Pirates (2024)

Book Review from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pirate Enlightenment, Or The Real Libertalia. By David Graeber, Penguin, 2024

The Age of Enlightenment is usually said to be the intellectual movement that occurred mainly in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, based on knowledge learned by reason and evidence. Graeber argues that the Enlightenment did not begin in Europe and that its true origins are to be found on the island of Madagascar, in the late seventeenth century, when it was home to several thousand pirates. This was in the Golden Age of Piracy which lasted no more than fifty years, but it was also an experiment in radical democracy as the pirate settlers attempted to apply the egalitarian principles of their ships to a new society on land. Those also involved were Malagasy women, merchants, traders and escaped slaves. They were exploring ideas that were ultimately to be put into practice in Europe a century later.

This short book was first written to be a chapter of a book on ‘divine kingship’ Graeber co-authored with fellow anthropologist Marshall Sahlins. Graeber obtained a doctorate under Sahlins doing ethnographic research in Madagascar. Graeber died in 2020. This book answers the question: since they were wanted men who couldn’t go home, what happened to the pirates who wanted to escape or retire? The answer seems to be: they often settled in north-east Madagascar, a large island (one thousand miles long) to the east of Africa. Libertalia is the name given to the utopian pirate experiment, even if there was never any actual settlement that bore that name. Piracy is still practised in that part of the world.

Graeber’s treatment of piracy and Madagascar is convincing. He argues that what unifies the pirate Enlightenment of Libertalia and the later Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual movement which was conversational. In Libertalia there was an expectation of rational conversation, on an egalitarian basis, of such subjects as liberty, authority, sovereignty and much more. There is however no persuasive evidence of the pirate Enlightenment feeding into the later Enlightenment, as Graeber claims. He admits that he is being ‘intentionally provocative’ as if he knows the evidence he presents is flimsy and speculative. In this respect he is following in the buccaneering tradition of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story.

Lew Higgins

Halo Halo (2024)

The Halo Halo! column from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard 

As Horace Walpole said, ‘This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.’ Rationalists find plenty within religion as a whole to occasion mirth, with some individual ones especially capable of producing belly laughs. But there are times when it’s very hard to echo Eric Idle’s exhortation at the end of Life of Brian to always look on the bright side of life.

Michael Palin said this about the 1979 television debate about the controversial film:

‘He (Bishop of Southwark) began, with notes carefully hidden in his crotch, tucked down well out of camera range, to give a short sermon, addressed not to John or myself but to the audience… He accused us of making a mockery of the work of Mother Teresa, of being undergraduate and mentally unstable. He made these remarks with all the smug and patronising paraphernalia of the gallery-player, who believes that the audience will see he is right, because he is a bishop and we’re not’.

American bible-bashers continue to press for their fantasies to be imposed upon children within public schools:

‘At a curriculum committee meeting school board Director Jordan Blomgren requested that “both sides” should be presented to students about evolution and climate change, stunning onlookers. ‘My question always comes down to the content,’ said Blomgren, who is also a teacher. ‘Like, you know [the] Earth’s been around for billions of years. Are you talking about both creation and evolution, like just having both… making sure that we’re showing both sides.’ A mother said “My kids are heavy into STEM, I don’t want them to be ill-prepared because Jordan wants to take up space complaining about fossils. I really don’t want my kids to be taught creationism. That’s for a Christian school, not a public school”’ (Buckscountybeacon.com 5 June).

They don’t give up, do they? Oklahoma’s top education official has ordered all public schools in the state to teach the Bible and the Ten Commandments to their students, a move that critics claim violates the US Constitution:

‘He called the Bible ‘one of the most foundational documents used for the Constitution and the birth” of the United States. It is a necessary “historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country, to have a complete understanding of Western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system”. Every classroom in Oklahoma from grades five to 12 must have a Bible, and all teachers must teach from the Bible in the classroom.’

‘Requiring a Bible in every classroom does not improve Oklahoma’s ranking of 49th in education,’ State Representative Mickey Dollens said in a statement. ‘The state superintendent should focus on educating students, not evangelizing them.’

‘The Oklahoma directive comes a week after the governor of Louisiana signed a law ordering all public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms.’

It’s August. Time to start buying those Chrisfest baubles now appearing in a store near you.

DC

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The richest 1% of Norwegians held 22% of net wealth in 2022, according to Statistics Norway. That compares with 34% in the US, 30% in Germany and 21% in the UK. 

(MSN)

Senior Chinese leaders… are engaged in corruption and hiding hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth by using relatives to disguise their activities, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. By 2012, Mr. Xi had amassed at least $376 million in company investments, an indirect 18% stake in a rare-earth mineral company worth more than $311 million, and $20.2 million holdings in a technology company, according to a CRS report based on published information from news outlets about the hidden wealth. 

(The Washington Times)

Among the 2,300 sewer cleaners under the employment of the KWSC, to do manual scavenging to unclog the drains, he claims to have taught Adil the dos and don’ts of diving into the slush. ‘You have to be smart to outdo death, which is our companion as we go down,’ he says. It is not the army of cockroaches and the stink that greets you when you open the manhole lid to get in, or the rats swimming in filthy water, but the blades and used syringes floating that are a cause for concern for many as they go down to bring up the rocks and the buckets of filthy silt.

(Inter Press Service)

Umm Shadi, 50, called for Hamas to ‘end the war immediately without seeking to control and rule Gaza’. ‘What have we gained from this war except killing, destruction, extermination and starvation?’ she asked. ‘Every day the war on Gaza increases, our pain and the pain of the people increases. What is Hamas waiting for?’. 

(France24)

The military leader of Hamas has said he believes he has gained the upper hand over Israel and that the spiralling civilian death toll in Gaza would work in the militant group’s favor, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, citing leaked messages the newspaper said it had seen. ‘We have the Israelis right where we want them,’ Yahya Sinwar told other Hamas leaders recently, according to one of the messages… In another, Sinwar is said to have described civilian deaths as ‘necessary sacrifices’ while citing past independence-related conflicts in countries like Algeria. 

(CNN)

Graham stressed that helping Ukraine in its fight against Russia could also have strategic economic benefits for the U.S. and Western countries. ‘They’re sitting on $10-12 trillion of critical minerals in Ukraine. They could be the richest country in all of Europe. We don’t want to give that money and assets to Putin to share with China,’ he told Brennan on Sunday. ‘If we help Ukraine now, they could become the best business partner we ever dreamed of. They’re sitting on a goal mine. To give Putin $10-12 trillion that he will share with China is ridiculous’. 

(MSN)

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Diggers Festival in Wigan (2024)

From the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Diggers Festival in Wigan

‘True commonwealth’s freedom lies in the free enjoyment of the earth‘ (Gerrard Winstanley 1652).

Stripped of his religious, patriarchal views, Winstanley is still relevant today. He saw that:

Freedom has an economic basis and is impossible in a property-based society.

Society is structured to maintain the privilege of a few. Laws are made essentially to defend property and official religion is designed to terrify us into submission.

Buying/selling causes war and keeps us poor.

Winstanley’s answer was much like ours. A society where things are produced purely to meet human need (no form of exchange), where production and distribution are based on democratic, informed consent, and everyone can achieve their full potential.

This is what we mean by socialism. Everyone can have a life of material security – provided the majority takes control of the world’s resources from the capitalist minority.

Even if you came today just for a pint and the music, you might want to consider joining with us to put things right at last.

Leaflet to be distributed at this year’s Diggers Festival in Wigan in September.

Exhibition Review: Troubled Times (2024)

Exhibition Review from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Imperial War Museum North at Salford Quays is currently running an exhibition on ‘Northern Ireland: Living with the Troubles’, which deals with the period of violence which lasted from the late 1960s to the signing of the Good Friday agreement in 1998 and caused the deaths of over 3,500 people. It is on until the end of September.

One of its main themes is the different perspectives on developments from the ‘loyalist’ and ‘nationalist’ sides (though both are in fact loyal to different nations). This extends even to basic facts, such as who had guns in the Battle of St Matthew’s on 27–28 June 1970, in which three people were killed. Views representing both versions of what happened that night are given.

Many of the statements and other exhibits should cause visitors to think a bit. For instance, a poster shows Tufty the squirrel (used to teach children about road safety) warning kids not to pick up things in the street, as they might be dangerous. A former member of the Provisional IRA says that you have to ‘depersonalise’ people in order to shoot them. The members of fire services were stoned on an almost daily basis. People would go out to shop and find soldiers in gardens and checkpoints on roads; they had to go through turnstiles and bag searches in order to get into the centre of Belfast. Most victims of the Troubles were civilians, not soldiers, police or paramilitaries.

The glossary accompanying the exhibition states that loyalism was ‘primarily working class in nature’, and class is mentioned a number of times in the displays, though without any definition. The vast majority of those killed were working class, and a Sinn Féin member is quoted as saying that there was a class issue across communities, but that the fundamental constitutional question was the real dividing line.

A final film with a variety of quotes claims that Northern Ireland now has more institutionalised sectarianism than ever, and that a war continues, using words rather than bullets. A United Ireland will not end sectarianism, it is said, and Brexit has led to trade and border concerns within the North.

It’s not mentioned in the displays, but Troubles-related tourism now takes place in Belfast; it’s an example of ‘dark tourism’ (cf the Jack the Ripper Museum in London).

This is an informative exhibition, from which visitors are likely to draw different conclusions, perhaps including that nothing of any significance for the vast majority of people was being fought over.

Paul Bennett

Something to think about (2024)

From the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Private property ownership stands between us and any real meaningful freedom. The power it gives is not safe in anyone’s hands. The world society we propose does not use it. It would therefore have to abolish the concept and use of money.

In the new society, all things would be freely made and freely given. There would be nothing to pay, and no money to pay it with, since there could be no wages for work done.

Perhaps you ask: how are we supposed to get work if nobody is going to get paid for it? Why should we even get out of bed in the morning? The simple answer is: if nobody can be bothered to make the slightest effort then we’ve all had it.

But work itself, like so many other things, would change out of all recognition. Gone would be the Boss, and fear of the sack. Gone would be the drudgery of doing a job you hate just to pay the rent. Instead, great opportunities would open up for people to choose their job, to change jobs more frequently, to work far shorter hours.

It is not simply work that would change for the better. Warfare would change too – out of existence. Can you think of a war that was fought, in reality, over anything other than money, and ultimately, control of resources? We can’t. Whatever the propaganda made us all believe at the time, all the wars of history have been squabbles over money, land, trade routes and so forth. In the new society, arguments like that just couldn’t arise, because no one would own these things in the first place.

We think the new society could benefit all in an enormous number of ways.

Free travel anywhere in the world; pleasant, interesting work to choose; a sense of feeling useful, of belonging, of playing a part in things; a strength in yourself to be yourself, and not to have to take orders from anybody at all. Imagine waking up in a world where nobody in it is starving to death. Imagine being able to walk around at night without fear. Imagine having time for things, and for people. Imagine having enough at last, without having bills to make your life a misery.

One day. But it’s not going to happen without you. If any group of hot-blooded rebels tries to go it alone, without the agreement of the rest of us, it will end in bloodshed, terror and chaos, as it always has in the past. Socialists are democrats. We could never support such madness, and we would never instigate it. The proper road to a peaceful and democratic society is by peaceful and democratic means, and so members of our Party spend their time not in building bombs but in building agreement.

How society works (2024)

From the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do wage increases lead automatically to price increases? If they do, there would presumably be no point in fighting for a wage rise, as it would just mean that prices of goods would go up too, and people would be no better off. Looking further into this issue reveals a great deal about how society works.

In fact, higher wages need not mean higher prices, because prices aren’t determined by wages. In many industries, wages are relatively high but prices low, and in others wages are low but prices high.

To see what’s behind this, we should step back a bit and look at what constitutes a wage and how prices are determined. Prices are of course influenced by supply and demand, but there has to be more to it than that, since what happens when supply and demand cancel each other out? What really matters is the value or exchange value of some good, and that depends on the amount of labour that was needed to produce it. Not just the last stage of production, but all the labour that went into obtaining the raw materials, the buildings, the machinery and so on. Why do TVs cost a lot more than electric kettles? Because far more labour goes into producing the TVs. The price of something is essentially based on its exchange value, but supply and demand can affect it as well.

As for wages, these are in fact also a price: the price of the worker’s labour power, or ability to work. Labour power has its own value, that of the value of what is needed to produce, maintain and train the worker: the cost of rent, food, heating, transport, clothing, entertainment etc. So a worker produces enough value to get paid sufficient to live on and bring up a family. But – and here is the big revelation – the worker will be forced to work for longer than that. In four hours’ work, you may produce enough to keep you going, and that is what you’ll get in wages. However, your employer has bought your labour power and can make you work for longer than that, say for seven hours. In those three extra hours, the value of what you produce goes to the employer: this is known as surplus value, and is what constitutes profit for the boss.

In that example, you work four hours for yourself and three hours for your employer. That is exploitation, and it lies at the heart of the current economic system. By all means struggle for higher wages, and against wage cuts and longer hours and harder work. But you should also be aware that, however hard you fight within the present system, you will always be in a subordinate and precarious position. The real solution is to combine with fellow workers and fight for the abolition of the wages system!

Paul Bennett

The Row About Overseas Students (1976)

From the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Students who come to the UK from abroad to study make another part of the education pot that is at boiling point. But as with the reasons for the cuts in the education system (discussed last month) so also with the explanation of the row about overseas students. The causes have nothing to do with so-called academic freedom, or colour prejudice, or the duty to help developing countries. The cause of the dispute is within the economics of capitalism itself in one of its periodic crises.

Cuts are demanded in state expenditure by the capitalist class and in education in particular. One of the things which have been cut back on is the “subsidy” to overseas students. This so-called subsidy relates to the fact that the fees paid by all students to universities and colleges of higher education do not in fact represent the true cost of the course they will be attending. The real cost will be many times higher and the balance comes from central and local government grants to the universities and colleges, together with whatever else they can squeeze from private sources. Overseas students (estimated to be about 95,000 for the academic year 1973/4) therefore apparently cost the capitalist class considerable amounts.

For example the “price” of one year of a 3-year course in science at University College London, for the academic year 1975/76 was £157. But this figure probably represents no more than 10 per cent of the true cost of providing the services and equipment available to each student on a science course at UCL. So the call grows from the politicians (the mouthpieces of the capitalist class) and others involved to make students who come here to study from abroad pay the market price.

Material Reasons

The facilities for overseas students are claimed to be given on the basis of the moral duty of the country to help educate those of poorer countries where an education system is not provided. At times it almost gets down to the level of the charitable good souls of the do-gooders’ camp versus the mean lot of the other side This is all window-dressing with as much relationship to the real issues involved as blow-football to an FA cup final. Cheap or cut-price education for people from other countries is merely part of what is known as overseas aid, something which most of the advanced capitalist countries have been doing for years. Overseas aid has never been given for other than purely material reasons—how much will the “giving” country make on it at the end of the day? It is the same with overseas students.

The furore really began when a Cabinet committee recommended an increase in the fees to overseas students of between 2 and 5 times to bring them up to more than £2000 p.a. for advanced students in the year 1976/77 (see The Times, 11th February 1976). This provoked Mr. Alan Phillips, General Secretary of the World University Service, to say that the suggested increase would destroy Britain’s reputation as a haven for academic refugees (The Times, 12th February). Whether he himself really believes that the UK is a “haven” for refugees, academic or otherwise, only he knows. But when education is regarded as merely the best way to train man-power for the production line (as it is under capitalism), it does seem stretching it a little to make such wild statements! Is it a haven for those refugees that come to this country and cannot afford to keep themselves without doing a full time job, making studying if not impossible, at the least a most difficult task?

The arguments of the side supporting the move to increase the fees are equally spurious and at times nauseating. A letter was written to The Times (17th January 1976) by the Medical Officer of Warwick University, asserting that it is not only the fees that these students get on the cheap, since they also use resources other than academic ones. They are a drain on the National Health Service (he claimed) and they have different diseases and psychiatric problems from those of their British counterparts, costing considerable sums to treat. Worst crime of all “not only do the students themselves use the NHS but also they may bring their wives and even children.” What will he say to General Gowan (the butcher of the Biafrans but now respectably studying at Warwick University itself) when he comes in to see the medical department asking for some aspirin? It is often quite unbelievable to see the length the working class will go in defending their masters’ interests, or what they take to be their masters’ interests.

Profitable Investment

But capitalism does not need university medical officers to tell the workers the amount it has to pay to provide education as a form of aid. It has august bodies who will do some proper research for it, such as the British Council. They reported on 20th January this year that in the long term the overseas students were of great economic value to what the council called the country but of course means the capitalist class. And in a long analysis by The Times education correspondent (10th February 1976) the facts and figures to back this up are given.

He starts by saying that his initial reaction to the proposals for increasing the fees charged to overseas students is “one of guts abhorrence” to anything which would threaten the free movement and international concept of university and college education. There has never been any such freedom; but let us pass on to the more serious part of his report which, as even the most ill-educated member of the capitalist class (and there are plenty of those) will tell you, means money. The Times correspondent goes on to give some very sound reasons why it would not, paradoxical though it may seem, be in the interests of the capitalist class to raise the fees charged to overseas students, thus causing some of them to look for their studies elsewhere. He draws up the equivalent of a balance sheet showing the profit and loss from the overseas students trade. The cost is some £83 million p.a. But on the credit side, it is estimated that overseas students spend something like £75 million p.a. whilst they are over here. Add to that the fact that it is estimated that £40 million p.a. is spent at private schools which get some of the academic backwash of the so called “free movement” of students to the country. The capitalist class as a whole are already in credit. But the best is yet to come:

Add to all this the intangible, unquantifiable, but logical advantage to British exports. Students highly trained in this country who then proceed to important posts in their own country can exert great influence on contracts entered into with Britain for equipment, buildings and technical skills . . . And Lord Caradon, Britain’s former representative at the United Nations, said: ‘It is unanswerable that the foreign students who come to the country contribute in the money they bring with them far more than anything that is paid by this country on their education.’ The millions of pounds we spend on foreign students each year should be recognised as a considerable investment in the future prosperity of our country as well as a cheap and effective form of aid programme.

One can only add: “Q.E.D.”

Free Learning

Education is of course a carrot which can be used when the representatives of the British capitalist class are trying to sell goods abroad. "Buy British and get some education on the cheap.” One of the Professors of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine recognised that when he wrote to The Times (18th February 1976) discussing Barbara Castle’s visit to Kuwait for the purposes of expanding the British export trade to that country. What better way to sell your goods has been invented? What was all that about academic havens and free movements . . .?

However, despite the fact that it obviously not profitable in the long-term interests of the capitalist class to increase fees, the increase took place. As explained last month, capitalism is not capable of being a rational efficient system, even within the confines of its own interests. Either short-term exigencies do not permit it, or those advising the capitalist class get it wrong. Either way it is haphazard and no “right” answers are possible.

Education under capitalism is not “free” and never has been. Freedom is a concept which is almost completely debased by its users within the confines of capitalist society. One of the most important aspects of Socialist society will be free access. This does not only mean unrestricted ability to take from what is produced and to be able to use and enjoy the means of production. In a Socialist society (and only in such a society) knowledge will be freely available for the benefit of all. Studying and education will merely be a part of a life-long process of physical and mental enrichment; not as now, a drudgery to be suffered when young. And in case anyone has missed the point, as there will be no countries but only one world society in Socialism, so the problems of the overseas student will quickly be placed in the dustbin of the problems of a previous society.

Ronnie Warrington