The ever-growing surplus value

I'm borrowing here a graph appeared at Naked Capitalism (data for the USA but it could be anywhere):

 

The implications are obvious: capitalists have been taking an ever growing share of the produced wealth since c. 1972. Previously, in what some have described as the period of "generous capitalism" (caused by the Cold War and fear of socialist revolutions) surplus value (the share of production appropriated by capitalists as manager class of the economy) was more or less stable, but since the 1970s it has grown steadily up to more than double, while real wages have remained stable. 

Wages are the share of production kept by producers, workers. But beware: salaries have remained stable but the share of wealth retained by producers has declined very sharply. 

This is how Capitalism works normally in fact. Marx explained it in Das Kapital with the example of the pin factory, in which vast improvements in technology and organization of production (~ productivity) led only to loss of jobs, not any improvement to the conditions of workers but exactly the opposite. 

Only radical and global class struggle caused a parenthesis in this natural tendency of Capitalism: the post-war decades of relatively shared affluence, which marked a generation that is now dying out.

But for all other generations of workers this is just the normal. And that is why Communism is extremely necessary and urgent.

Saudi Arabia: prince crosses lines and joins opposition

Khaled Bin Farhan Al-Saud, a royal prince from Saudi Arabia, recently declared his unilateral abandonment of the House of Saud. He was interviewed by Russia Today:

The royal defection clearly highlights the critical moment by which the Islamist Fascist regime is going through as the popular demand of human rights and social justice spreads through the region and, with growing intensity, inside the worst tyranny on Earth itself.

Spain: suicide the first cause of violent death, largely because of economic desperation

Most Spaniards who die violently do not fall in traffic or labor accidents but they kill themselves. The statistical data is just dripping with clear delay but in 2011 alone more than 3000 citizens killed themselves. It is estimated that some 32% of them do because of effects derived from the socio-economic crisis. 

The most notorious cases are surely those who lose their homes to foreclosures, invariably leaving them with huge debts, because in barbaric Spain, unlike in most other places, the mortgage debt is not canceled by foreclosure but remains forever (growing because of interests and other charges). Private bankruptcy is not a right in this infamous state. 

But there have been other notorious cases, some have killed themselves after being evicted for non-payment of rent, others in protest for not being attended in a family health emergency. Recently in Málaga, Leandro C.M.G. set himself on fire before the regional administration in protest for the death of his mother who had been denied aid. The government washed its hands: the documentation provided was not sufficient... the body count countinues. 

The media barely covers these tragedies, while instead dedicates lots of space of a couple of notorious murders that seem to monopolize media attention since many years ago, as if we could care anymore.

A very incomplete list of suicides for economic causes can be found in the wiki[es] created by 15-M activists.

Sources[es]: Webguerrillero, Público, 15-M Wiki.

Spain: IMF wants to slash salaries another 10%

Cristina Lagarta, oops, I mean Christine Lagarde, IMF top boss and former right hand of fascist French President Sarkozy, wants Spain to slash salaries another 10% (a 7% was already cut last year to all public officers, excepted MPs).

Not just that Lagarde also wants a reduction of 1.7% in social security fees, along a substantial increase in the time needed to be entitled to a pension (from 25 to 35 years) and an undetermined further increase in the VAT tax (already dramatically increased). 

She also wants impossibles such as to to reach "a credible social pact".

On the other hand her forecasts are gloomy, even in the event of acceptance of her stupid demands: private consume would fall initially on these changes (of course) and unemployment would remain extreme even in 2017 (26% forecast).

In spite of rising the VAT and demolishing the social fabric, Lagarde imagines that prices would drop. 

Source: Gara[es].

Lagarde is a retard, reality instead

This woman is plain stupid (or rather a criminal and compulsive liar): salaries simply cannot fall under the living costs and she is not proposing any such measures other than hallucinating with a hypothetical price drop based on nothing. 

Real effective measures would be to force the housing market to adjust prices downwards dramatically and brutally increase the availability of cheap public housing (and/or allowing squatting of speculators' idle property). The extremely high (and anti-market) costs of housing are surely the main barrier to salary drop. You just can't work for less that it costs you to live. 

Another key barrier are the totally unjustified high prices of electricity bills, which have grown more than 50% in the last few years and more than 100% in the last decade. Spain now has the most expensive electricity bills in all the Eurozone, excepted Cyprus and Ireland.

If Spanish salaries have to fall, living costs have to fall first and foremost. And that means hurting the banks and the energy monopolies.

Neither Lagarde nor Barroso nor Rajoy will do that. But is the only logical thing to do other than outright communism.

Egypt: the "coup" is product of the popular revolution, not the other way around

image from WG

Let my stand on this matter be absolutely clear: regardless of whatever contacts and interactions between the actors involved, when millions walk out persistently in demand of change it cannot be caused by any single nor composite socio-political force but it responds to the real demands, anger and outrage of the People. In Egypt as in Turkey, Brazil or anywhere else.

Another thing is where the processes triggered by such a human tsunami leads to. Probably nowhere without a socialist alternative that can fulfill the popular demands of "bread, freedom and social justice", and this alternative seems so far not in the menu. 

But in any case:

1. Morsi was ruling almost illegally: when the Supreme Court annulled the Parliamentary and Constitutional Assembly elections (on quite good grounds), he did not obey and call new elections, obviously fearing that their pool position advantage (tolerated by Mubarak, sponsored by Saudi Arabia) had been already very eroded.
2. Critically, Morsi was ruling illegitimately, just as Rajoy does in Spain or Erdogan in Turkey. When you do not have the backing of a clear majority anymore, you must put your power at the disposition of the People, calling new elections. It is not and never will be legitimate to stay in power when popular support wanes in such dramatic manner. No matter what laws and constitutions say, they should say otherwise. 
3. Morsi has been an obedient puppet of the USA and its main regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Against the clear will of the Egyptian People he did not even open the border with Gaza in order to alleviate the Zionist siege and he has played always in favor of the Capitalist system of exploitation and therefore has not been able or even willing to solve the dire problems of the Egyptians, which cannot be solved in a Capitalist frame, be it fundamentalist or secular, authoritarian or pseudo-democratic. 
4. The Egyptian Army is highly dependent on US subsidies, being (with Israel and Colombia) one of the top beneficiaries of US military aid. The reason is obvious: the canals (Suez Canal in this case), as well as Egypt being a major regional power, at least potentially. Therefore we should not expect it to bite the hand that feeds them: their main interest is the stability within the Western-Capitalist imperial order, as that is what their master commands. Therefore their intervention is clearly intended to canalize the protests to a stable outcome and nothing else. 
5. Similarly the Muslim Brotherhood is highly dependent on financing by Saudi Arabia and other Arab tyrannies and therefore they will negotiate their place in the new system, knowing that they still have many supporters which will grant them a place under the sun in the new parliament and maybe government. If they do otherwise they will surely fragment and become quite irrelevant. 

The only one who is not dependent on foreign subsidies is the Egyptian Working People. Their demands are clear: bread, freedom and social justice. Will they be met by the new government? I doubt it but only time will tell.

Turkey: the People does not surrender!

Slingshot granny (source: Webguerrillero)

Tonight and today have seen some of the most intense fight in Turkey since the popular revolt began.

Police attacked Taksim Square overnight, evidencing Erdogan, who had just promised negotiations, as the liar he is.

Chronological report by Occupied Taksim:

23.00 The people of Gazi who have been subjected to enormous violence from the Turkish police blocked the main artery of the city.

23.30 Protesters in Istiklal Avenue forcing their way into the Taksim square.

23.40 People gathered in Kadikoy, trying to pass the bridge between Asia and Europe to get to the Taksim square.

00.02 People write down their blood types on their arms in case they get hurt by the brutal attacks of the police.

00.15 Thousands of people still flow to the Gezi Park.

00.30 Protestors are gathering in the Istiklal Avenue.

00.35 Police started attacking the protestors with blast bombs and tear gas in Ankara, capital city of Turkey.

They also report that the Internet was completely shut down in Turkey for hours. Police has been this morning defending their "conquest" of Taksim Square, with intermittent attacks to the crowds gathered around it. 

Taksim battle (source: Webguerrillero)

The struggles have produced many striking images, some of which well worth a Pulitzer prize:


... some of which have been compiled by Webguerrillero in a gallery:

Watercannon victim

Injured man being hauled away

Ingenuous weapons

Popular fire

More ingenuous weapons

Also determined nonviolence resistance

Water vs. fire

Fire won this time

More images at Webguerrillero: RESISTANBUL[es].

Also 50 attorneys who were staging a sit-in at the Justice Palace of Istanbul were arrested by police (→ Webguerrillero[es], incl. video).

Japan: government announces Cyprus-like "bail-in" mechanism to face bank collapse

The Japanese government has announced this self-defeating mechanism by which savers' money will be made part of the bank's capital if the private financial corporation is at risk of bankruptcy.

The mechanism will be to convert savings deposits into preferential shares, a scam mechanism already used in Spain to massively rob small savers, or something called "subordinated bonds".

According to some Japanese-language economic media:

By having the investors shoulder part of the loss in a financial crisis, the system will reduce the burden on taxpayers.

Problem here is that savers are not investors. Investors are those who hold capital shares, aka stock, aka equity. What this system does is to force customers into forcibly becoming investors precisely when the investment is collapsing.

Large scale savers will probably have no problem here: they will already be rushing their money to overseas banks, where it will be safer, so the main victims of this scheme will unavoidably be small and middle savers, often people who have been saving all their lives in order to have something to rely on when old. 

Japan is by far the most indebted state on Earth. Its stock market woes have been driving the global ones downwards in the last weeks. 

Source: EXSKF.

Turkish Revolution report (night 6-7 June)

Garanti, the bank which owns several TV channels in Turkey, all of which are censoring the information on the revolutionary uprising, has been faced now with a boycott. Small business owners are closing their accounts in it and returning the bank's card readers, as shown in the photo.

But they are doing much more: they occupied one of the TV stations forcing the matter to be debated in the waves.

Garanti is controlled 50-50 by Doğuş Group and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA).

Repression moves to Ankara

As the international attention is to great extent focused on Taksim Square and Istanbul, the repression there has weakened. However elsewhere in the country and very especially in Ankara, it has increased instead.

Causes of the uprising

Aytekin Kurtul Kaan, member of the Turkish Communist Party (TKP), explains in an article published in Spanish language the causes of the social anger, which I synthesize here:

1. Growing repression: the AKP government, especially since 2007 has increased the repression, directed especially against military officers who were reluctant to NATO hegemony and independent journalists. Most of the charges were reliant on telephone tapping, what has caused paranoia in the population. 

2. Anti-secularism: imposition of religion teaching in schools, transformation of secular schools into religious ones, even what in Turkey amounts to nearly "blasphemy": Erdogan claimed that the founders of the republic Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Ismet Inönü were "a pair of drunkards".

3. Economic disaster: even if it is not usually discussed because of the protection that Erdogan has in the Western and Arab halls of power, Turkey has a worse foreign debt than Greece, debt that has been partly hidden by the sellout of the country's assets to private investors. Also the productivity level is mediocre in spite of the very low salaries, what has damaged the economy after the trade association with the EU. Today only 16% of Turkish citizens live above poverty level and 14% lives under hunger level.

In addition to that the intervention in favor of the Islamists in the Syrian conflict has caused many troubles especially in the border areas, where Syrian fundamentalist militias have attacked Turkish citizens. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es] (link 1, link 2, link 3).

Turkish Revolution report (afternoon Jun 6): the struggle continues, deep reasons for the uprising

The demonstrations continue in all the Turkish state, with protests numbering hundreds of thousands and no sign of abating. 

The epicenter of the revolt, Gezi Park and nearby Taksim Square, is packed of people day and night, demanding the resignation of PM Erdogan, that of police commanders involved in murderous repression and the renounce by police to use its most deadly weapons, notably tear gas. 

The protesters, who are also marching through the country's towns in huge numbers, demand also the release of all those arrested and the legalization of popular assemblies. 

On the night from Tuesday to Wednesday police attacked again violently, with brutal use of tear gas, the protesters in Ankara, Istanbul, Tunceli and Hatay.

Worker strikes are joining the popular movement. Public workers had already called a strike beginning on June 5th, even before the uprising began, while metal workers have announced their own strike for this month, although the exact date is yet unclear. 

Deep socio-economic causes of the discontent

While the trigger of the uprising has been the brutal police repression against a local ecological-civic protest and the issue of Islamist authoritarianism and anti-secularism are also some of the causes, the main reasons seem to be of economical origin. 

Exactly the same as your typical conservative local party, the Islamo-Democrat AKP began in Turkey, as soon as they took power in 2002, a process of massive Thatcher-style privatizations with support by the IMF and all the Western bourgeois oligarchy. Soon all the wealth of the state was on sale: Turk Telekom, liquor industries, steel companies, Turkish Airlines, the tobacco company TEKEL, the electric network, public bank Halkbank. In 2009 even the water was privatized.

In spite of protests, the privatization nightmare continued unabated: highways were also privatized in 2011, while the textile, mining, oil, food and naval transport industries are scheduled to be given away to tycoons soon as well.

All this has created an immense wealth gap in country that was already quite poor.

Source: Webguerrillero[es] (link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4, videos).



Update: People who are trying to report on the Turkish unrest are being threatened by the police. Specifically an Spanish Erasmus exchange student living at Izmir declared that she would not send any more reports because of the fear of police retaliation. → Webguerrillero[es].

Navarre: opinion polls show the collapse of the twin party regime

The latest electoral opinion polls in Navarre show that the ruling twin-party regime would collapse if elections would be held now. Right now, a highly unpopular minority government by the Navarrese People's Union (UPN, a regional brand of the all-Spain reactionary People's Party, PP), shattered by brutal corruption scandals which have plundered the coffers of the Old Kingdom, is only held in place by the tactical neutrality of their former associates of the Socialist Party (PSOE, the other traditionally major all-Spain party) but the clamor for early elections is widespread, with levels of discontent that are unprecedented and even higher than elsewhere in the Kingdom of Spain.

Estimated electoral results in Navarre if elections would take place now (May 2013)

This would allow for almost only one realistic majority: a left-leaning and mostly pro-Basque coalition of GeroaBai, Bildu and United Left.

A theoretical alternative might be UPN-PP-GeroaBai, which should not be disdained considering the growing influence of the right-wing bourgeois "pro-Basque" EAJ-PNV party in this coalition (all the rest are independents, as all other NaBai parties have joined Bildu already), which flirts a lot with the Spanish Nationalist right-wing, but considering the peculiarities of Navarrese politics, I would consider this option unlikely at least initially, especially because of the extreme discontent of Navarrese society towards UPN these days.

The tendency suggests that the more the elections are delayed (to as late as 2015), the greater the political shift.

Election tendency in elected Chartered Deputies (total: 50)
2007 and 2011 are actual election results, 2013 is projection from opinion poll
In 2007 Bildu (nor any comparable force) was not allowed to run
NaBai and GeBai are shown as the same even if they are not identical formations at all

If the tendency continues as between 2011-13 and the elections take place in 2015 (as most suspect), then a purely mathematical extrapolation (in seats) could be:

• Bildu: 19 seats
• GeBai: 17 seats
• United Left: 7 seats
• UPN: 7 seats
• PSOE: 3 seats
• PP: 2 seats
• UPyD: 2 seats

Naturally that I find hard to imagine such a sweet scenario of radical change in the Old Kingdom but that's what raw maths suggest. If this projection would materialize, a purely left-wing government of Bildu with United Left would be natural (26 projected seats, absolute majority) and the bourgeois camp would find impossible to maneuver within the Navarrese Parliament, what would be a most welcome necessary change.

But, most optimist expectations aside, the situation looks grim in Navarre for the pro-Spanish bourgeois camp. It's all their merit, or rather their fault, it must be said.

Source: El Mundo en Cifras[es].

______________

Note: 

Nafarroa Bai (Yes to Navarre, NaBai) was formed as a coalition of Aralar (a breakaway faction of the Basque Nationalist Left), Basque Solidarity (EA, social-democratic Basque Nationalists), independents and the right-wing Basque Nationalist (or Traditionalist) Party (EAJ-PNV), almost extinct back then in Navarre. 

However when Bildu coalesced in 2010-11 from the illegal Basque Nationalist Left (ex-Batasuna, now Sortu), EA and a breakaway faction of United Left (Alternatiba), as well as a wide independent grassroots movement, NaBai became limited to Aralar, EAJ-PNV and independents like the current charismatic leader Uxue Barkos. Soon Aralar realized that they had almost no room in most of the Basque Country and were being overshadowed by Bildu and decided to join them.

This left NaBai almost devoid of any partisan support, with the notable exception of the Christian-bourgeois EAJ-PNV, which saw in it their opportunity for a comeback to the Navarrese political scene after their shameful betrayal in the 1980s (which triggered the schism that created EA). The result is Geroa Bai (Yes to the Future, GeBai) which had an important success in the Spanish general elections of late 2011, getting one deputy (Uxue Barkos).

State support for the economy works

Ah, the irony: ultraliberal (=ultracapitalist) and decadent Europe (EU) debates whether or not impose duties on Chinese cheap solar panels. Why? Because it is suspected that the overwhelming Chinese production necessarily required of state support. 

Sure, probably very true. If so, why not to begin or retake at least some much needed state support for the economy here in Europe?

That is what is not being debated at all. The current desperate situation of European economy and society is only because of ultraliberalization and destroying by design the state involvement in the economy. 

Without state intervention we are bound to become others' colonies.

Black Thursday: Japan's stock market collapse 7.3%, World follows suit

Japanese stock market Nikkei collapsed today, falling 7.3%, the biggest slump since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. 

Other global markets have followed the trend, as usually happens.

The "official" version of the causes, reflected for example by Euronews, blames Chinese and European economic weaknesses. However, would that be the case, why would Japan be the first market to collapse and so dramatically. 

The real reasons therefore seem to be Japanese many weaknesses: first and foremost the effects of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, which, no matter how much you deny them, are very real and scaring everyone inside and outside the Asian archipelago. Another weakness is the absolutely brutal (and ever-growing) public debt and related excessive strength of the yen. This pre-dates the Fukushima disaster but have been aggravated by the loss of export markets after it. 

Main source: Ex-SKF.