Class struggle across the seas...

In South Africa, again, there is a strikle. This time, it's Gold Miners - according to SABC 37,0000 miners downed tools yesterday. This is the potential cost. Apparently it's over the miners having to live in dorms - a hangover from apartheid. The BBC has full details.

Meanwhile, mine workers are still being minced in China - 166 in one day. Here's teh Reuters version, quoting official sources, mark you. Of course, this mincing is due to China's rising energy needs, the BBC reports on fuel shortages in some provinces. Obviously, private enterprises will continue to try and make as much profit as they can, while they are allowed to by a government trapped by it's needs to keep on boosting profits and growth.

Time to dust down those copies of Capital Volume II and look at that funky little problem of diproportionality - the growth of one sector relative to others, and think what a sizable collapse in China's economy brought on by excessive fuel prices might o to workers there, and to workers the world over. It will make the milling of workers in the mines look like a picnic.

Arise ye starvlings!