Another Australian ghost town (1965)

From the May 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Geoffrey Blainey briefly traces out the history till 1959 of the lead, silver and copper mines of Mount Isa in his book, Mines of the Spinifex. These are located in the north west of tropical Queensland. Blainey outlines the incredible number and forms of hazards that had to be faced and subdued before the mines could be opened and operated. Among these were swarms of flies, red choking dust, persistent high temperatures, scurvy, malaria and thirst. Also, hostile Aborigines, apparently fearing for their own tribal future, never hesitated to spear or club to death all surveyors and prospectors they could. Isolation, and therefore transportation, was and still is a large factor in end costs. Westwards from Townsville, its nearest port, Mount Isa lies 600 miles across plains of red dust and prickly spinifex.

Yet so promising were the chances of fortunes to be made from mining in this savage, desolate waste land that investors Australian, English, Russian and now predominately American were persuaded to advance capital to develop the mines and reduce the environment to conditions of European habitation and modern industry. Dams were built large enough to impound tropical rains and supply the needs of both town and mines for years ahead. Even the dread of medical isolation was removed with the advent of the John Flynn Flying Doctor Service. 

Capital, superb as it is in solving these massive problems of nature, must always falter and fail when confronting social problems peculiarly of its own creation. Indeed, as wild nature is tamed, in like proportion there emerges the destructive force of the class war which is an impediment to wealth production just as much as wild nature. That wary London publication. The Economist of July 9th, 1927 (writes Blainey) “prophetically warned investors that (a) metal prices could easily fall and that (b) labour conditions in Australia were onerous and (c) that the cost of equipping the mine could far outstrip the estimates,” (Mount Isa paid outfits first net profits in 1936-37 — after 13 years of sporadic operations). “It admitted that Mount Isa might become great.” Mount Isa became the largest single industry in the State, employing over four thousand workers and each week paying out £100,000 wages and "earning” over one million pounds revenue.

Commodity prices, (rising or falling), and labour problems: how these two factors have repeatedly flawed and fractured the apparently smooth and polished surface of modern society everywhere.

The first Mount Isa strike was in protest over the high price of beer. The next, 1933, closed down the mine for months. Prophetically, the miners would not return to work unless two of their sacked mates were re-employed. The prophesy of the Economist re-appears and rapidly assumes a more substantial form from December, 1963 onwards.

It was then that, theoretically, the present Mount Isa dispute began, when the Australian Workers Union (A.W.U.) representing the Mount Isa miners lodged claims for £4 per week pay rise and improved conditions. In April 1964 these were refused on the legal quibble that the £4 per week was a bonus and not a wage claim. To the mineowners, either way, the claim clearly represented an encroachment on their profit. And this is something the investors seek to avoid, even if straining of legal subtleties and cynical evasions do insult the intelligence of the workers. After another four months of apparent deliberations, in August 1964 the miners decided to ban contract labour and to revert to day wages, and to stay this way until their claims were granted. This continued for four more months, during which time the weekly wage was less than half contract rates and mine production had fallen steeply.

This was a period of fermentation. The employers declared that the contract ban by miners was a strike. Branch unions defied parent bodies. Local labour leaders emerged, more representative and knowledgeable of local affairs and tempers. Then the combustible element of victimisation was cast into this tropical furnace of class war. The popular and able leader of the contract banning miners, Pat Mackie, was sacked by the company for attending union affairs during working hours Mackie’s objection to dismissal was legally over-ruled. A few days later he was expelled by the A.W.U. (This seems to be always the weakness of the One Big Union ideal—the parent body upon formation begins again to disintegrate into hostile local factions, at odds both among themselves and against the central union authority. At Mount Isa this became very much in evidence.)

On December 10th the Queensland Government declared the area to be under Emergency Regulations and moved in extra policemen. The Mount Isa miners were ordered to resume contract work and the penalties for refusing can be One Hundred Pounds fine or six months in jail or both; in addition daily penalties can be imposed. Thus, if refusal continues for 50 days, each miner who holds out could be jailed for 25 years, be fined five thousand pounds, or both.

All this, naturally, resulted in fanning the live coals of class war. There was a quickening of union activities. More meetings, more defiance and still more Emergency Regulations and conferences. Then on December 24th, the original legal quibble of April was suddenly set aside and a £3 increase was granted. By mid-January 1965, improved conditions and contract rates were also agreed upon.

Marx, in Capital Vol. 1, Chapter VI informs us that, as distinct from other commodities, “ . . . there enters into the determination of the value of labour power a historical and moral element." (See footnote) “Moral” considerations, so dear to the hearts of our masters, now proved to be the major hindrance to immediate settlement of the Mount Isa dispute when they revealed a leaning towards working class interests. The original dispute in the material and economic sense has ended. But others took its place. These were over the re-employment of Pat Mackie by the mining company and the company recognition of the Mount Isa T. & L. C. as a future negotiating body for Mount Isa employees. With both of these Union requests the company refused to comply. And so the dispute became a strike, on the issues of victimisation and union representation, with all their implications.

While these issues were still smouldering, the Queensland Government inflamed the entire Labour Movement of Australia by yet another Emergency Proclamation which transformed Queensland into a Police State. Meetings of protest were being organised all over Australia together with pledges of moral and financial support: indeed as noted by an Age leader:

The Queensland Government in its desperate effort to check the disastrous Mount Isa strike, seems to have injected more fuel into a highly inflammable situation, which now threatens to explode into a State-wide and perhaps a Nation-wide industrial upheaval.

Not entirely surprising was the news that all the Emergency Police powers had been suspended. Premier Nicklin contrary to his earlier declared purpose for invoking these powers (“gangsterism strong-arm tactics etc., among the miners") suddenly revoked them. However, these Regulations in practice and intent were still less savage than those put into operation by the Federal Labour Government during the 1949 strike which “ . . . included freezing of union funds to prevent sustenance payments to workers, the forbidding of credit to the strikers and the use of troops to mine coal and transport it." (Herald 10.2.65)

Through February the miners firmly continued the strike, while the mining company and Arbitration Commission issue orders and counter order on the closing or non-closing down of the mine. Meanwhile hundreds of miners and their families, each week, moved outwards from this strike-bound and blighted Central Queensland Township, seeking employment elsewhere. From the other side of the world came this clear comprehending and candid appraisal of Australian affairs:

The strike is more than a local labour dispute. It is contributing to a sharp rise in world copper prices which had been falling this month.

It is infecting the whole of the Australian labour relations. The elements of legal compulsion that once seemed to be such an admirable feature of the Australian arbitration system has not been able to cope with the refactory labour force in a low-wage area like Queensland at a time of generally full employment, (The Times 10.2.65.).

Finally, Prime Minister Menzies, returning from overseas, said “ . . . its terrible that the Mount Isa works could be snuffed out by a curious character, (Pat Mackie, who by the way volunteered to withdraw from Mount Isa once the Miners’ pay and other demands were settled), who is not even an Australian.” Just how irrelevant can a person be? As though the nationality of the victimisation issue is of importance, any more than is the issue as to whether these mines are owned and controlled by Australian or “Foreign’’ capital.

Mr. Calwell, leader of the Aus. L.P., on this point declares: “What is needed above all in this Mount Isa situation is compassion for the people of Mount Isa, compassion for the families of the miners and of the shop-keepers, compassion for the men (i.e. the international investigators), who have planned great schemes of expansion only to see them frustrated . . . The dignity of the Labour movement is expressed when it takes full responsibility for everything it does.” (Age 23.2.65.)

Yet only four days earlier he supported the use of Australian troops in Borneo, indicating thereby a direct denial of compassion for “ the people, the families of peasants and soldiers, shopkeepers etc.,” on both sides who suffer the horrors of S.E. Asia warfare. Both the open class war of Mount Isa and the war in the jungles of Asia are but two warring aspects with a common origin.

Where now is the dignity of the Australian Labour Movement?

Peter Furey.

Cooking the Books: Who creates wealth? (2022)

The Cooking the Books column from the December 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Miners put faith in filters to prevent further dam disasters’ read a headline in the business section of the Times (1 November). You might think that this was an article about mineworkers being reassured that measures were in place to lessen the risk of them being drowned in some mining disaster. But you would be wrong. If you read on, it’s about measures being taken by ‘two of the world’s biggest mining groups’, BHP and Rio Tinto.

This distortion of the word ‘miner’ to mean mining companies and even the tycoons, oligarchs and other multi-billionaires who own them (see ‘world’s richest miners') is standard practice on business pages. Similarly engineering companies are referred to as ‘metal bashers’. But the owners of these companies don’t work in a copper mine and don’t operate a machine-tool. They exploit those who do, by turning into profits what their employees produce over and above the value of their wages.

Such misuse of language is not confined to the business pages. It is also common amongst defenders of capitalism. The short-lived prime minister, Truss, declaimed to the Tory conference:

‘We believe in making it easier for our wealth creators, doers and makers to get things done’ (Daily Mirror, 1 October).

She was justifying the abolition of the highest rate of income tax and the lifting of the cap on bankers’ bonuses. Apparently, bankers and other rich people ‘create wealth’. They are certainly, in some cases, ‘doers’ (though not of anything useful from the point of view of human survival) but they are not ‘makers’ of anything and they don’t create any wealth.

So, let’s go back to basics. What is wealth and how is it created? Wealth is anything that is useful to humans. Some wealth such as the light and warmth from the Sun is a free ‘gift of Nature’ but most wealth has to be produced by human activity, by humans exercising their mental and physical energy. The materials on which humans work are, like the Sun’s rays, provided by nature. New wealth is ‘created’ when humans work to fashion or refashion materials that originally came from nature into something useful to them. Doing this is ‘production’.

Some of the materials humans work on are extracted directly from nature, as by copper or zinc miners; other materials worked on have already been transformed into wealth, as the pieces of metal that engineering workers alter or assemble.

The work of creating new wealth is not just physical. Mining is not only the work of physically extracting materials from the ground; engineering is not only changing pieces of metal into something else. Like all work, these also involve planning and designing the best way to do the physical work. All work involves both physical and mental activity, at both the production unit and the individual level. There is no way that wealth can be created other than by humans working on materials that originally came from nature.

Defenders of capitalism confuse wealth with the monetary value that wealth assumes under capitalism and so assume that anybody who makes a profit is ‘creating wealth’. This has a certain perverse logic from their point of view since capitalism is not a rational system geared to creating wealth to satisfy people’s needs. Its aim is to create monetary profits.

So, let’s rephrase the ephemeral Truss’s words: ‘We believe in making it easier for our profit-seekers to make profits’. Socialists, on the other hand, believe in making it possible for the wealth creators to make useful things to directly satisfy people’s needs. This is possible only on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control by society of the materials, natural and industrial, for creating wealth.

Pioneers, Oh Pioneers! (1932)

From the November 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Observer for June 26th gives an extract from their paper of a hundred years ago, which contains the following: —

“The expedition sent out by the American Government in 1820-21 to explore the Rocky Mountains has at length been heard of after an absence of eleven years.

While west of the mountains they fell in with a tribe called the Copper Indians, who receive their name from owning extensive copper mines ; 300 of them, armed with bows and copper darts, attacked the company in day time; a severe action ensued, and only about 30 of the Indians escaped ; the rest were killed or wounded, with a loss of two killed of the company.” (Italics ours.)

The Passing Show: Day to Day Struggle—Matches Front. (1964)

The Passing Show Column from the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Day to Day Struggle—Matches Front.

Under this heading we featured a news snippet in the August, 1949 Standard. Willie Gallacher, then Communist M.P. for East Fife, was asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to allow a halfpenny increase in the cost of a box of matches. He suggested “some other way of assisting the manufacturers to meet the cost of production ” (a subsidy perhaps?).

That was not very long after the end of the war and we wonder what he would be saying about that today, because the Russian and other Eastern bloc countries are now exporting matches to this country in quite huge quantities. According to The Guardian of September 14, a large proportion of the extra 28,800,000 boxes arriving from abroad last year came from Russia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. And that's not all, for these matches are being sold to the trade at prices lower than the cost price of their British counterparts.

Would Mr. Gallacher be so concerned about the British Match industry now that the Soviet countries are beginning to compete so effectively? If British match Corporation Chairman, Lord Portal, were to announce a price increase now, our “ Communist ” friends would probably oppose it and demand bigger imports of the Eastern European brands to keep prices down. They are not, you see, opposed to trade competition as such, but only when it jeopardises Russian capitalist interests.

In 1964 Russian goods are being pushed onto the world’s markets and while the quantities are still comparatively small in some cases, it is a sign of the times. The Soviets are trying to find outlets for timber and oil. A few years ago, Russian watches were barely known in England whereas today they compete with British and Swiss watches and can be seen in practically any jeweller’s shop window.

Just how successful the Russians will be in the future is anybody’s guess, but we may be sure that they will keep on trying wherever they see the chance. We have always maintained that Soviet Russia is a capitalist power and it is news like this that adds just a little extra tit-bit to the impressive weight of evidence supporting our view. Like any capitalist country, she must sooner or later start looking to outside markets and do battle with the other giants. This will doubtless be welcomed by the slavish C.P. membership, but we can see it only as an addition to the sum total of already fierce competition and the conflicts which are the breeding ground of war.

New Robbers for Old.

Since the end of the last war, many of the old colonies have won independence, and amidst the cheers and celebrations, we have been the only ones to point out that one set of masters has merely been replaced by another, and that for workers it was certainly not a time for cheering. Time is once again proving the soundness of our claim. India, Ghana, and Indonesia, to name only three, have their ruling class well in the saddle, and striking workers are discovering that a crack on the head from a native policeman’s truncheon is just as unpleasant as one from his white predecessor.

And when the new capitalists take over, they follow the usual course of building up their industries, attracting the necessary capital and getting their workers trained to produce the all-important surplus value. In some cases, they cast greedy eyes in the direction of assets owned by foreign capitalists, particularly where a well developed industry is involved; then they move in and take over "in the name of the people.” This has happened, for instance, in Indonesia, and much of the squabbling in the Congo has centred round the mineral exploitation rights held formerly by Belgian capitalists.

The latest example to make news has been Zambia—or Northern Rhodesia as it was known until October 24th. There has been an almighty row over the mineral rights of the British South Africa Company (BSA). Apparently these are worth about £7 millions a year at present and with the approach of independence, the N. Rhodesian Government lost no time in challenging the treaties under which the rights are guaranteed. They have got together an impressive band of lawyers and economists to prove that many of the sixty years old concessions by the tribal chiefs to Cecil Rhodes’ company are “illegal.” In the words of the N. Rhodesian Government’s white paper of September 21st:—

There are certainly areas of Northern Rhodesia . . . where the authority of the Paramount Chief of Barotseland, on which the mineral rights in the western part of the territory are based, never ran. . . . They include the Nkana and Nchanga mines, representing not far short of half the copper production of the territory.

The British Government has tried to safeguard the interests of this company, among others, by putting a protective clause into the independence agreement, but at the time of writing it looks as if this is something that Kaunda’s boys will not wear. If they do not get agreement in London they promise to take the necessary political measures at home after the new state has been established.

Now it is undeniable that the British South Africa Company have made huge profits out of this area, from which is produced about fourteen per cent. of the world’s annual copper output. Since 1889 they have received £135 millions, and stand to get another £154 millions before the royalty agreement expires in 1986. Compare this with the £10 per year “enjoyed” by most African families in the rural areas. No wonder BSA are so anxious to hold on to what they have. No wonder, too, that other British mining and commercial interests are worried.. They fear antagonism and perhaps expropriation if the matter is not settled quickly.

But having said all this, we are back once again to our opening remarks. Whoever wins this battle, it will make precious little difference to those £10 a year families, or to any other Zambian worker. For them, it will still mean exploitation as usual. For their masters, business as usual—perhaps the profits will go into new pockets, that’s all.

New Club Member.

China is about to join the nuclear club. By the time you read this, she may well have exploded her first atom bomb. To the man in the street this does not make very happy reading, for no one in his right mind can view other than with horror the fact that yet another threat to his life is looming on the horizon. The press and politicians have not unexpectedly tried to play down the whole business. “Western experts believe the bomb will be a primitive affair,” says Peter Fairley in the Evening Standard of September 30. “Nobody expects the Chinese A-device to be a viable military threat for at least four years.”

Well perhaps you can get a crumb of comfort from the thought that you will have at least four years before you are atomised by a Chinese bomb—that’s if somebody else doesn’t start something beforehand. And, of course, it takes no account of the dangers of fall-out from the Chinese tests occurring in the meantime. It is interesting to note, incidentally, one of the ways in which the Chinese preparations were discovered—American Camera carrying Samos satellites were orbited over China, so those of you who thought that satellites were a “peaceful" project will have to think again.

When the test ban treaty was signed, we were not very popular for saying then that it would make no essential difference and that the threat of war was in no way lessened. While Pat Arrowsmith and other misguided CND’ers were welcoming it with sighs of relief, China was quietly developing her own bomb. Fast on the heels of France, she is the fifth capitalist power to do so. Who will be next? Perhaps Western Germany will have a go. Some of her politicians have been in favour of it for some time.

Just like the other nuclear powers, China will lose no time in wielding her bomb as a diplomatic weapon. Maybe we shall hear renewed demands from Peking for her government’s recognition and a seat at the United Nations. And this time the UJS. will have to think twice before refusing. Almost certainly the parleys of the future will include Mao's men and the conference tables will be that much bigger. So will the squabbles.

Some of the facts are now known about the exploding of the first U.S.A. Bomb at Hiroshima, of the cold-blooded calculations which went into its production, of the chicanery and double dealing between the so-called allies, and of the alleged deliberate prolongation of .the war to enable it to be used against the Japanese. Perhaps some day we will learn something also of the intrigues which have undoubtedly taken place since then, as one power after another has got its own bomb and intensified the frightful prospect of obliteration.

The futility and tragic waste of it all are glaringly obvious despite the hollow hypocrisy of capitalist statesmen. This is all that capitalism can offer us in the world where the potential for human welfare is immense.

Eddie Critchfield

Letter: Are we anti Latin American? (2022)

Letter to the Editors from the May 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are we anti Latin American?

Dear Editors

In your last issue, reviewing ‘The Truth About Trotsky’, you state ‘In 1937 Leon Trotsky, from his exile in Central America…’. Well, he was not exiled in Central America, he was exiled in Mexico. Unless of course you did that intentionally placing Mexico outside North America, thus implying that only the two English speaking countries, USA and Canada belong to North America, therefore Mexico as a Spanish speaking should be in Central America.

The shape of the American continent, from Alaska to Cape Horn, is that of geographical giant with a thin isthmus in the middle linking North from South America. In that sense, even if it burns the writer reviewing the book on Trotsky, Mexico’s place is in the North of the continent.

This brings me to a pattern in your constant depiction of anything political and ideological pertaining Latin America. And is that of a veiled attitude of dismissal every time it is mentioned.

I find this quite offensive – Guzman in Peru ‘was not a Marxist’, ‘Allende in Chile apart from nationalizing the copper, did very little’. AMLO in Mexico, Lula in Brazil, etc, etc.

As a Chilean who came here after being in prison from 1974 to 1976, I cannot help but to think of the typical position of those pseudo Marxists who love criticizing everybody else, without ever themselves doing anything practical for Socialism.

Salvador Allende was the leader of the Popular Unity government 1970-1973 which in itself is an achievement. The first Marxist to be elected by the vote in the Western Hemisphere, he showed that Chile could be transformed. First of all, the nationalization of the banks was the first measure taken by the Popular Unity, copper the second. Many of the big industry, especially textiles, were passed over to the Social Property Area. It created the ‘comandos populares’, which encouraged the participation at the municipal/local level of the working class, the same can be said of the ‘cordones industriales’ where all the big industries surrounding Santiago had been taken or expropriated and were now ran by their workers.

The Agrarian Reform was also a total success. It nationalized the largest privately owned land measuring over 40 hectares. Thus, not only economically benefited the rural workers of the countryside who became syndicalized but also the indigenous population of Southern Chile who for centuries had been reclaiming back their land.

Allende’s government lasted only for three year, but were filled with advances and hopes for most Chileans. In the last local elections before the coup, the Popular Unity had increased their votes supporting the government but, as Kissinger said, the CIA had to push for military intervention before it was too late.

As you can see, this is not an essay or article but a rough letter pointing out that you cannot make swiping statements as you do. I’m planning to continue reading Socialist Standard because it’s worth it.

Nigel de Vere, 

Bromley

Reply:

We take your point that we should not have referred to Mexico as being in Central America. We can assure you that it was an honest mistake – based on a common practice that we should no doubt have questioned – but it was in no way an attempt to belittle any particular country or part of the world.

However, while we apologise for that, we can find no reason to apologise for references in past issues of the Socialist Standard with regard to political events and developments in the Spanish and Portuguese speaking parts of the American continents which you have found offensive. You mention Guzman in Peru, AMLO in Mexico, Lula in Brazil and, in particular, Allende in Chile, and you object to our not considering such people or movements as ‘Marxist’. You are particularly critical of the views we have expressed about Allende’s Chile. While we acknowledge and appreciate your personal opposition to the post-Allende Chilean dictatorship which led to your imprisonment and to your leaving your home country, we cannot accept that the reforms brought in by the Allende government, beneficial as they may have been for many Chileans, had anything to do with Marxism or socialism as we define those terms. They clearly had a lot to do with ‘reformism’, i.e. the attempt by ‘progressive’ governments to run the capitalist system in a more liveable, and often less oppressive, way for workers. And we do not question that this brought with it ‘advances and hopes for most Chileans’. But the kind of reforms you mention, for example nationalisation of banks and industry, in no way amount to the moneyless wageless society without buying and selling based on economic equality and free access for all to all goods and services, which is the basis of Marx’s prescription for a socialist form of society.

Of course nothing prevents those advocating or practising policies of reform from calling themselves Marxist or socialist (or others referring to them in that way, often pejoratively), but our contention is that what they represent is a particular way of running the capitalist system, not a fundamental transformation of that system, which is currently dominant in various forms in all countries. We would contend that nothing in Allende’s policies or practises (though they sadly cost him his life) represented or even pointed the way forward to the wholly democratic society of common ownership and voluntary association that is truly worthy of the name ‘Marxist’ or socialist.

Having outlined our disagreement with you on this point, we nevertheless consider it a credit to your open-mindedness that you say that you will continue to read our journal because ‘it’s worth it’. Needless to say that is something on which we do agree with you.

Editorial Committee.

The politics of poverty in Zambia (2009)

From the February 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

The sudden collapse of copper prices and the consequent depreciation of the Zambian currency, the kwacha, has meant that the election promises made by the newly-elected MMD President of Zambia, Rupiah Banda, won’t be achieved in the space of three years before the 2011 general election.

The recent increase in meali meal prices from K56,000 to K75,000 per breakfast bag (25kg) led to riots in Kitwe.

  President Banda seems to be a man devoid of pragmatic ideas and that can be instanced when he appointed the discredited veteran politician Vernon Mwaanga as parliamentary chief whip. Indeed, Mwaanga and Banda were early groomed by the first President Kenneth Kaunda. Mwaanga had served in every administration ever since 1964. He was only dismissed by the last President Mwanawasa in 2007. Mwaanga is a wealthy and respected Tougha tribesman.

  Most people in Zambia feel that Banda has brought UNIP back into power—Banda was a staunch UNIP politician (foreign minister in 1972) and was living in retirement ever since the exit of the UNIP government in 1991. he only came into active politics in 2006 when the late Mwanawasu appointed him as vice-president.

  Unexpected was the dismissal of the versatile finance minister Nyanda Magande together with the outspoken female minister of local government, Silver Masebo. Indeed, the reconstituted cabinet is a pale-faced assemblage of yes men.

  The MMD government has lost touch with the vast majority of Zambian workers and it seems that Rupiah Banda’s government will be subjected to unexpected economic crises that will jeopardise his chances of winning the 2011 general election.

  But what many workers and students in Lusaka and the copper belt mining towns do not understand is the fact that the current economic and social problems confronting them cannot be resolved by the opposition Patriotic Front leader Michael Sata. There isn’t any political difference between the ruling MMD and PF. Both Banda and Sata are old and tired wealthy politicians seduced by political and economic privileges. The sudden collapse of copper prices has led to widespread job losses (redundancies) in the mining sector. It is just in such unforeseen economic misfortunes that many irate workers think that the PF leader can create economic wonders. Economic liberalisation entails free market economy in which demand and supply comes to determine commodity prices. The government of the day cannot impose itself upon the market to fix a minimum price. That is why the increase in meali meal prices cannot be restrained by the MMD government.

  In 1991, Western-sponsored economic growth programmes impact negatively upon the ordinary Zambian workers and peasants—economic growth in Zambia is enjoyed by the foreign industrial elites (through tax exemptions).

  Gross inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth mark the political, racial, ethnic and religious frustrations taking place in many countries in Africa today. The only way-out is a classless, stateless and moneyless society—socialism.

Kephas Mulenga

World View: The politics of poverty in Zambia (2001)

From the March 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are approaching the 2001 presidential and general elections and the political situation remains tense. Unemployment, poverty and the lack of viable education and health care has bred outright social discontent and resentment throughout Zambia.

President Frederick Chiluba’s MMD government is still in power and commands majority support in Parliament. The opposition parties remain weak and unable to capture a national consensus, because political allegiance in Zambia is determined by linguistic and tribal affiliations. Thus many of the opposition parties are little known in other provinces or areas. The only notable opposition parties are the UNIP, the Republican Party and the National Party for Democratic Development.

UNIP, after the retirement of Kenneth Kaunda from active politics, is embroiled in a leadership fiasco and stands a slim chance to command a large following. UNIP has a strong regional support in the Eastern province. The Republican Party, led by the local tycoon and former MMD party stalwart, Ben Muria, has a large following in the Copperbelt and Wapula provinces. The National Party for Democratic Development is led by former LONRHO group chairman in Zambia, Anderson Mazoka. This party has managed to scoop a number of parliamentary seats, mainly in the Southern and Western provinces. Its regional base is the Southern province.

An analysis of Zambia’s political scene reveals that the opposition parties have come to concentrate their election campaigns in the Copperbelt Province, especially in Kitwe. This is because historically this province has come to play a dominant role in Zambia’s domestic politics. The mining town of Kitwe is the hub of the copperbelt, inhabited by a vocal and politically aligned working class population. In this semi-industrial and mining town political consciousness and social discontent seem to be expressed more than anywhere else on the copperbelt.

The demise of the copper-mining giant ZCCM has had a marked impact on the commercial and industrial sector in Zambia. Economic development of any kind in Zambia depends upon the export potential of Zambia’s mono-copper-mining sector. Thus the privatisation of the copper mining industry has entailed the loss of revenue to the government. There has occurred a startling decline in overall commercial and industrial production in the copper belt mining towns.

The working class on the copper belt have been subjected to untold misery. The public sector has shed its labour force while those who have remained in active employment receive salaries in arrears and work under shoddy conditions. Privatisation of the public and commercial sector has led to widespread unemployment in Zambia. The surrendering of city council housing units to people paying rent to themselves has deprived the city council of revenue and thus led to a decline in community welfare.

The sale of the council houses was a presidential directive and thus political. But the future consequences were not taken into consideration; nor could these consequences be corrected by the government. Urban cities have been turned into villages overnight, characterised by social poverty, child malnutrition and squalor. This voluntary creation of slum townships is a new development in Zambia and has led to the frantic manoeuvres of President Chiluba to retain a large following.

The city townships have been turned in havens of social poverty. Because those who have purchased council houses cannot go back to rural areas when they retire, this tends to have a marked pressure on land in urban areas. Most of the retrenched working class population remain restricted in the townships, where they engage in household commercial activities of one kind or another. The unpaved roads, unlit streets and unmaintained water and sewage systems means that life in these townships remains hard and unbearable.

In an economy characterised by endemic social poverty and unemployment the MMD government is concentrating on handing out hefty amounts of money through well-timed presidential donations to needy members of society. But this is a naked political campaign gimmick which has brought rebuke upon the MMD government and tarnished the charismatic status of President Chiluba. Recently in Kitwe’s Mindolo township a Catholic priest turned down the presidential donation of K10,000,000 from the MMD Member of Parliament for Nkana constituency. It was an incident that shocked and which had never happened before.

Because the MMD government is heavily funded by mining investors like the Anglo-American Corporation, the opposition political fraternity stands a little chance to compete with the MMD in terms of campaign expenditure. Nor does anyone need to be told what purpose the colossal sums of money realised from the sale of privatised para-statal firms has been used for. If the MMD government is unable to find funds for expenditure on education and health, from where does the president get the money he hands out in donations? The widely publicised calls for a third term of office for President Chiluba are merely designed to create an image of his popularity and thus win the confidence of the overseas private investors, since, legislatively, Chiluba cannot stand for a third presidential term.

In its political composition the MMD government retains its linguistic and provincial allegiances as a party of the Wapula province. Linguistic and provincial allegiances determine the strength and popularity of every political party in Zambia. Thus tribalism acts as an impediment to multi-party politics in Zambia, and political domination comes to depend upon the entrenched historical pattern of linguistic and cultural complexities. Political consciousness is more pronounced among the relatively educated and working class in urban areas, more so than among the backward and static rural traditional societies.

Because the MMD is the ruling party, the large following it can command must be attributed more to curiosity than to sympathetic support as such. A large number of people flock to MMD political rallies just to have a glimpse of President Chiluba. But every politically conscious Zambian is aware that the MMD government has disastrously failed to resuscitate Zambia’s ailing economy.

Kephas Mulenga

Zambia

These Foolish Things: Capital corrupts democracy (1996)

The Scavenger column from the August 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capital corrupts democracy
 

Opposition supporters in Tirana, who claim that at least two of their number have been killed by government forces, held the first of a series of nationwide rallies yesterday to press President Sali Berisha to annul Sunday’s poll... The European Commission said yesterday it had received “disturbing reports” about the conduct of the election [in Albania] . . . Diplomats maintain that in spite of his increasingly embarrassing autocratic streak, Mr Berisha is also seen as the man best placed to forge ahead with unpopular market reforms. “What may be best for the region is not necessarily best for the democratic process in this country,” one Western official lamented.

(Guardian, 30 May)

Capital controls countries
  

The United States is confident that the G7 summit in Lyons will give its approval to a proposal to reduce the debt owed by the world’s poorest countries to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank . . . Earlier this year, the IMF granted Moscow a huge $10.2 billion credit to support the reforms pioneered by President Yeltsin and will clearly want to review these arrangements in the light of the outcome of the poll . . . Under the debt reduction plan for the poorest countries . . . the World Bank and the IMF could eventually provide more than $10 billion of debt forgiveness to poor countries like Uganda and Bolivia, which have approved programmes of reform in place. 

(Guardian. 6 June)

Capital games
  

Trebor . . . says the FA sent a solicitor’s letter threatening to sue for infringement of a trade mark over Trebor’s use of pictures of players in England strips [on cards in Candy Stick packets). The FA says that the appearance of its crest on players’ shirts means the shirts cannot be pictured or displayed without its permission nor, possibly, without payment for the use of the trademark. 

(Financial Mail on Sunday, 16 June)

Capital coerces
  

Britain has jumped ahead of its key European partners in the latest league table of competitiveness . . . British bosses . . . find it easier than all but two of their EU partners to hire and fire staff, “restructure” the labour force and avoid the social costs of employment.

(Guardian, 30 May)

Capital copper cock-up
  

World copper prices fell sharply when Yasuo Hamanaka, a trader for the Sumitomo Corporation of Japan, was discovered to have built up a $1.8 billion loss. Copper is heavily used in the telecommunication, electrical and automotive industries. The price reached $2,710 per tonne in May and fell to $1,855 in mid-June. Sumitomo owns 24 percent of the London Metal Exchange’s worldwide copper stockpile. The LME started investigating prices after complaints last November by major consumers. 

(Bloomberg News).

Capital hauls in the Internet
  

The new buzzwords are “branding", “infrastructure” and “gateways” as big business tries to bring about a cultural transplant for the Internet—from a global mutual help society in which hardly anything is paid for into a source of corporate profits for the next generation . . . This week BT and its US partner, MCI, announced their plans to take control of the Internet.

(Guardian, 13 June)

The Scavenger

Zambia: The Copper Elephant (2014)

From the May 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Zambia has been mining copper for almost a century. In 1889 the British South African Company was granted a Royal Charter to exploit minerals in Southern Rhodesia. Cecil Rhodes, founder of the De Beers Mining Company, had a vision to build a Cape-to-Cairo railway line, allowing minerals to be transported from Cape Town in South Africa to Cairo in Egypt – en route to Europe. Massive copper ore deposits were only discovered in the Copperbelt in 1920. During the 1940s there was a tide of nationalism in the mining towns of the Copperbelt Province characterised by strikes that were organised by the Mine Workers’ Union, led by Lawrence Katilungu.

This prompted the British colonial government of the day to pass a Public Order Act to stem the tide of African political consciousness on the Copperbelt mining towns. The Public Order Act still remains in force today and the PF government is widely criticised for enforcing the act to prohibit political demonstrations of any kind.

Zambia became a member of the IMF and World Bank in 1964. The first republican president Kenneth Kaunda nationalised the privately-owned copper mines in 1968. This was followed by the forming of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines in 1972 (ZCCM). In 1973 CIPEC was inaugurated in Lusaka with the major copper-producing countries, namely Chile, Zaire and Peru. But CIPEC the intergovernmental council of copper-exporting countries failed to contain the falling prices of copper on the international commodities markets. The Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) by Ian Smith in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) meant that Zambia had to find another trade route for the exports and imports. Kaunda invited the Chinese Peoples’ Republic to build a railway line from Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia to Tundunia in Tanzania. Tazara Railway Authority was created to manage the jointly-owned railway company. This was followed up by the construction of a pipeline to transport crude petroleum from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Indeni Oil Refinery in Ndola. This was the beginning of what has been dubbed a ‘Socialist Economy’ in Zambia.

In 1973 Kaunda declared Zambia a one-party state and passed the Emergency Powers Act that prohibited the formation of political parties. The ideology of Humanism was promulgated on the premise that it was going to unite the people of Zambia. But falling copper prices and increasing production costs in the state-owned mines posed economic and social problems – the breaking-apart of Soviet ‘Communism’ in eastern Europe led to incessant demands for political pluralism. In 1980 there was an attempted military coup-d’état against Kaunda. In 1983 he was forced to seek economic aid from the IMF. The official Economic Structural Adjustment Programme was imposed by the World Bank in 1983. These structural adjustment programmes gave rise to food shortages, a black market, work stoppages and student demonstrations which forced Kaunda to pull out of the IMF. This period was characterised by political detentions, and many dissidents disappeared under unexplained circumstances.

When the MMD came to power in 1991 Zambia was subjected to Economic Liberalisation Measures that have continued today.

The legacy of extractive colonialism and the recent far-reaching economic liberalisation reforms is what has come to characterise the Zambian state today.

The state remains corrupt and misinformed. Political consciousness grounded on regionalism alongside a concerted effort by mining companies to hide data – leaves the government with scanty information on the ownership and mining activities. Tax evasion, fraud, environmental damage and human rights abuse are rarely punished even if discovered by the government. The most striking example of this was when two Chinese managers at Collum Mine shot and wounded 13 Zambia workers during a strike in 2000.

Today, copper leaves Zambia loaded on trucks and trains bound for Dar es Salaam and ports in South Africa. The increased copper exports to China is attributed to the opening up of new copper mines owned by the Chinese government in the Copperbelt Province (Chambishi Metals, Non-Ferrous Copper Mines, Chambishi Copper Smelter). A detailed report into the operations of Mopan Copper Mines revealed that cobalt extraction rates were twice inferior to that of other producers of the same mineral.

A glance at the top shareholders of the largest copper mining companies is revealing. Prominent shareholders in Vedanta Resources, First Quantum Minerals and Glencore are Black Rock Asset Management, Standard Life, Capitol Group and the government of Singapore.

Black Rock, J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs currently buy around 80 percent of the available copper in Zambia. Zambia produces 16 percent of the world’s copper and it has the richest copper ore deposits in the world. However, copper mining only contributes 2 percent of government revenue. Koukola Copper Mines was first sold to Anglo-American Mining Corporation for a paltry $90 million in 2002. But in only a few months Anglo-American pulled out of KCM. The MMD president Levy Mwanawasa sold 5 percent of shares in KCM to Vedanta Resources in 2002. The deal was facilitated by Clifford Chance and Standard Chartered Bank.

When Vedanta bought KCM it inherited many of the concessions enjoyed by Anglo-American Mining Corporation – tax dividends, interest on royalties and management fees. But KCM’s reputation in Zambia sank to a new low in 2012 when it announced that it was going to mechanise its underground operations: this entailed retrenching 2000 workers. President Sata threatened KCM with revoking their mining licence if KCM retrenched the workers. But KCM’s chief executive Kishor Kumar went ahead and dismissed 54 workers. Sata was furious, so much so that Kishor Kumar was served with a deportation order and fled from Zambia in 2012.

It is common to hear conventional politicians often describe foreign companies as investors whose presence in the country helps create employment even at the cost of making profits. This misconception of capitalism could not be further from the truth.

To quote from Walter Rodney’s book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa:

  ‘The question as to who and what is responsible for the economic underdevelopment of Africa can be answered at two levels – firstly the answer is that the operation of the imperialist system bears responsibility for the economic underdevelopment of Africa by draining African wealth and making it impossible to develop more rapidly.
  Secondly one had to deal with those who manipulated the system and those who are either agents or unwitting accomplices of the system. The capitalist nations of western Europe were the ones who actively extended the exploitation from inside Europe to cover the whole of Africa. In recent times they were joined by the government of the USA..’

Kephas Mulenga, 

Kitwe, Zambia

Marxism in Chile? (1971)

From the March 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Salvador Allende is not the first president of Chile to proclaim himself a revolutionary. When Allende’s predecessor, the Christian Democrat Frei, was elected in 1964 he pledged himself to a “revolution in liberty”. Two years later found him sending in the army to break a strike in the copper mines; eight people were killed. As Fidel Castro rather neatly put it: “He promised revolution without blood and has given blood without revolution.”

Like Allende, Frei was elected on the strength of his promises to solve two basic problems. Firstly the concentration of land in the hands of a few vastly wealthy families while 350,000 peasants have no land at all. And secondly the domination of Chile’s economy by foreign (mainly American) capital, which is held to be responsible for the chronic unemployment in the country (currently running at about 7 per cent.) and the destitution of a large section of the population (one half of all families live on less than thirty dollars a month).

Frei’s initial boast was that 100,000 landless peasants would be settled on their own farms. But his attempts at redistributing the land were firmly resisted by the great landowners and in the six years between 1964-70 less than a third of those who had been promised plots of land got them. Estimates of the number of peasants resettled vary considerably, from 18,600 families relocated (Economist, 12 September, 1970) to 30,000 families (Time, 19 October). Similarly American interests in Chile (total US capital in the country stands at about $1,000m., including more than $500m, in the copper mining industry) fought vigorously to avoid Frei’s tentative moves towards nationalization. The Christian Democratic programme involved such schemes as the ‘Chileanisation’ of the $200m. American-owned Anaconda Company, with the government arranging to buy 51 per cent. of the company’s stock, as well as putting pressure on foreign companies to promote more Chileans to top management posts.

Predictably enough, Frei’s inability to fulfil his promises and make any significant inroads on peasant and working class misery, while at the same time he scared conservative elements with his talk of land expropriation and nationalisation, led to a polarisation in Chile’s politics in the 1970 presidential election. The slump in the popularity of the Christian Democratic candidate (Frei had got an overall majority in 1964, while his party’s nominee — Tomic — got only 27.8 per cent, of the vote in September 1970) has been partly explained by the behaviour of the frightened landowners and others who switched their allegiance to the right wing candidate, Jorge Alessandri. But, of course, the landowners form only a tiny fraction of Chile’s population and for Alessandri to get the 34.9 per cent, of the votes which he did, he had to attract the support of hundreds of thousands of workers and peasants committed both to capitalism and the traditional form it takes in Chile. That this was the case is made quite clear by the fact that Alessandri topped the poll in Chuquicamata, the principal copper mining centre in the country and obviously therefore an area with a high concentration of workers.

No less committed to capitalism were the 36.3 per cent. of the voters who opted for the ‘Popular Unity’ candidate, Salvador Allende. Allende has built up a popular front around the so-called ‘Communist’ and ‘Socialist’ parties which also takes in the Radicals and a number of smaller organisations such as ‘Independent Popular Action’ and an offshoot from the Christian Democrats — the ‘Action Union for Popular Unity’. These movements have allied themselves on the basis of an extensive reform programme which, if carried through, will lay the foundation for a restructuring of the Chilean economy along state capitalist lines. Its broad outlines consist of nationalising the copper industry, the banks, the strategic industries and the monopolies in the distributive sector — or, as Popular Unity jargon has it, of nationalising “all the activities which conditions the economic and social development of the country”. Tied in with this, there is to be an “extension of agrarian reform”, measures “to assure monetary stability” and a “plan for social security: health, work, housing.”

All this has been expressed by Allende in popular slogans such as “A half litre of milk per day for each child” or “We want our people to eat, to have work, to have homes, to have the guarantee of health.” And it is small wonder that he has found a responsive audience (including, as he points out himself, the “enlightened capitalists”) when more than half of all children in Chile are recognised to be undernourished and hundreds of thousands live in tenements where one or even two families jammed in a single room is considered normal.

Yet not only does the united front programme not represent an advance towards Socialism as many Popular Unity supporters imagine, but the fact is that Allende’s policies will not even radically alter class relations within the existing capitalist society in Chile. Those who are pinning so much hope on nationalisation should remember that this will not be an entirely new phenomenon. Already the state in Chile controls the power industries (including oil), the steel industry, the railways and — in part — telecommunications. As for the banks, which the new government is in the process of nationalising completely, even under Frei sixty per cent. were controlled by the state. It is obviously relevant, then, to ask just what benefits previous experiments in nationalisation have brought to Chile’s working men and women — and why this new wave of takeovers by the state should produce any different results?

In a public announcement to mark the constitutional amendment which will allow the state to take over the copper industry, in December 1970, President Allende said: “Since 1930 the big companies which exploit the copper deposits have realised profits totalling $3,700m., which represent 40 per cent. of the total wealth of Chile . . . The nationalisation of copper will be worth $70m. a year to Chile.” The popular interpretation which is being put on statements like this is that these profits from the nationalised industries are to be directed towards building more houses for workers, pushing up wages and generally improving the quality of life of the masses of the people. But will capitalism allow such priorities to influence the running of Chile’s economy?

Since Allende is proud to announce that he has read his Marx, he must know that:

  … the development of capitalist production makes it constantly necessary to keep increasing the amount of capital laid out in a given industrial undertaking, and competition makes the imminent laws of capitalist production to be felt by each individual capitalist, as external coercive laws. It compels him to keep constantly extending his capital, in order to preserve it, but extend it he cannot except by means of progressive accumulation.

Allende’s Chile, just like any other country operating within the world capitalist economy, will have to compete on the international markets to sell its products. The prices of its commodities can be made competitive only by Chile keeping abreast of world developments in industrial innovation, by constantly reinvesting in new plant — by constantly accumulating capital. And this can be done only by Chile’s industries — whether nationalised or not — pumping surplus value out of the working class. That these “external coercive laws” are continuing to operate was made quite clear in a radio speech by the new President when he announced that daily production of coal is to be stepped up from 3,800 tons to 4,700 tons — and then called on the miners to make sacrifices so that Chile’s coal can be sold at competitive prices on the world market.

Because the popular front government is responsible for Chile’s capitalist economy, inevitably it is being brought into conflict with the workers and peasants. Already there have been several strikes, some involving the occupation of factories, both in the capital Santiago and in the provinces. In December 1970 telephone workers in Santiago took over the central telephone building and held some hostages, calling for the immediate introduction of new salary scales which the government said it would introduce in time. In the same month three thousand municipal workers stopped work for 48 hours after demanding pay rises which the ‘Communist’ Minister of Finance refused, while fifteen thousand administrative workers were on strike too.

It could happen, as a result of events in Chile, that as the anti-working class policy of the Popular Unity government emerges more and more clearly, this could be blamed on its electoral strategy. There will, of course, be a number of confused people prepared to argue this way, suggesting that it was Allende’s reliance on the vote which prevented the building of Socialism in Chile, but socialists must explain that it was not the method of using the democratic machinery of elections which has proved inadequate. The capitalist system has persisted for the far more elementary reason that all of the movements in the popular front stand for capitalism and were voted into power by workers and peasants who are also still thinking along entirely capitalist lines.

Indeed, far from elections having been proved worthless, perhaps the only positive lesson for the working class to come out of Allende winning the Presidency is the way it showed how control of the state is all important.

Chile is politically the most advanced country on the South American continent, where there has been no coup d’état for almost forty years. The fact that workers there have achieved basic democratic rights which enable them to organise trade unions and vote freely is a measure of the level of political maturity reached. Once in power Allende found he could push through the reform programme of his government, even against considerable minority opposition, because the armed forces were always at his disposal. In the same way, when there is a socialist majority in Chile, the most ready means of advancing to Socialism will be for the workers there to use their votes to capture the state machine . In that way, they will be able to reorganise society on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, a very different thing from nationalisation. That will be the real socialist revolution — but, meanwhile, the good name of Marxism is being dragged through the dirt in Chile.

John Crump

God and the Price of Copper (2016)

From the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

  A socialist in Zambia explains how politicians and governments in countries like Zambia that export one basic commodity are at the mercy of world market conditions. Zambia is not alone in this respect.

Zambia is currently gripped by an economic crisis, characterised by falling copper prices, the depreciating kwacha, and electricity blackouts. Prices of essential commodities have shot up due to the depreciation of the kwacha. Sensing danger, President Edgar Lungu of the ruling PF despatched his deputy secretary-general Mrs Mumbi Phiri to the ZNBC, where she gave an assessment of the significance of the economic problems facing the country.

The radio interview took place on 14 September and the public were invited to ask her questions through the phone calls. She explained that the reasons why Zambia was facing social and economic problems was because of the falling copper export prices to China – the largest purchaser of Zambia’s copper exports. She went on to assure listeners that the reason why Zambia was experiencing electricity blackouts was due to low water levels in the Kariba North Bank hydro-power station occasioned by poor rainfall. The depreciation of the kwacha, she said, took effect after the death of President Sata in September 2014 and was due to reasons other than the fall in copper prices.

However, the Kariba North Bank hydro-power station was initially designed to generate power for up to three years regardless of poor rainfall received in the previous years. At the inception in 1976 the power station had four turbines with a capacity to generate 600 MW of power (150 MW each). During 2011 the turbines were upgraded to 180 MW each, bringing the total to 720 MW. Further expansion of the facility initiated through the Kariba North Bank Expansion Programme saw the addition of two turbines of 180 MW each, bringing the total generating capacity to 1080 MW.

The real reason why the Kariba North Bank power station is experiencing low water levels is because the turbines are being overused – they are run at longer hours than they were initially designed for. That is to say that the engineers at ZESCO have been operating the known peak units beyond the normal three to four hours a day, thus resulting in increased water usage and ultimately low water levels in the Kariba dam.

Falling copper prices

The copper mines consume much of the power, with domestic consumers accounting only for a small fraction. Power supply to the copper mines has been cut to 30 percent. This had led to production costs increasing 40 to 60 percent as the power deficit worsens.

Zambia is a capitalist country dependent on copper exports from which it derives 90 percent of its revenue (in taxes and royalties). The drop that has now taken place in the price of copper exports in the international market has had a great influence upon political developments taking place within Zambia. The price of copper originating from international political and economic events is in fact the main reason affecting the history of politics in Zambia.

During the 1980s there was a letdown in inflation in western Europe that led to the fall of ‘Communism’ in Eastern Europe, and later spread to Africa where single-party political dictatorships were hastily replaced with multi-party political systems. When the MMD came to power in 1991 copper prices were at an all-time low – the privatised copper mines failed to make any impact on the liberalised economy. Both Wanslea and Konkola copper mines were closed down due to falling copper prices. The Chinese state capitalist investors saw a chance to open up new copper mines and went forth to set up NFCA and Chambishi smelters in Kitwe.

In 2008, after the death of President Mwanawasa, a bank mortgage crisis began in the USA and later spread to every part of the world. In Zambia copper prices tumbled to their lowest on the London Commodities Exchange. People lost confidence in the MMD and voted for the PF under President Sata in the 2011 presidential elections.

It is fair to point out the vivid fact that when Sata came to power in 2011 the banking crisis that had struck the USA and western Europe was on the wane. China was catching up with the USA in terms of international trade and investment. Thus Sata thought he had found a trusted political and economic partner in economic development.

The social changes initiated by Sata were mostly carried out by Chinese state-controlled companies. The price of copper was rising on the export market– this led Sata to revise tax incentives of copper mining companies in 2013. However, this increasing of the mineral royalty taxes upon the copper mines had a deleterious effect upon the operations of the copper mines, resulting in job losses.

The economic slowdown that has since taken place in the Chinese economy has contributed in total to the collapse of copper prices in Zambia today and thus the diminishing profitability of copper mining.

The fact is that the significance of social and economic policies pursued by any political party in Zambia can only succeed in relation to the prevailing copper prices on the international market,. .

Turning to God

In late August 2014 there was a sudden collapse of copper prices in China which caught President Lungu unawares. The foreign exchange rate relative to the USA dollar sunk to the lowest ebb. Facing incessant criticism from both the church and the political opposition, President Lungu found himself helpless. He turned to God for help. He appealed to the people of Zambia in strong terms and told them to fast and pray to God on 18 October for him to bless the nation.

People responded to the President’s appeal and duly converged in their respective places of worship and paid homage and reverence to God. Some congregations reported having seen a rainbow envelope the Sun during the said occasion.

Whether God did answer the prayers that took place remains to be seen, but it is certain that the prayers of those people with political careers and private property will have been duly answered. But for the workers, peasants and students the prayers seem to have made them less emotionally and spiritually bewildered.

The fact is that the kwacha has kept on depreciating and electricity blackouts remain unresolved. And the price of copper remained depressed.

In our scientific prognosis of capitalism– we in the WSM are of the view that the economic factor plays a major role in determining political, intellectual and religious whims of a given society. Our message to the workers, peasants and students in Zambia remains the same: capitalism cannot offer a permanent solution to social, political and economic crises.

Voting for another set of recycled politicians into parliament is not a solution. The workers must utilise the limited political freedom granted it through the medium of the vote to vote capitalism out of the world. Vote for socialism– the alternative to capitalism.

Kephas Mulenga, 

Kitwe, Zambia

Zambia: Corruption and the Origin of a Local Private Capitalist Class (2018)

From the May 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

Corruption defined as the pilfering and shameful mismanagement of state resources first appeared to rear its ugly head after the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) came to power in Zambia in 1991. During the authoritarian one-party state under Kenneth Kaunda members of the United National Independence Party central committee had been forbidden from amassing private wealth of any kind.

When the MMD came to power under President Chiluba it pursued a rigorous policy of economic liberalisation defined as privatisation. State-owned companies were auctioned off at prices below their book value. Corruption as a political vice first came to public attention when the third republican president Levy Mwanawasa made corruption allegations against former MMD president Fredrick Chiluba in 2002. It was alleged that Chiluba had swindled the government of millions of dollars through Access Financed Services and the Zamtrop state security account operated in the UK. The MMD government under Dr. Chiluba was afterwards blamed for having instituted a culture of graft and impunity that stalled Zambian economic development.

Creating a capitalist class

The main task the MMD government set itself when it came to power was the social and economic empowerment of indigenous Zambians. The MMD went on to create what was a private-sector capitalist class dominated by economically empowered Zambian entrepreneurs. To quote from the late Dr Chiluba’s speech when defining the new capitalist society:

  ‘Ours is a capitalist society. It is therefore inevitable that in part and I repeat in part we must address the goal of privatisation within the context of the people’s relations characteristic of a capitalist economy. As part of the realisation of our aim to eradicate poverty in our country we must strive to create and strengthen a Zambian capitalist class – the new culture. Because we come from the disadvantagedmany of us feel embarrassed to state their goal as nakedly as we should. All this frightens and embarrasses all of us who are Zambians and might be part of the rich. Accordingly we walk as far and faster as we come from the nation, that the struggle against poverty in our country must include the objective of creating a new Zambian bourgeois. As part of our continuing straggle to wipe out this legacy of poverty we must work to ensure that there emerges a Zambian bourgeoisie whose presence within our economy and society will be part of the process of privatisation of the economy and society.’

The task of privatising sections of the economy proved to be a nefarious and blatantly corrupt affair which had a triple effect upon the poor and marginalised working class. Unemployment trebled due to the abrupt liquidation of state-owned companies and the once economically vibrant copper-belt mining towns of Kitwe, Chingola, Mufulira, Ndola and Chililabonbwe became ghost towns. In most cases workers made redundant from parastatal companies have until today not received their redundancy packages. President Chiluba went on to surrender council houses to sitting tenants in a move designed to socially empower the Zambian citizens, a move that had dire social economic consequences upon local authorities. Privatisation dubbed ‘economic empowerment’ helped give rise to social squalor and urban poverty of a severe kind.

The idea that public property belongs to no one in particular is an entrenched feeling among ordinary Zambians, especially those who work in the civil service. It makes them solicit money from people seeking to obtain things like a visa, a passport or a driving licence. The police appear to be the most corrupt civil servants in the sense that they set free criminals upon receiving money. It is very rare for a magistrate to convict a rich person in Zambia today. The vice of corruption has spread into the Ministry of Education where examination leaks appear to be the order of the day. Under the new private enterprise culture ‘social and economic empowerment’ is a political slogan that legalised street vending, prostitution and crime. The privatisation of the ZCCM led to the emergence of self-styled copper dealers called ‘jerabos’ who steal copper cathodes and concentrates from the private owned copper mines where security became lax after the dissolution of ZCCM mine police unit.

Thus corruption in Zambia has been a matter of accumulating wealth and social status as most of the Zambian capitalist class derived its wealth through outright corruption.

When Levy Mwanawasa passed away in 2008 he was succeeded by his Vice-President, Rupiah Banda, as acting President. In 2010 Banda had to quash the pending corruption allegations against Chiluba because he was cognisant of the fact that corruption was a means to economic empowerment under the MMD government. Corruption was at its highest peak during the time Banda was head of state. It was President Banda, acting with his son Andrew, who was alleged to have milked millions of dollars from the Zambian government under a dubious contract to purchase oil from Nigeria in 2009. The taskforce created by President Mwanawasa proved toothless when it came to arresting and convicting politicians alleged to be corrupt.

‘Anti-corruption’ campaigns

‘Anti-corruption’ is used as a weapon of political victimisation against political opponents and as such is not transparent. In his inaugural address when he was sworn in as president of Zambia in 2016 President Lungu promised the people of Zambia that he was going to continue the legacy of the late President Sata through creating more jobs and fighting corruption. President Lungu is not a domineering and abrasive leader when compared to the late Michael Sata – without rigidity or defined ideological convictions. Ascending to the leadership of the Patriotic Front (PF) without a flamboyant political background Lungu has come to rely on the political goodwill of the masses and his closest stooges.

After the initial political blizzard of 2014 the PF government under Lungu has presided over the recovery of the Zambian economy. Favourable copper prices from demand in South East Asia (mostly China and Malaysia) boosted investor confidence in the mining sector. The release of the United Party for National Development (UNPD) leader Hicilema helped to cast a positive image of political tolerance and the rule of law. In Africa and overseas Lungu seems to have won a lot of political and economic accolades. The European Bank, World Bank and Amnesty International have expressed satisfaction with his style of leadership.

But from within the apparently stable political and economic outlook looms the ugly revelations day in and day out of corruption taking place in the high echelons of the PF government, fuelled by allegations from former Minister Chishimba Kambwili who was himself dismissed for corruption. The report of the Auditor-General on the estimates of capital expenditure reveal gross irregularities in the procurement and implementation of government programmes. Yet the erring ministries or public officers are not prosecuted.

Policing corruption, as with the recent forced resignation of President Zuma in South Africa, will not resolve the dilemma of social poverty and corruption. Corruption is just another face of capitalist society that is endemic to the system. It is just another problem that cannot be resolved unless money, government and leaders are dispensed with.

A one-party state is a feature of state corruption in which a handful of individuals exploit the majority of workers. Parliamentary democracy on the other hand is made up of wealthy and ambitious politicians trying to reform capitalism. They hoodwink the working class into voting for them by promising them a heaven on Earth. But once the politicians win elections and become leaders the workers remain mere spectators of any political and economic changes taking place in society.

Socialist ideas need a revolutionary class behind them to become practical. The problems facing capitalism require conscious political action by socialists and the democratic capture of political power. Everything else is reformism and leads to total disappointment.

Kephas Mulenga

Cooking the Books: Dreaming of a super cycle (2008)

The Cooking the Books column from the January 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 19 November the (London) Times published a special supplement on “Minerals and Mining”. One optimistic article “Boom time for world-wide mining” raised the prospect that world mining was entering a “super cycle” and that “we are now in the early stage of a prolonged upward shift in prices, fuelled by the industrialisation of China and India”.

Industrialisation involves not just the building of new factories but also the uprooting of people from the countryside and their move to urban industrial centres to work. One expert spoke of “the movement of anything from around 10 million to 20 million people per year into an urban setting” in China, so increasing the demand for new houses, roads, administrative buildings and the other features of an urban infrastructure.

Copper is used extensively in the construction industry, for electric wiring and the like. Recent years have seen a boom in the price of copper and the other base metals, zinc (used for galvanising steel and batteries) and nickel (also used in steelmaking), attributed largely to the increased pace of industrialisation in China since 2003. The optimists believe that their “super cycle” will be the third in the last 150 years, “the previous two occurring around the end of the 19th century as the US became a major economic power and the second being the post war expansion of the Japanese and European economies after 1945”.

Three days later, the headlines of the Times business section read: “Fears of recession in US spook commodity markets” and “The wheels are coming off the supercycle”:

A metals analyst, Nick Moore gave his opinion:

“’The supercycle has a flat tyre,’ Mr Moore said, referring to a theory promoted by some analysts and mining groups which suggested that extraordinary demand from China and India would sustain continued long-term growth and prevent the traditional boom and bust cycle of the mining industry. ‘China is not the tooth fairy that can absorb all the ore’”.

Of course since, as on all markets, speculators operate on the commodities market, too much store should not be set on short-term changes there. But the state of the US economy is relevant since China is not industrializing on its own: the motor is exports. If, due to a recession in the US, these fall off so will China’s demand for copper and zinc and the mining industry will suffer from “overcapacity”. Hence the comment of the Times Business Editor, James Harding, that “in the longer term, there is concern that the industry has retained its tendency towards oversupply, adding production capacity and removing the squeeze that props up prices”.

In other words, the classic scenario under capitalism. When the market for some product is expanding, all the firms supplying it assume that this will continue and invest in new productive capacity; when all this comes on stream it is found that supply exceeds demand and boom turns to bust and slump. The mining industry has traditionally been prone to this because of the longer time needed to explore for, find and extract minerals than to build a factory. The last time the world mining industry went through a slump was in the 1990s:

“At that time, with lower demand and lower prices, and in the midst of technological change, metals were, as Tulpulé [chief economist at Rio Tinto] puts it ‘passé’. This of course led to a lack of investment in plant, a fall off in exploration, and a declining growth on the supply side” ( London Times, 19 November).

As long as capitalism lasts, this zigzagging between boom and slump will always be the course of economic activity.