Mixed Media: Inherent Vice (2015)

Film Review from the May 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 2014 film Inherent Vice is a sunlit noir Counter-Culture mystery written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, based on the 2009 novel by Thomas Pynchon. Joaquin Phoenix is stoner sleuth Doc Sportello in Los Angeles in the Spring of 1970, the era of Timothy Leary when the doors of perception were wide open. The film is in the tradition of LA-set detective films where a man finds himself in a mystery he cannot comprehend or solve such as Polanski's Chinatown, Altman's The Long Goodbye, and Penn's Night Moves, although Anderson said 'Hawks's The Big Sleep is impossible to follow, but it doesn't matter, you just want to keep watching it, seeing where it goes, that's what I wanted from Inherent Vice.'

The film's title refers to a property in a physical object that causes it to deteriorate due to the fundamental instability of its components, making an item an unacceptable risk to a carrier or insurer. Churchill once said that ' the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings.'

Inherent Vice concerns property developer Mickey Wolfmann, who under the influence of LSD tries to go back on his capitalist ways: 'I spent my whole life making people pay for shelter, when I didn't realise it should've been for free.'

The blissed-out gumshoe visits a private 'sanatorium' and Pynchon refers to California Governor Reagan's 'privatisation' programme which involved the closing of state mental hospitals. Dr E Fuller Torrey inAmerican Psychosis: How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System writes that Reagan associated psychiatry with Communism, and 'California became the national leader in aggressively moving patients from state hospitals to board-and-care homes.' Board-and-care homes became big business in California, and owners had financial ties with Governor Reagan. He was emptying state hospitals, and capitalist firms were profiting from it. Homelessness and criminalisation resulted, and homicides committed by mentally ill individuals who were not being treated.

Richard Nixon was in the White House, and the US government began the 'War on Drugs' with Operation Intercept to halt the flow of marijuana from Mexico, and the LAPD engaged itself in 'a long and busy day of civil rights violations' (Anderson). John Higgs wrote that 'the Counter-Culture was battered by the constant repression of the Nixon government.'

In anticipation of the 1970 California gubernatorial election, LSD proselytiser Dr Timothy Leary announced his candidacy for governor with the motto 'Come Together – Join the Party.' Leary said 'I'm going to legalise marijuana...(and) eliminate money from Californian society and return to a barter system' (Montreal Gazette 31 May 1969). According to John Higgs in I Have America Surrounded, Leary promoted 'extreme libertarian free-market ideals and utopian hippy fantasies.' Higgs points out that 'the idea of 'freak power', utilising the usually apathetic hippy mass as a democratic power base, had not been tested, but there were signs that it could emerge as a genuine phenomenon' which were seen in the Aspen Sheriff election when Hunter S Thompson stood as the 'Freak Power' candidate and narrowly lost. Nixon said 'Timothy Leary is the most dangerous man in America', and Leary's campaign came to an end in January 1970 when he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The shadow of the Charlie Manson Family murders hovers over the film, the trial began in LA in June 1970. Inherent Vice portrays LA as pervaded by paranoia where 'every gathering of three or more civilians is now defined as a potential cult', and one character asks 'What would Charlie do?'  'Groucho Marxist' Jerry Rubin said he fell in love with Manson's 'cherub face and sparkling eyes', Bernadine Dohrn of left wing guerrilla group Weather Underground declared 'Dig it! Offing those rich pigs with their own forks and knives, far out! The Weathermen dig Charles Manson', while Underground paper Tuesday's Child had a front page picture of Manson naming him 'Man of the Year.' Hunter S Thompson wrote 'bad craziness' was taking over.

In Inherent Vice the spectre of the schooner Golden Fang is a personification of 'The Man', which could be an Indo-Chinese heroin cartel, and symbolises the global narcotics trade as the invisible hand of unfettered, rapacious capitalism. Pynchon marks 1970 LA as the moment America let capitalism fly off the leash. In 1971 the cancellation of the direct convertibility of the US dollar to gold was replaced by freely floating fiat currencies which made 'Globalisation' easier through the free movement of capital around the world.

Even USA 'Founding Father' Thomas Jefferson speaks from the obverse of a nickel coin in Inherent Vice: 'the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants', although his statements that people needed to be vigilant against any law that 'violates the rights of the individual' and 'that government is best which governs least' are more suited to the Counter-Culture.

The epigraph to Inherent Vice is ‘Sous les pavés, la plage!’ ('Under the paving stones, the beach!') from 'Les événements' of Paris 1968, to which should be added 'Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible' ('Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible').

Steve Clayton

Sugar: Sweet for Some (2015)

From the April 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down’, sang the angelic Julie Andrews to a pair of wide-eyed children in the movie Mary Poppins. Julie’s advice must have enthralled the sugar industry, and set the hearts of marketers everywhere fluttering. Children as consumers represent a massive global market, and spearheading capitalism’s drive for the minds and money of children is the sugar and related sweeteners industry. At stake is an estimated global market projected for 2017 at $97.2 billion. A large slice of the forthcoming profits will be pocketed by the Fanjul Brothers, owners of Fanjul Corp, ‘which in 2010 comprised four raw sugar mills and 10 refineries in six countries, making them the world's largest refiner of cane sugar, producing 6 million tons of sugar annually' (en.wikipedia.org/).

Perhaps even Mary Poppins would have baulked at administering 20 spoonfuls of sugar in one go, but not Sainsburys. Their Orange Energy Drink has, ‘5.9g per 100 ml of sugar – which is the equivalent of 20 teaspoons for every 500ml’. As ever there are reformers demanding activity. In February, Action on Sugar, ‘has called for the sale of ‘energy’ and sports drinks to youngsters to be banned. They also ‘warned that children were being duped into thinking that the products would boost their performance on the sports field or at school’ and that, ‘The products served no purpose whatsoever except to make children addicted to caffeine and habituated to sugars, it claimed, while in the longer term they were fuelling the obesity epidemic’ (theguardian.com/26 February).

Even doting parent and thoughtful Prime Minister David Cameron disclosed to Parliament how he was ‘trying to stop 'excessive' amounts of Coca-Cola being consumed in the Cameron household’ (Daily Mail.co.uk, 16 January, 2013). This admission, albeit two years later, seemed to resonate with Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, chair of the Health Select Committee, when she confided to BuzzFeed News that she and her committee wanted to ask experts if it would, ‘work if we had a price differential between sugary carbonated drinks and unsugary ones, low sugar? So if you’re there at a supermarket shelf and one product is 10p cheaper than the other, would it help you to think – Well, I’ll go for the non-sugary one?’ Wollaston, a onetime GP, also posed an ideological question in a sugar-coated Mary Poppins-like way when she asked: ‘Are there ways we can take calories out of children’s diets in ways that doesn’t feel like a big nanny bossy state coming in with a big stick’ (3 February)? Something tells me that the naughty corporations aren’t going to have to take any nasty medicine, even from those who supposedly wield a big stick.

The Guardian reported that, ‘an investigation by the British Medical Journal revealed that health officials and ministers had 130 meetings with alcohol and supermarket lobbyists while they were considering imposing a minimum price per unit of alcohol. The proposal was dropped in July, allegedly because of a lack of concrete evidence’. Protecting corporate profits through political connections is nothing new. ‘In 1979, Margaret Thatcher set up the National Advisory Committee on Nutrition Education, chaired by Professor Philip James, a powerhouse in the drive to improve diet. It produced a seminal report, suppressed until it was leaked in 1983, that warned the British diet was connected to the major diseases of our time. Its targets to reduce sugar, fat and salt were ignored’ (12 February, 2014).

And in the U.S Bloomberg’s reported that, ‘Hawaii lawmakers killed a proposed tax that would have added 17 cents to a single-serve bottle of soda. It was the second failed attempt, even though Governor Neil Abercrombie had pushed the proposed levy… PepsiCo Inc., Coca-Cola Co. and the American Beverage Association have spent as much as $70 million on lobbying and issuing ads… Efforts to enact such levies have foundered in 30 states’. Judith Phillips, a Mississippi State University research analyst who studied the issue for lawmakers,summed up how things generally work under capitalism: ‘Whoever is loudest tends to control the discussion and, generally speaking, you buy your microphone with money’ (13 March, 2012).

Addictive

Action on Sugar suggests that sugar could be addictive. Dr. David Reuben, author of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Nutrition agrees: ‘White refined sugar is not a food. It is a pure chemical extracted from plant sources, purer in fact than cocaine, which it resembles in many ways. Its true name is sucrose and its chemical formula is C12H22O11... The chemical formula for cocaine is C17H21NO4... For all practical purposes, the difference is that sugar is missing the ‘N’, or nitrogen atom... Through heating and mechanical and chemical processing, all vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, enzymes and indeed every nutrient is removed until only the sugar remains... During the refining process, 64 food elements are destroyed. All the potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, manganese, phosphate, and sulfate are removed. The A, D, and B, vitamins are destroyed. Amino acids, vital enzymes, unsaturated fats, and all fiber are gone. To a lesser or greater degree, all refined sweeteners such as corn syrup, maple syrup, etc., undergo similar destructive processes... Studies show that ‘sugar’ is just as habit-forming as any narcotic; and its use, misuse, and abuse is our nation’s number one disaster’ (macrobiotics.co.uk/ 3 March).

So too thinks Robert Lustig, the University of California’s professor of paediatrics who is, ‘well-known for his research into the effects of dietary sugar. He believes that sugar is addictive. In a recent interview he said: ‘There are five tastes on your tongue: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. Sugar covers up the other four, so you can't taste the negative aspects of foods. You can make dog poop taste good with enough sugar’. Lustig goes on to reveal that, ‘table sugar known as sucrose, which is a made of two sugars (glucose and fructose) chemically bound to each other, is identical to high fructose corn syrup – which he describes as a chronic toxin’ (Independent, 4 October 2014).

Like the wolf eying the lambs, children are viewed as a primary target for the sugar industry. Spinning lies to them is accomplished by just a few multi-billion dollar advertising corporations. As Juliet Schor writes, ‘These corporations not only have enormous economic power, but their political influence has never been greater. They have funneled unprecedented sums of money to political parties and officials... The power wielded by these corporations is evident in many ways, from their ability to eliminate competitors to their ability to mobilize state power in their interest’. Straight from an arsehole’s mouth comes this truism: ‘No one’s really worrying about what it [advertising to children] is teaching impressionable youth. Hey, I’m in the business of convincing people to buy things they don’t need’  - an advertising executive, in Business Week, August 11, 1997, quoted by Richard Robbins’ (www.globalissues.org/article/237).

Enough is not enough

Advertisers are simply the unimaginative lackeys for an elite that includes people such as the Fanjul brothers. They’re fourth generation sugar capitalists. Their great grandfather was reportedly the wealthiest man in Cuba. Under Batista’s dictatorship life was uncomplicated for the family. The profits built off of the backs of their workers rolled in. Extravagant parties were thrown for other parasites like the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, but in 1958 Castro overthrew Batista’s dictatorship under the guise of socialism. The Fanjul’s sugar empire was seized and Castro now luxuriates in one of the family’s palatial mansions in Havana. Under capitalism the narrative repeats ad nauseam: The old king’s dead - long live the new king.

Palm Beach, Florida, welcomed the Fanjuls and their money which was quickly re-invested in land, plant and labour enabling a speedy return to capital accumulation. Hungry labour usually returns fatter profits so the Fanjul brothers were quick to exploit the US governments H-2 foreign worker programme, enabling, ‘the Fanjuls to bring in thousands of migrant workers, mostly from Jamaica, to cut their cane... Only the desperately poor cut cane and, without the farmworkers program, the Fanjuls may not have been able to harvest their fields. In the Fanjul fields, workers who did not cut fast enough were labeled ‘Code One’, which means 'refused to work – do not rehire’. Code One workers were sent home’.

In 1974, sugar prices rocketed and, inevitably, overproduction resulted. But, help was at hand for the kings of sugar: ‘The government rushed to their aid, and the current sugar program of government subsidies and price supports took hold. The government guaranteed to sugar farmers a price double that of the world market and placed quotas on sugar imports. Such a policy produces a windfall for the Fanjuls at the expense of American taxpayers’(eyeonmiami.blogspot.co.uk, 29 May, 2010).

For capitalists ‘enough’ doesn’t exist in their vocabulary. ‘According to the U.S. Department of Labor (2010), sugar is produced with forced labor in Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Myanmar (Burma) and Pakistan and with child labor in Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Kenya, Mexico, Myanmar, Pakistan, Panama, the Philippines and Uganda’.

How much medicine you, your children and grandchildren have to swallow from the Fanjuls and their class is up to you. Life couldn’t be sweeter for them - and it’s at your expense.

Andy Matthews

Cooking the Books: Cashless is Not Moneyless (2015)

The Cooking the Books column from the May 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

'WE DON'T NEED CASH. LET'S ABOLISH IT OUTRIGHT' was the perhaps surprising headline of an article in the Times (24 March) by Ed Conway, the economics editor of Sky News. His argument was that the continuing use of cash is negating the policy of governments and central banks of trying to control the economy by varying interest rates.

The theory behind this policy is that if interest rates go up people will be encouraged to save, and 'if a recession strikes, down go interest rates, and, in theory, everyone goes out and spends.' Leaving aside the fact that this mistakenly assumes that an economic recovery can be consumer-led whereas it has to be profit-led, interest rates are now so low that this theory, even on its own assumptions, is not working.

As the rise in the general price level has virtually stopped in the Eurozone, and has even fallen, the European Central Bank has resorted to negative interest rates. The rate is now minus 0.2 percent. The aim is still to encourage spending. But it hasn't. What it has done, according to Conway, is encourage people to keep their savings in cash rather than deposit them in a bank. Even banks are not depositing their cash with the Bank of England as they normally do but 'are stacking it away on pallets in warehouses under lock and key.' If you do this you don't get any interest of course, but at least it avoids you having to pay 'negative interest'.

Conway's solution is to abolish cash altogether so as to prevent people and banks doing this with the result that their spending cannot be controlled by the central bank (not that it is anyway). It's not going to happen but, even if it did, the resulting 'cashless' society' would not be the 'moneyless' society that socialists have always envisaged.

Socialism will be a moneyless society because, both productive resources and products when they are produced being commonly owned, there will be no exchange of goods and services of equal economic value, no buying and selling, only distribution (whether through free distribution or free access). So there would be no need of money as a means of exchange, money's primary function.

A cashless society would still have an exchange economy, the difference being that the means of exchange would no longer include notes and coins, only electronic transfers. In fact this is already how most exchange transactions are done. Capitalist firms and banks have long since abandoned transferring wads of notes to make a payment or a loan. And individuals are using electronic payments more and more. As Conway notes:

'The majority of our day-to-day transactions now take place using credit cards, contactless payment and charge cards (such as Oyster cards). Internet banking means you can transfer money to someone in a few clicks.'

Notes and coins are not in themselves money, but only tokens for it. There is no reason in principle why they couldn't be replaced by something else – by, precisely, digits on a computer. These too are still tokens for money because the purchasing power they represent circulates. If, like store cards, they were cancelled on use, they wouldn't be money-tokens but this is not what happens. They are transferred from owner to owner just as cash is and are just as much 'currency'.

Socialism will involve the disappearance not just of notes and coins but also of these other, electronic tokens for money as a means of exchange and payment. It will be a 'plastic-less' society too.

Eco-capitalism is Impossible (2015)

From the May 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 9 March the Socialist Party and Green Party candidates for Swansea West, Brian Johnson and Ashley Wakeling, met in debate. Here is an extract from what our candidate said.

The Greens' arguments and their policies are based on the assumption that under capitalism political parties in government can do what they like, and make a positive difference for the whole of society. The motivation is good, but unfortunately, the assumption is false. Capitalism is not open to manipulation so that it benefits the majority; it's a system that is very tightly structured to benefit only the wealthy few.

Put simply, support for the Greens means not only ignoring market forces but also ignoring an obvious contradiction in their argument. The contradiction is this: with market forces essentially causing and creating a sick society how can you realistically expect those self-same forces to solve it by proposing a form of eco-capitalism?

However, the Greens have chosen to ignore this and continually assert that they can make the market system a nicer kind of capitalism. But capitalism will still be capitalism, with no fundamental change in how we live and how we could live as it will be business as usual.

We'll still be faced with the same contradiction of poverty amongst plenty, the same issues and problems related to war, the same lame excuses that are offered that the system itself is fine; it's just those greedy bankers, or the immigrants, or dictators, or tax dodgers taking advantage of tax havens; or those who insist on playing by their own rules instead of fulfilling international agreements and obligations, etc.

Capitalism is a class-divided society driven by the imperative for those who own and control the means of wealth production to make a profit. It can only function as a profit system in the interest of those who live off profits.To advocate transforming the capitalist economy on the basis of offering a reformist strategy so that “it works for the common good” which the Green Party suggests is precisely what cannot be done. It's going to take a revolution to do that.

Socialists are much more aware of what members of the working class are up against and have no intention of misleading them by suggesting that capitalism can be controlled or that a string of green reforms will be of lasting benefit.

Socialism has been possible for a very long time; the main thing holding it back has been those who have thought, after all the accumulated experience, that something could be done to improve capitalism.

Capitalism is the cause of a range of environmental issues the world is facing, but can a socialist alternative resolve these issues? Crucially, would a socialist alternative have to curtail growth or could it administer an environmentally sustainable version of growth?

Marx considered that plenty was a necessary condition for the coming of a fully developed socialist society. Whilst many argue that removing want will require growth, most Greens argue that any growth is unsustainable.

Socialists put the argument round the other way: that it is impossible to tackle environmental problems without effective global planning and cooperation, a prerequisite for which is eliminating the conflicts that result from scarcity. Socialist contend that the growth needed to remove scarcity can be green, but only if organised in the context of a democratically planned socialist economy. One where production and distribution is based on human need and not markets and profits, where buying and selling is abolished and with them consumerism and all its associated waste, where any economic growth can be constantly assessed for the impact it will have on nature and society.

Socialists further argue that not only is pollution and environmental destruction caused by the profit system but also that it is the science of ecology that explains the processes by which pollution and environmental destruction resulted from releasing waste substances into the rest of nature at a rate and in amounts that it cannot cope with; that science and technology, far from causing the problem, provide the knowledge and techniques that can be used to solve it given the right social and economic framework; and, last but not least, that this framework is a less centralised society that produces to meet human needs not for profit, which could only be done in a stateless, moneyless, communist society.

Brian Johnson

Cooking the Books: An Ambitious Politician Promises (2015)

The Cooking the Books column from the May 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, is being touted as among those who may succeed Miliband as Leader if Labour lose the election. It could therefore be revealing to look at what empty promises he is making in his bid for re-election in Streatham in London.

One ‘Re-elect Chuka Umunna’ leaflet states (the obvious): ‘Too many people don’t earn enough money.’ So what is he going to do about it? Make employers pay higher wages all round? He’s not that much of a demagogue, if only because no-one would believe a Labour government could deliver it. Instead, what he promises is:

‘Labour believes that helping people get higher paying work is the right thing to do … Labour will support areas of the economy like low-carbon and creative industries which can support new high paying jobs … Labour believes that the least everyone deserves is a wage they can live off, and a Labour government will help more people get higher paying jobs.’

This is carefully crafted to suggest one thing while meaning another (note the repetition of the term ‘higher paying’). The suggestion is that a Labour government will help workers earn more money. However, this won’t be for the job they are now doing. It would only be for workers who moved to work in some other sector of the economy said to be able to ‘support high paying jobs.’ Two sectors in particular are mentioned – low-carbon and ‘creative’.  Umunna doesn’t spell out how or why these industries would be able to offer higher-paid jobs than other industries nor how a Labour government would ‘support’ them, though probably there’s a Labour Party policy paper somewhere, full of provisos and let-out clauses, explaining this.

‘Creative’ is generally used to refer to specialised legal and commercial services that are sold to overseas clients (and which are not really ‘creative’ at all since they don’t actually create any new wealth, just make a profit from capturing a share of wealth already created in some other part of the world). As to ‘low-carbon industries’, it is hard to see how they could be made profitable without government help, whether tax breaks or direct subsidies, i.e., by being subsidised from the profits of other sectors of the economy.

Wanting to earn more money is a perfectly legitimate  aspiration for workers under capitalism, but they would be better advised to pursue this through their own trade union action than relying on the promises of ambitious politicians.

Elsewhere, Umunna makes a really wild promise:

‘I want a Labour government so we can fix the root causes of the problems people come to me at my surgeries for help with. I believe we can tackle the massive problems that exist with the cost of housing and childcare, with our transport system, and with low pay and insecure work.’

Fix the root causes? Really? Since these ‘massive problems’ have a single root cause in capitalism, with its minority ownership and production for profit, a Labour government is going to do nothing of the sort.  They would just tinker around without being able to tackle them. If re-elected he and the other MPs will find people continuing to come to their surgeries for help with the same problems as before since their root cause – capitalism – will not have been fixed. To really solve them capitalism will have to be ended but Umunna accepts capitalism and is on record as standing only for a ‘better capitalism’ 

Chuka Umunna's speech on a better capitalism: full text

Left Right, Left Right (2015)

Book Review from the April 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

'The Ideology of Fascism and the Far Right in Britain', by Mark Hayes. Red Quill Books. 2014

Here, Mark Hayes examines the ideological basis of fascism in Britain, seeking to learn the lessons of how it arises and how to combat it. There is much detailed discussion about the key defining categories of fascism and its variants, the genesis of fascism in the UK, and how political activists and academics alike have sought to interpret it.

Written from a particular leftist perspective the book attacks the Trotskyists who have often used ‘anti-fascism’ as a means for recruitment, and Hayes argues that anti-fascist campaigns have often been shorn of their class element, rarely addressing the underlying concerns of those who might be attracted towards fascism in the first place. In many respects he has a point here of course and there is plenty to like about this book as it takes a genuinely serious, in-depth look at the issues. However, there are deficiencies here too and they tend to stem from the same particular source. In one section, he argues that the mass murder carried out in Russia by the brutal Stalinist regime was somehow clearly and qualitatively different to that carried out by the Nazis:

‘Death was often a by-product of malevolent mistreatment in the former, while it was the inevitable consequence of the latter’s inexorable, ideologically motivated desire to eliminate whole categories of people in the name of Aryan supremacy’ (p.368).

This won’t do. Not only because a great many of the deaths in the Holocaust were caused by brutal treatment in forced labour camps just as they were in Stalinist Russia, but also because Stalinism did indeed attempt to eradicate entire categories of people, mainly its ideological and political opponents. There is nothing to be gained by such sophistry – each brutal regime killed people on a mass scale, both in a calculated fashion and as a product of general neglect and mistreatment.

Hayes also claims that the attempts to link the regimes using the concept of ‘totalitarianism’ was a politically-motivated product of  the Cold War, seeking to discredit one by association with the other, and ignoring ‘some remarkable social advances’ by the so-called  Communist regimes. In what appears to be a partial apology for repression in Soviet Russia he claims the ‘case for an identity between communist and fascist systems is very weak. Much as it might offend assiduously cultivated liberal sensitivities, it is entirely legitimate and indeed desirable to distinguish between a forced or necessary repression and a voluntary or inherent coercion’ (p.367).

It is this sort of attempted defence of the Stalinist regimes – half-hearted in some ways but noticeable enough – which undermines the credibility of the other arguments put forward here. Indeed, in line with the Communist Party’s views before the Russian regime did a deal with Hitler and signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, the main argument appears to be that ‘active resistance’ to fascists is the only way forward, implying physical force. As such, Hayes claims that for years anti-fascists have been ‘far too preoccupied with the idea of free speech and the idea that fascism should be exposed to the penetrating light of democratic debate in the hope that sensible, rational people will see through the lies and half-truths of fascist discourse’ (p.438). While he doesn’t entirely dismiss democratic and educational activities, it is odd indeed to think that this has somehow been the dominant approach on the radical left. On the contrary, most leftist organisations have long argued for ‘no platform’ for the fascists and have spent much of their time plotting to disrupt their meetings and block their marches.

In truth, few in Britain and most other advanced economies have been attracted to fascist ideas in recent decades – even the now riven BNP was a hardcore of fascists that developed a political orientation and support base that was more akin to the sort of right-wing populism now associated with UKIP. When fascist ideas have been put to the serious test in democratic debate they have always been found wanting soon enough and the defenders of authoritarian revolution on the far left have often not had much to coherently add beyond the shouting. After all – and despite all their undoubted efforts – it is difficult to meaningfully oppose authoritarian barbarity of one sort if you support (or are prepared to apologise for it) in other circumstances. That is one of the main reasons why fascist organisations may come and go, but the self-styled anti-fascists of the Stalinist and Trotskyist left remain as distrusted now as they ever have been.

DAP

A Better World For Everyone (2015)

From the May 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

To aim for a better world, we first have to explain how our present society is arranged. For the last few hundred years, society has been divided into just two main groups, or  classes. There’s the overwhelming majority of us – possibly up to 95 percent – who don’t own much in the big scheme of things and can only get what we can afford through our wages, savings or state subsidies. If we’re able to find employment, we get our money by selling our time and our abilities to companies and organisations. These same companies and organisations then sell the services we run and the products we make back to us. But collectively, we don’t get back all that we put in. It’s a lop-sided arrangement in favour of the corporations and land owned by a tiny minority of people, around 5 percent. Owning the means of production allows them to cream off a profit or a surplus for themselves, and they do this by exploiting the rest of us. Their economic power is backed up by  political power. The state is there to try and manage the status quo, and protect the interests of those with all the wealth. This doesn’t mean that they have control over the economy, though. Market forces fluctuate between growth and slump regardless of what politicians and corporate strategists want. Instead, they’re more likely to be playing catch-up and trying to keep things financially viable in a shaky economy. It’s like being on a fishing boat on a choppy sea, struggling to stay afloat while the boat’s owner relaxes on a desert island.

This arrangement leads to massive inequalities in wealth. Goods and services only go to those who can afford them, not necessarily to those who need them. Those who can’t afford the basics risk falling into a lifestyle of poverty it’s hard to escape from. Living in an unequal world  where everything is rationed creates divisions between us, leading to prejudice and discrimination. Even if we’ve got a reasonable standard  of living we never have enough real involvement or sense of ownership in where we work and live. We often feel powerless to influence what  really matters to us. We end up stuck in unfulfilling jobs, stressed about whether we can afford to pay the bills, or frustrated by our lack of  independence.

Other political parties support the basic way society is structured, or just assume it’s the only way things can be. They would say that it can be improved from within, by changes to the law, or finding more funding for public services. Reforms or increased public spending may help  some people in the short-term. But they only last as long as they fit in with the economic and political climate, which runs in the interests of the elite. The needs and wishes of the vast majority of people aren’t as important. People have campaigned for higher wages, or increased funding, or protecting the environment, without long-lasting, satisfactory resolutions ever being found. This shows that the problems haven’t been addressed at their cause.

We would say that to solve society’s problems, we have to change the way society is structured. This means going from our world where the means to produce and distribute wealth are owned by a minority, to one where those resources and facilities are owned by everyone in common. Then, goods would be produced and services would be run directly for anyone who wants them, without the dictates of the economic market. Industries and services would be run just to satisfy people’s needs and wants. Our natural resources could be managed in a sustainable way, as the waste and short-term profitability which lead to environmental damage wouldn’t be there.

All this could only be achieved by fundamentally changing the way society is organised. As every country is part of a global economy, the vast majority of people worldwide would need to want to change society. The only legitimate and practical way this could be happen is by organising equally and democratically. This means voluntary, co-operative, creative work, with decisions and responsibilities agreed through everyone having an equal say. This would mean a much broader and more inclusive use of democracy than we’re used to. The Socialist Party is using what limited democracy we have in our current society to advocate a better world for everyone.

Mike Foster

Cooking the Books: Squeeze the Rich? (2015)

The Cooking the Books Column from the April 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Tax the Rich’ is a popular slogan on the populist Left. ‘For progressive tax on rich corporations and individuals and an end to tax avoidance’ is one of the promises in the Trotskyist front organisation TUSC’s election manifesto. Further down the pyramid at constituency level this is simplified to ‘Stop the cuts: tax the super-rich’ and ‘Tax the 1%’.  Another Left populist candidate, Nick Long, standing for the Lewisham People Before Profit party, wrote to the Morning Star (4 February):

‘Taxing the super rich and getting tax-dodging corporations to pay their taxes can bring about an end to austerity.’

But would it? Could it . . ?

The rich, especially the super-rich, can certainly afford to pay more tax. Even the arguments put by their apologists don’t deny this. They concentrate on arguing that they shouldn’t be taxed too much, that if they were they’d move abroad or would no longer be prepared to work for capitalist firms in Britain. This would happen to some extent but confirms that capitalism is a world system and that any solution to the problem is not to be found at national level.  But the fact remains that the rich are rich enough to pay more tax out of their huge incomes and piles of accumulated wealth.

Would making them pay more tax end austerity? Austerity is the government cutting back on its spending so as to reduce the burden of taxation on profits in a slump as a way to help a profit-led recovery (the only way a recovery can come about). Increasing taxes on ‘rich corporations and individuals’ would allow the government not to have to cut its spending so much, but if more than a one-off would prove to be counter-productive.

The incomes of the rich come in the end, one way or the other, out of profits. Not all of it is spent on conspicuous consumption (in fact that’s against the logic of capital accumulation, which is what capitalism is all about). Most is saved and so comes to be re-invested in production to make further profits, a part of which will provide their future unearned incomes.

So taxing the rich is in the end a tax on profits. This is obvious in the case of taxes on ‘rich corporations’.  Corporation tax used to be called ‘profits tax’ and that’s what it still is: a direct tax on profits. As capitalism is a profit-driven system anything that reduces profits or makes profit-making more difficult will bring about an economic downturn. In a slump, as at present, it would delay any recovery.

Since you can’t tax the rich unless the rich continue to exist and continue to draw a taxable unearned income, i.e. unless capitalism continues to exist, TUSC and the other Left populists who chant ‘Tax the Rich’ are proposing the old failed reformist policy that the Labour Party used to espouse of redistributing income from profits to workers, but not even to try to improve workers’ conditions but merely to try to stop them getting worse.

It won’t work. In promoting the idea that it could, they are peddling the same sort of empty and unrealisable promises as the conventional politicians. The fact is that capitalism cannot be reformed to work in the interests of the wage and salary-earning working class and their dependents. The only way out is to replace capitalism – with its division into rich and the rest – altogether.

Editorial: Coalition Politics (2015)

Editorial from the May 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Lib Dems have come up with a seemingly perfect alibi for the notorious betrayal of their promise to abolish the tuition fees that the previous Labour government had imposed:  that they were in a coalition government and this meant that they had to give up some of their promised policies in order to reach an accommodation with their partners in government.

Now that coalition governments seem to be the order of the day this is a get-out-of-jail card that all parties can play. And seemed to have been preparing to do so.  At least this is what was suggested by  the increasing extravagance of their promises as the election campaign went on. They seemed to know they would have a ready-made excuse for not honouring them.

Using the need to compromise with coalition partners as an alibi, however, is not one that will hold up. Most election promises cannot be honoured even if there is a single party government with a decent majority. That’s because they are promises to make capitalism work in a way that it simply cannot be made to.

An adequately funded NHS and affordable housing are examples. Such reforms cost money, money that can only come in the end, in however roundabout a way, from profits. But profits are the life-blood of the capitalist economic system. Which is why they have to be given priority over meeting people’s needs adequately. And why governments always end up according this priority, despite what they may have promised.

The only way a government could, for instance, get more affordable houses built (apart, that is, by giving people more money to spend,  but nobody would believe any party that promised that) would be to subsidise this. Houses are built by profit-seeking companies and these are not going to invest in building houses to sell to people who cannot afford to buy them. Left to themselves, they invest in building houses for people  who can afford them; these days, upmarket  houses and flats for the better off, whether bought to live in, rent out or leave empty as a speculative financial asset.

The money to subsidise affordable housing – or an adequate health service or reducing inequality or eliminating child poverty or any of the other laudable promises we heard – would have to come either out of taxation, which will ultimately fall on profits, or from borrowing from the rich, which will incur legally-binding interest charges which will have to be paid out of taxation.

Any government which reduced take-home profits in this way to promote a better life for people would provoke an economic slowdown. Which would create other problems for people. It’s a lose-lose situation but one that is built-in to capitalism.

Coalition politics won’t end this. All it will do is provide parties with another specious excuse for not honouring promises which can’t be honoured anyway. Just wait and see.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain and the 2015 General Election

Via Twitter:

The Socialist Party of Great Britain explains how the party would like to abolish capitalism http://t.co/RwmljdZl8m #GE2015
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) April 27, 2015

Material World: Body Parts (2015)

The Material World Column from the April 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

In capitalism, anything can be sold for a profit, including human beings. The sickening trades in humans whether as bonded labour or sex slaves is still prevalent. Selling body parts is now a normal everyday business. Organs Watch conservatively estimates that at least 10,000 kidneys are sold each year and generates an illicit profit of around a billion dollars a year. Organ trafficking is the commercialisation of medicine: more transplants mean more profit. Everything that is happening is a ‘donation’, but in real life, it is selling and buying.

This buying and selling transplant organs is illegal almost everywhere yet the trade persists, as a result of two major flaws in the transplant system, according to experts. First, the law does not prohibit anyone from billing for the services involved in transplanting organs. This provides doctors and hospitals with a financial incentive to perform transplants, while the costs of the organ are absorbed into the larger transaction and easily hidden from view. The second flaw is the practice of making organ donation anonymous. You can buy an organ without knowing where it came from, and it thus becomes mere tissue rather than part of a human being. Anonymity does not merely dehumanise donors; it also endangers them by making it easier for buyers and brokers to escape accountability for deaths and injuries.

The organ trade follows a clear pattern: rich people buy the organs, and poor people sell them. Organ trafficking depends on several factors. One is people in distress. They are economically disadvantaged. On the demand side are people who could die if they don't receive an organ transplant. Then there are the well-connected organ brokers, who arrange the deals between sellers and buyers. Well-equipped clinics and medical staff are needed. Unlike other forms of trafficking, the organ trade unites the respectable from the highest levels of society, such as laboratory technicians and the surgeons with the disreputable of the lowest strata of society – con-men and criminals, those brutal enforcers who make sure that ‘willing’ sellers actually lie on the operating table once it is realised by them what is actually entailed and they begin to understand how they have been cheated.

Few are informed or educated enough to give consent. They do not comprehend the seriousness of the surgery or what they are likely to face in respect to the possible incapacity to resume their normally physically demanding jobs. Organ brokers have told them the fairy tale of ‘the sleeping kidney’: one kidney sleeps, the other kidney works, so people don’t need two kidneys. Doctors wake up the sleeping kidney and take away the old kidney to give it to the recipient. Those selling their kidneys often receive more invasive surgery than necessary because buyers want to avoid extra expense. Many donors will have unnecessarily long scars of about 15 to 20 inches on their bodies, not knowing that if the brokers or recipients paid just a little bit more, the surgeons could have used laparoscopic surgery, which requires an incision as small as 3 or 4 inches.

Doctors say a kidney operation is a routine procedure; it saves a life and there is no harm to the donors. The whole recruitment of donors is a package of deception, manipulating the uneducated poor. The middlemen beyond taking large profits, encourage the trade by assuring buyers that the transaction is conducted ethically and that the medical benefits justify what would otherwise be seen as exploitation.

‘The crimes are covered up,’ Scott Carney writes in his book The Red Market ‘in a veil of altruistic ideals.’ Carney estimates he is personally worth $250,000 if he was sold for body parts. ‘. . . bodies are unquestionably commodities . . . As a product, bodies aren't assembled new in factories filled with sterile suited workers; rather they are harvested like used cars at scrap markets. Before you can write a check and pick up human tissue, someone needs to transform it from a tiny piece of humanity into something with a market value . . .’

There are those who will say ‘so what?’ And in a world where money can buy anything, and everything is fair game for profit-makers, what's to stop people from turning human parts into another commodity? In a world that is governed by the principle of supply and demand, where those with money can buy anything, the inevitable result is a world in which rich recipients look for markets where they can buy body parts. The sad reality is that some poor person somewhere in the world will be forced to sell.

Capitalism can indeed be described as being vampire-like, sucking the life out of the poor, imagery often used by Marx.

ALJO

Let’s Stand Together for a Better World (2015)

From the April 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ever felt voting was a waste of time?

Usually, this is true, because the big parties support the current system. They change a few laws, shift money around; but in the end profits always come first and those on top stay on top.

Is this the only way?  We can put space probes onto comets, restore sight to the blind and perform triple heart bypass operations:  we have the brains to sort out a better system, one where we will be producing to satisfy people’s needs not for profit, where no one has to live in poverty while an elite are wealthy beyond imagining.

The Socialist Party believes in a society of cooperation, in helping each other, not exploiting our neighbours. We believe that power should be shared, not  in the hands of a greedy few.

Who controls how much you are paid, where you work, when you work or even if you work? Who decides how much it costs you to live where you are? You probably have almost no say in any of these issues which have a big effect on you. But what can you do about it?

Those who benefit from the present system would have you believe there is no alternative. It helps them if you believe it – although it does nothing for you.

You don’t have to believe you are powerless.  If you choose not to support this any more and vote socialist you will be one of an increasing number questioning the system.  You will be signalling your consent to a world cooperative society where wealth is produced and owned in common and freely shared according to need. A truly democratic society where decisions are made for the common good rather than for the gain of vested business interests. Where you have as much say as the next person regardless of position in life or occupation.

We have seen the world over that when an idea has the support of the majority of the population, nothing can stop it. To send a signal that you want this, vote for the Socialist Party candidate, and then come and join us, not to mend the current system but to build a movement strong enough to end it.

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The Socialist Party will be standing ten candidates in the coming general election, more than we have ever put up before. Half a million leaflets will be distributed in total in the chosen constituencies, which are:

Brighton Kemptown: Jacqueline Shodeke

Brighton Pavilion: Howard Pilott

Canterbury: Robert Cox

Easington: Steve Colborn

Folkestone & Hythe: Andy Thomas

Islington North: Bill Martin

Oxford East: Kevin Parkin

Oxford West & Abingdon: Mike Foster

Swansea West: Brian Johnson

Vauxhall: Danny Lambert

If you wish to help out in the campaign email us at spgb@worldsocialism.org or phone 02076223811 or text (only) 07732831192. We will put you in touch with the local branch election committee.

If you wish to help financially please make any cheque out to “The Socialist Party of Great Britain” and send to 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN. Alternatively, you can use paypal (go to our website http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/ and scroll down to the bottom).  Electoral law compels us to check and record any donations of over £50 but not for those of £50 or less.

Obituary: Dick Donnelly (2015)

Obituary from the April 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many members of the World Socialist Movement will be saddened by the passing of Dick Donnelly. For 58 years he was a speaker, organiser and writer for the Socialist Party of Great Britain and was contributing to the Socialist Standard to the very end, including last month’s ‘Voice from the Back’ column.

He was only a teenager when he was introduced to socialism by the family lodger who was, luckily for us, a Party member, and when Dick finished National Service in 1957 he joined the Party. This was at a time when the Party and Glasgow Branch were at a low ebb. After WW2 public interest in politics had never been greater but during the post-war reconstruction the public's interest in politics eventually turned into apathy.

However, Dick's determination not only revived the Party in Glasgow but he helped get it involved in more activity than ever before. Three parliamentary and numerous city council elections were contested, huge amounts of Party literature were sold door to door, far more outdoor and indoor meetings were held and Dick was the driving force behind it all.

He soon became a first-class speaker, especially outdoors where he was in his element. Even people who may not have been much interested in politics came to hear him because they liked his quick wit and caustic humour. Dick was as much an entertainer as a propagandist and his wit gave him the ability to drub hecklers, especially political opponents. An example of this was at an outdoor meeting in Glasgow when a large number of aggressive Communists were in the audience. Dick ridiculed and exposed their Party and its hypocrisy to such an extent that by the end of the meeting the aggression had turned into sullen silence.

During the 1960s and 70s Dick's speaking made him so well known in Glasgow that people recognised him in streets and pubs. It was the same in Edinburgh where he had often spoken at meetings at The Mound. This was a large open space in the very heart of the city and was Edinburgh's equivalent of Speakers’ Corner at Hyde Park in London. Dick addressed big crowds at The Mound, especially during the Edinburgh Festival when many overseas visitors could hear the case for socialism and it always got a sympathetic hearing. He made a big enough impression to be interviewed at The Mound for BBC TV and when it was screened Dick performed like a seasoned professional.

Dick spoke at meetings the length and breadth of Britain. Nowhere was too far and he even travelled from Glasgow to the deepest south west of England to represent the Party in a debate with a local MP. Dick’s entire political life was devoted to the Socialist Party and he talked about socialism wherever he could, even in his British Rail workplace where he made many friends and even a few Party members. He always kept in close touch with them and they were affectionately  known as ‘The Railway Children’; a large number of them were present at the funeral.

Over the years Dick also visited comrades in New Zealand, Australia, America and attended the founding in Calcutta of our Companion Party in India. He just couldn't stop doing what he could for the World Socialist Movement.

The SPGB has never had any use for leaders, but what it has always had are members who made outstanding contributions to the Party and Dick Donnelly was certainly among them. His passing has left a huge gap in our ranks and he will be a hard act to follow. We extend our deepest condolences to his daughters Paula and Laura.

V.V.

Editorial: There’s a General Election Coming (2015)

Editorial from the April 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

There will soon be a General Election in Britain. We predict now with complete certainty that the Conservatives, Labour, Liberals, UKIP, etc, and the Green Party, will all be standing on programmes of keeping – not ending – capitalism. They will each dress it up differently, they will each claim to have different priorities, values, intentions and even policies.

But whichever ones succeed in getting the power they seek, they will not really be in control. Their actions will be determined by the needs of the market system which they accept, support, endorse and seek to run. The market system which exists to protect and increase the power and wealth of a tiny minority.

Ask any of them about a world without the capitalist system which is at the root of all of our problems, and they will cry in chorus, ‘no! it’s utopian! not possible! not now! maybe in a thousand years! we need to work within the system! we can change and improve it from within!’They have been saying this for a couple of hundred years and, not surprisingly, this system therefore still exists, with all the same problems it has always generated.

If you do not support this insane system of global destruction and poverty then do not vote for any of these politicians pretending to be able to tame the beast. The solution is production for need, not profit. Common ownership of productive resources, not private or state ownership. Genuine democracy, not the token democracy of one vote twice a decade between versions of the same sick joke.

At the heart of all our problems is the fact that a tiny handful of under 1 percent own and control all of the world's productive resources. It is run for them. None of these parties, including the Greens, Labour, Liberals, UKIP, etc as well as Conservatives, has the slightest intention of ending that fact or even discussing it. We therefore have to laugh at them all with the derision they deserve and take steps to organise for a better future.

Scrap Capitalism (2014)

From the October 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is time to forever scrap forever this cock-eyed system that takes from the poor and  gives to the rich; that preaches austerity for the 95 percent whilst the elite get yet richer; where millionaire leaders shed crocodile tears over poverty as they live in luxury. Somehow it has been sold to us that this is usual – moreover it is the only way to organise society, and it is good and healthy. You could not make it up.

We could share all the world. Scrap capitalism, abolish the monetary system and suddenly the playing field is not so uneven. We will not have achieved utopia but many of the idiocies of the current system will have gone: life will not be quite so problematic. No longer would the accountant who finds havens for the rich to hide their wealth to avoid tax earn a thousand times more than the carers looking after the health of your old aunt – because there would no longer be wages. No more wages slavery, just imagine. You’d be able to do what you do and be able to take what you need.

You will no doubt be told it’s mad and totally unachievable. But think what would have been said about the internet or triple heart bypass surgery 50 years ago. Human beings are incredibly intelligent – just look at how much and how quickly we can achieve things when we set our minds to it – and we in the Socialist Party are simply saying the world can be organised in a more intelligent way. It cannot be seen as either intelligent or necessary that most of the wealth of the world is given to so few.

All the other parties offer you some variant of what we have already – possibly a few more checks and balances. Sadly history shows that, whatever the government, the rich come out on top. We are here to say it need not be like this.

Howard Pilott