Paul Mason Waits For Godot (2015)

From the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Paul Mason (economics editor at Channel 4 and author of the recent book Postcapitalism: a guide to our future has reported on a paper by the Morgan Stanley economists Charles Goodhart, Manoj Fradhan and Pratyancha Pardeshi (Guardian Weekly, 2 October). Their argument was that global demographic trends have resulted in a glut of labour that has exerted a downwards pressure on wages for the past three decades (the result of a baby boom in developed economies, urbanisation in the industrialising economies and the entrance of millions of women into the workforce). As urbanisation peters out and birth rates fall, it is suggested, a labour shortage will develop leading to a rise in the bargaining power and wages of the labour force. This will counter the predictions of rising twenty-first century inequality by the likes of Thomas Piketty. We will find out in good time who is closer to the mark.

In practice any gains by workers will depend not only on global economic conditions (the vagaries of the business cycle) but on the balance of class forces (improvements in pay and conditions need to be maximised by a strong trades union movement) and on the economic, political and cultural conditions in different localities. Mason, however, regards the report as grist to the mill for his ideas as to how a post-capitalist world may materialise. Faced with the possibility of a higher paid labour force, Mason asserts that the stimulus for businesses to introduce labour saving technology will be increased. He uses the example of McDonalds, which he says is introducing touch-screen technology to replace that portion of its labour force currently taking orders and payments from customers.

The pursuit of flexible labour markets over recent decades has led to a substantial increase of employees on temporary and informal contracts (a section of the workforce Mason calls the ‘precariat’). Mason cites another recent report by economists (at Delft University) that such flexible workforces come at the expense of expanded management and limited incentive to increase productivity through technological innovation. Hence the reason that ‘it’s common to hear politicians of all stripes say that wages need to rise.’ Mason is concerned that these politicians succeed in tackling the presence of the ‘precariat’. The theory goes (as set out in his recent book) that continued increases in productivity will see the value of goods reduce to the point where they become virtually free heralding a transition to a post-capitalist era, a sort of lengthy and convoluted transition from capitalism to a kind of communistic society.

Need for conscious political action

Capitalism undoubtedly does demonstrate a tendency for the price of goods to fall over time due to the development and implementation of labour saving technology. This drive to reduce labour costs (to maximise profits) is a basic feature of capitalism and not just when wages are rising, after all the touch-screen technology being introduced by McDonalds is being carried out despite its labour force consisting of the ‘precariat’.

The drive to innovate may well be stimulated by rising wages but it is doubtful whether the trend for increasing productivity will reduce the value of a significant amount of goods to the point where their value is negligible at any point in the next 50-100 years, despite the fact that some (mainly digital) goods can or could do. Such developments certainly do highlight a major contradiction of capitalist production – an increase in material wealth (more goods) leads at the same time to a fall in the value (per unit) of those goods. However, waiting for this trend to result in a post-capitalist world will probably be like waiting for Godot.

There are contradictions enough in capitalist production for workers to see the necessity in ending it, not just following through the logic of its development. Just as the transition from feudalism to capitalism entailed political struggle, battles over different visions of the future, of different ideals, so will the transition from capitalism to socialism. The difference is that now the struggle is not over one group of owners, of rulers, supplanting another in a struggle in which intentions and ideas were often veiled (by religion) and unconscious. Marx has some interesting things to say on this when he writes about the fetishism (veiled appearance) of commodities:

  ‘The veil is not removed from the countenance of the material process of production, until it becomes production by freely associated men, and stands under their conscious and planned control’ (Capital, Vol.1).

In other words, the transition from capitalism to socialism, by necessity, has to reject capitalist social relations (appearing as a society of free and equal exchange but based on exploitation and the extraction of surplus value from workers) and establish a new society of free association and conscious and planned control of economic activity. In other words, the transformation of a society based on commodities and value (buying and selling) to one based on the free exchange of use-values, the establishment under democratic control of the means of living (nature, factories, transport, etc.). A transition between capitalism and socialism must therefore have to be conscious and clear-sighted and involve a relatively short period of rapid social change, a revolution, a break from one kind of society to another.

The contradictions within capitalism of the kind that Mason cites, that make some goods effectively free (as examples of different social possibilities), may be part of the story of how such a revolution comes to pass. However, there will, at some point, need to be a conscious process of social change and not, as Mason suggests, a lengthy opaque and semi-conscious process where various policies are advocated that would encourage the digital revolution in order to transfigure capitalism rather than end it.

Colin Skelly

Scottish Green (2015)

Book Review from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Humanity at the Crossroads: A Political and Humanist Dialogue’, by Raymond Garbet. Newton Books. Edinburgh, 2015. 260 pages.

This is a self-published book by a long-term member of the old Communist Party of Great Britain who is now a member of the pro-independence Scottish Green Party and so shares the illusion that an independent Scottish government would be able to buck the economic laws of capitalism and put people before profits.

He is also a member of the Humanists (hence the book’s sub-title). As such he rejects religion (which he defines as any belief in the exist of a ‘soul’) but doesn’t call himself an atheist because that is saying what you are against not what you are for, preferring ‘Secular Humanist’; which is fair enough. Basically, he sees the way forward for humanity as the UN taking action to deal with climate change, world poverty and human rights abuses; a worthy internationalist perspective but another illusion to expect that collection of capitalist states to do anything about any of these.

If you buy the book you get a Trotskyist pamphlet thrown in free as he has a 20-page interview with Colin Fox, ex-MSP and leading member of the Scottish Socialist Party (which Garbet annoyingly refers to as the Socialist Party) and representative within it of the old Militant Tendency. The trouble is that it is outdated as Fox puts his group’s pre-Corbyn line that the Labour Party is finished and so for the need for a new union-based workers party, stressing ‘the enormous obstacles that exist in reclaiming the Labour Party as Jeremy Corbyn has been attempting for years.’ But, to be honest, we didn’t see it coming either, not that it makes any fundamental difference. That Fox is no socialist is summed up in his last word: ‘we want to create a society where everyone receives a decent wage.’

Adam Buick

The Socialist Forum: The Value of Emotional Appeals. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

  The correspondent whose letter was replied to last month, writes again on the need to make an “emotional appeal.” 

Tottenham, N.17,

July 7th, 1931. 

The Editor,
Socialist Standard,                          
42, Great Dover Street,
London, S.E.1.

Dear Sir,

(1) May I reply to the points raised against my letter in the July issue. The success of the emotional appeal of the war reveals how powerful appeals to irrational forces can be. The workers do not simply commit an error of judgment, mistaking "the capitalists’ interests for their own,” but respond because their behaviour is so largely influenced by emotional tendencies, which, suppressed by the demands of civilised life, find outlets in behaviour often irrational when judged from an economic standpoint.

(2) The Socialist case may be rejected or fail to arouse interest because the dominant trends in a person do not respond sympathetically to the exposition. Trivialities such as the manner, speech, or clothes of the propagandist may evoke unfavourable impressions, or the immediate attraction of a tennis game or dance distort the value of the propaganda.

Influences which seem remote from politics play a part in the making of Socialists. As mentioned in my letter, “experiences of sexual character, dislike of certain individuals, jealousy, etc., find consolation in Socialism,” supplying motives other than a sense of inferiority.

(3) It is noteworthy that, while Christian, Communist, and Socialist vigorously assert the intellectual character of their convictions, it is not difficult for each to discover emotional influences at play in the others.

(4) Modern psychology, distinguished by its emphasis on a dynamic or hormic view of the mind, is reversing the conceit that man, among animals, is a rational creature. In the nineteenth century, when Darwin established the truth of evolution, those whose approach to people depended on the retention of an obsolete account of man's origin, resisted the theory strenuously. Now, a like opposition is offered to the psychologists’ conviction that the intellectualist interpretation of man’s behaviour is equally outworn.

Just as evolution is older than Darwin, so there may be much that is not new in modern psychological theory, but it is through the mass of evidence collected that theories gain weight and insist on scientific recognition.

(5) The tendencies within capitalism seem to point to a drift towards Socialism, but they, after all, are tendencies only, to be worked out by human-beings. There is no divinity benevolently directing events to a happy ending, and so if Socialists persist in presenting their propaganda to a mythical working-man, guided by intellectual preference, and, with a fine disdain, refuse to stoop to moulding their propaganda nearer the hearts of the workers, their efforts may be mis-spent.

Yours faithfully, 

R. Hobsbaum.

Reply.
(1) Our correspondent now claims that the workers' support of the war proves "how powerful appeals to irrational forces can be," and he denies that they responded to an appeal to their "interests." Does our correspondent then deny that the workers in 1914 were trapped by being told that defeat would mean the loss of "their" colonies, "their" foreign trade, “their" merchant shipping, "their” property, "their" liberties, "their" jobs, and "their" security, not to mention their lives and those of their dependants? If these are not appeals to the workers' interests what are they? Even the talk about "poor little Belgium" was backed up with the threat that defeat would mean the same treatment for this country as had been meted out across the Channel.

If the workers respond merely to "emotional tendencies," not guided, by assumptions as to their interests, why do not the workers endeavour to treat their class enemies at home as they treated the Germans when they (the workers) believed their interests to be bound up with the outcome of the war? What sort of "emotional tendency" is it that leads the half-starved and unemployed dweller in a slum to vote for the class (and even for the individuals) responsible for his miseries, makes him leave the place where the miseries are inflicted and could be ended, and actually lay down his life on foreign soil under the orders and in the interests of that class? If the uncontrolled "emotional tendency” dominates the situation why did not and do not the victims make a direct attack on the landlords, employers, and politicians with whoso activities their miseries are closely and obviously associated?

The answer is that the workers are always having it drummed into them that they have a common interest with the capitalist class in maintaining capitalism.

Our correspondent, as was pointed out last month, ignores the results of 40 years of I.L.P. and Labour Party appeals to emotion. He persists in ignoring the results, except to make the claim that the war shows how powerful the emotional appeal can be. In his anxiety to seize a supposed point Mr; Hobsbaum appears to have forgotten what we are discussing. His admission that years of emotional appeal from the Labour Party and I.L.P. did not succeed in making socialists but did succeed in making willing victims for the slaughter only supports our objection to the emotional appeal as a means of making socialists.

(2) The remarks in this paragraph are obvious but not in the least helpful. Of course socialist propaganda will be listened to more readily if it is pleasantly and tellingly presented; but so will anti-socialist propaganda. Does our correspondent imagine that Liberals are all of them people who think that Lloyd George has a nice kind face? And that the workers are all childish like H. G. Wells and will, like, him, allow their dislike for Marx’s Victorian whiskers to dissuade them from studying socialism?

(3) It is difficult to make out what this paragraph is intended to imply, as it seems to have little to do with the argument. Our correspondent lumps together Christian, Communist and Socialist and says that he finds "emotional influences" in us all. It would indeed be strange if he did not. If he looks a little closer he will discover that we are actually human beings. But what has that to do with our contention that emotional appeals are not a method of building-up a socialist organisation, and with his contention that emotional appeals are such a method? /

(4) Again, we must ask our correspondent to consider the facts and not just discuss airy assumptions. "Modern psychology,” he tells us, has shown that the emotional appeal is the way to build up a socialist party. Will he then explain why the I.L.P., which concentrated on this emotional appeal, from its formation back in the eighteen nineties, has failed so utterly to get socialism, or to build a socialist organisation, or even to build a solid and dependable organisation at all? Why, in face of emotional appeals backed up with lavish funds and delivered by professors at the game such as J. Maxton, why, in face of that has the I.L.P. lost half its members in two or three years?

(5) In this paragraph our correspondent (who, by the way, writes in language which the average reader would find it very difficult to understand) tells us how to get to the hearts of the workers and thus not waste our efforts. We can only reply that if we had had the relatively enormous financial resources of the emotional appealers the I.L.P. and the. Communist Party, and yet found our efforts had produced as little result as theirs have done, we would indeed have cause to look for different methods. But the facts point to the reverse conclusion. Apart from confusing the workers’ minds and making our propaganda efforts more difficult, the emotional appealers have achieved nothing of assistance in the task of getting socialism.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: A New Reader Asks Some Questions. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

 A correspondent who is evidently not acquainted with the Socialist Party asks a number of questions on a variety of subjects. The answers may be of use to other new readers who have yet to learn where we stand. 

Legion of Unemployed,

54, Poole Road,

Coventry.

Editor, “Socialist Standard.”                             

July 16th, 1931.

Dear Sir,

1. What is your policy with regard to finance?
2. Assuming the S.P.G.B. got a majority in the House, how would they proceed to nationalise the means of production?
3. Do you think that the centre of control of economic power is vested in Parliament, or with the Bank of England?
4. Assuming a Socialist Government nationalised the means of production, how will they guarantee it will function, and how do you intend to distribute amongst the people, claims on the proceeds of production in the form of consumable goods and services, besides wages for labour?
5. As a policy, don’t you think issuing claims on production by the Government to the people, is better technique in achieving Socialism than that of owning means of production?

 Yours faithfully,

George Hickling.

Reply.
(1) Questions of finance are questions of capitalism. Under capitalism the means of production and the products are the private property of the capitalist class. Money serves the purpose (among others) of enabling workers and capitalists to realise in a convenient form their respective shares of the products which the workers produce and the capitalists own; the workers’ share being their wages based on their cost of living. A money system is neither necessary nor possible under socialism. The means of production and the products will no longer be privately owned. The workers will not be in the position of selling their labour-power to a propertied class, and goods will not be the object of buying and selling transactions because buying and selling are only conceivable between private owners. Money will have lost its purpose and there will be no financial questions.

We are not concerned with the financial problems that arise under capitalism between the different sections of the capitalist class, although these questions greatly exercise the so-called “Labour” organisations. They conceive it to be their duty or their interest to try to teach the capitalists how best to run capitalism, whereas we are concerned with pointing out to the workers how to get socialism.

(2) Our correspondent is completely in error when he accuses us of wanting to ‘‘nationalise the means of production." We, want to do nothing of the kind. Nationalisation or state capitalism is an arrangement by which the capitalists exploit the working class through the Government instead of through private companies. Under nationalisation the capitalists receive their property-incomes as before and remain the owners of the means of production. The difference consists in the holding of Government securities instead of company shares. It often means the replacement of a varying ratio of interest by a fixed rate. The change is in the interests of some of the capitalists. It is not in the interest of the working class. The Socialist Party has always opposed nationalisation.

What socialism consists of is the removal of the capitalist class from their privileged positions as owners and controllers of the means of production and distribution. The change is a simple one. When a majority of the workers are socialist and are organised in the Socialist Party, they will gain control of the machinery of Government. By so doing they will have taken away from the capitalist class their only means of retaining their hold over the means of production, &c. Their political power taken from them, the capitalists will then just cease to be a propertied class.

(3) Our correspondent asks us if we think that “economic power” is vested in Parliament or the Bank of England. It is a pity he did not try to explain what "economic power” is. If our correspondent means the power of the capitalist to own and control his factories, land, workshops, &c., and only to permit these things to be used by the workers when and on such conditions as he thinks fit, then that power is based on the laws of property and the armed forces which enforce those laws. That power is centred in Parliament and the rest of the political machinery, because it is Parliament which makes those laws and Parliament which maintains and controls the other political machinery and those armed forces. The Bank of England, like other private business concerns, exists and operates only by virtue of Acts of Parliament. It has no "power” and indeed no existence except that which Parliament permits. This fact is obscured by the circumstance that usually the capitalists in control of Parliament and the capitalists in control of the Bank of England either belong to the same group or see eye to eye because they have identical interests.

(4) This question starts off with a mistaken assumption about nationalisation which is dealt with in (2) above.

The question contains several other serious misconceptions. First of all it is a wrong conception that socialism is going to be introduced by a Socialist Government acting as an entity separate and apart from the people and managing their affairs for them. There will be no socialism until a majority understand socialism and organise to get it. They will decide what they want done and how they want it done. Once political power has been obtained, they, the majority, will decide how the proceeds of production are to be distributed among the members of society. Apart from the early period when there may be an insufficiency of certain kinds of goods (a heritage from capitalism) goods will be freely accessible to the members of society.

There will be no private ownership of the means of life, hence no relationship of employers and employed and no buying and selling of labour-power. In other words, there will be no wages because there will be no system of wage-labour.

(5) Our correspondent here asks us to abandon common ownership of the means of production and to adopt another means of "achieving socialism.” But socialism is a system of society based upon common ownership. Therefore our correspondent’s scheme of social organisation is not socialism, whatever else it may be.

As he rejects common ownership the only alternative is private ownership, and this indeed is evidently what he has in mind, since he writes of—"the Government” issuing claims to the products of' industry "to the people.” It would not be socialism but state capitalism, under which the owning class would own and control the means of production and issue "claims on production” to the working class. State capitalism, as seen in the Post Office and in the Russian state industries, may be a good thing for the capitalists, but it solves no important working-class problem.

Editorial Committee

#    #    #    #

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Replies to the following correspondents have been crowded out of this issue, and will appear in the next issue. Mr. Dowdell (Oxford), Mr. Manning (Wealdstone), and Mr. Berman.

Editorial: The German Crisis. (1931)

Editorial from the August 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The present situation in Germany, and the international financial crisis springing from it, brings into clear light some of the contradictions bound up with the capitalist system of production.

Germany was defeated in the war and the victors hastened to collect the fruits of victory, but there were a host of obstacles in the way. The fruits could only be obtained from the surplus value (unpaid labour) wrung from the German workmen. In order that German workmen should be able to labour German industries must flourish. This fact, and the international nature of capitalist investments and banking operations, along with the international complications of buyers and sellers, frustrated any attempt to ruin German national capitalists. The victors dared not kill the goose that they hoped would lay the golden eggs. Germany was like the debtor with “expectations" who had to be kept alive and well.

Since the war German industries have developed and German industrial competition has been keenly felt in all direction. When attempts have been made to curb their industrial aspirations, or press for reparation settlements they just pointed to probable ruin as the result. Their plan of campaign has been aided by the mutual distrust and jealousy of the erstwhile allied nations. France, in particular, whose position looked to be most promising, has constantly felt the pressure of its allies in thwarting its industrial designs.

Although France has undergone a rapid and thorough industrial revolution in recent years, the progress of its industrial magnates is hindered by the intrigues and jealous activities of their rivals in other nations who have suddenly discovered an altruistic interest in Germany's welfare. These other nations frequently call upon France to make concessions to Germany and foster the idea that France is the thorn in the rosebud. In the meantime, German capitalists pile up their fortunes and their debts, grin, and groan about the burden of the peace terms—which deprives them of a portion of the fruits of the German workman's labour.

In particular, the growing gold reserve of France has been the subject of much feeling to outside capitalists. The present German crisis has been seized upon at once to try to induce France to disgorge some of it. The “News Chronicle" for July 14th in an editorial article under the heading “France’s great opportunity," puts the matter bluntly as follows:

  The world is face to face to-day with an economic situation more sinister than any with which it has ever been confronted. Unless from some source credit and confidence can be promptly restored in Germany, Germany will collapse.
  The situation thus created places France in a position which is really decisive. On the one hand she is the only European nation which possesses the financial resources necessary to meet the case, and, on the other hand, she alone can create the atmosphere of goodwill and confidence, without which no outside financial help is likely to be forthcoming.

Conferences of international financial advisers and political “heads" have been held and, at the moment of writing, France appears to have been induced to do her share in backing a loan.

The “Sunday Express" for July 19th printed a long article setting forth the financial details of the situation, from which the following points are taken :—

• Germany owes America £650 millions; America also has £300 millions invested in German industrial securities and real estate.
• Germany owes England £150 millions, and about £100 millions to France, Switzerland, Holland and Sweden, but not much of it to France.
• Included in the above totals is £300 millions of short term loans to Germany repayable in October. It is this money that has caused the crisis as Germany is unable to find it.
• £150 millions of this short term money is due to America and £100 millions to England.

France’s interest in the above is negligible. On the other hand she has a large amount on short term loans in Roumania, Hungary and Poland—which goes if Germany collapses. Apart from this, France’s main interest is in the £50 millions reparations money guaranteed annually under the reparations agreement. The fall of the German government, which seems certain if they either accept conditions for a loan or fail to surmount the crisis, will probably ruin English and American merchant banking houses and compel France to say good-bye to the £50 millions a year.

The “Daily Express” article contains one statement to which we must call attention, although it is really outside the subject of this article. There has been an almost unanimous moan about the shortness of money in this country, and an attempt to trace industrial troubles to this source. It is therefore useful to note the following from the above mentioned article:

  "Meanwhile,” what about Great Britain? She is in a good position. If it were necessary for her to meet her foreign obligations we could mobilise from all sources—we could send out of the country —as much as £100,000,000 in gold, without disturbing the necessary cover for the note issue of the Bank of England.”

The real crisis in Germany, however, is political rather than financial. It is a fight for life on the part of the coalition Government parties. The Hitler Party and the Communists repudiate the reparation terms and seek to blame reparations for the present situation, and with them the Government and also the Social Democrats, whose votes have more than once saved the Government from defeat. These parties are on the horns of a dilemma. If they repudiate the reparations agreement and Germany crashes, they will go down too. If they stand by the terms of it Hitler and his group (now the second largest party in Germany, the Social Democrats being the largest) will probably swoop into power. There is a third way out for them—to invite Hitler into a coalition Government, in which case they would all stand or fall together. At the moment the interested parties outside of Germany are anxious that the coalition parties should retain control on account of the risk of debt repudiation in general.

At the moment the Social Democrats are using their votes to prevent the defeat of the Government. On the 17th July the Reich and State Governments were given power to confiscate or suppress at discretion any periodical in the country. They can compel any periodical to insert in the position, in the type, and with the headings they demand, and without any comment, any statement or declaration whatsoever. (“Sunday Times,” July 19th.)

That such steps should be deemed necessary is an indication of how frail is the Government’s hold upon power.

There is one lesson the last few days should make plain once again. Socialism cannot gradually arise in a capitalist world. The German S.D.P. has professed to be aiming at Socialism and believes it possible to introduce it gradually while still assisting in the administration of capitalism in association with capitalist parties. But the running of capitalism demands so much (quite apart from corruption and the like), and its financial operations are so complicated, that there is neither the time nor the means left to do other than make the machinery run smoothly. When the machine gets out of gear those at the head of affairs and all parties supporting them get their due—the antagonism of the masses.

The reparations question, and the financial crisis generally, is occupying the whole of the attention both of the German Social Democrats and of the British Labour Government. Mr. MacDonald told the London Conference on Monday, July 20th, what was the issue. He said (”Daily Herald,” 21st July) :—

  Our position, therefore, in a word, is to restore the confidence of the foreign investor in Germany.

What a spectacle for laughter! The English and German Labour leaders struggling to avert the ruin of the bankers and to restore the confidence of the investing class in the stability of German capitalism !

What is happening in Venezuela? (2019)

From the March 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 23 January the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, declared himself ‘Interim President’ of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, denouncing the elected President Nicolas Maduro as an illegitimate dictator. The US government immediately announced its support, followed by a declaration from the Group of Lima, which is an institution embracing several countries of Latin America, all supported by the US government. Canada and a number of European countries also declared their support for Juan Guaidó. They all asked Maduro to step down or face imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay.

The US government, Juan Guaidó, Canada and the European countries indicated that they were supporting the interim government on the grounds that Maduro was a dictator who has reduced Venezuela to a situation of hunger, unemployment, repression, corruption, and lack of freedom. They asked him to call a fresh presidential election in eight days. In response, the government of Venezuela decided instead to call for a new election to the National Assembly, while the Supreme Court of Venezuela declared the self-proclaimed Interim President illegal.

The popularity of Nicolas Maduro has decreased since he was elected due to the government’s authoritarian measures and corruption. Others blame him for the economic and political crisis and the violence that exists in the country. Many workers have taken to the streets to protest against his government. During the last presidential election other candidates did not participate and there were a large number of abstentions.

US opposition

Since the election of Hugo Chavez in 1999, the Venezuelan government has been opposed by the US and sections of the capitalist class in Venezuela, but during his initial period he had the support of the majority of the Venezuelan workers and most of the governments of Latin America. His popularity was so high that in 2002 the US was forced to back away from a coup d’état that they had orchestrated with certain sectors of the military forces.

Due to the then high international price of oil – which is the country’s main source of income – and as a member of OPEC, Chavez was able to implement certain social reforms, such as housing for the poor, medical services, educational programmes and a food programme. The level of poverty of the country decreased. And all these measures were considered by his supporters to be the implementation of socialism by the Bolivarian Revolution, or so-called Socialism of the XXI Century.

Chavez also helped create many cooperatives around the country and expropriated several corporations and turned their assets over to state ownership; others became joint ventures. Oil and gas were sold to China at a lower cost to compensate for the cost of transport and to penetrate the Asian market, and several agreements were signed with the Iranian government. Oil and gas were sold at low cost to the Cuban government in exchange for medical services using Cuban-trained doctors.

Social conditions in Venezuela have since deteriorated enormously due to a drop in the oil price and the embargo and sanctions imposed by the US, and also due to the largely state capitalist mode of production – which is the real system of production that exists in the Venezuela.

The US and Canada will also have their eye on the large deposits of oil and natural gas, and also on the oil and large deposits of minerals that exist in the Orinoco Belt, such as lithium, nickel and iron ore. Several of these resources have been given to the Russian and the Chinese corporations, and the ecological impact in that region has been enormous.

The US government has indicated that all options are on the table including military intervention. The government of Venezuela has responded saying that it might turn into another Vietnam and has called for a dialogue including the members of the National Assembly. All have refused to have a dialogue with Nicolas Maduro, and the US government has frozen all Venezuela’s international accounts and sources of income; they have taken over Gitco which is Venezuela’s international petroleum corporation situated in the US, and Britain has held back $550 million of gold that the Bank of England had been keeping in trust for the Venezuelan government. In addition, the US is going to transfer all the oil proceeds – more than $7 billion – to the interim president. According to some economic statisticians, the loss from the embargo on Venezuela has cost the country more than $350 billion in total.

Due to the measures taken by the US government against Venezuela and the implementation of new sanctions, the Venezuelan government is going to transfer all the proceeds of their oil sales to a Russian bank in Moscow as Russia has lent more than $50 billion to Venezuela in military aid and for mining. China has lent more than $60 billion in exchange for oil. Both countries have opposed the actions of the USA at the United Nations and have indicated that they reject the new government and support Maduro as president.

A possible military confrontation with the US and alliances of military forces of other Latin American countries, such as Brazil, Colombia and Argentina, against Venezuela would become a very bloody battleground, due to the fact that all the armies have been heavily armed by the US, Russia and China, and most of them have modern armaments. It would be a war where many class brothers and sisters would kill each other defending one or other side in the conflict.

Not socialism

Since the very beginning when Hugo Chavez was elected President of Venezuela and declared himself a socialist, we have shown that he was just a left reformist, not a revolutionary socialist, and that socialism cannot be introduced by a leader in the name of the working class, by implementing reforms within the framework of a capitalist society and nationalising enterprises to be run by the state apparatus. We added that the problems that Venezuela was confronted with and its failures could not be blamed on socialism because a form of state capitalism was the economic model that was going to be established by the leaders of the Bolivarian revolution; that Chavez, Fidel Castro, Peron, Cardenas, and other Latin American leaders were bourgeois nationalists who were opposed to the influence and domination of the US ruling class in the region. They wanted to expand their own markets and capitalist interests there, as was reflected by engagement with Mercosur which is a Latin American version of the European Market, by the Bank of the South, a Latin American version of the IMF, and showcased by the Cooperatives in Bolivia which are joint ventures between the state and the peasants of Bolivia based on a capitalist mode of production and run as typical capitalist corporations.

The USA and its president have used the crisis in Venezuela as a pretext to blame its problems on socialism and to attack the emergence of socialist ideas within the youth and some sectors of the US working class. Both are confusing social democratic reforms with socialism such as: Medicare for all, increase of taxation on the rich, better housing conditions for the poor, elimination of inequality, renovation of the country’s infrastructures, more state regulations, and better programmes for the elderly and the veterans. Most of these measures were implemented by Roosevelt’s New Deal during the Great Depression and none of them are an indication that socialism was established in the USA.

For many years the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties, including the World Socialist Party of the US, have established a clear distinction between social democratic reforms, state capitalism, and socialism. Our aim is socialism-communism as a post-capitalist world society based on the common possession of the mean of production administered democratically, which is a stateless, moneyless, wageless society of free access to available wealth. This cannot be established by a leader, or a vanguard party acting in the name of the working within the framework of the capitalist mode of production; capitalism is an economic system which cannot be reformed to work in the interest of the workers.

Whatever is taking place in Venezuela has nothing to do with socialism or communism, and all the failures of the Bolivarian Revolution, its leaders and the so-called United Socialist Party of Venezuela, cannot be blamed on socialism or communism. Venezuela is a capitalist society where workers are economically exploited to produce surplus value and are wage slaves like in any other capitalist country, as in all other parts of the world. It is a state-run capitalist system similar to the ones established in the former USSR, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam adapted to their local circumstances.

Marcos

Dear Theresa . . . (2019)

From the March 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Theresa . . . 

Apparently, at exactly 11.00 pm on Friday 29 March 2019, Brexit will descend upon us. I am wondering whether I should stay up and watch it as I do when there is a total eclipse. If a deal is not struck by this time then hell-fire and damnation is forecast to rain down upon the people of the British Isles, as alluded to by the ignominious EU President, Donald Tusk. I suspect that, if I wake up on Saturday morning 30 March to total darkness, it is much more likely to be due to the onset of Nuclear Winter than a failure to renegotiate a variance of the Irish Backstop.

I was wondering if, in all the hoo-hah and razzmatazz of Brexit, you have had the chance to consider the latest development on our path to Nuclear Armageddon. In case you haven’t I’ll just remind you. Your partner in crime, The Donald, has given notice that the United States will withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, claiming that Russia has violated the terms of the Treaty, whereas Russia claims that the United States violated the terms of the Treaty first. I love an adult conversation, don’t you, especially when the outcome may well determine the survival of our planet.

As a result of the dispute over the INF Treaty Russia has announced the reactivation of its Perimeter System which was de-commissioned following the end of the Cold War; that is the first Cold War ending in 1991, not the current one. The Perimeter System is a nifty little arrangement to counter the United States posture of First Use of nuclear weapons by anticipating that such a pre-emptive strike could destroy Russia’s command and control systems; in which case a cluster of SS17 ICBMs will launch automatically on detection of seismic activity, compatible with that caused by a nuclear explosion. As these Russian SS17 missiles fly over the nuclear armed ICBMs in their silos they will transmit a launch signal to them. If the United States doesn’t already have a similar defence system no doubt it will feel it prudent to build one and, hey presto, planetary annihilation without any need for fallible human intervention!

I find it strangely reassuring, in a psychotic sort of way, that MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction – has been fully restored after faltering in recent decades and without even the need for a mad man or mad woman to press the button. Given that the UK is a major player in this ultimate game of chicken with its – soon to be dazzlingly new – Trident nuclear submarines I hope you will find time to give this matter a few minutes of your attention amid the Brexit fever. From our perspective we in the Socialist Party have a rather simple solution. We advocate a world devoid of imperialism, nationalism and all sabre-rattling murderous manifestations of warfare which emanate from such pathologies: a world where there are no nation states, no borders and no private property, where resources are held in common for the benefit of all; which will leave very few things to fight over.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Hart

Rear View: Afwerki’s boot (2016)

The Rear View Column from the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

Afwerki’s boot

Socialists are not fools: we prefer the limited democracy to be found in some capitalist countries over dictatorship. The 99 percent suffer worldwide, but in some places more than others. ‘As huge numbers of Eritreans continue to flee the country, Isaias Afwerki’s regime is increasingly retaliating against their families. The government already demands payments from families whose children have escaped—50,000 nafkas (US$3,333) per child. Families who can’t pay are jailed. Now the government is demolishing houses and seizing property, too . . . Experts say Afwerki needs a constant supply of young people to maintain his police state. A June 2015 UN Commission on Inquiry report on Eritrea documented in detail the regime’s indefinite military conscription. The military has drafted children younger than 15, tortured its own members and engaged in the systematic sexual abuse of women. But despite the report’s conclusion of possible crimes against humanity—and an Eritrean government official’s recent admission to a Wall Street Journal reporter that the regime engages in torture—some countries and right-wing political parties in Europe are jostling to send a signal to Eritreans: Don’t come here anymore’ (thenation.com, 2 December).

Daddy’s girl

If you want a vision of the future, wrote George Orwell, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever. Dictator’s daughter and current president of South Korea, Park Geun-hye, is using the might of the state against tens of thousands protesting her increasingly authoritarian rule. Trade unionists, students and others object to her labour policies and desire to impose one version of history over others. She knows, like Orwell, that whoever controls the past controls the future, and her vision is one without the masses objecting to her rule. She has ‘equated the protesters—some of whom wear masks as protection from riot police—to terrorists’ and for good measure her Justice Minister Kim Hyun-Woong vowed to ‘uproot illegal and violent demonstration … no matter how much sacrifice is required’ (thenation.com, 1 December).

Open platform

‘Maryam Namazie is the latest in a string of people to fall foul of university ‘safe space’ policies which attempt to keep controversial speakers off campus. In October, feminist activists attempted to cancel a talk by Germaine Greer at Cardiff University because of her belief that transgender women are not real women. Historian David Starkey was recently edited out of a Cambridge University fundraising video after students protested over his history of outspoken statements on race and gender’ (dailymail.co.uk 2 December). The Socialist Party has a proud history of open debate. We oppose these so-called ‘safe spaces’ for the same reasons we oppose censorship. Atheist? Cultural relativist? Conservative historian? Bring it on!

God and the Price of Copper (2016)

From the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

  A socialist in Zambia explains how politicians and governments in countries like Zambia that export one basic commodity are at the mercy of world market conditions. Zambia is not alone in this respect.

Zambia is currently gripped by an economic crisis, characterised by falling copper prices, the depreciating kwacha, and electricity blackouts. Prices of essential commodities have shot up due to the depreciation of the kwacha. Sensing danger, President Edgar Lungu of the ruling PF despatched his deputy secretary-general Mrs Mumbi Phiri to the ZNBC, where she gave an assessment of the significance of the economic problems facing the country.

The radio interview took place on 14 September and the public were invited to ask her questions through the phone calls. She explained that the reasons why Zambia was facing social and economic problems was because of the falling copper export prices to China – the largest purchaser of Zambia’s copper exports. She went on to assure listeners that the reason why Zambia was experiencing electricity blackouts was due to low water levels in the Kariba North Bank hydro-power station occasioned by poor rainfall. The depreciation of the kwacha, she said, took effect after the death of President Sata in September 2014 and was due to reasons other than the fall in copper prices.

However, the Kariba North Bank hydro-power station was initially designed to generate power for up to three years regardless of poor rainfall received in the previous years. At the inception in 1976 the power station had four turbines with a capacity to generate 600 MW of power (150 MW each). During 2011 the turbines were upgraded to 180 MW each, bringing the total to 720 MW. Further expansion of the facility initiated through the Kariba North Bank Expansion Programme saw the addition of two turbines of 180 MW each, bringing the total generating capacity to 1080 MW.

The real reason why the Kariba North Bank power station is experiencing low water levels is because the turbines are being overused – they are run at longer hours than they were initially designed for. That is to say that the engineers at ZESCO have been operating the known peak units beyond the normal three to four hours a day, thus resulting in increased water usage and ultimately low water levels in the Kariba dam.

Falling copper prices

The copper mines consume much of the power, with domestic consumers accounting only for a small fraction. Power supply to the copper mines has been cut to 30 percent. This had led to production costs increasing 40 to 60 percent as the power deficit worsens.

Zambia is a capitalist country dependent on copper exports from which it derives 90 percent of its revenue (in taxes and royalties). The drop that has now taken place in the price of copper exports in the international market has had a great influence upon political developments taking place within Zambia. The price of copper originating from international political and economic events is in fact the main reason affecting the history of politics in Zambia.

During the 1980s there was a letdown in inflation in western Europe that led to the fall of ‘Communism’ in Eastern Europe, and later spread to Africa where single-party political dictatorships were hastily replaced with multi-party political systems. When the MMD came to power in 1991 copper prices were at an all-time low – the privatised copper mines failed to make any impact on the liberalised economy. Both Wanslea and Konkola copper mines were closed down due to falling copper prices. The Chinese state capitalist investors saw a chance to open up new copper mines and went forth to set up NFCA and Chambishi smelters in Kitwe.

In 2008, after the death of President Mwanawasa, a bank mortgage crisis began in the USA and later spread to every part of the world. In Zambia copper prices tumbled to their lowest on the London Commodities Exchange. People lost confidence in the MMD and voted for the PF under President Sata in the 2011 presidential elections.

It is fair to point out the vivid fact that when Sata came to power in 2011 the banking crisis that had struck the USA and western Europe was on the wane. China was catching up with the USA in terms of international trade and investment. Thus Sata thought he had found a trusted political and economic partner in economic development.

The social changes initiated by Sata were mostly carried out by Chinese state-controlled companies. The price of copper was rising on the export market– this led Sata to revise tax incentives of copper mining companies in 2013. However, this increasing of the mineral royalty taxes upon the copper mines had a deleterious effect upon the operations of the copper mines, resulting in job losses.

The economic slowdown that has since taken place in the Chinese economy has contributed in total to the collapse of copper prices in Zambia today and thus the diminishing profitability of copper mining.

The fact is that the significance of social and economic policies pursued by any political party in Zambia can only succeed in relation to the prevailing copper prices on the international market,. .

Turning to God

In late August 2014 there was a sudden collapse of copper prices in China which caught President Lungu unawares. The foreign exchange rate relative to the USA dollar sunk to the lowest ebb. Facing incessant criticism from both the church and the political opposition, President Lungu found himself helpless. He turned to God for help. He appealed to the people of Zambia in strong terms and told them to fast and pray to God on 18 October for him to bless the nation.

People responded to the President’s appeal and duly converged in their respective places of worship and paid homage and reverence to God. Some congregations reported having seen a rainbow envelope the Sun during the said occasion.

Whether God did answer the prayers that took place remains to be seen, but it is certain that the prayers of those people with political careers and private property will have been duly answered. But for the workers, peasants and students the prayers seem to have made them less emotionally and spiritually bewildered.

The fact is that the kwacha has kept on depreciating and electricity blackouts remain unresolved. And the price of copper remained depressed.

In our scientific prognosis of capitalism– we in the WSM are of the view that the economic factor plays a major role in determining political, intellectual and religious whims of a given society. Our message to the workers, peasants and students in Zambia remains the same: capitalism cannot offer a permanent solution to social, political and economic crises.

Voting for another set of recycled politicians into parliament is not a solution. The workers must utilise the limited political freedom granted it through the medium of the vote to vote capitalism out of the world. Vote for socialism– the alternative to capitalism.

Kephas Mulenga, 

Kitwe, Zambia

Letter: The Labour Party (2016)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors

The article on the Labour Party in the December Standard clearly exposed their failures. That’s not how the Labour Party themselves see it of course, claiming that their actions in government ‘have revolutionised the lives of the British people’ (www.labour.org.uk/pages/what-is-the-labour-party).

Even after several Labour governments, the lives of workers in Britain still involve exploitation and varying degrees of poverty. The revolution is yet to come.

Paul Bennett

Manchester

50 Years Ago: Prospects for 1966 (2016)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist standing on the brink of 1966 must survey the social scene with mixed feelings. It is depressing that the landscape should still be dominated by the ugly facts of Capitalist society, with its inequalities, exploitation, poverty, violence and neuroses. From another point of view, there is relief that the scarred body of humanity has at least survived. By itself, survival creates a fresh opportunity to do better in the future, but it is only an opportunity. The bitter experience of the past guards against undue optimism.

It is a time of ferment. There is a general will towards a better life. Social consciousness is on the move. Controversy, frustration and discontent abound. There is one thing that cannot be done with Capitalism. Capitalism cannot be made to work in the interests of the whole community. In the context of history, Capitalism is a condemned society.

In spite of everything, there is encouragement. With modification of the crude assumptions of religion a dent is being made in the barrier of superstition. Organised religion is on the defensive. Recent discussions about homosexuality, abortion and contraception indicate that sexual attitudes are freer from taboo.

To embark on a full-scale war this year, the Government could not rely on crowds outside Buckingham Palace chanting “we want war”. The propaganda machine would be required to work hard in producing convincing pseudo reasons for the fight. The politicians’ watchword in his relations with the voter is caution. The technical gains of the sixties have extended man’s control of his environment and emphasised the contradiction between the potential abundance and actual poverty of production. These are peripheral gains that help to create a more receptive atmosphere for Socialist ideas.

On the other hand frustrations still tend to be diverted into attitudes of hate. The incidence of racism is ominous. Above all, that steady statistic 10% of the population owns 90% of the wealth, still forms the background of class ownership that dominates life. To the modern commercial animal, profit still remains the yardstick of virtue and success. Property is his God. The lingo of advertising and the subtle mechanics of the hard sell is his new theology.

(from editorial, Socialist Standard, January 1966)

Rear View: Looks like Smeagol, acts like Sauron . . . (2016)

The Rear View Column from the February 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

Looks like Smeagol, acts like Sauron . . .

. . . and ‘cites Hitler’s Germany as an example of effective government’ (theguardian.com, 1 January). Who can this be? None other than Turkey’s ever power-hungry president, Erdoğan. Last year a Dr. Çiftçi compared him to a character from Lord of the Rings. Legal proceedings ensued and a team of academics, psychologists and a media expert were asked to prepare a report, due this month. Socialists may find such antics amusing at a superficial level, but the election of this precious president is a reminder that our class continues to support the status quo. Hitler and the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front, just to give two other odious examples, won elections.

Trump’s doublespeak

‘Not only does he refuse to be held to any standard of truth, he refuses to act ashamed when he gets caught in a lie, or even grant that he might have been mistaken. And his supporters go right along — if Donald says it, it’s true, and no bunch of media jerks are going to tell them otherwise’ (truthout.org, 1 January). But, of course, Trump is not alone. How do you know when politicians lie? When they open their mouths. Marx’s favourite motto was doubt everything.

They have the technology

‘Boyalife Group and its partners are building the giant plant in the northern Chinese port of Tianjin. It is due to go into production within the next seven months and aims for an output of one million cloned cows a year by 2020. But cattle are only the beginning of chief executive Xu’s ambitions. In the factory’s pipeline are also thoroughbred racehorses, pets, police dogs specialised in searching and sniffing, and even humans’ (dailymail.co.uk, 1 January). The future is bright! The future is full of cloned, iron-heeled dictators, Erdoğans, Kardashians and Trumps. Meanwhile, they can comfort themselves with a cloned version of their pet dog for a mere $100,000.

Down and out

‘There is a war on, and it concerns the homeless’ right to sleep. Across the United States, recent years have seen a spate of municipal laws that criminalise the act of sleeping in public places. These laws often target the act of sleeping in private vehicles under the guise of anti-camping legislation’ (alternet.org, 2 January). Wrong! The war in question has been correctly identified by none other than Warren Buffett: ‘there’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.’ Consider, the 400 richest Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 61 percent of the population and every 38 seconds a U.S. citizen dies of poverty and poverty-related social conditions. There are over 578,000 sleeping rough in the US alongside at least 10 million unoccupied homes. Houses are built for profit not need. Thus, particularly during a slump, brick mountains, empty houses, mothballed developments, and unemployed builders exist alongside the homeless and those existing in sub-standard accommodation.

Freedom for them

‘Something important and, freedom lovers may think, rather wonderful seems to have happened at the United Nations, and it went largely unreported in mainstream media. The UN General Assembly approved a draft resolution Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources’ (dissidentvoice.org, 1 January). Campaigners for Palestinian ‘freedom’, who often argue that sanctions brought down the apartheid regime of South Africa and they are what will bring down the apartheid regime of Israel, ignore the lesson of history. The election of the ANC to power was supposed to see the grinding poverty of the townships ended, but the ANC have turned out to be powerless to run capitalism in a way that would end exploitation and poverty. Capitalism means the continuation of war and want. Workers have no country.

Capitalism is bad for you

‘An Ofcom report . . .  found, on average, adults spend more time using technology than sleeping each day. Work has become more intense as new technology enables, and even forces, people to work faster, do more, and multi-task, said Kinman. Her research also finds rising presenteeism – for example people working when they are ill’ (theguardian.com, 2 January). Studies have found that health problems stemming from job stress, like hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and decreased mental health, can lead to fatal conditions that wind up killing about 120,000 people each year—making work-related stressors and the maladies they cause, more deadly than diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or influenza.

Letter: Words and Propaganda (2016)

Letters to the Editors from the February 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors

I read ‘What is the Islamic State’ (Socialist Standard, December). I’d also got the Nation at the same time and read ‘No Cause for War’ by Juan Cole. The Paris attacks have filled newspaper pages and the airwaves since 13 November and last week.

The article cites Juan Cole’s blog site as a source. Because words have sensuous power, words matter. Cole for his part uses the term ‘Islamic State’ the first time and then introduces the term ‘Daesh’ that is commonly used for the group in the Arabic press. It is Daesh that Cole uses from then on.

Propaganda works. We tend to categorise new information according to a generalisation of the prototype that heads each of our mental categories. Using the label ‘state’ tends to reify a gang of Mafioso or a drugs cartel into a conceptually real state. This is ideological thinking and we should avoid doing it and spreading it.

Look what the USSR did to the perception of socialism through the power of a misapplied word. Cole introduces the commonly accepted term, defines it away and uses the new signifier in its place which I think is perhaps a proper practice to achieve greater clarity.

Joe R Hopkins. 

Florida, USA.

50 Years Ago: The Keynesian Myth (2016)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The basic proposition of the Keynesians comes to this: steady growth at full employment level can be kept if the State controls spending and investment so that when a boom is developing it cuts down, and when a slump threatens it increases its spending.

Keynes had been a critic of laissez-faire for a long time before he wrote his General Theory. He was a member of the Liberal Party and sympathetic to the kind of State capitalist schemes the Fabians pushed. When he wrote this book he already had an international reputation as a leading economist. His book was given wide publicity because in it a well-known economist provided a theoretical justification for policies already being tried in the 1930’s. Keynes’s theories and policies—equalizing taxation, cheap money. State control—were eagerly spread by the Labour Party and “progressives’’ generally. After all, this was what they—and Keynes himself, for that matter—had long been advocating. Helped by these partisans Keynesian economics has become the dominant theory. In Britain it completely conquered the universities and government departments. In America some conservative economists are still fighting a rearguard action on behalf of laissez-faire against Keynes’ theories which they see as State Capitalism (to them “socialism”).

It is true that Keynesian economics is a theory of State Capitalism. It is a theory that Capitalism can be managed by professional economists from government departments. It is Fabianism in a new guise: capitalism run by “experts”.

In Britain the first Keynesian budget was that of 1940 so the “experts” have been in charge for over 25 years. How have they fared? Have they been able to control capitalism?

Under capitalism the market is the king; it decides what is produced and when. After the last war there was an expansion of the world market which, with a few minor upsets, has continued ever since. It is this expansion of the world market rather than State control which has been the major factor in the relatively full employment in some parts of the world.

This particular combination of circumstances has allowed the Keynesians to claim as the benefits of their “economic management” what in fact are the results of world market conditions favourable to the capitalists of the countries concerned.

(From article by A.L.B, Socialist Standard, February 1966)

The One Big Union (2019)

From the March 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

  ‘The One Big Union, therefore, seeks to organize the wage worker, not according to craft, but according to industry; according to class and class needs. We, therefore, call upon all workers to organize irrespective of nationality, sex, or craft into a workers’ organization, so that we may be enabled to more successfully carry on the everyday fight over wages, hours of work, etc., and prepare ourselves for the day when production for profit shall be replaced by production for use’ (One Big Union Constitution).

In late 1918 Western Canadian unionists placed a number of radical resolutions before the delegates at that year’s Trades and Labor Congress Convention. In particular, they wanted the Congress to abandon craft unionism for industrial unionism, but their criticism extended to such difficult questions as conscription, censorship and the war effort. Every one of the proposals was defeated. Before returning home, the western delegates agreed to hold a special western Canadian labour conference in 1919 to discuss ways that they could have more impact on the TLC. By the time the delegates from western Canadian unions arrived in Calgary for this meeting in the spring of 1919 they were no longer interested in fixing the TLC. Instead, they believed the time had come to create a new industrial union that would not discriminate between skilled and un-skilled, foreign-born or Canadian-born workers

On 13 March a conference of trade union activists was called at Calgary who had grown discontented with the TLC. The 237 delegates who attended agreed to secede from the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada and the American Federation of Labor and to form a new industrial organisation. They adopted the name One Big Union, along with various economic and political resolutions. Delegates called for ‘the abolition of the present system of production for profit.’ A central committee was elected, that included five Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) members and which provided many of the activists of the OBU. However, those from the SPC did not abandon their own project of building the party for an anti-political syndicalist dream. The OBU, unlike the Industrial Workers of the World stressed class organisation rather than industrial organisation. The OBU in Canada was structured more on organising workers geographically than by industry (which caused an early dispute within it). In pursuance of this class policy it did not condemn political action, but rather declared that the only hope for the workers was ‘in the economic and political solidarity of the working class, One Big Union and One Workers’ Party’ (The OBU. Bulletin, 20 December, 1919). The founding members of the OBU were determined to create a union that was opposed to capitalism itself.

‘The OBU was not expected to free the workers from wage slavery any more than the trade union were. There was no question of industrial vs. political as in the IWW 1908 schism. The two were seen as complementary phases of the working-class movement. The One Big Union and the general strike were limited weapons in a battle which was ‘defensive as well as offensive,’ explained an OBU Bulletin editorial.

The concept of the One Big Union was that all workers should be organised in one union – one big union, the OBU. Most notable was the attempt of the Industrial Workers of the World to organise in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries. The debate was over whether unions should be based on craft groups, organised by their skill, the dominant model at the time, carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, each into their respective unions. Capitalists could often divide craft and trade unionists along these lines in demarcation disputes. As capitalist enterprises and state bureaucracies became more centralised and larger, some workers felt that their institutions needed to become similarly large based on entire industries (industrial unions). The One Big Union movement supported the ‘entire industries’ model over the ‘craft groups’ structure:

  ‘it is not the name of an organization nor its preamble, but the degree of working class knowledge possessed by its membership that determines whether or not it is a revolutionary body… It is true that the act of voting in favour of an industrial as against the craft form of organization denotes an advance in the understanding of the commodity nature of labour power, but it does not by any “means imply a knowledge of the necessity of the social revolution”, Jack Kavanagh, union activist and SPC member, explained. “There can be no question of industrial vs. political. The two are complementary phases of the working class movement” he concluded in the fall of 1919’ (LINK).

Unholy alliance

The weakness of the members of the OBU was not in daring to dream and to act on those dreams, but not realising how many and how powerful the guardians of capitalism were. The OBU would be broken by an alliance of the officials of the mainstream unions, the employers, the federal government and the Communist Party.

Naturally Canada’s various federal and dominion governments were not friendly towards the OBU and most definitely not the employers who would regularly blacklist OBU workers and refuse to negotiate.

The Canadian Labor Congress LC and its affiliate the United Mine Workers was anti-socialist and against militant industrial unionism and the OBU stood for everything it opposed.

Lenin argued against dual-unionism and against the setting up of revolutionary unions so in the Communist Party, in accordance with Comintern instructions, the party-line was to work in the mainstream unions to oust the various labour leaders and this meant rejoining the CLC. The Communists began a campaign of disruption to pressure the OBU members back into the CLC unions, even if it meant destroying the organisation outright. But the OBU nevertheless endured.

The OBU at its peak had 101 locals and 41,500 members—almost the entire union membership of Western Canada. The OBU faced very powerful opponents. Nevertheless, in 1925 the membership was 17,000 and grew slowly throughout the 1920s to reach a maximum of 24,000 members. The year they joined the Canadian Labor Congress the membership stood at 12,000.

Today, union activists continue to strive for collective forms of organisation capable of superseding bureaucracies and cumbersome legalistic procedures. Driven by the same dreams that mobilised the generation behind the OBU, contemporary workers can learn something from the possibilities and pitfalls of the OBU. The OBU did not have all the answers but what they represented was a tendency that was stopped short by so-called revolutionary proponents of Leninism and the reformist apologists of labourism. Who knows what might have resulted had this development not been cut short.

Jack Houston the founding editor of the OBU Bulletin wrote:

  ‘The O.B.U. was not created out of pure thought, but from the objective industrial situation. Craft unions have grown obsolete… The O.B.U exists not only because some labour leaders determined to bring it to birth, but because the workers would not remain in the old-style unions. This is a fact and not a theory’ (OBU Bulletin Editorials, LINK).

Houston went on to explain in more detail that:

  ‘The official ‘impossibilism’ of the SPC guaranteed the party’s political purity and proletarian principles, but did not prevent the socialists from participating in non-revolutionary working-class struggles as well. As it is usually understood, syndicalism implies the creation of worker-controlled economic structures within industry, opposition to the use of political parties and the political system as a means to further the workers’ cause, and, finally, the withdrawal of labourers’ services in a great general strike which would topple the capitalist system.’

He pointed out that:

   ‘The Socialist Party of Canada rejected the idea that a socialist society could be created by workers’ councils or soviets. The SPC did not regard the general strike as the ultimate weapon in the class struggle. They never promoted sabotage as did the Industrial Workers of the World. They sought, instead, to build an inclusive united working class movement as the next stage in the class struggle. They decided to reduce their emphasis upon political action, formerly their major weapon, because the new militancy of the union membership demanded new strategy—a better union movement… Unions would confront the real rulers of society, the owning class, in another way. Socialist Party members understood that a shorter work week and the creation of a new union organization would not topple the capitalist system. But, as a first step, it would provide an example and a base of operations. The object was to continue the education of the worker, to secure badly-needed immediate improvements in working conditions, and, thus, through organization, to further the solidarity of the working class and to prevent premature violence. The workers’ revolt could begin on a regional basis, the socialist revolution must be national, continental, and, ultimately, world-wide.’

We in the World Socialist Movement can envisage a socialist party growing in the future along with many other expressions of working class organisation including trade unions and workers’ councils. We have never stood aloof from the industrial scene and class struggle, as our critics keep repeating until such claims have become an urban legend for many on the Left. However, what we strictly adhere to is that decisions about industrial disputes and work-place agreements are to be made by those directly involved and not by outside-the-union political parties.

ALJO