Running Commentary: Too old at 35 (1985)

The Running Commentary column from the June 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Too old at 35

Capitalist ideology is underpinned by many lies and delusions. Expressed simply, this is one of them: "If you work hard at passing your exams and at your job, security and prosperity will be yours". Along with this delusion goes the notion that a worker can somehow be elevated by passing exams, into an imaginary "middle-class" status. In fact there is no middle-class; anyone who faces the indignity of having to sell their labour power for a wage or a salary is in the working class, no matter what their educational qualifications. A particularly cruel reminder of this appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 25 March 1985:

Fifty advanced computer scientists and technicians carrying out research for Philips Electronics have lost their jobs because "they are too old at 50". The management of Philips Research Laboratories at Redhill. Surrey, are taking on young graduates to replace them. They [union officials] accused the company of following the example of the Japanese electrical firm Hitachi, which tried last December to get all workers over 35 at its Hirwaun colour TV plant in South Wales to take redundancy.

Hitachi said in a letter to all employees that staff over 35 were slow, prone to sickness, had poor eyesight and were more resistant to change.

The article went on to say that "graduates cost less than older staff' — one more example of the ruthless, cost-cutting nature of capitalism.

How inconvenient to the capitalist class that workers still want to go on living — with the expense of redundancy pay, unemployment benefit and pensions this entails — after their abilities have been consumed and they find themselves discarded.

Price of gold

The South African government has recently offered a sop to reform by committing itself to abolition of the obnoxious laws which prohibit sex and marriage between men and women of different racial origin. This reform is rendered virtually meaningless by other laws on racial segregation which remain, such as the Group Areas Act, which segregates residential and business areas along racial lines. This means that despite the abolition of the "immorality" laws, a man and a woman of different races involved in a sexual relationship will still be unable to set up home together.

Those people who see this legal change as the first step towards liberalisation of South African society must surely have had their hopes dashed by another event in South Africa last month which demonstrated yet again the odious policies of the South African ruling class.

The event was the dismissal of 17,000 black gold miners who were sacked by their employers. Anglo-American Corporation, for causing stoppages and disruption in protest at the sacking of trade union officials. Not only have these workers lost their jobs; they have also been transported back to various "tribal homelands". Under South African law the majority of black gold miners are forced to live as migrants, without their families, in work camps close to the mines.

These gold mines produce the commodity that is the basis of the enormous wealth of the South African ruling class. One of the mines where workers have been sacked — the Vaal Reefs mine in the western Transvaal — is the biggest gold mine in the world and produces 13 per cent of South African gold. In a situation where there are many poor workers, mostly black but increasingly white too. desperate to work, it is only too easy for the capitalist class to replace sacked miners with others who they hope will be less militant.

It is the grossest form of hypocrisy for the South African ruling class to talk of liberalisation in a society in which workers continue to be repressed in this way. No one should be taken in by the cosmetic changes taking place in South Africa at the moment which are intended to appease international opinion and so open up more markets for South African goods. The oppressive structures of both apartheid and capitalism remain intact.

Coup in Sudan

While President Nimeiri was busy trying to rally support for his regime among American leaders the Sudanese army, supported by other sections of the Sudanese ruling class, seized governmental power in a manner that is only too familiar in countries where the absence of democratic institutions means that the only way of changing government personnel is through a coup d'état. Of course this military government, like many others, is promising a quick return to civilian rule as soon as conditions permit the holding of elections.

The complaint of the army and its supporters was that Nimeiri, after sixteen years in power, was mismanaging the economy. The ruling class was also angry at the way in which Nimeiri had imposed the barbaric Islamic code of law in order to secure his own political ends by courting the support of the fundamentalist Moslem Brotherhood. This marriage of convenience was. however, short-lived. Fearing a challenge to his power from Islamic leaders, Nimeiri had purged the Moslem Brotherhood and imprisoned its leaders, blaming them for unpopular policies. As a result Nimeiri lost his only real power base in Sudanese society, leaving him vulnerable to a coup from rival sections of the Sudanese ruling class.

Sudan is a desperately poor country currently ravaged by widespread drought which has exacerbated agricultural policies intended to produce quick profits for the landowners at the expense of both land and people. Its scarce food resources are under increasing pressure due to the huge influx of refugees from Ethiopia, themselves trying to escape famine. In the south of the country there has been a civil war in progress led by a rival Christian army officer. The majority of the population are totally dependent on American grain shipments if they are to avoid starvation. This American "aid" is granted in return for Sudan maintaining a pro-western stance in an area that is of great strategic importance because of its proximity to important oil supplies.

What is certain in these murky waters of political intrigue and double-dealing is that the lives of the vast majority of Sudan’s 22 million people will be largely unaffected by these shufflings of official positions among the Sudanese ruling class. Drought now affects 4 million native farmers and relief workers are currently predicting that one million people will die in Sudan in the coming year (The Times, 9 April 1985). It matters not one jot to them, nor will it affect their chances of survival, that they are now being ruled by a military rather than a civilian government.