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The Washington Post profiled this week Brooke Alexander, 18, a Corpus Christi, Texas teen who found out two days before the states fetal heartbeat abortion ban went into effect on September 1, 2021 that she was pregnant.

Alexander sought to end her pregnancy, but the abortion clinic two hours away from her in South Texas was completely booked, with women then racing to the center to get abortions before the law went into effect. Alexander was offered the names and addresses of abortion clinics in New Mexico by the South Texas clinic, a drive more than 12 hours away from Corpus Christi.

Under the new Texas law, if a so-called fetal heartbeat is detected, than those involved in the abortion can be sued for $10,000 each. Since few women know they are pregnant before six weeks, when movement in the undeveloped fetal heart mass first becomes detectable, the law effectively bans abortions in Texas with no exception for rape or incest. Abortion clinics in Texas now only accept those who have no observable fetal heartbeat lest they incur a flurry of lawsuits from anti-abortion zealots.

Alexander, having been informed of this by her then boyfriend Billy, looked for a clinic where an ultrasound could be performed, unknowingly booking an appointment with a religious affiliated anti-abortion clinic.

The clinic in question, misleadingly named the Pregnancy Center of the Coastal Bend, is affiliated with Care Net, an evangelical Christian network of crisis pregnancy centers which are set up for the sole purpose of dissuading women from having abortions with thousands of centers around the country. It is one of two such organizations in the US which have close ties to the Republican Party. A banner on the website instructs like-minded religious zealots to tell their elected officials that we support the overturning of Roe v. Wade while falsely claiming that the American public supports overturning the right to abortion.

In fact, the banning of abortion and associated attack on Roe is wildly unpopular, with a PBS Newshour/NPR/Marist poll showing that 64 percent oppose overturning the 1973 Supreme Court decision, while those identifying as pro-choice are at a near-record high of 55 percent. A Gallup poll from May 2021 showed support for abortion in all or most cases at 80 percent.

According to an article by Public Health Watch, the anti-abortion crisis centers receive funding from the Texas government under the Alternatives to Abortion program. Funding has surged by 1,900 percent since the program started in 2006, rising from $5 million to $100 million.

Refuting anti-abortion forces claim that the program is about protecting life, its funding comes from commensurate cuts in other programs such as $20 million from a clean air program in 2017, and $20 million from a health technology budget in 2021, according to the Texas Tribune.

Meanwhile, abortion clinics in the state have been continually under attack for years, leading to the number of clinics decreasing from an already anemic 40 in 2013 to 20 in 2022 for a state of 29 million people. At the same time, 200 anti-abortion crisis centers exist in Texas, which is 10 times the number of abortion clinics. In the United States as a whole, crisis centers outnumber abortion clinics three to one.

According to an October 2021 court filing by Planned Parenthood, one woman, who later filed a lawsuit against one such crisis center, was delayed from receiving treatment for her pregnancy by the center. The woman experienced extreme morning sickness during her pregnancy and was forced to seek help out of state due to the delay and pay $800 to maintain her privacy from family members on her insurance plan.

As detailed in the filing, many others were prevented from abortions, most of them poor and working class, teenagers, students, and without sufficient financial means to adequately care for children.

One was 16 years old and described as a bright student but in an unstable household. Another worked 55-60 hours a week and was in college. Another feared losing her retail job as there were three months of blackout dates where she could not take time off out of fear for losing her job. Another already had five children.

While at the anti-abortion crisis center, Alexander was given an anti-abortion pamphlet published by the Texas Department of State Health Services titled A Womans Right to Know.

The pamphlet, an article of government propaganda, reads in bold letters: No one can force you to have an abortion and proceeds to advise women to talk to their doctor, counselor or spiritual adviser about your feelings and to call 911 if they feel pressure from someone to have an abortion. It paints a false picture of abortion being unsafe and posing physical and mental health risks such as infertility, increasing breast cancer risk, and death.

Alexander, following a state-mandated imaging session of what was to be twins, was pressured by center staff and then her mother, who was apparently swayed by the staff, to not get an abortion. Faced with mounting difficulties, the unavailability of abortion, state funded anti-abortion clinics and propaganda, Alexander gave birth to the twins.

According to the Washington Post, Jana Pinson, the executive director of the Pregnancy Center of the Coastal Bend, later gloated about changing Alexanders mind to the Coastal Bend Republican Coalition on May 19 as part of its weekly meeting at a local barbecue joint.

The anti-abortion crisis centers categorize those who visit, labeling those who are considering abortion or decided on abortion as abortion-minded or abortion vulnerable.

The Post wrote Last year, Pinson said, 583 abortion-minded and abortion-vulnerable women chose to continue their pregnancies after visiting their facility. At their banquet in March, with over 2,800 attendees from across the region, Pinson and her staff lit 583 candles. One of those was for Brooke.

Two weeks after Pinsons gloating, the draft Supreme Court decision to Roe was leaked.

Whos to say what I would have done if the law wasnt in effect? Alexander told the Post, noting all the things she could not do anymore such as nights at the skate park and trips to the mall. I cant just really be free, she said. I guess that really sums it up. Thats a big thing that I really miss.

Indeed, the right to an abortion is a measure that provides the equality and freedom to women who otherwise would not have the right. The attack on abortion seeks not only to enshrine inequality, but as a springboard for broader attacks on democratic rights.

As the WSWS explained:

[Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alitos] draft decision goes on to deny the validity of rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution.

Virtually all modern civil rights are not mentioned in the Constitution, for the simple reason that modern society did not exist when the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. However limited and belated, the expansion of constitutional rights in the USfrom the aftermath of the American Revolution and Civil War to the period of the Civil Rights movementtook the form of recognizing in the essential principles of the founding documents new implications for democratic rights in modern society.

Alitos formulas provide a framework not just for dismantling the right to abortion, but for putting all modern civil rights on the chopping block.

This attack on abortion has been facilitated by the Democrats, who have done nothing to mobilize opposition to attacks on abortion and are organically incapable of doing so, fearing a mass movement of the working class which would escape their control and overtake them. Instead, they cynically work to redirect opposition into the dead end of the Democratic Party, which has done nothing to enshrine Roe over the past almost 50 years.

While posturing as defenders of the right to abortion, the Democrats field anti-abortion candidates, as is the case with Texas state Representative Ryan Guillen, who voted for the Texas fetal heartbeat abortion ban. Nothing is being done by the Democrats even now despite the fact that, if they so choose, they can overturn the filibuster and enshrine abortion protections in law. The criminal inaction of the Democrats illustrates that any real movement to protect democratic rights must necessarily be based on a mass movement of the working class for socialism.

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Texas teen who wanted abortion prevented by state-funded clinic - WSWS

Unable to provide adequate fuel, the Colombo government this week announced desperate measures to halt many public and economic activities, provoking deeper anger among workers, the poor and youth. The government has virtually no foreign exchange to import essentials, including fuel, food items and medicines.

On Monday the government of President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe began a new round of talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) about the further harsh austerity measures they must impose in order to obtain a bailout loan.

The measures already implemented from this week include a two-week work from home rule for all public sector employees from Monday. But no proper facilities, such as internet access and computers, are available to work from home. Public institutions have begun calling workers back into workplaces for two days a week.

Two weeks ago, the government introduced a Friday holiday for all government employees, citing the food and fuel crisis. These workers were cynically told to cultivate their home gardens because of severe food shortages.

State employees previously did overtime in an effort to earn enough income to cope with the rising cost of living, but paid overtime has been stopped. Casual employees pay has also been cut because the number of working days has been reduced.

Though the work from home regime was scheduled for two weeks, several employees told the WSWS it is uncertain when it will end. They noted that the fuel crisis is not lessening in Sri Lanka and other countries.

On Sunday, Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera urged private companies to also introduce work from home, as some of them did during earlier periods of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of inadequate fuel supplies and the lack of international orders, some companies have already reduced employment to two or three days a week. Workers have expressed fears for their jobs as companies may shut down.

The education ministry has ordered all public and private schools in major cities to close from Monday for one week and conduct online teaching. However, these shutdowns may also last longer. School principals have told students not to attend schools until they are informed.

Across the entire country, a major disruption of education is taking place as teachers and students are unable to attend schools due to drastic reductions in transport services.

The countrys largest university, the University of Peradeniya, was closed from Monday until further notice. The authorities said they took this step due to current difficulties.

The public hospital system is also crumbling because of the lack of medicines, the food crisis and the fuel shortages. The Daily Mirror reported that cardiac surgeons and cardiac anesthesiologists at national hospitals have written to authorities saying that they have decided to curtail several operations from Monday because of shortages of drugs and the fuel crisis.

Colombo South Teaching Hospital director Dr. Sagari Kiriwandeniya told the media that doctors were facing problems reporting to work because of the difficulty in obtaining fuel. She told The Morning: The doctors who report for duty stop their vehicles at fuel queues and come to the hospital by three-wheeler or on foot. They complete their shift and return to the queue.

During the past two weeks, kilometres-long queues have emerged near about 600 distribution stations around the country. Hundreds of thousands of motorists have waited for up to three days for fuel.

The fuel stations are like battlefields, with police and armed military personnel deployed. Without fuel, clashes have erupted near many petrol sheds. Angry people have chanted slogans and cursed the government for lacking concern for the masses. At some places soldiers have fired into the air to control unrest and at other places police have attacked and arrested people.

The fuel crisis has disrupted internal supply chains, further intensifying shortages of essentials and pushing up prices. Many lorries are waiting in queues for days to obtain fuel. Even the produce in one area cannot be transported to other areas in time. This disruption has particularly affected vegetables and fish, increasing prices by up to 300 percent.

This extreme economic turmoil has been produced by the COVID-19 pandemic and the US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, which drove up commodity and fuel prices. The countrys foreign exchange reserves dried up with declining exports, the collapse of income from tourism and falling remittances from those working overseas. The situation has compounded by the massive repayments required on foreign loans.

Sri Lanka has only $US1.9 billion foreign reserves, according to the latest figures cited in Bloomberg. Of this, $1.5 billion is a swap loan from China.

An IMF team has begun ten days of talks with Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and Central Bank and treasury officials. Its statement said: We reaffirm our commitment to support Sri Lanka at this difficult time, in line with the IMFs policies.

That means the government has to conduct debt restructuring with its creditors and cut government expenditure to satisfy the IMF. International creditors, who are always demanding pounds of flesh, will provide the least debt relief.

The government will intensify its austerity program by slashing government expenditure, particularly by downsizing the public sector, privatising state-owned enterprises and cutting social programs such as education and health. Already the government has begun slashing about 800,000 public sector jobs and increasing taxes, including the VAT (value added tax).

The World Bank last week estimated Sri Lanka will face a 7.8 percent economic contraction this year and 3.7 percent in 2023. This is the result of the combined impact of IMF austerity policies and the global economic crisis.

In its Economic Prospect Report, the World Bank warned the government not to delay in implementing IMF measures, saying: The contraction can be greater in case of protracted delays in actions by the authorities to restore macroeconomic stability and in debt restructuring.

The working class will not tolerate this developing horrific situation and the governments austerity measures.

Since early April, workers, the poor and youth have launched massive protests, demonstrations and strikes against the government. Millions of workers joined one-day general strikes on April 8 and May 6.

They demanded the resignation of President Rajapakse and his government and an end to austerity policies, soaring prices and long hours of power cuts. These struggles shook the entire political establishment to the core.

The trade unions reluctantly called the strikes to deflect the massive opposition among workers into the demand for an interim regime and general elections. These were the demands that the opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) presented to divert the mass anger into parliamentary channels.

After unions betrayed these struggles, the SJB and JVP rallied to support the newly-appointed Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, who promised to intensify the IMF policies to solve the economic crisis.

However, sensing the growing anger among workers and the poor, these opposition parties have begun to play a new tune. Yesterday the leaders of SJB and JVP accused the new government of failing to solve the problems of the people. They declared a one-week boycott of parliament from yesterday.

The SJB is calling for an all-party government and the resignation of President Rajapakse. The JVP has demanded an all-party interim regime for eight months for political stability as a supposed first step to solve the economic crisis.

These are sinister moves to once again derail the developing mass opposition. The SJB and JVP may have small tactical differences but they offer no alternative other than implementing the IMF program. Both parties voted for Wickremesinghes tax increase bill earlier this month.

The trade unions, which are associated with these opposition parties, will join their bandwagon. Not a single union opposed the austerity measures announced by the government, demonstrating their support for the IMF policies.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) is urging workers and youth to learn the lessons of the past two months. They cannot leave their struggle in the hands of the trade unions, which are acting as the industrial police of the ruling class and serve its interests. Workers should build action committees, independent of the trade unions, in every workplace, estate and major economic centre as their own fighting organisations and rally all the oppressed and youth.

There is no solution within the capitalist system. Only through fighting for a workers and peasants government and socialist policies can the working class defend its rights as part of the struggle for international socialism.

We urge workers and youth to participate in the online meeting organised by the SEP on July 3 at 4 p.m. where these policies will be discussed.

Please register here for the meeting: https://chords-org-lk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcqcO-sqDopGNIOeLXWE4d1hK76OP8KYGHf

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Sri Lankan government shuts down government offices and schools - WSWS

The following greetings from the German and French sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International were read to the Third National Congress of the SEP in Sri Lanka held from May 14 to May 16. Salutations from the SEP in Australia, Canada and the UK will be published on June 21. Greetings from David North on behalf of the ICFI and the US SEP are available here.

Dear comrades,

I am very pleased to send the revolutionary greetings of the Socialist Equality Party in Germany to this important congress. A development in the working class is concentrated in Sri Lanka right now, which is actually taking place all over the world. This congress gives leadership and perspective to the working class.

When the Sri Lankan bourgeoisie faced mass working class struggles 58 years ago, it brought the LSSP into government to suppress the workers and secure bourgeois rule.

Because of the intervention of the British SLL [Socialist Labour League], it was possible to build the RCL [Revolutionary Communist League] as a section of the ICFI in Sri Lanka on the basis of these political lessons. Relentlessly you have fought ever since against the pseudo-left defenders of bourgeois rule, against communalism and chauvinism, and for the international unity of the working class, based on an independent, socialist program.

These historic principles are now intersecting with the struggles of the working class, as David North explained three years ago about the fifth phase of the development of the Trotskyist movement. Nowhere is this more visible today than in Sri Lanka.

But the mass struggles in Sri Lanka can only be understood as part of the international development of the working class. NATOs proxy war against Russia and the sanctions regime are causing rapidly rising food and energy prices around the world and driving workers into poverty. The coronavirus pandemic is claiming more and more lives as the ruling class prioritizes its profits over human lives.

In Germany, the bourgeoisie is pushing militarism at breathtaking speed. Seventy-seven years after the unconditional surrender, German tanks are rolling again against Russia. The German government is sending more and more heavy weapons to Ukraine to wage a proxy war against Russia on the backs of the Ukrainian population.

The return of German militarism is accompanied by a revival of the vilest anti-Russian chauvinism and racism and the trivialization of Nazi crimes.

For example, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the Russian invasion of Ukraine a war of extermination and a breach of civilization, terms previously used only for the Nazis meticulously planned war of extermination in the Soviet Union and the Holocaust.

This unspeakable trivialization of Nazi crimes is taken even further in German newspapers. For example, the newspaper taz, which is close to the Green Party, published a long article by Julia Latynina in which she claims that Stalin planned World War II when Hitler was not even in power. The invasion of the Soviet Union would thus have been the pre-emptive war that Hitler always claimed.

With the proxy war against Russia and the justification and trivialization of Nazi crimes, everything we have shown in recent years is confirmed. German militarism continues its worst traditions and wants once again to become the biggest military power on the continent.

The burden of war and rearmament is to be borne by the working class. Food inflation of 20 to 50 percent lowers the wages of the entire working class and drives masses into poverty. While not a penny was left for pandemic control, education and health, over 100 billion euros are now being poured into rearmament.

As in Sri Lanka, the trade unions play a key role in pushing through these social attacks and militarism. The German Federation of Trade Unions has just concluded its national congress, which saw itself as part of the war machine.

But resistance is growing in the working class. After the horrors of two World Wars and the Holocaust, opposition to militarism and war is deeply rooted in the working class. Strikes and protests against wage theft and inflation are developing everywhere. Many workers are following events in Sri Lanka on the WSWS, while the bourgeois media are reporting next to nothing, knowing that here, too, only a spark is enough to provoke mass struggles.

The central task is to unite the workers struggles internationally and arm them with revolutionary leadership and a socialist perspective, and that means building the SEP in Sri Lanka and in every country in the world.

Your congress has an important role to play in this tense situation and will be closely followed by workers in Sri Lanka and around the world.

Yours fraternally,Christoph Vandreier, Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei chairman

***

Dear comrades,

We bring the warmest fraternal greetings of the Parti de lgalit socialiste (PES) of France to this very important congress of our Sri Lankan comrades.

The mass protests and strikes in Sri Lanka demanding the overthrow of the Rajapakse cliques executive presidency are events of the greatest historical and international importance. The unbearable problems of rising prices, food shortages, and pandemic deaths that are driving this struggle afflict workers in every country. And so the struggles in Sri Lanka are followed with interest and growing hope by workers and youth in France and beyond.

These struggles directly pose on the order of the day the role of your party and of our international tendency in providing revolutionary leadership to the working class. The vast political heritage of the ICFIs struggle against Stalinism and Pabloism allows us to fight for a decisive settlement of Trotskyisms political struggle against the petty-bourgeois anti-Marxist tendencies. Ever broader layers of workers and youth sense that this is the issue that is posed.

A French youth recently wrote to the WSWS, saying that he had found our site by reading about the Sri Lankan protests. He was moved by the courage and determination of the protesters and struck by the compelling coverage and perspectives advanced by the SEP in Sri Lanka. To this young man being radicalized by the unbearable social crisis and the political rot of the Macron presidency, it is clear that yours is the revolutionary party in Sri Lanka.

He immediately asked, based on this coverage, what we think of the NPA [New Anti-capitalist Party], the French Pabloite affiliate of the Sri Lankan NSSP, and other similar pseudo-left groups, like Jean-Luc Mlenchons Unsubmissive France (LFI) party.

Indeed, the struggle of the SEP in Sri Lanka against the pseudo-left is exposing the pseudo-left around the world.

The SEP in Sri Lanka has advanced the demand to bring down the executive presidency and mobilize the working class independently in action committees. You are firstly illuminating the revolutionary path that broad masses of workers and youth in Sri Lanka are seeking out, in deeds, by taking up the struggle against Rajapakse. You are, moreover, tracing out a path that workers around the world will seek in the coming months and years, as the international working class takes the path of a struggle for state power and for socialism.

France has just had its presidential election, which ended in a two-way contest between the banker Emmanuel Macron and the neo-fascist Marine Le Pen. The PES fought in the working class for voters to reject both candidates, boycott the vote, and prepare for the struggles of the working class that are to come in the next presidency. This placed us in irreconcilable opposition to Mlenchon, the NPA and the entire pseudo-left.

Mlenchon was shocked by the 22 percent vote that he received on the first round, as millions of French voters tried to impose a left-wing alternative on Macron and Le Pen. He did not welcome the evidence of a powerful movement to the left in the workers and youth of Frances largest cities. Instead, he panicked and even initially vowed to retire.

When he regained his wits, he proposed to serve as prime minister to carry out a peoples revolution, either under Macron or under a neo-fascist presidency of Marine Le Pen, if she won. He stressed that he aimed to lead not a socialist revolution by the working class, but a peoples revolution. This is a very particular type of revolution! It is a revolution led by an official of the capitalist state serving under a president pursuing extreme-right policies of imperialist war, mass COVID-19 infection, and police-state repression. It is, to speak plainly, a counter-revolution.

On this basis, Mlenchon has formed an alliance with the Socialist Party, a discredited, big-business party founded in 1971 that has for decades imposed austerity and war on the workers.

The PES rejects with contempt the political line of Mlenchon, who is now in discussions with a broad range of pseudo-left parties in France including the NPA. We brand the claim that a revolution can be carried out by the capitalist state as a political lie. The PES proudly defends the revolutionary heritage of the Trotskyist movement and the struggles of the international working class for socialism.

In that heritage, an important part is played by your party. The predecessor of the SEP (Sri Lanka), the Revolutionary Communist League, was formed in irreconcilable struggle against the Pabloite Great Betrayal of the LSSP [Lanka Sama Samaja Party] in 1964. Capitulating to the pressure of the Stalinist and bourgeois nationalist movements, it entered into bourgeois government, paving the way for the division of the working class along ethnic lines and, ultimately, a 26-year communal war in Sri Lanka.

This searing experience in the treachery of Pabloism underlies the irreconcilable opposition of the PES to all those petty-bourgeois figures, like Mlenchon and the NPA, who turn their backs on the international working class and socialism to orient to nationalism and the capitalist state.

The RCL rejected the United Left Front formed between the LSSP and the Sinhalese chauvinists during the Great Betrayal. In France, Mlenchon and the NPA are trying to rebuild the Union of the Left formed a few years later between the Stalinist French Communist Party and the Socialist Party. As the RCL/SEP fights all the reactionary descendants of the United Left Front, so the PES today fights all those like Mlenchon who try to breathe new life into the political corpses of the Union of the Left, so as to drive the workers into a blind alley.

Our collaboration with our Sri Lankan comrades is of enormous significance to the PES. Many PES comrades were won to Trotskyism and the Permanent Revolution in exile in Europe, after having fled Sri Lanka during the communal war. As we formed our section, we consciously sought to base ourselves on your partys long and proud history. Your assistant national secretary, comrade Jayasekera, traveled to Paris to give us lectures on the founding of the RCL, in the months before the founding of the PES in 2016.

Today, we look forward to deepening our collaboration with the SEP (Sri Lanka) as you face the enormous responsibility of intervening in an emerging international revolutionary movement in the working class.

Today in Sri Lanka, as in France during the yellow vest protests, one hears often the slogan that the movement is apolitical. In France, such remarks came from workers disgusted with the political experiences they had with the old Union of the Left parties, as well as from pseudo-left operatives who wanted above all to avoid discussing critical political issues. Indeed, they wanted to protect themselves from mounting anger in the working class.

But what the great mass of working and toiling people need is the truth, not cover-ups and lies. How else are to Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim workers to be unified in Sri Lankaand unified with their class brothers and sisters in India and beyondexcept on the perspectives of our party? Avoiding or evading the critical issues we raise only means aligning oneself, consciously or not, with the ruling elites moves to divide the workers along national lines and defeat them piecemeal.

Many comrades have already doubtless made the comparison between the revolutionary events in Sri Lanka in 2022 with those in Egypt in 2011. After years of uprisings and repression, and thanks to the confusion caused by the NATO war in Syria, the Egyptian army reimposed its dictatorship on the insurgent workers. But the ICFI had no presence in Egypt. Armed with the vast lessons of our history, we can fight to ensure that the struggles of the workers in Sri Lanka and internationally do not come to such an end, but are crowned by the world socialist revolution.

Your fraternally,

Alex Lantier, Parti de lgalit socialiste national secretary V. Gnana, Parti de lgalit socialiste assistant national secretary

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Third National Congress of the SEP (Sri Lanka): Greetings from the French and German sections of the world Trotskyist movement - WSWS

Features

Martin Empsons new book argues for a revolutionary transformation away from fossil fuel capitalism. Sophie Squire reviews the strategy and tactics he says we need to avoid climate disaster

Sunday 19 June 2022

Arguments about how we tackle the climate crisis are raging at every level of society, from those at the top to activists on the ground. As war in Ukraine grinds on, states are sprinting to invest in more fossil fuels. Martin Empsons new book, Socialism or ExtinctionThe meaning of Revolution in a Time of Ecological Disaster, takes on what sort of revolution we need to stop climate destruction.

It is a tool kit for activists, and argues a profit-led system is leading to climate collapse. But the book also says there is a way out. To understand how to fight the climate crisis that faces us, it is essential to know where it came from.

The starting chapters explore how capitalism, a system which began in Britain and parts of Low Land Europe in the 17th century, has created a climate crisis. Drawing on the writings of the revolutionary Karl Marx, Martin makes the case that capitalist accumulation and competition smashed humanitys relationship with nature apart.

Because competitive accumulation is central to capitalist production, there is no limit on the systems degradation of nature writes Martin. It is the uncontrolled accumulation of wealth, for the sake of further accumulation, that drives capitalisms destruction of nature. Just as capitalism cannot function without exploitation of human labour, it cannot avoid destroying nature in an uncontrolled, irrational, unplanned way.

And the irrational nature of the system we live in is plain to see. While billions go hungry, Martin cites that in 2018 the British food industry threw away 9.5 million tonnes of waste food.

But how did this irrational system become so deadly to the planet? Scientists and environmental campaigners argue that fossil fuel production must stop. Yet those in power refuse to be parted with them. The book also answers why the system is unable to break from fossil fuels, and how they got locked into the system in the first place. Martin argues that while early capitalist production did not necessarily require the use of fossil fuels, it spurred it on.

Competitive accumulation is what defines capitalism, not the use of fossil fuels, he writes. Early capitalist production did not require fossil fuels, and their adoption was the result of class strugglethe interests of the capitalist class conflicting with the interests of the workers.

It was because factory and mill owners wanted to improve their exploitation of the workers that they began the transition to fossil fuels.

The Industrial Revolution saw the creation and development of new technology that transformed production. Quickly the system became hooked on steam power, which was generated by burning coal.

As individual capitalists turned to steam power, others quickly followed or risked going bankrupt. This race to compete to make more profit is the same process that keeps the fossil fuel industry running today.

As Marx noted, previous forms of generating power such as wind and water were considered inconsistent when compared to steam. And steam power had another advantage over water or wind for the capitalistsit didnt chain production to the countryside and proximity to rivers.

Martin writes, Because coal could be transported to anywhere it was needed, steam power allowed the capitalist to build factories and mills where the workers were located. He adds, The ability to better exploit labour is a key reason why the switch to fossil fuel production took place so quicklyin a matter of a couple of decades.

Access to the human labour needed to keep profits flowing was always a necessity for the capitalists. They required workers to run their new colossal factories. And as Martin says, this led to the ruling class mounting a brutal process of enclosure and the destruction of traditional rural social organisation.

But as the book points out, this wholesale move to fossil fuel use was met with resistance from ordinary people. From the struggle against the enclosure of common land to the Luddite movement of the early 1800s, which opposed machinery to maximise profit, workers have always fought back.

And it is this kind of resistance, not just to the fossil fuel industry but to the whole capitalist system, that we need today. It is resistance that the final chapters of the book focuses on. Arguments rage within the environmental movement about what must be done to make change. In the later parts of the book, Martin takes on several of these arguments.

One argument about protests is made by some in the climate movement, such as Roger Hallam, a co-founder and ex-member of Extinction Rebellion (XR). He says that so-called A to B marches are ineffective.

Instead Hallam advocates for non-violent disruptive action, which he believes those in power are likely to notice. But as Martin rightly points out, A to B marches have some real benefits.

Using the example of the mobilisation of millions of people against the Iraq war, he points out that although the demos didnt stop the war on Iraq, they did make it difficult for the government to attack Iran and Syria.

Even more importantly, big mobilisations, as Martin says, can boost the confidence of working class people and lead to a broader fight against the system. And this broad fight must combine all forms of action, from A to B marches, to strikes and to direct action.

Martin writes, The most radical action possible is workers going on strike precisely because it hits profits and is a direct challenge to the system. In doing this, workers are raising the potential for alternative forms of power. And importantly, he is keen to stress the centrality of workers in the climate struggle. He writes, Workers are not separate to the environmental movement.

Most people on XR protests, climate strikes or the Cop26 demonstrations will work for a living. However, the working class is much larger than the environmental movement. The movement must reach out to the wider working class and maximise the involvement of workers in our protests and demonstrations.

While small groups of committed activists might have the power to shut down some fossil fuel infrastructure, workers withdrawing their labour can shut it down for good. The books early chapters clearly explain that capitalism leads us to destruction, and the later parts set out a clear plan of how we can upend the system itself. And as Martin says, only overturning the capitalist state and revolutioncan do this.

The book draws on several examples of revolutionary uprisings, the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Egyptian revolution of 2011, highlighting the successes and failures of these revolutions.

Martin says that a revolutionary party was needed in many cases to intervene in the struggles with arguments to guide the working class. But these accounts also show that ordinary people will rise against oppression, tyranny and poverty. As the warnings about the climate crisis become starker, and with the climate movement remaining relatively small, some activists may fall into despair.

Socialism or Extinction provides an antidote to this pessimism and is an assurance that hope can be found in ordinary people. Fixing around 200 years of unabated fossil fuel use will be a momentous task.

So in the last chapters of the book, Martin argues for a solutiona democratically planned society that puts ordinary people in charge. He explains, Unlike under capitalism where governments hope that industries, organisations or workplaces will reduce their emissions in line with their targets, as an add-on to their normal activities, a socialist planned economy would see tackling climate changeand other ecological issuesas intrinsic to their day-to-day behaviour.

Indeed a socialist world would prioritise action on the climate crisis, in contrast to capitalism, which fails to deploy resources and wealth to tackle the issue. Under socialism, addressing the ecological crisis would require immediate and priority use of resources and labour.

Drawing on a history of resistance, this book shows that renewed struggle is more than possible today. Socialism or Extinction is essential reading for all of those in the climate movement.

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Why it's socialism or extinction - Socialist Worker

On September 26, 2021, voters in the German capital Berlin not only cast their votes in federal, state, and municipal elections, they also cast their verdict on a referendum proposition, named Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen and Co., to expropriate housing companies. Once all of the votes had been counted, it was clear that a majority of Berliners had registered their support for the initiatives demands: 56.4percent backed the socialization of all large real estate corporations, such as Deutsche Wohnen, that own more than 3,000 rental apartments in the city.

Right now, a commission in Berlin is discussing the political consequences of the referendum vote. The mayor of Berlin, Franziska Giffey, proposed a law a few weeks ago that would allow tenants to reduce their rent if it amounts to more than 30percent of their income. Giffey is a member of the SPD, the same party that appointed Olaf Scholz as chancellor of Germany.

But the demands are becoming increasingly radical, even from within the ranks of the SPD. If everything were tutti here, then from my point of view everyone would only have the apartment they actually live in, declared the SPDs Secretary-General Kevin Khnert a few days ago on a popular TV program. I first had to look up what tutti is supposed to mean. In Italian, tutti means all or all together, so everything ... tutti is a tautology and otherwise meaningless. But Khnert uses it to express his vision of an ideal economic system, namely without private landlords.

In 2019, during an appearance on the popular political talk show Maischberger, Khnert, then still chairman of the SPD youth organization Jusos, posed the following question: By what right does someone own more than 20 apartments? And in the same year, he declared in a newspaper interview: I dont think its a legitimate business model to make a living off other peoples living space ... Taken to its logical conclusion, everyone should own at most the living space in which they themselves actually live.

More Socialist than the GDR

Thus, the SPDs secretary-general wants even more socialism in the German housing sector than existed in the socialist GDR (Eastern Germany). After all, in the GDR, not only were 84.4percent of one- and two-family houses privately owned, but so were 20.6percent of apartment buildings. Democratic socialists always vehemently defend themselves against the accusation that they want to create conditions similar to those in the GDR. But Khnerts proposal shows that their economic policies are very similar: The basic conviction that, with the exception of owner-occupied housing, the only good housing is state housing is identical to the philosophy prevalent in the GDR. The only difference is that Khnert wants to implement socialism in housing even more consistently than in the GDR, where private renting was regarded as undesirable and made more difficult, but every fifth apartment in a multi-family house still remained in private hands.

The rent freeze, another of the SPDs pet policies, also prevailed in the GDR, whose leaders had adopted an analogous law from the Adolf Hitler era almost word for word. As a consequence of this policy, the last of the GDRs problems was that living space per person was 22percent lower than in the West (twenty-seven square meters versus thirty-five square meters). In 1989, when the GDR finally collapsed, 65percent of all apartmentsincluding 3.2 million postwar buildingswere still being heated with coal stoves,24percent did not have their own toilets,and 18percent did not have a bathroom. Elevators, balconies, and modern kitchens were even less common, and 40percent of apartment buildings were classified as severely damaged, while 11percent were deemed to be completely uninhabitable.

At present, the SPD is unable to implement its plans because it is in government together with the Greens (who are quite sympathetic to such ideas) and the pro-market FDP, who are resisting them.

Rainer Zitelmann is a historian and the author of The Power of Capitalism and Hitlers National Socialism.

Image: Reuters.

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In Germany, Calls for a Socialist Housing Policy Are Growing Ever Louder - The National Interest Online