 |
| Cassiel Ato Forson |
By
Cassiel Ato Forson
Parliament
has passed the Customs Amendment Bill 2017 into law subject to Presidential
assent. Surprisingly, the object of the bill is to provide for a zero-rate of
duties on SELECTED vehicular spare parts only.
Selected Spare parts:
It
is interesting to note that the budget statement on page 136 paragraph 796
under tax incentives, the government proposed to abolish ALL duties on the
importation of spare parts.
The
government never said they were going to abolish duties on only selected
vehicular spare parts.
It
is, however, deceptive for a government that promised to abolish all duties on
spare parts to turn around to abolish duties on some selected spare parts only.
Selected Duties:
In
the budget statement page 136 paragraph 796, the government proposed to
parliament to abolish all duties on the importation of all spare parts only for
them to present a bill to Parliament that seeks to abolish only import duties
on selected spare parts.
Duties
such as 15% VAT, 2.5% NHIL, EDAIF levy, etc etc were conveniently excluded from
the list of duties that the should have been abolished as communicated by the
policy statement of the President.
Temporary Tax:
It
is important for Ghanaians to understand that because Ghana has elected to be
part of the ECOWAS Common Eternal Tariff, Ghana can only ask for exemptions up
to 170 exempt lines for a period of 5years since 2015. After the expiry of the
5-year period, the exemption ceases to apply. This tax exemption can only be
applicable until the year 2020. And cannot be a permanent tax exemption as we
are made to believe.
ECOWAS EXTERNAL
TARIFF:
It
is also interesting to note that this government in their policy statement to
parliament and other commentaries after the approval of the budget have
maintained that this spare parts exemption are being delayed because they are
waiting for an approval from Ecowas Common External Tariff Secretariat (CET).
Today,
we are being informed that Ghana does not require CET approval because Ghana
has 170 exempt lines which we have not exhausted. Is the government not aware
that it would not require CET approval before using it as an excuse for the
delay in its implementation, or it is because they wanted to collect the
revenue as has been their stock-in-trade, that they announce a tax reduction
with speed but fails to implement it?
I
rest my case.
#419
#419 #419
Editorial
CUBA
It
is obvious that US policy towards Cuba is about to change for the worse after
President Obama came to the realisation that the Cuban people cannot be
defeated.
Unfortunately
the new man in the White House is not different from all those who have
occupied the seat of government in the United States of America for more than
50 years.
They
all believed that they could harass the Cuban people into submission to the
dictates of imperialism.
Donald
Trump is perhaps the worst of all those who have occupied the White House.
He
has refused to learn the lessons of history and is determined to plunge his
country into a needless confrontation with Cuba.
The
Insight will continue to solidarise with the people of Cuba because their cause
is just.
They
want to be left alone to decide their own future and this is not too much to
ask.
Local News:
Provide funds for
Inclusive Education - PWDs
 |
| Some persons with disability in Ghana |
Persons
with Disabilities (PWDs) have appealed to government and relevant stakeholders
in education to "immediately" make funds available to implement the
inclusive education policy.
Mr
Brandford Tay, Member, Steering Committee of Coalition of NGOs for Disabilities
in Volta Region, said it was not enough for government to formulate the policy
and challenged it to demonstrate commitment to it through funding.
He
said the lack of funding to implement the policy had made most disabled
children “passengers in schools...being promoted or repeated severally because
they have no idea of what was being taught in class”.
Mr
Tay was speaking at a PWDs stakeholder forum on special educational needs for
children with disabilities.
He
noted that some schools continued to reject children with disabilities with the
excuse of no teaching and learning materials or special needs teachers, and
described it as unfortunate.
Mr
Tay bemoaned the non-conformity of key stakeholders in the educational sector
and called on authorities to help address the challenge because there was the
"social need" to integrate children with disabilities.
Some
participants noted that the West African Examination Council (WAEC) in filling
forms prior to the final paper of this year's West African Senior Secondary
Certificate Examination made special arrangements for candidates with
disabilities, but same was not done in previous papers and feared the
candidates would be marked down.
They
reiterated the call on government and district assemblies to involve PWDs in
the preparation of budgets and allocation, especially in relation to education
for all persons.
GNA
SIC Insurance supports
100 medical students for exchange programme abroad
 |
| Acting Managing Director Mr Faris Attrickie presents package |
SIC
Insurance, Ghana’s largest insurer as part of its Corporate Social
Responsibility, has presented a travel insurance sponsorship package to about
one hundred Medical Students for this years’ exchange programme abroad
organized by the International Federation of Medical Students’ Association
(IFMSA).
A
total premium of $5,000 was paid by SIC Insurance to support the medical students
with a sum insured of €30,000 per student.
Presenting
the package to the medical students, the Acting Managing Director, Mr. Faris
Attrickie, said education and health are priority areas for the company’s CSR
activities. Adding that the gesture shows SIC Insurance’s commitment to help
build the capacity of the nation’s medical practitioners.
He
further added that training our young medical students must be paramount on the
nation’s health care agenda and regardless of where the students study abroad, evidence
have shown that the exposure is usually a defining moment in a young medical
person's life and continues to impact the participant's life for years after
the experience.
Mr.
Attrickie challenged the medical student to use the opportunity as a catalyst
to sharpen their maturity, empathy, support skills, and to gain related work
experience that will equip them with the tools and on-the-job training needed
to serve mother Ghana.
Speaking
on behalf of the medical students, Mr. Asabere Kwabena Asante, the President of
the University of Ghana Medical Students Association in the company of Ms. Efua
Bridget Martin, the General Secretary and Mr. Aggrey Prince Amoabeng, the
Organising Secretary, thanked SIC Insurance for the kind gesture.
I’m against scrapping
Ghana Law School – Sophia Akuffo
 |
| Justice Sophia Akufo |
By Mohammed Awal
The
chief Justice, Justice Sophia Akuffo has rejected calls for the
scrapping of the Ghana School of Law.
“I’m
not one of those who subscribe to [calls that] Ghana School of Law be scrapped,”
she told the Appointments Committee of Parliament Friday during her vetting.
According
to her, the Ghana School of Law “is a professional training facility…where the
theories learnt in classrooms are supposed to be taught from a more practical
point of view.”
Touching
on the controversial issue of lawyers advertising on social media, Justice
Akuffo said she considers the act despicable.
“I
Am a 67-year-old woman and I believe that dignity at the bar is as important as
dignity at the bench…the idea of lawyers touting themselves on Facebook is
distasteful and aside that the law is clear and the law is against touting.
Lawyers can have websites but the law doesn’t allow for advertising on social
media,” Justice Akuffo told the committee.
Her
comment comes in the wake of the suspension of popular Human Rights lawyer
Francis Sosu for advertising on Facebook by the General Legal Council.
His
suspension sparked a debate amongst a section of the public and some lawyers
who argued that the law preventing legal practitioners from advertising was
outmoded and needed to be repealed.
She
also promised to leave a legacy that will ensure every Ghanaian feels
secured to resort to the courts to settle disputes.
She
said her utmost priority in terms of vision is to produce “quality judges” who
will resort to technology to dispense justice to all.
“I’m
sure people have been asking what my vision is, it is to ensure quality judges
delivering quality justice with technology,” Justice Akuffo said during her
vetting Friday, June 16, 2017 before the Appointments Committee of Parliament.
She
promised to look into the working conditions of judges as she takes over the
judiciary from her predecessor Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, who retired June
7, 2017.
Foreign News:
The
Cuban Revolution: Still in motion
 |
| The late Commandante Fidel Castro |
By
Danny
Haiphong
The
author’s recent trip to Cuba confirmed his confidence in the power of people to
transform their lives. It is also clear that “the US government has not stopped
its ceaseless attack on the Cuban Revolution and probably never will as long as
the US possesses an imperialist system.” Nevertheless, every Cuban he spoke to
“reiterated how the revolution remains non-negotiable.”
A
recent trip to Cuba by this author inspired the following letter. It is
directed to the Cuban people. However, the deep connection between struggling workers
and poor people here in the US and the Cuban revolutionary process compelled
this author to write the letter for audiences in the US as well. In this time
of crisis, it has become all the more important for people in the US to begin
to see themselves as part of an interconnected humanity and not merely as the
beneficiaries of empire. This letter seeks to strengthen the idea of solidarity
toward this end.
To the Cuban People,
The
people of the US owe a great debt to Cuba for the damage done by the empire
that we live in. Because of US imperialism's continued hostility toward Cuba,
millions of struggling workers here in the US have been stripped of the ability
to learn from its neighbors just ninety miles away. The US empire's blockade
has caused immeasurable suffering for the Cuban people and wasted precious
resources better spent on the many needs of the poor and oppressed on the US
mainland. My visit to Cuba not only confirmed many of the aspects of the
revolution that I have admired for years, but also taught me about the nuanced
challenges of a revolution in motion.
What
is striking about the Cuban Revolution is how deeply it is embedded in the
fabric of society. It is easy to wander upon the many monuments celebrating
internationalist solidarity in Cuba. Monuments to Bobby Sands, Malcolm X,
Salvador Allende, and Ho Chi Minh were a sight to see, indeed. In a
conversation with a representative at the Cuban Institute for Friendship with
the Peoples (ICAP), I learned that 60,000 Cubans are currently stationed
throughout the African continent for medical and technical assistance. Such
assistance is in keeping with the decades of solidarity Cuba has provided to
African liberation movements fighting the scourges of colonialism and apartheid
in Angola, Guinea Bissau, and Mozambique.
In
the US, internationalist solidarity is the enemy of the ruling class. The
tenets of private property and profit accumulation ensure that endless war is a
requirement for the empire. While tens of thousands of Cubans give their lives
to assist in the liberation of Africa, the US spends billions on maintaining
instability on the continent via AFRICOM. In contrast, it was a beautiful
experience to walk into a museum in Havana dedicated to African revolutionaries
such as Kwame Nkrumah and Amilcar Cabral. There is no question that Cuba takes
great pride in its solidarity with Africa. The revolution has developed a
socialist, humanistic people so desperately needed in the homeland of war and
empire.
The
people of the US have much to learn from Cuba's commitment to international
solidarity. However, during my trip it became increasingly clear that the
people of the US also have much to learn from the Cuban revolution in the field
of domestic achievement. Walking the streets of Havana, one cannot find a
single person who sleeps on the street or shelter due to homelessness. The
United States is home to millions of homeless children and families. It is also
the home of a crumbling, private healthcare system that privileges the profits
of corporations over the health of the people. This is why the US healthcare
system is without advancements like Cuba's Heberprot-B diabetic ulcer treatment
or the lung cancer vaccine, medications that would benefit large numbers of
people struggling to afford care for these ailments.
Housing
and healthcare are well-known achievements of the revolution, at least outside
of the United States. What is even less known in the US, however, is the vast
amount of progress the Cuban revolution has made on the questions of sexuality
and gender. My trip coincided with the national campaign against homophobia and
transphobia led by CENESEX. To bear witness to the thousands of people in the
streets dancing in celebration of trans and queer people was one of the most
stunning sites I've witnessed in person. In the US, Black trans and queer
people are murdered at alarming rates. In Cuba, I witnessed Afro-queer Cubans
marching and dancing freely without fear of reprisal.
Of
course, Cuba is not a utopia and the Cuban people were the first to let me
know. Many challenges exist in maintaining the gains of the revolution and
building upon them. Socialist democracy can be a slow process. New foreign
investors in the hospitality industry, like Air B&B, do not always meet
their end of the bargain. Salaries remain low and economic growth slow. Yet
despite these challenges, every Cuban that I spoke to reiterated how the
revolution remains non-negotiable. A high level of political debate was evident
among the people, a testament to the strong sense of ownership Cubans possess
over the socialist arrangement.
My
trip to Cuba also reinforced how the decades-old US blockade against Cuba
continues to shape the daily lives of the Cuban people. New infrastructure can
be found next to crumbling infrastructure. Transportation across the island has
been made more difficult since the fall of the Soviet Union. When President
Raul Castro reported the need for economic growth to meet the needs of the
people in 2016, he was not being dishonest. There is a general desire among the
Cuban people to increase their productive and consumptive capabilities.
However, a general consensus also exists that any such improvements must occur
within the revolution.
But
the blockade was not designed to advance the revolution, it was designed to
strangle it. The hundreds of billions of dollars of potential wealth that has
left the island since 1960 has made certain raw materials and supplies
difficult for the island to obtain. By October of 2016, Obama had already fined
forty-fine companies for a total of 14 billion dollars in damages for
attempting to do business in Cuba. The US government has not stopped its
ceaseless attack on the Cuban Revolution and probably never will as long as the
US possesses an imperialist system. This makes US solidarity with Cuba all the
more important in these changing times.
The
single most important task for the people of the United States is to demand an
end to the criminal blockade against Cuba. But first the people must understand
why the blockade is criminal. They must understand how the blockade impedes the
interests of not only the Cuban people, but the interests of the majority of
people in the US as well. As the struggling masses in the US continue to suffer
the maladies of capitalist rule, they will no doubt search of an alternative.
My trip to Cuba confirmed that an alternative does exist. And I have the Cuban
people to thank for that.
Long
Live the Cuban Revolution!
*
Danny Haiphong is an Asian activist and political analyst in the Boston area.
He can be reachedatwakeupriseup1990@gmail.com This article
previously appeared in Black Agenda Report.
Source:
Pambazuka
Breaking ties with
Qatar: A strange Arab conflict
Bahrain,
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, then Yemen and Libya have
announced a decision to terminate diplomatic relations with Qatar. As it was said, the
reason for the move was Qatar's support for Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State
terrorist organizations (both are banned in Russia).
Egyptian
officials said that the decision of the authorities to break off relations with Qatar was made after
Egypt failed to persuade Doha to refuse from the support for the Muslim
Brotherhood organization (banned in Russia as well). Representatives for the
Yemeni authorities said that the relations with Qatar were terminated after it
became clear that Qatar had ties with the groups that conducted a coup in the
country.
On
Monday morning, it became known that the UAE and Bahrain gave Qatari diplomats
48 hours to leave the country.
Later,
representatives for the diplomatic mission of Qatar said that they regretted
the decisions made and considered them as "unjustified measures based on
unfounded allegations."
Pravda.Ru
requested a commentary on the subject from Boris Dolgov, senior researcher at
the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies of
the Russian Academy of Sciences, candidate of historical sciences.
"How
is the rupture of diplomatic relations between a number of Arab states and
Qatar going to affect the political situation in the region?"
"First
of all, it must be said that disagreements, even confrontations between Qatar
and Saudi Arabia, have existed before for a long time. These are Islamic
ideological differences, because Qatar supports the Muslim Brotherhood, and
Saudi Arabia adheres to the Wahhabi ideology in its interpretation of Islamic
dogma.
"Speaking
of politics, Qatar was supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and
elsewhere. Presently, as is known, the Muslim Brotherhood proceeded to
terrorist actions in Egypt. Qatar continues supporting them, albeit covertly.
In Syria, Qatar also supports Islamist groups that stick to the ideology of the
Muslim Brotherhood movement. Saudi Arabia also supports Islamist groups, but
the ones that do not stick to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. There
were incidents in Saudi Arabia when members of the Muslim Brotherhood would be
arrested and accused of acting against the security of the country. This is
happening in Bahrain now as well.
"This
is an old conflict that has now aggravated. I do not think that it will
dramatically change the state of affairs in the Middle East, because these
contradictions have existed before.
Nothing
is going to change considerably in the military situation in the Middle East
either. Saudi Arabia announced that
it would stop Qatar's actions in its military coalition against Yemeni Houthis.
In general, however, Qatar's participation in those military operations was not
serious at all. This will affect Qatar's covert financing of Islamist groups of
the Muslim Brotherhood, and Saudi Arabia's support for other similar groups.
"Diplomatically,
the decision to break off diplomatic ties is very important, given the fact
that Qatar is a member of the Council of Cooperation of the Arab States of the
Persian Gulf. This will have a very significant economic and political
influence."
Pravda.Ru
Crisis of capitalism
hits women workers hardest: whatever happened to women’s wage equality?
By
Fred Weston
Working
women have been struggling for complete equality in the workplace for over a
century. In fact, a common thread running through many countries throughout the
20th Century was the struggle for “equal pay for work of equal value”, which
meant irrespective of gender a worker should receive the same wage for the same
kind of work. We are still not there, and with the onset of the crisis in 2008
things have begun to get worse.
According
to a report published by The Economist in November 2011, “Back in the
1990s women in rich countries seemed to be heading towards a golden era.” It
added that “Almost all rich countries have laws, passed mostly in the 1970s,
that are meant to ensure equal pay for equal work, and the gap did narrow
noticeably for a while when women first started to flood into the labour
market.” It points out that in the United States for example, the differential
between women’s and men’s wages has been reduced from 40% to 20% since the
1970s.
Significantly,
however, it points out that most of this reduction came in the early years, and
since then the process has slowed down. This one statistic underlines one
important aspect Marxists have always maintained: class struggle, a generalised
movement of workers for better wages and working conditions, is enormously
beneficial for women workers.
The
generalised rise in class struggle globally in the late 1960s and 1970s
produced many reforms to the benefit of women, and not only in terms of wages
and conditions. Other basic rights, such as the right to abortion or divorce,
were won in many countries where they had not been previously recognised.
In
the 1980s the class struggle declined as a result of the defeats on the trade
union front, the British Miners’ Strike being one of the best examples of such
defeats. With that defeat came an onslaught on all the gains of the past, both
on wages and democratic rights, affecting male and female workers. But women,
and working class women in particular, were hurt the most.
Impact of 2008 crisis
Over
the past decade, in fact, a male graduate has had expected earnings on average
20% higher than a female graduate, but the gap was even wider for non–degree
holders – i.e. less qualified labour – at 23% [source: http://gender.bitc.org.uk/].
The
2008 crisis, even The Economist admitted in its 2011 article, “has thrown
a spanner in the works”. This was a reference to the effects of the cuts in
public spending affecting public sector workers, which were “beginning to hit
female employment disproportionately hard.”
In
Britain the impact of the crisis on wage differentials between working men and
women has been dramatic. Economists at the World Economic Forum in 2014 looked
at the gender wage differential. Ranked out of 136 countries for gender wage
equality, between 2006 and 2013, Britain went from 9th to 18th, but in one year
alone, from 2013 to 2014, it dropped even more sharply to 26th.
Just
in 2014 the average wage for women in the workplace fell by £2700 [€3500,
$3800]. It is the first time ever that Britain has fallen out of the top 20 for
gender wage equality. In fact, in 2014 average annual wages for women fell from
£18,000 to £15,400, while for men the figure was stagnant at £24,800. Thus, the
overall average annual wage differential increased from £6800 to £9400!
Situation even worse
for young women workers
This
big differential between female and male workers starts right at the beginning
when young people enter the “labour market”. According to a poll commissioned
by the Young Women’s Trust [Source: the Evening Standard, 7 September 2015],
wages for male apprentices are 21 per cent higher than for their female
equivalents. Young women earn on average £4.82 an hour compared to £5.85 for
young men. On an annual basis, young women are £2000 worse off.
The
Young Women’s Trust represents women in low-paid jobs under the age of 30. The
reason for this situation is the same for women of all ages, i.e. women tend to
work more in low pay sectors, such as healthcare, childcare and retail.
Dr
Carole Easton of the Trust explained: “It is staggering that in the 21st century,
certain employment sectors are hardly welcoming any young women; less than two
per cent of construction apprentices are female and less than four per cent of
engineering apprentices. Women are funnelled very early into a narrow range of
opportunities, that are stereotypically gendered.”
The
significance of this is that jobs in construction and engineering come with
higher wages, which confirms the general point: there may well be gender
equality in wages in these sectors, but very few women are employed in those
high wage sectors.
Dr
Easton added that “Women’s concerns may also be different, perhaps needing
flexibility to look after children or for other caring responsibilities.” This
highlights another discrimination women suffer from, the unspoken rule that
they cannot have a career in certain sectors because sooner or later most of
them will have children. For the capitalists, this is looked at in terms of
cost. They would prefer not to have women who will at some point need to take
time out of work, either to have children or later on to look after them. This
channels women towards lower paid jobs.
It
also explains another aspect which emerged from the same poll: close to one
quarter of the women interviewed complained about not receiving any other training
outside of work. The equivalent figure for young men was only 12%. This means
that basically these young women are being used as cheap labour legally. They
are employed to do work which often requires very little training, condemning
them to a life of low-wage jobs.
More women in low wage
sectors
How
can all this be so, when there are laws that govern wage equality? The answer
is clear when one looks at how the presence of women is not evenly spread
across all types of employment, although they make up 47% of the overall
workforce. For example, data from the Department for Education shows that in
2012 only two per cent of the early years workforce was male. Much of early
years childcare is provided by private nurseries that pay most of their staff
the minimum wage.
Women
are also forced by family circumstances to take up low-pay part-time jobs.
While 2.11 million men are employed in part time jobs the number of women is
5.85 million.
Today’s
cleaning industry is another example. It has massively expanded since the 1970s
and contributes annually over £8 billion to British GDP. It employs an
estimated 446,000 people. Of these, an estimated 79 per cent are female and 78
per cent work part-time, and a large part is made up of immigrants. Most
cleaning firms apply the law by having “equality policies”, the point is that
most of them also “respect the law” by applying the National Minimum Wage!
[Source] Those employed illegally – and on much lower wages – are clearly not
included in these statistics.
The
2008 crisis has had a similar impact worldwide on male to female wage
differentials. According to an ILO report, a similar process has taken
place to what we have seen in Britain: “Globally, gender gaps in unemployment
and employment trended towards convergence in the period 2002 to 2007,” but
then “grew again with the period of the crisis from 2008 to 2012 in many
regions.”
If
we were to look at the real position of women globally, the picture would be
even worse: slave-like conditions exist in some countries, with no legal rights
to fight back. Women are often forced to sell themselves merely to survive
day-to-day. The present crisis for them is an utter nightmare.
However,
there is good news for some women! The Economist, being what it
is, the mouthpiece of the British capitalist class, in its 2011 article
dedicated a part of its analysis to women who make it up the ladder, to the top
of companies as CEOs, etc. The “good news” here is that in 2014 “there was a
small increase in the percentage of women in senior official and managerial
positions up from 34% to 35%...” [The Independent, 28 October 2014].
Role of trade unions
Like
in all questions, women’s living conditions are determined by the class they
belong to, only the situation is far worse for them. As in the 1970s, it is
only through united working class struggle that women’s rights in the workplace
can be defended and improved. The problem we have is that today’s trade union
leaders are not leading the fight, either for men or for women. They are
accepting rotten deal after rotten deal. Left to them real wages for all
workers will go down, and for women it will be even worse!
However,
in spite of the limitations of the trade union leaders in Britain, “The wages
of women union members are on average 30% higher than those of non-unionised
women” [Source]. This reveals how historically the trade unions have been
essential in raising women’s wages. Although there remains much to be done, the
trade unions have played a key role in improving women’s wage levels and
working conditions. This applies to workers in general, both men and women:
“The average hourly wage for non-unionised workers in the private sector is
£12.64. For union members, it’s £13.67. The ‘union premium’ is even bigger for
young workers from ages 16-24, who earn 39% more than their non-unionised
colleagues (that’s £7.84 to £10.18)”
The
overall workforce in Britain is now over 29 million strong. Of these 6.4
million are in a union - less than 25%. Working women are therefore around 15
million (47% of the total). Up to the mid-1980s, trade union membership had
been growing, having reached around 45% of the overall workforce. Especially
since the defeat of the miners’ strike, however, membership has been in
decline. This simple fact alone reveals how a defeat for the miners (male
workers) was also a defeat for women workers in general, as the statistics for
wage levels between union and non-union jobs clearly demonstrate.
An
interesting development on the trade union front is that now in Britain women
make up a majority, 55%, of the trade union membership. That means there are
3.5 million women in the unions, making the trade unions by far the largest
women’s organisations in the country. The problem is of course that there are
over ten million women who are not organised.
These
millions of downtrodden working women are forced to keep their heads down for
fear of losing their jobs. But all of history shows that once the working class
as a whole reawakens, women are at the forefront. In the coming period,
millions of young women will be forced to stand up for their rights and they
will lead the struggle. They have a lot to fight for, both in terms of
defending what is left of the past gains and fighting for real wage equality
and for a living wage for all. Together with demands on wages will also come
demands such as good quality childcare available for all parents, more flexible
working hours, and the right to take time out of work – for both mothers and
fathers – without this endangering women’s jobs and careers.
The
women in the unions today and the millions who will come into them in the
future will also play a key role in transforming the unions and breaking with
the culture of moderation and collaboration with the bosses which many union
leaders had become accustomed to in the past. In the process of struggle they
will also draw the necessary conclusion that a system based on maximising
profits is never going to grant full equality, but will continue to use every
means possible to divide workers not just according to gender but also
according to nationality, colour of skin, religion and so on. The system itself
needs to be uprooted and replaced with one based on the real needs of men and
women. That system can only be socialism.
