Socialist Party campaigns (2002)

Party News from the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

London borough elections

South London Branch will be contesting the Clapham Town ward of Lambeth Borough Council in the local elections on 2 May. Anyone interested in helping out can contact the campaign team via Head Office.

University Challenge 2002

Twenty minutes of effort on your part is all that is needed to help with the Socialist Party’s “University Challenge” 2002 campaign. The campaign is an open invitation to student political groups/societies to hear the world socialist case at one of their meetings. This campaign has been successfully run previously and resulted in a number of very positive discussion meetings, putting the distinctive case for a world of free access in front of interested minds. So this year we want to really try and get as many meetings as possible.

Don’t be put off if you don't want to be a speaker yourself - a local speaker can be found. All we need at the moment is for you to contact your local college or university (via their general telephone enquiries) and get the address for the student association or main society’s body.

The Campaigns Department has produced a range of standard letters to be sent out to different types of interested student groups (Third World First, Labour Students, Greens etc). These can be obtained in Word 6.0 format from gardner__brian@hotmail.com. You can amend the letter for it to be returned to yourself, or to Head Office whichever suits you.

Party news: Zimbabwe (2002)

Party News from the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now that the election is over one is left with the unmistakable impression that Zanu PF bullied its way to power, catapulting its candidate Robert Mugabe to victory, allegedly with 56.2 percent of the vote. This has prompted Zimbabwe's chief opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, to reconsider tactics

Just after the announcement of the winner, Tsvangirai refused to concede defeat. He blasted his rival's victory as illegitimate, as an electoral fraud of unprecedented proportions. This former Trade Unionist indicated that he would now seek a proper political solution.

However, such talk has raised fears among many Zimbabweans — fears that this poor country could descend into total chaos should Tsvangirai decide to summon his furious supporters to stage mass protests across the country. In short, there is much uncertainty about the future; there is no way of knowing how it will all pan out.

To compound the problem, even the invited observers are appearing to express differences on whether the 9-11 March presidential elections were substantially free and fair. The local monitors, the opposition and western governments and media in general are fiercely condemning the way in which the elections were handled while, on the other hand, the process is being praised by most African States. The Nigerian leader of the Commonwealth observer group — Abdulsalami Abubakar - is, however, appearing to be somewhat two-faced about this whole matter, thus exacerbating divisions within his delegation.

There is much evidence to suggest that the law enforcement agents were responsible for effectively crippling Tsvangirai's MDC party. They displayed partiality towards the ruling party's thugs and undue firmness against the opposition. There was also the lack of transparency on the part of the authorities, the rampant political violence they fostered, the intimidation and harassment of MDC supporters, the cynical reduction in the number of polling stations in the urban strongholds of the MDC.

However, it is not only the MDC who have been the victims of this systematic political abuse; Mugabe's government is also making it difficult for other opposition parties and pressure groups to organise effectively as well. This is certainly the case with the the local WSM in Zimbabwe which has recently been subject of intimidation and harassment by the authorities — notably, after a series of adverts were placed by us in the local press. Evidently, in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, socialists are not welcome

Notwithstanding that, we are urging our members and supporters to stand firm in the face of such bullying and undemocratic tactics. We resolve to have the courage of our convictions to openly challenge our opponents in political debate. We have nothing to hide; on the contrary, we are proud to declare what we stand for, without equivocation or deceit.

We shall not be deterred by political thugs from democratically and peacefully spreading the case for real socialism. For now has never been a better time for Zimbabwean workers to come together and organise to eradicate the obscenity of global capitalism.

Bigboy Musemwa

(The offending advert which led to one of our members being detained and accused of plotting to overthrow Mugabe read: "Workers! Get free socialist details from WSM-Zimbabwe, PO Box 5120, Harare; E-mail: wsm25005@yahoo.com")

Reality (2002)

From the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are at least two statements about reality that cannot be seriously disputed: that reality is an idea, and that it claims to be something more and something other than just an idea.

Reality is a concept that claims to transcend the world of ideas; it has an existence independent of consciousness. Given that most ideas make some claim to a relationship with the world we experience, why does this one exert such a seductive power on us despite its obvious paradoxical nature?

Politically speaking some use it as an excuse for not trying to change things while others, like socialists, need to understand it specifically to change it. In all political debates the perceived division between idealists and pragmatists is continually expressed. For many of us reality is a depressing life of exploitation which stands in stark contrast to the proposed vision of society offered by socialism. But is that kind of social structure mere idealism or is it the prison of our working lives which is sustained by the ideological illusion of a single reality?

One attempt to define reality centred on the search for an unchanging essence within the objects that make up our world. Metaphysics attempted to comprehend the real, to grasp the truth and to witness the good. In its later synthesis with Christianity it became the search for God. Dualistic philosophical tradition liked to define it by what it was not: it did not change, it was not an illusion and, most importantly, reality could not in itself be evil because it was the creation of God.

There is an echo here of a much more ancient duality concerning structure and chaos which lies beneath the classical conception of truth and falsehood and Christianity’s good and evil. Evil, in some traditions, is defined as the ignorance of the truth – an illusion (false God) that prevents access to really. We hate what we fear and we fear what we don’t understand. But what was “understood” in this Christian context was the metaphysical belief in an unchanging “human nature” which in great part was confirmed by the fear of the historical developments that engulfed the Christians during the reformation and beyond. The Christian ideological schisms of the 16th and 17th centuries created an ever more desperate need for a realm of unchanging moral values and, revealingly, a source of absolute power (God).

Power

Karl Marx was very interested in the nature of power and how it manifested itself historically; usually quite differently from the way it was explained within the ideologies of the power groups concerned. His theory attempted to trace the origins of political power and the social classes that have wielded it through history. It is more than an attempt, as Engels and others seem to imply, to use the methodology of the natural sciences to understand human history because history itself can be used to explain science in its ideological and social context. Science, in many ways, did not destroy religion as a way to legitimise political power, it merely replaced it (although some extreme reactionary regimes like the USA and Iran still use religion in this way). One of the reasons for this ideological dethronement is because science has become the contemporary language of “reality”.

So what does the scientific enterprise tell us about reality; and what do the politics of today’s power structures tell us about science? Physics and biology both have surprisingly little to say on the subject. There seems to be a great variety of speculation based on the experimental data. For instance, quantum theory can offer us a choice between the “uncertainty principle” which implies that the universe is essentially an unknowable paradox created by the nature of relationship between mind and perception; or it provides us with infinite parallel universes where every quantum possibility exists simultaneously. In biology the holy grail of genetic determinism is pursued with crusading zeal. It looks as though this search will end in a similar place where the physicists now repose, exhausted beside their over-heated particle accelerators after yet another unsuccessful attempt to find the definitive sub-atomic particle.

All of this tells us much about the motivations of the ideology that lies behind the scientific project itself. For all its failures in defining a coherent concept of reality it is still the dominant arena for our culture’s attempts to understand and so control nature. This reflects the hierarchical authoritarianism of the social structure of capitalism. A scientist is a potential member of a social elite; he or she has undergone the training that allows their “baptism” by the agents of the power-brokers of our society – in this case the scientific establishment. This group has in turn received its authority from the ruling class via government grants or company sponsorships. Without this patronage science could not and would not exist in its present form. All of which leads us to a more certain source of reality – money.

Money

Along with fear, plain, death, hunger and love no one would deny that the need for money constitutes a reality; and yet most of us are aware that the notes and coins we use are in themselves worthless. Money is, in fact, merely a contract between buyer and seller which promises the seller that he can redeem the value of what he has sold to the buyer. No other human promise carries as much confidence within it as this one does in our culture. We might swear on a stack of bibles or give up our loved ones as hostages and still fail to create the confidence inspired by hard cash. Why is this? Simply because all of the world’s power structures are focused primarily on enforcing this financial contract. If any doubt arises concerning this law of exchange it causes chaos that leads to economic depression and, for the parasite class, the ultimate horror of a loss of profit.

So once again the quest for reality resolves itself into an idea; but an idea that derives immense power from a universal cultural consensus. This consensus is continually reinforced by social power structures such as the World Bank, IMF and the WTO but it was not created by them. Marx has said that men make history but they make it only with historical constraints. The bourgeois revolutions became possible because of the changing mode of production which made the feudal power structures inappropriate. The English Revolution of 1642 was in most part generated by the capitalist class’s need for a free market system to replace the royal court government’s monopoly production rights. Money replaced land as the economic basis for access to the new ruling class – the bourgeois parliament. Thus production for profit became the basis of English law where the means of life could only be secured through money.

Historically for some 300 years (compared to feudalism’s 600 and slavery’s 1000 years) capitalism has evolved into the global market system we see today. Once again a similar political situation to 1642 has arisen where the social power structures are inhibiting economic progress. The profit-motivated system prevents millions of people in the world from securing the means of life. A new idea has come into existence that challenges the old capitalist cultural structures – socialism. When the majority of humanity believes in this idea then it can transform itself into a social and economic reality. It is the historical relevance of an idea that can make it real because only then can it transform the power structure to reflect the needs of those who sustain the system of their own exploitation. In the end it is, and always has been, political power that defines reality for us all.

It is an entertaining diversion to speculate whether a tree still falls if no-one is there to observe it or whether the Earth was spherical before its inhabitants believed it to be so; but this type of philosophical debate is unavailable to those of us who are dying of hunger, war or disease. Political power is derived from humanity’s historical and social consciousness – or the lack of it. From this central process everything that constitutes reality is derived. In the words of a Rastafarian song:

“They wonder why the sun shines, they do not know that it shines for I and I (conscious people).”

Wez.

“Pro-life” hypocrites (2002)

From the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 6 March in the Republic of Ireland there was a referendum in which voters could say “Yes” or “No” to not having abortion. Confused? Simple, if you voted “No” abortion would not be made legal and, if you voted “Yes” abortion would remain illegal.

Still confused? Don’t worry, so were most people in the Republic. Shortly before the referendum, RTE’s Late, Late Show tried to unravel the confusion with a public debate. Firstly, the large audience was asked how many people understood the issues involved in the referendum. Only one person raised her hand. After that they invited three speakers from the “No” camp and three speakers from the “Yes” camp to explain the question. Every single speaker heartily disagreed with the other five and, though three supported each side of the argument, it was obvious that all represented different agendas. After this “clarification” the show’s host again asked members of the audience if they were any clearer. They were not.

Abortion was illegal under British rule in Ireland and, when the British vacated what is now the Republic of Ireland it was not an issue except when some poor woman went to a back-street abortionist and bled to death.

As elsewhere in Europe, abortion became an issue when it was restrictively legalized in some countries during the 60s and 70s. Cheaper air travel and television had brought Ireland out of the clutch of the infamous Index under which the state censors decided, at the behest of the Catholic bishops, which books, films and plays might be read or viewed within the New Ireland which had recently been “freed” by armed force from the British.

Cable television and the development of Information Technology brought the global village into Irish sitting rooms. More than half the population was under twenty-five years of age. Holy Ireland, however, stood resolutely against abortion and those allegedly “pro-life” elements, who now campaign with great viciousness, were then campaigning against the legalizing of all artificial means of contraception.

Two previous referendums within the last twenty years showed the burgeoning pressure on Church and state to move ahead with those states with which they now shared an economic and political identity in Europe. On both occasions, abortion was rejected.

Then came the famous ‘X’ case. A fourteen year-old girl had been raped and was pregnant and suicidal. Earlier a pregnant teenager had haemorrhaged to death as she lay in a country churchyard in Co Longford seeking the intercession of a stone statue of the Virgin Mary. In the “X” case medical and legal help took the place of sculptured stone and the Supreme Court accepted that the danger of suicide was real enough and grounds for allowing an abortion. This was later performed—in England.

It should be said that abortion remains illegal in Northern Ireland, too. The local religious Taliban – ironically, consisting of the most avid Catholic opinion together with fundamentalist fanatics like Paisley – represented a bulwark against the UK’s 1967 Abortion Act. It is just one area of ignorance where the two sides make comfortable bedfellows.

That there is a demand for abortion, north and south, is evidenced by the fact that some 7,000 women go from Ireland each year for abortions in England. These are the overt statistics. Given the climate of shame and embarrassment conjured up by those whose conception of democracy means they have, by virtue of their numbers, the right to suppress minorities, there must obviously be many others who make the sad journey covertly.

But why yet another referendum? The Supreme Court decision to allow an abortion to take place where clinical evidence suggested the possibility of suicide was seen as a possible loophole for women seeking abortions. The last referendum had written the ban on abortion into the Constitution, lest vote-hungry politicians in the future should use compassion as a bribe to a more enlightened electorate. Now it was necessary to amend the Constitution again in order to block the possibility of the Courts showing mercy to a suicidal, pregnant woman.

But the government and its political draughtsmen made a fatal mistake; they tacked onto the proposed Amendment an addendum legalizing the use of the morning-after pill.

“Mother o’Jasus!” intoned the biddies of both sexes, “Sure that morning-after thing is only abortion by another name”. The argument moved onto dark ground where the question became at what point life occurred in the womb and when the divine quartermaster imparted a soul to a foetus. Heavy stuff that had been disputed by earlier Christian theologians like Jerome, Augustine and Anselm long before Pope Pius IX imposed a positive embargo on abortion.

So confusion reigned among the various factions that stood firmly against abortion. If they voted “Yes”, in support of the government’s amendment, they could, it was argued, let in abortion via the threat of suicide. If they opposed the amendment, they would be allowing the legalizing of the morning-after pill. It represented a terrible dilemma for those who believed in an all-merciful and compassionate God.

Neither side of the argument raised by the referendum offered much to the exponents of a woman’s right of choice. In the main, however, the choice lobby felt that the “X” case offered some hope for women in extreme cases and that the proposed amendment should, therefore be opposed. So an opposition of some of those “pro-life” elements who opposed the legalizing of the morning-after pill and those supporting women’s choice emerged and, on polling day, the Government Amendment was defeated in a low turnout poll by 1.1 percent.

Abortion is a very serious issue and should not be viewed as an extension of the means of contraception. Today, these latter means are generally readily available. This writer feels that, where a sexually-active couple wants to avoid what is a traumatic experience, especially for the female partner, then there is a responsibility to avail of suitable means of contraception. Ultimately, this is simply respect for the female participant in the sex act and this respect should be a fundamental aspect of sex education.

Unfortunately, many of those who support the so-called “pro-life” stance are bitterly opposed to sex education beyond the most vague biological facts. As we have already observed, they are the same people who have fought a bitter rearguard action against the easy availability of contraceptive devices. As far as their opposition to abortion is concerned, most of the religious “pro-lifers” are less concerned about human life and more concerned with religious strictures.

The abuse of people who sincerely hold a contrary view to that of the “pro-lifers” frequently shows a contempt for the dignity of other human beings. The claim they make to women contemplating abortion, that they will give practical help following the birth of a baby is certainly designed to thwart the act of abortion rather than help children. In Ireland – as in Britain – for example, a third of all children exist below the official poverty line and the problems of poverty make the lives of hundreds of thousands of children a misery. Those who show such reverend regard for the unstructured foetus within the womb are woefully silent about the brutal and ongoing miseries heaped on so many children outside the womb.

Worldwide, an average of some 40,000 children under the age of five die every single day of hunger or hunger-related illnesses because those responsible for their upbringing have not got money to buy available food. They are murdered by the market system, so beloved of the Popes of the various religions. Those vociferous in their vicious condemnation of women who avail of abortion never condemn the savagery of capitalism’s wars. The person who has an abortion, or who makes abortion available to often distraught women may be pilloried as “murderers” but their defamers never condemn the child killers who fly aircraft over cities and drop bombs on hapless children.

Socialists can respect the views of people motivated by the idea of protecting all forms of human life out of regard for the supremacy of humanity. That after all is what Socialism is about. Unfortunately, most of those within the so-called pro-life organisation are concerned more with the strictures of religious leaders and less with genuine concern for human beings.

Richard Montague

World View: Yes, inaction is not an option (2002)

From the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

“What the Pentagon has done with this is sound military conceptual planning.” This was the US Secretary Colin Powell commenting on the leaked 50 page Pentagon report entitled: “Nuclear Posture Review” – proof, if ever it was needed, that the lunatics have finally taken over the asylum.

What was so special about this “Review”? It contained contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons on seven countries that the US claim are the biggest threat to world peace: China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Libya. It orders the US military to plan for the use of smaller nuclear weapons, suggests the arming of Cruise missiles with nuclear warheads and identifies four instances when the US must launch a nuclear attack: an Arab-Israeli conflict, war between China and Taiwan, an attack by North Korea on South Korea and an attack by Iraq on any of its neighbours.

Coming within a year of the US trashing of numerous international treaties regarding weapons proliferation and, bearing in mind the US response to the 11 September attack on mainland USA and the belligerent tone of President Bush’s recent State of the Union Address, this is news to be taken seriously. It hints at US unilateralism and a new era of unchecked US aggression in defence of the interests of its corporate elite.

Such US aspirations, however, are not recent, for they can be traced right back to the 1820s and the “Monroe Doctrine”, which announced that the Americas belonged to the USA. Now, all US excesses can be rationalised by a quick thumb over the shoulder in the direction of Ground Zero. The US, having suffered considerable loss of life in the 11 September attack last year, have found in that atrocity the pretext to pursue their goal of “full spectrum dominance” – military domination of the world.

No sooner was this news out, when US vice president Dick Cheney flew off for a ten-day tour of the Middle East. Though ostensibly the trip was an attempt to iron out the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, few commentators did not suggest that the real reason for the visit was to drum up support for a full-scale attack upon Iraq . Prior to his visit to the Middle East he stopped over in Britain to ask a complacent Tony Blair whether he could afford any US attack on Iraq 25,000 British troops.

The signs of a coming US attack upon Iraq have been visible for some time now. For months, US military instructors have been in northern Iraq training Kurdish fighters. Five thousand mothballed military vehicles in Kuwait have been overhauled and 24 Apache attack helicopters have arrived in Kuwait. Moreover, In the wake of the recent anthrax scare, investigators worked round the clock in a desperate and futile bid to find the Saddam link, before concluding it was probably the work of a home-grown crank. And in recent weeks, Washington has continually reminded us that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction and must be prevented from using them, whilst negligent of reports from the UN Special Commission that Iraq’s arsenal is now down to 5 percent of its 1990 level and seemingly oblivious to questions relating to how he has amassed such deadly weapons, considering the stringent sanctions which even outlaw the export of ping-pong balls to Iraq.

Twelve years after the war with Iraq, the US now looks serious about “regime change”. Back then though the overthrow of Saddam was not part of the US agenda. Having initially led the Kurds of northern Iraq and the Marsh Arabs of the South into believing that they would get US support if they rose up against Saddam, they then sat back and watched as Saddam almost annihilated them. It had occurred to them that Saddam might be holding the country together, stopping the spread of militant Islam, and that an Iraq minus Saddam might divide into warring factions and further threaten US interests in the region.

US allies in the Middle East – Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait – have shown little enthusiasm for US plans for Iraq, all voicing reservations and fearful of the consequences. Turkey, another US ally, who has many times loaned its airfields to the US for its operations against Iraq, believes its economy could be damaged by any such conflict, and King Abdullah of Jordan has warned of the “catastrophic effect” that any aggression towards Iraq would have on the Middle East. Seemingly, only Tony Blair, George Bush’s cheerleader, has agreed that Saddam must be stopped, citing, in Republican fashion, Saddam’s elusive weapons of mass destruction and, like the true political amnesiac, never querying the weapons of mass destruction the US and Britain have stockpiled or the nuclear weapons in the hands of another Middle Eastern aggressor – Israel.

While the defenders of “freedom” attempt to whip up support for another Gulf War, on the pretext that Saddam Hussein is a terrorist, the rest of us can recall that both the US and Britain backed Iraq in its war with Iran, even providing it with arms, and that they were silent when Iraq used chemical weapons on Iranians in 1984 (four months later the US even reopened its embassy in Baghdad) and again when Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurdish village of Halabjah in 1988, killing 5,000 civilians.

And remember the ferocity of the first US war with Iraq, when Saddam invaded Kuwait and threatened US oil interests in the region? It lasted 42 days, during which time 110,000 “Coalition” aerial sorties were flown and 88,500 tons of bombs were dropped. It left an estimated 100,000 dead, including tens of thousands burnt to death retreating from Kuwait along the Basra Road. Sanctions imposed since then have devastated Iraqi civil society and have killed over 1.5 million including 500,000 children under the age of five – results the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide classifies as “genocidal conduct” and a convention the US refuses to comply with.

When asked what he estimated the number of Iraqi dead were after the first Gulf War, Colin Powell remarked: “Frankly, that’s a number that doesn’t interest me much”. His predecessor, Madeline Albright, when asked to comment on the half a million Iraqi children that had died of starvation disease and replied: “the price is worth it.” These are the type of people calling the shots in Washington, working closely with the Pentagon and the White House and in the interests of world peace!

When we recall the horror of the first Gulf War and juxtapose it with the statements of successive US Secretaries of State and indeed the recent revelation that the US will hit with a nuclear weapon whoever it wishes, regardless of international opinion, we realise that the job of securing world peace can never be left to politicians. Defending the belligerent stance of the US, George Bush recently said that “inaction is not an option.” It’s a sentiment shared by socialists. For it is the inaction and complacency of the working class that enables such horrendous injustices to go on. For almost a century we have warned of the dangers of political apathy, of trusting in leaders, of accepting all that governments say without question. Our silence, more than anything, is what Bush and Blair and Co. will depend on in coming months, that same silence the master class toasts each day. Our inaction is an important element in our continuing exploitation, for the master class see in it our consent for their excesses.

As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. Capitalism may well breed war, but our apathy is very much a part of the process. Bear the above in mind in coming months when the US fleet heads off to the Gulf.

John Bissett

The waste of maintaining capitalism (2002)

From the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

The defenders of capitalism argue that the chief feature of the market system is its efficiency in allocating scarce goods and resources to the areas where they are most needed. Socialism, they argue, would inevitably be destroyed by its own inefficiency and inability to meet even the most basic economic needs of society. This argument is flawed on two counts.

Firstly, the last thing capitalism does is allocate goods to the place of greatest need. Instead, it responds solely to signals transmitted in terms of money, and thus allocates good to those activities able to gather together the most money to attract effort and resources. The vaunted “efficiency” of doing this is thus measured solely in terms of managing to match the means and resources put into a branch of social activity to the amount of money involved in it. In other words, the efficiency of capitalism is that it manages to behave like capitalism on a sustained basis.

Secondly, even given its capacity to allocate its means to its own ends, capitalism throws up problems inherent to its own nature, that it must actively counter. A clear example of this is unemployment.

Unemployment

Not only is unemployment a cruel waste of human talent and potential, it is also is a drain on financial resources, in terms of the welfare budget and its administration. This is a waste on a gargantuan scale, tolerated solely because capitalism requires an industrial reserve army to potentially supply labour, and regulate the price of commodified labour-power on the open market. Capitalism must waste resources on unemployment or else see the wages system, at its very heart, would not work properly.

The waste unemployment represents is a problem that has not gone unnoticed. Political and economic pundits continually struggle with ways of combating the “evil of idleness”; politicians of every stripe try to woo workers’ votes with promises of ending unemployment; and trade unionists call for a government policy for “full employment”. There are, however, other wastes of resources inherent to capitalism, that its harlot voices cry much more softly about.

Armies and arms

One particularly relevant to current world events is the need of the capitalist class for military force to pursue its ends. In 2001 the British state spent £23.5 billion on the “teeth elements” of its military budget, which is, believe it or not, comparatively low in world terms (fifth overall, and the third highest in Europe). This level of expenditure persists despite the so-called “Peace Dividend” that came about after the collapse of Russian State-Capitalism. In 1991 the expenditure figure was around £25 billion (2001 prices); and the Labour government has even reversed that marginal decline in expenditure.

This marginal reduction in military spending is itself a response to the immense drain on resources such military commitment represents. The aim of the reductions has clearly been to retain fighting efficiency, at lower cost. At present, personnel costs represent some 37 percent of military expenditure (with 41 percent going on equipment). This breaks down as a total of 188,000 fulltime trained military personnel, backed up by some 288,000 reservists and 93,000 civilian staff. This compares to 1991 with a total of 282,000 full-timers, 341,000 reservists and 169,000 civilian personnel.

This indicates that the military budgets have been reduced largely at the expense of an increased workloads of the workers in uniform. Regardless of this, however, it also shows the amount of human resources being diverted to the cause of destruction and slaughter, rather than producing useful items such as houses, hospitals or schools. Of course, military spending is not entirely unproductive, nor unprofitable even if wasteful, and thousands more workers are engaged in the process of producing the equipment and weapons with which the soldiers are expected to kill and maim.

As ever with capitalist production, wherever it finds profits are to be made, it gradually reduces the cost and effort that goes into chasing those profits. So too, thus, do weapons, and particularly small arms, become cheaper to produce and obtain, and thus so too do the small-time capitalists of the criminal world find it easier to find suitable military force to the scale of their operations. In so doing, capitalism drives forward yet another harmful and wasteful aspect of its own system.

Police and prisons

Accounting for the difficulties of recording crime, according to the statistics on crimes reported to the police, in 1990 there were 18,000 violent crimes against the person in 1990, as compared with 23,300 in 2000. Rising violence has become a concern for many people, fuelled by squalid social conditions, the absence of hope, the alienation of people from each other and by the increasing availability of weapons with which to do harm. As these figures rise, the state finds itself obliged to plough money and resources into combating both the ill effects of the market system upon its subjects and also to thwart the ambitions of the entrepreneurs seeking a violent short-cut to profit.

In mainland UK there are some 113,000 people employed as full time police, accompanied by some 9,000 special constables, applied to tackling this task for the capitalist class. As the recent demonstration by police officers in the heart of London suggests, the cost of paying for this manpower is beginning to become burdensome on the capitalist state. In England and Wales the numbers of police officers have fallen from 110,790 in 1990, to 101,683 in 2001: falling over a time when their actual workload was increasing.

Part of the response to rising crime rates, has been to resort to more imprisonment. The prison population in England and Wales has risen from 45,000 in 1990, to over 64,000 in 2001. The running costs of the prison service in England and Wales in the latter year were £2.2 billion. Attempts to “privatise” prisons under deals similar to the public private partnerships seen elsewhere in government policy, represent an attempt to claw back some of the unprofitable expenditure the system must waste on keeping so many people incarcerated; likewise, the government’s continuing attempt to find cheaper alternatives, such as tagging and curfews.

This barrage of figures simply indicates the amount of resources that the capitalist system is compelled to spend maintaining itself and overcoming its anti-social logic; both in terms of the might of police forces directed at, and the overall military force directed by those who have decided that the opportunity costs of violence are reasonable. The more capitalism severs social bonds at home, and is compelled into war abroad, the more it must set aside from productive activity into the sheer waste of maintaining the means of violence.

Socialism, based upon co-operation and the strong social bonds derived from common ownership, will be freed from the imperative to spend on such branches of activity, and will instead be able to direct them towards satisfying our social needs as a priority, realising the potential that our free and common labour can deliver for ourselves.

Obviously, there are functions currently undertaken by the police and military that will continue to be needed. Currently the police deal with most aspects of sudden death, from investigating it to breaking the sad news to relatives; and obviously, such a function will still be required under socialism. Likewise, the armed forces carry out about twelve hundred search and rescue missions each year, saving thousands of lives. However, we can look to the world around us now, for examples of how such socially necessary functions can be organised. A clear case being the life-boat service, staffed by part-time volunteers who put their own lives at risk to help their fellows in distress.

Pik Smeet

Capitalism and socialism (2002)

From the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism has been defined as a market economy based upon the production and exchange of commodities. Because the economic motives that determine commodity production originate from the desire to earn surplus value, we can infer that economic interests under capitalism will always remain antagonistic. The anomalies inherent in the distribution and accumulation of income and wealth arise from within these antagonistic economic interests. The obvious character of working class enslavement to private capital needs no further analysis other than as the need to earn money-wages.

The working class are the mere custodians of private wealth owned by the capitalist class. Commodity production under the division of labour alienates the worker from all other economic and social activities and becomes the only essential link between the capitalist and working classes.

Socialism aims to realise a classless, moneyless and egalitarian society. Like every scientific discipline socialism has its own scientific terms in which to describe, analyse and interpret the world. The dialectical premises of scientific socialism are derived from the historical development of capitalism and postulate the intensification of the class struggle between the capitalist class and the working class. Thus socialism is historical and is embryonic within the political and economic evolution of capitalism.

Capitalism is the product of humanity’s economic development, and not the culmination of blind historical chances. Thus the criticism of capitalism begins with the criticism of humanity. The illusory projection of human social and political freedoms into abstract and superstitious laws has led to the blind acceptance of the political state as the custodian of freedom and liberty. Human social consciousness becomes reified into abstract and arbitrary civic laws divorced from the social contradictions taking place in the real world.

Political freedom comes to depend upon the whims and fancies of political charlatans. Herein consists the fallacy and mystery of democracy conceived under a classic capitalist state. The achievement of universalised political and social freedoms is a political chimera under capitalism. Political and social freedoms under antagonistic class conditions cannot exist. They do not exist under capitalism.

The division of labour under commodity production, and specialisation, confirms the workers’ physical and intellectual potentialities within the limiting conditions of the commodity market. Future human development becomes stifled by the very economic and social relations grounded upon economic impoverishment and class domination.

Capitalism is a money economy. It is only in socialism where money and trade will not exist that humans will at last recognise the objective world as the outcome of his mental and physical exertions and . . . claim back the political and economic freedoms from the state. The abstract idealisation of intrinsic and subjective human moral virtues are detached from the fetters of superstition and resolved into working class political consciousness. Socialism must succeed in finishing the process towards democracy stifled under capitalism.

The demystification of democracy can only begin through the complete eradication of the political apparatus – the state. The only class or people who can execute this task remains the working class. The eradication of capitalism will lead to the liberation of the working class from its restricted social and political conditions. Social relations will become deprived of contractual obligations. Employment as conceived under the division of labour will be done away with. A classless, moneyless and stateless society can only have one culture – and that can have only one over-riding moral duty: cooperation.

In the context of the class struggle the working class is the last class that lives in need of redemption. It does not possess any class interests to defend other than to free itself from class domination, economic impoverishment and political marginalisation.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels developed and formulated their dialectical methodology during the 19th century. Their critical analysis of bourgeois social and political history was derived from within the actual political and economic contradictions taking place in that century. But we are not to restrict our analysis and refutation of capitalism within the realms of the 19th century. It is our duty to subject these dialectical methodology to the actual political and economic contradictions taking place in the 21st century.

We advocate world socialism, a socialism not restricted to a particular country. We encourage the class struggle in order to enhance our uncompromising and revolutionary political objectives. Because we can assume that political consciousness is immanent within the working class struggles we disseminate Marxist political ideas to the working class wherever they happen to live.

Kephas Mulenga

Voice From The Back: The wasteful society (2002)

The Voice From The Back column from the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

The wasteful society

Socialists are always pointing out what a wasteful society capitalism is. Inside a socialist society there would be no need for bankers, stockbrokers, admen, conmen or jailers. A couple of recent items in the media illustrate just what a waste of human energy capitalism engenders. “The value of commercial fraud has doubled from £82.2m in 2000 to £162.2m in 2001 with management twice as likely to commit fraud as employees.” Accountancy Age, 14 February.

“The prison population world-wide is 8.7 million, according to figures compiled by World Prison Brief Online. About half are in the US (1.93m), China (1.43m) and Russia (0.9m).” Guardian, 16 February.

New deal, no big deal

Governments always claim the credit if unemployment figures fall, but blame outside agencies if the figures rise. In 1997 the Labour government introduced its “New Deal” policy on unemployment. The first analysis of the scheme by the government’s own National Audit Office shows that, like most of these reformist schemes, it was all just empty rhetoric. “Gordon Brown’s New Deal programme which promised work for 250,000 unemployed young people has resulted in only 20,000 jobs at most in its first two years . . . The report, published today, suggests that most of the young people would have found jobs anyway due to the strong economy and natural turnover.” Times, 28 February.

A hopeful sign

One of the essential factors in the working class throwing off the fetters of capitalism and establishing socialism is a recognition that reformist political parties cannot change society in the interests of the majority. The dropping of live TV coverage of party conferences by the BBC is an indication that some workers are beginning to see through the charade of reformism. “One senior BBC executive said: ‘The conferences are now stage-managed by the spin-doctors. There is no real debate, or real dissent, and all controversy is confined to the conference fringe long after the live coverage ends. Even the MPs avoid conferences if they can.’ . . . In the BBC research, almost 40 percent of respondents replied with negative associations of politicians, calling them crooks or liars who didn’t care about ordinary people.” Times, 28 February.

The bulldog breed

Every year the Forbes Global magazine lists the world’s richest billionaires. This year Bill Gates tops the list with £37.4 billion. Britain’s richest the Duke of Westminster with £4.75 billion is way down the list at 38th. But don’t get downhearted you British patriotic workers, you will be delighted to know that David Sainsbury copped £3 billion, Bernie Eccleston £2.1 billion and Sir Richard Branson £1 billion. (Figures from the Herald, 1 March) Makes you kind of proud to be British when you are waiting in the Post Office queue to cash your Giro or Pension; doesn’t it?

Nice for some

There is a government body called The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) set up to decide what drugs the NHS should prescribe. It has recently severely restricted the use of Irinotecan, a drug for the treatment of bowel cancer, a disease which kills 16,000 people a year. “Professor Jim Cassidy of the Beatson Oncology Centre in Glasgow said: “The decision by Nice to effectively deny patients the best treatments for advanced colorectal cancer is intensely frustrating. The only explanation is that it was primarily an economic decision.” Observer, 10 March. The newspaper goes on to report the case of a woman who was refused the treatment of Taxotere for breast cancer by her NHS doctor, who agreed she should have it to survive. As her son said, “The NHS was going to let my mother die by making her wait three months and giving her 20 year old drugs. But we spent £60,000 in France, and that cured it.” A happy ending, but what about those of us who haven’t the sixty thou?

A mad, mad world

Capitalism is a crazy society that is full of contradictions. People starve to death while farmers are paid not to produce food, it can land men on the moon but can’t solve a problem like war. The list of contradictions is endless but this item from the journalist Chris Ayres writing in the Business section of the Times (14 March) takes a bit of beating. “So the Dow Jones is finally rallying after more than two years of misery. Unfortunately, it reminds me of the discussion between Tom Clarke, chief executive of TheStreet.com, and James Cramer, the Wall Street columnist, on 10 September. ‘Jim, this is the worst market I have ever seen,’ said Clarke. ‘What can turn it around?’ Cramer looked him in the eye, and gave a one word reply. War.’”

Letters: Debate on Europe (yawn) (2002)

Letters to the Editors from the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Debate on Europe (yawn)

Dear Editors,

Your reply to my letter (February Socialist Standard), on the potential political dangers of the euro and any future European nation state, requires response to the questions you raised.

1. My “nightmare scenario” of a possible fascist European state emerging, if the capitalist system became endangered, was deliberate and justified with our knowledge and experiences of Europe’s history of the 20th century.

2. While all states do exist “to uphold class rule and production for profit” it is essential to realise that a “democratic” capitalist state is vastly different from an “authoritarian dictatorship” where organising for socialism is not tolerated.

3. Troops sent from other parts of Europe into Britain to quell social unrest are much more likely to use ruthless methods of repression than indigenous forces.

4. “Europe a nation” and “European Union” was the policy first advocated by Sir Oswald Mosley in 1948 as Western Europe’s post-war fascist agenda to salvage its aims to defend capitalism and oppose socialist ideas by force.

5. Romano Prodi, European Commission President, has now declared that “the present members of the EU must lose their power to veto EU decisions” (Daily Mail, 12 January). This is further confirmation of the agenda to build a European Superstate and the real dangers for the working class.

Lionel Rich, 

London NW6

Reply:

You seem to have been reading the Daily Mail too much, though we don’t think even they have come up with the idea of a fascist Europe sending foreign troops to quell social unrest in Britain. We don’t accept, either, that fascism in Italy and Germany in between the two world wars of the last century was a response to the capitalist system becoming endangered; at most it was a response to the problems faced by the capitalist class in these two particular states due to them being excluded from a place in the sun (access to markets and raw materials) by the US, Britain and France.

Let’s start on the purely factual level. Under the present structure of the EU the power to make EU laws rests not with the Commission (whose role is essentially only to propose legislation) nor with the European Parliament (whose role is still largely consultative) but with the Council of Ministers composed of ministers, varying with the subject, from the (currently) 15 Member-States. Even then the Council of Ministers cannot make laws on all subjects but only on those permitted under various treaties (Rome, Maastricht, Amsterdam, and soon Nice) and which are essentially economic. Some of these decisions require unanimity, i.e. every state has a veto; others are taken by a majority vote, but one which in which the bigger states have more votes than the smaller ones.

When Prodi says that Member States must give up their veto what he is advocating is that the Council of Ministers should take more decisions by majority voting (not, as the Daily Mail imagines, that the Commission should be able to impose its will on Member States). And he is proposing this for practical reasons (to avoid a small insignificant state such as Estonia or Slovenia being able to veto too many decisions when countries from eastern Europe join the EU in a few years time) rather than because he wants to construct a European super-state, still less because he thinks he’s Hitler or Napoleon.

Under these circumstances the only way in which your nightmare scenario could come about would be if the governments of all 15 (soon 25) EU Member States were to agree to setting up a centralised super-state, which in turn, since the governments of all these states depend on commanding a majority in an elected parliament, would imply that this is what a majority of people in all of these states wanted. We don’t buy it. It’s just not a realistic scenario. It’s just a scare story put out by those sections of the capitalist class in Britain who want Britain to depend on America rather than the EU. We are surprised that someone like yourself who has some knowledge of socialist ideas should fall for it.

A change of money-tokens, snail-pace political development towards a united Europe, these are not things to get worked up about. They are just superficial changes in the superstructure of capitalism that leave its basis unchanged. Profits before needs, class privilege and exploitation, these are the things that get us worked up, and why we will not drop our single-minded concentration on advocating socialism in favour of defending the pound or British “sovereignty”. When the referendum on the euro comes, we’ll be advocating that people write “I want world socialism” across the ballot paper or, alternatively, they could go fishing that day to show that they couldn’t care less either way.

Editors.

A former Communist writes

Dear Editors,

As a former Communist, I’ve always felt the SPGB was the political equivalent of Christian fundamentalists who prayed first abstractly for people to change their souls/minds to “end” iniquity –but never advocated anything practical like joining trade unions, voting or taking part in military service. Still a socialist, I still fundamentally disagree with you, but your article on the euro intrigued me with some of its observations.

Twenty-six years ago, at a rally in Hyde Park against EEC entry, I asked a Spartacist what their view was. “It is of no concern to the workers,” he said. “We want a United States of Europe”. “What about the increase in food costs? What about heavier indirect taxation? Doesn’t that concern workers?” “Only marginally.” Reflecting that decimalisation was used as an excuse for a rip-off, I suppose the American Spartacist is now “happier” at the prospect of workers being ripped off .

D. Shepherd, 

London NW4

Reply:

We hold no brief for Trotskyism, and certainly not for the cult known as the “Spartacists”, but the person you met in Hyde Park all those years ago was basically right (rare for a Trotskyist) except that workers should be concerned instead with establishing world socialism rather than a United States of Europe.

The introduction of the euro may well provide an excuse for certain shops to put up prices but they can only do this because the currency is being slowly depreciated due to the government over-issuing it, which means that there’s a tendency for prices to rise slowly all the time, and with them wages. This is why this is “only marginal”. The same goes for higher food prices and higher indirect taxes: in so far as they increase the cost of living they exert an upward pressure on wages, and the best way to deal with them is to press for higher wages, not take sides in arguments between capitalist groupings as to which trading bloc they should join.

We for our part used to compare the now defunct “Communist” Party to the Catholic Church, with its popes and cardinals who decided what the “line” was (what was in the interests of state-capitalist Russia) and then told their followers what to do and think including lies. While it is true that our members took the very practical stand of refusing to do military “service” (i.e. learn to kill fellow workers), it’s a lie that we don’t join trade unions (we do) and that we don’t vote (we do go and vote, but not for any pro-capitalist or reformist candidates).

Editors.

Marx: A globalisation convert?

Dear Editors,

Marx “would be a vocal advocate for globalization”, so stated The Hon. Michael Costa, MP, on 19 September in his maiden speech to the Legislative Council of the New South Wales State Parliament.

Prior to a parliamentary privileged life Costa was an executive union official with the Labor Council of New South Wales. In his maiden speech he referred to the many Labor Council officers who have represented the workers of the state in the Legislative Council, “an institution that served the workers of this state well” (my observation as an elected workplace union delegate is that “conned” would be a more appropriate word than “served”).

Costa, in a seemingly apologetic phrase, disclosed that he was one “who started off in the far left by accident”. No definition of “far left” was given by Costa, though he did refer to “Marxists”. There followed a diatribe on self-styled followers of Marx, etc and so it went on.

I find it amusing that when some politicians enter parliament they have to atone for previous political thoughts. Is the public purge a requisite for being accepted into the Temple of Reform? Nevertheless a bit of political underwear washing never hurt our accident-prone Costa, for in November he was appointed to a ministerial position – Minister for Police.

One of the New Year announcements by Mr Supreme Plod was the news that more prisons are to be built in NSW. One wonders whether prison building is to accommodate unemployed workers, one way or the other.

As to Costa’s informed (?) knowledge of what the resurrected Marx would subscribe to, I quote the offending maiden speech paragraph in full: “I have no doubt that if Marx were alive today he would, given his understanding and interest in economic systems and technological development, support economic policies that promote prosperity and indeed would be a vocal advocate for globalization and in all probability would be a member of the Centre Unity faction of the Labor Party”.

Costa’s litany has no doubt earned him a seat on a multinational company board in his post-parliamentary life. I have no doubt that if Marx were alive today he would never condescend to becoming a company director, even of a cigar factory.

“G. Brunker”, 

Sydney, 

Australia

50 Years Ago: The Jamaica Plan for World Peace (2002)

The 50 Years Ago column from the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Standard has received a circular from the United Nations Association of Jamaica containing details of yet another plan for world peace, which the Association thinks we must strive to attain by means of a world peace referendum, in which the peoples of the world could declare that they want peaceful settlement of differences by negotiation, reduction armaments, and a ban on the use of the atom-bomb, hydrogen-bomb, germ-warfare and other weapons of mass destruction.

This kind of plan is not new. There were a number of them before the second world war . . .

These attempts failed to stop the second world war. And our experience teaches us that they will also fail to prevent yet other wars . . .

The reason is that the simple question, “Are you for war or for peace?” never in fact arises outside the pages of the latest peace pamphlet. For what the organisers of these petitions and referendums ignore is that the world to-day is divided into a number of separate states, which all have capitalist economic systems, whether the private-enterprise brand of the State-ownership brand is more in favour in any particular country. And these states, by virtue of the fact that they are capitalist, have interests at variance with those of other states. They must all safeguard their sources of raw materials; they must safeguard their markets; and they must safeguard and improve their strategic position in the world so that they may be able to defend themselves successfully when the next war comes.

(From article by A.W.E., Socialist Standard, April 1952)

Another world is possible (2002)

From the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last year the New Internationalist asked its readers for “their own vision of a better world”. Under the titles of “Give Us Your Dreams” and “Another World Is Possible” shortened versions of twelve of the replies were published in the January-February issue of the magazine which supports the broad “anti-globalisation/anti-capitalist” movement. Three of these came from members of the World Socialist Movement.

Since the proportion of socialists amongst the “anti-capitalists” is nowhere near 25 percent (if only it were) this can be interpreted as a sign of a lack of vision, or interest in “grand schemes” for a better world, amongst those who are involved in the movement. They have yet to take on board our view that it is not enough just to be “anti”, but that to get anywhere you have to have a clear idea of where you want to go.

Having said this, two of the other replies chosen for publication also envisaged a world without money. One, from Minneapolis in the US, wrote: “I can imagine a global community with no private property beyond immediate possessions, no need for money, no racism or sexism, no enslavement of children, no profit motive to drive the oppression of working people, no battles over personal interpretations of spirituality, and no disrespect for the 'other'“. The other, from Canada, envisaged “a society where the concept of exchange is non-existent” but then went on to propose a system of consumer vouchers which would be issued to everybody in equal amounts and be cancelled on use.

Reformist

Of the other seven, one represented the reformist wing of the movement and proposed a list of “reforms that would be necessary as preliminary measures before more radical programs could be considered”. These included renegotiating trade agreements, a Tobin tax, changing company law, tax incentives to encourage co-operatives, ending nuclear power, etc, etc, etc.

This is the approach of the campaigning charities and non-governmental organisations such as OXFAM, Christian Aid and the others who are the most vocal section of the “anti-globalisation” movement, probably reflecting the views of most of those active in it. Not only does such a reformist approach lead to compromise with capitalism but the reforms proposed are piddling compared with what is needed to end world poverty, protect the biosphere and stop the waste of armaments. That it leads to compromise with capitalism can be seen by the number of activists who have switched sides and gone to work for government bodies and private corporations, believing that you can do more to get piddling mini-reforms from within the system than by pressure group politics from outside. No doubt such individuals are for the most part entirely sincere since they never really did think that there is any practical alternative to the profit-motivated market system. The history of Green Parties everywhere is another illustration of this point, where they have either joined capitalist governments or would if they got the chance.

As to the effectiveness of the reforms proposed, does anyone really think that tax reforms and legislative charges are going to be enough to bring about the massive increase in the production of food and other basic goods and services needed if there are not going to be more people, in absolute numbers, living without basic amenities in 2030 than there are today? Clearly “radical programs” not “preliminary measures” need to be considered right now, today. That makes trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon – or even a tablespoon – a waste of valuable time.

Pathetic

The other replies were, frankly, pathetic, indeed disheartening because they suggest that more people in the anti-globalisation movement entertain these kinds of views than envisage a global change in society, even by reformist means. Three advocated a return to the “simple life”. One looked forward to oil running out forcing people to “return to the land, working side by side with nature, in blissful harmony”. Another urged people to “buy locally and buy certified organic” and to “grow some of your own food” (why not, but as a solution to world problems?). A third wanted a “culture based on cottage industry and gardening”.

But the worst, and most disturbing, came from people expressing religious views. One claimed that “over history our collective subconscious has invented a basic code for humanity to live by, in the form of religion” and that this meant that humans had a “predisposition to co-operation, love, non-violence and selflessness”. This could be seen as harmless mysticism – there is no “collective subconscious”, how could there be, given what we know about biology and inheritance? – but at least this person's heart was in the right place. The same, however, cannot be said of the other two.

One put the more traditional religious view (which explains why these people put our backs up so much) that “no human system, no matter how carefully and idealistically crafted, will create a better world. All in the end are corrupted by self-interest or greed. Eliminating poverty is impossible . . . Only one thing works – the inner change for the better in individuals who have had some kind of illumination from a supernatural entity”. This view was echoed by the other, who wrote that “the ideal world, as it stands in our current understanding of the term, is simply unreachable” and proposed that “the alternative state of global perfection, and an eminently achievable one, consists of not having everything we want, but being totally satisfied with everything we have”.

Clearly, such views are quite incompatible with those of socialists – and not just of socialists but of reformists too. In fact the New Internationalist itself must have been disappointed to have had such replies, presumably more than the two they published. “Eliminating poverty is impossible” and “be totally satisfied with what you have” are what the rich, through the religious ideology that reflected their interests, have always told the poor throughout the ages. We have no choice but to be implacably opposed to such views and to combat them whenever we hear them.

No, eliminating poverty is not impossible and, no, the millions of people who go to bed hungry every night or who lack clean running water or who have no health care or education should not be happy with what they have (not) got. They should be bloody annoyed and upset about it and get together with the rest of us to work for a better world, here and now, down here.

Practical

Not that it is a question anyway of dreaming up a “perfect” or an “ideal” world. What is at issue is establishing a better world, where those problems that people face because of the way society is currently organised can be tackled with some hope of success. The starting point for this is not some idea of a perfect society but the world as it is today. It is rather a question of finding a practical solution to actually existing problems that have arisen at this particular moment in the history of humanity.

Over the past hundred or so years the world has developed the capacity to adequately feed, clothe and shelter every single man, woman and child on the planet. The resources, the technical knowledge and the skilled personnel exist to do this – the information on what to do is lying gathering dust in the archives of the Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome and the World Health Organisation in Geneva – but it is not done because the world is currently organised on the basis of the minority class ownership of productive resources and the production of wealth with a view to profit.

It is this profit system that stands in the way of satisfying human needs. It only allows production to take place in response to needs that can be paid for and then only if a big enough profit can be made from doing so. It diverts resources into maintaining a whole superstructure of finance and commerce – banks, insurance, accounting, advertising, etc – that is only needed because there is production for the market. And it diverts yet more resources into armed forces and their weapons which every state is compelled to have in view of the competitive struggle for profits – which as a last resort involves war – that is built-in to the system.

Once this artificial scarcity and this built-in waste is eliminated, as it would be in a world where the Earth's resources had ceased to be the private property of states, national and multinational corporations and rich individuals, then these resources could be directed to turning out wealth to meet human needs. It may take some time to completely clear up the mess left by the capitalist profit system, but people dying of hunger could be stopped immediately. So could all problems arising from money worries.

This is the practical solution to the practical problems facing humanity at this particular stage of its historical development. Unless this basic change from class ownership to common ownership, permitting the change from production for profit to production to satisfy human needs, is made, then unnecessary human suffering and a generally unsatisfactory life for everybody except a privileged few will continue.

Yes, another world is possible, but it doesn't involve going back to basic agriculture, even less embracing pessimistic and do-nothing mysticism, but accepting that we already live in one world and going on from there. The solution is global in both senses of the word. Global in that it has to be world-wide, and global in the sense that the change-over has to be all-embracing and not piecemeal reform.

Adam Buick

Nationalism - Poison for the Working Class (2002)

Editorial from the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Across the world nationalism has been rearing its ugly head again, most notably in the cockpit of violence that is the Middle East. As we write Palestinian and Israeli workers continue to butcher one another in a senseless round of tit-for-tat atrocities. As the shooting of Palestinian children and the suicide bombings aimed at Israeli workers in Jerusalem continue, socialists have no hesitation in stating that this violence is in no way, shape or form in the interest of the working class of wage and salary earners.

Many on the political left will argue that Palestinian nationalism is somehow progressive and different to Israeli nationalism and should therefore be supported (in a similar way to why they often think Welsh and Scottish nationalism should be encouraged in Britain and Irish Nationalism in Ulster). As socialists, we say that this is a dangerous poison that is being spread by the left and that no side engaged in such conflict can either speak for the working class as a whole or be an example to it.

History is replete with minorities in existing states using terrorist methods so that a new state may be formed or territory transferred from the “ownership” of one state to another. The working class of wage and salary earners is never in a position to benefit from this process, it is only in a position to suffer. The working class – by definition the class that does not possess any significant titles to land or private property, including capital – has quite literally nothing to gain from a situation where one group of rulers and owners is replaced by another group.

In the nineteenth century when the modern capitalist system was expanding across the globe “national liberation” struggles, typically led by a local growing capitalist class against the old autocratic empires, were part of the process which swept away the old political arrangements and opened the way forward for liberal democracy and the development of capitalist methods of production. It was often argued that it was in the interests of the working class during this time to take the side of the capitalists against the old autocracies like the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, etc. It was said that this process would open the way up for working class organisation and for the development of an advanced industrial system which is a prerequisite for a socialist society of abundance and free access to available wealth.

Since then, the capitalist system has become a world system. The alleged justification for the working class taking sides in 'national liberation' struggles has now gone if ever it existed and today all such struggles are just deadly battles between sections of the capitalist class, even though it is the workers – imbued with nationalist poison – that naturally enough end up doing the fighting and dying.

We argue that every nation state is by its very nature anti-working class. The “nation” is a myth as there can be no community of interests between two classes in antagonism with one another, the non-owners in society and the owners (the workers and the capitalists). And the state ultimately exists only to defend the property interests of the owning class at any given point in history – which is why modern states across the world send the police and army in to break strikes and otherwise seek to protect the interests of the capitalists and “business” at every turn.

The goal of the socialist movement is not to assist in the creation of even more states but to establish a real world community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. In a socialist society communities, towns and cities will have the opportunity to thrive – and people will no doubt feel an attachment to places that are real and tangible – but the 'imagined communities' that are nation states will be consigned to the history books where they belong.

Our message to the workers who call themselves Israeli and the workers who call themselves Palestinian is to cease the slaughter. As workers you have no real community of interests to gain from your present struggle. You do, however, have an “imagined community” you should lose and an entire world to win instead.

Who Are The Wreckers? (2002)

From the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

It may be an unjustified slur on an honourable, selfless profession but it is said that there are barristers who, if they become aware that they don't have a case to put to a court, will resort to abusing their opponent. The hope is that this tactic will succeed in the absence of solid evidence because it may unsettle the other barrister, who was expecting everyone to play by the rules; it may confuse the jury so that they acquit a defendant who is plainly guilty; and it may hide the fact that the abusing barrister does not have anything pertinent to say. Of course, in the process the barrister may be exposed as a pathetic trickster, a manipulator of words and responses , which could lose them their professional standing but as the situation is desperate the risk is considered worth taking.

It is definitely not an unjustified slur to say that this strategy is often used by governments, when they are faced with the emergency of explaining away their failure to run the country as they had promised when they were campaigning for election. In that situation it is easier and more sensible – in the sense that it is less likely to lose votes – to divert responsibility onto a convenient scapegoat or to abuse opponents, who may then be inflated into figures of enormous menace.

It is not necessary to look far to find examples. Strikers (unless they are in another country, like Solidarity in Poland in the 1980s) are never popular with governments; they are more likely to be labelled as selfish disrupters of the communal well-being. When the Tube drivers of London come out they are attacked for forcing other workers to endure a journey to work even more stressful than usual. Well, there would be no point in a strike which was not disruptive in some way but the same misery is caused when the companies cut services, or cancel trains because the whole system is groaning under a burden of insufficient investment. These are experiences which reduce commuting workers to impotent rage at the very mention of names like Railtrack, Virgin, Arriva. But the companies are not considered to be threats to civilised society; instead they are prudent protectors of financial stability. Which – whatever it does to the passengers – is reassuring to the shareholders.

Miners

A group of workers who were subjected to some of the most savage criticism were the coal miners. who have now ceased to exist as a potent industrial force. In their heyday miners were able to strike effectively because they were united and they produced something which was vital to the rest of industry. For that very reason coal strikes were denounced for ruthlessly holding the nation to ransom, denying coal to homes and industries which needed it. In fact the miners were simply applying their industrial. Any protests about this were written off as the ignorant ravings of someone who simply did not understand the economic necessity for an industry to be competitive – to be profitable.

A side-product of a government searching for a scapegoat is that its members may come to believe their own propaganda, which can lead to distressing cases of paranoia. The Wilson government of 1966, for example, showed clear symptoms of this when they were confronted by the seamen's strike in May of that year. By the standards which were applied in such disputes, the seamen had a strong case but they were effectively demanding a 17 percent pay rise when the government's “voluntary” incomes policy was trying to limit rises to 3.5 percent. That, according to Richard Crossman, who was then a Cabinet minister, was what prevented the dispute being settled:

“we could have a settlement at any time, since the owners were ready to put up the cash: it was the government that was preventing the settlement because of the prices and incomes policy.”

Politically motivated

As the strike took hold it became apparent that it was not to have the dire consequences the government had predicted. What was clear, however, was that Wilson was set on smashing the National Union of Seamen. Denis Healey told the Cabinet that “Much as we would like to have a problem to solve, we haven't got one”. But Wilson behaved as if civilised society would come crashing down about Downing Street unless stern action was taken. From the depths of his paranoia he dredged up the infamous phrase about “a tightly knit group of politically motivated men” (which many people must have thought was a pretty accurate description of his own government) plotting to undermine all the work he had invested in making British capitalism everlastingly stable and prosperous and so awarding us all a life of easy prosperity. In the end the strike was settled through a kind of compromise, which did breach the government's incomes policy.

For his ready, sound-biting abuse of anyone who questions his policies Tony Blair is a worthy successor to Harold Wilson. “The forces of conservatism” was how he once described anyone brave enough to question whether his government should be so ready to throw overboard so much of what his party once (probably when Blair joined it) called its principles. A more recent example is in the opposition to the government's avowed intention to privatise, to some degree or other, important industries or services which have been under state control. We can remember when Labour supporters would argue endlessly that state control was the one and only method of taming capitalism into an ordered, controllable humane system which could then be transformed into socialism. This was not just an economic argument but a moral one as well – that state control served people better because its motivation was communal benefit rather than minority profit. But one of the premises of New Labour was that a programme of state control was a vote loser (they did not also say that it would upset many of the super-rich who they intended to persuade into backing them with lashings of money).

Blair has fought a long battle over this ground. In July 1999 he stated his agreement with those who perceive state concerns as a kind of sheltered environment for the unambitious and obstructive:

“People in the public sector are more rooted in the concept that 'if it's always been done this way, it must always be done this way' than any group of people that I've ever come across. You try getting change in the public sector and public services – I bear the scars on my back after two years in government.”

Privatising

There might be more force in that argument if there were not so many examples of private industry whose operations fit in with Ted Heath's “unacceptable face of capitalism”. Railtrack, for example, has gained an enduring reputation for the lives which have been lost because of its pursuit of profit before passenger safety. Robert Maxwell's Mirror Group Newspapers was an organisation which stole (in the illegal sense) large sums of money, including an awful lot from its pensioners. The privatised British Airways and Consignia, which succeeded the Post Office, are losing money and cutting catastrophic numbers of workers as a result. Whether an industry or a service operates in what might be called an efficient way is not determined by whether or not it is state controlled or private but by other factors, usually beyond its control.

This is not say that we should accept the arguments of the nostalgics who perceive state control as a moral bulwark against private industry's greed and corruption. The coal miners, for example, did not find the monolithic National Coal Board easier to negotiate with than a bunch of fragmented private owners. A lot of penal reformers raged against the privatising of prisons, on the grounds that it was immoral to make profit out of punishing people by locking them up. But these same reformers could be relied on to denounce the shortcomings – the brutality, the primitive facilities, the aimlessness and corruption – of state prisons. The reports of one Chief Inspector of Prisons after another were notable for their bitter criticism of places like Wandsworth prison and Feltham Young Offenders Institution. Words like “unacceptable”, “corrosive”, “brutal” litter these reports.

But these are facts, which are not useful to anyone who argues on the basis of prejudice or deceit. When Blair rants about “wreckers” he is really appealing to a bewildered electorate's appetite for a scapegoat who will allow them to believe that it is still worthwhile to bother about political affairs. It is fair to ask, not only who are the “wreckers” but what they are supposed to have “wrecked”. It is apparent that many voters have stopped supporting New Labour because they cannot appreciate that it has constructed anything worth wrecking; they perceive life since 1997 as little, if any, different from how it was under the Tories. They see the same old poverty, crime, queues to get into the NHS, government sleaze and political muggings. At a recent away day at Chequers for ministers an “adviser” said: “It's no use pretending everything is lovely. There are some things in people's lives which are terrible.” This is not why millions of people voted for Blair's government in 1997. To them he must be the ultimate wrecker because he has destroyed their optimism, false as it was, that a political party can run capitalism differently. Perhaps now, instead of apathy, they might show some authentic optimism by using their own talents to run society for themselves.

Ivan