What is Anarchism? (1967)

From the December 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the difficulties in explaining the Socialist attitude to anarchism is that there are many different varieties of anarchism, some involving violence, some non-violence; some are anti-religious, some religious. Some anarchists are influenced by Freud; others by different schools of psychology. Some favour the setting up of anarchist communities now, as a transitional step. Others are individualistic, being mainly unconcerned about society's problems. Most envisage the abolition of money, yet some are interested in monetary reforms. The list is endless. Each would have to be examined separately. The best procedure now would be to take a school of anarchism that appears to be close to our standpoint and discuss this.

Basically this form of anarchism envisages the abolition of the state, of buying and selling, of international trade, of frontiers and the like. Its aim would be a consciously regulated society where production would be to satisfy human need; where the workers in particular industries and plants are loosely associated with others in co-operating federations. The adherents of this school argue that the only way in which this state of affairs could be brought about would be by the growth of a majority sufficiently independent-minded to see the need for this kind of world and to begin to organise for it. This would mean withdrawing support from all political activity (parties, voting, etc.) and ultimately destroying the state and all related institutions, and building the nuclei of the new society within the old.

Our basic arguments against the anarchist attitude are these. Any movement concerned with the problems of society (and of the working class in particular) must have certain unified theoretical conceptions. It must have a theory embracing coherently the past and the present, the dynamics of social change, the nature of human behaviour and so on. Without such a unified theory it is not possible to take consistent action on a rational basis, or to modify it meaningfully in the light of experience. We argue that anarchists lack such a theoretical system. In fact the views of even a limited segment of anarchists such as that under discussion involve a wide variety of theories. Such eclecticism preludes the possibility of sound theory and therefore the possibility of sustained correct action. Of course, we are not suggesting that one should not examine and re-examine all relevant theories.

With regard to the attempt to establish a libertarian society by direct action without the ballot-box a number of points can be made.

Anarchists, in their criticism, tend to argue that all "parliamentary" parties, within which they include the Socialist Party of Great Britain, have in the past, and in the present, betrayed the working class; that Parliament is not the real seat of power (a "power-house") but a "talking-shop" or "gas-house"; that the Socialist Party contests elections, aims at parliamentary majorities and so on; and that therefore it is and will be no different from all other parties. Also, the SPGB participates in all the activities which perpetuate what anarchists see as harmful illusions about law, the state and parliamentary democracy.

Our reply is that these anarchists fail to distinguish between the different content of the term "parliamentary" as applied to orthodox parties and to the Socialist Party. They do not see, or perhaps do not want to see, that we insist on the necessity of majority understanding behind Socialist delegates with a mandate for Socialism, merely using the state and parliament for one revolutionary act, after which the Socialist Party has no further existence, subsequent action being the responsibility of society.

We hold it to be absolutely essential that the transformation to a new society be started by formal democratic methods—that is, by persuasion and the secret ballot. For there is no other way of ascertaining accurately the views of the population. The result of a properly conducted ballot will make it clear, in the event of an overwhelming Socialist vote, to any minority that they are the minority and that any attempt to oppose the desires of the majority by violence would be futile. An attempt to establish an anarchist society by ignoring the democratic process thereby gives any recalcitrant minority, possibly violent, the excuse for anti-libertarian direct action itself. They could claim that the assumed majority did not in fact exist or that the assumed majority was not likely to be a consistent or decisive one. In any event there would be no secure justification for a radical change. There might well be unnecessary setbacks and disruptions of the revolutionary movement—possibly involving hardship or loss of life among the working class.

In general, the denigration in a sweeping fashion of Parliament and so on makes it easier for authoritarian movements of all kinds to lay the blame for social problems on democratic institutions instead of on capitalism—as, for instance, did the Nazis and so-called Communists in the Weimar Republic.

The anarchists propose to ignore the state saying, paradoxically, that it does not reflect real social power and that in the desired transformation of society its controllers would be corrupted. Socialists argue that it does reflect real social power and consciousness; that a majority of society comprising class-conscious Socialists would effectively control its mandated delegates who, having free access to things, would have no need of power (individually or as a group). Finally, the anarchist proposal to ignore the state is short-sighted in so far as the formal establishment of the Socialist majority's control of the state does avoid the possibility of effective use of its forces against the revolutionary movement.

Anarchists also tend to refer to the regimes in Russia, Eastern Europe and Cuba as Marxist or Communist, saying that all the antisocial aspects of these systems arise directly or indirectly as a result of the ideas of Marx. In so doing, of course, they do a disservice to the truth.

J.

Nation or class? (1998)

Editorial from the August 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nationalism has always been one of the biggest poisons for the working class. It has served to divide workers into different nation states not only literally but ideologically. Today it is probably fair to say that a majority of workers—to one extent or another—align themselves to their domestic ruling class. After all, the ideology of nationalism ultimately means that workers and capitalists living in a particular geographical area must have a common interest.

As with most myths there is an element of truth in this. Normally, a common language is shared and on a superficial level at least, a common "culture" can be defined, e.g. "the British way of life". However, if one probes slightly deeper such an analysis fails to stand up. Socialists argue that world society can he broken into two great classes of capitalists and workers. Despite many workers finding it difficult to communicate with and understand each other because of language or cultural barriers this does not alter the fact that they are all part of one globalised exploited mass with more in common with each other than with their indigenous bosses.

One popular myth about nationalism is that it's synonymous with fascism. This is a dangerous illusion. Fascism is the most degenerate form of nationalism but any kind of patriotism however soft or innocuous can only be defined as anti—working class. This ranges from the Conservative Party through to the Trotskyists who feel obliged to defend small nations, i.e. Iraq against powerful ones like the US.

All of which leads nicely to the World Cup. Many socialists play and watch football but it's a shame that nationalism (however hard or soft) has to taint what should be a wonderful event. Indeed "athletic nationalism" is of tremendous value to the capitalist class as it makes supporting your country" socially acceptable. It not only diverts workers minds away from the problems that surround them, it allows politicians to reap the rewards of any "feel good" factor that springs forth from a good set of results.

As President Chirac and Prime Minister Jospin fight it out for their share of the spoils in France, it is well to remember that French workers have far more in common with their fellow workers this side of the Channel than they can ever have, fundamentally, with their exploiters at home and those who represent them.

Mixed Media: Pier Paolo Pasolini (2015)

Pier Paolo Pasolini

The Mixed Media Column from the November 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-75) was murdered forty years ago on 2 November 1975. He was a heterodox Marxist, a poet, novelist, and film director of exquisite poetic cinema where he showed a natural sympathy for the sub-proletariat and peasantry.

Pasolini was a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). His 1948 novel Il sogno di una cosa (The Dream of Something) derived its title from Marx's letter to Ruge in September 1843; 'It will then become evident that the world has long dreamed of possessing something of which it has only to be conscious in order to possess it in reality'. Because of a homosexual scandal, Pasolini was expelled from the PCI in October 1949 'for moral unworthiness.' He retorted 'I am and will remain a Communist', and in every election Pasolini declared his support for the PCI. Enzo Siciliano writes 'to be a Communist was for Pasolini almost a fact of nature ... he believed with the strength of faith, that it was in communism that the instinct of self-preservation and the will to survive took form. For him ... communism had to do with love, and also making love.'

His formative ideological influence was Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), a founder of the PCI, whose Quadermi dal carcere (Prison Notebooks) were published in 1948. Pasolini's poem Le ceneri di Gramsci (The Ashes of Gramsci) written in 1954 'outlining the ideal that illuminates', is also a paean to Gramsci's 'rigour.' Like Gramsci, Pasolini believed in the idea of unifying consciousness through history. His poem is also a demand for a new morality whereby the individual would be salvaged in his entirety, in his specificity, and the pressing need for economic justice. Maurizio Viano in The Left According to the Ashes of Gramsci writes 'what attracted Pasolini was Gramsci's idea that intellectuals must engage in a pendular motion across the vertical spectrum of a class society, the duty of suturing high and low, mind and body.' This is what Pasolini aimed for in his first two films, Accatone (1961), and Mamma Roma (1962). They are naturalistic studies of dispossessed Roman sub-proletarian lives in slums using authenticity, and uncompromising raw poetry, depicting pimps, prostitutes, petty thieves, and the illusion of petit-bourgeois redemption.

Teorema released in 1968 demolishes bourgeois ideals, showing the aridity of the modern bourgeoisie where sexual repression and taboos hold the family and the capitalist social structure together. Teorema portrays a stranger who seduces the members of a bourgeois family; the maid, the son, the daughter, the mother, and the father. The father appears to be jealous but it is not clear if he is, as in the Oedipal scenario, jealous of the son, or whether he is jealous of the stranger for being able to do to the son what he, as the boy's father, incestuously desires. With seduction of the father, the whole patriarchal and capitalist structure collapses. The father is stripped of his illusion, and strips himself of his property handing over his factory to the workers.

Pasolini shared Gramsci's faith in the revolutionary potential of the Italian peasantry. Gramsci wrote in L'Ordine Nuovo of 2 August 1919 that 'the peasant has always lived outside the rule of law, he has never had a juridical personality, nor a moral individuality. He lives on as an anarchic element, an independent atom in a chaotic tumult'. In his Prison Notebooks of 1935, Gramsci wrote 'folklore should be studied as a 'conception of the world and life' implicit to a large extent in determinate strata of society and in opposition to 'official' conceptions of the world.' Pasolini's 1970-74 Trilogy of Life which includes Il Decameron, I Racconti di Canterbury (Canterbury Tales), and Il fiore delle mille e una notte (Arabian Nights) portray his delight and celebration of demotic folk tales and peasant life of pre-capitalist worlds. The Trilogy depicts a lost world of prelapsarian sexuality with no Freudian or religious guilt. Arabian Nights are dreamlike stories of love, potions and betrayal, filmed in Eritrea, Iran, Nepal, and Yemen. Here, Pasolini strips away Islamic proscriptive ideology to show a relaxed and euphoric delight in the act of love, appreciation of the human body, scenes of carnality smothered in the sounds of laughter in a magic universe watched over by 'Qada' or fate.

In 1975 Pasolini went from joy and vitality to deep mourning when he made Salòo Le centoventi giornate di Sodoma ( Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom) which transposed the Marquis de Sade's ‘psychopathia sexualis' to Mussolini's Fascist state of Salò in Northern Italy of 1943-45. Pasolini links Fascism with sadism, sexual licence and oppression, portraying the sadistic impulses of the bourgeoisie. A banker, a duke, a bishop and a judge inflict upon imprisoned teenagers in a series of Danteesque circles of hell - increasingly cruel sexual tortures ending in executions using four modes of current judicial killing - hanging, shooting, the garrotte, and the electric chair. Salò is transgressive cinema, full of brutality and despair.

Shortly before his murder, Pasolini wrote, 'never has Marx's statement that capitalism transforms human dignity into exchange goods made more sense than today'.

Steve Clayton

Pathfinders: After the Sugar Rush (2015)

The Pathfinders Column from the November 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why, when the news has recently been dominated by foreign wars, refugees, China's revolting charm offensive in the UK and the popular new sport Kick-a-Corbyn, has sugar been making the headlines? Well, the immediate cause is that Public Health England produced a long-anticipated report saying that the public is eating too much sugar and that this is leading to obesity and health and dental problems.

Er, this is not exactly news, is it? We've been hearing this for years. The Food and Agricultural Organisation estimated back in 2009 that by 2015 each person in the world would consume 55 lbs of sugar per year, though this looks decidedly spartan next to the US, where per capita consumption stands at 150 lbs. That's about the weight of a moped or a small horse. The problem is that people don't even realise, because the near-ubiquity of the stuff in food products and soft drinks means it's nearly impossible to avoid. You wouldn't eat five straight teaspoons of sugar in a row, but nobody thinks twice about a low-fat yoghurt.

There isn't much doubt in anyone's mind – anyone outside the food industry, that is – that this has got to be a bad thing. But unlike smoking, where the link to cancer and heart disease were firmly established for a long period, sugar studies have been complicated by a lot of variables. For a start, the three different sugars come from different sources and are metabolised by the body in different ways, leading to different problems. Secondly, large-scale health studies were inconclusive because of the difficulty of finding non-sugar-consuming populations to use as control groups. Meanwhile some studies did the unexpected and went against conventional wisdom, for example debunking the popular belief that sugar leads to hyperactivity in children. But in general the links between sugar, obesity, heart disease and diabetes are now beyond contention, and sugar is fast overtaking fat as the main dietary concern among health professionals.

By 2050, 60 percent of men, 50 percent of women and 25 percent of children in the UK are expected to be obese. Epidemiologist Professor Simon Capewell was surely not overstating the case said last year when he said: 'Sugar is the new tobacco. Everywhere, sugary drinks and junk foods are now pressed on unsuspecting parents and children by a cynical industry focussed on profit not health' (Telegraph, 9 January 2014).

So what has the 'cynical' food industry been doing about it? Wriggling and writhing like the nest of snakes they are, and finding ways to disguise the sugar content of foods by listing it under different headings. A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists in June last year stated that 'sugar interests use every tool at their disposal to obstruct science-based policy on added sugar'. These tools, they say, include intimidating study authors, threatening to suspend funds, using front organisations for the purposes of deception, spreading misinformation, 'blinding with science' in product promotion, concealing industry links, hijacking science communication and blogs, bribing academics, lobbying state policy bodies and funding pro-food industry  politicians (ucsusa.org).

So, nothing unusual there, and you can probably find some or all of the same tactics at work in many other spheres of capitalist industry. But the spectacular success of smoking bans across the world  - against many expectations – has given a fillip to campaigners seeking to ban, tax, restrict or demonise other guilty pleasures, and nobody was surprised when sugar campaigners were next to go on the warpath.

But with a politician's forensic x-ray vision for what's hot in the public sympathies and what's not, the pro-fracking, pro-millionaire David Cameron has so far been resolutely against the idea of a sugar tax, notwithstanding the much-publicised campaigning of our favourite TV chef Jamie Oliver. The reasons for his opposition seem to be a) that Tories don't like nanny-statism and don't wish to interfere in people's personal choices and b) that Denmark and Finland have both tried and abandoned a sugar tax, as everybody drove across to Sweden and bought their naughty treats there by the truckload.

The Tories couldn't care less about 'nanny-statism' versus free choice (they're happy to be super-nannies when it comes to drug prohibition laws), they're just spineless in the face of the food industry's money and political clout. And they're not really afraid that the tax won't work, they're afraid it will.

What gets overlooked because most commentators are self-appointed campaigners drawn from the chattering classes is that, as with tobacco, junk food, meat, recycling, Fair Trade, regional accent, clothes made in Pakistan, Lottery funding and many social 'isms' there is a seedy class aspect to all this. Sweet is cheap and wholesome costs wholly too much. The wealthier educated and professional income groups have the money to avoid unhealthy diets, which is why excessive sugar consumption and hence sugar-related diseases have become a badge of the lower orders within the cultural strata of the working class.

So the war on sugar ends up as a condescending war on the poor who don't have the resources to treat their children to ballet classes or holidays to Thailand but who do have votes, and who – astounding but true fact - very often use those votes to vote Tory.

Even so, the government are likely to be backed into a corner over this issue, particularly as campaigners are pointing to the estimated £4bn annual cost of obesity to the NHS. Socialists don't take a position on questions like whether or not to impose a sugar tax, because they're internal to the workings of capitalism and don't have a direct bearing on the case for revolution. But we certainly do have an opinion on whether it's right for an industry which exists to feed us instead to be deliberately adulterating food and slowly poisoning us in order to give their profits a quick sugar rush. Whether sugar ends up being taxed or not, or other measures brought in to restrict those notorious buy-one-get-one-free deals, the lesson is as plain as the icing on the cake. Capitalism is not interested in your health, only in accumulating wealth at your expense.

Paddy Shannon

History in the Making (1946)

From the June 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

When Karl Marx helped to found the International Working Men's Association, in 1864, the era of capitalist revolutions in Europe had come to a temporary close. The hopes which Marx and Engels had cherished of a working-class revolution following closely upon the political victories of the capitalist class had been abandoned as premature, and the founders of scientific Socialism set about the task of building up an international organisation of workers. Never did Marx and Engels conceive the workers' challenge to capitalism as a movement that should be divided by national frontiers. In the famous "Communist Manifesto," published in 1848, they had already proclaimed the need for the unity of the workers everywhere; despite the setbacks inevitable at that stage of world conditions, they held fast to this view to the end.

Before the death of Engels, in 1895, the Socialist movement appeared to have made gigantic strides. Particularly in Germany, the movement known as "Social-Democracy" raised the hopes of revolutionary-minded workers, and it is undeniable that the early leaders of the German party were able exponents of Marxism. But this knowledge was merely confined to the top. The mass membership was recruited on issues far removed from the principles of Socialism. Nevertheless, the leadership of the german party was acknowledged by many workers in all countries, and the debates at the conferences of the Second International (founded in 1889 to carry on the work of the defunct First International) reached a high level. Here the leaders felt themselves at liberty to theorise about revolution whilst back in the confines of their national movements they were constrained to bow to the demands of day-to-day politics.

The First World War shattered all illusions. It is reported that when Lenin first heard of the support of German Social-Democracy for the war, he refused to believe it. He thought it a trick of capitalist propaganda. More bitter was his hatred for his former idols, such as Kautsky, when the truth became known. He had not grasped what was already obvious to members of the S.P.G.B., namely, that the apparent militancy of the German movement was not based upon the will for Socialism, but was largely incited by the semi-feudal character of the German State-power and the hindrance it caused to German capitalist development. It is, in fact, a principle of modern reformist working-class parties that their militancy varies in proportion to the existence of feudal remnants.

The Russian Revolution is a clear illustration of this. After their success the Bolsheviks claimed the world leadership of the proletariat as their due. But it soon became clear that what had seemingly originated in the sphere of working-class struggle was more nor less than the Russian National Revolution, designed to bring the backward Russian economy into line with Western capitalism. That, in the absence of a strong capitalist class, this task had to be accomplished by a group of "intellectuals" hitherto associated with Marxism, is not an accident of history, it is a significant fact proving the growing power of Socialist ideas. However, ideas in the heads of a few cannot withstand the pressure of historical needs. As with German Social-Democracy, achievement of their real, as contrasted with their proclaimed objective, has shorn the Bolsheviks of much of their working-class appeal, as well, let it be remembered, of the men who provided them with the reputation of a Marxist party.

The real objective of German Social-Democracy in 1918 was the establishment of the democratic capitalist republic. Having achieved this, they wanted to sit back upon the haunches of German capitalist economy waiting for working-class approval. But the post-war difficulties of the German economy did not permit this luxury. Enjoying the confidence of large masses of workers for propagandising its objections to the hardships of capitalism is a pleasant experience common to all so-called Labour parties. It is quite a different matter when these parties are thrust into power and called upon to "deliver the goods." The British Labour Party is in the process of finding this out for itself. It is apparent that the experience of its fellow-party in Germany has not been a deterrent.

It should have been. The fate of German Social-Democracy was shattering. When the democratic republic, their present to the German workers, failed to capture popular support, the morale of German Labour was smashed. They had not the will and zest for a violent struggle against Hitler, and so, to the astonishment of the world, a movement numbering millions disappeared almost without a trace. Here is the answer to those who look to the big battalions for success and ignore the strength only to be found where there is understanding.

With the rise of the Nazi Party a profound change overtook working-class politics. From being nurtured in the belief that workers' organisations, whether "Labour" or "Communist," must inevitably take the offensive against the ruling class, the new menace threw everyone, excepting Socialists, on the defensive. Not the winning of a new world, but the maintaining of the old, was the order of the day. Few realised that the clash of ideologies masked the capitalist world-rivalry for economic gain. To comprehend this preliminary to World-War Number Two, even now, after the event, is of decisive importance. The capitalists' need for working-class support for war is now so great that to achieve it the ruling-class groups must prove that the major causes for the conflict spring from ideas held by "working-class" parties. Thus the growing quarrel between Russia and the Western Powers has immediate consequences of a grave character for the workers. Already certain quarters are posing the new line-up as a clash between "Social-Democracy" and "Totalitarian Communism." The result could be that the workers may be divided into pro- and anti-Russian factions. This would be disastrous. Forgetting working-class aims, they will be just as divided as if their rulers were already at war. And this division of the workers will facilitate war. All the reactionaries, from Mr. Churchill to the Pope, as well as Fascists, would, of course, claim to be on the side of "Social-Democracy." This factor alone should put workers on their guard.

For the time being, world capitalism has to make good the ravages of war. A large part of Europe is in ruins; millions of people are shunted back and forth over the continent like cattle. In such a situation the attempt to extricate capitalism from the mess is pathetic. Indeed, the attempt is being made, largely by so-called working-class parties, and is camouflaged as "Socialism." Not, mind you, the theoretical Socialism of Karl Marx! This is the phase of "Practical Socialism," when "things are done, not talked about!" We will not have long to wait before the bluff is called. There will no longer be the "settled" periods of capitalism, when the system could recover its equilibrium. The momentum of economic development throughout the world has now become tremendous. It is accompanied by a rapid change in the backward countries of India and China. Together with the discovery of atomic energy, these changes cannot be absorbed by world capitalism without throwing the whole social mechanism out of gear. Against this social background the efforts of reformers can be compared to the throwing of pails of water into an erupting volcano.

The Class-Struggle of the workers versus capitalists can therefore be divided into distinct stages. During a century of capitalism the working-class movement first took up positions for organised battle under the guiding ideas of Karl Marx. Then came the period of "Gradualism," when the mass-parties of Labour and Social-Democracy held sway with their theories of "nibbling" at the walls in order to make the "breach." The Russian Revolution appeared to indicate the "short cut" to Socialism and managed to win a large proportion of workers away from the Gradualists. Now, in the world emerging from the Second World-War, these two forces hold political power over a large part of the world. The "Practical" Socialism, which in reality means a "Planned" capitalism, is being put to the test in Russia under Communists and in Britain under Labourites. During these coming years working-class opposition to both these camps must inevitably grow. To-day, the party of Socialism appears as the only working-class force free from political ties with those who hold the state-power for capitalism. This is our opportunity. Admittedly, the problem is vast, the difficulties immense. Our resources are at present, by comparison small. But the magnificent work of Marx and Engels proves that when history is the teacher and survival is the stake, the human race is a quick and ready pupil. The Communist Manifesto and the First Workers' International were the labour of only a few, but they shook the world of capitalism at the very beginning.

Utilising the knowledge of Scientific Socialism, not as a theoretical shelter to hide from a world in trouble, but as a spur to action, the workers can now change the world.

Sid Rubin

The Enemy on the Left! (1973)

The Enemy on the Left Column from the January 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

A regular column dealing with the antics of those who call themselves socialist but in practice do  nothing but harm to the cause.

First, a  look at the title of this series. We all know what an enemy is, but what is "the left"? The matter is not as simple as it sounds. Was Nazi Germany "left" and Stalinist Russia "right"? How absurd, most people would say. Just the opposite. Yet the similarities between the two régimes were most marked. In particular, both countries were wage-slave societies where the wage-slave had practically no rights and where the concentration camp and the death penalty were the answer for those who dared question the actions of the rulers. And, as is well enough known, their differences were so unimportant that in 1939, the Hitler-Stalin pact gave the green light for the start of the holocaust.

So perhaps we will have to deal only with those people and parties who pretend to be socialist (maybe closing our eyes, for convenience, to the fact that the very word Nazi was only shortened for National Socialist; while as to the communists — who, in Marxian terms, are but synonymous with socialists, the term "red-fascist" is really nearer the mark.) Some readers may recall that the French writer and pseudo-socialist, Jean-Paul Sartre, once coined the slogan "No enemies on the left" in an endeavour to produce a "united front" of French pseudosocialists. The reality is, however. that it is precisely these leftists. all these people who masquerade as socialists, the Wilsons, the Foots in this country, the supporters of Brandt or Brezhnev, of Mao or Castro et al, who are the real villains of the piece. The reason is simple. In order to achieve Socialism, in a world such as we live in now where the objective conditions, the power to produce abundance to satisfy all human needs, have long been established, the only real obstacle is the subjective one of convincing the working class of the world that Socialism is the answer. It therefore follows that all these people who lead false trails merely produce the confusion as to what Socialism is all about, which, sadly, characterises almost the whole electorate over one hundred years after Marx and Engels had pointed the way ahead. And it is even worse that that. For not only do these people sow confusion, they also have the effect of producing revulsion against the very thought of Socialism among such elements of the working class who are prepared to think (or who have the time and energy to think after they have been through their day's rations of exploitation). Who would wish to be socialist who believes that Wilson's government was an example? Who would not be sick of the very idea of a communist (or socialist) society if that means anything like the vicious tyranny which exists for to see in places like Russia or China?

It is hoped that this brief introduction will have set the scene. In future issues we can deal with some of the activities of these leftist enemies of Socialism and of any progress towards a sane and humane society.

L. E. Weidberg 

Iron Fist (1985)

Book Review from the October 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Jim Coulter, Susan Miller, Martin Walker, State of Siege — Miners' Strike 1984: Politics and Policing in the Coal Fields (1984). Canary Press.

Moira Abdel-Rahim, Strike Breaking in Essex: The policing of Wivenhoe and the Essex ports during the 1984 miners' strike. Canary Press

The 1984/85 coal strike met with a massive response from the state, most notably the drafting into the coalfields of thousands of policemen from other areas under the mutual aid arrangements. But this was not the only part of the state machinery mobilised against the striking miners: the criminal justice system was used to restrict the activities of trade unionists through the imposition of bail conditions and bind over orders; the civil courts used injunctions to sequestrate union funds; other nationalised industries took action that severely limited the effects of the miners' action (for example the CEGB burned oil instead of coal in power stations); and the DHSS tried to starve miners back to work by withholding benefit from their families. But it was the police who were the state's front line in its attack on striking miners. Their activities caused widespread outcry among those concerned about civil liberties and led to a number of instant books commenting on the policing of the dispute, some published before the strike had ended.

State of Siege originally appeared in the form of three pamphlets, the first appearing just weeks after the start of the dispute. This book is a compilation of those earlier publications and it documents, in essentially anecdotal form, the most outrageous activities of the police over the period of the first five months of the strike. Because it was written as the events happened, the material is often unsystematic and lacking in coherence (which the authors themselves admit). This type of approach means that their arguments are frequently unpersuasive since they lack hard evidence to back them up. Anecdotal accounts of ill treatment by the police, for example, can be too easily dismissed as isolated occurrences not representative of the policing operation as a whole.

Similarly the authors' allegations that the police are being turned into a "paramilitary Third Force", although they carry some weight in view of the widespread use of riot trained police during the strike, can begin to sound like an hysterical over-reaction. One of the central problems with the book's approach is that the authors seem to want to argue that the growth of the "strong state" is both a feature of Thatcher's Britain and also nothing new. So although they place the events of this dispute in the broader context of a long history of brutal state reactions to working-class militancy, at times they also imply that there was something unique about this particular struggle. They write:

The miners' strike has come about because of the brutal economic policies of a Conservative government (p. 3).

This is not true: the events leading up to the strike were the result of the internal logic of capitalism—that production takes place only for the purpose of making a profit, and any industry that is not deemed sufficiently profitable will be closed—and this is the case no matter what shade of capitalist political party happens to be in government.

The authors' admiration for the efforts of miners to organise themselves during the strike and their justifiable sense of outrage at the treatment repeatedly meted out to them is tinged with the tendency to depict miners as proto-revolutionaries, which they clearly were not. While the strike may have challenged the employers inevitably it was on their own ground, namely that of capitalism; no strike can attempt to move the struggle to different ground — a political struggle for socialism. Despite the rhetoric this was, after all, yet another manifestation of the daily class struggle between worker and capitalists, albeit a particularly long and bitter one.

Despite its shortcomings, State of Siege does graphically illustrate a whole range of state activities during the strike: the use of the National Reporting centre to centralise control of the police and co-ordinate their operations; the use of the criminal rather than the civil law against pickets in an attempt to criminalise and discredit them; the setting up of police road blocks that made a nonsense of the notion of "freedom of movement"; the collecting by police and the Special Branch of political intelligence on strikers and trade union leaders; and physical and verbal abuse by police to harass and intimidate miners and their families.

Looking to the future the authors identify the following causes for concern: the inadequacy of the police complaints system; the extension of police powers under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, 1984 and the proposed changes in the law relating to Public Order. Underlying their recommendations and observations seems to be the idea that humanitarian policing is possible—"policing by consent" as it is usually called. This misses the point about the role of the police, and the coercive state machinery in general, in upholding and protecting the interests of the capitalist class; the idea of impartial policing or "policing by consent" is absurd. The consent of the workers is obtained while the system twists one of their arms up behind them; it is the consent of people who believe that they have no option but to consent.

Strike Breaking in Essex is written in a somewhat similar style to State of Siege although its particular focus is the picketing of the five small ports in Essex which were used to import coal. Because its subject is narrower it offers a more detailed and comprehensive account than State of Siege and is more systematic in approach. It deals firstly with the background to the events that occurred at the five Essex ports, then goes on to give a detailed account of the policing operation in the Essex area and finally discusses the wider implications of the way in which the dispute was policed for the Essex community. But despite this more systematic approach again there is evidence of a lack of political understanding, as for example when the author writes:

The miners have been fighting for their jobs, their communities and a voice in their future. They are now the vanguard of the British working class. If they are to be crushed, trade unionism and the labour movement will have suffered a serious blow.

Again, the author is confusing a trade union struggle over industrial and economic issues with revolutionary political action.

Both of these books draw attention in graphic style to the use of state power by the capitalist class to protect its own interests in the face of a perceived threat from the working class. The coercive nature of state power is generally kept reasonably well hidden — it is far more effective for workers to believe that they are "consenting" to a given situation rather than being coerced into accepting it. But it should nevertheless be remembered that coercive power — the "iron fist" — can and will be used if necessary. Both books rightly draw attention to this use of coercion, apparently understand its function in protecting class interests, and yet still persist in the naive and mistaken view that policing can be reformed in such a way as to make it in some way less coercive. State of Siege at the end of the first section (p. 59) recommends the setting up of committees of enquiry to look into the use of the criminal law; the role of the Association of Chief Police Officers; and covert employment of paramilitary strategies during the strike. After the catalogue of abuses by the state which they present us with, are we really supposed to believe that a series of committees of enquiry (themselves a part of the state machinery) are going to recommend reforming the police in such a way that such abuses will never occur again? This is precisely the sort of recommendation that one expects from politicians who wish to avoid capitalism's realities and is at best naive and at worst politically dangerous.

Janie Percy-Smith

World-economy (1981)

Book Review from the March 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Capitalist World-economy by I. Wallerstein, Cambridge University Press, £4.95

This book, first published in 1979, brings out well an essential feature of capitalism: it is a single world system, a single world economy. There is no such thing as the "British economy", the "American economy" or the "Russian economy"; there is only one economy, world capitalism. What is more, capitalism has been a world-economy—embracing a number of states with varying divisions of labour—ever since its origin in Western Europe in the 16th century, even though it did not dominate the whole globe until the end of the 19th.

This view—which is one we ourselves hold—has various important implications. First, that there are no national solutions to today's social problems. The various states into which the world is divided are political, but not social units. The state does not define the boundaries of the present social system, which is worldwide and capitalist. Since capitalism is the cause of today's social problems and is a single world-wide social system, it clearly follows that the solution to these problems can only be a world-wide social change (from world capitalism to world socialism).

States do, however, have an important economic role to play in the capitalist world-economy: to try to distort the market for the benefit of the group of capitalists they represent. As Wallerstein puts it:

Within a world economy, the state structures function as ways for particular groups to affect and distort the functioning of the market. The stronger the state machinery, the more its ability to distort the world market in favour of the interests it represents (p.61).

It is this that explains the militarisation of the world (and, by implication, the futility of expecting disarmament while world capitalism lasts):

State machineries have interfered with the workings of the world market from the inception of capitalism. Moreover, the states have formed, developed and militarised themselves each in relation to the others, seeking thus to channel the division of surplus value. In consequence, all state structures have grown progressively stronger over time absolutely, although the relative differences between core and peripheral areas have probably remained the same or even increased (p. 274).

It also explains why all states, not just certain of them, are "imperialist" in the sense of being potentially expansionist and being prepared to use violence as a last resort. War is in fact just one of the ways states use to seek to distort the world market (others being mercantilism, protectionism, colonialism, tariffs, subsidies). War is a political means of pursuing economic ends.

Second, that there are not, nor could there be, any "socialist" states or countries in the world today. Wallerstein, despite his own personal sympathy (which we don't share) for some of the states calling themselves "socialist", is clear enough on this point:

The fact that all enterprises are nationalised in these countries does not make the participation of these enterprises in the world-economy one that does not conform to the mode of operation of a capitalist market system: seeking increased efficiency of production in order to realise a maximum price on sales, thus achieving a more favourable allocation of the surplus of the world-economy.
There are today no socialist systems in the world-economy any more than there are feudal systems because there is only one world system. It is a world-economy and it is by definition capitalist in form (pp.34-5).
The capitalist system is composed of owner who sell for profit. The fact that an owner is a group of individuals rather than a single person makes no essential difference. This has long been recognised for joint-stock companies. It must now also be recognised for sovereign states. A state which collectively owns all the means of production is merely a collective capitalist firm as long as it remains—as all such states are, in fact, presently compelled to remain—a participant in the market of the capitalist world-economy. No doubt such a "firm" may have different modalities of internal division of profit, but this does not change its essential role vis-a-vis others operating in the world-market (pp. 68-9).

Third, that virtually the whole of the world's population, whether or not they are yet propertyless wage earners, are victims of capitalism in one way or another. (Wallerstein would add a fourth point, namely, that there is a world-wide division of labour between developed ("core") and underdeveloped ("periphery") countries such that the latter are condemned to permanent underdevelopment for as long as capitalism lasts. Whatever may be the validity of this proposition—which is not discussed here—it is not a necessary implication of the "world-system perspective".

The logical conclusion to be drawn from all this is that it is all or nothing—world socialism or the continuation of capitalism in one form or another—in the sense that no single state or country on its own, no matter what policy it adopts, can escape from the logic of the world capitalist system. This is why we say that the only solution to the problems of all the population of the world, those in the underdeveloped countries as well as those in the advanced capitalist countries, is the replacement of the capitalist world-economy by world socialism.

Wallerstein, however, is not logical and does not draw this conclusion. As a Maoist fellow-traveller (even if he has now, rather belatedly, come to recognise that China is just as state capitalist as Russia—which was obvious to us even when Mao was in power) he supports Third World "national liberation" movements as a supposed aspect of the world's population's struggle against world capitalism, whereas his own analysis shows that they are in fact just part of the struggle among the various states of the world for a share of the surplus value produced by the workers and peasants of the world.

Adam Buick 

The ultimate migrants (1997)

Editorial from the March 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism is a naturally expansive system which has migrated to the four corners of the Earth, pushing aside every obstacle in its way. Whether it be the classical nineteenth-century imperialism which built many empires and destroyed the lives and cultures of many indigenous people, or the latter-day domination of the world market by a handful of corporations—capitalism has recognised no boundaries in its search for profit.

With this in mind it has always been ironic that capitalist politicians complain about immigration or the "influx of foreigners" coming into "our country". The workers of the world have no country—we are global. All of the countries are owned by a tiny fraction of the world's population—the capitalist class, who are international. The logic of the profit system is that the capitalists will invest wherever they can get the best return on their capital. One of the major factors has always been low labour costs combined with potential access to a particular market. Hence, capital flows travel the world over, and suddenly patriotism is no longer a factor!

Just recently, we heard the outcry among the ruling class when a leading Japanese industrialist said that his corporation would have to think twice about any further investment in Britain if it failed to join the single currency in Europe. Amongst other things this led to John Major claiming that Britain's record on attracting inward investment was second-to-none in Europe. Indeed, one of the more attractive features was Britain's "flexible" labour market. At the same time there was the dual discussion going on about possible immigration from Hong Kong and the question of "false" asylum-seekers.

Basically, as usual, it's one rule for capital and another for the working class. Obviously, in the case of a labour shortage the rules may be suspended or even reversed, but the normal practice for the ruling class is to warn about the dangers of immigration thus setting worker against worker whilst, at the same time, being the ultimate immigrants and migrants themselves.

'Song of the Wage-Slaves' (1919)

From the June 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

We grow in might and numbers as we mix from every clime,
And march beneath our Standard scorning fear or blows of Time:
     Our cause is universal, and to burst Man's bonds we meet:
     The Workers' war for freedom can n'er end in their defeat? 

We fill the world with riches by our work of mind and hands,
Yet we are ground in bondage by the Lords of Wealth and Lands.
    Our pay is but a pittance: we're machines to grind out wealth
    To make the rich men richer while we're robbed of peace and health. 

Life's best gifts are denied us; from our wage-slave's hell we rise,
To smash the bloody system built on greed and fraud and lies!
      'Mid great wealth some are starving who can't sell themselves for bread;
      Their days are dumb with darkness, while their hearts to joy are dead.

          We'll cease to bear some burdens that have weighed us down for years—
          The manacles of slavery ever wet with blood and tears;
              Nor wage wars for our masters when they lust for power and gold:
              We'll end it all for ever! And the world in peace we'll hold.

           The earth shall be for workers!—not for thieves and parasites!

           Who turn it to Inferno by their strife for spurious rights.

               We'll trample down all fetters; we shall wing to heights unknown

               And attain to Life Resplendent when we make the world our own!

Graham May

Proper Gander: Soldiering On (2015)

The Proper Gander Column from the November 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

DIY SOS – Homes For Veterans (BBC1) is the makeover show’s ‘biggest ever challenge’. Cheeky chappie presenter Nick Knowles and his team of builders, technicians and volunteers have 12 days to renovate a dilapidated terrace street in Manchester. This is to create a therapeutic and accessible community for ex-armed forces personnel with physical and mental health conditions.

It’s striking that people choose to go into a profession that they’re likely to leave with life-changing injuries and trauma. Presumably, filling your head with enough nationalism to kill for ‘your’ country, and living in a regimented bubble makes you accept the risks of being a soldier. Adapting from the army mindset back into civvy street can be enough of a struggle, even without additional problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, brain damage or the loss of a limb, as suffered by tens of thousands of armed forces personnel. If their mobility has been affected, then the home they move back to needs to be made more accessible. The houses being renovated on DIY SOS are purpose-built around the  veterans’ needs, almost uniquely. Ex-soldier John has anxiety and flashbacks triggered by loud noises, which have put pressures on his family life. In his new home, the front room has been designed to make him feel more settled, and his bedroom has been soundproofed to improve his sleep.

Perhaps there has always been an epidemic of post-traumatic stress disorder among ex-service personnel, and now it’s just recognised more. This doesn’t mean that everyone suffering from PTSD gets treatment and support for it, or even any kind of housing. Around 9,000 ex-soldiers are homeless, having been abandoned by the state they fought for. So, only a few of the people in need will benefit from DIY SOS’s community.

The cornerstones of any programme like this are the snappily-edited race against time to get the work done, the blokey builders’ banter, and the emotional reveal of the new homes. The ‘blitz spirit’ is evoked more than once, although not in the context of it being another military slaughter. The only break from the formula is a visit by princes William and Harry, figureheads of the society which creates the wars these veterans have been victims of.  We shouldn’t be too  cynical, though. Projects like this remind us that people are happy to co-operate and volunteer to help others. But it would still be better to work towards a society which doesn’t create the need for wars, nor institutions like the armed forces.

Mike Foster

Last year's US movies (2001)

From the February 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Humanity has created a mostly "inhuman" society, and it is this condition itself that has become the subject of its art - we look at last year's US movies

Traditionally American narrative cinema has concerned itself with a central character or group and telling a story from their lives. More interestingly, these characters and the landscapes within which they move are symbols of the cultural concerns of the people who make movies: screenwriters, directors, actors, cinematographers and their employers, the producers and financiers. The purpose of this review of the last year's films is to discover these concerns and define any shared cultural/political trends in the American movie industry. It is symptomatic of the internal contradictions within capitalism that good films are made in spite of the system of production and not because of it; humanity has created a mostly "inhuman" society, and it is this condition itself that has become the subject of its art. Capitalists are ambivalent about this because although a powerful and entertaining observation of the social condition can provide them with a profitable movie it can also serve to undermine their ideology.

Such would seem to be the case in American Beauty which enjoys itself with an amusing destruction of suburban "middle-class" values and beliefs. As a result of his alienated life the hero develops an obsession with his daughter's best friend. This new focus in his life motivates him to turn away from his career and family but inevitably leads to greater social disaster. As he expires in the wreckage of his life the film provides us with a sentimental vision of the innocence of first love as salvation from the horrors of suburban American life. A film about alienation with no political content seems unlikely but that's what it takes to win a sackful of Oscars from the Hollywood establishment these days.

Although indulging a similar pleasure in portraying the despair and corruption of American society The Insider at least attempts a political perspective. Here we are back in one of Hollywood's favourite scenarios of David-versus-Goliath, where an individual takes on the might of big government or a corporation; in this case the tobacco industry. The triumph of the moral victory is monumentally pyrrhic in the context of the habitual crushing of workers' ethical sensibilities by the wheels of the American profit juggernaut. This is recognised by Al Pacino's last line: "when some things are broken they can't be fixed"; which for a socialist sounds like a rejection of reformism and a call for revolution, but is probably heard as a voice of despair and political impotence by the audience as they bask in the fleeting superficial glow of moral redemption provided by the movie's end.

Russell Crowe (the co-star of The Insider) went on to star in last year's mega-blockbuster Gladiator; an attempt to revive the historical epic genre. It has long been a cliché to regard this "sword-and-sandal" genre as a metaphor for American imperialism despite their anti-imperialist narratives because of the obvious delight in the reconstruction of the military spectacle of ancient Rome (Quo Vadis, Ben Hur, The Robe, Spartacus, etc). Unusually, in contrast to this convention, there is in Gladiator an explicit identification with Roman militarism right from the start. Maximus, the hero, is betrayed because of the power his military successes bring him. Although technically brilliant the movie resolves itself into yet another dreary revenge narrative. At least there is no Christian dimension and it does have entertaining references to its generic predecessors.

This self-referential theme is also responsible for Shaft 2000 which also attempts to revive a genre, this time one of the seventies known as "blaxploitation". The original star, Richard Roundtree, makes an appearance as Samuel L. Jackson's "Uncle Shaft" and their enjoyment of the usual urban carnage is all very amusing, but the cynicism exhibited by the characters is depressing when compared with the original's odyssey through black radical politics. In the political vacuum of postmodern America the Black Panthers are regarded as a mere retro-fashion statement.

An altogether more thoughtful investigation of another of postmodernism's themes can be found in Nurse Betty which examines the part that the relationship between media and audience plays in American cultural identity. Betty, as the result of a trauma, comes to believe that she is one of the characters in her favourite soap opera. After avoiding the pursuit of a contract killer and his apprentice she actually finds herself playing the part she has identified with in the soap opera itself. Only her potential killer understands her delusion because his own homicidal career has become an act for him. If, as the movie suggests, the American audience understands who they are by reference to media stereotypes then what we have here is a frightening vision of the power of the medium's social manipulation.

Yet another, but much darker, variation of the same obsession with identify can be found in Memento. Here our "hero" suffers from short-term memory loss and has to literally inscribe on his own body who he is and what has happened to him using tattoos. The narrative is retrospective and follows his story through the perspectives of the other characters. It is hard to evade the feeling that this is a commentary on the notoriously short attention span of the American audience. The episodic nature of the story reminds one of the seemingly inexhaustible appetite for the next novelty of entertainment, having forgotten what they've just seen.

If it is true that we can trace a shared theme in the preceding films in terms of alienated characters seeking an identity within a media-dominated society, then two last examples take this idea to its extreme. The first explores a trans-cultural identity where the protagonist assumes the persona of a samurai and calls himself "Ghost Dog". To further thicken the cultural stew the samurai is black, his master is a Mafiosi, his best friend is a French-speaking Haitian ice-cream seller and the landscape is New York. The superficial identities of the Dog and his friend unravel when the ice-cream is discovered not to be the "best in America" and that bushido philosophy cannot cope with love and betrayal. The trans-cultural conceit collapses with the realisation of their exploitation by the capitalist system.

To counter all of this cultural despair and remind us of its absurd comic potential we have Being John Malkovich. The spooky reality of the puppets contrasts with the surrealistic company that exists on half a floor of a corporate building which hides a secret portal into the head of the celebrated actor John Malkovich. Our puppeteer hero discovers the portal and from inside the head we experience the vacuity of a celebrity existence. He subsequently sells tickets for others to visit, and when one of the punters believes herself to be John Malkovich and attempts to influence his life, this betrays the existence of the portal to its owner. In a magnificently funny symbol of the symbiotic relationship between media star and his audience Malkovich enters his own head and experiences the full horror of the political and aesthetic sterility of the narcissistic showbiz culture.

American mass-media from the pulp fiction and nickelodeon of the 19th century to the sports arena and multiplexes of the early 21st has always relied on the opiate of novelty and entertainment; but the tensions and contradictions within the content of some of the best of American cinema might lead some to turn away from the coliseum of Hollywood and reflect like Derek Jacobi does in Gladiator, saying: "I'm not of the people, but I'm for the people." In such a rejection of the identities offered by the capitalist media we might all finally focus on the reality of the need to resolve the class struggle.

Andrew Westley

So They Say: Rouble Backhanders (1974)

The So They Say Column from the January 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rouble Backhanders

A "Housing Scandal" was reported in The Times on 6th November. A Trade Minister, a Mayor, a chief city architect and various senior officials were sacked for corrupt practices and "numerous instances of gross violations of legality".

Those involved are charged with abusing their official positions by allotting housing space through favouritism, and flagrant contravention of the laws and regulations.  . . . (The Mayor) was removed for abetting various people in the illegal possession of flats and by his general acquiescence. The chief architect was dismissed for neglecting long-range plans for the city's future development, for falling to improve the quality of construction work and the unauthorized occupancy of a flat in the same board of trade housing development.

This sounds like an extract from the Poulson proceedings, but it is not. The report comes from the Times' Moscow correspondent, and refers to Tbilisi, the capital of the Soviet Republic of Georgia. We used to hear that this sort of thing happened only in the "decadent" west' but capitalism has the same effects everywhere.

Moves in a Mysterious Way

Some time ago and American sued thirty churches for redress after an injury to him was attributed to an "Act of God". heath and Wilson may both be thinking on similar lines. Under the headline HEATH WARNING ON UNCONTROLLABLE ECONOMIC FORCES, the Prime Minister was recently reported speaking of things beyond him: 

. . . we are faced by economic forces outside the nation's control which affect the livelihood of every man, woman and child in this country. (Times, 6th December 1973)

The same night, Wilson expressed the same sentiment in a party political broadcast:

But the leader of the Opposition said he would not blame everything that was happening on the Government. "For example, I've made it clear I do not think they are responsible for the present oil crisis . . . Some aspects of world prices, foodstuffs, are not their responsibility."

So these Men of Destiny, casting masterful eyes on the turbulence round them, say — what? That they are stumped.

Ask Them Another

However, it must not be thought that the current economic troubles are due to the ineptitude of fatheads like Heath and Wilson. Similar admissions are now being made by heads of state and erstwhile whizz-kids all over the world. On 2nd December the Sunday Times Business News had JAPAN: BRAKES ON THE BULLET ECONOMY. The Tokyo correspondent wrote:

The oil crisis, commodity shortages, a Cabinet re-shuffle including a change of Finance Minister, not to mention he usual uncertainties of economic forecasting, all these have thrown Japan's exports into a state of nearly total confusion.
The Economic Planning Agency admits: "It is impossible to give a responsible answer." A more assured member of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry says: "Nobody really knows, but . . ."

There was a symmetry between this and the item below it, headed THE US: NO ONE REALLY KNOWS. It spoke of forecasts of "unemployment nearly doubling to 7.5 per cent. or 8 per cent", and went on:

Most professional economists now admit that they have only the vaguest notions of what will happen in the next 12 months . . . no one knows how US export trade—considered to be one of the strong factors of the American economy—will be affected by economic slowdowns in Europe and Japan.

All now agree unanimously — but, being "experts" only temporarily — with the Socialist Party's case that capitalism cannot be controlled.

Alone I Did It

An example of the absurdity and anarchy of capitalism is shown in a report from Brazil. Like every other country, Brazil has sought "growth". As elsewhere, this is supposed to promise higher living standards for the workers — but, of course, not in the foreseeable future. Antonio Delfim Netto, "the Erhardt of Brazil's economic miracle" is quoted six months ago explaining what would happen of wages rose: "Easy, there would be runaway inflation." 

But labour shortages have enabled Brazilian workers to demand, and get, higher wages. And this has enabled the pragmatic Delfim (a) to admit that growth has nothing for the working class, and (b) to pretend he arranged for a labour shortage instead.

Last week Professor Delfim admitted that Brazil's chosen vehicle of expansion (the market economy) did not provide any mechanism for reducing the level of inequality, but professed himself happy with the effect which the emerging shortages of labour have produced. "This," he said, "is what we have worked for all the time." (Guardian, 4th December 1973)

Obviously this "miracle-worker' hasn't a clue, except to making up ingenuous answers. What will he say when labour shortage gives way to redundancies?

Beware of Them — They're Like Us

We have from America a leaflet headed WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT COMMUNISM, apparently issued by the FBI. It urges every citizen to look out for "espionage, sabotage, and subversion activities". What it refers to, of course, is state capitalism: the first thing people should know about Communism is that it does not exist in the places implied, Russia, Cuba, China, etc.

But even taking the leaflet at its face value, it contains a curious self-contradiction. One side says, quoting J. Edgar Hoover:

Why is Communism a threat to you? Communists want to control everything: where you live, where you work, what you are paid, what streetcars you ride (or whether you walk), how your children are educated, what you may not and must read and write . . . 

On the other side people are told they can combat Communism by:

1. Being good students (doing a good job at school)
2. Being good citizens at home and in the community
3. Learning more about the history of America
4. Being willing to do their share for our country.

Thus, the way to prevent being told what to do, what to read, etc. is to let yourself be told what to do, what to read, etc. Which highlights the fact that there is no difference worth troubling about.

Putting it Simply

We are often told that the language of Socialist economics is too weighty for the man in the street who reads football reports. The report of Queens Park Rangers v. Sheffield United in The Observer on 9th December began:

The leather spheroid never looked like evading the custodian.

It means nobody could get the ball past the goalkeeper.

Robert Barltrop

Class, Micropolitics & Solidarity (1996)

From the October 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists recognise that workers who are involved in reform campaigns are, at least, trying to gain some control over their lives.

What do we find if we examine, quickly, the present state of class struggle in this little corner of world capitalism known as Britain?

Looking first at what we might call the traditional areas of organised conflict, trade union activity, there has been something of a flurry of activity over the last couple of months with tube strikes and postal strikes particularly in the news. This has fairly predictably led to the government threatening more repression and further curbs on union powers, to the point of considering an outright ban on strikes in "essential services", though such a ban may be rendered impossible by the difficulty of defining what is or is not an essential service.

These disputes drag on as management, more used these days to little overt resistance from workers, continue to try to impose their will on hostile workforces. Simultaneously, the unions are stung to greater efforts of resistance not only by the hostile interference of both the Tory government and the Labour so-called opposition.

Of course, these remain relatively minor disputes and the reactions of the two major parties represent the efforts of the capitalist state to stamp out what it thinks are the dying embers of workers' resistance. It is possible that such efforts by the state might actually cause sparks to ignite further flare-ups of open conflict; what's certainly the case is that they can never succeed in entirely extinguishing class struggle because the capitalist system itself continually produces both fuel and ignition.

What of other manifestations of conflict? What of the so-called "micropolitical" struggles—Newbury, Wexports, the "land is ours" campaign and the like?

As far as the major parties are concerned, the future has been abandoned. Mainstream politics, with Labour and the Tories drawing so close together, has nothing to offer but more of the same, world without end—unless of course things simply get worse. This political sclerosis and ideological entropy means that all the political energy has migrated elsewhere, out of parliamentarianism and into either charities or loosely-organised protest actions, both areas being primarily defensive.

There are many people including many of those involved in such struggles, who will question the relevance of class to these protests and actions. They are, after all, specifically "micropolitical", single-issue campaigns, concerned it would seem, purely and simply with specific, very localised outcomes.

Newbury bypass protesters, for example, would probably consider the notion that their campaign to stop a road from being built (and save a rare snail) had a class aspect as absurd. But then, why should we assume that a struggle must necessarily be self-conscious? The class struggle is, in fact, an inevitable feature of the capitalist system, whether those involved are conscious of it or not, being the result of irreducible conflicts of material interest under capitalism.

While the immediate aim of those at Newbury may be "simply" to stop the construction of a road for ecological reasons, it should be recognised that this does not in itself mean that important issues of class are excluded from the entire structure of the conflict that is involved. There is a very important question of power at issue here, which is always a vitally important element of class relations. Class and capitalism are inevitably involved, so these issues are not really "micro" at all but actually have global, social and economic implications. 

Whatever else may be involved, the conflict over the Newbury bypass is one in which working-class people are struggling for some degree of democratic control over their environment, which inevitably brings them into conflict with the state and with capitalist big business.

Of course, it needs to be recognised that most struggles such as these are doomed to failure in the long term, and that when they are successful, they will lead only to further struggles ad infinitum, as long as the capitalist system itself continues to exist; as long as, that is, working people don't actually have real democratic control over our own lives. These struggles are (as in trade-unionism) defensive, as they react to impositions and the diktats passed down from the capitalists and their public lieutenants in the state, even though they also express a desire for something more, something better than what there already is. Part of the problem is that this desire is left vague, ethereal, relatively inarticulate, and the energy released by it is frittered away in specific short-term, defensive struggles, often without even recognising connections between them, or with apparently different but ultimately related and overlapping struggles such as those involving unions or tenants groups.

Solidarity

A recent example of an inspired, but ultimately doomed (as those involved will have no doubt realised all along), "micropolitical" action involved four women entering a British Aerospace factory in order to disarm military aircraft bound for Indonesia. These women, from the anti-war group Ploughshares, undertook this action as a protest against Indonesian state terrorism in East Timor, where it is assumed the planes were to be used against the civilian population (or against East Timorese rebels—although, if reports are to believed, that does in fact mean pretty much the entire population).

What is particularly interesting, and heartening, about this event is the strong element of solidarity involved. First of all, and most obviously, there is the solidarity of the women with the East Timorese people against the (Indonesian) state and big business (and not just British Aerospace—Indonesian aggression, and Australian support for it, is driven, surprise surprise, by economics, specifically by the existence of oil in the Timor Sea). Presumably the action was undertaken in order to publicise the situation in East Timor and therefore the women were expecting to be arrested and convicted of "criminal damage"; to that extent they will consider their action to have been relatively successfully.

What will have made it still more successful for them is the fact that they were actually acquitted by a jury on 30 July, despite having admitted their actions, simply arguing that they were ethically justified. This brings us to the second example of solidarity—that of the working people in the jury who decided that the women were indeed justified in their actions.

By the letter of the law, it seems apparent that these four women should surely have been convicted; they had broken the law. But, while we should hold no illusions concerning the jury's motives in acquitting them, i.e., there seems no reason to think that it was specifically done with this in mind, their act of solidarity threw the whole notion of legality into question.

Working-class solidarity can go beyond legality; there is little enough such solidarity around at the moment, and it is understandable, if, for example, threats by the state against union rights make the union movement somewhat nervous, but it must also be recognised that the union leaders seems to have forgotten that such a thing as solidarity is even possible. But it is absolutely vital; whatever the laws says, class solidarity can make the law unworkable anyway.

The laws of the state are made workable only by the active consent of its "subjects", the working class, and can therefore be made unworkable by the withdrawal of that consent. This is an absolutely basic lesson to be drawn from the history of the trade-union movement; if the relatively class-conscious workers hadn't been willing to break the law, and back each other up, in the first place, there would be no unions today. This is a lesson that trade unionists, even more than those involved in "micropolitics" (who seem to have at least some consciousness of it) have to re-learn today so that they can regroup, grow once more as an effective force within capitalism, and defend themselves and the immediate interests of working people more effectively.

That said, there is an air of expectancy among the unions at the moment, an expectancy that flies in the face of all the evidence, that Labour will somehow "put things right" if it wins the next election, that they will "set things straight" for the union movement and the working class. But the Labour Party feels little or no solidarity with working people in struggle, and things will anyway always be twisted for workers under capitalism.

As socialists have reiterated time and time again, workers need to stop putting their faith in reformism; capitalism will never, can never, be reformed in our interest. The real interest of the working class will only be served by the abolition of class altogether, along with capitalism in all its forms and will all its iniquitous effects. But also, until the majority of people come to see this and do it, those workers who are drawn into struggle should also realise that reformist appeals to the laws of the capitalist state are irrelevant and solidarity is supremely important. And who knows? Maybe such recognition of a basic commonality of interest could lead more people to realise that those interests are absolutely opposed to the interests of capitalism itself.

Jonathan Clay