Australian Labor government refuses to increase below poverty-level welfare

Eric Ludlow

Three weeks out from the release of its annual budget on May 9, the Australian federal Labor government has flatly rejected calls to raise welfare payments amid a global cost-of-living crisis.

Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers. [Photo: ABC News]

Treasurer Jim Chalmers refused to adopt key recommendations outlined by an Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee (EIAC) report to increase below-poverty JobSeeker payments for the unemployed and raise Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) to keep pace with skyrocketing rental prices. Chalmers also rejected the EIAC’s call for the government to boost Youth Allowance payments for students and young workers.

The report, released Tuesday, was commissioned by the Labor government in December 2022 to provide “non-binding advice,” supposedly to tackle economic disadvantage in Australia.

Among the EIAC’s 37 recommendations were calls for increased services to support job seekers and “full employment” objectives to keep unemployment “close to” 3.5 percent and tackle underemployment. The report also called for the development of a “poverty index” to “provide a more comprehensive picture of the nature and extent of poverty.”

More than one million Australians rely on JobSeeker and Youth Allowance payments, which the report’s authors described as “seriously inadequate.”

JobSeeker payments for a single person with no children amount to just $693.10 per fortnight—roughly $49.51 per day. CRA is a payment of up to $79 per week for a single person. About 1.3 million of Australia’s more than five million welfare recipients receive this payment.

So meagre is the JobSeeker payment that Labor’s minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Bill Shorten, was forced to admit in a Sky News interview on Wednesday, “I couldn’t live on it.”

A report published this week by not-for-profit Homelessness Australia found that, after paying rent, a young person in Australia on Youth Allowance ($562.80 per fortnight) and CRA sharing a typical two-bedroom flat would have just $13.20 per day left to pay for food, utilities, medicine, education and other costs.

In Canberra, the nation’s capital, a Youth Allowance and CRA recipient paying half the average rent on a two-bedroom flat has only $7 left per day. In Australia’s largest city, Sydney, they would have only 70 cents per day. Major cities Hobart, Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane all sit below the national average of $13.2 per day.

The situation for young workers has become especially dire amid skyrocketing inflation, which has seen food prices balloon. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in the year to December, the price of bread and cereal products rose by 12.9 percent, meat and seafood increased by 8.4 percent and dairy products soared by 14.4 percent.

“The reality is landlords will not rent to a young person whose budget is stretched this thinly, making it almost impossible for young people who can’t live safely at home to find somewhere to live,” said Homelessness Australia CEO Kate Colvin.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 39,300 people aged between 15 and 24 presented alone to homelessness services in 2021–22.

The EIAC argues that JobSeeker should be raised from 70 to 90 percent of the Age Pension—itself a woefully inadequate payment—as it was in 1999. This would lift the payment to a little over $890 fortnightly, or $63 a day.

But even this paltry increase is too much according to the treasurer, who said in a joint statement with Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth, “we can’t fund every good idea.” The statement made vague reference to measures in the May budget “to address disadvantage” in the form of energy bill relief and pensions.

The treasurer’s flat rejection of the recommendations presented in the EIAC report is a case study in how such committees, advisory panels, commissions and task forces are repeatedly used by governments to provide a fig leaf for their anti-working class austerity policies.

Chalmers has just returned from discussions in Washington, involving treasurers from other G20 member states, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, in which the IMF released its World Economic Outlook report. The report warned of a global economic slowdown as a result of the US-NATO war in Ukraine and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

As the pockets of the rich continue to be lined by governments, it is ordinary workers and youth internationally who are being made to pay for this economic turmoil.

In line with this, the Labor government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has insisted since coming to power in May last year that the working class in Australia must swallow “tough medicine.” In other words, there will be no relief for workers reeling from a global cost-of-living crisis, the likes of which have not been seen for decades.

The government has calculated that the report’s recommendations would cost a total of $34 billion over the next four years to implement. Chalmers and bourgeois economic commentators have been quick to blame the lack of an increase in social welfare payments on a $5 billion “blowout” of the aged care budget.

While insisting that there is no money to alleviate the financial hardship of working-class households and struggling youth, the Labor government has repeatedly stated its commitment to planned “Stage Three” tax cuts for high-income households and made virtually unlimited funds available for the military.

Last month, Albanese announced that $368 billion would be spent on nuclear-powered submarines as part of the AUKUS military pact with the US and the UK. These machines of war are part of the further integration of Australia into preparations for a US-led war against China.

The purchase of the submarines comes on top of $575 billion already pledged by the federal government for defence over the coming decade. The May 9 budget promises to be a continuation and deepening of the bipartisan push for militarism and austerity against the working class.

This exposes the lies embodied in the Labor party’s slogan of a “better future” for ordinary people, promoted before the May 2022 federal election. In that election campaign, and the recent state elections in New South Wales, only the Socialist Equality Party sought to explain to workers and youth that Labor is a big-business party that will offer nothing but an intensified drive for austerity and war.

Labor’s refusal to provide even the meagre welfare increases recommended by the EIAC, amid the greatest cost-of-living crisis in a generation, is in line with the harsh austerity measures being adopted by capitalist governments worldwide.

Sudanese Revolution Enters a Pivotal Stage

Horace G. Campbell & Mahder H. Serekberhan

Military situation in Sudan, as of 20 April 2023. Photograph Source: ElijahPepe – CC BY-SA 4.0

In April 2019, the alliance of civilian forces in Sudan finally removed the genocidal Omar al-Bashir military Islamist regime. After years of continuous rebellions, the alliance of workers, students, progressive women, youths, small farmers, and cultural workers created resistance committees to direct the energies to fully disrupt the military chokehold over the society. From December 2018 to April 2019 the tempo of the demonstrations and rebellions forced sections of the military to oust Bashir. After the overthrow of the military Islamist government of Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, there was a power sharing agreement where the military and civilians would share power. A Draft Constitutional Declaration of August 2019 created the Transitional Sovereignty Council where the emphasis was on the transitional arrangements, underlining the commitment for the military to hand over power by April 2022.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan became the chairman of the Sovereignty Council. General Burhan had also served as a regional army commander in Darfur, in western Sudan, when approximately 300,000 people were killed, and millions of others displaced in fighting from 2003 to 2008. This genocidal violence was widely publicized in Africa with loud calls for Bashir and his Generals to be held accountable for the killings in Darfur. General Burhan had acted preemptively when the popular demonstrations exposed the atrocities of the military. Thus, in spite of the fact that Burhan had been closely aligned with Bashir, al-Burhan maneuvered to take control of the military and the transition by removing, Lt. Gen. Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf. Burhan presented himself as an opponent of Bashir, by pretending to side with the protesting masses who were calling for a thorough removal of the military and the dismantlement of militias.

His deputy in this moment of Machiavellian machinations, was Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo had achieved international notoriety as a commander of the notorious Janjaweed militias responsible for the genocidal violence in Darfur. His paramilitary forces organized within the faction called Rapid Support Forces were the shock troops for Bashir. The Bashir government became a mercenary force fighting for the Saudis and Emiratis in Yemen, and for General Khalifa Haftar’s war in Libya. After 2015, there were up to 15,000 Sudanese military and paramilitary deployed by the Saudis to fight the Houthis. Flush with resources from the alliance with Russia in the gold mining and export sector, the Rapid Support Services in a short period had amassed millions of dollars. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had tolerated the alliance of Dagalo but was concerned as he built up his militia forces to over 100,000.

It is these two factions of the Darfur mess that are at war with each other to decide which faction will seek to crush the Sudanese people. After the 2021 military coup that ended civilian role in the transition, the clash between both had intensified and broke out in open warfare on the weekend of April 15, 2023. The alliance between al-Burhan and Dagalo had been a marriage of convenience as neither faction supported the break of the economic power of the military and the militias. A genuine transition away from militaristic oppression and cheapening of human life demanded the breakup of the economic power of the military in state and commercial institutions. Organized in a manner similar to the military capitalists in Egypt, the top Generals through the military and intelligence services were involved in more than 400 of the major state enterprises, including agricultural conglomerates, banks, telecommunications, medical import companies, gold mining, transport, and real estate. With this economic supremacy, the military refused to hand over power. As the date for the handover of control to civilians got closer in 2021, General al-Burhan with the support of Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, staged a coup d’état on October 25, 2021. This coup ousted the civilian government led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

The 2021 removal of the civilian Prime Minister came in the wake of efforts to give teeth to the “Commission for Dismantling the June 30, 1989 Regime, Removal of Empowerment and Corruption, and Recovering Public Funds.”  The civilian Minister and the civilian bureaucrats were not only exposing and uprooting the network of companies owned by the Islamists forced out of power in 2019, but also the tentacles of the commercial empires owned by senior Generals. The civilian leadership wanted to get access to the vast sums available to the Generals. Hamdok had become increasingly outspoken in his criticism of the military entanglement in the economy. Both Generals were threatened by the objective to dismantle the military economic stranglehold of the Bashir forces.

April 2019 to April 2023, from Uprising to Revolution

The 2019 uprisings in the Sudan brought together all the forces fighting for social change. Organized under the umbrella of the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) the alliance brought together workers, students, progressive intellectuals, cultural artists, farmers, and professionals in a loose, but democratic network. The Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) created a new political force in Sudan. But the FFC included the traditional political careerists who had sold out the Sudanese people on numerous occasions since independence in 1956. The FFC was itself being challenged by more progressive elements in Sudan. The base of this opposition to compromise with the military was the youth and mobilized progressive women. Resistance committees emerged in all parts of the country to organize the uprisings, oppose the military, and hold the FFC accountable. When the FFC dithered as to their complete opposition to militarism, the progressive women and youths pushed the demands for change beyond elections and power sharing. It was in the struggles between the resistance committees and the military that the uprisings emerged from protests to a revolutionary situation.

The three elements that Vladimir Lenin recognized as central to the revolutionary situation were now apparent in Sudan.

(1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the “upper classes”, a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for “the lower classes not to want” to live in the old way; it is also necessary that “the upper classes should be unable” to rule in the old way;

(2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual;

(3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in “peace time”, but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the “upper classes” themselves into independent historical action.

All of these three elements of the revolutionary situation had emerged in Sudan when the upper classes were unable to rule in the old ways. Incessant negotiations between the military and their supporters in Washington, Paris, Riyadh, Dubai and Moscow failed to weaken the protracted popular struggles. The military proceeded to shoot down the people in the streets. With every demonstration and neighborhood confrontation, the militant resistance committees matured to be a defensive front against militarism, exploitation, divisions, and manipulation. Young Sudanese women emerged as the vanguard force pushing the ideas of revolutionary change and opposing the Arabist/Islamist consciousness that had been unleashed to divide this multiethnic, multi-racial and multi-religious society. The traditional middle strata and their bureaucrats who were looking to London, Washington, and Dubai could not keep abreast with the changing resistance on the ground. These were the forces led by Hamdok who were swept aside on October 25, 2021, leaving the confrontation between the military and their imperial backers on one side and the organized resistance of the mobilized popular forces on the other side.

Objective alliance between Washington and Moscow in Sudan

After the removal of Omar al-Bashir the United States and the European Union worked hand in glove with the United Nations to orchestrate a transition process that would disempower the people. Western embassies in Khartoum organized numerous meetings to feel out the depth of the popular mobilization. The United States worked with Israel to build new relations between the genocidal generals of Sudan by bringing the generals into the so-called Abraham Accords. The Generals under Bashir had fought for France and the USA in Libya to remove Gaddafi, had fought in Chad, and were fighting in Yemen. As an inducement to collaborate with Israel and Saudi Arabia, Sudan was removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. This collaboration between Israel and the Generals formed part of the regional strategy from a section of global capital to isolate Iran. The regional alignment against Iran included Egypt, Israel, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. The European Union created its own alliance with the militarists by pledging hundreds of millions of euros for the ‘Khartoum Process’, a multinational effort to empower the Hemedti militia forces to manage migration from the Horn of Africa to Europe.This opened a new front for human trafficking by the RSF.

Objectively, Russia was part of this grouping with the western oppressive forces in the Sudan. Of the two military factions, the Russians through the Wagner private security group was in a firm alliance with the gold traders and hustlers. Both factions of the military were and are highly dependent on Russia for military capital. China was a silent partner in this unprincipled array of forces. The Chinese capitalists worked with all sides in the region: Israel, Iran, Qatar and the Wahabist conservative religious forces. As the crisis of capitalism intensified, the Russians had gained a foothold in the mining and export of gold from Sudan. This alliance between the Emiratis, Saudis, Sudanese, and Israeli forces in the plunder of the gold fields came to international attention as the western propaganda organs identified the Wagner Group as the prime beneficiary of the plunder of the gold fields in the Darfur region. The Wagner group of paramilitary capitalists from Russia built a formidable alliance with the RSF forces to the point where the capital resources of the RSF placed them in a position to challenge the established military that were involved in accumulation through the state.

The deterioration of relations between two branches of the Sudanese military entrepreneurs

The lucrative gold mining and trading operations of the RSF gave confidence to the faction of the military under Hemedti. The alliance started to crumble when the older ‘professional military forces’ sought to dismantle the RSF and militia forces. Under the terms of the transition to democratic rule in the Sudan, the military had sought immunity to the National Security Service (NSC) for the criminal activities unleashed since the Bashir pogroms. After the 2021 coup d’état the progressive forces had coalesced into a more coherent force to oppose the military. These forces placed the three Nos on the table.

No negotiation, No partnership, No legitimacy

The coalescence of the popular forces was manifest in the completion of the Revolutionary Charter For Establishing People’s Power (RCEPP). This Charter made explicit the position of the resistance committees that there would be ‘overall reform and restructuring of the armed forces, including review of its laws, tasks, responsibilities and force size, resulting in a unified and professional national army, capable of playing its main role of safeguarding the people, the constitution and the country’s borders.” This alliance of progressive forces opposed the Framework Agreement between one faction of the resistance with the military. The Framework Agreement signed on December 2022 retreated from the demands of the 1989 Regime, Removal of Empowerment and Corruption, and Recovering Public Funds.  The outline pact of the Framework set no date for a final agreement or the appointment of the Prime Minister and differed on sensitive issues including the dismantling of the militias.

The fact that the RCEPP had published its demands and the requirements of a genuine transition, those parties and militia forces who wanted to do deals with Washington to isolate the revolutionaries were themselves isolated. In this isolation, the two strong military factions began to attack each other.

Both factions could not heed the call of the people for accountability for the former crimes of the Bashir regime. This call for accountability within the society was made explicit in the following statement:

“Accountability shall include individuals who organized and participated in war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocides and ethnic cleansings in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, the southern Blue Nile, South Sudan, eastern Sudan, Khartoum, and other parts of the country. All individuals who participated in the crimes during and after the December Revolution shall be brought to trial inside Sudan and by the Sudanese, in accordance with the Interim Constitution, which shall stipulate for the legal process of the trials through establishing special immediate trials.”

Both factions of the military are opposed to the calls for accountability and for the new interim power forces to “Combat all practices of corruption, recovery of looted public funds and assets, and restore privatized companies through a Commission of Combating Corruption and Recovery of Looted Public Funds and Assets.” Both factions are also opposed to the plans of the resistance committees to “place all state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as well as those owned by the military, intelligence and police services under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance.”

Changed regional situation

The global insecurity generated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine affected all parts of the world. Additionally, the weaponization of finance and the freezing of Russian assets created alarm in all parts of the world. If the US Treasury could freeze US $600 b, then it could act against other countries. There was renewed interest of many countries to seek some relation with the Brazil, Russia, India China and South Africa (BRICS formation) and the BRICS bank. In the midst of the global financial insecurities generated by the US banking system, the Chinese brokered a de-escalation of tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.  Additionally, the Saudis had reduced the production of oil to push up the price of oil, even after President Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia to plea for the opposite, the increase in production to offset the challenges faced by Europe because of the sanctions against Russia.

The tiff between the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and the US threw the regional alliances into a predicament. When the Chinese diplomatic efforts brought about a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the future of the Sudanese mercenary forces fighting the Houthis was now questionable. The Sudanese military would have to be withdrawn from Yemen. Secondly, the premises of the Abraham Accords that had brought the alliance between the military and the Israelis was now in doubt. There could no longer be a focus on Iran when the right-wing anti-people government of Israel unleashed violence and oppression inside and outside of Israel. The Saudis, Egyptians, Sudanese and Moroccans who were willing to sacrifice the rights of the Palestinian peoples were now faced with a choice, join with Israel and the USA against the Palestinians, or join with the Palestinians, the Egyptian and Sudanese masses to oppose militarism and fundamentalism. Russia was now faced with a choice of how to move forward with its agreement with Israel in Syria. The contradictions within contradictions in Sudan and in the region broke out in the fighting between the RSF and the military. The two factions are fighting to decide which faction will emerge as the ally of Washington to crush the resistance committees.

Maturation of the revolutionary situation in the Sudan

Now the two military factions of the counter revolution are fighting each other. For the past three years, they have killed hundreds, if not thousands of people who are struggling for a new political dispensation. Despite shooting the people down in the streets, the resistance committees have demonstrated another form of robust peoples power by their resistance and forming the nucleus of the new state.

The military, despite its foreign allies and legitimizers, failed to crush the new self-organized peoples committees. In the midst of the fighting between the two factions, the Sudanese Professional Association (SPA) and the resistance committees have called for the people to form neighborhood peace committees.

“We call on the forces of the living revolution, including the resistance committees in the neighborhoods, trade union forces, and professional bodies, to take the initiative to protect neighborhoods in villages, towns and cities, through the formation of (community peace committees). We are fully aware of the absence of the state and its institutions, and we have no choice but to activate the role of our peaceful civil society and the forces of the living revolution that have been the capital of our local communities for a long time.”

The community peace committees will place the Sudanese revolution into the phase of armed self-defense.

The name calling and fighting between the two factions of the military will continue to unleash death and destruction in the Sudan. But the accumulated experiences over the past three years have ensured that the resistance cannot be broken very easily.

The popular revolutionary forces have held power in the streets for more than 1000 days.

Those who have studied the rhythm of revolution and counter revolution over the past 150 years will remember the writings of Karl Marx who had celebrated the fighters of the Paris Commune. Marx in his communication to the First International commented positively on the communards surviving more than 71 days. Then, the communards were crushed by the invading German army.

There is no invading army to save either side in the current counter revolutionary war in the Sudan. Both sides will fight to the death to remain in power.

The major outside forces that can make a difference now are two: the first, Russia, which is connected in the gold trade to Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan and the Rapid Support Forces, and the second is the Egyptian military. The military capitalists in Sudan have long historical links with the Egyptian militarists and Islamists. Other smaller elements include the military of Eritrea, where Hemedti recently visited.

Progressive forces internationally must call for the arrest and trial of the military forces that have unleashed genocidal violence on the Sudanese peoples since 1989. The Resistance Committees’ and the popular forces are calling for solidarity and non-intervention to push the process of transition from militarism to one where the peoples of Sudan can enter into new relations.

Progressives internationally must transcend the propaganda war of the bourgeois forces who are quaking at the prospect of this counter revolution ensnaring millions of Egyptians who can take courage from Sudan if their leaders continue in the alliance with Israel against the Palestinian peoples.

South Africa roiled by global crisis of capitalism

Iqra Qalam

The global economic crisis is having a devastating impact on developing economies like South Africa. The slowdown of the economies of South Africa’s largest trading partners is wreaking havoc on its own.

One of the main driving forces is the policy of the US Federal Reserve. Over the past 15 years, the Fed has injected massive sums of ultra-cheap money into the financial markets to prevent a stock market collapse and protect the wealth of the global financial oligarchy. The Fed’s balance sheet rose from just under $1 trillion in 2008 to nearly $ 8.5 trillion currently, with $3 trillion spent at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A dark passage during a power outage in a Johannesburg shopping centre, South Africans are struggling in the dark to cope with increased power cuts that have hit households and businesses across the country. The rolling power cuts have been experienced for years but this week the country’s state-owned power utility Eskom extended them so that some residents and businesses have gone without power for more than 9 hours a day. Thursday, June 30, 2022. [AP Photo/Denis Farrell]

Now, in the name of “fighting inflation,” the Fed has raised interest rates from 0.25 percent in 2022 to the current rate of 5 percent, with the objective of inducing a recession to drive up unemployment and drive down real wages. Talk is now of a further quarter point rise next month.

The US economy, with a gross domestic product of $23 trillion, is the world’s largest but growth is expected to slow to just 0.5 percent in 2023, the lowest rate outside of official recessions in over 40 years. The World Bank has downgraded its growth forecast for the European Union (a $14.5 trillion economy) to zero, due to ongoing energy supply and food disruptions resulting from the war in the Ukraine, with more monetary policy tightening on the cards.

China, with a gross domestic product of $17.7 trillion, is also stalling. During previous periods, China’s rapid development could buoy the world economy by expanding between 6 percent and 12 percent per year. No longer. China’s GDP annual growth rate fell to 2.9 percent in quarter four of 2022.Save for the COVID pandemic induced economic crisis, 2022 saw the weakest pace of growth since the mid-1970s.

The move towards global recession in 2023 is exposing financial fragilities arising from the long period of ultra-low interest rates, which led investors to search for higher returns regardless of risk. The speculative frenzy decoupled asset prices from the real economy, where value is produced. It ignited a historic borrowing and debt binge, driving stock exchanges into the stratosphere. These risks are now being realized as seen with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Credit-Suisse, with more financial turmoil likely to follow.

South Africa, in comparison to its most important trading partners—China, the European Union, and the United States—is a very small economy, with a gross domestic product of $419 billion, or about 0.8 percent that of its major trading partners. It is a leaf in the gale-force maelstrom of the global economy.

Following the lead of the US Federal Reserve, the South African Reserve Bank has pushed interest rates from 3.5 percent to its highest level in over 10 years, 7.25 percent. The impact of rising interest rates is leading to an unprecedented collapse of the middle class and the deepening impoverishment of the urban working class and rural poor.

At the World Economic Forum (WEF) conference in January 2023, Oxfam released a report titled “Survival of the Richest”. It reveals the largest wealth transfer in human history from the bottom to the top, accelerated by the Fed’s pumping of ultra-cheap money into the financial markets. This has resulted in a significant increase in global inequality, with far-reaching consequences.

According to the report, the top one percent globally accumulated approximately $26 trillion of all new wealth created between 2020 and 2021, while the bottom 90 percent received only $5 trillion.

The report highlights that billionaire fortunes are increasing at a staggering rate of $2.7 billion per day. Food and energy companies have more than doubled their profits in 2022.

Meanwhile, the International Labor Organization estimates that globally, “$337 billion in wages was wiped out, affecting 1.7 billion workers as inflation outpaced wage growth.” This trend is driving up inequality and poverty for most of the world’s population.

South Africa mirrors this trend. The proportion of employed individuals has declined significantly from almost 48 percent in 2008 to approximately 39 percent at present. Real wages are continuing to fall, with Statistics South Africa reporting that food inflation has risen from approximately 3 percent in 2019, to about 13 percent. The poor spend a larger proportion of their income on food, meaning that 13 percent food inflation is driving chronic hunger as the working class cannot afford basic commodities, deepening poverty and destitution.

It is worth asking: How did it come to this? During the period of the “negotiated settlement” which ushered in the change from Apartheid to democracy, the white South African ruling-elite set about creating a thin layer of black bourgeois as its junior partners. The African National Congress (ANC), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the Stalinist South African Communist Party chose from within their ranks who would become the beneficiaries of Black Economic Empowerment deals (BEE).

ANC operatives, such as now President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was a leader of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), set about demobilizing the most militant section of the working class. Ramaphosa received billions for services rendered, including in the mining sector. But by 2008 there were no more major BEE deals to be had, triggering a political crisis in the ANC that ultimately led to the removal of President Thabo Mbeki and his replacement with Jacob Zuma.

Ramaphosa with American President Joe Biden, September 2022. [Photo: The White House]

Under the Zuma presidency, the ANC’s priorities became increasingly apparent. A prominent ANC leader and convicted fraudster, Tony Yengeni, infamously stated, “We did not join the struggle to be poor!” Without BEE deals to be had, the venal ANC enriched themselves by looting state coffers in a process referred to as State Capture.

The scale of the money stolen is estimated at R1.5-trillion (US$83 billion), which is equivalent to nearly 120 percent of the South African Revenue Service’s tax revenue collection in 2019. The main target of ANC looting was the power utility, Eskom. Saturated with fraud and neglect, it ushered in the worst load shedding blackouts in the country’s history. To bring its plans into effect, lumpen elements linked to the ANC actively sabotaged power stations, to enrich themselves, with the ex-CEO of Eskom estimating that R1-billion (US$55 million) is looted each month.

The current state of the power utility is amplifying the magnitude of the global economic crisis on the economy. The effects of load shedding are contributing to decreases in production, increasing unemployment, and growing poverty. The South African Reserve Bank has estimated that the load shedding crisis could cost as much as R899 million (US$50 million) per day.

The economic impact of this crisis cannot be overstated, with the South African Reserve Bank revising its growth forecast for the year from 1.1 percent to 0.3 percent. Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago has warned that the ongoing power disruptions could result in a growth reduction of up to 2 percent, further driving up high levels of unemployment and poverty.

South Africa is the most unequal county in the world according to the World Inequality Report 2022, with the top one percent possessing 22 percent of national income, while the bottom 50 percent only have access to 5.5 percent of the national income. This trend is set to continue and become even more extreme.

Nelson Mandela’s promise of “a better life for all” is seen by the broad masses as a fraud, demonstrating that the national liberation movement is organically incapable of fulfilling the most basic needs and aspirations of the working class and rural poor. There is an entire generation born nearly 30 years after the end of Apartheid that knows no life other than under the ANC. In opposition to growing poverty and destitution, the South African working class is once again coming into struggle. However, no credence can be given to any of the capitalist political parties, including their pseudo-left adjuncts.

Uncrewed SpaceX rocket Starship explodes after launch

Bryan Dyne

The first test flight of the SpaceX super heavy vehicle Starship Orbital—which the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, claims will one day ferry humans to Mars—failed Thursday morning when the rocket exploded less than four minutes after its launch from the SpaceX Starbase facility on the coast of southern Texas.

SpaceX Starship on the launch pad [Photo by SpaceX / CC BY-NC 2.0]

The flight was uncrewed in preparation for future manned missions. It was slated to do a suborbital mission that would end with a soft landing of the Starship stage of the spacecraft off the coast of Kauai.

A press release from SpaceX indicates that the company itself initiated a “flight termination system” after the spacecraft began to tumble off its projected course. The company also claimed that the mission was a “success” despite the “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” a bizarre euphemism for blowing it to bits.

The corporate media followed SpaceX’s lead in declaring the mission a success despite the vehicle blowing up. The New York Times justified it as a “learning experience” and the Washington Post touted the “successful launch” of the mission because the rocket cleared the launch tower. CNN crooned that the affair was a “defining success.” And SpaceX employees, perhaps prompted by company officials, cheered when the rocket exploded.

While a full analysis of the incident has yet to be released, early reports suggest that the launch was far from such uncritical descriptions. Video footage of the launch shows that the rocket was thrown off course after its first and second stage failed to separate. The first stage, a booster called Super Heavy, was expected to detach from the second stage, the actual Starship spacecraft, about three-and-a-half minutes into the flight and land in the Gulf of Mexico. When it didn’t, and when Starship began its programmed roll maneuver with the booster still attached, the whole system began flying wildly.

Video also shows that eight of booster’s 33 Raptor engines failed at some point during the launch, some possibly as early as liftoff. It is possible that debris from the launch pad caused by the launch flew up and struck the rocket, initiating a series of cascading problems that caused certain engines to fail and possibly even prevented booster separation.

The spacecraft’s failures may also be linked to a frozen pressurization valve, which caused a Monday launch attempt to be scrubbed.

Several other problems with the launch emerged in the hours afterwards. In an effort to cut costs and move the launch timeline forward, SpaceX opted to forgo the standard flame trench and water deluge system of every other modern spacecraft launch site, which are designed to contain and safely dissipate the vast amounts of heat and sound energy released from a launch.

As a result, while the launch pad wasn’t destroyed, as touted by the company’s billionaire CEO Elon Musk, it will likely be unusable for months. The rocket plume was so strong that it dug out the concrete base of its launch pad and flung debris and dust for miles. In addition, residents of Port Isabel, a town about five miles north of the launch site, have also reported on social media that “particulates” rained down on the town after the rocket exploded. Offsite methane storage tanks were dented from the colossal pressure caused by the launch.

Each launch of the full Starship Orbital system also has a large environmental impact. Starbase is located between the Boca Chica Wildlife Refuge and the Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area, which are unique habitats in the northern hemisphere and home to some federally protected endangered species. Not only have SpaceX launches massively disrupted this ecosystem, they have no doubt killed many of the members of these endangered species. It has been observed for decades that the noise caused by large rocket launches will kill animal life as far as a mile out. SpaceX’s launch tower is a mere 500 feet away from protected habitats.

When SpaceX was authorized to do launches at Starbase in 2015, it was able to avoid regulations ostensibly in place to prevent such destruction by claiming that future Starship launches, which would number in the dozens each year, will have the same “low impact” as two to three launches of the much smaller Falcon 9.

Musk’s flagship company has similarly been able to avoid regulations to prevent dangers to human life. The closest city to NASA’s Cape Canaveral is 15 miles away, three times the distance between Starbase and Port Isabel and another nearby city, South Padre Island. And the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the world’s first spaceport, built by the Soviet Union in 1955 and now operated by the Russian space agency Roscosmos, is dozens of miles from the nearest city. Both the NASA and Soviet launch sites were built so far away from established residences in part to minimize the type of danger and damage to lives and livelihoods caused by SpaceX’s latest launch.

It is also worth noting how far SpaceX would be from human flight even if Thursday’s launch had been successful. While NASA has selected the Starship to be its lander for future moon missions, the spacecraft is still far from complete. It has yet to demonstrate it can land intact and it still does not have a life support system. In order to be reusable, one of the main selling points, SpaceX still has to figure out a way to refuel the ship in outer space. A recent article by Bloomberg estimates that such endeavors will take years and cost billions of dollars, far missing the mark of NASA’s planned moon landing in 2025 and a contract to SpaceX for doing so of $2.9 billion.

Of course, SpaceX does not exist as a corporation in a social vacuum. In many ways it represents the fatal contradictions of the social and economic system from which it arose.

Far from exploring the final frontier, space exploration under capitalism has become completely stunted since the years of Apollo. The technology which SpaceX uses is fundamentally the same as that of the Saturn V (more accurately the failed Soviet analog, the N1), despite the colossal scientific advances made over the past 50 years. At the same time, spaceflight has been reduced from a collective effort on a national scale to lurching forward with half measures at the whim of a few individuals.

And the launch itself no doubt was seen as a way to draw attention away from Musk’s many other failing projects. The day of the launch, Tesla stock dropped almost 10 percent after a poor earnings report. The social media platform Twitter, which Musk turned into his private property last year, is now worth half what Musk bought it for as users flee the platform in the aftermath of his purchase.

More than Musk’s personal failings, however, the failed SpaceX launch should be taken as a warning of the trajectory, so to speak, of capitalism as a whole. The coronavirus pandemic, climate change and the threat of nuclear war all hang over humanity, threatening to turn the entire Earth into this morning’s flaming ball in the sky.

US debt ceiling “debate” inaugurates new round of social austerity

Patrick Martin

The discussion over the US debt ceiling which has begun in Washington this week, with the release of the first formal proposal by the House Republican majority and the response by the Biden administration, represents a new stage in the ruling class’s assault on the social rights of the working class.

It is not merely another chapter in the interminable wrangling between the two capitalist parties which control Congress and the White House, which has produced numerous artificial deadlines and crises over the past two decades, and several partial shutdowns of the federal government.

This can be inferred not merely from the scope of the reactionary measures proposed by the House Republicans, amounting to the termination of most federal social spending outside of Social Security, Medicare and other universal social benefits, but from the near-unanimous declarations by Republicans and Democrats alike that these “entitlement” programs are “off the table.”

This is a deliberate attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people. “We have no intention of touching your benefits,” the capitalist politicians join hands to declare, as they prepare to do exactly that. “Off the table” simply means that the policy direction is being decided behind closed doors, without even the pretense of consultation with the American people.

Washington think tanks, financed by the financial aristocracy, are publishing report after report documenting the fiscal unviability of the Medicare and Social Security trust funds and the inevitability of bankruptcy and major cuts. Editorial pages of major newspapers bemoan the unalterable laws of demographics that mean that an aging population, not dying fast enough to suit the ruling class, is claiming too much for its meager pension and health care benefits.

“To truly address the nation’s fiscal woes,” writes the Washington Post, “Congress and the White House also have to include common-sense Social Security and Medicare reforms. Both Mr. Biden and Mr. McCarthy agree on keeping them off-limits, which undercuts the seriousness of any effort to put the nation’s fiscal house in order.”

What makes this budget crisis different from previous ones is its global context, above all, the eruption of war in Ukraine, a US-instigated proxy war with Russia, the first great-power military conflict since the Second World War. In all the nations involved in this war, the vast expenditures required to turn Ukraine into a killing field on an industrial scale require the diversion of massive resources from government social spending to the military.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron cited the “end of the peace dividend” as the basis for his demand for major cuts in pension benefits and a rise of two years in the age of retirement. He is trampling on democracy, pushing through the changes without even a vote in parliament and against the opposition of 80 percent of the population. This has already provoked the largest mass movement of the French working class since the general strike and factory occupations of May-June 1968.

Similar struggles are breaking out all over Europe, from the general strike movement in Greece to the public employee walkouts in Germany and the strikes of teachers, rail workers and National Health Service workers in Britain. This movement crossed the Atlantic this week as a nationwide strike of federal government workers began in Canada Wednesday.

The United States is entering the same battlefield—not isolated, sectional struggles limited to one workplace, company or industry, but nationwide political struggles of the working class against the capitalist state. The first such struggle was only narrowly averted when the rail unions capitulated last December to the strike ban passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden, imposing on workers a contract many had already voted to reject.

The starting gun for the budget ceiling crisis was the announcement by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen early this year that the Treasury had hit its statutory debt limit of $31.4 trillion and could no longer legally borrow money. The federal government was at risk of defaulting on its debt payments for the first time in US history, threatening the world economy, since the US treasury market is the foundation of global financial markets and the US dollar plays the preeminent role in world trade.

Financial maneuvers involving shifting money between accounts, as well as the influx of income tax payments due by April 15, allowed the Treasury to postpone any actual halt in spending until the summer. But sometime between early June and late August, the debt ceiling must be raised to avoid an actual default.

The Republican Party, newly in control of the House of Representatives, has seized on this deadline to provide leverage in budget talks with the Biden administration. The proposal released by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday, and expected to come up for a vote next week, would provide a limited rise in the debt ceiling, until another $1.5 trillion is borrowed, or until March 2024, whichever comes first. This would be conditioned on unprecedented cuts in social spending, draconian work requirements on the poor, the destruction of even token regulation of business over safety and pollution, and an effective amnesty for wealthy tax cheats. The Republicans are also demanding a halt in Biden’s pathetically inadequate effort to lighten the burden of student loan debt, and a legal prohibition of any debt cancellation in the future.

As always in such talks, the Republican Party sets out the most right-wing position, highlighted this year by McCarthy’s visit to Wall Street Monday to give the stock exchange the first look at the Republican demands, only released officially two days later. The Democrats respond with populist bluster, charging (accurately enough) that the Republican proposals would have devastating consequences for working people and vast benefits for the super-rich. President Biden spoke in this vein on Wednesday night, when he denounced the Republican plan for raising the debt ceiling as a proposal for “huge cuts to important programs that millions of working- and middle-class Americans count on.”

Then the Democrats respond with a counterproposal, presented as a “compromise,” that is slightly less horrific for working people and slightly less loaded with goodies for the billionaires and Wall Street. The two sides then seek to meet “in the middle.” The entire orchestrated “debate” is conducted on the reactionary premise that the working class and not the financial aristocracy must pay for the crisis. Only the extent of the social devastation is in question.

Biden has already made several down payments towards an eventual deal. He has halted all COVID mitigation measures, allowing states to cut Medicaid and food stamp benefits, and will end the national health emergency entirely May 11. He has continued most of Trump’s barbaric immigration policies. And he has pledged to discuss budget cuts and other reactionary policy proposals with McCarthy and the Republicans, as long as they are not tied to the debt ceiling.

This was Vice President Biden’s path as Barack Obama’s chief budget negotiator with the Republican Congress in 2011, a role that President Biden evidently aims to repeat in 2023. There are, however, major differences.

The vast military outlays, both for the war in Ukraine against Russia and the preparations for war with China, are one factor. Both parties agree to continue raising military spending and the escalation of the war has inexorable consequences for the budget of the country which is its principal financier and armory—to say nothing of the covert US role in actually directing the war.

There is the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed 1.1 million people in the United States. Despite claims by Biden and the political and media establishment that the pandemic is over, COVID-19 is profoundly destabilizing the entire society, triggering a supply chain crisis, inflation and a general coarsening of social relations, as daily deaths in the hundreds, even thousands, inure the population to ever greater hardship and suffering.

The world economy is in a far worse state than in 2011, when the massive bailout after the 2008 Wall Street crash was still having its effect. In that bailout and the even larger one in March 2020—as financial markets began to freeze up under the initial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic—the US Federal Reserve has squandered trillions. It is propping up virtually every form of financial security, from Treasury bills to the bonds of the most fly-by-night corporation, and ever more arcane instruments of financial speculation. Even the suggestion of a default has begun to roil markets and affect the value of the dollar. An actual default, or even a near miss, in this environment could well become the trigger for a world crisis of unprecedented dimensions.

The most important difference between 2011 and 2023 is the emergence of the international working class, in mass struggles on every continent, and in at least an embryonic form, as an independent political factor. This was shown in Sri Lanka last year, when a general strike movement forced out President Rajapakse, and today in France.

The decisive issue in the United States, as in every country, is the independent intervention of the working class. Left to its own devices, the American ruling elite will provide only the most reactionary “solution” to the crisis, if world war and global depression are considered a solution.

Pentagon leaks intensify political crisis of Zelensky government

Jason Melanovski

The government of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky is attempting to bolster its efforts to continue its NATO-backed proxy war against Russia amid a serious crisis caused by leaked Pentagon documents that expose the lies of both the imperialist powers and their proxies in the Ukrainian ruling class.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, April, 2022 [Photo: The Presidential Office of Ukraine]

The contentions made by Ukrainian officials since the beginning of the war that their losses are minimal compared to Russia, that victory is just around the corner and that Crimea will be retaken by Ukraine soon provided they have enough money and weapons from the West have been conclusively disproved by the leak of classified US government documents.

On these revelations Ukrainian officials have chosen to remain largely silent or have instead attempted to spin the leaked documents as proving their case that their country was not being provided enough weapons all along.

As information from the documents first became public Ukrainian officials, such as Zelensky’s Head Adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, followed the lead of the US and attempted to portray the leaks as part of a Russian disinformation campaign. Thus, on April 8, Podolyak claimed, “The aim of secret data ‘leaks’ is obvious: divert attention, cast doubts & mutual suspicions, sow discord. It’s an ordinary game of ru-secret services. To take open briefings, add fake info or certain parts of interceptions & publish them on social networks legalizing the ‘leak’.”

The fact that both Podolyak and three unnamed US officials, who told Reuters a day before on April 7 that “pro-Russian elements are likely behind the leak,” were pushing the same line simultaneously ironically underlined one of the main results of the leak: that US officials were deeply involved in both the war and the day-to-day workings of the Ukrainian government.

Moreover, the leaks revealed that the US assessment of the war waged by the Ukrainian army on behalf of NATO was far less favorable than what is presented to the public in the media. 

Particularly damning from a military standpoint was the revelation of the extent to which Ukraine’s air defenses had been destroyed by the war. As the New York Times had to acknowledge, a “leaked Pentagon document puts the number of Russian fighter jets currently deployed in the Ukraine theater at 485 compared with 85 Ukrainian jets.”

In regards to the upcoming counteroffensive, the Pentagon documents have revealed that any military push by Ukraine could be disastrous. In addition to having a severely weakened air force, the Ukrainian military is short on ammunition and artillery that the US cannot admittedly provide, and its assembled brigades will be equipped with a hodgepodge of US and European weapons that will not be easily repaired by Ukrainian forces.

As the veracity of the documents became undeniable, both Ukrainian officials in conjunction with US officials and their mouthpieces at the New York Times and Washington Post responded with an effort to both cover up the revelations and use them to advance calls for even more military assistance.

Last week Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, one of the most militaristic officials within an already right-wing government, responded to the leaks by claiming he had spoken with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. According to Kuleba, Blinken “reaffirmed the ironclad US support and vehemently rejected any attempts to cast doubt on Ukraine’s capacity to win on the battlefield.”

Days later, Kuleba demanded Western aircraft on Twitter and also called for NATO to “begin training Ukrainian pilots to fly Western-type combat aircraft.”

The US, for its part, continues to escalate and deepen its involvement in the conflict. On Wednesday, it announced another $325 million in new military aid for Ukraine that will include more artillery rounds and rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). In an astonishing indictment of the vast sums being wasted on the war, Ukraine has already fired 9,612 of the HIMARS rockets, with each rocket costing around $160,000 for a total cost $1.538 billion, according to the Asia Times.

No matter how many millions and billions of dollars the imperialist powers are pumping into this war, however, there is no question that the Zelensky government and the Ukrainian regime’s war effort as a whole are deeply shaken. It is estimated that a staggering 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in this war already, with hundreds of thousands more injured. 

These would be horrifying figures in any war, but Ukraine has only a medium-sized population by European standards. Before the war, it numbered less than 40 million, out of which over 8 million have since fled, and several million live in territories controlled by Russia. Videos and images circulating on social media suggest that mass graves with bodies of soldiers can now to be found all over the country. Clearly concerned by the political fall-out of these images, the Ukrainian government recently moved to ban the taking of images or videos at cemeteries.

As all the lies of the imperialist and Ukrainian war propaganda are blown to pieces, the fate of the Zelensky regime is becoming increasingly precarious.

In contrast to his advisers and ministers, Zelensky has remained conspicuously silent on the Pentagon leaks. Instead, he has engaged in discussions with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron over the past two weeks and released a highly produced video celebrating Easter in Orthodox Christianity. He also headed out on a PR tour of the front lines in the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka. The town is just 90 km southwest from the “meat grinder” of Bakhmut. As the Pentagon documents showed, “Ukrainian forces as of 25 February were almost operationally encircled by Russian forces in Bakhmut.”

On Tuesday, Politico published an article indicating that Zelensky may soon be removed based on accusations that he had failed to adequately fight “corruption.” Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Seymour Hersh recently accused Zelensky and his entourage of embezzling $400 million.

After quoting a number of pro-EU Ukrainian officials, Politico cited an unnamed “former senior US diplomat who has considerable experience.”

“We have not seen significant enough efforts to address corruption—although perhaps with one important exception. I think they really are trying to prevent diversion of any of the massive Western assistance they’re receiving. I believe they do understand the risks, if there were to be a major scandal,” the diplomat stated, hinting at Zelensky’s removal.

Referring to what he called the “civil society” forces behind the 2014 right-wing coup that toppled the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych, he said, “In their minds, there is going to be a reckoning as soon as the war ends. And I think that’s probably going to be true.” The “civil society” behind the 2014 coup largely consisted of far-right and openly neo-fascist forces. Ever since Zelensky’s coming to power in 2019, they have put immense pressure on his government. Now, they are armed with NATO weapons and deeply integrated into the military. 

Statements by officials of the Zelensky regime itself indicate that they are well aware that should it fail to continue the war, it would be confronted with immense pressure. As Oleksiy Danilov openly stated in an interview just as the Pentagon leaks were emerging, any proposal of peace negotiations by Zelensky to Moscow would amount to “political suicide.”

Sexuality, Marriage and State

Bhabani Shankar Nayak

Modern nation-states were established to secure citizenship rights and ensure egalitarian and democratic governance based on constitutional rules and regulations shaped by the values of secularism and science. These principles are central to governance and public administration. States and governments can manage various conflicts during the governance process for greater common good by adhering to constitutional values based on science and secularism.

The issues of sexuality, marriage, and divorce are individual choices and citizenship rights. States and governments are supposed to facilitate these choices to ensure inalienable citizenship rights. Civil and constitutional values are there to guide states and governments in matters of crisis and conflict during the process of ensuring individual citizenship rights. However, modern states and governments are pandering to religious and reactionary right-wing forces and enforcing laws that domesticate citizenship rights and uphold reactionary values in society, which undermines individual rights, dignity, and liberty.

Marriage, as a process and institution, is a social, emotional, and legal contract between two individuals based on their choices. States and governments should only enter into this individual space when a crime is committed, such as in cases of child marriage, conjugal and domestic violence, disputes, and acrimonious divorce. However, regardless of their ideological orientations, states and governments often engage with marriage to domesticate individual choices and uphold reactionary communitarian values. There is no place for communitarian values in the matters of marriages. Let marriage grow as a social and civil institution and an emotional process based on egalitarian friendship and love. The state and governments have no place in it. The governance of love and marriage is neither love nor marriage. It is a process of undemocratic domestication that demeans citizenship rights

Similarly, sexuality is both biological and social and based on individual choices. It involves mutually agreed-upon romantic or non-romantic sexual encounters between two or more individuals. Whether the nature of such relationships is temporary or permanent, monogamous or polygamous, religious or civil, social or emotional, it should be up to the involved individuals to decide for themselves. There is no place for god, communities, state, and governments within such a private sphere. There is no sin, sacred, or divine role in the matters of marriage and sexuality, and there is nothing puritanical about it. The state and government should only enter into such a private sphere if a crime is involved.

Moral arguments on sexuality and marriage based on communitarian, religious, and reactionary cultural norms lack any form of progressive, egalitarian, and democratic values. Therefore, moral, religious, and reactionary cultural arguments need to be discarded. Feudal, patriarchal, and bourgeois hypocrisies are often branded as moral, religious, and cultural arguments to justify state and government interference in the matters of sexuality and marriage. States and governments often privilege heterosexuality and normalize reactionary social, cultural, and religious values that domesticate individuals in the matters of marriage and sexuality.

The freedom to choose love and marriage is a great equalizer in the age of various forms of discrimination based on class, race, caste, gender, and sexuality. The ability to love and marry freely can help to deepen democracy and heal social and cultural fault lines. A scientific and secular approach to marriage can only contribute towards a progressive transformation of society. Modern states and governments need to facilitate such a process and not hinder social progress. Arguments on marriage and sexuality in the name of social order and peace based on communitarian, religious, cultural, and legal grounds are fundamentally reactionary.

It is individuals who form families, societies, states, governments, and laws. It is time to separate states and governments from issues of sexuality and marriage to ensure the sanctity and sovereignty of individuals’ citizenship rights. Individual rights and democratic governance are inseparable twins, and democratic governance depends on scientific, secular, autonomous, and free individuals.