US capitalism facing another quagmire in Syria.

Kerry: only 20% of rebels are bad guys

While I can't see any alternative for US capitalism but to follow up on the threat to bomb Syria, the truth is that they are in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.  The back and forth in the US Congress is evidence of the crisis that faces US capitalism, its declining global influence, and the domestic consequences of placing its own workers and middle class on rations.

As I write, (8am Thursday morning), CNN reports that so far in the US Senate the votes stand at 24 for and 17 against US action and 97 no's and 28 aye's in the House.  The problem is that to do nothing is a defeat in that both Putin and Assad and Iran will gain from it.  An attack on Syria on the other hand could inflame the region further. The other problem is if the Assad regime is weakened to the point of losing power, what force will replace it? 

John Kerry, the billionaire US Secretary of State is wallowing in all the attention and as the WSJ stated, his legacy will be determined by these events.  Kerry, along with Nancy Pelosi and other advocates of bombing Syria knows about as much of the opposition in that country as I do.  There are 1000 private militias in Syria acting independently with no coordination at all between each other according to CNN,  yet Kerry is confident, claiming that 80% of the rebels are good guys and 20% are bad or what George W. Bush would call "evildoers". A very scientific study I'm sure. Once again, Americans are learning geography and where other countries are on this planet when their government bombs them.

The New York Times published a video today, smuggled out by a disenchanted Syrian rebel apparently.  The video shows rebel forces executing Syrian soldiers.  There have been all sorts of savage attacks and kidnapping by various groups including an attack on a Christian community yesterday; minorities have lived in relative security under the Assad regime and many in these communities fear a Sunni government and the Islamic fanatics among the rebel forces. 

Rep King, a Republican from NY who favors intervention saying that they have no choice as it would "weaken" America, admitted that he can't guarantee bombing Syria will work but if "we don't" things will really be bad. US capitalism's choices are bad and worse than bad.

Obama might decide to bomb Syria even if Congress votes against it.  It remains to be seen what Russia will do as both Russia and the US have increased military presence in the region, Russia has a lot of investment in Syria.  Russia, the UK, Germany and China as well as Iran are all opposed to intervention.  Both Iran and Iraq, with Shia majorities are also significant players in this dangerous game.

Increased regional and sectarian violence and wider regional wars are a likely outcome of a US attack and we could even see a resurgence of the Arab spring directed against US intervention in the region.
One thing certain is that behind it all is the US need to weaken Iran and its influence.  Kerry has called Assad a thug and  murderer yet in Bahrain, the US has supported thugs and murderers in the form of the absolute monarchy that rules that Island.  30,00 US troops sat idly by as government forces slaughtered peaceful protesters and imprisoned doctors that tended the wounded

The only thing certain is that the crisis in the Middle East cannot be resolved by US intervention only intensified by it.  The problem is that the choices are limited. US, capitalism drained by its never-ending war on terror which is in actuality a war fought in the interests of US corporations, will be drained even further.  The US working class will have to make more sacrifices for these predatory adventures and the willingness to do so will end at some point.  We will see the limits of patience among US workers breached at some point here.

Meanwhile, the crisis of global capitalism will continue and the resistance to austerity and permanent war will broaden.   Despite general strikes and massive protests against austerity in Europe and brutal working conditions from Bangladesh to South Africa, Cambodia to Brazil, the leadership of the traditional organizations and political parties of the working class have cooperated with the austerity agenda of the bankers and global capital.  It is the failure of this, subjective factor, the leadership of the working class internationally, to act and provide an alternative to capitalism, that is prolonging the suffering and creating a vacuum which right wing fascist elements can fill. 

Capitalism cannot be fixed.  Its representatives cannot solve any global crises, whether regional wars, civil conflict like Syria's, horrendous working conditions in the factories of the third world, or the environmental catastrophe that threatens to end life as we know it.  Already, some areas of the world are unfit for human habitation.

The present meeting in St Petersburg of the leaders of global capitalism is a gathering of thieves.  They are thrown in to conflict, deception and treachery by forces beyond their control, as representatives of competing nation states based on the free market yet within an increasingly integrated world economy.

The reality is, US capitalism, with its vast resources and massive intelligence operations has no idea what will result from an intervention in Syria, especially if boots aren't put on the ground, something that could backfire terribly as Americans are fairly quiet about wars abroad as long as not many of us die in the process. So those of us on the outside looking in can only speculate with one exception: Capitalism cannot solve this crisis making the struggle for democratic socialist economies, a world federation of democratic socialist states, the most pressing and only real permanent solution to global conflict and environmental catastrophe.

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The debate on the causes of the Great Recession

Mick Brooks comments here on the debate within the Committee For a Workers' International on the causes of the Great Recession and capitalist crisis. Check out a review or order Mick Brooks' book here .

by Mick Brooks

Since the outbreak of the Great Recession Marxists have debated its cause. This is a vital theoretical issue for understanding the world around us.

The debate centres around the issue as to whether the present crisis is caused by falling profits as explained by Marx’s law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit (LTFRP), dealt with in chapters 13-15 of ‘Capital Volume III’. Others argue that the crisis can be explained as one of underconsumption.

This debate is bubbling under within the ranks of the CWI. The leadership of the CWI (as of the IMT) take what I would characterise as an underconsumptionist position. Already two blogs are circulating inside the ranks of the CWI that advocate the LTFRP explanation, in addition to an excellent short film, and debates are beginning to take place in the localities. Signs of intelligent life? It looks like it. Check out:

Marx returns from the Grave, http://69.195.124.91/~brucieba/ 

Socialism is Crucial, http://socialismiscrucial.wordpress.com/

It should be explained at the outset that all parties agree that a crisis of capitalism takes the form of overproduction, of unsold goods, as it says in the ‘Communist Manifesto’. Overproduction and crisis, however, are not permanent features of capitalist production. It remains to be explained why capitalism dips into crisis when it does.

The leadership, reacting to criticism, has resorted to an ‘underconsumptionist’ explanation of the cause of crisis. The crisis is caused, according to a quote from Chapter 30 of ‘Capital Volume III’ by “the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses.” (As one of the bloggers, CrucialSteve, points out this was actually a bracketed note added by Engels into the original text.)

The problem with the underconsumptionist explanation is that there is a permanent tendency for capitalism to restrict the purchasing power of the working class, because it is a system based on profit. Underconsumptionism therefore has no explanatory power as an explanation of crisis.

In any case not all commodities are produced for workers – pallet trucks and computer numerically controlled machine tools are capital goods bought by capitalists. There are also luxury goods consumed only by capitalists such as yachts and private jets. Why should there be a specific outbreak of overproduction of consumer goods intended for workers’ consumption such as jumpers rather than pallet trucks or yachts? Empirically crises of overproduction usually break out in the capital goods industries. Investment is the most volatile element in national income.

The opposition bloggers within the CWI have a powerful argument in their favour – the rate and mass of profit in the major capitalist countries fell sharply prior to the onset of crisis in 2007. Marx’s theory is confirmed! To take the case of the USA:

“The US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) shows that in the 3rd quarter of 2006 the mass of profits peaked at $1,865bn. By the 4th quarter of 2008 it bottomed out at $861bn.” (Brooks – Capitalist crisis; theory and practice, p.32)

The facts confirm Marx’s analysis of the LTFRP as the fundamental cause of crisis. Why should this cause surprise, since we all agree that capitalism is a system of production of profit?

The school of Marxian economists who support this analysis view the falling rate and also mass of profit only as an underlyingcause of crisis. Essentially the argument is about levels of causation in the crisis. What about the financial aspect of the crisis – the housing bubble, crazy loans and collapsing banks? Of course this was all very important. These specific factors profoundly influence the depth and nature of the downturn. Every crisis is a unique event with its own characteristics. But, with or without a ‘financial crisis’ the fact that the mass of profits in the USA, the most important capitalist country, halved over two years would have provoked a big collapse of output in any case.

How does the leadership of the CWI deal with the detailed criticisms of their approach thrown up by the advocates of the importance of the LTFRP as an explanation of crisis? Lynn Walsh argues in ‘Socialism Today’ that profit and investment have become disconnected in recent decades. “Despite the staggering increase in the share of income taken by the top 1% in the US, investment declined.”(‘Socialism Today’, November 2012) So profits (with the share of the top 1% as a proxy) are supposed have soared at the expense of working people, but this has not translated into productive investment. Walsh concludes, “This factual data..., in our view confirms the analysis of a crisis in capital accumulation put forward in ‘Socialism Today’ over many years” (ibid.).

If true, this is not an explanation for a pattern of booms and slumps. It presents a stagnationist perspective for the future of capitalism, a permanent slowing down of the rate of accumulation. Is the CWI serious about decades of stagnation? How do they explain the present crisis, where investment fell as a result of the fall in profits?

In fact there is a simple explanation for this alleged disjunction between profits and investment: the profit figures quoted are wrong. Michael Roberts has meticulously chronicled the rate of profit since the Second World War in his blog. Nobody has challenged his figures, which attempt to look beneath conventional statistics to work out a Marxian rate of profit.

Roberts concludes: first that there has been no return to the fabulous profits enjoyed by capitalists during the golden years of the post-War boom; and secondly that the rate of profit today in 2013 remains below that of 2007 before the onset of the great Recession. Andrew Kliman also carefully shows (in ‘The failure of capitalist production’) that the reason for lower investment in the years since 1974 is lower profits. There is just less to invest. Simples.

The CWI leadership buttress their ‘explanation’ as to why investment has been lower with recourse to the notion of financialisation. As Lynn Walsh argues in the same article, more and more funds have been gobbled up by financial shenanigans in preference to investing in industry. There is no mystery here. In so far as more “profits disappeared into the financial sector” (ibid.), that is a response to lower pickings to be made in production – because of the LTFRP itself.

Increasing exploitation of the workers over recent decades has not led to increasing rates of accumulation because of financialisation, it is asserted.  This is part of the analysis of a whole school of thought, regarding itself as Marxian, which sees the current crisis as one of the neoliberal form of capitalism rather than capitalism as a whole. In fact this is the conventional wisdom of the majority of academic Marxist economists. A whole new stage of capitalism is supposed to have developed since about 1980, buttressed by the holy trinity of globalisation, neoliberalism and financialisation.

Dumenil and Levy’s book – ‘The crisis of neoliberalism’, 2011 – is an example. Phil Hearse writing in Socialist Resistance, the publishing house of the so-called Fourth international, also refers to “a neoliberal ‘regime of accumulation’”. The logic of this approach seems to be that neoliberalism should be destroyed rather the capitalist system overthrown. 

As we see, the CWI leadership has swallowed this analysis whole. By accepting the interpretation of this school the CWI is on a slippery slope indeed. We’re with the opposition within their ranks on this one.

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Seamus Heaney Irish poet dies.

Seamus Heaney

by Sean O'Torrain

Ireland's best known poet Seamus Heaney recently died. In my early days unless it was the transitional program set to music or rhyme I condemned it as garbage. Thankfully I grew out of that. I came to see the beauty of words and how they could be put together, came to respect wordsmith's. I think that Heaney was mainly a wordsmith. But a bit more-----a bit more because he could evoke images and emotions and truth in his works.

But what about the politics of his work?  I was and still remain unenthusiastic about him on this front. As far as I know he pretty much stood apart from the civil rights struggle which was consuming the best of the youth and workers and middle class in the late 1960's. And he lived in the middle of these people and was a Catholic peasant like many of them, so he did not have much excuse.  

I just re read his speech when he received the Nobel prize in1995. This worries me too. They did not give the Nobel to Joyce. But in his speech Heaney mentions Yeats again and again, a genius no doubt and also a recipient of the Nobel Prize. But how come he never mentioned Joyce. Not once. Not one single time. I believe it is in fact a great compliment to Joyce. Heaney could not reach the heights of Joyce, in my opinion the greatest writer so far. He could never even aspire to reach the heights of Joyce. He knew this but rather than mentioning Joyce in his speech and giving him his due he chose to ignore him. This diminishes Heaney significantly in my eyes.

I cannot get away from the feeling that Heaney lacks certain courage and this in turn results in the sharp harsh cutting edge of truth being missing in much of his work.

Why did he never mention Joyce in his Nobel acceptance speech? Joyce rises like a vertical cliff in

James Joyce

front of the poets and writers of his time and still does today. I feel that it is a test of writers and poets how they deal with Joyce. To ignore Joyce on that most important occasion of his career when he was accepting the Nobel prize as Heaney did in his speech seems to show a lack of courage, and a certain refusal to face up to the fact that he was not a Joyce, that the cliff was way to high and vertical for him and always would be. So better ignore him.

I am no Joyce expert and this is to put it mildly. But I am always surprised, unpleasantly, when I am back in Ireland and meet with writers and poets and they never mention Joyce. It is like they are afraid of him. It was either TS Eliot or Ezra Pound who said that he hated Joyce because nobody could ever write a novel or a piece of literature in the future without Joyce standing above them looking down. I think this is a factor which is very prevalent in Irish writers and writers in general. They will not acknowledge the top man so they chose in the main to ignore him. There are of course many, many exceptions to this rule and to these I apologize unconditionally. But I think this is a factor.

I am reading again The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I am homesick. It is the Modern Library publication. I am at pages 176 and 177 at the moment. What a brilliant exposition of the dialectic in all its splendor and glory and motion. That Joyce was the man.

There were a lot of dignitaries, that is bourgeois types, at Heaney’s funeral. This does not impress me. There were not too many at the funeral of Joyce. I think somebody from the British embassy, a few friends and a homeless man who kept asking who is being buried, who is being buried. Joyce would have like that one.

My Jack Russell is lying here looking up at me. His eyes tell me he wants to know what is going on, what I am thinking. I wish we could talk. Then we could hear the dialectic of the dog. It's bound to have the same principles, matter in motion, nothing moves in a straight line, movement through contradiction, everything has a beginning a middle and an end. No I have not been on the whiskey. I gave it up. The problem is I am still struggling to have the laugh on a regular basis.  

Sean.

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The crimes of US capitalism

Source: TopCriminalJusticeDegrees.org

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Talking to workers

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

I wrote the other day about how helpless we can feel when we watch too much TV. Especially the 1%'s news programs that are designed to make us hate and fear each other. Everyone is out to get us, the neighbor, the black youth with the hoodie, the guy up the street, the Sikh with the turban and quite naturally, the Moslems and most of the people outside out borders.

For me, the best antidote for this is to get out there and talk to people.  This is one advantage of the drinking establishment.  Now I'm not saying that pubs (I am not talking about the extreme dive bar here) don't have their negative side. But, let's face it, these are places that workers congregate. If you want to meet the American people, you might try a bar.

I probably drink more than Dr. Phil would say is wise.  But I don't drink much at home, I come from a culture where parents, their kids and quite possibly the kids grandparents might meet in a pub to talk about life and escape from the drudgery of working life.

I remember when the guys at work used to invite me for a drink after the workday and warn me, "We don't want any of that union or political talk, Rich, give it a rest once in a while.".  "No problem",  was usually my answer.  But no sooner had we got to the establishment and especially after a couple of brews, I was overwhelmed by the questions about the Union or what's happening in America and on and on. Workers like to talk about the world around us.

Some readers might be aware that my wife and I are victims of a house fire and at the moment we are living in a motel.  I needed to get out for an hour or two tonight and headed to a bar the receptionist at the hotel recommended. I found it easy enough, an Irish (Irish American) bar not too far away.  When I first walked in, there were only two or three people sitting at the bar and another couple playing pool.  None were Irish I don't think. I ordered my first pint form the bartender, a woman from Kentucky and sat there for a bit before turning to the guy next to me and opening up a conversation. I can't see the point of being in the company of other human beings if you don't talk to them.   It turned out he was a union guy, a member of the Operating Engineers, a huge US construction union that I think is the largest construction union in the world.   He was a good union guy but was very unhappy with his leadership.  Most workers don't generally express it this way tending to attack the union as an institution instead.  I explained my views on this which I think I have done many times on this blog so I won't repeat them but we had a good chat.  He agreed with me that at some point in this country there is going to be some upheaval. He raised that he had a contractor friend who hired mostly Mexicans as "Americans don't like to work". 

I differed with him on this.  The big business press is always talking about how workers in Mexico or Vietnam are "more willing" to work for less than Americans and that Americans refuse to do the jobs they will do or that we're lazy.  "It's not that the Mexicans are more willing or harder workers" I said, "They are more desperate, that is the reason." There's nothing wrong with American workers wanting more, the point is that we should demand it for everyone, all workers.

Anyway, he left and there was a woman sitting on the other side of him so I got talking to her. I have to admit, that it is normally me that starts these conversations but I don't necessarily finish them.  She was a single mother and had, like so many of us, been through some difficult times I gathered.  She eventually started working for herself cleaning homes and commercial property.  She described how hard it was for her to find a job but she did research on the internet trying to find what sort of industry might be best for her to break in to as an individual and house cleaning seemed the best opportunity. She did most of the work herself though occasionally hired people.

We talked for a while about child rearing, work, women and men and what makes us behave the way we do. She was explaining what it was like with two kids that her personal life was never separate form her wondering if the kids were OK and was she away too long etc. The bartender came over and she talked about growing up in Kentucky and how wonderful her father was as she never knew her mother and her father raised her. She talked about working as a bartender for 25 years and how she loved it because she got to talk to people and,listen to them as they talked about their lives. These two women were very sharp, interesting characters.

We discussed many issues relevant to life and work.  In the hour or two I was there I had discussions with American workers like myself about war, work, child rearing, the difference between men and women and more. I was so happy among my own people.

At times, I feel a bit self conscious that I am what is called an extrovert and talk to anyone. I don't do it for any other reason that I believe humans are collective and gregarious creatures, when you talk to people, they talk back. There's almost no such thing as an uninteresting life.  Human beings are interesting. We care about each other.  The 1% learned in the Vietnam war not to bring the reality of war to the evening news because when we see other's suffering we are moved by it no matter the race, religion or color of the people involved; we want to help.  So now all we hear on the evening news is one murder after another, the degeneration of our humanity in a society that places profit above all things but even this is a warped version of reality. Every minute of every day, we cooperate with each other in some way or another.

The frustrating thing about these experiences is that I want the rest of the world to experience them. I want those whose only experience with Americans is a drone attack or as invading forces to see that we are also struggling in our own way, that the Dick Cheney's Donald Rumsfeld's, Georg W Bush's or Barack Obama's do not represent what we are.  They can call themselves Americans but they are not the Americans that vast majority of us associate with and live with every day of our lives. The members of the US Congress are all millionaires, most Americans have nothing in common with them and to be honest despise them.  What to do about it is another issue.

But I was buoyed tonight as I so often am by the associations I have with the people that make society function.  It's experiences like these that give hope for the future.

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Don't forget the California Prison Hunger Strikers

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

The US prison system is well known for is harsh conditions and brutality.  Here in the US, minors and mentally impaired people are executed and/or incarcerated often spending years in solitary confinement. What solitary confinement is in actuality is a sentence the results of which is insanity; Dead Man Walking if you like.  The incarceration of workers and the poor and the racist justice system is well known. Prisoners in the US lose many rights all human beings should have, basically the right to be human.

Back in July, 30,000 prisoners went on hunger strike in California. We have commented on this strike more than once on this blog.  You can read the prisoners list of demands here.  The strike has now been on for 57 days.  Many of the prisoners have been relocated and are under threat of being force fed like the inmates at Guantanamo. The authorities refuse to deal with the issues they are raising.

A major issue is solitary confinement which is used as a form of punishment in California’s SHU’s or Security Housing Units. An inmate has only to be declared a gang member in order to be confined to solitary.  California has almost 12,000 people in extreme isolation which costs over $60 million per year. As prison rights advocates point out, “The cells have no windows, and no access to fresh air or sunlight.” This is torture, there’s no way around it. The UN declares solitary confinement for more than 15 days as torture but in US prisons an inmate can spend form 10 to 40 years alone.  I would ask any reader of this with an ounce of humanity in them; what would that do to you? Solitary confinement drives people mad.

On the issue of gangs, members of the most ruthless and powerful gang of all, the US capitalist class manages to avoid jail time no matter what they do. They can make conscious decisions that lead to massive environmental pollution and death (BP spill). They cause millions of people to be homeless or deny millions more health care in the interests of personal gain. They lie to us about events abroad seeking our support and money in the slaughter of those who resist their predatory invasions, yet are lauded as fine upstanding citizens.  This gang has many affiliates and sub-branches like the US Chamber of Commerce, The National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Round Table.  They meet in secret in places like Jackson Hole Wyoming, The Bohemian Grove here in California and other fine resorts.

In the streets and urban centers of the US sometimes belonging to a gang can mean security or for other young people a way to riches and recognition.  And if you find yourself in the US Gulag, the inmates there, having no right to a union which is something that must be demanded for prisoners, might seek safety in one of the ethnic gangs that exists. The prisons are generally segregated and racism is used by authorities much like it is in the workplace and society as a whole as a divide and rule tactic.

A guaranteed job and a minimum of $15 or $20 an hour for society in general as well as for inmates re-entering society, is what would change this situation. Recognizing that the public needs to be protected from some people, prisons should cease being mere centers for the warehousing of human beings to genuine correctional centers that would help people and help them re-enter society.  Prison employees should be trained in all the fields that deal with mental health and human behavior in order to actually help people.   The prison industrial complex as it is, is a massive industry with very lucrative profits to be made.  It is not human friendly.  In California this industry has grown massively. Prisons are constructed in rural depressed communities and are often the only job around. They are also constructed hundreds of miles from urban centers where the families of inmates live. The authorities consider this a plus, something that again isolates the inmate from whatever family structure they may have. When I was visiting an LA gang member in prison it was assumed I was a lesser person by the guards as well.  The families of inmates are not respected.

I commented on the decision to allow authorities to force feed prisoners and to ignore prisoners "do not not resuscitate requests" in an earlier commentary. The state is concerned about their safety apparently but we know it is about denying the individual some form of control over their lives and existence. The object of prison life is to take every aspect of human dignity away form the inmate.

The other issue to point out is the so-called free press. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to protest as a prison inmate, the consequences are severe.  The fat that so many initiated this strikes tells us something but the media in the main ignores it, or as is the case with workers on strike, demonizes the participants and gives their cause no credibility. The mass media in the US is the most unfree and censored of all the advanced capitalist economies. It is mind numbing demoralizing rubbish in the main.

Don’t forget the prison hunger striker. If you can get your union or organization to send letter to the governor and demand he intervene and repsond to the prisoners genuine concerns.  Readers can call California governor, Jerry Brown at: Phone: (916) 445-2841, (510) 289-0336, (510) 628-0202 fax 916-558-3160  and urge him to respond to the prisoners valid complaints.

There are still 70 prisoners refusing food after 57 days.  For more up to date information go to the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity webpage

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Mothering: Having a baby is not the same everywhere

We hear all the time how this the US is greatest country in the world and all that.  Of course, every ruling class says this in its efforts to create national pride and convince the masses that nowhere can equal the treatment their particular government affords.  Most American's mind you are well aware that here in the US if you have no money "you're on your own baby".  We're told waster like George W Bush or the hedge fund managers, bankers and other coupon clippers all pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps which of course is nonsense. The social services in the US, a 24 hour consumer society are extremely poor as the individual is supposed to fend for themselves. that's how it works.  But we are in the greatest society on earth.  The unelected rulers of the US wouldn't care at all if the US working class never traveled anywhere.  They'd prefer we know nothing other than what we see on their TV.  We thought our readers might find this piece of interest about how another society, Finland, deals with the question of pregnancy and childbirth. It is from the website, Mothering.

The Finnish Baby Box

By: Melanie Mayo, Mothering Blogger, and Cynthia Mosher

Posted 3/1/11 • Last updated 6/6/13 • 35966 views • 33 comments

by Christine Gross-Loh, author of the new book Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us

      

I’ve long been fascinated by motherhood around the world. What is it like to birth in another country? What’s the lore on starting solids in another culture? How do children play in other countries? How do they sleep and who sleeps with them? How do cultural or societal supports ease the transition to new parenthood?

My friend Michele, an American new mother living in Finland, joins me here today to help satisfy my curiosity about motherhood abroad, in her guest post below.

The Finnish Baby Box

by Michele Simeon

In Finland, spotting babies with the same birth year isn’t just a matter of judging size. A famed national health care benefit of my adopted homeland is the maternity package, known as the ‘baby box’ in our household. Expecting mothers receive a large, cardboard box, itself designed to act as the baby’s first bed, full of gender neutral infant clothing and other essentials. Those who would prefer to purchase their own supplies instead receive a grant, and mothers carrying more than one child receive increased benefits on a graduated scale, so that e.g. families with twins can receive any combination of three grants or boxes.

The baby box is unique in the world and has been available in Finland to low-income mothers since 1937 and to all mothers since 1949. Each year, the designs and colors vary, creating allegiances of palettes and nostalgia for those special colors of infancy. You can view an inventory of the 2010 box here.

I pounced on my daughter Hilla’s baby box like it was the biggest, best Christmas present I’d ever received–that is, after hauling it uphill during a heat wave, eight months of pregnant belly weighing me down, much to the dismay of passersby. ‘It’s big and heavy,’ the kind postal worker had warned me. ‘That’s OK’ I beamed enthusiastically before realizing that my protruding middle prevented a conventional front carry.

But it was worth it. Hilla begins each day by kicking off her baby box bedding and exclaiming “boof!” At seven months, she’s outgrown the pajamas, still wears much of the box’s other clothing, and has yet to grow into a good deal more. There’s no sign of teeth in her gummy smile, so the toothbrush has gone unused. The teething ring and rhyme book, however, are part of an important morning ritual of toy and book mayhem. If we take the stroller out, Hilla will get bundled into the baby box snowsuit and sleeping bag–cleverly sized items that might just last until next winter if we’re lucky. Then there are the breast pads for mother, the bib for a messy little mouth experimenting with solids, and the towel that dries chubby baby bodies after the narrative of the day’s events has been washed away.  Hilla is tucked into her duvet until morning, when baby legs decide it’s time to start a new day.

While the box alone cannot create material equality for all babies born in this country, it is only one of many benefits designed to give children a good, fair start to life. There’s no shame in using public aid that everyone accesses and there’s no statement of consumerist individuality in the clothing that all babies are wearing. The box gives us lots of fun opportunities to play baby punch buggy and it spared us more than a few shopping trips and plenty of money, but its real value lies in its message of social justice for all children.

What public benefits are available to families in your communities? Which would you like to see?

Image credit top: Finnish Baby Box by Roxeteer

Image bottom: Two-month-old Hilla naps in her baby box outerwear. The bear & bee duvet plus cover were also a part of the package.

Michele Simeon is an American writer and editor living in Helsinki. Visit her blog A House Called Nut where she writes about living abroad in Finland and her experience of multicultural, bilingual family life.

Christine is a mother of four, crafter, journalist, and author. She wrote The Diaper-Free Baby (HarperCollins, 2007), a book about elimination communication, and a book and craft kit, Origami Suncatchers (Sterling, 2011). She’s now writing a book about global parenting practices to be published by Avery, a Penguin Books imprint, in 2013. Visit her at her blog.

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