Political horse-trading to form government after Spanish election

Alejandro López

Negotiations between Spain’s major parties to form a government from the highly fragmented parliament have begun following the July 23 general elections.

None of the outcomes being discussed by the media, however, will solve any of the fundamental problems facing the working class. War, climate change, deteriorating living standards and the danger of the far-right cannot be solved on a national basis and without a frontal social assault on the wealth of the financial aristocracy.

Alberto Feijoo, center, leader of the right-wing Popular Party, gestures to supporters outside the party headquarters following Spain's general election, in Madrid, Monday, July 24, 2023. The PP has a narrow lead in the election but without the majority needed to topple the coalition government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. [AP Photo/Manu Fernandez]

On Saturday, the external vote of 233,688 ballots deposited by Spaniards living abroad led to a minor but significant redistribution of seats in the Spanish parliament. As a result, Spain’s social democratic Socialist Party (PSOE) lost one of its seats, which will now go to the right-wing Popular Party (PP). The result complicates the possibility of forming a government.

To form a government, an absolute majority is needed in a first parliamentary vote in the 350-seat assembly. If it fails, a second vote with a simple majority is required.

According to the revised seat count, the right-wing bloc of the PP and neo-Francoist Vox can count 171 votes—137 from the PP, 33 from Vox and one from the right-wing regionalist Union of the Navarran People. This is five short of the absolute majority of 176 seats.

Traditionally in these circumstances, PP minority governments relied on either the right-wing Basque nationalist PNV or the Catalan nationalists to support them. These parties have been key pillars in bourgeois rule in Spain, supporting entry into NATO, the European Union, the eurozone, post-2008 austerity on the working class and war abroad.

After the July 23 elections, the PNV currently holds five seats and the right-wing pro-separatist Catalan Junts controls seven seats. Last week, the PNV refused the PP’s appeal for support over its alliance with Vox. Vox has called for a ban on separatist parties, abolishing the regional system in which the Catalan and Basque nationalists enjoy a privileged position, and for the suppression of linguistic Catalan, Basque and Galician rights.

Over the weekend, the PP opened the door to negotiating with the pro-separatist Catalan Junts in the “framework of the Spanish Constitution”. But this scenario is hardly likely. The PP minority government of Mariano Rajoy launched a brutal crackdown on the Catalan nationalists following the 2017 independence referendum that left over 1,000 injured. This was followed by threats to impose a military-led state of emergency on Catalonia, the removal and the detention of top officials of the Catalan regional government, and a show trial condemning nine of them to a decade in jail for sedition.

Ever since, regardless of who holds power in Madrid, whether the PP or, as now, the coalition government of the PSOE and Podemos—now integrated in Sumar—the ruling class has used the Catalan national question to shift politics to the right, build a police state, and promote far-right forces. Vox grew out of this wave of Spanish chauvinism promoted by the ruling class.

Another scenario is that the PSOE supports a PP-minority government, either through some sort of unprecedented grand coalition bargain or through abstention.

In 2016, the PSOE abstained to allow the PP to form a government after two inconclusive elections. This was done through an internal coup within the PSOE removing the current prime minister and then PSOE leader, Pedro Sánchez, that forced the PSOE to abstain.

The political cost was enormous. The PSOE was exposed as a free-market, pro-war party run by the banks, the intelligence agencies, and the military. It also exposed the “left populist” Podemos, which had promoted the PSOE as its likely partner in government.

Once the PP was installed, Sánchez was brought back in to lead the PSOE. In 2018, amid mounting popular opposition to the PP and its repressive policies in Catalonia, Podemos organised a parliamentary maneuver, ousting the PP and replacing it with a minority PSOE government led by Sánchez. The Podemos-backed PSOE government continued the PP’s austerity attacks on the working class and the right-wing’s repressive campaign against Catalan nationalism.

The PSOE has so far refused to cede so openly to the PP and is seeking to form a government, aware that to do otherwise would provoke an angry response in the working class.

In the July 23 elections, despite four years of pro-war, pro-austerity policies carried out jointly with Podemos since 2019, the PSOE obtained 7.7 million votes (31 percent) and 121 seats. This was a significant rise on the 6.7 million votes in the 2019 general elections, or the 6.2 million votes in the recent local elections last May.

Most of its votes came from prior voters of the Catalan and Basque nationalists and from Sumar, which includes the massively discredited pseudo-left Podemos, led by acting Deputy Prime Minister and Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz. Sumar lost 600,000 votes as compared to the votes of Unidas Podemos in 2019, confirming the party’s downward spiral after pro-war, pro-austerity measures in office.

As the WSWS noted in its election perspective, “The PSOE’s vote increase, despite its political record, can only be understood as a partial and highly distorted class response directed against the threat posed by a PP-Vox government and the return of undisguised Francoites to power for the first time since the fall of the dictatorship and the ‘transition to democracy’ in 1978.”

The PSOE will try to utilize the desire among workers to prevent a Francoite government to try to renew a pro-austerity, pro-war government with Sumar, backed by regionalist and separatist forces. PSOE and Sumar have already pledged €24 billion in cuts over the next year and to intensify Spain’s contribution to the US-NATO led war against Russia in Ukraine.

Such a government would be even more right-wing than the current one, largely adopting the PP and Vox’s programme while seeking to demobilize the class struggle with the threat that its collapse would herald a far-right government. It would count on the support of its affiliated trade unions, CCOO and UGT, which have worked to shut down a wave of strikes amid mounting opposition to the PSOE-Podemos government and the US-NATO war.

Prior to the loss of the seat on Saturday, the PSOE-Sumar, with 153 seats, 23 short of a majority, required the support of the ERC (7), PNV (5), EH Bildu (6) and the BNG (1) to secure 172 votes against 171 for the right-wing bloc. With the loss of an additional seat to the PP, the PSOE now needs the pro-separatist Catalan Junts to vote in favour, rather than an agreement to abstain.

Junts, the kingmaker of the elections, is publicly demanding a referendum on secession and amnesty to 3,000 activists and voters persecuted over the anti-Catalan campaign. Its leader, the former Catalan regional premier and now Member of the European Parliament Carles Puigdemont, faces possible arrest. In early July, the European Union’s General Court of Justice stripped Puigdemont’s parliamentary immunity. He has been living in exile in Belgium since 2017.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont speaks at a press conference in Alghero, Sardinia, on October 4, 2021. [AP Photo/Gloria Calvi, File]

Negotiations are problematic, especially given that that the PSOE cannot be seen by the bourgeoisie to give ground to separatism. But they are proceeding nevertheless. On Saturday, Puigdemont tweeted that Junts would be open to vote for a PSOE-Sumar government if an agreement is reached on the “Catalan conflict”. This is an ambiguous term leaving open the possibility of shelving the referendum demand.

The separatists are aware that support for independence has dwindled to historic lows. With less than a million votes in the elections, it was their worst result in over a decade since they started agitating for independence in 2012.

In a clear indication that the Spanish bourgeoisie currently prefers a minority PSOE-Sumar government continue war at home and abroad, Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena—who is close to the PP—agreed not to present a European Arrest Warrant against Puigdemont, rejecting the request from Vox and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

If negotiations between PSOE, Sumar and the separatists fail, a repeat vote in December or January cannot be ruled out.

China’s rising youth unemployment portends major social struggles

Nick Beams

As the Chinese economy slows with problems in many areas—including falling consumer demand, lower investment, ongoing problems in the real estate sector, and rising local government debt, to name just some—a social time bomb is ticking away.

High school students in China. [AP Photo/Andy Wong]

Tens of millions of young people, many of them with tertiary education qualifications, are unable to find employment or at least the job opportunities they were led to believe higher education would bring.

Tens of millions more, without degrees or qualifications, are either without work, being pushed into very low-paid jobs or trying to make a living in the precarious gig economy.

The most recent data showed that the unemployment rate for urban youth aged 16 to 24 years old was 21.3 percent, a record high, reflecting a continuing upward trend. In reality, the figure could be much higher.

Earlier this month a Peking University professor, Zhang Dandan, wrote an online article in the financial magazine Caixin, stating that if 16 million non-students staying at home and relying on their parents were included then the real youth jobless rate could be as high at 46.5 percent.

This phenomenon is so widespread that a new term “lying flat” has been coined to describe it. One indication of the sensitivity surrounding this issue is that Zhang’s article, published on July 17, was removed after a couple of days. Reuters reported that calls to her work phone went unanswered.

The issue of youth unemployment is being widely discussed on social media with the development of new terms such as “chewing on the elderly” and “professional children” being used to describe “lying flat.”

It is estimated that China has about 96 million youth aged 16 to 24 living in urban areas. Of these, 33 million are looking for jobs. Another 48 million are involved in education, which leaves another 15 million or so unaccounted for. If those who are not in employment, education or training are counted as jobless, then the youth unemployment rate is more than double the official figure.

The government is well aware of the growing problem but has offered no solution.

Characterising more than 20 million idle educated young people as a “potential source of social instability,” an article on Bloomberg noted: “The government has suggested domestic services, such as elderly care and babysitting, as well as rural jobs. [Chinese president Xi Jinping] has repeatedly urged young people to ‘eat bitterness’—to endure hardship and develop grit. All that has done is lead to young people’s mockery.”

Chinese youth unemployment has been the subject of both comment and analysis in the recent period.

In a comment published in the Financial Times earlier this month, George Magnus, a well-known China researcher at the University of Oxford’s China Centre, said the “lying flat” term, expressing disillusionment, had taken root among Chinese youth and a new term “let it rot,” conveying pessimism, was also gaining popularity.

Citing research by Stanford University professor Scott Rozelle, Magnus pointed to “marked change in the occupational structure of jobs.” Fifteen years ago, the ratio of informal to formal sector jobs was 40 to 60 but this had now flipped.

As an example of the situation facing educated young people, a report by CNN cited the case of Nancy Chen who is now a “full-time daughter” in a family located in the eastern Jiangxi province.

The 24-year-old had been teaching at a private tutoring college after she had graduated from college but lost her job in 2021 when authorities banned for-profit tutoring services. She had not obtained a job since then because of “furious competition,” citing a case in her province when 30,000 people applied for three municipal government jobs.

Economic historian Adam Tooze published some revealing data in a recent post on his Chartbook site, noting that 11.58 million university graduates would enter the jobs market this year.

The numbers, he wrote, were “truly ominous for those from second or third tier universities, many of whom are first generation college students whose families have everything riding on their academic success.”

Unemployment came as a shock and was a relatively recent phenomenon.

“Ten years ago, the majority of young unemployed in cities had no college degrees. By contrast, in 2021 more than 70 percent of jobless Chinese urbanites aged 16 to 24 had a degree from a higher education institution, and over 42 percent had earned a bachelor’s degree or above.”

Tooze’s analysis went beyond the focus in most of the media coverage on college graduates, saying this obscured a “deeper and in many ways more ominous trend at work in China’s labour market.”

“Two thirds of the young people entering the labour market in China right now below the age of 24 are not college graduates, but have high school education or less. This reflects the fact that 40 percent of Chinese young people do not make it into tertiary education. Indeed, a substantial minority barely finish high school and they make up the majority of people who enter the labour market ‘early’.”

In rural areas, schools fail to teach even basic literacy skills and this education failure severely limited the opportunities for tens of millions of young people.

They can no longer find employment in farms and factories because the share of employment in these areas is declining both in relative and absolute terms. “China’s industrial workforce is aging as young workers are shut out and stay away,” he wrote.

Young workers at the bottom of the social pyramid are concentrated in labour-intensive “flexible” or informal sectors. This is not in construction, once regarded as the “classic” employer of migrant labour coming from the country to the city, as two thirds of employment is in labour-intensive services.

According to official data, the number of so-called “flexibly employed” has reached 200 million or 27 percent of the working population. Other estimates put the number at 250 million.

“Rather than decreasing as China becomes richer,” Tooze wrote, “the share of informal sector employment is actually increasing.”

He cited analysis from Caixin which estimated this year that 5.7 million people in the education, property and construction industries are expected to be jobless—a 73 percent surge from 2019. Of these 1.3 million would be young workers, more than double the number four years ago.

There is a scramble for employment in the gig economy especially in the field of taxi driving, with the number or new licences issued to drivers increasing 32.6 percent in 2022. New drivers have been added this year at a rate five times fast than last year. This has led to a situation where some cities have stopped issuing permits.

Social inequality is widening, a fact that is not going unnoticed.

As Tooze put it: “While economic growth and wage growth for every part of the Chinese economy is slowing down, those at the top of the corporate hierarchy earn globally competitive salaries running into hundreds of thousands of dollars and their salaries continue to increase above GDP trend. By contrast … those in the informal sector see incomes dragging behind ever-diminishing GDP growth.”

The economic data have far-reaching social and political implications. The ruling Chinese Communist Party regime maintained that the turn to capitalism, begun in earnest three decades ago, would create an economy in which education would bring higher living standards while migration from the country to the city would lead to social advancement.

For a period of time this indeed was the case as hundreds of millions were lifted out of absolute poverty. Notwithstanding the claims of bureaucrats, however, the laws of capitalist economy never cease to operate, and this happy scenario is now being shattered by reality.

At present, terms such as “lying flat” on social media indicate an air of resignation and pessimism. But there are also increasing signs of anger and hostility, marked by ridiculing of official announcements.

As drones strike Moscow, US approves hazard pay for troops in Ukraine

Andre Damon

Downtown Moscow, Russia, came under attack Sunday, with Ukrainian drones damaging the Moscow International Business Center.

The facades of two office buildings were damaged, and one person was injured. The surrounding area was evacuated, and flights to and from Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport were temporarily suspended.

The latest attack illustrates that, following the Vilnius NATO summit which significantly increased the alliance’s preparations for global war, the conflict in Ukraine continues to escalate.

This was the third drone attack on Moscow in the past month. The first Ukrainian drone strike on Moscow occurred in May, targeting the residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.

While not formally admitting responsibility for this weekend’s attacks, Ukrainian officials clearly bragged about their ability to strike the Russian capital.

A view of the damaged skyscraper in the "Moscow City" business district after a reported drone attack in Moscow, Russia, early Sunday, July 30, 2023. [AP Photo/Uncredited]

“Now the war is affecting those who weren’t concerned [about it],” said Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat. “No matter how the Russian authorities would like to turn a blind eye on this by saying they intercepted everything … something does hit.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, clearly referencing the attack on Moscow, said in his Sunday evening address that “gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia,” including strikes on “symbolic” centers. “This is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process,” he added.

Even as the Ukrainian ground offensive makes no meaningful progress, Ukraine is becoming more brazen in attacking Russian targets, which the United States—which funds and directs the war—publicly claims it does not support.

Earlier this month, the Ukrainian military attacked the Kerch Bridge, which links Crimea to the Russian mainland. The attack, executed with two kamikaze drone boats, resulted in two civilian deaths and destroyed one span of the bridge. A young girl was severely injured.

In a separate attack, Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine had launched 25 drones at the Crimean Peninsula, all of which Russian authorities claim to have intercepted.

In another attack, Ukrainian missiles struck the Russian port city of Taganrog, about 30 miles from the Russian-controlled border with eastern Ukraine. The attack left nine people hospitalized.

The New York Times commented that the missile strike signifies that “Ukraine is stepping up its attacks inside Russia just as its counteroffensive on the battlefield enters a more intense phase.”

The strikes come as the US media last week proclaimed a new stage in Ukraine’s offensive, which began last month. To date, the offensive has been a bloody disaster, with countless thousands of Ukrainian troops sacrificed for negligible territorial gains.

Coverage of the disastrous state of the offensive continues to find its way into the US press. On Sunday, the Times admitted that “Ukrainian units are sustaining heavy losses.”

The Times recounted one such disastrous attempt to take a Russian trench:

“The trenches were mined,” said the assault commander, who uses the call sign Voskres, short for Resurrection. “Our guys started jumping in the trenches and blowing up,” he added. The Russian forces were watching, and they remotely detonated the mines, he said.

Those who managed to avoid the mines came under attack from multiple Russian kamikaze drones. “It seemed like they had a drone for each person,” he said. “The amount of equipment the Russians have, had we known, it was like mission impossible.”

As the full magnitude of the disaster of the Ukrainian offensive becomes clear, the United States is under increasing pressure to intervene directly.

In an ominous move not reported in any mainstream media outlet, the Pentagon this month approved hazard pay for American troops serving in Ukraine.

Hazard pay is typically approved in active combat zones, such as in the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The move first became known after a letter announcing it was published online in a Facebook discussion group.

The letter from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense dated July 13 announced that US troops deployed to Ukraine will receive hazard pay backdated to April 24, 2022.

The veracity of the letter was confirmed by a US official who spoke to the Military Times.

In November, US Air Force spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder acknowledged during an official briefing that active-duty military personnel are not only deployed inside of Ukraine but are operating far away from the US embassy in Kiev.

Ryder said, “We do have small teams that are comprised of embassy personnel that are conducting some inspections of security assistance delivery at a variety of locations.”

In April 2013, a series of internal Pentagon memos quantified the US troop presence in Ukraine. The memos noted that 97 NATO Special Operations troops are currently deployed inside Ukraine and that a total of 100 US personnel are deployed inside Ukraine, including 71 military personnel.

In April, ABC News reported, “in addition to providing assistance with the oversight of US equipment and supplies being sent to Ukraine, the team has assisted Ukrainian military planners with operations that have resulted in hundreds, if not thousands, of Russian military casualties.”

Czech Government Scholarships 2024/2025

Application Deadline: 30th September 2023

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries. See list below

To be taken at (country): Public Universities in Czech Republic

Eligible Fields of Study: Students who are applying for study in Economics, Agriculture, Informatics, Environment and Energetics at public universities in the Czech Republic.

About the Award: Thanks to a generous contribution from the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, the Faculty of Social Sciences is able to offer a limited number of partial scholarships for students of all fee based programs.. A total of __scholarships are available, ear-marked for students from developing countries and/or countries going through a process of political and economic transition.

Upon a Decision of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, scholarships of the Government of the Czech Republic are granted to promote specific Bachelor’s, Master’s, follow-up Master’s and/or Doctoral study programmes in the full-time mode of study of a specific study programme pursued by a university (or its Faculty) for a period that equals the regular duration of studies. Scholarships are not transferable to other persons or other academic years. Once a scholarship is granted, neither the university nor the study programme and/or field of study may be changed.

Type: Doctoral, Undergraduate and Masters

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

• The scholarships are intended solely to promote the studies of adults who are foreign nationals from developing third countries in need. Neither a citizen of the Czech Republic, nor a citizen of a member state of the European Union, nor any other foreign national with a permit to permanent residence on the territory of the Czech Republic may, therefore, be granted this type of scholarship. Furthermore, the scholarships may not be granted to persons under 18 years of age. (The applicants have to turn 18 as of 1 September of the year when they commence studies in the Czech Republic at the latest.)
• In Bachelor/ Master/ Doctoral Study Programmes plus one-year Preparatory Course of the English language (Which is combined with other field-specific training): Government scholarships of this category are awarded to graduates from upper secondary schools, or Bachelor’s / Master’s degree courses, as applicable, Who can Enroll only in Study Programmes in which instruction is given in the English language. Depending on the subject area, Applicants are normally required to sit entrance Examinations at the higher education institution Concerned. Successful passing of Entrance examination constitutes a precondition for the scholarship award; or
• In follow-up study Programmes Master or Doctoral Study Programmes: Government scholarships of this category are awarded to graduates of Bachelor or Master Study Programmes, respectively, Enroll in the WHO study Programmes with instruction in the English language.

In addition, the Scholarship Review Board will take into consideration applicants’ results from their earlier studies. Priority will be given to students who have not previously had the opportunity to study abroad.

Number of Scholarships: TBC

Duration of Scholarships: These Government Scholarships are designed to cover the standard length of study plus one-year preparatory course of the Czech language(which is combined with other field-specific training).

Value of Scholarships: 

• The scholarship covers the necessary costs related to staying and studying in the Czech Republic. The scholarship amount is regularly amended.
• Currently the amount paid to students on a Bachelor’s, Master’s or follow-up Master’s study programme stands at CZK 14,000 per month
• Whereas the amount paid to students of a Doctoral study programme stands at CZK 15,000 per month.

The above scholarship amounts include an amount designated for the payment of accommodation costs. Costs of accommodation, food and public transport are covered by scholarship holders from the scholarship under the same conditions that apply to students who are citizens of the Czech Republic. Should health services exceeding standard care be required by the student, s/he shall cover them at his/her own cost.

Eligible Countries:

• Bosnia and Herzegovina,
• Cambodia,
• Ethiopia,
• Georgia,
• Moldova,
• Ukraine,
• and Zambia.

How to Apply: Each applicant is obliged to fill in an electronic application form at the latest by 30 September 2023. The successful applicant starts studying in the academic year 2024/2025.

Detailed information on the terms and conditions of scholarship awards is provided in the binding “Guidelines for Granting Scholarships of the Government of the Czech Republic”, issued in Czech and English.

Prospective applicants are advised to read carefully the guidelines before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Washington demands renewed bloodbath in Ukraine

Andre Damon

This week, Ukraine began a major new phase of its offensive in the US-NATO war against Russia, resuming armored attacks against well-defended trenches.

The New York Times reported, based on statements from US officials, that “the main thrust of Ukraine’s nearly two-month-old counteroffensive is now underway.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, “I can confirm that hostilities have intensified in a significant way,” saying a “large number” of Ukrainian armored vehicles were used, incurring “heavy losses.”

A Ukrainian soldier sits in a recently dug trench on the frontline near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 4 2023. [AP Photo/Libkos]

Following a bloody debacle in the first phase of the offensive, which had forced a temporary pause of Ukrainian attacks, Ukrainian conscripts are once again being thrust into well-defended front lines, dying by the thousands in minefields and trenches.

Ukraine has suffered enormous human losses, and the war continues only because it is being massively armed by NATO. Whatever meager gains Ukraine is making in isolated areas of the vast front have required a reckless expenditure of lives. Ukrainians are dying for no other purpose than to advance the interests of the imperialist powers.

The latest escalation follows the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, where NATO members pledged to deploy tens of thousands of troops to Russia’s western borders and to massively increase military spending to finance the conflict with Russia and China.

With the war going badly and public opposition in Ukraine growing, Ukrainian President Zelensky was given his marching orders at the summit: The offensive must continue, no matter the cost in human lives.

For months, the US media had promoted the “spring offensive” as a decisive turning point in the war that would deliver a shattering defeat for Russian forces.

But the debacle has been so enormous that even the US media has been forced, after weeks of silence, to acknowledge it as a disaster.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported, “When Ukraine launched its big counteroffensive this spring, Western military officials knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons… that it needed to dislodge Russian forces. But they hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day.

“They haven’t. Deep and deadly minefields, extensive fortifications and Russian air power have combined to largely block significant advances by Ukrainian troops.”

The New York Times was even more direct in an article that was first buried, then heavily redacted. It reported on a Ukrainian unit with a “200 percent” casualty rate, meaning that all of its members were killed or injured, then replaced with recruits, all of whom were also killed or injured.

It described young soldiers killed en masse, with “replacements often being older recruits who were forced into action.”

In Ukraine, much of the entire able-bodied population is under arms, compelled to fight by a draconian regime of conscription.

The war is being directed by the US and NATO powers, and the bloodletting must continue. The Economist wrote on Thursday (“The Ukrainian army commits new forces in a big southward push”), “Some American and European military officials argue that Ukrainian commanders have in fact been too slow to strike with their new brigades, a mistake that they think Ukraine committed last year in Kherson...”

It quoted US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley as stating, “The various wargames that were done ahead of time have predicted certain levels of advance,” but that “has slowed down.”

Pressed by the imperialist powers, Ukrainian generals have decided to “throw in fresh legs,” a euphemism the Economist uses to describe Ukrainian soldiers, young and old, being sent to their deaths.

As the war progresses, the pretense that the US is fighting in the name of “democracy” is falling away.

On Thursday, US President Joe Biden met in the White House Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Biden declared, “Italy and the United States are also standing strong with Ukraine, and I compliment you on your very strong support in defending against Russian atrocities, and that’s what they are.”

Meloni is an open admirer of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. She notoriously declared, “I think Mussolini was a good politician,” adding, “Everything he did, he did for Italy.”

In a speech following the end of this month’s NATO summit, Biden declared, “Our commitment to Ukraine will not weaken. We will stand for liberty and freedom today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes.” “Liberty” through an alliance with fascists, in Ukraine as well as in Italy, and “freedom” through mass slaughter.

This commitment to endless war entails endless escalation. On Thursday, Reuters reported that US M1 Abrams main battle tanks would begin arriving in Ukraine in August and September, to be followed by F-16 fighter jets by the end of this year.

This is the outcome of a series of escalatory measures by the United States throughout the past year. The year began with the announcement that the US would send Bradley armored fighting vehicles to Ukraine, followed soon after by the sending of main battle tanks. In May, the White House announced it would send F-16 fighters, followed by cluster munitions.

According to leaked Pentagon documents made public earlier this year, there are hundreds of US and NATO active duty military and intelligence personnel on the ground, accompanied by what are likely hundreds, or possibly thousands, of “volunteers” from NATO countries.

On Wednesday, the Biden administration ordered the US government to begin handing over documents to the International Criminal Court to facilitate the prosecution of Putin.

This move follows extensive internal debate over whether this action would open up the United States, which has killed millions of people in criminal wars of aggression, to prosecution by the court, whose jurisdiction it does not recognize.

The White House has decided, however, to move ahead with the prosecution, with the aim of upping the ante in the military conflict. A military defeat for Russia would mean, in other words, the prosecution of Putin at the hands of the American victors.

The goal of this action is to preclude any negotiated settlement, which the United States has opposed from the beginning. The US is determined to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia as a precursor to moves to dominate and subjugate China.

Whatever the outcome of the latest offensive, it will be a catastrophe for the people of Ukraine, Russia and the world. If the offensive continues as a bloody debacle, it will mean the deaths of countless thousands of Ukrainian conscripts sent against the front as cannon fodder. If Ukraine succeeds in breaking the Russian front line and driving through to cut off the Crimean Peninsula, it could generate enormous political pressure on the Russian government to escalate through the use of nuclear weapons.

New Zealand government in crisis ahead of election

Tom Peters

As New Zealand approaches an election scheduled for October 14, the Labour Party-led government is increasingly unstable, wracked by infighting, and incapable of making any popular appeal to a working class whose living standards are collapsing.

Since the sudden and unexpected resignation of Jacinda Ardern as prime minister in January, Labour has continued to poll below 35 percent. This is a dramatic drop from the 50 percent at the 2020 election, largely thanks to its COVID-19 elimination policy, which the Ardern government completely abandoned at the end of 2021.

So far this year, five ministers have either followed Ardern in resigning, or been forced out of their positions. While the circumstances differ in each case, taken together the series of departures points to a deep political crisis.

Most recently, Kiri Allan stepped down as justice minister after being arrested on July 23 for crashing her ministerial vehicle into a parked car in Wellington. She faces charges of careless use of a motor vehicle, refusing to accompany a police officer, and an infringement notice for driving while over the alcohol limit.

Allan was reportedly experiencing a personal crisis, following a recent break-up. The government has tried to portray her arrest—the first time for a sitting government minister in New Zealand’s history—as an isolated case bound up with mental health problems. But it is only the most dramatic in a series of departures by senior members of the government.

In March, Stuart Nash resigned as police minister and was sacked from his other portfolios, including tourism and forestry, over a series of transgressions including the leaking of information from cabinet discussions to wealthy electoral donors.

In May, Minister for Customs and Veterans Affairs Meka Whaitiri abruptly announced her resignation and defected from Labour to join the Māori Party, a minor party which represents sections of the indigenous tribal elite. She gave no explanation other than referring to her Māori heritage.

Michael Wood, once touted as a future Labour Party leader, resigned from cabinet in June as minister for immigration, transport and workplace relations, following revelations that he failed to declare conflicts of interest, including the ownership of shares in Auckland Airport and in telecommunications companies.

Perhaps most significantly, immediately after Allan’s departure, Revenue Minister David Parker announced his resignation, saying he disagreed with Prime Minister Chris Hipkins’ decision to rule out implementing a wealth or capital gains tax. “I thought it was untenable for me to continue,” he told reporters.

Chris Hipkins speaking outside parliament in Wellington on January 21, a day before he was appointed New Zealand prime minister. [AP Photo/Nick Perry]

The resignations and sackings, occurring at the rate of about one per month, all point to a breakdown in discipline within the Labour Party. With the party currently projected to lose about one third of its 65 seats in parliament, leading members are more willing to openly contradict Hipkins and in some cases have chosen to leave the sinking ship.

The context is the worsening global economic crisis and tactical disagreements within the political establishment over how to continue to impose the burden of the crisis on working people.

Hipkins has repeatedly made clear to the corporate and financial elite that Labour will take no action to address unprecedented levels of social inequality, fueled by the government’s subsidies, tax breaks, low interest rates and quantitative easing measures. On July 12, the prime minister told the media that it was “not the time for a big shake-up of our tax system” and “under a government I lead there will be no wealth or capital gains tax after the election. End of story.”

Parker revealed in May that 311 families controlled $85 billion in wealth—the first time such figures have been made public. He and Finance Minister Grant Robertson had both favoured the introduction of a modest 1.5 percent tax on net wealth over about $5 million, and the removal of tax on income under $10,000, but they were overruled by Hipkins.

Robertson and Parker’s proposal would have done nothing fundamentally to reverse the basic trend of obscene levels of wealth being hoarded by a tiny number of people at the top of society. Nevertheless, Hipkins’ veto led to worried statements from Labour’s supporters in the media, with some predicting that it made an election loss more likely.

The working class is experiencing stagnant wages while household living costs have surged by 7.2 percent in the 12 months to June, according to Statistics NZ—ahead of the official 6 percent inflation rate. Costs are driven by interest rates, which have risen by 28.8 percent, and food prices, up 13.2 percent.

Rents have risen by about $50 a week over the past year, an annual rise of $2,600, according to Trade Me. About one in five households with children are living in poverty; and about 100,000 people are homeless or severely housing deprived.

Significantly, three of the government ministers who have left or been forced out—Allan, Nash and Whaitiri—represented electorates in Gisborne and the Hawke’s Bay areas which were devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle in February. Thousands of homes, farms and businesses were destroyed or severely damaged by flooding, with impoverished towns such as Wairoa among the worst-hit. This has dramatically escalated the housing crisis and the financial burdens facing families, who have largely been left on their own to deal with insurance companies.

Far from addressing the crisis, Labour’s May budget imposed new burdens on working people, with real cuts to healthcare and education spending. Hundreds of job cuts are being imposed at universities and in public hospitals.

The abandonment of any measures to stop the spread of COVID-19, which continues to kill dozens of people every week, is adding to the pressure on public hospitals, which are regularly filled to capacity.

The government is relying on the union bureaucracy to enforce cuts and to keep a lid on rising anger in the working class. Recently, about 30,000 nurses and other healthcare workers voted overwhelmingly in favour of a 24-hour strike on August 9. The New Zealand Nurses Organisation is desperately working with the Labour government to come up with a means to stop the strike from going ahead.

As election campaigning ramps up, none of these burning issues is being addressed by any of the parties. Instead, Labour and the conservative opposition National Party and far-right ACT Party are competing to put forward the most draconian law-and-order policies.

Days before her car crash and arrest, Allan announced a policy targeting youth crime, to enable 12 and 13-year-olds to be tried in the Youth Court, rather than the lower Family Court, and face more severe sentences. Labour has also promised to expand youth justice facilities, which are essentially prisons for children.

Meanwhile, Labour, National, and their allies ACT and the Greens all agree that billions of dollars must be diverted to upgrading military assets and recruiting more young people into the armed forces, as New Zealand is integrated into the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, and preparations for war against China. This will be paid for through further cuts to social programs.

With Labour currently polling around 33 percent and National on 35 percent, there are growing concerns in the ruling elite about the stability of the political system. The next government could be a shaky coalition of two or even three parties. The collapse in support for the major parties of big business, and rising abstentionism (nearly 900,000 eligible people didn’t vote in 2020), signals a growing movement to the left and hostility towards capitalism, especially among younger workers.

The climate crisis reaches a tipping point

Bryan Dyne

A joint statement released Thursday by the European Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirms that the first three weeks of July have been the warmest three-week period ever recorded and predicts that the month will be the hottest ever experienced by human civilization.

Carlo Buontempo, the director of C3S, noted as part of the statement, “Record-breaking temperatures are part of the trend of drastic increases in global temperatures. Anthropogenic emissions are ultimately the main driver of these rising temperatures.” He continued, “July’s record is unlikely to remain isolated this year, C3S’ seasonal forecasts indicate that over land areas temperatures are likely to be well above average, exceeding the 80th percentile of climatology for the time of year.”

A local resident reacts as the flames burn trees in Gennadi village, on the Aegean Sea island of Rhodes, southeastern Greece, on Tuesday, July 25, 2023. [AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris]

The record broken this July was last set in August 2016, when the global average temperature spiked to 16.92 degrees Celsius (62.46 degrees Fahrenheit), as measured by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But since July 3, the worldwide temperature averaged every 24 hours skyrocketed past that, reaching a new height of 17.23 C (63.01 F) on July 6. The coolest day since then was July 14, falling to 16.94 C (62.49 F), still just above the previous peak.

Earth’s tropics and Northern Hemisphere have been hit particularly hard by the ongoing heatwave, with temperatures in those regions currently about 0.9 C (1.6 F) and 1.2 C (2.1 F) above average, respectively. Ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic have been shattering seasonal records since March, reaching almost 1.5 C (2.7 F) above average, while world ocean temperatures outside the poles remain 0.8 C (1.4 F) above average, including a new record 21.1 C (69.98 F), also set in March. It is increasingly likely that 2023 as a whole will become the hottest year ever recorded.

Among the most catastrophic consequences of the record temperatures this year have been the wildfires in Canada, which have burned more than 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles), nearly double the previous record set in 1989, and blanketed the North American Northeast with toxic levels of smoke and ash. Large portions of Southern Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and the entire Southern US were or still are under heat alerts. Floods have killed 47 people in the US, including 13 from the flash floods in July, while wildfires in Europe and North Africa have killed more than 40. Hundreds have died from heat stroke in Algeria, China, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Mexico and Spain.

Moreover, the disasters caused by climate change now are the precursors to even more catastrophic events. The water temperatures off the Florida coast—38.38 C (101.1 F)—and the extent of Antarctic sea ice—more than 2.6 million square kilometers (about 1 million square miles) below average—are indicators of what is to come. Warming oceans threaten critical coral systems and the global plankton population with disease and mass die-off, which in turn threatens the base of the entire food chain. The lack of Antarctic sea ice constantly poses the mortal danger of land ice falling into the ocean, raising ocean levels worldwide and permanently flooding coastal areas where an estimated 3 billion people live.

There is no longer any doubt that global warming has been caused by the exploitation of Earth’s resources by anarchic capitalist production, particularly the essentially unregulated burning of coal, oil and natural gas for a century and a half. The pressing question is for a resolution to the ongoing and accelerating ecological crisis.

In response to the C3S and WMO report, UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted at a press conference that “Humanity is in the hot seat [and] humans are to blame.” This is a false equivalency, and Guterres knows this.

“Humanity” is not to blame; capitalism is. What really blocks every effort to seriously address the climate crisis is the profit system, the subordination of economic life to private profit and the division of the world into rival nation-states.

In 2008, the US Socialist Equality Party statement of principles declared,

The irreconcilable conflict between the profit system and the very survival of humanity finds, in a literal sense, its most noxious expression in the crisis of global warming and the natural environment. The cause of this crisis lies not, as is falsely claimed by the bourgeois media, with population growth. Nor is it the result of science and technology—whose development is critical to the advance of human civilization—but, rather, with their misuse by an irrational and obsolete economic order.

It concludes,

All scientific evidence points to the fact that nothing short of the socialist reorganization of the world economy—in which the planetary environment would no longer be held hostage to either the profit motive or destructive nationalist interests—will achieve the reductions in greenhouse gases necessary to prevent disaster.

Every international conference to address climate change, most recently the COP27 climate summit, has ended in abject failure, as a result of the impossibility of addressing a fundamentally global problem on the basis of feuding capitalist nation-states, all of which are reneging on whatever climate pledges they made in an earlier period as they massively expand military spending.

The capitalist profit system, which organizes society on the basis of the self-interest of the capitalist class, is organically incapable of the massive level of social planning and organization necessary to address the climate crisis.

According to the Carbon Majors Report, which was most recently updated in 2020, the top 108 fossil fuel companies (e.g. Saudi Aramco, Chevron, Gazprom, BP, ExxonMobil) are responsible for 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions since 1751 (the year often used as the baseline for global warming), half of which have been emitted since 1990. Just 20 of those companies are responsible for 30 percent of global emissions.

The profits are astronomical. The head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, stated this past February that oil and gas profits globally shot up to $4 trillion in 2022, further enriching the investment firms and financial institutions in every major capitalist country that control these companies.

While multimillionaires and billionaires gorge themselves on the resources of the Earth, it is the working class and rural masses who pay the price. The heat wave in Europe last year killed more than 61,000 people, a toll that is expected to be equaled or surpassed this year. Last year’s climate change-induced flooding in Pakistan displaced 33 million people. Around 500 million people who farm livestock are at risk of losing their livelihoods. Nearly 1 billion people are at risk of starvation as the land they rely on for sustenance becomes too arid to sustain human life.

In other words, the fight against climate change is fundamentally a class question. The impact of climate change is most directly and catastrophically felt by the working class, including through droughts, famine, wildfires and floods. To this one can add all the workers who labor under and die as a result of extreme weather and the myriad other consequences of global warming.

All appeals to any section of the capitalist ruling elite are therefore bankrupt. Whether led by the Democrats or Republicans in the US, or the Conservatives or Social Democrats in Europe, the major capitalist powers stand exposed as incapable and disinterested in dealing with the crisis. They are far more interested in enriching themselves through various “carbon trading” schemes and invading and destroying whole countries.

The response of world governments to the coronavirus pandemic serves as a further example of the interests of this tiny social layer. Rather than initiating a global campaign to prevent the spread of the deadly disease, the US and every major power first sought to ensure that corporate profits, not human lives, would be protected. The underlying policy of “malign neglect” has left an estimated 24 million dead and tens of millions more suffering from Long COVID.

As for the middle class environmental movements, their evolution is epitomized by the Greens, who have become supporters of militarism and critical instruments of class rule. The German Green Party, in particular, has, as a result of its support for capitalism, become one of the most fervent advocates of imperialist war, including the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine.