Voice From The Back: Carpet sales (2004)

The Voice From The Back Column from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Carpet sales  

The designer and poet William Morris was a committed socialist who had to live with the irony that, although he wanted the abolition of the wages system, the only people who could afford his carpets, tapestries and furniture were the very rich. The following item in the Independent (6 October) illustrates this. “A William Morris carpet that cost £113 new in 1883 was bought for £193,760 in an auction at Sotheby’s in London yesterday. The flowered design, a synthesis of medieval and eastern motifs, was one of only two examples known with a cream and apricot background. It was made for a house in Holland Park, West London, measuring 17ft 5ins by 13ft 6ins.” £193,000 for a carpet – something to bear in mind when you are looking for a bargain at the January sales!

Embarrassed, moi?

“A giant oil company once headed by Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, used its British subsidiaries to flout American sanctions against Iran . . . Their exports – estimated to be worth more than £30m a year – have continued despite sanctions introduced by the US government nine years ago barring Americans from trading or ‘facilitating business’ with the Islamic state. The new findings will embarrass Cheney, President George W Bush’s running mate in next month’s elections. Cheney has described Iran as ‘one of the world’s most dangerous regimes’” (Times, 17 October). He “earned” $44m during his tenure at Haliburton, continues to collect deferred compensation of $150,000 a year and owns $18m in share options. The gap between political rhetoric and economic reality has never embarrassed hypocrites like Cheney.

Dying for work

A TV programme entitled ‘Britain’s Secret Shame’ (BBC, 3 November) illustrated the extent of corporate manslaughter in this country. It reported that about 250 workers die at work every year due to the negligence of their employers. Prosecutions rarely take place, convictions are even rarer, and then it is usually only smaller firms. Attempts to introduce legislation have all failed because the owning class warn the government that more stringent legislation would be too costly. Just another example of how inside capitalism profits are more important than the workers who produce them.

Dying for profit

“Britain’s largest drug company drew up a secret plan to double sales of the controversial anti-depressant Seroxat by marketing it as a cure for a raft of less serious mental conditions, the Observer can reveal today. The contents of the 250-page document have alarmed health campaigners who accuse the firm, GlaxoSmithKLine (GSK) of putting profits before therapeutic needs by attempting to broaden the market for the drug which has been linked to a series of suicides . . . Concerns about the addictive properties of Seroxat saw the government ban its prescription to people under the age of 18 last year. This followed a review which found children taking it were more likely to self-harm or commit suicide” (Observer, 7 November). It seems the company were attempting to move sales from $1 billion to $2billion by pushing it to people who were not clinically depressed. When there is money like this to be made even the “respectable” shareholders become murderous drug pushers.

Dying with poverty

Under the headline ‘Desperate plight of cancer sufferers living in poverty’ (Times, 9 November) reported as follows: “At least three quarters of the million Britons with cancer suffer from financial hardship brought on by the disease, including enforced job losses, discrimination and poor benefit allowances, according to research. A report by Macmillan Cancer Relief suggests that the disease costs patients hundreds of millions of pounds, for which they have little or no financial cover.” Needless to say this poverty only applies to the working class, as those capitalists unfortunate enough to suffer from the disease have at least the consolation that they will receive the best of care and that their families will not suffer financially.

Who cares?

Twenty years ago an explosion at the chemical factory in Bhopal in central India killed more than 15,000 people, and survivors are still trying to cope with the effects of this horrendous disaster. “Yesterday, half a million people who were in the path of the lethal cloud that spewed out of the chemical plant received a second compensation payment of £300 to £1,200” (Times, 13 November). This is in addition to a first payment of £500 per person from the company responsible Union Carbide. Dow Chemicals, who now own Union Carbide, refuse to clean up the site which still holds 25,000 tons of toxic waste. Another example of capitalism’s priorities. Make a couple of bucks, kill 15,000 and leave an area full of children who have difficulty breathing and are painfully dying, who cares? Socialists do.

Death on principle (1982)

From the October 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Asbestos is the Greek word for unquenchable, which fairly describes its devouring effect on the human body. It is a fibre embedded in a rock found in many parts of the world — Canada (where there are the largest deposits). Zimbabwe. Russia and Cyprus. South Africa has a lot of the especially unquenchable blue asbestos and the USA is the world’s principal manufacturer of asbestos products. The rock is quarried from holes in the ground, then crushed to extract the fibre which can be processed into yarns and cloth or compounded into rubber and cement. Its great value is in a high resistance to heat and to electricity, which means that it is widely used in the building industry and for gasket and brake linings.

It is only in recent years that asbestos has been recognised as a deadly killer responsible for incurable, agonising illness. One of the victims featured in the TV film about asbestos sufferers — Alice, A Fight for Life — recalled when the mill workers would lark about with the stuff, wearing it in wigs and beards, unaware of the appalling risks they were running. Now, a local council sends its workers-to rip the stuff out of houses and flats dressed in space suits of protective clothing, as if they were handling the most perilous of radioactive materials.

Asbestos kills through the inhalation of a dust of its minute but durable fibres which stay in the lungs for life, causing asbestosis — a respiratory disease — lung cancer or mesothelioma, a cancer of the membrane of the lungs or the abdomen. One of the companies exposed in the TV film — Turner Brothers Asbestos (TBA) — described it as a process in which the asbestos particles "get right down into the lungs and file away the tissue”. This sounds ghastly enough but was in fact a clumsy attempt to play down the risks.

This same safety memorandum, which was given to all employees of TBA. asserted that: "Health problems are caused only if a lot of asbestos dust is breathed into the lungs over many years". In truth there are examples of people contracting asbestos-related diseases after as little as two weeks’ contact and the woman who once fooled around with an asbestos wig worked with it for only nine months. One study of the TBA factory in Rochdale found that 58 per cent of the employees were showing the first symptoms of asbestos-related diseases; another found one worker in four actually suffering from the diseases.

The recognition of asbestos as a twentieth century industrial killer has loosed a flood of demands for compensation for its victims, which threatens to gather force into a deluge. This might force TBA to pay out rather more than the no-obligation grant of about £10 a week they have made to some of the families of their dead employees. Sometimes they gave nothing at all, other than the wreath which they sent to the funeral. (The TV researchers traced a lot of the asbestos victims through pathetic thanks for the flowers in the Deaths column of the local paper.)

While their workers were suffering and dying. TBA were devoting themselves to concealing the extent of the problem. Their safety memorandum breezily assured everyone: “Working with asbestos is a bit like working with gas — you've no problems so long as you stick firmly to a few simple rules". They did not publish a report of their own company doctor which showed the incidence of asbestos-related diseases at TBA to be 75 times what the company admitted to. Weeks after the TV programme, in face of the mounting evidence of the dangers, TBA conceded that some of their estimates had been wrong but they adopted a new, equally spurious, defence — that 30 per cent of mesothelioma cases happen spontaneously. TBA did not concede that they make their profits through putting people to work with a peculiarly nasty and dangerous material; the work could be a lot safer — as safe as human ability allows—but this would cost a lot of money and file away some of those profits like workers’ lungs.

TBA is not the only asbestos company to be in trouble. In America there is the more spectacular and provocative Manville Corporation, which was once the world's largest processor of asbestos. We say "was" because Manville recently went bankrupt. There was no suicide among the corporation’s penitent executives over this because Manville is in fact financially healthy. According to the Guardian of September 7, at the time it had $15 million in cash, apart from its other assets, and continues its business as normal. Manville's bankruptcy was a ruse, calculated to protect it against the claims of the sick and crippled workers. There are some 16,500 of these claims at present and more are on the way.

Of course there was an indignant outcry at Manville's cynical but effective manoeuvre. One American Congressman accused the Corporation of leaving behind “. . . the wreckage of their workers’ and consumers' lives". But there was also some support for the company, from American bankers and lawyers, who are trained to applaud an effective preoccupation with taking in the profits, even if it costs the lives of the people who make them. The tragic fact is that those smug, desiccated business people who stood up for Manville had social reality on their side, unlike those who were in pain or dying because they had worked for the Corporation or the others who were angry about it all.

The first part of that reality is that asbestos can yield some very impressive profits for the people who own the quarries where it is extracted and the plants where it is processed. The second part is that those profits arise, not just from the fact that human beings apply their abilities to the mining and the processing, but that this takes place under certain social relationships. The owners, who receive the profits, are part of a social class who monopolise the means of production and distribution. The workers, who make the profits, have no ownership; their part in the relationship is to be exploited as they produce asbestos, or things made from it, with the object of being sold to realise the profits.

Within this relationship there are no rights or moral obligations; there is only an antagonism of interests. The employers don't owe their workers a living and when a worker is killed as a result of their employment the employers are being generous when they send a bunch of flowers to the cemetery. If the facts about asbestos make an embarrassing scandal that is only because the employer/worker relationship is so widely misunderstood and obscured.

Capitalism tags everything with a price — even a person’s life. There are people, called actuaries, who are trained to work out those prices and to express them in terms of insurance premiums and payouts. 'These calculations have no room for sentiment or emotion; it has been known for a small part of one particular person's body — a film star's legs, a footballer’s feet — to be insured for hundreds of times more than the entire body of the people who watch them perform. This cold-blooded process extends into other fields and will play its part in deciding, say. whether to develop an airport runway or build a motorway or some other assault on the lives of the people living around it.

Any investment in industrial safety must be subject to those same actuarial principles. Safety itself is a profit element; to kill workers too early in their life effectively reduces the supply of future exploitation-fodder. The skill — if that is the word — is in finding the balancing point, when safety measures cost too much or when adverse publicity from meddling media people begins to affect investment in the firm. In any case it is always worthwhile to fight a rearguard action, even if it is over the wrecked and wasted bodies of the victims of actuarial principles.

Another woman in the TV film, who died at the age of 55. was at first judged to be ineligible under the rules for any compensation at all; although she was dying from asbestosis the doctors who "examined" her found no symptoms. Two months before she died, in great pain, hardly able to move and heavily drugged, she mistook the date when her disability began, which meant that under the rules she was entitled to only a limited payment. After her death, and a post mortem, the authorities agreed that she had been completely disabled and should have received a total of about £18,000.

No comment was made on the degradation of it all — the exploitation, being put to work with a lethal substance; then the sickness, the withering away onto the scrap heap observed by doctors and bureaucrats, all concerned that nobody should get more than the rules allowed. No comment was made, that all of this was done in accordance with those actuarial calculations so essential to a society in which the overriding priority is the production of wealth for profit.

At the end of the 18th century a child called Robert Blincoe was sent as an apprentice to various factories in Nottinghamshire. There he was beaten and tortured, his hair torn out and his teeth filed down in his head. His was not an isolated case and eventually there was a massive protest. His sufferings were in accordance with the actuarial principles of the first days of industrial capitalism, which laid it down that it paid to operate factories and mines with starving, battered children.

Has capitalism improved since then? Observe how those same principles operate now — the tortured bodies of the asbestos victims, the contemptuous evasions of the employers’ public relations staff, the insult of the company flowers on the grave. And be warned that here, behind the anger and grief, is this society’s enduring reality.

Ivan

Running Commentary: Profit interfering (1982)

The Running Commentary column from the August 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Profit interfering

Sanofi, the pharmaceuticals division of the French Elf Aquitaine oil group, is suspending production of Interferon, the experimental drug used in cancer treatment. The reason they have given for this decision is that sales levels have been disappointing and there has been a steady build-up of stocks. Even the usefulness of trying to develop a treatment or even a cure for cancer cannot escape the law of all production under capitalism — that without the prospect of profit, production must cease.

Last year, the Imperial Cancer Research Fund collected about one million pounds in charity for further research into Interferon. In the same year, the governments of the world spent about the same amount every two minutes on the production of armaments.

Scientists investigating Interferon in different countries have not combined their research data, because the separate corporations who sponsor them each hope to monopolise the enormous profits which might become available if the formula were perfected.

Sales of food, electricity and many other goods and services have been "disappointing” lately, resulting in widespread cutbacks in production. In none of these cases is there a lack of demand, of real need. Last year, thirty million people starved to death. What is lacking is “effective” market demand, that is, needs backed up by money. As usual, the world profit system is failing to meet human needs.

Gay power

The gays of Britain should beware. They are about to be hounded and harassed with an intensity which will make the attention they receive from Chief Constable Anderton of Greater Manchester seem aloof and apathetic.

As W. H. Smith agree to a wholesale distribution of Gay News, an apparently startling — although actually obvious—fact emerges. Gay workers are more than a deviant, oppressed, discriminated-against minority. They are also a market. The new publisher of Gay News has been specific about this. Consulting a recent detailed survey (see what we mean about being hounded?) he puts “. . . the spending power of gay men and women conservatively at about £5,000 million. It's a virtually untapped market”.

Among the first to try to exploit this is a give-away newspaper, Capital Gay. which goes out through gay pubs, clubs and the like. In common with other free papers — which are usually local in their scope — Capital Gay is little more than advertisements garnished with a few news items. Of course, some gays may object to being treated as a separate market, with special appeals to their sexual preferences. They may prefer to be lumped in with all the other workers who trawl their depressed way through the sub-standard goods in their local supermarkets. But being a lucrative market may do more for gays than any amount of protest and propaganda. In a society which produces all its wealth as commodities, the market has the power to overwhelm the most maniacal police chief or other self-appointed guardian of public morals.

Perhaps this will be called progress. Anyone with an awareness of the structure of capitalist society, and of what this does to human beings, will know that discrimination against gays is another aspect of class-based humiliation. Sexual freedom, like all other freedoms, can be secure only in a social order based on common interests.

Asbestos awards

When considerations of human well-being, even of life and death, come directly into conflict with the needs of capital to accumulate profit, the latter generally wins. There are countless examples to demonstrate this. When such conflicts occur, the companies involved are curiously adept at evading the implications.

Two hundred and fifty insulation workers in Illinois are reported by doctors to have died or become seriously ill after working with brown asbestos, amosite, supplied by North American Asbestos. An American court found against the British parent company, Cape Industries, for having knowingly supplied an extremely dangerous substance without warning, and fined them for £32 million damages.

Cape will not pay this money, since the award is not enforceable in Britain, where they face many other such charges, having been named in 900 cases. In the American case, however, they took more elaborate precautions than ever to avoid having to pay money out of the profits made from those workers' deaths.

Cape’s parent company. Charter Consolidated, is the London associate of the Anglo-American Corporation of. South Africa, with mining interests in America. In January 1978, after paying out one million dollars in an asbestos case in Texas, Cape liquidated its North American Asbestos Corporation, which had also supplied the amosite used by the workers who died in Illinois.

But Cape continued to own shares in the Liechtenstein-based Associated Mineral Corporation, which supplied asbestos to Continental Products, who operated from the same Chicago address which had been used by the North American Asbestos Corporation. (Guardian, 6 July 1982; World in Action, Granada TV, 5 July 1982.)

Chapter Three: Unemployment or Employment— Reject Both (1984)

From Samuel Leight's book, The Futility of Reformism

We oppose the existence of private property relationships which force those without ownership rights in the means of production and distribution to “seek employment.” This, to be sure, is a revolutionary concept for it is an approach that leads to the very core of an understanding of the case for common ownership. In essence, the problem arises from the poverty of the working class which is inseparable from the wages system. If we were living in a society which conveyed to all its members common ownership rights of all the means for producing and distributing wealth then, as and when we made our individual contributions to the process of wealth production, we would, from an economic and social standpoint, be working for ourselves and not for an employer.

From this viewpoint, it can be discerned that the socialist regards employment under capitalism as an inescapable and degrading condition for the working class, one that reformism is incapable of curing. We refuse at all times to politically support a system of society that, because of the ownership rights belonging to a class, forces the majority to seek their survival and livelihood by employment from the owning minority. Those with proprietorship, whether it be an individual, corporation or state, possess the monopoly and legal right entitling them to employ. This compels the rest to be employed, or as circumstances dictate, to be unemployed. 

It is significant to observe that unemployment becomes a focal point whilst “employment” is accepted as a way of life, seemingly destined to remain with us forever. Unemployment appears as the persistent challenge awaiting an eventual solution, notwithstanding that the class struggle embraces both conditions. Statistics verify that the problem of unemployment is an insoluble one as long as capitalism remains. The “experts” and “the economists,” true to character, disagree as to exact causes and applicable remedies. However, they are all apparently in complete unison in their approach to the existing system. This sacred cow is never accused or pin-pointed as the cause of the quandary. Such an attitude, of course, would pre-suppose the possession and acceptance of socialist knowledge coupled with a disregard for the security of their jobs should they ever publicize the correct scientific approach.

Capitalism operates as a gigantic worldwide market place in which commodities are produced primarily for sale and profit. Should the market place fail to absorb the commodities produced, unemployment, either on a comparative large or small scale, occurs. In addition, the actual employment of members of the working class depends upon the wishes and economic requirements of the capitalist class. For example, increased productivity resulting through the utilization of labor-saving machinery, with the consequent displacement of workers, could create unemployment to a limited degree. These various factors give rise to a standing army of unemployed, whose numbers from time to time may vary dramatically, but its existence is assured as long as the system remains.

In August, 1982 unemployment in Great Britain reached 3,292,702 or 13.8 per cent of the work force, its highest level since comprehensive records began in 1948, topping the 2,979,000 registered unemployed at the height of the Great Depression in January, 1933. True, this figure represented 19 per cent of a smaller work force but when you transfer the numbers to actual human beings, pitifully trying to survive, what difference does it make?

Unemployment in the U.S.A. reached nearly 12 million in November, 1982. These figures only disclose part of the situation. They do not take into account large numbers of demoralized workers who have stopped looking for jobs and others who are working part-time. Far higher percentages of unemployment are to be found amongst various sections of workers such as teenagers, black and Hispanic minorities, and those in heavily industrialized areas that have been hardest hit, such as the automobile and steel factories. A CBS news broadcast on October 10, 1982, contained a report from the AFL-CIO which claimed that there were 14.5 million actually unemployed who were looking for full-time jobs. In April, 1982 black unemployment in the U.S.A. climbed to 18.4 per cent, teen-age unemployment rose to 23 per cent and the unemployed in Detroit was 15 per cent.

The prestigious Wall Street Journal in an editorial on May 11, 1982 suggests the following:

“The answer to the unemployed problem is simple and obvious, but it is being resisted by Congress because of political fears that are only a little short of craven. The answer is to shift the nation’s priorities back toward production, away from non-production . . . All it needs is better leadership in Congress, that is to say removing the people who got us into this trouble and who refuse to admit that their politically convenient ideas were all wrong.”

Unemployment is linked to a market place unable to purchase the commodities already being produced. Therefore, it is surely ridiculous to suggest shifting “the nation’s priorities back toward production,” or in other words producing more for a market already incapable of coping with existing inventories. Industry, of course, does not function altruistically to provide employment for needy workers. The purpose of capitalist production is not to produce goods and services per se but to produce commodities for sale and profit. Unless a market can be reasonably expected production will not be forthcoming. As to the hoary plea for “better leadership,” this is the time-worn favorite peddled by the reformers when they imply that the cause is always with the shortcomings of the individuals or parties running the system but never, the Lord forbid, does the fault lie in the way in which capitalism functions.

Prime Minister Thatcher, in England, has blamed the unemployment rate increases on the recession and the failure by previous governments to tackle Britain’s economic problems. She apparently has not been able to improve matters since her government assumed power—in fact the reverse has happened. President Reagan, in the U.S.A., blames high interest rates, but history will show that when interest rates were comparatively low, unemployment was still with us. And when Canada’s jobless rate rose to a postwar high of 9.6 per cent in April, 1982 the Finance Minister, Allan MacEachen, volunteers some choice trivia:

"The key to world recovery at the present time, for the U.S. and for other countries, is a change in the monetary policy that is being pursued in the U.S.”

President Warren G. Harding in 1921, after listening to conflicting opinions offered by his economic advisers, at least possessed somewhat of an insight and frankness when he confided to a secretary, as reported in the Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1977:

“John, I can’t make a damn thing out of this . . . I listen to one side and they seem right, and then—God! I talk to the other side, and they seem just as right.

“I know somewhere there is a book that will give me the truth, but hell, I couldn’t read the book.

“I know somewhere there is an economist who knows the truth, but I don’t know where to find him and haven’t the sense to know and trust him when I do find him. God! What a job!”

In October, 1982 unemployment in the Netherlands increased to a postwar peak of 13.4 per cent of the work force. West Germany’s jobless was reported in early March, 1983 as having surpassed the 2.5 million mark, climbing to 10.4 per cent of the labor force in February, 1983. Sweden’s unemployment rose to 3.6 per cent of the labor force in February, 1983. Belgian unemployment in March, 1982 stood at 12.2 per cent of the labor force. In December, 1982 unemployment in the 10 European Economic Community countries reached 12.035 million—a post World War II record. In December, 1982, 12.8 per cent of the Canadian work force were unemployed— the highest level since the 1930’s. Japan’s jobless rate for January, 1983 topped 2.7 per cent, a 30-year high. In November, 1982 unemployment in Australia was reported at 8.2 per cent.

It should surely be obvious by now that if a formula existed to cure unemployment, then it would have been discovered long ago. Further, even if there were an absolute solution, it would not serve the interests of the ruling class to implement it. The continued presence of an unemployed segment of the working class enables the employers to exert downward pressure on wage levels, assuring them of surplus workers as and when they are needed.

The U.S. federal job-training program financed by the Labor Department under the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act has already been termed a fraud by avowed supporters of the system. The program assumes that unemployment is caused by persons needing job training and job skills, whereas in actuality there is a shortage of jobs available even for those possessing the necessary skills. In effect, people are being trained for non-existent jobs. 

Reformist approaches towards unemployment have included government subsidization, nationalization, and the Keynesian goal of full employment through appropriate government intervention. All have failed as evidenced by current worldwide unemployment.

Governmental attempts at industrial intervention by means of subsidies are really an artificial process that ignores the prevailing economic climate. They might temporarily keep some workers employed, but this would be at the expense of the capitalist class as a whole since the funds would be provided through taxation. Such schemes tinker with the problem at best, are always short-lived, and can only be used on a very limited scale.

Nationalization in no way guarantees a solution because the same market conditions that create the challenges in private industry, namely selling commodities at a profit, predominate whether the businesses are owned privately or by the state. A graphic example of the desperation of American workers in government or nationalized occupations took place in March, 1982 when it was reported that

100,000 swarmed the post offices in the Miami area during a period of one week, applying for 700 positions that may not be available until 1985.

The U.S.S.R. has state capitalism operated on a national basis under the tyrannical dictatorship of the so-called Communist Party. Employment is controlled without any semblance of democracy, without legitimate trade union activity, and without permitted political opposition. The centralized control allows individual industries to be maintained financially, should the need arise, by support from the budget. However, as a consequence, efficiency in production is impaired and jobs are unnecessarily overstaffed. Denied the protection of unfettered trade unions (they exist in name only as they operate under direct Government control), and with no democracy, “employment” in Russia is wage-slavery at its very worst. Should you be designated a “dissident,” even your slave status could be jeopardized and you might find yourself among the 2 million people currently imprisoned in the Soviet penal system.

The Keynesian doctrines, formulated by J. M. Keynes, supports government action in order to maintain a demand for commodities through its own direct investments in the economy, which would hopefully result in more or less full employment. None of these devices, used and supported by past governments, in particular by both the Labour and Tory parties in England, have prevented recession, depression, inflation and massive unemployment.

It should be borne in mind that any growth in the total number of employed reported at any time is related to the fact that greater numbers of workers in the same family have had to seek employment in order to maintain the standard of living of the household. The numerical glorification that is sometimes touted as an example of more people being employed now than in the past is an attempt at making a virtue of the necessity of survival. Mothers, for example, are forced to leave their infant children in day-care homes in order to go to work and supplement their husband’s pay—this out of dire need and not as a means of “achieving economic freedom” or so-called “equality” with the menfolk. In a study, conducted by the Federal National Mortgage Association by the Louis Harris organization and reported in the Wall Street Journal on September 15, 1982, 91 per cent of those polled said they believe it takes a two income household to afford a mortgage today.

The working environment is geared to a profit motivated society which at all times places the successful production and realization of surplus values in a priority position as compared to human welfare. Physical conditions in a multitude of industries and instances, viewed from certain aspects, have of course improved substantially as capitalism has progressed from the 18th through to the 20th century. But this surface appraisal can be most misleading without further probing and evaluation. Although the socialist supports all trade union activity which results in the improvement of working conditions, our prime concern has never been, nor ever will be, the refinement of capitalism in order for profits to be accrued in more conducive surroundings. Granted, wage levels and working conditions are of paramount importance for the very survival of the vast majority as long as capitalism exists. We nevertheless limit our energies in this regard to trade union support and activity, but politically refuse to become involved in how best to run a system that we want abolished in the shortest possible time.

It should be recognized that plant, retail and office modernizations are not related to the activities of political reformists at all. Rather, they are the result of either trade union pressure to improve working conditions or the desire of the capitalist to remain competitive by providing up-to-date facilities. Within the bounds of certain economic considerations, to the degree that the workers are kept comparatively happy and healthy, so to that extent their exploitation is that much better accomplished. In a world which literally can be described as an armed camp, wherein the majority are economically imprisoned, you will not find us clamoring for more “humane prisons,” but for a society in which prisons are non-existent. Likewise, we will not be found in association with the reformists—they decry the inhumanities of capitalism but never urge for its abolition in order to effectively deal with fundamental causes. The main task therefore confronting the “imprisoned” should be the abolition of the prison and not in diversions which look for improvements in its operation.

In any event, the superficial, physical upgrading of working conditions that have been accomplished are more than offset by the pollution of the environment that capitalist industrialization has created. Its waste products, indiscriminate use of chemicals and materials, radiation and nuclear poisons have all resulted in an enormous detriment to health over the past several decades. Cancer, for example, has enveloped us like a plague. I, for one, do not need any further proof beyond my own common sense and personal experience to realize that there isa relationship of cause and effect between our modern-day pervasive pollution and cancer. Furthermore, the mental health of the population, as evidenced by the inundated clinics, hospitals and sanitariums, and directly caused by the stresses and insecurities of a competitive, anti-social environment, should be taken into consideration when comparisons are made between past and present conditions.

The analysis of the environment should be examined in its entirety. This would take us beyond the factory gates and offices, to be confronted with a world balancing on the precipice of nuclear war. Such an approach, together with a veritable multitude of deplorable working conditions and social circumstances that still prevail, and for that matter will always remain in some form or other under capitalism, should remove all reasons for complacency or satisfaction from the reformists.

In March, 1980 The International Labor Organization reported that more than 55 million children under the age of 15 are being exploited around the globe. They stated, as an example, that match factories in India employ more than 20,000 children, some as young as 5, for a 16-hour work day beginning in some instances at 3 a.m. On a visit to Toledo, Spain several years ago, after being charmingly offered a glass of port by one of the factory managers, we were escorted through the factory where I was horrified to see young children 8/10 years old, working at the benches with detailed and intricate filigree which of course could be ruinous to their eyes at such an early age.

On February 27, 1981 it was reported in the Arizona Daily Star that in the New York City garment industry sweatshops have grown from fewer that 200 to 3,000 in the last decade.

It was reported in the New York Times, February 5, 1982 that according to Dr. Loren Kerr, a leading authority on occupational disease, the deaths of 4,000 coal miners each year can be safely attributed to black lung disease. He is quoted as saying:

“Most coal operators are anxious to increase production, even when it raises dust levels above legally defined limits. Federal inspectors must insist on adequate ventilation and water spraying to control this dust today, or else years down the road, miners will suffer an avalanche of new breathing problems.”

In an article in the Wall Street Journal, June 18, 1981 it was stated that after a Supreme Court ruling on cotton dust it could be expected that the textile industry would be installing new, more efficient equipment that could help eliminate the incidence of brown lung disease. The article further states:

“Even as mills modernize and reduce dust levels, problems concerning brown lung disease remain unresolved. Questions regarding compensation for workers who contracted the disease long before mills began to clean up, how smoking affects susceptibility and what specifically causes the disease are still unanswered.”

In April, 1978 the U.S. Government, through its Health, Education and Welfare Secretary, said that as many as 5.6 million Americans may die of cancer or other diseases as a result of the exposure to asbestos in shipyards and other workplaces since the beginning of World War II. As a sequel to this the Manville Corporation, the nation’s largest producer of the mineral fiber asbestos, filed in August, 1982 for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. The company had become inundated with thousands of law suits, together with the potential of many more in the future, most of them filed by workers claiming the inhaling of asbestos fibers, which damaged their health and often led to death. The cost of this pending litigation had been estimated at $2 billion or more—hence the reason for the company seeking the protection afforded by the bankruptcy laws.

It is glaringly obvious that through the years the working class have never had disclosed to them the true occupational hazards of their employment. Such disclosures might well have deterred some; it would certainly have given others leverage in wage and environmental negotiations; but, notwithstanding, most no doubt, out of economic necessity, would still have been forced to an exposure resulting in ill-health and untimely death.

Whether employed or otherwise the dark cloud of insecurity will always permeate the lives of those living in a class society. No reform can ever properly convey the precious attribute of security to those dependent on their masters, within a capricious, anarchical system impersonal to human values. When the working class finally awaken to their true position of servitude as employees, with socialism on the horizon, it is more than likely that the international atmosphere will be resounding with cries of “take this job and shove it!” And such crudity may well be forgiven in view of the historic and belated justification.

Ours and theirs (1981)

From the September 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

The main points in the Bank of England Bulletin, which was issued last month, were well covered by television, radio and newspapers. Anyone taking what was said in these reports as what was meant would have been delighted with the good news. Here are some of the ways in which the news was reported: “Recession or no WE are getting richer abroad”; “According to figures assembled by the Bank’s statisticians . . . OUR external wealth was actually £4.3 billion more in 1979 than we thought it was a year ago”; “In 1980, for the first time, OUR assets abroad exceeded £200 billion ...” (Our emphasis).

Great, you might think. You can leave that dreary job, or stop looking for one. You can move out of your cramped home and move into spacious accommodation with pleasant amenities. No longer will your lifestyle be tethered by a meagre and insecure income. No longer will your impulses be repeatedly smothered by your poverty. So you get on the blower to the Bank of England, explain that you have heard the news about our great wealth which is invested abroad and ask how you might go about getting some of your share now.

Waiting for your reply from the other end of the line, the dialling tone, or worse, would be your signal that all is not as it seems. In fact what is described as "our overseas wealth’, if it was being reported from the point of view of the great majority, would be described as "their overseas wealth’. In Britain today, the entire pooled wealth of the poorest 80 per cent of the adult population amounts to less than that which is owned by the wealthiest 1 per cent (Report of Royal Commission on Distribution of Income and Wealth, 1980) and 93 per cent of adults do not own any stocks or shares. (CIS report, The Wealthy).

Meanwhile, in Japan the capitalist minority’s quest for profit continues with its inevitable disregard for the common social good. For many years a drug developed by a Professor Chisato Maruyama to treat terminal cancer has been dispensed at his small clinic in Tokyo. The vaccine seems to be regarded as effectual, at least by the hundreds of people who queue from dawn every day outside the clinic to collect a forty days’ supply for their suffering friends or relatives.

Research conducted at Tohoku University suggests that where the vaccine has been used in conjunction with other medical treatment survival rates in terminal cancer have much improved over treatment with other drugs. However, the small clinic cannot keep up with the demand and at the moment it is the only place allowed to dispense the vaccine. In order for the drug to become generally available it must be licenced by the Pharmaceutical Council of the Health Ministry. The Health Ministry usually rules on new drugs within 18 months but the Pharmaceutical firm making the vaccine first applied for licensing five years ago, and still no decision has been reached.

The issue became publicised after patients’ families petitioned the Ministry with 60,000 signatures, and the clamour could no longer be ignored by the government. The reason for the extraordinary delay in official approval being granted to the drug cannot be certain as deliberations of the decision makers—and this applies across the world under capitalism—are conducted in secret, or privately as they would prefer to call it.

But all of the available evidence suggests that there have been “close relations" between the Health Ministry and major drug companies. It seems that these firms are exerting strong pressure (the Yen variety) on health officials to block the commercial licensing of the Maruyama vaccine, which would present damaging competition to their own anti-cancer drugs already on the market. There is a trend for many senior ministry bureaucrats who are ‘co-operative’ with the representatives of large drug companies to be given highly paid appointments with the companies once they have retired from government employment. The rather well-titled ‘vice-president’ of one of the largest Japanese pharmaceutical companies was Deputy Health Minister a few years ago. Until the power of control and decision-making is withdrawn from the minority who now exercise it all over the world, society will continue to be run by us for them.

Gary Jay

Science under capitalism (1950)

From the February 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held its last session in January. After being considerably shaken early in the proceedings by Professor Einstein’s announcement of his new theory in the realm of physics, it proceeded to review the reports of new advances and discoveries made in other fields.

It heard details, for example, of the new evidence brought to light that cancer may be allied with certain type of fungi; that another substance. Compound F, has been isolated from the adrenal gland and appears to be as effective as Compound E in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis; and of the discovery of a new drug, neomycin, capable of killing the bacilli causing tuberculosis. The meeting also heard the confirmation of a simple blood test for the early diagnosis of cancer, and the invention of a device whereby people who are stone-deaf are enabled to hear through their finger-tips. Numerous reports of discoveries and inventions in other fields of science were also discussed, ranging from the discovery of a planet between Mercury and the sun one mile in diameter to the discovery of a glue-like substance in the teeth that prevents bacterial decay.

But just in case anybody has relaxed back in his chair marvelling at what science is capable of doing for the human race, even under the handicap of Capitalism, we should also state that there was much speculation during the meeting as to whether the American Government will decide, in the words of Alistair Cooke in the Manchester Guardian (3rd January, 1950),

“ To go ahead and make the monster atomic bomb that its Atomic Energy Committion now knows to be

practicable—namely, one achieved by the nuclear explosion of hydrogen. The Alsop brothers report this morning the debate on this grisly weapon—a thousand times as destructive as the Hiroshima squib—which is now disturbing the high policy men in Washington.”

“But inside the conference rooms,” he adds, “ most of the papers presented testified to the life-giving knowledge that is abundantly at hand,” following it with the cynical comment, “ if we can manage to stay alive to use it.”

It is a fitting comment on the relationship of Science and Capitalism that whilst one set of scientists is busy at work trying to prolong the life of mankind, another group is working like hell to shorten it.

Stan Hampson

Voice From The Back: House hunting (2001)

The Voice From The Back Column from the August 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

House hunting

As young working class couples contemplate marriage and start looking for a house or flat that they can afford to buy or rent, it might be worth them considering how members of the capitalist class deal with their “housing problem”:

“This mansion in Surrey cost £70m. It has 30 bedrooms, five swimming pools and its own cinema . . . By American standards, of course, the Surrey mansion is at the mean end of the scale. This is a country where Larry Ellison takes on Bill Gates for the title of top cheese by building a bigger house than him. (Gates recently announced that he was extending his lavish $100m home near Seattle, to which Ellison replied with a $150m Japanese style mansion in California, twice the size of the White House and complete with artificial lakes, waterfalls and 3,750 tons of hand-chiselled Chinese granite for the retaining walls.) The world’s largest private house is believed to be the New York industrialist R.A.Rennert’s mansion Fair Field, which is 100 miles east of Manhattan and boasts 29 bedrooms, 42 bathrooms, a 164 seat theatre, two bowling alleys and an English-style pub.” (Guardian, 15 June.)

A cancerous system

Commenting on an article in a previous issue two letters to the editor in Time magazine (25 June) show that workers as far apart as Istanbul and Massachusetts have a pretty good idea about how capitalism operates :

“If there really is a war against cancer, as you contend then why not attack this disease on the battlefield? Why not go after its supply lines of tobacco, food additives and pollution? The drive for corporate profits generates many of the products that can cause this illness, and even more profits are made in treating it. Meanwhile, cancer victims fall by the wayside as collateral damage. Chris Glover (Istanbul)”. “Finally, the breakthrough in cancer drugs that we have long been searching for! Too bad that few of us will be able to afford them. David Chesterton (Massachusetts)”.

Touchy, feely socialists

We are often accused of class bias, of being nasty individuals who are only concerned about the working class, with never a thought for the plight of the capitalist class. Not so, we were almost moved to tears when we read the following :

“Ronit Lami, a London psychologist who treats people suffering from affluenza or ‘sudden wealth syndrome’, says her patients are highly motivated perfectionists who will do anything to achieve their ends. She says: ‘It doesn’t matter how much money there is in the bank, there is never enough. There is a huge fear of failure. If they suddenly lose their money, they suffer deep depression. Many identify themselves through their possessions, so their whole identity collapses’“ (Sunday Times, 24 June).

This “affluenza” is an awful disorder, one that we fortunate members of the working class will never suffer; so we think it only right to comfort these sufferers with the news that there will be no money or banks inside socialism. Another good reason to organise for socialism, you can relieve these poor souls from their insecurity fears and leave Ronit Lami free to get a real job.

Mao’s afterthought

Chinese state capitalism is desperate for foreign investment; so much so, that at its 80th anniversary celebrations the Communist Party revealed its long held admiration of capitalism :

“Liu Jingfeng, a history professor at the party school, told an on-line forum run by the official People’s Daily newspaper: ‘Mao Zedong did not oppose capitalism all the time. At the Seventh Party Congress, Mao Zedong fully endorsed the idea that China should develop capitalism.’” (Times, 5 July)

Science in fetters

Capitalism was once a progressive force in the field of science. The discoveries of chemistry and physics were essential for the advance of the new society. But now capitalism has entered its restrictive phase, where, because of copyright and information ownership, scientific investigation is being restricted. Immense publishing firms like Reed Elsevier zealously guard the copyrights that earned them profits of £231 million last year :

“More than 800 British researchers have joined 22,000 others from 161 countries in a campaign to boycott publishers of scientific journals who refuse to make research papers freely available on the internet after six months. ‘Science depends on knowledge and technology being in the public domain’, said Michael Ashburner, professor of Biology at Cambridge University and one of the leading signatories of the campaign, the Public Library of Sciences. ‘In that sense, science belongs to the people, and the fruits of science shouldn’t be owned or even transferred by publishers for huge profits’“ (Guardian, 26 May).

It seems that science is now being restricted by the ownership relationships of capitalism. Karl Marx wrote in January 1859 in his introduction to The Critique of Political Economy something that foresaw such a development:

“At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production in society come into conflict with the existing relations of production, or – what is but a legal expression of the same thing – with the property relations within which they had been at work before. From forms of development of the forces of production these relations turn into their fetters.”

Poisoning the atmosphere (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

An article in the Wellington Dominion newspaper on 14 November last reported an alarming increase of incidence of skin cancer:

The skin cancer melanoma was now striking twice as many New Zealanders as it did 10 years ago. Cancer Society medical director Alan Gray said yesterday. "Melanoma is now the commonest cancer in people aged 20 to 39", Dr. Gray said. Figures published in the Medical Journal showed that cases had doubled every 10 years in the Non-Maori population from 1948 to 1977. In 1983. 686 new cases were reported, compared with an average 298 cases yearly in 1970. 1971 and 1972.

A programme on the National Radio followed up the theme the following Sunday. Here it was made clear that a badly underfunded public health service was unable to provide skin cancer screening services and people could be waiting months for needed operations. Melanoma, if not caught in its early stages, is a particularly dangerous cancer and kills many people each year (up to 200 in New Zealand).

In the same newspaper on the same day there was an even more disturbing article titled: "Ozone depletion exceeds forecasts". Dr. Tom Clarkson of the New Zealand Meteorological Service, who specialises in researching the effects of pollutants on the weather systems, was reported as saying: "world ozone depletion was greater than atmospheric scientists had initially predicted". The Dominions reported that scientists had called for immediate cutbacks in chloroflouro-carbon (CFC) production by at least 85 per cent because the existing protocol would not save the ozone layer.

The article went on to point out the difficulties of getting countries to ratify the existing protocol, which calls for only a 50 per cent reduction by 1999 of the 1986 levels of CFC production in stages. The problems of obtaining support for an 85 per cent reduction protocol were enormous, particularly with “developing" countries heavily dependent on chemical and electronic industries.

Dr. Clarkson said the world has lost 4 per cent of its ozone in the past 10 years or so. It appeared that the northern hemisphere had also developed a hole in its ozone layer and there were fears that the increasing amount of chlorine in the atmosphere were reacting with solids and liquids in a way not previously realised.

"Chlorine is increasing in the atmosphere by about 5 per cent per year", he said One scientist at the meeting presented new research suggesting a volcanic eruption in the tropics could trigger destruction of ozone over mid-latitudes. Such a reaction could not have happened in the past and was only possible now because of the vastly increased amounts of CFC's that had been poured into the atmosphere. Dr. Clarkson said an 85 per cent cutback in CFC's would only mean maintaining the status quo in the atmosphere.

The following day the Dominion returned to the issue under the headline “melanoma battle worsens as ozone layer depletes":

The world was losing the battle against the skin cancer melanoma and the problem would get worse if the ozone layer continued to be depleted. United States expert Professor Alfred Kopf said yesterday.

A week later I attended a public meeting on the subject of “Ozone Depletion and the Greenhouse effect" where the guest speaker was Dr. Clarkson. These two separate concerns have a common cause: pollution by the modern industrial world of competing nation-states and corporations.

Ozone layer depletion

Dr. Clarkson explained that ozone is a form of oxygen with three atoms to the molecule. It has different properties to ordinary oxygen with the double molecule and is particularly toxic to animal life, including human beings. Some man-made ozone exists in the lower atmosphere among other pollutants and poses an immediate health hazard. However, the ozone layer is usually between 15 and 30 km away from the Earth's surface and is important to both plant and animal life in two respects. It forms a “cap" on the weather systems below, lending a stabilising influence (it warms up due to absorption of the suns rays and forms an inversion layer). And it blocks out most of the harmful radiation which emanates from the surface of our sun, in particular short-wavelength electromagnetic radiation such as ultra-violet waves. Sun-burn is due to this radiation, and if the ozone layer were suddenly to be removed, these rays would prove lethal to most life.

Ozone in this layer is formed by the UV radiation breaking down the ordinary oxygen molecules' bonds so that they recombine as three-atom bonded molecules. At the same time ozone is also being broken down into oxygen. This two-way effect has a natural balancing point.

Chloroflouro-carbons or CFCs were invented in the 1950s and found to have many desirable properties which lent themselves well to industrial and domestic use. Efficient, easy to produce and relatively cheap in comparison to alternatives, they were also regarded as safe due to their chemical stability. However, in the seventies there was an apparent depleting of the ozone layer and it is now widely accepted that massive damage is being done to it by these pollutants.

The natural level of chlorine in the atmosphere is approximately 0.9 ppm (parts per million). In 1973 it was measured at 2 ppm. In 1988 it was just under 4 ppm. Due to the slow progress of the CFCs through the stratosphere, the pollution of today will have a much delayed effect. It is estimated that if all CFC production and use were to cease now, it would take another 200 years to get back to pre-1970 levels. In the spring of 1987 half of the ozone layer above the Antarctic completely disappeared.

The Greenhouse Effect

The man-made “Green-House" effect is a phenomenon about which scientists are still not in agreement. However the measurements observed are in line with the scientific models that have been made of the effects of man-made pollutants collecting in the atmosphere. Again there is a natural balance between the amount of carbon-dioxide which is emitted and the amount reabsorbed by the sea (100 billion tons per year) and vegetation (60 billion tons per year). The natural concentration of carbon- dioxide is about 300. ppm The effect of the carbon-dioxide is to prevent or slow down the loss of heat from the surface of the Earth by forming an insulation blanket around it. Human production of C02 is about 5 billion tons per year; however, unlike the natural processes the man-made carbon-dioxide is a one-way direction process only.

Man-made pollution has added substantially to the greenhouse gases and the concentrations are growing rapidly. The current relative cheapness of fossil fuels such as oil and coal has meant a dramatic increase in their use. New Zealand, which has mainly hydro-powered electricity generation, is finding it economical to restart the few oil-powered stations it had mothballed in the seventies and early eighties.

Adding further injury to the eco-system, natural forests are being cut down and destroyed at an insane rate. The Amazon rain forest, which once contributed 25 per cent of the world's oxygen, is being reduced at a rate which approximates to an area the size of Wales every day. Where once there was luscious rain forest, there are now tree stumps stretching as far as the eye can see.

Measurements made by the Department of Scientific and Industrial research since the early seventies show the concentrations of carbon-dioxide to be 325 ppm in 1973 and 350 ppm in 1988. Average global temperatures have been recorded from the year 1880 and figures show that the highest were in 1987 and the five hottest years have been since 1980. The United States is now taking the greenhouse effect very seriously as it stands to be a big loser if world temperatures rise as some predict. Other nations may benefit in the short term. At worst, if the use of fossil fuels for energy continue on the existing scale, the average global temperature will rise at a catastrophic 0.8 degrees centigrade per decade.

No solution within capitalism

The worldwide capitalist system will be unable to deal effectively with this problem. The warning signs have been with us for years, and many experts and environmentalists have been pointing out the dangers. Damage which will have an effect many decades later is being done now.

Alternatives to environmentally destructive industrial processes exist, they are generally more expensive and this would reduce the competitiveness of a nation or company which chose to adopt them unilaterally. Action will only be taken if damage begins seriously to impair the smooth functioning of the profit system — or if anti-pollution measures and products become profitable in themselves. Either way, capitalism's air will remain unfit to breathe.

Dave Tildesley

World Socialist Party of New Zealand

Letter: Medical Economics (1948)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received the following letter from a reader in criticism of the article in our December issue.

London, N.16. 

1947.

To the Editor,

The Socialist Standard.

Sir,

While visiting friends yesterday evening an ardent member of the S.P.G.B. arrived and within a few minutes polities cropped up. 1 expressed the view that I had Socialist leanings and on learning I was a medical man I was given a December copy of your journal, to read p.123, "Medical Economics,” which I did in the train while returning from my week-end leave (I am at present in the R.A.M.C.).

The article astounded me in its. many misinterpretations, but having had some psychiatric experience I realised that the author of this article was completely unable to give a rational view on his subject, but this nevertheless does not detract from the need to answer his amazing allegations.

I hope I may be permitted to do so in your journal.

A great amount of time is spent in research for prophylactic medicine and every medical journal contains articles on prophylactics. Your correspondent writes hospitals must have millions of sick people or go out of business—yet the nursing shortage is so great that there are long waiting lists which hospitals are trying to reduce as urgently as possible.

"In this country there are more doctors and hospitals per head of population than in most countries, and strange to say, there is also a vast and increasing number of sick or ailing people.” Shall we say more people in this country are able to attend a doctor for illness in the country as. doctors are relatively higher, and therefore the expectancy of life is higher and illnesses cured earlier in this country.

Then Mr. Jarvis writes certain complaints increase yearly. Cancer is increasing for two reasons; one, because people are living longer and this is a disease of the more elderly, and second, diagnosis has improved the number of cases diagnosed as such. Diabetes has increased because people are now kept alive and well with this illness when previously they all soon died—the increase is not a real increase year by year but only apparent by the longer life given.

Mr. Jarvis does not understand medical statistics, which is vastly different from normal statistics.

Concerning his remarks re surgeons and fees. Almost every surgeon works voluntary and free in hospitals for the poor.

I agree that many drug manufacturers are sucking the public, and many medical journals have attempted reforms but the advertising revenue to newspapers is so great that they can attain little publicity. Of course many manufacturers are honest and reputable in business.

"Rheumatism” covers many known medical diseases, and the disease Lord Trent suffered from was entirely different from the more common "rheumatic” diseases which can be alleviated by medical treatment. I, however, know nothing about this case other than that which Mr. Jarvis writes.

Concerning advertising and the B.B.C., Penicillin, Streptomycin and Pheno-Barbitone are none of them trade names of any firm; they are all official names of the drugs, the nomenclature being under the control of non-profit associations.

Concerning vaccination and inoculation. Smallpox has almost vanished from civilised countries (this is prophylactic), diphtheria is diminishing year by year. "The enormous amount of injections done during the war on soldiers . . .’’ let Mr. Jarvis compare the figures for medical illness in both wars and especially the Boer War to see the benefit. I heard General Slim say that the medical services in Burma won the battle—early in the Burma war illness ran into over six figures per year, yet later with more troops the figure was .reduced by over 90 per cent.

I have written about the "apparent” increase in cancer. The Cancer Laws were passed to prevent the public being hoaxed and given hope maliciously by quacks. Similar laws apply to diabetes, V.D., and a few other diseases.

I am not old enough to know the cause of death of Valentino*

Does the writer honestly consider doctors enjoy the illness of the workers. He has very poor faith in humanity.

Latin and Greek nomenclature increases the international element in medicine and also has other medical uses. Many of the younger generation write prescriptions in English—we are not hiding behind a cloak of mystery.

Blood transfusions save lives in civilian hospitals daily in maternity cases, pre- and post operative for large operations, in cases of haemorrhage and long debilitating illnesses.

Before Mr. Jarvis writes further articles on the medical profession I suggest he consult a doctor to get his facts correct; I will oblige him at any future date.

One last point. I hope Mr. Jarvis is not so embittered against our profession that he and his family refrain from attending a doctor in illness.

Yours faithfully,

A. Folkson, M.B., B.S.

(Lieut., R.A.M.C.)

Reply:

The Socialist Standard is the Party’s propagandist organ in the columns of which we endeavour to give as full a statement of our socialist principles as possible. As far as we can we avoid controversial  issues upon which the Party is not committed to any particular point of view. We do so because issues of this kind might lead to lengthy correspondence and the using up of valuable space upon matters that are outside the object for which the Party was formed. But in spite of our intentions, statements on controversial issues of the kind to which we refer may on rare occasions creep in. In the December number of the S.S., in an article entitled “Medical Economics," there were some statements of a controversial nature upon which agreement or disagreement was immaterial as far as our socialist attitude is concerned. As these particular statements have been criticised by a reader we are printing his letter in order that the opposite point of view may have equal expression, but, for the reasons stated above, we do not propose publishing a detailed reply to it. As far as we are concerned both attitudes will have been stated and, although we may not agree with some of our reader’s contentions, there we leave the matter.

Editorial Committee.

Tiny Tips (2009)

The Tiny Tips column from the July 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

A collection of more than 3,000 inverted stamps has sold at auction in New York for more than $5 million:

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One billion people throughout the world suffer from hunger, a figure which has increased by 100 million because of the global financial crisis, says the UN:

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Cancer is a silent disease in Africa and in the developing world. World Health Organization (WHO) statistics shows that cancer kills more people in Africa than HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria combined. This is not a well-known fact, and a very disturbing one, especially since cancer diagnostics and treatment are of very poor standard in most African countries. Take for example Ghana – a country with more than 23 million people. They only have four oncologists to diagnose and treat cancer patients. WHO estimates that if we don’t take act now, more than 11 million Africans may die of cancer in 2020:

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One in four men in South Africa have admitted to rape and many confess to attacking more than one victim, according to a study that exposes the country’s endemic culture of sexual violence

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The Dalai Lama has encouraged Tibetans in exile to embrace the democratic system of electing a leader, saying it was essential to keep step with the larger world and to ensure the continuity of their government:

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Uganda has lost nearly a third of its forest cover since 1990 due to expanding farmlands, a rapidly growing human population and increased urbanisation, a government report said

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The Senate unanimously passed a resolution yesterday apologizing for slavery, making way for a joint congressional resolution and the latest attempt by the federal government to take responsibility for 2½ centuries of slavery

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Nearly twice as many US army soldiers today are either alcoholic or engage in damaging behaviour such as binge drinking than six years ago, and experts blame the rise on repeated tours in war zones:

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President Hugo Chavez is standing by his man in the Middle East, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even as hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iranians took to the streets Wednesday for the fifth straight day to protest his claim to a landslide reelection

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Zimbabwe is suffering “persistent and serious” human rights violations despite the formation of a unity government four months ago, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Irene Khansaid

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Voice From The Back: A Money Saver (2005)

The Voice From The Back Column from the June 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Money Saver

To mark the retirement, at 92 years of age, of Sir Richard Doll, one of the scientists who helped to propagate the connection between lung cancer and smoking, The Observer Magazine (24 April) ran an article on the subject. It recalls that Doll’s report of 1956 met a very unenthusiastic response from the government. “The Department of Health considered the report for a year. They set up an interdepartmental  Committee to advise on what should be done”, Professor Doll recalls. “This said — and I’ve seen the report — that it should be very serious if  smoking was reduced, not  because tax would decrease, but because they like people to die off at 65 to save their pensions.”

Could the cynicism of the ruling class’s lackeys be more obvious? Their idea of the perfect worker is one who left school at 15 years of age, worked for 50 years, two nights and a Sunday overtime and the day he was due to collect his old age pension dropped dead in the Post Office.           

Money Making Kills

A couple of workers, one from Invergowrie and one from Fife died in a horrific “so called” accident. They died trying to get a couple of bob for their wives and kids. They died on an off-shore “accident”. Here is what the regional officer of Amicus, the trade union had to say:

  “In March 2003 myself and another official put a complaint in about the lack of maintenance on Shell’s Brent Charlie and Delta platforms. The Health and Safety Executive then stated in August 2003 that there was no immediate risk. Three weeks later, two guys were killed.” The Times (28 April).

We should mention that Shell were fined £900,000 for negligence, although as the TU official mentioned, “In just an hour Shell will have made more than what they were fined.” But, what about the guys that died, and what about their families?

Told you, didn’t we?

After all the nonsense about “weapons of mass destruction” and “regime change”, the real reason for the conflict in Iraq has emerged. It is interesting to note that when Gordon Brown eventually came clean. The Guardian was not shocked or indignant, but could make a feeble joke about the deception. “Speaking on BBC1’s Breakfast programme about the war in Iraq, Gordon Brown said the government had done what it thought was best for Britain. ‘We believed we were making the right decisions in the British national economic interests,’ the Chancellor added. So was Michael Moore right that it was all about oil? Or is the city commodities market going heavily into date and palm-nut futures?” The Guardian (4 May).

Our Betters (1)

Here are a couple of examples from the same newspaper of how the owning class live. “In a nation (India) where the average income is still less than £300 a year, Rolls  Royce has opened a dealership to sell its £256,000 Phantom car after an absence of more than half a century.”

… “Princess Michael of Kent, the loose cannon of the Royal Family, has fired another embarrassing salvo, this time claiming she may leave Britain and that life is too boring now foxhunting is banned. The news that she dreams of moving to France where hunting is legal, will doubtless delight critics of the gaffe-prone Princess, who once allegedly told a group of noisy black diners in a New York restaurant to “go back to the colonies” The Times (9 May). Off to France are you sweetheart? Bon voyage, Princess.

Our Betters (2)

The owner of British Home Stores has a reason to celebrate — it is his son’s bar mitzvah, so he doesn’t want to look penny-pinching. “Phillip Green, the wealthiest and quite probably the most flamboyant man in British retailing history, has flown more than 200 guests to the south of France for his son’s bar mitzvah”  The Times (14 May). According to their report Mr Green will spend about £4 million on the bash. We reckon that this is considerably more than the salesgirls in British Home Stores will spend on their nights out in a lifetime of toil in his stores, but then Mr Green has a reputed fortune of £3.3 billion. We imagine that this is a great deal more wealth than his minimum, or slightly above it, wage earners have  managed to accumulate. There are many aspects of capitalism that make us vomit, this is one of them. Another is that he has engaged Beyonce and Destiny’s Child to perform at the shindig. Serves his son right, at least his daddy’s wage slaves would have shown better taste.

Voice From The Back: A Happy New Year (2011)

The Voice From The Back Column from the January 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Happy New Year

We all love that time just before midnight when we cuddle our sweethearts and friends and wish each other a happy new year. We ignore reality. For one time in our life inside capitalism we celebrate just being alive. One of the reasons that we cannot be too joyful is that we remember what a shitty society we all live in. “Millions of families are struggling to pay their bills – and the number is likely to increase in the new year, according to a new analysis from the Bank of England. The report published today shows that two fifths of households have difficulty from time to time or constantly in meeting their monthly bills, compared with a third last year, and more than a half regard their overdrafts or credit cards as a burden” (Times, 13 December). Behind the dry statistics what we are talking about is human misery and anxiety. Fellow workers, let’s face it capitalism sucks.

The American Dream

One of the illusions beloved of supporter of capitalism is that while the progress of equality may be painfully slow in Africa or Asia, in the USA you can see an example of developed capitalism and its many benefits. The reality is much different. “Almost 15% of US households experienced a food shortage at some point in 2009, a government report has found. US authorities say that figure is the highest they have seen since they began collecting data in the 1990s, and a slight increase over 2008 levels. Single mothers are among the hardest hit: About 3.5 million said they were at times unable to put sufficient food on the table. Hispanics and African Americans also suffer disproportionately. The food security report is the result of an annual survey conducted by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)” (BBC News, 15 November). It would seem that for many people in the USA The American Dream has turned out to be The American Nightmare.

A Merry Christmas?

Hundreds of thousands of leaflets produced by Crisis UK were pushed through letterboxes last December appealing for donations. They painted a horrible picture of what Christmas meant for the homeless. “Hidden homeless people live in hostels, squats, bed and breakfasts or sleep on friends’ floors. They often lead miserable, isolated lives and suffer from debilitating mental and physical health problems. Crisis wants to open nine centres between 23 and 30 December offering homeless people companionship, care, hot food and warm clothing at a time of year which can be particularly lonely for those without a home or a family.” These well-meaning people are obviously sincere in their attempts to alleviate the plight of the homeless, but what happens after the 30 December? Charity cannot solve the problems of poverty, homelessness or alienation. Only a complete transformation of society from the profit motive to world socialism can accomplish that. Wake up fellow workers charity doesn’t work. It never has.

The Profit Motive and Cancer

The notion that the medical world is devoted to the prevention of killer diseases is a widespread one, but often research is devoted more to treatments rather than cures, as can be seen from the following news item. “The pharmaceutical industry will always fund projects when it is in its best interests to do so. Cancer prevention is not currently one of these, and so Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council and the Department of Health have to fund early detection, screening and prevention studies. It is amazing that less than 2 per cent of the total cancer research budget is spent on prevention. We live in a commercial world where nobody is willing to pay very much for vague prevention information – it has to be made more precise and more individual. People value treatment more than prevention, so that’s where the profit now lies” (Daily Telegraph, 8 December). Less than 2 percent of research spent on prevention because treatment is more profitable – truly capitalism is a cancerous society.