life – Pike & Hurricane

Organ donations: a second chance at life

Julia Glatthaar — Wed, 20 May 2020 09:28:51 +0000

“Helping others” is something a lot of people aim for, take pride in and get satisfaction from. There are so many projects that you can get involved in, you could start volunteering or donating to a specific organisation. It is exactly at this point where it is crucial to talk about how each and every one of us, through a single donation, could give another person a second chance at life. To be exact, one person could possibly save up to 8 lives and enhance 75 more. Living organ donors can donate a kidney, lung, as well as a portion of their liver, pancreas, and intestine. Deceased organ donors can give two kidneys, two lungs, heart, pancreas and intestines. Corneas, tissues, hands and face, blood stem cells, cord blood, bone marrow, blood and platelets can also be donated.

Organ donations through deceased persons has sparked much controversy. Each country has developed their own approach on this matter based on an opt-out or opt-in concept, trying to boost organ donations in the presence of ever growing waiting lists.

Opt-in or opt-out?

Countries, such as Germany, Sweden, and Brazil are using an opt-in system, relying on their citizens actively signing up for organ donations, This, however, can lead to individuals who would want to be a donor not donating (a false negative). Opt-out countries, for instance Sweden, Russia and Uruguay, consider all citizens to have agreed to be an organ donor, even though this can potentially lead to an individual who does not want to donate becoming a donor (a false positive). Every day various organs get harvested and planted, yet the waiting list is growing exponentially compared to the people donating organs, and every day people die waiting for a life saving organ.

A study by the University of Nottingham found that an opt-out system had a higher total number of kidneys, the organ with the longest waiting list, transplanted and a higher quantity of organ transplants in general. However, as mentioned above, organs do not always stem from deceased donors. And living donations are higher in opt-in countries.

This study may have impacted countries, mostly European, to make changes in their system. For instance, England changed to an opt-out system this March. In either system, family members still have the final word, and can even override their relatives’ decision to donate.

Getting personal

It may surprise you then that Sweden, an opt-out country, has one of the lowest organ donation rates in Europe. It is Spain, who has the highest organ donation rate in the world. Apart from utilizing opt-out consent, their success is based on measures such as a transplant coordination network that works both locally and nationally, a high quality of public information available about organ donation, and a focus on reaching out early to families of potential donors. Just by talking to relatives for 3-4 hours chances of organ donation triple.

When organs are rejected

Another problem is the lack of surgeons who are able to remove organs or tissue for donation. For instance, in the US, Roland Henry, a previously healthy person until the car crash, wanted his organs to be recovered and donated, yet t local organ collecting agency denied his wish. This is one of many examples where governments all around the world are letting usable organs go to waste due to a lack of communication within the different organ agencies, gaps in the medical system and a lack of overview and reporting.

Organ tourism and organ trafficking

These gaps in efficiency, when it comes to harvesting organs, are extremely dangerous to people on both sides of the spectrum. On the one hand, people on the waiting lists are dying, on the other hand organ donors are being exploited to the extent of death as well. An example of the latter can be found in the Indian state Tamil Nadu, where three out of four harvested hearts went to foreigners, mostly wealthy citizens of Western countries. And whilst the Transplant Authorityclaims that organs are only given to foreigners when there are no Indian citizens on the waiting list, it is difficult to overlook that the main obstacle for Indians seems to be to register and pay the necessary fees. Of course, Tamil Nadu is only a single center, yet it it is part of an overall problem.

The lack of organs and possibilities to pay high prices also leads to the phenomenon of organ trafficking. As of 2008, the WHO estimated every tenth kidney to derive from international organ trafficking, a business worth approximately 5 billion US dollars. There are stories of people selling essential and non-essential organs to pay debts, or to help their families. Moreover, they are difficult to confirm. As for the buyers, they are mostly sick and vulnerable citizens from the US, Western Europe, the Arab Gulf states, Israel and wealthy enclaves in the developing world.

As mentioned, particularly in Europe, states have been trying to combat waiting times, and with that organ trafficking and organ tourism, by boosting organ donations through opt-in and opt-out systems. In other countries, already a new medical definition of “death” could boost organ donation.

Brain death and cardiac death

Cardiac death, is typically defined as the moment when the heart has stopped beating or is beating too irregularly to sustain life. Brain death is the cessation of all brain activity, including all of the activity in the brain stem. Hence, with advanced technology, such as ventilators, the central body system (heart and lungs) can still keep the body running, whilst the person itself is no longer sentient. Therefore, in countries, such as Japan, Pakistan and Romania, brain death is not accepted by society and, often times, the medical sector. And this is a real struggle when it comes to deceased organ donation.

Here, in Sweden, brain death is seen as equal to cardiac death. Therefore, in the case of deceased organ donation, turning of the ventilator is not noted as the official moment of death, instead the date of the diagnosed brain death is registered.

Organ donation is something very personal, and maybe therefore still not talked about enough. It is important to speak to your family and friends about this subject and ask yourself the question of whether or not you want sign up for donation, stay the system, ot opt out.

by Julia Glatthaar

Photo Credits

Organ donation, GDS Infographics, CC BY 2.0

Organ trafficking, Glacomo Salicconi, CC BY 2.0

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Taking life in the name of ideology: Germany’s right-wing network

Merle Emrich — Sun, 17 May 2020 14:44:40 +0000

On 2 June 2019, the district president of the region of Kassel in central Germany, Walter Lübcke (CDU), was murdered. What was first suspected to be the crime of a lone perpetrator turned out to be the politically motivated killing of a man with profound connections to Germany’s right-wing network. What was long suspected by some, latest after the NSU (Nationalsocialist Underground) murders, and denied by others has become painfully obvious: 75 years after the defeat of the Third Reich, Germany is all but free of Nazis some of whom are willing to take other people’s life in the name of fascist ideology.

The assassination of Walter Lübcke

Almost a year after CDU politician Walter Lübcke was shot dead in his home, the federal prosecutor has filed charges against main suspect Stephan Ernst as well as his accomplice Markus H. Two weeks after the crime, DNA that could be traced back to Stephan Ernst had led to his arrest. Ernst confessed to the murder and stated that he acted alone. But then Ernst changed his lawyer to Frank Hannig, who is known to be part of the right-wing milieu by association with the Pegida movement, and withdrew his confession. He now claimed that he and Markus H. had intended to beat up Lübcke. According to Ernst, they got into a fight with the politician leading to Markus H. accidentally shooting him. Federal prosecution appears to dismiss the credibility of this second confession and views Ernst as the main suspect. But what were his motives?

In 2015, Lübcke spoke at a citizens’ assembly to inform the public on the setting up of a refugee centre close to Ernst’s home near Kassel. Members of the extreme right, including Ernst and Markus H., were in the audience and disturbed the event by making loud remarks on “the fucking state“. At some point, Lübcke seemed to have had enough and replied that whoever does not share its values “can leave this country at any time” which was followed by him being insulted as “traitor“. Markus H., then, uploaded a video of the event on YouTube resulting in several death threats by right-wing people against Lübcke.

Further aspects reinforce Ernst’s motive. He had made donations not only to the far-right AfD party but also to the Identitarian movement, and had spread hate comments online. He had been actively involved in the Hessian state elections by putting up campaign posters for the AfD, a party whose leading politicians frequently stand out through incidents such as describing Hitler and the NS regime as “bird poop in history” or being recognised as “fascist” by a legal court. Moreover, Ernst had been convicted seven times previously for serious bodily harm, attempted manslaughter and an attempted pipe bomb attack on a refugee centre. After his arrest for the murder of Lübcke two additional cases caught the investigator’s attention. Firstly, the attempted shooting of a teacher from Kassel known for his left-wing convictions in 2003. However, evidence is insufficient for the case to feature in the trial of Ernst. Secondly, a knife attack against Iraqi refugee Ahmed I. which might be relevant in court.

Deep into the brown bog

Not only is the murder of Walter Lübcke a politically motivated crime that sent ripples of shock throughout Germany, but it is also another one in a series of cases in which the German intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) appears to have either underestimated or ignored the threat of far-right terror. Since 2009 Ernst had no longer been in the focus of the Verfassungsschutz which had categorised him as inconspicuous, and neither was Markus H., despite all evidence pointing towards both of them being active in far-right circles. Even after 2009, both Ernst and Markus H. were present at at times violent Nazi protests, including the attack on a DGB (German Trade Union Confederation) protest in 2009 and the escalated protest in Chemnitz in 2018. And although questions on the exact details remain unanswered, both Ernst and Markus H. seem to be directly or indirectly linked to the NSU on whose death list the name “Walter Lübcke” had been found.

It is furthermore assumed that Markus H. acquired the murder weapon for Ernst, made possible by another failure of the Verfassungsschutz. Initially, Markus H. had been banned from owning a weapon due to his right-wing ideology and previous convictions i.e. for the use of an unconstitutional number plate and for shouting “Sieg Heil” and doing the Hitler salute at a pub in 2006. He filed a complaint against this ban and the court asked the Verfassungsschutz if they had information on Markus H. that would speak against him owning a weapon which they negated due to lack of knowledge about a document mentioning Markus H. hardly anyone had access to. Thus, Markus H. was legally able to purchase weapons.

In fact, Ernst might have been involved far more in the extreme right movement than anyone dared to imagine when he was first suspected of having assassinated Lübcke. Evidence, in form of a photo, emerged which suggests that Ernst is part of the militant Nazi network Combat 18 (by now illegal in Germany); founded in Great Britain in 1992 and taking root in Germany in the early 2000s as a militant branch of the Blood & Honour network whose members helped out the clandestine NSU terrorists. After the arrest of Ernst, right-wing extremist Mike S. posted a comment on Facebook in solidarity with Ernst: “I stand behind comrade E., in good times as well as in bad times.” Information published by Der Spiegel, including a photo taken at the pub Stadt Stockholm after a NPD protest in 2002, proves that Ernst was not only an acquaintance of Mike S. but that he was also in contact with Combat 18 leader Stanley Röske who is rumoured to have hosted NSU terrorists Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt at his birthday party in 2006. German intelligence and security services however don’t seem to show much concern due to this network which prepares for right-wing terror and a “war of races”.

Hannibal, Uniter e.V. and the Nordkreuz network

Two years prior to the assassination of Lübcke another case shed light on Germany’s Nazi network. During razzias in August 2017, illegally hoarded weapons and ammunition along with 200 body bags and death lists including about 5000 names of left-wing politicians and anti-fascist activists were found. None of the accused people were convicted for attempted terror, but merely for illegal possession of weapons. Among them are right-wing populist and lawyer Jan-Hendrik H. and (by now former) detective superintendent Haik J. who were investigated on suspicion of terror as police had found a police-internal ground plan of a local politician’s flat who was under police protection. Marko G., police officer for the State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA) and temporarily the Special Deployment Commando (SEK) who himself was hoarding ammunition, took part in the trials solely as a witness.

What connects the people whose homes were searched during these razzias is that they were part of the Nordkreuz group – one of many chat groups that could be traced back to a man named André S. alias “Hannibal”. Reconstructed chat conversations revealed the content of its members’ conversations: assassination fantasies about left-wing people, sympathising with the NSU, references to Hitler having “fought hard for the German ethnicity”, their perceived threat of Russia, Islamist terror and refugees.

Members of both Uniter – a club founded by André S. – and the right-wing chat groups hosted by him include former and active police officers and soldiers. The aim of André S. appears to have been to build a network of soldiers, police officers and representatives of public authorities who fear that in the case of a catastrophe the state won’t be able to upkeep public order. One of their strategies is to build a combat force called “Defence”. What led to the unearthing of this network, that neither the MAD (Military Counterintelligence Service) nor the Verfassungsschutz seemed to have noticed or taken seriously, was the arrest of one of the chat group’s members, Special Force Command soldier Franco A.

In early 2017, Franco A. was arrested at the Vienna airport because he had hidden a gun there. During the investigations it turned out that he was registered as Syrian refugee “David Benjamin”, possibly as part of a plan to commit attacks which were supposed to be the starting point for right-wing riots ultimately leading to a coup. He also appeared to have been involved in a plan to free imprisoned Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck and to blow up the memorial for the Jewish Rothschild family in Frankfurt. Apart from a death list and the gun Franco A. had hidden at the Vienna airport, additional weapons – some of which had swastikas carved into them – and explosives, a manual on how to build a bomb, a guerilla guide which is popular among members of the extreme right and Wehrmacht relics were found in his possession.

A further alarming detail in the case is that Maximilian T., fellow soldier and friend of Franco A., worked as assistant of Jan Nolte, member of parliament for the AfD. His position granted him access to parliament without having to go through a security check, as well as access to, among others, the office of Green party politician Claudia Roth whose name had been found on one of the network’s death lists.

The Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt, however, dismissed charges against Franco A. for the preparation of a serious criminal offense endangering the State. Only Mathias F., another friend and army comrade of Franco A., was convicted for illegal possession of weapons but merely received a suspended sentence. Meanwhile, the German government continued to deny the existence of any kind of right-wing network and the connection between the individual cases. Furthermore, many questions remain unanswered, among them, why Franco A. had not been noticed before. After all, he had clearly revealed his right-wing ideology in his Master thesis in 2014. He had argued that immigration was the cause of a contemporary genocide of Western European peoples and that the Jews were to blame for it, and justified the use of violence in contexts of “protection of the identity of the own people” against “foreign elements”. Even though the German army was aware of Franco A.’s Master thesis, they merely classified it as a bad academic work.

The murder of Lübcke and the cases connected to the Nordkreuz network demonstrate that the failures of the Verfassungsschutz in the context of the NSU are not a single case, but rather a symptomatic and structural problem. In part it might be related to personal faults of the former head of the Verfassungsschutz, Hans-Georg Maaßen, who had speculated on videos of the right-wing mob that chased after foreign looking people in Chemnitz (2018) being faked, who accused the Left party of being “left-wing radicals” and Antifa as “extremists”, and who is now criticising mainstream media for calling out conspiracy theories related to corona and those who spread them. But to a great extent, the blindness towards far-right extremism of the Verfassungsschutz and the government, might be due to the intransparent structures and processes of the Verfassungsschutz which lead to the disappearance or almost complete inaccessibility of documents and thus people like Stephan Ernst falling under the radar, as well as an unwillingness to admit that there is the danger of right-wing violence and terror in Germany of all places.

“Offer for idiots” (left). “Brown politics in blue colour” (right).

Anti-fascism

In his book Paris – Boulevard St. Martin No. 11 German-Jewish communist and résistant Peter Gingold wrote: “The most meaningful and precious thing in German history is and remains the anti-fascist resistance.” In an appeal to the generation born after him to continue in the tradition of antifascist resistance and to act based on a sense of justice he confessed to having it found unimaginable that, after 1945, “the following generations would be – yet again – confronted with nazism, racism, with reviving nationalism and militarism.” And yet, augmenting xenophobic sentiments and nationalism, the presence of fascist soldiers, lawyers and police officers, the existence of Nazi networks in Germany and beyond speaks a clear language, pointing precisely to this unimaginable scenario.

Since 1970 more than 250 people have died due to right-wing terror. Yet, it was not until the NSU murders – due to their scale and the failure of the Verfassungsschutz to uncover the clandestine fascist network earlier and thus prevent deaths – and the assassination of Walter Lübcke – a white man and member of the German political elite – that focus fell on the continued existence of Nazism in post-1945 Germany both in international and national media, and politics. A profound examination of the structures of the Verfassungsschutz needs to happen and Germany has to increase its awareness of the uncomfortable truth of fascist terror. Yet, while politics and intelligence services remain (partially) blind on the right eye, the ordinary citizen can still do their part, whether individually or as a group, to stand up and speak out against racism, fascism, xenophobia and other forms of hate, injustice and discrimination. And after all, antifascism, in Germany and elsewhere, does not start with the legal prosecution of those who have already committed violent acts. It starts with resisting and calling out fascist ideology already in its earliest stage.

by Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

Identitären-Demo in Berlin, 17.06.2016, Tim Lüddemann, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Chemnitz: AfD-Trauermarsch und Gegenkundgebung (1), Tim Lüddemann, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Chemnitz: AfD-Trauermarsch und Gegenkundgebung (2), Tim Lüddemann, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Solidarität verteidigen – United against racism & fascism, Rasande Tyskar, CC BY-NC 2.0

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How life will disappear if we continue to overexploit nature

Aimée Niau Lacordaire — Sun, 17 May 2020 14:35:59 +0000

The Amazonia and Australia’s fires, the coronavirus, and the invasion of insects in Africa: those four disasters that hit between 2019 and 2020 have one point in common; they are all due to the impact of humans on nature.

The extent of the damage

During the years 2019 and 2020, 4,700 square kilometers of the Amazonian forest burned, the equivalent of the size of 628 football stadiums. There are at least 1.6 million hectares of the Australian forest which burned and 2000 koalas that died during the fire. And more than 228 000 people have died of coronavirus in the world. Furthermore, East Africa is being invaded and ravaged by locusts. Due to the lack of information on the impact of the locust invasion, we don’t exactly know the extent of the damage, however, this greatly affected the harvests and therefore risks famine. But the worst is yet to come. Because these phenomena are only going to multiply if we continue to overexploit nature.

What are they due to?

In fact, the forest fires in Australia are the results of an exceptional drought and heat waves which are unquestionably linked to global warming. Likewise, the cyclones that hit Africa have favored the insects’ circulation and reproduction. It’s the extreme climatic variations that caused those cyclones, and so ideal conditions for these locusts. In Amazonia, the climate alone does not explain forest fires, but they are also due to humans who want to appropriate the land to cultivate it. In the 90’s, deforestation was principally due to agriculture, but now it’s the expansion of soybean plantations in order to feed livestock, which is the number one cause of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

The coronavirus were been transmitted to humans by a pangolin, and these animals are heavily poached, “researchers estimated in 2017 that between 400,000 and 2.7 million pangolins are now hunted each year in the forests of Central Africa to supply the Asian market”.This animal is on the verge of extinction, not only because of poaching but also because of deforestation, which made them lose their habitat. Moreover, the passage of virus from animals to humans is easy because of intensive breeding which makes it easier for the virus to move between species; as with the H1N1 flu. It has also been proven that the coronavirus causes higher mortality rates in regions with a high rate of air pollution.

What does the future hold for us ?

In Australia, temperatures and droughts peaked in 2019 and researchers have shown that if we do nothing about global warming, these high levels of heat will be the norm in a few decades. The forest allows the absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2). This is why the Amazon constituting the largest forest in the world is called “the lungs of the Earth”. Unfortunately, when the dynamics of tree mortality intensifies, the trees will no longer absorb but reject this CO2, and therefore contribute to global warming. Evidently, this leads to a devastating loop and therefore the death of thousands of plant, animal and human species.

If we continue to poach and eat wild animals more and more diseases will be transmitted to humans. In addition the food chain would collapse if animals were to disappear. And if we continue to consume as much meat as we currently do, and therefore encourage intensive farming, more viruses will be transmitted and cause more and more deadly pandemics.

We saw that nature takes over during confinement, animals have reclaimed the territory of humans, and pollution has slowed down. It is therefore possible to limit our impact on nature. It is therefore more than necessary to take drastic measures if we want to prevent the extinction of species. It is necessary to stop overconsumption, to stop animal exploitation, to fight against overheating. If no action is taken, thousands of plant species will disappear causing the death of the animals, we will face extreme weather, which will slowly destroy the human species, starting with those who already suffer from it, the poorest.

by Aimée Niau Lacordaire

Photo Credits

Koala, Mathias Appel, CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)

Fire, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Region U.,S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Regio, Public Domain Mark 1.0

Sheep, Bernard Spragg. NZ, CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)

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Anthropocene: how humans shape life on Earth

Nina Kolarzik — Sun, 17 May 2020 14:30:03 +0000

What is the evolution of life actually? In its essence it is that a species has the best chance in reproducing itself and surviving the longest if it is the best at adapting to its environment. This is the same for all the different life forms, plants, animals… and also for humans (if you want a specific kind of animal) this was for a long time the standard. But is it still?

A group of researchers claim that the earth has entered a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. Since the last ice age around ten thousand years ago, humanity has lived in a very stable epoch, the Holocene. Compared to previous times, when the temperature of the earth has fluctuated much more and made living conditions far more difficult, the average temperature during the Holocene changed by plus-minus one degree celsius only.

As far as we know, this is the only epoch that makes life as we know it possible. But what happens when we move out of it? What happens if we cross the boundaries of our planet? According to the Anthropocene Working Group this is already happening as we enter the Anthropocene.

The human force

As explained by Johan Rockström, the development started around 1750 with the industrial revolution. In the beginning, humans still impacted the earth system little. The human pressure through greenhouse gas emission, extracting resources, overuse biodiversity etc. grew linearly. However, from 1955 onwards, the impact increased exponentially. The Earth today faces a geologic epoch in which humans define it more than any other species or natural process. The name “Anthropocene” says it: Other Earth systems in our geologic time period, the atmosphere, water systems, biospheres, are human-influenced.

The term proposed by the Anthropocene Working Group is not official in science yet, but there is increasing evidence that this is not just a symbolic name and that humans leave behind their geologic mark in stones and ice. If in the future researchers study sediments of our time, as archaeologists and geologists do today, they will find evidence of pollution, fertilizers, human waste, nuclear weapons and other signs of the human conquest. We are the force of change. The sun, any other living forms, seismic activities of the Earth… they all change the planet less than we do. Not only would it be the first time that we are witnessing a new era, but it is also the consequence of our own actions.

Acknowledging this is important to understand that the climate change the planet is currently experiencing is anthropogenic. But human impact on the Earth is not limited to climate change. It includes many more phenomena: urbanization and agriculture, mining and the production of new materials, loss of biodiversity and invasion of species, being some of them. Imagine cycling through Skåne and its agricultural fields. Imagine swimming in the sea and finding rubbish along the shores. Imagine walking through a forest nearby – the trees would not grow the way you see them if they were left alone. And when visiting the area around the Italian town Carrara, you can find that complete mountains disappear because they have been turned into one of the biggest marble quarries in the world. You see: nearly everywhere our environment is shaped according to human will. Can you imagine a place that did not carry any signs of human influence?

The Anthropocene argument has been criticised of its duality of human society and nature as reducing the world to simplistic binaries. It is challenged by the alternative understanding of a Capitalocene, that “signiﬁes capitalism as a way of organizing nature— as a multispecies, situated, capitalist world-ecology”. It describes the way we are attaching a monetary value to everything, we economise our world. The concept “Anthropocene” still needs to be developed and is not uncontested. However, it directs our attention to contemporary environmental concerns and raises an important question: Should we continue that way?

Local tip

The exhibition “Antropocen” in the Teknikens och Sjöfartens hus of Malmö Museer is taking place until the 7th of June. It is telling through photography and film the terrible beauty that science is warning us about.

by Nina Kolarzik

Photo Credits

photo 1, analogicus, no attribution required

photo 2, digital341, no attribution required

photo 3, dexmac, no attribution required

photo 4, MitchellShapiroPhotography, CC by-NC-ND 2.0

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Life under the corporate sovereign: human automata and modern serfdom

Filip Zahariev — Sun, 17 May 2020 13:28:45 +0000

Consider the basic rights we in the Western world take for granted – the twin pillars of freedom and democracy, which define Western culture. Or so it seems. Strange, then, that when we think of the single most influential institution in our capitalist society, neither of these pillars are to be found. I write, of course, of the modern-day corporation: a fundamentally illiberal institution.

In this article, I’ll look first and foremost at American corporations, as American capitalism is at its most evolved – a signpost for days to come in Europe and beyond. The COVID-19 crisis, further, allows for the underlining of the social injustices of this system.

Corporation as the engine of Capitalism

The corporation stands at the nucleus of modern society. The vast amount of people work for big business, either directly or indirectly, and their livelihoods are dependent on their continued employment. The labour the workers produce is much more valuable than their wages – what Economics professor Richard D. Wolff defines as surplus in his 2012 book, Democracy at Work. This surplus is under complete control by the capitalists, who Wolff defines as the employers of the labourers and the owners of the means of production. This surplus, then, is used to enrich capitalists and cement their place in society. This is a well-established process, to the point that to even question the capitalist market system comes with a degree of social and political stigmatization – especially in the United States. It wasn’t that long ago that the very term “socialist” could sink political careers in the US, a trend changed only recently by Bernie Sanders.

But the owners of capital – those who count themselves among the major shareholders and members of the boards of directors of corporations – have enough influence to make any talk of true equality seem a fever dream. In what reads as an Onion headline, a 2010 Supreme Court ruling held that corporations have the same right as individuals to influence elections. This, despite the skewered amount of influence corporate lobbyists have over policy in the USA and beyond – a fact owed to the tens of millions spent by corporations to this end. Take Exxon, for example, its reach is described as the kind that allows its executives “easy access to every president”. Its confident CEO is “a peer of the White House’s rotating occupants” who can usually count on the administration to see things as he does. In fact, the president is often more pliable than the CEO, who often goes his own way, “aligned…with America, but…not always in sync; he was more akin to the president of France, or the chancellor of Germany…. His was a private empire.” Almost as if depthless pockets open all avenues to power.

Life holds no candle to profit

Corporations have the absolute authority to cut any number of their workers if holding onto them threatens the bottom line of corporate profitability. Take the recent announcement that Disney stopped paying 100,000 of its employees starting the week of April 20, 2020. The devastating societal effects this decision will have on each and every one of these employees is little different than the proliferation of globalizing forces in the 1970s and onwards which saw American corporations leave behind millions of middle-class Americans for the far cheaper workforce of Asia. It was this that brought about the rise of the economically vulnerable “precariat” class – 45,000 members of which kill themselves yearly, as summarized by Helen Epstein.

If you seek more persuasive evidence, all you need do is take a glance at the unemployment numbers in the United States – twenty million (and counting) for the period of March 12–April 12. Those numbers have not shrunk since – in fact, they’ve grown. While Europe is a far cry from exemplary in tackling the coronavirus crisis, the unemployment rate hasn’t skyrocketed. This is owed to the protections workers unions have negotiated with governments over long decades via collective bargaining. Perhaps the new depression triggered by COVID-19 is just the right time to introduce collectivization in a wider context.

A better way?

Professor Wolff argues in Democracy at Work that there is an alternative to the way corporations are currently run – Workers Self-Directed Enterprises (WSDE). At its essence, the WSDE offers “placing the workers in the position of their own collective board of directors, rather than having directors be non-workers selected by major shareholders… It is the tasks of direction – the decision making now assigned usually and primarily to corporate boards of directors and only secondarily to the major shareholders who choose them – that must be transferred to the workers collectively.”

Wolff’s chief example is the Mondragón Corporation in Spain, which has been in operation for over 50 years. Over this time, the corporation has grown to be one of the most successful businesses in Spain, and “now includes eighty-five thousand members in its constituent worker cooperative enterprises.”

The WSDE methods are neither new, nor revolutionary. A 1997 New York Review of Books article, Reinventing the Corporation, examines six novels dealing with the introduction of “collaborative methods” within corporations. Discussed are the problems a traditionally structured corporation meets in transitioning towards such starkly different methodology as well as, the benefits and issues during the transition period:

“Employees, as we shall see from a variety of studies, tend to be happier, more productive, and better paid under collaborative or participatory work arrangements. These arrangements, however, are often difficult to carry out. Not only must the work force be reeducated, but managers must be persuaded to accept diminished authority.”

It is a difficult shift, no doubt, but the novels discussed in the article make more than one compelling case for it. To even scratch the surface of such a challenging topic as this has been no easy task. Professor Wolff’s argument is not clear-cut – collaborative enterprises such as Mondragón suffer from their own share of problems. But to ignore the cracks in a system that fails time and again is to ignore the fundamental instability of the society we live in. It is to turn a blind eye to the necessity for change and a different way forward.

by Filip R. Zahariev

Photo Credits

on the wall, Dennis AB, CC BY-SA 2.0

MEPs back joint Parliament-Commission register of lobbyists, European Parliament, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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