Visit Karl Marx ‘Retirement’ Editorial: Editorial: Dobbs Assails Fishing JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2007 Online at Means More Pinochet: Chavez Corporate Attack The Seas www.slp.org Work for Most Capitalism’s Man A Socialist? On ‘Middle Class’ To Extinction Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 4 Page 5 Page 8 Fishing the Seas to Extinction OR O AB MN L IA By B.B. overfishing where everyone agrees it’s a bad ilies, the children, what will they do?” though not VINCIT tudies evaluating information gathered thing” or banning destructive fishing practices a murmur is heard over factory closings, out- by the United Nations and other in the most sensitive areas. sourcing, etc. So goes such thinly disguised dis- Sresearchers have scientists alarmed over The Sun article hastened to offer news that sembling in the service of capitalist profits. the state of the world’s fisheries. These studies action is being taken. They were referring to the Some conclude that fish farming may be the Published by the Socialist Labor Party Established in l89l suggest that many species of fish have been fact that the World Trade Organization (WTO) salvation of fish species. However, in a docu- depleted to the point where their extinction is a has “moved beyond the consensus that many ment posted to the Internet by the nonprofit VOL.116 NO. 5 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2007 $1.00 distinct possibility. The number and variety of fishing subsidies lead to overfishing and organization SeaWeb in 2004, all is not well on species threatened are important as food for our destructive practices” and that “At least five the aquaculture farm. According to the SeaWeb own species. countries have submitted detailed proposals on posting, “Ten leading experts…evaluated There is no mystery to the decline. It is direct- eliminating these subsidies.” The government whether farm-raised fish add to the global food Oil Stakes Too High for ly traceable to overfishing. While other factors subsidies were cited as seriously warping the supply…or contribute to the depletion of fish Friedman Got are involved, the primary source of the problem sacred “free market,” thus creating overcapaci- populations worldwide.” They found “that in is that too many fish are being taken from the ty, inhibiting developing countries’ fishing some cases aquaculture does more harm than It Wrong, Marx U.S.Withdrawal From Iraq? oceans. The affected varieties of fish are not able industries, and depleting fishing stocks world- good.” “Many types of aquaculture are pushing to reproduce as fast as they are being harvested. wide. Mr. Sharpless observed, “The world needs us faster towards a worldwide fisheries collapse espite the deteriorating military situa- for a withdrawal of U.S. forces from that war- Some scientists believe that certain threatened to stop making payments that encourage com- through inefficient practices that rely too much Got It Right tion and growing chaos in Iraq, the Bush torn country. As the fourth anniversary of the varieties of ocean fish may not recover to avoid on the ecologically inefficient practice of feeding Dadministration has rejected all proposals U.S. invasion approached, President Bush was extinction unless fishing is sharply reduced or wild-caught fish to farmed fish.” Others are Milton Friedman spent his life extolling the expected to make and announce his decision on completely stopped long enough to allow endan- It should be “destroying [wild] fish habitats and collecting “virtues” of unfettered capitalism. In 1975 he which of several options under consideration he gered species to recover their losses. wild fish to stock fish farms.” wrote There Is No Such Thing as a Free would adopt for continuing the conflict. Costly It should be evident to every sentient being evident to every According to Rosamond Naylor, a senior Lunch, and one year later he was awarded the as the war has been in terms of destruction and that an economic system driven purely by con- research scholar at Stanford University, one of Nobel Prize in economics. When he died in human life, the material and strategic stakes tinuous market expansion with a view to sale sentient being that the experts cited above, “many types of aquacul- November at age 94 some in the capitalist are too great for the U.S. to cut its losses and to and profit will disastrously collide with the lim- an economic system ture are creating unforeseen problems and we press eulogized him as the “greatest econo- let Iraq work out its own destiny. its of finite resources, and with a finite world. seem to be headed for big trouble as a result.” mist of the 20th century.” But it isn’t. Instead, we hear incessant warn- driven purely by Among those problems is feeding ground-up wild According to Friedman, “The most impor- Iraq’s Oil Wealth ings of impending disasters of one sort or anoth- fish to farmed fish—it requires three pounds of tant single central fact about a free market The stakes are summed up in a single word: er and the fundamental social change our age continuous market wild fish to produce one pound of shrimp or [capitalism] is that no exchange takes place oil. Writing for the Los Angeles Times of Dec. 8, demands is totally ignored. expansion with a view salmon. Another degenerating practice is feeding unless both parties benefit.” Antonia Juhasz of the Institute for Policy Stud- In addition to incontrovertible warnings of vegetarian species fish oil and fishmeal to accel- Karl Marx had a different view. Capitalists ies put it this way: global warming, environmental destruction and to sale and profit will erate production. Moreover, habitat destruction and workers have opposing and conflicting “While the Bush administration, the media species loss, we now have another disastrous cat- in terms of hundreds of thousands of hectares of interests. The exchange of labor for wages is and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to aclysm looming on the horizon, a result of capi- disastrously collide coastal wetlands and mangroves, “critical nurs- an unequal one. Capitalism is a “free lunch” explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever- talism gone amuck. According to researchers eries” for wild fish and shellfish, have vanished and much more for those who own the means pragmatic members of the Iraq Study Group with the limits of of production and profit off the labor of the who analyzed “fishing data collected by the Unit- because of untreated effluent, feces, antibiotics share no such reticence. working class. ed Nations Food and Agricultural Organization and uneaten feed from fish farms. Rebecca Gold- “Page 1, Chapter 1 of the Iraq Study Group finite resources, and Which of these two views is correct? Do “both and other sources,” “marine ecosystems will burg, Environmental Defense senior scientist, report lays out Iraq’s importance to its region, parties”—capitalists and workers—“benefit,” unravel and there will be a ‘global collapse’ of all with a finite world. stated flatly that farm-raised salmon and shrimp the U.S. and the world with this reminder: ‘It as Friedman maintained, or are their interests species currently fished, possibly as soon as mid- constitutes a “net loss of marine resources.” has the world’s second-largest known oil “diametrically opposed,” as Marx maintained? century.” (The New York Times,Nov.3) The inescapable conclusion that must be If you agree that Marx was right you agree reserves.’ The group then proceeds to give very Boris Worm, a top marine biologist teaching mercial fishermen to catch too many fish. drawn from these facts is that the fishing indus- with the Socialist Labor Party and should do specific and radical recommendations as to at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, had a Refreshingly, that proposition has united inter- try dominated by the lecherous hand of profit all you can to support its work by your contri- what the United States should do to secure shocking epiphany. While giving a test to his ests that typically stand with daggers drawn.” and private ownership of the means of social bution to the Press Forward Fund. If you think those reserves. If the proposals are followed, B.B. for The People (Continued on page 6) students, he “analyzed data for the first time on How apt! A better description of capitalist production, that upon which billions of people that Friedman was right here are some facts his laptop” and was astounded to see “just a competition could hardly be found. But now, depend, cannot be allowed to continue. that you may wish to consider. smooth line going down. And when he extrapo- months later, we find that, surprise, surprise, the Moreover, the same must be said for the entire According to a United Nations study lated the data into the future ‘to see where it “daggers” remain drawn! In an article written by industrial complex. It can only be entrusted to released in December, a tiny segment of the ends at 100 percent collapse,’” he came to 2048. Marta Madina, also of Oceana, we are told “a the working class organized within the demo- world’s population control virtually all of the Not believing his eyes, he ran the check again. group of European countries, led by Spain, cratic socialist industrial governmental frame- world’s wealth. Summarizing those findings No More Hunger? The answer was the same. Then he double- France, Portugal and Poland” are “attempting to work embracing all industries, and grounded in December for a British newspaper, The checked his mathematical calculation by hand destroy any initiative taken to stop the deterio- upon the universal societal principal of produc- Guardian, science correspondent James Ran- By Bruce Cozzini 20), the government has claimed a goal of “only” and the result was the same.