What it is ain’t exactly clear (2008)

From the World Socialist Party of the United States website:

If we may go by the trend emerging from the presidential primary results so far, we very likely will see the end of the CheneyBush era next November. Voters both Democratic and Republican have turned out in large, often record-breaking numbers to make preliminary choices from among the presidential candidates who have offered themselves. This is a healthy democratic trend.

According to the Pew Research Center, the upsurge in voter interest is sharpest and heaviest on the Democratic side and therefore concerns a much larger constituency than on the Republican side. More interesting, younger Democratic voters "are considerably more likely than their elders to be Hispanic, and slightly more likely to be black, more apt to say they have no religious affiliation and more likely to say they are 'liberal' in their political orientation."

Not only that, but across the board regardless of race or ethnicity, "Barack Obama won a majority of the 2008 vote among this [younger] age group in every state that has held a primary or caucus thus far with the exception of California, Arkansas, and Massachusetts Obama also had a 54%-43% advantage among the next youngest age group, those ages 30-44."

Does this suggest that the Democratic Party is about to become the party of the working class, the sacred vessel of its political interests? Hardly. The Pew Center also notes that their attitudes with respect to the 2008 campaign are not very different from those of their elders and their issue priorities very similar to those of older voters. There is every likelihood, in other words, that young voters will hand over their brains to Those Who Think About These Things.

That said, turnout records "have been smashed in Iowa and New Hampshire" and many other places since then. So we are apparently about to witness another exercise in Throwing The Rascals Out (to get New Rascals in). But as the above analysis make clear, the pristine energy that is obviously emerging onto the political scene will have nowhere to go and is likely as not to dissipate in a flounder of confusion.

The Cheney-Bush Administration is an easy villain. The corporate/religious right alliance, as the Mitt Romney debacle suggests, is about to come unglued. Even now, Republicans are scrambling to whitewash themselves as "moderate" (without, however, ceding the point that political elections are mainly about economic issues, which would condemn them to outsider status in perpetuity). But while seeing a light at the end of the tunnel might bring a sigh of relief, the fine points of the above trend imply anything but a radical shift in perspective.

Still less, therefore, do they imply any increased receptiveness to the socialist point of view. Abolishing capital and wages in favor of community ownership of the means of production, real democracy and free access to the means of life are still on another planet, in another universe or in the "distant future" for most people. Take off the blindfolds, of course, and the changeover is already practically at hand. As it is, the night is only perhaps a little less dark again. It will probably take a much bigger crisis (global warming maybe?) to rock the capitalist political establishment. So treat yourself to an extra beer, but don't get too ecstatic.

Ron Elbert

Buying People (2008)

Book Review from the February 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

'Selling Olga: Stories of Human Trafficking and Resistance' by Louisa Waugh

The Olga of the title is a Moldovan woman who was earning 35p a day working in an outdoor market. In desperation she and a friend replied to a newspaper ad promising well-paid jobs abroad, and were told they would be caring for elderly people in Italy. They ended up being sold to a bar-owner in Kosovo, where they were forced to work as prostitutes. After two years Olga managed to escape and returned to her home town, where she was housed and supported by the International Organisation for Migration. During her time in Kosovo she was beaten so badly that she lost almost 70 per cent of her sight.

Louisa Waugh's book is full of appalling stories such as this, of women trafficked into the sex industry and forced to 'repay' those who arranged their journey and employment. Not all trafficking involves sex slaves, however, and many of those smuggled to other countries work in construction and agriculture, among other industries. The International Labour Office estimates that two and a half million people are caught up in trafficking, though others give far higher figures. In Moldova it has become one of the largest national industries, while Albania is another big source of trafficked women.

And what are the causes of this shocking 'industry'? One is the fact that many men are willing to pay for sex, so pimps can make a profit from it. But on the supply side the answer is one simple word: poverty. Waugh quotes the director of an organisation called the Useful Women of Albania: "Women are trafficked from Albania because they are desperate to leave in the first place . . .if women are living here in poverty and they have nothing, then they will sell the only thing they can make money from: their own bodies." The line between those who are trafficked and those who migrate 'freely' is a thin one. A report for Save the Children referred to "a steady rise in emigration for voluntary prostitution abroad in order to escape poverty and bleak futures in Albania." But prostitution can rarely be voluntary in any real sense, and few of the women who migrate in order to earn money from selling sex are prepared for precisely what awaits them.

Many governments in Western Europe, including the UK, have addressed the problem of trafficking by cracking down on illegal immigration. But this has only led to the creation of an underclass of undocumented migrants, a group which includes those who died in Morecambe Bay in 2004. Forced labour — not confined to sex work — is an important part of the British economy, for capitalism wants cheap and pliant labour power. The extremes to which it will sometimes go to obtain it, graphically depicted in Waugh's pages, show why it's necessary to get rid of this diabolical system.

Paul Bennett

Further Reading:

Use My Name "Two women, Olga in Moldova and Bright from Nigeria, talk to Louisa Waugh about their experiences." (From the September 2007 issue of the New Internationalist.)

Cooking the Books: The Price of Bread (2008)

The Cooking the Books column from the February 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The price of bread went up by 10 percent last year and is likely to go up again this year. Wheat is a commodity, something produced primarily for sale not use; in fact it is a world commodity traded on world markets and so subject to international speculators betting on its future price going up or down. Its price is fixed by trading in Chicago where speculators as well as genuine buyers and sellers meet electronically. The Times (18 December) reported that "the Chicago wheat price has risen from about $5 a bushel in the fourth quarter of last year to reach $10.09 yesterday".

As wheat is the main ingredient of bread what happens in Chicago in the end affects the price of bread too. That the price of such an everyday item depends on world developments is a striking illustration of the world-wide nature of production today and one of the reasons why socialists say that the basis for a world socialist society already exists today.
The price of wheat is fixed in Chicago because the US is the biggest exporter of wheat, from its highly productive prairie farms. According to estimates by the International Grains Council, in 2007 of the 56 million tonnes produced in the US, 32 million were exported. The other major exporters were Canada (15 million), Russia (12 million), EU (10 million) and Argentina (10 million). (See the following link). Normally Australia would be the second biggest exporter but a prolonged drought there reduced its 2007 output.

The IGC forecasts that world wheat consumption in 2007/8 will be 611 million tonnes whereas production in 2007 will only have been 603 million. So countries have been digging into their reserves and will be looking to replenish them. Hence the current rise in the world price of wheat. There is even talk of this being the biggest wheat shortage in history.

As the price of wheat rises so it becomes profitable to plant more land with it, either by switching from something else or by bringing previously unused land back into cultivation. This latter is what has happened in Europe. Meeting in Brussels on 26 September EU agriculture ministers agreed to fix a zero "set-aside" rate for the autumn 2007 and spring 2008 sowings. The press release went on: "The change comes in response to the increasingly tight situation on the cereals market. It should increase next year's cereals harvest by at least 10 million tonnes".

Set-aside is the scheme under which EU farmers are paid not to grow food. In the past they were encouraged just to let the land lie fallow but, more recently with the rise of an environmentalist conscience, the scheme has been justified in terms of creating nature reserves and restoring "natural" wildernesses. That the whole scheme is in effect being suspended and previously set-aside land brought back into cultivation, in response to rising world wheat prices, exposes the real reason for set-aside: maintaining crop prices by reducing supply – while the world poor starve.

Which confirms what socialists have long said, that the world could produce more food if the aim of production was the satisfaction of human needs. People are starving simply because they lack the means to pay, not because the food cannot be produced – as this new output demonstrates, there is plenty of scope for increasing supply.

Activity in Captivity

February 2008 Socialist Standard

Editorial

Democracy matters

Regular Columns

Pathfinders Emission control we have a problem

Cooking the Books 1 Ever heard of tryvertising?

Cooking the Books 2 The price of bread

Material World Nuclear weapons are still here.

Greasy Pole The mass debaters

50 Years Ago Old familiar faces

Main Articles

Work as it is (and could be) Work is a "four-letter word" today under capitalism, but our view of it might change in a society where it is solely a means of improving the quality of our lives.

Profit laundering what has justice got to do with it?? "Tax Havens Cause Poverty" proclaims the home page of the Tax Justice Network. No, they don't. The profit system does.

Social responsibility and corporations Can corporations be trusted, or even expected, to have any social responsibility?

Thicker than water/Obituary of a capitalist The Stagecoach story: a lesson in the random nature of business success.

Capitalism Chinese-style Chinese capitalism is becoming less and less different from the kind found in the West.

The last time the police went on strike What we said in 1919 about the police unrest and strikes of that time. Ironically today's demonstrations are organised by the Police Federation, the company union set up in 1919 to stop a real union being organised.

Ire of the Irate Itinerant Cartoon Strip

Letters, Reviews & Meetings

Letter To The Editor: Social Improvement?

Book Reviews: 'Multi-nationals on trial' by James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer; 'Selling Olga' by Louisa Waugh; 'Economics transformed' by Robert Albritton;'Bronterre O'Brien and the Chartist Uprisings of 1839' by David Black

Socialist Party Meetings: West London & Manchester:

Voice From The Back

Ten Wasted Years; No Immigration Problem; This Is Communism?; Chinese Booming Death Rate; Prophets And Profits; Progressing Backwards; Poor And Desperate

Pathfinders: Emission Control? We have a problem (2008)

The Pathfinders column of the February 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists have for years railed at capitalist market production for being on a relentless collision course with the environment, and have been more than once guilty of tired clichés like 'profits of doom' and 'merchants of menace'. Nobody expected, twenty or so years ago, that the fat cats in their plexiglass palaces would lift their noses from their account books long enough to notice that, outside the window, the last tree was dying in a desert. Now, mysteriously, we see 150 of the world's largest corporations, including Nestle, Coca Cola, General Electric and Shell, enthusiastically demanding carbon emission cuts of up to 50 percent by 2050 (New Scientist, Dec 8, 07). And in the wake of the recent Bali accord, we have most of the world's countries behind a global effort to cap carbon emissions and prevent disastrous global warming. What is behind this sudden laudable concern for the environment, and how are they going to achieve their aims? Simple, the only way capitalism can think of doing anything. By making loads of money out of it.

Now the way you make money out of anything in capitalism is to deprive everyone of it, and then charge them for access to it. Thus, at Kyoto, was born the idea of depriving everyone equally of the right to emit greenhouse gases, and then charging a flat rate for access to metered pollution rights. It would work, so long as all countries signed up to it. This last proviso is of course what has taken so long to resolve, which is why Kyoto never really worked and Bali, which was strong on emotion but weak on hard targets, still might not.

So how do businesses make money out of a carbon tax? By developing 'green' technologies that produce less pollution, allowing countries to save money on buying or sell on their spare credits to the belching giants like China and the USA. Hence all the new debate in the UK about nuclear power. Hence also the probable Second Coming to Europe of GM technology, previously scorned but now about to return with a vengeance. Agriculture is the largest contributor to global warming, not through carbon directly but through nitrogen in fertiliser, which, apart from the considerable problems of nitrate pollution, algal blooms and dead zones in coastal waters, has the unhappy effect of oxidising into nitrous oxide, which is a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon (New Scientist, Jan 5). Genetically modified crops which don't need so much fertiliser, or which can take up more nitrogen and waste less of it, are seen as one way to reduce this huge impact.

And genetic modification of crops won't stop at a few strains of cereal. Rice feeds half the world, and in a more drought-prone world, rice cultivation will be seriously at risk, so drought-resistant strains will have to be developed. And as with salt-resistance, another important factor in coastal areas more prone to flooding, what happens when modifications migrate, as they are known to do, to wild and weedy cousins? Crops could in the future be strangled by superweeds that can withstand flood, drought or weedkillers to threaten the world's food supplies.

But one of the biggest money-making production bonanzas is biofuels. Transport is responsible for roughly one quarter of all global human emissions, but the oil is running out and the much-vaunted hydrogen option requires unfeasibly massive infrastructure changes for storage and filling-station delivery. Besides, biofuels are close to carbon-neutral, absorbing as much in growing as they emit in burning. Better still, with some strains such as switchgrass offering up to 540 percent more energy than is required to grow them, leading to a carbon-saving of 94 percent compared to petrol, the smart money is in inedible crop-growing (BBC Online, Jan 8). Already large swathes of North America are switching to corn-based biofuel production, both to earn carbon credits and as a future hedge against Arab and Chinese-controlled petroleum, while Latin American countries, in particular Brazil, are gearing up to sugarcane-based ethanol harvesting.

So lucrative is this potential market that, not to be outdone, developing countries like Indonesian Sumatra are hurriedly destroying what's left of their last vestiges of rainforest in order to cash in on palm oil production for diesel fuel. And who could blame them when, prior to Bali, there was no agreement under Kyoto to recompense 'green' countries for preserving such unprofitable natural forest. As much of Sumatra's richest forest is bulldozed, the peat that it has lived in for thousands of years is ripped up, and this releases more carbon than will ever be saved by the palm oil grown on it (New Scientist, Dec 1, 07). The Bali accord hurriedly attempted to address deforestation for the first time, but much of the damage has already been done and it remains to be seen whether forest-rich countries stand to gain more by sitting on their green growth or churning it up for the bio-barrels.

Nor are these the only problems. Subsistence farmers pushed off land to make way for biofuel production, and given no help or financial aid by regional governments, have no choice but to invade natural forest and clear it by slash and burn in order to live. And food supplies are threatened on a larger scale too, as biofuels, though efficient in some ways, are the most land-hungry method of producing energy, many times more than fossil, wind, nuclear, hydro or solar. There is only so much arable land, and the population is rising. What happens to human food supplies as the world's engines groan ever more hungrily to be fed? According to recent research, the total availability of suitable undeveloped land for biofuels is between 250 and 300 million hectares, but even using the most efficient crops it will take 290 million hectares to produce 10 percent of the world's projected energy requirement in 2030. But by then, the world will also need 200 million of these same hectares to feed the extra 2 to 3 billion people who will then be alive (New Scientist, Dec 15, 07). And this is to say nothing of all the extra nitrous oxide being emitted by fertilised biocrops, if suitable GM alternatives are not developed or are not accepted for use. On top of all that, there is the problem of water supply. Switching 50 percent of transport and electricity requirement to biofuels by 2050 will require up to 12,000 cubic kilometres of extra water per year, close to the total annual flow down the world's rivers (New Scientist, Dec 15, 07). All this and in a drier world too where water wars are already widely predicted.

The truth is, nobody really knows if the pros of biofuel production really outweigh the cons. Like all capitalist economics, it is largely guesswork. All capitalism really knows for sure is that, in the words of the aforementioned large corporations, "the shift to a low-carbon economy will create significant business opportunities", or in plainer language, there's gold in them thar green hills. Besides, the subtleties of comparative studies may be lost on governments keen to assuage a growing public demand that they 'do something' about the environment. Australia, already suffering the longest drought in its recorded history, has recently turfed out its long established climate-sceptic government in favour of one which, within weeks, signed up to Kyoto. As Bob Dylan would say, "it don't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows".

Paddy Shannon

What about the Meantime? (1955)

From the World Socialist Party of the United States website.

Originally published in the March-April 1955 issue of the Western Socialist.
To the Editors:

I read your magazine regularly and find it interesting, informative and also puzzling. What puzzles me is that you advocate socialism and at the same time oppose social reforms. I always thought that socialists saw nothing inconsistent in working for the establishment of socialism while at the same time participating in the fight for immediate demands.
I believe democratic socialism can be achieved when and if a majority of the people become convinced that it is a desirable alternative to the present order. But I rather doubt that I shall see socialism in my time. In fact I doubt if the generations, old and young, living today will see socialism in their time.

Meanwhile people must live in the world as it is here and now. By nature most people desire to improve their lives and the lives of their children; they want to live in decent homes equipped with modern conveniences; to wear fairly good clothes, to eat wholesome food and to offer their kids better advantages. This is why working people turn to politics. That's why I vote for Democratic Party candidates endorsed by labor. I work in an automobile factory in Michigan. I also belong to a union and my union fights for better wages, hours and working conditions for me and my fellow workers.

Because I worked in 'the shop before we had a union. I know that the gains we made through our Union have been considerable and I expect we shall continue to make more gains in the future.

But there are groups in Michigan - mainly corporations and their Republican allies in the state legislature - who want to pass. anti-Union labor laws which would serioUsly weaken the union. Seventeen other states have already Passed "Right to Scab" bills and as a result the workers in those states cannot improve their wages and working conditions nearly as much as they might if those bills had been defeated.

Should workers in Michigan ignore attempts by big business and the Republican politicians to pass a similar bill in this state? Or should the workers support labor-back" candidates in the Democratic Party Pledged to do all in their power to defeat anti-union legislation?

Another example. During the last year there has been much unemployment and part-time employment in Michigan; consequently thousands of workers and their families suffered hardship, especially those work; ers who remained jobless long after their unemployment benefits were exhausted.

Currently auto factories are rehiring work. ers by the thousands in order to step the tempo of production for the next months or until new 1955 models flood their market faster than they can be sold. TIll once again there will be mass layoffs.

If labor had enough friends in the state legislature they would press for unemployment compensation amendments to increase, weekly jobless benefits and to extend duration of payments. Similarly, if labor-supported legislators were in the majority they could push through other important reforms, such as a public works program for more jobs and better schools, hospitals, improved roads, etc.

Yet you say that in the area of politics workers should strive only for socialism and should spurn reform measures designed to! make their lives and the lives of their children a little better while they still live. Somehow this reminds me of those religious groups who admonish us to spurn the day-to-day life of this world and think only of a future in heaven.

Or do I misinterpret your position on political action? If so, please clarify.

INTERESTED READER

AN AUTO WORKER REPLIES

[Editorial note: The task of answering this letter has been turned over to a worker in a Detroit automobile plant. inasmuch as, being "on the spot" he is in a position to deal familiarly and directly with the issues raised by "Interested Reader."]

Dear Fellow Worker:

During the many years I have spent in the auto plants of Detroit, I have come into contact with literally thousands of workers organized in the United Automobile Workers (CIO) who believe, in part, as you do: that to improve their lot in life they must work not only through 'the unions on the job, but also through Labor-endorsed candidates for political offices who presumably will pass legislation in favor of the workers.

The encouraging, refreshing - and challenging - part of your letter is that it goes much further than this limited union thinking. The question you raise is whether or not this fighting for immediate demands or social reform legislation conflicts with the movement to establish socialism.

The 99%, and more, of the auto workers who favor union-sponsored and union-controlled political action have not reached the stage where socialism enters into their thinking at all. They believe they can find a solution to their problems of living costs, unemployment, old age security and the like within the framework of the capitalist system.

To be sure, they gripe and bitch over high prices, short work weeks, inadequate income, long layoffs, and so forth, but when someone at a union meeting dares to take the floor and suggest that perhaps socialism is the answer to their problems, they greet him with cries of "throw him out," "sit down," or "send him back to Russia."

The auto workers, like the rest of their fellow workers, want capitalism today, and capitalism tomorrow. You, Interested Reader, believe in working to get the good things of life under capitalism today, and postponing socialism to the indefinite future.


CONVINCING THE MAJORITY
You admit that "democratic socialism can be achieved when and if a majority of the people become convinced that it is a desirable alternative to the present order." Thus, we are in agreement on the ultimate goal: socialism, and since you do not question our definition of socialism- common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution- we assume that you are in agreement with this also. What separates us is this one point: What do socialists do in the meantime, until the majority become convinced of their case? In a word: will the socialists win over the majority of people to their case by fighting to improve their lives under capitalism - as you advocate - or by spending all their energies in educating the workers to the necessity of eliminating capitalism and establishing socialism?
Just as you cannot see why there is nothing inconsistent in working for the establishment of a socialist society at the same time participating in the fight for immediate demands, we from our viewpoint can see nothing consistent in advocating a complete overthrow of the capitalistic conditions of life, at the same time offering programs to make , these conditions more tolerable to the workers, or in brief, to fight for reforms.

All through your letter you state that "workers" should fight for more unemployment compensation, against "right to work" legislation, for better roads, and other reforms. You do indeed misinterpret our position on political action, if you believe we, as socialists, are opposed to workers going after 'these reforms. We do not set ourselves up as opposing the attempts of the workers to improve their status under capitalism. We know the limitations of these attempts, and the limitations of the unions. Our fellow workers have yet to learn them.

But it is one thing to say that socialists should not oppose the non-socialists fighting for reforms, and quite another to state that socialists should place themselves in a position of trying to make capitalism work in the interests of the workers, when all along they know it cannot. There are so - called "socialist" organizations which seek to gain leadership over the workers by aiding them to improve their position under the present order, at the same time they know this is a futile struggle. We hope you have not confused us with these "socialists," when you admit being bewildered at our policy of advocating socialism, and not fighting for reforms.


TWO-DIRECTIONAL APPROACH

Not only is it inconsistent, in our opinion, for socialists to seek to solve problems for the workers under a system which they say cannot solve these problems, but in a practical sense, such a two-directional approach would never bring about socialism. And the latter, we recall, is our goal, as well as yours.
Suppose the World Socialist Party were to embark on a high-powered Campaign to obtain better housing, hospitals, roads, and so forth. Perhaps we would get a lot of people to Join our organization. On what basis would they Join? The same basis on which we appealed to them. We would in the end have an organization consisting of workers who were seeking continUal improvement under capitalist methods of production and distribution, under a price, profit, and wage economy. What happens when such an organization is voted into political power as a majority? It merely uses the power of the state to carry on capitalism under different forms state- ownership or 'nationalization. It cannot use the control of the state to abolish capitalism, because its own members who Joined on a reform basis, would be in opposition to it. The Party would have to carry out reform of capitalism, or lose its members to another organization which advocated remedial measures.

Is this a theoretical approach? Not at all. If space permitted, we could cite example after example where a party calling itself "socialist," but advocating immediate demands now and "socialism in the future" came into political power, and instead of abolishing exploitation, merely altered the form of it. For five years, the British Labor Party was in power in England, but it made no attempt to establish socialism. History proved once more that the means sought social reforms - were identical with the ends sought - a state capitalist society. For another important illustration, we recommend Integer's introduction to Rosa Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution, in which he proves that the social reforms advocated by the German Social Democratic Party before Hitler were inseparable from their ultimate goal - more reforms under state control.


METHODS OF THE SOCIALISTS

Now let us turn to the method advocated by the socialists. They appeal for members on the one plank of obtaining state power for the purpose of abolishing capitalism. Whereas, if elected to office, we would not oppose social reforms, at the same time we would not advocate them. By the same token, by putting forth a program of immediate demands, we would not be educating any workers to the necessity for socialism. We would instead be educating on the need to get all they can under the capitalist system. This latter type of education has never produced socialists from among the workers, altho it has contributed more than its share of members to the trade union officialdom. If you but take a glance around you in our union, the UAW-CIO, you would see many union officials who started out in the unions with your idea of "reforms today, socialism tomorrow." They originally viewed reforms as a means to an end, but reforms became ends in themselves.
The socialists, where they are employed in shops which are organized, do not spurn the day to day struggle, as you put it. By the very nature of the fact that they are workers they participate in the fight for better Wages and working conditions. But with two qualifications, which qualifications arise from the fact that they are socialists first, and members of unions second. First, socialists understand that this economic struggle against the capitalists is merely a defensive struggle, to keep capital from beating the working class living standards down. For this reason they couple their struggle on the economic front with political education of the workers in the shops. They point out the limitations of wage increases.

Socialists point out the limitations of the latest union demand, the guaranteed annual wage, in that it would prove an annual wage, at best, for those who have enough seniority to remain on the job, and that it will merely stimulate employers to introduce new methods so that they will have fewer workers for which they will have to guarantee.


NO LEGISLATIVE REFORM

Second, socialists in unions do not advocate political legislation to reform capitalism. To do so would put the socialists in a position, not only of advocating reforms - which is opposed to socialist thinking - but also of educating, or rather miseducating, the workers to believe that the capitalist state can function in their interests, when it is in the final analysis the agency by which the capitalist class maintains its domination over the working class.
So the socialist is involved in the economic struggle by the fact that he is a member of the working class which naturally resists capital. But this is not the same thing as stating that the socialist party engages in activity for higher wages and better conditions. This is not the function of the socialist party. Its task is to fight for socialism, and the method it employs is education of the majority. The socialist party is not concerned with reforms under capitalism.

This is the concern of the ruling class which uses reforms to bribe off the working class, and the concern of those groups, such as the unions and their political arms, which seek to get all they can out of the present system. Were the socialist movement to vanish from the earth, the capitalist, by the very class nature of the system, would still grant reforms to forestall the development of revolutionary thought among the workers. On the other hand, a rapidly rising socialist movement would force the capitalist class to grant more and more reforms.

It is not true that the socialists "spurn the day to day life of this world and think only of the future in heaven." Rather it is those who postpone socialism to the unlimited generations ahead who are spurning day to day life. By this we mean that socialism today is a practical proposition. As you know yourself from working in the automobile plants and living in the industrial area of Detroit, modern technology has reached the point where people can receive what they need for themselves and their children - today, and on this earth. It is the profit system which prevents workers from obtaining decent homes, clothes, education - all the things you say the union is fighting for, but which we say they cannot obtain because it is limited by its support of the profit system.

Those who call themselves realists, and call the socialists dreamers and utopians, are in truth unrealistic themselves in believing they can gain the good things of life under capitalism. By the way, if the latter be true, then why fight for socialism at all?


A CONTRADICTION

As a final point, we would like to suggest a contradiction in your approach. You believe in socialism, but because it is so far in the future, you think it best to spend your energies in the reform movement. Multiply yourself by thousands upon thousands who have thought, and do think; in the same way. Had all these people spent one tenth of the time for socialism that they spent in fighting for reforms, the socialist movement today would indeed be a large one, and as you yourself implied, the bigger the socialist organization gets, the closer we are to socialism.
Only if people see the need for socialism, and work actively for it, will we ever obtain socialism. On the other hand, if everyone who reaches a socialist understanding comes to the conclusion that socialism will never come about in his lifetime, this is this the best guarantee that we will never see socialism. Indeed, workers who admit they believe in socialism and then fight for reforms under the excuse the workers are not ready for socialism, are in an unexplainable contradiction. They really mean to say that they themselves are not ready for socialism.


AT LEAST ON THE ROAD
In not fighting for reforms but in expending all our energy in educating workers to socialism, we know we are at least on the road to socialism.
This is our case for not advocating reforms at the same time we advocate socialism. We ask that you consider it.

DETROIT AUTO WORKER

Hyde Park and human nature (2003)

From the March 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Bliss was in that dawn to be alive” was how Wordsworth described, in his Prelude, the death of the Ancien Régime in 18th century revolutionary France. He was expressing a popular held belief that his was the dawn of a new age and the birth of an era that would see the overthrow of tyranny and oppression throughout Europe. Many of the million-plus demonstrators on the 15 February anti-war demo in London clearly were feeling similar sentiments after their many hours long march to Hyde Park on a bitterly cold and damp day. People power, it was widely hoped, would deprive Tony Blair of the war he craved.

To the right of us SPGBers at the entrance to Hyde Park (we had leafleted the demo since the multitudes had been gathering at Embankment six hours earlier) an SWPer, megaphone to lips, optimistically announced to the thousands upon thousands pouring through the main gates that two million had turned up to march to Hyde Park and that 140,000 had marched on Glasgow and, more, that three million thronged the streets of Rome. Each proclamation was greeted with a roar from the crowd, perhaps on a par with the cheers that greeted the holding aloft of the severed heads of Louis XVI and co. And again his claim that “we” could bring down the Blair government brought another roar and a tidal wave of dancing banners and placards.

Tired, cold, their bladders bursting, their banners held high and often proclaiming their allegiance to the thousands of groups who had turned up, most were already aware that they were taken part in the biggest demonstration in British political history and that something – maybe not yet defined – was happening.

The once unheard of Stop the War Coalition had had its ranks swelled with 400 affiliated organisations ranging from CND and the Socialist Alliance to Artists Against the War and the Colombia Solidarity Campaign. Palestinian flags waved beside a colourful and intricate banner proclaiming the presence of the Sex Workers Union and Class War flags could be found amidst a thousand home made placards. The young, elderly and infirm, people from all walks of life were on the march determined to show the masters of war that any coming conflict would not be fought in their name. The political parties and organisations aside, this was a demonstration at which the common people were expressing their anger.

It was difficult not to feel proud to witness this demo, to gain comfort from the fact that people were actually asking us for leaflets, hoping they could learn more about the madness at which they were protesting and to ponder whether or not the masses were at last waking up from their state-induced sleep; for few we encountered could not locate the Iraqi crisis in a simple political and economic context – namely, that Bush and Blair were intent on invading Iraq with no other desire than to secure the world's second largest oil reserves. Even the neo-nazis of the BNP, arch enemies of ''the left'' and the scourge of a thousand Moslem communities, and previously forewarned that they were not welcome, had a presence and were claiming this would be a war for oil – well, there's opportunists on every demo!

As we left Hyde Park at 5.30pm, our stock of 15,000 leaflets depleted and darkness rapidly falling, we passed thousands still marching, including a huge Welsh contingent. Clearly fatigued, they walked at a pace those who had preceded them hours earlier would have envied, intent on reaching their destination even if the day's speakers had departed, their platitudes to be read in the Sunday broadsheets. They had come this far and were not going to be deterred by the fact that the demo was at an end.

It would be easy to dismiss this demonstration as a mass gathering of well-meaning reformists, some of whom would happily give Blair their backing for the carpet bombing of Iraq once the contentious “second UN Resolution” was secured. Similarly, it would be simple to point to the immense single-issue focus of many of the demonstrators and to observe that they were unaware that to end war we must first end capitalism. However, at a time when British elections are attracting their lowest turnouts since records began and the mass media regularly speak of the apathy of “Joe Public”, this was Joe Public marching and with no requirement for anyone to define their politics other than to vote with their feet against yet another war in which blood and oil will again be weighed on the scales of profit.

Undoubtedly a march attended by one million-plus in London does not constitute a mass movement bent on charge any more than the massive demonstration in Genoa in July of 2001 signalled the death knell for capitalism And whilst this was clearly no rallying call to socialism, we can at least draw comfort from the fact that the workers cannot now be dismissed as totally apathetic and that people, as we have always maintained, can unite in common cause; that humans are at their best and will work together, when faced with the worst.

Whilst out on the streets promoting the case for socialism, we often encounter jibes from experts on human nature to the effect that “humans are selfish and aggressive and not capable of co-operating in their own interests'. In London on 15 February, one million workers walked together peacefully, and as one, and in opposition to, aggression. Around the world, from New York to Brussels and from Kiev to Sydney, demonstrators took to the streets in their tens and hundreds of thousands in 600 cities to protest their disapproval of the proposed killing of thousands.

What was that about Human Nature?

John Bissett

Cooking the Books: Ever heard of tryvertising? (2008)

The Cooking the Books column from the February 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Your Money's No Good Here" read the headline of an article by David McNeill in the Irish Times "Innovation" supplement (10 December). "Tokyo has a shop with no price tags, no cash registers or no paying customers – what's it all about?" No, they haven't introduced socialism in Japan. So what is it all about?

One of the more abstruse objections to socialism is that it would have no means of knowing what new products to make available and so people would have a narrower choice than under capitalism. The critics concede that, with free access to what they needed, people might well take from the common stores and distribution centres only what they needed till their next visit -- just as today, when some things are free, they end up taking only as much water or free travel or free phone calls as they need. But, the objection goes, how would you find out what new products to make available?

Socialists have replied that this would not be a problem in that the same sort of techniques for finding out what new products people might like that are used under capitalism could, with suitable modification, be used in socialism. Of course it could not be called "market research" since there'd be no markets, so it would have to be called something like "new wants research". But the techniques would be the same even though the aim would be to find out what new products people would take under conditions of free access instead of what they might be prepared to pay for.

Market research has traditionally involved questionnaires and many people have earned some extra money by stopping people in the street or phoning them to ask what they think of some product. The clue to what's it all about is in the name of the Tokyo free shop: Sample Lab. It's a shop where firms provide samples of their products for people to take and try without having to pay for them. According to David McNeill, this is known as "tryvertising".

It's not really like things would normally be in socialism, even though there are no price tags and no cash registers. Those who use the free sample shop have to pay a modest registration and annual membership fee and are expected to answer questions about the products they take away and try, and they can only take five products at a time. The advantage for the capitalist firms who supply the free samples is that they get some feedback on what people think of their new product and how well they are likely to sell if marketed, a feedback that is said to be more accurate than from questioning people in the streets or by phone.

But this technique, at present prostituted in the service of profit, could easily be adopted in socialism. There could still be sample shops where a representative cross-section of people could come and take new products to try in return for answering questions about what they thought of them. It might even still be called "tryvertising".

Recession? What Recession?

Cut and pasted from the Socialist Courier blog

Conspicous Consumption

"If you're partial to all things bling, then a platinum and jewel-encrusted desktop PC could be just what you're looking for. Jupiter from Japanese manufacturer Zeus, features a solid platinum case studded with diamonds which, the company claims, replicate astrological constellations. The PC runs on an Intel 3GHz E6850 Core 2 Duo CPU and features 2GB of DDR 2 memory and a 1TB hard drive. The only downside is its price tag - a cool $746,000. Zeus has also launched a cheaper, gold alternative. It still has diamonds in its case and the same tech spec, but will only set you back a mere $557,284. Both PCs are available now in Japan." (PC World, 31 January)

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (33)

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 33rd of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1169 friends!

Recent blogs:

The death of ideas?

Assumption and Ignorance Versus Reason and Reality

Upload, download, freeload!

This week's top quote:

"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind then that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; and while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." Eugene V. Debs, Statement to the Court Upon Being Convicted of Violating the Sedition Act (1918).

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

‘Rogue Traders’ or Business As Usual?

From the World Socialist Party of the United States website:

The case of the ‘Rogue’ French Bank trader, Jerome Kerviel, underscores many observations about capitalism made by socialists.

Most importantly, it shows how “social” capitalism has become. The more capitalism grows, the more connected we are to the actions of everyone else. If the accusations are true, one minor 31 year old French bank trader can cause the potential impoverishment of many. We are all tied together, and capitalist rugged individualism is an illusion. the scary fact is that while capitalism has bound us to each other, it is anti-social in it’s structure.

This case also shows how capitalism’s operates as a big crap game. The trader purportedly lost 4.9 Billion Euros in unauthorized gambles on future stock and bond prices. Evidently he lost badly. But again, as stated above., capitalism is social even if it is structured anti-socially. So while this ‘rogue’ trader does his job by placing society’s wealth on the gambling table. Since it’s anti-social certain folks - workers - loose every time, win or lose. As the hobo folksinger Utah Phillips said in his lament on the gentrification of Denver’s skid road:

My bookie joint closed when your cops pulled a raid,
But you built a new hall for the stock market trade.

Finally, we’ll observe the role of “justice” in capitalism. Scapegoat or no, the young French trader who lost Billions in wealth will likely face 3 to 5 years in prison. This sentence is similar to those in the US. But compare it to the black man in California who received a life sentence for stealing a slice of pizza. Or the case of the Native American elder who served 18 months of a 5 year prison term for selling 300 salmon. He was sentenced the same month as American ‘junk bond’ trader Michael Milliken who served 22 months on a 10 year term for 1 Billion Dollars in fraud.

Utah Phillips again sums up the issue:

Now I’m finding out there’s just one kind of war -
It’s the one going on ‘tween the rich and the poor;
I don’t know a lot about what you’d call class,
But the upper and middle can all kiss my ass.

FN Brill

I'm Getting Tired Of This

From the Marx and Coca-Cola blog:

Another one of those kinds of stories. From The Old Grey Lady:

"A North Dakota manufacturer has agreed to pay $2 million to settle a suit saying it had repeatedly shortchanged the armor in up to 2.2 million helmets for the military, including those for the first troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan."

And I bet they will never see another government contract.

"Twelve days before the settlement with the Justice Department was announced, the company, Sioux Manufacturing of Fort Totten, was given a new contract of up to $74 million to make more armor for helmets to replace the old ones, which were made from the late 1980s to last year."

Of course. Rip off the taxpayers. Endanger people's lives. Walk away with a net of 72 million. Sounds about right. But no one should worry:

"Sioux upgraded its looms in 2006, company executives say, and the government says it has started inspections at the plant.

Of course, it was the looms' fault. Fucking looms. And the government does such a good job inspecting industries that I'm sure this will never happen again. No one knows how many troops were killed or injured (lots of troops have come back with traumatic brain injuries) because of this, and I bet 74 million dollars the Pentagon won't do an investigation to find out.

The right-wingers always like to talk about how the government should be run like a business. The free-market is the best way to deliver goods and services. Capitalism regulates itself. Blah blah blah. The truth is that when making money is more important than the actual product, corners will be cut, and quality will suffer. And sometimes people's safety will be sacrificed (actually like a lot of the time).

On a side note, Sioux Manufacturing is owned by the Spirit Lake Nation, a Native American tribe. Native Americans serve in the armed forces at disproportionate high rates. Greed doesn't have any loyalties.

JM

Capitalism Chinese-Style (2008)

From the February 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 17th Congress of the Chinese 'Communist' Party was held back in October. It was five years since the previous one, so this is clearly not a decision-making body that determines how the party — and therefore the country — should be run. Rather it's a rubber-stamp gathering that endorses what the CCP's power-holders have already decided. The Central Committee is 'elected', but even that meets less than once a year, and it is the political bureau and its standing committee (nine men in dark suits) who really run things.

The CCP has changed over the years. It now has over 70 million members, and another 20 million applicants for membership. The growth of private capitalism in China has led many of the wealthiest people in the country to join the party. In the Hongdou textile group, which has assets of over a billion yuan (around £60 million), all the high-level managers are party members. Another capitalist, Liang Wengen, who has a fortune of three billion yuan (£190 million), was a delegate to the congress. If private entrepreneurs can join the party, he said, it "helps to enhance the brand recognition of our company." Western companies may promote their brands by sponsoring football teams, while in China they do so by joining the 'Communist' Party!

A new party constitution was adopted at the congress. This talks about building 'socialism with Chinese characteristics', which includes a supposed socialist market economy, i.e. "optimizing resource allocation while giving play to market forces". As the balance shifts towards private rather than state capitalism and state-owned enterprises are increasingly listed on the stock market, all pretence at any connection to Marxism has long since been dropped.

Instead, the rich are getting much much richer. According to some reports there are over a hundred billionaires in China, while the average income is less than $1000 a year. No wonder many Chinese workers, especially in the south, are prey to the 'snakeheads' who promise good jobs and decent wages in return for a huge fee for smuggling people out of China and across to Europe. The jobs and pay are never quite what is promised, of course, but the prospect is better for many than the grinding poverty of life in China. Within China there are 120 million migrant workers who have moved to the cities to find work and yet fail to escape poverty and exploitation.

In December, the China Labour Bulletin published a report on the workers' movement in China 2005-6 (see the following link). It begins as follows:

"After working repeated overtime shifts for an entire month, Hu Xinyu, a 25-year-old employee at the Huawei factory in Shenzhen, collapsed and died from multiple organ failure on May 28, 2006. Two days later, Gan Hongying, a 35-year-old woman employed in a clothing factory in the Haizhu district of Guangzhou, died after working a total of 54 hours and 25 minutes (22 hours overtime) in the previous four days. A few weeks later, a senior union official publicly admitted that China's official trade union was virtually powerless to prevent forced overtime in factories across the country."

So workers endure forced overtime in dangerous conditions while the bosses count their ill-gotten gains and flaunt their membership of the 'Communist' Party. It's still capitalism, and becoming less and less different in any way from the kind found in the West.

Paul Bennett

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (32)

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 32nd of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1170 friends!

Recent blogs:

Our enemies' friends

Emission Control? We have a Problem

Changing the system

This week's top quote:

"When a firm makes a profit this means that productive factors have been properly employed and corresponding human needs have been duly satisfied." Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 1991.

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Social responsibility and Corporations (2008)

From the February 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Can corporations be trusted, or even expected, to have any social responsibility?

Millions, billions even, are spent by corporations in PR attempts to green up their images. Not spent to improve conditions for their workers, not spent to find alternative, better methods of production less harmful to the environment, not spent to seriously reduce consumption of the world's shrinking non-renewable resources, not spent to significantly reduce pollution of the planet's earth, air and water; simply spent to present an illusion of green, caring, altruistic, socially responsible business. One may even be lulled into believing that profit is the least of their worries.

Yeah, but – that far too frequent punctuation in what was meant to be a meaningful conversation – there are laws and regulations that outlaw trade in illegal timber and diamonds and there are agreements like Kyoto to reduce pollution and big name companies are now taking responsibility for the level of pay and conditions of their workers in the sweatshops in Indonesia and Bangladesh etc.

Right, of course. There are laws and agreements and treaties but for every one there are loopholes. Agreements are signed and then reneged on regularly. The buck gets passed from pillar to post with elites denying knowledge until forced by public pressure to 'take steps' to repair damage done to their image. Business just doesn't work with the best interest of the majority in mind. We have to look at the raison d'être of the business world which is not to make or supply goods specifically at the behest of the citizenry, not to provide the services demanded by them. Business makes the goods and provides the services and manufactures the need. It is simply and straightforwardly to make a profit. One very simple example is the call-centre. Who do you know who would choose to sit waiting on the end of a phone with mind-numbing music and recorded apologies just to get the answer to a simple question and you know you're waiting while the company is either making money by selling you something or saving money by not employing enough bodies to answer the phones. Where's the responsibility to the consumer there?

Yeah, but we need these products and services anyway, don't we?

Maybe we do need some of them but many products are produced for a created market; stuff to sell to those who have enough money to be in any particular market place. Obsolescence is built in – to cars, washing machines and other electrical gear; fans' football strip needs replacing/updating once or twice a year; fashion is a must in everything, spurred on by advertising and the media, itself a smaller and smaller group of expanding mega-businesses concentrating profit and control into fewer and fewer hands; clothes, furniture, house decoration, garden decoration, accessories of all kinds, creating an unending lust for more, more, more. The other side of this is that millions of people don't have access to most of this stuff because they don't have the resources or the access to earn the resources with which to pay for them. Even sufficient food, clean drinking water and adequate shelter is beyond the reach of many. This surely demonstrates that the over-riding motivation is profit, not responsibility. There is a green-washing, white-washing, brain-washing going on constantly by corporations and their PR departments trying to keep up with or preferably to stay one step ahead of the watchdogs and activists ready to reveal their next miscalculated step.

Yeah, but the activists and watchdogs do get some changes made . . .

Yes, they do. However, what gains are made are more than made up for by losses in other areas. Ask the activists. Ask them and ask yourself why there are more activists working in more areas than there ever were before. Slavery was abolished generations ago but it hasn't stopped slavery and trafficking. Forcing one clothing company to stop employing children or to pay a minimum wage or to allow their workers some time off the premises or even to accept that these are areas of their responsibility, not just of their sub-contractors' doesn't address the fundamental issue of general social responsibility. 'Social responsibility' and 'environmental responsibility' have become convenient screens to hide behind, theatrical masks behind which amoral, unethical pirates can continue their quest for a larger share of the world's pie untouched by the cognisance of starving millions who can't get close enough to even smell the pie. The fact is, whatever sop a corporation may deign to give, whatever concessions any number of corporations may yield, globally there are more people without work, without prospect of work, who are homeless, who are destitute – and closer to home there are more who work longer hours for less pay, who have reduced pension rights and less bargaining power.

Yeah, but back to public pressure . . .

Public pressure is important but to know, to be aware of what form that pressure should take is more important. Public awareness must come first for any kind of pressure to be effective. First we have to recognise that the corporations are just following their designated route in pursuing maximum profits so it's pointless complaining about them doing their utmost to fulfil their mission. If we focus on this only as a single issue then we are allowing ourselves to be sidetracked. If we truly wish to give people and the environment a fair deal we have to see this issue as one part of a much bigger whole. In this particular issue the only way to positively affect the whole production line from raw material to consumer is to remove the profit involved. By removing money from any transaction along the chain the gains will be for the environment and people's welfare. Similarly with regard to other issues (water – health / big dams / privatisation; wars – weapons and proliferation / numberless casualties; oil the far too frequent punctuation in what was meant to be a meaningful conversation conflict / environmental problems / imbalance in use of resources; farming – cash crop problems / big pharma – seed rights ownership / landless peasants; trafficking – drugs / sex / workers / babies; and on and on---) awareness of the negative effects of the money/profit system reveal that, as it's the capitalist system itself that requires this profit motive at its base to function, it goes without saying, it's the capitalist system as a whole which has to be replaced. And imagine how much more quickly that change could be brought about with the combined effort and energy of all those dedicated people around the world seeking justice and fairness for all through their single issue campaigns; how much stronger and more powerful the whole when all the separate parts work together for the ultimate single issue, socialism.

Janet Surman