The Marxist-Leninist Weekly

February 14 marks the 25th Annual Women's Memorial March Honouring Missing and Murdered Women. This event began in 1991 in response to the murder of a Coast Salish woman in Vancouver's Eastside. Events are taking place in more than 20 cities and towns in Canada and several in the United States to remember the lives of the hundreds of friends, sisters, daughters, mothers, aunties and grandmothers across the country who have gone missing or been murdered in the last few decades and demand that a National Inquiry be held to address this national scandal. They are demanding measures to end the violence and remedy the social problems that give rise to it. TML Weekly calls on everyone to take a stand in the defence of the rights of all and go all out to participate in these marches and other events.

While these actions honour the lives of the missing and murdered women, the vast majority of whom are Aboriginal, they also bring to the fore the social conditions facing Aboriginal women across Canada, their families and their communities who continue to face the colonial violence, racism and brutality of the Canadian state.

The Harper government continues to violate the hereditary rights of Aboriginal peoples, refusing to deal with them on a nation-to-nation basis. It has introduced and passed racist, colonial legislation such as Bill C-27, the First Nations Financial Transparency Act; Bill C-45, the Jobs and Growth Act, Bill S-2, the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act and others. The government also persists in criminalizing Aboriginal peoples' struggles for their rights. These policies of the Harper government have been instrumental in perpetuating and worsening the very conditions that have made indigenous women vulnerable.

Harper's own attitude towards Aboriginal women was summed up in an interview conducted by Peter Mansbridge, chief correspondent of CBC News on December 17, 2014, as part of a year-end review of the government of Canada. Mansbridge questioned the Prime Minister on the issue of an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women. The demand for an inquiry has been raised by Aboriginal people and their organizations, as well as Canadians from coast to coast to coast as a matter of national importance and a priority. It was also flagged as a grave concern by former UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples James Anaya to the UN Human Rights Council in 2014.

Mansbridge: An inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal, Indigenous women. You've rejected that in the past?

Mansbridge: There seems to be some indication that your government may be at least considering some form of formal inquest or inquiry or investigation.

According to an RCMP review of police records done at the end of 2013, between 1980 and 2012, 1,017 Aboriginal women and girls were murdered and another 164 have gone missing and are unaccounted for. The report points out that Aboriginal women are nearly three times more likely than non-Aboriginal women to report being a victim of a violent crime. As well, Aboriginal women are four times more likely to be murdered than non-Aboriginal women.[1]

As the organizers of the march in Vancouver point out in their press release: "Twenty five years later, the women's memorial march continues to honour the lives of missing and murdered women. Increasing deaths of many vulnerable women from the DTES [Downtown Eastside] still leaves family, friends, loved ones, and community members with an overwhelming sense of grief and loss. Indigenous women disproportionately continue to go missing or be murdered with minimal to no action to address these tragedies or the systemic nature of gendered violence, poverty, racism, or colonialism."

On February 11, the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians (AIAI) in Ontario, a political defence organization of seven First Nations, announced that it has decided to launch its own inquiry into missing and murdered women at a three-day gathering in Thunder Bay.

AIAI Deputy Grand Chief Denise Stonefish pointed out, "The federal government refuses to acknowledge the need for a national inquiry and we will not sit and wait any more. We need to look at the systemic issues that have led to the loss of more than 1,100 women and girls. These are not cases of isolated violence." She noted, "The input from the families is required if this is to truly be our own inquiry based on our values, our realities, and our solutions."

The AIAI, which comprises the Batchewana First Nation of Ojibways, Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, Delaware Nation at Moravian Town, Caldwell First Nation, Hiawatha First Nation -- Mississaugas of Rice Lake, Oneida Nation of the Thames and Wahta Mohawks, will bring together 15 First Nations over three days for a First Nations-led inquiry whose findings will inform a national roundtable later this month.

Rights and Security Are Not Dependent
on the Price of Oil

The monopoly media are full of reports that the oil industry in Alberta is collapsing because of the drop in oil prices. This classic Chicken Little play suggests the sky is falling and everyone must accept a new round of austerity, cutbacks and layoffs. This is meant to paralyze the people and their thinking about a pro-social response. Of course, "everyone" according to the media excludes the rich shareholders and top executives of the energy monopolies and banks whose claim on the social wealth oil workers produce will remain substantial. Also excluded from austerity are the normal subsidies, grants, and cheap infrastructure provided to the energy monopolies by the state and public treasury. The rich must be paid, the tired anti-social story goes, otherwise they will not invest. No thought or discussion appears in the monopoly media that perhaps a new direction for the economy is required that is stable and self-reliant, and not dependent on "global market forces" and speculators dictating this or that price for a particular commodity disconnected from its actual price of production.

Oil production in Alberta is not collapsing. Revised forecasts estimate that Canadian production will increase by 150,000 barrels/day in 2015 from 2014 for a total of 3.6 million barrels/day. However, the sudden drop in prices and subsequent loss of gross income will hurt the economy and in particular the working class.

The price drop and its effects show the destructive nature of the present direction of the economy. The owners of companies immediately place the burden of loss of gross income from sales on oil workers, especially those involved in smaller projects or ones just beginning. New projects in the tar sands are being delayed, while large projects already under construction are proceeding. Conventional oil and gas drilling in western Canada will drop and the number of rigs is expected to decline. Layoffs of thousands of oil workers have already been announced.

The drawdown of projects will affect construction workers, those working on oil and gas drilling rigs, camp workers, oilfield service workers, small businesses, and machine, welding and other shops just to name a few. The working class and its communities in Alberta and beyond will suffer the brunt of the effects from loss of gross oil and gas income from lower prices.

As thousands of jobs disappear, the impact will be felt right across Canada not just in Alberta. Workers from all over Canada commute to work in the tar sands; many live in camps or have recently moved to Alberta. Many of these workers have lost their jobs in the auto plants and manufacturing in Ontario; some come from communities where the forestry industry has been decimated, and regions where unemployment is high, especially the Atlantic Provinces. They are working in Alberta because of the refusal of governments to restrict the monopolies, develop nation-building alternatives in all regions of Canada and begin a new pro-social direction for the economy.

The lower price of oil means the already low direct government claims on the social wealth oil workers produce, mainly through corporate taxes and royalties, will decline. Indirect claims on social wealth from workers' pay, user fees and other forms of individual taxation will also decline as workers lose their jobs. Both the Harper federal and Prentice Alberta governments have delayed their budgets, pleading this is necessary because of lower revenues. Lower government revenue is already being used for propaganda purposes to impose new anti-social austerity measures. It looks like Prentice will use the induced hysteria surrounding lower oil prices to call an early election to win a fraudulent mandate for anti-social austerity.

Royalties and corporate taxes form part of the arrangements by which governments guarantee monopoly profits, assume the risks for private interests and create the economic conditions for investments to prosper with a high rate of profit. Pay the monopolies and if the price of oil remains high, then some crumbs will fall to the public. When the price of oil goes down, as it always does, then "everyone" must tighten their belts. Public health care, education, seniors' care, care for the most vulnerable and other social programs are then said to be unsustainable. The attacks on oil workers and public sector workers alike intensify and the rich demand that the people accept these anti-social attacks and austerity agenda because "there is no alternative."

There Is a Pro-Social Alternative!

The rights of Canadians to social programs and the right of energy workers to working conditions and claims on the wealth they produce acceptable to themselves and to security of livelihoods are not dependent on the price of oil. Rights belong to people by virtue of being human and to workers by virtue of their hard work and qualifications and central decisive role in the economy and the creation of social wealth.

Oil and construction workers had no say in the decision to permit the monopolies to engage in a frenzied pace of construction in the tar sands to ship bitumen down the pipeline. Oil workers and the organized working class in Alberta have long taken a firm stand against the shipping of bitumen and the construction of the Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipelines. They have proposed an alternative to develop oil reserves in a socially responsible manner. They have demanded that oil should be upgraded and refined in Canada and become the base of a petrochemical industry and manufacturing sector, which contribute to nation-building and the development of a self-reliant and secure economy to serve the people, not subjected to recurring crises.

The drop in the price of oil, attacks on the security of oil workers, and propaganda for austerity show that a new direction for the economy is needed. The current direction of the economy includes monopoly right to rip and ship raw resources, a low wage agenda using local and international worker traffickers, attacks on social programs, and a royalty regime and other schemes to pay the rich. A drop in the price of oil becomes the occasion to impose anti-social measures and insecurity on workers. Demands that the people accept austerity become deafening, and the negation of the rights that people have by virtue of being human becomes even more brazen. This must not pass!

Fight for a New Direction for the Economy!

A new direction for the economy is required, which includes upholding the rights of First Nations and all working people. A new direction would stop paying the rich and increase investments in social programs. It would exercise public control over decisions concerning oil extraction, upgrading, refining, manufacturing and prices to put an end to this irrational boom and bust that does so much harm to the people and their socialized economy.

Some Effects of the Oil Price Drop

The Bank of Canada (BoC), on January 22, cut its benchmark overnight interest rate by one-quarter per cent from one per cent to 0.75 per cent. The BoC says the rate cut is meant to blunt the negative effects on the economy from the falling price of oil.

"The drop in oil prices is unambiguously negative for the Canadian economy," BoC Governor Stephen Poloz said in Ottawa, announcing the rate cut. "Canada's income from oil exports will be reduced, and investment and employment in the energy sector are already being cut."

Since June last year, oil prices have tumbled by more than 55 per cent from $105 to less than $50 a barrel. The BoC hopes the interest rate cut will stimulate the economy through cheaper and increased borrowing to counteract the negative effects of the drop in oil prices, although in a contradictory message it also warns Canadians about piling on debt.

"The large decline in oil prices will weigh significantly on the Canadian economy," states the BoC's quarterly monetary policy report issued the day before the rate cut. "Given the speed and magnitude of the oil-price decline, there is substantial uncertainty around the likely level for oil prices and their impact on the economic outlook for Canada."

A Conference Board of Canada report on January 20 predicts the oil-price collapse will cut federal revenue by $4.3 billion this year and drain provincial income in 2015 by nearly $10 billion. Cheaper oil prices will slash provincial royalties from production mostly in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador by $4.5 billion. The provinces will also lose another $5.2 billion for the year in provincial tax revenue.

An analysis from TD Economics issued on January 13 says the tailspin of oil prices would likely convert next year's projected federal budget surplus of $1.6 billion into a $2.3 billion deficit. The analysis also predicts the Harper government's projected $4.3 billion surplus for 2016-2017 would turn into a $600-million shortfall.

The BoC writes: The overnight rate is the interest rate at which major financial institutions borrow and lend one-day (or "overnight") funds among themselves; the Bank sets a target level for that rate. This target for the overnight rate is often referred to as the Bank's key interest rate or key policy rate. Changes in the target for the overnight rate influence other interest rates, such as those for consumer loans and mortgages. They can also affect the exchange rate of the Canadian dollar. See BoC backgrounder for further information here.

Brief History of Oil Prices

The price of oil in 2015 is currently being forecast at $52.50 a barrel for Brent (world price) and $49 a barrel for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) which is taken as the North American benchmark price. The forecast price of WTI at U.S.$49 is CAN$60.72.

The idea that current oil prices are exceptionally low in historical terms and that oil "usually" sells at a price over $100 in real dollars simply doesn't hold up. This fiction is being used to con people with a distorted idea that Canadians are all in it together, and that "everyone" has to take it on the chin to get through the next period before oil prices get back to "normal." All of the austerity measures which the rich are demanding cause great difficulties for the working people and have been shown over and over to damage the Canadian socialized economy.

So what are the facts? There have only been three short periods in the entire post-World War II period when the real price of oil (quoted in 2014 dollars) has been $100 or more. Two of these occasions immediately preceded a major recession. $100 for a barrel of oil is the exception, not the norm.

From 1948 to 1973, the real world price of West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for pricing North American oil (in 2014 U.S. dollars) ranged from about $19-$25 a barrel. It reached a high point in 1957 and then declined slowly but steadily to a low of $18.91 in June, 1973. In 1974, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) began to raise the price of their oil, putting an end to the extremely low prices at which oil had long been plundered from the Middle East. From 1974 to 1979, oil prices fluctuated from about $50-$60 a barrel, never going above $60 in today's dollars. The price began to spike in 1977, finally reaching $114.51 in 1980 when it crashed as the economy went into recession. For the next 25 years the price of oil never went above $60, reaching a low of $16.16 in December 1998.

Oil reached its highest price ever of U.S.$143.72 in June 2008, just before it collapsed again, with the economic crisis of 2008-2009. The price of oil dropped to $46.42 in 2009, actually a price much closer to historic levels. The price began to climb again reaching U.S.$104 in 2010, fluctuating from about U.S.$92-$108 until June 2014 when the current steep decline began.

Disastrous Years for Workers,
Suppliers and Others

Four disastrous years for workers, suppliers and others associated with the retail companies Target and Zellers prove the present direction of the economy is not working. Only a few years ago Zellers operated 305 stores across Canada employing over 35,000 workers. The lives of its workers and suppliers were dramatically disrupted in 2011 when the U.S. monopoly Target took over many of the Zellers leaseholds resulting in their temporary or permanent closure. Target kept 189 stores for itself and transferred 45 to other retailers, including 39 to Walmart. In July 2012, the Hudson's Bay Company, the parent company of Zellers, which is now controlled in the U.S., announced the shuttering of its remaining 85 Zellers stores. The monopolies involved, including Walmart, fired all Zellers workers.

The disruption in the lives of the workers and loss of income were enormous. Retail workers pay into Employment Insurance yet most do not qualify for financial assistance upon loss of their jobs. They must fend for themselves while looking for other work in an economy where they have no power or control and which treats workers as collateral damage of business transactions and economic crises.

By 2014, Target had renovated and opened 133 stores across Canada, most of them former Zellers leaseholds, hiring 17,600 workers and selling pharmacy franchises for most stores. Suddenly on January 15, 2015 Target filed for bankruptcy protection for its Canadian operations under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) and announced the closure of all its operations within two months. All its workers were told they were fired and pharmacy franchise operations and coffee shops discontinued. Once again, retail workers became collateral damage in an economic system that is destructive to say the least and over which they have no control or say.

Target workers learned that the total severance pay they will receive is not severance at all but an "employee trust" package under CCAA, for which most will have to work the remaining 16 weeks to liquidate the stock. To add insult to the indignity they have suffered, workers learned that the amount of the $70-million "employee trust" package is similar in size to last year's individual severance package paid to Target's former CEO Gregg Steinhafel. This outrageous form of class privilege has no place in modern society where the well-being of a privileged few is guaranteed while workers are thrown under the bus.

Under CCAA provisions for what is called a "Key Employee Retention Plan," 26 of Target Canada's top senior and operations managers will receive an average of about $30,000 each on top of their final paycheque if they stay until the final closure. Another 520 store level managers, about four per Target Canada store, will receive an average of around $11,000 each plus their salary if they stay until no longer needed.

Similar to the Zellers mass firing, most of the Target retail workers are not eligible for Employment Insurance, and qualifying to receive it has been made worse with the increased restrictions imposed by the anti-social Harper government. To those facing great insecurity is added an undisclosed number of workers who, while not technically Target employees, will have no work after the stock is depleted. They work at the distribution centres used by Target but run by a company called Eleven Points Logistics.

The disruption to Canada's economy is serious. Many suppliers and companies doing renovation work will not be paid because of CCAA bankruptcy protection. Substantial money will be lost in rent. Other stores in malls where Target was the anchor may be in danger of collapse as well. Tax money will be lost for all levels of government. Collectively, pharmacists who bought franchises and set up their businesses in Target stores are out millions of dollars and may have to declare bankruptcy. Already, Walmart, London Drugs and Shoppers Drug Mart vultures are circling to devour the Target pharmacies' patient lists for next to nothing.

Target's CCAA filing reveals liabilities of $5.1 billion, including accounts payable of about $546 million. The list of creditors owed money but frozen under CCAA runs to 42 pages. The amounts include $12,036,000 to the Canada Revenue Agency, $2,674,000 to the province of British Columbia and millions more to other provincial and municipal governments, $3 million to grocer Sobeys, and other amounts to hundreds of creditors.

Canadians cannot accept this constant disruption to their working lives and economy. The current direction of the economy with its recurring crises, destruction of already-produced value and potential, harsh unemployment, and persistent poverty is not working and does not meet the needs of the people. The human factor must become the priority in determining the direction of the economy. It is time to give serious thought to a new direction that builds an all-round stable economy under the control of the working people themselves including a say on where the social wealth they produce is invested and their claim on it.

Plunder in the Name of Economic Stabilization, Democracy and Human Rights

Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade, led a "trade development mission" to Ukraine at the end of January 2015. A press release from Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada explained, "This trip reinforces Canada's commitment to supporting Ukraine in its pursuit of freedom, democracy and economic growth."

During the trip, the Minister announced the Canadian government's intention to financially support several economic initiatives in Ukraine's agricultural sector including in the dairy industry, grain storage and other activities.

For instance, he committed to providing $19.7 million to promote the growth of small and medium-sized dairy businesses. The Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada backgrounder for this project explains that the funds do not go directly to any Ukrainian organization but to a Canadian company called Société de Cooperation pour le Développement International (SOCODEVI)[1] which will be paid to "promote the growth of small and medium-sized dairy businesses." The backgrounder further elaborates that this project is intended to assist 10,000 dairy farmers in four of Ukraine's most important dairy-producing regions. "The targeted farmers will form at least 24 larger membership-based cooperatives following Canadian best practices." SOCODEVI's role is to provide technical expertise and consulting services to build the dairy cooperatives by "facilitating dialogue between government and private sector partners to develop policies and programs that support the growth of dairy cooperatives and farms."

Minister Fast announced that Canada would assist the Ukraine Grain Storage and Marketing Cooperative Project. Following the same model as in the dairy industry, Canada will provide $13.5 million over six years to a consortium of Canadian enterprises -- SOCODEVI, The University of Sherbrooke and the Canadian Cooperative Association[2] -- "to address the limitations of small and medium-sized grain producers in Ukraine." With this funding the Canadian enterprises will provide their expertise to Ukrainian farmers to "organize into effective service cooperatives, based on best Canadian practices, to gain access to financing needed to build grain storage and processing facilities."

Another example of the Harper government's hypocritical generosity was Minister Fast's announcement that $18.8 million would be provided to Agriteam Canada[3] to "assist Ukraine's national and subnational governments to develop and implement transitional and long-term governance and economic reforms in a more inclusive and transparent way."

The January 26 backgrounder sums up Canada's latest financial support for Ukraine:

"Economic stabilization and growth is a key priority for Canadian support of Ukraine. With today's announcement, the Government of Canada has contributed more than $315 million in assistance to Ukraine, which includes support for economic stabilization, democracy and human rights, humanitarian assistance and security. This also includes a $200-million bilateral loan in support of Ukraine's economic, social and political stability during the period of transition."

The information about Fast's "trade and development mission" to Ukraine clearly shows the intention of the Harper Conservatives to put the foreign service assets of the government at the disposal of the imperialist plan to subordinate Ukraine to the global monopoly corporations the U.S. and Canada support. It helps these monopolies in their cut-throat competition with others as they strive to dominate the world market in their sectors.

In the case of Ukraine it is important to assess the role of the Canadian government in the context of the present when besides the military intervention on behalf of the puppet regime in Ukraine, the European Union and the U.S. are working hand in hand in the takeover of Ukrainian agriculture. A recent article in Inter Press News Service, dated January 27, 2015, entitled, "The US-EU Takeover Of Ukrainian Agriculture," explains in great detail that with the intervention of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank since the ouster of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, the prime target is the Ukrainian agricultural sector in order to open it up for foreign private investment.

The article points out that IMF loans come with onerous conditions: "The manoeuvring for control over the Ukraine's agricultural system is a pivotal factor in the struggle that has been taking place over the last year in the greatest East-West confrontation since the Cold War." It states, "For example, the foreign-driven agricultural reform roadmap provided to Ukraine includes facilitating the acquisition of agricultural land, cutting food and plant regulations and controls, and reducing corporate taxes and custom duties."

What is at stake is undoubtedly Ukraine's greatest resource, its enormous fields of rich black soil. Ukraine possesses 32 million hectares of arable land which is the equivalent of one-third of the entire arable land in the European Union. It is the world's third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat.

With the full cooperation of the new government, the presence of foreign corporations in Ukrainian agriculture is growing quickly with more than 1.6 million hectares signed over to foreign companies. The article from Inter Press provides the following examples:

"Cargill is involved in the sale of pesticides, seeds and fertilisers and has recently expanded its agricultural investments to include grain storage, animal nutrition and a stake in UkrLandFarming, the largest agribusiness in the country.

"Similarly, Monsanto has been in Ukraine for years but has doubled the size of its team over the last three years. In March 2014, just weeks after Yanukovych was deposed, the company invested 140 million dollars in building a new seed plant.

"DuPont has also expanded its investments and announced in June 2013 that it too would be investing in a new seed plant in the country."

Western monopoly corporations have also extended their control into infrastructure and shipping. Cargill now owns at least four grain elevators and two sunflower seed processing plants used for the production of sunflower oil. In December 2013, the company bought a share in a grain terminal at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk with a capacity of 3.5 million tons of grain per year.

It is in this context that Canada is rushing to Ukraine to offer "financial assistance" and wants to renew negotiations toward a Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement. In the name of free markets, democracy and human rights, Canada is assisting monopoly corporations and the international financial oligarchy represented by the IMF and the World Bank to plunder the rich agricultural resources of Ukraine. The Harper Conservatives are shamelessly lining up to share the loot from this evil enterprise which is being organized to deprive the people of the right to control their own food supply and manage the economy for their own benefit. This is not assistance, it is plunder!

1. The SOCODEVI website states that the organization "is a network of cooperatives and mutuals that share their technical expertise and knowledge with partners in developing countries with activities in agriculture, forestry and mining." SOCODEVI's 2013-2014 annual reports states in part:

"SOCODEVI is an organization that has an excellent grasp of the current changes. Our capacity for adaptation and innovation in delivering a better response to the needs of our partners in the field and to the requirements of our financial partners makes us an organization that today is even more dynamic, with recognized expertise, strong growth and innovative solutions for our partners.

"This year we have recorded strong growth in our portfolio of projects with numerous major contracts signed in early 2014 in Colombia, Liberia, Mali and, notably, in Ukraine. The positive results and evaluation of certain projects have led to renewals and new agreements in accordance with the procedures and standards set by each donor organization or financial partner.

"Among the changes that can be observed in international aid, the expanding role of direct foreign investment in developing countries deserves mention. It is now five times higher than official aid for development. The growing presence of private investors, both large and small, represents an opportunity, as well as a challenge. The creation of partnerships with private economic actors investing in economic development in the South and the creation of links to markets are essential levers for development. The establishment of this type of partnership to improve living conditions for communities is not new to SOCODEVI. We have already established various types of partnerships with coffee, cocoa and natural resource companies, either through connections with their supply chains or with their corporate social responsibility programs."

Some of the "Financial Partners and Clients" listed on the SOCODEVI website include: the African Development Bank; Antamina (mining); Barrick Gold (mining); the Canadian International Development Agency; Cargill and many financial institutions and international insurance companies.

2. The website of the Canadian Cooperative Association (CCA) states that the organization "has over 40 years of experience designing and implementing projects to build sustainable livelihoods and reduce poverty in the sectors of Agriculture, Finance and Micro, small and medium enterprise development (MSME)." Its Annual Report 2013-2014 states in part:

"The move of federal responsibility for co-operatives from Agriculture and Agri-food Canada to Industry Canada (IC) was completed in 2013, and the relationship between IC and the co-operative movement has been close and growing steadily. This move is of mutual benefit to both the federal government and the co-operative movement; it helps the government achieve some of its economic development goals and gives us a clear opportunity to better serve our members."

3. The website of Agriteam Canada states in part:

"Corporate History

"Based in Calgary, Alberta, Agriteam Canada was established in 1986 by Robert Francis and has since designed and implemented more than 170 projects worldwide in sectors including health and population; gender equality; education and education reform; agriculture and agribusiness; community development; governance and public sector reform; private sector development; legal and judicial reform; corporate social responsibility; and environment.

"We participate in numerous consortia to implement international development projects. Current and past partners include Agra Monenco, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Privy Council of Canada, the Government of Alberta, Health Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, CARE Canada, World University Service of Canada, Partners in Rural Development, Bombardier, Centerra Gold and Continental Minerals."

Allied War Crime Prelude to the Cold War

On the night of February 13-14, 1945, the British Royal Air Force (RAF) bomber command carried out two devastating attacks on the German city of Dresden. At the time, Dresden's pre-war population of 640,000 had been swelled by the presence of an estimated 100,000-200,000 refugees. Seven hundred and twenty-two aircraft dropped 1,478 tons of high explosives and 1,181 tons of incendiaries on the city. The resulting firestorm destroyed an area of 13 square miles, including the historic Altstadt Museum. Shortly after noon on February 14, a fleet of 316 U.S. bombers made a third attack, dropping a further 488 tons of high explosives and 294 tons of incendiaries. On February 15, two hundred and eleven U.S. bombers made a fourth attack, dropping 466 tons of high explosives.

The fire-bombing of Dresden was considered to be a gratuitous crime on the part of the British which caused up to 300,000 deaths.[1] Dresden was almost completely defenseless against the Anglo-American terror-attacks, which allowed the bombers to descend to lower levels and to maintain a steady height and heading, making their bombs even more effective.

Dresden had not previously been bombed during the war. The city was not considered a likely target because it was not a major contributor to the Nazi war economy and no key oil refineries or large armaments plants were located there. In the British Ministry of Economic Warfare's 1943 "Bomber's Baedeker," Dresden was ranked 20th of 100 German towns in its importance to the German war effort. In fact, Dresden was best known worldwide as a site of architectural treasures and was sometimes referred to as the "German Florence." Despite this, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the Dresden raids based on a plan submitted in August 1944 by Sir Charles Portal, Britain's Chief of the Air Staff.[2]

Codenamed "Operation Thunderclap," the plan involved concentrating an entire attack on a single big town other than Berlin to try to inflict a single major blow on Germany using all available power. Portal opted for the "area bombing" of a city because cities afforded a big target. In January 1945, Churchill approved Portal's plan, specifically in regards to large cities in eastern Germany, and demanded immediate action. The next day Churchill was told that Dresden, Berlin, and two other cities would be attacked as soon as conditions allowed.

Incendiaries, which are explicitly designed to start fires, were heavily used in the first three Dresden raids. The deadliness of the resulting firestorm was such that even people who took shelter from bombs underground in cellars or subways were either roasted to death by the heat or suffocated because the firestorm sucked the oxygen out of the air. This heavy use of incendiaries underlines once again that the Dresden attacks aimed to terrorize and kill people.[3] Confirming this further is the fact that Churchill specifically ordered that the terror-bombings be focused on Dresden's working class areas. Or, even more blatantly, in the words of Arthur Harris, the commander of the RAF's Bomber Command: "You destroy a factory and they rebuild it. In six weeks they are in operation again. I kill all their workmen and it takes twenty-one years to provide new ones."[4]

The bombing of Dresden was an Anglo-American war crime never brought to trial.[5] A war crime, by definition, is any crime that transgresses the laws of war, and the bombing of civilians has long been banned by international law. The 1923 Hague Rules of Aerial Warfare declared: "Aerial bombardment for the purpose of terrorizing the citizen population, of destroying or damaging private property not of military character, or of injuring non-combatants is prohibited." Even the Hitler-loving British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared in 1938: "It is against international law to bomb civilians as such." In the same year, the League of Nations Assembly unanimously accepted similar principles.[6]

Why was Dresden selected for the February 1945 bombings? Dresden was directly in the path of the advancing Soviet Army, who occupied the city shortly after the raids on their way to Berlin (Dresden was soon to be part of the post-war Soviet Zone). The idea was that the death and devastation caused by the bombing would be seen and reported back to Stalin, showing him the destructive capabilities of the U.S. and British bomber forces. With the end of the war only three months away, the aim of the Dresden raids was to try to intimidate Stalin and the Soviet Union so they would not stand up to the Anglo-American imperialists after the war.

About three weeks after Dresden, another similarly coded message was sent to Stalin and the Soviet Union via the U.S. imperialists' firebombing of Tokyo, which incinerated between 80,000 and 200,000 people. In August 1945, the U.S. imperialists sent two new messages, targeting Hiroshima and Nagasaki to showcase the destructive force of their new atomic bomb. Just as Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki had little or nothing to do with the war against the Japanese imperialists, Dresden had little or nothing to do with the war against the Nazis. But it had much, if not everything, to do with a new conflict in which the Nazis and the Japanese imperialists would be Anglo-American allies and the enemy would be the Soviet Union. The Cold War was born amid the ashes of the hundreds of thousands of non-combatants who were murdered in the deadly infernos of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

1. In 2004 a commission of thirteen German historians mysteriously reduced this figure to the current official estimate of 25,000 deaths. This deliberate reduction to downplay the number of deaths parallels the imperialist campaign to reduce the number of deaths attributed to the Nazis, e.g., the number of official deaths at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was recently reduced from the immediate post-war figure of 4 million, agreed upon at the Nuremberg Trials, to 1.4 million.

2. The most ludicrous theory of the origin of the Dresden raids is that Winston Churchill, the virulent anti-communist who initiated the 21-country invasion of the fledgling Soviet Union in 1918 and who made the Goebbels-inspired Iron Curtain speech in 1946 that officially opened the Cold War, carried out the Dresden raids because Stalin ordered him to! Of course, no documentation of this so-called order exists.

3. Andrew Chandler, "The Church of England and the Obliteration Bombing of Germany in the Second World War." English Historical Review, 108 (1993), pp. 920-46 (p. 931).

4. Similarly, the U.S. imperialists used white phosphorus and napalm weapons to terrorize and kill civilians during the Korean and Viet Nam wars.

5. See, for example, Donald Bloxham, "Dresden as a War Crime," in Paul Addison & Jeremy Crang (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945. Chicago: Ivan Dee (2006).

6. Adam Roberts & Richard Guelff, Documents on the Laws of War. Third Edition. Oxford University Press (2000), p. 22; Geoffrey Best, War and Law Since 1945. Oxford University Press (1997), p. 200.

The Passion of Capital-Centred Politics:
Making Canada a Good Place to Invest for
Accumulated Social Wealth

- international junkets of leading Canadian politicians and businesspeople to promote Canada as a good place to invest;

- free trade agreements allowing international social wealth unfettered flow into and out of Canada and access to Canada's working class, natural resources and public infrastructure, institutions and other assets;

- unlimited support to favoured monopolies from the public treasury in low interest loans, grants and other handouts;

- consolidation of the takeover of the public authority and public assets by global monopolies in various forms including outright privatization and public-private partnerships;

- unrelenting political, economic and ideological pressure on the working class to lower its claims on the value it produces and to weaken its fight for empowerment and in defence of the rights of all, social programs and public services;

- concerted efforts of the monopolies and their political representatives to standardize global standards of living of the working class at the lowest possible level using the argument of competition for investment, thus eliminating the varied social and economic conditions of the working class in particular nations and its historic class struggle to raise its standard of living.

This passion of capital-centred politics is characterized as making Canada competitive in the global marketplace for investors of social wealth.

Capital-centred politics has reached an impasse. Its basic aim and nature are to serve the owners of accumulated social wealth and not the people. Its aim and nature mean that it refuses to deal with the economic, political and social problems as they present themselves unless their resolution somehow serves the owners of accumulated social wealth. It demands Canadians put their problems within the global context and demands of investors and their monopolies. Political, economic and social problems are not tackled openly or scientifically, as they are caught within the web of whatever serves the owners of social wealth. Democratic renewal of the political process is blocked and the working class is deprived of the power to find and implement a new direction for the economy that serves the modern socialized conditions. Problems facing society fester and go unresolved. This puts capital-centred politics on a collision course with the people led by the working class.

A Quick Look at Two Examples: Steel and Auto

Owners of U.S. Steel invested in Canadian steel production by buying Stelco. The aim and nature of this investment are to serve the owners of the global monopoly U.S. Steel. Capital-centred politics gave its blessing through the Investment Canada Act and other ways such as provincial changes to the existing pension agreement. Immediately after the purchase of Stelco in 2007, the investors began to curtail steel production in Canada with regular lockouts of workers and selloff of productive assets. Eventually they shut down the Hamilton mill blast furnace permanently, hot-idled coke production and have now put the entire Canadian operation into bankruptcy protection. To satisfy U.S. Steel investors means Canadians must sacrifice their steel industry, livelihoods, pensions and the well-being of their economy and communities. U.S. Steel and other global investors have blocked Canadians from finding and implementing a new direction for the steel industry. Making the steel sector attractive and available to global investors has resulted in a complete disaster in the Hamilton region.

The auto sector is dominated by international investors. When the 2008 economic crisis struck, the federal and Ontario governments bailed out GM and Chrysler with $13.7 billion in public funds. Autoworkers gave the owners of the auto sector concessions on wages, benefits, pensions and working conditions. In spite of this, the auto industry in Canada has not recovered to pre-2008 levels of production and employment.

The leaders of the global auto monopolies complain that Canada is not competitive enough to serve their investment aim and nature. Capital-centred politics agrees with this assessment. Evidence of this is found in the pages of the Windsor Star.

The Windsor Star wrote in a November 21, 2014 article, "GM President [Stephen] Carlisle said Canada is the least competitive jurisdiction for auto production in North America. 'It's a multi-dimensional equation,' said Carlisle. 'Labour costs are a component of it, logistics, foreign exchange. We have to look at it on an all-in basis.' [...] The automaker's Canadian vehicle-assembly production has steadily fallen from more than 900,000 units in 2000 to about 627,000 units in 2013." Rumours abound that investors are planning to pull out and destroy all GM social wealth in Canada.

The article quotes Ron Svajlenko, President of Unifor Local 222, which represents about 3,700 autoworkers in Oshawa, "In the meantime, the union plans to meet with Carlisle to pitch its case for new product in Oshawa, he said. 'We are at least very competitive as GM's U.S. plants on wages, pensions and benefits,' said Svajlenko. By the end of next year, 60 per cent of his members will be eligible for retirement, which means the automaker could replenish its workforce with new hires who start at 60 per cent of the regular hourly wage of $34 and take 10 years to reach parity, he said. 'That's a huge cost saving.'"

The item concludes with GM President Carlisle saying the monopoly "will continue to 'evaluate its options' when it comes to the future of its Canadian operations... 'Whenever we make those decisions they're taken in the context of what are the requirements and where does Canada stand from the point of view of competitiveness.'"

In a separate November 20 editorial, the Windsor Star pleads for federal and other politicians to organize an institution to direct public funds and other benefits towards certain auto monopolies in a consistent and long-term way to make Canada competitive in the battle to attract investment. It reads in part, "Matt Marchard, president of the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce, is leading a national campaign to get government to provide more incentives to lure business to this country, and that includes creating an auto strategy.

"The Canadian Automotive Partnership Council has uttered the same plaintive cry and, just days after Brad Duguid, [Ontario] minister of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure, insisted Ontario has everything under control, the head of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association [APMA] said -- wait for it -- that we need an auto strategy.

"'It's very difficult to be successful if we're simply reacting to those opportunities while our competition proactively creates them and drives them,' Flavio Volpe, president of the APMA, told a gathering at the Ciociaro Club on [November 19]."

What do global investors want? Let's discuss three targets of global investors: redistribution of accumulated social wealth; buying existing social product and productive assets; and, direct investment in new production of goods and services.

Canadians appear trapped within a worldview that does not allow another conception of politics other than the official capital-centred one. Politicians, owners of accumulated social wealth, academics and official economists insist that Canadians must make themselves and the country attractive to monopoly investment. Our future is dependent on making ourselves appealing to others who then will decide on our future. Our role is to pretty ourselves up.

What do global investors want when they look at Canada and Canadians and dangle some cash in front of us? A simple answer is they want to make money, lots of it in the shortest time possible with little risk.

Making Canada competitive for investment implies giving up control to investors, those with accumulated social wealth. The investors decide where and when to invest, and with that decision always uncertain, want Canadians to "get in the game" and "pretty themselves up" with more to offer.

The people should not forget that global investors include Canadians owning large amounts of accumulated social wealth or in control of investment funds. They are looking for investment opportunities globally and have the same aim and nature as owners of accumulated social wealth anywhere in the world. They are asking working class Canadians and others with little or no social wealth to compete against Mexicans and others for investment money that may or may not materialize and over which the Canadian people have little or no control such as in the case of U.S. Steel and the auto monopolies.

Big Canadian capitalists, such as Kevin O'Leary and Conrad Black, are amongst the rowdiest and noisiest of those insisting Canada needs to "step up to the plate" and offer investors more and more. They are international investors with allegiance to their social wealth and their retinue of capital-centred politicians, academics, experts and others in the mass media. Their interest in Canada and aim are similar to all global investors, which is to protect and grow their accumulated social wealth. They finance think tanks, public relations and politicians to stop any discussion of changing the direction of the economy to allow the actual producers a say and control with a new aim to build a self-reliant sustainable economy that serves the people and humanizes the social and natural environment. The Canadian global investors declare that any move to restrict the flow of accumulated social wealth would not only harm direct investment in Canada but also their investments abroad. They do not want the people to have economic and political power over Canada's economy and social product. They are determined opponents of people's empowerment. They want to retain the economic and political power to deprive the people of a say and control over those factors that affect their lives, which includes first and foremost the socialized economy and its direction.

Note: Direct foreign investment outside Canada by Canadian owners of accumulated social wealth is more than $90 billion greater than foreign direct investment in Canada by non-Canadians. The fact that outflow investment is greater or roughly equal to inflow investment raises the question as to why all this flow of accumulated social wealth is necessary. Why not direct accumulated social wealth in Canada towards necessary projects serving Canadian nation-building. The outflow and inflow of social wealth questions this issue of making Canada competitive or attractive to foreign investment. The offsetting amounts render the arguments extremely self-serving and incoherent aside from everything else such as who controls and decides these investment decisions.

(See Statistics Canada: International investment position, Canadian direct investment abroad and foreign direct investment in Canada, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) and region, annual here )

Redistribution of Accumulated Social Wealth

One way to invest, if it can be called such a thing, is not to engage in production of goods and services at all but simply move money around. Much of global investment is in derivatives or fictitious capital. It consists of moving money around the imperialist system of states through stock, commodity and currency markets and other ways to force a gain in social wealth without the involvement of any additional production of goods and services. The paper ownership is itself dubious. For example, mortgage debts or car loans are bought from their holders at a discount and bundled together in bonds. These bonds are bought and sold globally. Companies sell bonds to investors at a set interest rate. Those bonds are then resold countless times through trades; their prices rise and fall inversely with changes in interest rates, directly with the credit rating of the particular company or through the manipulation of speculators and insiders.

The movement and redistribution of accumulated social wealth means a gain or loss of wealth without producing anything. The gain is not additional value but rather a result of a redistribution of existing value. Billions of dollars move this way daily making fortunes for some and losses for others. In a broad sense, it leads to the concentration of wealth in fewer hands.

The movement of accumulated social wealth around the globe, aided by powerful computers, does not produce any new value yet the people involved still garner wages, bonuses and big scores. Whether they are office workers in a hedge fund or the owners, they live off the value of the goods and services workers have produced elsewhere in the economy. The law that what is not produced cannot be consumed holds true for this movement and redistribution of wealth.

Capital-centred politics says this movement of wealth and its redistribution is good and society should allow it. Opponents say this activity reflects the parasitism and decay of monopoly capitalism and its systemic corruption, and should be stopped. It serves no useful purpose. The concentration of wealth in fewer hands strengthens the political and economic power of privileged individuals and blocks the empowerment of the people and the efforts of the working class to move society forward. The accumulated social wealth, which is value produced socially and cooperatively, should be put to use to serve the public interest and good, and not manipulated to serve the narrow private interests of a privileged class of owners of social wealth. For this to be done, the people need political empowerment and to bring into being a new pro-social direction and aim for the economy.

Buying Existing Social Product and Productive Assets

Mergers and acquisitions of existing social assets, including public and private property are ways owners of accumulated social wealth expand and protect their private empires. Owners of U.S. Steel appear to have bought Stelco in 2007 to eliminate a competing steel producer in North America. In 2014, U.S. Steel was forced to pay a multi-million dollar settlement for price fixing. Steel consumers in the U.S. initiated the court action accusing U.S. Steel of colluding with other monopoly producers to suppress production of steel to force up prices. It appears Stelco and Canadian steelworkers became collateral damage in this continuing scheme.

On another front, stories abound of wealthy Chinese, Indians and others from developing countries buying real estate in Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary. The acquired properties, mostly expensive condos and detached houses, often remain empty for years. Canadian public authorities apparently do not check the origin of this money. It seems this has become a popular way to launder money or keep it hidden from public authorities in other countries.

The particular reason to buy existing social product and productive assets may differ but the general motivation to serve private interests in protecting and growing their accumulated social wealth is the same. The narrow private interests clash with the broad public interest. Public authority with power to restrict the private interests of global investors has all but disappeared under the current neo-liberal regime. This is no way to build a sustainable all-sided Canadian economy. A modern conscious people cannot allow this quasi criminal state of affairs to continue where private interests are politicized and the public interest overwhelmed and crushed.

Direct Investment in New Production of Goods and Services

A closer examination of why global investors invest in new production of goods and services and what they require when doing so would cast light on what needs to change and the necessary leading role of the working class. The main change is the elimination of the social relation capital, a reversion of ownership of accumulated social wealth to the actual producers, their control over the direction of the economy and a general political movement towards empowerment of the people.

Investments of Accumulated Social Wealth Combine with the
Working Class as the Social Relation Capital

Investments of accumulated social wealth on their own cannot produce value. Under the capitalist system, accumulated social wealth can only produce value within an unequal and antagonistic social relation with the modern working class. The social relation is capital.

The accumulated social wealth, mostly raw or refined material, instruments of production and money, is combined with the capacity to work of the working class to produce goods and services. Previous work-time of the actual producers determines the amount of value congealed in the raw material, instruments of production, money and capacity to work of the working class. The transferred-value reproduced within production, when realized, is returned to the owners of accumulated social wealth to pay for the consumed raw material, instruments of production, the wages, benefits and pensions of the employed workers, and the portion of state-organized infrastructure, social programs and public services also consumed. The active workers produce added-value in addition to the reproduced transferred-value. The owners of accumulated social wealth seize the added-value produced by the employed workers, along with governments that claim a portion.

The potential value of the Ring of Fire in Northern Ontario, the Plan Nord in Quebec, the vast forest lands and minerals found throughout the country, the steel mills, auto factories, and immense service sectors of educational institutions, hospitals and offices become an actual source of value through the active work-time of the working class. Under the present capitalist relations of production, the accumulated social wealth is combined with the capacity to work of the working class in the antagonistic social relation capital. The working class through work transforms the potential value of Mother Nature into actual value, reproduces the congealed value of its own capacity to work and the means of production within new social product, and produces added-value within that same social product.

The Social Character of Modern Production and the
Integrated Socialized Economy are in Contradiction with the
Private Ownership of Accumulated Social Wealth

The narrow aim of the owners of accumulated social wealth to make as much money as possible in the shortest time in competition with other accumulated social wealth is not in harmony with the social character of modern production and the integrated socialized economy. A broad aim to harmonize social production is held by the modern working class. For this aim to become a reality, the working class must free itself from the thinking and anti-social consciousness of the antagonistic social relation capital and strike out on its own as the actual producers in control of the accumulated social wealth and with a nation-building project of their own making.

Within the current capitalist system and dictatorship over the working class, accumulated social wealth owned and controlled by a privileged few must be combined with workers, if the existing wealth is to fulfil the aim of its owners for its expansion. Workers must be willing to work within the social relation capital and remain there for a long period or at least be easily replaced with other workers when necessary. The working class is the primary ingredient necessary for accumulated social wealth to invest and increase its value. Without workers, capital does not exist and cannot produce. Capital only exists within its social relation with the working class. Accumulated social wealth, which is congealed work-time, cannot go somewhere, as money, raw material or machines and produce anything unless workers are willing to work for the accumulated social wealth within the social relation capital, and are willing to stay and not run off.

The servitude of workers within the social relation capital must be voluntary for it to last and be fruitful for the owners, or at least appear to be voluntary. Workers as a social force must not have other options than to work for capital, at least within the present social conditions. They volunteer to work for capital, even line up with other workers to compete for a job on the capitalist labour market because that is the only way they, as a social force, can make a living. The odd individual worker who may opt for something else to do to make a living, as either a small entrepreneur who has come into money through savings, criminal activity or a lottery win does not alter the basic social relation of workers submitting to the dictate of accumulated social wealth as capital.

The first and essential factor dictating why accumulated social wealth invests is the existence of workers who will voluntarily work within the social relation capital in a position of servitude. Voluntary servitude of the working class or indirect forced labour is wage labour or wage slavery. Voluntary wage slavery contrasts with involuntary servitude or direct forced labour of classic or chattel slavery. Both are conditions of class oppression and systems of class exploitation of humans by a privileged class of humans. All inequality within society has its origin in a class system of economic, political and social oppression and exploitation.

The level of availability of workers and their willingness to work and stay at work are sub-factors of the essential factor. These sub-factors are governed mostly by the rate of unemployment. With a high rate of unemployment and availability of workers from outside a region to come and work, workers are more likely to volunteer to work for the owners of accumulated social wealth and stay within the particular social relation capital for a long time.

The owners of accumulated social wealth to invest need voluntary workers with particular skills and education who are willing to work and stay for a long period. The work of the working class increases the accumulated social wealth. The amount of added-value varies with the productivity of the work and the claims of the working class individually through wages and socially through state-organized social programs and public services. Workers work only a part of their day to reproduce the value of their wages and individual and social benefits; the rest of the day they work for nothing, as the value they produce and reproduce is seized by the owners of accumulated social wealth or the government.

The working class is completely marginalized within the stark reality of the capitalist class system and the dictatorship of capital over them. Workers have no say over those things that affect their lives including importantly the direction of the economy. The working class responds as a captive element within the social relation capital and its state-organized institutions. Workers are indirect forced labour within the social relation. They are the actual producers of all accumulated social wealth but have no rights of ownership of that wealth or say over its use. Workers are reduced to offering whatever owners of accumulated social wealth want from them, as an oppressed social force reduced to the indignity of a cost to the oppressor.

The way out of this predicament is organized conscious class struggle for empowerment and a new direction of the economy controlled by the actual producers. For this to happen the working class must reject the thinking, anti-social consciousness and capital-centred views it has learned within the social relation capital. The working class must deprive owners of accumulated social wealth of the power to enslave it within the social relation capital. Workers must march forward militantly on their own nation-building project and vest sovereignty in the people.

Investors of accumulated social wealth need political, social and economic influence of the state machine of a particular country or region. Without the protection and support of the state machine and the social connections that come with this influence within a country or region, investors find it difficult or impossible to find investment opportunities, see them through to fruition and suppress any resistance of the working class to its oppressed condition within capital. Also, investments without political support from the state machine run the risk of having their wealth lost, confiscated or seized by competitors.

In crude terms this means protecting the turf of owners of accumulated social wealth. The turf in Canada is included within the United States of North American Monopolies and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom, certain states in Europe, Australia and tax havens such as the Cayman Islands. The fact that Barbados, Cayman Islands and Luxembourg are the third, fourth and fifth largest recipients of Canadian foreign direct investment, a total of over $124 billion, reveals the endemic corruption surrounding the movement of accumulated social value.

The political, social and economic influence and power of the state machine and the privileged class of owners of accumulated social wealth itself sustain the class system and exploitation of the working class within the social relation capital and imperialist system of states. Class privilege is reflected in systemic corruption throughout the monopoly capitalist system including all levels of government.

The distribution of global investment, both the destination of the outflow from Canada and the origin of the inflow, reveals empirically the turf of Canadian owners of accumulated social wealth. This turf is constantly in flux reflecting the infighting and wars within the imperialist system of states and uneven development of capitalism.

Aside from military threats and actions, the U.S. uses economic blockades and sanctions as powerful weapons to maintain its dictatorship within the U.S.-led imperialist system of states. Investments are prohibited or restricted in a long list of countries that refuse to submit to U.S. imperialism.

	2010	2011	2012	2013
	billions of dollars
Canadian direct investment abroad	637.3	675.0	712.6	779.3
United States	251.3	272.4	290.0	318.3
United Kingdom	83.9	76.7	76.6	86.1
Barbados	50.0	55.9	61.3	63.0
Cayman Islands	24.0	33.0	30.8	30.9
Luxembourg	13.6	19.3	23.7	30.2
Australia	22.0	25.1	26.1	23.4
Netherlands	9.8	14.2	15.9	17.7
Chile	12.0	10.4	16.4	16.6
Ireland	22.2	17.6	12.0	16.0
Mexico	4.9	9.6	10.5	12.3
Brazil	10.3	10.4	10.8	11.1
Hungary	12.8	11.7	9.9	11.0
Bermuda	11.2	10.4	13.2	10.7
All other countries	109.2	108.3	115.6	132.0
Foreign direct investment in Canada	592.4	603.5	626.8	686.3
United States	317.7	309.8	320.1	352.1
Netherlands	53.6	63.3	67.0	67.8
United Kingdom	42.4	49.6	48.7	56.7
Luxembourg	20.9	23.1	27.8	28.5
Switzerland	19.7	19.2	18.3	18.7
Brazil	17.3	17.5	16.7	18.3
Japan	12.7	14.4	16.3	17.3
China	12.1	15.4	16.4	16.7
France	17.4	10.6	9.5	11.0
Germany	8.2	11.0	9.2	10.1
All other countries	70.6	69.5	77.0	88.9

Table of Foreign Direct Investment 2013 here
Table of investment origin for inflow and outflow destination of Canadian investment here

Common Investment Factors Within the
Imperialist System of States

Public Money from the State

Handouts from public funds to private interests influence where monopolies invest. However, this factor is offset somewhat by the reality that governments everywhere within the imperialist system of states are paying the rich to invest. Paying the rich to invest is so common that it has become almost irrelevant in the broad scheme of things. The relevance is found in the private interests that have been politicized. Those private interests in control of the state have the inside track for not only receiving public funds but also other assistance such as regulatory approval.

Modern socialized production is extremely productive. It involves immense quantities of raw material and large-scale instruments of production. Each work-hour of a modern worker transfers a huge amount of value from those two factors into new production. The application of science and technology to production is the greatest achievement of capitalism. But similar to every phenomenon, the advance in production contains a dialectic, which left unresolved has grown to haunt the system itself with increasingly destructive economic crises and wars.

The invested social wealth in raw material and instruments of production compared with the number of active workers has climbed continuously throughout the 200-year history of capitalism. The value transferred from raw material and machinery into new production is determined by the quantity consumed in the process. The work-time of active workers reproduces the transferred-value from previously produced raw material, instruments of production and themselves, and as well, produces the added-value from which profit is claimed.

Productivity incrementally increases the ratio of transferred-value to added-value while producing a greater quantity of goods and services with the same living work-time. Investors face a falling rate of profit and falling return on invested capital resulting from the higher amount of transferred-value reproduced by active workers compared with the added-value they produce.

Transferred-value is approximately a zero return for investors, as what they pay is what they normally should receive from realized social product. Added-value is the aim and source of gain for owners of capital. With productivity, the amount of added-value per work-time increases yet when compared with the greater total investment the ratio is smaller. Within the situation, workers produce more social product and total value during their work-time, which includes more transferred-value and added-value but not at the same pace for each category. Transferred-value outpaces added-value in growth.

Greater production in less work-time, especially production of the material and services that workers need to live, lessens the time workers are required to work to reproduce their own value in wages and benefits. This means that they produce relatively more added-value during their work-time. However, the total value of the raw material and instruments of production consumed and reproduced during the production process increases at a faster rate than the added-value. Workers work less work-time for themselves and more for the owners of capital. However, this increased time working for the owners of capital occurs within the situation of reproducing an ever larger amount of transferred-value from raw material and machines. Productivity translates into greater quantities of social product during the same work-time as before but less added-value in relation to the total value of the social product.

The aim of capital is the production of added-value not social product. The amount of added-value workers produce is always judged in relation to the amount of invested capital. Owners of capital want added-value in return for their investment not social product. Why invest, if the total investment gives rise to a huge quantity of social product but only a relatively small amount of added-value. What a dilemma for the privileged class of owners of social wealth. A basic solution would be to change the aim of the socialized economy from added-value to satisfy the demands of owners of capital to enlarge their personal fortunes, to a new aim of the entire social product to guarantee the well-being and security of the people. Owners of social wealth block the working class from bringing into being this new aim as the aim and direction of the socialized economy.

Instead of solving the root dilemma, the privileged class of investors has organized the state to provide a portion of the investment using pooled social wealth from the public treasury. The investors, including owners of debt, claim most of the added-value workers produce as their private property but with less of their own accumulated social wealth going into the investment, the rest coming from the state. The rate of profit and rate of return on invested capital are rescued somewhat as private interests are favoured and politicized at the expense of the public interest. These pay-the-rich schemes do not resolve the dilemma at its root resulting in disastrous consequences of recurring economic crises and continuous internecine battles amongst the owners of social wealth to control the state and use it for their own narrow private interests.

Owners of social wealth push other measures to blunt the basic dilemma such as having the state purchase the social product at prices that guarantee a good rate of return on invested capital. This is particularly true for military production and public infrastructure projects and for private suppliers of material for public health care, education and other social programs and public services.

Public-private-partnerships have become ubiquitous where private interests seize the lion's share of added-value and the state assumes any risks. Increasingly the norm is for private interests on contracts to provide workers and material for government funded services such as prisons, policing, mercenaries for foreign wars, and virtually any social program or public service. The country is witness to the contracting out of the civil service, even those who work in the Prime Minister's Office.

The direct involvement of the state in providing public funds for private interests and guaranteeing contracts to purchase goods and services from private companies could be characterized as state monopoly capitalism. The state protects and politicizes the accumulated social wealth of a privileged elite who have accumulated large amounts of socially produced wealth. The state guarantees the continuation of their positions of wealth and power by blocking any advance or attempts of the people led by the working class to resolve economic, political and social problems and move society forward to new relations of production and a new aim and direction for the socialized economy.

A further dilemma for owners of capital arising from productivity is the inability of the capitalist system to absorb or realize the increased social product. When social production of goods and services for the general well-being of the people and society is not the aim of the economy then the absurd contradiction of an economy producing too much while many people go without and a section of the working class is unemployed is left unresolved.

The contradiction of a narrow private aim clashing with a socialized economy also leads to disinvestment as owners of accumulated social wealth refuse to reinvest in production of goods and services without guarantees of a large claim on added-value with no risk. Often, they direct their social wealth into parasitic schemes for big scores in the financial sector to seize already produced value from others or simply park it for protection.

The entire financial sector has become parasitical and a source of corruption, decay and crises. It should be abolished and replaced with public institutions that provide financial services as a public service.

The falling rate of profit and falling rate of return on invested capital, the inability to realize social product, parasitic schemes for big scores and refusal of owners of social wealth to invest in the socialized economy for its extended reproduction are factors generating economic crises. Those factors and the pay-the-rich schemes using public funds to offset the falling rate of profit are indications that the transitional capitalist system needs to be replaced with a more advanced system with new social relations of production and a new aim that harmonizes all aspects of the socialized economy. Under new socialized relations of production, aside from controlling those issues especially in the economy that affect their lives, workers will benefit from the shorter work-time required to produce more social product, and the people and society generally will benefit directly from the rational and planned increased production of goods and services, which they will be able to put to good use.

Concessions from Workers Within the Context of Large-Scale Permanent Unemployment and Retreat of Revolution

Investors of accumulated social wealth want workers who voluntarily attach themselves to capital in servitude, workers who neither question their subservient position nor actively defend their rights or strive for empowerment. Downtrodden and desperate workers are found throughout the U.S. Empire. They are employed either abroad or at home wherever the owners of accumulated social wealth find it serves their narrow private interests. Driving down the standard of living of the working class throughout the imperialist system of states transfers value to the owners of capital and further concentrates social wealth in fewer hands, but this has unintended consequences damaging the socialized economy.

Workers are both the producers of value and consumers of those goods and services necessary for survival according to the established standard of living. Reducing that standard through forced concessions on the working class together with an agenda of austerity and wrecking of social programs and public services puts downward pressure on the socialized economy and becomes yet another factor causing economic crises. Concessions from the working class and general austerity as an agenda of the modern socialized economy to serve the narrow interests of owners of social wealth is unworkable and leads to inevitable decline, conflict and crisis.

Serving the Military Needs of the U.S. Empire and Its Insatiable
Thirst for Profit and War

The U.S. Empire forces investments in arms of mass destruction and the general military in preparation for world war and for engagement in active predatory and inter-imperialist wars. A requirement of membership in the aggressive U.S.-led NATO is a certain level of investment in the military and advanced weapons systems. Those weapons must be of a U.S. standard, which means arms manufacturers centred in the United States dominate production and supply. The state guarantees the arms-related investments of preferred monopolies giving them contracts at realized prices of production that are extremely lucrative. The state also contributes to the total investment in weapons systems through pay-the-rich schemes yet leaves most of the claim on added-value to private interests.

A recent example is the $300 million zero interest federal contribution to Pratt & Whitney, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the U.S. arms manufacturer United Technologies Corporation of Connecticut. P&W is a frequent recipient of public funds. The federal government already gave it $300 million in 2010, and last year the Quebec government provided $19 million. Public handouts to P&W are rationalized with the standard rhetoric of saving jobs and enhancing private investment, which would not be made without public money.

Observers say the public funds given to P&W are so secret they are impossible to track, at least from the point of view of the public. No public accounting is kept of the disbursements of the grants and loans or their repayment, if it ever happens. The federal money is granted under the government's Strategic Aerospace and Defence Initiative.

In a December 8, 2014 press release, Pratt & Whitney Canada president John Saabas insisted to clarify, in his own mind at least, that Ottawa is not giving the company a loan, possibly to clarify that no interest is expected. "It's called a repayable contribution. It's different from a loan," he said. "It's not just like borrowing money. It's a risk investment that the Canadian government makes with us in new technologies."

Even though the capitalist system is driven by the aim of profit, the "risk investment" or "repayable contribution" on the government's part carries no direct profit, as only the principal or "contribution" is supposed to be returned in 15 years, unless of course the "risk" overwhelms the "investment." Profit, it seems for the owners of accumulated social wealth, is only good for private investors not public investors. The public should not directly benefit from pooled social wealth owned by the people and see it expanded through public production of goods and services and extended reproduction of the economy. No, that would not serve narrow private interests. The government under the control of private interests is directed to turn over pooled social wealth owned by the people to the private interests in control of the state, who benefit directly from its investment and use. This anti-social ideology pandering to private interests is in contradiction with the socialized forces of production and its human-centred aim to serve the public interests, and is leading the world to ruin.

A news release announcing the public treasury's "risk investment" in P&W comes at the same time all Pratt & Whitney Canadian employees have been told they must take seven unpaid days off in 2015. President Saabas explains albeit convolutedly, "A lot of investment is going on at Pratt & Whitney that gets to the point, we still want to maintain a certainty profitability to be able to invest in ourselves." The Canadian Press reports Saabas as saying, "The unpaid days means the company does not have to downsize or lay off workers, [Saabas] added. 'It's a way to maintain our profitability. We have done this in the past.'"

Maintaining profitability for monopoly capital entails attacking the claims of the working class and receiving "risk investment" for nothing from the public treasury.

Note: Pratt & Whitney is a U.S. aerospace manufacturer with global service operations. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation (UTC). Pratt & Whitney's aircraft engines are widely used in both civil and military aviation. Its headquarters are in East Hartford, Connecticut along with its controlling monopoly UTC. UTC is a global military contractor; amongst other things, it produces missile systems and military helicopters, most notably the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. In 2014, UTC reported gross worldwide income from sales of $62.6 billion, $9.21 billion in gross profit, and $5.7 billion distributed to private shareholders. UTC says it employs about 218,000 workers globally, including 6,200 in Canada.

The State Provides Material Infrastructure -- Serviced Land,
Water, Power (Electricity and Natural Gas), Sewer Services, Ports,
Rail, Roads, Bridges -- and Human Infrastructure --
Public Education, Health Care, Social Programs

The state provides much of the material infrastructure necessary for investment in modern production and distribution. The construction of the infrastructure is mostly done using private companies. The state guarantees the contracts including any private financing that may occur, which makes building infrastructure a source of guaranteed wealth for the biggest construction companies and others involved.

The capitalist state traditionally took ownership of infrastructure realizing its value as instruments of production with payments to the global financial and construction companies. Recouping of this public investment when put to use in the socialized economy has always been opaque and haphazard, resulting in public debt, yet another form of paying the rich. The big companies use and consume the infrastructure paying only a fraction of its transferred-value. The owners of social wealth benefit as well from parking money in the resulting public debt, which is without risk and invariably receives interest above the rate of money inflation.

Private ownership or management of material infrastructure exists increasingly in rail, airlines, mass transit, highways and bridges. Private ownership of human infrastructure is also on the rise including in particular education, seniors' care and large swaths of health care and other social programs. Privatization also reaches into institutions protecting the security of the monopoly capitalist state and the property and class privilege of the owners of social wealth, such as, the police, military, prisons and government bureaucracy.

Public-private partnerships are now mandatory for federally financed projects although a growing number of political representatives of monopoly capital are questioning their usefulness as they suck too much profit out of infrastructure investment for only a select few depriving other owners of social wealth much of the benefits.

For much of the material and human infrastructure, the state is responsible for collecting the value transferred into the production of goods and services when infrastructure is used and consumed. The responsibility of the state to realize this value is not closely calculated, tracked, accounted for or publicly revealed. The private corporate interests that consume the social material and human transferred-value from public infrastructure generally pay less than the actual value consumed with use. For example, preferred lower rates for industrial consumption of publicly provided electricity are generally considered "good for big business and investments" and so is the use of publicly provided roads and access to remote mining and forestry sites. Otherwise, it is argued, private investments would not be viable or make economic sense.

The anti-social ideology of monopoly capitalism deprives the people of a full accounting of public social wealth and how it is used and consumed and who benefits. The narrow private interests of a privileged few conceal this important aspect of the socialized economy from public view, scrutiny and accounting. For the most part, realization of infrastructure value is put on the backs of people through individual taxation and user fees, which grossly distorts the intrinsic nature of infrastructure as means of production and not means of consumption and consumer goods. The ruling capitalist elite thwart any discussion of a pro-social alternative and new direction for the economy where infrastructure and its consumption and realization are fully and openly accounted for in public.

Particularly obscured is the value workers produce in public education, health care, and other social programs and indeed throughout the broad sectors of the human infrastructure. The big lie is constantly repeated that social programs are a cost and burden on society, as if all the work-time of educators, nurses and others and the value it preserves and produces just evaporates into thin air without adding anything to the economy and people. The working class must staunchly refute this big lie and never allow it to infect its ranks. The transferred and added-value from social programs, and all infrastructure, should be realized within the economy by those economic parts consuming the value of these necessary means of production. Human infrastructure such as public education and health care creates value in the economy within the organism called the working class, the essential human factor in producing goods and services, without which modern society could not exist. Without the working class producing goods and services, and reproducing itself and its value at a continuously higher level, modern society is not possible. Individual workers exist for themselves but just as importantly exist for each other, the entire working class, for without the whole the individual cannot exist. The value of the working class is constantly reproduced anew and the economy as a socialized instrument must realize the value of the working class as an entity and in its individual parts. As a single organism, the working class, in whole and in its individuality, can only be maintained and perpetuated if its value is realized in sickness and in health from birth to passing away. If the value of any individual worker is not realized in sickness and in health from birth to passing away, the entire working class is in danger of extinction and society with it. Without workers producing value, the socialized economy collapses. The working class, both individual and the whole, is the human factor producing value. The value it produces sustains its members from birth to passing away, and the society on which all people depend for their existence.

The companies and institutions that benefit from material and human infrastructure and consume its value must pay for the transferred-value they use in their operations. The value is returned to those public institutions creating the value in the first place, making them viable and dynamic elements of the socialized economy. Material and human infrastructure should be viewed as means of production for the economy with its produced and reproduced value transferring on into other means of production and consumption. They are economic instruments producing value within the whole. In the broad sense, infrastructure instruments are not consumer goods, they are not means of consumption nor are they meant to be. They are means of production producing value for use in the socialized economy as means to preserve and produce yet more value. As such, individual taxes and individual user fees should not play any role in realizing the value of material and human infrastructure.

State social and political institutions such as government, prisons, the police and military are not means of production; they do not preserve or produce value; they consume value in their role of perpetuating the state and class privilege, and as such require state revenue from taxes on added-value to function.

Also not well monitored and brought to the public consciousness, is the increase in the value of land when publicly serviced and provided access to mass transportation. Large real estate developers and others have long profited from land values that rise substantially with publicly serviced land especially in proximity to mass transit. They resist paying the full social material value transferred to the land through construction of nearby infrastructure. The working class must change this with its empowerment and a new direction for the economy.

Private Monopoly Control of International Trade and Striving for Empire

The neo-liberal mania for free trade agreements has strengthened private monopoly control of international trade. This leads to uneven development based on the needs of the global monopolies and not that of a sovereign independent self-reliant economy serving the needs of its members.

To restrict and reverse the wrecking of economies by global monopolies, the wholesale sector including both internal and external wholesale trade should be under the control and authority of public institutions. The global monopolies must be deprived of their power to determine prices of production, which they use to advance their narrow private interests. They use this power to expand their global empires to the detriment of the peoples of the world and their sovereign economies and could care less for the chaos and havoc they cause in the world.

The wild fluctuation in the price of oil is a prominent example of the necessity for change in how prices are determined. In one 52-week period, the price of crude oil has seen a low of U.S.$46.18/barrel and high of U.S.$114.77/barrel. Within that 52-week period, the price of production of crude oil according to actual work-time using any method of production would not have fluctuated more than a fraction of one per cent. An alternative scientific method or modern formula to determine prices of production and the actual value of commodities involved in international trade is not only possible but necessary.

Free trade unleashes private monopoly dictate over the wholesale sector and control of sovereign currencies and the financial sector. Exchange of goods and services globally under U.S. dollar hegemony and the control of private monopolies entails accumulated social wealth flying around the world without public restrictions. This deprives the peoples of the world from forming trade relations based on mutual benefit and development, and deprives them of enhancing global friendship as one humanity and establishing stability in the global economy and control over their own sovereign economies.

The private owners of accumulated social wealth are empire-builders not nation-builders. Canadian owners of accumulated social wealth have joined U.S. imperialist empire-building within the United States of North American Monopolies or Fortress North America. Their striving for empire leads them to pillage raw material abroad, exploit workers globally and wage constant wars to secure regions deemed necessary for their empire such as throughout Central and West Asia and Africa. Through U.S.-led NATO, they have encircled Russia and are preparing for war to force regime change to seize its vast regions containing raw material they covet. With Europe under its overbearing influence and Russia subdued within the U.S. Empire, the next step will be to complete the U.S. military "pivot to Asia" and encirclement of China and bring all Asia under its domination.

United States of North American Monopolies

Canadian owners of accumulated social wealth have found a niche within the U.S. Empire in the sector of raw material production throughout the U.S. imperialist system of states.

The following Statscan graph shows the heavy outflow and inflow of investment in the mining sector.

Table 376-0122: Balance of international payments, flows of Canadian direct investment abroad and foreign direct investment in Canada, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), quarterly (main sectors). Click to enlarge.

The following Statscan table reveals how Canada's economy is integrated into the U.S. imperialist system of states. The general details show an economy that serves the big monopolies. For example, the investments in Motor vehicles and parts result in a total production of more vehicles than Canadians purchase annually yet the excess assembled beyond that amount does not bring a net benefit in trade because much of the parts used in the exported assembled vehicles are imported. A net outflow of value in this sector provides a net benefit to the global auto monopolies but a deficit for the Canadian economy. The Canadian economy would be better off if it produced only the number of vehicles consumed in the country but produced all the value of the parts going into them. Any excess auto means of production, especially the assembly lines and the workers involved in assembling more vehicles than Canada consumes, could be transformed into producing the large quantities of social product not produced in Canada in the important and extremely valuable sector of Industrial machinery, equipment and parts.

The surplus in exported raw material or semi-refined products from the four categories Energy products, Metal ores and non-metallic minerals, Metal and non-metallic mineral products and Forestry products and building and packaging materials is largely offset by deficits in Industrial machinery, equipment and parts, Electronic and electrical equipment and parts and Consumer goods.

Those specific categories do not reveal the situation in detail. For example, within the category Metal and non-metallic mineral products, which shows a surplus, the sub category of steel products consistently has a deficit of a billion dollars annually, which will only become worse with U.S. Steel's permanent shutdown of Stelco's Hamilton Mill blast furnace.

A modern socialized economy of industrial mass production requires three basic factors: raw material, instruments of production and the human factor, an educated and socially conscious working class. With those three factors present either internally or through trade for mutual benefit, the people of any country with conscious planned production can fulfill their needs, especially one as large as Canada. Once the ball is rolling, productivity supplies the necessary accumulation of value to invest in extended reproduction. An important aspect is that relations of production must be constantly renewed to remain in harmony with the development of the socialized productive forces.

A self-reliant economy serving the needs of the people and economy comprises: raw material, including food, produced locally or acquired through trade for mutual benefit and cooperation with others; instruments of production produced locally for food production, mining and manufacturing; financial services provided as a public service; material and human infrastructure to meet the requirements of a modern economy and to guarantee the rights and needs of the people.

The politics of a self-reliant economy is its concentrated expression. This means the actual producers themselves are political and politics is centred at work amongst those who are engaged in the production and reproduction of life. The political forms and institutions of a self-reliant economy are the inventions of the actual producers themselves to guarantee their rights and the extended reproduction of their self-reliant economy.

The problem is to advance to such a stage; the key is to activate the human factor/social consciousness. Private ownership and control of accumulated social wealth blocks the advance. The necessity for change requires the working class to lead the people in depriving the owners of accumulated social wealth from depriving the people of gaining the power to direct the economy forward towards nation-building and harmony of the three basic factors -- raw material, instruments of production and the human factor, an educated and socially conscious working class. Modern nation-building requires an economy organized in a planned socially conscious manner to guarantee the needs and security of the people, the economy's extended reproduction without disruptions and crises, and the humanization of the social and natural environments.

International investment position, Canadian direct investment abroad and foreign direct investment in Canada, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) and region, annual here

Balance of international payments, flows of Canadian direct investment abroad and foreign direct investment in Canada, quarterly here

International investment position, portfolio and other investment in Canada, by sector, book and market values (government and corporations) here

No More Missing and Murdered
Girls and Women!
Justice and a National Inquiry Now!

No More Missing and Murdered Girls and Women! Justice and a National Inquiry Now!

Rights and Security Are Not Dependent
on the Price of Oil

There Is a Pro-Social Alternative!

Fight for a New Direction for the Economy!

Some Effects of the Oil Price Drop

Brief History of Oil Prices

Disastrous Years for Workers,
Suppliers and Others

Plunder in the Name of Economic Stabilization, Democracy and Human Rights

Allied War Crime Prelude to the Cold War

The Passion of Capital-Centred Politics:
Making Canada a Good Place to Invest for
Accumulated Social Wealth

A Quick Look at Two Examples: Steel and Auto

Redistribution of Accumulated Social Wealth

Buying Existing Social Product and Productive Assets

Direct Investment in New Production of Goods and Services

Investments of Accumulated Social Wealth Combine with the
Working Class as the Social Relation Capital

The Social Character of Modern Production and the
Integrated Socialized Economy are in Contradiction with the
Private Ownership of Accumulated Social Wealth

Common Investment Factors Within the
Imperialist System of States

Public Money from the State

Concessions from Workers Within the Context of Large-Scale Permanent Unemployment and Retreat of Revolution

Serving the Military Needs of the U.S. Empire and Its Insatiable
Thirst for Profit and War

The State Provides Material Infrastructure -- Serviced Land,
Water, Power (Electricity and Natural Gas), Sewer Services, Ports,
Rail, Roads, Bridges -- and Human Infrastructure --
Public Education, Health Care, Social Programs

Private Monopoly Control of International Trade and Striving for Empire

United States of North American Monopolies

No More Missing and Murdered Girls and Women! Justice and a National Inquiry Now!

No More Missing and Murdered Girls and Women! Justice and a National Inquiry Now!

Rights and Security Are Not Dependent on the Price of Oil

There Is a Pro-Social Alternative!

Fight for a New Direction for the Economy!

Some Effects of the Oil Price Drop

Brief History of Oil Prices

Disastrous Years for Workers, Suppliers and Others

Plunder in the Name of Economic Stabilization, Democracy and Human Rights

Allied War Crime Prelude to the Cold War

The Passion of Capital-Centred Politics: Making Canada a Good Place to Invest for Accumulated Social Wealth

A Quick Look at Two Examples: Steel and Auto

Redistribution of Accumulated Social Wealth

Buying Existing Social Product and Productive Assets

Direct Investment in New Production of Goods and Services

Investments of Accumulated Social Wealth Combine with the Working Class as the Social Relation Capital

The Social Character of Modern Production and the Integrated Socialized Economy are in Contradiction with the Private Ownership of Accumulated Social Wealth

Common Investment Factors Within the Imperialist System of States

Public Money from the State

Concessions from Workers Within the Context of Large-Scale Permanent Unemployment and Retreat of Revolution

Serving the Military Needs of the U.S. Empire and Its Insatiable Thirst for Profit and War

The State Provides Material Infrastructure -- Serviced Land, Water, Power (Electricity and Natural Gas), Sewer Services, Ports, Rail, Roads, Bridges -- and Human Infrastructure -- Public Education, Health Care, Social Programs

Private Monopoly Control of International Trade and Striving for Empire

United States of North American Monopolies

No More Missing and Murdered
Girls and Women!
Justice and a National Inquiry Now!

Rights and Security Are Not Dependent
on the Price of Oil

Disastrous Years for Workers,
Suppliers and Others

The Passion of Capital-Centred Politics:
Making Canada a Good Place to Invest for
Accumulated Social Wealth

Investments of Accumulated Social Wealth Combine with the
Working Class as the Social Relation Capital

The Social Character of Modern Production and the
Integrated Socialized Economy are in Contradiction with the
Private Ownership of Accumulated Social Wealth

Common Investment Factors Within the
Imperialist System of States

Serving the Military Needs of the U.S. Empire and Its Insatiable
Thirst for Profit and War

The State Provides Material Infrastructure -- Serviced Land,
Water, Power (Electricity and Natural Gas), Sewer Services, Ports,
Rail, Roads, Bridges -- and Human Infrastructure --
Public Education, Health Care, Social Programs