Pathfinders: The New Untouchables (2012)

The Pathfinders Column from the February 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists will greet with mixed feelings the news that a milestone in genome sequencing has been reached, enabling anyone to have their entire genome sequenced in one day for just £650 (Independent, 11 January). This task, until recently a hundred-million dollar enterprise involving tens of years and hundreds of scientists, can now be knocked off on a wet Wednesday by a single bored boffin using a machine the size of a microwave oven. In a year or two perhaps, the same feat will be achieved in ten minutes by licking the end of your smart phone.

That this is a testament to the awesome acceleration of science is undeniable. The benefits for the future management or prevention of diseases through individual designer treatments are also undeniable. Humanity’s drive to know itself, to know its essential nature is irresistible, the stuff of legends. There ought to be no down side. But this is capitalism we’re talking about. Information about your body and health prospects can be used against you as well as for you, and the fact that this information will be of interest to insurers and employers is not merely a probability but a racing certainty. As in the film Gattaca (1997), your life and career choices could well be determined and circumscribed by what’s in your genes.

Genome-profiling could be written into contracts everywhere from pre-school to pre-nuptial agreements. It could become the hot new style accessory, the ‘new black’, better than the sports car or the Rolex, better than the implants or the permatan.  Eyes won’t meet anymore across crowded bars, or pheromones traverse the stilly air, nor will courage have to be summoned for the first hesitant approach. Instead, iPhones will poll each other automatically, protocols will synchronise, alerting you to genetically suitable breeding partners according to matched genomic probabilities. Before you’ve even exchanged glances, your hardware will have exchanged financial histories, bought the first round of drinks and booked the dinner table. While nature remains red in claw, human nature will become blue in tooth.

Disability groups, accustomed anyway to being ‘second-class citizens’, have every right to worry about all this. From being chronically under-employed, they may soon become regarded as unemployable, a highly disquieting condition in a social system that only values ‘productive’ workers and which in the past has thought nothing of liquidating ‘unproductive’ ones. But this technology will have the effect of ‘disabling’ many more people than those currently bearing the label. The definition of ‘disability’ will also be extended forward in time to include anyone who is likely to develop a disabling disease in the future, creating a large subset of sell-by-date workers whom employers will not want to bother investing in, whom state institutions like health and education will neglect, whom mating partners will avoid, and whom insurers won’t touch with a barge pole.

Would this subset, driven by lack of opportunity and perhaps a cold sense of fatalism, turn in desperation to insurrection or to crime? Would they be categorised as a social problem at birth? Could two such individuals, the new genetic ‘untouchables’, be charged with criminal negligence if one got the other pregnant? Hard upon the arrival of the genomic ID card would follow the inevitable question of controlled breeding, forced sterilisation, and euthanasia. Capitalism’s quest for maximum return for minimum outlay could give rise to a new fascism in which only the genetically ‘perfect’ have any chance to succeed, or even survive. Eugenics, the dirty word of the Nazi era, could make a comeback.

Given what happened in Nazi Germany, people forget that the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century was not initially seen as some right-wing state-backed war on the underdog, but a forward-thinking, progressive and humane project based on good science. The Fabians supported it, as did Bernard Shaw, the Webbs, Darwin’s own son, in fact virtually all of the ‘right-thinking’ intellectuals. Who would not want a purer gene pool, they thought? What justification could there be for allowing pain and disease to proliferate? Wasn’t eugenics in the best interests of the whole human race?

The theory wasn’t entirely watertight even in its own terms. It had already been shown by 1915 that genetic mutation could jump heritability lines and that heritability was not a closed system but was subject to outside interference. Nowadays a lot more is known about horizontal gene transfer through viral drift. This won’t stop the modern eugenicists, however, since engineering can build by design what crude artificial selection cannot sculpt by elimination. Even if a mutation crops up in a previously ‘pure’ strain it can be engineered back out again. In theory, anyway. In practice, the codebook is open, but nobody knows what the letters mean, and we can only guess by inference when a letter changes. Even if they could read the code, geneticists may never untangle the complex webs of phenotypic effects influenced by one genetic ‘word’, nor identify all the genetic elements necessary to create one – and only one – effect. This unfathomable complexity – pleiotropy – yawns like an abyss between the engineers and their brave new world, but the bridges are being constructed.

There will of course be cries of moral outrage, appeals to civil liberties, and demands for ethical oversight. Capitalism will pay lip-service to these insofar as it has to, but its logic compels it to find out whatever can be found out about the ‘worth’ of each worker, each human tool, and stock its toolbox accordingly.

The argument that it won’t put in its toolbox is the one about putting all your eggs in one basket. Evolution is even more blind and capricious than capitalism. The last thing any thinking species ought to do, if it wants to survive, is confine itself to one tight genetic niche and thereby maximise its vulnerability. That’s the way to become beautiful – and extinct. Genetic diversity doesn’t lead to a shallow and polluted gene pool, as our elitist, narrow-minded and anally-retentive forebears conceived of it. It leads to the best possible defence against extinction in the event of future diseases. Even if one leaves aside every possible moral argument about the ‘right to life’ of all humans, the simple threat of evolutionary extinction alone ought to be enough to annihilate this silly notion of eugenics once and for all. Let all humanity prosper, and bugger the chromosomes.

It’s something of an indictment of capitalism that one even has to make this utilitarian argument in the first place. Moral outrage ought to be enough. But it isn’t, because capitalism has no brain, no heart, and no foresight. As long as the money rolls in, let the heads roll as they may.

Paddy Shannon

All in what together? (2012)

The Greasy Pole column from the April 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Such is the glut of material it is not necessary to drill too deeply into political history to excavate an impressive sample of pledges, slogans, phrases deposited by our leaders which they came to regret. For example during the devastating slump of the 1930s a few million unemployed who had returned from the war bitterly questioned the meaning of Lloyd George and his “Land Fit For Heroes”. In the 1960s there was Harold Macmillan dreamily talking of a time when a customarily struggling people “never had it so good”. Labour Prime Minister, James Callaghan never lived down “Crisis? What Crisis?” when he was asked, as he returned from an economic summit in the West Indies in 1979, about his plans to deal with British capitalism’s turmoil. The fact that he did not say this (it was no more than a reporters’ version of what he had said) did not lessen the impression of a flippant dismissal of a serious problem and led to the loss of Labour votes. And recently, as the present recession (of a kind widely assumed by the economic experts to be a thing of the past) rumbled into its stride, David Cameron attempted to rally us with the assurance that: “We are all in this together”.

Ancestry

What right has Cameron to speak to us in this way? Well, in this social system with its historically characteristic class structure there is all he needs to give him that right. His background is rich in antecedent; through his paternal grandmother he is a direct, if illegitimate, descendant of King William IV and, through tortuous lineage, a fifth cousin of the present queen Elizabeth. Apart from being blue-blooded, he is (possibly to his own relief) a son of a family with a long and lucrative history of high standing in banking and trade. His late father benefited from a family tradition of being a senior partner in one of London’s richest, most powerful stockbrokers. If this is not enough to secure his superior place in the social hierarchy, Cameron is married to a step-daughter of Viscountess Astor who, apart from being a descendant of Charles II was the owner and designer of an exclusive jewellery business and is now the CEO of a home furnishing design company. In other words, Cameron has all he needs to assert his place in the class structure of capitalism, which encourages him to lay down the laws governing our lives in the interests of his class. And which includes swamping us with repression and manipulation, at times denying the reality of it all with specious claims to have common interests with us. This is, put simply, another aspect of the class struggle.

Divided

David Cameron can be relied on to tell us every now and again that he is “passionate” about all sorts of plans, chances and prospects. So we might ask how he judges his government’s response to his widely publicised call for national unity to deal with the recession – as we are all in the mess together. There are many examples in opposition to this, of an emphasis on people being officially divided between hard workers and dole-scroungers, between genuine invalids and fraudulent incapacity benefit claimants. Some time ago we had to endure government spokespeople relating how “decent, hard-working” people can be seen at five o’clock in the morning trekking to work through dark and silent streets where, behind curtains, benefit fraudsters slept blissfully on. We heard about Boris Johnson complaining that in a sandwich bar he is often served by someone from abroad – because the English are too lazy to compete with diligent foreign workers for such jobs. And a particular victim of this kind of demonising has been, and is increasingly, the disabled.

Disabled

In this cause, the gutter media have joyfully joined the campaign to support the government propaganda that the benefits system is being bankrupted, publishing photographs of incapacity benefit claimants refereeing football games or running in races. This has stimulated an upsurge in discrimination – sometimes abuse or violence – against disabled people commonly assumed to be cheating for their benefits. Charities like Scope, Mencap, Leonard Cheshire, Royal National Institute for the Blind, report regularly receiving calls about this and believe it to be officially encouraged. The head of campaigns at the National Autistic Society has stated that The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) where Iain Duncan Smith is secretary “is certainly guilty of helping to drive this media narrative around benefits, portraying those who receive benefits as work-shy scroungers or abusing the system that’s really easy to cheat”. The Head of Policy at the Disability Alliance said his organisation is hearing of higher levels of verbal abuse: “It seems to be growing as a result of a misperception of much more widespread abuse of benefits than actually exists. That’s being fed by the DWP in their attempts to justify massive reductions in welfare expenditure.” (The intention is to reduce total Disabled Living Allowance payments by 20 per cent by 2015/6.)

So what does Cameron think about his call for unity being used to divide people? That catchphrase of his has passed with the others into a disreputable history, leaving us with two questions. What is the “it” which we are urged to be “in”? And do we want to be there with him? Do we want a society typified by people existing, in this country apart from elsewhere, in such peril that a cut in state benefit reduces them to desperation, needing to choose between buying food and heating their home? Are we impressed by politicians’ transparent efforts to justify this? There is a simple answer: we can do better and as a start we can expose the likes of Cameron and their insidious defence of the indefensible.

Ivan

Letter: Charity and Disability (1985)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors.

What is the view of socialists towards working for charity? I assume that charity and religion should be placed in the same category, that they both serve to relieve the plight of the underprivileged just sufficiently to avoid revolt against the capitalist system.

Unfortunately, because of my own physical disability, I am living on charity and also working for a charity. My tasks involve collecting money and sending rehabilitation equipment to disabled people in the "third world". Surrounded as I am by apathy and uninterest, my work is providing me with my only social life. Am I a hypocrite to describe myself as a socialist?

Peter H Reynolds 

Banbury

Reply

To answer your last question first; no. we would not condemn you as a hypocrite providing of course that you already accept the object and principles of socialism as well as recognising, as your assumption implies, the nature and function of charities. Socialists are not given to castigating the victims of capitalism, of nature's cruel quirks and of accidents when they are compelled to accept as dependants the aid and support which is, more often than not, only available from charities. And we understand the position you are in, which requires you and many in similar straits to endure what can be a demeaning reliance on handouts. You have little choice of course since you would otherwise be in an intolerable situation; a forgotten victim of capitalism's inhumane, selective priorities, dependent on central and local government both loath to accept responsibility, both trying to balance the books by avoiding such expenditure.

The first-aid, relief from suffering and longterm care provided by charities certainly helps to take the pressure off the system and off profits, some of which would otherwise have to be diverted into this area. Some idea of how much would be so diverted can be got from the present horrendous suffering world wide. A system geared to maximising profitability, even on "famine crisis relief", rather than ministering to and trying to eliminate pain, disfigurement, handicap. deprivation and hopeless despair, is not able i to change its spots or its ethics.

There is, however, an encouraging aspect to all this. Even though the vast majority in need around the world don't have even the limited charity-funded help which is available in most industrially advanced countries, the fact that the accumulation of individual care and concern does often result in organised, dedicated, unstinting service to relieve suffering, is a positive vindication of our contention regarding "human nature". The favourable social circumstances of socialism will be conducive to such care and concern, and prove false the deliberately peddled distortion that we are all totally selfish and cruel by nature. And of course in such a society of free access not only would there be access to all the most advanced technologies, equipment and skills, but the world would be free of capitalism's conditions, imperatives and dangerous attributes which directly cause most of the suffering, the deprivation and the handicaps and which call into existence the very need for charity.

Editors

Brief Reports (2012)

From the December 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

The next Archbishop of Canterbury has vowed that the ordination of women bishops will go ahead despite a minority of the General Synod returning a No vote blocking the move. Justin Welby announced that he had received a vision in which God showed him how to fix the Synod voting system to get a Yes result next time: ‘It was rather silly of us to have a consensus voting system, when God clearly would have preferred a simple majority. We just need one small change and then hopefully we can drag the Anglican Church kicking and screaming into the twentieth century.” Opponents were unrepentant, however, saying that Christian faith must sometimes take a brave stand against the world, public opinion, common sense and universal ridicule. A spokesman for the House of Laity said last week: ‘We don’t think our views are unreasonable. Has anyone proved scientifically that women have got souls, after all? And if you put them in water, don’t they float? I mean, doesn’t that suggest they are spiritually empty?” The progressives have powerful friends, however. David Cameron has stated he supports women bishops: ‘The Anglican Church has clearly got a serious credibility deficit, and that’s a subject I feel very concerned about, as do all my colleagues in the Coalition.’

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The firm carrying out fitness-for-work assessments for the government lacks disabled access at a quarter of its premises, MPs have heard. Employment minister Mark Hoban said 31 of 123 centres used by Atos lacked ground-floor access for wheelchairs. He added that there was ‘no truth whatsoever’ in the rumour that these were all government-approved buildings and that Atos had been put there expressly to fail all applicants: “I object very strongly to the story being put about that these centres are actually tree-houses in municipal parks. They are in fact open-plan elevations in greenscaped locations.” A disabled user who wished to remain anonymous, on the grounds that she would be passed fit for work if she could remember her name, stated: ‘These centres have only got one form, for non-attendance. If you actually manage to climb up the tree they close the office and swing away on creepers. I don’t think it’s fair at all.”

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A Norwich City player has been fined for carrying a police-style baton in his car. Defender Sebastien Bassong, 26, was stopped by police near King’s Cross in London in September. In mitigation his lawyer explained that Bassong is a French Cameroonian: “When he was first signed to play for an English club he enquired into racist violence against black people in this country, and was told that the police were heavily on the case. That’s why he got the baton, in case they arrested him.” A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police declined to comment.

Voice From The Back: A Grim Forecast (2013)

The  Voice From The Back column from the June 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Grim Forecast                     

Politicians and media ‘experts’ are always telling us that although times may prove economically fraught at the moment the future will prove much better. Occasionally however the truth leaks out. 'Recession in the eurozone will be deeper than expected this year, the European Commission said yesterday in spring forecasts that predicted continuing record unemployment and a sluggish economic rebound next year' (Times, 4 May). Capitalism by its very nature is based on booms and slumps and no ‘expert’ has ever managed to solve that basic flaw of the system.

Colonial Hypocrisy                    

The British ruling class have always pretended that they behave in a moral fashion. This fallacy has now been exposed as nonsense. The British government is negotiating payments to thousands of Kenyans who were detained and severely mistreated during the 1950s Mau Mau insurgency. 'In a development that could pave the way for many other claims from around the world, government lawyers embarked upon the historic talks after suffering a series of defeats in their attempts to prevent elderly survivors of the prison camps from seeking redress through the British courts. Those defeats followed the discovery of a vast archive of colonial-era documents which the Foreign Office (FCO) had kept hidden for decades, and which shed new and stark light on the dying days of British rule, not only in Kenya but around the empire' (Guardian, 5 May). In the case of the Mau Mau conflict, the secret papers showed that senior colonial officials authorised appalling abuses of inmates held at the prison camps established during the bloody conflict, and that ministers and officials in London were aware of a brutal detention regime in which men and women were tortured and killed.

Another Promise Bites The Dust            

When the government closed Remploy factories that employed disabled workers their boast was that the closures would lead to more of them getting jobs in mainstream employment. Like most government promises this turned out to be untrue. 'Up to two thirds of the disabled workers who lost their jobs when the nationwide network of Remploy factories began to be shut down last autumn are still out of work' (Sunday Express, 5 May). Being unemployed is tough but being unemployed and disabled must be hellish.

Lots To Smile About               

Accompanying a photograph of the two billionaires smiling broadly at a Berkshire Hathaway's shareholders meeting in the USA was the following piece of information. 'Super-rich Bill Gates and Warren Buffett obviously know how to take it easy. It can't be too hard when Microsoft chairman Gates, 57, is worth $67 billion and Berkshire Hathaway chief executive Buffett, 82, has been valued at $53.5 billion' (Sunday Express, 5 May).

Growing Old Disgracefully                 

Readers of the popular press are aware of world hunger as a pressing problem, but they are probably unaware that this is not just a problem that affects people abroad. 'Most people think of the condition as a ‘third world problem’, but one in ten older people in the UK are malnourished, the British Dietetic Association and the Malnutrition Task Force said. ’For far too long, malnutrition and dehydration has been thought of as a third world problem,’ said Helen Davidson, honorary chair of the British Dietetic Association – the professional body for UK dieticians. ‘The reality is, malnutrition and dehydration is a very big problem here in the UK’ (Daily Express, 9 May). Malnutrition Task Force task force chair Dianne Jeffrey claimed that one in ten older people are malnourished and estimates put the figure at about three million. That is capitalism for you. Even in an advanced country like the UK old folk are malnourished.

Artful Dodgers                       

Workers are constantly being reprimanded by politicians and journalists for being ‘benefit fraudsters’ but in fact whatever dodges they may get up to it’s as nothing compared to the tax evasion of the owning class. 'More than 100 of Britain's richest people have been caught hiding billions of pounds in secretive offshore havens, sparking an unprecedented global tax evasion investigation. George Osborne, the chancellor, warned the alleged tax evaders, and a further 200 accountants and advisers accused of helping them cheat the taxman: ‘The message is simple: if you evade tax, we're coming after you’ (Guardian, 9 May). Despite Osborne's threat this is a constant running battle between the government and the owning class's armies of accountants and financial advisers devising new and better methods of evasion.

Support for All (2017)

From the April 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

A look at how capitalism treats people with disabilities.

There are various forms of disability, and plenty of room for arguments about definition. Under the Equality Act of 2010, an impairment has to be long-term (twelve months or more) and ‘substantial’ (so not trivial). The Act lays down certain ‘rights’ covering areas such as education and employment. It is all very well saying that ‘As a disabled person, you have rights to protect you from discrimination’ (gov.uk), but rights under capitalism mean very little and it is the reality of people’s situations that matters.

There are two basic approaches to characterising disability. The standard medical model sees it as something intrinsic to an individual’s condition, while the alternative social model ‘identifies systemic barriers, negative attitudes and exclusion by society (purposely or inadvertently) that mean society is the main contributory factor in disabling people’ (Wikipedia). Under the social model, an individual’s condition only leads to them being disabled under certain societally-determined circumstances, a claim which should be borne in mind in reading what follows.

There is no doubt that, in practice, people with disabilities encounter all sorts of problems and difficulties, from accommodation to work and travel. A Guardian article (8 January) gave a number of examples relating to people in their twenties and thirties. For instance, two brothers with Duchenne muscular dystrophy live with their parents and younger sisters. Under pressure from a charity, the local council is paying for personal assistants for them, but this arrangement is shared between them both, making it very difficult for them to live separate lives. One of them would like to go to university, but cannot do so, as the financial situation means his brother would have to go with him. Another woman has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and autism, and was housed for a while in a cold and damp fifth-floor flat, where the lift hardly ever worked.

It is common to hear of those who have a choice between eating and heating, but disabled people face this even more starkly because of high heating costs. According to the charity Scope (13 January), one in four has struggled to pay their energy bills, and many are forced to use expensive pre-payment meters. People turn off their heating even though it is cold, they wear a coat indoors, they wrap themselves in a blanket, they go to bed early, and they can spend up to twice as much on energy as the average household. As the charity’s chief executive has stated, ‘Life costs more if you are disabled. Scope research shows that these costs add up to on average £550 a month, and higher energy bills play a significant part.’ Vicious cuts to benefits and arbitrary decisions to withdraw support make things even worse.

Around one-third of adults with disabilities live in low-income households, which is twice the rate for those without disabilities. This is because they are less likely to be working, with only forty percent of people who are disabled but are not lone parents being in work. Almost half the unemployed are disabled. Three and a half million adults ‘report a longstanding illness or disability which limits their activity’ (poverty.org.uk), while other sources give seven million with a disability in the UK. Such longstanding impairments are more common the less well-off people are, with poverty probably being both caused by and a cause of the disability. Globally, about one person in ten has a disability: they are disproportionately likely to be illiterate and subjected to violence.

Over the years governments have proposed various schemes to increase the number of disabled people who have jobs, but the proportion in paid work has changed very little. Furthermore, having a job does not in itself solve the problems. A blind teacher has written (Guardian, 13 February) of how he enjoyed and was good at his job, even though things like marking and keeping student records took him longer than sighted colleagues. But as the paperwork increased, he was less able to cope and became a support coordinator for disabled students. But even here the emphasis on numbers and speed and ‘efficiency’ made him appear less competent, and the workplace became ‘racked by rumour and rivalry’.

Under the law, employers have to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to ensure that workers with disabilities are not seriously disadvantaged when doing their jobs. This can cover everything from installing ramps or letting people work on the ground floor to providing a special computer keyboard. But, as noted earlier, people with disabilities are less likely to be employed. Further, there is evidence that when in work they are more likely to suffer various kinds of ill-treatment, such as being subject to intimidating behaviour, having their opinions ignored or being treated unfairly.

Internet access is also much harder for people with disabilities. ‘According to the Office for National Statistics, in May 2015, 27% of disabled adults had never used the internet, compared to 11% of non-disabled adults’ (Guardian 29/06/15). Assistive computing can help disabled people use computers, and many do find the internet a great help, such as doing their weekly shop online rather than struggling round a supermarket. But the fact remains that a crucial part of communicating with government or local councils or support organisations is effectively barred to many people with a disability.

People with disabilities are not just workers but also consumers: their spending power is often referred to as the purple pound (compare the grey pound and the pink pound), and is supposedly worth well over two hundred billion pounds. Companies that ignore the needs of disabled customers may miss out on sales: ‘Three quarters of disabled people and their families have left a shop or business because of poor customer service or a lack of disability awareness’ (Business Disability Forum 03/05/16). M&S are one example of a company with a range of clothes for disabled children (not available in their shops, though).

While there have definitely been improvements in recent years, travel can still be a major problem too, especially, though not only, for people who use wheelchairs. The BBC’s Frank Gardner, who was paralysed in the legs when shot while reporting, has commented that he sometimes gets left on a plane for a while when an airbridge is not used (using one costs the airline money). In a well-publicised recent case, a woman was forced to wet herself on a train journey as there was no disabled toilet available.

If we look at things from the standpoint of the social model of disability, it would be reasonable to aim for a world where as few people as possible are disabled, or at least where as few as possible are disadvantaged because of any disability. This would be a world where production is keyed to fitting work to humans rather than the other way round, where those with special needs get the support they require, where goods and services truly meet human need. Despite the best efforts of many well-meaning people, a society based on the profit motive cannot be transformed into such a world.

Paul Bennett

A Woman's Place? (1998)

TV Review from the February 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last May saw the election to Westminster of over a hundred women Members of Parliament for the first time in British parliamentary history, trebling the previous total. The benches of the Commons— particularly the Labour benches, for that is the party the vast majority of the new women members represent—are no longer bedecked by the massed ranks of grey suits. There is now more than just a smattering of colour.

In a great many respects this is, of course, a good thing. That Parliament has not represented a wide variety of groups within society previously has been one of the factors undermining trust in Britain's supposedly democratic Institutions and procedures, a trust which has, in any case, always been somewhat fragile. Now it would seem, the House of Commons (if not the House of Lords) is more representative and therefore more democratic and worthy of respect.

Two programmes on BBC2 in January sought to pursue this theme. The first, Women At Westminster was an interesting meander through how the increased numbers of women in Parliament has affected the place, how they allegedly will affect it in future, and how Parliament In turn has affected the women themselves. Much of this concerned the facilities of the Palace of Westminster, an important enough concern to those affected directly but less so for everybody else.

The more compelling part of the programme was an analysis of how the culture of the Commons chamber itself is changing, for the better. It was alleged that there has been (and certainly will be in future) a decline in the "yah-boo" politics previously encouraged by a male dominated chamber. This has - most positively - been evidenced by new women members confronting the sexism of the older male MPs. Such sexism. at its worst, has involved sustained barracking and sexual intimidation of women MPs making their speeches, and has been typically directed at the massed ranks of new Labour women (though at some female Tory MPs too at times, as for instance recounted by Teresa Gorman in her book The Bastards). Unfortunately a number of the other instances of how women are allegedly changing the nature of the House were examples of wishful thinking or were trivial and superficial - like the claim that new women MPs asserted their independence from the stuffy conventions of the Commons when they clapped Tony Blair on his first appearance at Question Time (as clapping in the House is not allowed). This was a claim that was both entirely superficial - just like New Labour itself - and wrong too (ditto). Many new MPs clapped Betty Boothroyd on her election as the first woman Speaker in 1992 but soon learned not to do it again after a few quiet words from the Whips Office. History is likely to repeat itself.

We Begg to differ

BBC2s other effort on the new women MPs focused on Anne Begg, the Labour member for Aberdeen South who is not only a woman but disabled as well. In fact, Begg is the first MP to be allowed to sit on the floor of the House in her wheelchair. The difficulties engendered by her disability in a place like Westminster was brought across excellently in what was, in effect, a video diary of her first few months in the House. It was a programme which demonstrated that Anne Begg, like many of her new colleagues, is a very able and articulate woman. The tenacity she has shown in becoming the first ever wheelchair-bound MP has been tremendous. It was a programme which illustrated what, by and large, it was meant to illustrate, that having Anne Begg and all the other new women members in the Commons is indeed an advance, just as the election of ethnic minority MPs has been.

What was never mentioned is what all this is essentially a product of. It is a product of the shift away from feudal, archaic ideas of noblesse oblige, class and rank, and towards the meritocracy of capitalism. This is a meritocracy where "positive discrimination" is favoured for people who are disadvantaged "through no fault of their own" - women, ethnic minorities, the disabled, but where huge value judgments are still made about anybody else who may be disadvantaged—like the poor There is no special treatment for them, no closed shortlists to get them into Parliament or special sections in the Labour Party. They were the people who couldn't be bothered to do their exams at school, who don't want a job, or deliberately get pregnant so they can be given more benefits or a bigger council slum.

If you are of the view that there is nothing wrong with the system and that everyone but the "naturally disadvantaged" (or those clearly disadvantaged due to the persistence of outdated pre-capitalist ideas) is only disadvantaged because of their own indolence, then you end up like Anne Begg and most of the other new Labour women MPs. You end up voting to cut benefit from single mothers as nearly every single one of them did. If you can be persuaded of their indolence sufficiently, you could even end up voting to cut benefits to the disabled as well. After all, Anne Begg herself has demonstrated that the disabled can invariably do some work with sufficient "encouragement", so why should they be paid to sit at home lounging about on benefit?

It is armed with such thinking that the new women of New Labour aim to take the House of Commons by storm. Convinced - against all the accumulated evidence - that the promotion of "equal opportunities" within capitalism ensures a level playing-field, they go about their mean-spirited tasks with all the zeal of evangelist preachers. And just like evangelist preachers these are people who, underneath the rhetoric, represent a barely diluted danger to the working class and deserve the unremitting, principled opposition of socialists.

Dave Perrin

Sting in the Tail: Spare Parts For Sale (1990)

The Sting in the Tail column from the March 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Spare Parts For Sale

Those who take the view that profit has nothing to do with health must have been startled by the reports of the General Medical Council hearing on the "kidneys-for-sale" allegations.

Four doctors were in the dock accused of serious professional misconduct. They were charged with buying kidneys from four Turkish donors for use in transplant operations.

The defence produced Geoffrey Alderman, Professor of Politics and Contemporary History at Holloway and Bedford College. University of London, who told the hearing: "I think it should be open to living donors to give or sell their kidneys."

The report in The Independent (18 January) stated:

  He claimed the decision to give a kidney would always be an altruistic one even if money was received. "No money could compensate for the loss of a kidney".
  Nor should arguments about exploiting the poor prevent the sale of kidneys, he said. "In a liberal democracy there are bound to be inequalities. This is the way of the world".

The professor's “liberal democracy" is of course really capitalism. Inside capitalism everything is for sale. We leave the reader to judge the "altruistic" nature of poverty-stricken desperate workers selling vital organs, and the "inequalities" that let people die because they are too poor to buy a life saving transplant.

As far as capitalism is concerned "this is the way of the world". As far as socialists are concerned it is time we got rid of the whole rotten system.

Caring Capitalism

From time to time we hear from the government that they care about the plight of the poor, the ill and the handicapped.

They point to such things as attendance allowance for those who look after terminally ill people.

A report in The Independent of 23 January 1990 illustrates what this "caring" amounts to in practice.

  But Community doctors at University College and Middlesex School of Medicine argue that many ill people die before their carers receive the allowance because of a six month qualifying period.
  Dr. Irene Higginson and colleagues discovered from records of nearly 500 cancer patients who were sufficiently disabled for their carers to be able to claim, that 92.8 per cent died within three months and 98.8 per cent within six.

Some "caring" - some system!

After Dinner Waffle

The Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd recently visited East Berlin. After a very good dinner he gave his host the East German Foreign Secretary the benefit of his views on free elections.

It was all very impressive stuff - dealing as it did with fair access to the media for all political parties. It must have been a very good dinner indeed for according to The Independent (23 January) he said:

  For in order to hold legitimate and successful free elections it Is not enough to assert a principle or even to fix a date. There have to be rules of fair and open administration of elections.
  There has to be equity in the opportunities open to the political parties. There has to be fair access to press, radio and television.

We applaud Mr. Hurd's sentiments, but we fear it was just another of those empty after dinner speeches much loved by politicians.

He surely doesn’t mean that in Britain at the next election the Socialist Party will have equity of access to the press, radio and TV.

This Gun for Hire

The fall of the dictatorships in Eastern Europe has not been greeted by universal joy. One group who are less than thrilled are the former spies and secret police who now face unemployment.

A number of Middle East regimes have started recruiting these security experts, thrown on the scrapheap by recent events. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Israel are now recruiting this pool of spooks, spies and thugs.

The Saudi intelligence chief, Turki Bin-Faisai is reported as having a 3 million dollar budget to start hiring secret agents, it says a lot for the "freedom and democracy" so beloved by the media, that every government in the world has a secret police.

Big Burger Business

27,000 people applied for a job in the latest McDonald's fast food restaurant according to Time magazine (February 5).

The American culinary empire - which some say has more to do with gastro-enteritis than gastronomy - already stretches from Seattle to Singapore. The newest offering, besides being the largest in the company's 11,300 chain, is also the first of 20 planned outlets in a $50 million deal that took 14 years of negotiation and which will see Big Mac boldly going where no burger has gone before.

Meanwhile, the lucky 605 youngsters chosen for exploitation at wages of S2.40 an hour are busy learning how to say "have a nice day" with the appropriate ingratiating smile. They can also look forward to dressing up in silly hats and scurrying around at top speed. After all, fast food demands staff who're fast on their feet.

That should be no problem for the new starts according to George Cohon, President of the Canadian subsidiary of McDonald's.

"These kids win a lot of medals in the Olympics," he says. "We can train them to work in McDonald's"

So where is this new 700 seat restaurant? It's in Pushkin Square, Moscow, just a few streets from the Kremlin.

Is there anyone out there who still thinks capitalism isn't a world wide system?


Only Human

If you ever watch "The Money Programme" or "Business Daily" on TV you will see some of society's great men being interviewed.

They are industrialists, bankers and financiers. How assured and articulate they are. and how they seem to have all the answers to every question. Here, surely, are brilliant men whom workers should admire and regard with awe.

But are they really so brilliant? Many of them who were lionised only yesterday don’t look so clever now. For example Ernest Saunders, ex-chairman of Guinness, is in disgrace and awaiting trial on serious charges. Then there's Alan Bond, the Aussie who could do no wrong but whose vast financial empire now lies in ruins. And what about all those so-shrewd bankers who threw away billions by lending to countries the rest of us wouldn't have trusted with a fiver?

Now we learn that Ferranti was taken for £215 million by a con-man who sold them a dodgy American company. What does this make Ferranti’s chairman and board?

So all of these men are clearly as fallible as anyone else and probably owe their exalted status to a combination of ability, luck, having the right connections and, in many cases, not having been caught yet.

Scorpion. 

These Foolish Things . . . . (1997)

The Scavenger column from the April 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Twice kicked

Peter Lilley’s plan to target “workshy” disabled people claiming benefit has flopped, with only half the 200,000 predicted to drop off the register failing the new stricter medical tests .. . The (National Audit Office] report reveals that millions of pounds have been spent retraining staff and upgrading computers to handle the new incapacity benefit, which replaced invalidity and sickness benefit in April, 1995. Some 800 new doctors had to be recruited to administer the stricter medical tests. But only 102,000 out of the projected 200,000 lost their benefit. Guardian, 13 February.

God is watching

The Bishop of Willesden could turn up at your factory, garage or office as part of his mission to bring God to the workplace which stalled on Monday when he visited Neasden Underground Depot. Bishop Graham Dow has declared 1997 as Faith in Work year to show that jobs should be about "more than just slaving away to scratch enough cash together to pay the mortgage and the taxman”. lie added: "Where it is safe to do so, 1 want to encourage the lighting of candles for two minutes when staff get to work as a sign that God is present " Brent Recorder, 29 January.

Money at stake

A damning report on Britain’s biggest child abuse scandal will not be presented to a public enquiry. MPs and social workers reacted angrily to the revelation, insisting that the document detailing 20 years of abuse at children’s homes in Clwyd, North Wales, must be made public. Authors of the report, which Municipal Mutual Insurance will not publish amid fears of a flood of claims from the 180 children involved or the families of victims who committed suicide, claim their work was hampered by the company. Now a tribunal, chaired by Sir Ronald Waterhouse, which began last week, has decided not to include the report by Derbyshire’s former director of social services, John Jillings. Mail an Sunday, 26 January.

A private practice

A small but growing minority of private doctors are making massive profits out of over-prescribing drugs to hard drug dealers who then resell them on the streets, according to a Home Office research report. Some doctors are making more than £100,000 a year out of this trade . . . "Large sums of money are to be made easily by issuing repeat prescriptions on a weekly basis to dependent drug users. The weekly consultation fee is usually £25, payable before the prescription is handed over." Pharmacists can charge what they like for private prescriptions and the researchers found the average cost was £75 . . . The researchers were told by two sources of doctors with lists of more than 200 dependent users and said a client list of just 75 would yield an income of £100,000 a year. Guardian,

13 February.

Well, well!

Monument (Oil & Gas) was one of the first Western oil companies to identify (Turkmenistan’s] oil potential alter it ceded from the former Soviet Union. Last week, with US oil giant Mobil, it won exclusive rights to negotiate a production-sharing contract with the Turkmenistan government in a 20,000 sq km area bordering on the Caspian sea and Iran Thanks to its head start over rivals. Monument and its partner are likely to clinch formal rights to develop most of the area’s oil fields. Monument shares surged 12½p to 81½p last week as City investors began to grasp the full import of the Turkmenistan deal. Financial Mail on Sunday, 26 January.

The Scavenger

Disabled or not enabled? (2010)

From the November 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism sees the unproductive disabled as a drain on profits. Socialism will promote the good life and society for all, regardless of health condition.

In feudal society, disabled people faced widespread superstition and persecution. However, the rural production process and the extended nature of the feudal family allowed many of the disabled to contribute to economic life. Extended families were able to provide networks of care for their mentally or physically disabled members. But this way of life, which had lasted many thousands of years, was about to change.

The Industrial Revolution
The rise of capitalism forced people off the land. Production for the market began on a scale small enough to be carried out in the home, and therefore disabled people could still play a role. But this gradually became harder. Larger scale machinery concentrated in factories increasingly destroyed the old cottage industries and family structures. People had to find work away from the home or patch of land.

The new factory workers could not have any impairment which would present them from operating the machinery. The profit-seeking need to have efficient machines established being able-bodied as the norm for workers. This undermined the position of physically impaired people within the family and community.

Poor Law officials and an expanding medical profession invented names for the poor who were unfit for employment: the sick, the insane, defectives, the aged and infirm. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries most of the disabled were segregated into workhouses, asylums, prisons and special schools. According to Colin Barnes, this had several advantages over outdoor relief: “it was efficient, it acted as a major deterrent to the able-bodied malingerers, and it could instil good work habits into the inmates” (Disabled People in Britain and Discrimination, 1994).

The recent past
Two world wars saw disabled people, who were previously considered incapable of factory work, play a substantial part in wartime production. Large numbers of wounded servicemen prompted legislation to encourage training and employment for disabled people. In practice this largely meant the expansion of sheltered workshops paying below minimum wages.

Medical advances led to disabled people living longer and some to carry out activities of which they were previously incapable. The disabled began to reject their labelling as deviants or patients and to speak out against discrimination. The Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) argued that disability was a social relationship of oppression, rather than a biologically determined condition:

“In our view, it is society which disables physically impaired people. Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society” (Fundamental Principles of Disability, 1976).

Contemporary capitalism, with its ageing population and technological advances is very different from its Victorian counterpart. Today the workforce is as likely to suffer from mental stress or depression as from other workplace injuries. People with mental health problems have the lowest employment rates of all impairment categories, at only 21 percent. Over one third of the total disabled population of working age is unemployed and on state benefits.

The public spending cuts include further attacks on the living standards of pensioners, who comprise the biggest proportion of the disabled, population.

Socialism
The replacement of a society based on production for profit by one based on production for needs will not of course mean the disappearance of disabled people, but it will certainly change for the better the way they are treated.

Whether someone enjoys perfect health or suffers slightly or severely from an ailment of some kind will make no difference to the free and equal access they will have to the goods and services society is able to produce.

Men and women in difference states of health will be able to contribute to the work of society in different ways. They will be in a position to balance the needs of themselves, others, the community and world society with their own physical and mental abilities and tastes.

It may be that a few diehard supporters of capitalism will suffer withdrawal symptoms and even go a bit loony in the new circumstances. Their plight will be treated with care and compassion.

Stan Parker