Of possible continuinginterest...
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
http://www.ainfos.ca/
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Cover story from Workers Solidarity No 60
The world's 225 richest people have a combined
wealth equal to the combined annual income of
the world's 2.5 billion poorest people. A 4
percent levy on their wealth would provide
adequate food, safe water and sanitation, basic
education, basic health care and reproductive
health care for all those in the developing
countries. It is facts like these that
galvanised the massive protests against the WTO
in Seattle last September.
Everywhere the rich are getting richer while
most workers see little or no improvement in
their living standards. In the USA the wealth of
the top 1% is greater than that of the bottom
95%. In Mexico 40 people own 30% of the wealth
in that country of 95 million people. The
housing crisis in Ireland demonstrates how even
during an economic boom the gains don't go to
the working class.
The last 40 years have seen massive economic
development and an increase in human knowledge.
In the last 50 years man has gone to the moon
and sequenced the human genome. But the
capitalist system which delivered these miracles
is unable to help the tens of millions who die
every year because they lack access to basic
medicine and clean water. According to the UN
2.6 billion people have no access to sanitation,
2 billion have no electricity and 100 million
are homeless.
This inequality is fundamental to the way that
capitalism works. This is why anarchists have
and will continue to be at the heart of the
anti-capitalist protests in London (J18.
Mayday), Seattle (N30), Washington (A16) and
Prague (S26). But protest is not enough, we want
to change the world.
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This article is from the print version of the Irish
Anarchist paper 'Workers Solidarity'. We also provide
a PDF file of the latest edition for you to print out
and distribute locally
See this and more articles on the web at
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/ws2000.html
