Sting in the Tail: Class Act (1991)

The Sting in the Tail column from the January 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class Act (1)

John Major, the Prime Minister, in his electioneering speeches for the Premiership was fond of repeating that outrageous piece of Thatcher twaddle "I am in favour of a classless society".

Overlooking the gall of the Conservative Party, who are committed to preserving the class ownership of this country, uttering such mindless piffle; it is strange that they should claim this as their aim when, from time to time, they tell us that we already have a classless society!

Class Act (2)

As reported in the November Sting in the Tail, Lady Porter's litigation against the Duke of Westminster's Grosvenor Estate has now been settled in the High Court.

The judge found that the term "working class" still exists. It says a lot for the British legal system that this momentuous decision took three days of court deliberation and cost Westminster Council, led by Lady Porter, £50,000.

Ever helpful to our "betters" the Socialist Party would draw to her Ladyship's attention an advert for socialist pamphlets in this issue of the Socialist Standard. She will find listed a pamphlet entitled "Socialist Principles" offered at 25p. post-free. She can read on page 10 of this publication the words:

  Now we have capitalism, the typical form of which is that the means of production and distribution are owned by a small propertied class, the capitalist class, who also own the products and sell them to realise a profit. Wage or salary earners are the employees of the capitalist class. They, with their dependants, are the great majority of the population and constitute the working class.

25p. instead of £50,000? Surely Lady Porter would appreciate this piece of local government cost cutting!

Class Act (3)

Behind all this posturing and acting of politicians on the question of class there is the fundamental fact that, as class is determined by ownership, there can be no doubt of the existence of two classes in Britain today.

Commenting on Inland Revenue figures for 1988 published in the government's Economic Trends which showed that Britain's total marketable wealth was £1,300 billion, the Daily Record (21 November 1990) said:

 Half the wealth - almost £700 billion - was held by the richest 10 per cent. On the other side of the coin, the poorer half of the population between them shared just £83 billion - less than 7 per cent of the total.

Thatcher, Major and Lady Porter are thus exposed by the statistics of their own institutions for what they are - apologists for the class divided society that they support so enthusiastically.

Tory Democracy

The struggle for the Tory leadership threw up an interesting insight into how Tory democracy works at Westminster.

Despised and ignored for 11 years, Tory back benchers were treated as VIPs by the leadership candidates. Just how unusual this was for them was reported in The Independent (27 November):

  "Of course they are flattered. They are used to being consulted about sod all, and getting their arses kicked by the whips", a former whip said. "They have never been asked their opinion before, and after this, they never will be again."

The experience of those back benchers is not all that different to that of the working class at election times. Between elections they are largely ignored except when being exhorted to work harder or to pull in their belts or told to stop being moaning minnies. Comes election time they are being addressed as the salt of the earth and so on. 

Funny old thing this Tory democracy.

Simple Simon

A news item on Radio One about the proposed slaughter of 20 million sheep in Australia as a result of the slump in the wool trade, apparently affected disc-jockey Simon Bates to such an extent that he requested the newsreader to phone the Australian Consul immediately because, as he put it: "If this report is true then it is one of the most shocking stories I've ever heard".

Really? Poor naive Simon. Never mind the Australian Consul, just phone any branch of the Socialist Party and we will rattle off a catalogue of shocking stories about food being destroyed while people starve, that will make your earphones curl. Be warned though, on a pay-phone you'll need to have a lot of coins ready for this long drawn out saga.

A Short Honeymoon

After trailing badly in the opinion polls the Tories have jumped ahead due to Mrs Thatcher's replacement by John Major as Prime Minister.

Many people, especially dismayed Labourites, find this hard to fathom but they should realise that so far Major has only had to say the things which many voters want to hear.

He hasn't had to make the decisions which all leaders in power have to make about what is to be done, as they see it, in the interests of British capitalism — decisions which inevitably run counter to the expectations of those voters.

This is why every Prime Minister (Tory and Labour) and the voters have, for a while, a honeymoon followed by a cooling-off and eventual divorce. This is what happened to Mrs Thatcher and sooner or later John Major's turn will come.

Maggie's Big Deal

When the pundits were asked what they saw as Mrs Thatcher's greatest achievement, many of them replied "she tamed the trade unions".

This simplistic view ignores the dominant role played by large-scale unemployment in reducing trade union effectiveness. The slump of the early 80s enabled employers to impose on their workforces just about any conditions they wanted to.

Once the boom of the late 80s began and demand for labour rose again, then those unions which were in a favourable position could stage a counter-attack.

A Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions leaflet dated 6 November updates the many nationwide successes gained in their 37 hour week campaign. Why didn't Mrs Thatcher prevent this?

Now that another slump has begun employers are once more shedding labour and will doubtless be flexing their muscles again. Indeed, Rolls Royce have withdrawn the 9% pay deal it had agreed with some of its workers (The Guardian 1 December 1990).

The health of trade unions is more determined by the state of the labour market than the actions of trade union bashing politicians.

Lives and Profits. (1931)

From the July 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

A glaring example of the worthlessness of the Labour Government to the workers was afforded at a conference on “Safety in Mines," held recently in Sheffield and presided over by no less a dignitary than the egregious Mr. Emmanuel Shinwell, His Majesty's Minister of Mines. The proceedings were reported in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph for April 13th.

The participators in the “confab" included colliery owners and managers, mines inspectors, and union officials. His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Sir Henry Walker, placed his finger upon the core of the problem as gently as possible when he pointed out that “he was not satisfied that conditions in the mines were such as to induce the men to be as careful as they should be in relation to the risks they ran’’; and then, to mollify owners and men in one breath, suggested that it was all due to the miners’ reckless British pluck. Other contributions to the discussion dealt with the special risks attaching to different phases of the miner’s tasks, such as shot-firing, hauling, roof shoring, etc. Finally, however, Mr. E. Hough, Vice-President of the Yorkshire Miners’ Association, introduced a breath of reality by pointing out that the basic economic factors had not been dealt with. His remarks are not reported in extenso, but readers would have to be dense indeed not to perceive that the risks of mining are largely bound up with the piece-rate system, which is maintained because it is most profitable to the owners. When men have to work hell-for-leather in order to make their wages cover the cost of bare subsistence, they cannot afford to behave as daintily and cautiously as if they were in a ballroom. The risks of mining can be got rid of only when it is no longer conducted for profit, but that involves the introduction of Socialism.

Then up spake Mr. Shinwell. “It took him all his time to refrain from strong comment upon the speech they had just heard.’’ He was "much perturbed at the suggestion that the conference had avoided anything’’ or been animated by any other desire than to get at the truth about accidents. He emphasised the need for cooperation of masters and men, "Economic factors could be discussed in the proper place."

One can equally well imagine a bespectacled professor discovering the mangled corpse of an antelope upon the veldt and thus addressing the retreating form of Mr. Felix Leo: “Respected Sir, I have not the slightest doubt that the laceration endured by this unfortunate animal is purely accidental. I earnestly solicit your co-operation in removing the risk of its re-occurrence wherever possible. At the same time I strongly resent any suggestion made by vegetarians that it has any connection with your healthy appetite."

Eric Boden

Dislodging Somozas (1979)

From the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The history of the Central American states is a bloody one, with Nicaragua having more than its fair share of intrigue and assassination in forty-three years of dictatorship. In 1936 Anastasio Somoza Garcia, a used-car salesman who had become a general overnight, installed himself as dictator after ordering the murder of Augusto Sandino, the guerilla leader who had held the American Marines at bay for seven years. The general was assassinated in 1956 but power remained in the hands of his eldest son, Luis. In February 1967 Anastasio Somoza Garcia Jr. came into his inheritance, conservatively estimated at 600 million dollars.

The Somozas were no egalitarians. Prior to the civil war, one-third of the nation’s income went to the top five per cent of the population, who also owned half the arable land. Blindness and brain damage through malnutrition are common in the country’s northern rural areas, and only three people in ten achieve elementary education. More murders per head of the population are committed every year in Nicaragua than anywhere else in the world, and the proportionate numbers of chronic alcoholics exceed those of every other Central American state. The Somozas owned the country’s shipping and airlines, the cement plant, textile factories, sugar mills, the local concession of Mercedes Benz, travel agencies, oil refineries, banks, radio, television, boutiques, and human blood and plasma export businesses. The family also controlled and financed the armed forces.

Armed resistance to the Somoza dynastic rule gained momentum in the mid-seventies, becoming a serious threat to the repressive Guardia Nacional. On 22 August last year, two army lorries pulled up in front of the National Palace in Managua and twenty-six men. who appeared to be a contingent of the army’s infantry school, formed into three squads on the forecourt and marched inside. They were members of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) putting into operation a bold plan to occupy the seat of Congress.

American Democracy
The raid on the National Palace was prompted by an upsurge of support for Somoza by the American government, with loans totalling 150 million dollars (a year later the International Monetary Fund would add 33 million). Carter had written a letter to Somoza congratulating him for promises to restore ‘human rights’ in Nicaragua, thirty years of American support for the dictatorship having slipped his mind.

After acceding to the Sandinistas’ demands, repression began in earnest. Guardia units were ordered to move into rebellious towns and dissenters were rounded up by the hundred. The ‘Broad Opposition Front’, a coalition of anti-Somoza parties and labour unions, called a general strike. The Nicaraguan working class has developed very slowly as a result of the country’s backward coffee-planting and cattle-rearing economy; the introduction of the country’s one modern crop, cotton, is only recent, and the sugar refining industry has not yet grown to significant proportions. Resistance to the regime is particularly strong among independent businessmen, and the Federation of Chambers of Commerce lost no time in voting in favour of a lockout to reinforce the strike. The Sandinistas gained the support of sections of the opposition Conservative family, the Chamorros, and many of the younger set of Nicaragua’s capitalist class became linked with guerilla activity.

By June of this year, popular support for the rebels was such that only Israel would supply Somoza with arms. Having abandoned Somoza, the Americans directed their efforts to the search for a ‘moderate’ solution that is, one which would not endanger their interests in the area. The State Department called for a ‘democratic solution’and put pressure on its Latin American allies to urge the provisional government to accept an agreement less radical than one likely to be imposed by a Sandinista victory.

Change of Masters
The FSLN, influenced as it is by the Cuban revolution, have let it be known that on gaining power they will set up an ‘interim' government and start a programme for the redistribution of the country’s wealth. There are, however, no purely nationalist movements in capitalism; nationalist sentiment, mixed with economic factors, is made use of by the class that has an interest to serve by achieving its aims. Life without Somoza means not the emancipation of the exploited section of the population but a mere change of masters.

The capitalist world has reached the stage where, for economic reasons, small countries are driven into one or other of the big economic and military groups. In all important questions they must frame their policies and adapt their industries and trade agreements to the needs of their more powerful neighbours. If in Nicaragua the Somozas are replaced by the Chamorros, the working people might reasonably ask — what’s in a name?

Miles Webb

Why did the US invade Somalia? (1993)

Illustration by George Meddemmen.

From the February 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

The current crisis in Somalia is, in the first instance, a cold war hangover—a headache caused by the old conflict between Western market capitalism and Russian state capitalism. That the United States should see itself as the remedy to the problem is little more than the hair-of-the-dog philosophy. For it was the United States and, to a lesser extent, the old Soviet Union that created the crisis in the first place.

For well on 30 years superpower aid was essential to the existence of the dictatorships in the Horn of Africa which had few means of keeping control other than by military coercion, made possible by US and Soviet aid.

For over 30 years the US and the Soviet Union poured weaponry into the Horn— Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan. In the ten years before Ethiopia declared itself a “Marxist” state, the US gave Haile Selassie more military assistance than the rest of Africa combined (Africa consists of over 40 countries). The cache included 1,400 tanks, 1,000 heavy guns and 140 fighter bombers. In all, Ethiopia received $8bn worth of aid.

In Somalia, where 10 percent of the- GNP went on weapons, the statistics were not much different. During Said Barre’s reign, of all international assistance received, 93 percent of it came from the US. Almost 50 percent of this aid was in arms imports. In the decade 1979-89, the US gave Barre S500m in arms.

War

Said Barre, who took power following a military coup in Somalia in October 1969, soon realized the advantage of his country’s geographical position and the possibility of attracting superpower aid.

Barre, who claimed to have embarked on the path to “Scientific Socialism”, saw his country stricken with famine by 1972. Because of the links he had forged with Moscow, he was able to secure the use of Soviet planes to airlift 140,000 starving Somalis to more stable areas. This is arguably the sole redeeming act he will be remembered for, in spite of the fact that it set a precedent for large-scale superpower assistance.

The assistance Barre had received from the Soviet Union heralded his regime’s increased reliance on Moscow. Development of the northern port of Berbera as a Soviet naval base, the import of thousands of tons of weapons and the arrival of 6,000 military advisers were soon to follow.

Meanwhile, Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam was seizing power in neighbouring Ethiopia. Soviet influence became prevalent here when Mengistu announced plans to initiate strict “Marxist” ideology and expelled Ethiopia's previous backer, the US.

The Ogaden region of Ethiopia, which had been kindly ceded to Ethiopia when Britain had an influence in Somalia in 1954, and in which many Somalis continue to live today, became one of Barre’s chief goals.

In July 1977, Barres forces took advantage of internal disorder in Ethiopia and invaded the Ogaden, with the full co-operation of Soviet military advisers. Without warning, in an extraordinary act of tergiversation, the Soviets began airlifting $2bn worth of arms to Ethiopia. Military advisers who had co-ordinated the Somali assault on the Ogaden were flown overnight from Mogadishu to Addis Ababa to direct the counter-offensive.

Securing Saudi promises of financial assistance with which to continue the Ogaden campaign, and accepting a condition where Somalia would rekindle its friendship with the West, Barre kicked out the remaining Soviet personnel in the hope of receiving aid from the United States.

Barre was offering his country on a plate and the US almost snatched his hand off. Somalia was even prepared to forget its territorial claim to Northern Kenya for admission into the Western bloc. Barre was, however, disappointed that his new backer would not support Somalia over its Ogaden campaign, the US not wishing to contemplate the dilemma of being on the losing side. A more harmonious relationship between Kenya and Somalia meant that the region could be more readily incorporated into the Pentagon’s Persian Gulf strategy—a useful base for the Rapid Deployment Force that would balance out the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

By late 1980, the US had secured a defence pact with Somalia which gave US forces access to air and naval bases including the Soviet-built port of Berbera. US aid was pouring in by now and by 1987 Somalia was stockpiling weapons. Barre, though, felt that US aid was not coming fast enough and struck up loyalties with the Soviet Union again in 1988, the same year he clinched a deal for massive arms supplies from Colonel Gadaffi.

Strategic position

“Scientific Socialism” this certainly was not. When Barre took power Somalia was self-sufficient in food. By the mid-eighties Somalia was amongst the most food-dependent nations in Africa. Somalia was a state capitalist dictatorship under Barre, when it was easier to arm a man than to feed him. It mattered little to the superpowers that the Horn countries lived under constant threat of drought and famine, the well-being of the peoples of the Horn was of secondary importance to the actual geographical location of the region.

Peace was never going to be a long-term luxury here. Regional conflict and internal strife were made all the more likely because any gain by one side was soon going to be cancelled out by increased superpower aid to the other—a similar situation had existed during Iraq’s war with Iran.

Somalia under Barre slipped into chaos, with the US doing their all to assist, supporting him all the way and making little or no attempt to think that things could be otherwise. As the cold war came to an end and the threat of “communism" evaporated, the US pulled out, dropping Somalia in the proverbial shit.

When the US abandoned Barre for good in January 1991, Somalia was already in the early stages of turmoil. Clan leaders and warlords began their struggle for power and the crisis in Somalia deepened when famine hit. Barre soon realized he could not hold power much longer and fled the country.

Invasion

The deployment of 30,000 US marines in Somalia is the second time in as many years the US has invaded a Moslem country— “invaded” because this time the US were not invited. All that was missing from the beaches of Mogadishu when US troops came ashore on the morning of 8 December was Audie Murphy and a clapperboard. The whole operation looked carefully prepared for the worlds media—an advertisement for a failing capitalist superpower that can only assert itself on the international stage by ostentatious militarism.

As one UN observer noted:

The operation stinks of arrogance. All this bullshit about 80 percent of food being looted and all that—it's all very well stage-managed by the US. The whole operation is a test case for future conflict resolution. It's as if the US had a new vaccine they wanted to test. Now they have found an animal to test it on. (Guardian, 9 December 1992).

It is probable that US forces have been shipped to Somalia under the cover of a humanitarian mission to be ready again as a Rapid Deployment Force. Possibly the biggest threat to US interests, now that the former Soviet Union is out of the scene, is Islamic fundamentalism, which sees the US as the “Great Satan". North African states are already viewing the US operation as something of a check on Khartoum for its backing of Islamic fundamentalist groups in North Africa and the Arab world. 

Recent IMF austerity programmes initiated in the Horn have not helped the current crisis. During the great famine of 1985, Eastern Sudan was producing 800,000 tons of grain—not for home consumption, but for export to pay off IMF loans. At the same time. “Marxist" Ethiopia was exporting thousands of tons of green beans to Britain.

The New Internationalist (December 1992) was right to speak of starvation as being the "result of unequal power in the market”. In the modern world, profit is the name of the game and all players must abide by the rules. There is nothing altruistic about the IMF or the World Bank:

The World Bank and the IMF have pressured Horn governments to adopt market-oriented strategies based on agriculture exports. Their main priority is to get the regional economy in a good enough state to meet its debt obligation and compete on the international market.

Capitalists could easily add a footnote to this: the sooner the US troops stabilize Somalia, the sooner Somalia can finish paying these debts.

John Bissett

Obituary: Sid Catt (1993)

Obituary from the February 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comrade Sid Catt died on 26 November after a long (three years) and painful bout with cancer.

Sid joined the Palmers Green Branch of the SPGB in 1939 and was an active member, organizing Sunday morning canvasses in Ealing. speaking at Jolly Butcher's Hill in Wood Green and serving on the EC for a period.

After emigrating to Canada in 1957 he helped organise the Toronto Local of the SPC which was a very active branch for a time. After the local folded he retained his membership of the SPC and at every opportunity expounded the case for socialism, always showing pride in being a member of the World Socialist Movement and debating and discussing with all workers with whom he came into contact. He will be missed by these local contacts as well as by his friends and his daughter and her family.

Arming the world for profit (1995

From the January 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists never need to be reminded that there is an insane logic to capitalism, that capitalism continues to throw up obscene contradictions that appear to consign the human species to a downward spiral towards oblivion. The world arms trade for instance.

Britain is the world’s second biggest arms supplier. There are 145,000 workers in this country employed directly or indirectly in the arms trade. If we add to this figure the number of Britain’s armed forces, regulars and reserves, the figure jumps to 750,000 people gaining an income from the maiming and killing business. Which means for every two employed in hospitals and clinics, etc saving lives and helping people, there is one employed in doing the exact opposite, albeit unwittingly.

Most of us are familiar with the hackneyed justifications for Britain’s share (20 percent) of the world arms trade. It goes something like: “If ’we’ didn’t sell arms, someone else would.” The reality is that arms sales generate profit, and for capitalists where there is the potential for profits, then morals and principles go out of the window.

Arms dividend
We were led to believe that the end of the Cold War would initiate a "peace dividend". Money hitherto spent on arms would be rechannelled into social programmes such as health, welfare and education. Capitalism was finally going to put on the humanistic guise that the threat of "communism" had prevented it doing in the past. If anything, however, the post-Cold War set-up now means that the West can sell arms anywhere, even to countries that had previously been dependent on Russia.

While it is true that "Third World" countries now only purchase one-third of the arms they did in 1988. the vacuum is being filled with arms sales to newly-developing countries like Brazil. Pakistan. Indonesia and China. Hence, mid-November saw the US Defence Secretary, William Perry, "opening the door to a possible sale of advanced fighter jets to Latin America at the start of a six-day trip to improve military ties with Brazil and Argentina". (Guardian, 17 November).

Days previously, the Observer (13 November) ran a headline about a secret UK arms deal with Indonesia worth £2 billion, inclusive of military hardware and military training for the Indonesian army.

Between May and November this year, the UN Security Council and the EU lifted arms embargoes on three countries famous for aggression and repression — Israel. Syria and South Africa. That these countries already possess the wherewithal to defend themselves against potential enemies — both South Africa and Israel have a nuclear capability — matters little to Western governments. The profit motive comes first.

And such is the thirst for profit that Western governments are prepared to sell arms to both sides in a conflict. During the Iran/lraq war some 26 countries were arming both sides, fuelling a war that lasted 8 years, killed 1.000,000 people and cost $600 billion. During Pakistan's and India’s most recent stand-off and General Zhia’s intimidating sabre-rattling that threatened to pitch Hindu against Moslem, it was Britain that saw to it that both countries were armed to the teeth should insults come to blows. Furthermore, Britain is currently arming five countries with internal conflicts.

In November 1991, Douglas Hurd was telling Europe to stop aiding foreign countries with repressive regimes, declaring that "governments who persist with repressive policies should not expect us to support their folly with scarce resources". Two months later, the Guardian would prove Hurd a hypocrite when they reported that “Britain provides military training for 110 countries . . . Training in Cambodia includes sabotage and mine-laying courses" (15 January 1992).

When asked whether it is still government policy to export landmines in spite of a UN resolution banning their export, Roger Freeman, Minister for Defence Procurement replied: “We are not going to export them . . . except in certain circumstances when we’re dealing with a friendly nation". Douglas Hurd expressed similar sentiments, believing "there is nothing wrong with selling arms to friendly countries to allow them to defend themselves” (Observer, 13 November 1994).

These absurd statements pose the question: if there are so many "friendly" countries, how come there is so much war in the world? Again, why does Britain have a defence procurement programme for 1994-5 totalling £9,363 million? And on what basis can Britain justify its £12 billion contribution to the £32 billion Eurofighter 2000 project?

Sales drive

In recent months. President Clinton has launched an overseas arms drive in an attempt to bolster the sagging US arms industry, if it was ever sagging in the first place. The US government had previously insisted that arms exports are only sanctioned when they serve US interests or help US allies.

Any war or potential conflict now has huge spin-offs for the arms-dealing governments of the West. No sooner had the Gulf War ended when Middle East orders for arms worth $28 billion were secured by the US. Since the end of the Gulf War, world arms sales to the Middle East have totalled $55 billion, $14 billion of which has been supplied by Britain. British sales include 88 Blackhawk helicopters, 94 Hawk and 48 Tornado aircraft and 18 Challenger 2 tanks.

In the Middle East, the very fact that Saddam is still in power is being used by the US as a ploy. With an unpredictable "madman" in the Middle East, having fought two wars in ten years and having already lobbed missiles at Iran, Israel, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the existence of Saddam serves US interests. So long as he remains in power he scares his neighbours, who are only too happy to turn to Western arms dealers for the arms with which to defend themselves. Recall also Clinton's recent attempt to portray North Korea as the new Asian bogey man, prompting neighbouring countries to put in huge orders for Western state-of-the-art defence systems.

“A war on poverty," wrote Tory MP Alan Howarth in the Guardian (17 November), “would be a more cost effective strategy than stacking up arms against imaginary enemies or selling them to regimes which have no commitment to peace." Maybe, but rechannelling money spent on arms into social programmes is not going to happen. Capitalism, by its very nature, breeds competition and conflict, and consequently, nationalism, jingoism and war. Arms sales are endemic to this process. That is the insane logic of capitalism. 

John Bissett

Material World: Ortega – The new Somoza? (2018)

The Material World Column from the September 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are those on the Left who view the protests in Nicaragua as instigated by US imperialism intent upon creating a compliant client state. Kevin Zeese, for instance, describes the disorder as an attempted coup: 

 'This unrest is a full-scale regime change operation carried out by media oligarchs, a network of NGOs funded by the U.S. government, armed elements of elite landholding families and the Catholic Church, and has opened the window for drug cartels and organized crime to gain a foothold in Nicaragua.'

A great number of the poor do support the Sandinista National Liberation Front, as it introduced free healthcare and education. Ortega reigns as a paternalistic 'caudillo' strongman with a grassroots loyalty to him as a party leader.

 There are others, however, who see recent events very differently. According to Dora María Téllez, founder of the Sandinista Renovation Movement:

 'The family of Ortega and Murillo have taken over the Sandinista National Liberation Front like a parasite, using their control to benefit their family. It is basically the same as what the Somozas did. He’s a representative of big capital. He and his family are now among the richest in Nicaragua. This is a profoundly corrupt system that completely betrays the principles of the Sandinista movement.'

Alejandro Bendana, Nicaraguan ambassador to the UN from 1979 to 1990, says about Ortega:

  'He embraced corporate capital in Nicaragua. He adopted the most retrograded positions of the church and entered into an alliance, and reached an understanding with the US, so that he was able to barely win the presidency in 2007. But by that time, he himself is no longer a Sandinista. Yes, the trappings, the colors are still there, but his entire government has been, in essence, neoliberal. Then it becomes authoritarian, repressive.'

Prof William Robinson, who worked with the Nicaragua News Agency and the Nicaragua Foreign Ministry in the 1980s, says:

 '... In Nicaragua, the Ortega government has presided over this new round of capitalist expansion, including a wave of transnational and local corporate investment in free-trade zones, agro-industry, mining, logging and tourism, spurred on by the government's tax breaks, land concessions and other policies that have been praised by neoliberal institutions such as the International Monetary Fund...the international left cannot seem to let go of the illusion that governments such as the FSLN in Nicaragua or the African National Congress in South Africa still represent a revolutionary process that advances the interests of the popular and working-class masses -- this, even as the new ruling castes turn to escalating repression to dispossess those masses, plunder the state and impose the interests of transnational capital...'

Ortega's own brother, Humberto, admitted that people shouldn't pay too much attention to the Sandinista government's anti-capitalist rhetoric, because 'one thing is discourse for the political clients, and another thing is what the reality shows you are doing.'

 The cause of the current unrest arose from an attempt to increase workers' contributions to their pensions while reducing the pension payments themselves. Ortega later cancelled his plans but the demonstrations had turned into a wider opposition against his government. Over 300 demonstrators have been murdered, thousands injured. 23,000 Nicaraguans have applied for political asylum in neigbouring Costa Rica since the unrest began.

 Robinson concluded:

'. . . The real tragedy of the April protests is not that they threaten a fictitious revolutionary process, but that the population is caught between the corrupt and repressive Ortega government and the traditional oligarchy, backed by the international right wing which has never been comfortable with the Sandinista monopoly of political power and wishes to hijack the revolt to recover that power for itself. . . '

 This was a view reflected by the anarchists of Crimethinc:

  'Doubtless, various capitalists and state actors have their own agendas for Nicaragua and they hope to take advantage of the uprising to implement them. But ordinary people have legitimate reasons to rise up. We should identify the participants in the uprising who are pursuing goals complementary to our vision of a world without capitalism and the state, in order to direct our solidarity towards them. Otherwise, as the Ortega government attempts to retain power by brute force, the revolt will likely be hijacked by right-wing and colonial interests.'

There exists a conflict between rival factions of Nicaragua's ruling class, a clique who possesses political power and an oligarchic elite who seek control of the state. Being few in number and too cowardly to fight themselves, both appeal to working people to act for them. Workers should understand that they are pawns in a power struggle and rather than become a tool for another class, they must democratically and independently organise with the object of placing their own interests at the forefront.

ALJO

Party News Briefs (1953)

Party News from the December 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

A series of meetings, marking the Fiftieth Anniversary of the formation of the Party are being organised by Paddington Branch. These meetings are to be held at Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road, and full details are given elsewhere in this issue, and later meetings will be advertised in the January issue.

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Paddington Branch has started a drive to increase Socialist Standard sales. In addition to being canvassed from door to door in Paddington, this journal is now available from the following newsagents:— G. Bischitz, 290, Harrow Road; C. Gates, 115, Harrow Road; R. Harris, 264a, Edgware Road; G. R. Hill, 476, Harrow Road; F. H. Payne, 746, Harrow Road; F. Stayne, 366, Harrow Road; A. G. Taylor, 8, Harrow Road.

Those in the area who may be reading the Socialist Standard for the first time are cordially invited to come along to the Branch Room, at the Portman Arms, 422, Edgware Road, any Wednesday. The room is large and comfortable, and the members are always pleased to discuss informally with visitors any matter connected with Party activity.

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Several meetings and debates are advertised elsewhere in this issue, so please make a note of any that are convenient for you to attend and give them your support. Glasgow Branches are organising a Socialist Challenge meeting at St. Andrew's Hall on Sunday, 17th January, 1954. A notice will be in the January Socialist Standard, but the branches (Kelvingrove and City) are anxious that the meeting should be a success and are giving ample notice of it by the details shown in this issue.

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Internal Party Journal. Members and sympathisers are reminded that the Party publishes an internal journal, Forum (monthly, 6d.). Those who are unable to obtain copies through their branch may order them by post from the Literature Secretary at Head Office (6 months 3s. 9d., 12 months 7s. 6d.). Bound copies of the first 15 issues (October 1952—December 1953, including index) are now available, price 7s. 6d., postage 3d. extra, but supplies are extremely limited; at the time of going to press, less than two dozen more orders could be fulfilled. Separate back numbers can still be obtained from Head Office, except the first (October 1952) issue.

Phyllis Howard

50 Years Ago: H. G. Wells as Historian (1971)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is Mr. Wells’ opinion that the ruling class of today can be persuaded by reasonable, humanitarian arguments or by far-sighted self interest to bring about a ‘re-adjustment’ of society which will gradually abolish exploitation and class distinctions. This opinion we cannot share. It is opposed by the whole teaching of history. No ruling class when faced by discontent and revolt ever acted in such a manner. To expect our present rulers to do so is to wallow in superstition rather than stand foursquare to science.

Why does Mr. Wells make no mention whatever in his review of the nineteenth century, of the Paris Commune? This was no mere political episode, but an object lesson in sociology, and, as such, one of the most significant occurrences of the centenary. Mr. Wells is no ‘drum and trumpet’ historian, but to him as to the common run of bourgeois historians, the Commune is taboo. With its 100,000 working-class victims the Paris Commune tears aside the veil of hypocrisy and humanitarian cant which envelopes the social relations of our day and reveals naked the power lust of the capitalist class. The more recent history of the class struggle in Russia, Finland, Germany and Hungary but confirms and strengthens our view. It is indeed difficult to conceive that Mr. Wells, with his knowledge, really believes in the tactic of moralising the capitalist class. In the present writer’s opinion, Mr. Wells knows better. But as an experienced and ‘successful’ writer and journalist, camouflage (to be polite) is one of the tools of his trade. 

(From a review of H. G. Wells’ Outline of History by R. W. Housley. Socialist Standard February 1921).

Straws: A Rotten Case. (1935)

The Straws Column from the June 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Rotten Case.

“The possibility of a new workers' party being formed, with the I.L.P. and the Communist Party as the central core, was one not of the distant future. It was, in fact, very near to them." Thus Maxton, at recent I.L.P. Conference. Harry Pollitt, "fraternal delegate” from C.P. following, announced that his party was “ready and willing to achieve the creation of a mass united Communist Party, affiliated to the Communist International.” !


Whither Maxton?

How this view of “mass” swallowing was regarded by Maxton is not stated. Future developments will be interesting to follow. The "picturesque personality," personally popular (according to parliamentary reporters in the Sunday Press) with Conservatives in the House, will hardly consent to play second fiddle to tenth-rate performers in the Anglo-Moscow band.


Dark Diplomacy.

Meanwhile, headquarters of the “Communist International” has been demonstrating how to “ lead ” the workers to Socialism. You beflag Moscow like Limehouse on Eden’s visit, you toast the King, you goose-step the Red Army—but only to throw dust in the eyes of the British master-class . . . until that humourless periodical, The Labour Monthly, incontinently gives the game away.

 “Soviet diplomacy undoubtedly made a most brilliant use of this opportunity—including plenty of bunting and drinking the King’s health—to win whatever sections in Britain could be won against the anti-Soviet war-plans.” (Palme Dutt, May, 1935.)

“Bloody Cesspools ” of Passchendaele.

A recent review in the Daily Herald called attention to Lloyd George’s exposure of Haig’s Passchendaele exploit, where the "plan was a folly” and “the crime was the obstinacy with which Haig continued to fling his heroic battalions into the bloody cesspool.” It records the fact that Lloyd George himself, however, sent a letter to Haig, congratulating him on the “skill, courage and pertinacity which have commanded the grateful admiration of the British Empire.”


The Labour Party in 1914.

The reviewer fails to point out that behind Lloyd George was the enthusiastic backing of the Labour Party, whose whole organisation had been placed at the disposal of the Government on the outbreak of war, whose own “Uncle Arthur” signed a joint appeal with Bonar Law and Lloyd George to householders to urge kith and kin to partake in any and every war activity for the glory of God and the preservation of the British capitalist class.


Morrison's “Socialism.”

“On the ability, quality and idealism of our party, including particularly its public representatives, will depend enormously the success of Socialism.” (Herbert Morrison, May 13th, 1935.) “Socialism” to the leader of the London Labour Party means "public ownership" of the London Passenger Transport Board type, ”efficient” working of ”public services.” The ”idealism” would seem to include a resolute endeavour to keep down the rates, for “We know that if we go too far in expenditure, we shall be turned out at the next election,” (Daily Herald, October 3rd, 1934. Italics our own.) Vote-catching has always been the main object of Labourism.


Consecrated Lick-Spittling.

The Archbishop of Canterbury relates that, shortly after the visit of the King and Queen recently, to the widow of a victim of a colliery explosion, she said to him, with tears in her eyes: “I could not help kissing the floor where she had stood.” It must be admitted that the capitalist class has played the Queen for all it is worth. The Red Pawn game of the Socialist Party will eventually cry ”Mate” on the political field. . . . The pawns will be alive, consciously working towards the End, inevitably marked out by Economic Circumstance. (See No. 6, Declaration of Principles.)


Shelley Speaking!

Percy Bysshe Shelley, not unknown in the highest realm of Poesy, claims space in The Socialist Standard. Written over a hundred years ago, the principle enunciated still stands: —

  "The power which has increased is the power of the rich. The name and office of King is merely the mask of this power, and is a kind of stalking-horse used to conceal these 'catchers of men' whilst they lay their nets. Monarchy is only the string which ties the robber’s bundle. ”

(A Philosophical View of Reform, 1820.)

Compensation.

And the question of ”Compensation” when the robber’s bundle is untied will be quite irrelevant, as irrelevant as ”compensation” for the sweat and agony of the long ages of Wage-Slavedom.

Augustus Snellgrove

Editorial: Why Capitalism must go (1993)

Editorial from the November 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Things are not produced today to meet people’s needs. They are produced to make a profit. And that’s the cause of the problems we face.

Under the profit system profits always come first, before providing basic services like health care and transport, before improving conditions at work, and before protecting the environment. At the same time it encourages a get-rich-quick climate where competition to make money takes over from cooperation and community values. Everything is reduced to its cash value and people are judged, not for what they are but by how much money they have.

Look at the results. The health service is crumbling. The transport system is in chaos. Schools have become swot shops. Pollution is rife and the environment under attack. The poor have got poorer. Begging and homelessness have spread. Crime is rising. Racism is reviving. Business culture reigns supreme, with "market forces", "competition" and "profit" as the buzzwords. Life is becoming more and more commercialized and empty. People are becoming isolated from each other, with drug abuse and mental illness on the increase. The standard of living may be going up, but the standard of life is going down.

Under the profit system production is in the hands of profit-seeking business enterprises — some state- owned, but mostly private — all competing to maximize the rate of return on the money invested in them. Decisions as to what to produce and how much, and how and where to produce it, are made not in response to people’s needs but in response to market forces.

For a business its profits are the difference between its sales receipts and its production costs. Market forces act on both. Through competition between different firms, they force each firm to seek to maximize its sales and to minimize its costs.

Both these have serious consequences for the way we live.

Maximizing sales turns society into one huge marketplace. Advertising, the hard sell and swindles to trap the unwary have all grown over the years, and are getting worse. At one time television was free from commercial ads. Not any longer. Then came commercial radio. Now the pressure is on to allow Sunday selling, so that soon buying and selling will be able to go on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All this represents a commercialization and a degradation of our lives.

Minimizing costs so as to maximize profits has equally harmful consequences. When a firm has a choice between two materials or two methods of production, one cheaper and the other safer or less damaging to the environment, it has to chose the first. Otherwise its production costs would be higher and it would lose out in the battle of competition. Its profits would be less and it would eventually risk being driven out of business altogether.

The health and welfare of the workforce and the effects on the environment take second place. That’s what minimizing costs means. This is why at work we suffer speed-up, pain, stress, boredom, overwork and accidents. This is why we have to work long hours, shiftwork and nightwork. This is why the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe are all polluted. This is why the Earth’s non-renewable mineral and energy resources are plundered. This is why natural balances are upset and the environment destroyed.

This profit system can’t help doing this. It’s the only way it can work. Which is why it must go.

Our New Premises (1951)

Party News from the November 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

The work of the S.P.G.B. performed by the membership is varied.

Propaganda meetings, for instance, necessitate organisation and clerical work. Arrangements must be made for a platform to be available at the meeting place at the right time as well as a chairman, a speaker and literature sellers.

The production of The Socialist Standard necessitates several meetings of the Editorial Committee. Then when the printed copies have been delivered, other comrades wrap and post to subscribers and branches.

In addition to the meetings of the Executive Committee and the various other sub-committees, there is the general office work that is so necessary for an organisation operating in this capitalist system of society.

This work makes premises necessary for our organisation.

In the past, the S.P.G.B. has been handicapped in its organisation by unsuitable premises. The offices which we occupied for several years until March of this year, although within reach of our purse, were unsuitable. Apart from being too small for the work of the Party, the landlord put further restrictions on their use and finally raised the rent to a figure beyond our means to pay.

We were fortunate to find more suitable premises at 52, Clapham High Street, our present address. Members and friends raised the £4,000 required for the purchase, and we moved in forthwith.

We have at our premises a Meeting Hall to seat 150 and eight rooms in which we are housing the following sections: General Office, Canteen, Social, Literature, Propaganda Research, Sub-committees, Library and General Storage.

In addition to the weekly meetings of the Executive Committee, public lectures will be given.

Socials and dances will also be held and we believe will improve the comradely feeling between members and give them an opportunity to discuss socialist policy over a cup of tea. The premises, we believe, will serve a long-felt want as a centre of social life for members and friends.

The showroom window displaying our publicity and an attractive display of literature will prove useful.

The converting of a former warehouse into premises suitable for our needs is being enthusiastically performed by comrades in their spare time.

We need donations to purchase the necessary building materials and furniture—can you help?

The first of a regular series of Sunday evening lectures started on October 7th. How about coming?

The Premises Committee.

An inflation cat out of the bag (1973)

From the December 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Richard Crossman, Minister of Health in the last Labour Government, for years a member of the National Executive, has been elected as Labour MP at every General Election since 1945. At each of these elections he was committed by the party’s Election programme to fight inflation. At the last General Election, 1970, a section of the Labour programme was headed "Fighting Inflation", and his leader, Harold Wilson, puts at the forefront of his attacks on the Heath Government that it has failed to keep prices from rising and that only a Labour government will do this. In short, that inflation is a deadly sin and they are against it.

But Crossman writes a regular column in The Times, and his article on 12th September had this:

  If we are going to avoid devaluation and heavy unemployment we must be prepared to accept a rate of inflation which would have been considered intolerable a few years ago.

Strange to relate, before this declaration that the next Labour government must have inflation, Crossman had quoted Wilson’s charge that the Tory Government 

 is borrowing or printing money this year on a scale greater than at any time in our history whether in war or peace

and had expressed his approval of Wilson’s plan for "halting inflation".

In a House of Commons debate some years ago an MP referred to inflation as one of the things they all favoured but preferred not to tell the electors.

It seems that Crossman is living up to his reputation in his party as an incorrigible dropper of bricks.

Edgar Hardcastle

Anarchist economics (2012)

Book Review from the June 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Accumulation of Freedom: Writings on Anarchist Economics. AK Press. 2012

Anarchists have a reputation for being weak in economics. This collection of articles is an attempt to refute this. It doesn’t succeed entirely and in fact tends to confirm that most modern-day anarchists get their economic ideas from Marx (as did Bakunin who was once going to translate Capital into Russian). Some of the writers don’t seem to be anarchists at all, in particular Robin Hahnel and Michael Albert, the inventors of a blueprint for an ideal future society they call “parecon”. Hahnel seems to be a Keynesian, advocating more state intervention (yes!) as a way out of the present crisis and of avoiding future ones. Albert is a supporter of President Chavez of Venezuela, and urges people to vote for him.

Even so, the book does give a view of the range of opinion amongst anarchists. Some – the modern-day followers of Proudhon – are “market anarchists” who hold that there is nothing wrong with production for the market, except that the competitors should be worker-cooperatives rather than capitalist corporations and there should be no state to interfere in it. This is a minority view these days (though well represented in the US), but there are other anarchists who are against full, free-access communism (known as “collectivists” rather than “communists”) who favour instead relating people’s consumption to the amount of work they do.

Marx himself sort of endorsed this for the very early days of post-capitalist society and some in the Marxist tradition still argue for labour-time vouchers. We don’t. Neither do some anarchists. In fact, two contributors to this book describing themselves as “libertarian communists” – Deric Shannon and Scott Nappalos – argue against this in the same terms that we do. Nappalos even quotes from our pamphlet Socialism As A Practical Alternative.

Nappalos says that, as a libertarian communist, he stands for “a society based on the abolition of remuneration in the form of wages and democratic control” and “an economy based on the destruction of the wage system, and a de-linking of the value of labor in production from the distribution of society’s wealth to its members.” He makes the valid point that it is not possible anyway to measure an individual’s contribution to production. He writes “in our time, production is largely social. The contribution of an individual is very difficult to isolate from the contributions of countless others that make work possible”. Any such attribution can only be arbitrary, as in the parecon blueprint, of which he says: “having co-workers judge each other’s work would turn gossip and infighting at work presently from an annoyance into a system of power over wages.”

Shannon’s criticism is directed more at “market anarchists”. He quotes another libertarian communist, Joseph Kay:

  “The assets of a co-op do not cease being capital when votes are taken on how they are used within a society of generalised commodity production and wage labour. That is to say there remains an imperative to accumulate with all the drive to minimise the labour time taken to do a task this requires, even in a co-op.”

Other articles describe anarchist economic practice such as factory occupations, setting up vegan cafés and campaigns directed at particular capitalist firms (called PEDCs or “political-economic disruptive campaigns”). However, these are not specifically anarchist activities, only activities in which some anarchists engage.

Adam Buick

Cripps on wages—or hope deferred (1947)

From the June 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “We should like shorter hours of work and better pay, but with the urgent need for production and the danger of inflation, neither of these things is now in the national interest. We must discipline ourselves to do without them until such time as they become national economic possibilities.”
(Sir Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade, addressing the Band of Hope Union. Reported in the Daily Herald, 12/5/47).

  “They deserve and need reasonable remuneration for their work, whether they are managers or workers, and that ought to be a first charge upon our production. But beyond that it is good working conditions and team work that will produce the results we want. The idea of an ever-rising spiral of inducement wages is one which makes me shudder at the economic consequences that might come.”
(Cripps, House of Commons, 21/11/46. Hansard, Column 1096).

  "It is notable that those who complain most vigorously about high wages are those who are very well off.”
(From the "Labour Party Speakers’ Handbook,” 1945, p.152).

 Edgar Hardcastle