The Socialist Party of Canada
Secretary’s Report, March 1st, 2009

Email Report
- Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan newsletter, 21
Items.
- The Bullet – Why the US Stimulus Package is Bound to Fail.
- The Bullet – Why the Venezuelan Amendment Campaign Is So Important.
- The Bullet – Interview With Leo Pannitch Conducted by Workers’ Liberty.
- The Bullet – Academic Freedom Threatened In Ontario Universities.
- The Bullet – Exposed – U of T Suppresses Pro-Palestinian Activism.
- The Bullet – Eight theses on the Economic Crisis.
- Any of the above can be forwarded to you.

Good of The Movement
- Another edition of Common Ownership is ready to go out. Thanks to the
contributors, editors, and Jacob for putting it together.
- A first edition of Propriété Commune was produced, thanks to Bernard.
- The winter edition of Imagine was completed and sent out, again thanks
to the contributors, editors, and Jacob.
- Please distribute these publications as you are able.
- The next meeting for Southern Ontario members will be Saturday, March
21st. from 1:30pm to 4:30pm at the usual place in Mississauga. Please make
every effort to attend.
- 3 introductory packages sent out.
- 2 membership questionnaires sent out, completed, and being processed.
- Dues reminder for all.

Finances
- Secretarial expenses for February, $70.02. Received with thanks,
donations of $70 and $15 for Imagine.

Karl’s Quotes
- On wages determining prices, Marx says,” I might appeal to practical
observation to bear witness against this antiquated and exploded fallacy.
I might tell you that the English factory operatives, miners,
shipbuilders, and so forth, whose labour is relatively high priced,
undersell by the cheapness of their produce all other nations; while the
English agricultural labourer, for example, whose labour is relatively low
priced, is undersold by almost every other nation because of the dearness
of his produce…The dogma that wages determine the price of commodities,
expressed in its most abstract terms, comes to this, that ‘value is
determined by value’, and this tautology means that, in fact, we know
nothing at all about value. Accepting this premise, all reasoning about
the general laws of political economy turns into mere twaddle. It was,
therefore, the great merit of Ricardo that in his work, ‘On the Principles
of Political Economy’, published in 1817, he fundamentally destroyed the
old, popular, and worn-out fallacy that ‘wages determine prices’, a
fallacy which Adam Smith and his French predecessors had spurned in the
really scientific parts of their researches, but which, nevertheless, they
reproduced in their more exoterical and vulgar chapters.” (Value, Price,
and Profit pp26-29).


Food For Thought
- In capitalism, everything becomes a commodity, something produced
with a view to making a profit. Recycling material is no exception.
The value of plastic bottles, aluminum, steel, glass, and paper has
dropped
more than 50% since last Fall. In addition, the low cost of oil makes new
plastic cheaper than recycled plastic. Thus we get stockpiles which, if
not sold, go into the landfill which recycling is supposed to avoid. And
we rely on the brains of this system to save us from global environmental
catastrophe!
- For example, the recent visit of president Obama to Ottawa produced a
decision to ‘look into’ carbon capture technology. This, according to a
Toronto Star columnist, represents Obama coming around to Harper’s
conservative approach to the environment, in this case, relying on new
technology to keep our tar sands and America’s coal fields operating.
- The bailouts for capitalism continue – Chrysler needs another $5 billion
and promises to cut 3 000 jobs, while GM is looking for another $30
billion while implementing a survival plan that includes cutting 47 000
jobs and closing 5 more plants. So we rescue them in order to ensure
our jobs disappear. Sounds like a good deal for somebody.
- CNN reported that since the bailouts began in late 2007, the total has
Reached $10.8 trillion, exactly equal to the US national debt.
- An Oprah show focused on home foreclosures, showing how those who
lost their houses, had to leave everything behind and wander the streets,
living in tent cities. The banks hire crews to clear the houses entirely,
throwing everything into a dumpster, most of which is in good condition.
So we have thousands of homeless people in tents and thousands of empty
homes waiting for tenants. Could anything be crazier!
- The world recession continues to bite. Japan’s economy contracted at its
fastest pace in 35 years when it shrank 3.3% in the last quarter. In
China, an estimated 20 million migrant workers who had gravitated to the
cities for industrial jobs are returning to their rural areas, their
dreams of more wealth shattered. Welcome to capitalism!
- Canada continues to bleed jobs. A Toronto Star report (21/Feb/09)
showed a loss of 322 000 manufacturing jobs between 2004 and 2008 and
a loss of a staggering 129 000 total jobs in January, the largest decline
in 30 years.
There are now 1 310 100 officially unemployed in Canada, although we know
that this is a highly manipulated number and is really much higher.
- Another aspect of the economic downturn is the downward pressure on
wages and benefits. General Motors now says it can’t afford pension and
medical plans and a recent deal with the union, UAW, limits overtime, cuts
cash bonuses and gets rid of cost-of-living pay raises. This is only a
beginning. Concessions by the union are a condition of the $17.4 billion
in government loans that the automakers have made so far. CAW Canada
president, Ken Lewenza said, “Labour costs clearly did not cause this
worldwide crisis in the auto industry, and labour concessions cannot
possibly solve that crisis but we can’t ignore the precarious financial
state of these companies, the extraordinary government offers of aid and
our need to remain fully competitive for future investment”. In other
words, we go with the system without much of a fight. It’s like we say,
wages tend to rise in boom times, and fall in times of recession. Now
we’ll spend the next twenty years trying to regain what we have lost. The
futility of reform, the solution is revolution.
- Carol Goar of The Toronto Star thinks this is a time to ‘trim bloated
pay Cheques’. She asks, ‘Is running a major corporation worth 400 times
the average wage?’ and, ‘Is it really a sacrifice when a bank president
trims his pay packet from $8.75 million to $3.8 million?’ Of course the
answer is no and no, but it wouldn’t make any difference anyway, if the
same system remains intact.
- It seems the economy is biting everywhere. Recently an evangelical
Church charity lost its status when it was audited and it was found that
donations were being used for trips to Hawaii, high fashion products, and
personal expenses – caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
- Is the current economic crisis affecting poverty reduction? While the
increases in the minimum wage are going ahead (up to $9.50/hour by March
31st.) the Toronto Star showed that the present Ontario government is long
on promises, pledges, indications, but action on their 25 in 5 plan (25%
poverty reduction in five years) is sorely lacking or waiting for a
willing federal partner. The attitudes of the poverty bashing Harris years
persist. Recently, Human resources Minister, Diane Finley rejected demand
to pay unemployment insurance to all those who pay the premiums, saying,
“…we do not want to make it lucrative for them to stay home and get paid
for it.”
- Meanwhile the madness of capitalism continues. Two nuclear subs, one
from Britain and one from France, collided in the Atlantic Ocean recently,
both carrying nuclear weapons. How they managed this with the whole of the
ocean to play in is a mystery, but imagine the stupidity and waste of this
going on while people live in tents or need health care.
- Buying flowers seems like an innocent thing to do. In Canada, they may
arrive from Columbia where women and children as young as ten work like
slaves, long hours for low pay, no rights, and health problems that
include infertility and lung disease.
- Capitalist development is coming to Cambodia. In Phnom Penh, ramshackle
neighbourhoods are being bulldozed for commercial development without the
inhabitants’ permission. It’s no good protesting as the machines arrive
with military police, the riot squad and one hundred hired thugs with
crowbars, i.e. supported by the government. As international aid floods
into Cambodia, the rich elite are growing ever more powerful, while the
poor are being pushed aside. Welcome to capitalism.

For socialism, John