The Passing Show: The Eternal Triangle (1952)

The Passing Show Column from the October 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Eternal Triangle

The attitude of the United States over the Anglo-Persian oil dispute is instructive in view of the protestations of everlasting friendship and alliance which regularly emanate from leading politicians and businessmen in both Britain and America. The British capitalist case is simple. Persia, says the British Government, has stolen the plant and machinery and oil belonging to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and has gone back on the Concession of 1933, by which Persia gave permission to the Company to work its oil. If you believe in the sanctity of private property, this case is unassailable.

Pandering to the Natives

But in spite of the natural attraction of such an attitude to a great capitalist power like America, and in spite of the “ties of blood” which are supposed to connect the two “Anglo-Saxon Powers,” Britain and America are far from being in agreement about the problem. If blood is thicker than water, then oil is thicker than blood. For America wants to secure for itself the valuable Persian supply of oil, and at all costs it wants to prevent it falling into Russian hands; and in order to attain these objectives, it is prepared to disregard the feelings of British capitalists, and even the prized theory of the inviolability of private property. However, America does not want to be too open about its aims. After all, Britain has an important place in American plans for the next war as an unsinkable aircraft-carrier, and so far the natives have been remarkably friendly. There are 30,000 American airmen in Britain, plus anti-aircraft forces and army engineers—easily the largest foreign force ever stationed in Britain in peacetime. Yet Britain has been most deferential in her treatment of these foreign armed troops. For example, members of the American armed forces accused of any crime in Britain are prosecuted in American courts; a concession which Britain herself has not been able to obtain for her own troops in Japan, as the case of the sailors at Kobe emphasised. 

In these circumstances, the Americans do not want to be too blatant in their coercion of the British over Persian oil.

#    #    #    #

Iron Hand

But although for these reasons the Americans are wearing the velvet glove, the iron hand is still there beneath. Her oilmen have been beating a path to the door of Dr. Mossadeq, the sworn enemy of the British. Mr. Alton Jones, director of the U.S. Cities Service Oil Corporation, has been touring Abadan and other oil centres, from which the British were expelled, accompanied by representatives of the National Iranian Oil Company and the Persian Government, which expelled them. On September 4th he was said to have “submitted a report to the Prime Minister discussing the possibility of a resumption of oil flow from Persia.” Four days later the American oil buyers Mr. Richard Nelson and Mr. Gerald Waldron, who earlier this year signed a contract agreeing to buy three million tons of Persian oil every year for five years, arrived in Teheran; it was reported that they handed over £70,000 as a first instalment. And it seems unlikely that American businessmen would part with that much money unless they were pretty sure that the American Government would support them against British capitalism which is at present maintaining a virtual embargo on the export of oil from Persia.

#    #    #    #

Truman first, Churchill second

In order to put a better appearance on things, America joined with Britain at the end of August to submit new proposals to Persia. The Note was signed by Harry S. Truman and Winston S. Churchill in that order, and this is symbolic of the order in which the interests of British and American capitalism are consulted in the proposals. Seldom has British capitalism lost so much prestige in the course of a single short statement. For in the Note;

1. Britain accepts the fact of nationalisation, that is of the “theft” by Persia of British capitalist property.
2. It is suggested that the question of compensation be submitted to the International Court of Justice, which has already, in July, refused the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s appeal that it should decide the question of the ownership of the oil, saying that the matter lay outside its jurisdiction.
3. It is agreed that the International Court shall also take into consideration the Persian claims in respect of the revenue it has lost as a result of its action in nationalising its oil.
4. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company offers to buy the oil which was produced under its management, by its technicians, and is now stored in what were formerly its own tanks in Abadan.
5. The British Government promises (if Persia accepts these terms) to relax restrictions on exports to Persia and on Persia’s use of sterling; and the American Government promises an immediate gift of ten million dollars to Persia.

But Dr. Mossadeq, evidently believing that if America could force Britain to make such sweeping concessions, he will be able to get anything he asks for, has replied making even more demands.

#    #    #    #

Jackals

What can be said of the undignified role played by the British Conservative Government in this affair ? The Tories came to power after an election in which all of them, but particularly their leader Mr. Churchill, made grandiloquent and bombastic speeches promising to lift British capitalism again to a position of power and leadership in world affairs; and in the event, the realities of power have forced Mr. Churchill to play the jackal to the Americans just as much as Mr. Attlee ever did. There is now no apter phrase to describe the leader of the British Tories than that which he himself once used to jibe at Mussolini—“this sawdust Caesar.”

#    #    #    #

Cause and effect

So many people have been trying their hands recently at suggesting new reasons for war that it seems to have become almost a new kind of parlour game. The main suggestions are fairly well known. Wars break out, it is said, because the other side have always been aggressive. Others say the last peace treaty was too strong, or was not strong enough. Or perhaps you prefer the view which sees the Russians, or the Americans, as inspired by the Devil, and thinks of Moscow, or Washington, as merely branch offices of Hell. There are even those who think we have a lot of wars nowadays because it was forecast in the Bible (this being the view so far as the writer understands it, of the Jehovah's Witnesses). Again, there are the sporting reasons—wars break out because Hitler, or Stalin, never learnt to play cricket in his youth, or because the rival statesmen have never shot grouse together in Scotland (see last month’s Socialist Standard for an elucidation of this interesting new theory).

#    #    #    #

He said Hello, but it sounded aggressive

One of the most remarkable of recent suggestions was made to a hall-full of sober scientists at the Belfast meeting of the British Association. The Dally Herald (5-9-52) reported it like this;

“Dr. P. L. Richardson, a Scottish research worker, has spent twelve years studying the relationship between language and war. And, he said, he found there was ‘something bellicose' associated with the Spanish language, and that those who spoke Chinese were likely to be more pacific."

We must certainly give the learned doctor credit for disinterestedness. That is to say. he has made no attempt to square his conclusions with known facts before presenting them to the public. His examples were unfortunate. Spain, for all its bellicose language, is one of the few European countries which managed to keep out of both World Wars. As for the "more pacific" China, it has scarcely known a year's peace since the Revolution of 1911. The internal quarrel between the Communists and the Kuomintang was only patched up in order that both factions could fight the Japanese. Hardly had they been defeated than the Chinese were at each other's throats again. And no sooner had the Communists thrown Chiang Kai-Shek off the mainland than they were in Korea fighting the Americans.

It surely doesn't need twelve years' research in order to perceive that wars are fought because the rulers of one state want something the rulers of another state already have, and want it so much that they are prepared to make war about it. The question of whether the rulers speak Sanscrit or Patagonian has no effect on this issue.

#    #    #    #

Quiz

Who made these remarks ?

1. "The people are faced with the choice of consuming less or producing more. 'We' have to sell 'our' goods abroad at competitive prices. If 'we’ price ourselves out of world markets ‘we’ will be creating unemployment."

Was it (A) a wealthy businessman speaking to the council of the Federation of British Industries ? or (B) a "working-class leader" speaking to the Trades Union Congress ?

2. “Wage-demands designed merely to cause unrest in trade unionists' minds, and often 'unrelated to reality' but intended only to buttress extreme political views, could be regarded only as a betrayal of union members. Without an increase in productivity, substantial wage-increases were bound to raise costs. The country's economic difficulties will not be lessened if trade unions pursue a policy which inevitably increases production costs and ‘compels' exporters to ask higher prices for their goods."

Was this (A) a Tory M.P. speaking to an audience of shareholders? or (B) another "working-class leader" speaking at the Trades Union Congress ?

3. "We will be betraying British lads at the front if we do not support rearmament."

Was this (A) General Sir Cuthbert Blimp speaking in 1901 ? or (B) a criminal lunatic on the run from Broadmoor ? or (C) yet another “working-class leader" at the T.U.C.?

#    #    #    #

Answers

You were right every time—or you would have been if you had known anything about the present day leaders of the trade unions. For the record, the proud speechmakers were:

1. Mr. Lincoln Evans, member of the General Council of the T.U.C.

2. Mr. Arthur Deakin, president of the T.U.C.

3. Mr. J. F. McDermott, delegate to the T.U.C. from the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers.

#    #    #    # 

Humanity and Reason

On August 17th the following news item was reported from Hamburg by Reuters:

“Dr. Hermann Ehlers, President of the West German Lower House, speaking yesterday during the unveiling ceremony to Hamburg's 50,000 men, women and children who were killed during air raids in the 1939-45 war, said that nobody in Germany and few people in Britain had raised their voices against total warfare.

Therefore we must think of the one man who publicly protested against this kind of warfare—the Lord Bishop of Chichester, he said. 

Today our special respect is due to the lone caller for humanity and reason."

This will be news to members of the Socialist Party. Socialist speakers and writers protested many times during the war both against the war itself and against the inhumanity with which it was being conducted. It seems hard now to see the credit going to a member of the Bench of Bishops, who, as a body, were among the most bloodthirsty supporters of the war. Socialists agreed that the Germans suffered under the Nazi regime but we never saw the argument that we should help to kill them off in their thousands just to prove our sympathy for them. Socialists refused to help in the murder of the German and Japanese workers, and, for that refusal, some of them spent the war years being hunted by the police. Still, we may take this opportunity of telling Dr. Ehlers that we shall be publicly protesting against total war in any third world war too. We shall be calling for humanity and reason, that is to say, for Socialism, at every opportunity we have. And we shall be opposing the slaughter of the Russians, or of any other "enemy” our rulers may select for us.

#    #    #    #

Everything in its place

Mr. Harold Wilson again underlines the difference in the attitude of the Labour and Socialist Parties to war in his latest pamphlet, "The arms programme," he says, “will have to fall into its proper place in our national priorities." So the arms programme has a proper place in our national priorities, Mr. Wilson ? Like the would-be conscientious objector, who to the question "Are you against all wars ?" replied, "Oh no—just this one," the Bevanites are not against all armaments—they just want a few less. One thousand atom bombs, say, instead of one thousand one hundred.

The proper place of the arms programme, Mr. Wilson, is in the policy of capitalist political parties, and that is where it is found. It has no place whatever in Socialist policy.

#    #    #    #

Leave it to the Boss

One man out of step at the T.U.C. was Mr. Walter Stevens, of the Electrical Trades Union, who amidst the calls for moderation and restraint in wage-claims, remarked "We shall all find when we make our wage-claims that the employers themselves will inject a sufficient modicum of restraint and we shall not have to bother."

Mr. Stevens, however, might also pass this on to the workers in Russia who suffer the same injections from his friends there.

Alwyn Edgar

Voice From The Back: Profits And Oily Words (2006)

The Voice From The Back Column from the December 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Profits And Oily Words

You have seen advertisements by oil companies that express concern for the environment and claim they fight global warming. It is of course a fraud. “Britain’s leading scientists have challenged the US oil company Exxon-Mobil to stop funding groups that attempt to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change. In an unprecedented step, the Royal Society, Britain premier scientific academy, has written to the oil giant to demand that the company withdraws support for dozens of groups that have “misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence.” (Guardian, 20 September) Capitalists are only interested in profits, they don’t give a damn about your children or their children’s future. That is capitalism.

A Toxic Society

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimate at least 90,000 people die every year of asbestos related diseases but that didn’t stop the manufacture of the obnoxious material. “Chrysotile asbestos, a known human carcinogen, will remain off a global “watch list” of toxic substances for at least two more years after countries led by Canada blocked consensus in United Nations talks on Friday. … Canada, whose French-speaking Quebec province is a major asbestos producer and exporter, led opposition to its addition to the list, according to environmentalists tracking the talks. Canadian officials say puting chrysotile asbestos on the list would be tantamount to banning international trade in it and threaten jobs.” (Yahoo! News, 13 October) 90,000 deaths a year is a mere inconvenience compared to a couple of bucks for the owning class who make their money from death and disease. That is why we are socialists, also some of us once worked in shipyards, where they used asbestos, and we have difficulty breathing.

Cut Price Killers

“BP, the British oil group, had a “check-book mentality” towards safety and was aware of maintenance backlogs and unsafe equipment at its Texas City refinery years before the fire there in 2005 in which 15 workers died, according to findings from US safety officials. .. Safety was compromised by a succession of budget cuts … The company implemented a 25 per cut on fixed costs between 1998 and 2000 which adversely affected maintenance expenditure at the refinery.” (Times, 31 October) In order to compete inside capitalism firms are constantly trying to cut overheads. In this case leading to the death and injury of many workers. That is how capitalism operates. Nasty aint it?

Gangster Talk

The recent electoral losses of the Republican Party in the USA have led to the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld quitting his post. His political demise led to newspapers running articles on him. Here are a couple of his past statements that were quoted. “Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war” and “You get a lot more with a kind word and a gun than you do with a kind word alone.” (Times, 9 November) It is significant that this last statement of Runsfeld was a quote from the gangster Al Capone. We can understand why a US Defence Secretary would have admired a murderous gangster chief, after all they both lived in a capitalist society based on violence.

Bull In A China Shop

The media mogul Rupert Murdoch has been making strenous efforts to break in to the Chinese market, but in 1993 he made a mess of it by stating, “Advances in the technology of telecommunications are an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.” The Chinese took this threat seriously and imposed strict rules on satellite dishes thus depriving Murdoch’s Star TV of the huge Chinese's potential audience. “The following year Star removed BBC World Television from its Chinese service, in a move that was regarded by many as a sop to the Chinese government.” (Observer, 12 November) Last month Murdoch was in China trying to sweet talk his way in with government officials. When it comes to making money democratic views take a back seat with capitalists like Murdoch. What is suppression of political ideas, imprisonment, torture and death compared with more money to a billionaire? Very little it seems.

An American Myth

Supporters of the profit system often site the USA as a good example of how democratic capitalism really is. They give us the old homily about “log cabin to White House” although today it should probably be “trailer park to White House”. It is of course a complete fallacy as the following item about the recent mid-term election illustrates. “This election proved that it pays to spend big(ger). The average House winner burned through about $1 million on the stump – and the candidate who spent the most won in 93% of House races. The most expensive victory was, oddly, one of the Dems’ safe bets: New York Senator Hillary Clinton, who won a second term with 67% of the vote – and $35.9 million.” (Time, 20 November) Forget the myths, for a lot of Americans it is “trailer park to trailer park”.

News in Review: The Pope and peace (1965)

The News in Review column from the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Pope and peace

Of course it made some nice headlines for the newspapers; but the one thing the Pope's visit to New York last month was not concerned with was peace.

It is difficult to imagine anyone being taken in by the Pope’s speech, so numerous and familiar are the appeals and declarations which are constantly being made on the subject—often by politicians who are up to their necks in war.

None of the world leaders who make these appeals ever has the slightest difficulty in excusing the wars in which he gets involved. None of them ever has any difficulty in excusing the most horrible of atrocities; all of them are concerned with the national interests of their ruling class before any considerations of humanity.

In one way, it was fitting that the Pope should make his appeal at the United Nations, for that more than anything highlighted its ineffectuality. UNO has a function when the smaller nations are involved in a comparatively trivial dispute, which the bigger powers want to see cleared up. But when the stakes are higher, it is a different matter.

UNO was helpless in Korea. It could do nothing over the Berlin crisis. The vague noises it made over Cuba were not allowed to divert Russia and America from their stern purpose. It stands helplessly by now, as the war rages in Vietnam.

Just as the great powers of capitalism do not allow UNO to affect the way in which they protect their interests, so they do not tolerate interference from religious leaders. The Pope has his uses to capitalism, but international politics cannot be settled in the Vatican.

In any case, what are any appeals for peace worth? War in the modern world does not happen by accident, or because the leaders of world religion have omitted to make a speech about peace. War is a direct result of the nature of capitalism and there is no more ardent supporter of that system than the Catholic Church.

That is why Catholics are in no two minds, when a war breaks out. With the blessing of their Church, they take arms—often killing their fellow Catholics on the other side.

The time for a religious leader to speak out is when the shooting starts. But to do so would be to challenge the capitalist social system; it would be to expose religious hypocrisy, with which the churches constantly divert working class energies from the essential task of building a world of peace and brotherhood.

It is only necessary to state this proposition, to see how ridiculous it is.

New York had quite a time during the Pope’s flying visit. And when he was gone they went back to the business of running capitalism; in factories and offices the American workers were still exploited, the Stock Exchange went on with its dealings, in the South the Negro was still persecuted. And the Pentagon was still running the show in Vietnam.

Indonesia

“PALACE COLONEL OUSTS SOEKARNO.'’ 

“JAKARTA CLAIMS COUP CRUSHED.”

Conflicting headlines—always a sign that nobody is quite sure what is going on, but everybody’s doing their best—brought Indonesia once again onto the front pages. Not that Indonesia is out of the news for very long. This “Republic of Islands”, as one newspaper aptly described it, is the largest country in South East Asia.

Like so many new States that were once colonies of a European power, Indonesia is a rather ramshackle affair, with great difficulty in holding its scattered parts together. The boundaries of these colonies were largely fixed by what the colonisers could grab, and hold against the attacks of their greedy rivals.

They are not always particularly easy to administer as an independent state. In addition Indonesia has terribly poverty. This has not however prevented their new ruling class from embarking on a continual policy of Imperialist expansion, aimed at making Indonesian the dominant power in South East Asia.

One’s mind goes back to 1945, when the “Dutch East Indies” proclaimed their' Independence, and began a fight against Holland. It was one of the first to do so, and great hopes were held by the “Left” as to their prospects.

“Australian Unions” organised strikes to hold up shipments of arms, and “Hands off Indonesia” placards were carried on May Day in London. Independence was gained, and their followed the usual process of exploitation by the new ruling class that had replaced the old.

The main conclusion was that this revolt, which appears to have been “Communist” inspired, would weaken Indonesia’s ties with China. This may be the case, but should anybody happen to be worrying, if it suits the interests of the ruling classes in these two countries, the ties will soon tighten up again.

Gas strike

Towards the end of last September British Petroleum announced that they had struck natural gas beneath the North Sea, although they were not sure that they had found enough to make it a paying proposition.

This was the first strike of any importance in the search which eight groups are carrying on in the North Sea, at a cost somewhere near £100 million. At that price, they obviously hope to find something worthwhile and the news from BP gave them the first glimmering of hope that they will do so.

Of course, the press rhapsodised upon the benefits which the gas strike is supposed to be bringing the people of this country. But a couple of weeks later another piece of news put the matter in a different perspective.

On 6th October the Dutch and British governments signed an agreement which fixed the exact line dividing the areas over which each of them has the right to grant licences to drill for gas and oil. The British government already had applications for licences from the big oil firms in their pending trays.

What this means is that, in the search for valuable raw materials and fuels, the British and Dutch ruling classes have simply annexed the North Sea, giving themselves the legal powers to do so in the process.

This is something like what happened when the newborn capitalist powers were opening up the world to their manufacturers and commerce. They simply moved in and stole vast areas of the world, suppressed the inhabitants, fixed the borders, signed agreements with other international robbers and gave licences and concessions to their own companies to exploit the place. 

There is, of course, no need to suppress the fish in the North Sea. But the carve-up of the area could be as much a source of dispute in the future as was the division of Africa and the Far East.

We are being told that nothing but joy and plenty will result from the discovery of gas and oil under the North Sea. Yet there are no grounds to believe this.

How much happiness did the Congo’s rubber bring? What contribution to the peace of the world has the oil in the Middle East made? What were the effects on the war in Algeria, when the French discovered- oil and gas under the Sahara?

Capitalism is a competitive system, in which rival powers fight ruthlessly for advantage. In this set-up, the discovery of sources of natural wealth often turn out to be anything but a blessing for mankind.

If the North Sea is the El Dorado which some of the experts think, it may well become another sore spot. The agreements which now divide the area will be challenged by those powers which arrived too late to get a share. Legal arguments—and perhaps worse—will be used in the dispute; there will be the customary declamations about “right” and “heritage”. And who dare say what the end of it will be?

Indian A-Bomb

The plain fact about the Indian government’s much publicised decision, several years ago, not to produce an atomic bomb is that it is too good to be true.

And so it is turning out.

India's renunciation meant that some people thought of her as a country where human interests were put above those of narrow nationalism. India was held up as an example for the rest of the sabre-rattling world to follow.

This has never been consistent with the way India acted over, say Goa and Kashmir—incidents which made Delhi’s attitude to atomic weapons look suspiciously like one inspired by anything but humanitarianism.

In any case, the Indian government always made it clear that, if the international situation demanded it, they would make the Bomb. For a long time they have been working on the basics of a nuclear weapon—their separation plant near Bombay, which produces plutonium, has been working for over a year.

And now comes the news from New Delhi that the pressure from Indian military and political circles to make the Bomb is growing, and that (according to The Guardian of 27th September last) the first one may be exploded sometime next year.

The campaign in favour of an Indian Bomb, to go with the rest in the world, has gathered strength from recent events. Indian military men complain that Pakistan had the advantage of advanced American weapons in the fighting in Kashmir, and that the threat from China looms ever larger.

They also claim that the old argument, that the Bomb was too expensive, has been disproved. The estimated cost is now around £20 million. There is no record yet of anyone in India protesting at this sort of money being spent on weapons by a country which has such a chronic problem of hunger and disease.

Such considerations are irrelevant. The reasons for making the Bomb are always the same; one senior Indian officer summed them up: " . . if national interests are at stake . . . we have no alternative but to go ahead.”

Everyone is familiar now with the argument of “national interests”. It is used to excuse any suffering, any atrocity, any betrayal. It is an argument which will be used by many nations if and when a global nuclear war ever starts.

It is only appropriate that we should be hearing the same argument now that India may be getting ready to go back on her word over atomic weapons. It is also appropriate that India, who has done so much to foster the idea that there are such things as oases of nobility among the murderous desert of capitalism. should herself expose the fallacy.

Voice From The Back: End of a dream (2009)

The Voice From The Back Column from the December 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

End of a dream 

Ever since the publication of his Unsafe at Any Speed in 1965 Ralph Nader has been the darling of radical circles in the USA. Here was a man who dared to question the power of such capitalist concerns as General Motors. He went on to found scores of progressive non-profit organisations. He even ran as a Green Party and later an Independent candidate for the President of the USA. On one occasion he even polled almost 3 million votes. Capitalism however is a resilient social system and his attempt at reforming capitalism has ended up with him looking to the capitalists to solve the problems. He is on tour at present to promote his first fictional book entitled Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us. This has led some of his former supporters to doubt his reasoning. “There is a poignance in listening to Ralph Nader these days. Here is a man who, for the last 45 years, has hurled his body at the engine of corporate power. He’s dented it more than anyone else in America. But he knows it’s still chugging, even more strongly than ever. Nader understands that he’s losing. He understands that we’re losing—we who believe in democracy, we who care about justice. But if our only hope is with a handful of billionaires, we’re in a lot worse shape than I thought.” (The Progressive, 28 September)

How about socialism? 

As the social problems of capitalism mount up its administrators have to be seen to be doing something. The usual drill in the past has been for world leaders to meet together usually in some splendid hotel or other, make pious noises about “something has to be done”, pat each other on the back and fly home first class in a glow of self-satisfaction. The most recent crisis of world hunger has occasioned another useless backscratching summit. “With food prices remaining high in developing countries, the United Nations estimates that the number of hungry people around the world could increase by 100 million in 2009 and pass the one billion mark. A summit of world leaders in Rome scheduled for November will set an agenda for ways to reduce hunger and increase investment in agriculture development in poor countries. What will drive the next Green Revolution? Is genetically modified food an answer to world hunger? Are there other factors that will make a difference in food production?” (New York Times, 26 October) The one factor that they have not taken in to consideration is not yet another summit at a higher and higher level, but a sump level meeting of the world’s working class. Only by such a movement as the World Socialist Movement can men and women abolish for ever the madness of millions starving to keep a system of robbery and exploitation intact. The journalist asks the question “Are there other factors that will make a difference in food production?” Yes there is – world socialism and production solely for use! That is one issue that wont be discussed in Rome.

Capitalism is gangsterism 

Politicians and clergymen and even well-paid TV personalities will claim that the Middle East conflict has something to do with morality and justice and that it has nothing to do with crass consideration such as “making a couple of bucks” as Al Capone once famously said. “The British oil giant BP will today take control of Iraq’s biggest oilfield in the first important energy deal since the 2003 invasion. The move has created uproar among local politicians invoking resentful memories of their nation’s colonial past. The agreement to develop the Rumaila field, near the southern city of Basra, will potentially put Iraq on the path to rivalling the riches of Saudi Arabia within a decade — if the Government can fend off corrupt officials, continuing terrorist attacks on pipelines and political uncertainty.” (Times, 3 November) Hey, Iraq workers may continue to live in poverty, so what, we can make a couple of bucks. That is how capitalism works, isn’t it Al Capone?

The new gangsters 

It used to be popular for supporters of the so-called Communist Party to decry Imperialism. They would point out how Britain had exploited Africa and India during their colonial conquests. Later on they would concentrate on the role of the USA in Central and South America. Changed days now with China investing heavily in all sorts of corrupt regimes throughout Asia and Africa. “Barely a fortnight after soldiers loyal to Guinea’s military junta butchered at least 150 demonstrators calling for civilian rule, a deal for oil and mineral rights worth about $7 billion has been struck between China and Guinea. … It seems that China’s commercial march across Africa will continue unabated, however vile the human-rights record of the government it seeks to befriend.” (Economist, 17 October)

Voice From The Back: Cold and skint (2010)

The Voice From The Back Column from the December 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cold and skint 

One of the illusions that seems to persist about capitalism is that in Britain it is gradually getting a little bit better, but the facts contradict that notion. “The number of households struggling to afford to stay warm has more than doubled in the past six years according to official figures. An extra 2.5 million homes have gone into fuel poverty since 2004, a report by the Department of Energy and Climate Change said. Homes are defined as living in fuel poverty if they have to spend more than 10 per cent of their income to maintain a minimum temperature of 21C in their main living area.” (Times, 15 October) “Almost two-thirds of older people in Northern Ireland cannot afford to heat their home through the winter, it has been revealed. The fuel poverty rate among people aged over 60 is up 15% on four years ago and now stands at 60.5%, according to the latest House Conditions Survey. The study conducted by the Housing Executive shows that the situation is even worse for older people living on their own – with almost four-fifths officially designated as living in fuel poverty.  (Independent, 28 October) Amidst all these bureaucratic figures one thing is obvious, during the last six years more working class kids and old folk have had to go to bed shivering. This is progress?.

Big bucks ballot

Defenders of American capitalism are fond of claiming that it is a model of  democracy in action. It is however a strange sort of democracy wherein money is the real dictator. Take the election campaign of Meg Whitman for the California Governorship. “With nearly two weeks to go before the election the eBay billionaire’s campaign to become chief executive of California has already smashed all records. At $140 million (£89 million) it is the most expensive non-presidential campaign in American history and the deepest any candidate has ever delved to fund their campaign.” (Times, 25 October). There is nothing unique in large corporations pouring millions of dollars into election campaigns, but in this case we have an individual spending a grotesque amount that represents about $8.24 for every one of California’s 17 million registered voters. Her opponent has spent a “mere” $20 million, that is just over a $1 a voter. Surely this is a weird sort of democracy.

 

Profits before safety

In their ruthless pursuit of bigger and bigger profits the owning class care little for human life or the pollution of the planet, but even by their standards the oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico illustrated a complete contempt for humanity in capitalism’s efforts to cheapen production costs. “The companies involved in drilling the BP Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico were aware that the cement they used to seal the well before it blew out was unstable. That is the conclusion of a US presidential panel investigating the reasons behind the April 20 explosion and ensuing oil leak. Both BP and the US company Halliburton had received test results on the cement showing it to be unstable – but neither acted on the data.” (The Week, 29 October) All the companies involved are trying to shift the blame for the explosion  on to each other, but the truth is that capitalism by its very nature causes such disasters. Capitalism, lets face it  – is a disaster!

Another illusion goes

One of the illusions about capitalism that its supporters are always proclaiming is that it is a ruthlessly efficient society that rewards honesty and punishes double-dealing. It is not a view shared by the capitalist class themselves as illustrated by this recent European Commission report.. “The European Commission has fined 11 of the world’s largest airlines £799 million for their part in a conspiracy to fix the price of cargo shipments. British Airways is among the carriers to be fined and has been ordered to pay a 104 million euro (£90 million) penalty.” (Times, 10 November) The capitalist class are fond of lecturing workers about honesty, but when extra profits can be realised they are not adverse to a bit of sharp practice.

Passing Comments: Reformists (1951)

The Passing Comments Column from the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reformists

Even on their own false definition of Socialism the Labour Party's claim to be a Socialist party grows more hollow with every month that passes. The Liberals claim that the credit for envisaging and planning the Welfare State is really theirs, and all the big parties join in promising to preserve it. The Americans have started buying their tin and rubber supplies in bulk (so bulk-buying can scarcely now be called “Socialist” either). Nationalisation, which used to be put forward as the very core of the Labour Party's “Socialism,” has now been accepted by the Persian ruling class as the best means of getting the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.'s plant into their own hands, and the embarrassed Labour Government is faced with all the arguments the Labour leaders once used themselves. Even that old standby of Labour politicians, the vague and windy attacks on high profits and high prices, they must now share with the Tory Sunday Express, which gives front-page headlining (17-6-51) to its question “Are prices too high because profits are too high?"—and answers that many financial experts believe they are. Before long there will be hardly an item on the Labour Party programme that some other capitalist group or party is not also promising or putting into practice.

* * *

The Persian “People“

The Persian oil dispute has given the Stalinists another opportunity of displaying their patriotic fervour for the interests of Russia. It seems possible that if the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. is dispossessed, some Persian oil may be diverted to markets inside the Soviet bloc away from its present markets in the Western bloc countries. This possibility is enough to line the Stalinists up behind the Persian ruling class, and their daily paper now defends the Persian capitalists with almost as much enthusiasm as it does the Russian rulers. One might have expected even a Stalinist to understand that there is not much likelihood of a Persian worker being better off simply because the job of exploiting him is taken over by capitalists speaking Persian from capitalists speaking English. Indeed, there may be truth in the allegations of the British Press that the Persian workers will probably be worse off under capitalists of their own nationality. But the World Federation of Trade Unions, a body under Stalinist leadership, has published a pamphlet written by a former Persian minister entitled “The Iranian People Fight the British Oil Trust." And the Daily Worker (editorial, 30-6-51) also glibly repeats the arguments of the Persian governing class, talking of the “Persians resuming possession of their natural resources," and saying that the British government is trying to intimidate “the Persian government and people." “Now that the Persian people are awake," it decides, “these tactics will not succeed.” But it doesn't explain why the fact that the Persian workers are supporting" the Persian capitalists, if they are doing so, shows that they are awake; Socialists would conclude rather that it proves they are still in a nationalist stupor.

So near and yet . . .

The day before, however, the Daily Worker unintentionally got near to the truth. In Mr. Walter Holmes' column the following appeared:

“Persia was described by Lenin in 1908 as ‘inflammable material in world politics.' His description of the scene then, when the Persians were struggling to end the absolutism of the Shahs and to win a constitution, while Russian and British imperialism rivalled each other in grabbing tactics, has sharp point now.” 

Sharper than you think, Mr. Holmes, sharper than you think.

* * *

Truth in wartime

The estimates given by each side in the Korean war of the losses suffered by the opposing forces differ considerably. To guard against too easy acceptance of the figures issued by “our" side, it may be worth while recalling that on May 14th, 1947, Mr. Noel-Baker, then Air Minister, announced in the House of Commons that although during the Battle of Britain the R.A.F. claimed to have shot down 2,692 enemy aircraft, the German records showed that only 1,733 had been destroyed; and that the. British government had now accepted the German figures. When the British figures were originally issued during the war, they were given not as estimates but as hard facts; and doubtless any citizen publicly stating his disbelief in them would have laid himself open to a charge of spreading alarm and despondency. And now here was the confession that the official figures exceeded the truth by more than 55 percent. !

* * *

Where dictatorship is good for business

It has always been the Socialist contention that the opposition sometimes expressed in the British Press to dictatorship and totalitarianism has not been founded on any dislike of those systems as such, but has merely been a means of stirring up a feeling of hatred towards those countries which are competing with Britain for overseas markets and raw materials. In the case of countries from which our rulers expect help in war, or with which they do profitable business, dictatorship is overlooked; more, it is often praised. What, in an “enemy country," is called rule by secret police and concentration camp, becomes in a “friendly country" orderly and stable government. For example, here is an extract from a recent statement by the Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh O'Neill, Bt., P.C., M.P.:

“It is with the deepest regret that I have to refer to the recent death of His Excellency Marshal Carmona, the President of the Portuguese Republic. He had been President for nearly 25 years and was held in the greatest affection by all his people. During this period Portugal enjoyed orderly government and achieved stability. He did much to extend and foster the good relations which have always existed between his country and its oldest ally, Great Britain.”

Now it is general knowledge that Portugal is as much a dictatorship as, say. Russia, and that Carmona stood in much the same relationship to the dictator Salazar as Kalinin used to do to the dictator Stalin. What then led Sir Hugh to sing this paean of praise to the figurehead of a dictatorship?

* * *

Profit covers a multitude of sins

Sir Hugh is chairman of Lisbon Electric Tramways, Ltd., and the extract above is taken from his annual statement for the year 1950 (Economist, 9-6-51). The net profit for that year, £70,390, shows an increase of £5,000 over the previous year's. And £61,595 of it is distributed to shareholders in preference dividends and in an ordinary dividend of 5 per cent.

No wonder Sir Hugh can turn a blind eye to the totalitarian political set-up in Portugal; indeed, since it produces "orderly government and stability," so much the better for business.

* * *

Precept . . .

Dr. Garbett, archbishop of York, warned us the other day of some of the dangers of the Welfare State. In the Observer (22-4-51) he is reported to have said:

" I think we should be proud that our country has been a pioneer in establishing the Welfare State. But it carries with it the danger that its citizens may expect everything to be done for them without their doing anything in return, beyond, of course, paying their insurance. The citizen may become a passive recipient, always demanding more, but gradually losing initiative and responsibility. The ‘they’ mentality is developed instead of the ‘we' — 'They must do it ’ instead of ‘We must do it.’”

Dr. Garbett was talking of a very real danger. But why has he waited until the introduction of the so- called Welfare State to utter his warning? For the citizens who "expect everything to be done for them without their doing anything for it in return” are to be found among the higher income-groups, among the owning-class; and these citizens have had their own privately-operated Welfare State working for a long time in the form of unearned income from the ownership of land, factories, and shares. Dr. Garbett's phrase about "passive recipients, always demanding more” is one of the best descriptions we have seen for some time of shareholders attending the annual general meeting of their company. Dr. Garbett said that the survival of the Welfare State "depends upon the duty of hard work by all able-bodied citizens. Unless we produce more for export by skill and hard work we shall be unable to purchase sufficient food for our people or raw materials for our industries.” If the archbishop had attempted to follow this up by attending Ascot the other week and advising some of the gentlemen there to take jobs in the factories and mines we feel that he would soon have seen exactly where the “they” mentality he refers to is strongest.

* * *

. . . and Practice

Talking about members of the owning class, the Evening Standard (20-4-51) tells us of the case of Mr. Ronald Tree, former Tory M.P. for Market Harborough, who has been receiving an income of £85,000 year from a trust fund of £2,678,000 left by his grandfather. Mr. Tree said that taxation had cut this down to £7,140 a year. Apparently an income of £140 a week did not allow Mr. Tree to live "according to his station.” So, instead of finding some other station to live according to, Mr. Tree applied to the Superior Court in Chicago for a further tax-free payment of £214,000 from the trust fund, and obtained it. Assuming that Mr. Tree devotes all this sum to immediate income, instead of putting it out to "earn” further interest, it will last for twenty years at the rate of £200 a week. There is, then, reasonable hope that for this period of time Mr. Tree will be able to keep up with the Joneses.

* * *

War Vocabulary

The trouble in Korea has enabled us to brush up our war vocabulary. One of the first things to be learnt is that the same event or object always has two terms to describe it, according to whether it occurs on one's own side of the Iron Curtain or on the other. A few examples are given below:

 Alwyn Edgar

Editorial: The War of the Petrol Pump (1953)

Editorial from the April 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

While governments and the big oil combines jostle for control of the oil resources of the world a second front has been opened up on the British home market With the ending of war-time controls the companies were allowed on 1st February of this year to resume the pre-war practice of selling their own branded high grade motor spirit alongside the continued sale of the lower-grade and cheaper “pool ” petrol.

They had been preparing for this revival of competition for many months, partly by extensive advertising and partly by getting garage owners to enter agreements binding them to sell only certain brands.

Before the war the petrol companies spent about £600,000 a year on newspaper advertising. In 1951 the amount was £641,500 but in 1952 it rose to nearly £1,000,000 (Manchester Guardian 31 January, 1953).

On the control of garages the Financial Editor of the Manchester Guardian writes:—

“For at least two years the petrol companies have been making their preparations. More and more garages have made exclusive arrangements with one or other of the main petrol companies. Garages have been rebuilt and repainted, in return for which they have agreed to sell one company’s petrol only. Nearly three-quarters of the country’s pumps are now said to be tied in this way.”

The motoring correspondent of the Daily Telegraph (11/3/53) puts the proportion of “tied” garages as high as 90 per cent.

In some cases the “tied” garage undertakes to sell only one company's petrol, but as Shell and Anglo- Iranian have a joint selling arrangement (Shell-Mex and B.P.) their agreements tie the garage to supplies from Shell or Anglo-Iranian refineries (Economist, January, 1953).

One by-product of the struggle is that in order to protect their “tied” garages, some of the companies are reported to be refusing supplies of petrol to independent garages in the same district.

In addition to advertising, the companies are also wooing trade with “ gifts." Miss Burton, M.P., informed the Minister of Fuel and Power on 9 February that Shell are giving away a brush and duster “with a retail value of at least 5/-”; countered by the Regent Company's presentation of jigsaw puzzles and propelling pencils.

The war also extends to lubricating oils and the Vigzol Company which specialises in supplying farms complained that “some national oil companies . . . are offering ludicrous enticements to break up strong links we have developed with dealers for 30 years." The head of the firm states that the petrol companies are giving agricultural engineers commissions of up to £5 a barrel on lubricating oil to get business (Daily Express, 22/11/52).

A writer in the Sunday Dispatch (18/1/53) says that altogether the battle for the petrol market has cost the companies several million pounds already.

Although the companies are competing for the general market they are still (or were until last year) submitting identical tenders for sales to the government.

The four largest competitors (in addition to some smaller ones) are Shell, Anglo-Iranian, Esso and Regent. Anglo-Iranian has government nominees on its board and the government owns a large shareholding. Shell is linked with Royal Dutch and they, like Anglo-Iranian, control oil concerns in many parts of the world. Among the Royal Dutch-Shell subsidiaries is a large concern operating in the U.S.A.

Esso is a subsidiary of the American Standard Oil but sells motor spirit refined in this country. Regent sells imported petrol from refineries abroad operated by Trinidad leaseholds. The National Benzole Co.'s products are a mixture of petrol with benzole, the latter derived from coal.

The general background of the petrol war is of course the enormous development since the end of the war of the oilfields, refineries and oil tanker fleets, so that although world consumption has increased fast there have been several scares in the past seven years that production would overstep demand. It has been noted with concern that America, which produces and consumes much more than the rest of the world together, increased its consumption in 1952 by only 3%, compared with 10% the year before, and in the meantime more and more refining capacity is coming into production.

In Britain oil refining capacity in 1945 was only 2,500,000 tons of crude oil a year. It is now over 20 million tons and when work is completed on refineries now building it will be over 30 million tons. (“The World Oil Industry." Financial Times Supplement, 2 February, 1953).

What this development will involve can be seen from the fact that in 1945 three-quarters of Britain's refined oil was imported. Now it is an export, and the Minister of Fuel states that in 1953 it is expected to exceed in value the export of coal. When the full refinery programme is completed there will be an urgent need to find world markets for the great quantity being produced.

The particular background of the "branded petrol" war is the "catalytic cracking" plants which produce the high-grade motor spirit. The six plants built or building will have cost £20,000,000 by the time they are all in operation. But here, according to the Financial Times (31 January, 1953) the real problem arises. By mid-1953 their output capacity will be about 54 million tons, but even the present output of 3½ million tons “should be ample” for the existing demand for high- grade petrols.

"Thus, assuming that the refineries settle down to a rate of operation of about 75 per cent. to 80 per cent. of capacity, the potential volume of supplies of British refined premier grades is more than adequate."

The problem then is for the companies to expand the sales of the high-grades by persuading the commercial users of motor transport that they, as well as the private motorist, should use the higher-priced, “premier” grades.

"Indeed it seems that unless the demand for premier grades expands considerably compared with pre-war the oil industry will find it hard to justify the whole of its investment of £20 million in the post-war catalytic crackers."

The Financial Times concludes that the companies will “only obtain the full return on the large amount of capital invested in the catalytic crackers” if they succeed in getting the commercial motor users to change over to the costlier petrols.

What adds fierceness to the conflict is that American controlled Esso, with its giant refinery at Fawley (the largest in Britain), is challenging the other large companies. Before the war Esso had only a small share of the British market and is fighting to enlarge it in order to find a market for the output of Fawley. The Cleveland Petroleum Co. also sells petrol bought from Fawley.

The outcome of the battle cannot yet be known. When it is there will be rich prizes for the victors and falling profits for the losers—and nothing for the working class either way.

Proper Gander: Profits and power (2022)

The Proper Gander column from the October 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

With gas and electricity bills rising, along with the cost of near-enough everything else, the most immediate concern for many of us is how and whether we can pay. A recent edition of BBC One’s Panorama featured households already finding it difficult to cope. A couple with a young son in Birmingham with a just-above-average income of £31,000pa were paying £100 a month for their energy a year ago, and now the amount is £250. Alongside all their other expenses, ‘it’s just getting tighter and tighter’. In Bournemouth, another couple care for their daughter with cerebral palsy. The machines which keep her alive all use electricity which they can’t afford if their bills increase further, having already trebled in a year. Her father says ‘I think it’s quite obscene for energy companies to be posting profits in the billions when we are struggling to actually pay our bills. And I think energy companies are isolated from the reality of a family like ours’.

Between April and June 2022, BP made nearly £7 billion in profit, while Shell raked in £9.4 billion. Over a year, BP has paid £10 billion and Shell £15 billion to their shareholders as dividends and share buybacks. Bland statements from both companies say they will provide financial support to those most vulnerable and are investing in low carbon energy production. At other times, though, their bosses have been more honest about their aims: BP’s Chief Executive has described the company as a cash machine for its shareholders.

In the edition of Panorama: The Energy Crisis: Who’s Cashing In?, reporter Bronagh Munro gives an introduction to the current context of sky-high fuel bills for us alongside astronomical profits for the energy companies. Gas prices increased as an effect of the pandemic, and then again due to the war in Ukraine. But, given that the UK hasn’t been dependent on Russia for gas imports while European countries have been, why has the UK been hit the hardest this side of the continent? Whether or not leaving the European Union has had an impact isn’t discussed. Instead, an explanation is found in how the energy market is shaped by policies such as the link between electricity and gas prices.

Munro explains how the wholesale price of electricity tracks the price of gas. The 40 percent of electricity which is generated from gas sets the price of all electricity, regardless of how it’s produced. Now that the price of gas has risen, so will the price of electricity produced by nuclear reactors (15 percent of that in the UK) and wind farms, for example, even though their own costs haven’t increased. EDF, the French company which owns nuclear reactors in the UK, won’t be able to benefit from this yet though, as they’re locked into contracts at a previous lower price. Supplier Centrica, on the other hand, has doubled its prices in the past year with its profits having grown fivefold. Also, producers of so-called ‘green’ energy receive subsidies through the government, adding £6 billion to our bills. These payments have further bolstered the coffers of companies such as Greencoat wind generators, which has quadrupled its profits in a year.

The wholesale price of gas and electricity has climbed enough to make previous price caps on our bills irrelevant. With wholesale costs so high, the price cap would make it difficult for suppliers to buy in energy and sell it on to us customers while also making a profit. The limit on how much we can be charged for gas and electricity is set by Ofgem, the non-ministerial government department whose stated aim is to protect the interests of ‘energy consumers’. So, the cap has been adjusted to higher amounts more in line with the wholesale amount. One of Ofgem’s previous directors and board members, Christine Farnish, is briefly interviewed for Panorama about her resignation from her roles because she disagreed with decisions about the price cap, saying that they benefited companies more than consumers. She says that the price cap is no longer fit for purpose and only the government can have the solution.

The programme was first broadcast only a few days before Prime Minister Liz Truss announced that a new ‘Energy Price Guarantee’ effective from 1 October 2022 would limit typical household energy bills to £2,500 per year. This doesn’t mean that the wholesale price will change though, so the difference will be funded through government to the tune of around £90 billion, with a further £60 billion to subsidise businesses’ bills. Those on the Left have criticised this policy, arguing that it will be funded by more government borrowing to be paid back through more taxation on the working class, rather than by a windfall tax on energy companies’ profits.

However the money is shunted around, and wherever the burden of taxation really falls, the structural problem remains. While the companies which produce and supply energy are owned by a minority to make profits, they will follow strategies which aim to maximise those profits. Although these strategies, policies, reforms can’t control the economy, as shown by the price cap not impacting on the wholesale gas price, they can help the capitalist class benefit, even through the economic turbulence from the pandemic and now war in Ukraine.

Programmes like Panorama are useful to highlight issues and explain some of the economic context. But they stop short of considering the class divide central to any capitalist economy, or any kind of alternative. In a socialist society, energy production wouldn’t be measured in money and subject to the vagaries of either a profit-driven market or fraught relations between nation states. Instead, the only considerations would be the practicalities of generating sufficient power for people’s needs and wants in an environmentally sustainable way.

Mike Foster

Voice From The Back: Cracks in the dynasty (1999)

The Voice From The Back Column from the June 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cracks in the dynasty

When the gossip columnist Liz Smith announced the Murdochs’ separation in the New York Post last spring there was little sign of the storm to come . . . On the surface, the sticking point is money—whether Murdoch’s lawyers will agree to the rumoured $2 billion settlement Anna is seeking . . . Anna’s interest in the trust arrangement may have less to do with the size of the settlement than the issue of the succession. A director of News Corp since 1990, she was once viewed as a successor herself. And while Lachlan, who heads News Corp’s Australian publishing operations, is considered the front runner, Anna still holds a candle for her eldest child, Elisabeth, the head of BskyB. News Corp is already under fire for shielding profits through a series of complex financial arrangements involving off-shore tax havens—arrangements that have seen News Corp pay no net British corporation tax in 11 years, despite profits here of £1.4 billion. Observer, 28 March.

Progress!

Two out of every five children are born into poverty and are likely to die poor unless urgent action is taken to tackle the effects of Britain’s growing inequalities of wealth, according to a landmark Treasury report. The study, the most in-depth by the government so far, makes clear the way chronic poverty can be passed on from generation to generation, emphasising unemployment as a root cause. It shows the number of people living in relative poverty has trebled since 1979. One of its most striking findings suggests four million children, one third of the total, live in low-income households. The report also confirmed that the gap between rich and poor widened substantially under the Tories, a development that makes the UK almost unique among developed countries in seeing an increase in inequality. Only New Zealand has seen a similar increase. Inequalities in Canada, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, France, Germany and Holland have been reduced or remained stable. The Herald, 30 March.

John Browne’s bodies 

[F]or the cigar-puffing Browne [chief executive of BP], who gained his knighthood last year, the difficult part is just beginning. To justify Arco’s purchase he has to find savings of more than £625 million from the deal over the next two years, slashing 2000 jobs as he goes. At the same time he has to maintain morale at Arco’s Los Angeles headquarters to keep the middle management talent that is crucial to his vision of a lean, mean multinational giant. Financial Mail on Sunday, 4 April.

Cheap wars?

The markets and Mr Milosevic seem to have been making the same calculation, that however much Nato governments huff and puff, at heart they care more about the budget than the Balkans. Before too much money has been dropped out of the sky, the markets seem to have reasoned, Nato will want to declare that it has ‘achieved its aims’ and send the bombers home. The stock market’s indifference also reflects recent experience of short, relatively cheap wars. In 1990-91, the Gulf war added about £1 billion to Britain’s defence [sic] spending, and the defence budget rose sharply in the next couple of years as hardware was replaced and plans revised. But virtually all Britain’s direct costs of war were met by Middle Eastern governments. Financial Mail on Sunday, 4 April.

The new slavery

[T]he International Monetary Fund extracted $1 billion from Africa in the last two years. The IMF received $390 million more in loan repayments from the continent in 1998 than it provided in new finance . . . the figure in 1997 was $643 million . . . international financial institutions and western governments were paid back $13 by developing countries for every $1 they distributed in grants in 1998, up from $9 in 1996 . . . Despite borrowing less than they paid back in 1998, total debt in developing countries rose again—by $150 billion to a new total of almost $2.5 trillion because of the backlog of interest payments. Guardian, 8 April.

Dirty Tricks? 

An investigation into the left-wing political extremists who have infiltrated an 18,000-strong Birmingham Council union branch is being hampered by death threats to witnesses, it was revealed today. Dozens of terrified council employees—mostly women—have told the leaders of Unison, Britain’s biggest union, that they are not prepared to give evidence unless they are given protection. Other council officials who have complained about bullying and intimidation by a group of militant activists with warnings that their homes would be “damaged” if they testified . . . As well as harassment complaints, he [Phil Lenton, national secretary of Unison] is looking into complaints that thousands of pounds of branch funds have been wasted booking the International Convention Centre of illegal meetings and subsidising the Socialist Workers Party. Evening Mail, 14 April.

News in Review: The Budget (1967)

The News in Review column from the May 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Budget

Callaghan's 1967 Budget, for the man in the street whose fortune is supposed to be involved in it, was nothing more than a bore. Very few people seemed to be aware that April 11 was Budget Day; even fewer seemed to care.

The reason for the apathy was that nobody expected any great changes in taxation; the financial pundits had almost unanimously forecast what is called a standstill Budget, although there were the usual pleas for some sections of the population (somebody seems to have suddenly discovered that there are actually people living in dire poverty) and for some regions of the country (it seems suddenly to have become obvious in certain quarters that unemployment is not a thing of the past).

Callaghan, apparently, agreed with the experts. "Steady as she goes" was his epithet for the Budget and that was the most newsworthy thing about it. (Although one banker called it the Puppet On A String Budget)

Budget day is always the time for the airing of two delusions. The first is that a Chancellor of the Exchequer, by using Bank Rate or any of the other financial measures at his disposal, can exert an exact and sensitive control over the economy.

In truth, capitalism is quite uncontrollable—as many Chancellors have found to their cost. Callaghan was not the first Labour leader to apply nautical terms to a financial situation; last July Wilson, admitting that things were out of control, said that the economy had been "blown off course."

The second delusion is that changes in taxation have some significant effect on working class conditions. The most that any Budget can do to a worker is for a time to alter his take home pay, up or down, by a few shillings.

In the long run a worker gets paid what it takes to keep him. That is a fact of capitalism and, like its economic anarchy, is something which no Chancellor can change.

Our Boys in Aden

What are British troops doing in Aden, apart from putting the boot in and expressing a willingness to accept a massive punch-up?

The newspapers tell us they are keeping the peace, which avoids the question of why the peace is threatened.

Aden was annexed (a diplomat's word for stolen) by Britain in 1839, and used as a base to guard the trade route to India. (It is still the only fortified point between Egypt and Bombay).

When the British left India in 1948 it could have been the end of their interest in Aden, had it not been for the rich oil fields which had been discovered in the Middle East

Aden now stands guard on the Persian Gulf, where two-thirds of the oil resources of Western capitalism lie. Britain gets more than half its oil from the countries around the Persian Gulf and British oil companies own about one third of the Gulf's production.

It is to protect these interests that Our Boys in Aden are being killed—and are themselves doing a bit of killing. Sir William Luce, who was Governor of Aden 1959-60, made it clear in an article in the Daily Telegraph on April 12 last:

We did not undertake the “policing” of the Gulf for some vague, altruistic purpose; we went there, and have remained there, because it has suited us to do so.”

By “we” and “us” Sir William is really talking about the East India Company in the old days and the oil companies today. These are the interests which need working class bodies to protect them, interests which are threatened today by claims from Persia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and by the opposing Aden nationalists.

British capitalism’s only hope is to stay in Aden until some sort of order has been imposed in this conflict. A withdrawal now could well plunge the place into a Congo-like war, with serious results for the oilmen of the Persian Gulf.

So it looks as if Our Boys in Aden will have to carry on keeping the peace for a while, even if they have to kill half the population to do it

The Bristol Affair

Bristol Siddeley Motors’ excess profits on aero-engine overhaul—they had to pay back the government £3.9m.—is but one example of what goes on in capitalism. Recent years have also seen the Ferranti affair and the collapse of various insurance companies. But what effect do such commercial malpractices have on the working class as a whole? Well-meaning political reformers see this as a moral issue in which the community is harmed by loop-holes in the law and by administrative shortcomings which a minority exploit to line their pockets. The fog of moral indignation raised serves to obscure some very important points as far as the profit-making of capitalism is concerned. In the long run profits are not made by charging excessive prices or by milking the funds of companies. These are exceptional cases and fail to explain the source of the profit gained by the bulk of industrial and commercial enterprises. To find the answer production itself must be examined.

The people who do the work of producing and distributing goods and services do so for a wage or salary. However many sources of cheating are blocked off, and however much money is recovered by the government, wages will not be affected. These are normally raised by workers organising in unions to press for more. Employers, of course, are organised to resist these demands and to press their own for greater productivity or pay cuts as conditions demand.

Workers’ pay is part of the capital invested in production and is not their share of the product (which belongs in whole to the employer). Wages amount on the average to the sum of the things required to maintain workers and their families as healthy and efficient workers. As a class workers produce more than is needed to keep them and it is from this surplus that the employing class get their incomes. This comes to them in various forms such as rent, interest and profit and also provides the source of the funds which are needed by the government to finance their collective requirements such as armaments and the education, health and welfare of their workers.

So when arms contractors make more than the accepted rate of profit, it is a hindrance to the whole of the capitalist class in any country. The Bristol affair is but one of the sectional quarrels of capitalism in which all are striving for the maximum advantage. The government may be quite competent to deal with Bristol Siddeley but cannot hope to touch the greater question of the exploitation of the working class which is the norm of capitalism, with or without the swindles.

The Last Word: Praise the Fraud (1997)

The Last Word column from the June 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Christians have been waiting for two thousand years for The Second Coming of their messiah whose legendary previous appearance ended in tears and an alleged promise to return before too long. More circumspect in matters of messianic madness, the Jews are still waiting for their saviour to descend for the first time. Others have succumbed more recently to self-deluding sightings, ranging from the tragic to the pathetic. In America a group of nutters, combined communally in a house with a fast-talker who convinced them that he was the messianic presence, committed collective Christian kamikaze, each taking with them a five-dollar bill to spend in heaven. The idea of heaven as a cross between a school tuck shop and the box office to Disneyland would be almost sweet in its infantile innocence were its consequences not so awful. Less dramatic in his barminess, a certain Mr B. Creme in this country has pursued a persistent campaign via the classified ad columns of various newspapers, intermittently informing the gullible that the messiah is on earth (currently residing in Brick Lane, east London, at the last announcement) and is soon to be interviewed on daytime TV.

Messianic delusions: the sigh of the oppressed in a heartless world. Hans Toch’s unequalled account of the social resilience of such aberrations remains, after several decades, the best book on the subject; for a less academic treatment, Monty Python's Life of Brian is as good a treatment as any of the meeting of despair with ignorance and the ensuing farcical-fatal divine comedy. With the fast-approaching millennium we might as well sit back and prepare for lots more of these fraudulent and fantastic heavenly portents, for they will come as sure as New Years eve lager turns to piss.

For the Independent, a newspaper not commonly associated with moments of messianic excitement (or excitement at all), the day after the election produced a moment of such embarrassing messiah-spotting that we can only hope that copies of its 3 May edition will be pulped to save the future blushes of writers and readers alike. (If you have a copy, keep it, and make the buggers blush in the days to come.) It began with a modest half-page colour photo of the saviour surrounded by wildly-enthusiastic crowds (supplied by the Archangel Mandelson) and a headline stating BRITAIN MEETS ITS FUTURE. For the future to be embodied in one disembodied smile seems a rather anticlimactic culmination to several thousand years of history. Nonetheless, the Independent had spotted "the future”, and, like the Webbs’ encounter with Stalin, who are mere people of reason to argue with them?

This was but the beginning of the messianic account. Polly Toynbee, a former candidate for the SDP, wrote a front-page story which owed unacknowledged inspiration to the North Korean press on the day that the latest dictator was appointed. Here are the quotes from the crowd with which she peppers her outstandingly stupid piece:"If I live to be 1200 there’ll never be another day like it! . . .”, "I know it’ll take a long time. It’ll be hard. He can’t do everything now. It may take years, but he'll look after the poor and the working class. I trust him ... ”, "I love him, oh I love him. I want to give him a big kiss!" (Toynbee attributes names and occupations to these deluded wretches, but we will not publish them here for the sake of their future embarrassment.) Quite what Polly would have written had David Owen won in 1987 defies the imagination. Next to this piece of propagandist garbage appeared another by Yvette Cooper, one of those elected for New Labour to assist the messiah in his earthly works. Her contribution informs us that "As I sit and try to write, on the morning after the election, I keep jumping out of my seat and hopping round the room. I keep grinning." Could this be the first possible defector to the Natural Law Party? In the presence of such joy surely nothing less than a few hours of yogic flying would be appropriate.

"The world has really changed" ends the piece by Ms Cooper. The world did not change. Just like every messianic moment in the sad history of such events, the world remains brutally indifferent to the cries of mass delusion. At the time of writing the new Prime Minister has just appointed as his "Minister of European Competitiveness” the chairman of BP. This man was not elected: he is to be offered a place in government via a seat in the House of Lords. He happens to head a company which stands condemned for contributing tens of millions of pounds to Colombian death squads paid to murder and rape indigenous peasants who are in the way of BP’s oil explorations in the land which they and their ancestors have inhabited for centuries. Even the Colombian government, whose soldiers are paid for this murderous service by BP, had admitted that its troops are out of control. But oil is oil, and profit is profit and capitalism is capitalism and . . . what was that about the world changing?

Steve Coleman