The hollow cry of ‘self-determination’ in a world of borders (2026)

From the April 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

The air is thick with the rhetoric of ‘self-determination.’ From the hallowed halls of the United Nations to the televised addresses of national leaders, the principle that ‘all peoples have the right to freely determine their political status’ is touted as a moral absolute. Yet, for the global working class, this ‘right’ is nothing more than a cruel joke—a deceptive mask worn by the state to protect the interests of the ruling class.

The hypocrisy of the nation-state

The very states that harp on about self-determination are the ones that have historically opposed it whenever it threatened their own economic or military interests. For example, British imperial history is a masterclass in this hypocrisy; the idea of self-determination was seen as a direct threat to the control of colonies essential for economic benefits, military strategy, and international prestige.

Even today, the nation-state remains a ‘prison house of nationalities’. Leaders preach the moral superiority of national self-determination over sovereignty to justify their own territorial claims or to undermine rivals, yet they remain the routine managers of a capitalist system that thrives on exploitation.

The myth of national interest

Socialists maintain that there is no such thing as a ‘national interest’ that includes both the exploiter and the exploited. The nation-state is a territorial entity that identifies itself with a particular ‘people’ only to better manage them for the benefit of the capitalist class. When workers are told to wave national flags, they are being encouraged to block the path to any higher human synthesis and to ignore the fact that they have no fatherland to defend.

In this elemental chaos, the state uses nationalism and racism as tools to divide the working class, making more privileged groups feel that their interests lie with their masters rather than their fellow workers.

The real victim: working-class self-determination

While leaders argue over where to draw lines on a map, the true self-determination of the working class is systematically trampled. We define real socialism as a society where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and organised for the benefit of all.

Under the current system:

• Freedom is an illusion: workers are forced to sell their labour power for a wage, which entails providing the unpaid labour that forms the basis of capitalist wealth.
• Democratic rights are suppressed: governments and unions often cultivate a myth of an all-powerful government while insisting that nothing can be done about the systemic inequalities of capitalism.
• Solidarity is sabotaged: by emphasising national boundaries, the state ensures that workers of different nations view each other as competitors rather than allies against a common enemy.

A world without borders

We affirm that capitalism is incapable of meaningful change in the interests of the majority. The struggle for national liberation is frequently a trap; when a new national bourgeoisie takes power, the working class finds itself exploited by a new set of masters and mistresses under a new flag.

Our goal is not the ‘self-determination’ of new states, but the abolition of the state itself. We advocate for a classless, stateless, wageless, moneyless society – a frontierless world community where men and women cooperate freely to produce what is needed. Only by recognising that they are exploited by the same enemy class in all countries can workers reclaim their true identity and achieve real self-determination through a global democratic revolution.

Jake Ambrose (Australia)

Life & Times: Asylum hell (2024)

The Life and Times column from the July 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

I was recently invited to a wedding. The couple getting married were a young man from Africa and a local girl from my own area – Francis and Sarah I’ll call them. It was a modest affair – Registry Office with 20-30 people and then a buffet reception in a local community centre with a slightly larger attendance. The couple already had two children and were obviously devoted to each other. They’d met when Francis, who’d fled his country, was waiting for his umpteenth asylum application to be heard and processed. His parents had been killed in internecine fighting between religious groups in his country and, fearing for his life, he’d managed to find someone to help him escape, get to France and from there cross to the UK. All this when he was only 15 years of age. Now, on the day of his wedding, he was 31 and had only recently been granted leave to remain in this country – and that on a temporary basis. Before this he’d lived for a dozen years in limbo.

Threat of deportation

How did I come to know him? One day, out of the blue, a friend who regularly supports asylum seekers asked me if I’d attend court with one of them the following week since she’d arranged to go on holiday. I agreed and from there I sort of got drawn in. Francis had been ‘picked up’ by Home Office officials when he’d gone for one of his monthly sign-ons at the local police station. From there he’d been taken to a ‘safe place’ with a view to deportation. In the event the judge at the court hearing found that the necessary formalities for deportation hadn’t been satisfied and he was released pending further scrutiny. But he would still have to report to the local immigration office once a month. I said I would go with him.

So once a month I would accompany him to the processing place. Every time he went he was petrified he wouldn’t get out but would be bundled into one of the Home Office vans waiting menacingly outside. So I made a point of dressing up (ie suit, collar and tie) reasoning that, whatever their intentions, they might have more compunction about snatching him if an older well-dressed man (who might even be his solicitor) was with him. In the event they never tried it again, but he did continue to be put through hell, with all the long drawn out, complex applications and appeals he made being rejected. This was largely on the grounds that they didn’t believe his story. And it’s true that he didn’t have evidence to prove it, and of course I couldn’t be absolutely sure myself. But it didn’t matter to me. As a socialist who wants a world without frontiers or discrimination of any sort, whatever anyone’s story, I was an open borders person.

Mind games

Every time Francis applied or appealed against a decision, he was made to travel half the length of the country – usually to the immigration office in Liverpool – to deliver his application by hand, even though that process itself took around 10 minutes. How did he survive during this time? Well, the friend of mine who had been kind enough to give him a room in her house to live in and some financial support, also got one of the local universities to accept him to follow a degree course in Business Studies free of charge. And this despite the fact that, in the beginning at least, he knew very little English. But he turned out to be a bit of a prodigy, mastering English very quickly and becoming a fluent speaker and writer. So much so that, on completing his course, he was awarded a first-class degree. And this was a key part of his next Home Office application. He hoped that they would recognise him as someone who could usefully contribute to the society he was desperate to live in. Instead he got knocked back again. Their response to his academic achievement was that he’d be able to contribute usefully to his home country when he went back there.

The rejection was nothing new. ‘Mind games’ was the way he described it. Yet even if he couldn’t work, had no entitlement to any means of living and still faced deportation, he somehow managed to stay positive. This was rewarded when he met Sarah. She took him to live with her, they had a child and, when he applied again, he went down ‘the family route’. To the surprise of us all, this time they relented and gave him short-term permission to stay. These decisions are often thought to be hit and miss, depending even on the mood of the Home Office caseworker at the time, so maybe this time that person got up on the right side of bed? But, anyway, this was a start and meant that at least Francis had the legal right to work. And he quickly found a job – in a delivery depot on the night shift. And then he moved to working in a care home, something he liked better and found a good deal of satisfaction in. He still works there, his leave to remain having been extended – hopefully indefinitely. So given the treatment asylum seekers get and the social and political demonisation they’re subject to, I think we can say he’s one of the lucky ones. When I attended court with him at the beginning, I witnessed one poor individual being dragged away to be put on a plane – the anonymous fate of so many, and of some of Francis’s own friends.

Abolish borders?

So the wedding was a happy event for him – and for me – especially considering that so many desperate people leave their homes through poverty or oppression only to find that the better life they were hoping for elsewhere doesn’t materialise and they may even be pushed back forcibly to the place they were escaping from. So Francis, though it may be thought that, as a care worker, he’s not fulfilling his potential, has been luckier than many in a system that divides groups of people up by borders and denies them the right to movement across the planet for all that a sane socialist society would offer. But this can only come with the abolition not just of borders and states but of money, wages and the whole of the profit system.

Howard Moss

Can there be ‘non-reformist’ reforms? (2022)

Book Review from the December 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Against Borders. The Case For Abolition by Gracie Mae Bradley and Luke De Noronha (Verso, 2022)

The recent furore caused by a Tory politician referring to migrants entering the UK as ‘an invasion’ has brought to the fore the whole question of borders and ‘bordering’. Most people of course take for granted the idea that borders are natural and permanent, that we are all ‘citizens’ of a certain state, which gives us the right to live and work there and also to keep out citizens of other states who may be considered unwanted or undesirable for one reason or another. Few question the idea that a state needs to have borders, often well-policed ones, to enable such exclusion to take place. Disregard of such borders by people from outside seeking to enter provokes vexation or hostility among many and is easily used as part of a political party’s agenda to court support and popularity.

Life for migrants

Those from outside who do manage to get in by irregular means are subjected to a rigorous process of ‘assessment’ before a decision is taken on whether they are ‘genuine’ refugees or asylum seekers who might be in peril if they returned to their home country, or whether they are just ‘trying it on’, ie, attempting to gain entrance simply for economic or other reasons deemed non-legitimate. Anyone who has been involved with trying to assist asylum seekers knows just how precarious an existence they lead in the period of their assessment, sometimes lasting a number of years. They live a life on the edge not knowing from one day to the next whether or when they will suddenly be taken to a detention centre to face deportation to a place where their life may be in danger.

On the positive side, this prompts a significant number of people to come forward and assist these individuals in a practical way and to show them fellow feeling and humanity. And there are others who in a sense go further and seek to make the case more generally against the use and very existence of borders as a way of excluding people and putting barriers in the way of their seeking other and hopefully better lives. An example of this mainly with reference to the US was the 2021 book by Todd Miller, Build Bridges Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders (recently reviewed in this journal) and now, focused on the UK, we have Against Borders. The Case For Abolition by Gracie Mae Bradley and Luke De Noronha (Verso, 2022).

Borders and the nation state

Both these books present a powerful set of arguments against the nation state, the system it supports and the suffering it causes, even if neither takes the arguments further by advocating in a specific way not just the abolition of borders and states but, as the Socialist Party does, of money, wages and the whole of the profit system. This is a pity because they are all pieces of the same intricate jigsaw that make up the capitalist system.

There are, however, points in their book in which Bradley and De Noronha seem fully conscious of this. They advocate, for example, ‘transformation of the conditions to which borders are a response’, ‘a world without borders’ without ‘the false promises of race and nations’, and abolition of ‘the nation-state system’. They also say that they are for ‘rejecting the dreary and paralysing politics of reformism’. But, at the same time their practical recommendations remain on the level of working for certain kinds of reforms within the current system, which they label ‘non-reformist reforms’, and for ‘government policies that are less bad’. They take this ‘non-reformist reform’ formulation from the French writer and theorist André Gorz, who, in the 1960s, argued for ‘revolutionary reformism’, ie, seeing some types of reforms as being both of immediate benefit to workers and at the same time somehow laying the ground for revolutionary change (he was an early advocate of the so-called ‘guaranteed basic income’). Like Gorz, they see fights for these reforms as ‘trials of strength’, small wins which would allow movements to build power and momentum. They state that ‘the task of distinguishing these ‘non-reformist reforms’ from reformist ones is vital, while also, however, admitting that there can be a fine line between the two.

‘Non-reformist’ reforms

What are the ‘non-reformist reforms’ around border control that these writers say we should now aim for as a prelude to a world in which borders are abolished? Examples they give are: equal access for refugees and asylum seekers ‘to essential goods and services’ and ‘labour rights and protections’ regardless of immigration status; an end to deportation for ‘foreign’ offenders found guilty of crimes; an end to Home Office policing of refugees and asylum seekers; fewer resources expended on immigration control. All this as a prelude to aiming for something more, a world in which everyone has the freedom to move and to stay – something which we can only applaud.

However the obvious comment that these ‘non-reformist’ proposals prompt is not that, perhaps with much effort, lobbying and the rest, they are impossible to achieve but that, even if they were achieved and this made a significant difference to the plight of refugees and asylum seekers, they would do nothing to address the wider imperative of abolishing the borders between nation states which the authors rightly see as controlling and defining people and fuelling nationalistic and racial divisions. Nor would they do anything to remedy the widely differing levels of access to the necessities of life that make capitalism a profoundly unequal society. What they certainly would do is take up a massive amount of time and energy on the part of those campaigning and almost certainly distract attention from the fundamental task of replacing a society dedicated to profit to one based on the satisfaction of needs. Also, though there is of course no denying that certain reforms can be beneficial to migrants and to workers generally, it is also the case that, just as one government may decide to bring them in, another may decide to revoke them and so take us back to square one.

System change not reforms

So reforms, even if labelled ‘non-reformist’ (or, as some may call them, ‘progressive’), cannot resolve the basic contradictions of a system organised for the benefit of a wealth-owning minority not for the majority who have to sell their energies to an employer for a wage or salary. Indeed reforms may even serve to perpetuate that system by lending it temporary respectability and acceptance in the sense that it may seem that improvements are being made and that should be enough. Of course it is not enough and it may easily make those involved in such activity lose sight of – and so actually impede – the essential socialist objective of a moneyless, leaderless world society of voluntary cooperative work, free access to all goods and services and truly democratic organisation. Why prolong the agony?

Howard Moss

Editorial: World poverty, boats and borders (2023)

Editorial from the October 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

The government has pledged to stop the flow of people crossing the channel in coffin boats, with little sign of success. The opposition, anxious to rebuild its Red Wall, is accusing them of doing nothing about it for too long.

How are the boat people to be described? The government calls them ‘illegal immigrants’. Charities prefer ‘refugees’ on the grounds that people will have more sympathy for them. Some will be (anybody from Afghanistan, for instance — who wouldn’t want to flee that hell-hole ruled by religious fanatics?). For others, they are ‘economic migrants’. Many, perhaps most, will be. For us as socialists, that doesn’t make any difference — they are fellow workers moving in a bid to find a better economic future under capitalism. They still have our sympathy.

We are living under capitalism which is a worldwide economic system, but divided politically into states (some 200 at the last count), and it is unrealistic to expect them to allow unrestricted immigration into their territory. It would cause them all sorts of economic and political problems. That doesn’t mean that they are against immigration as such. What they want is to control it.

The United States is known as a ‘nation of immigrants’. Britain is one too, with a population and working class that includes descendants of migrants first from Ireland and then from the other parts of its former empire. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are obvious examples. Even today, 40 percent of the population of London was born outside Britain.

With a declining birth rate, most European states still need, and actually want, more workers so as to keep and step up the flow of profits. What they don’t want is unregulated, disorderly immigration. But with conditions in other parts of the world so dire they can’t do much to stop it. In theory it might help if they stopped bombing or imposing sanctions on selected countries but geo-political rivalries rule that out. It’s a global problem to which there are no national solutions.

The slogan ‘No Borders’ is good in expressing an aspiration but is unrealistic under capitalism. It can be achieved only when we get socialism. As long as capitalism lasts there will be borders and border controls. The most that can be expected is capitalism coming to be organised into bigger and bigger political units within which there is free movement, as in the US and the EU.

Gary Lineker got it right. There is some scapegoating going on like in Germany in the 1930s. But not just like then. The same thing happened in Britain in the 1960s and 70s to scapegoat (legal) immigrants and, going further back, the anti ‘alien’ agitation of the first decade of the last century. Nationalism has never had anything going for it. It’s not only divisive but stupid.

As socialists we denounce all nationalist ideologies and the borders between so-called ‘nation states’, while pointing out that only a socialist world of common ownership can provide the framework within which global poverty can be eliminated once and for all.

Material World: No Borders! (2023)

The Material World column from the August 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists want a world without countries or borders or passports, where people are part of the great human family and can come and go as they wish, with no concept of migration or asylum. This is part of our aim of a global society with no poverty or hunger or war, where people co-operate for the common good and the resources of the planet belong to everyone, are used to meet human need and are subject to democratic control.

Borders, frontiers and walls are usually seen as an essential part of capitalism. The ruling capitalist class determine the laws and policies within the area they control, at least to the extent that capitalism allows them to do so. Among other things, this means laying down regulations about immigration, who can enter the country, where they can come from, which requirements they must meet, how long they can stay, which kind of jobs they can hold. Brexit was in part motivated by the desire to limit immigration and ‘control our borders’, rather than the EU having the final say in such matters.

However, there are some supporters of capitalism who advocate ‘open borders’, at least to the extent of allowing migration without any restrictions. For instance: ‘if workers could move freely around the world, the market would generally match people and jobs efficiently, but when governments intervene selectively, obstructing some workers from moving while actively encouraging others to do so, the market becomes distorted’ (Philippe Legrain: Immigrants).

The point is that capitalism often needs to ‘import’ workers from elsewhere, perhaps because of a shortage of those with the relevant skills or of those willing to do back-breaking labour; in Germany, for instance, a law was passed recently to make it easier for workers from outside the EU to move there. Borders and immigration controls are not compatible with the supposed ‘free market’, where supply and demand (of workers just as much as cars and chairs) will allegedly match each other by a kind of magic. After all, if you believe there should be no restrictions or taxes on movement of consumer goods or the export of capital, then logically neither should there be limits on workers moving around the globe.

Other arguments along similar lines can be found on the website of the Future of Freedom Foundation (fff.org), a ‘libertarian’ US think tank that stands for the more-or-less unfettered freedom of capitalists to exploit workers. A talk in 2014 by its president Jacob Hornberger included the absurd claim that ‘immigration controls are nothing more than socialist central planning’. His solution was ‘a free market in immigration’, with open borders, across which people could move freely. In such a system, ‘people would be free to come to the United States and enter into mutually beneficial labor relationships with American employers who would be willing to hire them.’ Borders would still exist, separating the world into different jurisdictions, but people would be free to cross them as they wish.

This is of course based on a ludicrous idea of how capitalism works. The relations between capitalists and workers are not ‘mutually beneficial’ but based on exploitation and a real gap in status between the two parties to the relationship. Wealth and power on one side, poverty and insecurity on the other. Supposedly open borders will not change this in the slightest.

Tim Marshall’s book Divided also deals with the issue of open borders. He refers to an article by the American economist Nathan Smith, which argues that ending migration controls would (in Smith’s words) ‘increase liberty, reduce global poverty, and accelerate economic growth.’ Labour would be allocated more efficiently, resulting in ‘global increases in productivity, leading the world economy to nearly double in size.’ This would ‘disproportionately benefit the world’s poorest people.’

Marshall objects to this proposal on two grounds. The first is that the initial migrants from impoverished countries would be those who could afford to do so, meaning fewer doctors, teachers and so on in the countries concerned. The second relates to ‘human nature’ or ‘group identity’: people tend not to like it when large groups of ‘outsiders’ descend on them. But this relates to what often happens now, in a society based on competition and shortages and ‘us versus them’, and is not a general feature of how people live. His book is full of examples of the appalling consequences of walls, such as the 2,500-mile fence that the Indian government has built along most of its border with Bangladesh. Over a third of the world’s countries have physical barriers along their borders.

These ideas (Legrain, Hornberger, Smith, and Marshall’s doubts too) are rooted in capitalism, a system which is based on dividing people and setting them against each other. Further, in a society where global heating and environmental damage are major problems, the idea of doubling the size of the world’s economy is not attractive. One of the priorities of socialism will be to provide decent food, housing, healthcare and education for all the world’s population. We cannot say now just what that would involve in terms of committing people and resources, but it will take place in a world where there really are no borders, no classes, no rulers and no governments. Decisions will be made democratically, at whatever level (local, regional, etc) is deemed appropriate. Having no borders does not mean there are no sub-divisions for administrative purposes, just that people will not be seen as belonging to some arbitrary part of the Earth and as somehow different from those who ‘belong’ elsewhere.

Paul Bennett

Frontierless World (2022)

Book Review from the August 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Against Borders – The Case for Abolition. By Gracie Mae Bradley and Luke De Noronha. Verso. Paperback £9.99. 2022. 

Where at first glance Against Borders… has a single-issue focus, it becomes a multi-faceted explainer of how ‘migrants’ are seen under the terms of capitalism and how we could interact with our fellow humans in a future, more open world.

The book regularly refers to André Gorz’s concept of ‘Non-Reformist Reforms’ (bit.ly/3z1mXui) but gives socialists something to think about in terms of how borders can be abolished and other related issues solved in a future freed from capitalist constraints.

The book is broken down into chapters on race, policing and prisons and counter-terrorism among others but possibly the most thought-provoking is simply entitled ‘Capitalism’. Bradley and De Noronha refer to the ‘myth of race and nation’ and how these and other similar concepts persuade us to perceive a worker from abroad differently from someone who hails from the same locality. There is discussion around how and to what end migrant workers are criminalised and treated by police forces, and the book includes interesting explanations of how ownership of land and ownership of territories differ.

In a 2018 article, author, broadcaster and professor Gary Younge described how when his Barbadian mother came to Britain in 1962 to work as a nurse she was already a British subject – ‘My mother didn’t cross the border to come to Britain – the border crossed her.’ In Against Borders… Bradley and De Noronha include a chapter on race and what it means to be a ‘citizen’ including critique of the ‘hostile environment’ (bit.ly/3ALCqju). Why, for example, do we need to be a ‘citizen’ in order to claim basic human rights from a state and how might campaigns for particular groups of migrants be considered to be defeatist by virtue of their reformist nature, rather than attempting to get to the root of the issue.

Ultimately, the book could be judged as a modern revision of concepts around the position and power (or lack thereof) of the worker, both regarding capital and people’s ability to determine their own lives. The authors explicitly and interestingly leave open some questions about how we may restructure after borders are deemed obsolete. There are two thought-provoking utopian ‘interlude’ sections with imagined futures of people on the move and how this could play out in a post-capitalist world.

If Against Borders… is to be a (figurative) call to arms for a new audience to recognise that a radical change is possible in terms of how a state treats people from other (current) nations and possibilities around the building of a new realm, then the message is a positive one.

‘The abolition of borders requires that we challenge all of the social structures underpinning their permanence’ (p149).

TJ

Borders- Who needs them? (2004)

From the March 2004 issue of the World Socialist newsletter

The Spanish word for a national border is La Frontera. Often these arbitrary partitions are emphasized with different types of walls meant to keep people out. Some contemporary examples are, for instance, the now toppled Berlin W all, and the current wall Israel is in the process of building in order to divide Palestinians and Israelis.

The border that divides the U.S.A. and Mexico also contains sections of wall and fence at different points along La Frontera. In spite of those walls and numerous trigger-happy law enforcement agencies that patrol them, thousands of Latinos risk life and limb each year to cross into the US.

The compulsion is simple. It hinges on economics and the struggle to survive. If the economic tables were turned, US citizens would do the same thing. Human beings will, after all, brave many dangers in order to make a better life for themselves and their loved ones.

Each year, however, hundreds are killed trying to make this arduous journey. Some are shot to death, but many more die from exposure trying to cross the desert lands in the region.

A recent news story in Primer Impacto showed the section of the wall in Tijuana Mexico. It had coffins nailed to it, and each coffin had the number of people who had perished for each year inscribed on the lid, 340 in 2002, 400 in 2003. A sad reminder of mans' inhumanity to man.

We often hear of illegals supposedly taking jobs from native-born workers, or that they steal medical and educational services at tax payers expense. Sometimes we even hear the idea being tossed about of amnesty for illegals. These are preposterous notions, for why should any person be denied the right to be able to work, to be educated, or have access to medical services? By what right or reason can amnesty be granted a human being of this earth who is a natural component of it anyway?

Only the system that puts profits before human life creates these arbitrary partitions and all of their life- threatening lunacies.

We could easily do away with these boundaries though, by abolishing the capitalist system that gives rise and legitimacy to them, and replacing it with socialism. The democratic ownership and administration of the means of production and the free access to all goods and services would mean an end to nation states, borders, poverty, war, and pollution. It would amount to a true amnesty for everyone on the planet. People could then travel and live anywhere they wanted without having to risk their life to do it. Such travel would only be motivated by the individual desire, however, and would not be coerced by an inhumane anti-human economic system.

Lets work for a world without borders.

Gulf Coast Red (TX)

Voice from the Back: A Wasteful Society (2009)

The Voice From The Back Column from the March 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Wasteful Society

Capitalism is a very wasteful society that spends millions of potentially useful labour time and ingenuity in protecting private property. All over the world men and women spent their time in organisations like armies and police forces. Here is a small example of the stupidity of a private property society, in this case the border between Mexico and the USA. “18,000 – the number of Border Patrol agents assigned to it in 2008 (up from 4,000 in 1993) 705,000 – the number of people caught trying to cross it illegally in 2007/2008, down from 1.6 million in 2000. That’s the equivalent to 2,000 people a day. 1,954 – the number of people who died crossing it between 1998 and 2004, mainly of exposure, drowning or car crashes.” (Times, 16 January) Inside world socialism there will be no countries and no national borders. Everyone on Earth will be free to roam the whole world without passports or visas. There will be no border patrols, people will be free to engage in useful work.

 

Alternative Life Styles

Two pieces of literature came through many workers letter boxes recently. Here is one from the Observer, 8 February – “Prince Edward spent last week on an official visit involving lots of good works to Barbados, including lunch yesterday at the Sandy Lane hotel (favoured by Michael Winner and Simon Cowell, with rooms costing around £3,000 per person per night) and an afternoon at the resort’s golf course.” Here is another from the charity WaterAid “Every 17 seconds, a child in the developing world dies from water-related diseases, in around the time it takes you to read this paragraph, someone, somewhere, will die. Everyday, people in the world’s poorest countries face the dilemma of having to trust their health and that of their children to the consequence of drinking water that could kill them. It’s a gamble that often carries a high price – seeing children needlessly dying is simply heartbreaking.” WaterAid suggest that the answer is to send them £2 a month. Socialists suggest that we get rid of this insane society even though it might interfere with Prince Edward’s £3,000 a day golfing trip.

Capitalist Priorities

As unemployment soars and re-possessions increase it speaks volumes for the priorities of capitalism that military expenditure keeps on rising. “The cost of Britain’s military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq this financial year has soared to more than £4.5bn, an annual increase of more than 50%, figures released yesterday reveal. Operations in southern Afghanistan accounted for a little over half, nearly £2.6bn, compared with £1.5bn last year. Most of the money was spent on providing tougher armoured vehicles for soldiers who face a growing threat of roadside bombs. Surprisingly, as the government prepares to withdraw from Basra, the cost of Britain’s military presence in southern Iraq this year increased to nearly £2bn, compared with less than £1.5bn last year, according to the figures released by the Ministry of Defence. …The defence budget will be increased by more than £500m to reach a total of just over £38bn this year, the MoD said yesterday.” (Guardian, 13 February)

Snowfall

On Monday 2 February heavy snow fell in many places in Britain, and some workers failed to get to work.   The British “Federation of Small Businesses estimated that continuing bad weather on Tuesday could cost the British economy more than one billion pounds”, said Reuters (2 February). This is the usual news item which appears on those rare days when the weather stops industry operating normally. It just makes you wonder why, on all those ordinary, typical days throughout the year when industry is operating normally, there is nothing in the papers about the tremendous contributions to “the British economy” the workers have obviously made.

Bird’s Eye View: Imagine no countries (2022)

The Bird’s Eye View Column from the January 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Imagine no countries

Caitlin Johnstone in an article titled ‘Nobody Who Says “You Can Criticize Washington AND Beijing” Actually Does’ on her eponymously named blog writes (19 November):

‘The US and its tight network of allies are indisputably far, far more worthy of criticism than the government of China. But in the western world this reality is not reflected in the criticisms that are voiced; in fact it’s as ass backwards as you could possibly get it. China is criticized far more, and US imperialism is criticized far less.’

She is wrong. Here are two examples of China AND USA being criticised:

‘The United States accused China of intimidating its South East Asian neighbours. The United States declare that freedom of maritime navigation is an issue of ‘national interest’ and for another country to challenge America is to effectively declare war upon the United States, which is exactly what China appears to be doing in the South China Sea, a resource-rich and highly contested waterway’ (War Drums in the China Sea, Socialist Standard, August 2020).

And from one section of the Trotskyist left:

‘In terms of wealth rather than income, the wealthiest 1 percent of individuals owned nearly 31 percent of China’s wealth in 2020, up from around 21 percent in 2000. In the US for instance, the share of wealth of the top 1 percent reached 35 percent in 2020. According to the Hurun Global Rich list, the number of dollar billionaires in China hit 1,058 last year, as compared to 696 in the US’ (Behind Chinese President Xi’s populism, mounting social inequality, wsws, 22 November).

Socialists see no reason to have a debate about which nations belong in the ‘imperialist” premier league as we workers have no country. We do not defend China’s annexation of Tibet or their involvement in the killing fields of Cambodia, Korea and Vietnam. Modifying an old leftist slogan, we say: Neither Washington nor Beijing! No war but the class war!

Nothing to kill or die for

‘As the Chinese very well know, Yemen is rich not only in the so far unexplored oil and gas reserves, but also in gold, silver, zinc, copper and nickel. Beijing also knows all there is to know about the ultra-strategic Bab al Mandab between Yemen’s southwestern coast and the Horn of Africa. Moreover, Yemen boasts a series of strategically located Indian Ocean ports and Red Sea ports on the way to the Mediterranean, such as Hodeidah’ (String of pearls: Yemen could be the Arab hub of the Maritime Silk Road, thecradle.co, 19 November).

Capitalist conflicts between states and within states can result from competition over markets (eg, ‘in one of the world’s worse conflict zones, namely Yemen, the air attacks are mostly by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, equipped with arms primarily from the US and UK…’ and ‘since 2011, China has emerged as one of the largest arms suppliers to Ethiopia’ – ipsnews.net, 25 November). Conflict can also stem from competition over sources of raw materials, energy supplies, trade routes, exploitable populations and areas of strategic importance.

All over the world there are conflicts of interest between states which lead to war when other means fail. The vast majority of wars since the end of WW2 in 1945 have been wars within states (‘civil’ wars), in which the victims are overwhelmingly civilians or non-combatants. One such example, Ethiopia, lies across the narrow Red Sea, another resource-rich and highly contested waterway, from Yemen.

‘Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has said he will lead his country’s army “from the battlefront” starting on Tuesday, a dramatic new step as the year-long conflict moves closer to the capital, Addis Ababa. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have been killed and hundreds of thousands pushed into famine conditions since November last year when the prime minister ordered a military offensive against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which dominated the central government for decades before Abiy took office in 2018’ (aljazeera.com, 23 November).

And the world will be as one

‘The outgoing head of the UK Border Force has triggered a political row by describing ‘bloody borders’ as ‘just such a pain in the bloody arse’… Mr Lincoln, who left his position last month as part of a shake-up by Home Secretary Priti Patel, ended his speech by quoting lines from rock star Shane MacGowan, of The Pogues, saying: ‘People are talking about immigration, emigration and the rest of the bloody thing. It’s all bloody crap’’ (dailymail.co.uk, 14 November).

Another singer/songwriter, John Lennon, put it more eloquently in Imagine. And the Wobblie Syd Kingsford writing a year before the start of the war to end all wars stated: ‘Not content with robbing my class of the major portion of its product, the robber class has the colossal impudence to demand that the sons of the robbed workers shall don a uniform, shoulder a rifle, and be prepared to defend the possessions of the robbers… What does it matter to me if the robbers sometimes fall out and quarrel over the division of the spoil wrung from the workers? The point is that I am robbed with impartiality by the capitalist class, no matter what country I am in, or what nation I happen to belong to. To me, no country is so superior to another that I want to get shot in its defence. I prefer to work for the time when national barriers will be thrown down, and the workers united for the purpose of evading a system of society which causes war’ (New Zealand Evening Post, 8 July, 1913).

No Borders (2021)

Book Review from the July 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Build Bridges Not Walls. A Journey To A World Without Borders. By Todd Miller, City Lights Books, 2021. 161pp.

A book about a world without borders is always going to be one that interests socialists who themselves envision a borderless, stateless society of free access to all goods and services organised democratically on the basis of each according to ability to each according to need. And in this book, the author establishes his own imaginative credentials from the very first pages by envisioning the world as ‘a land without political boundaries’ which ‘connects us to one another’ and stating his intention to ‘examine the natural inclination of human beings to be empathetic with one another, to forge solidarities with one another, and how such inclinations contrast with the borders that invoke and perpetuate chronic forms of racial and economic injustice’. His book focuses mainly on the way in which the policing of the border between Mexico and the USA creates immense suffering – violence, dehumanisation, early death – for refugees from Central America seeking but being prevented from finding better lives north of that border. But in so doing, it throws off a large number of reflections on how similar borders throughout the world provoke similar suffering and suggests that the abolition of borders ‘could make the world a more sustainable, habitable place for all’.

Both its reflections on the author’s personal experiences in reporting on border zones over many years and its analysis of the political system that dictates and enforces border control constitute a powerful indictment of nationalism and the nation state and the way in which they make life hell for people on the move from one country to another for reasons of war, persecution, crop failure, drought, flood, or just plain old-fashioned poverty. He tellingly makes the point that no such preventions exist for ‘people who are very wealthy’ or for those associated with the capital which flows from one country to another. And he illustrates how governments are prepared to spend massive resources on ‘drones (engineered with locust-like wings and… armed with facial recognition software), high-tech cameras, motion sensors, war technology, night vision goggles and an arsenal of weapons’ to keep out those who nationalist fervour considers politically or economically undesirable. Meanwhile, worldwide, he points out that, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, ‘2.1 billion people suffer from malnutrition’.

So what is to be done? The author makes the point that ‘demanding to abolish the border is as unthinkable to many people today as it once was to ask to abolish slavery’, but that chattel slavery has been (largely) abolished and so we should use our imaginations to try and step over the new frontier he points to. However, it must be said that the abolition of chattel slavery can be seen to have been in the interest of a system – capitalism – that was always going to be more efficient in the more advanced stages of its development by using another kind of slavery, the kind that exists today – wage slavery. Much less likely is it that the abolition of borders will be seen as being in the interest of capitalism and of the national capitalist classes that own the world, since, as the author himself tells us, ‘2,153 billionaires have more money than 4.6 billion people – 60 percent of the world population’. Since the small minority is unlikely to give that up of their own accord, it can only be left to the majority of the other class in society – those who sell their energies for a wage or salary – to make that happen and to bring about the end of the wages system, which will also mean the end of the border system and the nationalism that underlies and sustains it.

So the author is right to say that ‘building such a world [i.e. a borderless world] means imagining a radically different global order than we have now’ and it is heartening that he refers approvingly to the book by Ian Shaw and Marv Waterstone, Wageless Life: a Manifesto for a Future Beyond Capitalism. But after such a powerful set of arguments against the nation state and the system it supports, it is a little disappointing that he does not take those arguments further and make them even more imaginative by openly advocating the abolition not just of borders and states but of money, wages and the whole of the profit system. Instead he seems to remain entrenched in the idea of money as the currency of human interaction (‘The resources are there. The money is simply misdirected’) and to limit himself to advocating arrangements like ‘the bottom-up democracy of the [Mexican] Zapatista movement’. The fact is that, so long as the money and wages system and the profit motive underpinning them continue to exist, it is inconceivable that the competing states supporting their national capitalist classes will be dissolved and their borders taken down. If you stick with that system, you are stuck with the state, and with the plurality of states, in conflict as their political and economic interests rub against one another.

Howard Moss

The craziest border in the world? (2011)

From the February 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

All borders are mad – it goes with the territory – but perhaps the world’s craziest border is that between India and Bangladesh.

The very existence of the border is itself an act of madness, even in nationalist terms. This can best be seen on the western section of the border. On the Bangladeshi side of the border, Bengali speaking farmers tend their crops. Whilst on the Indian side of the border Bengali speaking farmers tend their crops! Linguistically, ethnically and culturally the people of Indian West Bengal and Bangladeshi East Bengal are identical, differing only in religion. The Islamic religion forms the sole basis of Bangladeshi nationalism, the state’s only reason for existence, the only reason for the existence of the border. Nationalism based on religion is a lie compounded by falsehood: the lie of the mythical nation overriding all real class interests; the childish falsehood of the big man in the sky. In any case, neither Bangladesh nor India are religiously homogenous – around one fifth of the population of Bangladesh are Hindu, despite years of oppression, and a similar proportion of Indians are Muslim – making India the world’s third largest Islamic country.

The line of division between India and Bangladesh has its origins in the 1947 carve up of Imperial India. East Pakistan, as Bangladesh was known until 1971, was constructed in great haste from the districts of the Province of Bengal with a Muslim majority. Whilst West Pakistan (current Pakistan) had a reasonably coherent frontier – deserts, rivers and mountains – East Pakistan was an amorphous blob with no clear geographical divide. The border line is, to say the least, wiggly.

An enclave is a fragment of one country entirely enclosed by another. Approximately 80 percent of the world’s enclaves can be found along the northern stretch of the India-Bangladesh border. There are 92 Bangladeshi enclaves in India, 21 of which are counter-enclaves (i.e. Bangladeshi enclaves located in an India enclave within Bangladesh). India has 106 enclaves in Bangladesh including three counter-enclaves, and the world’s only counter-counter-enclave. The latter, an enclave within an enclave within an enclave, is a jute field near the village of Dahala-Khagrabari. The enclaves range in size from 26 km2 to a mere 53 square metres (Upan Chowki Bhaini, the smallest international enclave in the world).

Within the enclaves, known locally as Chitmahals, life is not pleasant. With the exception of one or two of the larger territories which have always been reasonably well organised, the fragments are outside the state system, their 70,000 inhabitants, known as the Nowhere People, effectively abandoned. Censuses are not taken, electoral rolls not made up and taxes not collected. There are no proper roads, no hospitals, schools and police force. The enclaves are hives of ignorance, poverty and lawlessness, their inhabitants robbed, raped and murdered with impunity, a poor life experience even in terms of the rural subcontinent. Without a visa inhabitants cannot legally cross the border to go to school, hospital or market. However since they cannot obtain a visa without visiting the ‘mainland’, residents are effectively prisoners within their tiny fragments of land. The Latin root of the word enclave, inclavatus, meaning shut in or locked up, is indeed appropriate.

An additional 50,000 former inhabitants of the Indian Chitmahals are resident in India proper. Some left during or immediately after the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war, but most have fled during the last decade as community relations have deteriorated. These individuals are in a particularly poor plight, being recognised neither as Indian citizens nor as refugees and thus not being entitled to national benefits, such as they are, or international relief efforts.

The enclaves date back to a treaty of 1713 between the Maharaja of Cooch Behar and the Mughal Empire (the latter was taken over by the British in 1765 but Cooch Behar endured until 1949, one of the last princely states to cede to India). In Raj days, the existence of the enclaves was a mere matter of land ownership since there were no trade barriers and the enclaves were economically self-sufficient in any case. Only with the post-colonial carve up, did the Cooch Behar enclaves become at all significant. A territorial exchange was first proposed in 1958, and agreed by a 1974 treaty between India and Bangladesh however this was not ratified by India, which had most to lose and was hobbled by an unstable political situation. Recently the position of the largest enclave, Dahagram-Angarpota, has been improved by the creation of the Teen Bigha corridor, a neck of land transferred from India to Bangladesh in 1992. Access however is only permitted during daylight hours.

Economically the effect of the division has been devastating. The border cut the great metropolis of Calcutta from its eastern hinterland, no mean factor in that city’s decline, and elevated the minor provincial town of Dacca to capital status. India’s highly productive north east was left isolated from the rest of the state – the rail link between Calcutta and Assam was severed in four places and not restored until a quarter of a century later. Particularly affected by the dislocation has been the area on the eastern section currently known as Tripura. Tripura has a 856 km border with Bangladesh but is linked to the Indian mainland only by a neck of land which narrows down to a mere 60 km wide. Illegal trade in this area alone amounts to some $1.5 billion per annum – a tidy sum of duty lost to the governments concerned. Across the whole border around 100 people per year lose their lives mostly due to anti-smuggling actions – the Indian Border Security Force in particular has a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later.

In the last ten years, the Indian government has been erecting a fence along the border. The chain link construction topped with barbed wire stands 3.6 metres high and, with 3406 km authorised, will be by far the longest enclosed border in the world. This is a mighty construction task running from the mangrove swamps of the south, through rich farming land to the forests and mountains of the north. Approximately 50,000 people have been made homeless by the erection of the fence. Although the suppression of terrorism is a stated aim (United Liberation Front of Assam rebels and various Islamist groups use Bangladesh and India respectively as safe havens), smuggling is a more important motive.

Immigration too is a factor in the erection of the fence. Poverty stricken Bangladeshis are migrating in droves to the newly developing lands of northeast India – it is estimated that there are around 20 million Bangladeshis illegally resident in India. Goaded by aspiring political leaders, the Assamese are particularly wary of being ‘swamped’ by migrant Banglas and have exerted considerable pressure to ‘stem the tide’.

The erection of the barrier has not been unchallenged. In places, the construction runs close to or on the border, contrary to a 1974 treaty between Bangladesh and India which banned building in the proximity of the border. This has led to clashes between the Bangladesh Rifles and India’s Border Security Force with casualties inflicted on both sides.

A subcontinental Common Market between India and Bangladesh has been proposed and this would indeed make a certain degree of sense. However the degree of political ill-will makes an end to the division unlikely in the near future. Socialists are often reviled for their unrealistic utopianism in opposing ‘natural’ national divisions. Only by individual case studies can we find out how unnatural and insane such national divisions really are.

Kaz.

Rear View: It started with a twit or rather a tweet (2020)

The Rear View Column from the February 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

It started with a twit or rather a tweet

During the season of goodwill, one Jamie Evans saw a jigsaw map of Great Britain and tweeted ‘is there any reason Wales has suddenly become part of England?’ The Daily Mirror (24 December), along with others, covered the story: ‘M&S blasted for £8 jigsaw of the UK that offends “absolutely everyone”‘. Jamie, a Plaid Cymru councillor in Neath, said it’s not the first time the store had forgotten about Wales. He hit out: ‘During the 2016 European football championships, which Wales were in, M&S put up posters urging people to support England. We’re used to it in Wales now, being subjected to that nonsense’. The nonsense is manifold. The original map dates from the 1800s. Whether Ireland (then a colony), Scotland, Wales, even Cornwall are independent matters not. Plaid Cymru deny that our problems are caused by the class monopoly of the means of production, in short, by capitalism. The solution lies not in nationalism, which is a delusion and a snare, but in world socialism.

Countries come and go, borders change, capitalism persists

Remember Refugia, the Utopian island between Italy and Tunisia, proposed as a solution to the ‘refugee and migrant crisis’ by two Oxford dons in 2016? The idea is going nowhere and that of No Borders fading: noborder.org has been dormant since mid-2013 and noborders.org.uk not updated since early November last year. Their slogans are worth recalling: No Border, No Nation, Stop Deportations! and No one is Illegal. Remember Biafra? The war for independence from Nigeria lasted over two and a half years and more than one million people lost their lives. Also worth recalling is that ‘Nigeria is an entirely artificial, colonial construct created by the British Empire (and bounded by the French Empire). Its boundaries bear no relation to internal national entities, and it is huge. The strange thing is that these totally artificial colonial constructs of states generate a genuine and fierce patriotism among their citizens…. ‘ (ICH. 14 March 2015). And: ‘Less than two decades after the painstaking removal of a massive border fence designed to keep people in, Bulgarian authorities are just as painstakingly building a new fence along the rugged Turkish border, this time to keep people out’ (New York Times, 5 April 2015).

Time For a New ‘Christmas Truce‘?

 ‘They lived in similar squalor, shared the same God, and celebrated the same holidays. It was December 24, 1914, Christmas Eve, and – though they spoke different languages and had ruthlessly killed one another for over four months – the British and German soldiers in the opposing trench lines had much in common’ (truthdig.com, 25 December). 

The author makes the same point about shared interests of those involved in conflicts in the 100 years since then. Indeed, the vast majority of those existing in countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Germany, Iraq, Libya, Russia and Syria have far more in common than they do with their respective generals, politicians and economic overlords, a fact recognised before, during and after the war to end all wars:

  ‘…The poor have no country, in all lands, they suffer from the same evils, and they, therefore, realise that the barriers put up by the powers that be the more thoroughly to enslave the people must fall’ (International Working Men’s Association, 1866). 

  ‘In a class society, “the nation” as a homogeneous socio-political entity does not exist. Rather, there exist within each nation, classes with antagonistic interests and “rights”’ (Rosa Luxemburg, The National Question, 1909). 

  ‘I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the World’ (Eugene Debs, 1915). 

  ‘The old lie: It is sweet and right to die for one’s country’ (Wilfred Owen, 1918). 

  ‘.. [no] policy for settling minority problems and international rivalries within the framework of capitalism is capable of bringing peace and democracy to the peoples of the world. Another war would be followed by new treaties forced on the vanquished by the victors, and by preparations for further wars, new dictatorships and terrorism. The Socialist Party… reiterates the call it issued in 1914: “Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism“’ (Socialist Party, September 1939). 

  Imagine there’s no countries; It isn’t hard to do; Nothing to kill or die for; And no religion, too (Imagine, John Lennon, 1971).

World without frontiers (1988)

From the February 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

For the Socialist Party socialism will be a world without frontiers; a world in which there will be no such thing as nations or national boundaries, in which every person on the earth will be completely free to travel anywhere they like at any time. If the reader wonders what socialists have got against existing national boundaries and divisions, perhaps the following will explain our view.

From the Russian citizen's earliest childhood. the regime in the USSR does its utmost to inculcate the belief that the "enemies of communism" (sic) are awaiting a favourable opportunity to attack from every side. But in reality, the Russian border guards are constantly watching out, not only for any saboteurs or spies trying to get in. but also for Russian citizens trying to get out. As s/he grows up. the Russian citizen no longer believes the official fairy tale and realizes the true purpose of the "frontier system”.

The frontier system does not have the automatic firing-devices found on the East German border, but it is still well-equipped. Briefly, the security arrangements of a typical stretch of Soviet frontier are divided, as one approaches from the interior, into three distinct zones:

1. The frontier zone. i.e. the adjacent area. Every resident must have a special permit with a special ID stamp; permission to enter the zone must be obtained from the militia even if only in transit; special troop units enforce security. Any unauthorised person found in this area is arrested and investigated — thoroughly.
2. The fortified zone: this, an area about 100 yards wide, contains various "systems" including (a) barbed-wire entanglements supported by concrete posts covered with protective metal layers. This zone is interrupted by numerous "corridors" which can be electronically operated, opened from observation posts. A guard phones the post commander to request opening a corridor using a password that is changed every day. Posts at which guards can plug in the receiver worn on their belts are scattered around the "neutral zone" following the line of the frontier (low-voltage current causes the slightest contact with the wire to set off an alarm signal in the control box), (b) Immediately beyond the wire is a five- or six-yard-wide strip in which the soil is regularly turned over so that any footprints would stand out distinctly, (c) Then there's a system of "concertina" barbed-wire entanglements supported on short stakes, (d) Another system is hidden in the long grass and brush — a spider's web of steel loops. One border guard reported: "Whoever catches his foot in a loop falls down; when he tries to rise he gets caught in another loop. The harder you struggle, the more entangled you get" (from Posev no. 4. 1977. p. 37). And finally:
3. The "neutral zone" (no-man's land) belonging to no-one. but Russian border guards with submachine-guns and dogs patrol it in pairs day and night.

Any border guard who shoots a fugitive is awarded a government medal "for valour", although shooting an unarmed civilian in the back with a burp-gun doesn't require any exceptional courage. Fugitives are sometimes hunted down illegally outside of Russian territory if they somehow manage to pull off a Houdini-like escape.

Perhaps now it is easier to see why we socialists prefer a world without any national boundaries; a world without frontiers.

DEF

50 Years Ago: A Letter from Ireland (1999)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

And now “Dev.” and Costello, and the other “great Irish leaders,” are hitting their headlines with speeches railing against Partition in Ireland. Well, in conclusion, let me say that we Socialists in Ireland equally desire, and ceaselessly work for, the ending of Partition, also—but we never get any headlines in the Press. Oh, no; for the Partition we speak against is not a geographical one but an economic one. The Partition we oppose is that between the rich and poor, between the capitalist class and the working class. That is the Partition, a universal one, which Socialists everywhere seek to abolish, and that I suggest, is the only Partition which you, and all other workers, ought to concentrate on and bend all your efforts towards removing.

National boundaries may be altered—may even disappear—but such re-arrangements of things, geographical can in no way abolish, or even lessen, the poverty of the many. The solution to that problem will not be found by struggling for Empires or Republics (whether of the 26- or 32-County variety), but by striving for the World Socialist Commonwealth.

So—Yours for Socialism,

Chris Walsh 

(Dublin Socialist Group)

[From the Socialist Standard, January 1949]

Freedom of Movement: Another Euromyth (2019)

From the July 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

The freedom of movement for workers is one of the European Union’s ‘four economic freedoms’. Freedom of movement is one of the key elements of membership and is championed by Liberal and Social Democratic parties. How then, do socialists engage with and redirect support for this concept, to support for socialism?

Genuine socialists seek to abolish class, and with it the money, wages and nation states which facilitate its reproduction. As such, one could say that the freedom of labour will become as irrelevant in socialist society as the freedom of capital. However, socialists accept that work of some form – in contrast to wage labour – will continue to exist in a democratic society. It follows then that there will still be ‘workers’ who would benefit from an enhanced and genuine freedom of movement. In a border-free world, workers will be able to reside where best suits their abilities and needs, without the constraints of economic and social mobility.

The socialist response to this is to categorise freedom of movement in the EU as freedom of movement of wage labour. This, of course, is oxymoronic. Under a wage labour system, freedom of movement is utilised to facilitate economic and political regression. Freedom of movement undoubtedly generates national and ‘racial’ divisions between workers in a context of false scarcity. It is also, in reality, a contradictory concept to say the least. At its southern frontiers, workers from outside the EU are often presented with a grave fate quite polarised from that of freedom.

Economic migration is seen as undermining wage rates, and placing a strain on welfare resources. To many in deprived areas, these arguments against immigration have become intrinsically logical and deeply engrained. Despite its considerable merits in comparison to a system of economic migration such as ‘hukou’ in China, Liberals and Social Democrats obnoxiously replicate and encourage support for right-wing populism by acting as dogmatic apologists for the EU.

Unfortunately, recent political developments have provided increasingly fertile ground for smug liberal apologism in certain circles as well as right-wing populism in deprived economic regions. As this binary divide deepens, it increasingly becomes perceived as a question of good and evil. Going by results in the recent EU elections, potential socialist sympathisers seem to have been unable to not prioritise supporting the supposed ‘good’ option.

As socialists, we are right not to take sides in capitalist debates such as Leave or Remain, but we must be forthright in our economic critique. In other words, we must challenge, engage with and supersede capitalist debates and binaries. It is up to us to present the objective and inherent forces of capitalism as being to blame for economic deprivation, monotony, strife and the working class’s distance from any influence over their communities and society in general. It is only the socialist critique of capitalism that can reconcile the interests of workers. Only socialism can rebuild a sense of empathy between deprived workers inside relatively desirable borders, and those who are desperately trying to reach them. Ultimately, all workers are driven by a sense of fear regarding our own ongoing economic security – it is socialism’s job to bring those in the same economic class together politically.

It is vitally important that socialists provide a critique of EU freedom of movement, if we don’t, right-wing nationalists and vacuous liberals will continue to be able to frame a capitalist binary divide and prevent socialism from taking root in the working class.

James Clark

Voice From The Back: Imagine no countries (2015)

The  Voice From The Back column from the May 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Imagine no countries

‘Nigeria is an entirely artificial, colonial construct created by the British Empire (and bounded by the French Empire). Its boundaries bear no relation to internal national entities, and it is huge. The strange thing is that these totally artificial colonial constructs of states generate a genuine and fierce patriotism among their citizens…. (ICH. 14 March) Socialists can agree with former ‘British’ Ambassador Craig Murray here, adding that workers have no country. There will be none in a socialist world, nor barriers such the one described here: ‘Less than two decades after the painstaking removal of a massive border fence designed to keep people in, Bulgarian authorities are just as painstakingly building a new fence along the rugged Turkish border, this time to keep people out’ (New York Times, 5 April).

Nothing to kill or die for

‘Pope Francis has recently pushed the moral argument against nuclear weapons to a new level, not only against their use but also against their possession,’ Archbishop Bernedito Auza, the Holy See’s Ambassador to the U.N., says. ‘Today there is no more argument, not even the argument of deterrence used during the Cold War, that could ‘minimally morally justify’ the possession of nuclear weapons. The ‘peace of a sort’ that is supposed to justify nuclear deterrence is specious and illusory’ (Time, April 10). CND, better known to socialists as the Campaign for Conventional Warfare, has a new potential recruit! Peace will only have a genuine chance when the majority of us come to understand and desire socialism.

No religion too

Marx wrote ‘the tradition of all past generations weighs like an incubus upon the brain of the living’. And it is only when capitalism is cast into the dustbin of pre-history, will countless abominations, such as the one described here, come to an end: ‘Known only by the name Gulnaz, the woman was just 16 years old when she fell pregnant with the child of her depraved attacker Asadullah – who is also married to her cousin. Rejected by her family and sentenced to 12 years in a Kabul prison for ‘adultery by force’, Gulnaz’s only hope of a reduced sentence was to marry Asadullah. Now she is pregnant with his third child but told CNN she only agreed to marry her rapist so that her first daughter – named Smile could live a shame-free life in the Afghan capital’s ‘traditional’ society’ (Daily Mail, 8 April).

King Zuma?

The Zulu monarchy is set to issue six new Mercedes Benz E-Class sedans, collectively worth nearly R5 million, to the King’s six wives, the Sunday Tribune reported. A seventh luxury German sedan has reportedly been purchased and will be kept as a ‘back-up’. King Goodwill Zwelithini’s household is supported by the provincial government, with an annual pay-in of nearly R60 million (news24, 5 April).  A storm is brewing over the acquisition of new VIP jets for President Jacob Zuma and his Cabinet at a cost of R2 billion, just after Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene announced revised spending plans to reduce waste (news24, 5 April). The poor continue to exchange one master for another and they both conform to the stereotypes of capitalism. We own; you do not. We control; you do not. We live in luxury; you live in poverty. Nothing changes; everything stays the same.

Victorian values

Some children are experiencing ‘Victorian’ levels of poverty, often turning up to school sick because their parents cannot afford to take time off to care for them, teachers have claimed. School staff are also still seeing youngsters arriving for lessons hungry, tired and wearing inappropriate clothes due to a continuing squeeze on family finances, according to the NASUWT teaching union. It warned that the lives of many children and young people are being ‘blighted and degraded by poverty and homelessness’. In some cases, teachers reported being aware of pupils living in ‘Victorian conditions’, of youngsters coming to school with no socks or coat and of more families depending on food banks. A survey commissioned by NASUWT found that almost seven in 10 of teachers said they have seen pupils coming to school hungry, while eight in 10 have witnessed youngsters turning up in clothes that are inappropriate for the weather and similar proportions reported children arriving in unwashed or damaged and frayed clothing (Daily Mirror, 5 April). ‘The promise that all children globally would have primary education by 2015 – pledged by world leaders in the millennium year – has officially not been achieved. Unesco says there are 58 million children without access to primary school and 100 million who do not complete a primary education’ (BBC, 9 April). So many lies! But that is what you have to expect when riding the reformist misery-go-round!

DIY dentistry

People are said to be turning to dentistry kits, which can be bought in pound shops, due to the cost of NHS dental treatment, where the price of a filling in England can be more than £50 (Daily Mail, 4 April).

Constructing Division (2019)

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

Donald Trump and his supporters probably think of themselves as political innovators finding solutions to capitalism’s intractable problems with ‘Trump’s Wall’ being an example of dealing with the perceived Gordian Knot of ‘border security’. Part of the populist mandate is to respond to capitalism’s periodic crises by blaming foreigners for economic hardships. For this reason immigration is a convenient scapegoat and sometimes promises made during elections have to be seen as being acted upon once power is achieved; not that the more astute members of the political establishment believe necessarily in the effectiveness of any of their manifesto policies but not to implement at least some of them would injure the public image so carefully created by their PR department. Donald’s affection for his wall seems to be an example of this – together with the tax cuts for the super-rich this is another populist policy that his ego demands must be seen to be implemented. That it represents any kind of political innovation is found to be, as with most reactionary answers to practical political questions, historically without foundation.

One of the earliest examples of such a political edifice is, of course, known as ‘The Great Wall of China’. Started in 220 BC during the reign of the first emperor of China this famous structure was rebuilt time and again until 1644 AD. At its apogee the 20 ft. high wall stretched for an amazing 5,500 miles. Built as a defence against the marauding steppe tribes it also served as a border control that regulated taxation from those who traded on both sides of the wall. As such it represented a statement of power for the empire combined with a flourishing source of income for the emperor. The same was true, on a much more modest scale, of the wall attributed to the Roman Emperor Hadrian in England. Begun in 122 AD its walls were clad in a white plaster that made it prominent for miles and it too represented both a statement of power combined with the facility of border taxation. Not conceived of as primarily an absolute defence against any concerted invasion (whose army could have, presumably, used boats to circumvent it) it did at least end the casual raids of plunder by the Pictish tribes. It also represented the ‘limits’ of the Roman Empire in the northwest together with the Black Sea in the east, the river Danube in the north and the Sahara in the south. Although the preceding examples are located in what is called ‘the ancient world’ the implication to some minds that the world has always been divided by borders must be corrected by historical perspective; our species has existed for some 250,000 years and the construction of defensive barriers is only found, at first in cities, in very restricted parts of the world some 10,000 years ago. The ‘Neolithic revolution’ enabled an agricultural surplus to be created which in turn needed to be protected from raiding nomads by the new ruling classes who owned it – hence fortification.

What do the walls of the modern era represent? The two most depressing examples were the Berlin Wall and the present wall in Gaza. After the Second World War Germany was divided by the victorious allies into two zones of east and west. The Russians took the eastern sector but agreed to western access to the capital of Berlin. This proved to be a centre for those wishing to escape to the west and in response Stalin built a fortified border that included the infamous wall in Berlin. When the Russian empire fell the destruction of the wall became a symbol of ‘freedom’ for those oppressed by the one-party state of East Germany. Completed in 1996 the wall that separates the Palestinian Gaza Strip from Israel is also an echo of the Second World War and what happened to the Jews. After that war a militant group of Zionists agitated and fought for a Jewish state to be set up in what they claimed as their ancient biblical homeland. Not surprisingly those Palestinians who had been there for hundreds of years objected to the confiscation of their homes and have fought a guerrilla war with the Israelis ever since. The wall represents this unresolved conflict and for some Israelis is an uncomfortable reminder of their predecessors’ own incarceration behind a wall in the Warsaw ghetto built by the Nazis in the 1940s. Our last example of a political wall is much less notorious on the world stage but was a contemporary of the Warsaw wall and was to be found in a small town called Cutteslowe in Oxfordshire, England. Nine feet tall and topped with spikes two walls were built to separate a private housing estate from the nearby council dwellings. An embarrassment to a country supposedly fighting for freedom and justice one of them was ‘accidentally’ demolished by a tank during war exercises – it was rebuilt only to be brought down, this time officially, in 1959.

Walls and the borders they guard are only made possible by the illusion of a divided world. Some of them pretend to be mere extensions of the natural barriers that have given rise to the multiplicity of human cultures; this is one of the great lies of nationalism which masks the real economic motives of ruling classes and the political ignorance of those who actually construct them. The great paradox is that we live in an integrated world economy which makes the nation state an anachronism that is only sustained by the propaganda of those who need the excuse of the ‘foreign’ threat when capitalism experiences one of its inevitable economic cataclysms. That elements within ruling classes are also trapped in their own nationalistic ideology is very evident in the Brexit fiasco. The unintended threat that leaving the EU poses to one of England’s last colonies (Northern Ireland) in terms of its border with the rest of the island is yet another example of how little some of the propagandists of the ruling class understand the political reality of the twenty-first century. As fast as capitalism is integrating the world economically it is tearing it apart politically – a contradiction that can only be resolved by global socialism.

Wez.