Oxfam — only seeking to alleviate
Dear Editors,
I was greatly saddened by the attack on the work of Oxfam by your columnist,"Scorpion", in the May Socialist Standard. Oxfam has never claimed, as Scorpion implies, to end hunger, disease, exploitation and poverty, that is endemic to capitalism in the third world; and the first one for that matter, but does set out to alleviate some of the effects of these evils, to the utmost of its abilities. Of course the establishment of Socialism world-wide is the only real answer. but what do we do in the meantime? Sit on our hands and sneer at those who show their concern in a practical way by doing something?
Oxfam goes much further than just raising funds to combat the ravishes of war, famine and floods. A vital part of its work is promoting Fair Trade with groups (mostly co-operatives), of small-scale producers of foodstuffs and craft goods in the third world, that are sold in Oxfam shops. Such Fair Trading has grown over the past thirty years so that there are now well over 300 groups in 40 countries that are paid a guaranteed price for their products, that is a fair reflection of their labour, i.e. one that enables workers and their families to provide enough food and other basic necessities including schooling for their children. Oxfam as trading partners are committed to ensuring producers have health and safety regulations in the workplace and are allowed to organise. This kind of practical Socialism in action, is in stark contrast to the gross exploitation by the multinational companies of workers in the third world; most obvious of coffee, tea and banana growers.
Since the early 1970s Oxfam has been campaigning to increase public, and government awareness that the root causes of third world poverty lay in the unfair trading policies imposed by the industrialised countries of the first world, aided by the IMF and World Bank of course. An indication of the impact this has had can be gained from the fact that our government has been stung into threatening to withdraw Oxfam’s charitable status on more than one occasion for being "too political". But Oxfam is part of a growing international movement of more than 50 organisations that are trading for change in the third world, by means of Fair Trade principles. It's a pity that Scorpion didn’t pay a visit to his nearest Oxfam shop to do a little research into the scope of their work, instead of making a cheap jibe in order to fill his column.
Peter Kentfield,
Norwich
Reply:
You yourself admit that Oxfam only seeks to alleviate. not abolish, world hunger and poverty. So why isn't it fair comment to point out the ultimate futility of only trying to relieve the symptoms while leaving their cause intact? And if, as you say, you accept that "the establishment of Socialism worldwide is the only real answer" surely you should be devoting at least some of your time and energy to promoting this too? By not doing so you are helping to prolong “the meantime" and its miseries including those Oxfam and all the other charities are trying to relieve.
"Fair Trading" is merely an extension of the principle of charity since it relies on the generosity of people to buy goods they might not really want or of a lower quality than they can get elsewhere just because they have been produced by poor people in the third world. (This no doubt is why the Charity Commissioners allow it.)
In any event, it is not the solution—or even an embryo of a solution—to the problem of world poverty. Like food handouts, it's only ever going to help a comparative handful compared to the millions who suffer from hunger. You proudly announce that "there are now well over 300 groups in 40 countries that are paid a guaranteed price for their products”. Yet. according to the United Nations, "some 550 million go to bed hungry each night. More than 1.5 billion lack access to clean drinking water and sanitation". (Fact Sheet 2 on "Global Poverty", prepared by the UN Department of Public Information. July 1994, for the World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, Denmark. 6-12 March 1995.)
Nor is Fair Trading an example of "practical Socialism in action”. Socialism is the common ownership and democratic control of the productive resources of the Earth. In other words, the expropriation of the multinational corporations and ruling classes who currently own and control these resources. It is only once this world framework has been established that we will be able to get down to the urgent task of tackling world hunger and poverty. The world is quite capable of producing enough to decently feed, clothe and house all its inhabitants, only this is held back and distorted by world market forces which only respect paying demand and the profit motivc. Socialism is needed precisely so that we begin to produce directly to satisfy human needs, instead of for sale on a market—trading whether "fair" or “unfair"—or for profit.
Editors
A Socialist police force?
Dear Editors,
I was surprised to read your brief reply to Terry Liddle's letter in the May Socialist Standard. The statement that "there won't be any cops or prisons in a socialist society" demonstrates an alarming naiveté which occasionally runs through your publication, made all the more worrying by the fact that it is the voice of people who are proposing to create a better society.
While it's obvious that a great many crimes are directly or indirectly caused by capitalism (especially theft and fraud), surely the worst crimes, such as rape and murder happen because of the mental instability of the perpetrator as much as. if not more than, wider sociological factors. Under Socialism, a police force of sorts would still be necessary to deal with such crimes. If a Socialist society was run properly it would promote a healthier state of mind in its population, but it would still take many years for us to evolve out of a capitalist state of mind. For example, the effects of the capitalist media's exploitation of women, which is a root cause of rape, are now so ingrained in the minds of many men, that a conversion to socialism couldn’t instantly reverse this. If a police force became unnecessary under Socialism, I would estimate it to be two or three generations after conversion. Even then, an organisation would still be needed to investigate suicides, disappearances and the occasional murder or rape which Socialism hasn't been able to prevent.
Your original statement assumes Socialism to be a magic wand, one wave of which will sprit away all of society’s faults. A Socialist society needs to be constructed through a clear, fair, common sense approach, not by making rushed, naive generalisations.
Clive Hendry,
Suffolk
Reply:
Our short reply to Terry Liddle was in a different context to the one you posit. He had raised the question of what would happen if vegetarians employed civil disobedience in a Socialist society to oppose practices of which they disapproved, and asked "will socialist cops kick and baton us and throw us into socialist prisons?"
In other words, he was dealing with the question of decision-making and the carrying-out of decisions in a Socialist society. As Socialism will be a fully democratic society without any vested interests decisions of a political nature could be settled after a full and rational discussion of all the pros and cons, ideally ending in some consensus but, if need be, by a vote. Obviously this implies that the minority will accept the majority decision. We think this a reasonable assumption given the sort of society Socialism will be—a real community with a common interest in which democratic values will be generally accepted.. Hence our reply that there won't be any need for a police force armed with batons to enforce decisions, nor for prisons in which to lock up those who refuse to accept them. If those in a minority on some issue won't accept a decision reached in accordance with the agreed procedures then Socialism couldn't function. Socialism is a non-violent society of voluntary co-operation or it isn’t Socialism.
We never said there won't be any occurrences of anti-social behaviour in Socialism or that these wouldn’t have to be dealt with. It is true, however, that we do think that these, too. could be dealt with without recourse to prisons as "places of punishment” or to a special coercive body, whether armed with batons or with guns, which is what a police "force” is.
Most crime today is. as you yourself point out. property crime (people trying to acquire in some way money, or property they can sell for money). In fact this accounts for some 95 percent of all crimes and will of course disappear in a Socialist society, where people won’t need to acquire money before they can satisfy their needs but will be able to do this directly in accordance with the principle "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".
As to the 5 percent remaining. of “crimes against the person", a large proportion of these result today from the corruption of relationships and general frustration due to lack of money and from the alienation that occurs in a society of rampant individualism which tries to reduce us to social atoms who only come into contact with each other when we are carrying out some monetary transaction.
So we are talking about a hugely-reduced level of anti-social behaviour which, apart from cases of people losing their temper (and then regretting it), will be carried out by disturbed individuals. Some of these may indeed need to be restrained or temporarily isolated from the rest of the community but not in "prisons" or anything like them; rather with all the best facilities in places like converted country mansions.
Agreed, we probably will need "an organisation", composed of trained and competent people "to investigate suicides, disappearances and the occasional murder or rape”. But this "organisation" would be more akin to today's rail or air accident inspectors than to the uniformed. hierarchical and baton- wielding police force we know today.
Editors
Reconstituted capitalist party
Dear Editors,
What follows is the text of a letter sent to the Labour Party:
"This is my letter of resignation from the Labour Party. The reason for this is my disillusionment with the leadership. The party has always maintained that it is a reformist party, with an emphasis on social justice, rather than socialism. However. "New Labour" is a reconstituted capitalist party. The modernizers in the Labour Party have a vision of "the enterprise of the market . . . the rigour of competition . . . a thriving private sector". This is a contradiction in its attitude towards social justice. F.A. Hayek, the New Right economist, attacked the left's notion of social justice, in that it is incompatible with a market economy, "in which no single person, or group determines who gets what, and the shares of individuals always depend on many circumstances which nobody could have foreseen. the whole concept of social or distributive justice is empty and meaningless". By accepting the "rigour of competition" in a market economy, the Labour Party compromises all notions of social justice to the extent that it becomes, as Hayek states, "a mirage". It is ironic that Hayek used this argument to attack the left, yet the modernizers in the Labour Party will attempt to attach notions of justice to a competitive economy, and in the process be converts to free market capitalism.
The second, more important, reason is that the Labour Party, in government, will set out to change the capitalist system to one in which there is social cohesion with less inequality. Yet will capitalism have the capacity to change? Reforms are generally accepted as temporary and concessionary solutions to the problems of unemployment, homelessness etc..yet it is merely tampering with a capitalist system which is fundamentally exploitative. It becomes useless reforming the social problems, when capitalism is corrupt, and therefore an increasing number of peoples' basic needs are not met in a class-divided society, in which production and distribution is owned and controlled by the minority capitalist class. The only way in which the exploitative system can be changed is through Socialism. This does not mean piecemeal reforms, but by convincing the majority working class that Socialism is desirable and can be achieved on a global scale. Collective ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution in the interest of the whole community can be achieved when there are enough Socialists who are willing to take democratic and participatory action against an exploitative capitalist system.
The Labour Party does not stand for Socialism, but has shifted its commitment from state capitalism, to a competitive market capitalism.”
Robert Smith,
Bristol.
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