In reading the title of this article our readers might wonder why communists should bother writing about the recent wildfires that have decimated parts of the US west coast city of Los Angeles. Surely there is more than enough to analyse and discuss in the midst of so much war, genocide, injustice, exploitation and liberation struggles? Why the interest in wildfires that have been presented to us as a side-effect of climate change?
What do such events have to do with imperialism, corruption, exploitation and injustice? The answer is: everything!
The natural parallels are many: cuts in public spending on preventative measures that should protect vegetation and infrastructure; the siphoning off of public taxes to the arms industry to fund US imperialist wars abroad; the privatisation of publicly-owned assets and their transformation into cash cows that put corporate interests ahead of public welfare while depriving the people of necessary natural resources; a decaying, moribund imperialist system sickeningly exploiting the misery of people who have lost everything; a biased and privately owned media propaganda machine that works not to enlighten and explain but to divert and confuse.
How things should have unfolded
Had the needs of local people been prioritised over corporate interests, the devastation and death we have witnessed would have been greatly diminished.
After local weather warnings had been given on 1 January, national weather services issued an alert the next day to warn that the Palisades area was heading into high-level fire threat conditions. It was clear to meteorologists and administrators that the combination of dry heat and heavy winds was putting the area at extreme risk.
Fires in this part of southwestern USA are expected seasonally; they are not a new phenomenon and have been part of the geography since before records began. Some factors led to this year’s being worse than usual, however.
In 2022-3, California experienced a very wet period, which generated prolific vegetation growth. As a result of the drought that followed, this abundance of vegetation dried out, essentially generating a huge mass of kindling ready to fuel the inevitable fires. All these factors were well-known and documented.
Fire season in southern California is generally expected to stretch from May to October, but as California Governor Gavin Newsom pointed out: “blazes are a perennial issue”. Surely then, being aware means being able to prepare and act accordingly?
Knowing that the region is fire prone, and knowing that the prevailing weather had created prime conditions for significantly bigger wildfires than usual, the logical, sensible thing to have done would have been to allocate resources in order to minimise the risks.
None of these measures are mysterious in such regions; they are very well-known. For instance: the pre-emptive removal of dead wood and dry scrub; the cutting back of vegetation from its proximity to power lines; well-resourced and properly-funded proactive fire services; a well-rehearsed disaster plan that local residents are familiar and engaged with; well-maintained, functioning sources of water with which to fight fires that break out; the support of regional media to educate, alert, coordinate and unify local people.
Did any of this happen? None of it did! Why not? Because these are measures that require investment in public services, which in the present period of imperialist decay are being systematically cut to ribbons.
Not only was there a complete failure to forward plan, invest or prepare, but state services also failed to respond to the warnings of the impending disaster, which came several days ahead of the first outbreaks.
Fire and rescue services could have been on standby to dampen down fires as soon as they began; fire breaks could have been established; additional resources could have been called in from Canada and Mexico; the water department could have informed the fire department of its failure to refill the reservoir in the Palisades following a repair that had necessitated its drainage a year earlier, and a plan put in place for access to alternative water sources.
Instead, what unfolded was an avalanche of failures that offer a perfect encapsulation of decaying US imperialism, accompanied by a massive propaganda campaign aimed at shifting blame from the profit-driven system and its rulers.
The reality of privatisation
Such travesties aren’t confined to Los Angeles, to California or to the United States of America. Cuts in public spending are endemic across the imperialist world. All over the western world, public finances are being squeezed as the welfare states set up after WW2 are dismantled and as crisis-hit corporations are demanding ever more avenues of profit-taking.
The privatisation of what were once publicly-owned institutions means that public spending doesn’t achieve what it once did. In addition to providing the service they are being paid for, privatised institutions must also make a profit – which is, of course, their primary (only!) objective. And so while charges mount, corners are cut, wages decimated and services are squeezed.
We know from our own experience in Britain what this looks like in everyday life: no police to report your stolen car to, no bed in the hospital for your sick child, no room at the care home for your ageing parent, rising utility costs, cancelled trains, potholed roads and unendurable waits for ambulance and fire services when crisis hits.
In the case of California, it turns out that the Los Angeles fire department’s budget was cut by tens of millions in recent years. Fire department chief Kristin Crowley says that, after three years of budgetary shortfalls, she was left understaffed, under resourced and underfunded, with 68 fewer firefighters despite a 55 percent increase in demand for their services. Quite simply, city funding had not kept up with the city’s needs. (LAFD chief says budget cuts hindered response to California fires by Heather Miller, Fox 11 Los Angeles, 10 January 2025)
The inability to source water from fire hydrants in Pacific Palisades, which sits on the coast at the far end of the municipal water system, complicated efforts to combat the blaze when fire struck the houses there. According to Janisse Quiñones of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power: “The consumption of water was faster than we can provide water in the main line. At 3.00am, all the water went dry in the Palisades.”
The siphoning of taxes to fund imperialist wars and subsidise corporate profits left people and homes exposed. The fact that insurance company State Farm cancelled the policies of thousands of homeowners in the Palisades neighbourhood just months before their houses were burned down, illustrates that the fire risk was well-known to be both obvious and imminent. And also that the insurers were under no illusion that the fire service would be able to cope. (Thousands of Los Angeles homeowners were dropped by their insurers before the Palisades fire by Aimee Picchi, CBS News, 20 January 2025)
The total cost of the devastation which resulted from the fires exceeded $150bn, comparable to the amount that the US Congress ‘pumped’ into Ukraine. More than 10,000 structures were destroyed and more than 200,000 people were evacuated. At least 28 people died along with untold wildlife and the destruction of tens of thousands of acres of vegetation.
No wonder the ruling class is anxious that blame should not be laid at the feet of corrupt politicians and the corporate profiteers they serve. Drumroll the propaganda machine …
Blame, shame and reframe
There was a noticeable ‘culture wars’ framing to news coverage of these events. ‘Conservative’ media had clearly been tasked with promoting the idea that lesbians were to blame for not knowing how to put out fires. The reference was to LA fire department chief Kristin Crowley, who faced a growing backlash on social media amid claims that she had been hired to satisfy a ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ (DEI) agenda and had no qualifications for the position.
In fact, over multiple decades of experience before she took up her position in 2022, Crowley held the positions of firefighter, paramedic, engineer, fire inspector, captain, battalion chief, assistant chief, fire marshal and deputy chief. What she couldn’t do, however, was magic up the resources that her department had been denied.
Could it be that those who appointed her had considered that her sexuality would be a useful plus when the inevitable disaster struck, giving corporations, state and politicians a ready scapegoat to hand? After all, the powers that be knew a disaster was imminent. The insurance corporations knew it too, and they lay the blame on diminished state funding. So wouldn’t the smart move have been to install a ready-made stooge to divert attention away from the true perpetrators?
We can see from our own experience here in Britain that when formerly respected and well-paid professions decline in status and pay, this is often when women and immigrants begin to be systematically hired and promoted in careers from which they had previously been excluded – ie, just when employers are demanding more hours and effort for less pay in worse conditions. The preponderance of female and African bishops in today’s Church of England is a case in point.
Litigation against the Southern California Edison Company (SCE) for negligence in failing to keep vegetation away from overhead wires – a major cause of fires in LA – is being touted, but it’s far beyond the means of most workers to consider this form of redress. (What’s the latest on Los Angeles wildfires and how did they start? By James FitzGerald, BBC News, 9 January 2025)
Alongside this, a political row about the city’s preparedness erupted, resulting in a call by Governor Newsom for an independent investigation into how and why hydrants lost pressure and the Santa Ynez reservoir was closed and empty when the fire broke out.
One can’t help wondering why the governor needs an investigation into a department for which he is responsible. Unless it might be for the purpose of burying the debate in red tape and bureaucracy while people’s anger levels are high, pushing the date when official responses must be given to important questions far into the future, and generating a fat profit for the whichever consultancy is tasked with conducing a suitably lengthy and involved investigation.
Finally, of course, the narratives in ‘progressive’ media focused much of their attention on the ubiquitous excuse of ‘climate change’: something the US ruling class denied for decades but which has now become a favourite justification for everything from enormous corporate subsidies, accelerating deindustrialisation and deepening austerity at home to aggressive wars and regime-change operations all over the world.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) put out a statement declaring: “Climate change, including increased heat, extended drought and a thirsty atmosphere, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in the western United States.”
Whilst this may be true, it begs two questions. Firstly, if it is indeed the case, why haven’t those in power taken proactive steps to mitigate the increasing risk? Secondly, how much weight can be given to the utterances of a leadership that is subject to heavy political pressure owing to its position within the US Department of Commerce? While NOAA’s scientists may individually adhere to rigorous standards, the agency’s independence as a whole can be tested during politically contentious periods such as this one.
What next?
In this moribund, sick society, where profit and exploitation are the drivers for all social and economic activity, opportunities for the few to take full advantage of the misery of the many is omnipresent.
Large landlords in LA have taken full advantage of the thousands of people who no longer have a home, and of the fact that there are now significantly fewer homes, by raising rents 124 percent. Given the lack of social support, the region’s 60,000 existing homeless will inevitably be swelled by an influx of new neighbours, all competing for society’s dregs and scraps. (Los Angeles landlords jack up rent by as much as 124% – flouting price gouging laws during deadly wildfires by Ariel Zilber, New York Post, 14 January 2025)
The US imperialist regime allocated a total of $17.9bn in military aid to Israel between October 2023 and October 2024 to fund its genocide in Gaza, translating to approximately $1,845 for each Israeli settler. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden announced that the government would provide just $770 to each resident affected by the LA wildfires. The same US state which handed over $150bn of American taxes to Ukraine takes no responsibility for and feels no accountability to its own citizens.
And to add insult to injury, given that US insurance companies are global concerns, we can expect that estimated losses to the industry of between $20-$50bn will not be picked up by the insurance mafia but by their customers – ie, by workers all over the west, including in Britain.
What do the LA fires have to do with imperialism, corruption, exploitation and injustice? Everything!
