have occurred through spontaneous combustion, thanks again to modern technology. Occupy sites appeared almost simultaneously all over the world, all with the same slogan, “We are the ninety-nine per cent”. This does prove socialists right when we say a socialist revolution and its ideas would not be confined to one country or region but would spread like a virus throughout the world. National borders may be armed to the teeth and policed 24/7 to keep people in or out, but they cannot contain and stifle ideas or electronic signals.

A pleasing aspect of Occupy, at least the one we visited, was the socialist-like organization - no leaders, and therefore no followers, decisions made democratically through elected committees, and daily discussions of the topics in a public forum - more or less as we see a socialist world working. Although individual opinions vary among the rank and file, Occupy does not understand, nor promote, socialism. They appear to see the major problem as the great and growing gulf between the 1% and the 99%. Focus on this aspect of capitalism, a natural consequence of the capitalist mode of production, has led to solutions to reduce the gap when it really has to be eliminated altogether. It’s not good enough to simply expect to finish up with less poor and less rich and leave the system that demands that there be a gap in tact. All inequality - economic, political, racial, gender must end. Given that, it must be quite obvious that we haven’t had equality of access to necessary goods and services since the advent of private property. As soon as surplus grain became available in the first agrarian revolution ten thousand years ago, someone grabbed it as theirs by force or cunning and inequality was born and continued through the slave empires, through feudalism, and into our present economic system. So we have a system that is based on inequality - owners and non-owners, employers and employees, capitalists and workers. Inequality has been around a long time but that doesn’t mean it must or will last forever. It must be obvious if we think this through to its logical conclusion that we must simply get rid of private property, the private monopoly of creating and distributing wealth.

Common ownership of the world’s resources and their use for producing necessary goods and free access for all mankind to all these goods, as needed, will necessarily end inequality. There won’t be owners and classes any more - we will all be owners!

Obituary: General Secretary Don Poirier (2002)

Don contacted the Party in 1956/58 in Victoria, BC while on shore leave from the Royal Canadian Navy. The local paper had published an interview with SPGB member Gilbert McLatchie (Gilmac) who was on a North American speaking tour. It also announced a meeting that the Victoria local was holding for Gilmac that evening. Don attended with Ruby, one of his sisters.

He consumed the first volume of "Capital" three times during his next naval tour in 1959. Within two years he became very active, running as the Party's candidate in the 1961 Esquimalt/ Saanich federal by-election. It not being a general contest, the Party got coast-to- coast media coverage. After organizing a tour of the US and Canada, he helped the Victoria local to pressure city coun-cil to establish a "speaker's corner" in Beacon Hill Park. He did the same with the Vancouver local for the Brockton Oval in Stanley Park.

Don worked for Duthies book stores before moving to the forest industry. He loved books and had a bookstore of his own. Don also worked as an independent logger. He became curator of the Forest Museum in Duncan, BC. He fought to better labour conditions while he was a member of the Industrial Workers of America union. He made important safety gains and was instrumental in getting pension rights for all. In the 1970s, Don ran against Jack Munroe for the presidency of the 50,000-member IWA union.

Don died 8 October 2001. The socialist movement has lost an outstanding worker.

Our condolences go out to Don's family, friends, and comrades.