Poverty, death, disease, slums for billions: Massive wealth for a few. Capitalism at work

Party time for some

2009 was a good year for some. I’m sure it was a good year for some wines. But I am talking about some of the people who live on the Indian sub-continent, specifically the 25 people that became billionaires that year. The number of Indian billionaires doubled in 2009 from 24 to 49.

India, with some of the world’s poorest people has also some of the richest and in 2010, Indian billionaires and the Mexican Carlos Slim who topped Forbes’ world’s richest man list edged out the US for the first time since 1994. Mukesh Ambani, who is said to be India’s richest has built himself what is believed to be the world’s most expensive home in Mumbai. The US still has the most billionaires with over 400.  There are more than 1000 of these thugs in the world.

Mukesh’s little place  towers above Mumbai’s slums, which house some 10 million of the city’s 18 million people, has a helicopter pad which allows the family to go in and out of the house without touching anyone. It also contains a cinema and swimming pools, (yes, pools). According to the Times of India, the house needs 600 staff to take care of it and the electricity bill for September was $150,000.

He had a house warming last Friday with 80 guests attending. Shobhaa De, the Indian novelist was one of them and described the home as the "Taj Mahal of the 21st Century" possessing, "what has got to be the biggest, glitziest ballroom in India - the Palace of Versailles is a poor cousin".

"There is a lot of marble, there is a lot of mother of pearl. There are areas and gardens and lotus pools and an absolutely beautiful Krishna temple. There is art, there's sculpture, there is a huge bar, there is a swimming pool," she told the BBC. "The Taj Mahal was considered one of the wonders of the world, this is...I'm sure it's going to be one of the wonders of modern India,"

You have to lose your humanity to be a Mukesh, a Carlos Slim or a Warren Buffet. Most likely, you never had it. Buffet’s son wrote a book recently titled “Life is What You Make It”. They actually believe this about themselves; it makes you sick and extremely angry at the same time, it does me anyway. On the other hand it gives me the strength to continue to fight to end to such a situation, as daunting task as it appears to be.

Half of the world’s people olive in slums. The police in Rio are waging a war on the poor who are forced to live this way in that city. They have invaded one of Rio’s slums to suppress “gang activity”. Gangs are a big problem here in the US also. I would belong to a gang too if I had to. The biggest gang is the capitalist class of course and they have numerous branches like the National Association of Manufacturers and Chamber of Commerce here in the US. Wall Street in New York City has many different gangs all competing for control of their turf.

Poverty, unemployment, lack of the basic necessities for a decent human existence and the lack of political organization is a pre-requisite for the gangs that arise in poor, working class communities. The bourgeois gangs are different, sophisticated and respectable.

Global capitalism is global horror. Surrounding Ambanis’ palace are more than ten million people who barely survive. Child prostitution is the only means of survival for some. As is always the case, women and children suffer the worst in the global misery that comes with the free market. The statistics are staggering:

Women account for 70 percent of the world's people who live in absolute poverty. Women work two-thirds of the world's working hours, produce half of the world's food, and yet earn only 10% of the world's income and own less than 1% of the world's property. Worldwide, a quarter of all women are raped during their lifetime. Depending on the country, 25 to 75 percent of women are regularly beaten at home. Between 10% and 50% of women report they have been physically abused by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Over 120 million women have undergone female genital mutilation. Women hold only 12% of parliamentary seats worldwide. Women account for 2/3rd's of the world's illiterate adults, and girls account for 2/3rd's of the world's children without access to education.


3 billion of the world's people (one-half) live in 'poverty' (living on less than $2 per day). 1.3 billion people live in 'absolute' or 'extreme poverty' (living on less than $1 per day).


800 million people lack access to basic healthcare. 17 million people, including 11 million children, die every year from easily preventable diseases and malnutrition.


800 million people are hungry or malnourished. Nearly 160 million children are malnourished worldwide. 11 million people die every year from hunger and malnutrition.


2.4 billion people lack access to proper sanitation. 1.1 billion do not have safe drinking water. By 2025, at least 3.5 billion people or nearly 2/3rd's of the world's population will face water scarcity. More than 2.2 million people, mostly children, die each year from water related diseases. *

I get so angry with people who suggest we “pray” for an end to this. Do they not think that the billions starving have'nt prayed for food? Have the women of Iraq not prayed for their children? Maybe there’s nothing listening. It’s insulting and selfish for those better off to urge those starving to pray more as if their god listens to them or the other folks aren’t praying right.

Material conditions are the cause of this disgusting and inhuman situation. The world is full of wealthy and powerful religious institutions with their leaders and they have not only been unable to solve this crisis, they are part of it.

Capitalism is real, it is a way of organizing production just like feudalism and slavery was. It has not always existed and capitalists have not always ruled, they have not always been a ruling class. They teach us that capitalism has always existed as a means of convincing us we can't change it.  All their institutions, educational, political and religious bombard us with this false view of the world.  That is why working class history is not taught us, why the history of the colonial people's struggle against imperialism is not taught, or the revolutions that overthrew capitalism are not taught, or when they are, only in a distoroed way that leads us to the conclusion that they were failures.

Capitalism socialized production and, if we want to end the situation that is described here we have to socialize ownership. We can change things.

We can take advice from our enemies like Schwarzenegger when it comes to dealing with Predators:

“If it bleeds, we can kill it.”

*World Revolution.org