Socialist Sonnet No. 234: Patriotic States of Mind (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Patriotic States of Mind

Problem is not simply Zionism:

Nation states however constituted

Are, by definition, ill-reputed,

The foundation of discord and schism.

Meanwhile, picking on one to vilify

And then promoting another to toast

Is to risk taking route to holocaust,

In which not only the selected die.

Power may grow from the barrel of the gun,

But justice doesn’t, nor finds solutions,

As conflict grows from national illusions:

Poll the too many dead as to who’s won.

Patriotism might motivate crowds,

While patriotic flags turn into shrouds.

 

D. A.

Myths of race and nation (2026)

From the March 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Nationalism teaches you to hate people you never met and to take pride in accomplishments you had no part in.’ So said the American comedian, author and actor, Doug Stanhope. Given that this dictum appears to state something obvious and irrefutable, we might expect it to be widely accepted and so for nationalism to get overwhelmingly rejected by the large-brained creatures that we are. Yet we know that this is not what happens. Almost wherever you look in the world, nationalism is alive and well, and in fact, with the rise of populism, an increasing number of people seem to be openly espousing it together with its brother-in-arms, racism.

Why? The simplest explanation is to be found in the word ‘insecurity’. The system of society that dominates the world – capitalism – by its very nature makes most of those who live under it feel insecure. It forces the overwhelming majority of us to sell our energies to an employer for a wage or salary throughout most of our lives. And we never quite know whether the living provided by that wage or salary will continue, become precarious or be thrown into disarray by the uncontrollable market forces that govern the capitalist system. The instability this generates makes most of us easy prey to the idea, often spread or at least bolstered by governments (or by those waiting in the wings who would like to govern), that people who don’t appear ‘native’ to a particular country are somehow to blame for that insecurity. The idea prevails among many that it is those non-natives that cause it, that make things go wrong by taking ‘our’ jobs, consuming ‘our’ resources, and even committing most acts of criminality.

Of course such a notion is not just recent. It has been present throughout the history of capitalism and indeed, despite its apparent surge via ugly right-wing populism in recent times, it has actually been far worse in past times. In the recent news has been the outcry over the alleged blatant anti-semitism exhibited by Nigel Farage in his youth, and all Jewish people will know that in those years such anti-semitism was widespread and almost ‘normal’. This writer has a clear memory of such incidents in his own school years, for example an occasion when in front of the whole of the class one pupil turned to someone and loudly addressed him as a ‘big fat yid’. No one batted an eyelid then. Now they certainly would. In fact such an incident would be far less likely to happen at all today or, if it did, would cause significant consternation and lead to consequences for the person responsible.

Of course, even worse humiliation and discrimination was suffered by people of colour in those years. Older generations sometimes talk about the open, unabated, taken-for-granted racism they suffered. In a recent BBC Profile programme, for example, about the black screen and stage actor David Harewood, we heard of him being chased through the streets by skinheads and bricks being thrown through the family’s windows. Such open racism is clearly far less virulent today. And even if the clock may seem to be turning backwards in certain ways and in certain countries, the fact is that not long ago the US had a black president, it currently has a Moslem mayor in its major city, and in recent years in the UK too, many major political figures have ethnic minority backgrounds, including the current leader of the Conservative Party. All this would have seemed unimaginable just 40-50 years ago.

Further evidence of this increased acceptance of ‘others’ and diminution of racism is to be found in the UK’s most popular sport, football. People from a great diversity of backgrounds play together on the pitch and are often idolized by supporters, themselves often of diverse origins and skin shades, who mingle together in the stands. Again this is something new compared to previous years when teams had few foreign or black players and football fans from ethnic minorities even avoided going to matches for fear of abuse or attack. One incident among others that this writer remembers from the 1980s (so a relatively short time ago) was being in the crowd at a match between Manchester United and Norwich City and hearing the one black player on the pitch, Ruel Fox, repeatedly having the word ‘coonie’ shouted at him – something that no one seemed to find unusual. One could almost rule out such a scenario today.

Overall, therefore, despite the fact that those with racist notions and tendencies may feel emboldened by phenomena such as the Brexit vote, the rise of Reform UK, the election of Donald Trump, and the emergence in Europe of right-wing populist parties and governments, it remains very much the exception rather than the norm for racism and nationalism to be expressed crudely and publicly. Such expression tends to exist rather in the echo chambers of social media. That is not of course to say that the divide and rule weapons of nationalism and racism are likely to be put aside by those governing – or aiming to govern – a system that is by its very nature riven with insecurity and instability. It serves the purpose of distracting attention from the real reason for that insecurity and instability, which is the division of society into two classes – on the one hand the minority who own most of the wealth (the capitalist class) and on the other the overwhelming majority who own little and can only survive by selling their energies for a wage or salary (the working class). Divide and rule will only be transcended when the members of the majority class decide to act collectively and democratically to win the political power which is needed to shift society from production for the profit of the few to production for the needs of all. Then we will be free of the divisions of ‘race’ and of ‘nation’ that afflict humans across the planet. Then we will be able to focus on what unites rather than divides us.

Howard Moss

50 Years Ago: Patriotism and Scarlet Coats (1961)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our ruling class can see that their Continental rivals are determined to obtain as large a share of the markets of the world as possible, and that sooner or later this must culminate in world-wide disruption. Hence their anxiety on the score of “patriotism.” Lord Esher gives expression to his anxious thoughts in the suggestion that “patriotism” is an attribute of the empty-headed. “How can you expect,” he writes, “recruits for your Territorial Force, when you dress them unbecomingly?” One paper, commenting on his noble Lordship’s article, suggests “a scarlet coat and a towering headdress” as the most effective appeal to the “patriotism” of the working class, though whether on the old, tried and trusty ground that those who have least in their heads must make the greatest show on them, or on the later calculation that now the workers are discovering how little country they have to fight for they may be induced to fight for their togs if only they are sufficiently removed from the humdrum drab of the corduroy to enable them to forget that they are countryless workers, does not transpire.

[From “The Decline of Patriotism” by J. R. R., Socialist Standard, January 1911.]

Nationalism and capitalism (2025)

From the October 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pedants like to distinguish between ‘patriotism’ and ‘nationalism’. The former signifies love for one´s country; the latter, while meaning that too, also means not being particularly tolerant of other countries (or cultures). In practice, though, ‘patriots’ can very easily become ‘nationalists’ even without knowing it. These are just two points along the same spectrum.

What that spectrum is based upon is an emotional attachment to the rather fuzzy concept of ‘national identity’. This is supposed to provide a kind of social glue that holds together large-scale, culturally diverse societies and allows them to function reasonably well.

National states

Benedict Anderson´s seminal work, Imagined Communities (1983), discusses the way ‘print capitalism’ and the growth of literacy aided the spread of national consciousness. Other factors, like improvements in transport and increased mobility, also helped to widen the social horizons of what were once relatively isolated communities that characterised a feudal society.

Before the rise of capitalism, nation-states did not really exist. Though there are strong grounds for saying that capitalism originated in England (specifically, in the English countryside, where the practice of wage labour became universalised), the first prominent individual to put nationalism on the map was, arguably, a Frenchman – Napoleon. Napoleon explicitly appealed to the idea of the nation as the basis of legitimate political power, where his predecessors had relied instead on such arcane notions as the ‘divine right of kings’ to govern.

However, we should not infer from this that nationalism is the indispensable precondition for a large-scale society to exist. Long before the nation-state existed, large multi-ethnic empires with extremely porous borders existed in the ancient world.

In Europe in 1500, there were approximately 500 more or less autonomous political units – an intricate patchwork ranging from Italian city states (many of which subsequently fell victim to conquest) to numerous principalities (often themselves the product of dynastic quarrels within aristocratic families) and a scattering of relatively consolidated kingdoms. Some of these were nominally part of one or other, much larger, ramshackle, sprawling entities, such as the Holy Roman Empire, which, as Voltaire once scornfully remarked, was ‘neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire’.

By 1900, however, the political landscape looked very different indeed. The number of self-governing units involved had been drastically whittled down to a mere twenty-odd nation-states having jurisdiction over the entire European landmass. Napoleon´s armies, which conquered much of Europe in the early nineteenth century, contributed to this development in the sense that they helped to create circumstances that eventually led to the rise of nationalist movements later on in that century.

Pseudo-traditions

Then there is the thorny question of nationalism and cultural diversity. Though it is claimed that nationalism enabled the emergence of large-scale culturally diverse societies, the fact of the matter is that cultural or ethnic differentiation has often presented a serious challenge to the nationalist project. If anything, the rise of nationalism has brought about the erosion of local cultures and languages and, in general, has had a flattening effect on the cultural landscape.

What is called the ‘national culture’ is not always what it seems. In The Invention of Tradition (1983), edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, the claim that certain national traditions or institutions have their origins in some mist-enveloped remote past (something that is supposed to invest a tradition with more authenticity) was critically scrutinised and found to be often false. Many of these traditions are pseudo-traditions only recently invented for the express purpose of trying to fashion a national identity – in more concrete terms to facilitate nationalist sentiment.

In short, the basic thrust of nationalist ideology tends towards cultural homogenisation. The more culturally homogenised a population is, the easier it is for the state to manipulate it and elicit its support. Standardisation also enables more effective bureaucratisation.

Taken to an extreme, this homogenising thrust can manifest itself in the form of genocide. As Ernest Gellner points out, where ethnic pluralism exists, ‘a territorial political unit can only become ethnically homogeneous… if it either kills, or expels, or assimilates all non-nationals’ (Nations and Nationalism, 2009).

However, one should note that this is only a tendency within nationalist ideology; in the real world, most nationalisms have had to opt for some kind of pragmatic or more inclusive compromise in the form of ‘multiculturalism’.

Globalisation

Factors curbing nationalism´s tendency towards cultural homogenisation within the confines of a given nation-state include not only the resilience of ethnic subcultures and the inward migration of ‘foreigners’, bringing with them their own cultural beliefs and practices, but also the impact of what might be called ‘global culture’:

Back in 1848, the Communist Manifesto had something to say about that:

‘In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature’.

Big business is, today, a major purveyor of this global culture. One thinks of the role of big tech companies in providing social media platforms or the impact of global chains like McDonald’s in shaping our culinary tastes. Wherever you go in the world, cities are getting more and more alike with the same monotonously predictable selection of High Street stores.

There is a certain irony in all this. Capitalism, which gave birth to the ideology of nationalism, has also unleashed powerful forces that tend towards the erosion of national distinctiveness.

Backlash

In some ways, this contradiction has brought us to the fraught times we are living in today. The unravelling of the Neoliberal project that has been the dominant paradigm since the 1970s has prompted a backlash against globalisation and the resurgence of virulent nationalism. Far-right movements are on the rise in many parts of the world. Their animus is mainly directed at that most emblematic aspect of globalisation – the movement of migrants across those imaginary borders that define the capitalist nation state.

Such migrations are often fuelled by wars and the devastation inflicted by military action undertaken by the very countries which now have some citizens bitterly complaining about the ensuing blowback in the form of desperately impoverished boat people arriving on their shores.

It’s not just war that is to blame; there is also the economic devastation wrought on people´s lives and livelihoods. For instance, the traditional Senegalese fishing industry has been virtually decimated by overfishing and the use of destructive methods, like bottom trawling, by industrial fleets from Europe and China. This has been a major factor in the increase in Senegalese migrants risking their lives to reach the Canary Islands in the hope of being relocated to mainland Spain.

Robin Cox

World Socialist Radio - Nationalism and Capitalism (2025)

Adapted from the October 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nationalism and Capitalism, written by Robin Cox

Nationalism is a product of capitalism: it emerges to glue culturally diverse societies under a shared identity, but in fact tends to erase local diversity and enable state control. This episode traces nationalism’s rise alongside capitalism’s growth (via literacy, print culture, mobility), shows how “traditions” are often artificially invented to bolster national identity, and highlights the tension between nationalism and globalising forces (e.g. big business, migration) which capitalism also fosters. The result is a backlash: as neoliberal globalisation falters, resurgent nationalism—often reactionary and exclusionary—becomes a rallying point against the perceived threats of migration and cultural dilution.

World Socialist Radio is the official podcast of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. We have one single aim: the establishment of a society in which all productive resources – land, water, factories, transport, etc. – are taken into common ownership, and in which the sole motive for production is the fulfilment of human needs and wants.

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To read more news, views, and analysis please visit: worldsocialism.org/spgb

Away with all national flags! (2025)

From the October 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bertrand Russell once said ‘Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country’. What, then, should we make of a recent poll carried out by the Daily Express (30 August) that found ‘Nearly three-quarters of Brits unwilling to fight for UK in the event of war’?

If the Express is to be believed, a majority sensibly enough have lost their appetite to fight for ‘their’ country in a war. One should be wary of jumping to hasty conclusions, however. Sadly, unwillingness to ‘fight for the UK’ does not necessarily translate into a decline of patriotism. It doesn’t seem to have dampened nationalist fervour.

In August 2025, a high-profile and, seemingly, widely supported grassroots campaign was launched, dubbed ‘Operation Raise the Colours’, ostensibly to ‘promote patriotism’ by flying flags from lamp-posts or painting the Saint George Cross onto mini-roundabouts.

However, one would have to be politically naïve not to see that the ulterior purpose behind all the flag-waving protests accompanying this bizarre fad has been to promote a far-right agenda. The frankly racist targeting of asylum seekers holed up in migrant centres exemplifies this.

This development is notable for the sheer amount of misinformation it has generated – whether we are talking about the costs of the asylum system, the lavish lifestyle asylum seekers are alleged to enjoy (they get a measly £7 a day), or the actual numbers involved (the UK has below the European Union average for asylum applications).

According to the ‘Hope not Hate’ group, the campaign´s organiser is Andrew Currien (AKA Andy Saxon), an ally of the far-right activist, Tommy Robinson. He was formerly in the English Defence League and now runs security for the far-right party, Britain First.

One theory that has been doing the rounds is that the ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ campaign is a reaction to the widespread display of Palestinian flags at protests against what is happening in Gaza. Whatever the case, as far as socialists are concerned, we would far prefer to see no national flags displayed anywhere. In the words of the novelist, Arundhati Roy: ‘Flags are bits of coloured cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.’

Shrink-wrapping people´s minds means, among other things, instilling in them the absurd notion that they possess something called a ’country’ in the first instance. It is not just the usual suspects that are actively engaged in this indoctrination process – the state, the church, the media and so on. In its own way too, the Left, when it talks of ‘nationalising the commanding heights of industry’ or glorifies ‘national liberation struggles’ against ‘imperialism’, reinforces a nationalist mindset and by extension, capitalism. To refer to the Communist Manifesto: ‘The workingmen have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got’.

To those who imagine that ‘Britain’ is ‘their’ country, one might well ask – in what meaningful sense is this true? According to one source, ‘just 0.3% of the population – 160,000 families – own two-thirds of the country, and less than 1% of the population owns 70% of the land’.

Also in Britain, according to a report from the Office for National Statistics (2018), foreign-owned businesses accounted for 13.4 percent of total UK company assets, while foreign buyers account for over 40 percent of London’s prime property market. Most ‘British’ workers don’t even own their own homes, let alone this abstraction called ‘Britain’. A Google Earth photo reveals no borders whatsoever that might delineate those particular spatial units we choose to call ‘countries’. All we see are mountains, forests, farmland, urban settlements, rolling on as far as the eye can see and in every conceivable direction.

Borders only exist in our minds – in our imagination. They are nothing more than social conventions. There is nothing ‘natural’ about them whatsoever, any more than the nation-states they spatially delineate. Our capacity to imagine is part of what makes us human beings. As John Lennon´s song famously put it, ‘Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do.’

Today, the great majority of us are little more than prisoners with shopping rights in this open prison that is called capitalism. In this society, the industrial and natural resources of our planet are monopolised by a super-rich, tiny parasite class. It is in their economic interests –not ours – that wars are fought.

At present, there are literally dozens of armed conflicts going on in the world – from localised insurgencies to full-scale wars. To what end? Where is the sense in workers killing other workers just like them – complete strangers with whom they have absolutely no reason to quarrel – just to ensure one piece of tatty cloth, as opposed to another, gets to be raised on the town hall´s flagpole?

Whatever tatty cloth is raised is not going to affect the basic situation of working class people. The same goes in wars. For example, whether in Ukraine it’s a Ukrainian or, alternatively, a Russian rag on the end of a pole. There are no winners in a war (apart from maybe the undertakers and the weapons manufacturers). Workers on both sides will have lost, having succumbed to the death cult of nationalism, their battered bodies draped in the symbol of what is so detestable about the society they currently live in.

Robin Cox

Socialist Sonnet No. 203: Uniting the Kingdom, by George (2025)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog 

 

                                      Uniting the Kingdom, by George

 Fearful laidly wyrm, gruesome millipede

Of grotesque proportions. Its poisonous

Venom paralyses reason in case

Some humane diversion just might succeed

In making it pause for thought and realise

Its determined course, the slippery slope

It’s slithering down, is one without hope,

A pathway of misdirection and lies.

Leaders look down from swish crystal towers,

Concealing their contempt for this creature,

Certain tomorrow’s headlines will feature

Their agendas, strengthening their powers.

Meanwhile the rough beast, having been reborn,

Slouches towards Paris, Berlin and London.

 D. A.

The Future of Palestine - Part 2 (1935)

From the August 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

The Union of Zionist Revisionists make clear their capitalist aims for Palestine. They have planned an economic policy which, they say, is the best way of building a Jewish State in Palestine. In their pamphlet, entitled "Basic Principles of Revisionism," we read the following

The constructive period in the life of a State knows only one social commandment—the interests of the constructive work itself to which all other interests—whether of persons, groups or classes—must be subordinated—every class in society must be regarded as a cog in the constructional machine: their class interests must be satisfied when they benefit the State, but repudiated when they hinder the work of upbuilding the State . . .

Shades of Hitler and Mussolini! Are the revisionists ignorant of the State, its history and its functions ? Is the State a mystical entity, above classes, and to which all classes are subordinated? Later on the Revisionists let the cat out of the bag when they tell us what the State is to do in the upbuilding of the new Jewish Society.

Similarly Jewish private capital, and State upbuilding are synonymous; but the payment of interest on private capital is the sine qua non of a supply of capital, hence any resistance to the payment of a legitimate interest on private capital is clearly in opposition to the State . . . 

So here we see that the State is not absolutely divorced from classes and class interest. Obviously, if Jewish capital is synonymous with State upbuilding then it naturally follows that working-class interests are not going to be served by the State. The organised industrial activities of the working class must conflict with capitalist interests, and it will therefore be the function of the State machine, under the control of the Revisionists, to suppress the workers.

Other Revisionist writers make plain their intention to enforce subjection on the Palestine workers in the interest of Jewish capitalists.

Mr. A. Abrahams, in his pamphlet, “What Revisionism Stands For," remarks thus: —

It should be realised that only by assuring investors of the possibilities of profit can capital be attracted. Profitable industry can in no circumstances be associated with philanthropy, but must be in a position to make its way against ordinary competition in the world’s markets. . . .

Further, in their “Blue-White Papers," 1935, the Revisionists emphasise their attitude towards the class struggle.

Conflicts of interests between employers and labour should be settled by “obligatory national arbitration.” By “national” arbitration we mean a permanent board of arbitrators (their italics) nationally and formally elected, and composed of persons known to have no partisan idiosyncrasies (our italics) . . . its verdicts should be final; and both strikes and lock-outs (as well as the boycott of Jewish labour) should be declared treasonable to the interests of Zionism, and repressed by every legal and moral means at the disposal of the nation. . . .

In regard to the “boycott” of Jewish labour, we can be sure that the Jewish capitalists in Palestine will employ the cheapest labour suitable for their requirements, and will give preference to Arab labour if it is cheapest and as efficient.

The Jewish Daily Post (14/5/35) published the following report from Jerusalem: —

According to the Hebrew daily Haaretz, Mr. Smilansky has issued a circular to the Farmers’ Federation, urging them not to purchase shekolim as a protest against the resolution passed at the recent session of the Actions Committee that employment of Arab labour disqualifies a land owner from membership of the Zionist Organisation.

It is clear enough that for the workers Palestine—as far as the intentions of the Revisionists are concerned—is not to differ from other capitalist countries.

Poverty is not a Racial Question

The problem of Jewish poverty in Poland, Germany, England and elsewhere will not be solved by transferring them to Palestine, nor will it be solved by the charity of the Rothschilds and the Melchetts. Poverty is not a racial problem. It is a disability suffered by members of the working class in all parts of the world where capitalism exists, and it will only be removed by the establishment of Socialism.

It has been argued by the exponents of Zionism that the Jewish worker carries two burdens—the burden of exploitation and the burden of persecution. Zionism, it is claimed, will at least remove the burden of persecution. The whole argument is a fallacy. The greatest persecutions experienced by Jewish workers are the persecutions of capitalism. Many Jewish workers in Germany knew the terrors of unemployment long before the coming of Hitler. There are thousands of unemployed Jewish workers in this democratic country and many more thousands almost destitute in America and Poland. In Germany the Jews suffering from the Nazi regime are mainly doctors, lawyers, barristers, teachers, journalists, and those Jews who held prominent positions in the Civil Service. If there are any Jewish workers who dread losing their jobs under a Fascist Government they may be interested to read the following which appeared in a letter from a Manchester correspondent, and was published in a recent issue of the Jewish Chronicle. It refers to Poland.

During the last few years more and more clothing and weatherproof factories have been opened by Jews. Competition has become keener; prices have been cut to the very bone; and naturally the Jewish working man has suffered most. His wages have been reduced to the lowest level. He cannot exist on the meagre wage (often less than he would receive at the Labour Exchange) that he receives at these shops. Not only this, the Jewish-owned workshops have been flooded by Gentile labour from the closed cotton mills. The latter now receive preference in that the workshops are open on Saturdays and Jewish holy days, instead of, as previously, on Sundays. The key positions, too, the managerships and the majority of clerical posts are entirely in the hands of non-Jews (Jews in the office might learn too much of the business!) and an orthodox Jew who refuses to work on Saturday often finds a notice of dismissal in his pay envelope at the end of the week. Many of the owners of these workshops hold treasurer ships and other high offices in our communal institutions. . . . 

Comment would be superfluous. We can only point out to the Jewish workers that nothing better awaits them in Palestine. Capitalism in England has given the workers of this country poverty, and the development of the system in Palestine will bring the same problems for the Jewish workers to solve. As in every other capitalist country, the production of goods will be limited by market requirements, and unemployment is inevitable. The Revisionists can give no guarantee of working class security and well-being.

The advantages of the Jewish workers in Palestine boil down to this. Instead of lining up outside a Labour Exchange in England, they will ask for a “dole” in a Palestinian Labour Exchange. Instead of being exploited in England, they will be exploited in Palestine. No longer will they run the risk of being beaten up by a Nazi hooligan, but they will have the proud privilege of knowing that they are being beaten by Jews in Brownshirts, members of the Union of Zionist Revisionists. (The Jewish Daily Post, 10/5/35, reports an occurrence in Vienna, when Revisionists smashed the furniture and destroyed the papers in the offices of a Jewish youth organisation with general Zionist sympathies, leaving behind them photographs of Dr. Weitzmann and Mr. Ben Gurion—Jewish Labour Leader—with the inscription “Weitzmann and Ben Gurion must hang.”) 

What, then, is to be the solution of the problems of the Jewish workers? We have already said that, in the main, these problems are the normal features of working-class life, poverty, insecurity, and premature death. While capitalism remains these vicious effects cannot be eliminated. Only the establishment of Socialism will remove them, and it will also remove anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitic agitation is used whenever it serves the interest of certain sections of the ruling class, just as anti-negro agitation is used in U.S.A.

Anti-Semitism is particularly severe in countries where there is still an ignorant and superstitious peasantry, but in the more developed capitalist countries conditions are not so favourable for the growth of anti-Semitic propaganda. The joint control of huge undertakings by Jewish and non-Jewish capitalists, the more experienced minds of the working class, all tend to weaken racial prejudice. There is also a larger proportion of Jewish workers in countries like England and America than there are in Germany. Even the final card of the Zionists, that a Jewish State in Palestine would afford the Jews security from pogroms can be answered. There is little danger from pogroms in advanced capitalist countries. Capitalism frowns upon civil violence. Anything in the nature of riot and bloodshed upsets the delicate mechanism of capitalist trade and finance. It also disturbs confidence in the ability of the Government to keep order. For example, in a city like London, with its immense population, an anti- Jew riot might easily lead to the destruction of valuable property in which many non-Jewish capitalists are interested, and it would also be extremely difficult for the police to keep such a mob in hand. Even in Germany, at the height of the Nazi triumph, there were no pogroms of a Czarist Russian character.

In conclusion we must emphasise that the problem of the Jewish workers is not the illusory one of preserving their identity as a race, but to protect their interests as members of the working class, in whatever part of the world they find themselves.

Our message to the Jewish workers is no different to our message to any other national or racial section of the working class. We say to them that they should unite with us in the overthrowing of the capitalist system and the building of a new society, wherein they will be allowed to live freely, and in equality.

Kaye and Scrutator.

[Concluded.]

The Future of Palestine - Part 1 (1935)

From the July 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rise of the Nazi Party to power in Germany, with the subsequent persecution of Jews, has resulted in renewed interest in the Zionist movement.

Zionism first came into existence as a political theory at the end of last century at the time of the Dreyfus case. Before then it had taken, more or less, the form of a religious longing to return to the “Holy” Land. It happened that an Austrian journalist, Dr. Theodor Herzl, had been sent to Paris to report on the Dreyfus affair, for a Vienna newspaper. Dr. Herzl was a Jew who had assimilated the culture and manners of Austrian society, and was greatly removed from Judaism. But the story goes that the Dreyfus case, with its attendant anti-Semitism, stirred him so deeply that he set himself the momentous task of discovering a solution to the Jewish problem. He “discovered” that the Jews are persecuted because they have no country of “their own,” and that the problem would be solved if they could be confined to a certain geographical area. He expounded these views in his book, “The Jewish State,” and declared that the Jews must establish a state of their own, preferably in Palestine. He obtained the support of well-known men like Max Nordau, Israel Zangwill and the French Baron, Edmond de Rothschild, who contributed a large fortune for the cause.

In 1901 the Jewish National Fund was inaugurated, in order to facilitate the collection of money for the purchase of land in Palestine and to assist the settlement of Jews in that country.

The movement grew slowly, but in 1917 Lord Balfour addressed his famous letter to Lord Rothschild, informing him that “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine . . .” This aroused the enthusiasm of Jews all over the world, who now imagined that here at last was something worth striving for. It was not, however, till 1921, when the Palestine mandate was finally granted to England by the Allied Powers, that the Zionist movement began to assume a more practical form. Different parties had arisen in Zionism representing a variety of opinions and interests. There were the General Zionists, the Poale Zionists (“Socialists”) and the Mizrachists (religious party).

At about this time Dr. Chaim Weitzmann, the chemist who helped to supply England with explosives during the Great War, was the leader of the World Zionist movement, and he sought to interest prominent British Jews in the development of Palestine. Amongst those whom he visited was the late Lord Melchett, head of the Imperial Chemical Industries. We are told by his biographer, Hector Bolitho (“Alfred Mond, first Lord Melchett”) that Dr. Weitzmann touched some hidden chord in Lord Melchett’s heart, with the result that Melchett visited the “Holy Land.” He was so impressed that, according to his biographer, ". . . he had made a vow that he would amass a fortune of fifteen millions, that he would work ruthlessly, until he had enough money to bring the Jews back to their country . . .” (page 366). He was elected to important positions in the Zionist movement, but we are told that ”. ..  the business man in him caused him to curb his zeal and work cautiously . .. ” (page 369).

There now arose a great deal of dissatisfaction with the administration of the Zionist movement, and the Union of Zionist Revisionists was formed by Vladimir Jabotinsky, assisted by Meyer Grossmann, who claimed that their policy alone was in line with the original Herzlian ideal. Meyer Grossman, however, has since left the Revisionists and formed another party of his own called the "Jewish State Party.”

In 1929 there was a serious Arab uprising, stated to have been caused by a demonstration at the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem. Lord Melchett, greatly incensed at the slaughter of his "fellow Jews” in Palestine, poured an avalanche of letters on the Press, and spoke passionately at a huge protest meeting in the Albert Hall. He wrote a letter to Lord Beaverbrook beseeching him to give the support of his Press to the Zionist movement. Hector Bolitho (page 370) quotes this letter to Beaverbrook: ”. . . It ought to be under the India Office, which is used to dealing with Eastern people . . . We might as well say that we must evacuate India because of the Moslem rows there . . . as that we must evacuate Palestine because once in six years there is a week’s trouble . . . We simply cannot evacuate Palestine, for the reason that if we did the Italians would be only too glad to walk in . . . and the French would support them. It would give them command of our flying route to India . . . and one bank of the Suez Canal . . . They would then command a magnificent naval harbour in Haifa, the outlet of what is probably the most important oilfield outside the United States of America—the Mosul oilfield.”

Lord Beaverbrook, however, did not agree with Melchett. He looked on Palestine as a barren, rocky country with little avenue for profit-making But Melchett did not see Palestine as barren and rocky. His biographer tells us (page 371). that Melchett ”. . . had bought hundreds of acres of land; he had seen the Dead Sea concessions and the Rutenberg Electric Power Concession growing from strength to strength . . .”

In view of this we are at a loss to understand whether Melchett wanted 15 million pounds to bring the Jews back to Palestine or whether he hoped to make this sum by bringing them to Palestine!

Revisionist Fury.

The Revisionists and the other sections were furious at this Arab uprising, the blame for which they laid at the door of the General Zionists because of their maladministration. A congress was called and Nahum Sokolow was elected president in succession to Weitzmann. But this did not stem the opposition of the Revisionists, who claimed that Sokolow or Weitzmann represented the same policy. Stormy scenes occurred. The Revisionists hurled unkind epithets like ”Red gangsters” at the ”Socialist” Zionists, who retorted by calling the Revisionists ”Dirty Fascists.” Mr. Jabotinsky tore up his congress card, and together with a large body of Revisionists marched out of the Congress Hall. (Quite recently the Revisionists left the Zionist Organisation completely.) When Lord Melchett died, his son continued to support the Zionist movement. He also holds an honoured place on the Board of Directors of Palestine Potash, Ltd.

Among other prominent Jewish capitalists who support Zionism are Lord Reading, Sir Robert Waley-Cohen, Sir Montague Burton and Sir Herbert Samuel. These capitalists feel themselves ”touched” at the plight of their ”fellow” Jews all over the world, and they have contributed large sums of money towards the Zionist movement. Hardly an appeal is made without some of these names, and others equally prominent appearing in the list of donors.

The quest of a country of one’s own would lead some people to believe that the Jews are different from any other race or nation. But Jews, like other races, are divided into two classes, capitalists and workers, and the fact that a Jew is employed.by another Jew does not alter his standing. He is a wage-slave and will be treated as such. No special privileges are conferred on him on account of his religious beliefs, or because of the shape and size of his nose. He is exploited with no less vigour than, for instance, is a Jewish worker employed by a non-Jew, or a non-Jew worker employed by a Jewish capitalist. All capitalists, be they black, white, Mohammedan, Christian, Buddhist, Jew or atheist, exist by exploitation, and it is the workers whom they exploit.

As has already been mentioned, the Zionists represent all types of opinions, and there is even a so-called Socialist Party amongst them. This party is out to build a ”Socialist” country in Palestine for Jews only, but their ”Socialism” is only Labourism—"State ownership,” and the usual stock-in-trade of reform parties. We need not pay much attention to this party and its chimeras. It spends its time in compromising with the General Zionists, and declaring coalitions. It speaks airily about "Marxism” and claims to have set up "Communistic" colonies in Palestine.

Jewish Imperialists.

The party that most concerns us is the Union of Zionist Revisionists, who are the only party which demand a Jewish state in the fullest sense of the word. Palestine to them is not a place where a few thousand Polish and German Jews may find refuge, it is not a spiritual home where Jews may study the Talmud, or attend universities. Palestine must be a Jewish state, inhabited by a Jewish majority, governed by Jews, administered by Jewish civil servants, and “protected" by a Jewish navy, army, air force and police.

In their pamphlet "Blue-White Papers, 1935," they say ". . . we happen to be thoroughly convinced that a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan is not only the best way, but the only way to give the Empire a permanent stronghold on the Mediterranean . . . Many British statesmen fully realise that the whole value of Palestine to the Empire depends on its transformation into a Jewish state . . . Palestine as a Jewish state, surrounded on all sides by Arab countries, will in the interests of its own preservation always tend to lean upon some powerful Empire, non-Arab and non-Mohammedan. This is an almost providential basis for a permanent alliance between Britain and a Jewish Palestine . . ."

But why is it the British Government does not see eye to eye with the Revisionists? The reason is that they have many conflicting aspects to take into account. A movement by the British Government towards the establishment of a purely Jewish state in Palestine would, for example, arouse antagonism from the Arabs. It favours British imperial interests to remain on good terms with the Arabs as well as with the Jews. They are not going to bum their fingers for Mr. Jabotinsky and Co. Again, it is hard to see how a Jewish state in Palestine will make England’s position more secure in the Mediterranean.

Kaye and Scrutator.

[To be continued.]

Slings and Arrows: “Be it ever to humble . . ." (1953)

The Slings and Arrows column from the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Be it ever to humble . . ."

Scoffers and cynics sneer when they hear Bishops and sanctimonious politicians talk about the sanctity of the home and the family as the foundation of Christian civilisation. But that they are sincere cannot be doubted even by the most disbelieving. Why else would they live in such comfortable circumstances? Obviously because they believe that if the foundation is right the rest of the edifice must follow suit. Thus, true to their principles and beliefs. Archbishops live in Palaces, politicians in mansions and Stately Homes, Queen in Castles (two), Palaces (three), and Stately Home (one), and dogs, as is fitting and proper, in kennels.

Since there are not sufficient mansions, palaces and castles to go round, we content ourselves with flats, Nissen huts and prefabs. “Mid pleasures and palaces,” wrote a Victorian songster, “though we may roam. Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” Had he been alive to-day he might have added the words “even if it’s only a dog kennel.”

The New Statesman publishes each week a feature entitled “This England” consisting of extracts from newspapers submitted by readers, which show the lighter and more humorous and eccentric side of what is known as the “British character.” In its issue of the 13th June, 1953, the New Statesman published in this feature the following extract from the Times: 

“For a year a husband and wife have lived in a wooden dog kennel seven feet long by five feet wide at Ystradmynach, Glamorgan. The kennel is one of four in the corner of a disused allotment. Three are occupied by dogs and the fourth by Mrs. Dorothy May Norman and her husband, an engineer at a local power station.”

Reference to the Times showed that far from them being examples of British eccentricity this unfortunate couple lived in a kennel from sheer necessity, and not from choice. To journalists fond of writing about the glories of the welfare state and with comfortable homes in Hampstead or Bloomsbury and well appointed offices in High Holborn, the idea of people living in a dog kennel may be a joke. But each to his taste. Perhaps the juxtaposition of this item with articles by Mr. John Strachey showing where Marx was wrong, and that it was possible by legislation and “counterpressure ” to offset the evils that Marx denounced, may have given them cause for laughter which escape us.

According to the Times, notice to quit has been served on this couple and soon they will have nowhere to live, not even a dog kennel. But perhaps one of the Bishops or politicians may invite them to share their homes till further arrangements can be made, and thus keep the foundation of our Christian Civilisation in being.

* * *

Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue

Those, who since the last war have watched the manner in which British capitalism has become almost a colonial dependancy under the hegemony of the United States, might well expect that our foremost leaders would have objected and raised some form of protest. Instead, most of them have actually supported dependence on America. There was no one to demand the return of independence to this once mighty Power, until Coronation Day, when appropriately enough the following clarion call was issued:

“How the Yankees now parading London's streets must laugh when they see multitudes of Union Jacks. It is Britain’s national flag. Once it was meant to symbolise our power and independence. To-day the Yankees determine British policy.

"THEY dominate our Army, Navy and Air Force. 

"THEY tell us with whom we may trade and with whom we may not trade.

"THEY cause our lads to be killed in their war in Korea . . . If those in Westminster Abbey were real patriots they would help to send every Yankee back home. . . .”

Who is this leader who on Coronation day tried to imbue the nation with a sense of patriotism and national independence? None other than that staunch defender of the Union Jack, that heir to the traditions of Palmerston, Wellington, Drake and Raleigh, that paragon of patriotism, Mr. Harry Pollitt. There are of course several shortcomings in this appeal, but one cannot have everything. Suffice it that the clarion call has been made, and if Harry does not tell us what to do with “our” Army, Navy and Airforce, when the Americans are made to hand them back; well we must find out for ourselves. And as for being allowed to trade with whom we please, that would be wonderful, except that we can’t quite think of anything we have worth trading. The most interesting feature of Pollitt’s call to action, is, of course, the use of the collective pronoun. It serves to remind us of what “we” have lost by our dependence on the Americans.

In the first Elizabethan era, its most famous writer wrote a play in which a clarion call appears which has rallied Britons for three centuries, and has immortalised the hero who uttered it. Is it too much to ask that some playwright of the present Elizabethan era will do the same by Harry Pollitt? We hope not, and we feel sure that when that call is heard throughout our land there will be none who will not feel uplifted. "Cry, God for Harry, England and St. Joe!”

* * *

Anti-Americanism

There is a more sinister aspect to the grotesque posturings of Harry Pollitt and the Communist Party. Since the erstwhile Allies quarrelled over the postwar settlement, the Communist Party has indulged in stirring up anti-American prejudices. They refer to “Yank” in almost the same manner as Fascists refer to “Yids.” Should some unfortunate girl be assaulted by an American soldier, then it is headlined in the Daily Worker. But should Americans give large contributions to flood relief funds then one requires a microscope to find any reference to it. In their spoken propaganda they harp on this anti-yank theme with the same assiduity as Mosley once tried to work up prejudice against Jews.

There is no baseness from which the Communist Party will shrink in its effort to follow in the footsteps of their masters in the Kremlin. But they had better be careful. Not for the first time, Moscow might suddenly change policy, catching Harry Pollitt and his friends on the wrong foot, again not for the first time. Then, in their efforts to catch up with the change they might trip and break their political necks. An event which would be unmourned by all who know the Communist Party for what it is.

It was said of Shakespeare that “he touched nothing he did not adorn.” Of Mr. Pollitt and his Party it might truly be said that they touch nothing they do not degrade.

S.A.

Canada versus Trump (2025)

From the June 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

From the Socialist Party of Canada’s monthly newsletter.

Canada versus Trump

You are all aware of the declaration of trade war Trump imposed on the rest of the world on April 2. In Canada there was a sigh of relief that it wasn’t as bad as many feared. Nevertheless, he kept the existing 25 percent tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium and will maintain tariffs on Canadian goods that don’t comply with the North American trade deal that sets rules about limiting foreign content.

Though Canada hasn’t been hit with tariffs as hard as some countries, nevertheless its effects are still felt. A survey conducted by the city of Toronto showed that Toronto businesses are bracing for job cuts and cost increases. Of the 513 businesses that responded, one third said they were implementing hiring freezes, while another third were expecting job cuts. Three quarters were anticipating rising costs, which was the most common concern, while about half are expecting major disruptions to their operations. The city promised to allow companies who can show they’ve suffered because of tariffs, a six-month property tax reprieve.

American companies will not get contracts from the city. Other cities across Ontario are also bracing for the impact; at a conference of city mayors on April 3, they asked the provincial and federal governments for a portion of ‘any stimulus package’, especially for infrastructure funding. Most Canadians are hoping for the federal government, elected on April 28, to be able to deal with the worst aspects of tariffs.

Canada is hitting back at Trump’s tariffs with import taxes as much as 25 percent on vehicles assembled in the U.S. Ford, GM and Stellantis are the automakers with the biggest share of Canadian sales that rely on imports from the U.S. For all three companies a majority of the products they sell in Canada are made in the U.S. Under Canada’s new rules, the amount of tariffs on a vehicle will depend on its components, though Mexican parts are exempt. If a car is assembled in the U.S. with 80 percent U.S. parts and 20 percent Mexican or Canadian components, the 25 percent levy will apply to the U.S. content, resulting in a total tariff rate of 20 percent. One thing about capitalism, life under it gets more complicated every day.

One positive thing about the stupid trade war is the fact that thousands of American physicians want to come to Canada. John Philpott, CEO of CanAm Physician Recruiting Inc., a Canadian company which specializes in bringing international medical personnel to Canada, said since Trump took office there has been a 63 percent increase in registrations from American doctors wanting to work in Canada. Philpott said, ‘My phone’s been ringing off the hook.’ The surge in interest comes as the U.S. faces health care funding cuts, mass layoffs and hiring freezes, including at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which has lost 2,400 jobs. Before Trump was elected many Canadian doctors went to the U.S. for more money; Trump quickly and surely changed that. Of course this can only be beneficial to Canada’s shaky health system, but it’s just an improvement within capitalism which we as socialists work to abolish.

We of the SPC as individuals are against Canada becoming the 51st. state, but politically we will not work against Trump’s mad intention. Whether Canada remains Canada or becomes part of the U.S. it still means exploitation of the working class.

Federal election

The Liberals under Mark Carney won 169 seats at the federal election on April 28. This was 3 seats short of the majority they needed; the Progressive Conservatives (PC) winning 144. The leftist New Democratic Party (NDP) won 7, the Bloc Quebecois 22 and the Greens won one. Most people thought it would be a tight race which it was. Both Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh lost their seats, which must’ve been humiliating. In Poilievre’s case it may well have been his smart-ass personality and his constant personal attacks on his opponents which done-him-in. With Singh, whose party lost 7 seats, it was probably because so many would-be N.D.P. voters voted Liberal, not wanting to split its vote, thinking Carney would do a better job of standing up to Trump than Poilievre, which was the main election issue.

The Toronto Star endorsed the PCs in the election on April 28. Its main points were that Canadians should support a government that is for free enterprise, eliminates barriers such as cutting red tape, restores fiscal discipline, reforms the tax system and develops ‘our’ natural resources and ‘That is why we are supporting Pierre Poilivere and the Conservative Party of Canada’. Since its founding in 1892, the Star’s main mantra has been to this effect, ‘Hey listen up folks, capitalism isn’t the economic piece of junk Marxists would have you think it is. No Siree, it’ll work just fine if you smooth away its rough edges’. You might think that with their crusading and reforming zeal they would support an openly reformist party like the NDP or its predecessor the CCF, but no, they go for a blatantly ‘screw the working class party’.

Of all the provincial Premiers, Alberta’s Danielle Smith seems the likeliest to make a deal with Trump. This is probably because Alberta does a lot of business with the United States selling oil and energy. Recently Smith showed some of her conservative friends she had painted her toenails red to show her support for Canada which fooled few, if any. A Leger poll conducted in March showed that 15 percent of Albertans would like to be part of the 51st state, as 9 percent of the population as a whole. This amazed me as every Canadian I’ve spoken to and of those I’ve read in print are dead against it. Smith has given Carney a list of energy-related demands which includes scrapping a federal tax on oil and gas emissions, eliminating an electrical vehicle mandate and ending prohibitions on single-use plastics. That sounds tough, but some of those issues apply to other provinces.

Carney now has to form a coalition of sorts to get legislation through. Besides taking on Trump’s junk, Carney will have to deal with a possible postal strike, a health system in near chaos, crime which is out of control, housing problems galore including homelessness and a soaring cost-of-living, especially grocery prices; like, ‘Good Luck Mate’. For the working class in Canada, life would be slightly better if Canada did not become state 51, but nevertheless exploitation is exploitation and whether one is exploited as an American or a Canadian it sucks and not a one of the recently elected MPs will take a stand against it.

Italian history (2025)

Book Review from the March 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Shortest History of Italy. By Ross King. Old Street Publishing, 2024. 262pp.

This is the latest in a series of ‘Shortest History’ books with other topics that include Europe, Germany, England, war, democracy, India and Greece. Readers of the Socialist Standard will have seen last November’s review, scathing to say the least, of the one on economics. Is this one any better? The enthusiastic endorsements by various journalists and historians on its back and inside covers certainly make it seem so (‘vibrant’, ‘admirably clear and often wryly amusing’, ‘terrific … a lucid riveting history’, ‘effervescent and entertaining guide’).

Are such comments justified? Well, yes, at least in part. The author’s sparkling prose and his ability to vividly overview tumultuous events and periods in Italy’s history succeed in giving us vivid insights into certain key developments. Examples of this are: the transformation of the city state of ancient Rome into a predatory inter-continental empire; the rebirth in culture, the arts and commerce in the 15th and early 16th century that marked Italy’s rise to European prominence (ie, the Renaissance); the making of Italy as a single nation state in the 19th century, partly at least as a result of the machinations, rivalries and interests of neighbouring European powers; the 20th century phenomenon of fascism that thrust the country into a dictatorship and delayed its growth as the European economic power it eventually became after the collapse of fascism and the unleashing of advanced capitalist development.

But it must also be pointed out that this book does not entirely escape the top down, history-from-above approach that the ‘shortest history’ format lends itself to. This is noticeable here in, for example, the relative lack of examination of the economic forms that drove the machinery of Italy’s various historical stages (ie, slavery under the Roman Empire, feudalism in the Medieval period, and, more recently, capitalism, first mercantile then industrial). Above all it would have been useful for the author to give some prominence to the fact that Italy’s development on the capitalist scene (referred to by another historian as its ‘spluttering bourgeois revolution’), late as it was, was hampered by its division into small independent state units, preventing the development of a national market and militating against advanced, large-scale commodity production. This disunity, reflected as it was in striking language differences across its land mass as well as in political division and economic underdevelopment, only started to be transformed slowly and painfully (and this is covered effectively by the author) by the unification process of the second half of the nineteenth century (the ‘Risorgimento’), which then stretches into the first half of the 1900s, even though there continued to remain a social and cultural gulf between the North and the South of the country (and there still are notable differences), as Italy seriously took on the homogenised, nationalistic model of the Western nation state.

As for the author’s portrayal of today’s Italy, it would have been helpful, from a socialist point of view at least, for him to have explained that the many different governments and parties which have administered the country since the end of the Second World War have all actually been engaged in the same fundamental undertaking – administering and ensuring the continuation of the capitalist system with its mass ownership of wealth by a tiny minority of the population and compulsory wage work for the majority. He might also have mentioned that, though parties calling themselves ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ have had involvement in this, their programmes and policies have borne no resemblance whatever to the concept of socialism (or communism) put forward by the Socialist Party of a moneyless, wageless world society of free access to all goods and services based on from each according to ability to each according to need. But the author would no doubt have considered that to do this would have exceeded his ‘shortest history’ brief. And it may not correspond anyway to the view of the world that he himself holds.

Howard Moss

Endgame? (2024)

Book Review from the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Endgame. Economic Nationalism and Global Decline. By Jamie Merchant. Reaktion Books. 2004.

Is globalisation coming to an end and capitalism returning to a period like that between the two world wars of the last century when economic nationalism and beggar-thy-neighbour policies were the norm? Merchant makes out a case for this, starting from basically Marxian premises.

He describes how, from the point of view of actual production, the world is one system involving workers everywhere:

‘Pick a typical product of contemporary globalization — say a laptop computer. The laptop is sold for money by the company that owns it only as the end result of a transnational sequence of extraction, processing, manufacturing, assembly, transportation, and distribution, involving thousands of laborers doing different kinds of work for a range of contractors across dozens of countries’ (pp. 125-6).

In the course of such ‘planetary assemblages’ the world working class, as a class, produce a pool of surplus value from which firms and states compete to draw a share as profits. The profits of capitalist firms do not depend on how much surplus value its workers might be said to produce; in fact some firms, as those in the inflated financial sector, don’t produce any but are very successful in capturing some. The profits a firm makes depends on how well it is organised to draw profits from the world pool of surplus. In this, firms are helped by states.

‘National competition,’ Merchant writes, ‘is competition over the global surplus product. Monetary policies, tax laws, corporate subsidies and trade agreements are some of the measures states take to assist their national corporations in raising profitability, that is, in capturing more of this global surplus’ (p. 98).

He defines ‘globalisation’ as the period when global production, and so the pool of global surplus value, was expanding. The governments of the leading capitalist states favoured the liberalisation of world trade by abolishing or lowering tariff barriers as they believed that this would lead to world trade expanding even more.

Merchant’s basic thesis is that this period is coming to an end because the continuing mechanisation imposed by competition has led to a fall in the rate of profit, resulting in ‘the global pool of surplus value available for redistribution as profits shrink[ing] relative to total capital invested worldwide’ (pp. 153-4).

Competition to capture profits has become more intense — more of a zero-sum game — and states are being compelled to intervene more actively to try to steer profits to enterprises within their boundaries. ‘Global productivity growth’, he writes, ‘appears to be over for the foreseeable future. The result is likely to be a kind of stasis state in which national governments must take ever more extreme measures to compensate for the paralysis of private capitalism’ (p.134). Hence the rise of economic nationalism and of parties advocating ‘national sovereignty’.

Slow productivity growth and slower expansion of world production are plausible explanations for the observable move away from globalisation, as so-called ‘neo-liberalism’ on a world scale, and towards economic nationalism (from governments subsidising selected enterprises as supposed engines of growth to the rise of nationalist and nativist political parties). Whether this is the endgame for capitalism is another matter.

In the final chapter Merchant seems to envisage capitalism being overthrown and the wages system abolished by spontaneous mass rioting. That’s another matter too.

Adam Buick

Zionism – A case study in nationalism (2024)

From the May 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the nineteenth century there were conflicting views in Jewish communities as to how their best interests might be served. Some opted for a liberal view that assimilation was possible in an increasingly enlightened Europe.

Those favouring a reformed Judaism considered it best for the religion to be confined to the private sphere. The resolutely orthodox strove to maintain a traditional faith.

However, Europe was witnessing the emergence of an ideology that appealed to an increasing minority of Jews: nationalism.

Wider European society was embracing notions of national histories, distinctive cultures and languages, and self-determination. Jews found themselves faced with a choice between their Jewish or national identities. The latter was often compromised by persistent anti-semitism.

The concept of a Jewish national state began to emerge. Auto-emancipation was the term coined in the 1882 pamphlet of the same name written by the Russian Leon Pinsker.

Twenty years prior, in Rome and Jerusalem, Marx’s ‘communist rabbi’ Moses Hess proposed an independent Jewish socialist commonwealth, a blending of socialism with the nationalist ideas of Giuseppe Mazzini.

These declarations of Jewish nationalism did not initially attract widespread support. This began to change following the 1881 assassination of Tsar Alexander II, the subsequent pogroms, the development of pan-Germanism voicing racist myths about all-powerful Jews, and the anti-semitism in the 1890s exposed by the Dreyfus affair.

Theodor Herzl, an Austrian journalist, began observing developments. Assimilated and relatively prosperous, he had little or no interest in the culture or religion of his forebears. His influences were Bismarck, Wagner and the pan-Germanists. However, he could not ignore the rising anti-semitic trend and came to the conclusion that assimilation had failed due to economic competition between Jews and gentiles. Liberated from physical ghettos, Jews were becoming confined socially.

Determined to free Jews from this emerging ghetto, Herzl considered both mass conversion to Christianity and socialist revolution. He eventually settled on the prevailing nationalist concept of self-determination.

In The Jewish State (1896), he argued for founding a European Jewish homeland that would remove the competition between Jews and non-Jews. Subsequently, both Argentina and East Africa were considered as possible locations. The Holy Land, Palestine, became the dream.

Palestinian Arabs, unsurprisingly, opposed this prospect. Herzl though regarded non-Europeans as backward, arguing that a Jewish homeland would be ‘a rampart of Europe against Asia’. In 1897 he organised the First Zionist Congress in Basel that established the World Zionist Organisation (WZO).

When Herzl died in 1904, his ideas were not universally accepted by all Jews. Another strand of Zionism aimed at renewing Judaism rather than confronting anti-semitism. Herzl’s supporters were accused of furthering assimilation, rejecting their forebears’ faith. This Zionist strand favoured a country that was uniquely Jewish, not a Jewish state on a European model.

Despite its disparate beginnings, Zionism gathered a momentum focused on Palestine, both as a reaction to anti-semitic nationalisms in Europe and as a nationalism in its own right.

Via the Balfour Declaration of 1917, made as the Ottoman Empire was crumbling, and the Nazi-instituted Holocaust, the Zionist cause achieved its objective in 1948 when David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the state of Israel.

However, this was by no means the beginning of Jewish settlement in Palestine. There had already been a small Jewish community in that predominantly Muslim Ottoman area. The first formal Jewish community that can be considered an expression of Zionist aspirations was a kibbutz founded in 1910. This was followed by dozens more across the area that would become Israel. The kibbutz movement is significant as it was an expression of an ideological link that was destined to become horrifically problematic. That is the linking of nationalism with socialism.

From its early days Zionism was associated by some advocates with socialism. Moses Hess regarded it as an amalgam of socialism and Italian-style nationalism. Then Theodor Herzl introduced the notion of revolutionary socialism as a potential element of Zionism. Certainly, the kibbutz movement claimed Marxist influence in its organisation of communities. The goal was collective living. There was no private property, as all of it was held collectively by the community. Meals were even taken together.

Stanford economics professor Ran Abramitzky has stated, ‘Jewish immigrants who founded kibbutzim rejected capitalism and wanted to form a more socialist society.’ The paradox the professor seems not to have realised is that socialism is not something that can become the private preserve of one ethnic group, even if they do hold their property in common.

Herzl certainly made no secret of his view of the racial superiority of a Jewish homeland as a bastion against the barbarians beyond. The exclusive nature of the kibbutz reflected this attitude.

There is also the seemingly unquestioned acceptance that taking already occupied land for living space is justified. This is an idea that can be traced back to the very earliest days when humans began to develop a stratified society.

Certainly, in modern times the European conquest and settlement of the Americas paid little regard to any sense that indigenous populations had any rights.

For European Jewry, the concept of national exclusivity tied to ‘socialism’ and lebensraum became a monumental tragedy.

Before that tragedy could fully unfold, the seemingly antagonistic nationalisms had a moment of common purpose. In 1937 two SS officers, Herbert Hagen and Adolf Eichmann, visited Palestine and met with Fevel Polkes, an agent of Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary force formed to protect Jewish communities in Palestine from Arab attacks. After 1948 it was incorporated into the Israeli Defence Force.

Polkes took the two Nazis to visit a kibbutz. In 1960 Eichmann wrote, ‘I did see enough to be very impressed with the way the Jewish colonists were building up their land… had I been a Jew, I would have been a fanatical Zionist.’

It would be a grievous mistake to equate Zionism with Nazism. But one thing all nationalisms have in common is that they pit what they see as their national collective interest against that of the ‘other’, those beyond, outside, excluded.

Whatever socialist pretensions Zionism had they have been subsumed into reformist politics that makes no claim to abolishing capitalism. Kibbutzim now only account for about 3 percent of Israel’s population. Collective living has been abandoned and the kibbutz has turned into village life.

Antagonistic nationalisms and competing economic interests are at the root of Hamas atrocities in Israel and Israeli atrocities in Gaza. While the outpouring of support for Gaza by Palestinian flag-waving demonstrators is an understandable reaction, the solution to the ongoing conflict is surely not to counterpose one nationalism with another.

A one-state or two–state solution will not remove the underlying tensions. It may ameliorate the situation for a while, but only until the next time competition flares into conflict.

To simply oppose Zionism could be interpreted as being anti-semitic. It would invite the question, why just pick on Jewish nationalism? The socialist response has to be opposition to all nationalisms.

The oxymoron ‘National Socialism’ is particularly mistaken. The definitions are mutually exclusive. Not only in the Nazi formulation, but also in such seemingly reasonable and moderate forms as ‘Scottish socialism’, a variant of Scottish nationalism.

Whatever label is attached to it, nationalism, as it arose variously in the nineteenth century, persists as an ideological shackle for the workers of the world, keeping them bound as wage slaves to capitalism. While workers continue to identify themselves with their countries of birth they will deny themselves the worldwide possibilities of socialism, without borders and the wars fought to maintain them.

The irony is that while Herzl thought Jews had been confined to an invisible ghetto, Zionism is confining them to a very visible one, Israel, even for those choosing to live beyond its borders. The way forwards is not assimilation, but socialism.

Dave Alton

50 Years Ago: The Welsh Nationalist Party and the Workers (2003)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Welsh Nationalist Party claims to stand in the interest of the workers in Wales. It is not concerned with the fact that because of the international nature of Capitalism, workers are exploited everywhere and therefore the attack against exploitation must be on a broad front recognising no national barriers.

The W.N.P. naturally cannot possibly possess this world outlook being a parochial organisation not recognising exploitation as being synonymous with Capitalism.

Its members base their policy on the importance of the National State, demanding National Status for Wales arguing that with its achievement the workers’ troubles will end.

They conveniently forget (at least they never mention) that Wales was as much oppressed (i.e. the people) when she was governed by the Princes of Wales of “Welsh blood” as she has been ever since the statute of Ruddlian: that she has been oppressed in common with the workers of other parts of the British Isles from the inception of Capitalism is not so much history but a tale of yesterday and today. If the Nationalists get their way it will be the tale for tomorrow as well. [. . .]

From the point of view of the Welsh workers, the position would remain broadly the same – he would remain the vehicle creating surplus value. He could – if he has a mind to – stagger to the mine or steel mill in the grey dawn singing triumphantly the words of the Welsh National Anthem and consider himself as having achieved his emancipation. On the other hand he could get down to the fundamentals of Socialism and throw his exploiters out whether they scream Nationalism, Patriotism, or any other brand of moonshine – in Welsh or English.

The land of Wales could raise its voice in a mighty chorus which would reverbrate through the hills and valleys and beyond. “Workers of all lands, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world to gain.”

This is the real message of freedom: these words spell freedom in any language.

(From article by W. Brain, Socialist Standard, October 1953)