Greasy Pole: Liz and Her Life and Loves (2015)

The Greasy Pole Column from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

What Is This Thing Called Love? was Cole Porter’s epic contribution to musical morale in the slump of the 1930s. A more recent example of the misuse of the word was when Prime Minister David Cameron assured us that ‘I love the NHS’, provoking a rage of response from the doctors, nurses, technicians, carers about how and why this thing Cameron calls ‘love’ could actually mean government policies so designedly restrictive and damaging to their work and to the patients who rely on their skills and application. And then, from the opposite Benches, there was another politician who, looking to impress us, declared that that ‘Labour is the party I love’. This was Liz Kendall, as she announced that she was a candidate in the Labour Party’s recent leadership election. Mysteriously, she was at first presented as the favourite until reality in the form of the membership vote put her at the bottom, in fourth place. Which was when it was revealed that her ‘love’ for Labour was not so strong as to persuade her to accept that result as the democratic will of the party and to support Jeremy Corbyn as the party leader.

Cambridge

Kendall came of a political family; her father was a Labour councillor before joining the Lib Dems and then re-joining Labour. As a child she enjoyed an outing with the two parents on their local canvassing so that, if the time ran out, she might throw a childish tantrum when there were no more doors for her to knock on. After grammar (non-selective) school she went to Cambridge and, in shock after the result of the 1992 general election under the calamitous leadership of Neil Kinnock she decided to ‘join the party and help fight to make sure it never happens again’. Whatever she meant by ‘it’ did eventually happen again, with Tony Blair and his government’s predictable failure to maintain their support in the miserable swamp of capitalism. After achieving a double first and being captain of the university women’s football team Kendall held a succession of spin-doctor jobs including a period as Special Adviser to Harriet Harman, who in the chaos of Labour in 1998 was sacked from the government. Kendall was rejected as the Labour candidate in Tony Benn’s old seat at Chesterfield and worked for Patricia Hewitt who judged her to have ‘a core of steel’ which was just as well as in 2010 Hewitt herself was suspended after allegations of corruption over political lobbying for cash, which did not prevent her subsequent appointment to such rewarding posts as Special Consultant to the massive pharmacological combine Alliance Boots and to a private equity company with links to BUPA hospitals. This was not, from Kendall’s point of view, all disaster because it led to her being chosen as Hewitt’s successor as the Labour candidate for the rock-solid seat of Leicester West, which she won in 2010 with a majority of 4017 despite a decline of 7.6 percent in the Labour vote.

Malnutrition

In her maiden speech in the Commons Kendall made a point of the stark problems in Leicester West particularly of the children there; more than a third of them growing up in what she called workless families, with life prospects wrecked by their poverty. In some parts of the city they are more likely to die before they are five, to do badly at school and then struggle to survive on low paid employment. Perhaps there were some Members there that day who assumed that she would be among the more restless and challenging wing of her party. But it did not happen like that; her core of steel operated in support of the measures calculated to intensify the poverty in her constituency. She supported the £23.00 benefits cap and the proposals to enforce a contributory system of benefits on the grounds that the present one had allowed too many people to exist without any pressure, such as lack of food and housing, to get paid employment. For the NHS she is in favour of what she called ‘patient choice’ which is actually a proposal to encourage more private investment with its prospects of massive profits for some dominant companies -- such as Alliance Boots and BUPA -which have what she describes as ‘a role for the private and voluntary sectors where they can add extra capacity to the NHS or challenges to the system’. Pertinent comments on Kendall’s attitude on this were from the Health and Social Care Information Centre that the number of admissions to hospitals from malnutrition rose during the past year, from 5469 to 6520; and there was the estimate from the European Nutrition for Health Alliance, that as many as 40 percent of hospital patients in the UK are malnourished on admission, causing many to be undiagnosed through inadequate screening. In fact the Tameside hospital in Greater Manchester now encourage the staff of their A and E department discreetly to offer food boxes to any patients who on discharge are malnourished. There are similar arrangements at hospitals in Birmingham and Newcastle.

Thieving

A continuing review of Kendall’s record finds that she supports limiting immigration through a points-based system, and the abolition of the right for immigrants to claim tax credits and benefits. She stands for the continuation of the universally destructive nuclear Trident submarine programme (which she obediently calls a ‘deterrent’) with expenditure on it exempt from cuts such as those imposed on essential services. Among her many fundamental euphemisms is one which applies to the entire system of class ownership and production for profit when she announces that she is ‘firmly on the side of wealth creation’, ignoring the harsh reality that it is that very system which all too often reduces wealth production when it is not profitable enough. Some time ago Kendall was angry when she found that another Member had stolen a tuna sandwich which she had left in a fridge at Portcullis House, used by the MPs as their offices. She attached an angry note to the fridge door: ‘I do not appreciate this and warn other people…’ to which the reply, in another note, was: ‘I took it… and I’d do it again’ . In spite of all she had been through, Kendall seems to be unaware that stealing will come most readily where many are occupied with managing the entire system of theft.

Ivan

Obituary: Stan Law (1991)

Obituary from the April 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Somewhat belatedly we regret to report the death of our Comrade Stan Law after a long period of illness.

Whilst serving in the RAF during the Second World War, Stan heard of the Socialist idea. Such was the strength of his conviction that, still in uniform, he rang our then General Secretary to say he was deserting. He was talked out of this extreme step, and advised to work his ticket. This he successfully did, the authorities pleased to rid themselves of what they called 'a bloody nuisance'. He was the British counterpart of the good soldier Schweik.

Stan was a member of St Pancras Branch for many years before ending up in Central Branch. A quiet unassuming chap (one of a very close group of young members) all of whom could inject their Socialist propaganda with humour and enjoyment. In the latter years of his life, illness prevented him from taking an active role. Although he was always glad to attend meetings of transport could be arranged.

Breakdown At The Hague Part 3 of 3 (2001)

From the March 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

In two previous articles we stated the basic reasons why the International Conference on world pollution, held at The Hague last November, broke down in failure and recrimination. The delegations represented rival capitalist states, each driven by the pressures of profit-making and national interests into the continued use of production methods which are destructive of the environment. At present, on balance, the problems resulting from pollution are getting worse. What is required is co-operation between all people and the freedom to set up a safe world energy system.

We also cited the fact that the capitalist system creates vast amounts of energy waste in the military and its socially useless jobs such as marketing, finance and banking which are part of its profit making machine. This waste would not happen in socialism which would be solely concerned to provide for real needs. So, socialism would bring great savings of energy but also increased demand in the work required to raise the living conditions of people throughout the world. However, once this has been achieved it could then be possible for society to settle down to a stable and sustainable way of life working within the natural systems of the planet without being destructive.

The idea of a zero growth, sustainable society is not new and in recent years has been put forward by the Green Movement. But whilst many of the declared aims of the Green Movement appear to be desirable these are contradicted by a fatal flaw in all green policies. They stand for the continuation of the market system. Instead of a society based on voluntary co-operation where all goods and services are produced directly for needs with free access, the Green Movement aims to retain the market system in which goods are produced for sale at a profit. This must mean the continuation of the capitalist system which is the cause of the problems of pollution in the first place. The Green Movement has never been able to answer the question which is how it can achieve a zero growth, sustainable society whilst retaining a market system which includes an irresistible, built in pressure to increase sales for profit and where if sales collapse, society tends to break down in recession, unemployment and financial crisis. The only way in which the aims of the Green Movement could be achieved is through socialism.

When we speak of a stable, sustainable society we do not mean a static society in which there is no development. On the contrary, when liberated from the profit motive of corporate research and the military machines of capitalist states, science will flourish and will serve the interests of all people. Nor do we suggest that new science will not result in new technology. The urgent need for care of the environment will be just one field where research and new technology would be given priority. However, we should also recognise that the abolition of all the economic constraints imposed by the market system on the use of labour will bring enormously increased powers of production. In socialism it will be possible to produce vast amounts of goods. It is in the light of this fact that people in socialism would have to ask if it makes sense to go on and on producing whilst using up the planet's resources or whether there should be voluntary limits to consumption and an eventual scaling down of productive activity.

There is an assumption in our society that increased ownership and consumption of goods leads to increased happiness and should therefore be a central drive in our lives. But whilst we all need to live to a decent standard of comfort and enjoyment the values of our acquisitive society arise from insecurity and competition. We substitute personal ownership for the better human relationships which would express our real needs as social individuals. Our happiness, or otherwise, arises from how we relate to people not from how we relate to material objects as owners.

So whilst we do not presume to lay down in advance what decisions will be made in socialism we can set out a possible way of achieving an eventual zero growth society operating in a stable and ecologically benign way. This could be achieved in three main phases. First, there would have to be emergency action to relieve the worst problems of food shortages, health care and housing which affect billions of people throughout the world. Secondly, longer term action to construct means of production and infrastructures such as transport systems for the supply of permanent housing and durable consumption goods. These could be designed in line with conservation principles, which means they would be made to last for a long time, using materials that where possible could be re-cycled and would require minimum maintenance. Thirdly, with these objectives achieved there could be an eventual fall in production, and society could move into a stable mode. This would achieve a rhythm of daily production in line with daily needs with no significant growth. On this basis, the world community could reconcile two great needs, the need to live in material well being whilst looking after the planet which is our shared home in space.

Although capitalist society appears to place great importance on its material wealth, it sometimes has no hesitation in destroying it in vast quantities and in ways which have no thought for the loss of human life involved. For example, the 20th. Century was one such story of continuous destruction. We have already mentioned the misuse and waste of energy in armaments production, but more energy has then been used to fuel the war machines of the world. These have gone on to destroy vast amounts of means of production and useful structures such as factories with all their machinery, roads, bridges, railways, vehicles, aircraft, and millions of tonnes of shipping. In Vietnam the American Government poisoned entire areas of the country with deadly Agent Orange. The names of Hiroshima, Stalingrad, Berlin, Dresden and Caen are just five of the hundreds of towns and cities that have been reduced to rubble. In the Balkans, even as the century closed we saw installations in Serbia being bombed whilst in Kosovo the homes of people were being shelled and incinerated, together with their occupants. In a sane society, all these means of production and useful structures would be produced and would then serve out their useful lives, which in some cases like houses and bridges could be for hundreds of years.

Some applications of labour have to be constant as, for example, in food production. With food, production and consumption are more or less simultaneous. But with housing, infrastructures and durable means of production, the products of one generation, with subsequent maintenance, can be used by many succeeding generations. In socialism this could mean that the initial work required to solve the problems of capitalism would not have to go on and on. Given that the work was in accordance with conservation principles, that population levels become close to stable, and that communities were content to place voluntary limits to consumption, then there could be an eventual fall in production with all the benefits this would bring to care of the environment.

Seen solely from a technical point of view there are no doubt many ways in which the damage caused by pollution could be reduced with different uses of labour. But before any of these can become real options on which communities can freely make democratic decisions, labour itself must first be liberated. Labour must enjoy its own freedom outside the present enclosed system of commodity exchange in which it is confined to its function of profit making and the accumulation of capital. Not even in the most optimistic dreams of defenders of the free market will the “accumulation of capital” ever be made to equal “care of the environment”.

In the meantime, the play-acting that passed for an International Conference on pollution at The Hague last November, is booked to continue at Bonn in May. But what presents itself as farce is really a tragedy in which we must cease to be a mere audience. How much more time wasting and failure must we see before it is accepted that capitalist politicians are incompetent to deal with the problem. The real powers of action are with the great majority of people. This will be when we decide to create a society in which we will be free to co-operate and to use all our great reserves of energy and ingenuity for our needs. Without doubt, this includes the urgent need to stop the despoliation of our planet.

Pieter Lawrence

The False Promise That is Jeremy Corbyn (2015)

From the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whilst John McDonnell might put 'generally fermenting the overthrow of capitalism' as his interest in his Who’s Who entry, sadly that isn’t enough to make a socialist of the man. It takes more than verbal flourishes to emancipate the working class. Rather than socialism, his talk is of working in partnership with enterprise and business to ensure economic growth, as in his Labour conference speech. Whilst we hear promises of nationalisation of the railways and possibly even some utilities, it seems this state ownership stops short of the real productive capacity of the country. But what is this state ownership anyway? Will rail travel be free once the crony capitalists are ousted and denied their bonuses? Hardly. The likelihood is that the railways will simply be a business run by agents of the government and probably on some form of commercial basis.

But what has Corbyn, the great herald of the new New (or Old?) Labour himself said? Well, at the conference he said he’d be the champion of the self-employed. But in fact he didn’t say much about the economy, rather gave a kind of framing speech to provide an overall sense of his position and counter some of the accusations in the media: he loved his country; believed in open discussion; wanted more for the many not the few, etc. Not much actual flesh on the bones of this advert. The idea was that John McDonnell would open that black box, as above.

What can we charitably infer? He’ll try to tax the rich a bit more, try to make corporations pay some more tax, build some more houses and control business (certainly the utilities) a bit more. Oh, and maybe reduce tuition fees. And, oh yes, there might be some quantitative easing – printing money, to you and me – to give the economy a bit of a push, as he thinks growth is a good thing.

Does any of this ring any bells with anyone? Haven’t we been here before? Or, is this the time when they really mean it: when they will really make a difference? This brings up two questions: what makes this brand of Labour significantly different to any of the others? And, will what is on offer have any chance of really making a lasting difference?

Previous Labour governments

There have been eleven previous Labour governments. We can choose from those led by Ramsay MacDonald, Clem Atlee, Harold Wilson, and Tony Blair.

The first period, before World War Two, can be called cohabitation. The first Labour government under Ramsay MacDonald was a minority administration propped up by the Liberal Party lasting 11 months and so it's not really surprising they didn't achieve very much. In fact it was little more than what were called the Wheatley houses, which was a programme of cheap council housing. Nice but not exactly earth-shattering.

Ramsay McDonald was back in office in 1929 and this administration lasted until 1931 but again another minority government. This one vacillated about Keynesian-style measures of public works to address large-scale unemployment. However it fell apart and led to the National government which addressed the recession by means of the type of austerity that we currently see: cutting benefits and government spending to get out of recession. This man of promise called himself socialist and he ended up implementing these kinds of measures as part of that government, and was actually expelled from the Labour Party.

The Attlee period might be called 'the land fit for heroes'. This is probably regarded as the most radical and successful Labour government that was elected after World War Two. Their offer to the voters was to destroy the five ‘Giants’ of Want, Squalor, Disease, Ignorance, and Unemployment. This government was certainly committed to improving the lot of the working class. The creation of the welfare state, and rebalancing the economy to address poverty were priorities. They nationalised about 20 percent of the economy but abandoned plans to nationalise farming. However the senior staff in the nationalised industries remained in place. It was simply a case of new owners, or perhaps old wine in new bottles. There was no worker control on offer. Additionally industries nationalised were mostly those that were completely run into the ground from lack of investment and the War effort.

Trying to square the circle for this bankrupt economy with social aspirations was never going to work. Joining the Korean War did not help, and by 1950 health prescription charges appeared; so much for free cradle to grave healthcare. Then there was the formation of NATO and the nuclear weapons programme. It is worth noting that Attlee signed up to the terms of the Marshall Plan which required a large measure of the regulation for business to be removed, which is quite similar to the way in which the IMF operates today. American capitalism seldom comes without large strings attached. But give them their due, the Attlee government set up a variety of welfare structures that many of the baby boomers benefited from, and endured mostly intact until the so-called 'sweeping away of socialism' under Thatcher.

Harold Wilson's first administration was 'the acceptable face of capitalism'. Wilson was elected in 1964 with a minority government and a platform called New Britain. A second election in 1966 brought a majority administration which lasted through to 1970. Nobody really claims this regime was socialism although it did do major work on social reform: education, housing, social security and workers’ rights. But ultimately the economy faltered; which led to cuts including school milk in secondary schools (that wasn’t Thatcher), dental charges, increased National Insurance deductions, benefits not linked to average wages, prescription charges being scrapped but then reintroduced, tax allowances being cut, and a doomed programme of building cheap high-rise flats. Their attempt at playing the money markets went wrong with the devaluation crises from which the government never really recovered.

The first Wilson administration can certainly lay claim to a number of major pieces of social reform, for instance the repeal of the death penalty, decriminalisation of homosexuality, changes in the law regarding divorce, abortion and race. However this is social tinkering. It is not changing the relationship of power in any meaningful way.

Harold Wilson's next regime, which led into James Callaghan's, can be termed 'the period of walking a tight rope'. The first was in a minority administration and re-election in 1974 saw a wafer thin majority of four. This meant the government was never in a particularly powerful position and effectively its five years in office were spent riding the storm of an economic recession brought about largely by the oil price hike and the bursting of the Barber boom. Again, the major impact was a series of social tinkerings: tenancy rights, improved benefits, Sex Discrimination Act, prices commission, and workers’ rights. However the government finally ground itself out in the so-called Winter of Discontent, after borrowing from the IMF (again) led to large cuts in government expenditure.

Which brings us to Tony Blair. New Labour had set out its stall as the party of capitalism when at conference Tony Blair called for the abolition of Clause Four, probably the last vestige of anything resembling socialist intent within the Labour Party structure. In 1997 there was a pledge card provided to voters which didn't offer much in terms of radical social change – which was pretty much the overall picture of the Blair administration. They promised to cut class sizes, fast track offenders, cut NHS waiting times, reduce under 25s unemployment and have tough rules for Government spending. What was on offer was a managerial approach to capitalism: we can run it better than the Tories.

So we got the minimum wage (at a very low level) and Sure Start but we also got PFIs, Iraq, the rich got richer, and corporations got much more powerful and they also paid less tax. We were told this was a new kind of economy where boom and bust was beaten for good – but this hubris crashed in the banking crisis of 2008.

Could Corbyn be any different?

Not much of a record for eleven election victories: not much socialism anywhere in the picture. Not much of a basis to think Corbyn will make a massive impact. Has he distanced himself from all that? Apart from apologies promised for Iraq (even Blair is working on that now), it sounds very much like he’s offering a Wilson Mark 2: bits of nationalisation, taxing the rich, government spending and more welfare. Even Denis Healy, a right winger, as Chancellor offered to tax the rich until their pips squeaked. Not much of that kind of talk here.

So, will it work anyway? What Labour is trying to effect is a benign and responsible capitalism: a system where they accept there is an unequal distribution of wealth and power but where the state is enabled to act as an arbitrator and redistributor thereby minimising the impact of this inequality within certain limits. This is all the while still remaining a member of all sorts of capitalist power blocks (e.g. WTO, EU) because they want to maintain global trade. So the theory must be that while the rest of the world carries on trying to lower costs and hence wages, Britain will manage to continue trading with them and somehow maintain decent wages and conditions. Presumably, this is predicated on the notion that they will somehow be able to redistribute the excessive profits of business and have lots of internationally desirable commodities and services for sale, cheaply enough to maintain Britain's position as the sixth or seventh largest economy in the world. One wonders at what point does this wonderful government start to dismantle the financial services industry which makes a huge contribution to the economy but contributes not one iota to production?

The point is if you want a bigger economy, the last thing you are going to do is start making life too difficult for big players. You have to find some way to coexist with these capitalist enterprises, which means you have to recognise their interests in one way or another. Sure, you’ll try to curtail the egregious excesses but in reality you’ll let them get on with it in some regulatory framework or another.

We have regulatory frameworks at the moment for all sorts of things: Ofwat, Ofgen, Ofcom, Ofsted, Ofrail. Accepting that these ones are charades and that Corbyn will introduce big tough ones, the problem is that governments only last five years at most. Someone else can come in later and water them down. What has been the trajectory of the NHS since inception? What was the trajectory of the nationalised industries? All have started with great aspirations and fallen under the millstone of government funding decisions. Just a little bit of prescription charging to start with and then where do we go?

Here’s the rub, then. Even if Corbyn did manage to tame the forces of capital enough to raise the economic condition of the bottom 50 percent and similarly reduce differentials in Britain, he would not really be addressing the distribution of power. Sooner or later that power would reassert itself, particularly if there was an economic downturn. What would stop the rich choosing to take their money elsewhere or to simply sit on it? To stop the investment and the trickle down supply and whatever else? Desperate not to have them do that, there would be all sorts of concessions. What would stop the large corporations, foreign and UK, simply moving their activity overseas? Unless this remains a country friendly enough to business, business will prefer to be somewhere else.

Remember the event during the Major government called Black Friday? International currency speculators bet against the pound staying in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (a precursor of the euro) and forced Britain out. Having a financial system which runs on credit and borrowing as Britain does, the government has to borrow money to make ends meet. We have seen the effects this circus can have on countries’ abilities to run themselves – Greece is a recent example. Unless your government is self-sufficient (as none is), sooner or later you’ll need to go to the money men and offer them a proposition that they like. Otherwise you will go without and their money will go to someone else.

Sad but true. The truth is that unless this whole approach is entirely rethought and scrapped for a better system, we’re onto a loser. How fortunate then that help is at hand: socialism. Abolishing money and the whole financial exchange mechanism means those who have large amounts of wealth and influence are suddenly deprived of all that power: they could make hats out of their bank notes for all the difference it would make. A system of production for use as determined democratically is the only way by which the working class can achieve emancipation. Jeremy Corbyn may look like a breath of fresh air but he’s as stale as the party he now leads.

Howard Pilott

Mixed Media: Mary Barnes (2015)

Saint Joseph
Finger painting, April, 1968

The Mixed Media Column from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Earlier this year there was an exhibition of paintings by Mary Barnes (1923-2001) at the Nunnery Gallery, Bow in East London. The works came predominantly from the collection of psychiatrist Dr Joseph Berke, who is 'Boo-Bah', Mary's therapist and friend. Mary was an Army Nurse in the Second World War, in 1949 she converted to Roman Catholicism which was a rebellious and unusual step, representing a break from staid and bourgeois Anglicanism. But when she was 29 she was diagnosed as schizophrenic. With her condition seriously deteriorating, in 1963 she read RD  (‘Ronnie’) Laing's The Divided Self, and contacted and began regular therapy sessions with him.

Laing and fellow psychiatrist David Cooper were heavily influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre's Marxist Existentialism which was expounded in Search for a Method (1957), and Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960). Sartre aimed for a synthesis of Marxism and Existentialism, seeing Marxism as the dominant philosophy and existentialism as a reinforcing ideology. Sartre proposed Existentialism and Marxism as a possible means of understanding humanity and the world as a totality. Laing and Cooper in their 1964 book Reason and Violence, a Sartrean synopsissaw a combination of a Hegelian-Marxist dialectic with an Existentialist psychoanalysis that incorporates individual responsibility into class relationships, thereby adding a properly Existentialist dimension of moral responsibility to a Marxist emphasis on collective and structural causality. For Laing and Cooper, mental illness was a normal, functioning element of the capitalist world we live in, and that it was in fact a perfectly rational response to an insane world and must therefore be treated as such.

In 1965 Laing, Cooper, and Berke set up the Philadelphia Association at Kingsley Hall in East London, a therapeutic community. One of the first members was Mary Barnes. Laing believed that a breakdown, if allowed to progress without medical intervention, could lead to a more stable state of mind. Thus Mary was encouraged to give in to, and regress to, a state of helpless infancy so that she could grow up again into sanity. She became the patient of 'Boo-Bah' Berke, regression therapy and a psycho-dynamic discourse ensued. Mary discovered her gift for painting, and her condition improved. Mary became a cause célèbre, featuring in a June 1968 Sunday Observer article How Mary Barnes grew up again at 42, and held her first solo exhibition in April 1969 at the Camden Arts Centre.

Mary's canvases are full of vivid colour and often depict religious imagery. Trees shows a figure on a tree in a crucifixion pose while Crucifixion, with its 'INRI' is much more explicit. Mary wrote that 'Ronnie especially liked The Vine, a crucifixion painting of Christ as the vine.' (Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of a Journey Through Madness Mary Barnes and Joseph Berke 1971) William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) pointed out that religious emotions may be deranged but are crucial to human life, religious experiences can be irrational but nevertheless are largely positive as after a religious experience the ideas and insights usually remain and are often valued for the rest of the person's life. Marx identified that 'Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.' (Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right) In The Politics of Experience (1967), Laing wrote 'we are born into a world where alienation awaits us. We are potentially human beings, but are in an alienated state, and this state is not a natural system' which owed a huge debt to Marx's writings on alienation in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts.

Mary's Volcanic Eruption: Explosion of IT (1969) is the centrepiece of the exhibition, all primary red, green, yellow, orange, and black colours in seismic flourishes. Mary wrote 'in December 1965 I had a dream that I think must have been about IT: walking along a road... I saw a man in a dark suit and beret. He reminded me they would soon be testing the bomb.' The exhibition features her metal trunk with a handwritten note sellotaped to it 'Mary Barnes Art Work, paintings etc. of mainly Kingsley Hall period 66-70.' There are photographs of Boo-Bah and Mary at the publication of their book, Mary at a performance of David Edgar's 1978 play Mary Barnes, and a photograph of Mary in 1990 visiting Sweden where she frequently gave talks to both psychiatrists and patients. This particular photograph shows Mary meeting a patient deemed too dangerous to meet face-to-face.

For the rest of her life Mary showed her work worldwide, usually accompanied by lectures on mental health issues, and the benefits of psychotherapy. According to Laing's son, 'Mary became a show-piece for Ronnie's central theory of the potential healing function of extremely disturbed forms of behaviour.' (RD Laing: A Biography Adrian Laing 1994) The exhibition epitaph is Mary's hymn to Berke: 'Boo-Bah, Ascension Day, Hip-pip Hooray! Joe, I love you with the burning heart of the Sun' which is testament to the humanism of radical 'anti-psychiatry'/Existential Marxist psychotherapy.

Steve Clayton

Breakdown At The Hague Part 2 of 3 (2001)

From the February 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Part 1 can be found here.

The second article in this series, where we ask how we can co-operate to provide a good life for all while avoiding damage to the environment

In commenting last month on the breakdown of the International Conference on climatic change, held at The Hague last November, we asked the question, How do we build a society in which all people are able to co-operate to provide a good life for each other whilst avoiding damage to the world environment? We argued that this could only be done through the relationships of socialism and concluded that leaving the problems to capitalist politicians and their conferences, such as the fiasco at The Hague, can only lead to further disaster.

In dealing with problems such as world pollution, people in socialism will enjoy freedoms of decision making and action that are denied to us under the capitalist system. This arises from a basic difference between the two systems. Throughout most of history, within the limits of technical development, humans have been able to make full use of productive powers. But the emergence of capitalism meant that these powers could only be used to produce goods that could be sold on the markets. Since then, because of the limits of market capacity and their unpredictability, it has been impossible to make rational decisions about how total productive resources should be used. This economic constraint on our powers of action is the basic reason why the problems of pollution persist, but being free from these restrictions in socialism the world community would have no difficulty in mobilising its resources of labour and technique. Indeed, the state of the planet demands that the utmost urgency be given to stopping the degradation of the world environment.

With all people united about their shared interests, the division of the world into rival capitalist states will be replaced by a democratic administration organised on world, regional and local levels. The global nature of the problem would surely require a world energy organisation and we can anticipate that its functions could include bringing together technical experts and planners from across the world and setting up research projects. This research would not be constrained by costs and it would not be tainted by commercial or nationalistic interests. Nor would it be shrouded in secrecy or geared to national security. So, in a completely open society, such a world energy organisation would make available all the most up-to-date information on the problems of pollution together with the various technical options for acting on them. Such information would be the basis on which democratic decisions would be made.

World energy resources

The world distribution of energy sources is uneven between capitalist nations and mainly monopolised by the developed countries through economic power and control of spheres of interest backed up by military force. Conflict over energy sources has been a potent part of the cause of war. But in socialism the production of energy would work freely with the natural advantages of the whole planet in whatever geographical location was necessary and these would be available to the whole world community. This would be the use of the world as one productive unit. Without economic competition there would be no pressure to work with the methods that keep labour cost to a minimum. Cheapness, which compels the use of so many destructive methods, would not be a factor. If safety and care of the environment required a more labour intensive method of production, these would be the deciding reasons for using it. This, however, would not be a problem since socialism would bring a vast increase in the numbers of people available for useful production and there would in fact be an abundance of labour.

As long ago as 1983 a very useful book by Janet Ramage Energy: A Guidebook was published. It was a mainly pessimistic review of world energy production and she ended by asking “Is there an altogether different alternative?" How about a world-wide electric grid, she suggested. It could use underground and ocean floor super-conducting cables, and the power would come from solar farms in the world's major deserts, OTEC (ocean thermal) plants in tropical waters, and wave power stations and wind turbine arrays in remote regions. No atmospheric pollution, no radioactive wastes. No wastes, no use of valuable agricultural land or previous fresh water. Would it work? Estimates of annual world energy demand in 50 years' time lie between 600 and 1,000 exajoules. Using the data from earlier chapters, it isn't difficult to find the size of installation for any selected contribution from each type of power plant. There are probably no insuperable technical problems. There is just one question, How do we get there from here?”

It was not the purpose of Ramage to look beyond the capitalist system so she could see no way forward towards achieving this solution. But this is exactly the kind of technical option that socialist society, on the basis of world co-operation and common ownership, could act upon. Further research based upon the principles set out in this ecologically benign solution would surely refine the non-destructive technology.

But the construction of a such a world-wide grid would not necessarily be the only means of providing energy. Some ecologically benign methods are suitable for local, small-scale use. Solar panels in well-designed buildings would not have to be connected to a grid supply. It is likely that many such ideas will be proposed for achieving a balance of methods. The important point is that before we can fully act on them we must do the political work of replacing capitalism with socialism.

Enormous savings

The estimates of future energy needs suggested by Ramage would have been based on projections from present consumption but socialism would be able to make enormous savings in energy. Much of this would result from ending many occupations that would become redundant in socialism. This aspect of waste was pointed out most eloquently by Marx:

"The capitalist mode of production, whilst on the one hand enforcing economy in each individual business, begets by its anarchical system of competition, the most outrageous squandering of labour power and of the social means of production, not to mention the creation of a vast number of employments, at present indispensable, but in themselves superfluous" (Capital, Volume I, at the end of chapter 17)

If this was true in the time of Karl Marx how much more true is it today? For example, in Britain there are over one million workers in insurance, finance and banking. None of these workers contribute to the real needs of the community but their wasteful occupations use up vast amounts of energy. Much of this is in transport.

During World War II, to relieve pressure on an overworked transport system, numerous posters asked the question—“Is your journey really necessary?” This is a good question that applies now to the countless millions of journeys by train, bus and car, from suburbs into every city centre, by commuters with jobs in insurance, finance and banking. Cars and buses stuck in traffic jams cough out a poisonous mix of exhaust gases whilst power stations generating the electricity for millions of useless train journeys do the same. This waste spreads to the energy used to manufacture and operate the huge amounts of equipment in Insurance, Finance and Banking, such as computer hardware. In socialism all this waste would be ended and the energy would become available for useful production.

A further example of waste is the energy used in the world's arms industries. Especially since the beginning of the last century, every branch of industry, manufacture, communications and transport has been used to mine and process every kind of raw material for the production of the fighter aircraft, bombers, warships, tanks, lorries, guns, missiles, shells, and much more besides, all of which make up the military in capitalist states.

The amount of wasted energy used to run the parts of the profit system that would be ended in socialism is a substantial proportion of total consumption. The end of this waste would be a gain in a society that would produce goods and services economically, solely for the real needs of people. On the other hand this also means that in socialism, at least to begin with, there would be a need to increase the production of food and housing, and all the things necessary to raise living standards to decent levels for every person, especially considering undeveloped regions. Before housing and consumption goods can be increased the means of production would have to be increased and this would be energy intensive. So in looking forward to the use of energy in socialism we can anticipate great savings from the end of waste but also extra demand.

The object of socialism will be to create relationships of co-operation between all people and to solve the problems caused by capitalist society. Initially, this will involve a commitment to great world projects requiring a new democratic administration, new institutions, and expanded production. However, we can also anticipate that in a situation where much of this great work has been accomplished there could be an eventual fall in production. This suggests the possibility of a sustainable, “steady-state” society which could work within the natural systems of the environment in a non-destructive way.

Pieter Lawrence

In a final article, we will examine the practical ways this could be achieved.

Action Replay: Sadness in the Beautiful Game (2015)

The Action Replay Column from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

A year ago on the morning of 22 December, Clarke Carlisle was hit by a lorry on the A64 near Bishopthorpe, North Yorkshire. Clarke was an ex-footballer and former spokesman for the Professional Footballers Association (PFA). He was subsequently charged for his third drink/driving offence and sentenced to 150 hours unpaid community service.

Five months later, outside Islington magistrate’s court he stood before a camera looking directly at it – and apologised for something no human should be pushed to do – deliberately stepping out in front of a lorry in a suicide attempt. ‘His expression of remorse for the lorry driver was desperate to observe’ ( i newspaper, 18th May).

Since being nursed back to health by the Cygnet hospital, Harrogate, Clarke has helped to establish a foundation to help those suffering from mental health and related drug/alcohol problems and has met with politicians to elevate this dual condition in the media.

Clarke Carlisle’s return to society will not be welcomed by all. Some will shun him, believing that he deserved a custodial sentence. Clarke’s behaviour has been described by those who know him as – drink – do damage, be briefly remorseful, do damage, etc. This typically reckless behaviour has turned people against him. Clarke has since apologised for his conduct and says he is a different person now. He has a new goal and his campaigning for more public and governmental recognition of the problems associated with the dual problems of alcohol and mental health is a worthy cause that may help him along the road to redemption

Clarke has experienced remorse and bleak loneliness. His journey towards sobriety and tackling his mental health issues should not be ignored by the wider public. Clarke’s involvement is a positive response to his own turmoil. Mental health problems affect one person in four with anti - depressants being prescribed widely to the public.

But we now await the ‘cuts’ the Conservative government is forcing on the public. It’s likely that mental health services will be badly affected as the government also encourages more privatisation of the NHS. It is not good news.

Kevin.

Production Solely For Use (1942)

From the September 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

A writer signing himself "Pep" has an article called "Production for Profit—or Use" in "Everybody's Weekly" (August 8th, 1942). He challenges what he believes to be the Socialist case and argues that there is not and cannot be anything else but production for profit—"no one at any time does anything whatever except for profit." It is necessary to emphasise the point that Pep's attack is on what he believes is the Socialist case, for he has neglected to state correctly what is the Socialist. Here is a passage which shows Pe's line of argument:—

I seem to have heard  . . . an orator declaring that the production of goods for profit was a root cause of industrial unrest if not for our defeat in Libya. He asserted that, according to the gospel of Marx, production should be for use. He pictured a greedy horde of plutocrats driving gentlemen called the workers into factories where they were sweated—not in order to make article of use in English homes, but to make profits for the obese owners of vested interests . . .
I objected to the picture because I hold it to be untrue that we who work are driven anywhere. We are, maybe, enticed by pay envelopes , bonuses, pensions and advancement, but we are not yet goaded on by whips or scorpions to produce profits for the rich. And as for ourselves, no one at any time does anything whatever except for profit.

Pep arrives at his curious conclusion by attaching to the word profit not one understandable meaning, but several different meanings: all of them wrong. In one place he appears to use the word to mean wages, and talks of a carpenter making a chair for profit; whereas it is characteristic of capitalism that carpenters, like other workers, live not on profits but on wages. Elsewhere he employs the term in a sense peculiar to himself. He writes:—

Who would make a hay rake except for use? On the other hand, who would dream of making it except for immediate profit—a profit which will be translated during the coming winter into terms of milk, cream, butter and cheese.

Here, it will be seen, he is using the word profit to mean exactly the same as use. He could more sensibly have written in place of his second sentence—

Who would dream of making it except for immediate use—a use which will be translated during the coming winter into terms of milk, cream, butter and cheese.

It is in this curious way that Pep sets out to enlighten the readers of "Everybody's Weekly."

If we now state the Socialist case as it really is we can begin to enlighten Pep. What the Socialist ways is that under capitalism production is carried on for the profit of the owners of the means of production, though the usefulness of the products is not in question, and that under Socialism  it will be carried on solely for use—note the word solely. As Pep questions the Socialist explanation we can perhaps make things clearer to him by referring to some statements in his own article.

It will be noticed, for example, that in the passage quoted above Pep makes use of the phrase, "We who work." Thus does the truth slip out in the most surprising places, for by singling out "we who work," Pep is disclosing that even he recognises the existence of some others who do not have to work. In the same passage he notes that "we who work" are enticed by "pay envelopes." So "we who work" receive "pay envelopes," which again differentiates us from some other persons who receive incomes from the ownership of property. The remark made by Pep is that the workers, far from being driven by whips or scorpions to produce profits for the rich, "are enticed by pay envelopes." He does not, it will be noticed, go so far as to deny that profits are produced for the rich, and he does not try to explain why it is that carpenters and other producers of useful articles should be content to produce profits for others. Can Pep really be so ignorant of the world in which he lives that he has never noticed how much more persuasive than whips and scorpions is the goad of starvation, or the semi-starvation of unemployment pay? Yet Pep must truly be ignorant for he has not noticed the existence in peace time of unemployment, of millions of men and women who cannot be "enticed by pay envelopes" because nobody will offer them the opportunity. If Pep were to make a few inquiries he would discover that this occurs, not because the workers are unwilling to produce useful articles, or because nobody is in need of useful articles, but because those who own and control the means of production and distribution cannot see the prospect of profit and therefore forbid the workers to work. In that situation Pep's imaginary carpenter "who prefers to make things for profit, especially his own," is in a very sad case—solely because of capitalism, which is a system of society in which production depends on the prospect of profit for the capitalist.

Edgar Hardcastle

Breakdown At The Hague Part 1 of 3 (2001)

From the January 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The international conference on global warming broke down with no agreement

Last month the International Conference on global warming held at The Hague broke down. Predictably, there was no agreement. Instead, it finished with a slanging match between some of the delegates over who was to blame. After all-night talks a bleary-eyed John Prescott suggested that the delegate from France, Dominique Voynet, had been unable to keep up with the detailed arguments, whilst she in return suggested that Prescott was an "unreconstructed male chauvinist". There seems to be a tradition of abuse at these events. In 1993, a similar conference in London broke up with the Norwegian delegate calling the British Minister for the Environment, John Gummer, a "drittsekk" ("shitbag"). No less depressing than the thought of a serious world problem out of control is the fact that it is in the hands of such politicians. The truth is that from the beginning, the Conference at The Hague, like all such conferences, was incompetent to deal with the problem.

Evidence mounts

For some time the quality of the science behind the idea of global warming, climatic change and the part played by human activity, has had its critics but the evidence is mounting. To quote the Economist of 18 November, "Now, however, the science has become clearer and most new evidence confirms that global warming should be taken seriously. The forthcoming report by the UN's Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of the world's top climate scientists (including prominent dissenters), concludes that man's actions have "contributed substantially to the observed warming over the last 50 years."

This confirms many earlier warnings. For example, in 1984, a report from the National Science Foundation, Washington, Global Energy Futures and CO2, Induced Climate Change said "Accurate records of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere kept over the past 34 years show that concentrations have increased (8 percent) from 315 parts per million in 1958 to 340 parts per million in 1982." Since 1982, hundreds of millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases have been further released into the atmosphere.

The anger of the Norwegian delegate at the 1993 London Conference was provoked by the British government having reneged on its promise to reduce carbon emissions. This was seen to result in extensive destruction of the soils, forests, and lakes of Scandinavia, caused by acid rain. Aquatic life in 17,000 lakes in south-west Sweden had been wiped out or seriously damaged. In the 1980s the British government had come under pressure to reduce the carbon emissions from its power stations by 30 percent. This would have included the fitting of flue gas desulphurisation equipment to power stations which were throwing up millions of tonnes of sulphur dioxide. It refused to go ahead because the 30 percent reduction would have cost £l billion. At the time, the British Government was struggling to get out of a deep slump in which there were almost 4 million unemployed. It was not in a position to add £1 billion pounds to its energy costs.

This underlines the basic cause of pollution and global warming and the reasons why International Conferences on the subject tend to break up in failure and recrimination or, subsequently, why governments find it difficult to carry out the commitments they have given.

Who's going to bear the burden?

On the face of it the problems of pollution, global warming and climate change may appear to be technical problems. But this is wrong. Although the Hague Conference was attended by hundreds of technical experts, the important arguments about what can or what cannot be done were about money and costs. The arguments were about the strategies of the various states who were at the Conference to defend their economic interests. A blatant example of this was reported in the Economist: " . . . the big oil producing countries are, in a flight of fancy, demanding compensation for the harm they will suffer from lost oil sales; they are trying to block the Kyoto process as a conspiracy to damage their economies".

Kyoto accords

The Kyoto accord of 1997 was an agreement amongst the developed nations to cut the release of greenhouse gases by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008/12. Since then, most countries have increased their pollutants and in America these have soared. The parties to the Kyoto accord also ". . . agreed that cutting emissions might be so expensive that the treaty should allow countries innovative, flexible approaches to reduce compliance costs".

In practice, being "innovative" and "flexible" has resulted in a series of complex proposals which appear to be more designed to confuse the issues and avoid commitments rather then fulfil them. For example, America, Australia, Canada and Japan, all of which are now increasing their greenhouse gases, have proposed they be allowed to plant vast amounts of trees in the developing world and count the carbon dioxide absorbed against their own emissions. This was seen as evasive and was described as "a con-trick". It was mainly this sort of recrimination that brought the conference at The Hague to an end when it was meant to monitor progress and up-date the targets set at Kyoto. One consequence is that the "Kyoto Accord" is in ruins.

Empty rhetoric

The various conferences on pollution have failed to make any significant progress and it could be said that they are mere forums for empty rhetoric, intended to put a public relations gloss on government actions which in reality are making the problems worse. It would be difficult to argue against this. However, the fact that these are international discussions does recognise one important thing. They accept that the problems are global, and that global consensus is required for action on a global scale. What dooms them to failure is the fact that they take place in a world that is divided into rival capitalist states which are in economic competition with each other. This makes global consensus impossible and rules out effective global action. The pressures to keep down costs and protect profits means that the technology for reducing pollution is either ignored or applied in a minimal token way.

Need for global framework

Even where the science may not be complete a precautionary principle should apply. It is reckless to gamble with an existing balance of natural systems on which all life depends. The basic cause of pollution is the capitalist system. The problem is out of control because the economic constraints of the system prevent the problems being solved. A sane society would simply consider the technical options available. Then, following democratic decisions on the actions to be taken would do what was necessary to achieve the solutions. This rational procedure is impossible in the mad world of capitalism. The plain fact is, before we can work within natural systems in a non-destructive way we must first create a society in which we can all co-operate with each other.

The problems of world pollution are technical, economic and political but the important question that emerges is this: how do we establish a society in which all people are able to co-operate to provide a good life for each other whilst looking after our shared home in space? The freedom to do this can only be achieved through the relationships of socialism. Every person has the ability to co-operate with others and every person has a vital interest in creating the new world in which co-operation can flourish. Leaving the problems to capitalist politicians and their conferences such as the fiasco at The Hague can only be a recipe for disaster.

With the end of the market system, people in socialism would enjoy great advantages in solving the problems of pollution and environmental degradation. There would be no difficulty in establishing a World Energy Organisation that would be able to assess the problems from a global point of view without the barriers of national divisions. It would be able to recommend technical solutions arising from all the natural advantages of the planet and its use as a single productive unit. Socialism would also be able to save on resources by eventually reducing production levels.

End of competition

By concentrating its labour resources economically on the real needs of people socialism would be able to stop vast numbers of wasteful and destructive jobs that are only necessary in a profit system. With the end of economic competition, socialism would not be bound to use the least costly methods of production, many of which are destructive of the environment. Whilst a fall in capitalist production because of recession creates chaos and immense problems of misery and social dislocation, communities in socialism would eventually be able to bring about a fall in production without any such problems. A further article will examine these options more closely.

Pieter Lawrence

The Lessons of Madrid (2004)

Editorial from the April 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

The explosions in Madrid have brought home the truth about the so-called War on Terror

The victims, workers of eleven different nations, had their lives blinked out of existence by the simple deadly efficiency of modern chemical explosives carefully applied to devastate the complex systems upon which modern humans rely for survival.  Their assassins had been able to move freely in their midst to unleash their chaos and carnage.

In his speech following the bombings, Tony Blair was forced to admit that such atrocities cannot be prevented.  In modern industrialised society, too many people are moving and crowding together to control.  Explosives are too small and concealable.  He went on, that alone in history, the likely perpetrators ─ Al Qaeda, or their sympathisers ─ are immune to reason and rationale and that they cannot be defeated except by main force.

The likes of the trotskyist Paul Foot see terrorism as “the weapon of the weak”.  To many leftists, weakness and being the underdog is ennobling.  Indeed, John Pilger and Tariq Ali, whilst professing to be in favour of  “Stopping the War” actually are fully in favour of it, only they favour the side that now uses bombs to kill crowds of Iraqi workers with the same sort of technology as murdered the Madrid workers.  They support the “Resistance”. They support it because America is big and powerful, so it must use the vicious weapons of the weak, to defeat the great power that is immune to reason and cannot be defeated except by main force.

Of course, weakness is not of itself ennobling, still less does it make its possessor deserving of support.  The perpetrators of many of the atrocities of modern terrorist war are not the starvelings from the slums, the children struggling beneath the occupying soldier's boot.  Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi Arabian capitalist ─ waging war on his homeland's government and its American backers.  His followers are college-educated professionals, usually from well-off families, the aspirant ruling classes of Middle Eastern states.

They would use the same weapons all ruling classes have historically used to climb to power ─ brute force, mayhem and murder.  That the resources they possess to do this with are small does not change that underlying intent

They seek to use their weapons to maximum effect: imposing costs, in terms of chaos, fear, disruption and increased security, on their foes - chiefly the American government and its allies - to the point at which they will find the cost too great to continue with their current policies.

Those governments themselves, of course, have a tremendous abundance of the sort of means of destruction which the terrorists deployed in Madrid.  They have themselves, with a year, used those resources for terrorist purposes - or for “Shock and Awe” as they termed it.  They too have slaughtered workers in pursuit of their ends.

Of course, the politicians that run those governments try to make out that they are different to the terrorists, they have values.  They did not target civilians deliberately though they did unleash destructive power in the full knowledge that “bystanders” would die.

The truth of Madrid is that there is no essential difference, that the victims of that bomb were as equally human as those dead Iraqis as the bombs that killed them were equally bombs.   As human as the deluded workers who form the potential supporters that the terrorists are trying to win to their cause.  They died amidst the pass and fell of warring powers, even if those powers are “asymmetric”.

While Blair would attempt to cover this truth with his call for everyone to take the side of the tiger against the fleas, socialists declare that the only way for the workers to defend themselves against the prospect of the permanent threat of obliteration is to wage war against the very causes of the conflict - the division of the world into property.

Our weapons though, are not those of destruction.  The workers are the force of creation, and can build a better world.  The truth and the message of Madrid is that the war on terror must be transformed into a battle between the free association of producers, versus the nihilistic battalions of destruction.

Proper Gander: Cheapness At a Price (2015)

The Proper Gander Column from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Supermarket Chain Aldi opened its first British store as long ago as 1990, but it took the recent economic downturn for it to grow into the booming profit-factory we know today. Like Poundland and Primark, Aldi found its strength in an economic climate where we’ve got less disposable income, and have turned to the shops which are flogging things at the lowest prices. Aldi now has 600 stores in Britain, with plans to double this number in the next five years. Meanwhile, comparatively upmarket Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons are closing branches and shelving plans to open more.

Suspicious of how this growth has been achieved, Channel 4’s documentary strand Dispatches went undercover in Aldi’s Supermarket Secrets. Two reporters wearing hidden cameras get jobs as new recruits to Aldi’s army, hoping to find out about its ‘dynamic business model’.

Despite the show’s title promising secrets, Aldi’s strategy is familiar. Punters are drawn in by cheap prices, which are possible through strict cost cutting elsewhere in the business. Obviously, it’s Aldi’s workforce which has to deal with the pressures to increase efficiency and productivity. The employee handbook lists their various time targets, such as scanning 1,200 items through the till each hour, or one every three seconds. A training video tells staff that ‘you dictate the speed of the transaction, not the customer’.

The pace that shelves are stacked is also set by targets, which employees try to meet by chucking loaves of bread into place and climbing on shelves because it’s quicker than fetching a ladder. The speed that workers have to work means that corners are cut and health and safety policies aren’t followed. Three quarters of Aldi’s staff said they had health and safety concerns in a union survey.

Workplace targets tend to be unrealistic in any business, as they are set by managers without enough experience or empathy with how things are on the ground. The higher up in an organisation someone is, the further they are removed from the practicalities they make decisions about. What senior managers can see clearer is the drive to make money.

Even though Aldi says that from 2016 it will pay better wages than any other retailer, staff have been expected to be at work fifteen minutes before their shift starts, which over a year translates as a week of unpaid labour. This is illegal, although, of course, it’s considered acceptable for workers not to be paid back the wealth they create  which is creamed off as profits. Aldi’s owners recently enjoyed profits of £260.3million in the UK, but this comes at a cost to its staff.

Mike Foster

Editorial: Neither God nor State (2015)

Editorial from the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Paris, 13 November 2015. Yet another atrocity in the name of religion. A deliberate attempt to kill as many innocent people as possible, at a pop concert, an international football match, and at random in the streets. Of course there was a political motive behind it. It was as President Hollande said, an act of war.

The ‘Islamic State’, which governs parts of Syria and Iraq, to which the perpetrators owed allegiance and on whose behalf they carried out the atrocity, is at war with various ordinary capitalist states – Syria, Iraq, the United States, Russia, Britain and of course France as well as others.

Deliberately targeting civilians is against the Geneva Convention but not, apparently, against sharia law nor (if you are on the winning side) against realpolitik, as Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima and Nagasaki show. Once a war starts in the end anything goes because, if a state loses, then even the life of its rulers is at stake, let alone their position as rulers or the economic interests of its capitalists.

We are dealing, then, with a war atrocity, and wars arise from capitalism. They occur when, in the competition between states for sources of raw material, trade routes, markets, investment outlets and strategic points and areas to protect and acquire these, the rulers of a capitalist state feel that their ‘vital interests’ are at stake and that they have more to lose by not going to war.

In the Middle East what’s at stake is who controls its oil resources and the routes by which the oil reaches the rest of the world. The US and its allies (‘the West’) have been determined to control this and largely do, but this control has always been challenged by local elites. During the Cold War period these used secular nationalism to win mass support, but in 1979 Iran set a new trend, which has since become dominant, by exploiting religion instead. So, anti-Western feeling there, expressing the interests of local elites, now takes the form of militant Islam.

In 2002 President George W Bush denounced Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an ‘axis of evil’. The US State Department quickly added Cuba, Libya and Syria. These all became targets for ‘regime change’. The first to undergo this was Iraq, then Libya, with disastrous results in both cases. Syria was to be the third. This attempt has had an even worse result. Playing the Sunni Muslim card, financed and armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has created a monster that has taken the already extreme version of Islam imposed in Saudi Arabia to an even further extreme, wanting to go back to the 8th century and employing the barbarous methods of that time to get there.

The reaction in France to the atrocity has been to treat it as an attack on the ‘French nation’ whereas it was more accurately an attack on the French state. The result has been a reinforcement of French nationalism and of the false ‘sacred union’ between workers and the ruling class. Yet atrocities committed in the name of the nationalism of so-called ‘nation-states’ are less than those of religion only because these have not been around for so long.

The anarchist Bakunin raised the slogan ‘Neither God, nor Master’.  Adapting it as our response to the Paris atrocity: Neither God, nor State, but Humanity.

Sidelights on Capitalist Rule (1952)

Editorial from the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the themes of Mr. Harold Nicolson's biography of the late King George V is that he showed a good grasp of problems of government and, indeed, the examples quoted do seem to indicate that he often displayed more insight and level-headedness than some of the leading politicians. But what is the major problem of the governments of capitalism? It is of course to keep the working class as far as possible satisfied with the system under which they are exploited, and if they can't be kept satisfied, at least to keep them quiet. One example selected by a Manchester Guardian reviewer is George V's handling of the political crisis which brought down MacDonald's Labour Government in 1931 and led to the formation of a “national” three party government with MacDonald as Prime Minister.

During the crisis the King interviewed the leader of the Liberals Sir Herbert Samuel and according to Mr. Nicolson's account this is what was said:-

Sir Herbert "told the King that, in view of the fact that the necessary economies would prove most unpalatable to the working-class, it would be to the general interest if they could be imposed by a Labour Government. The best solution would be if Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, either with his present or with a reconstituted Labour Cabinet, could propose the economies required. If he failed to secure the support of a sufficient number of his colleagues, then the best alternative would be a National Government composed of members of the three parties."

Further information was given by Sir Oliver Wigram in his record of a later discussion with the King. He says that the King found:-

“Sir Herbert Samuel the clearest-minded of the three and said he had put the case for a National Government much clearer than either of the others. It was after the King's interview with Sir Herbert Samuel that His Majesty became convinced of the necessity for the National Government.”

When MacDonald went to see the King to tell him that “all was up” with the Labour Government, the King impressed on him “that he was the only man to lead the country through this crisis and he hoped he would reconsider the situation.”

It would certainly seem that Sir Herbert Samuel (now Viscount Samuel) had a very shrewd idea of the part a Labour Government can play in keeping capitalism on an even keel.

*     *     *

The fact that we should have had to wait until now to know what arguments Samuel was using to try to keep a Labour Government in office in 1931 gives point to the recent controversy about the practice of Ministers maintaining secrecy on the discussions that go on inside the Cabinet.

In letters and articles in the Press various views have been expressed on the issue that arose between Mr. Bevan and Mr. Attlee on this question but it was left to Mr. W. Harvey Moore, Q.C., to suggest in a letter to The Times (16/8/52) that "secrecy is an evil, and knowledge and criticism of the actions of politicians is essential in a true democracy . . . The ordinary man who has to suffer for the mistakes of those who govern him is entitled to know 'the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.'"

Mr. Moore mentions the countries beyond the "Iron Curtain" where any disclosure of facts that may be discreditable to members of the Government is regarded as treasonable and he thinks any tendency in that direction should be avoided in this country.

But as we live in a capitalist world where war and the threat of war are always with us he has to make an exception of strategic secrets that may be useful to a potential enemy.

*     *     *

On the same day (16th August 1952) the Manchester Guardian had two editorials, one on the British workers and the other on the workers in Czechoslovakia, and what a difference of outlook they displayed. The first criticised the British trade unions that are pressing for higher wages and threatening a ban on overtime to meet dismissals. The Guardian's argument here is that if British prices are not kept down British exports will be riven out of world markets by the competition of countries with cheaper products.

In the second article the Guardian related that the Communists who govern in Czechoslovakia are complaining in like manner of the workers there. The Czechoslovak Prime Minister complains of irresponsibility and indolence on the part of the trade unions and describes as traitors the workers who resist having to work more than eight hours a day. On the hours question the Guardian writer makes the jibe that the Communists regard it as a righteous desire if workers in the West want shorter hours, but regard it as criminal if workers in the "Peoples' Democracies" have the same desire. The jibe strikes home, but it also hits the Manchester Guardian, whose sour condemnation of British workers contrasts markedly with its evident satisfaction that the Czechoslovak Communist is in trouble with its own workers.

It is particularly interesting to notice that in Britain the workers who threaten to strike for higher wages when the Government says they shouldn't are suspected of being "communist" inspired, while the Czechoslovak workers who do the same are accused by their Communist Prime Minister of being "traitors and diversionists" in the pay of Western capitalists or "captives of bourgeois ideologies." Thus the Government of the two halves of the capitalist world play exactly the same game, of seeking to divide the workers on National lines. The workers answer ought to be that of uniting internationally so that the working class of all countries could stand together against its exploiters and work together for the removal of capitalism and establishment of Socialism. But that would displease equally the Manchester Guardian and the Czechoslovak Government.