CAPITALISM is in even deeper trouble than we thought. A Guardian opinion piece carries the evidence. It is headlined: “To all who think capitalism can drive progressive change — it won’t.”

The shock is that this statement of the obvious sits above a column by Polly Toynbee, font of social democratic wisdom for generations.

Toynbee has always been an advocate of progressive change. But she has also believed that whatever change is required can be accommodated within the prevailing socio-economic system.

Certainly, she has never championed socialism, and she has always been averse to any sharp manifestation of class struggle or militant trade unionism.

It has sometimes been said that Toynbee would gladly do anything for the poor, provided only that the poor never try to do anything for themselves.

So it is a cause for celebration that she is belatedly coming to a realisation of capitalism’s limitations.

The “proof” she trumpets is slightly odd, given how much there is all around us to make the point. It is the decision of wealth management company Aberdeen — briefly and absurdly rebranded as a vowel-less Abrdn — to axe its trust arm, Financial Fairness Trust, which in turn funded a range of voluntary sector research into various forms of inequality.

The chair, chief executive and board of Financial Fairness have been sacked, and the beneficiaries of Aberdeen’s largesse left dangling, their projects in jeopardy. Toynbee had regarded the trust’s existence as an indication that “decent capitalism was possible.”

Two reasons can be adduced for Aberdeen’s change of heart. One is the cold winds blowing towards any form of capitalism-with-a-conscience from Trump’s Washington. Businesses which take social responsibility seriously, be that in respect of race, climate change or wider inequality, can expect to be deprived of lucrative openings.

The second is, more prosaically, that Aberdeen has been struggling — losing, according to Toynbee, £5 billion in net outflows in the first quarter of 2025. Its management may regard funding important research an unaffordable luxury.

Either way, put not your trust for social progress in capitalists. Ultimately, they are the people doing very well out of this system. They are not going to ameliorate themselves out of existence.

Toynbee should take the next step and realise that the social goods she has long argued for will never be secured by pleading with the bourgeoisie for pennies — nor by cheerleading a government which operates within the parameters set down by the same interests.

When she does — well, the Morning Star cannot pay Guardian rates, but she would be most welcome to the fold. Recent decades have seen too much traffic going in the other direction — socialists reconciling to capitalism — not to welcome a convert coming the other way.

The IDF, its ‘death,’ and anti-semitism

It is important to assert that whatever a chant of “death to the IDF” may be, it is not anti-semitic.

The IDF is presently massacring starving Palestinians as they approach aid points on a daily basis. This week, it killed 40 seeking refuge in a Gaza beachfront cafe.

This conduct is no more typical of Jewish people worldwide than Islamic State’s predations are of Muslims, or the religious warriors around Trump, like Pentagon boss Pete Hegseth, are of Christians. It is, in fact, typical of imperialism.

That the Chief Rabbi and the Board of Deputies allege that rapper Bobby Vylan’s chant was anti-semitic speaks only to their overweening commitment to the Israeli state, whatever monstrosities it is responsible for.

They should realise that, at a time when actual anti-semitism is increasing alarmingly, the necessary united fight against it is impeded by making it all about Israel’s army.