The Socialist Forum. (1931)

Letters to the Editors from the April 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (A. J. G., Wimbledon) asks why we do not get inside the Labour Party and help to convert it to Socialism. He writes : —

“I am still a member of the Labour Party, because though differing widely from our present leaders, I think there is yet hope of getting the Party machine under the control of genuine socialists. (The same applies to the T.U.’s.) 

As the break down of the Capitalist system becomes increasingly apparent, involving more poverty, unemployment and strikes, the position of some of our leaders of “sitting on the fence” will be more and more difficult and a choice have to be made by them on a clear issue. 

I suggest that your influence (had you been inside the Party) in conjunction with the I.L.P. and many Communists who still remain in the Party, would have helped to bring about the above result.”

Reply.

Our correspondent’s letter deserves close attention because it expresses the point of view of a considerable number of workers who have perceived the necessity for abolishing capitalism, but have not yet perceived that there is only one way in which that can be brought about. Each of the statements in the letter contains a partial truth, but in each case a deeper examination leads to a precisely opposite conclusion.

He says that he differs from the leaders of the Labour Party, but overlooks the very important fact that if this is a correct indication of his position, then he differs also from the overwhelming majority of the rank and file of the Labour Party, because the opinions and actions of those leaders are a very close reflection of the opinions of the members as a whole. We are aware that it is a constant slogan of the series of “Left Wing” movements, which follow each other like the days of the week, that the leaders do not represent the rank and file’s views ; but it is without any foundation. The same leaders with the same old tricks are elected and re-elected with monotonous regularity. When Maxton and Cook started their short-lived campaign which was going to carry a fiery cross through the Labour movement, they had to confess within a few short weeks that the working class wanted MacDonald and Thomas, with all their black record of betrayals of working-class interests.

Our correspondent says next that the leaders of the Labour Party and the Trade Unions will have to give up sitting on the fence and make a choice on a clear issue. Why must they do anything of the kind ? Was not the war in 1914 a clear issue? And the “greater production” campaign in 1919? And the series of “agreed” wage reductions in the past two years? And taking office on Liberal votes in the House of Commons? They have all been clear issues to the Socialist, but not clear to the members of the Labour Party. In consequence, the leaders have either sat on the fence or come down solidly and with the uproarious approval of their members on the capitalist side of it.

Lastly, we are told that we should have been inside the Labour Party, associating with the I.L.P. and the Communists, trying to oust the present leaders. Our correspondent disregards the facts. In the past four or five years I.L.P. members have been a clear majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party. So that every one of the leaders from whom our correspondent “differs widely” have been elected by the I.L.P. members with whom he wants us to associate for the purpose of opposing those leaders ! For a whole series of elections the Communists were in precisely the same boat. As we have pointed out in these columns year by year, the Communist Party has repeatedly told the workers to vote for MacDonald, Thomas, Frank Hodges, Clynes, Henderson, and the rest of the leaders. When Mr. Maxton was asked if he would try to get rid of MacDonald, he replied that he would not.

Lastly, our correspondent is silent upon one very important question. He gives us to understand that he is busy in the Labour Party trying to convert the members of the Labour Party and trying to get rid of the anti-working-class leaders. May we ask him a few questions? Does he tell the workers to vote at election times for these leaders? Or does he tell the workers that voting to return these men to Parliament is voting for the retention of capitalism? If he does the former, then he is not helping Socialism forward. Further, if he, or we, were inside the Labour Party, telling the workers to vote against Labour Party candidates, we would be confusing the minds of the workers. And, moreover, the Labour leaders would soon see to it that we were put outside, where we belong. Finally, the only way to obtain Socialism is to advocate it, and not to help the Labour Party by increasing the mental confusion already existing.

* * *

A Defence of the I.L.P.

Mr. W. Latimer (Carlisle) objects to our policy, particularly our criticism of the I.L.P. The chief points in his letter are given below, together with our reply.

“(1) I accuse you of misrepresentation of the I.L.P. . . . You wrote that the I.L.P. is not a Socialist organisation or party. What is it then? Capitalist?

(2) What are you doing to nullify the attacks of the capitalist class?

(3) How are you capturing the various weapons (State and Municipal) for the workers?

(4) Have you a policy to put into practice when you acclaim power?

(5) What are you doing to Socialise the Labour Party and the Trades Unions?”

Reply.

(1) The I.L.P. stands for nationalisation under which the capitalist class will continue in existence, but will draw their income on Government stocks instead of on company shares. “The Socialist Programme” (published by the I.L.P. in 1923) says :—

“The present shareholders in mines and railways could receive State mines or railway stock based on a valuation and bearing a fixed rate of interest.” (Page 24.)

That is capitalism. The party which advocates it is a capitalist party.

(2) While pointing out the limitations of trade union action, we urge the workers to resist attempts by the employers to lower wages. This has been made more difficult by the actions of the Labour Government in reducing the pay of Civil Servants. A majority of the Labour M.P.s are members of the I.L.P., which therefore cannot escape responsibility.

(3) The I.L.P. members in Parliament were all elected on the Labour Party programme, described by Mr. Maxton as a capitalist programme. That is not capturing the political machinery for Socialism, but for something else.

(4) Socialists want power only for the purpose of introducing Socialism. That is our programme.

(5) By propagating Socialist principles among the workers we try to make Socialists of them, whether in the trade unions or in the Labour Party or any other non-Socialist party. Our work is made vastly more difficult by I.L.P. Propaganda, which misleads the workers into believing that nationalisation is Socialism and will benefit them. (See I.L.P. pamphlet, “Socialism in Queensland,” for an example of harmful I.L.P. Propaganda.)

* * *

Why workers do not join the Socialist Party.

Glasgow, 

January 16th, 1931.

To the Editor, 

The Socialist Standard.

Dear Comrade.

Re your question to non-members, I venture to put forward a few reasons as to the apparent apathy among sympathisers. I am certain there must be some thousands of Socialists in this so-called second city of the Empire who are unattached to any party. At the Sunday night meetings here at West Regent Street, your speaker, Comrade Shaw, can and does, hold large and attentive crowds, seldom or never are questions put forward. I am convinced that a fair percentage of these crowds is made up of individual who have, at one time or another, been members of a political organization, and are, as it were, sitting on the fence. The following are some of the reasons (in my opinion), why men hold aloof :—

(1) Many are convinced Socialists that grudge the time and energy that is expected of them when joined up in an organization—Laziness.

(2) Not a few would join up and take an active part in the movement, but for the fact that it would cause unpleasantness, if not unhappiness in the home. One real Socialist in the midst of anti-Socialists is always in hot water, and to one who takes an active part for Socialism the water is extra hot.

(3) No doubt a number are timid or funky Socialists, and are somewhat obsessed with the thought that to be seen or heard by gaffer or boss taking part in Socialist propaganda, means, if not the sack, becoming a set man.

(4) Again, I believe there are many who have made up their minds that Socialism won’t come in “their” time, have become disgruntled at the apathy of the masses, and are out to get as cushy a time possible out of the present system.

The above four reasons apply to Socialists only ; outside of these, of course, are a host of bewildered individuals who listen to the various speakers of different organizations—each and all slating each other ; these bewildered ones won’t read or think for themselves, hence their bewilderment. As to those who oppose the position of the S.P.G.B., I mention one view which I often hear advanced. Many Socialist politicians start off in all good faith and earnestness, but when they get mixed up in Westminster or Trade Union atmosphere, they are bought over, become corrupt, make a position or pension. They have arrived, lifted out of the gutter, as it were, on the backs of others. They are convinced that Socialism won’t come in “their” time; their bread and butter is secure. They become apathetic or hypocritical, and the cause is deserted.

There can be no guarantee for the integrity of any man, no man is infallible; human flesh and, too often, the spirit, is weak.

Would S.P.G.B. M.P.s have this integrity and soundness of spirit? Would they withstand the temptations by which many have failed ? Would they hold the bridge or sell the pass?

I know a reasoned answer can be given to above, but without doubt, this view sticks in the minds of many. Let us hope this letter will open up discussion on same.

Yours for Socialism,

F. J. Derrett.

Reply.

The above letter very well sums up the various reasons given by sympathisers for remaining outside the Socialist Party. We would suggest to our sympathisers that they should reconsider whether their reasons are really adequate.

A number of readers have pointed out that many Socialists are undoubtedly in the position that they dare not actively associate with the Socialist Party without certain loss of their employment. This applies particularly in small country and provincial towns, where any public activity is sure to come to the ears of employers.

The reference in the above letter to the untrustworthiness of political representatives is worth special comment.

Electors who want a certain end but are not prepared to support the only way of getting it are sure to be disappointed. Nothing can prevent it, not even the most incorruptible of political representatives. How, for example, can any M.P. keep his pledge to solve the problems of unemployment and poverty if the electorate are not prepared to have Capitalism replaced by Socialism? M.P.s being human, and being usually under the necessity of earning their living by keeping their seat, have no choice but to go on doing those things that the electors are prepared to support.

The only remedy is a politically educated electorate which knows the problems and the solution. Nobody can “sell” an electorate which knows what it wants and how to get it. The Socialist Party  not say, “Support us and all will be well.” Our message to the workers is, “Study Socialism yourselves ; organise in the Socialist Party to get it.” Only Socialist knowledge will protect the workers against lenders and misleaders.

The chief trouble now is not that workers’ leaders sell out and go over openly to the other side, but that they remain in the workers’ movement because the workers approve of Capitalist policies. Should a Socialist M.P. sell out, that would end his association with the Socialist movement.

Editorial Committee.

A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the April 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour Party as Investors' Party.

It is often alleged by Labour Party members that their party differs from the Liberals and Tories in that it is a workers’ party.

If they mean by this to claim that Liberal and Tory supporters are, in the main, not workers, the facts are against them. At least 85 per cent. of the voters are members of the working class, and since the number of Labour voters at the 1929 General Election was only two-fifths of the total number who went to the poll, it is evident that there are more workers who vote Liberal and Tory than there are who vote Labour.

The Daily Herald used to claim that it was “the workers’ paper.” Now its posters proudly proclaim that—

“’THE DAILY HERALD’ PROTECTS THE INVESTOR.”

In its City column, on March 13th, an article was published, telling a reader “how to invest £12,000.” Won’t this be good news for unemployed miners, and railwaymen whose pay has just been reduced !

The Daily Herald’s editorial on March 12th contains still more cheering news. It says :—

“The investing public is, on the whole, doing remarkably well.”

We ask readers who still support the Labour Party to think over that statement. Nearly two years after the Labour Party came into office, when the workers are suffering more than they have ever suffered, they are told as a fact that “the investing public … is doing remarkably well.”

* * *

A War-Time Curiosity. The Leeds Conference.

The following passages are extracted from a circular letter sent out on May 23rd, 1917, by those responsible for the calling of the still-born Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council which was to have been inaugurated at the Leeds Conference. It is interesting to observe that several of the signatories are now members of the Labour Government.

“To Trades Councils, Trade Unions, Local Labour Parties, Socialist Parties, Women’s Organisations, and Democratic Bodies. 

Dear Comrades,—The conference to which we invited you is already assured of a great success. It will be one of the greatest democratic gatherings ever held in this country. It will be historic; it will begin a new era of democratic power in Great Britain. It will begin to do for this country what the Russian revolution has done for Russia. …. It will be a democratic conference to establish democracy in Great Britain. Russia has called us to follow her. You must not refuse to answer that appeal. Send in your application for delegates’ cards at once, etc.”—On behalf of the United Socialist Council we remain, yours fraternally, 

H. Alexander, Chas G. Ammon, W. C. Anderson, C. Despard, E. C. Fairchild, J. Finsberg, F. W. Jowett, Geo. Lansbury, J. Ramsay MacDonald, Tom Quelch, Robert Smillie, Philip Snowden, Robert Williams.

May 23rd, 1917.”

* * *

The Daily Herald's Two Voices.

Daily Herald Editorial on December 10th, 1930:—

“The man in the street, asked what is the cause of our present troubles, would be likely to answer, “There’s not enough money about.” The man in the street would be largely right. The world is not . . . producing enough gold for its needs. . . . Shortage of gold means shortage of currency. Shortage of currency means shortage of purchasing power.”

Daily Herald Editorial, January 20th, 1931:—

“The pessimists received a further blow yesterday when a £3,000,000 issue of new debenture stock by the London Power Company was oversubscribed within a few minutes. Here is evidence in plenty that there is in this country money available for sound schemes. . . . How can it be attracted into industry again? The sure way is by increasing public confidence in our industrial future, and by persuading the ordinary consumer to buy more of the goods which are on all sides being offered at reasonable prices.”

It may be remarked that the oversubscription of public issues of shares was going on throughout the latter half of 1930. We wonder, too, whether the “ordinary consumer” who is asked to spend more includes the workers whose wages have been reduced while the Labour Government has been in office.

* * *

The Cotton Lock-Out.

It is interesting to notice that the factor which induced the employers to withdraw the lock-out notices and abandon their intention to try to impose a further 12½ per cent. reduction in pay and an increase in hours was the refusal of the locked-out men and women to give their trade union officials power to enter into negotiations. Reynolds’s Illustrated News (February 10th) says :—

“What brought about the collapse of the lock-out undoubtedly was the firmness of the rank and file of the operatives.

Right from the beginning of the dispute they have resolutely refused to give their Trade Union leaders power to negotiate with the employers, and have held our for the complete ending of the more-looms system.”

The Socialist Party has always pointed out the danger which arises from the practice of giving the officials power to negotiate in secret with the employers.

* * *

Unemployment in France.

A Blow to the Birth-Controllers.

Last year the publishers of the New Generation distributed (with the assistance of the New Leader a leaflet by G. A. Gaskell and R. B. Kerr, M.A., LL.B., showing how birth control would abolish unemployment. France, they said, was the “one country . . . which is free from unemployment.” France used to have unemployment, but birth control cured it. “Surely this is a magnificent achievement for birth control !” wrote the authors. Unfortunately for them, France hasn’t got rid of unemployment. In the August, 1930, Socialist Standard we gave the reasons why France had temporarily escaped obvious unemployment, and prophesied that unemployment would soon appear.

Now we have some definite evidence on the subject. The special correspondent in France of the News-Chronicle wrote as follows (22nd December, 1930) :—

“No reliable unemployment figures are available, though the Government admits a slow, but steady, increase. M. Lenoir, the Secretary of the Confederation Generale du Travail, declares that the situation is serious and that the number of unemployed is increasing every day. ‘It is not,’he adds, ‘seasonal unemployment. The workless are legion in the textile and metal industries of the North. . . . There is also a lot of short time everywhere.’”

Further evidence was given by Mr. H. J. Greenwall, who was in France for the Daily Express. He wrote (January 13th, 1931) :—

“There are, at the moment, about a quarter of a million unemployed in France, while those on short time bring the figures up to about half a million.”

The French representative at the recent Geneva Conference on unemployment admitted that there are in France 350,000 wholly unemployed and about 1,000,000 partly unemployed, excluding all firms employing under 100 persons (see The Times, February 7th). These figures were confirmed by the French Government. The Paris correspondent of The Times also reported that the census of 1921 showed 537,000 unemployed, and the census of 1926, 243,000. France is now faced with threatening strikes and lock-outs in several industries owing to attempts to reduce wages.

By the end of February, according to The Times March 7th, 1931), unemployment had risen to at least 650,000, with a further 1,500,000 partly unemployed.

So much for birth control as a cure for unemployment and poverty.

* * *

Mr. Maxton's acrobatics.

Mr. Maxton has often declared that the Labour Party is a capitalist party, but he always takes good care to keep inside that capitalist party, in the warm. The thought of being put out into the cold, where there are no political jobs going for the bright young men and women of the I.L.P., fills him and his supporters with the wildest alarm. He was taunted with this inconsistency at the Conference of the Scottish I.L.P. He said (Forward, January 17th) :—

“He had been told in the House of Commons that a man could not ride two horses. All I can say is that if you cannot ride two horses you have no right to be in the bloody circus. . . . 

Surely I, in the Left Wing, am entitled to my acrobatics, and to have one foot on the Labour official horse and the other on the fighting socialist horse.”

A resolution to disaffiliate from the Labour Party was defeated by 112 votes to 25. Bold Mr. Maxton, riding his two horses as usual, “said he would not speak either for or against the resolution.” This is how the “leaders” give a “lead” to their followers.

* * *

The I.L.P. drops members.

It was disclosed at the Conference of the Scottish I.L.P. that the number of Labour M.P.’s who are members of the I.L.P. has fallen to 156. A year ago, when the Party held its National Conference, it was stated in the Report to Conference that nearly 200 I.L.P. members were Labour M.P.’s. So that over 40 Labour M.P.’s have in a year decided that the I.L.P. can be of no further use as an aid to a political career. The I.L.P. still, however, counts as members a clear majority of the Labour M.P.’s.

It is interesting to notice how the membership of the I.L.P. has fallen in recent years. In February, 1925, according to the “Socialist Annual, 1925,” published by the I.L.P., there were approximately 50,000 members and 1,028 branches. At the Conference in 1930 it was stated (Manchester Guardian, April 3rd, 1930) that the branches had fallen to 748. If the membership has fallen proportionately to the fall in branches, it would have been not more than 30,000 a year ago. The income from affiliation fees fell by over 40 per cent. between 1925 and 1929.

The Report of the National Administrative Council to the 1931 Conference shows a further decline. The branches now number 712, and affiliation fees have fallen to £.1,523, as compared with £3,467 in the year ended January, 1926.

According to Mr. F. A. Ogg (“English Government and Politics,” p. 541), the I.L.P. in 1914 had 60,000 members, and in 1927, when its book membership was 50,000, the actual paid-up membership was nearer 30,000.

* * *

The Well-To-Do I.L.P.

The I.L.P. has objected to the Government’s proposed Voting Bill because it is not sufficiently democratic. The I.L.P. put down several amendments, but we observe that neither they nor the Labour Party, the Liberal Party or the Tory Party, propose to abolish the clause which compels candidates to deposit £150. To find such deposits is a hard task for a party (such as our own) dependent on the spare cash of members of the working class. It is by no means difficult for the wealthy parties referred to above. The dependence of the I.L.P. on well-to-do supporters is illustrated by their recently published appeal for funds. Four lists of subscribers have been issued up to February 20th. Out of a total amount of £1,169, no less than £709 was subscribed by only 14 persons. This included one donation of £250 and three donations of £100. Although the I.L.P. complains of dwindling funds, it is still able to count on well-to-do supporters.

* * *

Capitalism and class barriers.

Defenders of capitalism are fond of pointing out that everyone has a chance of climbing to the top. The statistical department of the German Government has just conducted an inquiry to find out how many workers’ sons have actually been able to climb into the ranks of the privileged class. An account of the inquiry was given in the News-Chronicle on December 10th, 1930.

It was found that there were only four workers’ sons among 247 bankers, stockbrokers and big business men ; two among 258 company directors ; none among 122 big property owners ; six among 203 actors, singers, theatrical managers ; none among 300 political economists, etc. ; and only about seven among 1,370 high Government and Municipal officials. 

No daughter of a working man was found to have penetrated into the learned professions or big business circles.

Edgar Hardcastle

Material World: Live to work or work to live? (2023)

The Material World column from the April 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the UK raised the age of retirement and heightened the national insurance contribution criteria to be eligible for a state pension, there were complaints from women who were particularly affected by the changes but very little wider protest.

It has not been as easy for the French government plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Trade unions have held nationwide strikes that have brought France to standstills, hoping that strikes and accompanying demonstrations will bring about a similar outcome as in 1995 when then-president Jacques Chirac abandoned his pension change proposals. Millions of workers have been involved to disrupt industry and transport across France. However, unlike the previous five strikes, trade unions declared the 7th March strike, ‘grèves reconductibles’, meaning workers will vote at the end of each strike day on whether to continue industrial action. With no fixed end date, unions hope to damage the economy so severely that it defeats the government.

Although the country’s current retirement age is one of the lowest in the European Union, the existing rules already require most people to work past the age of 64 in order to qualify for the full pension. By raising the retirement age by two years most workers would need to work 43 years, rather than 42, to be eligible for a full pension.

The government claims postponing the retirement age by two years and extending the pay-in period would yield an additional €17.7 billion in annual pension contributions, allowing the budget to break even by 2027 and safeguarding what they say would be a failing system. But not all economists agree.

In September 2022, a report by the French Pensions Advisory Council found the pensions system actually produced surpluses in 2021 (€900 million) and 2022 (€3.2 billion), although it did predict the system would run a deficit on average over the next quarter of a century. According to its calculations, ‘between 2023 and 2027, the pension system’s finances will deteriorate’, reaching a deficit of between 0.3 and 0.4 percent of GDP, or just over €10 billion a year, until 2032. But the Council predicted an eventual balance beginning in the mid-2030s.

A deficit of €10-12 billion per year is not necessarily excessive for a pension system whose total annual expenditure amounts to around €340 billion. ‘The results of this report do not support the claim that pensions spending is out of control,’ the Council wrote. Pension spending as a proportion of GDP is expected to remain stable, at around 14 percent of GDP, before rising to up to 14.7 percent by 2032.

Pensions expert Michaël Zemmour said, ‘It has become a form of political discourse to exaggerate and dramatise the deficit issue, to claim the system urgently needs to be reformed, when in fact the deficit is rather moderate’.

He explained, ‘It’s not about saving the pension system, it’s about financing tax cuts for businesses,’ highlighting France’s intention to finance tax cuts with structural reforms to bring the national deficit under 3 percent by 2027, a requirement of EU member states (bit.ly/3kUXHlx).

Government attempts to appeal to younger generations on the grounds that it is they who carry the burden of supporting the elderly have not been successful. Despite retirement being a distant prospect, France’s younger workers have been active in the protests.

One student said, ‘We live in a productivity-obsessed society that is preoccupied with economic growth and which has been destroying our planet for decades. Now we’re being asked to work for two more years so we can produce even more.’ Another explained, ‘We should be able to live longer and in better health without working ourselves to death. Besides, if they’re talking about retiring at 64 now, what will it be when I’m 60? Will I have to work until I’m 70 or 75? ’ (bit.ly/3JofydM).

In the United States, where the retirement age for Social Security is already transitioning to 67, a Republican Party committee has called for the retirement age to increase by three years so that people born on or after 1978 will have to wait until the age of 70 for a full pension (bit.ly/3mFHwcg).

In Germany, the Federation of German Employers’ Associations in the Metal and Electrical Engineering Industries has also suggested raising its retirement age to 70. However, Johannes Geyer of the German Institute for Economic Research believes ‘Raising the retirement age puts a lot of pressure on the working population. People with low life expectancy, and those with health problems, will suffer more; a relevant part of the population dies before reaching retirement age.’ He seeks an alternative solution. ‘We need migration. It’s essential that we have enough people coming from abroad to work in Germany’ (bit.ly/3mCFM3r).

Working people must reject this capitalist imposition – ‘live longer, work longer’. We should have a society where we can appreciate the added years of our lives and not be made to work until we drop.

ALJO

Proper Gander: Exploitation at work (2023)

The Proper Gander TV column from the April 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

When we buy a product, it’s easy not to think about the long journey it has made to reach us, through the combined effort of countless people across the world. A cup of tea often starts out in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, where its tea leaves are grown and picked before being sent on for processing and packing. The workers who pick the leaves which eventually end up in our morning cuppa tend to be women living close to poverty. Like many in the primary sector, their work on the tea plantations involves lengthy, repetitive shifts for low pay, made even worse for them by a culture where sexual abuse is common.

This was the focus of a disturbing edition of BBC One’s Panorama: Sex For Work: The True Cost Of Our Tea. The documentary investigated plantations in Kenya owned by two British companies – Unilever and James Finlay & Co – which produce half the tea drunk in the UK, sold under brands such as PG Tips, Lipton and Sainsbury’s Red Label. Researchers interviewed a hundred women tea pickers, and as many as 75 said they had suffered sexual harassment by managers at their workplace.

Heading the programme is journalist Tom Odula, but credit should go to the undercover reporter who put herself at risk by applying for work on the plantations. Much of the documentary comprises footage filmed on a hidden camera by ‘Katie’. This shows that women being pushed into having sex with senior staff is rife, despite the problem being recognised at least as far back as 2011. Then, a report was published by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations about the extent of sexual abuse in Unilever’s operations, which led to them introducing a new ‘zero tolerance’ policy and reporting system. These are put to the test when Katie applies for a job at a Unilever plantation and gets asked by a Divisional Manager, Jeremiah Koskei, to meet in a bar. There, she records him talking about how they could spend the night at his home, following a pattern described by other women seeking work on the plantation. ‘It felt pretty transactional’ says Katie later. Despite rejecting his advances, she gets employed and is assigned the gruelling task of weeding for up to 10 hours a day, at a rate of the equivalent of £25 for a six-day week. When Katie asks for different duties, supervisor Samuel Yebei sees this as an opportunity to pressure her to sleep with him in return. After she resists, he gives up, and five weeks later she hasn’t been moved to a better role. One of the women Odula interviews says that she was in such a desperate situation that she was coerced into having sex with Yebei to keep her job and then contracted HIV. We’re told that one reason Yebei has got away with his behaviour is that he is close to Koskei, but complaints have been dismissed before they even reach them. When Katie reports them both to the company’s sexual harassment officer, instead of looking into the matter he just advises her to protect herself. While the documentary was being made, Unilever sold its tea brands and fields to a venture capital company, now operating as Lipton Teas and Infusions, which has suspended the two managers pending an investigation.

A similar culture was found in plantations owned by James Finlay & Co, whose tea is sold by Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Starbucks. Odula speaks with a woman (already suffering from an injury from her work) who refused to have sex with a manager in order to get a job, and regrets that her daughters didn’t make the same decision. She reported harassment but hasn’t had a response. Many of the women interviewed name John Chebochok, a recruiter for James Finlay & Co, as a predator. Katie goes to meet him for a job interview, which she is told will be held in a hotel room. There, he says he will give her money and a job if she has sex with him, which escalates to him pinning her against a window before he gives up and goes. After three months of undercover reporting, Katie quits the plantations and receives counselling. Finlays later said it suspended and reported Chebochok to the police, and is now investigating whether its operation has ‘an endemic issue with sexual violence’.

Panorama’s report from Kenya recalls exposés of similar practices in other organisations. Women in Haiti in poorly paid jobs making clothes for American brands were pressurised by their managers to have sex or have their contracts ended, according to an article published by the Guardian (23 June). In Congo, more than 50 women alleged that aid workers, including some from the World Health Organisation, had demanded sex from them to get or keep jobs as cooks, cleaners and community workers during an Ebola crisis (Reuters, 29/09/20). As in Kenya, the poverty the women were living in often meant they had little choice.

The hierarchies which are built into the capitalist structures of organisations put people like Chebochok, Yebei and Koskei in positions of power. And the wider economic system makes people – women who rely on wages from any work they can get, in this instance – vulnerable to being used by this predatory type of man for their own gratification. Because these managers are enforcing the exploitation of the women through their employment, they also feel entitled to exploit them sexually. They see and treat the women as objects because the system creates the conditions in which this can happen. Reforms and a shift in culture may eventually lessen the threat of sexual abuse for women such as those on the plantations, but won’t address the root cause of the problem.

Mike Foster

Party News: The Socialist Party's Summer School (2023)

Party News from the April 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Work, in all its forms, is what keeps society running. At best, our own work can be interesting and creative, if we're not stuck in an unfulfilling role. Capitalism turns work into employment, with our job roles shaped by how profitable or cost-effective they are likely to be, more than by how useful or manageable they are. Even so, countless important tasks rely on volunteers and other unpaid labour.

Poor conditions and pay have pushed an increased number of employees to go on strike. But how effective can industrial action be when workers don't own or control the places we work in? Alongside the impact of the state and the economy on how we work, technology has had a massive influence, from the most basic tools to the latest advances in computing.

In a socialist society, work would be freed from the constraints of money and the exploitation of employment, and would instead be driven directly by people's needs and wants. This would entail workplaces being owned in common and run democratically. But how could this happen in practice?

The Socialist Party's weekend of talks and discussion looks at different aspects of work, and what they tell us about the society we live in. The event also includes an exclusive publication, exhibition and bookstall.

Our venue is Woodbrooke, 1046 Bristol Road, Birmingham, B29 6U. Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £200; the concessionary rate is £100. Book online at www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2023/ or send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) with your contact details to Summer School, The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN. Day visitors are welcome, but please e-mail for details in advance. Send enquiries to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk.

Cooking the Books: Budgets for Business as usual (2023)

The Cooking The Books column from the April 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

This year 15 March was budget day, the day the government announces its money-raising and spending plans for the financial year that begins in April. Jeremy Hunt went on about ‘growth’; the Labour Shadow Chancellor sounded like she was Liz Truss, accusing Hunt of not being ambitious enough (in effect of not making wilder promises). But no government has the power to bring about growth.

‘Growth’ is an increase in the amount of marketable wealth produced in one year compared with the previous year. The only people who can organise this are those in charge of the profit-seeking businesses that produce such wealth.

But even they don’t have a free hand; they have to take account of market conditions, which are outside of their control, and only increase production if they judge these offer a prospect of making a profit. It is this business investment for profit that drives the economy. The most any government can do is to try to ensure conditions that allow and encourage this. In fact, if they don’t they will provoke an economic downturn.

Capitalist firms and their owners accept that there must be a government, if only to protect private property rights, keep law and order, and maintain armed forces, though these days governments do much more for them than this; they pay, for instance, for the workers’ education and health to create a more productive workforce for business. All this costs money and has to be paid for.

The main direct tax on businesses is corporation tax, a tax on their profits (the main indirect tax is income tax on wages). Rishi Sunak, when Chancellor, announced in the 2021 budget that this would go up from 19 percent to 23 percent from 1 April 2023. Hunt confirmed that this was to go ahead. However, there are generous exemptions. For the next three years businesses will not have to pay corporation tax on any profits that are invested in the full cost of new machinery, plant or IT systems. In other words, not on profits that are directly re-invested in accumulating capital; which in fact is the main aim of capitalist production.

The government’s aim is to encourage business investment, the driver of growth. Whether it will work remains to be seen. Businesses won’t invest just to avoid taxes but only if the investment will be profitable.

At the moment, Britain has a ‘labour supply problem’. Another way of putting this is that there is a shortage of wealth producers since there is no other way that wealth can be produced other than by the application of human labour to materials that originally came from nature. Which is what workers do. No workers, no wealth and no capitalist share of wealth as profits.

This shortage is partly the result of previous government policy, albeit one endorsed by a referendum, to withdraw from the EU and stop the free movement of workers from the rest of Europe. To deal with the shortage, Hunt announced three measures. The first was to allow those with a pension pot of £1 million — not your ordinary worker, then, but someone on the way to becoming a capitalist — to accumulate more without having to pay tax on it. The second was to improve nursery facilities for families with both parents working. The third was to cut the payments to the unemployed, to in effect starve them back to work. The hope is that this will encourage more, especially mothers, to join the wealth (and profit) producing force. Again, a measure aimed at helping profit-seeking business make more profits. But there is no guarantee that it will work either.

Bird’s Eye View: Chris Hedges (2023)

The Bird’s Eye View Column from the April 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Chris Hedges

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, New York Times best-selling author, former professor at Princeton University, activist and ordained Presbyterian minister, occasionally hits the mark:

‘The militarists, corporatists, oligarchs, politicians, academics and media conglomerates champion identity politics and diversity because it does nothing to address the systemic injustices or the scourge of permanent war that plague the U.S. It is an advertising gimmick, a brand, used to mask mounting social inequality and imperial folly. It busies liberals and the educated with a boutique activism, which is not only ineffectual but exacerbates the divide between the privileged and a working class in deep economic distress. The haves scold the have-nots for their bad manners, racism, linguistic insensitivity and garishness, while ignoring the root causes of their economic distress. The oligarchs could not be happier’ (Scheerpost, 5 February).

Richard Dawkins

We often disagree with this professor too, but cannot fault him here:

‘“The only possible response is contemptuous ridicule,” he told the Daily Telegraph. “I shall continue to use every one of the prohibited words. I am a professional user of the English language. It is my native language. I am not going to be told by some teenage version of Mrs Grundy which words of my native language I may or may not use.”

Other experts also branded the alternatives “absurd” and argued they could cause confusion in scientific fields. They also pointed out that the terms “egg producing” and “sperm producing” were simply synonyms for male and female, and continued to confirm that sex is binary.”… The EEB Language Project, which was launched in this month’s Trends in Ecology and Evolution journal, is compiling a repository of “problematic words” that have been identified by US and Canadian scientists as harmful and it suggests alternatives. For example, participants have flagged the term “citizen science” saying it could be “harmful to people who do not have a nation state”‘ (15 February).

Workers have no country

But some so-called socialists, woke or not, insist otherwise:

‘Instead of seeing the world as being composed solely of geopolitical camps, socialist internationalists must evaluate every conflict based on the interests of working people and their struggle for freedom and equality. The revolutionary Leon Trotsky once wrote that, hypothetically, if fascist Italy pursuing their interests had supported the anti-colonial uprising in Algeria against democratic France, the internationalists should have supported the Italian arming of the rebels. It sounds quite right, and this did not stop him from being an anti-fascist. Vietnam’s struggle did not just benefit Vietnam; the defeat of the United States there had a significant (if temporary) deterrent effect on American imperialism’ (’Freedom Socialist Party’, February ).

More nonsense. this time from the horse’s mouth:

‘Through carrying out the Renewal process, the Party has drawn five great lessons from its experience, which can also be considered five fundamental theoretical issues of the present-day Vietnamese revolution. Among the lessons, the Party emphasises the need to comprehensively, synchronously, and regularly implement the Party building and rectification work, place people at the centre of the Renewal process, and build a synchronous development institution in order to serve the goal of rapid and sustainable development of the country, with a focus on the socialist-oriented market economy institution’ (Voice of Vietnam, 2 February.)

Even in the ‘socialist republic’, some are more equal than others as this headline attests: ‘Vietnamese tourist in Thailand reunited with his lost $194,000 Richard Mille watch’ (Yahoo, 3 February, ).

Dave Allen

The late, great and far from woke comedian may well have regarded that tourist as suitable material for a future sketch. One recent news item would almost certainly have attracted his attention:

‘Some Taliban fighters are sick of the 9 to 5 grind, complaining they’ve been sucked into urban life by working desk jobs to run Afghanistan’ (Business Insider, 10 February ).

Abdul Salam, 26, a farmer who fought for the Taliban several times, is on record as stating:

‘There is a proverb in our area that money is like a shackle. Now, if we complain, or don’t come to work, or disobey the rules, they cut our salary.’

Welcome to wage slavery, sucker! Allen famously observed:

‘You wake to the clock, you go to work to the clock, you clock-in to the clock, you clock out to the clock, you come home to the clock, you eat to the clock, you drink to the clock, you go to bed to the clock, you get up to the clock, you go back to work to the clock… You do that for forty years of your life and you retire — what do they fucking give you? A clock!’

Woke readers who are shocked, quite possibly offended, by our use of the term slavery should study the writings of a former slave:

‘The difference between the white slave, and the black slave, is this: the latter belongs to ONE slave-holder, and the former belongs to ALL the slave-holders, collectively. The white slave has taken from him, by indirection, what the black slave had taken from him, directly, and without ceremony. Both are plundered, and by the same plunderers’ (Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, 1855 ).

Workers of the world, woke or not, wake up!

These plunderers are found throughout the world- yes, in all the aforementioned countries too! ‘The typical CEO of a company listed on the S&P 500—a stock market index with 500 large publicly traded corporations – earned $18.8 million last year. That’s up roughly 21% from 2021, even though the S&P 500 index was down 20%’ (Time, 16 February ). Warren Buffett, whose 100 billion dollar fortune makes him the 6th richest person on Earth, was not joking when he said: ‘there’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning’ (New York Times, 26 November 2006 ). Winning worldwide.

Enter the Twilight Zone (2023)

Book Review from the April 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Twilight of World Trotskyism, By John Kelly. Routledge. 2023.

This is effectively the updated sequel to Kelly’s book Contemporary Trotskyism, which was reviewed in the October 2018 Socialist Standard. It is a lot shorter than the first, more international in outlook, a little repetitive in places and surprisingly polemical.

Kelly argues that after a period of significant decline, the Trotskyist movement worldwide entered a period of relative stability in the early 21st century which has in more recent years been shattered by another period of organisational sclerosis, bloodletting and waning membership. There are now no less than 32 international organisations claiming to be the Fourth International or its successor, and in the UK alone there are currently 21 separate Trotskyist organisations that openly identify as being such.

One of the most significant recent splits concerns the so-called Socialist Party of England and Wales (SPEW) and its international body, the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI). This split has been over the growth of identity politics linked to their Irish affiliate and led to the formation in the UK of the 200-strong Socialist Alternative group. Kelly estimates there are now around 9,000 Trotskyists in total in the UK, the majority of them in the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) and SPEW, the only parties with over a thousand members – though in SPEW’s case only just.

Kelly identifies the main centres of World Trotskyism as being the USA, Britain, France and Argentina (based on parties, memberships, publications, electoral statistics, etc). The organisational issues noticeable in Britain are equally obvious elsewhere – the USA has 23 separate Trotskyist groups, France 15 and Argentina 16. He attempts to look beyond the sect-like nature of these groups to some of the more fundamental underlying issues with Trotskyist politics that we have often identified ourselves in this magazine. These include the dishonest and incredible nature of ‘transitional demands’; Trotskyists’ rigid adherence to Leninist methods while bizarrely expecting a different outcome to those achieved by Leninists previously in Russia, China, etc; their obsessive catastrophising (a massive world crisis and revolution is always just around the corner, yet somehow never materialises); and their conceptions of how members may be recruited and supporters gained that bear little relationship to the underlying reality.

Over the years we ourselves have had some political sport pointing these things out, and have sparred with more Citizen Smith clones occupying a Trotskyist parallel universe than we care to remember. Though it’s also fair to say that at least some of the failures and limitations experienced by the Trotskyists (and others that seek to position themselves more generally as anti-capitalists) could also apply to us. Indeed, Kelly emerges as something of a reformist in this book and takes a sideswipe in our direction, saying ‘Tony Judt’s remark about the British propaganda sect, the SPGB, applies with equal force to [many of the Trotskyists]: “Impervious to change, and too small to be adversely affected by its own irrelevance, it will presumably survive indefinitely”’ (p.98). This didn’t make much sense the first time we read it and it makes little more sense here. Also, it is a bit odd as nowhere does he explain to readers what the SPGB is (we’re not even in the List of Abbreviations included) and because his main argument in this section appears to be that many of the Trotskyist groups are actually ageing out of activity and existence completely: ‘It appears that instead of being carried forward to revolutionary triumph by the laws of history, the forces of Orthodox Trotskyism are being carried into oblivion by the law of biology’ (p.99).

Kelly ends by saying ‘After more than 80 years of Trotskyist activity, with no revolutions, mass parties or election victories to its name… the Trotskyist movement has become a dead end for socialists’ (p.105). We can, of course, agree. But it’s a shame he doesn’t seem to hold the view that the same comment could be applied – equally though for partly different reasons – to the Labour and Social Democratic parties. Their repeated failure to successfully reform the market economy has driven the politically frustrated into the hands of Leninists of all varieties for decades – and we suspect Keir Starmer’s likely pending government will keep them in business for quite a while yet.

DAP

50 Years Ago: Looking back on Lyndon Johnson (2023)

The 50 Years Ago column from the April 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Even Presidents of the United States cannot live forever. Within weeks of each other, two who in their time supervised a great act of organised mass destruction died, quietly at their homes.

A final human touch, this; and human touches are among the expectations which people have of their leaders, at the same time as they hope for elements of the superhuman. Lyndon Johnson specialised in folksy speeches; during his time as Vice President he gave out ballpoint pens to the people of West Berlin and he was always one of the world’s champion handshakers. In his superhuman role he promised to unravel the tangle of Vietnam and to fashion America into what he called the Great Society — something which, unsurprisingly, is still awaited. (…)

Johnson’s conversion to a crusader against “racial injustice” was as abrupt as his elevation to the Vice-Presidential candidacy. As a Senator he was never in any doubt about where he stood when voting on laws which were aimed at curbing the excesses of the racists of the South. Between 1940 and 1960 he voted on such issues 39 times, always as one would expect a good, solid, prejudiced Southerner to vote. He was six times against abolishing the poll tax; twice against anti-lynch laws; twice in favour of racial segregation in the American forces. And so on. And on. And on.

When he became President, Johnson applied all that he had learned about political arm-twisting, and used all the power of patronage he had built up during his time as Senate leader and Vice-President, to push through Congress the anti-discrimination laws which had baffled Kennedy. Johnson did not necessarily like what he did but, as he once shouted at a Senate subcommittee “. . . this is happening!” He was giving way to the inevitable, to the progressive grind of modern capitalism which the South has resisted for so long. As a simple Senator for Texas Johnson could, indeed he must, pander to the racial bigots and killers of the South, no matter what that meant in terms of negro terror and suffering. When he was in the White House he was acting for American capitalism as a whole and, again with no thought for human suffering, he was forced to do things simply because they were happening.

(Socialist Standard, April 1973)

Editorial: Ending the Profit System (2023)

Editorial from the April 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

The capitalist system of production for profit is well past its sell-by date. It has developed the forces of production, even if at the cost of immense human suffering, to the point where they are sufficient to adequately provide for the needs of every man, women and child on Earth.

Capitalism has become an impediment to further human progress. It always was based on the economic exploitation and deprivation of the majority, but, having outlived its usefulness, it has become a threat to all humanity. It has already caused two world wars and the ever-present threat of another, and now threatens disastrous climate changes due to global warming.

Capitalism developed the forces of production by extracting a surplus from those who produce wealth. Under the pressure of its own uncontrollable market forces, most of this surplus was accumulated as capital invested in plant and machinery that expanded society’s capacity to produce wealth.

Production for capital accumulation was never a rational aim for human society. That would be production to satisfy the material needs of its members – production directly for use, not for sale and profit.

If we had to design from scratch a human society that would best serve the interests of all its members, it wouldn’t be one where natural resources and the instruments to use them were owned by just some members of society while the rest worked for them. It wouldn’t be a society in which this privileged minority was forced by economic laws beyond anyone’s control to use its profits to accumulate more and more capital. It wouldn’t be a society where wealth was produced purely for sale, and where the majority were forced to find paid employment to get money to buy what they needed. It wouldn’t be a class society and it wouldn’t be capitalism.

It would be one where the means of life — natural and industrial resources — would belong to no one but be available for society to use to satisfy the needs of its members. One where things would not be produced for sale and only provided to people who could afford to pay for them, but for sharing amongst all society’s members according to their needs.

Of course, society is not designed. It evolves. Some in the past did imagine such a communal society but they were before their time. Now, however, the forces of production have developed to the point where a society of common ownership and distribution according to need has become possible.

To end the profit system, all that is now lacking is the will to do so on the part of the vast majority who do all the useful work in society. To make the change, they will need to organise to win political control, dislodge the owning class, abolish class ownership, and allow the aim of human society to become the natural one of satisfying its members’ needs in the best possible way.

Life and Times: being homeless (2023)

The Life and Times column from the March 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

The scene is the Uplands shopping centre close to where I live and it’s a rainy winter night. I’ve come out to get a few things from one of the supermarkets along the road, the Sainsbury’s Local. Outside there often sits a bedraggled young male asking people for ‘change’. But this time it’s a bit different. It’s a woman sitting there and she’s not looking in the least bedraggled. I give her a pound coin and she thanks me. We get talking. I find out that, until a short time before, she had a rented flat and a steady job in a nearby town. Then it all turned sour. The firm she worked for folded, she couldn’t pay her rent, got evicted and, before she knew it, she was on the streets. That night she was trying to collect enough money to stay in a B&B that gave homeless people rooms for £25 per night. She told me there was another cheaper one but the people there were always either very drugged or potentially dangerous. She was trying her best to be on her own and away from those who were on drink and drugs, so she needed enough money to go to the better place. In all this she (Rhian was her name) made no effort to ask for any more than the single pound coin I’d already given her. She was extremely polite, well spoken and definitely not trying to make you feel sorry for her.

‘It always ends badly’

Maybe I should have given her the £25 she needed. I had enough money in my pocket, but it didn’t really occur to me. Instead, what preoccupied me was that she was sitting there in the bitter cold and wet and needed a decent warm place to go. So I took the plunge and asked her whether I could offer her accommodation for the night adding, that she’d be entirely safe. She thanked me in a clearly sincere fashion but said that, though she didn’t doubt what I was saying, she didn’t know me and so couldn’t accept, the reason being that, when such things had happened in the past, it had always ended badly. I said I fully understood and hoped things turned out all right for her that night. I walked away not really knowing what to think, but later that evening began to bitterly regret not having given her the full room money – especially as I was sure as I could be that it would have been used for that and not for anything else.

That week I went back several times in the evening to see if Rhian was there. But she wasn’t. One of the thoughts that came to me was ‘there but for fortune’, but, as a socialist, other thoughts came too of course – mainly how every country in the world, no matter how ‘rich’, suffers the scourges of poverty and homelessness for at least some (and often many) of its inhabitants. And how fundamental these problems are to the system we all live under – capitalism.

Charities

I also thought back to how, when I was a much younger man, the charity Shelter had not long been founded with the promise to get rid of homelessness in Britain within 10 years. That was 1966. Today of course Shelter is still going strong. It is still campaigning, as its website says, for ‘a safe, secure, affordable home for everyone’ and appeals to us with the headline ‘One child waking up homeless is a tragedy, 120,000 is an outrage’. Shelter even now has a weekly lottery – a sure sign that the problem it campaigns about is endemic. In fact, since Shelter was set up, the organisations dedicated to solving homelessness have proliferated. The day after my encounter with Rhian, I bought a Big Issue and found in it an article by Greg Hurst of the Centre for Homeless Impact. The article began: ‘It’s easy to despair. But we must not. We must hold on to the belief that homelessness can be ended and look for evidence of proven or promising approaches that could be tried or tested right now.’ Fine words, and no doubt genuinely meant, but the article ends by fearing that ‘we are condemned to repeat the cycle of ebbs and flows of homelessness’. All this at a time when, according to a recent report, there are 257,331 homes in England classed as ‘long-term empty’, meaning that they have been left vacant for more than six months.

If we look more widely, in December 2022, the government of the ‘richest’ country in the world, the US, published a ‘roadmap’, referred to by social commentator Kenny Stancil as ‘a plan that seeks to eventually eradicate homelessness in the United States, starting with a 25% reduction in the number of people suffering from a lack of reliable access to safe housing over the next two years’. We know from long experience of course that the chances of such a plan succeeding are minimal, especially given that, in the US, at least half a million and, according to some estimates, over a million people are currently suffering homelessness, even though, according to recent research, the country has 16 million vacant homes. More widely, across the globe, according to World Bank figures, more than half a billion people were living in ‘extreme poverty’ in 2022.

Can’t pay can’t have

Why is homelessness and the poverty it bespeaks endemic just about wherever we look? It’s clearly nothing to do with lack of housing, but rather with the fact that people haven’t got the means (ie, the money) to pay for it. In the system of ‘can’t pay, can’t have’ that is capitalism, people can be denied even the most basic necessities. How powerfully does seeing Rhian sitting in the cold and rain outside Sainsbury’s Local bring that home and how much ammunition for change does that give socialists who campaign for a society where nothing is bought and sold, production is for use not profit and there is free access for everyone to all goods and services.

Howard Moss

Pathfinders: Shut up and take the pill (2023)

The Pathfinders Column from the March 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sometimes, instead of trying to chase down the causes of a particular medical problem through extensive (and expensive) lab research, it’s easier to change the environment the problem flourishes in. This is especially true of environments like the human gut biome, in which very little of the bacterial load has been studied or is even known to science. Nobody really knows what’s in there or what any of it does. Following the much-publicised success of faecal microbiome transplants (FMTs), which have proved to be often stunningly effective against sometimes fatal Clostridium difficile and other conditions previously thought untreatable, vaginal microbiome transplants are now being proposed as a holistic approach to certain poorly understood but common vaginal disorders, by effecting a wholesale change to the vaginal environment (New Scientist, 13 February – bit.ly/3XEapCo).

From a socialist perspective there is a certain irresistible analogy to be drawn here, human society as a macrobiome, containing a complex ecosystem of unique and discrete agents whose interactions work in concert to make the whole thing function. In common parlance we talk about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria, although we understand that this is not some moral verdict on the bacterium itself, which is neither good nor bad, but merely a handy way to describe individual bacterial behaviours that are either helpful or at least neutral, or deleterious for the whole macro-organism. Thus, in a healthy and balanced macrobiome, one would expect a preponderance of good bacteria, displaying socially advantageous behaviours that help the various functions work in harmony to create a stable and disease-free environment for the whole community.

Most people would probably agree that what we see in capitalist society is not healthy and balanced, by any stretch of the imagination. Instead we see a toxic load of bad bacteria that result in a dysfunctional, polluting environment, a sick and convulsive macrobiome that is frequently at war with itself and therefore has a poor general survival prognosis. No surprise that such a hostile environment generates a wide array of severe clinical symptoms that are dangerous and even deadly for the individuals who experience them.

The prevailing medical model, darling of the profit-driven pharmaceutical industry, usually treats these symptoms in isolation via some form of targeted medical therapy or intervention. It may be added that the capitalist state, the darling and administrative apparatus of wealthy elites, actively promotes certain bad behaviours it likes, ie, ones that made the elite rich, while weaponising the medical model into its dark twin, the criminal model, to target extreme antisocial individual behaviours it doesn’t like, using a range of ‘interventions’ including sequestration (and in some countries, execution) to try to curb them.

Whether any of these therapies or controls actually work depends on a large number of factors, but in no case is anything done about the environment which, in all likelihood, produced this symptom or behaviour in the first place. Of course not. The ruling elites owe their position to the prevailing social ecosystem. They would be mad to consider any social model of change that threatened their power base.

A good illustration of all this is in the treatment of mental illness. Ongoing clinical research into depression has tended to raise as many questions as it solves, for instance debunking long-standing generalist assumptions about neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin to explain why, in studies, Prozac-like drugs only seem to work for some people and not others, yet this only succeeds in adding further layers of mystery to the picture (New Scientist, 18 January – bit.ly/3Z22BeP). Meanwhile a seeming epidemic in the popularity of conspiracy theories is prompting new research into paranoia, once thought to have been the sole province of people with schizophrenia-like conditions but now seen as more of a gradient affecting up to 1 in 6 people (New Scientist, 6 February – bit.ly/3SkvjWc).

There will certainly be some genetic factors at work, perhaps even some remote evolutionary legacies, so this type of coal-face research is always worthwhile, but only up to a point. Given that around 1 in 4 adults over 18 suffer from some diagnosable form of mental disorder in any given year (bit.ly/3IEpWho), it’s tempting to say: let’s cut the techno-crap and look at the real common denominator, which is not chemicals but your class position. Being in the working class, and thus poor, powerless and oppressed, is more likely to make you ill than any genetic or evolutionary influence.

The link between financial and mental health is so strong as to be axiomatic. 44 percent of respondents in US surveys report that money is the main stressor in their lives. 70 percent have ‘cried about money at some point’ while 56 percent have done so in the past year (bit.ly/3Z6DQOn). Not surprisingly, clinical psychologists say ‘money is a top cause of stress for many Americans’ (bit.ly/3xGciDO). Meanwhile the Mind UK charity (bit.ly/3kc3HWt) has a helpful page of advice on money troubles that lists ways that lack of money can impact your mental health, like for example not being able to afford housing, food, water, heating or medication. To which it’s tempting to respond, Oh really, no shit?

This is not to draw some simplistic conclusion that the more money you’ve got, the happier you’ll be. A study published in Nature suggests that there is a sweet spot at around $95,000 a year (£79,000), at which point your general happiness hits a plateau, and above which new stressors enter the picture which adversely affect your life satisfaction and sense of wellbeing (bit.ly/2CR8Asx). But the vast majority of those having mental health problems are unlikely to be earning anywhere near that golden plateau. Instead they experience life as a perpetual fight for survival in the face of debts, deprivation, damaged relationships, bullying bosses and institutions, and feelings of futility and personal inadequacy.

There isn’t a pill for any of that. Instead, capitalist society performs its own bowdlerised version of FMTs, by supplanting one shit government by another, one set of micro-policies by another, in the pretence that these might achieve something for a change, but very likely in the full knowledge that nothing but a wholesale system change would ever really work.

Paddy Shannon

Material World: Disasters, natural and unnatural (2023)

The Material World column from the March 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again the world shudders at the news of another ‘natural’ disaster, as the death toll climbs from the Turkish-Syrian earthquake. It is again apparent that even a ‘natural’ disaster can be mitigated. Similar misfortunes are invariably presented in the media as unavoidable and to a certain degree, this is true. But it ignores the consequences of the pursuit of profit at the expense of prevention and it is not a coincidence that the number of victims of various disasters such as tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes is clearly related to the extent of their poverty. What all the casualties share is that they are mostly poor and it was their apartment blocks tumbling down and reduced to rubble.

It is necessary to understand why the poor suffer more even in natural calamities. Earthquakes are inevitable, but the accompanying casualty figures are not. It is falling buildings that take lives, not the tremors in the ground. No matter how severe an earthquake is on the Richter Scale, if buildings were correctly constructed many people would survive. This does not happen in the poorer countries of the earthquake-prone regions because precautionary guidelines to make them more resistant are seldom followed.

The world is structured in such a way that poor people are and will always be the most susceptible to disasters. They are unable to prevent disasters and lack the reserves to recover when they hit. Poorer communities take far longer to rebuild and are far more likely to be affected by subsequent disease outbreaks such as cholera. They grow further impoverished because they cannot afford to rebuild.

Many modern buildings have been equipped to withstand seismic shocks. In wealthy countries, architects have designed ’active’ buildings, some mounted on top of massive rubber shock absorbers or other systems to counteract seismic shaking. What’s the likelihood of such sophisticated technology being used for dwellings in poverty-stricken areas? Using elaborate building methods and materials, there is no reason why there should be any undue loss of life or major destruction after experiencing even the most powerful of earthquakes.

Having witnessed the tragedy unfolding in Turkey and Syria, we see how people are endowed with the ability to sympathise and empathise with others and even in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis contribute to charities to alleviate some of the suffering being experienced. People are at their best when things are at their worst. When a major catastrophe strikes, we can always rely on people responding with whatever they can give towards the relief of the survivors. Volunteers are never lacking nor slow in coming forward to offer whatever help they can.

If there is any good that comes from this catastrophe and other calamities it is that human beings show themselves as an inherently caring species. One reason capitalism persists is that it fosters a lack of confidence and conviction in working people’s deep compassion for others. It seems our society has been influenced to believe that nothing can be done. That big death tolls from quakes, volcanoes or floods are inevitable. Unlike the media, socialists strive to explain capitalism’s culpability and socialism’s solutions.

Being poor means having very little control over your own existence. While some disasters cannot be avoided, others are completely preventable. Is it controversial to argue that capitalism, with its emphasis on profit, means that any disasters which do happen are likely to be more serious and harmful than would otherwise be the case?

Most dangers from Nature are well known and there is no need to leave communities exposed to them. Earthquakes are natural phenomena. It is known where they are likely to happen but not when. So society could take action to minimise the impact and it makes no sense deliberately to court disaster.

One reason earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and floods kill so many people is that people live and work in known danger zones. Under capitalism, it is a question of necessity which stops people from moving to safer lands.

It must be clear that nobody would voluntarily live alongside a ticking time-bomb, and given the freedom of movement implied by the abolition of private property, we can surmise the largest contribution to protecting lives in a socialist world will come from populations changing locations away from high-risk areas. A massive mobilisation of people to other regions would be inconceivable today but not necessarily in socialism.

Contingency plans should exist throughout the world for the relief of any catastrophe. Saving lives could become a new ‘un-armed forces’ raison d’être. Bodies of fit, well-trained, well-resourced, motivated men and women available to deal with the effects of natural disasters and unexpected calamities would be one of a number of ways to deploy willing volunteers, for humanitarian intervention. Emergency stocks of food, clean water, and medical supplies would be maintained at strategic points whilst machinery, equipment and helpers would be moved quickly to the area of crisis. Appeals for money are an insufficient substitute for releasing real resources. Capitalism exacerbates supposedly ‘natural’ disasters. The best disaster relief is offered through solidarity.

The best disaster preparedness we can have is to build the kinds of communities we want and seek to live in anyway. What kept many alive after floods, hurricanes or earthquakes, and is keeping them alive today, is a culture of solidarity and mutual aid. Social solidarity is a strategy through which marginal communities survive, and through which relationships thrive. Volunteers, neighbours and strangers alike from the community come forward as first and second responders.

ALJO