Parliamentary elections in Austria: Right-wing extremist FPÖ leads in the polls

Markus Salzmann

Just over a month before the election of Austria’s National Council, the country’s lower house of parliament, the various parties are competing to offer the most right-wing programme. The Austrian election campaign is dominated by incitement against refugees, war propaganda and the demand for a police state.

Under these conditions, the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) leads the polls with around 30 percent. Depending on the poll, the ruling Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the opposition Social Democrats (SPÖ) are both considerably behind the FPÖ.

Trailing far behind, at about 9 percent, are the Greens, the ÖVP’s coalition partner. The right-liberal NEOS have the same level of support as the Greens. The Beer Party and the Communist Party (KPÖ) also have a chance of entering parliament.

Herbert Kickl, leader of Austrian Freedom Party (FPOE), gestures during the traditional FPOE May day event at the Urfahraner fair in Linz, Austria, Wednesday, May 01, 2024. [AP Photo/Christian Bruna]

The FPÖ, which is notorious for its despicable, racist election campaigns, is once again unrestrainedly inciting against refugees. “We need remigration,” FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl explained publicly at the presentation of the election programme. To this end, the party first wants to prevent the hitherto applicable family reunification of asylum seekers and further reduce the number of asylum applications to zero. Healthcare, social benefits and education should only be available to Austrians, according to the party.

The election programme of the right-wing extremists is aptly entitled “Fortress Austria, Fortress of Freedom.” It openly promotes ethnic nationalism and backward-looking ideology, combined with calls for internal and external rearmament, as well as massive tax cuts for companies.

Already in the European elections in June, the FPÖ became the strongest party, while the governing parties suffered severe losses. The right-wing extremists were able to win votes, especially among the young voters. But voters from the SPÖ and ÖVP also migrated to the FPÖ.

The vote gains for the right have nothing to do with mass support for a fascist program. In fact, there is a widespread rejection of such policies. Rather, it is the right-wing politics of the other parties that has been preparing the ground for the right for decades.

Since 2020, the ÖVP and Greens have been governing in Austria, largely implementing the FPÖ’s policy. Under several Green health ministers, all public health measures were dropped during the peak phase of the COVID pandemic. Spending on the military, police and intelligence services has been greatly increased, and although Austria is not a member of the military alliance, the government is fully behind the NATO war against Russia. As in Germany, the Greens are also the leading warmongers in Austria.

Vice Chancellor and Green Party leader Werner Kogler stood on stage with a Ukrainian flag at the party’s Federal Congress on the second anniversary of the start of the war and gave a vicious pro-war speech. Numerous Greens, such as National Council member Ewa Ernst-Dziedzic, have long been vehemently in favour of arms deliveries to Ukraine. More and more Greens see the country’s official neutrality as an obstacle.

Werner Kogler of the Greens [Photo by BMKÖS / CC BY 2.5]

The character of the ÖVP/Green government became clear in the spring of this year. On March 21, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) announced at a press conference that more deportations had been carried out in 2023 (12,900 people) than in any year since the creation of the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum. With egregious cynicism, he declared 2023 to be the “Year of Deportations.” He explicitly praised the “backbreaking work” of the authorities carrying out the brutal deportations and announced a stepped-up clampdown for the current year.

The People’s Party and Greens also explicitly support the genocide in Gaza. Austria was one of the few countries to vote against the UN General Assembly resolution to improve the humanitarian situation and for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Ernst-Dziedzic, like all politicians and governments that defend the genocide, justified this on the grounds of Israel’s right to self-defence.

Here, too, the government is in line with the FPÖ, a party founded by antisemites and in which Nazi positions are widely represented. Like many right-wing parties, it supports the Israeli government in its onslaught against the Palestinians.

The SPÖ, which leads the government in several federal states, is no better than the parties of the federal government. Its election campaign is also dominated by the topic of “internal security.” Under the slogan “More policemen on the street,” it calls for the personnel and material strengthening of the security forces.

In practice, the SPÖ has sufficiently demonstrated its agreement with the ÖVP and FPÖ’s policies on immigrants and refugees. For decades, the SPÖ dominated Austrian politics and carried out increasingly violent attacks on social and democratic rights.

The SPÖ supports both the war against Russia and the genocide in Gaza. The Social Democrats in the capital Vienna have expelled several younger members after they participated in a peaceful demonstration against the crimes of the Israeli government.

The question of which party will head the government after September 29 remains open. It is up to Federal President Alexander van der Bellen to assign the responsibility of forming a government. Publicly, both the ÖVP and the SPÖ exclude cooperation with the FPÖ. But since 2000, the ÖVP has twice formed a coalition with the far right in the federal government. The SPÖ has also formed coalitions with the FPÖ at the state [provincial] level.

The FPÖ currently governs in three federal states—in Salzburg together with the ÖVP, in Lower Austria together with the ÖVP and SPÖ and in Upper Austria with the ÖVP, SPÖ and Greens.

No matter which government the parties agree on in the end, they will come into sharp conflict with the population. Social tensions have intensified extremely in recent years. In the country, which has less than 10 million inhabitants, 1.5 million people are considered at risk of poverty. Some 22 percent of children fall under this category.

In the past, Vienna was considered a large city in which, due to a large supply of social housing and a relatively regulated housing market, even middle-income and low-income households could live well. But this has changed dramatically. In 2024 alone, rents in the capital rose by up to 11 percent.

Israel launches major attack on southern Lebanon

Andre Damon

Israel launched its largest attack on southern Lebanon since 2006 on Sunday, involving over 100 air force fighter jets. The Israel Defence Forces claimed that the attacks involved over 40 targets.

Israeli soldiers fire a mobile howitzer in the north of Israel, near the border with Lebanon, Monday, Jan. 15, 2024. [AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg]

Shortly afterward, the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon announced that it was beginning an attack on Israeli military positions in retaliation for the assassination of Fuad Shukr, its senior military commander, in an attack on Beirut last month.

Israel’s strikes on Lebanon are part of a US-backed military escalation throughout the Middle East, with the central target being Iran. The US is simultaneously sponsoring Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of over 40,000 people.

Three people were killed in the strikes in Lebanon, while no deaths were reported inside Israel. One Israeli soldier was killed on an Israeli warship after an Israeli air defense missile exploded over it. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that they “intercepted all of the drones that Hezbollah launched at a strategic target in the center of the country.”

The Israeli attack was the most serious since Israel’s 34-day invasion of southern Lebanon in 2006.

US and Israeli officials had made it clear that they were in close coordination over the attacks, with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaking with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant twice over the weekend “to discuss Israeli actions to defend against attacks by Lebanese Hezbollah.” Israeli officials said they had briefed the US before carrying out the attack on Lebanon.

On Sunday, the Pentagon reported that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had ordered two US aircraft carriers to remain in the Middle East, reversing a plan that would have sent one of them home.

US National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett endorsed Israel’s attack on Lebanon, declaring: “We will keep supporting Israel’s right to defend itself.”

In an interview on Sunday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan added that “there was continuous communication, and we have been tracking the threat of Hezbollah attacks against Israel for some time now.”

In a statement on Sunday afternoon, Netanyahu threatened to continue attacks on Lebanon, declaring the strike was “not the end of the story.” He threatened: “We are determined to do everything we can to defend our country… whoever harms us—we harm him.”

In April, an Israeli strike killed a group of Iranian military officers meeting in Damascus, to which Iran responded with a strike on Israel with 300 missiles and drones, nearly all of which were intercepted.

In July, Israel assassinated Fuad Shukr with a strike in Beirut, followed by the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh at a military guesthouse in Iran.

Israel is the largest annual recipient of US foreign aid and has received $12.5 billion in weapons since October 2023. The US has provided it with dozens of advanced fighter jets, including F-35s. Earlier this month, the US approved a $20 billion arms sale to Israel, including 50 F-15 fighter jets, Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or AMRAAMs, 120 mm tank ammunition, high explosive mortars and tactical vehicles. Israel is also the only state in the Middle East that possesses nuclear weapons.

Since October, Israel has killed nearly 500 people in southern Lebanon, more than the number of people killed in the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, alongside strikes against Iran, Syria and Yemen. During the same time, nearly 50 Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed by attacks from Hezbollah.

Against the backdrop of Israel’s strikes, negotiations over a possible exchange of hostages between Hamas and Israeli officials broke off on Sunday with no agreement. The discussions reportedly included CIA Director William Burns and David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

Israel’s attack on Lebanon takes place in the context of its genocide in Gaza, which the Lancet has estimated may have killed as many as 200,000 Palestinians.

Israel’s escalation against Lebanon follows the July 24 address by Netanyahu before the US Congress. Netanyahu’s remarks were not merely a justification and defense of the Gaza genocide, but an argument for US intervention targeting Lebanon, Yemen and Iran.

Following the address, US Vice President Kamala Harris stated: “I will always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself, including from Iran and Iran-backed militias, such as Hamas and Hezbollah”—an effective green light to expand the war beyond Gaza.

Israel and the United States have seized upon the events of October 7 to carry out long-held plans to reorganize the Middle East under US domination targeting Iran.

The escalating Middle East war is part of a global offensive of US imperialism throughout the world whose main targets are Russia and China, with the aim of restoring imperialist domination of the former colonies.

While the Biden administration is widely reviled for its sponsorship of the Gaza genocide, Harris, the Democratic candidate for president, has made it clear that she would only continue this policy, rejecting any limits on US support for Israel.

Increased mortgage rates push 320,000 UK adults into poverty

Dennis Moore

Figures published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) have shown a dramatic increase in the number of UK adults thrown into poverty due to increased mortgage costs.

The study highlighted the damage being caused by an exploding mortgage timebomb, with those renewing their home loans, or having to take out new loans in the past two years experiencing a sharp fall in their disposable income.

Typical housing in a British city. Terraced housing in Lea Road, Wolverhampton [Photo by Roger Kidd / CC BY-SA 4.0]

This has led to some households having to pay thousands of pounds more towards additional mortgage costs, driving up poverty rates amongst mortgagors by 1.4 percentage points (ppts) between December 2021 and December 2023.

Millions of homeowners have seen a dramatic increase in borrowing costs after 14 consecutive increases in the Bank of England base rate from a record low in December 2021 of 0.1 percent, to its current rate of 5.25 percent.

In calculating the headline poverty statistics, adjustments are made for household housing costs that include mortgage interest payments. Historically these statistics have been calculated on the assumption that all households have the same interest rates and does not consider the varying and growing mortgage interest rate differences between households.

In the year 2022-23, the average interest rate was 2.3 percent meaning someone would pay interest payments of £240 per month for a household with a typical outstanding mortgage. However 10 percent of households faced an average mortgage interest rate of at least 4.7 percent, equivalent to £490 a month.

Interest rate variation is a significant factor when trying to ascertain the real numbers of those in “mortgage poverty” and those defined as in “absolute poverty”.

The increase in relative poverty, defined as households with income below 60 percent of the median, is equivalent to 320,000 more adults falling below the breadline.

The number of households with a mortgage are a third of households overall and the impact on the headline poverty rate is around 0.1ppts.

The increase in mortgage rates between December 2021 and December 2023 has pushed up the official figure to 1.4 ppts—representing 320,000 more people when measured accounting for variation. Yet official figures, which apply a single average interest rate to all households, only capture 1.0 ppts (230,000).

Though the overall impact on aggregate statistics is not high, mismeasurement of interest payments still means that individual mortgage interest payments are in some cases severely mis-measured and limit a better understanding of the impact of recent financial stocks which have resulted in soaring financial hardship.

It is estimated that most mortgagor households, after housing cost incomes are considered, are mis-measured by at least £500 a year—based on the assumption of a single mortgage interest rate.

Data from other sources suggests that adults who have seen a substantial rise in interest rates since the COVID pandemic were 2 ppts more likely to be behind on bills that those who had not—implying an additional increase of 370,000 adults that are behind on bills once all households have remortgaged at a higher interest rate.

Most households have a fixed rate mortgage and the question of variation in interest rates for individual households is a significant factor when trying to ascertain an accurate picture of the impact on household finances.

The IFS notes that those households impacted by higher food and energy prices include pensioners and those on a lower income who will typically spend more of their income on fuel and food. Yet this is also not represented in official poverty statistics.

Figures showed that accounting for higher inflation for the above households in the years 2021-22 and 2022-23, the number of people in poverty had risen by 210,000 yet had not been recorded in official statistics. This represents an overall figure of 730,000 being thrust into poverty, as against official figures showing 520,000, including 80,000 pensioners.

Department for Work and Pension (DWP) figures suggest that the number of people over the age of 66 living in deprivation stands at nearly 1 million, the highest figure since comparable records began.

The measurement of deprivation was ascertained by asking those taking part whether they had access to basic goods and services, including heating and electricity, substantial meals and a home in a good state of repair.

Of the 977,386 over 66s experiencing deprivation in 2022-23, 100,000 were living in working households and data suggests that since the pandemic the number of older people living in deprivation has risen by more than a third.

These figures conflict sharply with calls within the ruling elite to axe the triple lock on state pensions on the basis that it is too expensive a cost to the public purse. Other calls are to increase the minimum age at which people should be allowed to retire.

The triple lock was introduced in 2011-12 and increases the state pension every April in line with either the previous September’s level of inflation, the amount by which wages have increased or 2.5 percent, whichever is the highest. In April 2024, the state pension rose by 8.5 percent, the rate at which wages rose.

The IFS report highlights the fall in household incomes since the pandemic, accelerating the cost of living crisis. It shows that between 2021-22 and 2022-23 the median household income before housing costs had fallen by 0.5 percent, resulting in a 1.6 percent fall in median income between the years 2019-20/2022-23. This is equivalent to the rate of change seen between 2007-08 and 2011-12 following the global financial crisis.

Between 2019-20 to 2022-23) incomes in poorer households stagnated, while middle- and higher-income households saw little change in income.

A major factor impacting living standards was the rapid rise in inflation, driving up the prices of goods and services, between 2021-22 and 2022-23. Between those years the rate of inflation stood at more than 10 percent, higher than anything seen this century.

Persistent rises in mortgage interest rates could push up both true and measured poverty rates in 2023-24 as an increasing number of households see their fixed rate mortgage period come to an end.

Colleges reopen amid nation-wide escalation of attack on free speech

Josh Andrews

University and college students are returning to campus amidst a fall offensive launched against free speech. The ruling class is determined to put students “in their place” after they have bravely opposed the Gaza genocide, despite savage repression, punishments by administrators, and the revoking of job offers to oppose US support for the genocide in Gaza.

Students applaud next to a Palestinian flag, as the 13 students who have been barred from graduating due to protest activities are recognized by a student address speaker, during commencement in Harvard Yard, at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, May 23, 2024. [AP Photo/Ben Curtis]

Both the Democrats and the Republicans are well aware that, though subdued during the summer break, opposition to the genocide continues to seethe among increasingly radicalized youth. Therefore, anticipating a renewal and broadening of the protests this semester, college administrations are converting campuses into fortresses in which freedom of movement is severely curtailed and protests are criminalized. In many cases, it is universities in Democratic-controlled states and cities that have been most aggressive in their attack on the right to protest and free speech.

The University of California, the largest state university system in the country, has banned the wearing of face masks, which many protestors have used to protect themselves from doxxing and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. A swathe of students will return to school with legal charges hanging over their heads incurred for peacefully protesting last semester. Meanwhile the fascist vigilantes who attacked an encampment set up by students at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) as police and campus security guards looked on will face no repercussions. The Guardian wrote, “At least 55 students who were arrested in May also received letters from the university threatening to place a hold on their academic records or withhold their degrees.” The California State University system has also banned all encampments. 

Perhaps the most far-reaching restrictions are being imposed at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, which also spearheaded policies to effectively ban protests last semester. On August 20, the Senate Committee on University Affairs issued a letter protesting drastic policy changes that had been worked out behind closed doors by the administration. According to the Committee’s letter, the changes will “deprive students of the right to due process and fair hearings with faculty oversight, curtail freedom of speech and expression, and radically increase administrators’ power to prosecute students and limit inconvenient forms of free speech, in effect suppresses freedom of speech and due process.” 

Though not always so far-reaching, similar policies are being enacted by university administrations across the country.

• Columbia University in New York City has imposed a total ban on encampments. Moreover, according to Inside Higher Ed, “until further notice, only individuals with university IDs can enter the campus, and they must fill out a “guest registration form” if they want to bring anyone else to campus.”

• New York University has updated its discrimination and harassment policy to ban criticism of Zionism, conflating this racist political ideology with Jewish identity in a vicious caricature of Judaism. Willfully ignoring the fact that Jewish individuals and groups, such as Jewish Voice for Peace, have in many cases led the protests against the genocide, the document states, “for many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity.”

• Rutgers University in New Jersey will be requiring students to submit an Orwellian-named “Free Expression Notification Form” in order to protest, according to an article published on nj.com. In violation of longstanding tradition, the putting up of tents will also be banned. Students for Justice in Palestine has been blacklisted on campus. Additionally, “Demonstrations must be held between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. and only in certain locations.” 

• The University of Southern California implemented a policy in which anyone without an ID must pass through a security checkpoint. 

The restriction of access to campus is clearly aimed at isolating students as many workers in the community supported the encampments and are opposed to the genocide.

There can be no doubt that these policies were worked out in close consultation with representatives of the US state apparatus and especially the Democratic Party. They mark a significant broadening and intensification of last semester’s systematic assault on free speech.

In the spring, Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, adopted the authoritarian position that any act that “disrupts” normal activities is prohibited. On March 27, far-right Texas governor Gregg Abbott signed executive order GA 44, which ordered all public institutions of higher education in the state to “reevaluate” their policies on anti-semitism and incorporate the Anti-Defamation League’s definition, which conflates criticism of Zionism with anti-semitism. Other such attacks on the right to protest abound, notably at Columbia University, where New York City police entered the campus for the first time since the Vietnam war at the request of President Minouche Shafik, beating protestors, ripping off hijabs, and pepper spraying bystanders.

Across the country, hundreds of students were arrested for peaceful protests at their colleges. While in some cases, as at UT Austin, charges have been dropped by local prosecutors, and in others students are still awaiting trial, in most instances students continue to face punitive actions by the universities. At Towson University, according to Inside Higher Ed, “The ACLU claims two of those punished with ‘deferred suspensions,’ which appear on the students’ disciplinary records but don’t prohibit them from coming to campus as usual, were not even involved in the demonstration.” Other universities where actions have been taken against protesting students include:

• University of Georgia: six students have been suspended for one semester and put on academic probation for the rest of their time at the university despite appeals

• University of Texas at Dallas: 9 students, 3 of them graduated, currently await their trial dates as they appeal their sanctions

• George Washington University: administrators have blackmailed students by offering to drop criminal charges if they agree to physically restrict themselves to their dorms and classes

• Pomona College: nineteen protestors will have their charges dropped if they “complete 16 hours of community service and incur no more criminal charges over the next six months."

Further attacks on academic freedom and the free speech rights of left-wing professors are also underway. Since October 7, numerous professors and academic workers have lost their positions and faced other punitive actions for voicing opposition to the Israeli onslaught on Gaza and defending protesting students.

Now, reviving the McCarthyism of the 1950’s, state governments are mandating sanctions for professors that go against the state ideology of genocide and war. On August 14th, Inside Higher Ed reported on a lawsuit filed by professors at Indiana and Purdue universities against a law passed by the state legislature that dictates schools “must deny tenure to professors who are ‘unlikely to foster … intellectual diversity.’” 

Republican state attorney general Todd Rokita argued that “the classroom curriculum of a public university is government speech set in accordance with State law.” As the article notes, the authoritarian logic of this argument is mirrored in the Stop WOKE Act in Florida, which dictates how social issues can be discussed in the classroom.

The University of Texas system has issued a new policy, banning its 14 universities and health-related institutions from taking a public position on any political or social matter “unrelated to campus operations.”

The assault on free speech is part of a broader move to harness universities to the war drive of U.S. imperialism. Millions of dollars in academic resources are reallocated to the research of ever deadlier weapons and cyberwarfare techniques.

The VD Scholarship For International Students 2025

Application Deadline:

The application deadline for the Undergraduate scholarship is 31st August’24 and for the Postgraduate scholarship is 30th September’24.

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The VD Scholarship – Veena Devi Ji Scholarship is an initiative to democratise counselling for college admissions through Tads Education- Global Pioneers in Transformative Education Consulting. This scholarship is targeted towards helping high-achieving students from all around the world with end-to-end support for their undergraduate & graduate school applications, with expert admissions consulting services at a MAJOR FEE WAIVER or for FREE.

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Who Can Apply For The VD Scholarship For International Students?

Also, applicants must meet all of the following criteria:

• Students must be applying to universities in the US, UK, Singapore, or Canada in the Undergraduate or Postgraduate Fall 2024 and 2025 application cycle.
• Students of all nationalities are permitted to apply.
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• Your family income is up to INR 50 LPA for Indian and Nepali students or within $75,000 for others globally.

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To maximise your selection for the scholarship, you ideally should:

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All countries

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US, UK, Singapore, or Canada 

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Also, applicants will benefit from the following based on the scholarship category they apply for:

Undergraduate Applicants: 

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INR 4,50,000 (Asian Students) and USD 9500 (International Students) for 12th Graders/Gap Year Students
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INR 3,50,000 (Asian Students) and USD 4750 (Non-Asian Students) for 1-Year Personal Counselling Programme

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UK CEOs earn 120 times more than UK workers and gap is widening

Simon Whelan

Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of the UK’s most profitable corporations are being paid more than ever before. According to the High Pay Centre (HPC), the CEOs of the most valuable firms listed on the London Stock Exchange (the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 index) enjoy a median pay of £4.19 million.

This is the highest sum ever recorded by UK CEOs. The pay for a FTSE 100 CEO is over 25 times the amount necessary to put the recipient in the top 1 percent of UK earners. The HPC point out that opaque corporate structures mean there is the possibility these huge remuneration packages are underestimations of their full value.

A view from the south of Paternoster Square in London, England from the top viewing deck of St. Paul's Cathedral. Paternoster Square, City of London, England. The home of the London Stock Exchange [Photo: Self-published work by gren]

Top CEO pay is 120 times higher than the median earnings of a UK full-time worker, £34,963 in 2023.

Average CEO pay is calculated by adding all the pay and dividing by the number of executives but the median is the midpoint between the highest and lowest payment. According to the HP, when average pay from 2023 is looked at the figure is much higher at almost £5 million (£4.98 million), up 12.2 percent from 2022 and equating per CEO to a more than £500,000 increase.

Working full-time, it would take the average paid UK worker approximately a decade and a half just to earn the same amount UK CEO’s have enjoyed as their yearly increase.

According to Luke Hildyard, director at the HPC, the sharp increase in CEO pay is the result of “a small number of companies making really large pay awards rather than big increases across the board”.

The number of companies on the FTSE blue-chip index paying their CEOs more than £10 million annually more than doubled from four in 2022 to nine in 2023. FTSE 100 companies spent £755 million paying just 222 executives in 2023, according to the HPC.

UK CEOs are pushing for even higher payouts to compete with their international peers, particularly in the US. Earlier this year Dame Julia Hoggett, CEO of the London Stock Exchange plc, said UK pay rates for CEOs was “significantly below global benchmarks,” making it harder to attract the top executives. London Stock Exchange Group chief executive David Schwimmer insisted in February this year, “If London has an ambition to be a globally leading financial centre and to attract world-class companies, that means it has to attract world-class talent.”

Low and behold, just two months later in April nearly 90 percent of LSEG shareholders supported a proposal to more than double Schwimmer’s pay to a potential maximum of £13.1 million. This makes Schwimmer one of the very highest paid FTSE 100 bosses. He will receive potential incentive payments of up to 550 percent of his salary and a 300 percent bonus this year.

AstraZeneca shareholders recently approved an enormous pay rise for chief executive Pascal Soriot to £18.7 million, claiming their main rivals are based in the US. In their annual report, AstraZeneca claimed Soriot’s pay ought to be measured against large financial data providers such as US-based S&P Global.

The HPC met claims of supposedly underpaid UK CEOs with some scepticism. The number of UK-headquartered companies considered globally significant is low—only a third of FTSE 100 companies would be large enough to qualify for the S&P 500 in the US. Little beyond anecdotes exist of UK business concerns failing to attract executives and they also question an easy connection between higher executive pay and better business performance.

The think tank also argues that the more that is paid to CEOs the less goes towards workers’ pay or into business investment, noting the negative impact pay inequality has on employee engagement, productivity and wellbeing. It cites the weakening of trade unions, an adversarial approach to labour relations—the UK ranks 27th out of 29 European countries for worker participation in business decision making, to account for the cult of the superstar CEO as the key driver of business performance. This is exacerbated by the increased ownership of shareholdings in UK firms by overseas investors, particularly from the US and the primacy of shareholders dividends above all other considerations.

The HPC nevertheless claims that “it’s much too early to describe this as a trend”, noting that while £10 million plus is awarded to the CEOs of the very largest UK companies, £3/£4 million is the going rate for the remainder of the FTSE 100 and £1/£2 million for the FTSE 250.

Along with soaring CEO pay, there is the rocketing of wealth among that layer who make the CEOs look like paupers—the billionaires. The Socialist Equality Party noted in our general election manifesto this year that, “UK billionaire wealth is up by more than 1,000 percent since 1989, the year it started. In 2000, some 20 years after the financial deregulation of the City of London, the STRL counted 26 billionaires. That figure took a further decade to double to 52 in 2010. But in the years from 2010 until 2019, the number of billionaires tripled to 151.”

Social inequality is not driven by the greedy subjective intentions of CEOs but by the nature of the capitalist system. The popular truism “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” is attributed to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. But it was Karl Marx who wrote in 1867 “in proportion as capital accumulates, the situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, the torment of labour, slavery, ignorance, brutalization and moral degradation at the opposite pole, i.e. on the side of the class that produces its own product as capital.”

Today whilst UK CEOs are paid more than they have ever received, one-fifth of people in the UK suffer poverty, including a quarter of all children. For the poorest 10 percent of UK households, living standards have fallen by 20 percent compared with 2019/20—a drop in income of £4,600. Approaching 3 million rely on food banks to eat.

Bangladesh’s right-wing interim government moves to consolidate its power, end popular ferment

Keith Jones

Two-and-a-half  weeks after a popular uprising forced the flight of long time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s military-installed interim government continues to consolidate its authority and press for the resumption of “normal life” in a country marked by grinding poverty, savage worker exploitation, and gaping social inequality.

It is doing so with the support of the Students Against Discrimination (SAD), the student movement whose agitation triggered the mass protests that led to the fall of Hasina’s 16-year-old Awami League regime. The ostensible left parties, many of which are grouped together in the Left Democratic Alliance, and the trade unions are also backing and pledging to work with the interim government, as are the principal opposition party, the right-wing Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and big business.

The interim government includes two SAD leaders among its 21 “special advisors” or ministers, and has otherwise tried to give itself “progressive” airs.

However, it is manifestly a right-wing capitalist government. It is back-stopped by the military, which oversaw its formation and remains very much the power behind the throne.

The government’s first orders of business are ensuring that capitalist “law and order” is re-established, Bangladesh’s garment industry resumes pumping out profits for global investors, and the IMF austerity measures Hasina agreed to in Jan. 2023 in exchange for a $4.7 billion emergency loan are implemented.

Muhammad Yunus speaks to the media in Dhaka, Bangladesh, March 3, 2024. [AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu]

The government’s right-wing, anti-working-class character is personified by the “chief special advisor,” Muhammad Yunus. The 84-year-old Yunus is a former banker and an internationally-celebrated advocate of micro-finance and petty-bourgeois entrepreneurship as the path to capitalist development. He has close connections to Washington, international capital, and various European imperialist powers.

In addition to taking the role of de facto prime minister, Yunus has given himself direct charge over numerous important ministries, including defence, energy, textiles and jute, education, and information and broadcasting.

With the support of the SAD, the BNP, and last but not least the military, Yunus is replacing various Awami League loyalists and appointees at the top of key state institutions. Their replacements are almost invariably persons associated with the BNP or technocrats with ties to domestic big business and/or international organizations like the IMF and World Bank.

In a move which is no doubt gaining it some popular support, the interim government has also taken action against certain crony capitalists who profited enormously from their corrupt ties with the previous government. The S. Alim Group, which is accused of siphoning off billions from the country’s largest private bank to support its global operations, has been stripped of its control over the Islami Bank.

Earlier this week, Yunus met with the newly-appointed head of Bangladesh’s central bank and former leading IMF official Ahsan H. Mansur. They agreed that the bank should move to curb rising inflation by adopting a “restrictive” monetary policy. That is, that it should tighten the money supply and raise interest rates, thereby reducing access to credit, slowing economic activity and driving up unemployment. Under capitalism the brunt of such a “war on inflation” inevitably falls on the working class and rural toilers.

The Yunus-led interim government has been warmly welcomed by the western powers, especially Washington. The latter clearly hopes that it can leverage its close ties with Yunus to prevail on Bangladesh to put greater distance between itself and Beijing.

While Hasina enjoyed very close ties to India—America’s principal South Asian/Indian Ocean region ally—Washington deemed her too ready to pursue a policy of “strategic non-alignment,” using the US-China rivalry to play one off against the other so as to extract maximum favours from both.

For this reason, Washington became increasingly critical of Hasina and vocal in its criticisms of her government’s use of state violence and politically-manipulated court cases to suppress its political opponents, including the BNP and its Islamist ally, the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami.

At an August 20 press briefing, Pentagon Press Secretary Major-General Pat Ryder lauded the US-Bangladesh “defence relationship.” He went on to say that Washington looks “forward to working” with the Bangladesh military and interim government “to support our shared values and interests, such as a free and open Indo-Pacific”—code-words for upholding US dominance of the world’s most populous and rapidly growing economic region.

According to numerous reports, the Biden administration pressed the previous Hasina-led government to allow it to build a military base on Saint Martin Island, a coral reef situated close to shipping lanes in the Bay of Bengal.

To pave the way for the interim government’s formation, the military had the president, a largely ceremonial figure, dissolve the parliament the day after it hustled Hasina out of the country, having concluded her attempt to cling to power through mass violence had dangerously destabilized bourgeois rule.

Legally the interim government’s raison d’etre is to organize fresh elections to replace the previous Awami League-dominated parliament, which was chosen in a vote last January that most of the opposition boycotted on the grounds it was rigged.

However, as yet the interim government has said nothing about when new elections will be held; only that it will not be within the three-month period given for a “caretaker” government to do so in a constitutional clause that Hasina abrogated. Nor has Yunus announced when the interim government will outline its timetable for new elections.

He and other government representatives, along with much of the capitalist media, are claiming that key state institutions were so corrupted under Hasina’s “fascist rule” that time must be given to fundamentally reform them.

Everything suggests that Yunus and the military intend to use a prolonged period of rule by the unelected interim government to implement IMF-dictated austerity, privatization, and other “structural reforms” demanded by domestic and global capital.

In a dangerous development, 19 public post-secondary institutions, including 11 universities and six medical colleges, have imposed a blanket ban on student politics. Thirteen of these have also prohibited teachers and staff from engaging in political activity. SAD and many of the student groups affiliated with it are wrongheadedly supporting these bans on the grounds that the student wings of the traditional political parties have long bullied students and wielded inordinate control over campus life.

Bangladeshi garment workers block a road demanding their unpaid wages during a protest in which hundreds participated in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, April 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Al-emrun Garjon)

Last week, the UN said that, based on reports from the media and protesters, it concluded some 650 people were killed between July 16, when Hasina ordered police and Awami League thugs to initiate a campaign of mass violence against students protesting against a regressive, discriminatory government-job allocation system, and August 6.

On Tuesday, the non-governmental Human Rights Support Society (HRSS) released a report that said at least 819 people had been killed in political violence between July 16 and August 18, and a further 25,000 had been injured, mostly by police bullets, rubber bullets, tear gas and pellets.

According to the HRSS, the majority of the deaths came in the final days of the Hasina regime and the immediate aftermath of its fall, when dozens of police stations were attacked, and reactionary elements took advantage of the breakdown in authority to mount communal attacks on temples, homes and businesses of Bangladesh’s Hindu minority. As across South Asia, the Bangladeshi ruling class has a long and vile record of using communalism and communal violence to divert social anger along reactionary lines.

The HRSS said that of the 293 dead whose professional identity it could establish, 144 were students, 57 labourers, 5 journalists, 35 of other professions, and 51 were police or other security personnel.

The Hasina regime, long lauded on the financial pages of the western media for supposedly presiding over rapid capitalist growth, fell victim to mass popular anger over joblessness, poverty, state repression and an ever-widening chasm between a small layer of Bangladeshi capitalists and their managerial enforcers and other hangers-on, and the vast majority of the population, comprised of workers and rural toilers.

What began as a student protest over the limited issue of government job quotas exploded into a popular uprising in response to the Awami League government’s brutal repression of the students.

However, the working class—and this remains the great danger—was effectively reduced to the role of a spectator and then part of the supporting cast in these events. Workers and their families joined in the mass protests. But the working class did not intervene as an independent force, under its own class banner, advancing its own democratic and social demands, and using the methods of class struggle, strikes, factory occupations and general strikes. For this, the various Stalinist and other left parties and the trade unions are responsible.

For decades, that have orbited around the two main capitalist parties, the Awami League and the BNP, arguing that workers can advance their interests by pressuring and even openly aligning in electoral blocs with these right-wing capitalist and pro-imperialist parties.

Today, under conditions of social upheaval and ferment in the streets, these organizations are redoubling their efforts to subordinate the working class to the bourgeoisie by boosting the legitimacy of the right-wing capitalist government hastily improvised by the military. The Stalinist parties and union leaders are also joining Yunus and the military in unduly flattering the student protesters.

That the students showed great courage is indisputable. Nor is their sincerity in question. But if the ruling class is today hailing them as “martyrs” and “heroes” and leaders of a “revolution,” it is with the aim of exploiting their petty-bourgeois naiveté, delusions and aspirations.