by Daphne Lawless, editor
Editorial from UNITY Journal: Bad Banks: what are the alternatives?
December 2009
A criticism often made of the radical left in this day and age is: “what is your alternative?” With the ruling class offensive against our living standards and the planet which started in the 1970s still going on, so much of our political practice is necessarily negative – protesting, fighting back, resisting. It is sometimes easy to forget that the struggle for a new world needs a positive – a program of concrete demands, based in the here and now, which point the way to what a better world might look like.
This issue of UNITY is an attempt to start the process of doing this for the Bad Banks campaign. If the banks are greedy, corporate vandals, who distort our society’s economic decision-making for their own profit, promote ecological vandalism and wreck lives and communities in the process... then what else might be done?
As socialists, we believe in the “transitional method”. It’s no good dreaming up a “revolutionary” schema of what we’d like to see, and presenting it to the masses as a way forward. The response will be – and rightly so – “who do you think you are?” Marxism isn’t a series of eternal principles, handed down through the generations like religious commandments. It’s a science of analysing a concrete situation and drawing conclusions for political and social activism.
So – the question of what practically can and should be done, here and now, to fight the Bad Banks starts in a clear analysis of what is actually happening. And, as we explained in the last UNITY journal, one of the things that is actually happening is that the banks are losing credibility.
The banks know this better than anyone. The Australian-owned trading banks are frantically trying to make good PR for themselves – to make themselves look less like the corporate criminals they are.
So, Westpac suggests bringing back small “community branches” in suburbs and small towns – those same branches they closed wholesale in the 1990s. Meanwhile, the ASB (owned by Australia’s Commonwealth Bank since 1989) are trying to convince us all that they’ve been “a Kiwi bank since 1847”. By the time UNITY journal goes to press, Bad Banks protests will have been held outside ASB outlets to show this up for the shameless lie it is.
Interestingly enough, though, that piece of ASB spin shows that the state-owned KiwiBank is ruffling feathers. KiwiBank – which, even though owned by the state, acts more or less just like a private bank – has been conducting its own spin over the last couple of years. Its ad campaign suggests that choosing KiwiBank is like being part of some kind of “resistance movement” against Australian bank domination! The clear success of this pretend “revolutionary” branding suggests that the corporate marketing gurus have caught onto a serious revolt against the Bad Banks brewing at the grassroots. So of course, their goal is to harmlessly divert this resentment into making consumer choices which benefit their clients. And our goal has to be to reverse this process.
Even the mainstream parliamentary parties realise that the four Australian-owned trading banks are out of control – gouging the public with fees and exorbitant interest rates, and the whole nation with their tax-dodging schemes. Hence the recent “parliamentary enquiry” into the banks by the Opposition parties. Of course, all these parties – including, sadly, the Greens – have bought into the neo-liberal myth that There Is No Alternative to free-market capitalism. Given that, their enquiry was good for pointing out a few problems, but could come up with no real alternatives – except a forlorn hope that the slavering dogs of banking profit can be brought under control with a verbal ticking off.
Grant Morgan’s piece in this issue of UNITY on the “four legitimacies” should be read in the light of the corporate shenanigans detailed above. Grant says: "On a global scale both leaders and led are losing faith in capi-talism’s destiny, eroding the broad social consensus that the world system needs for survival beyond the short term."
The essence of the Bad Banks strategy, therefore, has to be to accelerate this disintegration of the legitimacy of capitalism. And the weak point of capitalism’s economic legitimacy in the world today, after the economic shocks and convulsions of the last couple of years, has to be the multinational financial institutions, which we call by the short-hand of Bad Banks. Vaughan Gunson's article in this issue sets out this strategy in further detail.
So this issue of UNITY canvasses the spectrum of alternatives to the current financial system. At the basis of all of these has to be a thorough rejection of the global system of human and ecological exploitation that is capitalism. The late Chris Harman put it very clearly, in his article reproduced in this issue: "[I]t is necessary to take control of those corporations and coordinate their investment decisions, subordinating them to the fulfilment of democratically decided priorities.
But this risks being abstract, divorced from the here-and-now. So, in New Zealand of the early 21st century, what does Socialist Worker suggest for concrete steps that could begin to create an alternative to Bad Banks? Here are just a few:
• A Financial Transactions Tax (also known as a “Tobin Tax”).
A tax on “hot money” zipping across national frontiers, wreaking untold social damage as it goes, would not only put more of the economic levers back in our own hands, but earn revenue that could help replace anti-worker taxes like GST. Vaughan Gunson's article mentions this, and Dean Barker from Britain's Centre for Economic Policy and Research develops the argument.
• Bail out bank workers, not bank bosses.
As it stands, we have the worst of both worlds – taxpayers pay through the nose to keep the banks afloat, but without any say in what they do next. FinSec, the union for bank workers in New Zealand, thinks this has to change. If we are paying to keep the banks in business, they argue, this means that “loan guarantees” for the corporates need to be matched with “job guarantees” for the workers. This just makes sense – a business which has dug itself such a huge hole should not be in a position to dictate its own terms as to how, or even whether, it gets bailed out.
We reproduce two position papers from FinSec, the main union for bank workers, and an interview with union secretary Andrew Campbell. What is particularly heartening about FinSec’s contribution is that the scope goes beyond the immediate interests of their members, to touch on what is good for NewZealand as a whole. Perhaps this is a sign of the new mood which Grant Brookes speaks of at the Council of Trade Unions conference – a growing willingness for unions to debate radical politcal and economic alternatives.
• Promote alternatives to corporate finance.
The “green dollar” system – where local communities create their own means of exchange – became very popular in New Zealand during the 1990s as a way to hold local economies together during the darkest times of “Ruthenasia” economic scorched-earth policies. Sue Bradford, in her speech to the Socialist Worker forum, promoted this idea, and we include an article from local currency advocate Deirdre Kent. However, since the Bad Banks are an international phenomenon, a patchwork of local solutions in peripheral areas can't be a total solution. So that's why we must...
• Create a “public option” against the Bad Banks.
In the US healthcare debate, this means creating state-owned health insurance to keep the private sector honest. Sadly, the Obama administration seems to have compromised away even this extremely minimal reform to predatory capitalism. But the principle of creating a socially-oriented corporation to compete with an unaccountable private sector is a good one.
In Venezuela, where an elected socialist government is entering its second decade in power, President Chávez is not letting the “banksters” rip his nation off. The Venezuelan government has over the last month closed down several banks which have been playing fast-and-loose with public funds. While the New Zealand government continues to bank with the tax dodgers at Westpac, the Bank of Venezuela has been nationalised, and financial power has been devolved to the “Community Financial Administrative Units” which have been set up in the neighbourhoods and villages of this Latin American nation. Venezuela shows that, even short of a complete overthrow of capitalism, a movement based on popular power can create reforms which not only make ordinary people's lives bette, but point the way forward to what a new and better world might look like.
But in all this, socialists must keep our heads, and keep things concrete. We print several arguments in this issue debunking assertions which often charge around as soon as the banks are criticised – ideas that fractional reserve banking or even paper currency itself is some kind of “scam” or “conspiracy”. This enables capitalism as a whole to wriggle off the hook, diverting public anger to some kind of imaginary elite.
This right-wing narrative has become hegemonic in the United States, and in the English-speaking internet, precisely because the USA is so desperately lacking a realistic socialist or even social-democratic voice. Bad Banks must put the concrete alternatives here and now to the pressing issues of “bankster” exploitation. But we must also make it clear that the whole system of corporate capitalism is the problem, not just the money side of things. We need a new economy from top to bottom, without corporate bosses or wage slavery, where wealth comes from the people and is spent by and for the people.
To purchase a copy of the 'Bad Banks: what are the alternatives?' contact Len, email organiser@sworker.pl.net, or phone (09)634 3984. Price is $5 plus postage.
To subscribe to UNITY Journal ($25 for four issues a year) contact Grant, grantmorgan@paradise.net.nz. Send a cheque made out to 'UNITY' to Box 13-685, Auckland, NZ, along with your postal details.
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Peter Boyle: 'It's time for the DSP to merge into the Socialist Alliance'
from LINKS - International Journal of Socialist Renewal
This report and summary, presented by Peter Boyle on behalf of the DSP National Executive, was adopted by the 24th DSP Congress on January 2, 2010.
We are proposing to take an important step forward in our party building effort, an effort that has now spanned some four decades. We propose, at this 24th Congress, to merge the Democratic Socialist Perspective into the Socialist Alliance, to take everything we have learned and built over these years of political struggle (organised through the DSP) into a broader political organisation, an organisation which has a majority of members who don't come from the DSP.
We see this as the next best step to advance our objective of building a mass revolutionary socialist party that is capable of organising the Australian working class to bring into being a socialist society through replacing the political rule of the capitalist class with a working people's government.
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Sights & sounds of climate justice protest in Wellington
by Grant Brookes
The collapse of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, aimed at reaching a binding deal on greenhouse gas emissions, has dismayed people around the world. But it has also made it clearer that we can't rely on business leaders and politicians to solve the problem. The finger pointing has already begun, as political leaders from different countries blame each other for the failure to reach a deal.
Conflict, rather than cooperation, was built into the talks from the start. The framework for negotiations was all about market mechanisms like emissions trading schemes, where businesses, nations and trading blocs try to secure competitive advantages over their rivals. Even if a deal had been reached at Copenhagen, it would not have been enough to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Emissions trading schemes – proposed by the National-led government and supported in principle by all the other parties in parliament except ACT, and by "Big Green" organisations like Greenpeace – simply allow corporations to pay for the right to cook the planet to death. Emissions trading schemes won't stop climate change and are unjust, shifting costs away from business and onto grassroots people and developing nations.
This was the message of 150 people who took to the streets in Wellington on the morning of Monday, December 21. The protesters included a group of "Radical Cheerleaders" and a samba band. They took aim at the root causes of climate change, disrupting business at the NZX stock exchange and scaling the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade building to unveil a banner, and were met by a group of counter-demonstrators claiming to belong to "Capitalism Represents Acceptable Policy" (C.R.A.P.).
The protest came at the culmination of the first Camp for Climate Action Aotearoa in Upper Hutt, where 200 people came together for five days of sustainable living, education, direct action and movement building. Climate Camps (there have been at least 19 worldwide this year) seek to address the real causes of climate change and build a people's movement that can stop it. "
After the inevitable failure of yet another UN climate summit, it should now be clearer than ever that the only people we can count on to stop runanaway climate change are ourselves", said Climate Camp participant Claire Dann.
"Just like the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, the UN climate talks are part of the problem, not the solution", added Gary Cranston. "Both put profit before people, both are infested with polluter friendly loopholes and as a result, neither are capable of achieving climate justice.
"Trading carbon credits is used to give people the impression that something is being done about climate change, when it actually isn't.
"Ordinary people have the power to stop the government and big business from throwing away our future for continued profit. We invite everybody in Aotearoa to come and join the global movement for climate justice that will address the climate crisis".
Turn up the sound and click on the slideshow below. This is what the movement looks like, and sounds like.
For more info, visit http://withoutyourwalls.wordpress.com/
The collapse of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, aimed at reaching a binding deal on greenhouse gas emissions, has dismayed people around the world. But it has also made it clearer that we can't rely on business leaders and politicians to solve the problem. The finger pointing has already begun, as political leaders from different countries blame each other for the failure to reach a deal.
Conflict, rather than cooperation, was built into the talks from the start. The framework for negotiations was all about market mechanisms like emissions trading schemes, where businesses, nations and trading blocs try to secure competitive advantages over their rivals. Even if a deal had been reached at Copenhagen, it would not have been enough to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Emissions trading schemes – proposed by the National-led government and supported in principle by all the other parties in parliament except ACT, and by "Big Green" organisations like Greenpeace – simply allow corporations to pay for the right to cook the planet to death. Emissions trading schemes won't stop climate change and are unjust, shifting costs away from business and onto grassroots people and developing nations.
This was the message of 150 people who took to the streets in Wellington on the morning of Monday, December 21. The protesters included a group of "Radical Cheerleaders" and a samba band. They took aim at the root causes of climate change, disrupting business at the NZX stock exchange and scaling the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade building to unveil a banner, and were met by a group of counter-demonstrators claiming to belong to "Capitalism Represents Acceptable Policy" (C.R.A.P.).
The protest came at the culmination of the first Camp for Climate Action Aotearoa in Upper Hutt, where 200 people came together for five days of sustainable living, education, direct action and movement building. Climate Camps (there have been at least 19 worldwide this year) seek to address the real causes of climate change and build a people's movement that can stop it. "
After the inevitable failure of yet another UN climate summit, it should now be clearer than ever that the only people we can count on to stop runanaway climate change are ourselves", said Climate Camp participant Claire Dann.
"Just like the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, the UN climate talks are part of the problem, not the solution", added Gary Cranston. "Both put profit before people, both are infested with polluter friendly loopholes and as a result, neither are capable of achieving climate justice.
"Trading carbon credits is used to give people the impression that something is being done about climate change, when it actually isn't.
"Ordinary people have the power to stop the government and big business from throwing away our future for continued profit. We invite everybody in Aotearoa to come and join the global movement for climate justice that will address the climate crisis".
Turn up the sound and click on the slideshow below. This is what the movement looks like, and sounds like.
For more info, visit http://withoutyourwalls.wordpress.com/
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Latest UNITY Journal - Bad Banks: What are the alternatives?
Société Générale Predicts Global Economic Collapse In Two Years Time
by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
22 December 2009
from Telegraph.co.uk
Société Générale has advised clients to be ready for a possible "global economic collapse" over the next two years, mapping a strategy of defensive investments to avoid wealth destruction.
In a report entitled "Worst-case debt scenario", the bank's asset team said state rescue packages over the last year have merely transferred private liabilities onto sagging sovereign shoulders, creating a fresh set of problems.
Overall debt is still far too high in almost all rich economies as a share of GDP (350pc in the US), whether public or private. It must be reduced by the hard slog of "deleveraging", for years.
"As yet, nobody can say with any certainty whether we have in fact escaped the prospect of a global economic collapse," said the 68-page report, headed by asset chief Daniel Fermon. It is an exploration of the dangers, not a forecast.
Under the French bank's "Bear Case" scenario (the gloomiest of three possible outcomes), the dollar would slide further and global equities would retest the March lows. Property prices would tumble again. Oil would fall back to $50 in 2010.
Governments have already shot their fiscal bolts. Even without fresh spending, public debt would explode within two years to 105pc of GDP in the UK, 125pc in the US and the eurozone, and 270pc in Japan. Worldwide state debt would reach $45 trillion, up two-and-a-half times in a decade.
(UK figures look low because debt started from a low base. Mr Ferman said the UK would converge with Europe at 130pc of GDP by 2015 under the bear case).
The underlying debt burden is greater than it was after the Second World War, when nominal levels looked similar. Ageing populations will make it harder to erode debt through growth. "High public debt looks entirely unsustainable in the long run. We have almost reached a point of no return for government debt," it said.
Inflating debt away might be seen by some governments as a lesser of evils.
If so, gold would go "up, and up, and up" as the only safe haven from fiat paper money. Private debt is also crippling. Even if the US savings rate stabilises at 7pc, and all of it is used to pay down debt, it will still take nine years for households to reduce debt/income ratios to the safe levels of the 1980s.
The bank said the current crisis displays "compelling similarities" with Japan during its Lost Decade (or two), with a big difference: Japan was able to stay afloat by exporting into a robust global economy and by letting the yen fall. It is not possible for half the world to pursue this strategy at the same time.
SocGen advises bears to sell the dollar and to "short" cyclical equities such as technology, auto, and travel to avoid being caught in the "inherent deflationary spiral". Emerging markets would not be spared. Paradoxically, they are more leveraged to the US growth than Wall Street itself. Farm commodities would hold up well, led by sugar.
Mr Fermon said junk bonds would lose 31pc of their value in 2010 alone. However, sovereign bonds would "generate turbo-charged returns" mimicking the secular slide in yields seen in Japan as the slump ground on. At one point Japan's 10-year yield dropped to 0.40pc. The Fed would hold down yields by purchasing more bonds. The European Central Bank would do less, for political reasons.
SocGen's case for buying sovereign bonds is controversial. A number of funds doubt whether the Japan scenario will be repeated, not least because Tokyo itself may be on the cusp of a debt compound crisis.
Mr Fermon said his report had electrified clients on both sides of the Atlantic. "Everybody wants to know what the impact will be. A lot of hedge funds and bankers are worried," he said.
Monday, 21 December 2009
Hugo Chávez writes on 'The battle of Copenhagen'
by Hugo Chávez Frías
Translated by Kiraz Janicke for Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
20 December 2009
I
Copenhagen was the scene of a historic battle in the framework of the 15th Conference of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (COP15). Better said, in the beautiful, snowy capital of Denmark, a battle began that did not end on Friday, December 18, 2009. I reiterate: Copenhagen was only the beginning of a decisive battle for the salvation of the planet. It was a battle in the realm of ideas and in praxis.Brazilian Leonardo Boff, a great liberation theologian and one of the most authoritative voices on environmental issues, in a key article, entitled What is at stake in Copenhagen?, wrote these words full of insight and courage: What can we expect from Copenhagen? At least this simple confession: We cannot continue like this. And a simple proposition: Let’s change course.
And for that reason, precisely, we went to Copenhagen to battle for a change of course on behalf of Venezuela, on behalf of the Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA), and moreover, in defence of the cause of humanity and to speak, with President Evo Morales, in defence of the rights of Pachamama, of Mother Earth.
Evo, who together with yours truly, had the responsibility to be a spokesperson for the Bolivarian Alliance, wisely said: What this debate is about, is whether we are going to live or we are going to die.
All eyes of the world were concentrated on Copenhagen: the 15th Conference on Climate Change allowed us to gauge the fibre we are made of, where hope lies and what can we do to establish what the Liberator Simón Bolívar defined as the equilibrium of the universe, an equilibrium that can never be achieved within the capitalist world system.
II
Before our arrival in Copenhagen, the African bloc, backed by the Group of 77, denounced that rich countries were ignoring the Kyoto Protocol, that is, the only existing international instrument to fight global warming, the only thing that penalises the industrialised states and protects the developing countries.
It is necessary to recognise that the battle had already begun in the streets of Copenhagen, with the youth at the forefront protesting and proposing: I could see and feel, since my arrival in the Danish capital on December 16, the historic power of another world that for the youth is not only possible but absolutely necessary.
III
In Copenhagen, from the beginning, the cards were on the table for all to see. On the one hand, the cards of brutal meanness and stupidity of capitalism which did not budge in defence of its logic: the logic of capital, which leaves only death and destruction in its wake at an increasingly rapid pace.
On the other hand, the cards of the peoples demanding human dignity, the salvation of the planet and for a radical change, not of the climate, but of a world system that has brought us to the brink of unprecedented ecological and social catastrophe.
On one side, the victors of a mercantile and utilitarian civilisation, that is, the “civilised ones” who for a long time now have forgotten about human beings, and opted blindly for increasingly insatiable desires.
On the other hand, the “barbarians” who remain committed in believing and in fighting for radically changing the logic, that you can maximise human welfare, minimising environmental and ecological impacts. Those who sustain the impossibility of defending human rights, as raised by the comrade Evo Morales, if we don’t also defend the rights of Mother Earth, those who act with determination to leave a planet and future for our descendants.
I will not tire of repeating to the four winds: the only possible and viable alternative is socialism. I said it in each of my speeches to all the world representatives gathered in Copenhagen, the world's most important event in the last two hundred years: there is no other way if we want to stop this heartless and debased competition that promises only total annihilation.
Why are the “civilised ones” so afraid of a project that aspires to build shared happiness? They are afraid, let’s be honest, because shared happiness does not generate profit. Hence the crystal clarity of that great slogan of the Copenhagen street protest that today speaks for millions: “If the climate was a bank, they would have saved it already.”
The “civilised ones” do not take the necessary measures, simply because of this, it would oblige them to reverse their voracious pattern of life, marked by selfish comfort and that does not touch their cold hearts, which palpitate only to the beat of money.
That’s why the [US] Empire arrived late on December 18, to offer crumbs via blackmail, and through this, wash away the guilt marked on its face. In front of this strategy of buying support, you could hear throughout Denmark the clear and courageous voice of Vandana Shiva, the Indian thinker saying a great truth: “I think it is time for US to stop seeing itself as a donor and begin to recognise itself as polluter: a polluter must pay compensation for damages and must it pay its ecological debt. It is not charity. This is justice.”
I must say: in Copenhagen the Obama illusion was definitively destroyed. He was confirmed in his position as head of the empire and winner of the Nobel War Prize. The enigma of the two Obamas has been resolved.
Friday the 18th came to an end without a democratically agreed accord: Obama mounted the platform separately, in a further violation of UN procedures, for which we feel obliged to challenge any decision that does not respect for the validity of the Protocol Kyoto. To respect and enhance Kyoto is our motto.
An accord was not possible in Copenhagen due to the lack of political will of the rich countries: the powerful of this world, the hyper-developed, they do not want to change their patterns of production and consumption which are as senseless as suicide. “The world can go to hell if it dares to threaten my privilege and my lifestyle”, is what they appear to be saying with their conduct: that is the hard truth that they do not want to hear from those who act under the historical and categorical imperative to change course.
Copenhagen is not the end, I repeat, but a beginning: the doors have been opened for a universal debate on how to save the planet, life on the planet. The battle continues.
IV
We commemorated the 179th anniversary of the physical disappearance of our Liberator Simón Bolívar in an act of deep revolutionary content; I refer to the meeting of the Bolivarian Alliance with social movements in Denmark on December 17. There I felt, once again that Bolivar is not only a banner of Venezuela and Our America, but is increasingly a universal leader.
It is his living and combative legacy, now embodied in the Bolivarian Alliance, which is becoming a world heritage, that we took to Copenhagen to do battle for the Patria Grande, which is at the same time, to do battle for the sake of humanity .
In reality and in truth: Bolivar lives! In Copenhagen it was confirmed that his legacy is more alive than ever. And now he will overcome. Now we shall overcome!
’Tis the Season
‘Christmas will not be privatised’, writes award winning author China Miéville in this short story, first published in the December 2004 British Socialist Review magazine.
Call me childish, but I love all the nonsense - the snow, the trees, the tinsel, the turkey. I love presents. I love carols and cheesy songs. I just love Christmas™.
That’s why I was so excited. And not just for me, but for Annie. Aylsa, her mum, said she didn’t see the big deal and why was I a sentimentalist, but I knew Annie couldn’t wait. She might have been 14, but when it came to this I was sure she was still a little girl, dreaming of stockings by the chimney. Whenever it’s my turn to take Annie - me and Aylsa have alternated since the divorce - I do my best on the 25th.
I admit Aylsa made me feel bad. I was dreading Annie’s disappointment. So I can hardly tell you how delighted I was when I found out that for the first time ever I was going to be able to make a proper celebration of it.
Call me childish, but I love all the nonsense - the snow, the trees, the tinsel, the turkey. I love presents. I love carols and cheesy songs. I just love Christmas™.
That’s why I was so excited. And not just for me, but for Annie. Aylsa, her mum, said she didn’t see the big deal and why was I a sentimentalist, but I knew Annie couldn’t wait. She might have been 14, but when it came to this I was sure she was still a little girl, dreaming of stockings by the chimney. Whenever it’s my turn to take Annie - me and Aylsa have alternated since the divorce - I do my best on the 25th.
I admit Aylsa made me feel bad. I was dreading Annie’s disappointment. So I can hardly tell you how delighted I was when I found out that for the first time ever I was going to be able to make a proper celebration of it.
Visions of a people-centred economy
These are the notes for a talk given by UNITYblog editor David on the subject of ‘Transitioning to a human-centred economy in Aotearoa’ at the Marxism Alive conference in Auckland, 27 June 2009.
New Zealand is the world’s biggest exporter of dairy products, not because we produce more dairy products than any other country, but because unlike other countries, we produce much, much more than is used here.
We are all now becoming increasingly aware of the environmental costs of producing all this “surplus” dairy produce for export: the pollution of our waterways, the drying up of streams, the greenhouse gas emissions from the belching cows.
So why do we do it? Why keep producing so much more than we need if the costs are so high? Why the continuing push for even more dairy farms?
Obviously the answer is that the dairy farmers and their investors want to make more money. We have a profit-centred economy, not an ecology-centred economy.
Friday, 18 December 2009
Evo Morales - 'We cannot end global warming without ending capitalism'
17 December 2009
from Democracy Now!
Bolivia's President Evo Morales joins us in Copenhagen to talk about the UN climate talks, capitalism, climate debt and much more. “Policies of unlimited industrialisation are what destroys the environment”, Morales said. “And that irrational industrialisation is capitalism.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Climate Countdown. It’s Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting from inside the Bella Center [in Copenhagen].
It’s just one day before the COP15 UN climate summit comes to a close. The summit has been described as the biggest gathering on climate change in history. And now, ten days after it started, are the talks on the brink of collapse?
The dispute between rich and poor countries, between the global North and global South, on key issues, including greenhouse gas emissions and climate debt, remain unresolved. World leaders from more than 110 countries have begun arriving at the summit and are delivering their addresses to the main plenary as we speak. As for civil society, the only thing worse than the endless lines of thousands of people trying to get into the Bella Center are no lines, because civil society has largely been locked out.
Well, just before we went to air today, I interviewed Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president. He was re-elected in a landslide victory earlier this month.
On Wednesday, Evo Morales called on world leaders to hold temperature increases over the next century to just one degree Celsius, the most ambitious proposal so far by any head of state. Morales also called on the United States and other wealthy nations to pay an ecological debt to Bolivia and other developing nations.
AMY GOODMAN: President Morales, welcome to Democracy Now!
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: Thank you very much for the invitation.
AMY GOODMAN: You spoke yesterday here at the Bella Center and said we cannot end global warming without ending capitalism. What did you mean?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: Capitalism is the worst enemy of humanity. Capitalism—and I’m speaking about irrational development—policies of unlimited industrialization are what destroys the environment. And that irrational industrialization is capitalism. So as long as we don’t review or revise those policies, it’s impossible to attend to humanity and life.
AMY GOODMAN: How would you do that? How would you end capitalism?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: It’s changing economic policies, ending luxury, consumerism. It’s ending the struggle to—or this searching for living better. Living better is to exploit human beings. It’s plundering natural resources. It’s egoism and individualism. Therefore, in those promises of capitalism, there is no solidarity or complementarity. There’s no reciprocity. So that’s why we’re trying to think about other ways of living lives and living well, not living better. Not living better. Living better is always at someone else’s expense. Living better is at the expense of destroying the environment.
AMY GOODMAN: President Morales, what are you calling here—for here at the UN climate summit?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: Defence of the rights of Mother Earth. The earth is our life. Nature is our home, our house. Happily, the United Nations have declared a Mother Earth Day. If the mother is recognised as Mother Earth, it’s something that can’t be sold, it’s something that can’t be—it can’t be violated, something sacred. This is nature. This is planet Earth. And that’s why I’ve come here, to defend the rights of Mother Earth, to defend the rights to life, to defend humanity and saving Mother Earth.
AMY GOODMAN: What does climate debt mean, President Morales?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: After the destruction of Mother Earth, it’s important to recognize the rights of Mother Earth. And the best way to recognise this is by paying a climate debt. Second, it’s important to recognise the damages that have been done and attend to the people who have been affected by climate change, people who will lose their island homes, for example, people who will remain without water.
AMY GOODMAN: Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said today, “We can’t look back; we have to look forward.”
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: Looking forward means that we have to review everything that capitalism has done. These are things that cannot just be solved with money. We have to resolve problems of life and humanity. And that’s the problem that planet earth faces today. And this means ending capitalism.
AMY GOODMAN: The US secretary of state Hillary Clinton also said today that US$100 billion would be promised if a deal were arrived at, not just by the United States, per year, but in a public-private partnership with a number of countries around the world, but only if a deal is arrived at. She would not say what the US would contribute to this. What do you say about the US spending on the issue of global warming versus—well, you talked yesterday about war.
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: The best thing would be that all war spending be directed towards climate change, instead of spending it on troops in Iraq, in Afghanistan or the military bases in Latin America. This money would be better directed to attending to the damages that were created by the United States. And, of course, this isn’t just $100 billion; this is probably trillions and trillions of dollars. How are we going to spend money to kill and not save lives? We have to spend money to save lives, not to kill. These are our differences with capitalism.
AMY GOODMAN: You called the war in Afghanistan terrorist. Are you saying President Obama is a terrorist?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: People who send their troops to kill outside their country, that’s terror. There’s not only civil—terrorists dressed as civilians; they can also be dressed in military uniforms. Worse still if they’re financed with the money from the peoples, from taxes. Of course, every country has the right to defend itself, just as every country can defend itself. But invading another country with uniformed people, that’s state terrorism.
Moreover, to establish military bases in Latin America with the objective of political control, and where their military base is an empire, that’s not respect for democracy. There is no peace, social peace. There is no development for those countries nor integration in those regions. This is what we’ve lived in South America and Latin America.
AMY GOODMAN: What is your message to President Obama at these climate talks?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: After listening to his speech at the heads of state Summit of the Americas, we were very hopeful that he would be an ally in addressing poverty. Now I’m not so hopeful. Rather, we’re disappointed. If something has changed in the United States, it’s the color of the president.
So I’ve been called upon, through administrative resolutions, to close unions, or to eliminate unions, when I’m doing exactly the opposite. In the report that was done regarding access to trade preferences under the ATPDEA program, it was charged that the Bolivian government has been involved in suppressing unions, when, in fact, quite the contrary, the government’s been very active in providing infrastructure and support to unions through improving the centres where unions meet, etc.
Even President Bush did not make any observations about the new clauses in the constitution of Bolivia, whereas under the new administration there have been observations and comments made about the new constitution that’s been drafted, in particular in relation to the management of the gas and oil sectors. This is a clear involvement in Bolivian internal affairs by the Obama administration. At the end of the day, it seems that they’re asking us to change the constitution. This is something that not even Bush did. If we just look at this, this makes Obama seem—look worse than Bush. And the documents are there.
AMY GOODMAN: I know you have to leave. My last question is: you’ve called for a climate tribunal; what do you mean?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: Those who do damage to planet Earth and those who do damage need to be judged. Those who do not fulfill the terms of the Kyoto Protocol should also be judged. And for those ends, we have to organise a tribunal for climate justice in the United Nations.
AMY GOODMAN: And one degree Celsius?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: That’s our proposal.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think it could be achieved?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: Yes. Yes, otherwise it would be a lack of commitment to humanity.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think there will be a deal that comes out of Copenhagen?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: I doubt it. We’re developing other proposals for my intervention.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think it’s catastrophic that there’s no deal?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: No, it’s a waste of time. And if the leaders of countries cannot arrive in an agreement, why don’t the peoples then decide together?
AMY GOODMAN: We will leave it there. I thank you very much, President Morales.
AMY GOODMAN: The Bolivian President Evo Morales speaking to us here in Copenhagen. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. It’s Climate Countdown. You can go to our website at democracynow.org to read the transcript of what President Morales had to say and also to see or hear the video podcast.
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Climate protests, capitalism and the working class movement
by Barry Kade
from Climate and Capitalism
8 December 2009
The working class movement will only be rebuilt as part of a new political response to the failures of neo-liberal capitalism – a response that includes addressing climate change and ecology
Considering normally climate demos only attract a few thousand, last Saturday’s protest in London and elsewhere of 50,000 was massive. This is because:
A) the capitalists and their governments look especially incapable of addressing the issue at the moment, around the Copenhagen summit which seems doomed, even from a ‘bourgeois climate politics’ perspective; and
B) the ideological right are fighting back with a massive campaign of denial and conspiracist wingnuttery thats gaining ground. In this situation people are more motivated to take to the streets, hence we get 50,000 rather than the usual 5,000.
But what next?
So far we have had a strategy of protest … i.e we started with the idea of making climate change an issue, ‘raising awareness’. protesting to ‘make the politicians listen’, to make them ‘do something’. But then the capitalists started to ‘do something’ – carbon trading, biofuels, nuclear power, etc. It’s now clear to many that there is no capitalist solution.
Therefore we also have a strategy of transition – a practical grassroots and locally oriented movement trying to make the ‘transition to a low carbon economy.’ This is inevitably attempted in a petite bourgeois way, through allotments, local trading schemes, etc. There is also the ‘climate justice’ movement with its more systematic anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist critique – although this at the moment remains confined to the ‘activist milieu’.
What about the workers?
And we have only just started to develop a programatic response from the working class movement – so now we have the trades union demand for millions of new green jobs, the TUC’s ‘just transition’ project etc. Of course the problem here is the existing weakness of the working class movement, (especially in the UK) after our decades of defeat and retreat.
The solution? I don’t think the working class movement will be rebuilt on a purely syndicalist or economistic basis. Workers fight when they see their resistance forming part of a wider political picture – when they have some form of coherent political perspective en masse (however flawed and contradictory that perspective may be). The collapse of left reformism/stalinism/social democracy in the face of neo-liberal globalisation has weakened grassroots working class resistance.
Thus the working class movement will only be rebuilt as part of a new political response to the failures of neo-liberal capitalism – a response that includes addressing climate change and ecology. When socialism re-emerges as a mass project it will be shaped by these questions. The emergence of environmental consciousness is one of the distinctive features of our epoch. That’s why the next socialism might be an ecosocialism.
Barry Kade is a former member of the British Socialist Workers Party, who says he is “currently experimenting with being a socialist in the ranks of the Green Party.” This article was published on December 8 in his blog, BarryKade.
from Climate and Capitalism
8 December 2009
The working class movement will only be rebuilt as part of a new political response to the failures of neo-liberal capitalism – a response that includes addressing climate change and ecology
Considering normally climate demos only attract a few thousand, last Saturday’s protest in London and elsewhere of 50,000 was massive. This is because:
A) the capitalists and their governments look especially incapable of addressing the issue at the moment, around the Copenhagen summit which seems doomed, even from a ‘bourgeois climate politics’ perspective; and
B) the ideological right are fighting back with a massive campaign of denial and conspiracist wingnuttery thats gaining ground. In this situation people are more motivated to take to the streets, hence we get 50,000 rather than the usual 5,000.
But what next?
So far we have had a strategy of protest … i.e we started with the idea of making climate change an issue, ‘raising awareness’. protesting to ‘make the politicians listen’, to make them ‘do something’. But then the capitalists started to ‘do something’ – carbon trading, biofuels, nuclear power, etc. It’s now clear to many that there is no capitalist solution.
Therefore we also have a strategy of transition – a practical grassroots and locally oriented movement trying to make the ‘transition to a low carbon economy.’ This is inevitably attempted in a petite bourgeois way, through allotments, local trading schemes, etc. There is also the ‘climate justice’ movement with its more systematic anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist critique – although this at the moment remains confined to the ‘activist milieu’.
What about the workers?
And we have only just started to develop a programatic response from the working class movement – so now we have the trades union demand for millions of new green jobs, the TUC’s ‘just transition’ project etc. Of course the problem here is the existing weakness of the working class movement, (especially in the UK) after our decades of defeat and retreat.
The solution? I don’t think the working class movement will be rebuilt on a purely syndicalist or economistic basis. Workers fight when they see their resistance forming part of a wider political picture – when they have some form of coherent political perspective en masse (however flawed and contradictory that perspective may be). The collapse of left reformism/stalinism/social democracy in the face of neo-liberal globalisation has weakened grassroots working class resistance.
Thus the working class movement will only be rebuilt as part of a new political response to the failures of neo-liberal capitalism – a response that includes addressing climate change and ecology. When socialism re-emerges as a mass project it will be shaped by these questions. The emergence of environmental consciousness is one of the distinctive features of our epoch. That’s why the next socialism might be an ecosocialism.
Barry Kade is a former member of the British Socialist Workers Party, who says he is “currently experimenting with being a socialist in the ranks of the Green Party.” This article was published on December 8 in his blog, BarryKade.
A Green New Deal - dead end or pathway beyond capitalism?
from LINKS – International Journal of Socialist Renewal
[Originally published in Turbulence, 8 December 2009]
A Green New Deal is on everybody’s lips at the moment. US President Barack Obama has endorsed a very general version of it, the United Nations are keen, as are numerous Green parties around the world. In the words of the Green New Deal Group, an influential grouping of heterodox economists, Greens and debt-relief campaigners, such a ‘deal’ promises to solve the ‘triple crunch’ of energy, climate and economic crises.
Frieder Otto Wolf, an eco-socialist and early member of the German Green Party, argues that the challenge for the global movements is to hijack the Green New Deal, rather than reject it. Tadzio Mueller, an editor of Turbulence and involved in the Climate Justice Action network, begs to differ. He looks instead to an emerging movement for ‘climate justice’. Turbulence sat the two of them down for a chat, and kicked off the debate by suggesting that a Green New Deal might actually offer a weak-looking global left a great opportunity. The conversation is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission.
Tadzio Mueller: Before we start looking at the crisis of the (global) left, and whether or not a Green New Deal[1] might be an opportunity for its rejuvenation, I think there is a more important question to be answered first. Namely: to what extent is such a project a great opportunity for the rejuvenation of global capitalism? Profit rates (with the possible exception of those of bailed-out banks) are at rock bottom. And there is currently nothing – no sector (like cars), no technology (like IT), no process (like ‘globalisation’) – that is promising to push them back up again in the near future. Capital, in other words, is in crisis, and, as Nicolas Stern, author of a report on the costs and opportunities of climate change for the British government, argues, it needs ‘a good driver of growth to come out of this period, and it is not just a simple matter of pumping up demand’.
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Naughty banks need more than a slap on the wrist
Friday, 11 December 2009
"It's the whole banking system which is bananas", say Bad Banks campaigners
Bad Banks media release
10 December 2009
http://www.badbanks.co.nz/
Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has given a very public serve to Westpac for an email the bank sent to mortgage customers featuring a cartoon video about selling bananas to justify a hike in its mortgage rates. (See Westpac goes bananas - http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,26462786-3122,00.html)
"This is just another example of the silly tricks that the Big Four Australian-owned banks (ANZ National, BNZ, Westpac and ASB) are pulling to try and "win over" the public", says Vaughan Gunson, Bad Banks campaign spokesperson.
In New Zealand, BNZ closed the doors of its branches and instructed staff to do community work for a day. And ASB Bank has been pushing an advertising campaign which tries to paint a picture of a "caring bank" that serves us.
"ASB have made the ridiculous claim that they've been a "Kiwi bank since 1847", when in fact they're fully owned by Commonwealth Bank of Australia", says Gunson.
"The banks are trying to "suck up" because they know there's a bad public mood against them, as a result of their interest gouging, fee charging, and tax dodging", says Gunson. "Many New Zealand homeowners are experiencing mortgage stress, thanks to the banks."
"What the Aussie banks are worried about is that the public mood against them will put pressure on governments on both sides of the Tasman to put in place tough regulations that curb their power and rein in their profits", says Gunson.
The Bad Banks campaign is doing its bit to keep the pressure on the banks. Tomorrow (Friday) at 12noon we're going to be outside ASB's Queen Street branch (cnr Wellesley St) with placards and a new leaflet exposing ASB.
"Our aim is to promote a nationwide and popular debate on the banks and their role in the economy", says Gunson. "It goes way beyond a few bad banks, we think the whole banking system is bananas."
"The financial implosion that almost brought down the global economy last year, and which is continuing to wreck havoc on the lives of grassroots people, shows that we need to urgently bring the banks under control", says Gunson.
There is momentum building even amongst the global financial elite for more regulation and control to be imposed on the banks. (See Ex-Fed chief Paul Volcker's 'telling' words on derivatives industry - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6764177/Ex-Fed-chief-Paul-Volckers-telling-words-on-derivatives-industry.html.)
To contribute to the national debate that we must have in New Zealand about the banking system, Bad Banks offers these suggestions for transforming the power relationship between banks and the people:
1. Immediate government intervention to stop banks turfing "mum and dad" homeowners out of their homes because of a job loss or income cut.
2. The establishment of a government regulatory body to oversee the renegotiation of mortgages based on realistic market values and the ability of the homeowner to pay.
3. Turn Kiwibank into a proper "public service" bank offering first-home buyers a 3% interest state loan.
4. Zero-fee banking offered to people on modest incomes. Facilitated by expanding the role of Kiwibank and forced regulation of all banks operating in New Zealand.
5. Introduction of a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) that would net the banks and other financial speculators. A decisive step in shifting the tax burden off low and middle income people and onto the mega-rich.
6. All bank loans to big business over a fixed amount to be approved by a government regulatory body that acts to protect the environment and communities. Such a measure is essential to preventing powerful global banking interests from sabotaging the necessary emergency mobilisation against climate change.
7. A full public inquiry which looks at every aspect of banking operations in New Zealand, with public meetings held throughout the country, so that grassroots people can tell their stories.
Contact:
Vaughan Gunson
Bad Banks media spokesperson
(09)433 8897
021-0415 082
svpl@xtra.co.nz
Bad Banks exposure of ASB's "Kiwi bank" claim - 12noon, Friday 11 December
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Marxist accounts of the current crisis
by Joseph Choonara
from International Socialism Journal Issue: 123
Just as medical science progresses through pathology, Marxist political economy develops through the analysis of the actual crises of capitalism. It is therefore no surprise that the current paroxysm has sparked both a revival of interest in Marxism1 and a flurry of responses by prominent Marxists. My focus here should not be taken to indicate that non-Marxist accounts are unworthy of engagement. A number of mainstream economists have been forced, whether enthusiastically or reluctantly, to grapple with the realities of the system.2 But the crisis has also revealed the paucity of what passes for academic economic theory, captured in an astonishing admission by Willem Buiter, a London School of Economics professor and a former member of the Bank of England monetary policy committee:
The typical graduate macroeconomics and monetary economics training received at Anglo-American universities during the past 30 years or so may have set back by decades serious investigations of aggregate economic behaviour and economic policy-relevant understanding. It was a privately and socially costly waste of time and other resources. Most mainstream macroeconomic theoretical innovations since the 1970s…have turned out to be self-referential, inward-looking distractions at best. Research tended to be motivated by the internal logic, intellectual sunk capital and aesthetic puzzles of established research programmes, rather than by a powerful desire to understand how the economy works—let alone how the economy works during times of stress and financial instability. So the economics profession was caught unprepared when the crisis struck.3The record of Marxists has been better. Nonetheless, their approaches to the crisis are far from homogenous, have often been developed in isolation from each other and diverge on several points. Here I consider widely accessible accounts that have appeared in English over the past few months, appraising their strengths and weaknesses relative to each other and to the tradition associated with this journal.4 The “real” and the financial All Marxist accounts of the current crisis have been forced to recognise its financial dimension. The crisis has been marked by the near collapse of the banking system in several countries and began with the bursting of the subprime mortgage bubble in the US. One of the first Marxist accounts to draw attention to subprime was produced by Robin Blackburn, who wrote on this subject as early as spring 2007, a few months before the real panic began:
In recent months “subprime” defaults have jumped. A Lehman Brothers analyst warns that some $225 billion worth of subprime loans will be in default by the end of 2007 but others say the figure will be nearer $300 billion. The “equity tranch” [the riskiest slice of the repackaged debt] is now dubbed “toxic waste” by the insiders and analysts are waiting to see which bodies float to the surface… The default crunch will not only cause great unhappiness to the victims who stand to lose their homes—it hurts the housing market and increases the chances of a downturn.5Back then the term subprime barely warranted a mention in most newspapers. The Financial Times was more attentive than most, carrying an article entitled “Subprime Sickness”, which argued:
There are plenty of reasons to believe that the [subprime] fallout can largely be confined to the sector… Even the fact that so many Wall Street banks were heavily involved in the subprime sector…need not be a cause for alarm. The exposure for any bank should be small. Typically they did not hold on to such mortgages, but packaged them up and sold them on in securitisation…securitisation is doing what it is intended to do—spreading the risk.6Unlike the Financial Times, Blackburn was “ahead of the curve” because he had focused in the preceding years on developing a detailed analysis of the fragilities of the global financial system.7However, it was possible to see the outlines of a potential crisis from a different starting point. International Socialism published a remarkably prophetic article in summer 2007, which, by coincidence, came out just in time for the onset of the credit crunch. This saw the growth of finance originating in the decline of profit rates during the post-war boom and the failure to sufficiently restore them from the low levels they had reached by the 1980s. This led to a scramble for alternative outlets for profits:
Low levels of past profitability do not stop capitalists imagining that there are miraculous profits to be made in the future and in sucking surplus value from all over the world to be ploughed into projects aimed at obtaining them. Many of these are purely speculative gambles in unproductive spheres, as with bubbles in real estate, commodities markets, share prices and so on… Against such a background, corporate profits will be being puffed up until they lose touch with reality, and things will seem to be going very well until overnight it is discovered they are going very badly.8These two different accounts illustrate a dividing line in Marxist analyses of the current crisis. Some emphasise the internal logic of “financialisation” and tend to see the financial crisis as impinging upon the “real” economy from the outside; others, while recognising the importance of the financial dimension, emphasise the underlying problems in the “real” economy that drove the expansion of finance and paved the way for the crisis. The distinction between the “real” and the financial has to be qualified in two ways. First, the growth of finance has, in part, been driven by traditional corporations based in the “real” economy. For instance, by 2003, 42 percent of General Electric’s profits were generated by its financial wing, GE Capital.9 Second, and more fundamentally, for Marxists the financial system is not simply something grafted onto a pure, non-financial capitalism. Whenever money ceases to function simply as money, when it also functions as capital, it opens up the possibility of credit and financial speculation.10 As David Harvey has recently argued, “There is a more dialectical relationship between what you might call the ‘real’ and ‘financial’ sides of the economy”.11 The real questions at stake are whether financial growth is driven by processes autonomous from the non-financial areas of the economy; whether the current crisis is a new type of crisis or is rooted in tendencies Marx identified, even if the crisis is deferred and given unique characteristics by the growth of finance;12 and whether the dynamic of the system has been fundamentally changed by a process of “financialisation”. I will begin by considering those accounts that emphasise the transformation of capitalism through finance over the recent period.
Monday, 7 December 2009
Copenhagen: Seattle Grows Up
By Naomi Klein
From: The Nation
The other day I received a pre-publication copy of The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle, by David Solnit and Rebecca Solnit. It’s set to come out ten years after a historic coalition of activists shut down the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, the spark that ignited a global anticorporate movement.
The book is a fascinating account of what really happened in Seattle, but when I spoke to David Solnit, the direct-action guru who helped engineer the shutdown, I found him less interested in reminiscing about 1999 than in talking about the upcoming United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen and the “climate justice” actions he is helping to organize across the United States on November 30. “This is definitely a Seattle-type moment,” Solnit told me. “People are ready to throw down.”
There is certainly a Seattle quality to the Copenhagen mobilization: the huge range of groups that will be there; the diverse tactics that will be on display; and the developing-country governments ready to bring activist demands into the summit. But Copenhagen is not merely a Seattle do-over. It feels, instead, as though the progressive tectonic plates are shifting, creating a movement that builds on the strengths of an earlier era but also learns from its mistakes.
The big criticism of the movement the media insisted on calling “anti-globalization” was always that it had a laundry list of grievances and few concrete alternatives. The movement converging on Copenhagen, in contrast, is about a single issue – climate change – but it weaves a coherent narrative about its cause, and its cures, that incorporates virtually every issue on the planet. In this narrative, our climate is changing not simply because of particular polluting practices but because of the underlying logic of capitalism, which values short-term profit and perpetual growth above all else. Our governments would have us believe that the same logic can now be harnessed to solve the climate crisis – by creating a tradable commodity called “carbon” and by transforming forests and farmland into “sinks” that will supposedly offset our runaway emissions.
Climate-justice activists in Copenhagen will argue that, far from solving the climate crisis, carbon-trading represents an unprecedented privatization of the atmosphere, and that offsets and sinks threaten to become a resource grab of colonial proportions. Not only will these “market-based solutions” fail to solve the climate crisis, but this failure will dramatically deepen poverty and inequality, because the poorest and most vulnerable people are the primary victims of climate change – as well as the primary guinea pigs for these emissions-trading schemes.
But activists in Copenhagen won’t simply say no to all this. They will aggressively advance solutions that simultaneously reduce emissions and narrow inequality. Unlike at previous summits, where alternatives seemed like an afterthought, in Copenhagen the alternatives will take center stage. For instance, the direct-action coalition Climate Justice Action has called on activists to storm the conference center on December 16. Many will do this as part of the “bike bloc,” riding together on an as yet unrevealed “irresistible new machine of resistance” made up of hundreds of old bicycles. The goal of the action is not to shut down the summit, Seattle-style, but to open it up, transforming it into “a space to talk about our agenda, an agenda from below, an agenda of climate justice, of real solutions against their false ones.... This day will be ours.”
Some of the solutions on offer from the activist camp are the same ones the global justice movement has been championing for years: local, sustainable agriculture; smaller, decentralized power projects; respect for indigenous land rights; leaving fossil fuels in the ground; loosening protections on green technology; and paying for these transformations by taxing financial transactions and cancelling foreign debts. Some solutions are new, like the mounting demand that rich countries pay “climate debt” reparations to the poor. These are tall orders, but we have all just seen the kind of resources our governments can marshal when it comes to saving the elites. As one pre-Copenhagen slogan puts it: “If the climate were a bank, it would have been saved” – not abandoned to the brutality of the market.
In addition to the coherent narrative and the focus on alternatives, there are plenty of other changes too: a more thoughtful approach to direct action, one that recognizes the urgency to do more than just talk but is determined not to play into the tired scripts of cops-versus-protesters. “Our action is one of civil disobedience,” say the organizers of the December 16 action. “We will overcome any physical barriers that stand in our way – but we will not respond with violence if the police to escalate the situation.” (That said, there is no way the two week summit will not include a few running battles between cops and kids in black; this is Europe, after all.)
A decade ago, in an op-ed in the New York Times published after Seattle was shut down, I wrote that a new movement advocating a radically different form of globalization “just had its coming-out party.” What will be the significance of Copenhagen? I put that question to John Jordan, whose prediction of what eventually happened in Seattle I quoted in my book No Logo. He replied: “If Seattle was the movement of movements’ coming-out party, then maybe Copenhagen will be a celebration of our coming of age.”
He cautions, however, that growing up doesn’t mean playing it safe, eschewing civil disobedience in favor of staid meetings. “I hope we have grown up to become much more disobedient,” Jordan said, “because life on this world of ours may well be terminated because of too many acts of obedience.”
Friday, 4 December 2009
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Historic decision to form socialist Fifth International
A meeting of 55 left organisations from 31 countries, held in Caracas on 19-21 November 2009, passed a resolution to convene a global left conference in Venezuela next April that will form an international socialist coalition (to be known as the "Fifth International").
Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, called for the creation of "the Fifth Socialist International as a new organisation that fits the time and the challenge in which we live, and that can become an instrument of unification and coordination of the struggle of peoples to save this planet”.
Decisions of Socialist Worker-New Zealand
On 29 November 2009 the central committee of Socialist Worker-New Zealand unanimously decided:
● The Caracas decision to move towards forming a Fifth International is of "world historic importance". Such a Fifth International will "boost the legitimacy and organisation of socialism around the world" at a time when global capitalism in terminal decay threatens the existence of humanity through climate change, mass poverty and imperial conflicts.
● Consequently, Socialist Worker-New Zealand will do all we can to support the April 2010 global left meeting to form a Fifth International.
● Socialist Worker-New Zealand is looking to send two delegates to the April conference. We are launching an appeal to raise funds for their return air fares to Caracas. You can support our appeal by making an electronic payment to Socialist Worker's bank account 115350-0685890-11 or posting a cheque (marked "Socialist Worker") to PO Box 13-685, Auckland.
● Socialist Worker-New Zealand will be talking with other socialists in New Zealand about the April 2010 global left conference. Our aim is to cooperate with all those who, like us, support the formation of a Fifth International.
● Socialist Worker-New Zealand will be urging socialists in other lands, including the International Socialist Tendency to which we are affiliated, to likewise back the formation of a Fifth International.
Solidarity,
Grant Morgan
International secretary
Socialist Worker-New Zealand
PO Box 13-685
Auckland
New Zealand
grantmorgan@paradise.net.nz
+64 9 634 4432 (10am-10pm NZT)
See also Labour Party Pakistan endorses Fifth Socialist International process.
Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, called for the creation of "the Fifth Socialist International as a new organisation that fits the time and the challenge in which we live, and that can become an instrument of unification and coordination of the struggle of peoples to save this planet”.
President Chavez addresses conference of left parties.
Australian socialist Federico Fuentes, a conference participant, reports:
Appearing below are eyewitness reports from Fuentes and his fellow socialist from Australia, Kiraz Janicke, along with a conference declaration titled "The Caracas Commitment" and a supportive analysis from a Fourth International activist in the French New Anti-Capitalist Party.
Chavez said it would be a new body without manuals and impositions, where differences were welcome. He criticised the practices of the old Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which imposed its dogmas such as “socialism in one country” on its satellite parties internationally...
Chavez said the new international should reject the failed projects of “real socialism” and social democracy. It should embody the spirit and heritage left to humanity by the founders of the first four internationals. It should also incorporate the ideas of past Latin American revolutionaries.
It has to be an international to confront imperialism, and defeat capitalism, said Chavez. He said it was necessary to work together to create a manifesto to spell out the content of “socialism of the 21st century”.
Chavez gave a swift and sharp response to a delegate’s interjection that there already exist organisations for left coordination. There exist many spaces for discussion, said Chavez, but none for concrete action. “We have wasted a lot of time, we continue to waste time, looking for excuses to justify our inactivity”, said Chavez. “I consider such behaviour to be a betrayal of the hope of our peoples.” The unity of left parties is needed, “but [of] parties that are truly left”.
Decisions of Socialist Worker-New Zealand
On 29 November 2009 the central committee of Socialist Worker-New Zealand unanimously decided:
● The Caracas decision to move towards forming a Fifth International is of "world historic importance". Such a Fifth International will "boost the legitimacy and organisation of socialism around the world" at a time when global capitalism in terminal decay threatens the existence of humanity through climate change, mass poverty and imperial conflicts.
● Consequently, Socialist Worker-New Zealand will do all we can to support the April 2010 global left meeting to form a Fifth International.
● Socialist Worker-New Zealand is looking to send two delegates to the April conference. We are launching an appeal to raise funds for their return air fares to Caracas. You can support our appeal by making an electronic payment to Socialist Worker's bank account 115350-0685890-11 or posting a cheque (marked "Socialist Worker") to PO Box 13-685, Auckland.
● Socialist Worker-New Zealand will be talking with other socialists in New Zealand about the April 2010 global left conference. Our aim is to cooperate with all those who, like us, support the formation of a Fifth International.
● Socialist Worker-New Zealand will be urging socialists in other lands, including the International Socialist Tendency to which we are affiliated, to likewise back the formation of a Fifth International.
Solidarity,
Grant Morgan
International secretary
Socialist Worker-New Zealand
PO Box 13-685
Auckland
New Zealand
grantmorgan@paradise.net.nz
+64 9 634 4432 (10am-10pm NZT)
See also Labour Party Pakistan endorses Fifth Socialist International process.
Chavez calls for new international organisation of left parties
Chavez with Kiraz Janicke.
by Kiraz Janicke, Caracas
from http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/
23 November 2009
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez called for the formation of a “Fifth International” of left parties and social movements to confront the challenge posed by the global crisis of capitalism. The president made the announcement during an international conference of more than 50 left organisations from 31 countries held in Caracas over November 19-21.
“I assume responsibility before the world. I think it is time to convene the Fifth International, and I dare to make the call, which I think is a necessity. I dare to request that we create my proposal,” Chavez said.
Hugo Chavez calls for international socialist unity
by Federico Fuentes, Caracas
from LINKS - International Journal of Socialist Renewal
27 November 2009
Addressing delegates at the International Encounter of Left Parties held in Caracas, November 19-21, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said that with the capitalist crisis and threat of war risking the future of humanity, “the people are clamoring” for greater unity of those willing to fight for socialism.
Chavez used his November 20 speech to the conference, which involved delegates from 55 left groups from 31 countries, to call for a new international socialist organisation to unite left groups and social movements: “The time has come for us to organise the Fifth International.”
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