Two worlds

There is the world we live in and the world we could live in as soon as we decide to make the change..

THE WORLD WE LIVE IN. For most of those 'fortunate' enough to have a job, life is, at best, a pale, hire-purchased imitation of what is taken for granted all the time by the small group of people who own enough wealth to enable them to live by profit, rent or interest. In the wider world outside, the capitalist world of which we are an integral part, our problems are duplicated and magnified a thousand-fold. Multi millions of people are unemployed, homeless, or slum-ridden. Human rights are a sick joke in most areas of the world. Strikes, on the one hand, by workers fighting to defend their mean living standards and, on the other hand, by capitalists withholding their capital when faced with falling profits, abound. Crime, social alienation, waste, wars and preparation for wars. Almost every single second a human being dies from hunger. Every single day there is, at least, one war being fought somewhere.... The list of horrors is endless and these obscenities exist throughout the allegedly civilised world – under governments that claim to be 'socialist' or 'communist' as well as under governments openly espousing capitalism.

THE WORLD WE COULD LIVE IN. The alternative to the present form of social organisation, and the evils it generates, is world socialism. We accept that the term 'socialism' has been defiled by politicians and political parties who have applied it to their schemes and hopes for reforming capitalism these schemes have failed utterly and their failure has not only meant the continuation of capitalism and its inevitable miseries – sometimes made worse by authoritarian government; it has, also, provided the capitalist class and its political apologists and pensioned press with a weapon to contuse the great majority of workers and convince them that Socialism has been tried and has been seen to fail.

THE WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT STANDS SOLELY FOR SOCIALISM: we do not contend with other political parties for the opportunity to form governments pledged to 'reform' capitalism. On the contrary, our purpose is the total abolition of capitalism and we affirm that, whatever the political complexion of a party running capitalism may be, whatever the amount of wisdom or sincerity to be found in its membership or leaders, capitalism will still give rise to poverty, insecurity, war and all the other evils which afflict our world today.

WHAT, THEN, DO WE MEAN BY WORLD SOCIALISM? We mean a world-wide system of common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution. We mean a world wherein wealth will be produced solely to satisfy human needs, a world where every human being will have free and equal access to the things they need. A world where ownership of humanity's means of existence will be banished along with class, money, wages, and all the other wasteful and useless trappings of capitalism.

Capitalism's economic crises

 The cause of trade depression is really a simple one to understand. Highly developed Capitalism, while condemning the vast number of workers to a meagre standard of living, causes extraordinarily large incomes to flow into the pockets of a small section of the population (i. e., those who own the factories, the land, the railways, etc.). Most wealthy people have incomes so large that they do not spend anything like the whole amount. After having purchased all they need, often including luxuries of the most extravagant kind, they still have a large surplus that they seek to invest in profitable concerns.

 But these concerns are in competition, each trying to sell goods more cheaply than the other. In order to maintain and, if possible, increase his profits, each employer tries to get from his workers a larger output at a smaller cost.


 By means of labour-saving machinery and methods the same quantity of goods is produced by fewer and fewer workers, and displaced workers are constantly added to the army of unemployed. The unemployed man or woman, having only unemployment pay to spend, cannot buy as much as formerly. Thus buying is curtailed while all the time efforts are being made to increase production—a contradiction that is bound to result in over-stocked markets and trade depression. During a depression, this situation is worsened by wage reductions.


 The depression shows itself, every few years, in the accumulation of stocks of goods in the hands of retail stores, wholesalers and manufacturers, farmers and others. While trade is relatively good each concern tries to produce as much as possible in order to make a large profit. It is nobody's business under Capitalism to find out how much of each article is required, so that industries quickly expand to the point at which their total output is far larger than can be sold at a profit. Quite young industries like artificial silk, soon reach the degree of over-development shown by the older industries. Goods such as farm crops, that are ordinarily not produced to order, but with the expectation of finding a buyer eventually, naturally tend to accumulate to a greater extent than those produced only to order—such as railway engines.


 As traders find it more difficult to sell, they reduce their orders to the wholesalers, who in turn stop buying from the manufacturers. Plans for extending production by constructing new buildings, plant, ships, etc., are cancelled and the workers are laid off.


 The reduced income of the workers and of the unemployed reduces still further the demand for goods. In desperate need of ready money to pay their bills, retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers are driven to sell their stocks at lower and lower prices—often at a price less than the original cost price. Workers, for the same reason, are forced to offer to work for lower wages. It is not that there is any lack of money, but that the rich who have it can find no profitable field for investment. The economies that are made in a time of depression—whether voluntary ones, or economies enforced on the workers by wage reductions, actually aggravate the crisis instead of relieving it.


 The problem of “over-production” that is behind every crisis is always relieved in due course for a time. Employers close down production and thus stop the stocks from being added to. Governments tax the employers and with the money so obtained enable the unemployed to buy a certain amount of the accumulation of articles. Capitalists combine, with or without the assistance of Governments, to destroy stocks. At the beginning of 1932, Brazilian coffee was being burned, thrown into the sea, and used for fuel. Wheat was being burned in Canada and U. S. A., and a resolution was passed by the United States Senate recommending that the U. S. A. Government hand over to the unemployed the 40,000,000 bushels of wheat held by the Farm Board. In addition, in site of every care, great stocks of raw materials deteriorate and spoil. As a last resort there is the colossal destruction of wars to relieve pressure. Sooner or later, these crises of over-production have always given place to a resumption of fairly brisk trade and employment, without, of course, abolishing unemployment. Capitalism cannot do that.


  The lesson to be learned is that there is no simple way out of Capitalism by leaving the system to collapse of its own accord. Until a sufficient number of workers are prepared to organise politically for the conscious purpose of ending Capitalism, that system will stagger on indefinitely.

(From our pamphlet 1932 Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse)

Ireland's Water Wars and Woes

People elsewhere might argue that they have to pay water taxes, or charges, but in Ireland, the citizens are already paying increased rates of central tax part of which is earmarked to accommodate the cost of maintaining and upgrading the water supply and infrastructure. Also in 2000, Irish people were given an exemption to the article 9 requirement of the European Commission domestic water directive which requires European governments to charge for domestic water supply, an exemption the current government allowed to expire at the end of 2014.
With the establishment of the private water company Irish Water the accompanying instillation of water meters will charge the people of Ireland for their water a second time. Irish people have already been burdened with the highest debt per head (per capita) in Europe (yes more than Greece) and the second highest in the world only behind Japan. Ireland owes 42% of all Europe’s debt but with the entire European population estimated at 506,891,000 Ireland makes up less than 1% of the population with only 4,630,000 people.

 Poverty has doubled in Ireland since 2008. One in five children goes to school or bed hungry every day. Some teachers have resorted to bringing in extra packed lunches for children who show up without any. The number of children living with deprivation of needs currently stands at 37.3%. In a mortgage lenders report it states that there were 16,683 homes that could be repossessed in the near future.

 There is a very high percentage of working poor in Ireland as well as unemployed, able workers. The rate of unemployment has been misrepresented by the government. Time after time they fail to include the number of people who have been forced to emigrate which has reached up to 1000 people per week including 10% of the young population. The unemployment figure including these people would stand at around 20% which is a far cry from the current state line of approximately 9.8%. The figures still fail to take into consideration the number of Irish people who have been forced into internship programmers for an extra €50 per week with the threat of being cut off social welfare. This particular system is badly managed and is rife with abuse by employers. Some are using interns to cover maternity leave, or as free labor that has a turn over period of 9 months; positions that could be filled by paid workers. There are also 356,000 people in receipt of regular social welfare.

from here

California Suffering Huge Increases In Homelessness

The number of homeless people in Los Angeles County jumped 12 percent in the past two years, to more than 44,000, amid a sluggish economic recovery that has left the poorest residents of the second-largest U.S. metropolitan area falling farther behind, a study released on Monday found.

Most of those counted weren’t staying in homeless shelters. The study also found that the number of tents, makeshift encampments and vehicles with people living in them jumped by 85 percent, to about 9,500.

“California was one of the hardest-hit states in the country during the economic recession, suffering high unemployment and high job losses,” the housing authority said in a news release. “There is a lag in rebound, and the working poor and low-income individuals have been hit particularly hard, with the trifecta of unemployment, stagnant wages and a lack of affordable housing.”

“The economy has improved, but not for the persons at greatest risk of homelessness,” said Peter Lynn, the authority’s executive director.

Other big cities have experienced similar increases in homelessness for many of the same reasons. According to the advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless, the number of New Yorkers sleeping in the city’s many shelters is up more than 65 percent from 10 years ago. In January the system held more than 60,000 people, including more than 25,000 kids.

Studies have found that Southern California, like New York City, has some of the highest rents in the nation and that throughout California, 1.5 million households lack access to affordable housing. The California Housing Partnership Report (PDF), issued in April, said that the state’s lowest-income households spend two-thirds of their income on housing.

“It’s everywhere now. The encampments are in residential neighborhoods. They’re outside of schools,” L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin, who represents Venice, told The Los Angeles Times. “It’s jarring … It shows we’ve got a … lot of work ahead.”

The issue of homelessness has raised new concerns with the shootings of two homeless men by Los Angeles police on March 1 on Skid Row and on May 5 in the Venice area. The area has one of the greatest concentrations of homeless people in the United States.

The homeless count found one bright spot: The number of homeless veterans dipped by 6 percent, to about 4,000, after local and federal efforts efforts to get them off the streets. The Los Angeles alone has housed 7,500 veterans since 2013, and Mayor Eric Garcetti has pledged to house all homeless veterans in the city by the end of the year.

“Ending homelessness is one of my top priorities as mayor, and we’ve made significant progress,” he said in a statement. However, “we must do more,” he said.

The mayor said he has expanded homeless emergency-response teams, proposed increasing the city’s minimum wage and included in his budget proposal about $10 million for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to increase the supply of affordable housing.

A study released last month found that Los Angeles spends $100 million a year to deal with homelessness — much of it on arrests and other police services — but has no coordinated approach for dealing with the problem.

Alice Callaghan, a longtime advocate for the homeless on Skid Row, said that city leaders have failed to stop the loss of affordable housing.

“All we get from City Hall is breezy poetry — ‘I will house everybody by next year.’ That’s absurd. There’s no housing to put people in,” she told the Times. “It’s very depressing. I don’t think people understand how bad it is.”

from here

Dying to work

The psychiatrists analyzed the suicide rates and economic statistics of 63 countries from 2000 to 2011 and determined that unemployment is connected to approximately 45,000 suicides annually.

Researchers had previously registered a spike in suicides during the global economic crisis that began in 2008, suggesting that financial stress and hardship had contributed to the rise. But an analysis published on Tuesday in The Lancet Psychiatry by doctors at the University of Zurich in Switzerland estimates that about 5,000 suicides were associated with the crisis, while roughly nine times as many self-inflicted deaths are linked to unemployment each year.

According to their findings, unemployment elevated the relative risk of suicide by 20 to 30 percent throughout the world. Suicides related to unemployment accounted for about a fifth of annual totals worldwide, and the association was strongest in countries where being out of work is uncommon. Those who are unemployed can fear losing their income, healthcare, homes, and retirement savings, and doubt their ability to provide for their families.

"Employment is tied to identity," Dan Reidenberg, director of the group Suicide Awareness Voices of Education and managing director of the National Council for Suicide Prevention said. "When people lose a sense of identity and purpose it becomes problematic for them. For someone who is particularly vulnerable or at risk, if you add on a loss of sense of purpose, the risk goes up."

John Draper, the director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, explained "What we see with unemployment is that it increases the risk because it makes already bad situations worse for some people," he said. "Any kind of economic strain or unemployment, to the degree that there are already mental health or substance abuse or relationship problems, can make it worse."

Workers Keep Getting Shafted

In the US, as in many countries, the median wage is still below where it was before the Recession. Last month, average pay actually fell. It used to be that as unemployment dropped, employers had to pay more to attract or keep the workers they needed. There’s reason to believe the link between falling unemployment and rising wages has been severed according to Robert Reich, ex US Labor Secretary.

Millions of Americans who dropped out of the labor market in the Great Recession are still jobless. They’re not even counted as unemployment because they’ve stopped looking for work.  But they haven’t disappeared entirely. Employers know they can fill whatever job openings emerge with this “reserve army” of the hidden unemployed – again, without raising wages. Add to this that today’s workers are less economically secure than workers have been since World War II. Nearly one out of every five is in a part-time job. Insecure workers don’t demand higher wages when unemployment drops. They’re grateful simply to have a job. A majority of Americans have no savings to draw upon if they lose their job. Two-thirds of all workers are living paycheck to paycheck. They won’t risk losing a job by asking for higher pay. Insecurity is now baked into every aspect of the employment relationship. Workers can be fired for any reason, or no reason. And benefits are disappearing. The portion of workers with any pension connected to their job has fallen from over half in 1979 to under 35 percent in today.

In addition, it’s easier than ever for American employers to get the workers they need at low cost by outsourcing jobs abroad rather than hiking wages at home. Outsourcing can now be done at the click of a computer keyboard. Many workers in developing nations now have access to both the education and the advanced technologies to be as productive as American workers. So CEOs ask, why pay more? In the US a whole new generation of smart technologies is taking over jobs that used to be done only by people.  Rather than pay higher wages, it’s cheaper for employers to install more robots. The combination of advanced sensors, voice recognition, artificial intelligence, big data, text-mining, and pattern-recognition algorithms is even generating smart robots capable of quickly learning human actions.

Workers used to be represented by trade unions that utilized tight labor markets to bargain for higher pay. In the 1950s, more than a third of all private-sector workers belonged to a union. Today, though, fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers are unionized. Corporations have steadily weakened their workers’ bargaining power, the link between productivity and workers’ income has been severed. Since 1979, the nation’s productivity has risen 65 percent, but workers’ median compensation has increased by just 8 percent. Almost all the gains from growth have gone to the top.

None of these changes has been accidental. The growing use of outsourcing abroad and of labor-replacing technologies, the large reserve of hidden unemployed, the mounting economic insecurities, and the demise of labor unions have been actively pursued by corporations and encouraged by Wall Street. Payrolls are the single biggest cost of business. Lower payrolls mean higher profits. Ordinary workers have lost jobs and wages, and many communities have been abandoned. They are being shafted.

Capitali$m can and will be replaced with a people-first socialist system when a majority of people are convinced of the need for such revolutionary change and are ready to make it happen.

US - 20% of Young Adults Live in Poverty

The U.S. Census Bureau shows “the generation that has been dismissed as entitled and whiny is struggling with higher levels of poverty than their counterparts did in 1980,” when one in seven 18-to-34-year-olds lived in poverty, The Guardian reports.
Unemployment is a major factor:

Today, 65% of young adults are employed, down from 69% in 1980. The prior generation was also more likely to find themselves serving in the army: about 9% of the 18-to-34-year-olds were veterans in the 1980; today that number is just 2%.

The bureau’s survey also confirmed that more young people are going to college. Twenty-two percent of young adults have a college degree today, compared with just 16 percent of their 1980s counterparts.

Their expensive degrees – since 1978 the price of college has rocketed up 1,120%– unfortunately do not guarantee employment, not even in their chosen fields. The underemployment rate for 2013 college graduates was 18.3%, up from 9.9% in 2007.
As millennials struggle with student loans and finding jobs within their preferred professions, they are putting off some of the other milestones of adulthood, such as marriage: only three in 10 millennials have ever been married. In the 1980s, people ages 18 to 34 were getting married at twice that rate.

from here

The Psychosocial Quality Of Bad Jobs

There can be no doubt that the job market has been more resilient since the financial crisis than many imagined. Unemployment did not rise as far as was feared and the recovery in employment to pre-recession levels has been quicker than forecast by even the most optimistic labour economists. So, time for some self-congratulatory back-slapping among policy makers then? On the surface of things, at least, it looks like a jobs miracle, despite the belt-tightening of austerity.
Unfortunately, having studied the quality of jobs which many people in the UK are now doing, this is not entirely the case. The UK labour market is, indeed, performing well but we have a growing and potentially corrosive problem of poor quality, precarious and temporary work which threatens our productivity and competitiveness, levels of social inclusion and, ultimately, the health of the workforce.
Many will argue that this contingent work is essential if we are to have a flexible labour market and this, of course, has always been the case. But how about the effects of this kind of work on the people doing it?
My research has focused on the relationship between the kinds of contingent work that has poor psychosocial quality and the mental health of the workers doing it. And findings force us to ask, perhaps heretically, whether we are actually always better off in work.

Work and well-being

Psychosocial job quality involves the degree to which jobs promote control, autonomy, challenge, variety and task discretion. It effects the extent to which work enhances or diminishes our psychological well-being.
There’s a clear link between being engaged in “good work” and mental health. An important contribution to our understanding of this link has come from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey in Australia. It brings together a robust set of data that can be easily compared with other situations such as unemployment. The results, published by Peter Butterworth and colleagues at the Australian National University have global resonance for countries that are serious about developing an understanding of what being “better off” in work really means, beyond narrow economic definitions.

The received wisdom is that being out of work is a bad thing. It certainly is bad, as we know, for income. It is also bad for self-esteem, dignity, social inclusion, relationships and health. So, all other things being equal, a policy position that promotes getting people back into work is both rational and evidence-based.
But, building on this position, and especially during a period of high unemployment, the received wisdom also tells us that any job is a good job. This axiom informs current UK policy towards compulsory work experience and the “workfare” or “work-for-benefits” thinking which many politicians now favour.

Worse than unemployment

Being in poor-quality work which, perhaps, is boring, routine or represents underemployment or a poor match for the employee’s skills is widely regarded as a good way for the unemployed to remain connected to the labour market – and to keep the work habit. But Butterworth’s data contradicts this. The HILDA data shows unambiguously that the psychosocial quality of bad jobs is worse than unemployment. Butterworth looked at those moving from unemployment into employment and found that:

Those who moved into optimal jobs showed significant improvement in mental health compared to those who remained unemployed. Those respondents who moved into poor-quality jobs showed a significant worsening in their mental health compared to those who remained unemployed.

So now we have a slightly different answer to the question about the unemployed being better off in work. Yes they are, as long as they are in good-quality jobs. If they are in bad jobs, there is a perversely strong chance that they will be worse off – especially in terms of their mental health.
Again, for those who think that there should be punitive undertones to policies to get unemployed people back to work would do well to question whether the “any job is a good job” maxim is as accurate as they like to think. Moreover, we should probably question whether the revolving-door characteristics of some policies in which many people fall back out of work soon after being found a job might – in part – owe their poor performance to the damaging psychosocial quality of the work itself.
This shouldn’t stop us from straining every sinew to help people find work. But it should make us think a lot more about how the quality of jobs can affect our health and productivity. Even in a recession, the uncomfortable truth may be that “any job” may not be a good job at all.

from here

Within this global system of high unemployment, divisive inequality and 'haves and have nots' the problems pertaining to employment which are viewed as purely economic often conceal the wider implications of deficiencies recognised by the population at large. Many important social aspirations affecting quality of life, health and safety, and the environment at large are ignored because they don't turn a profit, even though they could occupy many people. 
When the profit motive is removed from the equation as it will be in socialist society then work is voluntary and is prioritised democratically. The emphasis becomes that of the common good - from each according to ability to each according to need. We rely on each other, not on a wage or salary.

 

Abolish Employment

This week we will be getting the employment numbers. The unemployment rate is expected to stay steady or even drop which is comical given that we have 92 million Americans not working today and another 19 million that are fully unemployed.
Those not in the labor force continues to grow beyond the basic changes in demographics.  This topic rarely receives any coverage since those not working largely have no funds to back lobbying groups or to put ads out in the media.  Yet we can see this dissatisfaction when Americans are asked about their views on the economy.  The majority think the economy is doing poorly and this is expected given the underlying numbers.
 You have young Americans going to college and many are coming out to low wage jobs and hefty student loans.
 In the last 4 years alone we have added 12 million Americans to the not in the labor force category.  This measure is used to calculate the unemployment rate and given this group is not factored in, the unemployment rate looks much better than it truly is.
 The oxymoron that we have is we have a labor force that is largely not doing labor.

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This is capitalism, let us not forget! Why should we expect any different from a system which has profit at the top of its agenda with labor only as a means of achieving those profits for the few? The answer lies in labor's hands - work together in solidarity to achieve the abolition of the current system in favour of egalitarianism, a system of common ownership and equal access which works for us all, socialism.
JS

25% US Workers Aged 25-54 Unemployed

For most Americans, the best indicator of a healthy economy is having a job. With many Americans entering older age, the number of those not in the labor force is booming. It doesn’t appear to be on the radar of people that the reason the unemployment numbers look the way they do is because a massive number of Americans simply are not counted in the labor force. This ability to ignore a large portion of your population allows the numbers to appear better than they are. But this is for the entire US population.
 If we look at those 25-54 we find that 1 out of 4 is without a job.
This is the prime working years for many Americans. The Great Recession has been a challenge for many working families. The lack of good paying work, weaker benefits, and inflation has dug deep into the pockets of many Americans. When 1 out of 4 Americans in their prime working years is out of work, something else has to give.

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Bums On Welfare

House Speaker John Boehner says that unemployed Americans are pretty clearly malingerers, bums on welfare who have decided that they don't feel like working: "This idea that has been born, maybe out of the economy over the last couple years, that, you know, 'I really don't have to work; I don't really want to do this. I think I'd rather just sit around.' This is a very sick idea for our country," Mr. Boehner said in comments made after a speech at the American Enterprise Institute this month.
I could point to the overwhelming economic evidence that nothing like this is happening - after all, if what we were seeing was a mass withdrawal of labor supply, we should be seeing wages for those still willing to work taking off. I could also point to zero interest rates and low inflation as evidence that we're living in a demand-constrained economy. I could ask how, exactly, Mr. Boehner believes that increased willingness to work would conjure more jobs into existence.
But what really gets me here is the fact that people like Mr. Boehner are so obviously disconnected from the lived experience of ordinary workers. I mean, I live a pretty rarefied existence, with job security and a nice income and a generally upscale social set - but even so, I know a fair number of people who have spent months or years in desperate search of jobs that still aren't there. How cut off (or oblivious) can someone be who thinks that the problem here is just that these people don't want to work?
When I see stuff like this, I always think of the opening of B. Traven's book The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: "Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn't know anyone who knows of a vacancy. This is exactly the reason why he gives you such generous advice, out of brotherly love, and to demonstrate how little he knows the world."
Return of the Bums on Welfare
It has long seemed to me that the issue of unemployment benefits is where the debate over economic policy in a depression reaches its purest essence. If you're on the right, you believe - you more or less have to believe - that unemployment benefits hurt job creation, because you're "paying people not to work."
To admit that depression conditions are different - that the economy is suffering from an overall lack of demand and that putting money into the pockets of people who are likely to spend it would increase employment - would mean admitting that the free market sometimes fails badly. And, of course, disdain for the unemployed helps a lot if you want to oppose any kind of aid for the unfortunate.
But there's something remarkable about seeing these claims made now - because even if you believe that expanded unemployment benefits were somehow a cause rather than an effect of the economic crisis, those expanded benefits are long gone. They're back down to their level at the height of the "Bush boom" in 2006.
And Josh Bivens, a researcher at the Economic Policy Institute, recently pointed out that the recipiency rate - the percentage of the unemployed receiving any benefits at all - is at a record low. As Mr. Bivens says, the pullback in benefits is one main reason that economic expansion isn't reducing poverty.
So basically the right is railing against the bums on welfare not only when there aren't any bums, but when there isn't any welfare.

Paul Krugman from here

Workers Of The World - 4

Uncertain Times

The global economic crisis that rocked the world in 2008 led to increased financial hardship for informal workers, most of whom already lived in precarious circumstances.

Pushpaben Kishorkumar Kapani, Diamond Polishing, Ahmedabad, India

I followed my husband’s trade and took up diamond polishing. I had also undergone training in diamond polishing, prior to taking up this work. I am 33 years old and have been residing in Ahmedabad since birth. I have studied up to college.
My husband and I made good money through diamond polishing. My husband’s monthly earnings were Rs3000 (US$62.05) and my monthly earning were Rs2000 (US$41.37). We have a daughter who is studying in the 4th Standard. She would be left under the care of our neighbours, while we were away at work. We were able to cater to most of the needs of our daughter.
Everything was going well and then … all of a sudden, fate changed due to the onset of the financial crisis!!! It is over a year now.

Diamond work was very badly affected by the financial crisis. There were more than 1000 diamond polishing factories in Ahmedabad city. Most of these factories have shut down. Thousands of people lost their livelihood and became jobless. My husband and I also lost our jobs. We became helpless. Life became very tough. There were problems due to the shortage of food at home. At times – we were unable to get food for two days. Our daughter had to discontinue school as we could not afford school fees.

We left Ahmedabad and went to village and tried to work on farms. But the earnings were very low and, moreover, our daughter was being neglected and getting spoiled. So we returned to Ahmedabad. My husband started working in an iron factory. He was getting 100 rupees per day (US$2.07). However, all his earnings were being spent on house rent and other domestic expenses. We were unable to afford proper food. I took up embroidery work as I had some experience in it. But here too – the earnings of around 12 rupees per day (0.25 USD) were not sufficient.

The financial crisis has made the situation of so many similar to that of ours. Being the eldest at my in-laws place I have to take on a lot of responsibilities. I had never thought or expected to be in this situation!!!
A lot of questions enter my mind: “When will the factories open again? What is my daughter’s future? What about her marriage?” These thoughts depress me.
Due to increasing prices we are unable to afford proper food, clothing and medical treatment. A big question in front of us is – “What work to do?” I do not know when the financial crisis will end – it is finishing us!!!

from here

US Black Men Still Marginalised

Black men are no better off than they were more than 40 years ago, due to mass incarceration and job losses suffered during the Great Recession, according to a new report by researchers at the University of Chicago.

“The growth of incarceration rates among Black men in recent decades combined with the sharp drop in Black employment rates during the Great Recession have left most Black men in a position relative to white men that is really no better than the position they occupied only a few years after the Civil Rights Act of 1965,” the co-authors wrote.

“Today, Black-white gaps in math and reading scores among youth and Black-white gaps in overall educational attainment among young adults are quite similar to the corresponding gaps observed around 1990,” stated the report which also suggested that “relative to whites, labor market outcomes among Black men are no better now and possibly worse than they were in 1970.”
Neal, an economics professor, said that he was surprised that the rise in our nation’s prison population, which correlated with the fall in employment rates for Black men, really was a policy choice and that the war on drugs was just a small part of a much bigger story.

Beginning in the 1980s, in an effort to get tough on crime, states eliminated discretionary parole, established independent sentencing commissions, and crafted “Three Strikes and You’re Out” enhanced sentencing guidelines for repeat offenders.
Truth-in-Sentencing (TIS) Incentive Grants Program gave states money to build prisons and indirectly encouraged state officials to adopt policies “requiring sentenced offenders to serve large portions of their sentences.”
Neal said that it wasn’t one or two types of crimes that we got tougher on, it was across the board.
“We started to lock people up for a really long time relative to what we had done in the past,” said Neal.

The report said that changes in criminal justice policies accounted for more than 70 percent of the growth in the prison population between 1986 and 2006.
The United States leads the world when it comes to locking people up “with 2.2 million people currently in the nation’s prisons or jails — a 500 percent increase over the past thirty years” according to The Sen­tenc­ing Project.

The report said that “on any given day in 2010, almost one in ten Black men ages 20-39 were institutionalized” and “because turnover among prison populations is quite high, these results suggest that far more than ten percent of prime age Black men will serve some time in prison or jail during a given calendar year.”
Black men over 20 years-old still face a double-digit unemployment rate, the highest rate among all adult worker groups. According to the Labor Department, the jobless rate for Black men was 10.9 percent compared to 4.9 percent for white men, 4.8 percent for white women and nine percent for Black women.
The “Smart on Crime” initiative proposed by Attorney General Eric Holder in 2013, that will ultimately affect the lives of thousands of nonviolent, drug offenders, was just “a drop in the bucket,” because those policies will mostly affect people doing time in federal prisons. Most offenders are locked up in local jails and state prisons. Local jails, state and federal prisons combined house close to a million Black men.

Neal said that if you’re a Black man 25 to 35 years old without a high school diploma, you’re about as likely to have a job as you are to be in prison; under 25 without a high school diploma, you’re more likely to be in prison.
“You have to get to the 35 and above age group, before you’re more likely to have a job than be in prison, said Neal. “I don’t think the typical person on the street or the typical congressman knows how messed up things are.”

taken from here

Youth Unemployment - Demographic Time-Bomb?

In front of the Maison de la Presse in downtown Algiers, Algeria’s capital, dozens of young men and women are protesting against the government, again. Protests are forbidden by law in this north African country and usually last only 30 minutes before the police arrive to disperse the crowds. 

 

“It’s enough! Give us back our rights!” they chant in Arabic as they stand under the sun. Others carry placards that say “A staff job is a right, not a favour! Yes to a staff job! No to the hogra!” 

 

“Hogra means disdain, contempt, and that’s what we feel, that’s what most young people feel here when they talk about their future,” says Idriss Mekideche, 32, one of the demonstrators and spokesman of the “pre-emploi”, a group affiliated with the independent national union of civil servants (known by its French initials, SNAPAP).

 

In Algeria, pre-emploi (“pre-employment” in French) is the name given to temporary jobs offered by the Algerian government to young graduates. These contracts, lasting at least three years, are part of an effort to lower unemployment and to give graduates a chance to acquire skills and experience. Across the nation, thousands of educated young people are enrolled in this programme, working in low-level, poorly-paid positions in public institutions such as schools, hospitals or courts. 

 

When he graduated with a degree in computer management, Hocine Guonouch, 31, was offered a “pre-employment” position at a youth centre in Algiers. “I didn’t find anything there, not a single computer in sight!” he smiles. “I asked for another job and now I work in an elementary school: I do some paper work, photocopies, I manage the cafeteria.” 

 

His friend, Rachid Cemchaoui, a 27-year-old with a law degree, landed a temporary job in a cultural centre where he works as a doorman and night guard. 

 

“They gave me the keys, I was told, ‘You stay here, you watch who comes in and out’,” he quips.

 

Each and every one has a story to tell about the absurdity of a system where job titles never match the positions offered, where law, medicine, engineering and other graduates end up doing temporary low-skilled jobs with low wages, between 10,000 and 15,000 dinars per month ($125 to $200). In total, about 900,000 pre-emplois in Algeria hope for a permanent job, ideally in their field of competence, according to the SNAPAP-affiliated group. While they wait in limbo, others have no jobs at all. 

 

The government claims it has slashed unemployment from 30% in 2000 to 9.8% in 2013, according to the national statistics office (or ONS after its initials in French). It boasts that it created 3.5m jobs between 1999 and 2008 through various programmes and agencies that train the jobless, support the creation of new businesses with micro-loans, and hand out temporary positions such as the pre-emploi. But many Algerians have little faith in these figures and slate the pre-emploi jobs as fake. 

 

Despite the reduction in unemployment, 24.8% of young people under 25 were jobless in 2013, according to the national statistics office. Some experts say the actual numbers may be as high as one out of three young people without work. 

 

Algeria’s population is young, with 58% of its 38.7m people under the age of 30, according to the statistics office. These under-30s make up 69% of the country’s unemployed. Facing discontent and a high risk of social explosion, the Algerian government is offering subsidies and grants to young people. It has also created a national agency to support youth employment and a fund to help young entrepreneurs who want to start their own companies. 

 

“The government has just spent a lot of money to buy social peace, with no real strategy in the long run,” says Abdelouahab Fersaoui, president of Rally for Youth Action, a national social and cultural association that works with young people. “The regime has done everything to marginalise the youth, to prevent young people from taking control of their destiny. The state considers youth a subject, a problem to handle, rather than a factor of development for the country.” 

 

Many Algerians are so desperate that their anger boils over onto the street. Protests, sit-ins and riots transpire almost daily across the country. More than 6,500 demonstrations and 1,500 strikes took place in Algeria in 2013, many initiated by young people, according to the Algerian daily newspaper El-Watan. 

 

Young people say they feel either ignored or scorned by their own government. They see themselves as a doomed generation with no hope for social justice. Many complain that their future has few options: violence, exile or suicide. Some leave the country and sail over the Mediterranean to Europe. They are known as the “harragas” (“those who emigrate” in Algeria’s Arab dialect). Others are so desperate, they self-immolate.

In recent years suicides and attempted suicides by self-immolation have skyrocketed in Algeria, a copy-cat phenomenon after Muhammad Bouazizi, a young street vendor in Tunisia, set himself on fire in December 2010 and sparked the Arab spring riots. Official statistics are not available but local media listed more than a hundred self-immolations in 2013. 

 

On March 20th, Fethi Manaa, 22, poured gas on himself in the village of Hassi Labiod in the suburbs of the north-western city of Oran. He was protesting an eviction notice from the home that he shared with eight members of his family. His brother, Aissa Manaa, 29, tried to save him but failed. 

 

“The policemen who had come to evict us just watched him burn without moving a finger,” he says. “This is not a proper state [with rule of law]. Everything works with bribes. My brother died and it’s as if it was just a cat that died. No one followed up on this case; no one cares about him.” 

 

Mr Manaa’s immolation led to street riots in the village where families have been living in shanty houses since the country’s independence in 1962. In Hassi Labiod, as in the rest of the Algeria, the vast majority of young people still live with their parents. They say they cannot marry or raise a family for lack of decent wages and housing.

 

Kaddour Chouicha, bureau chief in Oran of the Algerian League for Human Rights, complains about the inequality, corruption and clientelism in the distribution of housing. “Housing is a major demand for people,” he said. “Some have castles, others have nothing. People make requests, they have no news for months or years, and then when the list of housing beneficiaries is published, there are riots.”

 

After visiting Algeria in 2011, Raquel Rolnik, a UN housing expert, criticised “the lack of citizens’ participation” in the allocation of housing “as well as the scope of decision-making left to the administration”. 

 

The Algerian government has fast-tracked housing construction in a series of three five-year plans that began in 2001. The goal of the current programme is to build 2.2m housing units between 2010 and 2014. As of last March, 827,000 had been completed, according to government figures.

 

However, the government is struggling to keep up with Algeria’s demographic boom, the rural exodus and natural disasters (the Bab El Oued floods in 2001 or the Boumerdes earthquake in 2003). The country needs 200,000 to 250,000 new housing units per year, according to the Algerian housing ministry.

 

The new government nominated after Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s re-election to the presidency last April has its work cut out to meet young people’s demands for jobs and housing and to regain their trust. But for now, the majority of young Algerians say they have no faith in their politicians. “What’s the point of waking up in the morning knowing there is repression and corruption, knowing that Algeria doesn’t have what it deserves?” asks 21-year-old student Abdelouhab Merchiche. “Here in Algeria, youths’ rights have become a dream.”

from here

Detroit: Water Cut For Those Who Can't Pay

Thousands of the some 700,000 people who call Detroit home are currently living without access to water after the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department turned off their water because they hadn’t paid their bills.
As the shut-offs occur without warning from the department, residents don’t have time to fill buckets, sinks and tubs with water. This concerns human rights activists, who point out that as a result, “Sick people are left without running water and running toilets. People recovering from surgery cannot wash and change bandages. Children cannot bathe and parents cannot cook.”
It’s a practice that has been in place in Detroit for years, even though residents of the city plagued by high unemployment and a poverty rate of around 40 percent have struggled to keep up with water rates that have increased about 119 percent over the past decade.
The average monthly water bill in the city is currently around $75 per household.

Also contributing to bill delinquency are the “smart meters” that the state installed on homes. After these were installed, residents were asked to determine how much they owed, based on meter readings, rather than being issued a bill by the department. These meters reportedly read backwards, as well, meaning that residents could be charged for previous tenants’ water useage.
According to the water department, city residents owe about $118 million — a figure that does not include what is owed by residents on payment plans or by those who have declared bankruptcy. Those who fail to pay their bills have the overdue charges rolled into their property taxes, putting an individual’s home at risk for foreclosure if they are unable to pay.

Black residents are predominantly affected by the loss of access to water. As children live in two-thirds of the currently affected residences, child welfare authorities have had to remove some of these children from their homes because of a requirement that all children live in a home with working utilities.
Concerning for Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, is that the water department has pledged to turn the water off for all 120,000 residences with delinquent accounts — about 3,000 each week — in the city by the end of the summer. However, Barlow says the department has made no plans to shut off the water for any corporation or institution that has failed to pay its water bills.

“What is happening in Detroit is a social crime and a violation of the human right to water and sanitation as recognized by the United Nations,” Barlow said. She explained that the right being violated is the “Obligation to Respect,” which says that a once is given to an individual, that right can’t be taken away.
Part of the reason that so many people in the city have been delinquent on their water bills is that the department’s revenue structure is based on a city that was once home to millions. Since the population of Detroit has dramatically decreased over the years, the burden of funding the water department has fallen upon the city’s dwindling population.

“Detroit is a victim of decades of market driven neoliberal policy that put business and profit ahead of public good,” Barlow said. “Social security programs have been slashed and their delivery privatized. Investment in essential infrastructure has been slashed…”
She also called this a human rights issue, explaining that there hasn’t been much coverage on the water shut-offs in the mainstream media because the people losing their water are not “middle class white people.” This has left some wondering if the general consensus is that “Detroit is a lost cause and the people there deserve what they are getting.”


Barlow took to her blog to ask President Barack Obama and other U.S. politicians to intervene, since cutting off a person’s access to water — a substance humans need to survive — is “an affront to the notion that we have advanced very far in our understanding of human rights or in its practice.”
“We all stand guilty if we do not shout out against this terrible injustice on our continent.”

from here

US Majority In Dire Straits

After World War II the U.S. saw the birth of the biggest middle class the world has ever come to know. The birth of the baby boomers and prosperity for all seemed to be the new norm. Of course, part of this was brought on by the fact that Europe, Japan, and China were in ruins or in massive social upheaval and trying to gain a foothold in the new economy. Factory jobs for a small generation paid middle class wages. More importantly, jobs were plentiful and most required little in the way of a college education. Today, that is no longer the case. The world is hyper competitive and massive banks are largely in control of policy in many nations around the globe.

 In the U.S. since the recession ended in 2009 we have added 12,000,000 people to a category labeled as “not in the labor force.”

 This is a 15 percent growth rate in this category while the overall population has increased 4 percent during this same period. Many Americans have dropped out of the labor force because they are unable to find work in this current economy and many younger Americans are simply enrolling in college at higher rates and with higher debt. We have a system that really does a poor job of measuring the economic well-being of most people. For example, GDP contracted in Q1 of 2014 yet somehow, the stock market continues to make new highs and those not in the labor force continue to expand.


Not in the labor force

Part of the growth of those not in the labor force has to do with larger demographic trends including the massive number of baby boomers hitting retirement age. Most however are ill prepared to confront the long-term prospect of living in retirement with little savings and heavily relying on Social Security. You have a larger number of older Americans working in minimum wage service sector jobs to make ends meet. Of course these are also jobs that would be normally filled by younger less skilled workers. So what ends up happening is a race to the bottom in this low-wage economy.
It is telling to see how much faster the “not in the labor force” category is growing versus the overall population rate. We have many people that have simply dropped out of the labor force. We know many younger people are camping out back at home given their poor economic prospects.
Take a look at the overall rate:















More than 92 million Americans are not in the labor force (close to one-third of our population). We have a major retirement crisis looming in the wings. People simply did not save enough for the prospect of a long and potentially expensive retirement. We know inflation is already picking up in many sectors of the economy.
This larger trend has caused our civilian employment-population ratio to hit levels last seen in the 1970s before we had a large surge of females into the workforce:













According to research from the BLS this trend is expected to continue well into 2022. So we know we are going to have a larger percentage of our population simply not working yet having to live somehow. Where will this funding come from? Ideally people would have enough savings to get by but the numbers show a very different story unfortunately.
Many of the top jobs after World War II paid livable wages that allowed people to access a middle class lifestyle on one income. That is no longer the case today. The largest employment sectors in the U.S. pay just enough for basic shelter and food:
















Retail sales, cashier, and food preparation round out the top three occupations in the country. Unfortunately the Great Recession destroyed many good paying jobs only to replace them with lower paying employment. Only one of the top employment fields in the country pays more than $35,000 a year (nursing) and this requires a college education.
One of the large reasons why we are seeing such a big drop in the unemployment figures is the reality that many people are simply not being considered part of the labor force. Too bad math in the real world doesn’t work in a similar fashion.

from here

Racial Discrimination, College Degrees and Unemployment

The report, “A College Degree is no Guarantee,” examines labor-market outcomes for black recent college graduates (ages 22 to 27) from as far back as 1970 through the most recent available data.

 The main findings include:

• In 2013, 12.4 percent of black college graduates between the ages of 22 and 27 were unemployed. For all college graduates in the same age range, the unemployment rate was 5.6 percent.
• Between 2007 (immediately before the Great Recession) and 2013, the unemployment rate for black recent college graduates nearly tripled (up 7.8 percentage points from 4.6 percent in 2007).
• In 2013, more than half (55.9 percent) of employed black recent college graduates were “underemployed” –defined as working in an occupation that typically does not require a four-year college degree. Even before the Great Recession, almost half of black recent graduates were underemployed (45.0 percent in 2007).
• Black recent college graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors have fared somewhat better, but still suffer from high unemployment and underemployment rates. For example, for the years 2010 to 2012, among black recent graduates with degrees in engineering, the average unemployment rate was 10 percent and the underemployment rate was 32 percent.

“These outcomes reflect the strong negative effect of economic downturns on young workers in general, but, in part, these results also  reflect ongoing racial discrimination in the labor market,” said Janelle Jones, an author of the report and a research associate at CEPR. “Earning a college degree blunts the effects of the economic downturn and racial discrimination, , but college is not a guarantee against either set of challenges for young black workers.”

from here

Suicide Numbers Increase As UK Austerity Continues

A 20-year decline in suicide in the UK came to an end in 2007. Since then the suicide rate has been rising, especially among men, who are three times more likely than women to take their own lives.

The latest ONS statistics showed that in 2012 there were just under 6,000 suicides among people aged 15 years and over, representing a rate of 11.6 deaths per 100,000 population. In most countries of the world (the main exception being China) suicide incidence is higher among men than among women. However, the male:female ratio in the UK is notably high, and has increased over the 30-year period covered by the ONS review: suicide deaths among men constituted 63% of the UK total in 1981, rising to 77% in 2012, and was highest among men aged 35-54.

It is highly likely that this reversal in the suicide trend is connected (at least in part) to the onset of the 2007-2008 economic recession and the policy response of the UK government. In addition to more general evidence, based on extensive international literature, that economic recession is associated with increased suicide in middle and high-income countries, it has been estimated that about a thousand more suicides occurred in England in 2008-2010 than would have been expected based on historical trends.

But the rise in suicide in the UK wasn’t inevitable. On the contrary, it was the consequence of a deliberate policy choice: that of austerity. Where governments have invested in intensive programmes to help people return to work or increased spending on broader social protection and welfare programmes, such as Finland and Sweden did in the early 1990s, the most extreme negative health effects of economic crisis were mitigated. This has not been the case in the UK.
The ONS bulletin didn’t include data on the association between socio-economic disadvantage and suicide, but this association is well established: there is a gradient in suicide risk at both individual and area levels, and when these risks are combined, those in the lowest socio-economic group and living in the most deprived areas are about ten times more at risk of suicide than those in the highest socio-economic group living in the most affluent areas.

Starting from a recognition of the key role played by mental ill-health in suicidal behaviour, a report published by the Samaritans nevertheless challenged the dominant individualistic perspective on suicide – which tends towards biological, psychological and psychiatric explanations – and highlighted how social, economic and cultural changes (including rising female employment, relationship breakdown, social disconnectedness and solo living) have shaped the lives of men who are now in mid-life.
The data reported in the ONS bulletin support the Samaritans’ argument that suicide also needs to be addressed as a health and gender inequality: “An avoidable difference in health and length of life that results from being poor and disadvantaged; and an issue that affects men more because of the way society expects them to behave.”

Jonny Benjamin highlights this expectation in an account about what led him to plan to kill himself in 2008. Fortunately his attempt was stopped by a passing stranger. Benjamin said that the only time that he had seen men able to express their emotions so openly had been on trips with his dad to watch football. The problem was that when he was in emotional trouble and needed to express himself, he felt the oppressive weight of societal gender stereotypes: to be tough, to “man up”. He notes the irony that it was another man who saved his life.
The excess of suicide deaths among men aged 35-54 years was noted in the latest suicide prevention strategy for England. Remedial action to tackle the fundamental causes of the high suicide risk among disadvantaged men in this priority age group, through the adoption of progressive (gender sensitive) social and economic policies, is even more necessary in the present economic context than in times of economic prosperity. But I’m not holding my breath.

 By Stephen Platt from here

End Wage Slavery and Unemployment – Abolish Money

Removing money from the current economic equation would strike most people as impossible, unthinkable, absolutely imponderable. Everything we do, every transaction we make, from posting a letter to sending a space probe to Mars, from birth to death and at every step in between, money has become a necessary part of getting what we require. It has become an accepted, entrenched method of acquiring anything and everything BUT it wasn't always so and in a genuine socialist system money will be shown to have been an unnecessary, wasteful and divisive way of ordering world communities.

When initially being presented with the notion of a world without money the first imperative is the willingness to contemplate a huge paradigm shift, to put aside all familiar long-held views and preconceived notions and to enter into an adventure of discovery that there is a place for all at the table, that it doesn't entail regression to the Dark Ages and that the welfare and progress of people doesn't have to come at a cost to the environment.

Work is well recognised by experts in the health arena as being one of the most stressful areas of life for reasons such as long hours, extended travelling time to and from place of employment, risk of job loss, lack of security of tenure, inflexible working practices, difficulty getting release for major personal events such as bereavement, long-term illness of a spouse or partner, or even short-term care of a sick child. Loss of employment can put stress on the whole family, sinking it into debt, causing day to day difficulties with the household budget and in many cases leading to loss of the home.

Right now, worldwide, are millions of 'would-be' workers who are sidelined in one way or another, without employment or scratching on the edges of a black economy and in some of the more 'developed' countries we find many termed 'scroungers' in current day parlance.

Within the capitalist system there has to be a pool of workers unable to find work in order to keep the bargaining power in favour of the capitalist employers who strive to keep wage levels down, whereas if there is a shortage of suitable labour the bargaining power switches to the employees who try to force wage levels up. The fact that some 'developed' countries have systems which pay a percentage of workers to remain unemployed (and who receive welfare benefits) is a price the capitalists are prepared to pay to maintain the tensions in society. Encouraging the employed to think that they are the ones subsidising the benefits system maintains one fissure within the 'working' class whereas allowing a large number of unemployed to be without any welfare would cause too many problems for the capitalists with possibilities of mass looting, rioting and damage to their property.

There are also untold numbers of immigrants living temporarily or permanently away from home just to make a living which has become impossible in their own country especially since deregulation of the market and as a group they send billions of whatever currency back to their homelands. For every ten who make it there are hundreds who struggle endlessly seeing no progress or find they have moved into a life of indebtedness and semi-slavery.

The current situation worldwide with its high unemployment rates suits the capitalists very well, but is both punishing and divisive for the vast majority. However, when money is not required in exchange for work and when, instead, all contribute their skills, expertise and/or manpower in return for open access to the requirements of life then we can begin to see a different motivation enter the whole concept of the 'work' scenario. When all 'work' is seen as legitimate and deserving of recognition, from the humblest occupations – collecting and sorting waste, stacking shelves in our 'stores', keeping the utilities working even in the worst weather, repairing our shoes – to those which are perceived as more elite - heart surgeons, ground-breaking scientists or cutting-edge technicians; when all are respected or appreciated for their contribution simply by having the same right of access to our commonly produced goods humankind will have truly developed to a higher level.

In addition a moneyless world will free up millions of workers who are now tied to some very stressful occupations dealing only in (other people's) money – banking, mortgage brokering, insurance; those occupied in the collection of rates, taxes and utility payments; those in security work such as guards and armoured truck staff engaged only in protecting and moving money and other 'valuables' – millions of workers who, when considered logically, currently fulfil no useful function and contribute nothing to society that improves that society. This is in no way to imply that those currently employed in such work are any less valuable than any other worker. Within the capitalist system we all have to work with what is available and what percentage of the working class can truly say that their work is exactly what they were looking for? However, in the new, socialist system, with so many extra hands on deck working hours will be considerably reduced which, with the knowledge that one's 'work' is not tied to the ability to feed and clothe the family, to house them and provide all the other requirements of life, will be to remove the stress at a stroke.

With millions released from wage slavery in the now redundant financial sector and free to be a part of the production, distribution and service sectors, with the black economy, immigrants and illegals no longer a threat to paid workers (pay being redundant) there will be a huge reduction in individual necessary work time. When there is no profit incentive the emphasis will be on the production of quality goods from quality materials and no one need choose an inferior item based on cost. Providers of utilities such as electricity and gas, water and communications will be able to have sufficient workers to install, service, repair and develop their installations more efficiently and effectively. If there is work that no one is prepared to undertake then an alternative will need to be found democratically. 

 

Without the constraints that we have today the workplace will become a different place, one of cooperation not competition where we work for the benefit of all not for the profit of a few. The lines between work and leisure may well be much more blurred than in today's scenario. People will have time, time to be creative, to learn different and multiple skills and to enjoy the time they spend working. Leisure activities seen as hobbies now – vehicle maintenance, gardening, DIY home improvements, baking, the making of all kinds of hand-made items, giving educational and training courses – could well form part of one's 'work time' in the community, bringing a greater satisfaction and contributing to individual development generally, one of the aims of socialism. With more leisure time available it is also highly likely that more 'work' would be created in the leisure area, whether sports complexes, theatrical and music productions and educational courses in the widest sense and with unlimited opportunities for the active participation of those who choose it.

Want to end wage slavery and unemployment? Abolish money.

EU Gloom

 One in four Europeans are at risk of poverty, the European Commission said. 

"We have seen a significant increase in poverty…even it unemployment is gradually reducing,"  EU employment commissioner Laszlo Andor said.

Increasing numbers of part-time workers and low wages are also expected to lead to a widening gap between rich and poor in Europe.

The EU's statistical agency estimates that more than 19 million people in the eurozone are unemployed. Youth unemployment stands at 23 percent. Greece and Spain had the highest jobless rates at 27.3 percent and 26.7 percent respectively - more than five times higher than Austria and Germany. The report estimates that 29 percent of the EU's unemployed were not receiving welfare benefits.

Only one in three Europeans are able to move above the poverty threshold within a year.

"In order for an adult to exit poverty, it is usually necessary to find a job. But it is not always enough: our analysis shows that getting a job is a way out of poverty in only half of the cases," said Andor. "Unfortunately we cannot say that having a job necessarily equates with a decent standard of living,"