Everybody out . . . (2002)

Editorial from the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oh for the glory days of the 1970s! Men huddled around braziers at the factory gates, collars turned up on their duffle coats to protect them from the biting wind. Mass meetings, addressed by the great union leaders, with hundreds of hands lifting in unison to support the motion of the day. Left-wing paper sellers on every picket line, hawking Militant and Socialist Worker to "the workers in struggle". Those were the days indeed . . .

Before the last general election, Arthur Scargill, leader of the Socialist Labour Party and no stranger to picket lines himself, was asked about how his vision for the future seemed curiously stuck in the past - specifically the 1970s. Though meant as a criticism, Scargill took this comment from a hostile interviewer as a compliment, saying that this was exactly what he wanted to return to. Reading the newspapers at the moment, you would be forgiven for thinking that his wish has become a reality.

For the first time in some years, the UK seems beset by industrial disputes. Whereas as recently as 1998, the working days lost to industrial action in this county were the lowest on record, working class militancy has seemingly returned. At the time of writing there are ongoing disputes taking place concerning workers in the RMT rail union, the Post Office Workers Union, staff at Manweb/Scottish Power and many others besides. This has stirred the right-wing press into one of its periodic frenzies against the "wreckers" who care nothing for business and little for the paying customer.

But why this flurry of activity all of a sudden? Well, there's no surprise perhaps beyond the fact that it hasn't happened sooner. When the rail companies have been short of drivers and there are not enough trains for the passengers to cram into it is hardly surprising there is going to be industrial action of some sort – quite simply, train drivers have managed to increase their pay levels as the competing train operators desperately vie for their services. Others in the rail sector understandably want to follow suit, also mindful of the type of "salaries" paid in recent years to the so-called "fat cats" at the top of the companies. As even the Guardian recently put it, if the fat cats have been creaming off the milk for so long then why can't the thin cats get in on the act?

Added to this is the fact that the economy is just about entering its tenth year of fairly sustained growth (notwithstanding the recent slowdown) and this growth has led to levels of unemployment that are historically low for this last twenty or thirty years. In these circumstances, workers are likely to push all they can to safeguard the conditions of workers in any threatened industries as the inevitable downturn looms and yet push for wage claims which outstrip the level of price rises whenever they can in sectors where the profits seem to be healthy. Workers at Consignia (formerly the Post Office) are a good example of the former, being employed in a sector that has been under attack from management for several years prior to privatisation and which is now a comparative hotbed of militant trade unionism as the company tries to reduce its costs by £1.2 billion and the workers try to defend their position. In other sectors of the economy the workers continue to press more proactively for big wage increases - but at a time when management is just starting to become wary of an impending downturn in the economy. The result can often be an industrial dispute.

Socialists are, of course, on the side of the "thin cats" not the "fat cats" in these disputes. Wage and salary earners are the subject class in capitalism, selling our abilities to the owners and controllers of wealth for wages and salaries that are just enough to keep us in reasonable working order given the historical conditions in which we find ourselves.

Indeed, based on our understanding of this situation, our advice to workers is threefold:

• Try to push wages and salaries as high as they are allowed to go by the owners and management;
• Organise democratically to achieve your aims, without reliance on "leaders", who will sell you down the river;
• Recognise that any union struggle is necessarily a defensive one as there can be no real and lasting "victory" within the profit system.

Given the extent to which employment law in the UK has been skewed even further towards the bosses in the last twenty years, a repeat of the 1970s is unlikely and we suspect that Arthur Scargill should not get too excited for the moment (nor his like-minded friends in the Trot-dominated "Socialist Alliance").

Trade unions are essentially fighting over the crumbs. Socialists long ago raised our sights beyond the crumbs (necessary though that fight is within the system) to fight instead for control of the whole bakery. That way we will not be perpetually doomed to repeat the battles of the past, however they may be talked up as "subversive" acts by the mouthpieces of capital in the press, or how "glorious" they are portrayed as being by the self-styled leaders of the left.

‹ No. 1170 February 2002

Pan-Africanism or pan-humanism? (2002)

From the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

When slave labour was no longer profitable as a result of the invention of machines, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was abolished. This created a severe social problem as the ex-slaves could hardly fend for themselves. They became homeless, jobless and hungry. These problems forced them to become vagabonds, outcasts, "criminals", and (owning nothing in a society dominated by money and private ownership of property) an inferior class.

This sorry state of affairs culminated in the emergence of black (ex-slave) radicals such as Marcus Garvey who organised the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Other activists against the appalling situation of the black ex-slaves included W E B. Dubois; James Brown, who sang "say it loud, I'm black and proud"; and several groups of the Black Consciousness Movement which sprang up in the middle of the 20th century.

This wind of awareness and defiance that was blowing across the Americas and Europe naturally touched the black students from mainland Africa who had gone to the USA and Europe to study. Prominent among these were Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Leopold Sedar Senghor. These radicals together with others from the Caribbean like George Padmore were after to become the precursors of the Pan-Africanist movement. It was also known among in the French-speaking world as "Négritude".

It follows from the above that (other considerations aside) Pan-Africanism is a concept that is limited to black people – those on the continent and the ones in the Diaspora. In this regard, one can liken Pan-Africanism to other (albeit better organised) groups like Zionism, Pax Romana, the Arab League, etc. They are concepts and groups dedicated only to the interest of their members.

The colour smokescreen

As explained, the roots of Pan-Africanism can be traced to the conditions, the concrete reality of the newly-"emancipated" slaves in the Americas. Let us assume for the moment (despite all) that they faced those hardships "because of their colour". The question which readily comes to mind, now, is whether we can say it is the same scenario today. Are the causes of our problems today due to our colour? Of course not.

Consider the following cases. Mobutu allowed himself to be used by the Western powers to inflict untold suffering on the people of the then Zaire. Together with these powers he stole all the wealth of the country. In fact it is said that he was richer than the state. There is also the case of Bokassa who squandered millions of dollars to crown himself emperor when at that time the ordinary people of Central African Republic could not afford one decent meal a day. In Angola, Jonas Savimbi and a few friends (UNITA) teamed up with Western businesses to visit a limitless insecurity on the poor people just to plunder the resources of the land. The story is no different in the case of Foday Sonko and fellow rebels in Sierra Leone; quite recently the chief whip of South Africa, Tony Yengeni, and a senior official of the ANC as such, was embroiled in multi-billion dollar arms deals. Yet South Africa is not at war; meanwhile millions of ANC supporters do not have drinking water and electricity in their ghettos.

Moving outside the continent, what can Pan-Africanists say about blacks in the Diaspora like the US Secretary of State Colin Powell who ordered the US delegation to walk out of the Durban Conference on Racism because he and his capitalist colleagues would lose if reparations are to be paid to the victims of the slave trade? On the other hand there are non-blacks who help in various ways many Africans. There are countless families in poor Africa whose survival depend on well-meaning and genuine Europeans and Americans.

But more importantly today, and even during the period of the "liberation" of the slaves and beyond, suffering in the form of insecurity, murders, poverty, illness, misinformation, boredom, exploitation, etc affected both blacks and non-blacks alike, from Africa, America, Asia to Europe. Therefore we cannot be justified when our suffering is blamed on our colour and their colour. Colour is used as a smokescreen to conceal the real cause of discrimination. There is a deeper factor underneath the black/white ruse.

The world economic order

It was not by accident that the Europeans came to Africa. They were looking for trade routes to the East. They were pursuing their business interests. It was also not by mistake that they started the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. They need cheap labour for their plantations. They were in business. It was again not out of humanitarian considerations that they stopped the slave trade and set the blacks free. Slave labour had become obsolete and a fetter on production. The Industrial Revolution had made it possible for machines to be used in the production process so slaves were no longer needed. Therefore the real and fundamental cause of the problems of the "freed" slaves (which led to the rise of Garvey, Dubois, etc and Pan-Africanism) was the world economic order.

Interestingly the problems that these ex-slaves faced upon their "release from bondage" are still the same problems facing us – humanity as a whole – today. These are hunger, poverty, disease, insecurity, no job satisfaction and joblessness, etc. These problems are a direct result of the system in operation in the world.

This system is based on private ownership. This means that the means of production and distribution of the wealth (factories, land, transportation, etc) are owned by a minority whilst the majority own nothing. The few owners of the means of production determine what to produce. Since their primary objective is to make profit but not to satisfy human needs, they do not hesitate to produce goods which are not needed by people. For instance armaments and weapons of mass destruction, sophisticated security systems fancy goods, cigarettes, etc are manufactured in huge quantities because they bring in huge profits. Yet food, medicines, textbooks, shoes, housing, etc which are necessities are either in short supply or beyond the reach of the masses. This type of economic system (call it the money-system, the profit-system or the capitalist system) was responsible for the slave trade, colonialism and today's problems. With the majority having nothing and constantly under economic pressure, tension is inbuilt and can at the least prompting explode into real violence such as is happening in many countries including the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the US.

Which way forward?

One can clearly see from the above that Pan-Africanism can only be relevant if it seeks to address issues from a much wider perspective. Pan-Africanists have to transcend the narrow scope of seeing things from the point of view of colour. Today almost all countries are multi-racial. This is best articulated in the South African reggae star, Lucky Dube's song One people, different colours. Thus, to continue to harp on the "black race" is a matter of tackling the symptom and leaving the disease in fact.

Pan-Africanists must understand the profit system and learn to analyse issues from the angle of ownership to profit-making property. That is, from the angle of haves and have-nots. The world is divided into two antagonistic groups – the rich minority and the poor majority.

To be to achieve this, and even produce beneficial results, we need to acquire knowledge and live by it. This is tune with the socialist adage that "Practice without theory is blind and theory without practice is empty."

Acquiring knowledge means raising our consciousness. The highest level of consciousness is internationalism. Internationalists see every person as a person regardless of tribe or colour. And the cream of internationalists are socialists. Socialists do not consider the artificial boundaries dividing humanity as a barrier. Wherever they are is home.

However it is not enough to declare oneself socialist. It is necessary to understand the theory of socialism and how to get the peoples of the world to live by it. This involves, first, the knowledge that society, as at present constituted, is divided into two opposing camps. On the one hand there are the few privileged owners of the means of livelihood and, on the other, the majority who own nothing and so are forced to slave for the comfort of the propertied minority. The second phase entails striving for a society in which there will be common ownership and democratic control of the means of livelihood; free and equal access to the products of labour; and where, therefore, the concept and use of money (in all its forms) will cease to exist. This society is the socialist society.

• Suhuyini

Obituary: Don Poirier (2002)

Obituary from the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are saddened to have to report the death from cancer of comrade Don Poirier of the Socialist Party of Canada at the comparatively early age of 63. Don became a socialist while still serving as an enlisted man in the Royal Canadian Navy (which shows that those who argue that members of the armed forces are immune to socialist ideas are wrong). On leaving he joined the SPC in Vancouver and soon became active as an outdoor speaker and organiser. In the mid-sixties he was a paid organiser for the SPC and the World Socialist Party of the US, touring North America in a van with socialist slogans such as “Production for Use not Profit” and “One World, One People” painted on its side. Most of his working life was spent in logging camps where he was also active as an organiser for the International Woodworkers of America. In between, he managed or owned a succession of bookshops, the last in Duncan on Vancouver Island. Don was a sturdy fighter for the cause of socialism and will be missed.

Economic meltdown in Argentina (2002)

From the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

We look at the economic background to the rioting and looting in Argentina, and the factors which led to the social crisis there

Argentina, the one time darling of the IMF, held up as an example of how a country should stringently adhere to structural adjustment programmes, is presently standing as a shining example of how the capitalist system cannot be made to work in the interest of the majority.

When Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo pegged the Argentinean peso to the dollar ten years ago – on a one-to-one basis – he envisaged that this would end hyperinflation. Three years ago, when neighbouring Brazil devalued its real, this seriously began to upset Argentina's foreign investments and exports, as buyers of Argentinian products found they could get the same next door and far cheaper.

Argentina is now in debt to the tune of $132 billion – attributable largely to far-reaching borrowing carried out during the second term of the Carlos Menem government, prior to the election of President Fernando de la Rua. The effect of the domestic and foreign borrowing was to send domestic interest rates spiralling upwards. As the debt increased, so did the interest rates, which had a knock on effect for many businesses reliant upon credit.

In the 1990s, Menem introduced mass privatisation as a way of increasing economic efficiency. This resulted in many workers being made redundant, with them being surplus to requirements and unprofitable to employ.

So, back in 1999, the Argentinean recession began, a product of Argentina's relative economic inefficiency and the measures taken to tackle it. The recession began increasing in ferocity as domestic demand declined and unemployment increased and, because the government's tax revenues started shrinking, Argentina's burden of debt became all the more heavier.

In November all of Argentina's economic woes came to a head when people, fearful their pesos would be devalued, began hurrying to the banks to exchange them for dollars whilst the one-to-one rate was still in existence. Cavallo, fearful the banks would be drained of money, issued a decree which limited withdrawals to $1000 per person per month. The effect of this was to create mistrust in the government and widespread uncertainty with people rioting and protesting on the streets, with looting reported in many cities.

One week before Christmas the riots had spread to Buenos Aries. The president declared a state of emergency and brought troops onto the streets. But his government offered no remedy for the economic crisis and this only brought larger numbers of protestors back on to the streets within 24 hours, the unemployed being joined by "middle class" professionals – all taking part in the looting. When thousands of protestors congregated in Congress Square, banging pots and pans, the resignation of the president, his economic minister and the entire cabinet was almost immediate. De la Rua was determined to make one impassioned speech before he left, but with an angry crowd having none of it, he was instantly whisked to safety by a helicopter.

Tensions rose. People poured in from outlying districts, blockading motorways and erecting barricades, destroying banks and multinationals, looting supermarkets and fighting with almost 40,000 police who had been drafted into the city. When the violence had subdued, 26 had been killed.

        

Many Argentineans blame de la Rua for the crisis, citing the fact that he was the president when the crisis was deteriorating more alarmingly – as if he could control the economy! As the economy was controlling him, he had little option but to cut public spending to service debt repayments. De la Rua, however, did enter office foolishly promising to kick-start the economy and end high level corruption yet by early 2000 he had introduced £650 million worth of spending cuts and forced through eight unpopular austerity plans, which included a 13 percent cut in state workers' wages. Just prior to the unrest, the government planned to further cut public spending from £34 billion to £27 billion in a further attempt to service the crushing loan repayments.

The current president is one Eduardo Duhalde, a former left-wing senator and once upon a time investigated for the corruption his predecessor promised to stamp out. At present he plans to freeze the prices charged by foreign-owned utilities companies and put a tax on foreign owned oil companies. To protect the better off from currency devaluation he has offered to convert dollar loans under $100,000 into pesos, at the one-to-one rate – placing a hefty burden on banks, not borrowers – and he has further promised that cash will be set aside for the unemployed. All of which amounts to a timely game plan to placate the more volatile sections of Argentinean society.

Meanwhile, IMF top brass are in Argentina demanding, on behalf of the US and Europe, that the country does not default on its loan obligations. Outside markets are watching events carefully aware of the fact that economic crisis have tended in the past to lead to military coups and all their implications and are now mindful of granting further loans to the region.

There has been much analysis of recent events in Argentina. The general mood is that the IMF is to blame, that its structural austerity programmes are socially and politically unsustainable and that its rule-book needs tearing up. What has not been said is that, like the Argentinean government, the IMF is simply a body trying to make capitalism work. And in this regard they cannot entirely be faulted, because as events in Argentina have revealed, capitalism is working perfectly well, for this is the only way it can work in an anarchic and chaotic manner, negligent and oblivious to the misery and suffering it creates. If a few get rich while millions lose out big style, then this is capitalism working as it only can work. If there is recession followed by boom followed by recession, then capitalism is working healthily. Argentina, therefore, is another example of capitalism functioning normally.

John Bissett

Is the working class still the agent of socialism?

Originally posted on the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog, this book review is from the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

G A Cohen departed this world on the 5th of August and one of his major works has been reviewed in the Socialist Standard which is worth a peruse.

If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich? By G A Cohen. Harvard University Press, 2001.
In 1978 Cohen wrote a basically sound (if tedious) book called Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. In this series of lectures given in 1997 but only published as a paperback last year he explains why he now thinks Marx was wrong after all.
He claims that Marx's agency for the socialist revolution was the "industrial" working class which would form the majority of the population but that this has not come about because of the rise of modern technology which has resulted in the "industrial" working class forming a shrinking proportion of the working population. However, Marx was well aware that the development of the division of labour and specialisation would lead to the development of a section of the working class not involved in direct factory work.
When workers are trained to perform certain tasks for example, they have to be taught and instructed, and this involves teachers and instructors. The teacher or instructor can teach or instruct inside the factory or outside it in a school or college. It is absurd to regard the teacher as an industrial worker when employed inside the factory but a "middle class" professional when employed in a school or a college. The function they perform is exactly the same and so also is their relationship to the means of production – they are still teaching or training future workers and they are still reliant on a wage or salary in order to survive.
As industry becomes more complex and as technology develops there is a need for an increasing army of educators, organisers, researchers and the like. As a result the proportion of "front line", factory workers shrinks. This change in the composition of the working population does not alter one iota their relationship to the productive wealth of society, nor does it alter the fact that it would be in their interest to overthrow capitalism. There is no justification for regarding factory workers as being exploited whilst teachers, lecturers, organisers, researchers, etc are able to escape this exploitation. It is true that most of these "white collar" workers would deny that they are being exploited but so also would most factory workers.
Cohen claims that workers in advanced industrial countries are no longer exploited (not that he defines what he means by exploitation). His claim is that exploitation now takes place in the factories and sweatshops of underdeveloped countries and that only these fit Marx's description of the industrial proletariat. However, he goes on, these again cannot be regarded as the agents of revolutionary change as they do not constitute the majority of the population in these countries because they are swamped in a sea of peasants. He does not pay any attention to the fact that the "exploitation" of his workers in the underdeveloped world has led to the undermining of the incomes of factory workers in the advanced countries.
He concludes from this that there is no hope of a revolutionary transformation of capitalist society and that only a development of altruistic attitudes can usher in a better and different world. He can only come to this pathetic conclusion by either ignoring or not understanding the capitalist system.
Most liberal political philosophers who claim to strive for "a just and equal society" view modern society as being stratified from top to bottom into different income and status groups ("social classes") and that it can only be a question of redistributing wealth more "fairly" within these groups. Other political philosophers see this as posing a potentially serious problem in that it could lead to a slacking of effort on the part of the top strata as this could affect their efficiency and effectiveness "in the pursuit of the general good". In other words, that there is still a need for some inequality in order to provide an incentive for those able and willing to take on demanding, responsible positions in society.
Volumes and volumes are written on this theme and writers like Cohen demonstrate their learning and cleverness by finding loopholes in each others' theories and developing their own irrelevant versions of the same. What they have to say and write has no bearing on what is happening in the real world. For the real world is not merely made up of a population stratified into different income groups. It is true that the working class can be divided into different income groups. But between these groups there is no direct opposition, tension and conflict – they are just groups of people having different characteristics in terms of income, education and status.
The real world is a world in which the population is divided into two main groups obtaining their incomes in distinct and completely different ways. One group obtains its income from the ownership of the productive wealth of the world and the other group obtains its income from the sale of its labour power to the owners of productive wealth. The first group has to attempt to continually increase the productive wealth its owns by continually revolutionising their productive techniques and by attempting to reduce or limit the income of the non-owners. To do this they have to accumulate as much wealth as possible under given market conditions. The whole system depends upon, and is defined by, this compulsive need of capitalists to accumulate wealth. To think that it is possible to intervene or halt this process through any system of redistribution of incomes – either through taxation or "rich" egalitarian political philosophers foregoing part of their incomes – is unrealistic nonsense. The social system such philosophers wish to reform bears no resemblance to the social system they conjure up in their analyses.
Nowhere is Cohen's pathetic position more clearly demonstrated than in his belief that he and his fellow philosophers are "rich". They are not rich even by comparison with other salary earners; when compared with the incomes of the capitalist class their incomes are pitiful. What is more, like most workers they have to consume their incomes in order to survive at the prevailing standards of comfort of their peers. The individual consumption of the capitalists, on the other hand, although often colossal when compared to the individual consumption of workers, is normally only a small proportion of their income as they are compelled to accumulate most of it in order to survive as capitalists.

Lewis Hopkin.