Book Launch for New Edition of Marx’sCritique of the Gotha ProgramOnline Mini-Conference Sponsored by the International Marxist-Humanist Organization Saturday, March 18 |
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Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program offers the fullest elaboration of his vision for a communist future, free from the shackles of capital but also the state. Neglected by the statist versions of socialism, whether social democratic or Stalinist that left a wreckage of coercion and disillusionment in their wake, this new annotated translation of Marx’s Critique – just issued by PM Press with commentaries by Peter Hudis and Peter Linebaugh — makes clear for the first time the full emancipatory scope of his notion of life after capitalism. Save 20% on Critique of the Gotha Program book and e-Book by using coupon code GOTHA at the PM Press website: https://pmpress.org/index.php? Sponsor:
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Panel 1: 10:00-11:45 AM
Panel 2: 12:00-1:45 PM
Panel 3: 2:00-3:45 PM
There is no admission charge. For more info, visit www.imhojournal.org or send an email to arise@imhojournal.org Karl Marx IV
I come now to the democratic section. A. "The free basis of the state." First of all, according to II, the German Workers' party strives for "the free state". Free state — what is this? It is by no means the aim of the workers, who have got rid of the narrow mentality of humble subjects, to set the state free. In the German Empire, the "state" is almost as "free" as in Russia. Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it; and today, too, the forms of state are more free or less free to the extent that they restrict the "freedom of the state". The German Workers' party — at least if it adopts the program — shows that its socialist ideas are not even skin-deep; in that, instead of treating existing society (and this holds good for any future one) as the basis of the existing state (or of the future state in the case of future society), it treats the state rather as an independent entity that possesses its own intellectual, ethical, and libertarian bases. And what of the riotous misuse which the program makes of the words "present-day state", "present-day society", and of the still more riotous misconception it creates in regard to the state to which it addresses its demands? "Present-day society" is capitalist society, which exists in all civilized countries, more or less free from medieval admixture, more or less modified by the particular historical development of each country, more or less developed. On the other hand, the "present-day state" changes with a country's frontier. It is different in the Prusso-German Empire from what it is in Switzerland, and different in England from what it is in the United States. The "present-day state" is therefore a fiction. Nevertheless, the different states of the different civilized countries, in spite or their motley diversity of form, all have this in common: that they are based on modern bourgeois society, only one more or less capitalistically developed. They have, therefore, also certain essential characteristics in common. In this sense, it is possible to speak of the "present-day state" in contrast with the future, in which its present root, bourgeois society, will have died off. The question then arises: What transformation will the state undergo in communist society? In other words, what social functions will remain in existence there that are analogous to present state functions? This question can only be answered scientifically, and one does not get a flea-hop nearer to the problem by a thousand-fold combination of the word 'people' with the word 'state'. Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. Now the program does not deal with this nor with the future state of communist society. Its political demands contain nothing beyond the old democratic litany familiar to all: universal suffrage, direct legislation, popular rights, a people's militia, etc. They are a mere echo of the bourgeois People's party, of the League of Peace and Freedom. They are all demands which, insofar as they are not exaggerated in fantastic presentation, have already been realized. Only the state to which they belong does not lie within the borders of the German Empire, but in Switzerland, the United States, etc. This sort of "state of the future" is a present-day state, although existing outside the "framework" of the German Empire. But one thing has been forgotten. Since the German Workers' party expressly declares that it acts within "the present-day national state", hence within its own state, the Prusso-German Empire — its demands would indeed be otherwise largely meaningless, since one only demands what one has not got — it should not have forgotten the chief thing, namely, that all those pretty little gewgaws rest on the recognition of the so-called sovereignty of the people and hence are appropriate only in a democratic republic. Since one has not the courage — and wisely so, for the circumstances demand caution — to demand the democratic republic, as the French workers' programs under Louis Philippe and under Louis Napoleon did, one should not have resorted, either, to the subterfuge, neither "honest" [1] nor decent, of demanding things which have meaning only in a democratic republic from a state which is nothing but a police-guarded military despotism, embellished with parliamentary forms, alloyed with a feudal admixture, already influenced by the bourgeoisie, and bureaucratically carpentered, and then to assure this state into the bargain that one imagines one will be able to force such things upon it "by legal means". Even vulgar democracy, which sees the millennium in the democratic republic, and has no suspicion that it is precisely in this last form of state of bourgeois society that the class struggle has to be fought out to a conclusion — even it towers mountains above this kind of democratism, which keeps within the limits of what is permitted by the police and not permitted by logic. That, in fact, by the word "state" is meant the government machine, or the state insofar as it forms a special organism separated from society through division of labor, is shown by the words "the German Workers' party demands as the economic basis of the state: a single progressive income tax", etc. Taxes are the economic basis of the government machinery and of nothing else. In the state of the future, existing in Switzerland, this demand has been pretty well fulfilled. Income tax presupposes various sources of income of the various social classes, and hence capitalist society. It is, therefore, nothing remarkable that the Liverpool financial reformers — bourgeois headed by Gladstone's brother — are putting forward the same demand as the program. |
Thursday, February 16, 2023
75% of Canadians say any level of debt is a relationship deal breaker: Survey
Whether you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day with your significant other or showing some self-love and buying yourself flowers, a new survey found many Canadians say debt plays a significant role on whether they enter or stay in a relationship.
According to a survey released on Monday by Finder, three-quarters of Canadians (75 per cent) would think about breaking up or not starting a relationship due to a partner’s debt, regardless of the total amount.
It also found that debt is one of Canadians’ top three deal breakers in a partner, with infidelity in first (36 per cent), followed by addiction (33 per cent) and debt (30 per cent).
Three-in-10 Canadians also say they would reconsider being in a relationship with their partner if they had debt between $500 to $15,000, while 15 per cent say “no amount of debt” is acceptable when it comes to finding a significant other.
UNEMPLOYMENT CONCERNS
The report also found younger Canadians aged 18 to 44 are more concerned if their partner is unemployed (26 per cent) compared to those over 45 (19 per cent).
Women also place a higher priority on finding a partner that has a job (27 per cent), the report said, than men (17 per cent).
But on the other hand, more male respondents are likely to want a partner to make their life more affordable (18 per cent) in comparison to females (17 per cent).
Finder survey methodology
The results of the Finder: Undateable Debt Survey were collected through an online Pollfish survey conducted between January 22 and February 2, 2023. In the survey, 1,846 Canadians from across the country were asked about their opinions on relationships, dating and the financial implications of both. The estimated margin of error for the survey is +/-3%, 19 out of 20 times.
TC Energy reports Q4 loss due to rising costs of Coastal GasLink
The Canadian Pres
TC ENERGY CORP (TRP:CT)
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TC Energy Corp. expects to be able to indicate this summer whether it will complete the Coastal GasLink pipeline by its end-of-year target or not.
The Calgary-based pipeline company, which has been dogged by unexpected construction issues and rising labour costs for the project, said earlier this month that it has raised the estimated cost of the pipeline to $14.5 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $11.2 billion.
Construction of the pipeline is approximately 84 per cent complete. However, TC Energy has warned that if construction extends well into 2024, it could add an additional $1.2 billion to the project's cost.
On a conference call with analysts Tuesday, CEO François Poirier said the company still believes it can finish the project by the end of 2023, and is working toward that goal with a "relentless focus."
"There's not a day that goes by that is not critical," Poirier said. "We have to execute, as we have been, safely and efficiently throughout the entire year."
Some of the construction activities that remain to be completed can only be done during the winter months, executive vice-president Bevin Wirzba said, meaning TC Energy will know later this year whether it needs to push work into a new season.
"The best visibility that I can give you to whether we'll complete mechanically by the end of the year is probably in the June, July time frame," Wirzba said.
TC Energy Corp. reported a nearly $1.45-billion loss in its fourth quarter due to the rising cost of its Coastal GasLink project.
The company — which raised its dividend Tuesday to 93 cents per share, up from 90 cents per share — said it took a one-time pre-tax charge of $3 billion in the fourth quarter related to the increased cost of the project.
The Coastal GasLink project is a 670-km pipeline spanning northern British Columbia. It will carry natural gas across the province to the LNG Canada processing and export facility in Kitimat, B.C.
The company is pursuing potential recoveries from contractors to offset a portion of the rising costs.
TC Energy was also challenged in the fourth quarter by an oil spill from its Keystone pipeline in Washington County, Kansas.
The company has pegged the cost of cleanup and remediation of December's spill at an estimated US$480 million, though TC Energy is hopeful most of those costs will be recoverable through insurance.
Richard Prior, president of liquids pipelines at TC Energy, said on Tuesday's conference call that there are still 800 workers at the site of the spill involved in cleanup operations, and the company is also conducting an analysis of other segments of pipe to ensure that a similar event couldn't happen elsewhere on the line.
The company's own investigation has indicated the spill was due to a combination of factors, including bending stress on the pipe and a welding flaw, and that there were no issues with the strength or material properties of the pipe itself.
Poirier also said Tuesday that TC Energy remains confident in its earlier announced plan to divest at least $5-billion in assets this year, in order to pay down debt and fund new projects.
"I understand that there's a lot of interest on what we'll be selling and when. We are in market with a number of different processes and conversations, and we're at a very sensitive time in those processes," Poirier said.
"And so we're going to refrain from commenting specifically on any process."
TC Energy said its comparable earnings for the fourth quarter amounted to $1.11 per share, up from $1.05 per share a year earlier.
Analysts on average had expected a profit of $1.10 per share, according to estimates compiled by financial markets data firm Refinitiv.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 14, 2023.
Bed Bath & Beyond Canada's store closures are one of the largest recent retail failures: Analyst
, BNN Bloomberg
While Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.’s closure of Canadian retail stores is small in comparison to past examples like Sears Canada or Target Canada, it’s still one of the largest retail failures in recent years, according to Sam Damiani, equity research analyst at TD Securities Inc.
In a note to clients on Monday, Damiani said Bed Bath & Beyond’s shuttering of Canadian brick-and-mortar stores will have a “slightly negative impact” on the Canadian retail leasing market.
“BBBC's (Bed Bath & Beyond Canada’s) 65 stores represent an estimated 1.7 million square feet, or 0.3 per cent of total retail space in Canada,” Damiani said in the note.
“Although small in relation to past retail failures such as Target Canada and Sears Canada, this still represents one of the largest in recent years.”
But he said the recent string of store closures is not necessarily an indication of overall weakness in Canada’s retail leasing market.
“Based on the overall health of Canada's retail leasing market and BBB's (Bed Bath & Beyond’s) unique circumstances, we do not see this as being indicative of a coming wave of meaningful failures or store closures in Canada,” he explained.
“We also see most of the expected vacancies being back-filled over the near/medium term.”
Damiani called the news about Bed Bath & Beyond Canada shutting down its stores “unsurprising,” and said landlords “have had time to consider options, including holding discussions with potential replacement tenants.”
CREDITOR PROTECTION
Last week, Bed Bath & Beyond Canada was granted an initial order for creditor protection by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
Documents posted to the court-appointed monitor Alvarez & Marsal Canada Inc.'s website showed the retailer posted a $99.5 million net loss for the nine-month period ending Nov. 26, 2022. The documents added that the parent company is no longer able to give financial support to the Canadian division.
“BBBC's (Bed Bath & Beyond Canada’s) fate is not surprising, given the weak performance and repeated largescale store closures by its U.S. parent in recent years,” Damiani said.
Last August, the retailer announced in a press release that it would make strategic changes “intended to meet the demand of its customers, drive growth and profitability, and improve its balance sheet and cash flows.”
“The Company has identified and commenced the closure of approximately 150 lower-producing Bed Bath & Beyond banner stores,” the U.S.-based company said in the release.
“The Company continues to evaluate its portfolio and leases, in addition to staffing, to ensure alignment with customer demand and go-forward strategy.”
Rents are soaring in Canada as surge of people goes undercounted
, Bloomberg News
Canada’s explosive population growth from immigration is causing rents to surge in its biggest cities. And there’s another problem: The country isn’t even properly counting the number of people who need homes.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government plans to welcome 465,000 new permanent residents this year, and increase the annual target to half a million by 2025. But those often-cited numbers understate the pressure on the country’s limited supply of housing —because they don’t include a wave of foreign students, temporary workers and others with non-permanent visas.
The country actually had close to 1 million international arrivals last year, according to an analysis by Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce that’s based on other data, including visas. It will probably accept a similar number this year, said Benjamin Tal, the bank’s deputy chief economist.
As a result, Canada is experiencing its fastest population growth since the 1970s, and apartments have become extremely hard to find. The vacancy rate on rental buildings is below 2 per cent, the lowest since 2001. In Vancouver, it’s less than 1 per cent. The situation is made worse by rising interest rates that have made buying a home unaffordable for many people, pushing them into the market for rental properties.
“We’re underestimating how many people are here and how many people are requiring real estate,” Tal said in an interview. “If you don’t have official numbers showing the demand accurately, municipalities making allocation for housing based on those are missing the magnitude of the need.”
The consequences of that undercounting can already be seen, Tal said. Rent inflation was nearly 6 per cent in the last two months of 2022, accelerating from 3.1 per cent early last year.
Landlords in many provinces face legal restrictions on how much they can increase rents on existing tenants. But when a two-bedroom apartment is vacated, the average increase for the next tenant is 18.2 per cent, according to Canada’s national housing agency.
“It’s dire from a consumer point of view,” said Mark Kenney, chief executive officer of Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust, Canada’s largest publicly traded apartment company.
Local government red tape is one reason more apartments aren’t being built, Kenney said, which means housing policy is out of alignment with Trudeau’s approach to immigration.
“Canada was at a point for many, many years where we had housing affordability and you could have open immigration policy. There were ample homes for all,” Kenney said. “The combination of turning up the volume on the immigration front, and turning down the volume on development, has put us in really bad shape.”
Housing costs are causing some to uproot from the priciest cities in search of cheaper locations. Toronto gained people from international migration but also saw a net outflow of nearly 100,000 residents to other parts of Canada in the 12 months ended July 1.
Some are landing in Calgary and Edmonton, the largest cities in Alberta, which saw a significant increase in migration from other parts of Canada. “It’s rare to be able to find an empty apartment now, unless it’s new,” said Sam Kolias, CEO of Calgary-based Boardwalk Real Estate Investment Trust. “There’s lots of jobs here.”
A spokesperson for Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said the government takes housing into account when it sets immigration policy, and it’s a factor in who it allows in.
“In order to meet housing demands for those who have newly entered Canada, and the nation’s housing needs in general, we have taken great care to ensure our immigration plan selects individuals with the skills to build homes in Canada, and encourage them to settle in parts of the country that have housing capacity,” Bahoz Dara Aziz, Fraser’s press secretary, said in an emailed statement.
'GET THE NUMBERS RIGHT'
CIBC’s Tal said it’s “misleading” to focus on the number of new permanent residents when calculating housing needs. And there are other quirks of Canada’s statistics-gathering process that may result in underestimating demand for places to live, he added.
It all suggests that “existing policy tools will easily fall short of addressing the current and future increase in housing demand,” Tal said in a report to investors. If there’s no change in how migration data are captured and debated, Canada may find it harder to absorb its rising number of immigrants, he said.
“The official numbers don’t tell you the story. When we think about the housing policy, a precondition is to get the numbers right.”
Canada needs to build 50 per cent more
homes as Ottawa plans for higher
immigration levels: report
Tom Yun
CTVNews.ca writer
Feb. 15, 2023
As Canada prepares to ramp up immigration levels, a new report says the country will need to build 50 per cent more housing than what's already being planned.
The report, published by economists from Desjardins on Monday, says in order to keep up with the federal government's immigration targets without causing substantial increases to home prices, 100,000 more homes need to be constructed annually in 2023 and 2024.
"Increasing the housing supply beyond the typical demand response would also take pressure off prices but requires extraordinary policy intervention and resolve," the authors wrote. "Indeed, we estimate that housing starts would have to increase immediately by almost 50 per cent nationally relative to our baseline scenario and stay there through 2024 to offset the price gains from the increase in federal immigration."
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Last fall, Ottawa unveiled plans to increase the number of immigrants entering Canada, with a goal of 500,000 newcomers arriving per year by 2025.
The report notes that the federal government's target of 100,000 new housing units over the next five years falls short of the 100,000 new homes needed annually. However, the Ontario government aims to get 1.5 million new homes built in the province over 10 years by 2031 with Bill 23, also known as the More Homes Built Faster Act.
Ontario's target of 1.5 million new homes by 2031, over that time period, would result in far more than the 100,000 per year that Desjardins says is needed across the entire country. If the province can meet this target, the report says this could have a "disproportionate offsetting impact on the average home price in Canada."
The impact of immigration on housing affordability also depends on where newcomers decide to move. If newcomers predominately move to the Prairies, the authors say this would put less pressures on housing prices in areas where affordability is already stretched. Desjardins also says the Prairies are expected to have "the best performing economies in Canada" and having more immigrants move to these provinces "would support higher economic growth there and nationally."
Since 2018, Ontario and B.C. have received the greatest share of immigrants, despite also being the two provinces with the least affordable housing. If these provinces continue to receive the most immigrants, the authors of the report say this could "boost prices and erode affordability there and nationally."
Lowering immigration levels to what they were from 2018 to 2021 would reduce the impact on home prices, the report adds. However, the authors stress that higher immigration levels are still desperately needed to address labour shortages and that it's "wrongheaded" to blame immigration as the primary cause of rising home prices.
"Rather than being considered a reason to curb immigration, it should instead be a catalyst for reducing barriers to building more housing. The contribution of immigrants to the Canadian economy well outweighs their impact on the housing market," the report says.
How much rent can you afford?
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DOUBLE-DOUBLE IN KARACHI
Tim Hortons: Cash-strapped Pakistan makes beeline for coffee
, Bloomberg News
Soaring inflation and a stuttering economy hasn’t gotten in the way of a bumper opening for Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons’ maiden Pakistan outlet.
The Lahore branch has seen long queues since its launch Feb. 11, marking the biggest opening for “Tim Hortons outside of Canada and the U.S. in the last decade” said a spokesperson for Restaurant Brands International Inc., which owns the chain. Pakistan is “one of the fastest-growing markets for coffee chains,” she said.
Tim Hortons plans to open two more branches in the city this month. The success of the coffee shop, where a cappuccino costs 550 Pakistani rupees (US$2), comes even as the nation is skating on the verge of bankruptcy. The economic pain is visible in fuel and medicine shortage as the government takes tough measures, including raising taxes, to secure a loan from the International Monetary Fund.
The crisis has pushed millions into poverty in the South Asian nation as inflation soared to nearly five-decade high and the currency plunged sharply, making imports costlier. The queues outside Tim Hortons underscore the sharpening inequality in the nation.
Karachi’s Rashid Seafood, which reported a 50 per cent drop in sales this winter as middle class customers stayed away, is mostly serving the higher income segment now. In another sign of the widening rich-poor divide, Pakistan’s car sales dropped to the lowest in almost three years last month, while luxury car sales jumped.
The elite are able to ward off the impact of such events everywhere, said Saad Khan, head of research at Karachi-based IGI Securities Ltd. “When we talk about the masses, obviously they are impacted by one of the biggest crisis that nation has ever seen.”
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