Poll: Many Americans prefer socialism over capitalism

From: PWW

Author: Teresa Albano
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 04/09/09 14:54

This poll made our day.

According to a recent Rasmussen Report, only 53 percent of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.

Not a very good spread for the profits-before-people, greed-is-good crowd. Ayn Rand must be rolling in her grave.

These numbers of course reflect the deep, transformative moment we are living in. An economic depression is a powerful force for people to experience, leading them to question the system that got us here.

Then there is the 20 percent that say socialism is better than capitalism, according to Rasmussen. Another wow! Twenty-seven percent are not sure which is better.
As the population gets further away from the Cold War years, the more they are open to socialism. The under 30 population is essentially divided: 37 percent prefer capitalism, 33 percent socialism and 30 percent are undecided.

Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the current system with 49 percent for capitalism and 26 percent for socialism.

But the ones over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13 percent of those believe socialism is better. What happened to the radical baby boomers?!

As you may imagine, those who have money to invest chose capitalism by a 5-to-1 margin. But for the rest of us who have no money to invest – a quarter of us say socialism would be o.k. Only 40 percent of non-investors think capitalism is better.

These are amazing statistics considering Rasmussen did not define either capitalism or socialism in their questions.

In an earlier survey by the polling firm they found, 70 percent of Americans prefer a free-market economy. When using the term “free market economy,” Rasmussen asserts, it attracts more support than using the term “capitalism.”

“Other survey data supports that notion. Rather than seeing large corporations as committed to free markets, two-out-of-three Americans believe that big government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors,” the poll summary stated.

Imagine how Americans would react if truly a national conversation was had on the benefits of socialism. Right now most Americans see it as a “government-managed” economy and they aren’t convinced the government could do any better than the corporate royalty, according to further poll findings.

Not included in the current popular view of socialism is democratization of the economy – where representatives of all communities, unions, schools, etc., would actually be involved in steering economic policy and decision making on all levels – micro and macro.

Recently, a colleague of mine, Sam Webb, the chair of the Communist Party said of the current economic and political situation:

“Is there any reason to think that millions in motion can't transform this country and world into the just, green, sustainable and peaceful "Promised Land" that Martin Luther King dreamed of?

“It would be a profound mistake to underestimate the progressive and socialist potential of this era. The American people have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity within their reach.”

While polls are just a snapshot of a very fluid and dynamic process of what people think, the more long term forces of the economy are already having this profound effect.

Economic stimulus in China and the U.S. (Part 2)

from: PWW

Author: Wadi'h Halabi
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 12/12/08 14:03

(Part 2)

China has announced a 2-year, $568 billion program to deal with economic and social problems caused by the global economic crisis. The program includes investment in education and health care, environmental protection, housing, highways and rail transportation, and other infrastructure projects. China’s plan, and the ways in which it helps workers in the U.S., were discussed last week in Part I of this article.

The contrast between China’s approach and that of capitalist countries was highlighted in side-by-side articles on China and India in a recent Wall Street Journal. In India, “the credit crisis is delaying building by crimping the flow of cash for roads, ports and power plants,” the Journal reports. “Billions in infrastructure projects could be in jeopardy…. Interest rates on project financing have soared, banks are reluctant to lend, and investors are sitting on their cash. But the Indian government can’t afford to compensate with a huge infrastructure-spending program like China’s… Countries around the world are shutting down such projects…”

What accounts for the difference between China and India – and most capitalist countries? China and India are both large, populous nations that, since World War II, have been trying to emerge from a legacy of colonial and imperial domination by foreign powers. China is the product of a socialist revolution, while India has remained capitalist, fully embracing the unregulated, neoliberal model of global capitalism that came to dominate most of the world – including the United States — in the 1990s.

The economies of China and India are organized in fundamentally different ways, to serve fundamentally different interests. In all economies, factories, stores and other enterprises produce a surplus — their income from selling goods or services is greater than their expenses. In capitalist countries, most of this surplus goes as profit to the shareholders, bondholders and top executives, who use it as they see fit. But in China, which was formed by the socialist revolution, the state controls most of the surplus, and can direct it to meet human needs, including for jobs, as China’s latest stimulus package shows.

By contrast, in capitalist countries the state serves the interests of the capitalists, who control most of the surplus created by workers. The emphasis of the state and capitalists is on protecting profits, and the exploiters’ power.

Another Wall Street Journal article lays it out. “China’s banks, still largely under state ownership, will be expected to play their part in supporting the Chinese economy, rather than pulling up the drawbridge, as their foreign counter-parts have been doing... If that means earnings are pinched, few in Beijing will mind.” Contrast that with the Wall Street banks that are using bailout money to maintain investor dividends and executive salaries, instead of supporting the U.S. economy (and people) with student, consumer and business loans.

“Can China save the world?” This is the question recently posed on the cover of The Economist. The short answer is – No. But together, China and the workers of the world, our parties and unions, can “save the world,” both socially and environmentally, and we share a common interest in doing so. By contrast, the capitalists’ only interest is their profits and power, regardless of the cost to humanity.

The unfolding capitalist crisis at bottom is a crisis of “overproduction” (more, much more has been produced than the capitalists can sell at a profit) and simultaneously a crisis of unmet human needs, even for food and water. The crisis is pointing to tremendous deepening of poverty, political breakdowns and wars.

But the unity and common struggle of workers and our organizations, including the Chinese and other states formed by workers’ revolutions, Communist and workers’ parties, and trade unions internationally, can “save the world” — and bring extraordinary liberation to all of humanity.

econ4ppl@ cpusa.org

People Before Profits: Economic stimulus in China and the U.S.

from: PWW

Author: Wadi'h Halabi
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 12/03/08 11:06

(Part 1)

On Nov. 9, China announced a two-year, $586 billion program to address domestic dislocations arising from world capitalism’s unfolding crisis. Lower prices in China make this worth more than $1 trillion in the United States. Thousands of factories have closed in China, and hundreds of thousands of workers have lost their jobs because of the sudden collapse of demand from capitalist countries.

The new program carefully builds on China’s 11th Five-Year plan (2006-2010) — few people realize China has maintained such plans. It allocates added billions to improve education, health care and environmental protection. It expands plans to build affordable, environmentally-conscious housing and repair or upgrade existing housing. It allocates billions to improve electrical service and roads in the countryside. This should help raise agricultural productivity and reduce the inequality between city and countryside, and slow the migration of agricultural workers to the cities. In addition, the plan allocates additional billions to accelerate recovery in areas devastated by May’s huge earthquake. This is in sharp contrast with the U.S., where hundreds of thousands of people – mainly low-income workers and their families — have been abandoned, many driven out of New Orleans and the other Gulf regions hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

China’s new program calls for building 10,000 more kilometers of rail lines by the end of 2010. (One kilometer is about 0.62 mile.) According to Yang Zhonming of the rail ministry’s Development and Planning department, rail construction will employ 6 million workers and require 20 million tons of steel and 120 million tons of cement. The 11th Five-Year Plan had called for expanding China’s rail network from 70,000 km to 90,000 km. Rail is usually the most efficient and environmentally sound way to transport people and goods between cities. The state can also direct the banking system to expand lending to meet desired goals.

Labor productivity in China has been climbing 15 percent or more annually in recent years. This makes it possible to cut shift hours without loss in pay, and hire additional workers to reduce urban unemployment. While no such program has been announced, in the past China has reduced the workweek and lengthened holidays with similar goals in mind.

China’s response to the crisis stands in sharp contrast with that in capitalist countries, where a few central bankers have undemocratically handed over trillions to cover the billionaires’ losses. At the same time, capitalist governments around the world are generally slashing education, health, housing, mass transit, infrastructure and environmental programs, while employers lay off millions and head to bankruptcy courts.

Workers in America should welcome China’s stimulus program for two reasons.

1. U.S. workers will be employed making the construction equipment, electrical generators, locomotives and other capital goods China will need for its massive infrastructure program. The U.S. will also gain jobs indirectly – for example, providing mining equipment or oil production services for other countries that are exporting to China. And China’s own productive capacity, both in primary goods (steel, cement) and consumer goods will be directed more to meet internal demand instead of directed toward export. Steelworkers in the U.S. will be glad to know, for example, that 20 million tons of Chinese steel will be staying in China to build up their rail system.

2. The incoming Obama administration is committed to an economic stimulus package that includes some of the same elements as China’s plan. But there will be fierce resistance from free market ideologues and reactionary corporate interests. And there will be debate on the size and scope of the U.S. stimulus plan. China envisages spending between 7 percent and 8 percent of its GDP each year on the program. With our larger economy, the US would have to spend about $1 trillion per year to have the same impact. If a developing country like China can react to the global economic crisis by making such a big commitment to meeting the needs of its people and environment, its example can help the U.S. to do so as well.

(Next week — Part 2 contrasts China’s response to the crisis with the response in capitalist countries)

econ4ppl@cpusa.org

"Nonviolence" in the mouth of "Dalai Lama"

from: People's Daily Online

Buddhists always preach that no living things are to be killed and all violent actions have to be opposed. "I say that 21st century should be one of dialogue," the Dalai Lama told his audience on May 19 when he delivered a speech in Berlin, and he said repeatedly that he only wants autonomy for Tibetans. "This (21st century) should be the century of peace and dialogue," he noted.

Can his remarks hold true for the whole 21st century? Only three days latter, on May 22, he alleged in Paris that if the talks between his personal envoys and China broke down, grave violence may occur in Tibet again.

So, it is quite possible for "nonviolence" and "grave violence" to slip back and forth in the mouth of the same person.

Dalai Lama has passed himself off as "a disciple of the Gandhi school" and so he adheres to the nonviolence. He, nevertheless, has hardly expected what Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), the leader of the Indian nationalist movement against British rule, had explicitly said, "Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and put off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our very being."

But the Dalai Lama has indeed taken nonviolence as a garment to hide his shame and so he has put on and put off at will. Why does he need to put on such a garment? He could be overjoyed if "stayed naked and then he would have nothing to worry about," as a popular Chinese saying goes. It is not because he is not willing but he won't able to do so. As he had said explicitly in an address in Oslo in 1989: If Tibetans took up arms, Communist troops in China would have the excuse for the suppression of them and they would be possibly be extinct.

The Dalai Lama claimed that he advocates "nonviolence"but he is not able to stop the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) and other radical forces from going in for violence, as he said that some of the Tibetans in exile listened to him while others did not. As is known to all, 80 percent of the staff of the government in exile were TYC members, and the so-called "the charter (or constitution) of Tibetans in Exile" specifies that these Tibetans must obey the "supreme political and religious leader Dalai Lama."

Since the Dalai Lama is the "supreme leader" who controls and governs all the supreme power in politics and religion, how he is not able to check TYC and curb violence?

In numerous journals owned by TYC, there are often articles concerning the use of violence or to spouse armed struggle to materialize their dream of "Tibetan independence". There are also agitating articles in recent years to urge Tibetans to follow suit of Palestinians to carry out suicide bombing, and openly alleged that they had a lot to draw on from the terrorism of the September 11 attacks of 2001 in the U.S. The Dalai Lama, however, has turned a deaf ear and blind eye to all this.

While parroting "nonviolence", the Dalai Lama has often instigatted and voiced his support to violence both in public or in private. Sufficient evidence has showed that the March 14 Lhasa violence was part of the "Tibetan People's Uprising Movement," a schemed plotted by the Dalai clique. So, he was so elated that day and repeatedly exhorted that he appreciated with all his heart the Tibetans inside the border for their absolute loyalty, courage and determination.

What the Dalai Lama has"appreciated" is the unrest erupted in Lhasa on March 14 when rioters set fire to and looted public facilities, residential houses and shops. On the same day, he told American reports that he would not stop Tibetans because they had the right to do whatever they desired.

To date, the dust has been settled in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet autonomous region, and the splendid, towering snow mountains around remain holy. The Dalai Lama, however, has turned somewhat impatient, anxious and restless, and he even predicted that grave violence could possibly recur in Tibet. Was it something not more plain and definite that what he had "appreciated" days before the "March 14th" riot'? And what he was really hinting, inciting and expecting?

With a too fast replacement of the "nonviolence" garment by the garment of "violence", it seems that flaws or burst seams are apt to be exposed. No wonder some personality in the West have referred to the Dalai Lama as the "Drama" Lama and often found what he said or preached joining in the fun or playing the game merely on the occasion.

In order to retain the Dalai Lama's "Buddhist" compassionate face and rope in the kind-heated people, the Dalai clique have all along brandished the "nonviolence" as their banner. Whenever following in their footprints, these people can see the stripes of "violence" on their buttocks, and then roar with laughters and disperse helter-skelter.

By People's Daily Online and its author is Zong Yiwen, a council member of the China Religious Culture Communication Association

Dalai clique is chief criminal of violent crimes

from: People's Daily Online

The three bombing cases that took place in eastern Tibet's Qamdo prefecture in April have recently been cracked. All suspects are Buddhist monks who have been instigated by the Dalai Cliques' separatist thought. Plots of the attacks echo the 3.14 unrest. The Dalai clique is the chief criminal of the three bomb attacks.

"Buddhists should believe in clemency. True Buddhists should learn Buddhist scriptures by heart; love their country and their religion; abide by the law; and bring happiness to people. They should not involve themselves in cruel murders and sabotage," said Dainzin Chilai, vice-chairman of the China Buddhist Association and vice-chairman of the People's Political Consultative Conference of the Tibet Autonomous Region. His words are a reminder of the essence of Buddhism, and criticism to the Dalai clique and the few monks who are keen on violent attacks.

People's actions are inseparable from their thoughts. The bomb attack suspects are inspired and instigated by the Dalai clique's propaganda. Having listened to overseas radio broadcasts for a long time, they have accepted the Dalai Lama's separatist thoughts. Once know the happening of the Lhasa incident and the contents of "Tibet Uprising" planned by the Dalai Lama, they actively cooperated with the Dalai clique. The three bomb attacks indicate how dangerous the Dalai Lama's separatism is and therefore demands our attention.

Facts prove again that "Tibet Independence" is unpopular and violent acts are intolerable. Those who try to undermine social stability come to no good end; and the separatist activities will never succeed.

By People's Daily Online

The Strange Tibetan Theocratic Model

from Political Affairs magazine

The Strange Tibetan Theocratic Model
By Jean-Luc Mélanchon

Original source: l'Humanite

Are Western leaders truly defending human rights?

Is it possible to criticize the Chinese government without embracing the Dalai Lama’s theocratic project? For such is the impasse we are heading for as a result of the media-sustained agitation and brainwashing initiated by supporters of a boycott of the Beijing Olympics. So history will have taught us nothing. So we have forgotten all about the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games to protest the Red Army’s invasion of Afghanistan in support of Babrak Karmal’s communist government. And how, when it came to condemning this campaign and discrediting communism, just anything went: the US then did not stop at arming and financing all those who fought against the communist government and the Soviets, first among whom the Taliban, then Al Qaeda.



The threat of an Olympics boycott commits us to the same preposterous logic. Apparently, solidarity with the religious Tibetan faction and Tibetan supporters of independence is a must. Never mind if China is severed of a quarter of its territory: that is not something that should make us pause. The feudal regime of the Tibetan monks and their exiled king, the 14th Dalai Lama, must be supported. And the Dalai Lama should be extravagantly recognized as a living God and absolute ruler over the Tibetan people.

His grotesque claim to choose, with his higher clergy, the person in whom he professes he will be reincarnated should be assented…


Not content with all that silly stuff we should also negate the historical links between Tibet and China since the fourteenth century. Forget the fact that the independence movement was instigated in the twentieth century by Western powers at the height of their imperialist supremacy in order to carve China up.

Keep mum about what “the 1959 Chinese crackdown” really cracked down upon: the Tibetan monks’ revolt against the abolition of serfdom and feudal taxes and codes, by virtue of which there was a scale of prices for diverse categories of human beings and the monasteries’ masters had the power of life and death over their serfs…

We are also expected to protest indignantly against the police suppressing the demonstrations in Lhassa, and make nothing of the fact that these started with a pogrom of Chinese shopkeepers. Waste no pity on those who were clubbed to death and burnt in their shops with their families by those who claim to support the Dalai Lama. Have no scruple about calling “genocide” the more than doubling of the Tibetan population since the 1950s. Bow low before the Tibetans’ so-called religious identity at a time when those populations have embarked on the secularizing process characteristic of all developing countries. Turn a blind eye to the strange social code that fidelity to tradition and Tibetan identity as preached by Tibetan monks entails: the condemnation of abortion and homosexuality (deemed unnatural by the Dalai Lama himself), of mixed marriages between Tibetans and Chinese, considered impure, the recruitment of children at a very early age by the monasteries… Say nothing about the recent campaign against the railway linking Beijing and Lassa, with arguments that were used in the nineteenth century, e.g. the condemnation of railways by Pope Gregory XVI as a devilish means to spread new ideas and subvert religious tradition.



How can one invoke human rights and accept the negation of the secularist separation of church and state?

The present campaign in favour of an Olympics boycott therefore amounts to a manipulation; it is a trap for the setting of which the rights of Tibetans and Chinese merely serve as a pretext.

If the real aim was to put pressure on the Chinese government, why did Western leaders allow China to submit its application and why didn’t they say anything when it was elected to play host to the Games? Why do they keep signing contracts worth billions of dollars? Is China an eligible partner for the purchase of nuclear power stations or US Treasury bonds, but not for the organization of the Games? And why choose to meet it on the ethnic field rather than the social field? Is it not because Western powers would have a problem if social claims in China were met?

All this hypocrisy binds the US and Europe to an aggressive escalation against China as a nation: the result will be a unanimous surge of national feeling across the country. The strategists behind this worldwide campaign have rested their hopes precisely on this. The fact it is headed by Robert Ménard [1] is a sure indication that US neo-conservatives are behind it. When all’s said and done, the sorcerer’s apprentices will be found to have once more befuddled us all.



--Jean-Luc Mélanchon is a Socialist senator in France.



[1] Co-founder and general secretary (for life) of the French association Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF). Mélenchon remarks in his blog that the RSF "has shrunken, becoming this one individual" whose defense of civil liberties depends, in an opportunistic way, on the government in question, "being incapable of even token criticism of the use of torture by the U.S., or of seeking legal aid for those detained in Guantanamo.

"

From l'Humanite. Translated by Isabelle Metral.

Expert: Lhasa riot reveals hypocritical features of Dalai clique

The recent riots in Lhasa, capital of China's Tibet Autonomous Region, and some other ethnic Tibetan areas revealed the hypocritical features of the Dalai clique, according to an expert on Tibetan studies.

The Dalai clique always claim that they would resort to "peaceful" and "non-violent" means to solve problems, but the recent riots only proves these claims are hypocritical, Monday's Guangming Daily reported, quoting Chen Qingying, a researcher from Institute of History under the China Tibetology Research Center.

The coincidence of recent riots in Lhasa and other ethnic Tibetan areas has proved the existence of a plot by the supporters of the Dalai Lama -- to seek "Tibet independence" at all costs, said Chen who has compiled a 10-volume General History of Tibet with other scholars.

"To realize their political ambition, they would not scruple to resort to violence," Chen was quoted as saying.

The fact the Dalai Lama and his supporters chose to create turmoil in Tibet and other areas ahead of the Olympics and make innocent people victims of riots shows that their "peaceful" and "non-violent" means are merely lies, he said.

Source:Xinhua