Voice From The Back: Watch the parking meters (2005)

The Voice From The Back Column from the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Watch the parking meters

 

In a strange couplet Bob Dylan once sang “Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters.” It seemed a weird rhyme, although the advice about leadership was sound; but a recent report on the Duke of Westminster may have given some substance to Dylan’s advice. “The duke, who is 53, is Britain’s second-richest man, whose wealth is based on tracts of land in Central London, including 200 acres in Belgravia and 100 acres in Mayfair. The land is so valuable that the Grosvenor Group sold a parking space in Mayfair for £65,000 in 2002” The Times (25 January). Nice one, Bob. We won’t be allowed to park there, will we?

Telling it like it is

It is not often that capitalists tell the truth about their system, so we couldn’t resist recording the following rare statement. “Governments, not oil companies, must act now on global warning or there will be a ‘disaster’, the chairman of Shell’s UK arm warned last night. … ‘Whether you like it or not, we live in a capitalist society. If we at Shell ceased to find and extract and market fossil fuel products while there was a demand for them, we would fail as a company. Shell would disappear as any kind of economic force,’ Lord Oxburgh maintained” The Independent (26 January). Even the owning class know this society doesn’t work. It sucks.   

Human rights adviser?

“Elliott Abrams, a special assistant to the president and an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration, has been appointed deputy national security adviser with a focus on promoting global democracy and human rights” Associated Press (2 February). This is the same Abrams who was indicted by the Iran-Contra special prosecutor for giving false testimony about his role in illicitly raising money for the contras, but he pleaded guilty to two lesser offences (including withholding information from the Congress) in order to avoid a trial and a possible jail sentence.

The Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory said of him, “Members of Congress remember Abram’s snarling appearance at committee hearings, defending death squads and dictators, denying massacres, lying about illegal US activities in support of the Nicaraguan contras.” Wow, we have a real champion of human rights here.

Its a mad, mad world

“Laura Bush – or ‘First Fashionista’ as the New York Post has dubbed her – was posing for a photo opportunity on a catwalk next to designers Caroline Herrera and Oscar de la Renta. Her arrival turned Bryant Park, the temporary Midtown home of the fashion circus, into a twilight zone. The homeless people had disappeared, policemen dotted the pavement instead. A large black van was parked ostentatiously in a pedestrian area, and filled with men in suits emblazoned with the words “secret service” in white capital letters” The Observer (6 February). This prompts us to ask two questions: where had the homeless people disappeared to?, and how secret is a secret seviceman with a secret service label? We imagine the homeless will have been put out of camera shot, and none of them allowed to speak. This is called democracy?

An ill wind

Two items from the same magazine illustrate what a hellish society capitalism is. They show the awful consequence of a social disaster like world poverty and how even a natural disaster can be a money-making opportunity. “Poverty is a man-made tsunami. ‘The biggest tyranny in the world is the tyranny of an empty stomach.’ John Samuels, a founding member of Global Call to Action Against Poverty, launched at the World Social Forum.” “$300 Market price, before the tsunami, to rent a house with indoor plumbing in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, for one month. $4,000 Current market price, due to increased demand from aid workers and journalists” Time (7 February). Making money out of human misery is disgusting, but then capitalism is a disgusting society.

Letters: Earth’s Destruction Necessary for Socialism? (2005)

Letters to the Editors from the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Earth’s Destruction Necessary for Socialism?

Dear Editors

In at least one area my understanding of Marxian economics may be weak, so perhaps you can enlighten me. As you know in the Preface to the Critique of Political Economy Marx wrote: “No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society”.

I have no problem understanding the second part of that sentence, but the first puzzles me a little. All previous economic systems were not dynamic systems. They developed to a certain point, beyond which they stagnated, while the new society matured in the proverbial womb of the old. Capitalism is different to all previous systems because it is a dynamic system constantly inventing new tools of production and constantly improving all previous inventions.

My problem here is to analyse what this portends in relation to the first part of the above sentence. Does it mean, I wonder, that we are stuck with capitalism (a lovely thought) until such time as it has destroyed the world with its ongoing murder of the environment? Could it be, I wonder, that the only way socialism can be brought about is by people realising they have to live in a co-operative way or perish? And, if so, when will they realise it? Will it be when capitalism has about 90 percent wrecked this planet?

The Socialist Party have always emphasised and insisted the need for socialist understanding as a precondition for socialism. But has society ever changed because mankind in general considered such changes desirable? I’m sure the medieval manufacturers, traders, bankers, etc never said to each “Let’s invent a new society and call it capitalism.” They were behaving in a certain manner which was in accordance with their economic interests; the sum of such behaviour over two or three centuries brought capitalism into being.

In the Communist Manifesto the authors say in effect that the general, prevailing level of opinions and beliefs of a given society will always be that of the ruling class. We all know changes in the tools of production change the way people think, but we also know it only goes to a certain point, beyond which they still believe in the existence of private property based society.

My sincerest wish is that the working class both understand and establish socialism before capitalism has destroyed this planet  and consequently most species on it, but I can’t envisage this happening. I know I paint a proverbial gloomy picture, but I hope you can show me that my understanding is wide of the mark.

Steve Shannon, 

Mississauga, Canada

Reply:

We agree that, if taken on its own and interpreted literally, the passage that puzzles you could give the impression that Marx thought that capitalism would not disappear so long as it was capable of developing to any extent the productivity of the forces of production. But this can’t have been Marx’s view, otherwise why would he have worked for the abolition of capitalism at a time when it was still capable of developing productivity (as, indeed, it still is, and still does)?

To make sense of it, it should be read in conjunction with what follows (“and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society”) and which you say you have no problem understanding. And also with what immediately follows: “Therefore, humanity always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; indeed, on closer examination, it will always be found that the task itself only arises when the material conditions for its solution already exist or at least are in the process of formation”.

Marx was talking not just about a change from capitalism to socialism but about actual historical changes of social system that had taken place in the past, but in relation to capitalism he probably simply meant that, in developing modern industry and its potential, capitalism had created the material basis for socialism and that, therefore, the establishment of socialism had appeared on humanity’s agenda (as witnessed by the emergence of the working class movement). Once capitalism had developed the forces of production to the point where an abundance was possible, it was open for abolition. Socialism wasn’t possible before then, so until then capitalism had still had a progressive role to play. But Marx was just one socialist and not much is to be gained from poring over every word he wrote to try to understand today’s world. Socialists should be, and are, capable of doing this for themselves.

We, too, conclude that, as capitalism has created the material basis for socialism, socialism is a practical possibility and has been for over a hundred years now and that this is what people should be working for if they wish to avoid the gloomy end you fear. Will people do it? That’s up to them, not us. All we can do is to try to ensure, that when people discuss humanity’s future, part of their experience is hearing the argument that the only way out is to establish a world community without frontiers based the natural and industrial resources of the Earth having become the common heritage of all humanity. – Editors.

 

Bush & Co.

Dear Editors

Regarding your editorial in the December 2004 issue of Socialist Standard, ‘A missed opportunity’:

 

You are quite correct about one thing. The people in the US who voted for Bush & Company knew what they were doing. They were not seduced. They were not misled. They understood what the issues were and they made their choice.

I live in Cleveland, Ohio. When I realized, about a month before the election, that Bush was going to win, I started to talk with Bush supporters, gently and with tolerance, in an effort to get them to open up and tell me why they had taken such a stance. On the whole, I found that the knowledge and understanding among the Bush supporters was about equal to that among the voters on the other side.

There has been a lot of talk about the role of religion in the motivation of the voters but I think it would be easy to give too much weight to this factor. It is true that a lot of religious people voted for Bush but it is also true that a lot of religious people voted against him. Some of the religious people who were and are anti-Bush say he talks about his love for God and then turns around and does the devil’s work.

I feel that the election was a referendum on war. About half the people in this country like being at war, especially if someone else is doing the fighting. They know that the war in Iraq was started under false pretenses but they like the idea of war anyway. They like the idea of telling other nations where to get off and then using the US military to enforce the US point of view.

 

Perhaps being at war makes them feel like winners. The US military machine is impressive. It can go out and “kick butt” on a regular basis. The US usually wins every battle. But I think it will lose the war in Iraq. It might even lose the war in Afghanistan, as it looks like the drug lords will actually win control in that area.

Those of us who were against Bush & Company are still struggling with feelings of loss, of disappointment, and even a sort of grief. We did the best we could but we lost and we are hurting.

Linda Featheringill, 

Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

Reply:

Fair enough, but we hope you didn’t go so far as to vote for the other millionaire (whose name we forget). As if it would have made any difference if he had won instead. Governments don’t control capitalism. It’s the workings of capitalism, and the interests of a country’s capitalist class, which determines how governments act. Things won’t change till a majority act to change the economic and social system rather than the personnel who fill the top posts in government –Editors.

Red Snapper: Sound bites and unsound nibbles (2005)

The Red Snapper column from the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sound bites and unsound nibbles

"We're not flying over frigging Iran."  

- U.S. military official on the practice of sending U.S. military aircraft into Iranian air space to test its defences and spot potential targets. Guardian, Jan 29th.

#    #    #    #

"As a general rule the more extreme the circumstances and the fear felt, the more force you can lawfully use in self defence." 

- From the new Government’s new guidelines about the self-defence and the defence of property. Daily Telegraph, Feb. 2nd.

#    #    #    #

"I think Japanese nationals would welcome a female monarch in the present era." 

- Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on the proposal to allow female succcession to the Japanese throne. BBC News Online, Jan 25th

#    #    #    #

"We have had people sent here who I would not trust at all. I have discovered that the Americans have made no checks on these men. Do you wonder why police stations and army barracks get blown up?"  

-An Iraqi police colonel on the recruitment of defence forces in Iraq. The Independent, Feb 14th.

#    #    #    #

"Disaster is too polite a word".

- David Isenberg, an analyst at the British and American Security Council, on the US's efforts to train Iraqi forces. The Independent, Feb 14th.

#    #    #    #

"You raise your voice. I raise mine. Some of you throw a bit of crockery."

- Tony [Blair] on his marital spats with the electorate, all media, Sunday February 13

#    #    #    #

"When you're Secretary of State for Transport you don't tend to get inundated with gifts.”

Alistair Darling, S of S for T, in response to audience question on ministers having to declare any gift over £250 in Register of Members' Interests. Any Questions, BBC Radio 4, Sat, February 5.

 

Global poverty and the UN: Natural disasters (2005)

From the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard 

If there’s one thing the UN is good at, it’s compiling authoritative figures, and the UN’s data on global poverty underlines the desperation of the world’s poor. But what chance do campaigners really have to make history, by making poverty history?

In January the United Nations Millennium Project published a 3000 page report entitled ‘Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals.’ The report calls on industrialised countries to assist  in “halving world poverty” by 2015 by increasing aid from its present level of £12 billion to a sum approaching £80 billion per year.  The Independent (18 January) reporting on the publication of this report carried the headline: “UN  unveils 10 year plan to lift 500 million out of misery. Many proposals are cheap, and could transform lives now.” The report concluded: “Only investment on that scale will help prevent 700 million slip further into preventable disease and extreme poverty.”

The strategy outlined in the UN report forms part of a wider set of initiatives agreed at the UN Millennium Summit  in September 2000, aimed at making the world a fairer place to live by apparently eradicating poverty. As a background  to world poverty, the Independent reported on the same day that 11 million children (mainly under 5) die each year, 6 million from preventable diseases, while “Every day, HIV/Aids kills another 6,000 people and another 8,200 become infected with the virus” and “Every 3.6 seconds, someone dies of starvation.”

The report’s author, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, candidly said in defence of his proposals:  “The system is not working right now – let’s be clear.” He explained: “There’s a tremendous imbalance of focus on  the issues of war and peace, and less on dying and suffering of the poor who have no voice. The overwhelming reality on our planet is that impoverished people get sick and die for lack of access to basic practical means that could help keep them alive and do more than that – help them achieve livelihoods and escape from poverty.” Sachs pointed out: “We have the world’s eyes focused on the tsunami of the Indian Ocean, but the world continues to overlook the silent tsunamis of deaths from malaria which take every month the number of people that died in the Asian tragedy. Every month, 150,000 children in Africa, if not more, are dying from the silent tsunami of malaria, a largely preventable and utterly treatable disease.” Elsewhere the article states that malaria can be prevented with a treated bed net costing less than £1.

Sachs’s concern that the Indian Ocean disaster has overshadowed permanent poverty and deprivation is echoed by pleas from charities working elsewhere in the world. The earthquake and resultant tsunami, killing perhaps up to 200,000 people in twelve countries, has siphoned donations away from these charities and threatens to end their money raising activities for good. But the tragic loss of life and devastation caused by the tsunami has been given so much prominence precisely because it was caused by a natural disaster, where no guilt can be apportioned.

Equally, as the Economist observed: “involvement in the disaster of so many resorts favoured by tourists from rich countries in the West and the richer parts of north-east Asia has given it more prominence in these countries than the sheer horror of the fatalities would have produced” (1-7 January) The class that lives by profit has no wish to be reminded of the loss of life and devastation attributed solely to the relentless pursuit of profit and is content to see attention deflected away such things.

Disasters – natural or otherwise – provide unexpected opportunities to those who live by making profits. As with the unnatural tragedy of the Iraq invasion where up to 100,000 people have been killed, companies engaged in the provision of food, housing, construction, energy, transportation, communications, engineering and so on, can expect to reap bumper profits. Aid and money cannot be injected into class society in a neutral way and is either directed to the working class or the owning class, generally the latter. We learn that money is urgently needed to restore the tourist industry and the profits it generates for the shareholders that own the hotels and tourist attractions, especially in Thailand where tourism generates 12 percent of GDP. Tourists have been urged to return to these holiday destinations with the lure that the only way to help the poor is by making them employable once more, which means making the tourist industry profitable once again.

The only consideration is profit. But while investors in Asian tourism may have lost, others have been more fortunate. The same issue of the Economist reported: “Insurers at least will be relieved that most of those whose livelihoods have been destroyed were not covered. Some hoteliers will make claims, as will families of western tourists who were covered by life insurance. Their bill, however, is likely to be far lower than followed the hurricanes in Florida and its neighbouring states earlier in 2004.”

Avoidable

It goes without saying that major disasters causing loss of life are always tragic. But while some disasters cannot always be avoided, as in the Indian Ocean, others are completely avoidable and there can be no excuse. The UN Report aims to significantly reduce world poverty without attacking its root cause. According to Sachs, “Billions more could enjoy the fruits of the global economy. Tens of millions of lives could be saved” (Independent, 18 January).  Millions of people, it seems, are to be lifted from poverty by trade arising from the globalisation of capital, a process that hitherto has been remarkably unsuccessful in doing anything more than spreading poverty from country to country and making enormous profits for investors. Globalisation is a particularly pernicious form of capitalist development, which has decimated the lives of millions of people in undeveloped countries.  Yet the UN plan is proposing more of the same, calling for initiatives that “involve both civil society organisations and the private sector,” and urging that “rich countries must open markets to exports from developing countries.”

Predictably the plan urges that ‘rich countries’ must “invest more in the very poorest countries through electricity supplies and roads.” (Independent, 18 January). In practice the report does no more than advocate concerted action by corporations and companies under the umbrella of their national governments to transform people into wage slaves. There are no poor countries, only poor people.

It can be no coincidence that both Blair and Brown have suddenly become interested in the continent of Africa – or rather the opportunities it can bring to the owning class they represent. Brown claims he will make sub-Saharan Africa his priority in 2005 while Blair says he will use Britain’s Presidency of the G8 to “focus on progress” in the eradication of African poverty as well as countering other potential but less desirable developments. Blair explains: “Famine in Africa will affect our countries because it will be a trigger for mass migration. Conflict, too, drives millions to flee their homes. Both create the conditions for terrorism and fanaticism to take root and spread directly to Europe, to North America and to Asia” (Economist, 1-7 January).

Like the UN Report Blair proposes ‘more of the same’. He writes: “We also need to tackle trade barriers

which push up prices to our consumers, prevent African countries exporting their products and see Europe spending more on subsidising its own farmers than on aid to Africa.” He concludes, as does the UN Report that aid will provide assistance in “building the infrastructure needed for private-sector growth.”

The forces are gathering and the strategy is in place. Capitalism is to make a concerted move into the African continent to provide opportunities for investment and profit from the glut of aid proposed by the UN and the resultant ‘opening-up’ of the continent. A market economy based on the domination of outside corporations or perhaps indigenous capitalists will obviate migration of cheap labour, forcing the indigenous people to become wage slaves, to join, in the words of the Independent, the “one billion people [who] live on less than $1 a day. Another 2.7 billion survive on less than $2 a day.” A further intention is to nullify the spread of religious fundamentalism that could interfere with profit taking. Like every other attempt to alleviate poverty it will fail. This is because the plan is less about poverty and more about profits. The plan’s success will be measured in dollars not lives saved.

If there was ever an indictment of capitalism it is world poverty. People die in Africa and elsewhere because there is simply no profit in saving them. Conversely, action to limit this barbarism only occurs when the companies and corporations owned by the capitalist class ‘sense a kill,’ an opportunity to expand profits. £81 billion in aid – if it ever arrives – is a good starting point. Many African countries have already a foretaste of foreign investment that directs that food be grown for export alongside a population on the brink of starvation. But this no inconsistency, simply market forces in action. We live in a world of plenty where scarcity and rationing through the market and money system is unnecessary and anti-human. It must stop.

The Independent editorial column hit the nail on the head. It reads, “The world must seize the opportunity and work together to fight the scourge of poverty, disease and hopelessness.”  But what it does not say

is that this can never be achieved under capitalism. The world’s working people must, as the editorial urges, seize the opportunity to end poverty — not by trying to reform an economic system that cannot be reformed but by abolishing it. The UN proposal that reinforces the institutional requirement to make and increase profits regardless of its human consequences is monstrous – a licence to make profit from human misery.

Steve Trott

Fit For a King (2005)

From the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

King Mswati III of Swaziland has just bought himself another car; not any old car, but a brand new Daimler-Chrysler Maybach 62, powered by a six-litre bioturbo engine, and fitted out with a television, a 21-speaker surround sound system, a heated steering wheel, champagne flutes within reach of the fully reclining seats, a refrigerator, a cordless telephone, a gold bag and a pollen and dust filter. And the cost? Almost £400,000.

And the country over which King Mswati III rules?

Swaziland, entirely surrounded by South Africa and Mozambique, one of the smallest countries in Africa with an area of 6,700 square miles, has a population of fewer than one million, of whom more than 80 percent exist on one US dollar a day, and almost 40 percent of adults have HIV/AIDS, the highest rate in the world. According to the World Food Programme, about a third of the population require, and will probably receive, emergency food assistance this year. According to the WFP (Guardian, 14 December) absolutely poverty, unemployment, HIV/AIDS and poor farming practices, “has left large numbers of households with no food stocks, or unable to provide for themselves”.

Swaziland, moreover, has been in a state of emergency since 1973, when the so-called constitutional monarchy imposed by Great Britain became absolute. However, the king is supposedly adored by his subjects, and the country is a tourist haven, mainly for affluent South Africans.

So that all right then!…

Peter E. Newell

Cooking the Books: Lies, damned lies, and statistics (2005)

The Cooking The Books column from the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx argued that by his day economics had declined from a genuine attempt to understand the workings of capitalism as, for instance, with Adam Smith and David Ricardo, into a thinly disguised apology for capitalism. Just look at any modern textbook – with their claim that scarcity is eternal because human wants are infinite and their introduction of “entrepreneurship” as being as essential to production as natural resources, labour and machinery – and you can see how right he was.

In one field of economics, however, there has been some progress since Marx’s day: in measuring national income and output. Since the 1940s governments have published figures for these. Everybody has heard of “GDP” (Gross Domestic Product) and “growth” (which is the increase of GDP from one year to the next) and Marx would surely have loved to have had such figures. But there are shortcomings here too.

In particular how to treat government spending has been a problem, as was again highlighted by a report published at the end of January by Sir Tony Atkinson (who as plain A. B. Atkinson used to usefully concern himself with statistics on the unequal distribution of wealth ownership) for the Office of National Statistics on “The Measurement of Government Output and Productivity for the National Accounts”.

Government Output? What output — surely the government as such produces nothing, just consumes the output of the sector of the economy where labour-power is applied to materials that originally came from nature to produce commodities for sale? Yes, that’s just the point. But the figure for GDP (which is supposed to be a measure of total output) is obtained by counting spending by individuals on consumer goods and services, by firms on new equipment, and by the government, and adding them together. Including government spending in this involves double-counting. This is recognised to some extent in the official figures in that the payment of pensions, the dole, income support and the like as well as the payment of interest on the National Debt are excluded from government spending as being “transfer payments”. But, logically, so too are the wages and salaries of government employees, yet these are not excluded. Similarly, other government spending (as on purchasing computers and bombers) is already included via the amount for indirect taxes that enters into the prices of what individuals and firms buy.

The artifice that the government statisticians found to get out of this has been to treat government spending as productive, as resulting in a “product” (education, health care, administration, law and order, “defence”, though not “social security”). As a result, national output is inflated by as much as 20 percent. The former state capitalist countries of Russia and Eastern Europe did not count such government spending as productive, i.e. did not double count it as part of output, and when they adopted the same national  accounting system as in the rest of the capitalist world their GDPs jumped by 18-24 percent depending on the country.

Why did statisticians in the West go down the road of pretending that all government activity is productive? Probably because national accounting developed at the same time as Keynesian economic policies were first applied (and could even be said to have been developed to underpin them), and Keynes attributed a key role to government spending. Keynesian economics is now rejected, but not the counting of government spending as an addition to output. Instead of getting itself out of this hole by abandoning this statistical practice,  the government decided to keep on digging and appointed Sir Tony to come up with ways of measuring government “output” in such a way as to be able to take into account increasing “productivity” (the politicians’ “value for money”).

If the Atkinson report’s recommendations are accepted this will inflate GDP even more by artificially (and arbitrarily) increasing yet further government “output”. Talk about cooking the books.

Meat, Money and Malnutrition (2005)

From the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Vegetarians International Voice for Animals (VIVA) make the claim that meat causes famine. Is this really the case, or does the real problem lie in the profit system? Rob Stafford investigates.

The Bristol-based charity Viva! in a recent pamphlet Join Viva! Join the Fight for Life claim that “millions of children in the developing world die from hunger alongside fields of high quality food, destined for the West’s farmed animals. The startling truth is that meat causes starvation.” Despite claiming that they monitor “the latest research from all over the world in the environment and development issues and argues for change with hard science” Viva provide absolutely no supporting evidence for their contention. Furthermore, a request for such material has yet to be answered.

Viva’s position is accepted as a common truth by other campaigning groups and individuals including Animal Aid, George Monbiot, Peter Singer, and repeated in some sections of the press, such as the Guardian and New Internationalist. While there is no doubt that growing crops as a source of food for the production of meat rather than feeding humans directly is less efficient in terms of land and energy, is there a direct relationship between meat and starvation? Consider a field of corn standing next to a group of starving children. The corn is destined for export as animal feed. Hence meat causes starvation. But if the corn was not grown for use as animal feed would the children be free to eat it? Indeed, would it even be grown in the first place? Simply because two effects (corn, starving children) are found side by side does not imply that one caused the other. Perhaps, however, the supporters of this position consider we have reached the limit of agriculture on this planet and therefore because some people eat meat fed on grain others, as a direct result of this practice, starve.

Over twenty years ago WHO stated that the technology existed to feed a global population twelve times its (then) size. The American Association for the Advancement of Science reported in 1997 that 78 percent of all malnourished children under the age of five in the developing world live in countries with a food surplus. Just over five years ago the United Nations reported that Africa could easily feed a population five times its current size if western technology were introduced. (And what of future technology?)

There is, in fact, a wealth of evidence to support the view that “famine exists largely because the hungry cannot afford to buy food, not because there is insufficient food produced” (New Scientist, 3 September 1994). Agricultural economist M. S. Swaminathan stated earlier this year that the “problem of undernutrition . . . is a lack of purchasing power” (Newsweek, 31 January). Even an establishment figure such as Sir Jonathan Porritt in his introduction to Compassion in World Farming’s report entitled The Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat (2004) is not blind to such facts. He quotes approvingly from Colin Tudge’s recent book, So Shall We Reap, and states that the author “develops an eloquent argument demonstrating that contemporary food and farming policy has very little to do with meeting human needs, guaranteeing food security, providing high and consistent levels of nutrition and food safety…Much more simply, it’s all about profit: squeezing the maximum financial yield out of every link in the food chain to benefit a tiny number of an already inconceivably rich minority of citizens” .

And those inconceivably rich do not just live in the West as Porritt states. For example, at the peak of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia such people enjoyed the benefits of exporting crops to the UK and taking delivery of Scottish malt whisky. This was just business as usual. Thus it should come as no surprise to learn that although the value of food exported by Ethiopia and other countries in the Horn of Africa during 1983 exceeded imports by $1 billion, hunger in this region increased (World Hunger: Twelve Myths. Frances Moore Lappe et al, Earthscan, 1998).

 

For some – but certainly not the 840 million malnourished (or the more than a billion existing in a state described by the UN as absolute poverty) – the ‘problem’ is an inconceivable embarrass de richesses. Try and imagine yourself as one of the 225 individuals owning wealth equivalent to that of 47 percent of the world’s population. Consider that the wealth of just three of these individuals exceeds the Gross National Product of the world’s 47 poorest nations. And that for four percent of the combined income of the three wealthiest people we could provide universal access to basic education, health care, adequate food as well as safe water and sanitation for all.

 

OK, so is it perhaps not meat on its own that causes starvation, but that it is one of a number of possible factors including problems relating to distribution, drought and natural disaster as well as war and poverty caused by unfair trade, third world debt, insufficient aid, etc? Well, the US recently was able within a few months to send 130,000 people (with supplies) half way across the world. Alas, their mission was one of death and destruction rather than to rescue, provide food, shelter and deliver other essentials to the suffering multitudes. War and poverty even after hundreds of years of social activism are still, patently, with us. But why? Oscar Wilde, writing over a hundred years ago about charity, provides some clues. “[T]heir remedies do not cure the disease; they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease. They try to solve the problem of poverty for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor. But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible” (The Soul of Man under Socialism).

It is to be hoped that historians living today will in the not distant future look at present day society and recognize that by failing to see starvation as one of many symptomatic problems that no amount of ‘band aids’ could cure, Viva and other well intentioned but misguided groups delayed the use of effective treatment. The activities of such groups will however probably be seen as benign in comparison with the likes of the Animal Liberation Front and PETA – who have more in common with companies such as Monsanto than either would like to admit – and other Malthusian-inspired misanthropes. All will be on record as failing to see the economic law which transcends government and companies however large or powerful: no profit, no production: can’t pay can’t have.

These future historians will indeed be deeply saddened that we took so long to see the link between this law and a myriad of contradictions (clues) in plain view today: people starving while food rots; brick mountains and empty homes existing alongside unemployed builders and the homeless; millions dying of curable diseases. On this last point, pharmaceutical chemist Dr Victoria Hale has made the telling observation that  “parasites and poverty are inextricably linked”. Referring to conditions such as leishmaniasis and Chagas disease, found almost exclusively in areas of the world where grinding poverty for the vast majority is the normal way of life (and death), she went on to say: “People with these diseases are not in sight as they cannot pay” (New Scientist, 25 September 2004).

Revealingly, Tudge is on record as proposing that if food production were designed to feed people rather than make a profit, then there would be no problem. Eureka! Imagine that: a world in which everything is produced for need, not profit! However, in asking “why we, humanity, allow the world to be run by people who have long since lost the plot?” (New Scientist, 13 March 2004) Tudge implies a change in leadership might suffice. But, two hundred years earlier, the Marquis De Sade saw through leadership and in doing so glimpsed the answer to securing “a saner sustainable future”: “You can only govern men by deceiving them; one must be hypocritical to deceive them; the enlightened man will never let himself be led, therefore it is necessary to deprive him of enlightenment to lead him as we want”.

Rob Stafford

Socialist Party 101st Conference 2005 (2005)

Party News from the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The Socialist Party is a democratic party run by its members without leaders of any sort, and the way we make decisions is open for all to see at our twice yearly general meetings. This Easter weekend we will be discussing a variety of issues including the following:

• Far from being all of the same mind on every topic, members are very diverse in their opinions and interests, so would it be a good idea to set up a special discussion journal so we can debate controversial ideas among ourselves?
• The Declaration of Principles was written in 1904, over a hundred years ago. Some members think the language is antiquated and could do with modernising. For instance, while we oppose reformist movements the use of the word 'hostile' might give the wrong impression. Alternatively, others feel that it is a historical document that should be left as written.
• Should we oblige ourselves to pay dues, or could we get rid of a whole lot of unnecessary bureaucracy if we dumped the dues rule and adopted a system of voluntary contribution?
• Other items: why we keep overspending, colour-coded politics, a press letter network, the word 'ordinary' as a class descriptor, reports from departments, challenging the government ban on political advertising, putting more speculation into the Standard, wrecking amendments and ideas for more adventurous publicity.

101st Annual Conference of The Socialist Party at Head Office, 52 Clapham High St. London SW4 on Friday 25th March 2005, 10.30 to 6.30 pm and Saturday 26th March 2005, 11 to 6 pm. All visitors welcome, admission and refreshments free. Social on Friday evening at Bread & Roses, Clapham (TBC).

Changing the System (2005)

From the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard 

If you have no freedom to change your life you may as well be in prison. Workers in capitalism get more porridge than empowerment.

In the comedy show Porridge the drama takes place in Slade prison. There are prisoners and warders; the warders have varying personalities, from the ‘hard but fair’ MacKay, to the liberal Barraclough, and a selection of lesser unsavoury screws. The prisoners also have their various characteristics, all of them in their varying ways trying to make the best of their lot.

Here, then, we have the prison system. As a prisoner you would, by and large, prefer to have Barraclough to MacKay, and MacKay to the more sadistic screws, especially when trying to obtain some kind of favour, or minor change to prison routine such as a film showing every week. Barraclough might do it, MacKay might not. But on the subject of imprisonment itself, all of the screws are united in upholding the prison system, the idea of prison, and the wider social idea of just imprisonment. There is no negotiation that can take place for the prisoners to release themselves, convert the prison to an open one, or otherwise interfere with the prison’s core function of imprisonment.

Imprisonment is a social fact, harder than the walls and bars that are erected on its foundation (though of course mutually reinforced by them). Without a system of imprisonment, there can be no prisons. In the same way capitalism’s own prison has its own rules, its areas of compromise, and its areas that are non-negotiable. The leaders of capitalism can change how capitalism works, within limits, but cannot change the fact of capitalism.

Capitalism as a social fact is written into every one of our lives, every moment of the day, and we reinforce it every time we work for a wage and pay for our own goods with those wages. Even if a leader were to want to change matters they would be trapped by our own resistance to change. If there is to be change it must come from us.

It is sometimes thought that socialists have a conspiracy theory regarding the state and leaders – that they are all plotting to do us in, regardless of political colour. In fact, all we have to say is this: that they are bound to observe the system which they find themselves in. Some, of course, are corrupt bastards. Others can cut various deals with each other, and specifically can join in the fight between capitalists over whether finance or manufacturing capital is to do better from the current administration, or decide whether to maximise profit in the short, medium or longer term, but all must maintain the production of profits from us, the subject class, and defend those profits against all comers, whether it be us (by using the police) or capitalists of other states (with the armed forces).

So, appeals to leaders are not the answer, on a matter so integral to capitalism as the defence of profits. You may as well ask for more liberal laws on shoplifting. There is, however, the possibility yet to be considered of a popular ‘political’ movement without an attack on the economics of capitalism. Again, this falls as flat on its face. Let’s return to our prison example. The prisoners decide to bypass the screws and hold a meeting in the prison yard about how bad prisons are. If the meeting is about entertainment, for example, the screws may be intimidated into providing something, even unasked for, such as a prison library; but discussion of liberty will bring out the truncheons. Prison riots don’t provoke early release: they provoke savage repression, beatings and subsequent lockdown. Imprisonment is non-negotiable, because it is fundamental to the prison itself, and you would have to attack the social structure of prisons and imprisonment to make any change. In the same way, any movement to change a fundamental feature of capitalism, as with disarmament, must address the basis of the system itself rather than engaging in wishful thinking.

Thinking about it, the very word ‘Defence’ should be sufficient clue as to how much input we are meant to have with the issue. We are not even allowed to call it what it is. Not ‘attack’, not ‘bands of hired killers’, not ‘death factory’, not ‘organised murder’, but defence, something which we are to be forced to accept as an integral part of our lives. In the same way, we are expected to be glad of a job rather than resentful of our exploitation, and happy to be protected by the police rather than disturbed by the presence of blue-clad armed thugs defending their masters’ ill-gotten profits from us at the bank and at the supermarket.

So, while there is leeway in capitalism for change on minor issues, there is little or none for its basics of profitmaking and defence of those profits – the extraction of wealth from us and the defence of this wealth against all comers. Bodies of armed thugs and killers are basic to private property itself, even in previous epochs, not just its latest manifestation in capitalism. Any appeal to the goodwill of our masters, or the leniency of their foremen, is futile.

In short, the making of profits out of us, the subject class, and defending these against us, their rightful owners, and fighting over these profits between themselves – all these things are non-negotiable, social facts as solid as iron bars and prison walls, and cannot be changed by appeal to leaders or by political action that does not address the fundamental problem from which warfare springs – class society, where social wealth is a private thing, spoils to be fought over rather than shared. Whilst wealth is private property, to be fought over, it will be fought over, and preparations for these conflicts will continue apace.

What, then, as they say, is to be done? As mentioned, the basis of the system in which we live and are currently trapped is the making of profits from us, the working class. Our time at work not spent reproducing our own existence – building modest houses, growing food, producing light and power to keep our machines and computers humming into the night – is a social surplus, appropriated by the capitalists through their waving deeds of ownership, stocks and shares, pieces of paper and the like. Everything that we make, over and above that required to keep us coming back through the factory gates or the office door on a Monday morning for another week of drudgery, is appropriated and turned to the following purposes: reproducing the factories and offices in which we work; reproducing the class structure of police, prisons, cash tills and banks, to keep us in our places; defending their ill-gotten gains against other capitalists at home and abroad, with government and warfare; and only then can what remains be spent on gin-palaces, cocaine and, soon, day trips to outer space.

The way to stop these expenditures should be obvious: take back the surplus! We produced it, after all, if anyone is feeling legalistic. Put the wealth in our hands! Whilst there is a structural reason for capitalists to prepare for and go to war against each other, we have no reason to fight each other – maybe individually over some resentment, but to put a million men a side into trenches drenched in poison gas or drop fire on children from the sky takes capitalism. Every fraction of social wealth that is returned to our hands is wealth not put to slaughter or to extravagant capitalist consumption.

We in the Socialist Party stand for such a position. We address the problem of disarmament, along with other unpleasant effects of capitalism, by looking to their root, in a class-divided society, which divisions create the institutional misery of war and arms production, as well as overwork, alienation and suicide, and the starvation of millions around the globe who in any sane society would be given the resources to realise their potential, not as an act of charity but from a simple sense of solidarity and a self-interest in every member of society being able to fully contribute.

All you will get with an appeal to the rich and supposedly powerful, to end arms production and spend money on the poor, is empty promises, disdain, and probably a sense of relief that once more the slaves are not yet powerful enough to rebel against their masters and must still beg for crumbs for themselves and their fellows.

If you think that the appeal to these leaders is rational, the answer will come back, perhaps sotto voce: “This is rational!” War is the logic of the capitalist state, just as policing is the logic of the class struggle at home, and the starvation and physical deprivation of more than a billion is likewise part of the logic of capitalism where if you do not produce a profit you cannot enter the economy and thus must starve.

No, we must work for ourselves, and we must address the problem at its root. The problem lies with capitalism, not with one of its features, and can only be resolved by grasping this root and tearing it from the ground.

SJW

Kyoto: fiddling while Rome burns (2005)

From the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The beginning of February saw the world’s top experts on climatic change descend on the Met Office’s HQ in Exeter for a meeting called by Tony Blair and in advance of the coming into force of the Kyoto Protocol two weeks later. They painted a picture of a world not unlike that portrayed in the film The Day After Tomorrow, where humans have destroyed their own planet through their disregard for the environment – melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels, global warming, and drought.

Evidence was presented by Professor Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, showing that the West Antarctic ice sheet is beginning to melt, threatening eventually to raise sea levels by 15ft. He reminded his audience that 90 per cent of the world’s people live near current sea levels.

Other scientists presented evidence that the world’s oceans are turning acidic, threatening marine life and there were many experts on hand ready to present their latest findings on the effects of global warming on ecosystems. Significantly, the number of scientific papers that have recorded changes in ecosystems due to global warming have increased from 14 to over a thousand in just five years.

Blair did not need to call a meeting in Exeter to find about the threat to the environment. Experts from every field have been flailing their arms around frantically for years trying to get governments to sit up and notice.

While Blair pursues policies aimed at securing Britain’s share of Iraq’s oil stores for the foreseeable future, we are warned by scientists that oil production will peak within 10 years; that half of the Earth’s available oil is estimated to by used by then, and that within another 20 years countries like China and India will have huge demands that will far outstrip supply. Consider the conflicts this will create.

Far worse than a shortage of oil is a shortage of water. We already know that 500 million people live in regions prone now to chronic drought. Scientists now warn us that within 20 years that figure is expected to increase fivefold to between 2.5 billion and 3.5 billion people. Already over 5 million people die – including 2 million children – from diseases caused by drinking contaminated water. Again, what desolation does this foreshadow for the human race?

In the oceans, almost 50 percent of fish stocks are fully exploited, 20 percent are over-exploited, and only 2 percent are recovering. On land, soil erosion and degradation mean that half a billion people live in countries whose arable land can no longer support their own crops. The natural habitats of many animal species are being lost on an alarming scale, which with the decline of bird species, plants, forests – on which, ultimately, the human race depends – signals a real crisis for biodiversity.

Leaky Treaty

Back in 1997, to head off some of these problems, governments met in Kyoto, Japan, to negotiate a treaty according to which the industrialised countries each agreed a target to control emissions of six gases know to cause global warming.

The Kyoto protocol, for those countries which have ratified it, came into effect on 16t February this year, with Russia finally signing up after a EU bribe in order for the 55 percent quorum to be reached before the treaty could come into effect, but minus the support of the USA who, with only 5 percent of the world’s population produces 36 percent of carbon emissions. And the reason for US obstinacy? They simply felt that China and other developing countries, not facing the costs of cutting emissions, would gain a competitive edge on them.

The agreement, the first “legally binding” treaty on the environment, gives each of the industrialised and ratifying countries of the world their own limit to the greenhouse gas emissions they can pump into the atmosphere. It is envisaged that this will eventually lead to a situation in which the world produces no more greenhouse gasses than the environment can tolerate.

Will the Kyoto treaty stave off the unimaginable? Well, it would seem that not only are the treaty’s formal greenhouse gas emission reduction objectives wholly inadequate compared to what scientists say is actually necessary, the treaty’s corporate-friendly, market-based mechanisms to achieve these reductions appear counterproductive.

To start with, the treaty requires that Annex One countries (the industrialised countries), which have hitherto been the biggest polluters, reduce their greenhouse gas emissions on average to just 5.2 percent below their 1990 levels by 2012. However, even though a 60-80 percent reduction is said to be needed by 2050, no additional reduction goals or timetables are in place for beyond the year 2012.

Plenty of opportunity is provided by the treaty’s “flexible mechanisms” for the governments of richer countries to indulge in creative accounting. It is possible for governments, with a bit of nifty handwork, to claim cutbacks in their country’s overall greenhouse gas emissions although actual reductions may not have taken place. Furthermore, a country might even increase its emissions and still be credited with a reduction.

Industrialised countries who find they have in fact made reductions in greenhouse gas emissions below that required of them  are moreover  entitled to sell on their spare polluter credits to those countries either unable or unwilling to adhere to their own set reduction targets. This arrangement – to sell the right to pollute – also became the privilege of corporations in January when European carbon markets became operational.

Emission measurements are by and large taken from a starting date of 1990, and the targets for each country must be reached by the period 2008-12. Former state capitalist countries (i.e. the former Soviet Union) , referred to in Kyoto jargon as “countries in transition”, were allowed to chose a different date since, after the collapse of the Kremlin’s empire, a lot of heavy industry closed, resulting in a 40 per cent fall in emissions. This means that countries such as Russia and Ukraine will be in a position to sell other Annex One countries the right to increase their greenhouse gas emissions by that figure.

There are numerous accountancy tricks that help countries reach their Kyoto commitments, without them actually reducing their very own emissions. For instance, corporations investing in new technology will be able to palm their decrepit technology off onto poor countries, to whom such technology is an advance on what they currently have, and again demand emission credits. And of course, there is further logic to this - with such outdated technology, factories in poorer countries are hardly going to steal a competitive edge on their western counterparts.

Greenhouse gasses are suddenly commodities to be bought and sold on the world market, a market in which the underdeveloped countries are duped by the richer ones and their corporate elites. And when the time comes for underdeveloped countries to make reductions they will find themselves in a fix, unable to afford the technology needed to curb their own rampant pollution.

What happens after 2012?

Kyoto is hardly going to save the planet as it stands. For one thing it was only ever foreseen as a first step to curb global warming and to be replaced after 2012 with tougher legislation. But even in seven years time there will be trouble.  At last year’s climate summit in Buenos Aires, China and India could be found joining the US, the major villain of Kyoto, in an attempt to scupper any post-2012 agreements.

Interestingly, and as The Christian Science Monitor recently noted, by 2012 coal-fired plants in those three same countries will be emitting 2.5 billion tonnes of  CO2 annually, five times the cuts ordered by the Kyoto protocol. Add to this projections from the International Energy Agency that there will be a 60 per cent rise in global energy within 25 years, the bulk of this coming from carbon-emitting fuels and you begin to wonder just what lies ahead.

Currently, global CO2 levels are the highest they have been for 20 million years. Meanwhile the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change predicts that by the year 2100 temperatures will have risen by anything up to 5.8 degrees centigrade.

Kyoto looks nothing more than some environmental monopoly board on which governments can buy and sell and trade the air we breathe.

Ironically, whilst the world’s governments will heed calls for such an early warning system that can warn of natural disaster which we have no control over – such as one warning of tsunamis in the Indian ocean – they are somewhat deaf when it comes to those blaring in our ears, the early warning systems scientists have been shouting about for decades: acid rain, soil erosion, poisonous seas, melting glaciers, a hole in the ozone layer, etc.

And it’s not as if these are new problems - the world has known about them for so long that the facts seem hackneyed. The point is, these early warning systems are ringing non-stop. Capitalism’s problems are hitting the human race with the force of many tsunamis a day, killing millions, and more, threatening global disaster. Yet governments believe the problem can be traded away, camouflaged by a creative accounting that ‘mother nature’ won’t notice.

And the simple truth is that we place our trust in governments to solve environmental problems within the context of capitalism at our peril. They serve to administer the present system on behalf of a minority for whom environmental protection is an obstacle to profit, to whom any means is legitimate in the pursuit of that profit.

When you consider the future of the planet you are faced with two choices. You can continue to support the defenders of capitalism – they come in many disguises – and acquiesce in the destruction of the natural global environment or stand in their way by joining the struggle for socialism and the destruction of a system that will nonchalantly prioritises profit over not only human well-being but the world we live in. But, hey, don’t wait until your living room is a foot deep in water to make up your mind. Think hard and now. Capitalism, and with it the worsening of every environmental problem we cite, or socialism, a world social system that places control of the Earth in the hands of  a global majority who will tend to it with respect and without the barriers profit places in the path of production?

John Bissett

Monkey Business (2005)

Book Review from the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard 

‘What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People and Their Genes’, by Jonathan Marks. (University of California Press. Paperback)

Marks’s answer to the finding that humans share 98 percent of so of their DNA with chimps is that it doesn’t mean much more than we already knew and certainly not what some read into it. It confirms that millions of year ago (7 million is the generally accepted estimate) humans and chimps had a common ancestor. More generally, since all life-forms are built up of DNA, it confirms Darwin’s view that all those that exist and have existed on Earth evolved from a single original form. On the other hand, it does not mean that humans are 98 percent chimpanzee (any more than the fact that we share 35 percent of our DNA with daffodils means that we are 35 percent daffodil) and that therefore the study of chimpanzee behaviour is relevant to the study of human behaviour. As Marks puts it succinctly, “you can’t get at human nature from chimpanzees. They’re not human.” We are not naked apes, but clothed humans; which makes all the difference.

Marks goes for those who think that genes are the most important factor in human behaviour (the Social Darwinists and the eugenicists in the past and the behavioural geneticists, sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists today), making the simple, but often ignored, point that we don’t actually know how any gene works. We know that genes produce proteins for the cells that constitute the body but not yet how this translates into a person’s physical attributes let alone (if it does) into any mental traits. What we know at the moment is that certain defects in certain genes result in certain abnormal conditions (such as cystic fibrosis), but not how a non-defective gene produces a normal condition.

This is why, Marks insists, when someone makes a claim to have discovered a gene for something, for instance homosexuality, they can’t just point to statistical correlations or even similar brain structures, they would need to produce a verifiable and verified causal explanation of precisely how the gene in question translates into the particular behaviour pattern. As he puts it, “what is widespread is not necessarily innate” and “genetic conclusions require genetic data”:

  “The fact that something is consistently observed does not imply that it has a genetic cause. We know that. If you want to argue about science and about genetics, you need controlled data and genetic data.”

He warns modern geneticists about the dangers of making claims that go well beyond the existing (genetic) evidence, by pointing to the dominant view amongst geneticists in the 1920s which was racist and justified the forced sterilisation of “mental defectives” (not just in Nazi Germany but in America and even in Sweden). They were wrong and the practical consequences were disastrous. Seeing that we don’t yet know how normal genes translate into physical attributes, modern geneticists should, he suggests, show a little more humility before propagating their speculations about human behaviour being genetically determined as if it were an established scientific fact.

Marks is also good on the myth of race. “Race”, he says, “turns out to be an optical illusion”:

  “[W]e can, of course, make comparisons between groups of people and study their differences. The problem is invariably what meaning to assign to those differences. If we know that there are gradients, not boundaries; that human variation is patterned locally, not transcontinentally; that the extremes are not the purest representatives of anything, but simply the most divergent; that populations are invariably mixed with their neighbors, and in the last half-millennium with people from far away; and that clustering populations into larger units is a cultural act that values some differences as important and submerges others – then race evaporates as a natural unit.”

We have to record, however, that in the last five of the book’s twelve chapters Marks embraces some strange positions, such as defending the right of a North American Indian tribe to veto research on a 9,000-year old skeleton found on their former tribal territory as this conflicted with their “spiritual” values (much as the Mediaeval Church had “spiritual” reasons for frowning on the dissection of human bodies).  Similarly, he defends the refusal of certain indigenous people in other parts of the world to have their DNA recorded. Here, if it true, they may have a legitimate point about it being patented and used by others to make money, but this is a distortion due to the existence of capitalism. In principle, there is nothing wrong with recording the DNA of peoples who have been relatively isolated from the rest of humanity.

Adam Buick

Mass Action or Intelligent Organisation. (1923)

From the March 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

They say that God is on the side of the big battalions. This contains an element of truth, but it is not true merely because the battalions are big. If they happen to be composed of raw recruits who don’t know the business end of a gun; don’t know why they are fighting, and wish they weren’t; and if the battalions are officered by men who not only think, like the Duke of Wellington, that their rank and file are “scum,” but are also hoping to be decorated by the enemy for services rendered, then God will have his work cut out, however big the battalions are.

Of course few people now believe that God has any say in the matter. Lord Devonport was not really disturbed when Ben Tillett invited God to strike him dead. He knew he had the dockers cornered and could starve them into surrender, and Tillett plus God was no more formidable than Tillett alone. Anyway, Ben never meant Devonport any harm.

Again, when during the war Lord Roberts saw that the Allied armies were not delivering the goods, and that the geniuses of the General Staff didn’t know what to do next, the country was placarded, with appeals for prayer signed by that old hypocrite. The prayer was, however, wisely accompanied by a campaign for increasing the output of shells, to strengthen God’s hands in the slaughter of His other children,

The consistent application of the God-idea would be fatal to any human activity, and what is almost as dangerous in working-class organisations is a notion that they will win because they are big in numbers. This takes a variety of, but its general result is a disregard of the actual facts of the present situation and of the necessity for solid preparatory work before the workers can take effective action.

The outstanding features of that situation are these: That the private ownership of the means of life by the capitalist class is the main cause, direct or indirect, of the remediable evils from which the workers suffer, and that as a consequence nothing but the abolition of that private ownership can be a solution. Further, that the capitalists maintain possession by their control of Parliament and its administrative, judicial, and executive machinery, including the armed forces; this control being buttressed by propaganda in the schools, the Church, and the Press.

Thirdly, that the overwhelming mass of the workers, although discontented with their condition, have not yet traced their suffering to its origin in the social structure itself, and are therefore not only unwilling to attack the capitalist system, but are prepared, as during the war, to fight for it, and, as shown at subsequent, elections, to vote for it. Now, we want Socialism and we want it immediately, but unfortunately the majority of the workers are opposed to us, and while they stand behind the State in defence of the capitalist system we are helpless. While, materially, society has long been ripe for Socialism, we are forced to recognise that we must work and wait until the majority see that fact as we see it.

However, among those who want to abolish capitalism, who call themselves revolutionary, there are many who are not convinced that the relatively slow process outlined above is necessary. It need hardly be said that if there could be found a method of reaching the same result in a shorter time we would be only too pleased to hear of it. There is no question of sentimental attachment to particular means; any means are good enough for us provided they will serve the purpose; I do not propose to discuss in detail whether, and to what extent, the means and the end can be separated, although it will readily be seen that granted the overcoming of preliminary obstacles such as the conquest of power, the attempt at building a new society will be a failure if it makes exacting demands which the people are unable to meet. Socialist society can only be run by Socialists, and it will not be the work of a mentally enslaved people who have merely exchanged the blinkers of the capitalist politician for those of the professional revolutionary.

Let us, however, deal with the question of the moment, the conquest of power.

We have seen that the capitalists (or their agents the politicians), depending immediately on the support of the House of Commons and ultimately on the backing of the mass of the people, are able to decide what shall be done in any problem which arises. The Cabinet decides on policies which, if approved by the House of Commons, become law and are enforced through the Legal machinery. Taxes are levied for the up-keep of the State and its various departments. And all the time the law, the police, the army and navy are at hand to protect the private property of the capitalist class. Although they talked of disarming Germany, it is significant that the allied Governments never prevented their German “enemy” from maintaining the forces without which private ownership by the German capitalists could not have been protected.

It follows that the ruling class do only those things which they think are in their immediate interest or which circumstances force them to do to guard the stability of their system. For an instance of the first kind of action, it is plainly in the interests of the capitalist class to keep down the expenses of the administration, because it is they who have to pay; as instances of the second kind, it is necessary that the capitalists should spend money on the technical education of the workers in order to promote the prosperity of their industries and to enable to compete with foreign rivals; and it is also necessary for the capitalists to spend millions of pounds, as they are now doing, on relief for the unemployed.

If the unemployed received no support at all they would in desperation make organised attacks on private property, and their unrelieved discontent would endanger capitalist candidates at elections. Obviously, to leave men in utter starvation would be to force on them proof that existing society had nothing to offer them and could not reasonably demand their allegiance. That could but lead to rioting and disorder, which would make normal trading and commercial activities impossible. The capitalists give doles because it pays them to do so; it is for them a form of insurance, and a cheap one.

Various impatient people observing this, but failing to appreciate it correctly, have conceived the notion that at certain times of “crisis,” when discontent is rife and feeling runs high, and when the minds of many workers are in a condition of ferment, it should be possible by concentrated propaganda, daring leadership, and inspiring example, for a comparatively few revolutionaries so to leaven the mass as to turn its energies to an attack on the system.

It is a plausible theory and an attractive one for those of us for whom the capitalist present is an intolerable burden in comparison with the possibilities of the Socialist future; but will it stand examination?

Is it true that at these moments of crisis the ruling class lose their grip on the situation? Is it, then, any more difficult for the politicians and the Press to keep the workers in hand as regards fundamentals? And have the revolutionaries greater hope of getting into the saddle than at ordinary times? To go no further back than 1914, were the workers any less ready to accept capitalism at war than to accept capitalism at peace? As Mrs. Asquith states in the second volume of her diary, one Cabinet Minister (apparently Lloyd George) was “intriguing with the pacifists” and would have led an anti-war campaign if he could have found support for it, but he saw that the war-makers had been fully successful and he discreetly decided to go with them (Manchester Guardian Weekly, Nov. 24, 1922).

There were strikes during the war, and the Government was able to depend on the great majority, including the Trade Union officials, when it threatened, and took, drastic measures. There was a railway strike in 1919, and troops were used to run the trains, again without any notable outcry from the workers in general. The Labour leaders called off the threatened “Triple Alliance” strike on “Black Friday,” and not only did the mass actionists fail in their agitation, but J. H. Thomas and others denounced as traitors are now as popular as ever with their members.

Why did the Communists fail to make use of these opportunities when they offered? It was not for lack of will, certainly not for lack of screaming headlines and stunt propaganda. They failed because they could not compete with the capitalist Press and because they never succeeded in getting the workers interested in vital questions outside the scope of the immediate movement: On any such occasion the workers may be induced, or forced, quietly to accept less than they ask, but is there ever any possibility of their standing out for something more?

The railwaymen returned to work after a short strike because they were promised a part of their demands. Could one expect anything else? ‘The workers are always robbed, but not understanding this they will not consciously fight the robbers. Why then, if they are driven to resist a reduction in wages, should they be expected to fight for larger aims against a condition of things they accept as inevitable?

As for the immediate aim, the capitalist class can, if they wish, yield and remove the ground of the dispute. In short, if the workers are only asking for some reform of the present system, the capitalists can always grant it or fight it, as they choose. In neither case do the minority get a chance worth mentioning. During the mining dispute some 60 or 70 Communists were jailed, yet no serious effort was made by the workers to get them out. They did not gain the leadership, and the miners did not get any concession.

If, on the other hand, we have to admit that the workers must want Socialism before they can be induced to fight for it, we are back where we started, considering how we can make the workers understand Socialism. But this is the method the minority revolutionaries have rejected.

During the last two years an old issue has been revived, in the agitation for the better treatment of the unemployed. Attempts have been made to organise the unemployed, and have been fairly successful on the whole, but the old futilities have again been practised. The organisers of the movement had to choose between organising a few revolutionaries for a revolutionary purpose or a mass of non-revolutionaries for a programme of minor reforms in the amount and method of unemployment relief. They took the latter, and have succeeded in winning some points from the Boards of Guardians. But have they achieved anything lasting commensurate with their efforts ? They have added to the difficulties of the authorities, which was all to the good, but to assert, as some people have, that they seriously upset the Government is absurd. A writer in the Worker (20th. Jan., 1923), signing himself “Hobo,” gives an interesting account of unemployed organisation in Liverpool, for instance.

It began in 1921 with a gathering of 20,000 strong, and a committee “comprised for the most part of Communists.” There was a baton charge in September, most of the committee were arrested, and the unemployed turned a picture gallery “into a shambles.” “From then onwards the number declined, due to the fact that a scale of relief had been granted and that the spineless ones had got the wind up and left. We managed to keep a crowd of 10,000.”

They again came into conflict with the police, and

  “this gave us another setback in point of numbers, and the people left began to show signs of class consciousness. . . . They began, to flock to the Communist Party. Very few stayed in, but those who left were inoculated with germs of the class struggle. Due to another agitation we were granted the use of another hall. Again, after another couple of months, we got notice to quit. From. then onwards until about April or May, 1922, the apathy became terrible. . .

   “‘The Guardians or the rich,’ seeing this, began to get brave by daring to cut the relief down. A few hundred returned and wanted to know what we were going to do . . . try as we would we could not get them. to kick. . . . In September (1922). they returned again; . . . The Guardians had brought in a system of test work. . .The agitation became strong . . . the test work suddenly stopped, so did the demonstrations of our organisation. The immediate wrongs of Henry being satisfied, he drifted away again.. Thus the movement has declined, and hardly exists today outside of a small committee.”

So much for mass action. Are these the big battalions that will strike fear into the hearts of the ruling class? We are often reminded that Socialist propaganda makes but slow progress. True, but that is the nature of things; and is the method illustrated above any quicker? If it produces anything  useful at all, could the same or a greater result not have been achieved by a better direction of the energies that were thus largely wasted?

W. Hannington, Organising Secretary of the National Unemployed Movement, admits the actual impotence of that organisation outside of a strictly limited sphere, when he says in reply to a question as to the possibility of disturbances this winter : “The Government is straining the patience of these men, and they must not be surprised if there are outbreaks and disorders.” (Manchester Guardian Weekly, 12th Jan.) I suggest that the Government won’t be surprised. The people who will be surprised are the unemployed when they learn how amazingly easy it is for a few police, or if need be, soldiers, to deal effectively with large masses of ill-disciplined and unarmed men. They will get cracked heads for their pains, some of them will possibly, in the words of “Hobo,” be infected with “germs of class consciousness.” But when it is all done, are we any nearer Socialism? When the long delayed trade recovery arrives, short though it may be, will anything be left to show for all the time spent on organising the unemployed? Might these efforts not have been more fruitfully devoted to giving them a real understanding of their class position?

It is true the Socialist Party has not succeeded in organising large numbers, but have the actionists done any better? We have at least assisted materially in giving a correct understanding of Socialism to a by no means insignificant body of workers, and we are still awaiting from our numerous critics information as to the means whereby men who have been brought together to “demand the use of the Town Hall” or for any other fiddling question of the moment, can be induced to fight for Socialism without understanding it. If they could show that they had succeeded or were likely to succeed, something might be said for the idea; but according to a Communist Committee’s report, a copy of which fell into the hands of the Morning Post and was quoted by the Star (2nd Jan., 1923) the Party during the two years of its existence “has made no real progress, either numerically or in terms of influence. . . We are still only scattered individuals straggling up and down the country without a responsible hold on the working class movement.” (I must apologise for quoting from the Morning Post, but I, like the members of the Communist Party, have no other means of learning what new piece of buffoonery has been devised from time to time by the Communist dictators to disguise from their members the Party’s futility.)

Again, the Communists who have been responsible for misleading the workers by the blind-alley policy of the unemployed organisations now confess, after the harm has been done, that it was all a waste of effort.

   “The unemployed have done all they can, and the Government know it. They have tramped through the rain in endless processions. They have gone in mass deputations to the Guardians. They have attended innumerable meetings and have been told to be ‘solid’ They have marched to London, enduring terrible hardships. . . All this has led nowhere. None of the marchers believe that seeing Bonar Law in the flesh will make any difference. Willing for any sacrifice, there seems no outlet, no next step. In weariness and bitter disillusionment the unemployed movement is turning in upon itself. There is sporadic action, local rioting, but not central direction. The Government has signified its exact appreciation of the confusion by arresting Hannington.

   “The plain truth is that the unemployed can only be organised for agitation, not for action. Effective action is the job of the working-class as a whole. The Government is not afraid of starving men so long as the mass of the workers look on and keep the ring. —(Workers’ Weekly, C.P.G.B., 10th February, 1923.)

Brought up against one plain truth at home the Communists turn to agitation about another side-tracking question abroad with similar failure.

While they and the other mass actionists, the Labour Parties, are both opposing the French invasion of the Ruhr and issuing clarion calls to the workers to occupy themselves in the purely Capitalists’ dispute over the ownership of that territory, they both admit their inability to interfere effectively to stop it.

  “Edo Fimmen, Secretary of the International Federation of Trade Unions, in a speech to the old Confederation of Labour Congress in Paris . . . confessed . . . the impotence of the international working class in regard to the Ruhr invasion. It must be recognised that we have not been able to do what we said we would do.” —(Daily Herald, 3rd February, 1923.) 

   “The duty of the Communists is proportionately heavier. We are the minority of the working class. Alone we shall perhaps not be able to prevent war. But we must do everything in our power, so that when the masses are dragged into the war, they will have a rallying centre in the Communist Party . . . ” —(R. Fuchs, International Press Correspondence, 1st February, 1923, an official Communist publication.)

There is another aspect, too. These people always end by calling the workers apathetic. It is pertinent to ask who have done more to make them so than those, whether right-wing privy councillors, or left wing mass actionists, who make the accusation. They bring members into an organisation under false pretences, add nothing to their knowledge, take their contributions, and then abuse them because they leave in disgust when they find that their leaders cannot fulfil the promises which were the bait dangled to catch them.

It is not that the leaders necessarily intend to harm their victims. Usually, at the outset at least, they are sincerely of the opinion that the end having been achieved the means will be thereby justified. Our reply is that the end never is achieved. A little knowledge of the history of the workers’ movement might save many such mistakes, it might also save some enthusiasts from wasting valuable energies trying “to get Socialism quickly” by this method. They should remember that the S.D.F., the Clarion Scouts, the I.L.P., the B.S.P. have each in turn beaten this particular big drum with varying degrees of failure before their present counterparts took it up.

They might also remember that apathy for the rank and file mean apathy for the leaders, and that with the passing of the conditions which temporarily gave the illusion of rapid progress the men who used to bellow blood and fire from the platforms of those organisations recovered from their intoxication. They became cynical and quite a number can now be found talking with their tongues in their cheeks, for the Conservative Party.

Edgar Hardcastle