Relief work
There are many well-intentioned charitable organisations, some quite small, some very large, which seek to alleviate the socially produced hardships of the profit-system. Prominent among these are three major international agencies which specialise in operating food aid for the underdeveloped world: the United Nations’ World Food Programme; and the United States’ two voluntary organisations CARE (Co-operative for American Relief Everywhere) and CRS (Catholic Relief Services).
Capitalism is a social system, however, which works on the basis of producing things to be sold at a profit. Producing things simply to be consumed and enjoyed because people need them is not what the system of profit is all about, and all the striving of the charity organisations is relentlessly negated by the way production is socially arranged. Although the three major agencies distributed food to more than sixty million people in 1979, there were still thirty million deaths the following year caused by starvation.
The latest policy for allocating food supplied introduced Food For Work projects which connect food distribution to socially useful development (Guardian, 11 June ’82). Here the motives are sometimes less philanthropic than prompted by a concern to cultivate workforces and industrial territories into which existing ruling-class interests can expand. The Brandt Commission endorsed the linking of food aid to promotion to agriculture and employment in the South.
The Failure of meagre “handouts” and even training for skills to improve the general condition of the world's destitute is conceded by Tony Jackson in his book Against the Grain (published by Oxfam). He observes the case, for example, of one island off Haiti which now boasts about 200 miles of roads built under a Food for Work project. There is no commercial traffic of any kind on this island. The few vehicles that do use the roads belong to missionaries and food agency staff. The islanders continue to travel on foot or by mule.
The condition of the person reliant on Food for Work projects for his or her subsistence is in many ways worse than that of a classical slave, for at least the latter was maintained while there was no work to be done. In Bangladesh there are over 7,000,000 recipients of food aid from the United States each year, but Food for Work projects have generally benefited the local landowners through provision of roads and irrigation systems. The landless labourers involved are in exactly the same position at the end of a project as they were when it began — destitute.
Royal rubbish
On a BBC1 programme last month we were given the opportunity to listen to HRH, Prince Philip putting forward political arguments in defence of class-divided society. The Duke, in a modestly appointed room in Buckingham Palace, was being interviewed by a painfully deferential Gerald Priestland about the latest royal contribution to modern political philosophy a book of essays called A Question of Balance. This was also the name of the programme and in reply to the first question — what did he really mean by “A Question of Balance”? — the Duke began his apology for privilege as cogently as his entire argument was to run. “1 wish I knew!” was his reply. Looking around at the chronic social problems of poverty, unemployment and destruction, the Duke attributes the causes of these problems to the personal shortcomings of particular people:
Until each of us accepts that our problems are not created by such abstract concepts as Industry, Religion, Capitalism, The Third Word, the Bourgeosie or the world economy but by our own individual standards of morality, behaviour and competence, we shall never begin to cope with the causes of our discontents.
According to this theory the millions of humans who die each year from malnutrition and the thousands who are thrown out of employment each month after years of hard work have only their own defective moral codes to blame, whereas it is a superior set of moral ideas, and nothing more, which secured for Philip his unearned income of over £100,000 a year and his other gigantic wealth. In an employers’ journal, The Engineer, Philip was once quoted as saying “The Welfare State is a protection against failure and exploitation” (November 1976), and from his position in society and the size of his dole cheque you can see what he meant.
At one point in the interview the Duke explained his views about areas of life where he thought that opinions of members of the working class should not intrude in decision making. Then, getting carried away with himself, he casually hypothesised.
If I was going to go out to get a job, I don’t want to get a job with a chap that I have to tell how to run his business . . . and provided my conditions are reasonable, I’m prepared to put up with what he says has to be done because I reckon that’s part of his business to know.
Clearly then, Phil must have appplied for the job of being Duke of F.dinburgh on account of the “reasonable conditions” of service.
The Duke went on to ‘refute’ the arguments of Marx with all the wisdom and expertise of a Daily Express editorial writer, and quoted approvingly the ideas of the eighteenth-century conservative, Edmund Burke, the man who first referred to the working class as “the swinish multitude”. The Duke defended a society based on a privileged minority and an impoverished majority by reference to “human nature”: but for some one who seemed to have acquired a profound understanding of people, Philip used some curious analogies. Explaining how we should best deal with the “avalanche of lawlessness threatening to engulf our civilisation” he outlined his criminological theory of the measures required to keep the rabble in order. “Having had to deal with dogs and horses and things of
that sort, and tried to train them to do certain things, the process of teaching them to do what you want them to do is a process of rewards and punishments.” With expertise of this calibre the defenders of the wages-system would do more good for their cause by keeping quiet and concealing their prejudices from public examination.
A1 for Lloyds
It was just as well the Pope turned up because, apart from the sustenance he provided for the delusions of millions of Catholics (and other religions) in Britain, the visit was supposed to make a bit of money. It failed in this, but not for want of trying.
The Catholic Church had put two years of planning and over £6 million into the event. No wonder they mapped out so concentrated, relentless a schedule for this elderly man only recently recovered from serious gunshot wounds.
The Church hoped to receive about £5 million, mainly from a ten per cent royalty on the sale of “approved” souvenirs like teaspoons, ballpoints, mugs and sweets. A lot of other trash was unapproved, churned out by manufacturers equally eager to make something from the papal endurances.
Overseeing the official marketing operation was IMG (not those well-known gadflies of the political left, but the International Management Group) who cashed in for 20 per cent of the royalties, as well as a share of savings from any improved efficiency they could organise.
This was no foreign field for IMG, whose clients include many famous sports starts and showbiz personalities other than the Pope. With the cold eye of commercial reality, they firmly discouraged any delusion that the Catholic Church is unconcerned about the financial balance sheet.
Prudently the whole show was insured: one report said the London insurance market stood to lose £7½ million if the visit had been called off. There was much easier breathing in Leadenhall Street as the Pope first stepped from his aeroplane and kissed the earth.
It is not outrageous that a church should be so concerned with a profitable operation. Religion has always existed comfortably in capitalism, a willing purveyor of the morality of class exploitation.
Patriotism at a price
Lord Matthews is famous for being a very patriotic man. With his readiness to sacrifice all for his country—and to tell us about this at every opportunity he is an object lesson to all the cynics and Doubting Thomases. No wonder they made him a Lord.
Of course he owns a lot of ships and hotels and the odd newspaper or two. He has made a lot of money from the exploitation of British workers so it is natural he should think this is a wonderful country full of generous people.
One of his proudest possessions is the great ocean liner the QE2. A little while ago Lord Matthews angered a lot of his fellow patriots by wanting to register his ships under flags of convenience. The idea was to enable his companies to employ foreign crews, who could be paid less than British workers. Somehow, he managed to reconcile this scheme with his professed patriotism.
He was a proud man too when the government took over some of his ships—including the QE2—for the war in the Falklands. No question about his patriotism here—and in any case there was the compensation which was a useful windfall when the shipping industry is so depressed.
Unluckily—or rather through the recklessness of some Argentine airmen—one of Lord Matthews’ ships got sunk, which must have upset some other patriots at Lloyds who had insured it. Now that the QE2 is back, preparing to resume its career as an expensive cruise liner, the question arises of replacing the lost ship, the Atlantic Conveyor.
And here again Lord Matthews is showing himself to be hard headed as well as patriotic. The Atlantic Conveyor, he has announced, will be replaced by a ship built in Japan. Now this is very curious because, as any admirer of the British forces in the Falklands knows, the Japanese have not been among the most fervent supporters of the British effort there.
So why is Matthews the patriot giving the Japanese his custom? The answer is that, like those crews under the flags of convenience, he can get a cheaper job done there—a more profitable job, better for his company’s balance sheet.
Lord Matthews is a member of the capitalist class so his patriotism will naturally be limited to what is profitable to him. It is the other class, the people who go to war in the capitalists’ interests, who are persuaded that patriotism has no boundaries. After all, they are disciplined to make the ultimate, boundless sacrifice of death, so that people like Matthews can remain in their position of privileged superiority.
That is the true cynicism, the boundless deceit of patriotism.
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