Voice From The Back: A Class Divided Society (2011)

The Voice From The Back column from the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Class Divided Society

When socialists describe capitalism as a class divided society some of capitalism’s supporters dispute this claim, but here is one dyed-in-the wool supporter of capitalism who seems to be agreeing with us. “Britain is dividing into ‘two nations’,” Iain Duncan Smith warns today, as he identifies a growing underclass for whom life is comparable to the Third World and who can expect to die in their fifties. … Speaking just days after publishing his Welfare Reform Bill with radical measures to drive people into work, he said: ‘In Britain today there are pockets that are peculiarly Third Worldish in terms of life expectancy, general expectations, disconnection for a group that is growing in number’” (Times, 19 February). Needless to say Smith’s determination to ‘drive people into work’ applies to the working class not the useless parasitical capitalists.

A World of Inequality

There is a widespread illusion that we live in more equitable times than previous generations, but recent statistics from the World Bank give the lie to that notion. “A sharp rise in food prices since June has pushed 44 million people in developing countries into extreme poverty – having to live on less than $1.25 a day – according to a report by the World Bank” (New York Times, 15 February).

Class Division in India

A visit to an Indian city such as Calcutta would convince the visitor that it is a country of extreme poverty and qualifies as what the press call a “third world country”. You can see homeless families seeking out an existence living on the streets but that is only part of the story. “In a wedding estimated to have cost Kanwar Singh Tanwar, the groom’s father and a member of Parliament, £15 million, about 30,000 guests ate 100 different dishes and the couple’s main gift was a seven seater helicopter” (Times, 4 March). For a tiny minority of Indians a life of undreamt affluence is the norm in this “third world” country.

Hard Times – For Some

We are told ever day by the mass media that we are living in hard times and that we must be prepared to tighten our belts. Longer working lives, lower pensions and the threat of growing unemployment are the prospects for the working class. This period of “economic reality” does not affect the owning class of course. “Carlos Slim gets even richer as he beats Bill Gates to the top of the 2011 Forbes billionaires list. Carlos Slim, the world’s wealthiest man, saw his fortune jump $20.5bn last year as he beat a record 1,209 rival billionaires, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and British resident Lakshmi Mittal, to the top of the Forbes global rich list” (Daily Telegraph, 10 March). In case you imagine that this only applies to Mexican, American or Indian billionaires Forbes informs us that the Duke of Westminster managed to increase his stack to $13 billion last year.

Land of the Free?

American politicians are fond of boasting about the “land of the free” and contrasting the freedoms of people in the USA with that of other countries, but recent developments in the state senate in Ohio seem more dictatorial than democratic. “Ohio joined Wisconsin on Wednesday in advancing a plan to restrict public sector unions, posing a new threat to U.S. labor union power in one of the most politically and economically important states. The Republican-controlled Ohio state senate approved a proposal to curb the collective bargaining rights of public employees and forbid government workers from going on strike” (Reuters, 2 March).

The Ganja of the People

Away back in the 19th Century Karl Marx once stated “Religion is the opium of the people”, but how do you respond to this 21st Century news item? “The sale of marijuana has been banned by authorities in Nepal during a popular Hindu festival at which holy men traditionally smoke the drug. About 500,000 people and thousands of holy men travelled to the Pashupatinath temple in Katmandu for the festival, which marks the end of winter. … Police stopped people from dealing but did not prevent the holy men from smoking the drug” (Times, 4 March). Perhaps the Christian holy men should take a leaf out of the Hindu’s book, it might help their falling church attendance figures. “Truck on Jesus man”, may become part of the new holy orders as a way to fill those empty collection plates.

Pathfinders: Brain Strain (2011)

The Pathfinders Column from the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just recently a song by a 13 year old singer has been ‘trending on Twitter’ and ‘going viral’ with 16 million views on YouTube. Not the latest offering from Justin Bieber to his adoring teeny tribe of ‘Beliebers’, but something truly and insanely bad. So bad that many are calling it the worst song ever. Being so devoid of any merit has guaranteed the song’s runaway success.

So what’s the point of watching something when you already know it’s dire and you’re not going to like it one bit? Logically there shouldn’t be any reason. But people find bad performances hilarious. We often do the opposite of reason. We’re not predictably rational beings.

There’s quite a lot of interest in ‘irrationality’ these days, with analysis from FMRI scans to show that our supposed act of free choice has already taken place down in the brain’s scullery, moments before milord ‘consciousness’ rings the bell from the upstairs library.

This is very worrying for those who like to feel in control and who obsess about the notion of ‘free will’. If all our frontal lobe clever-clogness is really being primed and directed from below stairs by the witless emotions of the limbic system and the savage lusts and dreads of the amygdala, where does that leave the notion that humans are rational creatures?

Such an idea lies behind various theories to the effect that investors think they’re being rational when in fact they’re really responding to a herd instinct, or to emotional triggers. Economic trends and crises come about, it is argued, precisely because people do not always pursue their immediate self interests as they ought to, and this wild and woolly behaviour is what makes outcomes unpredictable and therefore financial disasters unforeseeable.

Here is classical determinism in disguise, the idea that the world is fundamentally mechanical and manageable, if only we could understand our own thought processes.

But financial crises are unforeseeable in any case, or they wouldn’t be crises. As socialists are obliged to point out, capitalism would always be an unstable and unpredictable system even if the investors were androids with telephone number IQs.

But there is something to the idea that we’re not as rational as we think we are, though it doesn’t take scans with giant magnets to show it. Let’s not forget that we’re animals, after all, and rationality is something of a new invention for us.

An interesting bit of research on climate change attitudes shows that different socio-political groups tend to believe evidence put forward by scientists who appear to be most like themselves, whereas they will reject the same arguments if made by someone they identify less with (New Scientist, 19 March).

This will be no great news to people in marketing, of course, who know that the customer buys the salesman first and the product second, but it is of some concern to scientists hoping to communicate scientific ideas to the general public and in so doing to influence public policy. It is also of some concern to socialists hoping to achieve a similar level of communication. It is not just about the argument, it’s how you dress it up and deliver it.

But are we talking about ‘irrationality’ or merely redefining the term ‘rationality’ with a little more finesse? Two plus two is always going to equal four, whatever your amygdala says about it. The fact that our thought processes may begin with primitive urges doesn’t mean that they are enslaved by them, and that we simply can’t make rational choices about our existence. The bigger problem facing socialists as well as scientists is not how we process information but how and from where we get it in the first place.

The process of rationality may be more complicated than used to be thought, but it still relies heavily on the information available to it, and most decisions made by people today are likely to be poorly informed rather than fundamentally illogical. And being poorly informed is not the same as being stupid.

A recent survey from the Birmingham Science City suggests that 30 percent of the UK population, based on a sample of 3,000 respondents, believe that time travel is possible. 50 percent believe that memory-erasing technology exists, around 25 percent believe in teleportation and light sabres, while 18 percent apparently think they can ‘see’ gravity

It would be interesting to see the wording of this survey however, and it is not at all clear that the short quiz on the website bears any relation to the survey.

Did the survey ask if humans could be teleported, which is impossible, or subatomic particles, which is debatable? Were the ones who believed in light sabres the youth end of the statistical distribution, who had all got broken ones in their toy cupboards, or perhaps adults who had heard all about military laser cannons?

Did the question about time travel include a picture of a Tardis, which is fictional, or a wormhole, which is a hypothetical point in spacetime which might function as a shortcut for high energy particles? Were the ones who believed in mind-wiping reading too much Philip K Dick, or were they maybe recalling 20th century lobotomy techniques?

In short, were the respondents really as thick as planks, or were they being ambushed? One question in the quiz runs thus: Can stars sing? The correct answer to this, apparently, is ‘yes’. The explanation given is that stars oscillate, and that these oscillations when converted into sound waves can give an idea of the size and age of the star.

A better response to the Birmingham quizmasters would be ‘No, you dorks, because sound doesn’t travel through space’.

People make bad investment decisions, not because they’re stupid, but because they don’t understand markets and they take bad advice from people who pretend to be experts but in reality are often crooks. People invest in capitalism too, even though it is fundamentally against their best interest. But that doesn’t make them either irrational or stupid. ‘It’s not my fault, it’s my brain wot done it’ is just an excuse for not taking responsibility.

There are always organisations and groups out there keen to show that workers are dumb brutes who need strong leaders to tell them what to do. When the cognitive sciences play into their hands, socialists need to cry foul.

Paddy Shannon

Seeing the trees and the wood (2011)

From the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

  A tree surgeon reflects on why no business can give due regard to the needs of workers and the environment

I am, I suppose, a businessman; not, I should say, from choice but more from the need to follow a prescribed and necessary course; necessary, because, were one not to, inevitably the business would fail and fall by the wayside. I say businessman, now, but thirty years ago I would have called myself a ‘tree surgeon’, or ‘woodman’ without the slightest feeling of inadequacy or embarrassment. Admittedly the term ‘tree surgeon’ does sound rather more grand than the reality of the work, pruning, cutting and working with trees, and certainly does not have the prerequisite of six years’ intensive study at one of the country’s finest universities. Nevertheless a tree surgeon is what I was and work with trees is what I did.

I have often thought back and wondered why I found myself in this industry. The reasons, actually, are quite simple. I loved working outdoors and with my hands; I loved practical problem solving, such as one comes across when dismantling a large tree using ropes in a confined space or in a dangerous condition; I love trees and nature and moreover I enjoyed the work; so much so that I looked forward to the day’s work with interest and enthusiasm. Now, over thirty years on, I have what most people would view as, a successful business; it employs twenty-three people and is well respected in its field – a success story, some might say. So why do I feel unhappy about the place I find myself and why do I find myself questioning the very thing that has enabled me to live in some comfort and pursue my interests and generally enjoy life? The reasons are many but maybe I should start by returning to the beginning and explaining how the business evolved and how it became more and more apparent to me that to operate a business within the system, under which we are all obliged to work and function, could not be done in a way that is commensurate with good practice with regard to people and the environment.

After thirty five years of running a tree business, I think I have a reasonable idea of what I am talking about with regard to the needs and workings of the industry that purports to care for trees in the environment. I also hope that the illustrations below of how my business; although, in reality it could be any business, is quite simply always on a collision course with all that should be right and proper in the pursuit of ‘care of trees’.

The beginning

This is a job that cannot be done alone, one needs to climb the tree and be assisted by a colleague on the ground who helps with the roping and clearing of the cut branches and timber. I used to work with a young chap and would charge the client exactly what I paid him, in those days about £20 per day. It was soon pointed out by my accountant that this would not do; I needed to charge him out at at least three times what he was paid thereby making a profit on his labour.

Therein lay the first step that formed the uneasy gap in what had been a breezy, happy relationship. Now, all these years on, the gap has widened and the company (me) has very much become ‘the employer’, always under pressure to hold down wages or cut corners to maximise profit. I am not saying we treat staff badly or that our work is shoddy, but there is no doubt about it the pressure and conflict are always there.

The ‘care of trees’

This is a term used by most of us in the industry to describe our work. It implies that the work we do is good for trees, makes them ‘better’, is necessary for their well-being and without which they would not survive. The reality of the situation is quite different; 95 percent of the work we do is entirely unnecessary and probably in the majority of cases actually harms the tree. So, what do we do and why do we do it?

Most of our work involves removal of parts or all of the tree or trees. This is usually to solve a perceived problem such as loss of light, leaves falling into gutters or to make space for some form of development. In the vast majority of these cases if we are to abide by scientific recommendations with regard to correct pruning times – which often dictate that work is undertaken over many years to allow the tree to recover from the pruning work – we simply would not get the job, as people will almost always be drawn to the cheapest option, that is, to do the work in one visit thus incurring the least possible expense. As the business is driven by the need to make profit there is no means by which we can operate in the interests of the tree.

Furthermore, all of the jobs we undertake involve an estimator visiting the client to assess the job and provide a quotation. Often the client will be seeking three or more estimates for the work, which may only involve the pruning of a single apple tree, so, when analysed, a small job necessitates at least three people travelling anything up to thirty miles, sometimes more, vast amounts of paperwork and a team travelling in heavy diesel vehicles to do what less than fifty years ago would have been undertaken by a local woodman or even by the owner themselves, all this just for the cheapest price; The cost to the environment speaks for itself.

Although for the owners of trees the work undertaken, either at their request or on the recommendation of the tree surgeon, might seem necessary, the pressure and temptation for the estimator, having driven to the site and needing to ‘get the work in’ is undoubtedly to find work even if it is not needed either by the client or the tree. I am of no doubt that companies are constantly recommending unnecessary and potentially damaging work on trees.

Treework in relation to the environment

I have mentioned the need for long and pointless journeys above but let me mention all the other facets of our work that impact detrimentally on the environment. Ideally, we would use hand tools, such as cross cut saws and axes to cut timber and natural materials for our ropes, clothing and other essentials but, as we are driven by the need to make a profit, we need to get a job done quickly, hence the need for the fast chainsaw – itself, a very dangerous tool. A recent research paper has found that a single hour’s use of a medium sized chainsaw is as damaging to the environment, in terms of emissions, as driving a small saloon car for over two thousand kilometres.

The need for speed when undertaking potentially hazardous work in itself creates a greater likelihood of staff having accidents or, through pressure of time, not working to a high standard; the net result of this is a reduction in job satisfaction and self worth. It seems strange to me that we live in a climate of health and safety and yet something as obvious as this as the reason accidents happen completely escapes the powers that be. Although when one thinks of it when has the health of a working person ever been more important than the bottom line?

Working conditions

The heavy snow in December meant that it was impossible to carry out most of the work we normally do. Suddenly the staff became very worried that they would not be paid if they could not work and the brutal reality was, that, no they wouldn’t.

We reached an agreement in the end which meant that they could choose to take unpaid leave or holidays but the reality of the situation is, that the snow was not their fault and their way of life and plans were compromised. You may ask why were they not paid? The answer is that they were for a brief period but, under the present system, more than a few days would not have been possible as the company would go out of business and then they would not have a job at all. It, like all wage problems, leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth and creates all the usual bad feeling and misery.

We are expected, naturally to provide all workers with serviceable and safe tools and equipment to work with. I will say no more other than the cost of such equipment is a major consideration when the need arises to buy or replace such items. We do our best but I have heard of another company who, to save costs, did not service a wood chipper and it came loose from the vehicle which was towing it and crashed into an oncoming car, severing the woman driver’s arm. There are many more similar stories in this and other industries that clearly indicate that the bottom line comes before safety.

I mentioned above that our company employs twenty-three people. Of those, six are wholly involved with finance such as estimating, typing quotations, bookkeeping, invoicing and purchasing. Thus, over thirty percent of staff carrying out work that in a society without money would equate to free time. I have not included our accountant’s time or the time saved by the workers who, as part of their work, earn the money to pay for the ‘non workers’.

Treework in a socialist society

Working with trees will always, by its nature involve hard physical work but then, as I have already said, the work is enjoyable and rewarding especially when planting trees for the future or solving a problem for someone not to mention the exercise and fresh air (when not using a chainsaw!). Much of the work we do now would be undertaken with no need to rush and always with the highest safety precautions in place. Work would, undoubtedly be very local and without the need for long journeys. When bad weather prevented work, workers will not need to worry that they will lose out; they could simply do the job another time and use the opportunity to relax or pursue another activity.

Work carried out on trees will be undertaken in a way that is sympathetic to the environment and the general health and well-being of people and in a manner that avoids harm to the tree. Tools would be made to last and work practices would as far as is practically possible, be in harmony with the environment. But, above all, work would, once again, be a pleasure, with everybody equal and with the joint aim and shared pleasure of producing work at a craftsman level unfettered by bosses demanding unrealistic targets and destroying the potential for the satisfaction that comes from doing a job well. Wages would be non-existent; but then, who would worry as everybody would have all they needed to live a happy and fulfilled life.

Working on that problem tree would, once more, be the pleasurable experience it was when I first started 35 years ago…

A final thought

I have sat high up in the branches of trees that are hundreds of years old; such trees are often seen as a nuisance when the aphids that suck on their leaves secrete honeydew on a smart car below or drop leaves that blow around the garden. Such trees began their lives before capitalism, before the dawn of the motorcar or the industrial revolution; If they could impart knowledge from within their deepest heartwood, or tell of all that they have seen and learnt since the day when the first leaf emerged from the rich soil, what would they say? What would they tell us; us who cut them to pieces with power saws fuelled by the decayed remains of their long dead relatives; whose activities are destroying countless millions of their cousins in the Amazon and Malaysia; who are poisoning the very air that they breathe… that all is well?

Trees grow slowly, time has an entirely different meaning to them; they do not feel the need to work quicker for more profit. They lay down each year’s wood, their buds swell and the leaves burst forth and finally sail down to feed the soil below; they watch and see all around them.

Will a young tree growing today see the end of this destructive society and some time in the future provide shade for a person who with much leisure time on his hands, sits with his back resting against the gnarled trunk and looking up through the beautiful canopy of green thinks to himself “How could we have once lived like that?”

Glenn Morris

Material World: Japan’s unnatural disaster (2011)

The Material World Column from the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Earthquakes and tsunamis are natural phenomena. But it is known where – if not when – they are going to strike. So in principle society could take action to minimise the human impact.

It was known that the seabed off the northeastern coast of Honshu (the main island of the Japanese archipelago) is prone to earthquakes. It was known that a sufficiently powerful offshore earthquake would generate a tsunami. So why not leave the endangered coastal area uninhabited?

Crammed into the danger zone

This earthquake and most of its aftershocks were offshore. However, the next major earthquake may well occur, as long predicted, on land. It is a matter of when, not whether.

The area at greatest risk is the southern coastal strip of Honshu that stretches west from Tokyo – a city already devastated by earthquakes in 1891 and 1923. And yet the eastern half of this strip, up to Osaka, covering a mere 6 percent of Japan’s land area, is the country’s industrial powerhouse, with 45 percent of its population of 127.5 million. Tokyo and its outlying cities alone contain 30 percent of the country’s population. Would a rational society cram so many people and resources into the zone of maximum danger?

It is true that many modern buildings have been equipped to withstand seismic shocks. But most older buildings are much more poorly designed. For one glaring example, look at some photos of Tokyo street scenes and count the bulky signboards attached to storefronts at a single point, just waiting for a jolt to break free and fall on the heads of the people below.

To accommodate urban growth, about a quarter of Tokyo Bay (150 square miles) has been reclaimed from the sea. When the earth shakes, as it has recently, the loose soil of this reclaimed land undergoes liquefaction (becomes liquid). The shaking is also liable to spill and set ablaze the oil and toxic chemicals stored in the numerous tanks that line the shore of Tokyo Bay. Fires still rage up and down the coast, including a conflagration at the Cosmo oil refinery in Ichihara City.

Suicide bomber

The ultimate in insanity, however, is Japan’s growing reliance on nuclear power, driven by the desire of its ruling class to overcome reliance on energy imports, especially oil from the Middle East. Nuclear power currently supplies 30 percent of the country’s energy – a figure projected to rise to 50 percent by 2030. Fukushima, where a Chernobyl-type disaster is still unfolding, is one of a dozen nuclear plants located on the coastal strip of northeastern Honshu, in the path of tsunamis from offshore earthquakes. The Hamaoka plant, to the southwest of Tokyo, perches on an active fault line.

Katsuhiko Ishibashi of Kobe University, a seismologist who resigned from a committee setting safety guidelines for nuclear reactors in 2005 when his concerns over building nuclear plants on earthquake fault lines were ignored, put it this way: “Japan is an earthquake-prone archipelago, and lining its waterfront are 54 nuclear plants. It’s like a suicide bomber wearing grenades around his belt.”

It is not only Japan that generates nuclear power in earthquake-prone areas. Some 20 percent of the world’s 443 nuclear reactors are located in seismic zones. There are two nuclear power plants at risk from earthquakes in China’s Fujian Province, one in Turkey, and one in Armenia. In the United States several nuclear power plants are in places that have experienced earthquakes, hurricanes or tornadoes. Another tsunami-triggered disaster like that at Fukushima is waiting to happen in San Diego, California, where a nuclear power plant stands right on the beach, facing an active fault line a few miles offshore.

There were also technical problems with the design and operation of the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima complex. The company that owns the complex, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), has a record of covering up safety issues. The complex was built by Toshiba, using a reduced-cost design by General Electric with a relatively small containment structure.

Does it make sense?

From the perspective of a truly human community – that is, socialism – it makes no sense deliberately to court disaster in this manner. But does it make sense even from a capitalist point of view, considering the enormous losses borne by the companies most affected by the devastation? After all, capital craves its own expansion, not annihilation. It does not really share the death wish of the suicide bomber.

One answer is that most investors are concerned solely with expected short-term profits – and they never expect disaster, even though they must know it is always a possibility. Moreover, high-speed communications and data processing make it easy to move capital around almost instantaneously in search of maximum short-term profits. By giving priority to reducing risk, a company would have to accept higher costs and lower profits in the short term. It would soon find itself short of capital and might face hostile takeover or bankruptcy.

Another factor may be at work here – namely, the psychological mechanism called denial. Instead of carefully assessing risks and consciously accepting them, a capitalist may avoid stress by closing his mind in advance to considerations of risk that he fears will jeopardise his profits. He may persuade himself that those who draw attention to risks have a hidden political agenda. This applies especially to risks that are posed by nature. To take nature and its requirements seriously might jeopardise not only profits but the whole profit system.

Stefan

Greasy Pole : Life, death or suicide? (2011)

The Greasy Pole column from the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Thanks to New Labour’s trumpeted policy of being “tough on crime” administered by the likes of Jack Straw and David Blunkett (they never actually got around to the other bit about tackling the cause of it all) there are something over 85,000 people in prison in this country (also, they never sorted out whether over-crowded prisons proved that they had succeeded, or failed, to beat crime). At present none of the prisoners is allowed to vote; in any case if they were not banned the fact that they come from homes all over means that the effect would be dispersed between many constituencies and so unlikely to affect any single result. Which has not lessened the interest, not to say at times passion, over whether anyone who has been locked up for offending against some of the accepted norms of property society, by theft or violence, should have a say in how that society is run day-to-day.

Europe

The controversy was brought up for wide public discussion by the case of one John Hirst. By no means an easy, attractive man – as a child he was abused after being placed in a Barnardos home and suffers from Asperger’s syndrome – Hirst was sentenced to 15 years in prison for killing his landlady with an axe in what was described as a detached, callous manner. In the event he served 25 years and after release under supervision on licence he personified the campaign to overturn the ban on prisoners voting, on the grounds that it contravened the Human Rights Act, which became law in the UK in 2000. This Act, which was greeted in many a court room with derisive irritation, sprang from a guarantee in the European Convention on Human Rights of “free elections…by secret ballot under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the people in the choice of the legislature”. But it was not all plain sailing thereafter. In April 2001 the High Court in Britain rejected an application for the enfranchisement of prisoners but three years later this decision was itself overturned by the European Court of Human Rights, leading the Council of Europe in December 2009 to question whether the general election due in May 2010 would be illegal. Which did not, of course, prevent that election going ahead even if some of the candidates were subsequently imprisoned for other criminal offences. In February last, the Commons emphatically opted to keep the ban although this flew in the face of the country’s obligations as a signatory to the ECHR and could lead to prisoners suing for damages which might total as much as £160 million.

Civic Death

In terms of legislation the matter goes back to the Forfeiture Act of 1870, which moderated some of the consequences of “civic death” dating back to the 14th century. The present ban was imposed in law in 1983, 1985 and 2000, which placed the UK at variance with most other European countries and in accord with the likes of Armenia, Bulgaria, Estonia and Hungary, so that a government which professes to staunchly respect the rule of law and the sanctity of its treaty obligations has persistently acted in an illegal and cynical way. Some prisoners – and others outside gaol – may have their own opinion about the motivation of those who preach endlessly about “right” and “wrong” but who are ready to apply their own, conveniently flexible, interpretation of these terms. Is this a problem to those who solemnly construct capitalism’s regulations governing property and privilege? For one thing, the possibility of losing the right to vote through being sent to prison is unlikely to have deterred any of those 85,000 from their efforts to improve their lot through the kind of theft or violence which capitalism rules as illegal. For example in the recent elections in the Irish Republic only 191 prisoners out of a total of 4,500 registered for a vote. So the ruling class can be reassured; from casual contact with some inmates of those grim monuments to futile punishment it is unlikely that if they had the vote they would use it in the only constructive possible way; rather, after their own fashion they will support at the ballot box the whole society of class denial and exploitation – on the assumption that they can so re-arrange things as to be the exploiters.

Cameron Is Ill

David Cameron has said that the very idea of prisoners being allowed to join the millions of misled, prejudiced, unthinking voters makes him “physically ill”. It is difficult to believe that someone who has so ruthlessly scaled the greasy pole is so delicate. Is he not propelled into nausea at the evidence of capitalism’s desolation? Famously reputed to be an affectionate family man, was he not repelled when Save the Children reported that 1.6 million children in the country he rules over are living in extreme poverty? Does he suffer sleepless nights when he hears of yet another incident of children being slaughtered under the guns and missiles in Afghanistan? Are his digestive processes affected when he is informed of the effect of his government’s policies on benefits for the frail and elderly who, no longer a viable employment prospect, look on their future with fear? So what is the scale of the matter? Before it recently emerged into the news through the processes of the law, there was no apparent awareness of it among the electorate at large. It was not an issue during that last election. The entire dispute in this case is another irrelevance when the urgent need is to end a society under the rule of the likes of Cameron and his lies. To end, in other words, this present situation where those who can vote do so as a kind of civic suicide.

Ivan

Halo Halo!: A religious understanding (2011)

The Halo Halo! column from the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

I love being handed leaflets in the street. If I’d saved every one I’ve ever been given I’d have thousands. Come to think of it, I must have handed out a few thousand socialist leaflets myself over the years. But it’s the more amateurish, home-made looking ones that fascinate me.

The brightly coloured ones on multi-folded squares of paper that were probably done on a 60’s home printing kit are the best. And if the person distributing them seems to be slightly embarrassed about handing them out that’s also a good sign. So when I was approached recently by a man in orange trousers with a fistful of leaflets and a large cross dangling from a piece of string, who had been standing next to a puddle in Luton town centre, I knew I was onto a winner.

“Just as Adam and Eve chose to believe in themselves so people since have been living and dying in exclusion from the tree of life,” it started. Magic! Pure poetry. But that was just the beginning. I turned to the back and read on. “. . . then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues as the spirit gave them utterance”. Wow, I thought. That’s what you call utterance.

“What’s this speaking in tongues all about?” I asked.

The man introduced himself as George. “If you’d like to experience communication with the holy spirit you can come to a meeting tonight,” he explained excitedly.

“Will you be speaking in tongues?”

“Yes,” he promised.

“What’s the purpose of that?”

George thought for a moment and referred me to another passage in his leaflet. “God wants us to identify with Jesus’ death in our place by being baptised, and receiving his life. When you receive this God immediately leads you in an unlearned prayer language.”

“I see,” but George knew I wasn’t convinced. He scanned the leaflet for a more relevant passage.

“It’s about our spiritual awakening,” he eventually offered.

“Do you have to speak in tongues for that?”

“Of course not, it’s a spiritual gift from God,” he explained patiently.

“So if I come to the meeting and you speak in tongues how will I know what you’re saying?”

He looked at me as if I were a bit dim. “The speaker himself won’t know the meaning of his actual words,” he explained. “So you won’t. You might think it sounds a bit like Swahili.”

“I don’t speak Swahili,” I confessed.

“No,” admitted George, “nor do I.”

“So it might be pointless,” I suggested. “A bit like the conversation we’re having now.”

George could see I was a lost cause. He was a patient man but my spiritual awareness was obviously not up to the standard required. “That’s it. The discussion’s over,” he snapped and stomped off back to his puddle.

So I’m no wiser about speaking in tongues than I was before. If you’re interested in finding out more for yourself though the meetings are in Luton on Wednesday nights, 7.30. Bring an interpreter – on second thoughts, don’t, that might confuse the issue.

NW

World capitalism (2011)

Book Review from the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ending the Crisis of Capitalism or Ending Capitalism? Samir Amin. Pambazuka Press. 2011

Samir Amin was one of the pioneers of “dependency theory” in the 1970s. Its exponents regarded capitalism as a single world system divided into a centre which exploited the “periphery”. They challenged the conventional view, held also by those Amin here calls “historical Marxists” (which would include us), that the sort of capitalism that exists at the centre could develop in the periphery. This was impossible, they claimed, as, to continue to exist, the centre needed a dependant periphery to exploit for what Amin calls “monopoly rent” (and Lenin called “super-profits”).

This led Amin to Maoism and its modification of the famous slogan at the end of the Communist Manifesto into “Workers and Oppressed Peoples of All Lands Unite”. He still stands by this slogan and is still sympathetic to Maoism.

In this book he argues that capitalism developed in the centre by dispossessing those who worked on the land. In the 19th century these dispossessed were able to emigrate, in particular to the US where capital accumulation in search of labour-power was expanding. Capitalism, he says, is still developing by dispossessing the peasantry, this time in the South, but this time there is nowhere for the dispossessed to migrate to. So, they are condemned to vegetate in dire poverty. Pauperisation is still inherent in capitalist development.

He sees world socialism as the only way out but envisages it as coming into being just as capitalism did over centuries, with the countries of the South breaking the link to the centre (now merged into a single imperialism of the US, Europe and Japan which he calls the “Triad”) and developing on a non-capitalist basis.

While we do not share this perspective (there can be no non-capitalist development within world capitalism), or the view that the centre depends on “monopoly rent” from the South (they are just ordinary profits) we can credit the dependency theorists with bringing out the fact that capitalism is a single world system, not just a collection of national capitalisms, real or potential.

Adam Buick

Proper Gander: Cabarets in the lunch hour (2011)

The Proper Gander Column from the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sitting down to watch The British At Work (BBC2), you soon realise that this documentary series has been beamed in from a parallel universe. The first hint that it doesn’t relate to our world comes in presenter Kirsty Young’s preamble. She says “chances are that most of you . . . will firmly believe that you, like me, have spent the day doing a job you enjoy. . . . And I’m pretty sure you feel that you’re part of a workforce where everyone’s treated with respect”. In Young’s world, anyone can stride confidently around London, empowered and fulfilled.

But working life wasn’t always like this, even in the perfect society where Young lives. The first episode covers employment trends between 1945 and 1964, when this other universe was black-and-white, all working men wore cloth caps and all the women had their bottoms pinched. The programme tells us how sexism and racism were problems caused by the ignorance of these workers alone. And it was their backward and pessimistic outlooks which led to laziness and inefficiency. The unions only made things worse by focusing solely on pedantically following every rule about demarcation to the letter. Before these workers were saved by health and safety legislation, they actually worked in places harmful to their well-being. However, the occasional workplace death could be excused because the bosses looked after their staff, with yearly outings to the seaside and cabarets in the lunch hour.

So, although this parallel universe has some superficial similarities, its history isn’t quite the same as ours. And some concepts and words have a different meaning there to what we would recognise. In Young’s world, ‘the working class’ just means manual labourers, preferably with a funny accent and fusty clothes. ‘The bosses’ is a more vague term, meaning both capitalists (who always wore top hats) and the workers in bowler hats we would call managers. The society described by Young doesn’t seem to have a capitalist class at all now, since top hats went out of fashion.

The BBC should be applauded for having the technology to send its film crews to this other universe. Maybe they are there most of the time, as programmes like South Riding and Silk also seem to be set in places with different rules about how workplaces function. If only they would film more in the real world.

Mike Foster

Manufacturing gossip (2011)

The Commemorative Royal Tea Towel.

From the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

If self-portraits and liberal commonsense are any guide, we should be thankful for the press, and most particularly for the BBC. The purpose of news journalism is to present a neutral report of the relevant facts so that citizens in a democracy can make informed judgements and hold those in power to account. That’s the theory. It’s worth having a quick look at the gap between theory and practice.

On 2 March, on a page dedicated to the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton that will take place on 29 April, and which excitedly and prominently displays how many days there are to go till the big day, the BBC website ‘reported’ that ‘speculation has been rife about the bride’s dress’. This was an introduction to a ‘behind-the-scenes glimpse of the work involved in the creation of a couture wedding gown’, and formed merely the start of a dedicated journalistic enterprise that brought us up-to-date information on what the happy couple did on pancake day, how Kate might deal with her first foreign trip, and a useful guide to ‘five things we know about the wedding (and five we don’t)’. (In case you’re wondering, we know when and where the wedding will be held; we don’t yet know whether William will ‘fulfil’ his ‘destiny’.)

All of this is no doubt essential information for citizens of a democracy who need to make informed judgements. No doubt the journalists who wrote it are doing a marvellous job holding those in power to account. But there can only be one reaction to the news that ‘speculation is rife’ when it comes to the royal wedding. It’s the reaction the late comedian Bill Hicks gave when George Bush Snr solemnly informed us that the world is a dangerous place: “Yeah, thanks to you, you fucker.” In other words, the sources of the ‘speculation’ are largely the very people who report on the speculation.

This brings us to another myth about the news media, which is that, if they can indeed be charged with filling their pages and programming with meaningless trivia and gossip, then this is only because that’s what people want. But this is also false. In a survey of 1,006 British adults conducted by market research agency ComRes in November 2010, for example, a clear majority said they were ‘not excited’ by the wedding. Of the sample, some 31% said they ‘couldn’t care less’ about the event and a further 28% described themselves as ‘largely indifferent’. Clearly, speculation was not ‘rife’ everywhere.

So, given that the wedding is of no significance to democratic decision-making, nor in holding those in power to account, nor in responding to public demand, what can account for the press’s blanket coverage? It’s relatively simple. The government and the royal family spend millions of pounds on public relations – and that money brings results. The first task of a supine journalist is to rewrite press releases from the PR departments of corporations and government. (The fact that ‘investigative journalism’ needs a special name tells you all you need to know about the ordinary kind.) In short, what we are fed in the news is not news at all, but propaganda – it’s what the people in power want us to know, what they want us to think, what they want us to be concerned with. Gossip about a royal wedding fits that purpose just fine. 

William Morris on Revolution (2011)

From the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often forced to use, has a terrible sound in most people’s ears, even when we have explained to them that it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot and all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made mechanically and in the teeth of opinion by a group of men who have somehow managed to seize on the executive power for the moment. Even when we explain that we use the word revolution in its etymological sense, and mean by it a change in the basis of society, people are scared at the idea of such a vast change, and beg that you will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can’t help thinking that it would be a mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal beneath its harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means a change of the basis of society…” 

William Morris, How We Live and How We Might Live (1887).

Reflections on revolution (2011)

From the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

What are the lessons of recent events in North Africa?

Revolution is in the air, or at least the word is. The media talked of a “Tunisian Revolution” in January and of an “Egyptian Revolution” in February. In a weak, narrow sense of the word this could be said to be true. In both countries a long-established dictator was overthrown as a first step towards establishing political democracy, the only kind of democracy that capitalism can offer.

Already some changes have been made, even though many of the personnel of the old regime are still in place. There is less arbitrary police repression. There is freedom of speech and to organise into trade unions independent of employers and the government. If this is consolidated it will represent an advantage from a working-class and socialist viewpoint. Workers will have more elbow-room to fight the class struggle and it will be much easier for socialists to express their views.

But it is still only a political change, at most a political revolution, that leaves unchanged the capitalist basis of society. Any more representative government that emerges will be no more able to make capitalism work in the interests of all than can the elected governments of countries where political democracy has long existed.

Political revolution

In his 1970 book on Revolution in the “Key Concepts in Political Science” series Peter Calvert defined ‘revolution’ as “referring to events in which physical force (or the convincing threat of it) has actually been used successfully to overthrow a government or regime”. He concluded by advising political science to retain the word “as a political term covering all forms of violent change of government or regime originating internally”.

This fits in with the popular concept of revolution as a violent act. But it rules out calling a revolution the sort of non-violent overthrow of a government that occurred in Tunisia and Egypt. And not just the changes there but also those in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s where it was also determined but peaceful mass demonstrations that brought about a change of political system.

Calvert’s definition of political revolution would seem to need refining, to take into account such non-violent changes of political system. Not of course any non-violent change of government as the leader of the Fine Gael party in Ireland (now the Prime Minister) absurdly claimed when he described his party’s electoral victory in February as a “democratic revolution at the ballot box” in which “people didn’t take to the streets, they took to the ballot boxes”. The change of government in Ireland was not a revolution in any sense of the term, merely a change of capitalist government brought about through the normal constitutional procedures in a capitalist political democracy.

But even if the concept of political revolution is extended to include a change of government brought about by essentially peaceful but non-constitutional means this still limits the definition of revolution to a political change only.

Social revolution

Socialists too want a revolution but one involving much more than a change of political control. We want a social revolution, a revolution in the basis of society. In that sense our conception of revolution is nearer to that accepted by Martin Oppenheimer (as formulated by Chalmers Johnson) in his 1969 book Urban Guerrilla:

  “A sweeping, fundamental change in political organization, social structure, economic property control, and the predominant myth of social order, thus indicating a major break in the continuity of development.”

On this definition there was no revolution in Tunisia or Egypt, nor in Eastern Europe. But events there are still relevant to the concept of socialist revolution as we see the first step in this revolution as being a political revolution in the sense of a change in who controls the state. We also think that, in established political democracies, this could be done non-violently through the ballot box.

This has been challenged by others, who have argued that the entrenched ruling class would never allow this to happen and that the only way they can be dislodged is through civil war and violent insurrection. Faced with an impending socialist election victory, their argument goes, the capitalist ruling class would abolish political democracy and, even if they let things go so far as an actual socialist election victory, would not respect it and would carry on ruling regardless.

The overthrow of the democratically-elected Allende government in Chile by a military coup in 1973 always used to be cited as confirmation of this. Quite apart from the fact that Allende and his government were not socialist, they never had the electoral, let alone the active, support of a majority of the population – which in our view is an essential condition for the establishment and functioning of socialism.

This is a view our critics do not share. They are not thinking, as we are, in terms of a majoritarian revolution, one involving the active and democratic participation of a majority of the population. They envisage only a minority-led revolution, with an active minority leading a mass of merely discontented but not socialist-minded workers. It is quite true that, faced with such an attempted revolution, the ruling class is likely to resist violently, with a reasonable chance of success.

Even if such a revolution were to succeed it would not, and could not, lead to socialism. As Martin Oppenheimer pointed out, with regard to the majority class of industrial and white collar workers:

 “The revolution rules in their name, but they do not rule. In their absence from effective participation in the revolution, the same thing happens that happens in a peasant-based revolution: gradually the leaders of a minority-led revolution become a new bureaucracy, a new class of rulers… Modern society is ripe for the domination of bureaucracy, in the absence of a revolutionary working class. Perhaps the leader of a minority revolution is not himself irrevocably lost, but his revolution is.”

Unless a majority of industrial and white collar workers want socialism and organise themselves without leaders to get it then socialism is impossible. On the other hand, if they do want it, nothing can stop them getting it, not even a hypothetical abolition of political democracy by a recalcitrant capitalist government. It is this that the recent events in North Africa confirm. Capitalist political dictatorships there couldn’t even stop a determined majority that wanted limited, political democracy. How much less would a capitalist political dictatorship be able to stop the more determined and more organised majority that one wanting socialism would be?

Pro-capitalist coup?

No government can continue to govern in the face of active opposition from those they govern. Answering a question from a correspondent who asked what we would do if, faced with a socialist election victory, the pro-capitalist government suspended the constitution and attempted to rule by decree, the Socialist Standard of November 1933 reformulated the question as “Can a capitalist minority which happens to have control of the machinery of Government continue indefinitely to govern and make capitalism function, in the face of the organised opposition of a majority of Socialists?” and answered:

  “It is not possible for a minority to maintain its hold in those circumstances. Faced with the hostility of a majority of workers (including, of course, workers in the civil and armed forces, as well as workers in productive and distributive occupations), the capitalist minority would be unable, in the long run, to enforce its commands and the workers would be able to dislocate production and transport. In such circumstances the capitalists would themselves be divided. Not all of them would be disposed to provoke chaotic conditions in an heroic last-ditch struggle.”

The reply went on to make the point that “a look at the way in which governments do behave in face of a hostile majority under existing conditions will show how impossible it is for any minority to retain cohesion and to act decisively when it is conscious of being actively opposed by the majority”. And invited the correspondent “to name a single instance of a capitalist minority managing to maintain its hold on the machinery of government for any length of time in face of the organised and united opposition of a majority of the population”, adding “We know of no such instance.”

The recent events in North Africa, like those in Eastern Europe twenty or so years ago, confirm this. Faced with the active opposition of the population of their countries the Tunisian and Egyptian dictators quit. The governments there were divided and did at first try violent repression (hundreds were killed) but, faced with the continued courageous determination of the demonstrators, they were not prepared to provoke the chaos that violent repression would have entailed,  especially not mutinies in the armed forces as their members refused to shoot down unarmed demonstrators. Ceausescu in Rumania and Gaddafi in Libya were exceptions that proved the rule. They did stage a last-ditch stand and duly provoked the mutinies and defections and chaos.

We take comfort from these events as they show that, once there is a socialist majority, socialism will be inevitable. Even if a pro-capitalist minority somewhere were to try to prevent a change of political control via the ballot box, the socialist majority will still be able to impose its will by other means, such as street demonstrations and strikes. But we doubt that it will come to that. But if it did, it wouldn’t stop socialism being eventually established, one way or another.

Royal Welding (2011)

From the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Scientists have almost succeeded in crossing an endangered inbred species with a specimen from the related species homo-partius-animalis. The splicing of Prince William of Diana, KFC with the Right Ordinary Kate Middlebrow will take place under closed circuit conditions in front of 1900 specially invited observers, with appropriate ambient vibrations provided by a bank of sterilised musical ‘pop’ androids, before the couple retire into a private mansion to bonk out what is hoped will be the next generation of media darlings. “It’s pretty crucial they get this right”, said one mating specialist, “as results have been so disappointing for the last three generations. There’s a real danger the line may go extinct, or gaga, and Britain could end up being a garden-variety republic like France.”

Experts say that it is quite hard to train royal breeds as they have a tendency to run off at the mouth and look stupid in front of cameras, or else punch the people holding the cameras. They have to be kept on a severely rich diet and protected from work and other hereditary allergies while at the same time being represented as ‘normal’ people who ‘do things’. They are secluded from prying spotters yet must remain visible enough so that people can remember who they are. They are surrounded by obsequious flunkies and then told that they are ‘serving the nation’. They must be prevented from expressing opinions and embarrassing themselves in public, since like many celebrities they tend to believe that because everyone is looking at them they must be clever people with something to say. Finally they must at all times profess their loyalty and devotion to a political system which regards them as anachronistic nobodies who should by all historical logic and precedent have long since been shot in a cellar. Not surprisingly these restrictive and paradoxical conditions often lead to strange and delusional behaviour, especially in the elder males. Many of them tend to speak in a strangulated squeak from permanently contracted sphincters, a conditioned reflex learned from their public school upbringing. The females often go off the rails entirely and have to call in Lord Max of Hastings to conduct damage limitation.

For the sartorially curious, Kate Middleroad will be wearing a dress worth several African dictators. William’s younger brother and best man will turn up in a Nazi uniform for a bit of a lark and a nod to their forebears. Charles will be dressed as a cactus.

Wills, as the adoring public love to call him according to the Daily Mail, saw active service behind the lines of bodyguards and became a highly trained helicopter pilot, a fact that may come in useful if ever the republicans stage a coup and the Royal Benefit-Scroungers need to do a swift bunk to Sweden. He is descended from many notable English monarchs including Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Ivor the Cutler and Vlad the Impaler. However, anti-royal spoilsports may retort that this pedigree is genetically spurious, since like all humans Willy probably shares more genes with the Neanderthals than he does with his great-great-great-grandfather.

Wills gets given a dukedom as a wedding present, which lasts a bit longer than a set of towels from BHS. Meanwhile we get a day off, which lasts a day. But hey, let’s not be churlish. It’s a bit of a show, a bit of pomp, a bit of nonsense our descendants will scratch their heads over. And it’s no worse than the X-Factor.

HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE! (Trans: if you don’t like it, f**k you!)

Paddy Shannon

Tiny Tips (2011)

The Tiny Tips column from the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

MEXICO CITY (AFP) – A 19-year-old Mexican woman was in the ninth day of a hunger strike in front of the British embassy, demanding an invitation to the wedding of Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton, she told AFP:

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An American couple who have sailed the world with a yacht full of Bibles were hijacked by Somali pirates, and the U.S. said Saturday it is assessing possible options:

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A record 5.26 million people worked unpaid overtime last year, clocking up an average of more than seven hours a week without pay, according to a new study. The TUC said workers were missing out on almost £5,500 a year, worth £29bn to the economy. One in five employees regularly put in extra unpaid hours last year, with public-sector workers most likely to work unpaid overtime, said the TUC:

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21-year-old Sacha Hall is facing trial for allegedly helping herself to food that had been thrown out and was awaiting disposal:

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“We must be prudent. We know what our political line is: We don’t support invasions, or massacres, or anything like that no matter who does it. A campaign of lies is being spun together regarding Libya,” said Chavez, in a televised speech. “I’m not going to condemn him (Gadaffi),” he said.“I’d be a coward to condemn someone who has been my friend”:

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Joseph Nye of Harvard’s Kennedy School wrote in The New Republic in 2007 that Muammar Qaddafi was interested in discussing “direct democracy.” Anthony Giddens of the London School of Economics wrote in the Guardian the same year that Libya under Qaddafi could become “the Norway of North Africa.” Benjamin Barber of Rutgers University wrote in the Washington Post, also in 2007, that Libya under Gaddafi could become “the first Arab state to transition peacefully and without overt Western intervention to a stable, non-autocratic government.” Great minds think alike? Actually, no: all were being paid by Libyan money, under a $3 million per year contract with a consulting group which promised to “enhance the profile of Libya and Muammar Gaddaffi” in Britain and the US:

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Death threats from Muslim fundamentalists have forced a British Imam to retract his claim that Islam is compatible with Darwin’s theory of evolution.

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‘This week a report by government advisor Lord Hutton stating that public sector workers should work for ten years longer, for less pay, was released on the same day as the Forbes Rich list, which showed  that the number of billionaires in the world has risen from 1011 to 1210 in one year. If you plotted a graph of the wealth of the richest people in the world it would be shooting off the charts, with loads of fat cats looking on, toasting each other and chuffing on cigars:

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50 Years Ago: Jomo Kenyatta (2011)

The 50 Years Ago column from the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir Patrick Renson, the Governor of Kenya, recently refused to release Jomo Kenyatta and gave two reasons for his decision. They were:

  “The political campaign for Kenyatta’s release, ‘which has roused many emotions and which has not allowed divisions and personal fears a natural atmosphere in which to diminish.’
Kenyatta’s refusal to ‘make any statement or reveal his thinking about the great issues which Kenya is facing,’ in spite of the fact that six Ministers, including three Africans, had visited him in August’…”

Dictators have often put people in jail, or kept them in exile, because they have “made statements” or “revealed their thinking” about public issues; this must be the first time a political leader has been kept in exile because he refused to take up a political stand

The Socialist position is straightforward. We are opposed to any attack on democratic freedoms, whether it is jailing for political reasons, restrictions on the right to vote, or any other weapon in the colonialists’ armoury. But we are not blind to the real nature of the struggle in Kenya, it is the old struggle between land and capital. It is the old struggle between capitalists, whether they are those who hope to establish full-scale industrial capitalism in Kenya, or those who have already established it in Great Britain. We welcome any extension of democracy in Kenya which this struggle between two rival propertied classes has produced or will produce. But we know that democracy is never safe in a capitalist society. That has been seen in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, in Czechoslovakia and the rest. Only in a Socialist society will democracy be safe from overthrow.

(from ‘The Passing Show’, Socialist Standard, April 1961)

Irish Election result: no change (2011)

From the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

  This was an election about which set of politicians was to impose austerity. The Outs got the job.

There was a text doing the rounds in Ireland a few weeks ago which tried to capture the financial issue paralysing the country. ‘American tourist goes into a hotel in a small Irish town and, requesting to view the room, leaves €100 deposit with the manager. The hotel owner runs across the road to the butchers to pay off €100 account owed, the butcher immediately goes to the pub to clear €100 bar tab, the barman goes next door to the town prostitute to pay €100 he owes her from the night before, she goes to the hotel to pay the €100 she owed in room rentals. Just as she leaves, the American tourist comes back to the reception saying he doesn’t like the room and takes his €100 back. The tourist leaves town with everyone having cleared their debts’

The story illustrates nicely what socialists have always known; that the fiscal merry-go-round of capitalism is an illusion. However it is precisely that illusion that became the centre of the debate leading up the recent general election in Ireland as the electorate became fixated by the apparent choices put before them by the main parties as to who could better manage the necessary negotiations with the EU and the IMF on the countries €85bn debt and who was best able to fill the gapping €15bn deficit in the nation’s budget.

This was the first general election since the Celtic Tiger had taken its last roar, lost all its teeth, became mangy and thin and eventually lay down and died. An economy that had enjoyed an average of 8 percent growth during the boom was found to be built on sand. After 2002 growth had been driven disproportionately by a madly over-heated property and construction sector funded by banks who believed that valuations would go up forever.

Ireland was building 75000 residential units a year, for a population of fewer than 5 million when the UK was building fewer houses than that for a population 10 times the size. We had 5-star spa Hotels opening every other day and the main cities were a forest of construction cranes. Developers were the new aristocrats, living in ostentatious luxury supported not by the proceeds of their businesses but from more and more bank borrowings.  Fianna Fail (FF), the main party of government, were complicit with their ill-conceived property tax breaks, Europe’s lowest corporation tax and a virtual absence of financial regulation. When the global banking crisis hit, the Irish house of cards fell quicker and harder than most. For the coalition government of Fianna Fail and their minority Green Party partner, most of 2010 was spent lurching from crisis to crisis whilst sorting out a bail out the EU and the IMF.

The Soldiers’ Destiny

Brian Cowan, the Taoiseach saw his ruling Fianna Fail party routed. The Party which has been in power for longer than any other since the establishment of the state saw the writing on the wall. Cowan resigned as leader in the run-up to the election and in the days that followed, his Ministers and TDs (MPs) formed a long and disreputable queue to announce that they would not be seeking re-election. They did so in the sure and certain knowledge that they were facing humiliation in the polls and so took the chance to benefit from the soon-to-be-cut severance payments to outgoing TDs, although most claimed health reasons for their decision not to stand – proof if proof was needed that this had indeed been a sick government. Their lacklustre newly-elected leader Micheal Martin bore the expression of the condemned man. His natural political arrogance however enabled him to attempt to convince the electorate that, despite the fact that he had been a long standing minister in the outgoing government, really none of the mistakes were down to him, that he had a brave new plan and the experience to deliver it. Actions though belied his words. His Party didn’t even field enough candidates to form a majority administration – a first for an outgoing governing party.

All the opposition parties could smell blood. It was clear that the parties of government were going to get a hammering. The main opposition parties Fine Gael (FG), under the leadership of Enda Kenny and the Labour Party under Eammon Gilmore knew that this was their big opportunity for power and the smaller parties such as Sein Fein could see the chance of a land grab.

The election was extraordinary if the result merely predictable. Not extraordinary in the usual boring predictable way that a disreputable government gets routed by the opposition, in the way Blair’s New Labour did to the Tories or as was done in turn to Labour last year by the shiney posh boys of Conservative/Libdems. This was different in a number of respects.

Firstly, the outgoing Fianna Fail/Green government managed to get cross-party support for the passing of a Finance Bill in the last few days of government. The need for a quickly agreed Finance Bill was a condition of the EU/IMF bailout. That the main opposition parties were complicit in letting it get passed was a result of their desperation to grab power at any cost and knowing that any delay in the passing of the bill would only delay an election being called. In doing so they enabled a Bill which ranks amongst the most vicious attack on the poor in recent memory. The cavernous budget deficit was to be brought under control to meet conditions imposed by Europe. The principle was that the gap would be closed by budget cuts and tax increases to the proportion of 60:40. The 60 percent that is to come from budget cuts will see swinging cuts to social benefits, health services, education and every conceivable social and cultural subsidy. The tax elements overwhelming hit the poor including the cynically named universal social charge set at 7 percent.

So any perspective party of government, in their indecent haste to get into power, in effect committed themselves to the fiscal and budgetary policies of the outgoing government.

Another extraordinary feature of the run up to the election was the level of public anger and disillusionment at party politics and the lack of belief that any of the parties provided a plausible alternative. This became reflected in the unprecedented number of independents who stood. Indeed, there was a point in the early days of campaigning that it even appeared that there may have been a coalition of independents into a brave new political party. That was not to be but it was to prove the strongest ever showing for independents, winning almost 3 times as many seats than in the last general election.

New faces, same policy

The lack of faith by the electorate in a plausible opposition was evidenced by the respective leaders. The most positive thing that the collective media were able to say of FG leader Enda Kenny after each of the televised leadership debates was that he hadn’t messed up. Kenny, who is now Taoiseach, is a man untroubled by deep thought. He appeals, as does his party, to rural catholic Ireland, boasting recently that he ‘ate his dinner in the middle of the day’; a nod to his farming constituents. The Labour party Leader, Eammon Gilmore, in all his pompous self importance, was a man determined to lead his party into government at any cost; principle was a small price to pay. The Labour Party knew this was their big chance but they also calculated correctly that their only real hope of achieving that, was as a minority coalition partner to the right of centre FG party. Such a potential ethical dilemma troubled them little so, not only did they facilitate the passing of the pernicious Finance Bill but it was clear that they were having coalition negotiations with FG from the earliest days of the election.

A more principled Labour Party may have seen the obvious anger and desperation of a country which might have welcomed a more radical Labour alternative. It’s not like the peril of minority coalition wasn’t obvious to them. The minority Green partner in the outgoing coalition had in recent month become a national laughing stock and got their just deserts in the election in which they lost every single seat – obliterated! And Labour must also have looked across the water at the pathetic spectacle of the Liberal Democrats writing their political obituary for a term in office.

Labour’s lack of edge was truly stunning. Gilmore’s apparent outrage at the fiscal irresponsibility of the last government has been exposed as only skin deep. Labour’s election stance was different by imperceptible degrees. They made major principles out of the smallest detail such as the timeframe over which the deficit was to be managed, the proportionality of cuts versus tax increases or the extent of public sector reform. What they demonstrated was that their intent, just like FF and FG, was to run the system in the interest of the capitalist class. No proposal on a wealth tax or an immediate cessation of the tax breaks for the wealthy. Indeed it is remarkable that not one party, let alone Labour, proposed an increase in the disproportionately low Corporation Tax in Ireland. At 12.5 percent it is significantly below the rest of Europe (UK 21-28 percent) and is the principle driver of foreign direct investment into the country. Even a small increase in that tax would make a significant contribution to the deficit but all of the parties bought into the threats of the business community of a mass exodus of overseas investment. It is an empty threat and that all of the parties bought it exposes both their spineless self interest and basic economic ignorance. The idea that Google, Intel, HP et al would unwind €100’s million of investment and infrastructure to avoid a few percent of increase is an empty threat.

Neither has either the main opposition parties proposed any risk to the International Bond Holders who funded the Irish Banks in their drunken gorge fest. When the Irish government bailed out these criminally irresponsible banks, it made sure there was fair play in protecting not just the life savings of Mr and Mrs Murphy but also the bond investments of international capital. That commitment to these wealthy hedge funds and their like is to be protected in the next government paid for by the Irish people through savage cuts.

Themselves alone

The only sizable party which tried to articulate anything resembling an alternate voice was the reformed terrorists of Sinn Fein (SF). It was however a very feeble attempt at being radical as their illiteracy in even bourgeois economics was exposed. Their leader Gerry Adams, who gave up his UK parliamentary seat to stand in the republican heartland of Co Louth, showed just how much of a one issue politician he is, as he struggled with the basics of economics, social policy and even cultural life South of the border. His incredulous continued denial of having been a former member of the IRA did not trouble his hard-line supporters who voted him in. It has however fastened his reputation as a fraud.

Five “far left” TDs were elected under the umbrella of the United Left Alliance, an election pact between Irish sections of Militant and the SWP. It will be instructive to see whether or not they use their seats to act as a megaphone for socialism or simply to press for reforms (actually, we know the answer). The others are a complete rag bag ranging from right wing euro-sceptics to traditional rural conservatives who solely deliver ‘favours’ to their constituents in the expectation of being re-elected.

The result has been quite extraordinary as shown (see chart). The effect however will prove to be very much less extraordinary. FG and Labour spent 10 days in talks agreeing a coalition and programme for government. The media have welcomed this programme uncritically ignoring the fact that it reflects for the most part the conditions as imposed by the IMF and the terms of the Finance Bill, passed by the outgoing government.

What is a cast iron certainty is the Irish working class face many years of the most severe punishment for the unbridled free market sins of capitalism. What is also certain is that the new government will pay the price of taking on the job as whipping boy for the system.

Brian Montague