Iraq – the continuing war (2000)

From the August 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Competitive imperialist strategies to gain control of and/or access to oil continue to cause the murder of the workers in Iraq.

Even by the barbaric standards of contemporary capitalism, the situation in Iraq is dire. A deadly combination of routine daily bombings since December 1998 and economic sanctions imposed after the invasion of Kuwait has led to the “destruction of a society” in the words of former UN official Denis Halliday.

However, how many people realise that “their country” is still effectively at war? Moreover, how many are aware that half-a-million Iraqi children have been killed as a direct result of the sanctions? The answer to both these questions is, of course, not many but this should come as no surprise.

It would appear that the media has imposed a blanket over the sufferings in Iraq, which is only removed periodically to lambast Saddam Hussein and to justify a US/UK-led policy which is terrorising tens of thousands of ordinary Iraqi people, yet paradoxically making Saddam’s brutal Ba’thist regime even stronger

A brief history

It will be remembered that the Gulf War of 1991 was initiated by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. When Iraq refused to withdraw, the UN imposed economic sanctions and in January 1991 after the apparent failure of diplomacy, the UN-led coalition went to war which resulted in victory a few weeks later.

With the end of the conflict, uprisings took place in Kurdish northern Iraq and the Shia and Marsh Arabs in the south. These risings which were anti-Saddam were initially supported and encouraged by the West only to be betrayed and for Saddam to be allowed to crush the rebellions in blood. However, it created the veneer of legitimacy required by the UN to pose as protectors of the anti-Saddam minorities and create the infamous “no-fly zones” over northern and southern Iraq.

Of course, this only ever meant that Iraqi planes could not have access to this airspace. The UN would be allowed to patrol in these areas with the mandate to shoot down any undesirable flying objects so long as these were not Turkish fighters which routinely bomb northern Iraq as part of their continuing war against the Kurds.

Such is the cynical hypocrisy of the UN position (predominately actioned by the US and UK today) that the “no-fly zones” have formed the basis to the US/UK’s aerial bombardment of Iraq and so are of major strategic significance. It scarcely needs to be mentioned that oil is the reason for all this attention on Iraq. Iraq has the world’s second largest known oil reserves and this fact should underline any understanding of the competitive imperialist strategies to gain control and/or access to that oil.

Iran-Iraq war

Saddam Hussein was not always out of favour. In 1980 he was positively encouraged to invade Iran as the US wanted to nip the “Khomeini revolution” in the bud in order to prevent Iran becoming the regional superpower. However, they did not want Iraq to dominate either, so in the words of Henry Kissinger “The ultimate American interest in the war is that both sides should lose”—a policy of duel containment. The US got their wish. After eight years of brutality—with millions of casualties on both sides—a draw was declared and the balance of power maintained.

For Saddam’s part the Iraqi economy was severely weakened, accruing debts from various powers not least of all the Kuwaiti ruling family.

The rest is history. A combination of a disputed oil field and a row in OPEC about oil prices (Iraq wanted higher oil prices)—normally at least led to Iraq’s decision to invade Kuwait, thus setting the scene for the next decade.

Each against all

The end of the Cold War saw the demise of the bipolar East and Western blocs with the defeat of the Soviet Union and the victory of the US as the undisputed world superpower. The allied action taken over Iraq—under the auspices of the UN—was the first major event of the so-called “New World Order”. Since then the coalition of allies has effectively broken down with states such as Germany, France and Russia pursuing their own imperialist strategies often in direct contradiction to those of the US. The raison d’être of this period is ever-shifting alliances and blocs which was not possible under bipolarity.

Operation Desert Fox

In December 1998 after nearly a year of brinkmanship over the role of UNSCOM (the UN inspectors looking for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction), Iraq was bombed by US and UK forces without reference to the UN Security Council. It was alleged that the Iraqis were preventing the inspectors doing their job so they were withdrawn to make way for the bombing.

“UNSCOM director Richard Butler removed inspectors from Iraq prior to the December 1998 bombardment of the country, contrary to what is commonly reported. According to Butler’s own records, his team of weapons inspectors made numerous unimpeded visits before the December bombing” (Iraq Under Siege, edited by Anthony Arnove, p.69).

Evidently, the US/UK were not concerned about “weapons of mass destruction” when Iraq used chemical attacks during the latter stages of the war with Iran or the Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988. In any case what about other countries’ “weapons of mass destruction” such as the US and UK for example?

Oil-for-food

One way the UN has supposedly attempted to ameliorate the effects of sanctions on the civilian population has been via the oil-for-food programme. Under this programme Iraq is allowed to export a certain quota of oil so enabling it to obtain food and basic medical supplies. Things, however, are not as they seem. Thirty percent of Iraq’s revenue goes into the UN Compensation Fund and until very recently with oil prices on the floor Iraq’s export earnings would have been minimal.

There are many advantages for the UN to pursue this policy. Firstly, it keeps Iraq’s oil infrastructure in use whilst keeping the vast bulk of the oil off the market and it allows the UN to pose as “humanitarians” whilst blaming Saddam for failing to distribute the booty to the population at large.

Even this accusation has been undermined by the man who actually ran the oil-for-food programme in Baghdad: Denis Halliday. Halliday who resigned in disgust because of the effects of the sanctions has said:

  ” . . . oil-for-food was never intended to actually resolve the humanitarian crisis. It was designed to stop further deterioration. It was designed to build on what the Iraqi government was already doing and is still doing” (Iraq Under Siege, p.36).

Halliday now spends his time campaigning against the sanctions after 34 years with the UN.

In the light of this, how seriously can we take US Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s assertion that despite the carnage sanctions are a “price worth paying”?

Imperialist rivalries

The effect of the sanctions and the bombings has been “to blow Iraq back to the Stone Age” and strengthen Saddam’s brutal dictatorship. Bearing in mind that official US policy is to remove Saddam from power, one may be mistaken for thinking that ending the sanctions would have been the order of the day. The sanctions have continued unabated despite efforts from states such as France and Russia to rehabilitate and reintegrate Iraq into the world economy.

But of course, the US and the likes of France and Russia do not want democracy for Iraq. Indeed, one of the opposition groups funded by the US wants to restore the Iraqi monarchy! Only a brutal dictatorship can hold Iraq together which guarantees the integrity of Iraq’s borders and hence a semblance of stability in a strategically vital part of the world. Paradoxically, an internally strong Iraq must be counterposed by being externally weak so it too is unable to threaten the region’s equilibrium. Saddam and/or the Ba’th Party are currently fulfilling this role so to some extent share a unity of purpose with the US. In the words of Richard Haass—the former director of Middle East affairs for the National Security Council:

“Our policy is to get rid of Saddam, not his regime” (quoted in Iraq under Siege, p.11).

Slaughter of the working class – just another job under capitalism

With France and Russia first in line for contracts when Iraq oil comes back on tap it’s understandable that they are even more pro-Saddam than the US. Even a change of leadership could see them lose out to US-based majors. As Noam Chomsky explained last year:

  “At the moment there is an oil glut. That’s one good reason why it’s beneficial to the US to keep Iraqi oil off the market. The US does not want the price of oil to go too low. It’s always wanted it to stay within a range, not too high because of the harm to US manufacturers, but not too low because that’s harmful to the energy producers, which are mostly US-based and their profits would go down.”

Furthermore:

  “The other problem with Iraqi oil is that the inside track on developing Iraqi oil is held currently by France and Russia, not by the US-based majors. So, for the moment at least keeping Iraqi oil from being developed is a wise project” (Iraq Under Siege, p.53).

Another factor to consider is that the destruction of Iraqi civilian life means a much more compliant working class when Iraq’s oil returns to the open market. As Chomsky explains:

  “So, if the population of Iraq were reduced or marginalized, maybe even reduced to such a level that they are barely functional, then when the time comes to bring Iraqi production back on line, they will be less of an impediment” (quoted in Iraq Under Siege, p.53).

This may prove to be significant in the light of the IMF-style austerity measures that Saddam was attempting to bring in during the late 80s. Previously the policy had been “Guns and Butter”, but the war with Iran put paid to that. The Iraqi working class was showing resistance to cuts in its living standards then, of course, the Gulf War started.

Generally, in the period of “each against all” it can be argued that the US has been attempting to reconstitute its own hegemony over the Middle East at the expense of its main industrial rivals. And the Middle East is not the only region. The 1990s’ Balkans experience has demonstrated that nominal co-operation between the big powers does not necessarily mean that differing imperialist strategies were not actually being pursued.

With reference to Iraq, the differing policies between the likes of France, Russia, US/UK have become increasingly pronounced and as pressure builds to life the sanctions and to stop the bombing, the battle to re-control Iraq and its oil will begin again.

End of sanctions

Under which terms and conditions Iraq will be allowed to rejoin the world economy remains to be seen, but it is reasonable to assume that it will happen eventually. If it is the case that the sanctions regime (by design or not) has helped to keep Saddam in power, how will the lifting affect him and the Ba’thists? It is worth remembering that any differences between the US and its main rivals does not include democracy in Iraq. So the chances are that Saddam (or whoever is in charge) will have to be rehabilitated in the eyes of the West.

Iraq remains one of the most obvious reasons why the world’s working class has to organise to abolish capitalism and replace it with socialism. We in the Socialist Party place on record our complete abhorrence with regard to the plight of our class brothers and sisters in Iraq and have no equivocation in denouncing the murderous gangsters who have blood on their hands—Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair to name but three.

Dave Flynn

The rich are getting richer in Australia (2000)

From the August 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to the West Australian (8 April), Australia’s rich are getting richer faster than ever. There are now 240,000 (dollar) millionaires; double the number just five years ago.

Not surprisingly, the increase in wealth has been quickest among the top one percent of the population. This group of less than 90,000 families have seen their share grow 45 percent in less than five years, and are now worth $40 billion—a little above 16 percent of Australia’s total wealth. In fact, the richest 10 percent of the population control almost half of Australia’s total wealth. Of course the greatest publicity has been reserved for the instant computer multi-millionaires who have seen their wealth skyrocket. However, as elsewhere in the world, some of them may be riding for a fall.

According to Hans Baekgaard, senior economist at Access Economics, the poorest 50 percent have only managed to maintain their share through superannuation, and the rest mainly in the ownership in their house. In other words, they are largely propertyless in the means of living, and have to rely on their wages to make ends meet.

That’s capitalism for you!

Peter E. Newell

Genes for Sale? (2000)

Editorial from the August 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Amid much self-congratulating publicity and heaps of hype, Blair and Clinton jointly announced on 26 June the first draft of the mapping of the human genetic code. Someone claimed the discovery to be greater than that of the wheel. Clinton said, “Today we are learning the language in which God created life.”

The truth is a trifle more prosaic. Biological scientists in the US and Britain, working competitively and later partly co-operatively, have deciphered 90 percent of the three billion “letters” of the human genetic code. They believe that their discovery will revolutionise medicine and the treatment of disease.

But it will be many years before we begin to understand what our genes do or the complex way in which they interact to create a living organism—let alone use that knowledge to develop treatments. And we must beware news stories that talk about a gene for homosexuality or for criminality. The human genome is not a kind of software program which explains everything about us and our behaviour. Personality is a product of the complex interaction of at least 30,000 of our genes and our environment.

Celera Genomics, the leading American company in this field, makes its research available on a subscription-only basis, enabling rich pharmaceutical and bio-technology companies to apply for patents. We don’t agree with the Guardian (27 June) that this “patenting is a necessary protection for the financial and intellectual investment made by inventors and scientists”, nor with the Times that “science will not be advanced by outlawing profits”. The patent system creates legal monopolies over the exploitation of scientific knowledge and works mainly to benefit large companies, not “inventors”. This may be necessary under capitalism where companies won’t invest unless there’s a profit in it for them. But that’s precisely what’s wrong with capitalism.

The development of the genome project in a capitalist environment raises two fears. One is that it will give a boost to eugenics, enabling certain forms of detected “disability” to be eliminated in the womb (this has already happened in some cases of Down’s syndrome, but its possible extension raises important moral issues, which capitalism is particularly ill-equipped to deal with). The other fear is that employers, and especially insurance companies, may discriminate against those born with problematic genes; in fact in order to maintain their profits the insurance companies will have to.

While Celera called for patents and profits, other scientists sounded a different note. Dr Michael Dexter, of the Wellcome Trust, describing the genetic code as “the essence of mankind”, said it “should not be owned by one individual, one company, or one country” (Times, 27 June). “The human genome project is the birthright of mankind and should be available to everyone” (Yahoo News, 26 June). So it is and so it should be. But this is not going to happen this side of socialism.

Discord in the Ranks (2020)

Party News from the August 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s not like socialists to curl up our tootsies and give up at the first sign of trouble, so we’re not likely to let a once-in-a-century global pandemic cramp our style.

Instead, like many others during the current lockdown, we are responding to physical restrictions on meeting by going online. We’re using the audio-only Discord system to save bandwidth, and because most of us are not sufficiently photogenic to want to look at each other every day.

The system works pretty well and we’ve already held a couple of online talks, as well as several branch and Executive Committee meetings. It’s not been entirely plain sailing of course, with some members having to drag headphones or microphones out of attics or cellars only to discover that they last worked efficiently when Sony Walkmans were still a new fad.

Others have had computer problems as Discord doesn’t work with very old operating systems, or with the super-restrictive Windows S. Actually Discord was originally designed for gamers, who tend to a) be digital natives and b) have state-of-the-art gear.

Many socialists, it is fair to say, do not belong to this social demographic, so online conferencing software can be something of an uphill struggle. That’s why, for the next few weeks, there will always be someone on the server, ready to talk or answer user questions, at 12 noon and again at 7.30pm, UK BST, unless there’s an evening talk on.

Still, we’re making progress, with around 50 members online at the time of writing. Companion parties have got involved too, with members from the USA, Canada, Europe, Japan and India.

And of course visitors are very welcome too, and are free to join any online Discord meeting just as they would be free to attend any physical meeting by the Socialist Party or its companion parties. This is a great opportunity to chat to socialists from around the world without leaving your house!

And if anyone is thinking of joining, having a live chat about it with members is much more fun and informative than simply filling in a form on the website.

If you’d like to drop in and chat to us online, or come to one of our talks or other events, just drop us a line to spgb@worldsocialism.org and ask for an invite.

You can hear some of our recent discussions on our Audio files.

Note:’Online audio talks can occasionally be patchy due to heavy internet traffic during the virus lockdown, but please don’t give up listening as the interference is only temporary’.

The Lessons of Charlottesville (2020)

From the August 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are approaching the third anniversary of the Unite the Right rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, on 11 and 12 August 2017. These events are particularly noteworthy today as we are seeing something of a repetition. Several white supremacists, neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, Klansmen, self-proclaimed members of the alt-right, etc gathered, supposedly to protest against the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. What might have been justified under ‘defending American history’ led to a racist and violent demonstration that resulted in the murder of a counter-protester, Heather Heyer. Today, following the Black Lives Matter movement, there is a continuation of the same discussion. In the UK, a statue of Winston Churchill has been defaced with the statement ‘was a racist’ under his name. Debates go on about whether a statue of Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouts and admirer of fascism, should be left up. Of course, many have come out of the woodwork to defend the statues, with more rationalisations than countable. Perhaps less has been learned from Charlottesville than one might hope.

Jason Kessler, an American neo-Nazi, organised the demonstration against the decision to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville’s Lee Park. This became a focal point for various white-supremacist movements, with notable members of the ‘alt-right’ like Richard Spencer joining in. Quickly, more and more far-right support for the organisations started pouring in, turning into a broad-church racist movement. Chants such as ‘Jews will not replace us’ and the Nazi slogan ‘Blood and Soil’ began to sound. The Ku Klux Klan began to participate. The ‘Proud Boys’, a fascist group that organises and promotes political violence, also joined. Under freedom of expression and assembly, an extremist demonstration hundreds-strong was enabled.

Of course, this was met with significant resistance. Anti-racist and anti-fascist counter-protestors also organised, despite the lack of police protection that the right wing enjoyed. Ecclesiastical groups, social-democrats, civil rights activists, anarchists, and more gathered in Charlottesville to both oppose the racists and defend those they felt were threatened. Police action often simply ignored violence against counter-protesters (when it was not contributing to it). Violence then erupted between the protesters and counter-protesters. At its height, a white supremacist, James Alex Fields Jr., drove his car into a group of counter-protesters at about 30 mph before reversing into more. He killed a civil rights activist, Heather Heyer.

There is much in this that is frightening, including the fact that similar events are still happening. Something worth dwelling on is how racist sentiment can divide the working class, pitting its fragments against one another.

This is perpetrated most viciously by people like Richard Spencer, who believe themselves to be above the working class. They try to appeal to the white working class, focusing on the ‘race’ divisions which are very prominent in America. This, in turn, makes those captivated deny their identity as members of a class and buy into their supposed identity as a race. They are then more easily tempted to associate with people like Richard Spencer, or even Donald Trump, who hold the working class in utter contempt. The fact that the mainstream right and the fringe are not disconnected is well supported by Trump’s refusal to condemn the white supremacists, claiming that there were ‘very fine people on both sides’: being goaded by ideas like race simply masks the material reality of the class structure of capitalism, obscuring it behind veils of ethnicity and religion.

The white supremacists use the language of ‘degeneracy’, condemning those deemed unworthy by them to service towards the higher classes (which, of course, includes them). Some appeal to an idea of a golden age taken away from these noble few by the corruption of the masses. Some members of the working class might even believe this, thinking themselves or others to be inferior to the elites. If this attitude became widespread, it would be one of the biggest threats to the possibility of socialism. Socialism depends upon the consciousness of the working class of their own potential to liberate themselves.

Marx, early in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, writes that ‘the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionising themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honoured disguise and borrowed language’.

The statues of past figures, supposed heroes, do weigh like a nightmare on our brains. There are so-called great men. This shouldn’t be the case. There are people who have made impacts on history, to be sure, but supported by innumerable others whose names are lost to us. Hero worship is quite close in character to the rhetoric of the extreme right, who want to convince the masses of certain groups’ superiority. Furthermore, the picture of history presented by statues is significantly distorted, as it is one guided principally by the attitudes of the ruling class. This is rarely an accurate picture of events. Which people are chosen to be commemorated and which are not is often quite telling. This will do nothing but lead the working class to tacitly accept class structure.

There are still lessons to be learned from Charlottesville. Besides the point that ‘it could happen here’, there are more general issues about the class struggle. White supremacy and other forms of obscuring the class war will always focus on dividing the working class and trying to convince them of their own inferiority. Of course, the necessity of class oppression is a lie told again and again to maintain power. To draw from the opening of the Eighteenth Brumaire again, hopefully the tragedy has already passed and we only have to deal with the farce. Unfortunately, the reinvigorated debate about statues suggests otherwise. While we are in the thrall of the past, there is limited progress to be made. The mainstream debate is limited between whether we should have a statue of this person or that person or not, but there is a deeper question to be asked about why we have statues at all. We’d be better off realising that there are no singularly great men. Serious change is brought about through massive popular movements acting together, not through the enlightened leadership of the few.

M. P. Shah

Letter: “Reform of capitalism?” (2020)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Reform of capitalism?”

Dear Editors

I think I agree with almost everything you stand for but. I don’t understand how global, neoliberal ‘capitalism’ can be replaced with global socialism in practice.

The capitalists have all the money, time and resources including the technological fire-power to oppress the people.

I don’t see how socialism can be achieved in one fell swoop – surely it would have to involve a ‘reform of capitalism’ period first?

I’d be grateful if you could address this problem – a group of us are just trying to work out how best to aid the socialist cause and your organisation is being considered.

Dorothy Reich.

Reply:

The current world order of capitalism can and will only be replaced by socialism when the overwhelming majority of people throughout the world understand and appreciate what real socialism is likely to mean in practice.

The entrenched capitalist class do indeed control both all resources and ‘technological fire-power’. That’s the basis of the capitalist system and their rule. But we have the advantage of numbers – we are the overwhelming majority – and we operate production from top to bottom and make-up the bulk of the armed forces. When we get our act together they won’t be able to stop us establishing socialism through democratic political action.

As things stand, the term socialism (or communism as it is sometimes called) has been tarnished by all states who declare themselves either socialist or communist, but who are in fact really capitalist.

Piecemeal reforms cannot pave the way to socialism because reforms are limited to only working within the current framework. Nor do we support the notion of a government which tries to run capitalism in the interests of the majority, even if it intends for this to only be in the short-term before socialism.

Reforms only aim at trying to improve the current system rather than changing it, working for reforms distracts and diverts us from challenging the system itself. By way of an analogy, reforms are like ‘treating’ an injury with painkillers – you feel a bit better for a short time, but this wears off and the cause of the pain still remains.

It is up to people like you and us and the working class of this and all other countries of the world to join together and share the kind of ideas being propagated by ourselves and our companion parties. 

Editors.

50 Years Ago: Human Needs and World Resources (2020)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

No comprehensive and detailed survey of the world’s resources in relation to needs of its people has ever been made. Those able to do this, the scientists and statisticians working for governments and inter-governmental organisations, have never been asked to collect this information. The politicians to whom they are responsible and whose task it is to preserve the capitalist system are not interested in whether the world could produce enough to meet human needs. They are more concerned with seeing that no more is produced than can be sold profitably. Nor would they welcome a survey that would expose the wasteful and restrictive nature of the system they uphold,

Nevertheless scientists have examined separately the various aspects of this question and their findings do establish one fact: the world has, and has had for some time now, the natural, industrial and human resources to provide for the needs of all its people.

In stating this we are merely saying what any well-informed person should already know. But in our attempts to convince people that Socialism (a world based on common ownership with production solely for use) would be a workable alternative to capitalism we come across a well-entrenched popular prejudice. We are told that the resources to abolish hunger and slums and ill-health and ignorance just do not exist. This is a prejudice that is encouraged by the economics that is today taught in the schools and universities with its loose talk of “scarce resources”. Of course the supplies of what mankind needs are not limitless, but they are still enough to more than meet what is likely to be needed in the foreseeable future. The problem is not allocating scarce resources but arranging for abundance to be produced.

We are devoting most of this issue of the Socialist Standard to combating this prejudice by presenting the evidence on which we base our claim that a world of abundance is technically possible. We shall also argue that it will not be socially possible until a social revolution has made the world’s resources the common property of all mankind so that there will no longer be any vested interests to prevent their being used to satisfy human needs.

(Editorial, Socialist Standard special issue on ‘A World of Abundance’, August 1970).

Editorial: Why capitalism can’t work for us (2020)

Editorial from the August 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism is a way of organising the production and distribution of wealth where goods and services are produced for sale and where the resources needed to produce them are owned by just a minority of the population. This combination of minority ownership and production for sale gives rise to economic laws which govern the operation of the system. It means that, to get a living, the excluded majority are forced by economic necessity to find an employer who will pay them a money wage which they use to buy what they need to stay alive.

Wages are a price, the price of human mental and physical energies that can be used to produce wealth. That price is determined by what it costs to buy the food, clothes, housing, entertainment, etc needed to create and recreate those energies. In other words, wages reflect, other things being equal, the cost of living. This, however, is less than the value produced when workers labour to produce wealth for sale. As a result, the owners of productive resources realise a profit when they sell what their employees have produced. Capitalist production is thus not simply the production of goods and services for sale but their production for sale with a view to profit.

The source of the incomes of the two classes in capitalist society is wages for the excluded majority and profits for the owning minority. Wages always reflect the cost of living; making profits become the primary aim of production.

This being so, as long as capitalism lasts, there is little chance of the excluded majority getting to consume more than they need to create their particular type of working skill, nor of production serving any other aim than profit-making.

The law of wages says that, if part of what workers need to consume to recreate their working skills is covered by a payment from the state or by a free service, employers won’t need to pay them so much as wages. What one hand gives the other takes away.

The law of profits says that anything that reduces profits or impedes profit-making, such as taxing profits too much or imposing measures that increase production costs, will provoke an economic downturn.

There is no escaping these consequences of attempts to reform capitalism to benefit the excluded majority.

Socialists draw the conclusion that there is no point in trying to reform capitalism to make it work in some other way That simply cannot be done. Efforts should be directed instead to ending capitalism by making the means of wealth production the common property of society as a whole, which will end the operation of the economic laws of capitalism and allow society to gear the production and distribution of wealth to satisfying people’s needs.

Common ownership – the abolition of class ownership – and production and distribution directly for use, that’s the only viable alternative to capitalism.

Voice From The Back: “Modern” Britain (2010)

The Voice From The Back column from the July 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Modern” Britain

There is a notion about that because in Britain we have a new political situation of parliamentary sharing that something has changed about the class division of society. It is just not true. “At St. James’s club in London, a new toast is overheard: ‘To the Nineteen.’ This refers, as you no doubt spotted at once, to the 19 Old Etonians who have become prime ministers. Jolly good.” (Sunday Times, 16 May) “Almost four-fifths of the new cabinet are millionaires, according to an analysis by The Sunday Times. As the government prepares to wield the axe on public spending, research reveals that 18 of the 23 full-time cabinet members have seven-figure fortunes, collectively worth about £50 million.” (Sunday Times, 23 May) So modern Britain looks a lot like old Britain. The people who produce wealth – the working class are exploited by the owning class. Wake up fellow workers we need a new society.

The Chasm Of Class

At a time in the USA when many members of the working class find themselves unemployed and their homes re-possessed it is worthwhile looking at how the American capitalist class are dealing with the economic downturn. Time-share mogul David Siegel and his former beauty queen wife Jacqueline have had to sell their Florida mansion for a mere $50 million. The 30 bedroom house and estate, named and modelled on the palace of Versailles in France, includes a boat house, a ballroom, an Olympic-size pool, a theatre and a baseball field. “The 23-bathroom house may appeal to a buyer so wealthy they do not even move in, said local estate agent Kelly Price. ‘Versailles will probably be a house that will appeal to the uber-wealthy who don’t even think about the issue of money,’ she added. ‘It might be a second or third home. For all we know, it could be a seventh or eighth home.'” (Metro,27 May) Useful productive members of the working class are homeless while the useless parasite class have multiple mansions – that is capitalism for you.

Nice Suicides

“Steve Jobs has said the Chinese iPhone factory where 10 workers have killed themselves this year is actually ‘pretty nice’. Speaking at the All Things Digital conference in California, the Apple CEO also brushed aside questions about his relationship with Google … Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn makes Dell, Nokia and Apple products at its factory in Shenzhen, China. As reported by The First Post, the latest suicide came last week, when a 23-year-old worker jumped to his death from a building roof. Jobs denied Foxconn ran a sweatshop and told the conference that Apple was working with the company to get to the bottom of why so many people were killing themselves. ‘You go in this place and it’s a factory but, my gosh, they’ve got restaurants and movie theatres and hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory, it’s pretty nice,’ said Jobs.” (First Post, 2 June) What millionaire Mr Jobs does not mention is that the workforce stand for a 12 hour work day under constant camera surveillance for the princely sum of £90 per month and live in factory-owned dormitories. The factory is considering improving conditions by introducing “soothing” music, dancing instructors and a suicide hotline! The mindless repetitious factory 12 hour slog may seem “pretty nice” to Mr Jobs as he counts the millions of dollars extracted from the exploitation of these Chinese workers, but at least one worker last week decided to end his “pretty nice” servitude.

Class Divide In China

The awful gap between the rich and the poor in modern China was illustrated by two recent news items. A series of industrial disputes leading to strikes has broken out in China. “They began at Honda’s car plant in the south near Hong Kong. Since then, disputes, demonstrations and picketing have broken out at electronic firms, vehicle parts makers and other factories as far away as Shanghai. Even the 8,000 workers who make the balls used in the Fifa world cup in South Africa are reported to have gone on strike after discovering that one football is sold for the equivalent of a fortnight’s salary.” (Sunday Times, 13 June) According to the chief executive of Rolls Royce Motor Cars “China is now our second largest market, with about 20 per cent of sales, and is doing very, very well.” …. “The Phantom model starts at £235,000 and the Ghost, the new baby Rolls launched this year, at £165,000. The Phantom is about presence, about making a statement. That is why it is so popular in China.” (Times, 7 June) This immense conspicuous consumption is only possible out of the sweated labour of the Chinese working class toiling for a fortnight for the pittance of the price of a football.

Tired, stressed, robbed and alienated (2010)

From the July 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The binge working culture is taking its toll.”

On Sunday, 16 May, the Observer published two interesting and informative articles: ‘Sunday Blues and ruin weekends for many Britons’, by Tracy McVeigh, and ‘The binge working culture is taking its toll’, by Denis Campbell.

McVeigh observes: “The recession is raising stress levels so high that a quarter of workers are finding their weekends ruined by the Sunday blues ­­­– a dread of going back to the office next day – according to a report.” The report by ‘Mind’, said that 26 percent of workers felt dread and apprehension the day before they were due back to work after a weekend off.

Other findings include high rates of illness, and extensive low morale. High rates of unpaid overtime were mentioned. Many people “are living with constant fear of redundancy, and often taking on extra duties because of a recession – reduced workforce, and downsizing could mean years of uncertainty for workers”, notes the report. Indeed, the numbers of people reported to have left their jobs due to stress rose from 6 percent in 2004 to 8 percent in 2009. Working conditions have deteriorated; and people “are struggling to cope with extra demands of working harder, longer hours, and are under more pressure as their employers battle for survival”.

 Isolation with longer hours

Denis Campbell, citing research published by the European Heart Journal, notes that depressingly familiar picture of Britons – British workers – slaving over their terminals “way beyond their supposed finishing time, sometimes involves a fatal price”. Those working three or more hours of overtime a day, are more likely to develop heart trouble, and potentially die of a heart attack than those who work a normal seven-hour day. And, reports the Heart Journal: “With increasing stress comes growing isolation from normal non-work activities – friends, family, hobbies.” Marriages come under pressure; tensions rise and personal relationships suffer. “The recession has made all this worse.” Unemployed workers, of whom there are now 2.5m (officially, but actually far more) face different pressures, says Campbell.

Paul Sellars, of the TUC, says that the European Working Time Directive specifies that workers should not work more than 48 hours a week. Anyone working 60 hours is almost certain to suffer harmful effects and ill-health. Research by the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, in 2007, stated that 70m working days were lost to mental stress every year.

 Production for profit – not for use

Why do workers accept such long hours, and such conditions of employment?

We live in a capitalist society. Capitalism is not a dirty word, or term of abuse, although it has been used by leftists and others as such. It is worldwide, and now embraces every country. Nothing is just national.

Briefly, capitalism is a social system wherein the means and factors of wealth production – land, factories, officers, the means of transportation – take the form of capital, and are privately owned by a minority of individuals, or the state, to the exclusion of the majority of the population. And capital is nothing more nor less than wealth used to create more wealth through the exploitation (in truth a form of legalised robbery) of a large number of wage and salary earners, employees, of whom most own little or nothing except their ability to work for an employer. In such a society, almost everything is produced primarily for exchange, for a profit, not just for use.

In the main, things are not manufactured and services rendered solely because people need or desire them. If, like millions of people throughout the world, you do not have enough money to buy, say, food or fuel you will almost certainly go without.

Alienated

The increasing concentration of ownership and control by a minority class has tended to restrict individual initiative and responsibility. It has weakened the “self”, and stifled creativity. People have become atomised, mere cogs in a wheel, after rushing hither and thither for no apparent reason other than toiling on behalf of an employer, real or abstract. They have become alienated.

Originally, alienation meant insanity. Nowadays, it means estrangement or loss. Isolated. Alienation in production has led to individual powerlessness, and to a general feeling of isolation and frustration. Workers today have become alienated and estranged from their livelihood, from the very things that they have produced, and from their fellow workers; indeed, even from themselves.

Modern capitalism has completely changed our attitude to work. As previously noted, the last thing many of us want to do is get up in the morning (and particularly after a weekend of “freedom”) and go to “work”. It has destroyed craftsmanship and a joy in work. Often, it has become merely compulsive. Of course, what we really mean is not work at all, but employment. It is not surprising, therefore, that many workers become stressed and/or ill. So-called middle-class managers (who are themselves generally also members of the working class) often suffer the most from mental and physical strain, although they often underestimate the effects they have on other workers (Observer, 16 May).

Bureaucratic or Democratic Control?

Generally, our jobs are repetitive, uninteresting and, from our viewpoint, purposeless. We have little or no control over what we do, or what we produce. In fact, the division of labour is now so extreme that none of us ever makes a complete article. Indeed, many workers ever actually see the finished produce.

An important aspect of modern society is bureaucratisation. Capitalism has become increasingly bureaucratic. This applies to industry, the state and many other non-state institutions. Capitalism is largely organised by bureaucrats. And the bureaucrat’s relationship to people is one of almost complete alienation. It is largely impersonal. It affects not just industry and employment, but such voluntary organisations as trade unions and reformist political parties (and even revolutionary ones).

Capitalism is not really democratic. At best in a country such as Britain, a certain amount of limited democracy has been achieved over the last 150 years or so. But that is all. Capitalism rules. Money rules.

Unfortunately, however, most people are not aware of the prevailing alienation, domination and lack of real democratic control within capitalism. Most people accept, with reservations, the world as it is. Some reject, and even demonstrate against, certain aspects of present society. Workers struggle against the effects of exploitation and the wages system. But little else. They do not reject capitalism as such

Freedom?

The last sentence of our principles declares our determination to end, as speedily as possible, the present system, which deprives the working class of the “fruits of their labour”, and “that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality and slavery to freedom”. This is not wishful thinking.

Freedom from capitalism, with its apprehension, stress, illness, reported in the Observer cited above, cannot be attained by a few in a vast sea of alienation, and unfreedom. The emancipation of one necessitates the emancipation of all, of society as a whole, and by a majority. It must be the conscious aim of the mass of society; although each person, however, will have to achieve her or his own mental revolution first. Only then will private ownership of the means of life be converted into common ownership and democratic control, and government over people be replaced by an administration of things. It will not be easy. But necessary.

Peter E. Newell

Material World: Israel’s State Piracy: Warding Off The Threat Of Peace (2010)

The Material World Column from the July 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

The immediate purpose of Israel’s state piracy and mass kidnapping in the Eastern Mediterranean is clear. The aim is to maintain the siege (“closure”) of the Gaza Strip that was imposed in 2007 to induce the Gazans to overthrow the Hamas administration they had just elected. Of course, the political effect of the blockade, which caused enormous suffering (see Material World, July 2008), was just the opposite.

But there is an even more important aim – to reassert Israeli control over Gaza’s borders, airspace and territorial waters. This control was not relinquished when PM Ariel Sharon withdrew ground forces and settlers in 2005. Keeping Gaza and the West Bank isolated from direct contact with the outside world is crucial to Israel’s claim to continued sovereignty over the occupied territories and preventing the emergence of a sovereign Palestinian state (or two such states).

Some sections of the Israeli ruling class are prepared to accept a peace settlement based on the “two-state solution”. Peace would give Israeli business unrestricted access to Arab export markets and cheap labour. The present government, however, is a creature of interests tied to the occupation – above all, the military-industrial complex and the settlers’ lobby. The parties of the governing parliamentary coalition are either (like PM Bibi Netanyahu’s Likud) loathe to contemplate a genuinely sovereign Palestinian state or (like Jewish Home) committed to Greater Israel and thus opposed to a Palestinian state in principle.

For these people, peace is a threat to be warded off at all costs. A danger that peace might be imposed emerged when the United States, on which Israel is now totally dependent, elected a president who believes that American strategic interests at the regional and global level demand urgent resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Why so violent?

This may help explain a somewhat puzzling aspect of Israel’s response to the Free Gaza flotilla. Why was it so violent?

The Israeli navy could have maintained the blockade and its control of Gazan waters simply by blocking the path of the aid ships until they gave up and went away. This method had worked well in the past. By massacring a dozen or so activists and hurting and humiliating many more – including influential individuals such as parliamentarians, former diplomats, and film makers – Israel has created a PR disaster for itself. It has strained relations with countries around the world and alienated its main regional ally, Turkey.

Part of the explanation may be that key members of the Israeli cabinet are ex-generals accustomed to tackling political problems by military means (defence minister Ehud Barak) or simply thugs (foreign minister and former bouncer Avigdor Lieberman). They seem to have thought that a brutal reaction would deter future attempts to break the siege.

There is another plausible motive. An atmosphere of heightened confrontation, making progress toward a negotiated settlement impossible, may have been exactly what the Israeli government sought to achieve. And if Israel’s state terrorism provokes a new upsurge in Palestinian terrorism, that will serve even better to thwart Obama and ward off the threat of peace.

Offshore gas 

There is another aspect to the issue of control over Gazan waters – one that commentators usually overlook. In 1999, the Palestinian Authority (PA) signed a 25-year agreement with British Gas and the Athens-based but Lebanese-owned Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) to explore for oil and gas off the Gazan coast. Two wells were drilled in 2000 and, sure enough, a major gas field was found, not very far from the spot where the Free Gaza flotilla was attacked. (Some offshore oil was also found.) Rights to the proceeds were assigned: 60 percent to British Gas, 30 percent to CCC, and only 10 percent to the PA. Nevertheless, the discovery enhanced prospects for an economically viable Palestinian state.

When Sharon became prime minister in 2001, he challenged Palestinian sovereignty over the gas field and declared that Israel would never buy gas from the PA. The consortium made plans to pump the gas to Egypt instead. But all plans were scuppered in 2006 when Hamas replaced the PA in Gaza. Israel then tried to take over the negotiations, but British Gas decided to put the whole risky project on hold. Presumably both Israel and the PA still hope that eventually the gas will be theirs.

What next? 

Israeli state piracy did not have the desired intimidating effect. More attempts to run the blockade followed. Iran and Turkey have offered naval escorts for future flotillas. Conceivably this will broaden the war, though it is more likely that the US will force Israel to abandon the siege. This is likely to trigger the collapse of the current Israeli government and greatly increase the chances of a peace settlement under its successor.

A settlement will not eliminate capitalist rivalry over resources and zones of control. The seeds of future war will remain. Yet as socialists we will welcome even a fragile peace that temporarily halts the horrors of occupation and terror.

That is partly because we sympathize with the suffering of our fellow workers, whatever their ethnic origin. It is always they who suffer the brunt of their masters’ wars.

It is also because war provides an ideal opportunity and excuse to suppress democratic rights on both sides. Peace will create better conditions for democracy. No longer obsessed with ethnic conflict, “Jews” and “Palestinians” will be able to refocus on the social, economic and ecological problems spawned by the “normal” peacetime functioning of capitalism. A space for socialist ideas will open up in this corner of our world.

Stefan.

German President tells the truth (2010)

From the July 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

On a visit in May to German troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, the German President, Horst Köhler, defended this military action by telling a reporter:

 “A country of our size, with its focus on exports and thus reliance on foreign trade, must be aware that . . . military deployments are necessary in an emergency to protect our interests – for example when it comes to trade routes, for example when it comes to preventing regional instabilities that could negatively influence our trade, jobs and incomes” (Link).

The resulting outcry led to his resignation. But he had only told the truth.

 The reason why the various states into which the world is artificially divided equip their armed forces with the most up-to-date weapons they can afford is because, under capitalism, “might is right”.

 “Might” does not have to be actually used – in fact it normally isn’t – but a state’s “might ” is a factor in the jockeying between states for economic position. This is why a Labour Party shadow foreign secretary once defended the British H-bomb by saying that he didn’t want to go into the conference chamber naked. Neither do Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong Il.

The “mightier” a state the more chance it has of getting its point of view taken into account in diplomatic negotiations which, in the end, are over access to sources of raw materials, markets, investment outlets, trade routes and strategic areas to protect these. A fact perfectly expressed by Köhler.

 He was trying to justify German military intervention in Afghanistan, which is not popular in Germany, by explaining the economic rationale behind it. Normally this is reserved for internal foreign ministry memorandums or studies by specialist think tanks, while the general public are fed all sorts of more or less specious reasons less likely to put them off. Blurting out the real reason for German military action – and Western intervention generally – in Afghanistan was an error of judgment for a politician and why he had to resign.

 Britain is also a country of Germany’s size “with its focus on exports and thus reliance on foreign trade” and has troops fighting in Afghanistan to try to establish stability in the area and prevent it from being used as a base for groups which threaten the West’s supplies of oil from the Middle East. A pipeline through the area is also a possible “trade route” to the sea for oil from central Asia.

 The troops are not there to protect workers in Britain from terrorist attacks in London and other cities. In fact their presence there probably increases this risk. But putting the protection of capitalist economic interests before people’s safety is typical of capitalism‘s priorities..

Indispensable guide (2010)

Book Review from the July 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Companion to Marx’s Capital. David Harvey, Verso, 2010, £10.99

Most people who try to read Marx’s Capital give up before the end of the third chapter. This is a shame because, as David Harvey points out in this companion volume, Capital is a rich, multi-dimensional and “astonishingly good” book, despite the undeniable difficulties. Indeed, it would hardly be going too far to suggest – as the author of a previous introductory guide to Capital, Anthony Brewer, did – that reading Capital is “indispensable” to anyone who wants to understand the modern world.

 Harvey’s Companion is the book form of his excellent series of lectures teaching Capital Volume 1, which you can watch online for free or for a donation at http://davidharvey.org. His aim in both the lectures and the book is to get you to read Capital all the way through, and in Marx’s own terms. He succeeds brilliantly, getting the balance about right between a close focus on Marx’s text, and his own commentary to help explain it, and situate it in the modern world.

 If you follow the lectures online by watching one per week, then reading the prescribed chapters during the week, you can have volume 1 of Capital, the absolutely supreme book in the socialist canon, under your belt in just 13 weeks. This schedule is challenging but doable. If you don’t have internet access, Harvey’s book will do just as well, though obviously you’ll have more reading to do. Highly recommended.

Stuart Watkins

Non-productive labour (2010)

Book Review from the July 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Global capitalism in crisis. Karl Marx and the Decay of the Profit System.  By Murray E. G. Smith, Fenwood Publishing, Canada. 

 Marx left an ambiguous legacy on “unproductive” labour in that two different theories about it can be found in his writings. The first – which was essentially that of classical political economy going back to Adam Smith – was that labour exchanged against capital was productive while labour exchanged against revenue was not. The logic behind this was that labour employed by capital not only reproduced its own value but also a surplus value over and above this, and so increased the amount of wealth in existence; labour employed out of income such as rents or profits, as for instance on domestic servants, did not result in this but, on the contrary, used up existing wealth.

 But what about labour employed by capital invested in trading and in banking? This also added nothing to the amount of wealth, let alone value, already in existence but still yielded a profit for the capitalist employer of such labour. Marx’s explanation was that productive capitalists in effect handed over a part of the surplus value produced by their workers to these non-productive capitalists who were carrying out an essential function for the capitalist economy (if they didn‘t do this they would have to lay out some of their own capital to cover these activities). The workers in these non-productive employments produced no surplus value themselves but helped acquire surplus value for their employers. So, (second theory) it was possible even for some labour exchanged against capital to be non-productive.

 Murray Smith discusses another category of labour – that employed by the state – which fell into the category of “non-productive” (unless the state itself was involved in production). In Marx’s day – or rather in the days of Smith, Ricardo, Malthus and the others whose ideas Marx discusses – the assumption was that this was akin to the labour of domestic servants and so a drag on capital accumulation.

 In those days this may well have been true since most government employees then were either concerned with collecting taxes or were place-hunters milking the state. Today, however, this is no longer the case. Most national and local government employees are engaged in activities, such as the education and health care of workers, which are just as essential to capitalism as trading and banking. Can they really still be assimilated to domestic servants, i.e. to more or less frivolous spending by the idle rich?

 Murray Smith argues that they should not be. He suggests that expenditure on them should be classified together with the labour of trading and banking workers under the general heading of “socially necessary unproductive labour” (SNUL). He goes further and argues that they and the equipment they use should be assimilated rather to Marx’s concept of “constant capital”, i.e. as capital which merely transfers its value to the new product. From this perspective the taxation which pays for it is not a deduction from surplus value but a part of the capital outlay of the capitalist class as a whole (“social capital”).

 Smith wants to do this mainly because, by transferring such spending from s to c, it reduces the average of profit (s/(c+ v), considerably in fact, so supporting his theory that a fall in the rate of profit caused by c increasing faster than v (expenditure on productive labour) is the main cause of recurring capitalist crises. Quite apart for any decline in the rate of profit for this reason being a long run tendency that  would be too slow to affect cyclical crises,  state spending in reality impacts on the crucial rate of profit after tax (rather than before tax), hence the interest of capitalist firms is keeping state spending down if they can.

 Smith is a dyed-in-the-wool Trotskyist, a supporter of an organisation called the “International Bolshevik Tendency”, a name calculated to make the hair of genuine socialists stand on end. So you need to ignore all the arguments about China being a “deformed Workers State”, about the Bolshevik coup having been a socialist revolution, about the need for a vanguard party, a transitional programme of reforms, etc. etc to get at his basic argument about SNUL.

Adam Buick

Green capitalism (2010)

Book Review from the July 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Green capitalism and the cultural poverty of constructing nature as service provider.’ By Sian Sullivan, in Radical Anthropology, issue 3, 2009/10.

 It would be an exaggeration to say that the writers in Radical Anthropology put the case for socialism. But, at least, some of them criticise aspects of capitalism and present evidence for that criticism.

 A good example is the article by Sullivan, who discusses green capitalism, also known as market environmentalism and green neo-liberalism. The basic idea is that ‘if we just price the environment correctly—creating new markets for new “environmental products” based on monetised measures of environmental health and degradation—then everyone and the environment will win’.

 All that amounts to the economic rationalisation of nature. Stock exchanges, dealing in new environmental ‘products’ have been set up; for example the Climate exchanges in London and Chicago. Carbon credits are the currency representing the emission of carbon. ‘Once these credits enter the international financial system their future value can be speculated on (as with any other currency or commodity, including derivatives) and significant profits can ensue.’

 Capitalist culture has ridden roughshod over biological and cultural diversity and has impoverished both people and the environment. Pricing something is not the same as valuing it. As Sullivan observes, ‘We are critically impoverished as human beings if the best we can come up with is money as the mediator of our relationships with the non-human world.”

Stan Parker