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	<title>World Socialist Party (US) &#187; Featured</title>
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		<title>World Socialist Party (US) &#187; Featured</title>
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		<title>Socialism  And The Environment &#8211; Part One</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2011/02/socialism-and-the-environment-part-one/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2011/02/socialism-and-the-environment-part-one/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2011 07:39:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>WSPUS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2108</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Introduction In recent years the environment has become a major political issue.  And rightly so, because a serious environmental crisis really does exist.  The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat have all become contaminated to a greater or lesser extent.  Ecology – the branch of biology that studies the relationships of living organisms to their environment –is important, as it is concerned with explaining exactly what has been happening and what is likely to happen if present trends continue. Since the publication of the World Socialist Movement&#8217;s pamphlet, Ecology and Socialism, of 1990 environmental problems facing the planet have got much worse.  We said then that attempts to solve those problems within capitalism would meet with failure, and that is precisely what has happened.  Recent research on increasing environmental degradation has painted an alarming picture of the likely future if the profit system continues to hold sway.  Voices claiming that the proper use of market forces will solve the problem can still be heard, but as time goes on the emerging facts of what is happening serve only to contradict those voices. In this pamphlet we start with a brief review of the development of Earth [...]


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		<title>What is Common Ownership?</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2010/04/what-is-common-ownership/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2010/04/what-is-common-ownership/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Apr 2010 05:05:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>FN Brill</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1498</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Quite simply, the common ownership of the world’s resources and productive capacity is the basis for a reorganisation of society that would ensure plenty of the necessities of life for everyone on the planet &#8211; no more starving, malnourished people, no wandering homeless, no senseless deaths for the want of easily affordable medical care and medicine, no more poverty, unemployment, or inequality. How can this be so? Surely, if it were possible to eliminate these scourges we would have done it long ago. Aren’t we working on these problems anyway? At present we live in a world where the resources of the Earth and the products made from them, the processes needed to make them, and the transportation systems to get them to you, are all owned by private individuals. A company proposes to extract resources or manufacture commodities. It needs money in order to do this. Wealthy people loan the company the necessary capital, but they don’t do it for nothing. They will expect a healthy return on their money every year of say, 10 percent, or 100 000 on every million pounds loaned. If this return is below expectations, then the lenders will withdraw their funds and look [...]


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		<item>
		<title>Marx’s Conception of Socialism</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2009/12/marxs-conception-of-socialism/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2009/12/marxs-conception-of-socialism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 26 Dec 2009 07:00:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>FN Brill</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World Socialist Perspective]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1116</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Marx&#8217;s Conception of Socialism Marx usually referred to the society he aimed to see established by the working class as &#8220;communist society&#8221;. Precisely because he believed that &#8220;communist society&#8221; would be the outcome of the struggle and movement of the working class against its capitalist conditions of existence, Marx always refused to give any detailed picture of what he expected it to be like: that was something for the working class to work out for itself. Nevertheless scattered throughout his writings, published and unpublished, are references to what he believed would have to be the basic features of the new society the working class would establish in place of capitalism. Voluntary Association It must be emphasised that nowhere did Marx distinguish between &#8220;socialist society&#8221; and &#8220;communist society&#8221;. As far as he, and Engels, were concerned these two words meant the same, being alternative names for the society they thought the working class would establish in place of capitalism, a practice which will be followed in this article. As a matter of fact besides communist Marx employed four other words to describe future society: associated, socialised, collective and co-operative. All these words convey a similar meaning and bring out the contrast [...]


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		<title>Unemployment – Is it really the problem?</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2009/12/unemployment-is-it-really-the-problem/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2009/12/unemployment-is-it-really-the-problem/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:39:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stefan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Work]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1102</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Unemployment &#8211; Is it really the problem? Is unemployment really the problem? Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to play down the misery of the millions who have lost their jobs – or the millions more who are going to lose their jobs – as the world slides deeper into the next Great Depression. I know very well what losing your job so often means. Losing your home (well, you thought it was yours!). Losing medical coverage (if you had it). Even losing your family. But think. If not being employed was really the problem, wouldn’t you expect everyone without a job to be in misery? But there are many people who don’t have jobs and yet live well enough. People who don’t need jobs. Native people in the Amazon rainforest, for so long as they manage to preserve their old way of life, don’t need jobs. They  have access to land, food, wood, medicinal herbs, other resources they need – to their means of life. When the logging and mining companies move in, they lose access. Sure, then they need jobs. Most of us in the “developed” countries lost access to the means of life long ago. They [...]


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		<title>Banks, money and thin air</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/12/banks-money-and-thin-air/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/12/banks-money-and-thin-air/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:17:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>ALB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=860</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An urban myth is circulating on the internet that banks have been creating money out of thin air. Those who have seen the cult film Zeitgeist and its sequel Zeitgeist Addendum, popular amongst conspiracy theorists and others suspicious of governments and banks, will have heard recounted the argument that banks can somehow create money out of thin air by the stroke of a pen or, these days, by the touch of a computer keyboard. In Zeitgeist Addendum this argument is based on what is stated in an educational booklet published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Entitled Modern Money Mechanics it first came out in 1975 and has gone through several editions. Zeitgeist Addendum begins by describing how it thinks the Federal Reserve Bank (the “Fed”) creates money. If, it says, the government wants more money then, through the Treasury, it creates Treasury bonds which it exchanges with the Fed for currency notes of the same face value; as the government has to pay interest on the bonds this adds to the National Debt and so is “debt money”. Both the Treasury bonds and the currency notes have been created out of thin air. This is one way of [...]


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		<title>The War Business</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/12/the-war-business/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/12/the-war-business/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 06 Dec 2008 05:17:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=833</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[But nowadays arms firms are not the only large-scale “merchants of death.” Companies like Blackwater sell combat capability directly as the labour of hired mercenaries. Other companies, such as Halliburton, sell logistics and other war support services.


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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Real African Pirates</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/11/the-real-african-pirates/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/11/the-real-african-pirates/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:32:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>WSM Africa</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=804</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[South Korea&#8217;s Daewoo Logistics this week announced it had negotiated a 99-year lease on some 3.2 million acres of farmland on Madagascar ,about half the size of Belgium , That&#8217;s nearly half of Madagascar&#8217;s arable land, according to the U.N.&#8217;s Food and Agricultural Organization, and Daewoo plans to put about three quarters of it under corn. The remainder will be used to produce palm oil — a key commodity for the global biofuels market. In Madagascar, where about 70% of the country&#8217;s 20 million people live below the poverty line. The island&#8217;s residents also rely on WFP emergency food relief programs because of the frequency with which they&#8217;re struck by cyclones and droughts. Given those hardships, the prospect of a corporate giant growing hundreds of tons of food to be consumed by people and animals in Korea raises &#8220;ethical concerns,&#8221; says David Hallam, head of the FAO&#8217;S Trade Policy Service in Rome. &#8220;If we have another world food crisis, and you have a poor country where food is produced by foreign investors, and then repatriated, that is ethically and political tricky,&#8221; Hallam warns. Al-Qudra Holding, an investment company based in Abu Dhabi, said in August it planned to buy 400,000 hectares of arable land [...]


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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Materialist Conception of History</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/11/materialistic-conception-of-history/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/11/materialistic-conception-of-history/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:37:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>WSPUS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[History]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marxism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=799</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Down through the ages there have been various interpretations of history. For example, there are the theories which see in history the working out and realization of some sort of divine plan &#8211; like Hegel&#8217;s philosophy of history, which sees the whole historical development of society as the realization stage by stage of the so-called Absolute Idea. Again, there are the various theories which see history as moving through &#8220;cycles,&#8221; every civilization passing by some inescapable necessity through the cycle of rise, plentitude of power and decline &#8211; as in Spengler&#8217;s Decline of the West or Toynbee&#8217;s Studies in History. These are idealist theories and socialists are opposed to them. The idealism of such theories lies in the fact that they see the laws of development of society as a &#8220;fate&#8221; imposed upon society from outside, so that men and women are mere instruments of fate, the tools of external necessity. If such theories are accepted, then we are driven to fatalism. If what takes place is in the hands of God, or is decreed by fate, or follows by some iron necessity &#8211; it makes little difference in practice which you say &#8211; then it follows there is little [...]


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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Is capitalism crumbling?</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/11/is-capitalism-crumbling/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/11/is-capitalism-crumbling/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:01:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/economics/is-capitalism-crumbling/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Stephen Muchiri, head of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation, stated recently that: &#8220;The amount of money used for the bailouts in the U.S. and Europe &#8212; people here are saying that money is enough to feed the poor in Africa for the next three years.&#8221; This estimate seems to be rather conservative as, according to this month&#8217;s Socialist Standard Editorial, &#8220;The sums of money hastily committed to increase banks&#8217; liquidity and stabilise the sector would – if used to meet real human needs &#8211; ensure not one person need die of hunger for the next 23 years.&#8221; Capitalism has gotten bad press in the last few months. Countless commentators have given more than a passing consideration to the question, will capitalism collapse? Whilst this hopeful question could be expected to emanate from excitable journalists, and from the rump of what remains of the left-wing throughout the world, it should be noted that the likes of Bill Gates and Nicolas Sarkozy have been asking similar questions. The real challenge to capitalism however is not so much a challenge to its on-going operation – it will carry on in some shape or form regardless. The last few months are after all nothing [...]


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		<item>
		<title>A Booming Industry (even in a recession)</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/10/a-booming-industry-even-in-a-recession/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/10/a-booming-industry-even-in-a-recession/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 26 Oct 2008 03:40:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=679</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A recent issue of the magazine TIME (14 October) highlighted the immense profits to be made in capitalism even in a trade recession. &#8221; Need to start a war? No problem. While stock markets grate and financial institutions (and even whole countries, like Iceland) teeter on bankruptcy, one global industry is still drawing plenty of high-end trades and profits: weapons.&#8221; The article reported the case in a Paris courtroom where 42 officials went on trial for taking millions in kickbacks and organising huge arms commissions from the Angolan government during the mid-1990s. This group, which included a former French Interior minister,Charles Pasqua and the son of the late French President Mitterand, were charged with having supplied almost $800 million worth of arms to Angola, including 12 helicopters, 6 naval vessels, 150,000 shells and 170,000 mines. The Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos used this huge stockpile to crush the US-backed Unita rebels during Angola&#8217;s devastating civil war. It is worth noting that Dos Santos is reckoned to have made millions of dollars from the transaction and that he is still in power with no prospect of a fraud trial for him. The source of this arms hardware was the huge [...]


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