50 Years Ago: It is different in the USA (1964)

The 50 Years Ago column from the April 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Father Bernard Vaughan has been through the United States on a tour. As is usual with people who pay flying visits to other countries, he has come back equipped with a complete knowledge of the conditions obtaining there, ranging from the hobble skirt to the delightful methods of the industrial system. He told his audience, when lecturing on his experiences at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, recently, that he knew of no country in the world where a man could be more sure of a living wage for an honest day’s work than the States. “I found in the States that the employers generally got into closer touch with their employees than anywhere else. They seem to 'pal' with their servants instead of patronising them. The employers consider their servants, they study them, they try to give them a co-partnership, a personal interest in their work. I was much impressed by the relations between capital and labour. They are drawn closely together and those impersonal terms of industry have been exchanged for real personal relations.”

Now that’s refreshing! Ever since I heard this I have been disgusted with my little lot. Oh! why wasn’t I born in America! I’ve had lots of bosses, but never one that I could “pal" with. Comrades in America, I envy you! I’ve read a lot about America, too, but never saw it in this light before. So far as my investigations into American industrial conditions go, the only ‘‘personal relations” in which the close “touch" is manifested I have been able to discover, are those in which the policeman’s is used as the medium. It would be interesting to know what our fellow-workers in the U.S.A. think of Vaughan's analysis!

From the Socialist Standard, April 1914.

Film Review: Searching for Sugar Man (2013)

Film Review from the September 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Searching for Sugar Man (2012). Directed by Malik Bendjelloul.

The American Dream is that anyone can succeed if they try hard enough. That didn’t happen for Sixto Rodriguez, a 1970s Detroit singer-songwriter combining the voice of James Taylor with the lyrical ability of Bob Dylan. Firmly in the American folk-music revival counterculture, his songs spoke of working class struggles, hardship and inner city poverty. Maybe it was his Hispanic name, maybe (and unlike Dylan) it was the humility so uncommon for a performer of extraordinary talent.

A mere six sales of two albums meant he was dropped from his label two weeks before Christmas 1971. As Rodriguez returned to poverty working various construction and labouring jobs, his albums took off in South Africa. There he was bigger than the Rolling Stones and his song’s anti-establishment sentiments helped provide the soundtrack for the end of apartheid.

The music industry cheated him of royalties for a reputed half a million sales in South Africa. Unaware of his success abroad, and still living in poverty, Rodriguez made an unsuccessful attempt to become Detroit city mayor, his name was even spelt wrongly on the ballot. Rumours of his on-stage suicide prompted two South African fans to investigate what happened to him. This Academy award winning and Sundance festival winning documentary doesn’t tell the whole story, but it is beautifully presented and what a story.

DJW

Yankee Prosperity (1926)

From the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

The New York correspondent of the Daily News quotes from a report issued by the National Catholic Welfare Conference of America to show the falsity of many of the extravagant tales of high wages said to be paid to workers in the U.S.A. We give below an extract from the Report (Daily News, November 17th) :

  The chorus of voices proclaiming that because of high wages we can now look forward to the indefinite continuation of prosperity misses several plain facts.
   High wages are not nearly so common as is assumed. Great numbers of men are making as low as three and four dollars a day. Great numbers of women are making as low as 12, 13. and 14 dollars a week. Great numbers of both men and women are out of work and are making no money at all.
   The level of wages is higher now than at any time in the past, but even now close upon half of the men working for wages are not making a family living wage, and close upon half of the women working for wages are not making enough to support themselves in reasonable comfort.
  Great numbers of men and women working for a weekly or monthly salary are below the line of reasonable existence, and still greater numbers have not shared proportionately in the increased productiveness of American industry and agriculture.
   Farmers are a third of the consuming public, and their buying power has actually decreased in the last seven years. Along with low-paid wage and salaried workers in cities they stand as a handicap to city prosperity, and a sure cause of inevitable industrial depression in this country.
  Much of the phenomenal selling of goods at home is based on instalment buying by wage and salaried workers, who are mortgaging an essentially insecure future to buy goods now.

Those who saw in America an example of the way in which a more efficient capitalism abolishes working class poverty will need to continue their search for a “prosperous" working class.

Edgar Hardcastle

American Prosperity (1927)

From the August 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

The financial correspondent of the Daily Telegraph in New York writes on the present situation in America :—

  “Charity organisations are working overtime, hospital clinics are crowded, business failures are reported by the hundred every month, and without doubt there are more people here living on the ragged edge than ever before in the country’s history.”—(Daily Telegraph, July 2nd, 1927.)

American nightmare (2004)

From the October 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

The much heralded ‘American Dream’, whereby everybody can start off poor, but by hard work and application rise to the top is often summed up in a political way as “Log Cabin to White House”. We are usually offered the example of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, as an example of this transformation. Lincoln’s career from shopkeeper to surveyor to lawyer to politician is indeed remarkable, but hardly typical of the 19th century in America and certainly nothing like the America of today; where the vast accumulated wealth of the capitalist class is mostly inherited.
 
Another aspect of this dream that we are supposed to swallow is that the humblest of Americans can topple the government if they so desire. That anyone can run for office and attack the bastions of wealth and privilege is one of the cornerstones of this American delusion. The reality is somewhat different, as recent figures for the financing of the electoral efforts for the November elections of the Democratic and Republican Parties show.
 
An organisation called the Center for Responsive Politics showed how the recent Federal Election Commission’s laws enacted to stop the lavishing of funds on political parties are being circumvented. Here are some examples how the capitalist class get around such legislation. New campaign funding laws outlawing unregulated contributions to political parties are avoided by individual executives of corporations  donating and for the firms to donate lavishly to fund convention events.
 
That such gifts are huge is shown by the example quoted in the Observer  (1 August):

 “The biggest corporate donors in this years American presidential election are executives of Goldman Sachs, the investment bank. For the first time, the Wall Street firm has become the US’s top corporate funder, contributing a total of nearly $4 million to both George W. Bush’s and John Kerry’s campaigns . . . Steven Weiss of the Centre for Responsive Politics said: ‘Goldman Sachs is involved in the political process and knows how to play the game. Money plays a huge role in politics. It sends a message that you will get access and influence. If you don’t contribute, you’re on the sidelines`”

An example of how important it is to US corporations to donate large amounts of cash to political parties is given in another article in the same issue of that newspaper:

   “What’s more interesting is the way Microsoft has made the transition from a company which essentially ignored politics to one which has become adept at channelling its money through political conduits to further its corporate interests. In 1995, the budget for Microsoft’s Political Action Committee (PAC) was a paltry $16,000. By 2000 it was $1.6 million. And total donations by Microsoft and its employees to political parties, candidates and PACs in the 2000 election cycle came to more than $6.1m, according to Edward Roeder, a long-time observer of corporate political donations.”

What brought about this change of policy at Microsoft? Microsoft’s ruthless destruction of Netscape in the mid-1990s and its contravention of the US anti-trust laws led to a series of anti-trust prosecutions that threatened their dominant position. The corporation realised it needed friends in the administration and set about reversing its previous politically aloof position.
 
The reality behind the American Dream is the sordid money-grubbing, back-stabbing rat race of capitalism; where politicians are merely the message boys of the rich and powerful and where the poor and exploited are left behind. The American Dream is a horrendous nightmare.
 
As socialists we are not pessimistic about the future. We believe that the class that produces all the wealth of the world will wake from this capitalist nightmare and bring about a society based on production solely for use. After all, as old Abe once said, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

Richard Donnelly

"Death of a Salesman" (1952)

Film Review from the August 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Death of a Salesman, directed by László Benedek (1951)

This film version of the successful play was recently generally released (though not to the main circuits) and is well worth a visit to one of the few cinemas that will show it. Its theme is somewhat different from the conventional Hollywood dramas and it has a social significance that is all too rare in films. It is the story not merely of Willie Loman, ageing merchandise salesman, but of the whole business of buying and selling in a highly competitive society. Usually, screen characters are shown as wholly “good” or “bad” and undergoing no significant change in outlook as a result of what happens to them. For once we see, in this film, recognition of the fact that men are largely made what they are by the sort of environment in which they have to live.

Willie Loman, superbly played by Frederic March, is portrayed as a failure who refuses to believe that he is not the success that he thinks he should be. At sixty-three, having been “on the road” all his working life, he is worn out, more mentally than physically, through having tried to make himself well known, well liked and remembered by his customers. He makes a fetish of the “power of personality” as a factor in business success. He is, in Hollywood jargon, “all mixed up” and is shown as re-living past episodes and talking in his imagination to people he knows. In one scene he wonders if he has brought up his two sons to believe in the right things, and has an imaginary conversation with his dead, but successful, brother about them. Brother Ben, to show that you must be tough to make your fortune in this world, invites one of the boys to take a punch at him, and after a short struggle the boy is on the ground with a cane pointing in his face. Then come words which should haunt the memories of all who have lauded the merits of the scramble for wealth and power—"Never fight fair with a stranger in the jungle."

The film pulls no punches in depicting the sort of behaviour and situations that result from the condition of cut-throat Capitalism, though unfortunately (but not unexpectedly) it does not refer to the system directly. It has presumably been given an “X” certificate (adults only) because of the suicide, and its failure to disguise the prostitute as the usual “barmaid” or “ hostess.” Other touches of realism are the references to the hand-to-mouth existences of the vast majority of people, even in the “prosperous” cities of America. Faced with the problem of meeting the last payments on his car and refrigerator, Willie remarks, “ It seems they make these things so they’re worn out just when you finish making the payments on them.”

Part of the story deals with the efforts of his two sons to earn their hirings on the basis of their father’s teaching about success, and the importance of being well liked as the royal road to it. One of them has had a number of jobs, most recently working on a farm, and is keen to become an executive with the firm for which he once worked as a shipping-clerk. The fatherly advice includes “Don’t tell him you worked on a farm—say you were in business in the West”— typical of the fantasy and deception that abound in the whole business world.

When, having lost his job, Willie makes it obvious that he intends to commit suicide, his uncle tries to talk him out of it by saying that no one is worth anything dead. But Willie, whose life is insured for 20,000 dollars, knows otherwise. At his graveside his uncle says, “Willie was a salesman and as a salesman he traded in dreams." Yet nobody, no matter how accustomed to the almost ritual happy endings, could really believe that with the death of one salesman had died the evil which was the underlying theme of the film.

The purpose of this review is not to prove that such films as “Death of a Salesman” are a form of propaganda for Socialism. Not for one moment does this particular film hold out the prospect of a world in which the necessity to buy and sell would not exist. But it does, at any rate, constitute a powerful criticism of the capitalist way of life and reinforces the arguments of socialists against prolonging it.

Stan.

Mr. Hutchinson Investigates (1957)

From the August 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is Britain great? And why are so many workers considering emigration as something of a solution to their problems?

Firstly, British capitalism, although still a world power, is second rate in comparison with the giants of the United States and the Soviet Union, which is nothing, as far as workers are concerned, to get hot under the collar about. The once mighty British Empire bestowed no benefit on British workers; likewise American and Russian “greatness” on their workers.

As for the increasing flow of emigrants to the New World and Australasia, again the reasons are hardly secret—the chance of higher wages, a supposed solution to housing difficulties, etc.—all very much facets of working- class life.

However, Mr. Harold Hutchinson, of the Daily Herald (4/5/6 March), in a series of three articles, goes in for some soul searching on these very questions. Not surprisingly, being a reformist. Socialism is not mentioned, let alone defined; Mr. Hutchinson’s horizon does not go beyond capitalism—although he no doubt prefers a “modified” capitalism—with all of its inseparable paraphernalia, i.e., buying and selling, rent, interest and profit, export drives, together with the necessary trade routes, spheres of influence and strategic points. Presumably, this is considered perfectly natural, his task being the futile attempt to knock off some of the rough edges.

The Greatness of Britain
In his first article, Mr. Hutchinson makes great play of British industrial and commercial resources and contributions to technological progress. He instances British lead in atomic power, the fact that the chemical industry is the largest in Europe, the British rôle in quality motor car production, aviation, shipbuilding, etc., and that London is still the world’s commercial centre. All very interesting and, no doubt, factual, but although the working class make all this possible, they neither own nor control these wondrous means of production and distribution—any more than did the chattel slaves of Ancient Rome own the vast resources of the Roman Empire.

The workers who do not own Great Britain
As Mr. Hutchinson well knows, the only way workers can scratch a livelihood, here and elsewhere, is by the sale of their labour power. Divorced, through personal or social circumstances from their pay packet, they are, in most cases, immediately dependent on sick clubs, etc., or on meagre State aid, the British atomic lead notwithstanding.

Most workers do not even own their "houses,” which is why there is widespread concern over the Tory Rent Bill. Those who do affect to “home ownership” have a working-life long mortgage around their necks.

Let an old age pensioner or disabled ex-Serviceman declare to the Assistance Board that he is a part owner of the British Empire, and see how far he gets!

Welfare Capitalism

In his second article, Harold Hutchinson admits that in spite of British capitalism’s so-called Welfare State the social system is virtually unchanged, which does not say much for the Party that he supports—the Labour Party.

He contends that present day society—he does not call it capitalism, of course—is based upon the education system, and survives as a result of it. The reason for this conclusion is not stated. Capitalism is based upon the class ownership of the very means of life, upon the economic fact that about 10 per cent. of the population own the factories, mines, mills, transport, etc., nationalisation notwithstanding.

It is obvious that workers are conditioned during their formative school years to accept the status quo, but this cannot be attributed to any peculiarities of the British education system as such; working class support for capitalism is not confined to those lands with Etons And Harrows, or those with monarchies and remnants of the landed aristocracy.

The Rôle of Education

Again, the factors making for this acceptance of the system that exploits them, are not confined to “education.” The mass means of communication which the ruling class has at its disposal is of paramount importance, not least of all the Daily Herald. (Quite apart from the presentation of “news” the constant circulation-boosting prize competitions which that and other papers engage in foster the idea that property owning is natural and desirable. It also at once clearly demonstrates the essential poverty of the working class.)

It is utterly useless to look for changes in the school system as a means of undermining capitalism, because although the blatant privileges of the so-called public school system may eventually give way to an apparently more democratic one, by and large this would be dictated by the needs of an increasingly technical (and competitive) economy. In no circumstances would the powers that be permit a curriculum that was not in keeping with their class interests. The overhaul of their education system is at the moment somewhat of a headache to them, trying as they are to maintain their hold on colonial possessions, finance, a large armament programme, and at, the same time pay for technical education.

Socialist education—that is an examination, understanding and resultant rejection of capitalism and the realisation of the need for a revolutionary change in society—is quite another thing. However, that is not what the Herald man had in mind.

America the model

Mr. Hutchinson then moves from education to economic affairs and bemoans the lack of real competition in this country owing to the emergence of cartels and price rings. He looks with somewhat envious eyes at—as he says—the “ really competitive system in the United States ” (where General Motors control about 60 per cent of motor car production and anybody can set themselves up in business producing cars, because, after all, there are no price rings to impede you—cos they’re illegal.)

 

The efficiency of production in America is lauded, not called exploitation, of course, and with it the fact that American workers have more gadgets around them than the workers of other lands; to Mr. Hutchinson this is known as the world’s highest standard of living. It would probably spoil the picture to mention that the workers across the Atlantic suffer the highest rate of exploitation, that American capitalism gives rise to the world’s highest crime rate, and that the stresses and strains of the “American way of life ” produce a phenomenal divorce rate and neurotic problems.

Perhaps Mr. Hutchinson would regard these as separate entities, completely unrelated to propertied class society.

Incidentally, the Herald itself, in an article several months ago, pin-pointed the “tranquilizer” drug craze in the United States, and to a more limited extent its advent in Britain, but that is past news now. Anyway, one of Mr. Hutchinson’s colleagues wrote it 

No matter where you live

Fellow workers, capitalism is world-embracing. Whether you choose to stay in this country or to emigrate, basically your position will remain unchanged, exploited in order that others may live in idle, parasitic comfort continually threatened with economic crises and war, directly resulting from the competitive system which is held in such esteem by capitalism's apologists.

Therefore whether you remain in Britain or decide to “make a go of it” across the seas (or, maybe, you are an immigrant to this country) how about giving a much-needed hand for Socialism, with a view to embarking upon the greatest adventure of all time, the fashioning of the world anew. This will mean the end of the profit motive, to be replaced by production solely for use, arising from the common ownership and democratic control of the earth's bounteous natural and industrial resources. Not competition but co-operation. We will then cease to be wage slaves, mere hired (or fired) hands, but free and equal human beings.

On a basis of Socialist understanding, this world is within our teach. What are we waiting for?

Frank Simkins

Class Dismissed - How TV Frames the Working Class (2012)

Film Review from the March 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s almost taken for granted that television doesn’t accurately reflect how we live, but it’s not always easy to articulate how it distorts the real world. Class Dismissed: How TV Frames The Working Class is a useful examination of the ways the goggle-box deceives us. The film was made in 2005 by Pepi Leistyna of the University of Massachusetts - Boston, and is easy enough to find on the internet. It only discusses American television, but the trends are recognisable elsewhere.

To follow the film, you have to tune in to the definitions of ‘class’ used. When its talking heads refer to the ‘working class’ they use the narrower meaning of people with low incomes, little power and less “cultural capital” (or what could be called sophistication). This is contrasted with ‘middle-class’ people who are a notch above on each of these scales. The ‘middle class’ is living the American Dream of gleaming affluence and clean-cut leisure.

According to Leistyna, ‘middle class’ characters on television are depicted as empowered, independent and sassy because the social and economic forces which often prevent these traits are downplayed. These characters only need to struggle against aspects of their personality which might stop them living the American Dream. Programme makers are less interested in showing issues relating to wider social forces or being dealt with collectively.

So, TV tells us how we should define success and that this is to be achieved individually, rather than through political action. An exception to these trends was Roseanne, an early nineties sitcom which retained some left-wing ideas thanks to the persistence of its show runner Roseanne Barr. However, even in this show, the family ‘made it’, and became wealthy. A British equivalent would be the Trotters becoming millionaires in Only Fools and Horses.

Leistyna gives another example of how ‘middle-class’ culture is shown on television in ways which hide wider problems: if a television show depicts a well-off black family, then this disguises the real inequalities that exist between communities. Programme makers would see it differently, of course. They would say that minorities can be shown in a positive way to challenge stereotypes and to improve how they are represented. However, Leistyna would reply that television only depicts successful characters from minority groups in ways compatible with ‘middle class’ values. He’s saying that television tolerates minorities as long as they are living that American Dream.

This depiction of those who have ‘made it’ differs from how ‘working-class’ people are presented on television. When a ‘middle-class’ character makes a mistake, it’s seen as an aberration from the confident, successful person they should be. When a ‘working-class’ character makes a mistake, it’s because that’s just what they’re like. Leistyna reels off a list of characteristics associated with ‘working-class’ people on television: bad taste, lack of intelligence, reactionary politics, poor work ethic and dysfunctional family values. Imagine a racist Homer Simpson who pushes Marge around, and you get an amalgamation of these traits. Leistyna describes how the ‘working class’ is portrayed as an underclass of hillbillies, rednecks and trailer trash whose lives are there to be ripped open on The Jerry Springer Show. Or its closest British counterpart The Jeremy Kyle Show.

Leistyna’s argument could be boiled down to saying that television reinforces ‘middle-class’ ideology as an attack on the working class. This is television as propaganda to sell the American Dream and distract us from thinking about how capitalism really works. While his argument has merit, it would be more accurate to say that the mindset Leistyna associates with a ‘middle class’ is just mainstream capitalist ideology. ‘Middle-class’ people are also alienated and exploited within capitalism, even if they don’t always have the same pressures as those lower down the social scale. The film ends by recognising that changing the ideology presented on television requires changing the society which creates that ideology. And that’s something else worth switching off your television for.

Mike Foster

Venal system under scrutiny (1997)

Theatre Review from the January 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, National Theatre.

In the best television, cinema and theatre we can often observe people living out their lives in contemporary capitalist society, and sometimes we can learn lessons, vicariously, from their experiences. Nowhere can we see the process at work better than in the great plays of Arthur Miller, of which Death of a Salesman is perhaps the peerless classic.

Willy Loman is a salesman possessed of "the American Dream'. While some of the early settlers may well have had a heroic vision of a free and just society, "the American Dream" has, for most citizens, become a tarnished nightmare. But Willy is still a subscriber. Intent on becoming "number one", his vision infects not only his relations with his clients but also those with his family and friends, perhaps especially his two sons. The two acts of Death of a Salesman chart his fall and register its impact on those around him.

There is not a single explicit reference to capitalism in the play but everywhere the venal system is under scrutiny, and its dehumanising impact registered. Miller recalls in his autobiography Timebends that at the first night in 1949 an outraged woman called it "a time bomb under capitalism". And Miller adds, "I hope it was, or at least under the bullshit of capitalism, this pseudo life that thought to touch the clouds by standing on top of a refrigerator, waving a paid-up mortgage at the moon, victorious at last."

The play's greatness lies in its ability to present us with real people with whom we can identify, not to say emphasise. Willy's collapse envelops others in its wake, and we are all engulfed in the tragedy. Capitalism has claimed yet more victims.

There are some memorable lines—lines which bear witness both to the viciousness of contemporary capitalism and the triumphant ability of humanitarian feelings to survive and flourish, come what may. Willy's friend, Charley, remarks icily, "All you've got is what you can sell", and yet it is the self-same Charley who gives Willy money each week and observes on another occasion, "No man just wants a small salary on which to survive", the implication being that money is a counterfeit coinage for things that really matter.

The present production at the National is excellent. It is difficult to imagine anything better. At the end I cheered through my tears.

Michael Gill  

The real thing (1987)

Editorial from the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

America was first sighted through a fog by a discerning Viking, who refused to let his crew go ashore and turned his prow out to sea. A thousand years and billions of hamburgers on, who is to say he didn't set a fine example? For the nation that gave us chewing gum, Nixon, muzak and Hiroshima has been relentlessly creating the world in its image to ensure that we all have a nice day, like it or not.

In a society at war with itself and its perceived enemies, everyone must try to outdo their neighbour and since no one is to be trusted completely, human traits like modesty, honesty and generosity are luxuries for display by losers only. Success is its own justification. The axioms underlying all that frenetic activity are miserably negative: fear and insecurity are the best generators of wealth; earning a living is life enhancing; people will always want to kill other people on a mass scale, god's attitude to wrong is the same since Adam; the rest of the world needs faster food and better insurance. And since what everybody must want is more—of anything-the gospel of market forces infest every waking minute: somebody, somewhere, will sell you exactly what you don't need to fill the void in your life or anaesthetise that pain. The precise cost of human and supernatural endeavour, from cancer care to eternal salvation in the loving arms of Jesus, is measured and weighed to guarantee a healthy bottom line. It's one small step back for man, but a giant leap for market penetration.

As not even force is permitted to subvert the power of money, those who claim to represent the free world have to learn to speak with permanently forked tongues, to elevate hypocrisy to the level of science. Meaningless abstractions—right, wrong, justice, truth—straighten the necessary twists of foreign policy, so that the dictatorships are allies when it suits, notional democracy is demanded when it doesn't, and former enemies are welcome if it pays. From the Indian Wars to El Salvador, America has been on the side of "right". What it arrogantly calls "the developing world" has a free choice: the attentions of the CIA or Kentucky Fried Chicken and the cherished principles of free trade—here's a dime, we keep a dollar. And if at times it begins to look as if life itself is a communist conspiracy, rest assured they have the antidote for sale on the never-never.

But have all these dreams and images which pour into Western living rooms clouded our judgement, leaving us unable to distinguish between reality and appearance? Is American life experienced only at the extremes? Well, what we can say for sure is that only six out of ten is able to read about capitalism's daily traumas; that the world's great art is appreciated only in the nation's bank vaults; that babies are now born singing the Stars and Strips and clutching pocket calculators; that just 9,000 rapes and 70,000 serious assaults occurred in the country's classrooms last year, an improvement on casualty figures for an average year of the Vietnam war. And although one child under 16 is shot on Detroit's streets every day, only 34 died last year. People with no food on their table, but a lot of forks and knives have to cut something.

The philosophy of do-it-yourself even extends to civilian defence. Guardian Angels patrol the subways and sidewalks, photographed and fingerprinted and carrying solid canes or fondling heavy metal wrenches. Nobody's going to snatch their wallets! New weapons supermarkets have sprung up, offering fetching arrays of ice picks, drills and ball pens with whip handles. Some devices were banned by the courts; others accepted. CD in some areas has become obligatory, like jury service, and they seem to know exactly where to look, who to follow and how hard to strike without killing the prey. CD freaks can become national heroes overnight.

Those with faith in an American change of heart over what is called arms control should remember that cosmetics are a national obsession. The Pentagon still believes that a general nuclear war can be limited, could be won, and therefore may be protracted. Its present arms procurement programme favours weapons which open up new areas of major military competition to make us all sleep soundly in our beds. If, then, we are due for more summitry and paper waving, it has to do with economics and places in history, with the competitive weakness of the national economy and the challenge of European and Japanese capitalism. Merely temporary restraints on a policy that must be written in stone.

Across the world the great majority of wage and salary earners strive to overcome anxiety, boredom and dreariness, most of them too busy earning a living to live much themselves. An alternative to caddying their time away is not on the agenda and just watching the players has become a major recreation. In America, the pace may be faster, the sense of unease stronger, the casualties heavier, and the deceptions and obscenities on a grander scale; but the malaise has the same roots in an essentially inhuman economic system. Republican and Democrat politicians are about to go to great pains, and spend millions of dollars, to persuade voters that their lives can be different if they exchange a President with a neck that flaps in the wind while the hair keeps its shape, for one with a smooth gullet and standard coiffure.

Pieces Together - "War is stupid." (2008)

From the April 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Land of the Free?
"For the first time in U.S. history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America's rank as the world's No. 1 incarcerator. It urges states to curtail corrections spending by placing fewer low-risk offenders behind bars. Using state-by-state data, the report says 2,319,258 Americans were in jail or prison at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults. Whether per capita or in raw numbers, it's more than any other nation. The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said." (Yahoo News, 29 February)

This is Freedom?
"As if the Government doesn't know enough about us already, it is now using lie-detector equipment (or ‘voice-risk analysis’, as it is euphemistically known) to signal whether people claiming benefit are telling the truth. If you receive a phone call from a town hall official asking about your circumstances, it seems that your answers - or rather, the tone of voice in which you give them - could well be scrutinised by a computer for telltale signs of ‘stress‘. ... In the Government's book, apparently, stress in the voice is a pretty good indication of flagrant dishonesty. You will be investigated further. Big Brother is most certainly watching you." (Times, 27 February)

War is Stupid
"The last French veteran of World War I, an Italian immigrant who lied about his age to join the Foreign Legion and fight in the trenches, died Wednesday aged 110, President Nicolas Sarkozy said. Lazare Ponticelli, the last of more than eight million men who fought under French colours in the 1914-18 war that tore Europe apart, died at the home he shared with his daughter in Kremlin-Bicêtre, a Paris suburb. Reflecting on his wartime experiences, he once said: "You shoot at men who are fathers: war is completely stupid." (Yahoo News, 12 March)

The American Dream?
"More American homeowners are mired in negative equity than at any time since the Great Depression of the Thirties ... Close to 9 million Americans, or 10.3 per cent of homeowners in the US, now owe more on their mortgages than their house is worth, according to the latest figures from Moody's, the ratings agency, as inventories of unsold homes continue to pile up in an already over-supplied market." (Observer, 24 February) "House prices in America are now falling at their fastest rate since records began in 1964, while repossessions and new houses for sale are at levels not seen since the Depression in 1929." (Observer, 2 March)

Democracy in Action?
"President Bush has vetoed a law preventing the CIA using interrogation techniques condemned by many as torture, because it ‘would take away one of the most valuable tools in the War on Terror’ ...The veto throws the spotlight back on to America's use of so-called coercive interrogation methods like waterboarding, the simulated drowning technique invented by Spanish inquisitors and adopted by regimes such as the Khmer Rouge." (Times, 10 March)