Wood For the Trees: Responsibility (2020)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the June 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Human activity has changed our planet profoundly. Vast swathes of urban development, agricultural clearance, industrial complexes and military installations have impacted the ecosphere which in turn has affected the other species we share the Earth with. Although all of this is indisputably the consequence of human activity can we, as a species, be held responsible for the effect it has had on our environment and ourselves? Some may find it an absurd proposition that we can somehow be innocent of the consequences of our actions as a species. But we would not prosecute a child of criminal acts in the same way we would an adult; similarly as an incredibly young species (in geological time) can our actions be considered as merely the immature destructive anarchic play of Hominids?

We like to contrast our behaviour with that of other species by pointing out our ability to imagine the consequences of our actions within an ethical and moral context; for this reason it would be irrational to hold a tiger or a gorilla responsible for the consequences of anything they do. They act primarily on instinct in nature and to do otherwise would seriously compromise their survival. They are ‘programmed’ to respond to stimuli in a way that natural selection has determined. Although we may believe we can impose moral constraints on our actions as individuals because of a different level of consciousness is this true of our actions as a species? Can we claim the ability to direct our development according to any ethical principles or are such aspirations merely a result of an idealistic conceit that any serious study of history can discard?

Before the development of science our species did not possess the knowledge and information to understand the impact that our economic activity would have on the ecosystem. Those indigenous cultures that did practise some level of integration with their environment were ruthlessly swept aside by the juggernaut of capitalist industrialism and farming. Although primarily motivated by the greed of a tiny minority it was always justified in the name of ‘progress’. Even if those concerned had sought to control it this mode of production, once set underway, could not be directed. The idealists who sought to impose limits on it because of moral or environmental concerns always failed, not because of any lack of integrity but because they did not understand that humankind’s productive activities controlled it – the capitalist mode of production, like the other forms of private property that preceded it, created a profound alienation between producers and any control of what and how they produced. Like other species responding to the natural environment humankind had created a cultural environment that it responded to. There was no possibility of control either through an ability to imagine consequences of economic activity or, even if this had been possible, any ability to do so. Our species was not responsible for its own development.

This is clearly exposed in the ideology of those who defend the system – they think of it as ‘natural’ and unchanging. Some go as far as to make a religion of free markets and their faith in its ability to make our lives better. Both stem from the essential mystery (to bourgeois economists) of alienated human production. Capitalist development is indifferent to the needs of those who serve and create it. This fact has been known by a minority for over 100 years now. This is why socialists struggle for a revolution to sweep away capitalism because we know that it cannot be controlled – it is anarchic and destructive.

 Those who realise this and do not help in the struggle are indeed responsible for its continuance. But without such consciousness entering the lives of the vast majority (who, out of political ignorance due to ideological manipulation do not support the struggle) the destruction will continue. Some may despair of our species and even long for our demise but such emotions are merely self-indulgent moral outrage based on the idealistic conceit that humanity has the ability to impose rational and moral control on capitalist production or the idea that many maintain a wilful rejection of the political imperative of socialism even if they understand it. 

 The simple fact is that most people do indeed want an end to the environmental destruction, not just for their own sakes but for other species as well. Most still believe it to be a scientific and rational problem that has to be resolved within a capitalist context. Far from believing themselves to be ‘lords of creation’ in terms of the relationship with other species most feel themselves to be victims of mysterious economic forces out of their control. In this they are entirely correct but to realise that they are merely puppets of their own productive activity is a profound affront to an identity forged by the ideology of individual moral responsibility.

Wez

Wood for the Trees: Peer Review (2020)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the May 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Somebody once asked if writing for a political journal involves the work being ‘peer reviewed’. On reflection it’s a legitimate question given that we live in an age of conspiracy theories, fake news and media manipulation. Many seek reassurance that the truth can be found through the authority of a consensus guaranteed by experts. It has a scientific patina that can provide confidence in conclusions assimilated and then disseminated by hierarchical institutions like governments and various other agencies of ‘the establishment’. Such a procedure does indeed seem to be a legitimate element in discerning truth from falsehood or informed opinion from ignorance but it must be remembered that such experts within a capitalist context can sometimes be handpicked by the powerful to guarantee that these individuals will stay ‘on message’. Indeed some of them might never have reached the lofty heights of being recognised as experts if they had not proven their allegiance to the status quo.

Of course not all experts agree with one another and when deciding between them (as pragmatism and a rejection of populist philistinism demands) it is always worth bearing in mind their ‘track record’ in terms of political allegiance, business links and past accuracy. Recognized protocols of reason and logic under the guidance of a community composed of others dedicated to a field of study does represent an undeniable aid to progress and will be utilized by a future socialist society but being outside of the contemporary consensus (for obvious political and ethical reasons) how can socialists claim any authority in what we say? Are the majority correct in assuming that we are just another cult competing for their attention using unproven propaganda?

Of course it wouldn’t be true to say that socialists are entirely outside of cultural consensus since we have a long history that does provide us with continuity and context. Our political fortunes have waxed and waned over the last century and of the multitude of political organizations calling themselves socialist we are one of the very few who have survived courtesy of our adherence to authentic principles. In their lust and impatience for power many have followed either the Bolshevik model of elitist dictatorship or the reformist route in attempting to humanizing capitalism – both of which conform to the consensus model of left wing politics. They are both intellectually ‘respectable’ and understood within an authoritarian and idealist bourgeois ideological context and are also, of course, thoroughly discredited. If we give such ideologies and those who aspire to them the benefit of the doubt concerning their altruistic motivation we can see that their failure was not due to the weakness of some leader or other or to the lack of moral integrity but rather to a profoundly mistaken understanding of how the world works. Part of the reason for this failure to comprehend reality is a belief in linear progress – the idea that existing social structures continue to improve or evolve until the manifest elements of inequality and injustice disappear.

This ‘evolutionary’ version of history is one you’ll find in most English textbooks. This is emphasized in the description of one of the world’s most bloody revolutions (1642) as a ‘civil war’ and the embracing of a bloodless coup as ‘The Glorious Revolution’ (1688). The English are somehow immune from revolution and if we continue to trust our ruling class then everything will work out fine. The concept of class struggle and revolution is unpalatable to most English historians and for those who do embrace such concepts it is a dynamic confined to the past with no contemporary relevance. Behind such revision and complacency lies the dead hand of ruling class ideology. Those who do not legitimize the status quo in this way are marginalised. The success of any organisation be it scientific, political, religious, aesthetic or charitable depends on them embracing this ideological consensus. This is why a study of history is so crucial to political understanding because it always undermines any attempt to impose a ‘steady state’ evolutionary theory of political development. In the light of this the role of experts providing authority for a consensus can be seen as primarily ideological. Those who seek truth in this way will be disappointed as in the end every individual has to find their own political answers because those who represent the status quo will not and cannot provide them. It can be a shocking revelation to many that those who create the consensus can be just as mistaken as any wild-eyed conspiracy theorist – examples of this range from imaginary ‘weapons of mass destruction’ to the belief that turning cattle into cannibals had no health implications for humans or that cannabis is more dangerous than alcohol.

This has ever been so with ruling elites in history and it is sometimes surprising that any progress is achieved in the light of such ideological conditioning. But when the point arrives that the propaganda is so patently absurd in comparison with the real lives of ordinary people a paradigm shift occurs. Suddenly those outside of the ideological consensus find a voice that is listened to. The consensus is shattered and true progress is resumed. The only peers that socialists recognise are the revolutionary working class.

Wez.

Wood for the Trees: A ‘Man of his Time’ (2020)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the April 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the many fascinations of history is trying to work out what was the motivation of those who made it. The possibilities can be many and various but historians all warn us not to project our own values and perceptions onto those who lived in the past. Quite often the observation that ‘he was a man of his time’ is used to explain and sometimes justify actions that most feel to be abhorrent in a contemporary context. There seems to be some kind of limit placed on the applicability of this observation since it is never used to justify or explain, for instance, the activities of Hitler or Stalin. We are given the impression that the further back in time we go the more alien the dominant ideologies of morality and politics become. Certainly any attempt to ‘judge’ the actions of historical characters by anachronistically using our own values is problematic but we do see evidence of universal ethical sensibilities throughout history. What are we to make of this paradox?

To examine this question we’ll use The Crusades of the Middle Ages as it remains a prime example of a raging debate about the motivations of the participants that shows no sign of a resolution. Some historians insist on Christian piety as being the prime motivating force whilst others point to the Pope’s desire to unite Christendom under his hegemony or yet others highlight the need of minor sons of the nobility to create their own fiefdoms. Some consider the Crusades as an early precursor of imperialism motivated purely by plunder and power. Not that all or some of these are necessarily incompatible with each other but we do know that they often came into conflict, a factor that would ultimately be one of the reasons leading to the downfall of the Crusader States. It would be naïve to deny that the ideologies and values of the historians concerned play a role in the conclusions they reach despite the manifest importance of guarding against this. It would be equally naïve to believe the motivation of a Crusader to be that which he declared it to be – hypocrisy seems to have thrived within every historical period. Psychologically we also all have a tendency to rationalise our actions, if we feel uneasy about them, in an effort to avoid guilt. In other words our motivation may be unclear to ourselves. We may be able to agree on what was done historically but given the above complexities can we ever be sure why those involved acted as they did?

Many of us enjoy historical biographies which ultimately focus on the question of motivation. No one biography will ever completely coincide with another – if they did the whole exercise would be rendered meaningless. Different crusaders had different motivations which were expressed within a context created by their superiors who in turn reacted to circumstances which led to an inevitable clash of warrior cultures and their imperial ambitions. Two of the most famous of these warriors were Richard I of the Angevin Empire and Saladin of the Ayyubid Empire. Their reputations have fluctuated down the centuries and many biographers have seen both similarities and profound differences in their character and motivation. They were obviously both ‘men of their time’ but one became notorious for brutality and the other is often seen as one of the originators of ‘the chivalric code’. We might ascribe this to their divergent cultural backgrounds but it does weaken the stereotype of what it means to be ‘a man of your time’. Any acknowledgement of acts of compassion, righteousness, mutual respect or regret also weakens the concept of historical figures merely being the conditioned products of their time.

It may be that only a few have ever stepped back from the values of their culture to acquire a more objective perspective (as, of course, socialists claim to be able to do) but in terms of our evolution as a species the historical record is very recent. Our communal and social predilections and the feelings of compassion and empathy that this engenders have often come into conflict with the cultural values of authoritarianism, exploitation and hierarchy. In an attempt to excuse or explain the actions of those in history it is never enough to point to perceived historical/cultural limitations. This can so often lead to unfounded conclusions concerning ‘human nature’ and give those who seek to excuse the excesses of capitalism a readymade formula of despair. We so often hear phrases like: ‘there’s always been warfare’ or there’ll always be hierarchies of wealth and power’ which are clearly projections of contemporary prejudice and historical ignorance onto the motivations of those in the past and this in turn masquerades as an example of not doing so by invoking the importance of not making moral judgements; in other words the formulation of ‘a man of his time’ is itself a projection of contemporary values. It implies that contemporary values are somehow superior to those of the past. It might be that the moral and political aspirations of mankind have remained much the same but have been viciously suppressed by the emergence of private property and its power elites. Will we ever be able to explain or excuse the actions of Tony Blair, George Bush Jnr. or Osama Bin Ladin by saying that they were merely ‘men of their time’?

Wez

Wood for the Trees: The Art of Cynicism (2020)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the March 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those who might be unaware of it can be confidently assured that we live in a ‘Golden Age of Rock Music’. The music of bands like: Disturbed, Ghost, Godsmack, Rammstein, Epica, Kamelot, Nightwish and Band-Maid represent my evidence for this. The last two bands have released new singles that have rekindled the old debate between the cynical and the hopeful. Some see Nightwish’s Noise and Band-Maid’s The Dragon Cries as merely profiting on the environmentalist zeitgeist whereas others hope that these tunes represent the political integrity of the respective bands and will help create political change. Obviously these videos and the music that they promote are extremely costly and can only be made within the capitalist context because they represent a commodity that will, for the investors, sell at a profit. However this fact, beloved of the cynics who choose to believe that nothing will ever change, does not exclude the possibility that the nature of that commodity might itself become subversive of the system which helped create it. Change, for good or ill, is inevitable and we can ask what role music and the arts play within our culture’s restless history.

Nightwish have a long track record of using their music to communicate a political perspective. It is only recently that this Finnish band, courtesy of the internet, has started reaching a global mass audience. They have become commercially powerful enough to only create the music that they want to make rather than bow to the commercial pressures incarnated by studio execs, producers and owners of record companies. The Japanese Band-Maid, although very popular with the rock cognoscenti online have not reached a similar stage of commercial ‘independence’. Their single The Dragon Cries is their first overtly political song but because it was produced in the USA and is sung in English some suspect it of cynically exploiting the environmental and political concerns of its intended youthful listeners. What is beyond dispute is the quality of musicianship that produces the aesthetic catharsis so essential to great rock music (or any art form). Another possible avenue for a cynical critique is the appearance of the band. They wear doll-like house maid uniforms which emphasize the extreme feminine quality of many young Japanese women. Again whether this is purely a commercial decision to attract male audiences or whether it represents an intriguing antithesis to the macho posing and costumes of the traditional purveyors of heavy rock music is debatable. If we like a band we feel the need to defend it against criticism, whether justifiable or not, but is it necessary or important to do so?

Art, as with all concepts, is full of dialectical contradictions; it can serve the powerful or it can subvert their power. It can also, if it’s any good, contradict the intentions of the artist through the interpretation of its audience. Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen became, famously, an anthem for patriots despite the composer’s opposite intentions. In his effort to communicate with a global audience Bob Marley, according to some, sold his soul to Island Records. Art seems quickly to become independent once it leaves its creators hands. We use the word zeitgeist to emphasise this phenomenon in an attempt to understand why some art becomes iconic whilst other art, despite being of equal aesthetic quality, drifts into historical obscurity. Of course without the artist, recording technology, capital investment, the internet etc. we wouldn’t have any art to discuss but although the motivation, inspiration and integrity of those concerned in its creation is intriguing it is not the most decisive factor in the political and historical fate of any work of art.

In America the music of Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, The Doors and Creedence Clearwater Revival all fed the anti-Vietnam War zeitgeist that helped to end the conflict. The music of James Brown, Gil Scott Heron, War, the Temptations and Harold Melvin all strengthened the Civil Rights movement in the US. Not that this represented the cause of any political improvement but it would be foolish to deny that it helped create a cultural background for change. Perhaps the reason that we see such a flourishing of rock music is because of another surge of political discontent? Another irony is that many of these bands no longer come from rock’s birthplace (the USA) and oppose its economic and cultural imperialism. The German band Rammstein have said that they will never use English in their lyrics for this reason. Ironically seventy years on from the end of the Second World War we see a young band from Germany’s old axis ally Japan having to make the decision of whether to confront (like Rammstein) the contemporary icon of capitalism and its destructive values or try to subvert it – that is if they do indeed possess the political integrity one might wish them to have. It has always been challenging to believe that those with extraordinary talent might have no moral integrity or political good will and would sell themselves to the highest bidder but, to misquote the lyrics of another great rock band, ‘we’ve all been fooled before’.

Wez.

Wood for the Trees: Life without socialism (2020)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the February 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists sometimes forget what it’s like not to be a socialist. We search in vain for memories that pre-date our political consciousness because memories are always filtered and coloured by our present values and perspectives. But it is important for us to try and see the world as others do – as we once did ourselves – so that we can effectively communicate with those who oppose or misunderstand us.

In the absence of reliable personal pre-socialist memories we have to rely on our imagination. What must it be like to live in a world without meaning or purpose? This may seem an unduly harsh judgement but remember this is the imagination of one who is convinced that his or her role in the resolution of the class struggle is, at this historical stage, the only truly worthwhile activity. Everything else is a distraction. Of course socialists enjoy sports, the arts and personal relationships etc. but these are always secondary to the quest to regain our humanity or, more precisely, to reinforce and build on what remains of it. Despite the best efforts of the powerful and parasitical they can never entirely destroy our social and moral characteristics.

The most dominant form of distraction and, paradoxically, of escapism is the reality of making a living. This financial imperative can be so all consuming and overwhelming that whole lifetimes are lost making profits for the parasite class. This level of pressure, we are sometimes told, leaves no time for political activities. Even what little opportunity people have for quality time is defined by the entertainments controlled by their rulers – meaningless soap operas, unending football seasons, empty pop music, overpriced restaurant food etc., etc. Holidays are spent being catered for by other wage slaves who just long for the day to end. This simulation of pleasure is purchased by the alienated labour of others just like you. Everything you consume is only available because it makes a profit for a tiny minority whose lives are even more meaningless than yours. Consumerism demands these fantasies because it has nothing else to offer. This is how socialists see our world. Now let us try and imagine how non-socialists see things.

Finding a ‘significant other’ and securing a well-paid job seem to be the main priorities of most non-political individuals. This is the underlying motivation that projects the individual on a trajectory of conformity and slavery which they hope will eventually bring fulfilment and happiness. The dream seems elusive and always just beyond their reach but they have committed their life to it and to turn back would mean that all of their efforts and dedication have been wasted. Then, to make things worse, they meets a bloody socialist who tells them just that! But they can’t go back: the next job, the next relationship, the next therapist or political leader will give it all meaning. There then occurs a measure of cynicism that reflects the failure to achieve the goals that society imposes. They see in the playful and naïve activities of their children a painful reminder of their own hopes and dreams and become impatient to impose the restraints of a sick maturity born of slavery.

And what of the few who become ‘successful? Politicians, sportsmen, businessmen and celebrities of every kind will rationalise the years of ruthless competitive ambition or just dumb luck that has lifted them into the ranks of capitalism’s totems and their brief 15 minutes of fame. If they are lucky they will fade quietly into obscurity but many will be hunted and deconstructed by a media who’ll stop at nothing to find the scandal and corruption that inevitably attends success within a sick society and which alone can guarantee high sales for the media. The broken dreams of the majority seem to create in them an insatiable hunger to vicariously enjoy the destruction of those who appear to have realised their own ambitions.

But does seeing the world ‘as it really is’ provide a sense of achievement or even some measure of happiness for a socialist? Certainly we can take some pride in overcoming the conditioning imposed on us by the culture into which we were born but the subsequent obligation to partake in the political struggle can take its toll. The immense frustration of continually leading horses to water but not being able to convince them to drink can erode the soul of even the most firebrand of revolutionaries. We can take little comfort in our correct analysis and subsequent politically astute predictions in the face of the suffering of the world. Like Cassandra we seem cursed with an insight that so few can or want to hear. The return to a life of illusions sustained by a consensus born of ignorance is forever denied to us; we have torn apart the veil of lies and deception and can only continue the fight against the oppressors of the freedom that only the light of reason can illuminate.

Wez.

Wood for the Trees: History as Drama (2020)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the January 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent film Le Mans ’66 represents an addition to the long tradition of transforming historical events into entertaining dramatic film narratives. Given that its centrepiece is one of the many famous races held at the Le Mans motor racing circuit it already has a built in dramatic edge but the film focuses mainly on the relationships between the people who had the imagination, power, courage and knowledge to change motor racing history.

For decades the Ferrari motor company was dominant in this form of motor racing where performance has to be matched by engineering consistency and endurance. These were thoroughbred cars where no expense was spared – both on the track and in its road cars. They were the cars for the rich elite to show off their wealth, and status and success at the race track was seen as essential in maintaining this image. In contrast to this the American car industry specialised in the ‘mass production’ that would bring down prices and so make cars accessible to most everyone. Primary among these was the Ford motor company and Henry Ford himself is usually identified as having instigated the alienated assembly line manufacturing process.

The film opens with Henry Ford’s son expressing a frustrated desire to give his cars a much more performance-oriented sexy image. To acquire such engineering credibility he was advised that winning the world’s most prestigious motor race (Le Mans 24hr race) would be the most assured way of entering the performance market. To do this Ford initially attempts to buy the cash-strapped Ferrari Company but its owner Enzo Ferrari finds a better deal with Fiat and in refusing Ford’s offer he insults the American company and its CEO. Furious at this Ford instructs his employees to construct their own car to win the Le Mans race. The film follows the technological and social implications of such hubris in terms of the antagonism between the personalities that were essential to its realisation. The conflicting traditions of capitalist production in America and Italy and their respective corporate hierarchies together with maverick designers and drivers, their egos and comradeship combined with the aesthetic of speed all converge to make this movie entertaining and informative.

The result was the famous Ford GT40 racing car which was a winning combination of British design (Lola) and Ford’s 427 racing engine tuned by Carroll Shelby and driven by hot-tempered Brit Ken Miles. The traditional trope of the soulless big corporation trying to keep control of the free spirits of the drivers and engineers is used to entertaining effect by emphasising that the only way to achieve their goal was somehow to synthesise the incompatible realities of capitalism and freedom. We can only speculate as to the number of examples of other such attempts in numerous walks of life that have failed to hold together under similar inherent contradictions – but then nobody would want to make a film about failure.

This is, of course, one of the flaws in any attempt to make drama out of history. Not that history is without drama but to condense events into a story with structure and meaning must always involve being selective, depending on who’s telling the story as much as with its subject. Homer, Shakespeare, Tolstoy and countless other authors have not been inhibited in using historical events as the background to the stories that they wish to tell. It has become the job of many historians and archaeologists to try to unravel the myths and legends that have become so inextricably linked with our understanding of the past. Indeed many within those professions were themselves initially attracted to history by those same legends and myths.

Most of us enjoy a story where the ‘underdog’ or ‘maverick’ individual overcomes the conditioning and control of the powerful. Many are unaware of the political implications of this desire to escape the dead alienating prison of capitalism and can only express it by vicariously enjoying the escapism provided by drama. The heroes of the past express our anger in a positive way rather than the everyday negativity of conforming to tribalism, prejudice and competitiveness because of fear and political ignorance. Humankind has always loved to discover and/or impose patterns on existence. Dramatic stories provide meaning and structure to the chaos of life but this need we all possess must not be allowed to eclipse or disguise other more uncomfortable perspectives. We are all aware of such travesties of history in films like: Birth of a Nation, Quo Vadis, Braveheart and Kingdom of Heaven. Such movies emphasise the danger of conflating history and drama especially because they are aesthetically pleasing with a good story, good acting and great scripts. Stories are used to obfuscate historical truths as often as they can illuminate them — the next time you read the legend ‘what follows is based on real events’ at the beginning of a film always bear this in mind.

Wez

Wood for the Trees: The stable doors of instability (2019)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the December 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Very occasionally an outrage occurs within the capitalist system that even the ruling class cannot ignore. In the wake of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry perhaps it’s time to look at the history of British Public Inquiries and assess their place within the body politic of this country. Let’s look at the origin, motivation, reality and effectiveness of this very British institution.

Having its origins in the 1920s the PI was initially set up to deal with public unease concerning natural or technical disasters such as train crashes and floods etc. but in 1957 there was a great scandal involving corrupt dealers making fortunes out of ‘inside information’ concerning bank rates. A public tribunal was set up and successfully managed to assure the public that it would not happen again – which, of course, it has and continues to do so. This probably gave the elite the confidence that this was a way of seeming to do something about political scandals while also covering up any major implications for themselves and the capitalist system as a whole.

However when the next great scandal exploded (the Profumo Affair) they chose the wrong ‘pair of safe hands’ in the form of Lord Denning. Although not initially a public inquiry the wide-ranging nature of his investigation shone a light on the meaningless and decadent lifestyles of the parasite class that fed the increasingly prurient 1960s media. The establishment, in its haste to cover the thing up, had chosen a moral crusader who lifted the veil on the reality of class society that helped accelerate the ‘end of deference’.

In 1972 on ‘Bloody Sunday’ 28 people were shot (14 fatally) by the British army during a peaceful demonstration against internment in Northern Ireland. Such was the level of outrage at the murders that the establishment was forced to hold an enquiry but this time, in the safe hands of Lord Widgery, it produced the expected whitewash and the army was exonerated. The story did not end there however as the bitterness lingered for decades leading to another inquiry headed by Lord Saville which began in 1998. This overturned almost all of the conclusions of Lord Widgery and led to an apology from David Cameron in the House of Commons – however only one ‘scapegoat’ was ever prosecuted for murder.

In the wake of the race riots in 1981 Lord Scarman was called to head an investigation into their cause. He made several recommendations emphasising ‘community’ policing which were subsequently ignored and it took another report by Sir William Macpherson (as a result of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence) to finally force an admission that a major cause of both racist violence and the subsequent cover-up was the institutional racism within the police. Investigations can drag on for years and even, as with the Hillsborough Disaster, for decades because of the tension between ‘getting to the truth’ and the desire to protect the integrity of institutions like the political establishment, army and police. . Let us now turn to a very different type of institution – the NHS.

Two scandals were to shake the always beleaguered NHS in the early 2000s. Dr. Harold Shipman became Britain’s worst serial killer whose victims numbered into the hundreds over many years. Dame Janet Smith was given the task of finding out why his crimes had gone undiscovered for so long. She was to recommend many changes to the protocols of death certification and drug prescription but as a result of dealing with endless bureaucratic ‘red-tape’ she was later to say, with exasperation that trying to implement change within such an establishment was like ‘attempting to herd cats’. In 2007 the terrible events at Stafford General Hospital resulted in a PI under Robert Francis but only after he had complained about the limited and restrictive nature of his former investigations. It is estimated that up to 1,200 patients died due to neglect between 2005 and 2008 at the hospital. Only two nurses were subsequently ‘struck off’ the medical register.

Of all the disasters that have brought forth public enquiries none have been more shocking than that of the Iraq war of 2003. Sir John Chilcot chaired this investigation which centred on the fantasy that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Although widely condemned as a ‘whitewash’ the report did show many deficiencies in the quality of ‘intelligence’ and how it was used to support a war that had already been politically decided upon by Bush and Blair. The deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis represent one of the greatest crimes in British history and the failure of a Public Inquiry to bring anyone to justice for this underlines the true nature of such investigations.

Although used primarily as a safety valve for public catharsis these inquiries always have a limited government remit and many are no longer content for members of the establishment to ‘self regulate’. The Grenfell Tower investigation is already showing signs of being another establishment whitewash. Perhaps with its failure this ‘Public Inquiry’ might be the last of its kind. Any investigation into major disasters within capitalism will usually fail to find the ultimate cause unless they become investigations of capitalism itself. From the perspective of our rulers the PI has been very successful in diverting attention from the capitalist system and finding scapegoats to blame. We are not suggesting that there will be no disasters within a socialist society but we can say with certainty that there will be no vested interests to protect, no corners cut to endanger safety and no protection of the guilty from being held responsible.

Wez.

Wood for the Trees: Through a Glass Darkly (2019)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the November 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘A struggle has been going on in these islands for centuries of which you’re only dimly aware’ is a quote from the 1971 movie version of Stevenson’s novel Kidnapped. It is spoken by the Lord Advocate to David Balfour as part of an explanation of his political ideology. He seeks to communicate the idea that his political insight (or consciousness) is superior to that of his young listener. Balfour’s response: ‘I can’t argue with you; you’ve answers to questions I haven’t even thought of’ is a confirmation of this disparity of political knowledge. The historical context of the novel is the struggle in Scotland between the English-backed bourgeoisie and the reactionary highlanders attempt to restore the Stuart monarchy and its autocratic rule (the Jacobites).

The Lord Advocate couches his understanding of events in ideological terms by referring to his protection of the freedom of religion and equality under the law. A socialist would likewise accuse him of a naïve and superficial understanding of history by reference to the class struggle. We have here an example of three different political perspectives: Balfour’s idealistic insistence on the moral integrity and rational coherence of the law, the Advocate’s belief in the use of realpolitik to further the ideals of the Enlightenment (ideology) and Marxism’s economic and political materialism that exposes the underlying class struggle. We can perhaps boil down these three polemical stances into idealism, ideology and materialism. Of course the three do occasionally overlap but they can still give us an insight into levels of consciousness or, to put it another way, into different degrees of awareness.

Socialists quite often refer to political or ‘class consciousness’ as a higher form of social awareness that is essential in seeing what lies behind the propaganda and ideological values of any given historical period. To some class consciousness is mistaken for an obsession with social status and socialists are accused of having ‘a chip on their shoulder’ or suffering from financial envy. But in reality an understanding of the social tectonics of class is the only way to cut through the ideological overgrowth of ideology that merely serves to justify minority political power. But how can we be sure that this approach to politics is not also ideological? Do socialists force everything into a class context when an ideological or even moral perspective might be more revealing? It would be ironic indeed if Marxism could be accused of being ideological or even idealist since opposing these twin illusions was responsible for its very conception. One way to undermine such allegations would be to examine the existence of the reality, or otherwise, of the different levels of awareness (consciousness).

It would be nonsense to deny that some members of any community are more talented than others in certain areas of conception and/or production. The complexities of the technological age in which we live make a division of both intellectual and physical labour essential. Because everything is socially produced all these talents are totally interdependent and so there should be no question of a hierarchy in production creating any kind of elite (unlike today in class society). So we find a disparity of knowledge between those who studied and have experience of a certain discipline and those who have not. This is just stating the obvious but in politics everyone is expected to somehow have an equality of understanding even if they have made no effort to study the subject.

To object to this nonsense is to risk being accused of elitism. But those socialists who take an interest in this kind of philosophical inquiry are entirely aware that the ideas, language, laptops and electricity are all equally necessary to its creation and is therefore itself conceived of as a part of social production. Avoiding the emotional and intellectual seduction of the language of the idealistic, moralistic and ideological is impossible without some knowledge of their respective origins in terms of context, rhetorical structure and power source. Awareness that these elements obscure, distort and condition our experience of the world is vital if we are to lift the veil from what is real and authentic.

All of the above is, of course, dependant on the existence of an objective world that is, in some sense, independent of how we think about it (materialism). The efficacy of this ‘higher consciousness’ can only be tested empirically: the ability to make predictions based on research, etc. The fall of the Russian (sometimes erroneously called Soviet) empire was no surprise to socialists. Although the ideological rhetoric was a parody of Marxism every socialist knew that it was, in fact, just another form of capitalist economic imperialism that along with all the others of its kind (British, Japanese, German, Spanish, Portuguese etc.) would flourish and then decay with time. We knew this because we are not subject to the emotional, intellectual and moral illusions of ideology. If this is not proof of the existence of different levels of political consciousness then what is?

Those whose beliefs and values are not based on empirical evidence leave themselves open to accusations of dogma, delusion and self-deception which are a testament to the existence of vastly different levels of political consciousness. Such muddle-headedness has resulted in untold suffering and an unerring ability to be wrong time and again. A critical response to the moral values and political mores of the culture into which we are born is not easy and depends on more than just the intellectual deconstruction of propaganda but without such an ability a viable political alternative is rendered inconceivable.

Wez.

Wood for the Trees: The Myth of Parliament (2019)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the October 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Watching the recent dramas broadcast from Westminster one would be forgiven for thinking that it represented the heart of political activity in this country. The participants are all convinced that as ‘representatives’ of their constituents it is they who decide the future of us all. This conceit is widely believed and, of course, the legislators and executives of the state do have an important, if exaggerated, effect on all our lives.

How have so many become so convinced that this sideshow is somehow the alpha and omega of political activity? To answer this we have to understand the history of the conversion of wealth into political power. Parliament is primarily about getting and spending money to preserve the wealth and power of the elite class. The two houses of parliament are not there, despite all the propaganda, to preserve the rights of ‘the people’ but to curtail their rights. How could such a paradox arise and why do the majority not recognise it as such?

Originally the King called upon an assembly or parliament of respectable property owners to organise and legislate for the taxes he needed to finance the military activity that defined kingship. Inevitably this caused tension and dissent among the already impoverished majority together with the wealthier emerging middle class, and the king always found a great reluctance in parliament to raise taxes without some kind of consent from and representation for those who paid the taxes. After years of riots and revolts it all came to a head in 1628 with the ‘Petition of Right’ which sought to make laws prohibiting the king from demanding arbitrary taxes without the consent of parliament. The king promptly ‘prorogued’ parliament (sound familiar?) which started the build–up to the English Revolution in 1642.

The growing bourgeoisie or capitalist class, whose wealth now rivalled that of the nobility, decided that a parliamentary coup would be their route to political power. After an attempted counter-revolution in 1688 they consolidated their power and took over the state using parliament as their executive voice. The bourgeoisie could now concentrate on what they did best – exploit the labour of their fellow humans for profit. They left the running of the state to underlings and those who took to politics as a career. There were, and still are, two main duties for MPs: raise taxes to run the state as cheaply as possible and make laws to secure the property of the capitalist class.

In 1799 ‘income tax’ was introduced and in contrast to the preceding land tax it gave the impression that the exploited majority were paying it instead of their employers. This deception made it appear that the working class had an incentive to keep taxes low in common with their masters. From then on it became a priority to minimise ‘public spending’ to keep taxation low. However, later in the nineteenth century it became clear that capitalism was failing to keep the working class in an even minimal state of health and this was obviously hurting profits. Bismarck was one of the first European statesmen to recognise this and together with his fear of a growing ‘socialist’ party he was motivated to introduce a form of welfare state. Although this placated many, as with all state spending, it was always kept under pressure by the need to keep taxes down.

Soon, in many capitalist states, the majority of the infrastructure was taken under government control along with welfare services. Leftist political parties adopted state or public ownership as some perverse form of socialism forgetting its origins as a cheap way for the capitalists to finance the infrastructure of the state by sharing its costs. To this day the ideological battle between left and right centres on the argument about levels of government investment in the state (seen as benefitting the majority and stimulating economic activity) or minimising public spending and letting the market decide by privatising and deregulating former state-owned industries/services. It has become a matter of ideological dogma and faith on both sides – ignoring the fact that both originated from the needs of capital and not labour.

Socialists find such a debate meaningless from a working class perspective. The present Brexit furore is a typical example of the anachronistic debates that we see in today’s hopelessly arcane parliament. Socialists and the class we represent have no interest in whether we’re exploited by European capitalists or those in the US and we certainly don’t give a flying fig about the internecine struggle within the ruling class concerning their contrasting economic interests.

All of the rhetoric about democracy, national self–determination, labour rights, cultural identity and emigration is merely hyperbole disguising sordid greed. The interminable manipulation of procedure and legislation underlines just how inappropriate the esoteric rituals of parliament are in a twenty-first century global capitalist context. Not until the majority recognise that real democracy is only possible when the production of the means of life are taken into common ownership will debate become a meaningful reality to which they will all personally contribute; the squabbles between ex-public schoolboys about how they can best add to the wealth left to them by their daddies will be long gone.

Wez.

The Scale Of It All (2019)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the September 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘We are going to die – and that makes us the lucky ones’ is a quote from Richard Dawkins. Despite its melancholic tone it is, in fact, a statement of celebration because he goes on to explain that of all of the millions of possible genetic combinations generated by sexual activity, the meeting of a specific sperm and egg is the product of a purely chance encounter; an unimaginable number of other people could have been born instead of us – but against all the odds here we are. This is an example of a perspective that can give us a whole new understanding of who we are and what we could and should do with our lives. Being conscious of the universe in which we exist is rare and, for all we know, possibly unique in the vast nothingness that is most of the universe. Together with awe this kind of perspective presents us with a responsibility to ourselves and to our species. We know that nature is indifferent to our survival as a species so it is our responsibility to protect the tiny corner of the universe (the Earth) that alone sustains us.

Many claim that they have no time for such philosophical considerations and certainly capitalism presents the vast majority with an unending struggle for existence that distracts us from what we do best – think. Of course the hysteria of modern wage slavery and consumerism can also serve as an excuse to avoid the fear that many feel when confronted with meaning and mortality. Education so often tells us what to think instead of how to think. But life is not a riddle or an equation with just one correct answer; it is more akin to a journey of experience and contemplation of not only the individual but of us all from the past, in the present and the future. Together with the idea of just how lucky we are to exist at all here are some other examples of perspectives that might help us to look up occasionally from the mundane monotony of life in capitalism.

The observable universe is 93 billion light years in diameter and a light year equals 9.46 trillion (9.46 x one million million) kilometres (the Earth is 12,742 kilometres in diameter). Such size and distance is barely conceivable and yet we have a number for it. This is the beauty of scale; once a standard measurement of size is achieved then everything else can be described as a magnitude of it. These numbers make most of us feel totally insignificant as individuals but what of the size of the collective intellect that produces them? If your physical size as a human being is important to you then the numbers concerning the infinitesimal are equally mind-boggling. The smallest known object is a sub-atomic particle called a quark and it measures minus 100,000,000,000,000,000,000th of a metre. The average radius of an atom is 300 trillionths of a metre which is some 10,000 times the size of its nucleus and the smallest form of life known is a virus that comes in at a mighty minus 10,000,000,000th of a metre. It feels as if we’re somewhere in the middle of the almost infinitely large and the possibly infinitely small; doubtless this has something to do with the ‘anthropomorphic principle’. This balance of perspectives can help protect our conception of ourselves from both the fear of insignificance and the hubris of over importance.

Having dealt with space let’s move on to time. The universe is 13.8 billion years old. The Earth is a mere 4.5 billion years of age and life first emerged a billion years later. Humans first came on the scene about 800,000 years ago. Again, in this context, our average 80 years or so of life doesn’t seem to amount to much but then some species of mayfly only live for a few hours. For the vast majority of its existence humanity lived in hunter/gatherer communities and communism would seem to be the default social organisation for our species.

Some 10,000 years ago in a very limited region the Neolithic Revolution took place and humanity began its inevitable and brutal journey into private property. The agricultural surplus was stolen first by nomadic raiders and then by those who controlled the warriors who evolved to protect it from such depredations. Given the incredible speed of technological advance we now find ourselves with the possibility of returning to our default socialist economic arrangement. We live primarily within a world we have created (a culture) which has stood outside of nature and it is only within this cultural arena of political action that we can liberate ourselves from the slavery of private property and re-enter the natural world as its protector. For those who are exasperated by the failure of the arrival of the revolution we can only point to the timescale of our incredibly young species and its meteoric cultural evolution. It took the capitalist class many hundreds of years, from its medieval origins, to achieve its present political and economic hegemony. In many ways modern socialism has just begun as both the knowledge and aspiration that can make it possible.

Some of the more scientifically-minded readers will observe something of an anachronism in the previous text; 100 years ago Albert Einstein synthesised time and space in his theory of General Relativity. This conjured up a demon that both science and philosophy have yet to fully comprehend, the black hole ‘singularity’. This one- dimensional object is supposedly infinitely massive, infinitely small and bends space-time, you guessed it, infinitely. It would seem that if we follow scale to its logical conclusion it loses its coherence and meaning because we cannot imagine the infinite. Perhaps everything – ideas, worlds, energy, matter and even nothingness will eventually succumb to the embrace of the singularity. To comprehend nature and to find our place within it is humanity’s true destiny but first we have to liberate ourselves from the infantile squabbles for money and power of the tiny irrelevant ruling elite. Part of socialist consciousness is to recognise the potential of our species after the resolution of the political struggle using our knowledge of philosophy and its young progeny, science.

Wez

Same Difference? (2019)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the less used items from within the dialectical toolbox is the sameness/difference duality. Its paradoxical nature is highlighted in the much used retort: ‘but that’s like comparing apples with oranges’; a phrase often used to emphasize the inappropriateness of a particular analogy. This kind of critique always insists on difference rather than similarity, a familiar feature of contemporary ideology, but sometimes what is important about apples and oranges is that they are both fruits.

During a discussion about narrative structures within literature and films I found myself more interested in the idea of the ‘meta-structure’ of the quest storyline. From The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey through The Morte D’Arthur to The Big Lebowski , Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter stories we see many similarities. Indeed the rise of ‘genre’ entertainment has led to an expectation of formulaic similarities within the modern audience. An objection to this approach to understanding narratives is that it can overwhelm the subtle aesthetic differences that make the telling of the tale meaningful to a contemporary audience. So a balance is needed to produce an insightful and relevant critique of any art form; or, for that matter, of just about any experience.

Consumer capitalism attempts to surround us with novelty; it continually proclaims to have reinvented the wheel. On the supermarket shelves we see what appears to be an endless variety when in fact beneath the bright packaging we find much the same ingredients. The ability to see hidden realities beneath superficial facades has always been celebrated as one of the highest human intellectual achievements – with the scientific adventure being the supreme example. 

A great danger of being surrounded by hyperbole is that the truly new and important can be overlooked. This is where a dialectical approach can be a powerful help. Political ideologies come and go with great rapidity: ‘monetarism’, ‘neo-liberalism’, ‘the third way’, ‘Leninism’, ‘Trotskyism’, ‘populism’ etc, all proclaim to be something new and different but for a socialist they are just a tired repackaging of capitalism.

Hence we emphasize the sameness of such ideologies and not whatever subtle differences may or may not exist. Our perspective is purely pragmatic – will these ‘new’ ideologies substantially change the lives of working people? Upon consideration, using the methods explained above, we have reached the conclusion that such minor variations of the capitalist system cannot and will not change the lives of the majority for the better – and, thus far, we have been proven correct in our conclusions.

It might be surprising to some that, given the bitter and destructive nature of the class struggle, we do not emphasize any substantial difference between the vast majority and the tiny parasitic minority in terms of their humanity. The Left love to demonize the individual capitalist as evil and greedy – which he or she might be – but what is important here is to emphasize that they are trapped in their role just as the working class are trapped into making the lives of the rich possible. Obviously the economic concerns of the rich are very different from those of us who have to sell our labour power to them in order to exist but as human beings they also share many of our anxieties albeit in a different form. Life and death, physical and psychological well-being and human relationships dominate their lives as much as they do ours.

Given the social nature of our species the rich can suffer loneliness (the continual doubt about the possible monetary motivation of friends and loved ones) and the alienation born of privileged social exclusion and the continual quest for more wealth and power that provides status within their peer group. With this in mind we focus our critique on capitalism and not on individual capitalists. We stress the difference in economic and political terms and emphasize sameness in relation to our shared humanity and its deepest needs – a dialectical insight and balance is achieved.

The decision whether or not to emphasize one or other of these elements present in all political ideas is wholly dependent on historical development; for instance given the dominant mode of production in Russia in 1917 (agrarian and feudal) the sameness of the political and economic interests of the minority bourgeoisie (immanent) and the working class (future) at that moment in history made it imperative that both these minority classes worked together to overthrow the autocracy of the Czarist regime.

Had the Mensheviks the wisdom to reject participation in the then raging First World War the Bolshevik coup d’état would most likely never have happened and Russia would probably have progressed to a more traditional form of capitalism. The Bolshevik insistence that their regime was a form of socialism, and the acceptance of this by many intellectuals, is testament to the dangers inherent in wrongly emphasizing the difference of the social origins of a new elite and their confused statist economic experiment rather than insisting on the sameness of authoritarian structures inherent in all forms of capitalism from the perspective of the overwhelming majority.

Wez

Political Aesthetics (2019)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the July 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is relatively easy to comprehend the politics involved in cultural aesthetic sensibilities. In this issue you can read about the colonial background that still informs India’s conception of female beauty. There exists no universal or cross-cultural consensus as to what constitutes beauty, good taste or even art itself. This is not to say that aesthetics are purely subjective since we can trace these values as they evolve through history; the politics involved within this process are revealed by an understanding of class, power and cultural dialectics. But can politics itself possess an aesthetic dimension? Would it be appropriate, or even possible, to speak of a socialist aesthetic?

Since it is the case that even mathematics is considered by some of its more esoteric practitioners to be an art rather than – as you might think – merely the absolute manifestation of cold logic, it would seem that no human activity is totally free of aesthetics. Perhaps this is partly what ‘humanises’ any discipline. To find pleasure in work (all labour, not just the so-called creative arts) and its results in terms of form, rhythm, pattern, catharsis and insight etc. is for most of us a high point of existence. For this to become available to everyone we must, of course, eliminate wage slavery and its alienation. Perhaps this understanding of freedom is the foremost socialist aesthetic. If we can find no pleasure in work then the revolution is pointless.

This conception of aesthetics is, unsurprisingly, contrasted with that found within contemporary bourgeois ideology which focuses on icons of escapism, individualism and power. We are informed that it is possible to enjoy the music of Wagner, the films of John Ford, the philosophy of Nietzsche and the poetry of T. S. Eliot purely aesthetically without reference to their reactionary politics. Perhaps so, but without an awareness of the underlying messages of racism, violence, misanthropy and despair it would be politically naïve to embrace their work uncritically. Aesthetics can be used in the service of both reaction and progression – loving someone doesn’t make them a good person.

Perhaps because music is the most abstract of the arts it is the easiest to subvert politically. William Blake’s poem Jerusalem and Edward Elgar’s Nimrod have become icons of English nationalism – a fate very different from the original intentions of the composers. Even the Red Flag and the Internationale have been corrupted by their association with the Leftist dictatorships of China and Russia. In a final horrible irony the British Labour Party sing both Jerusalem and The Red Flag at the conclusion of their annual conference; a synthesis implying a kind of ‘national socialist’ agenda which emphasises the danger of the mixture of idealism and romantic patriotism.

It is also informative that the avant-garde futurists were aesthetically at the forefront during the making of the Russian Revolution but succumbed quickly to the obscenity of ‘socialist realism’ once the Bolshevik bureaucracy was safely established. The personification of the perfect ‘Soviet man’ in this perverted propaganda exactly parallels the Aryan ‘superman’ of German fascist art and reveals their common bourgeois authoritarian historical origins.

Political philosophy also has its aesthetic dimension. The German tradition of dialectical analysis was subverted and then bequeathed by Karl Marx to the service of socialism. To its practitioners there is no greater theoretical pleasure than reconstructing the sectarian deconstruction of knowledge made by the ideologues of capitalism. One of its great post-Marx enthusiasts was a philosopher called Theodore Adorno. As a member of the ‘Frankfurt School’ he wrote many interesting dialectical tracts that can be appreciated purely in terms of the use of language and their structure and rhythm – especially his aphoristic essays.

Paradoxically in his distress at the commodification of the arts in the hands of the bourgeoisie, what he called the ‘culture industry’, he can justifiably be described as something of an intellectual elitist. Traditionally the ‘high arts’ were defined by an established cultural elite who looked down upon the ‘naïve folk art’ of the lower classes. Although the bourgeoisie aspired to artistic pretention this was always subservient to profit. Initially resisted, the music of black American culture was unstoppable both in its popularity and so in its profitability. Undoubtedly this kind of commercialisation contributed to a democratisation of the arts (including, of course, cinema, sports, theatre and literature) but it has also led to an aesthetic dilution courtesy of consumerism.

Because socialism is not ‘ideological’ (being fully aware of historical class context and therefore it needs no religion, intellectual dogma or prejudice to mask the underlying political reality) its call for liberation is a cri de coeur for all humanity. Any profound rejection of capitalism will incorporate, however unconsciously, a level of the socialist aesthetic. If you doubt this just listen to the song Weak Fantasy by the rock band ‘Nightwish’. Although the band is associated with the promulgation of the ideas of Richard Dawkins and environmentalism no socialist could demur from the song’s angry denunciation of the escapism, consumerism and lying propaganda of our present culture. Given the band’s synthesis of symphonic opera and heavy metal rock perhaps even Adorno might have had to rethink his disdain for popular culture.

Wez

Can you be a socialist and anti-Marxist? (2019)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the June 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is sometimes claimed that it is possible to be a socialist without being a Marxist; in an attempt to answer this we might begin by reversing the assertion and ask is it possible to be a Marxist without being a socialist? Any variety of ‘ism’ is capable of various interpretations but they all depend on at least one principle – that an individual identifies with others in terms of a perceived shared political perspective. This perspective is in turn dependent on the social, historical and moral-cultural context. The individual is more or less theoretically free to identify with any of the pre-existing (and evolving) political perspectives that he or she is born into. The level of rational coherence will differ according to the needs of the individual and the ambitions of the political group that is embraced. As a member of this group, the individual will then set about to convince others of the political efficacy of his cause so that the desired social change can be attempted. As with all such groups, there will be an internal dynamic that causes it to change through time. For socialism, one such occasion was the activity of one of its advocates: Karl Marx.

Although a member of the Communist League and then the International  Workingmen’s Association Marx became primarily a theoretician and journalist rather than a party activist in his political maturity. His main gifts to socialism were his theories of economics and historical development. These ideas embraced and then eclipsed in importance the moral outrage at the manifest injustices of capitalism that had characterised the motivation for socialism formally. Many have declared that his work transformed socialism from idealism into a form of science. Certainly, a thorough understanding of surplus value and historical materialism would define a profound difference between Marxism and the Left who would still cling to moral outrage as their primary ‘call to arms’. The political consequences of Marxism would also demand a thoroughly democratic mass movement which was anathema to both the elitist paternalism of socialist idealism and later to bureaucratic Bolshevism. Today we still have people who insist that they are socialists whilst declaring Marx’s main theoretical discoveries invalid. Their reasoning for this usually consists of aligning Marxism with the failed Bolshevism of Soviet Russia – but given the complete lack of political and historical evidence for this conclusion, it is more likely that a mixture of ignorance of Marxism together with a bourgeois belief that others need to be led politically is what really underlies their objections.

Another objection to Marxism by the ‘moderate social democrats’ is its association with violent revolution as portrayed in the many images of beret-wearing and AK47-wielding leftist radicals all through the latter part of the twentieth century. Many ‘liberation movements’ labelled themselves as Marxist at that time without any specific reference to – or understanding of – Marx’s work. These movements were, almost without exception, inspired by Lenin’s Bolshevism that politically contradicted most of what Marx believed. Indeed the association of revolution with an armed insurrection derives entirely from the bourgeois revolutions of Holland, England, America and France where one minority class (the aristocracy) was replaced by another (the bourgeoisie). Ironically the downfall of the Russian state capitalist empire and its replacement by a conventional capitalist system more closely resembles the relatively peaceful revolution that Marxists anticipate when the majority loses faith in the political structure whatever form of capitalism it represents.

Another irony of Marxism is its representation in academia – not just in terms of politics but the study of history, culture, economics, philosophy, the performing arts etc., all include a Marxian school which is considered, even within bourgeois culture, as intellectually respectable. It seems that once let out of the bottle the Marxian genie cannot easily be put back in. Some of these intellectuals, although they make use of Marxian dialectical analysis, make no claims to be Marxist socialists. Intellectual elitism might well make this impossible for some of them but it does seem to prove that it is possible to be a Marxist within some disciplines and not be a socialist. So what of the claim that you can be a socialist without being a Marxist?

Some have said that to be a socialist without reference to Marx is like claiming to be a physicist without reference to quantum mechanics or a biologist without reference to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Even outside of the ‘hard sciences’ no historian, philosopher, economist or anthropologist can escape a mention of Marx, even if it is just an attempt to refute his conclusions. How much more ridiculous is it for a ‘socialist’ to refute Marx without even attempting to understand his work. For those who claim to have understood his work and still reject the theories of surplus value and historical materialism whilst simultaneously claiming to be socialists, we can only point to 100 years of failed leftist dictatorships or reform programs to emphasise just how tragically mistaken they are.

Wez.

Fake News (2019)

The Woods for the Trees Column from the May 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists are amused at the establishment’s latest discovery: something called ‘fake news’. Information and its interpretation has, until the advent of the internet, traditionally been the preserve of the ruling class. Ownership of information (the media) is seen as a vital component for preserving the wealth and power of the 1 percent. Besides the handful of private owners (Murdoch etc.) their representatives in various governments have sought to monopolise the access to information. Socialists have, therefore, dismissed most of it as bourgeois propaganda and have always sought to render it transparent in terms of the agenda that defines its content (fake news). Can we ever disentangle the relationship between the events and their (political) interpretation? Of course raw data is useless without interpretation as can be seen from the information overload that is the World Wide Web. Let us engage in a thought experiment and examine what news might look like in a socialist society.

As a species we are always curious about the activities of our fellow beings and there’s no reason to believe that this will fundamentally change in socialism. In terms of global news there would still have to be a decision about the importance of any event. Those with journalistic responsibility (due to their talent in that area) will make this decision. Sometimes it will be obvious that an event has to be covered (a natural disaster or major technical failure etc.) otherwise an editorial judgment will be made. Upon the convergence of journalists at the required scene footage, interviews and interpretation would follow – just as it does today but with one significant difference: no political agenda. There would be no need to discover ‘scapegoats’ so as to deflect responsibility from one class to another, no need to feed the prejudice of the ideologies of racism, sexism, xenophobia, conspiracy or envy and above all there will be no need to protect the interest of privileged minorities – in other words it would not resemble, in any significant way, the ‘news’ we suffer today. In the absence of the political agenda outlined above what would be the nature of the interpretation of events in socialism?

Without the tensions inherent within class society the interpretation of events (the news) would assume that the mistakes (‘bad news’) are due to system malfunctions, human error, unforeseen natural formations or human scientific and/or technological hubris; the good news would, therefore, celebrate achievement in the absence of these qualities. Unlike today no default human malevolence would be assumed although the possible activity of psychologically disturbed individuals would not be entirely discounted.

Another important contrast to today’s newscasts would be the use of the historical perspective to explain the context of any event. History is humankind’s primary teacher. If we have failed to learn through the experience of the past then this will be highlighted. Socialist consciousness will allow journalists to access the dialectical processes inherent within any system and this will, hopefully, reveal the internal faults (or strengths) that have led to a ‘newsworthy’ event. From this the reader may assume, as we do, that this news of the future will be primarily ‘good news’ – something which is, with good reason, almost entirely absent in the contemporary media. Given our cynical cultural context many will roll their eyes at the perceived naivety and idealism of the above account of such a journalistic future unaware that this is a response conditioned by today’s media which seeks to explain events in terms of an innate and unchanging malevolent ‘human nature’ rather than by reference to the underlying tensions within capitalism.

Ironically one of the most infamous examples of fake news in recent times was the scandal of the ‘weapons of mass destruction’. In an attempt to justify the invasion of Iraq (for its oil) the Tony Blair government built a fantasy upon very flimsy and scant ‘intelligence’ that we were all in immediate danger from a weapons technology developed by a madman called Saddam Hussein. The British establishment chose to accept this as a show of loyalty to the flag bearer of international capitalist ideology (the USA) with the added incentive of a share of the liberated oil revenue. However this was such an extreme example of fake news that even the BBC exposed it as such only to have the journalist concerned martyred alongside his boss Greg Dyke for their pains. After the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis those who sought to expose the lies of the Labour government were justified and the reputation of both the Labour Party and the BBC should never be allowed to recover from such invidious and servile behaviour.

If the antithesis of fake news is real news how do we access it in a world of propaganda? Is there some source of raw data that exists apart from its interpretation? Given the impossibility of such an unpolluted reservoir of facts perhaps the duality of fake and real is unhelpful in this respect. We may replace it with the human traits of integrity and mendacity. In a society where the news is, like everything else, a commodity which is bought and sold the inability to understand the world in any other terms is intellectually and morally corrosive and inevitably leads to a level of mendacity. When the level of spin reaches such a lofty peak of contradiction then it usually becomes a matter of integrity and courage for those in a position to potentially become a whistle blower. That such individuals continue to exist inspires us all when our turn comes to articulate our defiance toward the manipulated consensus with the subsequent possibility of the loss of our job or even the love and respect of those whom we hold close.

Wez

Wood for the Trees: Authority (2019)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the April 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is no surprise that socialists have little time for ‘authority figures’. The origin of any level of power within this culture ultimately always derives from the capitalist class and their lickspittles; born of exploitation and oppression this kind of status is worthy only of our contempt. But what of moral and intellectual authority? Whilst discussing the nature of consciousness with the person behind the bar the other evening I commented upon the hubristic nature of our discourse (this is Cambridge remember) by reference to the generations of great minds who had considered the phenomenon before us. She paused and smiled and then resumed her musings on the subject. Philosophers of past and present have the ability to both intimidate and stimulate thought but what ‘authority’ do they have? Does the implied high level of intelligence together with a lifetime of study invest a person with authority? We might quibble with the usage preferring the word authoritative to describe an informed opinion; indeed such a person might not expect their conclusions to have any importance for others – but should they have? And if they do, of what significance are our own humble conjectures in comparison?

Many often claim to ‘have a right to their opinion’ and socialists would support that assertion but does the articulation of an unconsidered and therefore unresearched conclusion have any value? When we place ourselves in the dentist’s chair we assume many years of dedicated study and the certification to prove it; reassured by this we place ourselves under their authority. Unfortunately even with such advantages a dentist can still be rubbish at their job but this would not dissuade us from the belief that a profound knowledge of teeth is a definite advantage for anyone claiming to be a dentist. Is it the same with other disciplines like politics and philosophy? There are no certificates for intelligence and integrity but we usually recognise it when we encounter it in others. This kind of gravitas is always the result of study and coherent contemplation. Of course they can still be wrong despite all of their endeavours but such a conclusion, even if it is mistaken, has more value than an assertion based merely on ideological prejudice. Phrases like ‘the truth of the matter’ and ‘in the real world’ are used frequently with no reference to the profound philosophical implications of the concepts of truth and reality. So although we may dismiss the relevance of philosophy to our daily conversation it has to be acknowledged that without the concepts it creates we would have a very impoverished language with which to converse  and, ironically, it is only by using its logic that we can see that the phrases above are not related to their connotative meaning but rather to ideological prejudice and should really be articulated as: ‘this is the truth because I want it to be’ and ‘this is the real world because I need it to be’.

In the amoral cultural context of capitalism is there any source of moral authority? Are the ethical condemnations of its more obvious injustices just another example of empty ideological rhetoric?  In most advanced countries god is dead (or at least dying) and his priests no longer have any moral authority for the vast majority; however when asked about morality many will speak of it as ‘a personal matter’ as if their code of behaviour is somehow generated by individual free will rather than social conditioning and unfortunately the ghost of Christianity still haunts the European concepts of morality as do many of its hypocrisies. Giving to ‘charity’ is capitalism’s highest concession to any moral sensibility – conveniently forgetting, of course, that capitalism itself is a charity for the rich which directly causes the need of charities for the poor. We may refuse to buy goods that are created in third world sweatshops or decline to put our savings into banks associated with such companies only to discover that our own jobs might depend on a business which can only survive by using such cheap labour in a cut-throat market place. We might be morally outraged by the destruction of the environment but if it was a choice between not being able to provide for your family or taking the only job available which was to cut down trees in a rainforest we know the (moral) decision we would all, however reluctantly, have to make. This is why socialists believe that an entirely moral approach to politics is impossible and that no genuine moral authority can exist within an amoral world.

There are no individuals, books, ideologies, religions or traditions that can claim exclusive rights to intellectual or moral authority. We are all part of a process of cultural development that both informs us and to which we contribute (to a greater or lesser degree). Authority based on an economic power born of exploitation will always seek to inhibit this process but will always fail to do so in the end. Ever vigilant of the lurking seduction of our own prejudices and cultural conditioning we can seek out our own meaning from this rich human reservoir of knowledge. Even then we must subject what we think we know to our peers in debate and conjecture. Only such a democratic consensus (in the full awareness that it might be mistaken in both its method and aims) can claim to have any kind of political and/or moral authority.

Wez