The Western Alliance is Falling Apart

Peter Koenig

Ever since Imran Khan became the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan in August 2018, the winds have changed. While his predecessors, though generally leaning eastwards, have often wavered between the US and the China orbit, Khan is in the process of clearly defining his alliances with the east, in particular China. This is for the good of his country, for the good of the Middle East, and eventually for the good of the world.

A few days ago, RT reported that China, in addition to the expansion of the new port in Gwadar, Balochistan, has entered agreements with Pakistan to build a military / air base in Pakistan, a new  Chinese city for some half a million people, as well as several road and railway improvement projects, including a highway connecting the cities of Karachi and Lahore, reconstruction of the Karakoram Highway, linking Hasan Abdal to the Chinese border, as well as upgrading the Karachi-Peshwar main railway to be completed by the end of 2019, for trains to travel up to 160km / hour.

This rehabilitation of dilapidated Pakistani transportation infrastructure is not only expected to contribute between 2% and 3% of Pakistan’s future GDP, but it offers also another outlet for Iranian gas / hydrocarbons, other than through the Strait of Hurmuz – for example, by rail to the new port of Gwadar which, by the way, is also a new Chinese naval base. From Gwadar Iranian hydrocarbon cargos can be shipped everywhere, including to China, Africa and India.With the new China-built transportation infrastructure Iranian gas can also be shipped overland to China.

In fact, these infrastructure developments, plus several electric power production projects, still mostly fed by fossil fuel, to resolve Pakistani’s chronic energy shortage, are part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also, called the New Silk Road. They are a central part of the new so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which was first designed in 2015 during a visit by China’s President Xi Jinping, when some 51 Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) worth then some US$ 46 billion were signed. Pakistan is definitely out of the US orbit.

Today, in the CPEC implementation phase, the projects planned or under construction are estimated at over US$ 60 billion. An estimated 80% are direct investments with considerable Pakistani participation and 20% Chinese concessionary debt. Clearly, Pakistan has become a staunch ally of China – and this to the detriment of the US role in the Middle East.

Washington’s wannabe hegemony over the Middle East is fading rapidly. See also Michel Chossudovsky’s detailed analysis “US Foreign Policy in Shambles: NATO and the Middle East. How Do You Wage War Without Allies?”.

A few days ago, Germany has refused Washington’s request to take part in a US-led maritime mission in the Strait of Hormuz, under the pretext to secure hydrocarbon shipments through this Iran-controlled narrow water way. In reality it is more like a new weaponizing of waterways, by controlling who ships what to whom – and applying “sanctions” by blocking or outright pirating of tankers destined for western ‘enemy’ territories.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas announced last Wednesday in Warsaw, Poland, that there “cannot be a military solution” to the current crisis in the Persian Gulf and that Berlin will turn down Washington’s request to join the US, British and French operation “aimed at protecting sea traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, and combating so-called “Iranian aggression.”

This idea of the Washington war hawks was conceived after Iran’s totally legal seizure of the British-flagged Stena Impero oil tanker, after it rammed an Iranian fishing boat a couple of weeks ago. However, nothing is said about the totally illegal and US-ordered British piracy of the Iranian super tanker Grace I off the coast of Gibraltar in Spanish waters (another infraction of international law), weeks earlier. While Grace I’screw in the meantime has been released, the tanker is still under British capture, but western media remain silent about it, but lambast Iran for seizing a British tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.

Germany remains committed to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – JCPOA (the Iran nuclear deal), from which the United States unilaterally withdrew a year ago, and Germany will therefore not intervene on behalf of the US.

Add to this Turkey – a key NATO member both for her strategic location and NATO’s actual military might established in Turkey – moving ever closer to the east, and becoming a solid ally of Russia, after having ignored Washington’s warnings against Turkey’s purchasing of Russian S-400 cutting-edge air defense systems. For “sleeping with the enemy” – i.e. moving ever closer to Russia, the US has already punished Turkey’s economy by manipulating her currency to fall by about 40% since the beginning of 2018. Turkey is also a candidate to become a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and so is Iran.

Turkey has become a de facto lame duck as a NATO member and may soon officially exit NATO which would be a tremendous blow to the North Atlantic Alliance – and may tempt other European NATO nations to do likewise. Probably not overnight, but the idea of an ever more defunct NATO is planted.

All indications are that the future, economically and security wise – is in the East.
even Europe may eventually ‘dare’ making the jump towards better relations with primarily Russia and Central Asia and eventually with China.

And that especially if and when Brexit happens – which is by no means a sure thing. Just in case, the UK has already prepared bilateral trade relations with China, ready to be signed – if and when – the UK exits the EU.

Will the UK, another staunch US ally, jump ship? – Unlikely. But dancing on two weddings simultaneously is a customary Anglo-Saxon game plan. The Brits must have learned it from their masters in Washington, who in turn took the lessons from the Brits as colonial power for centuries, across the Atlantic.

Western, US-led war on Iran is therefore unlikely. There is too much at stake, and especially, there are no longer any reliable allies in the region. Remember, allies – shall we call them puppets or peons, are normally doing the dirty work for Washington.

So, threatening, warning and annoying provocations by the US with some of its lasting western allies may continue for a while. It makes for good propaganda. After all, packing up and going home is not exactly Uncle Sam’s forte. The western alliance is no longer what it used to be. In fact, it is in shambles. And Iran knows it.

Sex Workers in India – Life in a “Gutter”

Tanya Kumar

Last month, while researching on Sex Worker’s rights movements in India for an academic project, I came across some extremely disturbing incidents mentioned by VAMP (Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad) and other online articles describing the plight of Sex Worker’s in our country. One of the most glaring incidents mentioned by them was of a sex worker with speech and hearing impairment who was detained at an observation home after a brothel raid, who requested a judge to let her go home and the judge snarkily responded in open court saying “a woman who has come from the gutter, wants to return to the gutter?”.

In a system which is so biased against sex workers where they are refused basic access to healthcare and police protection, if the judiciary also treats them in a demeaning manner, where are we headed?The role of the judiciary in India is to protect the constitutional rights of citizens and enforce the rule of law. Does a community suffering from the burden of stigmatization not deserve the fundamental rights of equality before law and right to protection of civil rights? The treatment of this community is testament to the fact that our dream of achieving an egalitarian and liberal society is at a distant horizon.

State of the Women in Sex Work

According to the National AIDS Control Organization, there are 800,000 women in sex work in India officially and the unofficial numbers are definitely much higher. This large section of society faces widespread stigmatization and social exclusion in the following ways:

1. Violence – The marginalization of sex workers due to the perception of them being social miscreants and their actions being unlawful has led to this community being extremely vulnerable to violent crimes. Due to the nature of their job, they are not even protected under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. The following stats from a survey of 3000 sex workers conducted by CASAM, SANGRAM, MASUM and VAMP organisations of India, clearly show the extent of the problem
2. Police Mistreatment – The police in most cases due to their personal biases mistreat sex workers and wrongfully arrest and detain them after brothel raids or for public nuisance or obscene conduct which are provisions in the Indian Penal Code. This is followed by instances of police violence as we can see in the same survey of these 3000 women
3. Denial of Labour Protection Rights – Even though sex work is not illegal, it is not recognized as a profession under the Indian Law. This leads to them being deprived of basic rights such as minimum wages, unionization rights, health and safety regulations, legal redressal systems and protection from exploitation.
4. Denial of Healthcare Access – The health problem of STDs and HIV/AIDS is widespread in this community. Hence, they not only deserve but also require free/affordable healthcare to prevent and treat these diseases. However, most women have reported hostility from public hospitals and the stigma towards these diseases is further blocking the required penetration required to reach these women. National AIDS Control Organization and its partners have been attempting to reach out to this community however, it requires much more support and de-stigmatization to be successful.
5. Denial of Access to Justice – The police, justice system, labour protection, women rights committees have all been failing the sex worker’s community and instead of providing them a safe space to complain about violence, exploitation, and other rights infringements, the system itself harasses these women through wrongful detention and mistreatment

Working towards the Problem

There are organizations such as VAMP, Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC),SANGRAM (Sampada Grameen Mahila Sanstha) etc., who have been working towards protecting the rights of these women and bringing the community together to create a united voice and a collective which can demand their right to healthcare, purchasing houses, alternate employment opportunities and fair and just treatment by the police.

Most of these movements have been aimed at separating the association of human trafficking and sex work. Human trafficking and forcing women into sex work through trafficking is a criminal offence. However, this is a separate issue and needs to be dealt with at a policing level. Sex work in itself is not a criminal offence, however, due to this association and societal stigmatization it is treated as one. Most of these women are victims of societal mistreatment rather than trafficking. They are ones who have moved into the profession voluntarily and to earn a livelihood. Hence, they do not want to be treated as victims and just want equal rights as the rest of society. The treatment of the sex worker by the judge as mentioned at the beginning of the article portrays how their profession is looked down upon to an extent where they are not treated as human beings at all. This results in unnecessary police detention, misguided rehabilitation and mistreatment of sex workers after brothel raids.

The only way forward is for the system to start recognizing them as citizens of India with rights. If the government can ensure they have identification documents, ration cards and other social entitlements through registrations, they can be protected in the same sphere as labourers are. Steps should be taken to ensure their participation in policy making in order to amend backward laws that affect sex workers and move towards decriminalizing related activities to sex work which result in the harassment of sex workers. Violence against sex workers should be dealt with severely and mechanisms need to be in place to ensure their access to the justice system. And lastly, there needs to be a collective which can stand together and hold the government accountable if this community is deprived of any of the above rights.

Can Recycling Really Solve The Plastic Problem?

Meena Miriam Yust & Arshad M. Khan

The practice of recycling has everything to commend it:  On a finite planet, it conserves resources; it is meretricious allowing us, as it does, to pin a mental merit badge on our chests as we ready the assigned recycling bin once a week; and it is an activity that is all good.  We are saving the planet, albeit in a small way, from some of the excesses of the developed world.  And when everyone does their share, the impact has to be unavoidably significant.  Right.  Or, does it?

If we examine what we recycle, that is paper, glass, metal cans and plastic, the junk mail and other paper discarded is the most copious but plastic is close.  Almost all of it used to go to the developed world’s great recycling bin in the east … China.  It absorbed some 95 percent of EU recyclable waste and 70 percent from the US.  But China began to grow its own domestic garbage with the growth of its economy.  The consequences have not been unexpected.  China announced a new policy in 2018, named inexplicably National Sword, banning the import of most recyclables, particularly plastics and contaminated materials.

Since then China’s import of such recyclables has fallen 99 percent.  Needless to say, metals and glass are not as seriously affected.  For the American recycling industry, it has been a major earthquake.  First, about 25 percent of recyclables are contaminated and not recyclable.  Then there are plastic bags.  Not only are these, too, not recyclable but they tend to jam up sorting machinery.

The sorting of waste sent to China had been taken over by families in port side communities.  It became their livelihood, retrieving whatever fetched a price and dumping the rest.  Piling up in ad hoc landfills, it washed down waterways into the ocean.  They were not the only culprits.  Thus we have had the phenomenon of whales being washed up dead, starved because stomachs were full of plastic — 88 pounds densely packed in the stomach of one found in the Philippines and 50 pounds inside another in Sardinia.  China’s ban on waste imports has been followed by Malaysia and Vietnam.  In March of this year, India joined them.

As the outlets for their waste disappear and as most of the plastics are not recycled, self-reliance has been forced upon developed countries.  All to the good for the environment, because it will also curtail the use of plastics out of necessity.  The truth is only a fraction of plastic waste is recyclable, generally the white transparent bottles of which some are preferred.  Most ends up in landfills.  A 2017 study in  Science Advances determined that 90% of plastics ever produced are still in the environment.  Yet in the past six decades an estimated 8 billion tons have been produced.  Moreover, the usage trend is upwards and in 2014 some 311 million tons were produced worldwide.

There is though a small movement to restore reusable bottles, and a company called Loop Industries may be on the right track. Their founders announced at the World Economic Forum in 2019 that they aim to return to the milkman model, reusing bottles for everything from edibles to shampoo and detergent. Loop has partnered with Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, PepsiCo, and other large companies.  Perhaps, if we all return to the milk bottle model of the 1950s  — refilling containers to be used again — there may be greater hope for the planet.  The good news is, some towns and states have already banned single-use plastic bottles.

Another intriguing possibility is to use the millions of tons of crustacean shells discarded.  Scientists are now able to extract chitin and chitosan from shrimp and lobster shells.  Still in the research stage, the process has to be made industrially feasible, and there are also problems with hazardous waste as it uses potent chemicals like sodium hydroxide.  Biodegradable chitin and chitosan can be used as plastic substitutes to make surfboards and anti-microbial food packaging.  Scotland-based CuanTec has developed a bacterial method that has eliminated 95 percent of the sodium hydroxide and also cut energy use by a third as the bacteria do all the work.  They use shells from the langoustines common in northern Europe, and have already signed a contract with the large UK supermarket chain Waitrose to supply flexible film for packaging fish.  The film’s antibacterial properties extend fish shelf life by three days.

An unexpected and more insidious source of plastic pollution is synthetic clothing.  Researchers have determined that acrylic clothing may release more than 700,000 plastic fibers in a single wash.  Polyester releases about 500,000 fibers, and a poly-cotton blend releases about 137,000.  These fibers end up in the water we drink and the fish we eat.  Making matters worse is the presence of microplastic at depths up to the 1000 meters, investigated by Choy et al in the deep waters of Monterey Bay using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV).  The ROV collected the samples at ten different depths.  Maximum pollution was found, surprisingly, not at the surface but from 200 to 600 meters below.  They also collected red crabs and found plastics in the gastrointestinal tract.  Giant “sinkers,” the particle filtering mucous houses used for feeding by larvaceans and discarded after use, were collected at depths ranging from 251 to 2967 meters to overlap and extend the range of the research.  All contained microplastics.   Clearly, ridding the oceans of plastic pollution is an almost unsurmountable problem.

Japanese manufacturers have come up with a washing machine filter to catch microfibers, which may provide some aid if more widely distributed.  Yet we still do not know the efficacy of such devices.  Curbing the problem at the source is still the most sensible if we wish to sustain the planet.  It is up to us.

Returning to the cheap, convenient and  therefore ubiquitous plastic bags, there is hope for now there are several different types:  the most common are conventional plastic bags, then there are compostable bags designed to be recycled in industrial composters, biodegradable bags, and two types of oxo-biodegradable bags.  The latter degrade in open landscapes or on water surfaces like oceans.  None degrade too well in landfills.  There is, however,  another problem with compostable biodegradales:  to repel water and oil these have in them perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances in which an hydrogen atom has been replaced by fluorine.  Known as PFAS, these persistent chemicals leach out of the plastic and remain in the compost to be absorbed by plants and later by humans to accumulate in their bodies.

However, it’s back to landfills for the non-recyclables.  In 2015, the US alone produced 34.5 million tons (or 13 percent of total municipal solid waste) of plastic waste from which a small fraction (9 percent or 3.1 million tons) was recycled, 5.4 million tons was incinerated with energy recovery and about 26 million tons ended up in landfills.  Burning reduces volume by 87 percent.  However, open burning produces pollutants including dangerous dioxins, so safe combustion requires a contained environment.

Unless there is a change, the plastic problem appears likely to keep growing.  In 1950, the world produced only about 2 million tons compared to over 300 million tons in present times.  The UN has taken a first step by adding plastic waste to the Basel agreement on hazardous waste — 187 countries have signed up, the US under the Trump administration remains an exception.

Engineering institutions have become aware of the problem and are educating their young members.  As reported in their July 2019 issue of IET Member News, the British electrical engineering professional body has two competitions sponsored by Greenpeace and Greenseas.  For the Greenpeace prize, teams have to come up with methods, technologies and alternative delivery systems to reduce plastic packaging in supermarkets.  And the Greenseas challenge requires competitors to develop a robotic machine to clear beaches of plastic cigarette stubs.  The machine has to be large enough to collect a reasonable amount and painted brightly to attract attention and inform the public of the problem.  Then there is OceanX Group, headed by a young engineer, that is developing automated monitoring and cleanup technology to remove plastic from waterways and better to detect sources.  It employs artificial intelligence including drones.

The inescapable upshot of all of this is a need for education.  Sorting recyclables initially and disposing non-recyclable material into the curbside waste bin could save energy later, and many man-hours.  Changes in the kind of plastic material produced may also help.  For instance, just reducing the coloring used in plastic bottles eases recycling as these additives are expensive to remove.  Also tax incentives for manufacturers can only aid recycling efforts.  However, the now evident danger to the food chain begs including the cost of safe disposal (like controlled combustion for example) in the price of items.  Above all, the total amount of plastic generated can no longer keep increasing; it has to be reduced.

German auto supplier Eisenmann files for bankruptcy

Dietmar Gaisenkersting

The worldwide decline in sales in the auto industry has claimed its next victim. On Monday, auto supplier Eisenmann filed for bankruptcy for itself and its subsidiaries. The family-owned company in Baden-Württemberg employs 3,000 workers at 27 locations in 15 countries, 1,400 in Germany, most of these at its headquarters in Böblingen near Stuttgart.

The bankruptcy was predictable; employees’ last monthly salaries were allegedly not paid. Workers reported learning about the bankruptcy in the mail.

Eisenmann is one of the world's leading manufacturers of paint shops and light tunnels for quality control in the automotive industry. Its customers include Italian luxury manufacturer Lamborghini, California electric car manufacturer Tesla and German manufacturer Daimler AG. Eisenmann had received an order to build a plant in Kecskemet, Hungary, for the German car manufacturer, but the factory expansion was suspended because of poor sales figures.

On Tuesday, Daimler denied rumours, according to which this had played an important role in the Eisenmann insolvency, “Contrary to other reports, Daimler AG has not cancelled any orders with the Eisenmann company. Daimler has been in contact with Eisenmann's management for months and has responded to the request for support.”

Earlier this week, business daily Handelsblatt reported that Eisenmann had “overstretched” itself in some major projects, which led to high losses in 2018. In addition, the company had accepted orders at giveaway prices, in the face of fierce competition. This was now reaping its revenge.

Figures for 2018 are not yet available, but in 2017 sales had already slumped from 862 to 723 million euros. Now they are thought to have fallen even further.

“We had to act quickly and consistently here,” said Managing Director Michael Keppel, responsible for the restructuring. The Eisenmann family and the lenders are supporting the chosen path. Two years ago, the family had negotiated with a Chinese investor on the sale of the company. The talks were said to have been broken off in autumn 2017 because ideas about the purchase price had drifted far apart.

The family owners are now trying to use the bankruptcy process to divest shares, reduce jobs and worsen working conditions. The company says it is focusing on its core business and wants “to promote the strategic realignment of the Eisenmann Group with the restructuring in the context of the insolvency proceedings, in order to return to a profitable business as soon as possible,” said Keppel.

Eisenmann is now looking for a strategic partner for its established business in paint shops for the auto industry, Keppel said on Monday evening. “The first interested parties have already contacted us.”

But it is still unclear whether the Eisenmann Group will be completely broken up. Competitors, like neighbouring Dürr AG, are already rubbing their hands. The publicly traded company had also started “restructuring measures” in the spring due to weaker earnings expectations.

Dürr had placed adverts to attract engineers, especially from Eisenmann. “We hope to be able to better fill our vacancies now,” Handelsblatt quoted a Dürr spokesman saying. He also said, “If an automaker needs help with ongoing projects because of the Eisenmann bankruptcy, we are ready.”

Although Dürr had also issued a profit warning recently, it still expects a return of between 5.5 and 6 percent.

The Eisenmann insolvency casts a spotlight on the entire automotive industry. Production is down five percent worldwide. China, the largest automotive market in the world, which has been the great hope of manufacturers so far, is now seeing a continued decline. In the first half of 2019, new car sales fell by 14 percent compared to the previous year.

Just two weeks ago, Opel had announced it was slashing another 1,100 posts in Rüsselsheim, Eisenach and Kaiserslautern. Last week, Japan’s Nissan group announced a reduction of 12,500 jobs worldwide. At the end of June, Ford announced 12,000 redundancies and five plant closures in Europe by the end of 2029. Since the beginning of the year, General Motors has announced 14,000 layoffs, Volkswagen 7,000, Jaguar 4,500 and Tesla 3,000. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Last autumn, a study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), associated with the Social Democratic Party, concluded that a hasty conversion of production to electro-mobility in the German auto industry would threaten 600,000 jobs and ruin a large proportion of the suppliers.

Handelsblatt reports that in this situation, declining payment practices in the auto industry were also aggravating the situation. For less liquid and smaller companies like Eisenmann, this could lead to payment difficulties or even insolvency.

Eisenmann is not the first and will not be the last victim of the global economic slowdown. Jobs are also being cut at other suppliers. 6,00 jobs at Marquardt are to be relocated abroad. Tire manufacturer Continental plans to close its plant in Oppenweiler, and filter specialist Mann und Hummel wants to cut 1,200 jobs worldwide.

The head of the automotive supplier Mahle, Jörg Stratmann, has announced that nearly 400 jobs will be cut at the Stuttgart base and the plant in Öhringen will be closed by the end of 2020, hitting 240 employees. Further plant closures could not be ruled out, he said.

Precision parts supplier Schaeffler announced the reduction of 900 jobs months ago. Goodyear-Dunlop plans to cut 1,100 jobs in Hanau and Fulda. Bosch is also planning massive job cuts. Most recently, Baden-Württemberg-based Weber Automotive, a company with 1,500 workers, filed for bankruptcy.

According to the IG Metall trade union, in the southwest, the centre of the German automotive industry, one in two companies are facing “cost reductions.” “The signs are piling up that many companies want to shape the changes of the future with concepts from yesterday,” local IG Metall district chief Roman Zitzelsberger said, only in the same breath to play down the seriousness of the situation confronting workers. There was no reason to paint things black, after years of boom, the industry was now entering a “phase of normalization” the union official said.

However, IG Metall and its works council representatives are not content just keeping workers quiet in the factories, they are themselves working out plans for social cuts and dismissals and enforcing them against the workforce.

With its demand for a “transformation short-time working allowance”, the IG Metall is currently preparing mass redundancies in the automotive and component supply industry. This was also the aim of the mass demonstration in Berlin at the end of June, which the IG Metall had called on the slogan #FairChange. This was to make clear to industry and government that the impending attacks can only be enforced jointly with the union and its 50,000 works council representatives and 80,000 shop stewards.

In a flyer for this demo, the Sozialistiche Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party) wrote, “Workers around the world confront the same multinational corporations and financial interests. Therefore, they must not be divided. They can only defend their rights and achievements by coordinating their struggles internationally. This requires a break with the unions and the formation of independent action committees. These must organize the fight against factory closures, layoffs and redundancies and build links with workers at other sites and countries.”

UK housing crisis: 630,000 young people face homelessness in retirement

Alice Summers 

Hundreds of thousands of young people in the UK risk homelessness when they retire because they will be unable to afford skyrocketing private rental costs.

A lack of social housing and the inability of many young people to get onto the property ladder mean that at least 630,000 millennials—those born between 1981 and 1996—will be unable to find affordable rented accommodation when they stop working.

According to an official report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Care for Older People, the number of people still renting when they retire is set to increase more than three times, from 450,000 today to over 1.5 million in 2046.

Around half of these households will be unable to afford the rent they could manage before they retired, as income typically halves after retirement. This means that those in the private rental sector, who pay a large proportion of their income on rent, may see this doubled as a proportion of income to unaffordable levels.

In England, the average private renter pays some 27 percent of his or her monthly income on housing costs. This rises to a massive 49 percent for those living in London, with some boroughs, such as Hackney, seeing private tenants paying, on average, 83 percent of their income on rent.

The problem of high rental costs as a proportion of salary does not impact all sections of the population equally, but weighs far more heavily on the working class. While the top decile of earners in England pay an average of 20 percent of their income on private rent, those with an income in the second to last decile pay an average of 45 percent of their income, rocketing up to 64 percent for the lowest tenth of earners.

With the loss of income that comes with retirement, these housing costs will be out of reach for many, especially the poorest, putting hundreds of thousands of pensioners at risk of homelessness.

The report also predicts that the number of older households living in unsuitable or unfit private rented accommodation could rocket from around 56,000 today to 188,000 in 20 years’ time, and to 236,500 in 30 years, in what it calls an “inevitable catastrophe for the pensioners of tomorrow.”

As older people are increasingly unable to afford good-quality and appropriate housing, more and more vulnerable elderly pensioners will be forced into substandard accommodation, with dire consequences for their health and well-being. Poor quality housing is known to have directly caused the deaths of thousands of older people.

According to a 2018 study by the charity organisation National Energy Action, some 36,000 deaths over the last five years, mostly of older people, can be attributed to conditions related to living in a cold home. A further 17,000 people are estimated to have died as a direct result of fuel poverty. This is the second-worst rate of unnecessary winter deaths of 30 countries in Europe, beaten only by Ireland.

The crisis facing the elderly will only be exacerbated as more and more people are unable to afford suitable accommodation.

The ever-rising cost of housing, poor employment prospects and increasing debt mean that many young people today are unlikely to ever buy their own home, and will be forced to shell out hundreds of thousands of pounds in rent to private landlords over the course of their lifetime.

Millennials are roughly half as likely to possess their own home as the same age group in the 1980s. At the peak of home ownership in 1989, 50.8 percent of young people between the ages of 25 and 34 owned their own home. This compares to only 27.7 percent of this age group in 2018, a figure that has crept up marginally over the last couple of years.

But such is the housing crisis faced by millennials that 3.4 million young people aged between 20 and 34 are unable even to rent their own homes, instead having to continue living with their parents. This figure has increased in absolute terms by 1 million people in two decades, as well as increasing as a proportion of the population from 19.48 percent in 1997 to 25.91 percent in 2017.

While the comparison between millennials and previous generations is useful in marking the significant decline in conditions for the working class as a whole, millennials as a generation are divided by class just as are all generations.

According to a study by the Resolution Foundation, young adults from wealthier backgrounds are far more likely to own their own home than their poorer peers. While the home ownership rate of 20- to 35-year olds whose parents have no property wealth is only 11 percent, 37 percent of this age group whose parents are in the top third of the property wealth distribution own their own house.

At the age of 30, young people whose parents do not possess any property wealth are about 60 percent less likely to be homeowners themselves, the study found.

The extent of this class divide is well demonstrated by the increasing rates of second home ownership, both among older generations and millennials. According to a second report by the Resolution Foundation, the number of British people who own a second home, buy-to-let or overseas property has increased by 53 percent since 2001. While the home ownership rate is falling across all age groups, one in ten (5.5 million) people in the UK now own a second home, with the value of this additional property wealth increasing from around £610 billion in 2001 to £941 billion in 2014-16 (the latest period for which figures are available).

But while young people today are far less likely to own their own home than previous generations were at their age, the report found that younger generations are matching their additional property ownership rates, with 7 percent of those born in the 1960s and those born in the 1980s owning additional property by the age of 29.

This indicates that millennial property wealth, like the property wealth of older generations, is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the rich, the report noted.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Care for Older People report calls for a national strategy to avoid a “crisis of pensioner homelessness,” with at least 38,000 new rental homes being built specifically for older people.

This will do virtually nothing to alleviate the housing crisis blighting the UK.

Access to decent and affordable housing is a basic social right, but under capitalism it is increasingly unavailable. Only a socialist reorganisation of society can satisfy the desperate and growing need for decent housing for all.

The never-ending austerity programme of the ruling class and all of its political parties, which has plunged millions into poverty over the last decade, exacerbating the housing crisis, must be reversed and billions allocated to provide decent-paying jobs, free and high-quality health care, housing, education and social services for all. The wealth of the billionaires must be expropriated to help meet these social needs, along with the nationalisation of the major corporations and their transformation into democratically-controlled public utilities.

Australian households’ cost of living soars above consumer price index

Margaret Rees

According to the official statistics, a big jump in petrol prices pushed the cost of living up by 0.6 percent in the second quarter of 2019, and up 1.6 percent from a year earlier. In reality, however, recent calculations have shown that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) severely understates the soaring living costs confronting working class households.

Over the past two decades, it is now undeniably clear that a large gap has emerged between the CPI and the standard of living, thanks to skyrocketing prices for essential goods and services, as opposed to prices for discretionary items.

Since 2000, the CPI has risen by 57 percent, but secondary education costs have increased 203 percent, and hospital and medical services by 195 percent. Primary education and preschool costs have risen 159 percent, and electricity by 194 percent. Childcare has increased by 97 percent and housing by 94 percent.

These price increases far outstrip average wages, which are counted as having risen by 78 percent. For working class households, the gap is even wider because the average wage figure is inflated by the rapid rise in incomes in the wealthiest layers of society.

Compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the CPI measures price changes for a “basket” of goods and services—food and non-alcoholic beverages, alcohol and tobacco, clothing and footwear, housing, furnishings and household goods and services, health, transport, communication, recreation and culture, education, insurance and financial services.

Asset manager Anthony Doyle, from Fidelity International, tracked the price movements in various CPI sub-categories. He documented a stark divergence in price movements between goods and services that most people must buy, and those that are more discretionary, such as clothes, cars, audio visual equipment, furniture and toys and games.

“It’s very much a difference between what households want and what households need to buy,” Doyle told ABC Radio National “Breakfast.” “The categories that have experienced rapid price inflation, like secondary-education school fees, you pay every quarter, childcare, you pay this week-in, week-out, housing—you can’t avoid that, you need shelter.”

From 2000, clothing and footwear prices fell by 10 percent, cars by 10 percent, games and toys by 16 percent and electronics, such as phones, TVs and computers, by 89 percent. “The average household, when they look at the CPI, I would agree that they probably think that it’s misrepresentative of their own personal cost of living,” Doyle commented.

The class content to these figures is that the biggest price increases affect the essentials that working people have to buy constantly, while the price falls cover goods that higher-income households can choose to purchase or frequently update.

One problem is that the CPI does not take into account the higher prices for more advanced audio visual and computing items. Instead, it compares them on a supposed “like for like” basis. But a technologically-advanced smart phone, for example, costs above $1,000—much more than an early 2000s handset.

Another defect in the CPI is that it does not include the cost of buying an existing home, only that of a newly-built one. Housing prices have risen far faster than wages since 2000, particularly for existing properties.

The decline in the cost of the discretionary goods is the result of the globalisation of production over the past four decades, based on advanced technologies, dominated by transnational corporations that take advantage of cheap labour on a global scale.

Workers in the most oppressed countries are producing these goods under slave-like conditions, while the purchasing power of workers’ wages is increasingly falling behind because of the skyrocketing costs of essential items. In other words, workers bear the burden on every front.

Moreover, although the figures show the trend, they do not explain why prices have soared for basic services. The privatisation of utilities, health services and education, transforming them into sources of corporate profit, has driven the massive increases in the costs that workers have to bear.

For instance, the establishment of a national electricity market, initiated by the Keating Labor government in the 1990s, has enabled speculators to cash in on high spot prices during peak periods. Successive governments, both Labor and Liberal-National, have ensured that the corporate operators have reaped substantial profits.

In health care, governments have expanded the profit-making activities of private hospitals, insurance corporations and pharmaceutical giants. As for education, the Rudd-Gillard Labor government’s “revolution” opened the door to private providers and edu-businesses to make fortunes from their increased role in schools and colleges.

Whether it be the privatisation of electricity, health care or education, the trade unions have suppressed workers’ opposition to the destruction of jobs and conditions and thus bear full responsibility for the enrichment of the corporate and financial elite at the expense of the working class.

During the 1980s, in response to globalised production, the Hawke and Keating Labor governments, with the full support of the unions, imposed economic “restructuring” to meet the demands of big business for “international competitiveness.”

As a consequence, there has been a continuing redistribution of wealth from the poorest to the richest layers. The latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, released this week, pointed to a decade-long decline in living standards, accompanied by worsening social inequality.

The HILDA report indicated that median household income has fallen in real terms, adjusted for inflation, since the 2008-09 global financial crisis by $542 a year to $80,595—an historic reversal. Average income, which is magnified by the highest income recipients, has grown by $3,156, or 3.5 percent, to near $95,000, thus widening the gap between the top and the bottom.

Because inflation is measured by the CPI, both rates are well below the actual cost of living, but lower-income households have been falling behind by far the most over the past decade, and are increasingly unable to make ends meet.

Unions step up sabotage of airline workers’ struggles in Europe

Robert Stevens 

British Airways (BA) lost a legal appeal Wednesday to prevent its pilots going on strike over pay. BA’s parent company International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG) first went to court the previous week, but its initial application was dismissed.

Were the strike to proceed, it would involve 4,000 pilots at Heathrow and Gatwick but affect flights from all UK airports, including Stansted, Manchester, Belfast, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Up to 140,000 passengers a day would be affected by the action.

The dispute takes place amid a growing mood of militancy among airline workers across the continent. More than 4,000 security guards, fire fighters, engineers and passenger service staff at London Heathrow are involved in a pay dispute after rejecting an 18-month pay rise offer averaging just 2.7 percent. The Unite union called off two planned days of industrial action set for July 26-27 and is asking its members to vote on a new offer of just 7.3 percent over two-and-a-half years.

On Friday evening, Unite announced that 88 percent of its members had rejected the new offer and 2,500 workers were prepared to strike next week. In response, Heathrow Airport announced the “pre-emptive” cancellation of 172 flights for next Monday and Tuesday.

In another dispute, security workers at London’s Gatwick Airport are set to strike on August 10 for 48 hours in a pay dispute. The Unite members, employed by ICTS, scan passengers’ luggage. According to Unite, most of the 130 workers are paid less than £9 an hour.

The British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA), which represents 90 percent of British Airways’ 4,300 pilots, held a consultative ballot in June of its 4,000 members concerning BA’s offer of an 11.5 percent pay deal over three years. Ninety-six percent of members voted down the offer. Due to the huge opposition, a strike ballot was held this month, with 93 percent rejecting the pay offer on a turnout of 90 percent. The Unite and GMB unions representing other BA staff accepted the offer.

A strike would be the first by BA pilots in 40 years and their rejection of the deal in such numbers reveals a determination to end the constant lowering of pay along with productivity hikes imposed over the last decade.

BALPA noted that so concerned is IGA with keeping pay down that it is digging in its heals under conditions where just one day of a strike might cost it £40 million in revenue. BALPA said that based on figures BA presented in court, a strike “will cost far more” than it would take to settle the dispute.

But despite the overwhelming mandate, BALPA has refused to call any industrial action. Under anti-strike laws, BALPA has until January to take action, but it must give two weeks’ notice. Despite headlines in the right-wing media that the union is attempting to bring BA to its knees during the height of the holiday season, BALPA has repeatedly declared that all it wants is a negotiated settlement.

As the Court of Appeal decision came through, BALPA General Secretary Brian Strutton said that BA taking the union to court “rather than deal with us across the negotiating table, has sadly wasted huge amounts of time and money that could have been put into finding a peaceful resolution.” He continued, “Now the window for negotiation and compromise is closing fast.”

BALPA called only for “a sensible improved offer” and a “small fraction” of BA’s profits.

Strutton insisted that “BALPA wants to resolve this matter through negotiation and so we are not announcing strike dates… Instead, we have called on BA to hold further talks today [July 31] and for the rest of this week for one last try to resolve this dispute by negotiation.”

On Friday, despite having secured no agreement after another three days of talks, the union tweeted, “Both sides have agreed to resume talks next week. In the meantime, BALPA will not announce any industrial action dates at this time…”

Even if a strike were announced by the union next Monday, action could not legally take place until August 20, with the summer holiday season virtually over.

The deteriorating pay and conditions facing BA pilots and other staff constitute an indictment of the role of the trade unions, which have worked as an arm of management for years. Within the space of a decade, BA went from reporting a £230 million operating loss in 2009 to pre-tax super-profits of almost £2 billion in 2018, up 8.7 percent from 2017. BA’s owner, IAG, which also owns Spain’s Iberia and Ireland’s Aer Lingus, reported an overall pre-tax profit of £2.8 billion, nearly 10 percent higher than in 2017. Investors were awarded a “special dividend” of €700 million as a result.

Three years ago, BALPA accepted a sell-out pay deal that it and the company deemed vital for BA’s “survival” and return to profitability. BALPA referred to its rotten record in a July 22 press release: “BA is making massive profits as a result of the hard work and dedication of staff, including because of sacrifices made during hard times. Thankfully BA is no longer in a fight for survival so, like the airline’s senior managers and directors, pilots deserve a small fraction of that profit via, for instance, a profit share scheme.”

The unions are working in concert to head off any united offensive of airline workers at the UK’s busiest airports.

Last month, Unite called off the first day of a planned 17 days of strikes over pay against Easyjet at Stansted Airport. The 43 staff members involved in the strike action are employed by Stobart and work the Easyjet check-in desk.

The union put forward another pay deal to the workers after it held “positive talks” with the firm and “signed a recognition agreement with Unite for trade union collective bargaining purposes…” Yesterday, the union called off the strike after workers voted for a one-year pay deal, while the company boasted of having ended the strike.

The unions play the same role everywhere. On July 25, the AFPA union called off a scheduled strike by workers at Italian national carrier Alitalia. Some 113 flights to and from Italy were expected to be cancelled. The strike was pushed back to September 6 after the union concluded talks with the Transport Ministry. Several sources said the September action would be cut from 24 hours to just four.

This week, the ALPA union organised a token boycott of company events by Air Malta pilots in protest at the courts upholding a legal injunction against the pilots banning them from taking industrial action in a dispute over conditions of work.

The airlines are responding to increased competition in a cutthroat industry by intensifying attacks on their global workforce. This week, Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, reported a 19 percent fall in first-quarter profits over the same period a year ago, and a 21 percent increase in staff costs. In response, as revealed in a leaked video, the company said it expects to lay off hundreds of staff in the coming weeks. The firm had 500 too many pilots and 400 too many cabin crew and job losses were “unavoidable,” said chief executive Michael O’Leary.

As with other airlines, the prolonged grounding of Boeing’s unsafe 737 MAX 8 jet has forced Ryanair to reduce scheduled deliveries of the aircraft for next year, from 58 to 30. Ryanair said this will hit profits as any cost benefits from the aircraft it planned to accrue would be delayed until 2021.

Last summer, cabin crews and pilots from a number of European countries took part in a series of strikes against Ryanair’s low-wage regime.

The offensive by BA, Ryanair and all the other airlines poses the necessity for workers to begin to organise themselves independently of the nationalist unions and turn to a socialist, internationalist perspective that puts the interests of workers before the profit interests of the airline conglomerates.

US scrapping of INF treaty heightens threat of nuclear war

Bill Van Auken

Washington formally scrapped the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty Friday, bringing the world a major step closer to nuclear war.

The treaty, signed over 30 years ago by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, banned a whole class of weapons that had placed the world on a hair trigger for a nuclear conflict. Both countries agreed to end all use and production of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,417 miles).

CNN reported that the Pentagon will test within weeks a new cruise missile designed for ranges previously banned by the INF accord. The US military has reportedly been working on the weapon for the last two years.

An unnamed US official told the television news network that Washington aims to deploy the weapon in areas of Europe where it could overpower Russian air defense systems and strike “the country’s ports, military bases or critical infrastructure.”

Short and medium-range surface-to-surface missiles, including the Pershing II and the MGM Lance, were deployed by the United States in Western Europe in the early 1980s, while the Soviet Union had deployed SS-20 mobile missile launchers in the western USSR. These weapons had the capability of striking most major cities in Western Europe and the Soviet Union within minutes. The threat of a nuclear conflict on the continent triggered mass demonstrations against the US missile deployment, particularly in West Germany.

The abrogation of the agreement is bound up with Washington’s turn toward “great power conflict” with Russia and China, in which US imperialism is seeking to leverage its military power as a means of containing Russia and countering the economic rise of China and its challenge to US global hegemony.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued the formal announcement of the US repudiation of the treaty, placing the full blame for its demise on Russia, even though it was the US that ripped up the agreement. “Russia failed to return to full and verified compliance through the destruction of its noncompliant missile system,” he said.

Moscow has repeatedly denied this claim, insisting that its SSC-8 ground-launched cruise missile, which Washington says is out of compliance with the treaty, is not in violation. While it has invited the US and other powers as well as foreign journalists to inspect the weapons system, Washington has rebuffed all appeals for negotiations, issuing ultimatums to Russia that it knows will not be accepted.

Russia, meanwhile, has insisted that the US is out of compliance with the accord, having deployed missile defense systems in Poland and Romania that are equipped with launchers identical to those used by US warships capable of firing medium-range Tomahawk cruise missiles. It has also charged that the US deployment of armed drones on the continent is a further violation of the accord.

The US government’s determination to upend the treaty and its restrictions on the development of medium-range missiles is aimed not just at escalating its military siege against Russia, but more fundamentally at preparing for “great power” conflict with China.

In response to the US encirclement of China and the deployment of massive naval and air power in the Pacific region as part of the “pivot to Asia” begun under the Obama administration, Beijing, which is not a signatory of the INF treaty, developed its own medium-range missiles.

The Pentagon wants to answer this development by deploying offensive missile systems of its own in the region aimed at China’s major cities. It is no accident that the termination of the treaty prohibiting such a deployment coincides with the sharp escalation of US trade war measures against China.

While the decision to abrogate the treaty was announced by the Trump administration last February, the formal repudiation of the accord provoked condemnations from both Moscow and Beijing.

“On the famous symbolic clock that shows the time left until nuclear conflict, we have unfortunately passed yet another minute towards midnight,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an English-language interview with RT. He added that “even though President Trump is saying that there is no point in an arms race and investment in military equipment, this will continue.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, “China opposes such actions,” adding, “We call on the United States to abide by its obligations.”

She went on to accuse Washington of seeking “superiority in strategic weaponry” and warning that this would “seriously affect stability and undermine the global balance of power,” threatening “security in many regions.”

While most Western European governments and NATO echoed Washington’s claims that Russia was responsible for the treaty’s demise, there were nonetheless expressions of concern. German Foreign Minister Maas stated that “With the end of the INF treaty, Europe is losing part of its security.” He added, “I am convinced that today we must again succeed in agreeing [to] rules on disarmament and arms control in order to prevent a new nuclear arms race.”

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders wrote on Twitter: “I regret the ending of the INF Treaty, which has served our security for over 30 years. Belgium reaffirms its commitment to nuclear arms control and disarmament and calls upon the US and Russia to conduct a constructive dialogue and agree on stabilizing measures.”

Belgium, along with the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey, is one of the countries where US nuclear bombs are deployed.

None of Washington’s Western European allies have given any indication that they are prepared to accept the deployment of medium-range missiles on their territory. Moscow has made clear that any such missile installations would immediately become targets.

Behind the statements about the abrogation of the INF Treaty undermining Europe’s security lies a turn toward escalation by the major European powers, in particular Germany, of remilitarization independently of the US.

The ripping up of the INF Treaty is widely expected to be followed by the ending of the even more significant New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) agreement. If not renewed, New START will expire in 2021. The pact caps the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads by both Russia and the US to 1,550, and places similar limits on the two countries’ intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Trump has described the pact as “one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama administration,” while his national security adviser, John Bolton, has been telling the media that it will likely not be renewed. This would mean no remaining treaties restricting the buildup toward nuclear war.

The Pentagon is openly preparing for such a conflict. A “joint doctrine” on nuclear operations briefly posted on the internet in mid-June states that “nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability." It continues: "Specifically, the use of nuclear weapons will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and develop situations that call for commanders to win.”

The Pentagon is working to develop an arsenal of “usable,” low-yield “tactical” nuclear weapons to be utilized to turn the tide of battle in confrontations with US imperialism’s “great power” rivals. The underlying and highly unlikely scenario is that such weapons could be used without provoking a full-scale nuclear exchange, putting an end to life on the planet.

The immense dangers posed by the Trump administration’s abrogation of the INF Treaty and the significant step closer to nuclear war provoked no response from Trump's ostensible political rival, the Democratic Party.

Having voted overwhelmingly in both the House and Senate for a record $738 billion US military budget, the Democrats are fully committed to the march toward a nuclear conflagration. Neither House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who negotiated the budget deal with the Trump White House, nor Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said anything about the scrapping of the INF treaty.

For his part, Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden tweeted that the US “must lead the free world.” This was accompanied by anti-Chinese comments. Similarly, Elizabeth Warren kept silent about the treaty’s abrogation while tweeting that the US had “to get tough on China”, while Bernie Sanders said nothing.

There is no antiwar faction within the US ruling establishment, nor any interest on the part of the Democrats or the corporate media in alerting the American people to the growing threat of a global nuclear conflagration. This threat can be answered only through the construction of a mass antiwar movement based on the unification of the international working class in the struggle against capitalism.

Big business parties preside over a social catastrophe in 21st century America

Kate Randall

The second Democratic Party debate held on Tuesday and Wednesday in Detroit featured the four “frontrunners”—former Vice President Joe Biden and Senators Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders—and 16 others engaging in the standard mixture of demagogy and lies.

The content of the debate could be divided into three categories: (1) promises made that none of the 20 will ever make good on, (2) chastising each other for their right-wing policies, and (3) depicting right-wing policies they have championed as progressive.

Left off the debate stage was any serious discussion of the unprecedented social catastrophe gripping 21st century America, for which both parties are responsible: falling working class living standards, declining indices of health, the assault on immigrants, police killings, mass incarceration, the US prosecution of endless war around the globe.

These omissions are by design: The Democrats have no more intention than the Republicans of addressing the burning social questions confronting the working class. Just what is the horrific state of affairs that they seek to cover up and make worse for workers and their families?

Social inequality

The wealth of the ruling elite is soaring to new heights. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has the world’s highest net worth: $131.4 billion. The average annual income among US households in the top 1 percent stands at about $1.8 million, while average income among the lowest fifth of households is a paltry $21,000. The average hoard of the 10 highest net worth individuals is 222,530 times the annual income of a worker earning a $15 “living wage,” who works 40 hours per week.

There are about 40 million people living in poverty, based on the absurdly low official poverty threshold of $25,000 for a family of four. This includes 15 million children. While struggling to pay for housing, transportation, food and other necessities, 40 percent of Americans say they would have trouble coming up with $400 for an unexpected expense, like a medical bill.

Working families are drowning in debt, including for credit card payments. Student debt reached an astronomical $1.5 trillion last year, while auto debt is up nearly 40 percent in the last decade, adjusting for inflation, to $1.3 trillion. Household debt increased by nearly $9 trillion between 1989 and 2018, with 74 percent of that issued to the bottom 90 percent of households by net worth.

Declining life expectancy & “deaths of despair”

Life expectancy, a key indicator of a society’s well-being, has declined each of the last three years. “Deaths of despair”—premature deaths from suicide, alcohol abuse or drug overdose—continue to rise in nearly every state. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2017 there were more than 70,000 deaths due to drug overdoses, with opioids involved in more than 47,000 of these.

Paradoxically, the high cost and/or lack of health care is contributing to Americans’ deteriorating health, as health is subordinated to the profit of the health care industry. As of the end of 2018, 30 million adults remained uninsured; 44 percent of the population had insurance but were considered “underinsured” due to high out-of-pocket costs.

Deteriorating working conditions

Wages have remained basically stagnant over the last two decades. Over the last year, average hourly wages have grown by only about 3.2 percent, which, when accounting for inflation, amounts to a mere 1 percent increase. In July, average weekly hours edged lower to 34.3, as increasing numbers of workers are pushed into part-time work involuntarily.

Plant closures are slamming the auto industry as the contract expiration for General Motors, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler workers approaches. As the debate took place in Detroit, GM closed its 78-year-old transmission plant in Warren, Michigan. The plant is one of five in North America the company has slated for closure by early 2020, at a total cost of 14,000 production and white-collar jobs.

The US industrial slaughterhouse claimed 5,147 workers’ lives in 2017. Workers are killed daily in manufacturing, steel plants, on the road, in construction, in retail and other service industries, and in myriad other occupations.

Unintentional overdoses due to alcohol or nonmedical use of drugs at work increased from 210 in 2016 to 272 in 2017, the fifth consecutive year in which unintentional workplace overdose deaths have increased by at least 25 percent. Workers are increasingly bringing their personal problems, particularly their financial troubles, to work in the form of drug and alcohol abuse, with deadly results.

Violence “Made in the USA”

There were a staggering 39,773 gun deaths in 2017 in the US, up by more than 1,000 from the year before. This was the largest yearly total on record in the CDC’s electronic database, which goes back 50 years. Nearly two-thirds of these deaths were suicides; 37 percent were homicides.

According to the Washington Post, 519 people have been killed in police shootings so far in 2019; 992 were killed in 2018.

The US prison system holds almost 2.3 million people, the highest number and the highest rate of incarceration of any country on record. The American gulag comprises 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails, as well as military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the US territories.

About one in 143 people in America is incarcerated. Two-and-a-half thousand languish on death rows across the country. Despite growing popular opposition to capital punishment, it is still practiced. Since 1973, 1,500 people have been sent to their deaths; 25 were executed in five states in 2018.

The war on immigrants

On any given day, 40,000 immigrants are incarcerated in the US. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) concedes that half of those imprisoned pose no criminal threat, and that another 35 percent are held for traffic tickets and other nominal infractions. The biggest complaints of immigrants in custody are related to inferior medical care or lack thereof, poor food and prolonged detention.

Since 2018, the Trump administration has carried out 2,300 separations of children from their parents. Children and families have been caged, held under overpasses and in tents, and exposed to the heat. Children and adults have been forced to sleep on the bare floor and have been denied access to proper sanitation and showers.

Since last year, three Guatemalan children in US custody have died from influenza and its complications. Due to a lack of any systematic health care, immigrants have been found to suffer from tuberculosis, pneumonia, scabies, lice, the mumps and other preventable communicable diseases.

Earlier this year the Trump administration threatened a dragnet to round up some 2,000 immigrants. While this has yet to materialize in these numbers, the aim has been to terrorize the population. The threat has garnered opposition from wide layers of the population, with demonstrations taking place in cities and towns across the country and internationally. In one instance last month, a working class neighborhood in Nashville rallied to support a man and his son threatened by ICE with deportation and prevented it.

A government of war, violence and austerity

The indices of social crisis detailed above are an indictment, not only of the Trump administration, but of the Democratic Party. In the wake of this week’s Democratic debate there has been a backlash in the Democratic-supporting media and among Obama supporters against the attacks made against his administration in the course of the debate.

Their concern is that in the hypocritical criticisms of Obama, more is said than intended. The basic reality is that the policies of the Trump administration were prepared by his predecessor, and that the Democrats are currently functioning as Trump’s enablers.

The US Senate, with overwhelming Democratic support, just passed a budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1 that includes a record $738 billion for the military and $638 billion for everything else, a gap of more than $100 billion. The House passed the bill earlier, also with the support of the Democrats.

Any action against the deplorable state of US society will not come through the maneuvers of either big business party. Both support the exploitation of the mass of workers by a tiny minority of bloated millionaires.

The massive social crisis in the United States—repeated in different forms internationally—cannot be addressed outside of a fundamental transformation in social and economic relations. The unimaginable wealth of the ruling elite must be expropriated and the giant banks and corporations transformed into public utilities. The endless diversion of resources toward war and plunder must be redirected to meet basic social needs.

The social catastrophe in America is a product of capitalism. It must be overturned through socialist revolution.