Goethe-Institut KULTURAKADEMIE Cultural Management Training 2017 for MENA Countries. Fully-funded to Germany

Application Deadline: 5th January, 2017

Eligible Countries: MENA Countries. Algeria, Egypt, GCC Countries, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen.

To be taken at (country): Germany

About the Award: Organising festivals, planning exhibitions, monitoring budgets and launching advertising campaigns: cultural managers shape the cultural scenes in the Arab region. While responsibilities have been expanding, practical experience alone is not always sufficient for success. Hence there is a strong demand for well-connected and adequately trained protagonists in the cultural scenes of the Arab region.

Therefore as part of the KULTURAKADEMIE Programme, the Goethe-Institut is offering a sixweek cultural management training for members of non-state cultural institutions from the Arab region between April 24 and June 2 2017 for the seventh time since 2011.

15 participants will be trained in Germany in fields like

• Basics of Cultural Management
• Cultural Policy
• Communication and Marketing
• Audience Development
• Budgeting
• Fundraising

Type: Training

Eligibility: “Independent”, non-state protagonists from various cultural fields from the Arab region (e.g. curators, (executive) employees of cultural centres, festival organizers, gallery owners as well as theatre and film professionals). Requirements for participation:

• At least three years of relevant professional experience in the cultural sector
• Very good command of English
• Application with a specific project proposal

Selection: Participants will be selected by the respective Goethe-Institut in North Africa / Middle East (e.g. Goethe-Institut Tunis for applicants from Tunisia) and in consultation with the independent Arab cultural organisation Al Mawred Al Thaqafy (Culture Resource).

Number of Awardees: 15

Value of Scholarship: The Goethe-Institut is covering the costs for airfare, insurance and accommodation expenses as well as an allowance for the duration of stay in Germany. Depending on the grant approval by the German Federal Foreign Office to provide funds, the Goethe-Institut reserves the right to claim a deposit from the participants.

How to Apply: To apply, please fill out our online form.

For a first impression of the Kulturakademie NANO, please check this article at the end of the project year 2015.

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: Goethe-Institut

Of Mosques And Grassroots: The Sites Of Resistance In Kashmir

Waqas Farooq Kuttay

After the killing of Hizb commander BurhanWani, loudspeakers in mosques across Kashmir were abuzz with pro-freedom songs. An atmosphere of emotional commotion prevailed and sentiments were high. After Burhan’s killing, Kashmir witnessed one of the longest and largest strikes in her history under Indian occupation (Jean Dreze calls it one of the longest in Indian history, Kashmir’s Hidden Uprising, The Indian Express, December, 05, 2016). Curfew was imposed and without any provocation the state and its agents would resort toindiscriminate force and violence. All the while communication network across the valley remained suspended. In fact, internet services still remain suspended to a large extent. Much has been written about the various aspects of the prevailing situation in the valley but no serious attempt has been made to understand the use of the mosques as the sites of resistance.

Demographically, Muslims are in majority in the Kashmir valley. In every village and town, one would find one or more mosques. So it can be argued that the mosques would have wider coverage in mobilizing people and organizing protests. In past, particularly during Friday prayers, most of the preachers will ask people to stand against Indian atrocities but the practice has gained impetus in recent times (particularly last few years). Conglomerate of separatist group issue protest calendar and ask people to use the mosques during specified time periods for playing pro-freedom songs. The separatists are well versed of the fact that the mosques can be helpful in mobilizing people in a short span of time. They also know that mosques are sites were state has no control. The sheer numbers of mosques in the valley makes it difficult for state to effectively monitor or keep them under surveillance. Since most of the population is Muslim and Kashmiri struggle to large extent reflects this Muslim sentiment, the appeal of the mosques as sites for mobilization of masses is verytempting. These are some benefits of using the mosques as the sites of resistance.

In my opinion some serious damages accrue from use of the mosques as sites of resistance. The separatist groups in Kashmirare undemocratic and elitist in nature and are fomenting an unorganized revolution. The grass root mobilization is absent in Kashmir. The separatists, aware of the fact that they have failed organizationally, try to fill the gap by mobilizing people by usingthe mosques which further exacerbates current shabby situation. Making the mosques as sites of resistance also results in concentration of power in these mosques. The power then rests with those who are active members of the mosque committees or preachers. Although, the mosques are the important sites of resistance and can be helpful in the short term but this can’t be a long term strategy. Using the mosques as sole source of mobilization makes the separatist groups more ‘undemocratic and unaccountable’ because there is complete absence of checks and balances via this channel. ‘Accountability’ matters because if they demand sacrifices from people then the separatists have to be accountable to them. Now if anyone argues that the separatists are running a ‘movement’ and not a ‘democracy’ then, they should not garb their own decisions as those of the common people.
There are no institutions or structures present at village or town level which represent the separatist sentiments of people. There are no branches of organizations which represent ‘separatist groups’ even at the district level. Even if there is one, people are hardly aware of it. One can experience the presence of mainstream political parties almost in every village of Kashmir but same is not the case with the separatists. Some will argue that separatists are under the surveillance of the state and can’t do much in building grassroots organizational strength. But in my opinion separatists can’t hide behind the ‘veil of state surveillance’ for one of their biggest weakness. Intellectual debates seem absent in the separatist camp. People’s opinions hardly matter in the course of separatist action. They tend to keep things to themselves. Their actions (separatists) demand scrutiny in line with the larger aspirations of people and this is possible only with the wider and sophisticated network at grass root level. It would take time but yield better results.

Global agencies demand deeper budget cuts in Australia

Mike Head

Australia’s latest budget update, released yesterday, predicts a sharp economic slowdown and further blowouts in deficits for the next five years. It triggered renewed demands by big business, the media owners and the global credit ratings agencies, representing the world financial markets, for brutal cuts to social spending.

Although the three principal agencies—S&P, Moody’s and Fitch—left the country’s borrowing rating at AAA, they placed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government and the entire parliamentary establishment on notice to deliver deep cuts in next May’s budget.

Markets analysts said the government had barely “kept the wolves at the door” and this was merely a “stay of execution.” They warned of a downgrade unless the government could impose S&P’s demand for “forceful” cuts, preferably with the assistance of the opposition Labor Party, which this year has already helped push through parliament spending cuts worth $22 billion over four years.

S&P stated that it did not believe the government’s assurances that it could still eliminate the annual budget deficit of nearly $40 billion by 2020-21. “We remain pessimistic about the government’s ability to close existing budget deficits and return a balanced budget by the year ending June 30, 2021,” it said.

An air of unreality hung over the government’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) because of the worldwide uncertainty in the wake of the election of Donald Trump as US president. Trump has threatened trade war measures against China, which is the largest market for the commodity exports on which Australian capitalism’s fortunes depend extremely heavily.

In the anodyne words of the MYEFO report, “the outlook for global growth remains uncertain.” Buried away in an appendix, under the heading of “risks,” the document states: “To the extent that unanticipated changes in economic circumstances occur, their impact will flow through to government expense and revenue forecasts.”

Even on the government’s own optimistic assumptions, the MYEFO forecasts an ongoing slump. It foreshadows a further cut to federal tax revenues of some $30 billion more over the next four years than was admitted in last May’s budget, just seven months ago.

May’s economic growth forecast for 2016-17 has been downgraded from 2.5 percent to 2 percent, but this figure itself is dubious, given that the economy officially contracted by 0.5 percent in the September 2016 quarter, and entire regions of the country have been in recession for several years.

The biggest single factor in this downgrade is the lowest wages growth for decades, eroding income tax revenue. The MYEFO predicts that real wages will rise by just 0.5 percent this year and next. This figure indicates that substantial wage cuts are occurring throughout the working class, alongside soaring executive pay.

Behind these wage cuts is pressure of rising levels of unemployment and underemployment. The relentless destruction of full-time jobs, via mine and industrial closures and cost-cutting corporate restructuring has accelerated since the 2008 global financial breakdown.

There are now 51,000 fewer people employed full-time than there were a year ago. Most of the damage has been inflicted on young people. Full-time employment for 15- to 19-year-olds dropped by 15 percent in the past year and by 6 percent for 20- to 24-year-olds.

Only 39 percent of people aged 20-24 now work full-time—down from 54 percent before the 2008 crisis. The proportion of 15- to 24-year-olds working full-time is now the lowest recorded in Australia during the post-World War II period.

The government largely won its “stay of execution” by outlining more cuts to welfare and students. These include $13 billion from child care benefits, aged pensions and carers’ income support over the next four years, $7 billion from vocational education loans to students and $3.7 billion from a crackdown on alleged welfare over-payments. Jobs and training programs will be cut by $450 million, while criminal fines will be increased in value by almost 20 percent, raising $90 million.

These measures enabled the government to claim that, despite its $30 billion revenue slump, the budget deficits will blow out by “only” $10 billion to $94.9 billion over four years. Yet even that forecast makes a mockery of the government’s pledge to the markets to produce a budget surplus by 2020-21.

The forecast deficit in 2019-20 has worsened from $5.9 billion to $10 billion, highlighting the difficulty of posting a surplus in the following year. Likewise, the deficit for 2018-19 was increased to $19.7 billion. It was originally estimated at $6.9 billion in last year’s budget, then increased to $15.4 billion in this year’s budget.

Similar blowouts have occurred in the past 12 consecutive budgets and MYEFOs. Empty promises of returning to surplus have been made since 2010, first by the Labor government until 2013 and then by the current Liberal-National Coalition. The Australian’s contributing economic editor Judith Sloan observed that the pledges were based on “Pollyanna figures.”

This year, precisely because of the global turmoil, the government did not try to make revenue projections based on this year’s uptick in global iron ore and coal prices, which could reverse rapidly if China’s economy falters. However, the government still made unrealistic assertions, including that the mining investment collapse will abate and that the unsustainable property bubble will continue to shore up residential construction in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Economic forecaster BIS Shrapnel’s Adrian Hart, said: “The decline of only 12 percent in mining investment in 2017-18 looks too small.” BIS Shrapnel expects a 26 percent slide this year, 24 percent next and 17 percent in 2018-19. It also predicts a 5 percent decline in housing investment by 2017-18, with a worse drop the subsequent year.

While the working class—particularly the young and most vulnerable—are already bearing the burden of the economic reversal, the government is pushing ahead with the key planks in its “jobs and growth plan.” They consist of company tax cuts worth $50 billion over a decade, military spending of $195 billion over the same 10 years, and programs to coerce young workers into low-wage “internships” as cheap labour for the corporations.

The government is also preparing for war, with a massive spending program on submarines, warplanes and other weaponry. Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne last week declared in Cherbourg, France, where Australia’s new fleet of submarines will be designed: “We are a very wealthy country, as a consequence we have a responsibility to do our part to, as Donald Trump says, not be strategic bludgers but actually lift our percentage of spending of GDP to 2 percent, which we’ll do by 2020-21.”

To pay for tax cuts and military spending, the Liberal-National coalition government is under pressure to make deep inroads into social programs despite widespread hostility to the austerity agenda that has been enforced by Coalition and Labor governments alike.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called a rare double dissolution election last July 2 in a failed bid to break through a parliamentary logjam produced by the opposition parties’ fear of electoral backlashes and social unrest. Instead the election reduced the government to a wafer-thin majority of one seat in the lower house and saw a record vote against the main establishment parties—the Coalition, Labor and the Greens—in the Senate. Despite their claims to be “anti-elite,” the right-wing populists elected to the Senate helped the government survive to the end of the year, voting for key spending cuts. But the financial elite is demanding far more savage measures.

Corporate media editorials today again voiced frustration with Turnbull’s failure to deliver this agenda, and appealed to the Labor Party to join hands with the government. The Australian declared: “Once again we see deficits widen and debt deepen. Once again we see incremental budget repair and an unambitious reform agenda in the face of obstructionist opposition. The song remains the same; it is a dirge.”

Finnish government prepares new attacks on working class

Ennis Wynne 

The attack on the living standards of the working class is set to intensify due to Finland’s escalating economic crisis.

A report in October by the National Institute for Health and Welfare estimates that already 440,000 Finns, almost one in eight, “do not earn enough to maintain a reasonable level of consumption.”

Last month, the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) noted that Finnish household debt levels are at a historically high level and “could pose a systemic risk to financial stability in Finland.”

On November 19, state-owned broadcasting service Yle reported comments from Juha Sipilä, prime minister of the Centre Party-led coalition, who said the trade unions were “spreading negative attitudes” and “whining about Finland’s employment situation.”

In light of Sipilä’s remarks, Yle’s morning politics programme invited both Jyri Haekaemies, CEO of the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK), and Jarkko Eloranta, of the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK), into the studio for comments.

Haekaemies said, “Everyone is waiting for positive news, but our task is to come out on the issues as they really are. Finland’s economy has been squeaking along for the past decade. Our employment percentage is 68 while in Sweden the figure is 76 percent. These are the facts that we need to base our actions on.”

Referring to Sipilä’s comments during a factory tour on November 15 that the trade unions “have been spreading a negative atmosphere in Finland’s economy,” Eloranta feigned an oppositional stance stating that SAK “has had its work cut out with the current government.”

However, he immediately reassured Haekaemies that while the unions have opposed some of the government’s attacks, “They have also put new agreements into action and at least the SAK will continue to propose reforms to Finnish society and social security.”

The principal “new agreement” is the Competitiveness Pact, to which, after months of wrangling, the trade unions signed up in the summer. The pact included a yearlong wage freeze, increased deductions from employees for pensions and sickness benefits—with a corresponding decrease in employers’ contributions—and a 30 percent cut in holiday pay for public employees for the period 2017-2020. The deal ensures that Finns work three additional days a year without a pay rise.

The pact was based on economic conditions as of 2015/2016 and played a central part in the drive to close a “10 billion euro sustainability gap” and enable Finnish capital to compete in the world market. It is clear, however, that the deepening global crisis has overtaken the Finnish bourgeoisie, the right-wing coalition government and the trade union bureaucracy.

Yle reported October 27 that the European Commission (EC) said Finland’s economy remained among the worst in the European Union (EU), and it suspects that Finland and six other European countries are “running afoul of EU budget rules.”

The EC recommended that Finland improve its structural deficit by 0.6 percent of GDP.

Further attacks on the conditions of the working class are being prepared. This is the content of the statement of Matti Hetemaeki, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Finance, who declared in August, “The situation is a lot worse than is widely thought. We have a Nordic welfare state, with its benefits and services, but our employment rate is Southern European.”

Mikaeel Pentikaeinen, chief executive of the Federation of Finnish Enterprises, having complained that it is too difficult for small businesses to lay off employees, stated in the Helsinki Times that “small and medium (sized) enterprises have recently been practically the only source of job creation in Finland.”

The coalition government is seeking to further the attack on the working class, and it is clear that the Finnish bourgeoisie fears the response of the class, not the union bureaucracy. That the unions have signed up to the pact is one thing, their ability to deliver it is quite another.

With a union membership level of 69 percent, the Finnish working class is the most unionised in Europe. However, the unions have not been able to contain growing struggles by workers against the most sustained attacks on living standards in generations. As the Swedish industrial relations “expert” Henrik Malm Lindberg wrote in the Helsinki Hufvudstadsbladet November 3, “For several decades Finland has been a country marked by a high level of industrial conflict both by Scandinavian and European standards.”

He compared the situation in Finland today with a strike wave, including unofficial strikes that took place in Sweden in the early 1990s. Since 2000, strikes in Finland both lawful and unofficial have averaged 100 a year. There was mass action in the summer of 2015 against the imposition by decree of the Competitiveness Pact and in December broad support for the postal workers’ strikes. On November 3, Helsinki shipyard workers struck for two days over the interpretation of the pact.

Lindberg made some recommendations among which was that, as in Sweden, wage levels be determined by the needs of the export industries. While Finnish capital looks to such a solution, Jyri Haekaemies warned that whereas in Sweden “the benchmark—the wage level determined by the export industries—is not only the ceiling but also the floor… In Finland we ought not to have a floor unless it is flexible.”

The coalition government is thinking in similar terms. In an October 24 Bloomberg article, “Finland’s Millionaire Premier Freezes Pay in Bid to Save Economy,” reporter Raine Tiessalo interviewed Sipilä at some length. Sipilä stated, “We’re behind our main competitor countries. Our problem is that our exports are lagging and that growth relies on domestic demand…exports should become the growth motor again.”

Exports comprise 40 percent of Finland’s GDP, and Tiessalo notes that “the country has booked a trade deficit almost every month this year as exports have shrunk some 15 percent from December through August.”

From 2018, Sipilä said, “exporting industries will set the base for pay talks.”

In the Competitiveness Pact, the unions agreed that there would be no pay rises in 2017. Tiessalo wrote, “With pay levels under control, Sipilä says the next step is to ensure that Finns actually produce more—essentially forcing them to accept pay cuts per unit produced.”

“There the government does not have much influence as it depends on the companies,” Sipilä said, adding, “But my gut feeling from speaking with exporters is that 5 percent productivity is not a problem.”

Even this would not meet the demands of some representatives of the bourgeoisie. On October 4, Martti Ahtisaari, the president of Finland from 1994 to 2000, gaining election on the Social Democratic ticket, ranted, “[O]wing to globalisation we cannot succeed if we overprice ourselves. We could succeed by halving wages. Where can we find an administration that is willing to start cancelling benefits we cannot afford?”

Bjoern Wahlroos, an executive at the Swedish-based financial group, Nordea, declared on Yle’s Internet channel in October that digitalisation and “robotisation” had changed working life, “But low wage jobs are a necessity if there are to be enough jobs.”

Among the fresh attacks being considered by the governments are public spending cuts. Last month, Petteri Orpo, the finance minister, warned that a further 1 to 2 billion may need to be cut next year.

Germany’s low-wage sector is expanding

Elisabeth Zimmermann

In 2014, more than one in five Germans worked for a wage of less than €10 per hour, and the tendency is rising. This is clear from the government’s new poverty and wealth report, as covered by several newspapers last week. Publication of the full report is planned for spring 2017.

In east Germany, the low-wage rate is even higher, at over 33 percent, with Mecklenburg Pomerania standing in first place with 35.5 percent of wages less than €10 per hour.

According to Labour Ministry data collected every four years, the proportion of low-wage earners is increasing in west Germany. In companies with more than 10 employees, the low wage rate rose between 2006 and 2014 from 16.4 to 18.4 percent. It varies between 15.5 percent in Hamburg and 20.4 percent in North Rhine-Westphalia. In east Germany, the proportion of low-wage earners fell slightly over the same period, from 36.8 to 34.6 percent.

According to the official OECD definition, a low-wage is one at two-thirds of the average wage. In Germany in 2014, this corresponded to a gross wage of €10 per hour.

The expansion of the low-wage sector in Germany is shocking. Given the global intensification of the capitalist crisis, it can be assumed that the real extent of the low-wage sector will continue to grow. Tens of thousands of jobs have been destroyed in the last few years alone in many companies, in close collaboration between management and unions. New posts are overwhelmingly temporary with worse conditions.

For many young people, there is no chance of a job with a permanent contract and decent wages. Older workers who lose their job have no chance of finding a comparable position, and often end up in a low-wage job or claiming welfare benefits. Part-time, contract and temporary staff often receive low wages and face insecure working conditions.

Twenty-six years after the reunification of Germany in 1990, millions of people in the country live in severe poverty, while a rich upper layer squanders millions and determines the course of politics.

It is primarily the Social Democrat-Green Party government of Gerhard Schröder (SPD) and Joschka Fischer (Green Party) that is responsible for these conditions. It lowered the top tax rate from 53 to 42 percent and, with the Hartz welfare and labour “reforms,” created the conditions for a huge low-wage sector. More and more people are forced to work for low wages and, despite having a job, are unable to make ends meet and have to claim welfare benefits—a time-consuming and nerve-wracking experience.

The trade unions also share a major responsibility for this system, which it helped to design and implement. The larger than average low-wage sector in eastern Germany is also a damning indictment of the Left Party and its predecessors. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, they organised the sale of state enterprises, destroying millions of jobs and workers’ social achievements.

Accompanying the low-wage sector, the number of highly indebted individuals has also grown. In 2015, there were 2 million German households blighted by high levels of debt; some 4.2 million people were no longer able to meet their obligations, such as regular rental payments and debts. Men living alone and single mothers are especially affected. Approximately 650,000 people in 2015 underwent debt counselling.

Among the factors contributing to high indebtedness are unemployment, separation, illness and failed self-employment. It is increasingly common that those on low incomes accumulate debt and are then not able to pay it off.

Matthias Bruckdorfer from a charity debt-counselling working group told the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung: “We have a very broad low-wage sector. The lower the income, the higher the risk of landing in debt.”

In the same newspaper, Ulrich Schneider, from the Federation of Welfare Associations, said, “The number of over-indebted people is increasing, because the proportion of those without savings is increasing. More and more people are living from hand to mouth.”

Putin-Abe talks in Japan fail to resolve territorial dispute

Peter Symonds

The Japanese government is bitterly disappointed that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Japan last week failed to make any progress in resolving a long-running territorial dispute that has prevented the conclusion of a peace treaty between the two countries to formally end World War II.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has held 15 previous meetings with Putin, met with the Russian leader over two days on Thursday and Friday. The high-profile visit had been planned well in advance but was delayed by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Expectations were high in Tokyo that steps would be taken toward a settlement in the dispute over the Kurile Islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan, which were occupied by the former Soviet Union at the end of World War II. Japan has insisted that the islands, to the north of Hokkaido, are part of its territory.

The framework for a settlement was established in 1956 with the signing of a Soviet-Japanese Joint declaration that held out the possibility of returning the two islands closest to Japan—Habomai and Shikotan—while the Soviet Union would retain the larger two islands—Etorofu and Kunashiri. The handover, however, was conditional on the conclusion of a peace treaty, which was undermined by Cold War tensions, the strengthening of the US-Japan military alliance in 1960 and the continued presence of large US bases in Japan.

Putin was apparently aiming to use concessions to Japan over the Kuriles as a means of breaking Russia’s isolation following the imposition of US-led sanctions over Crimea. For his part, Abe was seeking better ties with Moscow as a means of weakening Russia’s relations with China and boosting his domestic standing by negotiating the return of at least some of the disputed islands.

However, two days of talks between the two leaders produced no breakthrough. There was no suggestion that a solution based on the 1956 declaration had been arrived at. Even before the discussions, Putin deflated expectations by linking any deal to an easing of Japanese sanctions on Russia, declaring to the media: “How are we going to have further economic relations on a new and higher basis, at a higher level under a sanctions regime?” Abe had ruled out any change to Japanese sanctions.

According to Abe, Putin put a question mark over the 1956 declaration by claiming that it did not specify the sovereignty of the two islands to be handed back. At his joint press conference with Abe, Putin also suggested that the two islands would have to be exempted from the US-Japan Security Treaty, forcing Japan to negotiate with the US and further complicating any resolution.

Both sides attempted to put the best possible face on the outcome. About 80 business deals were reached between companies and government bodies from both sides. A senior government official told the Japan Times that the total in investments, loans and credit lines to Russia was worth 300 billion yen ($US2.6 billion).

Even the proposals for joint economic activities on the disputed islands became bogged down after Russian officials insisted that Japanese companies operating in the Kuriles should pay taxes to Russia. The Japan Times noted: “The taxation issue may become the focal point at the talks, because allowing Moscow to collect taxes from Japanese firms on the islands would effectively amount to Tokyo’s recognition of Russian jurisdiction there.”

The failure of the talks led to comments and editorials that were uncharacteristically open in expressing displeasure. Lengthy diplomacy between the two sides had been underway that had led Tokyo to believe that a deal was about to be reached and that Russia was willing to make compromises.

Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, told the media that “most of the Japanese public are disappointed at the results,” adding that it should be a lesson that “territorial negotiations are not easy.”

Various media commentators had speculated that Abe might call snap elections for the House of Representatives, the lower parliamentary house, to capitalise on a diplomatic triumph.

A Mainichi Shimbun editorial declared that the summit “dashed our hopes that repeated talks would move the Northern Territories issue forward and only left us to ponder the harsh reality of the situation.”

The newspaper pointed to the obvious reason for Putin’s about-face: “The US administration is in the midst of transition from one led by President Barack Obama, who initiated the introduction of international sanctions against Russia, to one led by President-elect Donald Trump, who advocates cooperation with Russia.”

It declared: “Russia has likely begun reviewing its policy towards Japan in the face of the coming change of government in the United States,” then concluded: “The Abe administration is faced with the need to drastically review its foreign policy to determine how to proceed with territorial talks with Moscow.”

The talks between Russia and Japan and their breakdown are another symptom of the intensifying manoeuvring and rivalry between the major and regional powers amid the deepening global economic breakdown and heightened uncertainty generated by the Trump’s election to the US presidency.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde let off scot-free after negligence conviction

Alex Lantier

Christine Lagarde, a finance minister under former French President Nicolas Sarkozy who now heads the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was convicted yesterday of negligence in a long-running corruption case involving large state payments to businessman Bernard Tapie.

According to the Justice Court of the Republic (CJR) ruling, Lagarde “personally involved herself in the decision not to launch any appeals against the payoff.” Nevertheless, the CJR imposed no penalties on Lagarde for failing to do due diligence and defend taxpayers’ interests as Tapie pushed for a €405 million payoff from state funds in 2008.

The 2008 payoff came after Tapie, a corporate raider and favorite of Socialist Party (PS) President François Mitterrand in the 1980s and 1990s, jumped ship and supported Sarkozy, the winning conservative candidate, in the 2007 presidential elections.

Tapie claimed that he had been defrauded in 1994 by a state-owned branch of the Crédit Lyonnais bank, Société de Banque Occidentale, when he sold off sportswear company Adidas. While another group of private investors, including Robert Louis-Dreyfus, apparently benefited from the sale, Tapie demanded state compensation. While he received the payoff after Sarkozy’s election, the Paris appeals court ruled last year that the payment was illegitimate and that Tapie had to return the funds to the state.

Yesterday evening in Washington, the IMF shrugged off Lagarde’s conviction and kept her on as managing director. “In this context, the Executive Board reaffirms its full confidence in the managing director’s ability to continue to effectively carry out her duties,” the IMF Executive Board declared in a statement. “The Executive Board looks forward to continuing to work with the managing director to address the difficult challenges facing the global economy.”

The ruling underscores the judicial impunity enjoyed by leading officials supported, as Lagarde is, by the leading imperialist powers in North America and Europe. It also contrasts sharply with the removal of Strauss-Kahn in 2011, amid a trumped up sex scandal involving a hotel chambermaid in New York City that was stoked by US and Sarkozy administration officials.

Despite the massive defrauding of the public involved in the Tapie-Crédit Lyonnais scandal, the judiciary and France’s current PS government supported Lagarde. This is above all due to the vast power wielded by Lagarde—a former corporate lawyer in Chicago, who has served as IMF managing director since the resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in 2011.

Remarkably, state prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin denounced his own case against Lagarde, stating that “pieces of evidence necessary to justify a penal condemnation … [had] not been assembled.” He added, “The court sessions have not borne out an accusation that is weak, or even simply incantational.”

During the trial, Lagarde maintained her innocence based on absurd claims that, despite her financial expertise, she had been manipulated by lower-ranking officials and failed to understand the workings of the French finance ministry. She also claimed that she had not seen 22 notes sent to her from finance ministry officials on the Tapie-Crédit Lyonnais affair, or revelations on the scandal in the Canard Enchaîné weekly paper.

Lagarde’s defense manifestly failed to convince the CJR judges, who ruled against Lagarde despite the advice of the public prosecutor. At one point, CJR presiding judge Martine Ract Madoux sarcastically said, “You said you didn’t read those notes, that you discovered them later. You must have been unhappy when reading them.”

“A finance minister is often unhappy,” Lagarde replied.

She did not even bother to wait in Paris for the verdict to be rendered, but left after testifying in order to return to IMF headquarters in Washington.

By failing to impose any penalties despite convicting Lagarde, the CJR bowed to broad political pressure from officials and press outlets across Europe to keep her in place as IMF managing director—a post traditionally held by a European, and often by a Frenchman.

After Lagarde’s conviction, France’s PS government hailed Lagarde’s public service. “Christine Lagarde holds her office at the IMF with distinction, and the government still has full confidence in her capacity to fulfill her responsibilities,” declared Economy Minister Michel Sapin.

In an editorial comment, the Financial Times declared: “The last thing the IMF now needs is a leadership vacuum. There is a running debate over the process by which the managing director is appointed—and justified resentment among emerging markets of the convention by which the post is given to a European.… This is not the moment to resolve such questions. The Greek bailout is at a delicate juncture, and Donald Trump’s election raises much broader questions over the future of the international financial institutions.”

The Financial Times ’ remark points to some of the vast financial, political and geo-strategic stakes involved in the selection of the IMF’s managing director. As a US- and European-led body that has intervened for decades to impose deep austerity against working people to restructure economies passing through financial crises in the interests of finance capital, it plays a critical role in the strategic affairs of world imperialism.

It has been at the heart of increasingly bitter divisions between the European powers, as well as with the United States over the financial conditions of bailouts and debt haircuts in Greece and across southern Europe.

Particularly as US president-elect Donald Trump signals that he will pursue an aggressive economic nationalist line against China once he is inaugurated next month, Lagarde’s position is increasingly sensitive. The economic weight of China and more broadly of Asia has risen enormously over the last 15 years—leading to sharp battles over the distribution of influence between various countries inside the IMF, and demands for Asian countries to be granted greater power.

Already in 2014, Chinese officials were demanding that Washington stick to its pledges to “enhance the voice and representation of developing countries within the IMF.”

In an October 2015 working paper, IMF officials wrote that conflicts over international influence inside the IMF reflect the fact that world capitalism is “on the cusp of an epochal change in terms of economic power, the type of which has not been witnessed in the past 200-250 years.”

Between the foundation of the IMF after World War II and the year 2000, they wrote, “The share of the AEs [advanced economies] in global GDP was around 60-70 per cent … The pace of change since 2000 has, however, accelerated with the fulcrum of economic weight rapidly shifting from the North Atlantic to Asia after more than 200 years. It is this dramatic development becoming manifest in the past 15 years that is fueling the current vigorous debate. With the expectation of such change accelerating further over at least the next couple of decades, changes in global economic governance will have to be more substantive than the current incremental change envisaged.”

Under these fraught international conditions, the French courts have intervened to let off Lagarde scot-free and keep the current leadership in power.

UK government denounces strike wave

Robert Stevens

In the face of a growing number of strikes involving thousands of postal workers, rail workers, airport workers and pilots, the Conservative Party government of Prime Minister Theresa May has denounced the strikers and Tory politicians and media outlets have called for stronger anti-strike legislation.

Workers throughout the UK are striking this week in disputes set to continue over the Christmas and New Year period. The strikes are indicative of mounting opposition in the working class to years of attacks by successive British governments, Labour no less than Tory. They are part of an expanding movement of the working class throughout Europe, which has seen an increase in strikes and demonstrations against corporations and governments of all political stripes.

From Monday, some 4,000 workers employed at the UK’s Crown Post Offices are striking for five days in a dispute over job losses, the closure of a final salary pension scheme, and the franchising out of post offices to commercial operators. On December 20-21, other Post Office workers who supply smaller sub-post offices will join the strike. In April, the Post Office announced plans to transfer up to 61 branches to WH Smith retail stores in a move to cut costs. Workers fear the restructuring will lead to as many as 2,000 job losses.

Also striking yesterday and today are conductors at Southern Rail who are protesting plans to introduce Driver Only Operated trains. This threatens the jobs of conductors and imperils the safety of train passengers. Further strikes are set for the New Year, with a five-day strike by train drivers planned from January 9.

On December 23, some 1,500 check-in staff, baggage handlers and cargo crew at 18 UK airports are to strike for 48 hours after rejecting a pay offer of 4.65 percent over three years--barely matching inflation--by Swissport. The action is to be followed by a strike Christmas Day and Boxing Day (December 25-26) of up to 4,500 British Airways (BA) cabin crew based at Heathrow Airport. Crew members have rejected a 2 percent pay offer. Those striking have joined the company since 2010 and are employed on “mixed fleet” contacts, starting at just £12,000 a year plus £3 per hour flying pay.

Virgin Atlantic pilots are to begin working “strictly to contract” from December 23 to demand that the company recognise the Professional Pilots’ Union rather than the British Airline Pilots Association.

The rise of working class struggles in the rest of Europe is reflected in a demonstration Sunday by thousands of workers in Madrid protesting the right-wing government’s labour “reform;” a 24-hour strike carried out earlier this month by transport workers, dockers, utility and bank employees and university and public school teachers in Greece against new austerity measures; a four-day strike by the Greek seamen’s union; and a series of strikes last month by Lufthansa pilots that forced the cancellation of thousands of flights.

The living conditions of millions in Britain have dramatically declined over the last decade, but the economic crisis prompted by June’s referendum vote to leave the European Union is driving down wages and conditions yet further. Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for the three months to October show the employment rate down for the first time in more than a year--the result of a 6,000 fall in the number in work. Those claiming unemployment benefits rose by 2,400 in November to 809,000. Working-age people deemed “economically inactive” jumped by 76,000 to 8.9 million.

ONS data released last week showed a significant increase in the annual inflation rate to the highest level in two years--up to 1.2 percent in November from 0.9 percent in October. This has been driven by the collapse in the value of the pound since June, leading to a huge increase in the cost of clothing and petrol prices, food and other essential imported goods. Richard Lim, chief executive of consultancy Retail Economics, said, “We expect inflation could hit 3 percent next year against a backdrop of rising unemployment and weaker wage growth.”

The outbreaks of strikes, following the year-long struggle by 50,000 junior doctors that was sold out by the British Medical Association in November, is being described as a new “Winter of Discontent.” This is in reference to the massive strike wave that broke out against the Callaghan Labour government in the winter of 1978–79.

Contrary to the assertions by Prime Minister May, who said on taking office in July that her government would reach out to protect the poor, the offensive against living standards is being intensified. On Monday, a Downing Street spokesman denounced the strikes, saying, “What the prime minister thinks is that the strikes are wrong and that they are causing untold misery to hundreds of thousands of people.”

The Daily Telegraph reported Sunday, “Around 20 Tory MPs have… used a private face-to-face meeting to tell Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, that he must consider bolstering legislation around striking.” Grayling said last week that he refused to rule out pressing for further anti-strike legislation.

On Sunday, the Telegraph editorialised, asking, “[W]hy is May not being more aggressive?” It called for “new legislation to limit strike action on critical infrastructure.”

The Telegraph counselled that, post-Brexit, quelling strikes was critical to the continued ability of British capital to compete globally. “They [workers] cannot--must not--be allowed to dictate the pace of change,” the newspaper insisted.

In the Daily Express, Leo McKinstry called for a “solution” that “would end all the strikes at a single stroke.” “The time for appeasement is over,” he declared. He argued that this required overturning legislation contained in the 1906 Trades Dispute Act, under which trade unions can claim immunity for damages arising from industrial action. The act reversed the Taff Vale judgement of 1901, which had been a major spur for the formation of the Labour Party to represent the trade unions in parliament.

Today, the primary function of the trade unions and the Labour Party is to suppress social discontent. In the lead-up to the latest strikes, the unions utilised the Guardian newspaper to play down the actions. An article commented: “Headline writers may well examine the current spate of December strikes and draw comparisons to the ‘winter of discontent,’ which helped bring down the Labour government of Jim Callaghan in 1979.”

Citing unnamed union officials, the article went on to say that this “would be an exaggeration of the powers of Britain’s unions in 21st century.” The “unions no longer have the financial muscle or the volume of members to bring down the government. Employment laws have all but halted widespread wildcat strikes, secondary picketing and public ballots, which characterised the 70s disputes.”

The message to the ruling elite is that the union bureaucracy will utilise its diminished support in the working class, resulting from the unbroken chain of defeats over which they have presided, to police and then betray any struggles that cannot be prevented from occurring, without the government needing to bring in any further anti-union legislation.

This pledge was reinforced over the weekend by Mick Cash, the leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, whose members are striking Southern Rail. He told the BBC, “We are a serious industrial trade union, and we are not part of some conspiracy to bring the government down--we are focusing on the concerns our members have over safety on the railways.” Speaking to the Press Association, Cash added that the “RMT is not party to any Trotskyist conspiracy to bring down the government.”

Speaking to Sky News Monday, Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, whose members are striking the Post Office, also insisted that the unions would do nothing to challenge the hated government. “Let me make it absolutely clear, we would never sacrifice our members in some higher political objective,” he said.

Right-wing Labourites went further in openly opposing the strikes, with Labour MP Meg Hillier telling Sky News that the strikes were “very unfortunate.” She added, “I think if they’re not careful, they could be shooting themselves in the foot.”

For his part, Labour’s nominally “left” leader Jeremy Corbyn has not said a word about any of the strikes. His only Twitter posting Monday was about the passing of a British rabbi.

Russian ambassador to Turkey assassinated in Ankara

Bill Van Auken

An off-duty Turkish policeman shot and killed the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, Monday in front of a horrified audience at a photo exhibition in Ankara.

The gunman was identified as a 22-year-old member of the Ankara riot police, Mevlüt Mert Altintaş. Dressed in a black suit and carrying his police ID, he entered the art gallery where Karlov was introducing an exhibition of photographs titled “Russia through Turks’ eyes.” He drew a pistol, shot the ambassador repeatedly in the back, and then began shouting at the crowd in both Turkish and Arabic, “Don’t forget about Aleppo, don’t forget about Syria,” along with Islamist slogans.

Heavily armed Turkish police then stormed the gallery, killing the gunmen. At least three other people were wounded in the incident.

The chilling images of the ambassador’s murder and the subsequent ranting by his assassin were captured on video and have been widely circulated.

The assassination has taken place in the context of a ferocious anti-Russian campaign mounted by the Obama administration and the US media, in which Russia’s role in providing military aid to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad in retaking the city of Aleppo from Western-backed Islamist militias has played a major role.

The killing of the ambassador also came on the eve of a scheduled meeting in Moscow between Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and his Russian and Iranian counterparts, Sergei Lavrov and Mohammad Javad Zarif, to discuss the ongoing ceasefire in and evacuation of previously opposition-held eastern Aleppo, along with proposals for a more comprehensive settlement of the five-and-a-half-year-old Syrian war.

Anger in the West over the loss of the last urban bastion of the Al Qaeda-linked militias—a strategic defeat in the US-orchestrated war for regime change—has been intensified by the collaboration of Ankara, Moscow and Tehran. Washington was excluded from today’s talks.

The Syrian regime change operation brought Russia and Turkey to the brink of war in November of 2015, when the Turkish air force ambushed and shot down a Russian warplane carrying out airstrikes near the Syrian-Turkish border. The incident resulted in a freezing of relations between Moscow and Ankara and Russia’s imposition of economic sanctions against Turkey.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sought a rapprochement with Moscow last June, offering an apology for the downing of the Russian plane. This was followed a month later by an abortive military coup, which supporters of Erdogan blamed on the United States and a movement led by opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania. Relations between Moscow and Ankara became closer following the coup, leading to the recent collaboration in brokering the plan for the evacuation of eastern Aleppo.

Both the Russian and Turkish governments condemned the assassination of Karlov as a “provocation” aimed at disrupting relations between the two countries. Both governments likewise described the killing as a terrorist act, though they appeared to differ in their assessment as to who was responsible.

“A crime has been committed and it was without doubt a provocation aimed at spoiling the normalization of Russo-Turkish relations and spoiling the Syrian peace process which is being actively pushed by Russia, Turkey, Iran and others,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told a televised meeting at the Kremlin. “We must know who directed the killer’s hand,” Putin added, addressing himself to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Sergei Naryshkin, the head of the SVR foreign intelligence service, and Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the domestic FSB security service, who were also in attendance.

Turkey’s President Erdogan, speaking in a televised address on Monday night, described the killing as a “provocation given our cooperation regarding Aleppo,” adding that he had spoken to Putin and stressed, “We are determined to maintain our ties with Russia.”

Both sides made clear that the planned tripartite meeting between the Russian, Turkish and Iranian ministers in Moscow would go ahead on Tuesday.

The gunmen’s statements about Aleppo and Syria and his shouting in Arabic about jihad strongly suggested that he was acting either in concert with or in support of the Islamist militias that have suffered a stunning reversal in Aleppo over the past several weeks.

According to some reports, the Islamic State (ISIS) denied any connection with the killing, while web sites connected with the Al Nusra Front, the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate that has been the backbone of US-backed forces in Aleppo, hailed the killing.

Nonetheless, Turkish officials have indicated that they are pursuing an investigation aimed at proving that the riot policeman was actually a member of the Gulenist movement, which the government charged was behind last July’s coup attempt. Over the past several months, the Turkish government has purged thousands of civil servants, teachers, police and members of the military charged with being connected with the Gulenists.

Government officials have suggested that the slogans shouted by the gunman after the shooting were merely a diversion aimed at concealing his true affiliations. A spokesman for Gulen said that the cleric had condemned the killing and described the suggestions that he was responsible as “laughable.”

The Turkish government has obvious motives for denying that a member of an elite police unit was a sympathizer or operative of the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate. Ankara covertly provided extensive support for the Al Nusra Front and similar Islamist militias, with its security forces collaborating in the funneling of arms and foreign fighters into Syria.

Any disagreements as to who was immediately responsible for the killing notwithstanding, leading political figures in both Moscow and Ankara blamed the US and the West for the assassination.

Ilnur Cevik, chief presidential advisor to Erdogan said Monday: “Growing relations and intensive cooperation in all areas between Turkey and Russia has created anger in the West, especially in the United States and Germany. The latest example has been the joint efforts of the two countries to save the civilian people of Aleppo. It was inevitable that the West would try to sabotage these relations. It is sad that they used a policeman affiliated to Fethullah Gulen’s terrorist organization to assassinate the ambassador.”

In Moscow Alexei Pushkov, a member of the Duma—the Russian legislature—and former chairman of its foreign affairs committee, charged that Western propaganda about Russia organizing a “massacre” and “genocide” in Aleppo served to incite the attack.

“The hysteria around Aleppo raised by the Western media has consequences,” Pushkov told Russian television. “This murder is precisely a consequence of attempts to blame Russia for all the sins and crimes she did not commit. They are completely ignoring the crimes of fighters in Aleppo, and that forms a distorted and false picture of what is happening in this city, which contributed to this terrorist act.”

Senator Frantz Klintsevich, deputy chairman of the Russian upper chamber’s defense and security committee, went further, charging that the assassination was “a planned action.”

“Everyone knew that he was going to attend this photo exhibition. It can be ISIS, or the Kurdish army which tries to hurt Erdogan.” he said. “But [it] may be—and it is highly likely—that representatives of foreign NATO secret services are behind it.”

Whatever the authorship of the assassination, the prospect of it further cementing ties between Russia and Turkey can only serve to heighten tensions with Washington, which, the impending change in administrations notwithstanding, remains committed to asserting US imperialist hegemony over the Middle East.

The United States of Inequality

Andre Damon

Earlier this month, economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, leading experts on global inequality, released a groundbreaking study on the growth of income inequality in the United States between 1946 and 2016.

While the economists’ earlier studies made substantial advances in documenting inequality in the United States, the most unequal developed country in the world, this is the first survey claiming to “capture 100 percent of national income,” including the impact of taxation, social programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, and income from capital gains.

The result is a fuller picture of social inequality in the United States than any previous attempts. The conclusions are staggering, revealing that over the course of the past four decades there has occurred one of the most rapid upward redistributions of income in modern history.

The economists found that the pre-tax share of national income received by the bottom half of the US population has been cut nearly in half since 1980, from 20 percent to 12 percent, while the income share of the top one percent has nearly doubled, from 12 percent to 20 percent. “The two groups have basically switched their income shares,” the authors note, “with 8 points of national income transferred from the bottom 50 percent to the top 1 percent.”

The study documents a sharp change between 1946-1980 and 1980 to the present. In the first period, the pre-tax incomes of the bottom 50 percent of earners more than doubled, growing by 102 percent, while the incomes of the top 1 percent increased by only 47 percent and the top 0.001 percent by 57 percent.

Since 1980, however, the incomes of the bottom 50 percent of earners have stagnated at about $16,000 a year (in current dollars), while the incomes of the top 1 percent have grown by 205 percent, and the top 0.001 percent by 636 percent.

After accounting for the impact of various tax credits and social programs, the economists found that the incomes of the bottom half of income earners increased by 21 percent since the 1980s. They note, however, that none of this increase has gone into disposable income. Rather, it is almost entirely the result of increased health care payouts from Medicare, which has simply been absorbed by the pharmaceutical giants and insurance companies engaged in price-gouging for vital health care services.

The principal factor in the surge in income inequality, particularly since 2000, has been the growth in “capital income,” that is, the stock market. The inflation of stock market bubbles has been the primary form through which the ruling class and its political representatives have engineered a massive transfer of wealth.

The figures contained in the report by Piketty, Saez and Zucman reflect historical transformations in the structure of American capitalism and class relations in the United States. The colossal growth of social inequality is bound up with the decay of American capitalism and decline in its world economic position.

Historians have often remarked that during its early days, the United States was the most socially egalitarian region of the Western world. The growth of monopolization and finance capital in the latter part of the 19th century transformed America into a land of “robber barons” at one pole and workers and immigrants whose living conditions were exposed in such works as Jacob Riis’ How the Other Half Lives, published in 1890, and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle of 1906.

But along with these processes came the growth of the workers’ movement, which, largely through the efforts of socialists, fought to organize the American working class across its myriad ethnic, religious and regional divisions. The Russian Revolution of 1917 gave new impetus to these struggles, including the militant labor actions of the 1930s that led to the formation of the industrial unions.

The American ruling class, alarmed by the prospect that American workers would follow the example set by the Bolsheviks, and having at its disposal the economic might of the world’s largest and most advanced industrial economy, set out on a program of social reform exemplified by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which introduced Social Security and curbed the worst abuses of Wall Street.

The United States emerged from the Second World War as the dominant global power, commanding more than 50 percent of world economic output. By the late 1960s, however, the economic domination of American capitalism began to decline, as the economies of Europe and Asia were rebuilt. A series of economic and political crises culminated in the combination of economic stagnation and inflation of the 1970s.

The US ruling class responded by embarking on a policy of class war, deindustrialization and financialization. With President Jimmy Carter’s appointment of Paul Volcker to head the Federal Reserve in 1979, the US central bank threw the United States into a manufactured recession. After coming to power in 1981, Ronald Reagan launched a full-scale social counterrevolution, initiated by the breaking of the PATCO air traffic controllers’ strike and firing and blacklisting of the strikers. Similar policies were pursued by the ruling classes throughout the world.

The trade unions played a vital role in facilitating this offensive, isolating and betraying every attempt at resistance by the working class throughout the 1980s and incorporating themselves into the structure of corporate management and the state. By the end of the decade, the unions had transformed themselves, for all practical purposes, into arms of the companies and the government. The bureaucratic elites that dominated them devoted all their efforts to suppressing and sabotaging working class struggle.

Every subsequent administration, Democratic and Republican alike, has pursued policies that promote social inequality, including successive rounds of financial deregulation, repeated tax cuts for corporations and top income earners, the slashing of social programs, and the elimination of workplace protections.

After the 2008 financial crisis, the Obama administration accelerated these processes. The White House continued and expanded the bank bailouts initiated under the Bush administration and helped funnel trillions of dollars to Wall Street through the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing” programs, while working, as in the 2009 auto restructuring, to slash wages.

Under the incoming administration of President-elect Trump, the offensive against the working class will sharply intensify. The election of Trump represents something new. He has staffed his cabinet with billionaires, far-right, pro-business ideologues, and generals—all of them dedicated to the impoverishment of the working class and the ever more violent suppression of popular opposition.

But Trump does not emerge from nowhere. He is not some aberration. Rather, he is the noxious culmination of the decay of American capitalism, growth of unprecedented levels of social inequality and collapse of American democracy.

These same processes have created the objective foundations for socialist revolution. In the mid-1990s, when the Workers League in the US and the sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in the rest of the world began to transform themselves from leagues into parties, adopting the name Socialist Equality Party, we recognized the immense revolutionary significance of “the widening gap between a small percentage of the population that enjoys unprecedented wealth and the broad mass of the working population that lives in varying degrees of economic uncertainty and distress.”

The past two decades have confirmed this prognosis. The fight against social inequality requires the building of a new political leadership, embodied in the SEP, to organize and unify the struggles of the working class on the basis of a revolutionary program. The capitalist profit system must be replaced with a society based on equality, international planning and democratic control of production—that is, socialism.