As the world suffers more from natural disasters and the devastating results of wars, along with the ravages of poverty created by corporate capitalist greed, we need to allow people freedom of movement as they try to survive these horrors. No one can be illegal, borders can’t be a death sentence, we are one.
On 20th October millionaire Osborne, one of the millionaire cabal at the Westminster House of Hypocrisy and Corruption, will spell out his hatchet job. We will know then just where and how viciously the chopping will be done. We already have pieces of the slaughter out in the open, social housing budget, hacked by app.80%, family allowance stops at 16, discouraging the poorer section of our society from continuing their education after that date. By some estimates, 500,000 public sector jobs to go and approximately the same from the private sector. Housing benefit cut, forcing some families onto the street, and so it goes on. This an attack on all sections of the working class with the poorest taking the hardest hit.
All this is supposed to make us fell better in the long run, tell that to those thrown onto the scrap heap of poverty and unemployment. Tell that to the kids of those families as they grow up to find that further education is not for them and a job is a slim possibility. However, the financial sector is happy and the bond markets are happy and of course that’s where our millionaire cabal’s friends hang out ripping off all and sundry as they privatize everything in sight.
The biggest and most blatant grab for all public assets by the corporate world since the start of the welfare state. These cuts will see the end of councils and government providing services. All will be delivered by the corporate greed machine as it squeezes everything to drain the last drop of profit from everything and anything. You will now find yourself at the mercy of the profit grabbers, if you can’t provide them with profit you will be excluded. In their world money talks and that is the only language they understand, no compassion, no mutual aid, no seeing to the needy, no co-operation for mutual benefit, no caring society, pay up or get out.
Welcome to the 21st, century Victorian Britain, if you are in need and don’t have much money, then just hope that there is a charity in your area that handles your sort of problem. Or organise to take control of your communities, take control of your workplaces. Just remember, they need you, you don’t need them.
I thought the 80’s were wonderful.
Ah, those glorious eighties!! A period between 1979 and 1994, when it was claimed that average earnings rose by 40%, of course this gives a very distorted figure. If we look at the richest 10% of the population the growth in income was approximately 68%. On the other hand if we look at the poorest 10% their incomes grow by a mere 10% before housing costs and actually fell by 8% after housing costs. What a wonderful time to be among the richest 10%.
Under capitalist labour/conservative governments this country has always had more than its fair share of poverty. The last thirty years the poverty has been considerable and what this means to the lives of all those affected by this poverty is immeasurable. It leads of course to poor maternal nutrition, risking unhealthy babies, we have the young unable to afford a healthy diet, with housing and jobs out of their reach, pensioners dying of hypothermia. Then there is the poverty related ill health pushing the national health service to breaking point. Let’s not forget poverty related crime and the effects it has on peoples’ lives.
All this adds up to billions more than it would cost to implement a decent living wage for all, but this is capitalism and it is not the welfare of the people that matters, it’s profit. So wages must be kept to a minimum to keep the shareholders happy. Tinkering with minimum wages and such will not get rid of the deprivation, it is the system that is rotten and doesn’t work for the benefit of all our people. It is a winner take all and to hell with the hindmost system that benefits the small band of parasites at the top. Keep the system, keep the poverty.
Recent government figures show the extent of poverty in this, one of the richest nations on the planet. The previous government set the target of cutting in half by 2010 the number of people living in poverty. It miserably failed, the figures for 2008/09 show the number of people in this country living in poverty amounted to 10.9 million, 18% of the population. A marginal decrease from the previous year. Of course in this rich capitalist country, working does not necessarily mean that you lead the good life. You can be employed and still need to have your income topped up by taxpayers money, in fact we are subsidising your employer who fails to pay you a living wage. This sink of poverty is spread across the full spectrum of the population, taking in children, adults and pensioners.
The number of children living in poverty in this country is a staggering 2.8 million, 22% of the child population of the country. Pensioners after their life of working producing the wealth of this country come out no better. 18% of pensioner couples, 18% of single male pensioners and a shameful 25% of single female pensioners are all struggling in that sink of poverty.
If those with their rose tinted glasses expect to see the manicured twins now in charge, wave a magic wand and make poverty disappear, they are going to be miserably disappointed. With the cut and slash plans they are spouting, what we can expect is a revisit to the Victorian era. Ask yourself, when has this rich capitalist country ever been rid of poverty? What makes you think that keeping the same capitalist system that has mired millions in poverty will somehow transform itself into a benevolent system that will see to the needs of all?
We don’t need a change of faces at No.10, we don’t need a pair of photogenic, privileged public school boys to fiddle about with some figures, making sure that the wealth stays right where it is at the moment. NO, we need a complete change of system, an end to the free market capitalist winner take all and to hell with the hindmost. We need to organise to take control of our communities, work places and assets, and organise society so that we can see to the needs of all our people,. We need to build a society based on mutual aid, free association, voluntary co-operation and sustainability. We either do that, or we face a future of more poverty for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.
So, you’ve had your election, how will the result impact on the figures below? Just consider how many elections have taken place in your life time and the results are still the same dismal statistics that are listed below. Under capitalism, elections come and elections go, leaders come and leaders go, but poverty goes on forever.
In households with less than 60% median income in Scotland today are:
980,000, 20% or one fifth of all individuals,
250,000, 24% of children,
150,000, 16% of pensioners,
590,000, 19% of working age adults
• Inequality:
The share of the income of the richest ten per cent is the same as that of the bottom fifty per cent.
• Poor Health:
Differences in life expectancy between the poorest and richest areas of Glasgow can be up 25 years for men and 15 years for women.
• Debt and financial exclusion:
Only 1 in six people whose household income is less than £10,000 has a bank account. More than half do not have any savings.
• Bad Housing:
360,000 homes in Scotland are affected by dampness, more than 70% of Scottish social housing is below the Scottish Quality Housing Standard and over 125,000 children live in overcrowded houses.
• Fuel Poverty:
An estimated 650,000 ‘fuel poor’ households in Scotland and more than 2,000 (rising to 5,000 in severe winters) people aged over 65 die as a result of cold related illnesses during winter months.
• Disadvantaged young people:
Nearly 1 in 5 young people leave school without SVQ2 level (Higher education entry level) qualifications, increasing their risk of poverty in later life.
This is what we can expect from the capitalist system, a system based on greed and profit, a system where wealth is created by the many and continually sucked up to the parasitical handful who control the means of production and distribution. Only when we have workers control of these means of production and distribution will we see an end to poverty and deprivation.
While the government and big business go on about the “pension crisis” they pay scant attention to the poverty at the other end, the working age population. For one of the richest nations on the planet to proclaim to have a “pension crisis” while pouring billions of pounds into armaments and the illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan is criminal hypocrisy. There answer to the “pension crisis” is for us to pay more for our pensions and work longer before we can draw a smaller pension.
Looking at Scotland we find that almost one fifth of the population, 19%, are living in poverty on less than 60% of the national average income.
The 60% of national average income poverty threshold works out at; £180 a week for a 2 adult household, £100 a week for a single adult household, £260 a week for a 2 adults living with 2 children, £180 a week for 1 adult living with 2 children. Then there is the fact that 30% of workers, more than half a million, are paid less than £6:50 an hour.
If you approach these people and tell them that they are not paying enough towards their pension you may not like the answer you receive. Also they may not take too kindly being told that as well as having to pay more for their pension, they will be obliged to work until they are 68 before receiving this pension, bearing in mind that the average life expectancy of a male in Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, is 69. Not much of a return for working longer and paying more. Of course in the better off areas like East Dunbartonshire the life expectancy jumps to 77. Who gains most by the ordinary worker paying more to the pension fund?
This is the situation on the ground among the people, but the rarefied atmosphere inhabited by MPs excludes them from seeing this reality. Their £61,000+ salary, excellent pension and expenses that are higher than most people earn, cocoons them from the harsh environment of actually working for a living.
When has it ever been other than this under capitalism. Not until we organise ourselves at community level and work in federation with other communities, bringing an end to the state/corporate greed machine and consigning capitalism to the dust bin of history will we see real change for the better.
If we want a society free from poverty and age with dignity, then we have to create it ourselves, it won’t be handed to us by a system of winner takes all and to hell with the hindmost.
Despite the existence of inexpensive and safe treatment, over one billion people in tropical countries still suffer from disfiguring and debilitating diseases associated with poverty. Diseases such as elephantiasis, yaws and leprosy remain untreated due to the absence of political will and lack of directed resources.
Jai Narain, South East Asia director of communicable diseases at the World Health Organisation, (WHO) recently stated; “these tropical diseases have been neglected by policy makers, by the research community and also by the international community, — but at the same time these diseases cause considerable amount of suffering, disability, disfigurement and even social economic impact, particularly for populations which are extremely marginalised,” He further stated that, “These diseases are closely related to poverty,–” He also said that Indonesia has cured 370,000 people who suffered from leprosy but new cases keep emerging, especially in the poorer eastern part of the country.
Once again we see the priorities of the festering marriage between the state and the corporate greed machine. As capitalist globalisation marches forward ever increasing the gap between rich and poor at the same time as increasing the number of people living in poverty and the resultant despair and diseases that are part and parcel of poverty, it becomes obvious that solving these problems is of no real concern. Offering cheap effective cures to sick marginalised people in poverty is not really a profit maker and so will be away down the list of priorities, if on the list at all.
If we accept a system that will create poverty and disease while siphoning all the wealth up to an over privileged parasitical bunch of shareholders, that makes us complicit in this dreadful crime against the most vulnerable. If we selfishly enjoy some of the fruits of this system and close our eyes to the avoidable suffering of others, we are guilty of perpetuating the corrupt and brutal system.
We as human beings owe it to those in poverty and all its attendant misery and disease to see an end to this system of winner takes all and to hell with the hindmost. There is an alternative way to structure society free from the greed driven profit motive, it can’t be built on the back of this system of greed and selfishness. This system has to be destroyed and in its place we can create a social structure that sees to the needs of all those involved in that society. A system based on sustainability, and mutual aid, where someone’s poverty is the responsibility of all of us. Where all our children can grow to their full potential free from the fear of deprivation.
Some time ago the housing charity Shelter stated that more than one million children risk serious illness because of damp, run-down, cramped homes. It also said that children in poor houses are more likely to suffer a range of problems from disease and interrupted education to poverty in later life. The report’s author, Lisa Harker, said, “Children who grow up in bad housing are robbed of their future chances by ill-health, education under achievement and devastating insecurity.”
She added that those living in sub-standard homes are 25% more likely to fall ill. Children in over crowded homes are 10 times more likely to contract meningitis, also those in damp houses are between one and three times more prone to coughing and wheezing The report also states that overcrowding has been linked to slow growth in childhood, tuberculosis and higher risk of heart disease in later life.
This report is not about any undeveloped country, we are talking about the UK, one of the developed capitalist world’s top economies. The UK is in the top 5 economies in the world. One of the world’s richest nations. Once again it is glaringly obvious that capitalism can’t see to the needs of the ordinary people. To deprive over 1 million children of their full potential and to drive them into a catalogue of preventable diseases in the midst of unbelievable wealth is the hallmark of the capitalist system. Capitalism is the system that drives the price of the most basic of needs, a decent home, far beyond the means of most of the people. While in this cruel and corrupt system there are those who purchase several homes in the £500,000+ range, there are the vast majority that struggle to hold onto a half decent home, watching their children’s future being blighted by the ever present greed for profit. The state and the corporate world put a price on your child’s health.
Those million plus children have parents, it is up to those parents to see through this world of corporate greed and call a halt to a system that will willing let their children suffer to fatten the shareholders profits. The choice is yours, profit or your children’s health and future. There are alternative ways to build our society, if we so desire, and we should for the love and future of our children. We can take control of our communities and structure them on co-operation and mutual aid, seeing to the needs of all our children. Creating a world of federated communities where we see to each others needs based on sustainability, bring an end to the self-centred, corrupt, immoral corporate greed machine and its strong arm partner the state. Only by organising at grassroots level and taking control of our lives and communities can we hope to bring an end to this blight on human dignity. An end to the rape and plunder of the planet and its people to pamper a pack of avaricious parasites.
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