As Brazil’s inequality soars, ruling elite sets racialist trap for the working class

Tomas Castanheira

Over the last half decade, the Brazilian working class has suffered a violent reduction in its living standards. The economic recession in Brazil, marked by the crisis of the so-called “commodities cycle,” meant, besides the fall and stagnation of its GDP, an intensification of already staggering levels of social inequality.

Between 2015 and 2019, while the poorest half of the population saw its income shrink by 17 percent, the top 1 percent had an increase of 10 percent. The UN Human Development Report, released at the end of 2019, reported that Brazil fell one place in world inequality rankings to become the seventh most unequal country on the planet.

This social crisis was expressed in a significant increase of unemployment levels, especially among youth. The official unemployment rate among young people aged 14 to 25 jumped from 14.5 percent at the end of 2014, to 26 percent at the end of 2018. In this same period, the income of young people aged 20 to 24 fell five times further than that of the rest of the population.

Luiza Helena Trajano, Brazil's richest woman. (Credits: World Economic Forum/Benedikt von Loebell)

The COVID-19 pandemic, which hit Brazil in March 2020, has exacerbated the contradictions that had been developing over the previous years, taking them to increasingly intolerable levels.

The criminal response of the capitalist ruling elite to the pandemic, guided by its profit interests, was to allow the new coronavirus to spread, taking the lives of already some 150,000 Brazilians, while deepening the economic attacks on the working class.

In the first three months of the pandemic, which coincided with a sharp fall in Brazil's GDP, nearly 10 million workers lost their jobs, while another 11 million had their wages reduced. The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) recorded for the first time more than half of the working age population as unemployed.

Youth unemployment rates skyrocketed during this period. While among the general population official unemployment reached a record level of 13.2 percent (and continues to rise), among young people aged 18 to 24 it reached 29.7 percent. This will leave permanent scars on an entire generation of the Brazilian working class.

The combination of job losses and declining wages in the first quarter of the pandemic produced a 20 percent drop in Brazilians' individual labor income and a 2.82 percent increase in inequality, according to a recent study by Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). The labor income of the poorest half of the population fell by 27.9 percent, as compared to 17.5 percent among the top 10 percent. These numbers constitute negative historical records, both in absolute terms and in the degree of their variation.

But the study observed a “paradox” when considering data from sources of income in general, and not only from labor. They showed a fall in poverty and inequality over the same period. The payment of emergency aid of 600 reais (US$106) a month to a significant part of the population generated, in their words, an “anesthetic effect” in relation to the real social crisis. This aid has been cut in half since September and is expected to end in December, indicating that this crisis is coming increasingly close to an explosion.

While the working class and sections of the middle class have experienced terrible sufferings and privations during the pandemic, the scenario is very different when it comes to the capitalist oligarchy.

In the first five months of the pandemic, even as the country's GDP fell by more than 10 percent, Brazil's 42 billionaires saw a stupendous growth in their combined income, which jumped from US$123.1 billion to US$157.1 billion, according to the aid organization Oxfam.

Sao Paulo homeless encampment in 2014. (Credit: Ben Tavener)

The Brazilian Forbes magazine, which published its billionaires list in September, noted: “Despite the numerous economic consequences caused by the COVID-19 pandemic this year, Forbes' list of Brazilian billionaires [in reais] broke a new record of new names. There are 33 new billionaires in the ranking, 16 percent more than last year.”

One of the highlights of the list was Luiza Helena Trajano, who chairs the board of the retail chain Magazine Luiza. She jumped from 24th to 8th place, appearing for the first time as the richest woman in Brazil. Trajano saw her assets increase by more than 180 percent to reach 24 billion reais (US$4.27 billion). The shares of Magazine Luiza, which is emerging as a Brazilian version of Amazon, accumulated a valuation of almost 90 percent in 2020.

As if by chance, less than a week before Forbes released its list, Luiza Trajano made the front pages of Brazilian newspapers over a controversy that did not center on her obscene accumulation of wealth.

On September 18, Magazine Luiza announced a national trainee program for “leadership positions” in the corporation that would admit exclusively black candidates. The company claimed that the race-based training scheme was the first of its kind in Brazil. The program opened 20 vacancies for jobs paying 6,600 reais (US$1,174) monthly to candidates recently graduated in any field. Shortly thereafter, the German based pharmaceutical transnational, Bayer, announced a trainee program in the exact same terms, with 19 vacancies reserved exclusively for black Brazilians.

On its Twitter account, Magazine Luiza explained the program, stating: “Currently, we have 53 percent black and brown employees. And only 16 percent of them occupy leadership positions. We need to change this scenario.” In the following weeks, in a series of interviews, Trajano further justified the program with empty phrases about “structural racism.” In one of her appearances, she stated that the program shouldn't be credited to her, but to George Floyd, murdered by the police in the US!

In the face of right-wing attacks on the training program, Luiza Trajano was portrayed as some sort of champion of democratic values in sections of the Brazilian media. She also received effusive support from the pseudo left. The website Brasil 247, which is aligned with the Workers Party (PT), described her as “an entrepreneur traditionally linked to progressive causes in the country, having supported the PT governments and the fight against racism.”

University of São Paulo (USP) professor Dennis de Oliveira, a reference point for the racialist theories of the Brazilian pseudo left, stated: “The initiative of Magazine Luiza, besides being a product of pressure from the black movement, also shows that the company is attuned to studies made all over the world, mainly in the United States, showing that companies that adopt policies in favor of diversity obtain better results.”

In an article published in Ecoa magazine, journalist Bianca Santana said that with the launch of Magazine Luiza's trainee program, the “richest woman in Brazil ... announces a break with the narcissistic pact with whiteness.”

These corrupt ideas are based on the interests of layers of the upper middle class and their dispute over positions at the top of society. As opposed to what they say, the interests of the masses of white workers are not defended by a supposed “pact with whiteness,” just as the purported “break” with this “pact,” with the pathetic creation of 20 well-paid positions under conditions in which more than half the population is unemployed, in no way alters the increasingly desperate conditions of the masses of black workers.

The praise for Luiza Trajano, whose social interests are directly linked to the privations inflicted upon the vast majority of the population, as a progressive figure within Brazilian society is a grotesque farce. Her promotion of racialist politics, like that carried out by the PT and the pseudo left, derives from their fear of a working class uprising endangering their social privileges.

In her last interview, broadcast Monday on the television talk show “Roda Viva,” Trajano gave voice to a set of ideas that correspond to her reactionary class interests. While she stated that she cried when she discovered what “structural racism” was, she also expressed her adamant opposition to any taxation of the fortunes of billionaires like herself, defending the position that the capitalists should be free to decide to what social causes they want to contribute their “donations.”

She also made a pathetic attempt to deny her position as the richest woman in Brazil, saying that she did not agree with Forbes ' criteria, and that those numbers are only “on paper,” corresponding to fluctuations in the stock market. That her wealth is based upon financial market speculation is true, but this is the way in which the entire parasitic elite of which she is a member have accumulated unprecedented wealth as the real economy and the conditions of the masses continue to decline.

Expressing the outlook of her class toward the COVID-19 pandemic, Trajano said: “I confess I was very calm about the company, this is something that the epidemic gave me.” She refused to condemn the sociopathic policy of Brazil’s fascist President Jair Bolsonaro, whose policies have directly benefited her, saying that what made her “very sad” were the political divisions in Brazil created during the pandemic.

Trajano also defended the privatization of the Brazilian Post Office, of which her company is a potential buyer, saying that “privatization, for me, doesn't mean firing people, it means giving speed.” That's a blatant lie. The Post Office workers just ended a strike, bitterly betrayed by the unions, in which they fought an unprecedented set of attacks aimed at boosting its profitability and making it a more attractive asset for companies like Magazine Luiza and Amazon.

The pseudo left’s identification with such a figure flows directly from their petty-bourgeois politics. Their attempt to impose the false conception that the main division of society is between races, and not social classes, plays an entirely reactionary political role: forcing the submission of the working class to the capitalist oligarchy and its state.

The efforts by the pseudo left and bourgeois parties like the PT to divide the working class along racial, gender, and national lines dovetails with the efforts and feed the growth of fascistic and right wing-forces in society, which arise out of the same rotten soil of degenerated capitalism.

The answer to the fundamental problems that plague Brazilian and global society lies in the unification of the working class as an independent political force, fighting for the expropriation of the fortunes and corporations owned by the ruling elite.

The global wave of working class strikes and protests, which have intensified since the beginning of the pandemic, shows the immense potential for the development of an international revolutionary leadership, armed with a socialist program and capable of uniting the working class of every race and nation in the struggle for political power.

Opposition parties seize power in Kyrgyzstan amid growing geopolitical rivalry in the region

Jason Melanovski & Clara Weiss

Opposition forces claim to have seized power over much of Kyrgyzstan’s key government agencies and buildings in the capital of Bishkek on Tuesday after protests broke out in the Central Asian country following parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Over 600 were injured and one protester was killed in protests that have seem to have resulted in the removal of President Sooronbai Jeenbekov.

Jeenbekov, who was first elected in 2017, suggested in a phone interview with BBC that he was prepared to step down and “ready to give the responsibility to strong leaders,” but did not specify to which specific figures or forces he was referring to.

People protest on the central square in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Vladimir Voronin)

Jeenbekov has fled his government offices and accused opposition forces of “trying to illegally seize power” in a brief video statement released Tuesday. His whereabouts remain unknown. On Wednesday, the parliament initiated impeachment procedures against him.

Sixteen political parties took part in the country’s parliamentary elections held on Sunday. Official results suggested that the majority of votes went to the Birimdik party of President Jeenbekov’s younger brother, Asylbek Jeenbekov, and the Mekenim Kyrgyzstan party led by the powerful Matraimov family which has accrued its fortune through its control of Kyrgyzstan’s customs service. Both parties are considered allies of President Jeenbekov and favor close relations with Russia.

Jeenbekov and his allied political parties are also viewed by the opposition as favoring the country’s agrarian south over the more developed and urban north of the country. The parliamentary elections resulted in giving 100 of the 120 seats to representatives from the south who are aligned with Jeenbekov.

A coalition of 12 political parties refused to accept the results, accusing the government of vote-buying.

Despite accusations of electoral fraud, according to preliminary reports from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the “voting process was generally efficient, well-organized and peaceful.” Following the protests on Tuesday, the country’s Central Election Commission announced it had invalidated the election’s results and that new elections would be held.

Having quickly seized power, the opposition announced it had set up its own coordination council and was beginning to negotiate among themselves who would fill the country’s key government positions.

The opposition also released several jailed political figures including former President Almazbek Atambayev, who had been imprisoned on an 11-year sentence for corruption involving a deal with a Chinese company. Sadyr Japarov, who was also released by opposition forces from prison, was named the country’s acting prime minister in an emergency parliamentary session on Tuesday.

The US and EU as well as Russia and China have called for a peaceful resolution of the crisis. The US and Chinese governments have urged non-interference from foreign powers. James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, noted that the warnings from China and the US were above all meant for each other.

Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet Republic of 6 million people, has been the site of increased geopolitical rivalry over the past two decades. It borders China and is close to Russia and Afghanistan, which was invaded by the United States in 2001.

Map of Kyrgyzstan

Prior to the current seizure of power, Kyrgyzstan had seen two of its previous presidents overthrown since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 2005, the US staged a “color revolution” in the country, one of several in the former Soviet Union that were aimed at containing the influence of Russia.

The American press used to tout the country as the United States’ closest ally in Central Asia. For many years, Kyrgyzstan even hosted the United States’ only Central Asian airbase in Manas. The airbase served as the first and last stop for American soldiers entering and leaving Afghanistan. Approximately 5.6 million foreign soldiers passed through the base while it was in operation.

The base was closed in 2014 following the election of former President Atambayev in 2011. Atambayev favored realigning the country with Russia and increasing economic ties to its neighbor, China, which has become Kyrgyzstan’s biggest economic investor and trading partner.

According to Chinese government statistics, bilateral trade amounted to $6.35 billion in 2019. China holds $4 billion of the country’s national debt. Kyrgyzstan only has a GDP of a little over $8 billion. The country is also a central component of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Despite the significant economic ties to China, anti-Chinese sentiments in Kyrgyzstan are running high. In 2019, Bishkek became the site of large anti-Chinese protests demanding, among other things, a ban on Kyrgyz-Chinese marriages, and calling for restrictions on the economic influence of China.

The predominantly Muslim country also shares a border with China’s Xinjiang region, which is home to China’s large Muslim minority of the Uygur.

Many Uygurs are ethnic Kyrgyz and have been imprisoned in concentration camps, a situation that has been exploited by the bogus US-led imperialist campaign over human rights abuses against China. In turn, there is a significant Uygur minority in Kyrgyzstan, which is routinely subject to discrimination.

Following the closure of the US Manas airbase in 2014, Kyrgyzstan joined both the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union and the post-Soviet military alliance of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Russia also opened its own military airbase within the country, forgiving $500 million in Kyrgyz debt. The US viewed this as further undermining its geostrategic interests in the region as the war in neighboring Afghanistan has been raging on.

Jeenbekov continued for the most part the close relations with China while seeking to make the Kremlin “the main strategic partner” of the country. By contrast, several of the opposition parties that stormed the parliament have been critical of the country’s ties to Russia, claiming they infringed on Kyrgyzstan’s “independence.”

Reports also surfaced on Tuesday that opposition forces had burned down a Russian-operated factory at Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest gold deposit, Jeruy, causing the site’s owners to suspend operations.

Following the factory burning, Russia put its military base on high-alert and called on “all political forces at this critical moment for the republic to show wisdom and responsibility in order to preserve internal stability and security.”

In addition to the ongoing civil war in Eastern Ukraine, the crisis in Belarus, and the outbreak of actual war between a Russian-allied Armenia and a Turkish-backed Azerbaijan, the crisis in Kyrgyzstan represents yet another major challenge to the Kremlin’s geopolitical position in the former Soviet region.

These crises pose enormous dangers to the working class and are the direct result of the Stalinist destruction of the Soviet Union. The restoration of capitalism has turned the countries of the former Soviet Union into hotbeds of geopolitical rivalries and ethnic and social tensions, threatening to engulf the entire region in wars and civil wars.

At the same time, the working class remains mired in extreme poverty, which has only been worsened by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Kyrgyzstan, nearly 30 percent of the population lives below the official poverty line.

Like many other countries from the former Soviet Union, remittances from Kyrgyz workers abroad make up a large percentage of the country’s GDP. According to Russian government data from 2017, 623,000 Kyrgyz work in Russia and over one million Kyrgyz are estimated to be working in Kazakhstan, Turkey and the Middle East.

Experts have warned that, due to the pandemic, remittances could fall by as much as 25 percent, with GDP falling by 10 percent and unemployment surging to 21 percent.

With more than 1 million dead, who have been the victims of the coronavirus pandemic? (Part 1)

Benjamin Mateus

Ten months into the COVID-19 pandemic, every major news outlet has called attention to the sobering figure of 1 million deaths. Even more startling are the projections that by the end of the year, that figure might far exceed 2 million as the Northern Hemisphere is bracing for the winter season. The Institute of Health and Metrics Evaluation’s most recent projection has placed this figure at 2,343,648 by January 1.

The Pargue Taruma Cemetery in Manaus, Brazil. Credit: Bruno Kelly

Such a massive rapid loss of life is unprecedented in recent history. It was only eight months ago that the first 1,000 deaths were tallied, and practically all took place in China. There are now 1,039,332 deaths, spanning all the world’s continents except for Antarctica, and by most scientific and public health sources, that figure represents a considerable underestimate. COVID-19-related deaths already exceed annual deaths from HIV and malaria and may surpass tuberculosis. There is more death forthcoming.

Scenes of devastation

The harrowing and eerie images of empty city streets in Wuhan city in Hubei province evoked disbelief. The corpses being whisked away in trucks from hospitals in Bergamo, Italy, in the dead of night counterposed to the melancholic faceless voices singing in unison from balconies left the world heartbroken.

Aerial photo of Wuhan, China during lockdown. Credit: Xiong Qi/XinhuaNET

Bulldozers digging massive graves and men in protective gears piling coffins into the ground at Hart Island in New York City were a chilling reminder of the deadliness of the coronavirus. Health care workers protesting in garbage bags in front of their hospitals, decrying the dangers they face on the front lines, provoked anger and resentment that a country with such vast riches could allow such a situation exist.

The miles of cars waiting in lines at food banks across the nation have been a stark reminder of the fragile state of affairs for the working class, who have been left destitute by the millions. The massive international protests against police violence and brutality have indelibly imprinted the multiracial and global character of the class struggle erupting into the open.

Workers burying bodies on Hart Island. Credit: John Minchillo

Despite these critical developments and events, the global economy’s rapid reopening continues to see from one month to the next deaths remaining at a staggering level averaging more than 160,000 a month, indicating that the current half-hearted efforts to stem the impact of the pandemic have only steadied the assault. As schools face the prospect of resuming in-class instruction so that parents can reenter the workplace in full force, it will only begin accelerating the pandemic into a third surge.

Many early deaths in the US from COVID-19 occurred at Lifecare Center of Kirkland, Washington, which became the pandemic’s first epicenter in this country. However, no urgent call was placed to protect the vulnerable population living in nursing homes and extended care facilities. Instead, in many states, elderly people in the final stages of COVID-19 were sent back to nursing homes to die and ended up infecting large numbers of residents and staff.

Monthly global deaths from COVID-19

By mid-June, the Wall Street Journal had reported that nursing home fatalities associated with COVID-19 had topped 50,000 out of the 116,700 deaths that had taken place by then. The number of cases in nursing homes had reached more than 250,000, which was most likely an undercount representing over 10 percent of those infected at the time though they made up less than 1 percent of the US population.

A report released in June by the Canadian Institute for Health Information comparing mortality associated with COVID-19 in long-term homes, globally, as a percentage of total deaths, found the following statistics:

Canada, 81 percent of all COVID deaths; United States, 31 percent; Ireland, 56 percent; the UK, 27 percent; Germany, 34 percent; France, 48 percent; Spain, 66 percent; Belgium, 50 percent; Norway, 57 percent; Israel, 58 percent; and Australia, 33 percent. More recently, for the United States, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported that as of September 20, there had been 238,283 total confirmed cases, 138,783 suspected cases, and 57,008 deaths at such facilities.

Ambulance at Kirkland nursing home. Credit: Ted S Warren/AP

The impact of the pandemic on front-line health care workers has been nothing short of criminal negligence. With personal protective equipment (PPE) and respirators in short supply, no cohesive international or national efforts were undertaken to bring the entire globe’s capacity and resources to contain and eradicate the virus. Instead, health care workers were forced to care for and treat their patients while left defenseless, turning to an assortment of ad hoc means to protect themselves from falling victim.

In September, the director of Pan American Health Organization, Carissa F. Etienne, reported at a press conference that nearly 570,000 health workers across the hemisphere had fallen ill, and more than 2,500 had perished. She added, “in the US and Mexico—which have the highest case counts in the world—health workers represent one in every seventh case, and these two countries account for nearly 85 percent of all COVID deaths among health workers in our region.”

Protesting nurses at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. Credit: Gregg Vigliotti

A report from Amnesty International (AI) last month found that at least 7,000 health workers have died worldwide. At least 1,320 of these are confirmed to have succumbed to the infection in Mexico. Though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) places US health worker deaths at close to 700 and AI at 1,077, a recent report released by the National Nurses United last week estimated 1,718 US health care workers had died from COVID-19 complications.

A report released by the Lancet last month found that among health care workers in the US and the UK, front-line workers had at least a threefold higher risk of reporting a positive COVID-19 test or suspected infection. The reuse of PPE and inadequate PPE were associated with an increased risk of COVID-19.

Still, more than seven months into the US pandemic, nurses continue to face challenges in accessing proper PPE and N95 masks. Last month, nurses at HCA hospitals in Florida, Kansas, Missouri, and Nevada held public actions to bring attention to the reuse of single-use N95. A survey by Healio found that among nurses who reported reusing N95 masks, 58 percent reused masks for five days or more.

COVID-19 patient on ventilator. Credit: Irfan Khan/LA Times

The survey noted that 51 percent had treated COVID-19 or suspected positive cases in the last two weeks among respondents. PPE shortages remained commonplace, with 42 percent experiencing widespread or intermittent inadequacy. Some 37 percent said that N95 masks were in short supply. The reuse of N95 remains commonplace and strongly encouraged by hospital and medical facility administrators.

Who else has died?

In the US, those aged 65 and older represent 16 percent of the population but have accounted for 80 percent of COVID-19 deaths, while people under 35 account for approximately 3 percent of COVID-19 deaths. A disproportionate number of these occurred in the long-term facilities, as mentioned above.

Data from July 22 found that out of 31,688 deaths in New York, 24,304 were 65 or older, accounting for 77 percent. For New Jersey, it was 79 percent; Massachusetts, 91 percent; and Pennsylvania, 87 percent. Though sunbelt states had a younger mean age for infections, the elderly made up for the lion’s share of deaths. One-third of COVID-19 deaths occurred in people who were at least 85 years of age.

COVID case fatality rate by health conditions

During the spring months, those more than 60 years of age represented 30 to 40 percent of COVID-19 cases, while those under 40 came in at 30 percent. Presently, the curves have shifted with under 40, making up more than half the cases with under 20 representing approximately 16 percent. Those who are 60 or older now make up only 17 percent of newly infected individuals.

Additionally, several studies from China, Europe, and the US have investigated non-communicable illnesses such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiac disease as contributing factors for developing severe or fatal COVID-19 infection. A study using data on 72,314 cases from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on April 7 found that the overall case-fatality rate (CFR) was 2.3 percent. However, those with cardiovascular disease had a 10.5 percent mortality risk, 7.3 percent for diabetes, 6.3 percent for chronic respiratory disease, 6.0 percent for hypertension, and 5.6 percent for cancer.

There are two estimates to calculate COVID-19 deaths. CFRs are based on using only known cases, while infection-fatality rates (IFRs) use the more extensive estimates of how many people have likely had infections. Thought the global CFR stands just under 3 percent, the often-quoted IFR is about 0.6 percent, about six times deadlier than the seasonal flu.

COVID case fatality by age

However, the bulk of the entire population of the planet has no natural immunity to this novel virus and is at considerable risk. Given COVID-19’s ability to infect large clusters of people, it is considered highly virulent. It is also known to cause a constellation of symptoms ranging from respiratory, cardiac, blood clotting, kidney and neurologic ailments with convalescence times measured in weeks by symptomatic people who have recovered. A small percentage of patients known as long-haulers have developed persistent headaches, difficulty in concentration, intermittent fevers, and an array of neurologic and psychiatric issues. The long-term complications remain unknown.

According to the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium, the global survival rate for people hospitalized for COVID-19 has increased from 66 percent in March to 84 percent in August. There is debate over whether the decline seen in death rates is due to improved therapeutics and clinical care for COVID-19 or to a byproduct of a shift in the demographics. But all agree that should hospitals become inundated again as they had been in the spring, mortality will climb.

Global billionaire wealth tops $10 trillion as COVID-19 deaths mount

Jacob Crosse

The collective wealth of the world’s 2,189 billionaires has risen to $10.2 trillion, an increase of nearly $1.3 trillion in the past three years, according to a new report by the Swiss bank UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The unprecedented surge in wealth takes place amidst a global pandemic that has killed more than one million people worldwide, including more than 215,000 in the United States alone.

The report, “Riding the Storm,” is based on data from 43 markets, including interviews with 60 billionaires, accounting for around 98 percent of global billionaire wealth. It sums up the results: “Most of the decade was a time of exceptional prosperity for billionaires regardless of sector…”

The US continues to have the largest concentration of billionaire wealth, accounting for 36 percent of the world’s total, or $3.6 trillion. China ranked second with $1.6 trillion and saw the largest growth over the decade, by 1,146 percent.

Third was Germany, where billionaire wealth totaled $594.9 billion, an increase of 175 percent from 2009’s $216.1 billion. While fourth in terms of billionaire wealth at $467.6 billion, Russia saw the smallest growth by percentage, 80 percent, from $260.2 billion in 2009 to $467.6 billion in 2020.

The $10.2 trillion amassed by less than .0003 percent of the global population is more than the estimated 2020 Gross Domestic Product of every country on the planet except for the US and China. The staggering total hoarded by less than 2,200 people, or about the number of COVID-19 deaths in the US within the last 72 hours, surpasses the previous high of $8.9 trillion recorded in 2017.

For a household earning the average US median income, it would take over 16 million years to accumulate $1 trillion, not even enough to cover what has been collectively usurped from global society in less than three years. Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, has calculated the cost of ending hunger in the US at $25 billion, which could be done 400 times over with $1 trillion.

The billionaires who have increased their wealth the most, according to the authors, are in the “technology, healthcare and industrial sectors,” including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The report states: “During 2018, 2019 and the first seven months of 2020, technology billionaires’ total wealth rose by 42.5% to USD 1.8 trillion, supported by the surge in tech shares.”

The surge in technology and medical shares was buoyed by unlimited cash from the Federal Reserve, included as part of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act passed at the end of March in a near-unanimous vote by both Democrats and Republicans.

This financial bailout made a “big difference” in the fortunes of billionaires, with the authors writing: “Billionaire wealth is loosely correlated with equity markets, due to holdings in listed companies, and a few weeks makes a big difference. From the end of March, governments’ huge fiscal and quantitative easing packages drove a recovery in financial markets. By the end of July 2020, billionaire wealth was back above its 2019 level.”

Particularly obscene is the surge in wealth of billionaires in the health care industry, in the midst of a deadly global pandemic. The authors write, “Healthcare billionaires’ total wealth increased by 50.3% to $658.6 billion, boosted by a new age of drug discovery and innovations in diagnostics and medical technology, as well as latterly COVID-19 treatments and equipment.”

The report adds: “The number of tech billionaires grew from 68 in 2009 to 234 in 2020, while the number of healthcare billionaires grew from 48 to 167. Tech and healthcare billionaires’ total wealth both multiplied by four times – from $321.3 billion to $1.3 trillion for tech and from $120.8 billion to $482.9 billion for healthcare.”

Tyrannosaurus rex, Palais de la Découverte, Paris (Wikimedia commons Copyright © 2005 David Monniaux)

And what are these “pandemic profiteers” spending their fortunes on? To get some idea, Christie’s auction house in New York held its latest online auction, “20th Century Evening Sale” live-streamed from the Rockefeller Center in New York on October 6. In one night, the world’s wealthiest spent over $340 million on 59 different 20th and 21st century art pieces. The auction also featured the most expensive dinosaur skeleton ever sold, a fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex, for $27.5 million.

The massive concentration of wealth is a decades’ long and bipartisan policy of redistribution to the rich. The Institute for Policy Studies measured the tax obligations of America's billionaires as a percentage of their wealth between 1980 and 2018 and found that it had decreased 79 percent. Over the last 20 years, the growth in US billionaire wealth has been 200 times greater than the growth in median wealth.

While the billionaires are richer than ever, the response of the ruling class to the pandemic has produced a massive social catastrophe for the working class. In the United States, tens of millions are unemployed and being cut off of all benefits, facing poverty, homelessness and hunger.

Earlier reports found that the 643 wealthiest Americans increased their wealth by a staggering $845 billion between March 18 and September 15. During that same time, over 62 million people in the US applied for unemployment benefits. An estimated 10.5 million jobs were eliminated, with major companies such as Disney, United Airlines, and Cineworld announcing tens of thousands additional layoffs in the last week.

German state and political parties promote anti-Semitism

Peter Schwarz

On Sunday, a 26-year-old Jewish student was attacked and beaten with a shovel outside the door of the Hohe Weide Synagogue in Hamburg. The police and the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office judged the attack to be anti-Semitically motivated and attempted murder.

The assailant, who wore a German army camouflage uniform and beat his victim with a military entrenching tool, was 29-year-old German citizen Grigoriy K., who was born in Kazakhstan. A slip of paper with a swastika was found in his pocket. According to Der Spiegel, K. had performed voluntary military service in 2016, including three months of basic training and then worked as a paramedic.

The attack in Hamburg is only the latest in an endless series of anti-Semitic attacks in Germany. In the first six months of this year, official police statistics recorded 696 crimes with an anti-Semitic motive. Since 2010, the annual number of such crimes has never fallen below 1,200.

One year ago, on October 9, 2019, neo-Nazi Stephan Balliet attacked the synagogue in Halle on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Only the well-fortified door prevented a bloodbath with dozens of Jewish victims. Four months later, Thomas Rathjen murdered nine people in two shisha bars in Hanau. Like Balliet, Rathjen was a fervent anti-Semite who hated Jews and Muslims alike. In a manifesto, he called for the extermination of the population of Israel and more than 20 other states.

Seventy-five years after the Holocaust in which six million Jews fell victim, Jews in Germany, who make up just 0.2 percent of the population, are once again living in danger. The responsibility for this virulent anti-Semitism lies entirely with the ruling elites.

It lies with leading politicians of all parties, who court the neo-fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD), elect its representatives to high offices, put its racist refugee policies into practice, trivialize far-right activists as “concerned citizens” and support extreme-right networks in the police and the Bundeswehr.

Only yesterday, Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer (Christian Social Union, CSU) presented a report on right-wing extremists within the domestic secret service that deliberately plays down far-right networks inside the state apparatus and gives carte blanche to anti-Semites and racists.

After more and more new groups in the police, the German Armed Forces and secret services have been exposed exchanging neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic chats, threatening left-wing lawyers and activists, hoarding weapons and preparing for a coup on “Day X,” Seehofer had to admit that between 2017 and April 2020 there were well over 400 suspected cases of right-wing extremism inside the security agencies of the federal and state governments. He claimed, however, that there is “no structural right-wing extremism” in German security agencies.

In reality, Seehofer’s figures are a gross underestimate. First, they do not include the suspected cases in the German army, whose official number in the same period was 1,064. Second, the figures are based on information provided by the security agencies themselves; there has been no independent investigation. Third, the massive increase in cases since March is not included—in North Rhine-Westphalia alone, the number of suspected cases has since risen from 45 to 104. Fourth, the number of unreported cases is many times higher, since there is an esprit de corps within the police and the German army that brands any passing over of information as “treason.”

The so-called “Code of Silence” is “widespread in police culture,” former police officer Rafael Behr, who now teaches at the Hamburg Police Academy, told Der Spiegel. “You don’t betray colleagues, not at any price. You maintain solidarity at all costs. ... No one says ‘Stop’ or reports the incident when they see colleagues who come to the police station with Nazi memorabilia, for example.”

Seehofer’s counterpart in Saxony-Anhalt, Interior Minister Holger Stahlknecht (Christian Democratic Union, CDU), is deliberately stirring up anti-Semitic sentiments in the police. On Monday, he told police officers in Dessau that they could no longer fulfill their duties because they had to work 1,500 additional hours per month to safeguard Jewish facilities.

Stahlknecht, who is personally responsible for the fact that the synagogue in Halle was without any protection a year ago, had carefully chosen the location for his appearance. He spoke at the Dessau-Roßlau police station where Oury Jalloh died 15 years ago. Although all the evidence suggested that the refugee from Sierra Leone was killed by police officers, the case has never been solved. It served as a beacon for unchecked racism in the police force.

Also responsible for the return of anti-Semitism are all the academics, journalists, and politicians who support far-right professors and denounce criticism of them as an attack on the freedom of scholarship. In February 2014, when Der Spiegel published an extensive article which pleaded for a reinterpretation of German history, the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) warned urgently that this would lead to a revival of militarism, fascism and anti-Semitism. Der Spiegel cited historian Jörg Baberowski of Berlin’s Humboldt University. Baberowski attested that Hitler was “not vicious” and defended the Nazi apologist Ernst Nolte. Nolte himself, who was still alive at the time, made anti-Semitic remarks in the article. For example, he accused the Jews of being partly responsible for the Gulag because some of them were Bolsheviks. In doing so, he followed the line of Nazi propaganda about a “Jewish-Bolshevik world conspiracy.”

Almost the entire media, numerous professors and politicians from all parties— including the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the Left Party—defended Baberowski and attacked the SGP and its youth organization, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), which had publicly criticized him. In contrast, the SGP/IYSSE received much support from students and workers, and a court ruled that Baberowski could legitimately be called a “right-wing extremist.”

The dispute has continued for years. Mehring Books published two books about it: Scholarship or War Propaganda? The return of German Militarism and the Dispute at Berlin’s Humboldt University and Why Are They Back? Historical falsification, political conspiracy and the return of fascism in Germany (order from Mehring Books: UK, USA). Anyone who wants to understand why anti-Semitism is flaring up again in Germany should read these books.

The return of fascism and anti-Semitism has deep, objective causes and is not limited to Germany.

In the United States, President Donald Trump is mobilizing armed fascist militias and openly threatens a coup if he loses the November election. In Brazil, the Philippines, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, ultra-right parties are in power. But in all other countries too, the ruling class is rapidly moving toward dictatorship. In Germany, as the virulent scourge of anti-Semitism shows, this development is far advanced.

The reason for this is the insoluble crisis of global capitalism. International relations are characterized by strategic rivalries, economic conflicts and wars, while domestic relations are characterized by deep social inequality and fierce class tensions. The coronavirus pandemic has intensified and accelerated this. The financial oligarchy has helped itself to billions from the state coffers, while workers are being forced back to work at the risk of their lives and must pay for the billions in debt through mass layoffs, wage and social cuts.

This is not compatible with democratic conditions. Hitler had already used anti-Semitism to mobilize the dregs of society against the working class and establish a dictatorship. For this reason, he was invited into the Reich Chancellery in 1933 by a conspiracy at the top of society.

German court frees right-wing extremist accused of complicity in assassination of Walter Lübcke

Peter Schwarz

The neo-Nazi Markus Hartmann, who was accused in the trial for the murder of German regional politician Walter Lübcke, was freed from custody last Thursday.

The Frankfurt Regional High Court found that Hartmann was “no longer suspected of being punishable as an accessory to the crime.” Although he must continue to take part in the proceedings, he will only be held accountable for offences related to the possession of weapons. The expected punishment for such offences is so low that it would no longer be proportionate to keep him in custody after one year and three months, the court ruled.

Stefan Ernst with lawyers at the Frankfurt Main Regional High Court (Thomas Lohnes / Pool Photo via AP)

Hartmann was arrested on 26 June 2019, a day after Stefan Ernst, the main accused, admitted to having shot Lübcke at close range on the terrace of his home in Kassel on 1 June. In the process, he also implicated his friend Hartmann. He was accused of having known about Ernst’s plans to carry out the assassination, of having incited and encouraged him to go through with the crime, and of having put Ernst in contact with an arms dealer.

Ernst later retracted his confession and provided new testimony at the beginning of this year in which he accused Hartmann of firing the fatal shot. According to Ernst, he and Hartmann followed Lübcke home together to intimidate him. In the process, a shot was accidentally fired from Hartmann’s gun. In a third confession during the trial, Ernst again admitted having fired a shot at Lübcke. However, he continued to insist that Hartmann was present on the night of the murder.

Hartmann’s former partner, with whom he had a child, also levelled serious accusations against him. He was a dangerous right-wing extremist, encouraged Ernst’s radicalisation, and persuaded him to take up shooting practice, she told the police. Already six months prior to Lübcke’s murder, she testified in a dispute over guardianship of their child that Hartmann was a right-wing extremist, possessed illegal weapons and produced his own ammunition. In the Lübcke trial, which has been attended by lawyers and observers from the right-wing extremist milieu, she relativised her statements.

The Frankfurt Regional High Court used these contradictory confessions and statements to justify freeing Hartmann. The suspicion that he was guilty of being an accessory to a murder was based on the information provided by Ernst and Hartmann’s former partner during the investigation, the court said in justifying its decision. But the evidence collected in the course of the proceedings had failed to confirm this. A precondition for the crime of accessory to murder was the subjective belief on Hartmann’s part that Lübcke’s murder by Ernst was at least a possible outcome. But this was no longer to a considerable degree likely.

Ernst’s statement that Hartmann accompanied him to the scene of the crime was brushed aside by the court. It justified this by saying that Ernst had provided three different versions of how the crime took place, each of which was totally different.

In contrast to the court, both the federal state prosecutor and joint plaintiffs believe that Hartmann was complicit in the crime. Lübcke’s family expressed their outrage and stated that Hartmann’s release was “hard to take.“ They are “firmly convinced that the crime was planned and carried out cooperatively by both of the accused.”

Irrespective of the testimony from Ernst and Hartmann’s former partner, a vast body of facts and circumstantial evidence points to the correctness of this conclusion. They show that a right-wing extremist network, in which Hartmann played an important role, was behind Lübcke’s murder. By releasing Hartmann, the court is making clear that it has no intention of interfering with this right-wing conspiracy. In so doing, it is following a well known pattern.

Following the Octoberfest attack in 1980, which was the deadliest right-wing extremist terrorist attack in post-war Germany, investigators immediately concentrated on the theory of a lone wolf and excluded the possibility of a political motive. Although considerable evidence of co-conspirators existed, including the infatuation of Gundolf Köhler, the attacker, with Hitler, and his involvement in the far-right Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann, they claimed that he carried out the attack alone due to lovesickness. Due to the fact that Köhler died in the attack, no trial was ever held.

The trial of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) terrorist group in Munich followed a similar pattern. It focused entirely on the personal guilt of Beate Zschäpe, the only survivor of the trio, which carried out 10 racially-motivated murders and several attacks. The right-wing extremist network that supported the NSU was systematically excluded from the trial, even though the lawyers of the victims persistently requested that this be examined. Even the long-standing NSU supporter André Eminger, who sat on the accused bench, left the court to shouts of delight from his neo-Nazi friends as a free man.

The reason for the tolerance of right-wing extremist networks by the courts and investigating authorities is the fact that they have close ties to the state apparatus. In the surroundings of the NSU alone, some two dozen informants for the state intelligence services were active. The Thuringia Home Guard, in which the NSU trio were radicalised, was established and financed by Tino Brandt, an informant for the state intelligence agency in Thuringia.

Ernst and Hartmann were active in the same neo-Nazi networks as the NSU for decades. Hartmann is even accused of having worked or still working as an informant for the intelligence agencies. This could also be a reason for his release. Evidence shows that an employee of the Hesse state intelligence service met with him twice in 1998 to recruit him. Public broadcaster NDR reported this earlier in the year based on documents it had viewed. Hartmann allegedly rejected this offer at the time. But this does not exclude the possibility that further attempts to recruit him were made later on.

Suspicions were also raised by the vague answer provided by the federal state prosecutor (GBA) at a hearing of the parliamentary committee for internal affairs last January, when she was asked if Hartmann was an informant for any intelligence agency. She knew the answer but was not authorised to talk about it, said the representative of the GBA, Cornelia Zacharias. By contrast, the GBA explicitly answered no when asked if Ernst had been a spy, according to the anti-fascist research website Exif.

Hartmann was an active right-wing extremist since 1990, including in organisations that were later banned. He and Ernst were active in the neo-Nazi milieu in Kassel, which also had close ties to the NSU. When the NSU claimed its ninth victim in 2006 with the shooting of Halit Yozgat in an internet cafe in Kassel, Hartmann drew the attention of the investigators. He raised suspicions due to his interest for a website where the BKA requested information about the murder. he told the police that he knew Yozgat well and was questioned no further, even though he was a well-known neo-Nazi.

The intelligence agency employee Andreas Temme was responsible for managing the informants in the neo-Nazi milieu in Kassel at the time. Temme was present at the internet cafe when Yozgat was killed—allegedly by sheer coincidence and without having noticed anything untoward. Stefan Ernst was friends with one of Temme’s assets, Benjamin Gärtner (code-named “vegetable”). There is no evidence to confirm that Ernst or Hartmann worked for Temme. Files that could prove this have been placed under lock and key by the Hesse state government for 40 years.

Temme left the intelligence agency after his dubious role in the Yozgat murder became known. He continues to work in the Kassel district government, the authority which Lübcke led.

Ernst and Hartmann knew each other, were close friends, and often appeared together at neo-Nazi marches. On 1 May 2009, they participated in an attack on a trade union-organised demonstration in Dortmund. Both were arrested, but while Ernst was given a suspended sentence, Hartmann was released without charge.

In October 2015, Ernst and Hartmann attended an event in Lohfelden where Lübcke defended accepting refugees into the country. Hartmann took video footage and published a short extract on Youtube. It served as the basis for a right-wing extremist campaign of agitation that culminated in Lübcke’s assassination. The claim that Hartmann knew nothing about Ernst’s hatred for Lübcke and his murder plans is simply unsustainable.

It was also Hartmann who enabled Ernst to practice with firearms. Even though Hartmann’s right-wing extremist views were known, the city of Kassel issued him in 2011 with a “non-suspect certificate,” which allowed him to handle explosives and possess weapons. He then took Ernst, who did not have the same approval, to practice sessions at his shooting club.

When investigators searched Hartmann’s garage after his arrest, they found large quantities of Nazi memorabilia, including busts of Hitler and Göring, and a metal swastika. Around 250 messages exchanged between Hartmann and Ernst in the three months prior to Lübcke’s murder, had been deleted and could allegedly not be recovered.

Despite all of this, the court in Frankfurt is setting Hartmann free. His release is a signal to far-right terrorist networks that they can continue their murderous activities. This fits in with a series of similar cases. Franco A., Maximilian T., Marco G. (Nordkreuz—Northern Cross), Andre S. (Hannibal), and others who hoarded weapons, kept death lists and prepared for “Day X” are all free men. Present conditions increasingly recall those during the Weimar Republic, when right-wing militias and terrorist organisations, like the Consul Organisation, could murder with impunity and were protected by the courts, while left-wingers were pursued ruthlessly.

US secretary of state lashes out against China at Quad meeting

Peter Symonds

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo once again hit out against Beijing, this time at the meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, commonly referred to as the Quad, held in Tokyo on Tuesday. The US has been pushing for the transformation of the dialogue involving Japan, India and Australia into a formal military alliance as part of its escalating war drive against China.

In his public remarks, Pompeo hypocritically blamed China for the COVID-19 pandemic in a bid to deflect attention from the criminally negligent response of the Trump administration to the spread of the disease that has claimed the lives of more than 200,000 Americans. He declared that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had made the crisis “infinitely worse” as a result of its “cover-up” and accused the “authoritarian” regime of locking up those who raised the alarm.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (Credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikipedia)

Whatever the limitations of the Chinese government’s response to what for it was a new disease with unknown characteristics, they pale in comparison with Trump’s repeated dismissal of the dangers of the coronavirus and his administration’s failure to institute the necessary measures to contain its spread. Chinese health authorities promptly informed the World Health Organisation, which the White House has also sought to make a scapegoat, which relayed the warnings internationally, including to the US.

These accusations against China are just part of the barrage of lies and unsubstantiated accusations that Pompeo repeats in international forums as he seeks to line up allies and strategic partners against Beijing. He told the gathering of foreign ministers—Marise Payne, Toshimitsu Motegi and Subrahmanyam Jaishankar from Australia, Japan and India respectively—that collaboration was more critical than ever to protect against “the CCP’s exploitation, corruption, and coercion.”

The US secretary of state declared: “We’ve seen it in the south, in the East China Sea, the Mekong, the Himalayas, the Taiwan Straits. These are just a few examples.” In reality, it has been Washington that has deliberately inflamed dangerous flash-points in the Indo-Pacific: repeatedly sending US warships through the South China and East China Seas, as well as the Taiwan Strait, and encouraging the right-wing Indian government to take an aggressive stance in its border disputes with China.

The Trump administration’s anti-China campaign had its origins in the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” that confronted China across the Indo-Pacific region—diplomatically, economically and militarily. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton transformed what had been longstanding, simmering maritime disputes in the South China Sea into an international hotspot and potential trigger for war. In the current presidential election campaign, both the Democrats and Republicans have ratcheted up their anti-China propaganda—reflecting the determination in Washington to prevent China from becoming a challenge to American global hegemony.

In his public statement, Pompeo made clear that the US regards the Quad as far more than just a forum to exchange views. “Our partnership isn’t multilateralism for the sake of it. All of us seek a free and open Indo-Pacific and our conversations aim to achieve that good outcome,” he said. His counterposing of the “democratic” countries of the Quad against authoritarian China rings all the more hollow as Trump has repeatedly threatened to ignore the vote in the US election if it goes against him. The governments in all four countries have been moving towards authoritarian forms of rule, with Australia for instance legislating draconian “foreign interference” laws that could be used to suppress anti-war opposition.

While the foreign ministers of India, Australia and Japan were more circumspect in their public remarks, there is no doubt that behind closed doors all three lined up against China, with Pompeo pressuring them to go further. The US has been pushing Australia to commit its warships to the US naval provocations against China—so-called “freedom of navigation operations” intruding in waters in the South China Sea around Chinese controlled islets. Japan and Australia have both formally been American military allies since the end of World War II, while India effectively entered into a strategic partnership with the United States in 2010 that has been expanded to include a logistics and basing agreement.

The four countries have been stepping-up joint military exercises. India signaled in June that it was open to including Australia in trilateral Malabar military exercises that already include the US and Japan. The US navy held live-fire drills with Australian warships in the South China Sea in April and manoeuvres with Japanese naval forces in June. In July, the Pentagon mobilised three of its massive US aircraft carriers and associated battlegroups, sending two into the South China Sea for “high-end” war games aimed at preparing for “an all domain warfighting environment.” One of the aircraft carriers carried out drills with five Australian naval vessels and a Japanese warship.

China has responded to this week’s Quad talks by rejecting Pompeo’s remarks. A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington told Newsweek: “We do not accept reckless smearing and groundless accusations against China.” He called for the resolution of differences “through dialogue and consultation,” and urged the US to “abandon the Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice, stop unprovoked accusations and attacks on China.”

While commentary in the US and Western media focuses on the danger of a new Cold War, the parallel to the confrontation between the Soviet Union and American imperialism is not accurate. The triumphalism that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 has completely dissipated as the subsequent three decades ushered in, not a new era of “peace and prosperity,” but one of endless US wars of aggression, continuing US economic crisis and deepening global decline.

Unlike the Soviet Union, China, which is wrought by its own sharpening economic and social tensions, represents, by its very existence as the world’s second largest economy, a threat to US dominance and the “rules-based order” of imperialism over which it presides. The Trump administration has engaged in an escalating economic war that is increasingly openly aimed at preventing China from developing high tech industries and ensuring that it remains a subordinate cheap labour platform for American corporations.

Far from a new decades-long Cold War between the world’s two largest economies, the American ruling class is recklessly preparing to take all measures, including open warfare, to prevent China from ever threatening US economic and strategic interests. The relentless US military build-up in the Indo-Pacific is setting the stage for the drive to a war between nuclear armed powers with terrible consequences for humanity.